I believe that the new blog is now ready for takeoff. It’s been great using wordpress for this however long, but I’m looking forward to running everything on my privately hosted version! Check it out, change your blog feed, etc. The new website is: theycallmepastorbryan.com
Tomorrow I will announce the new blog site. Today I ask you the same question as yesterday: what things have you enjoyed and would like to see transferred over to the new site.
So far I have one vote, which is to transfer the whole thing over. Any other opinions? I know there are more people who read this than just Amanda.
I’m sure the few of you who read this have noted my silence lately. I certainly haven’t been writing much.
Perhaps you thought, “ah, he has had nothing to say,” or possibly “BD must be being lazy and not writing.” While both of these are possibly true, there is yet another reason for my lack of writing as of late.
That is, I have been preparing a new home for my blog, a place where my words might run free from the tyranny of the wordpress.com server not allowing me to customize things the way I like, or add my own design without paying for it.
In other words, this blog, theycallmepastorbryan.wordpress.com is nearing the end of its life.
When something reaches the end of its life, it is always good to go back and think of what has been good, and what have been memorable moments in its life. I would like to encourage you to do so as well, with a few notable things for us to comment on. I am planning on using this input to determine what pieces of blog lore from this site should be commuted to the new site.
So here is the question: do you have favorite posts or moments on this blog? Let’s talk about what they are. As an additional reward, you will get to see your favorite content transferred over to the new blog to live on forever. I will tell you more about the new site shortly, but let us first have this conversation of things you have enjoyed from the past years of me blogging.
It seems that more and more, there is arising a wave of critics about Christianity and especially the Evangelical blend. This wave, sometimes called the New Atheists(what is it with us calling every thing the New ______?) present some reasoned arguments against Christianity, which many find hard to defend.
I see people having two choices in how we deal with this sort of skepticism: we retreat, hide away from any criticism and demonize our critics, or we acknowledge that faith is niether easy nor obvious and that there are many hard things which we believe.
I am a much bigger fan of the latter choice, and it’s why I at times don’t have a problem sounding like I’m trying to draw out arguments. Truth be told if you’re a Christian, I want to force your hand to look at how tough some of the things we believe are, and how challenging they are. I don’t do this just to shake you up and get in your head, but because I believe it is vital for us to realize how tough and how crazy what we believe really is. We need to address those doubts, if for no other reason than to be able to admit we have doubts.
I got this business card from a barber down the street from me. I’ve been laughing about the viking jumping through the ring of fire on the one side of the card, but it’s unique enough that I might actually visit there.
I’ve been thinking about a question that Jeff posed to me about church and deconstruction. Hoping early this week I will be able to put something up about it.
If I read the bible and don’t feel challenged, stretched or convicted, I’m probably reading it incorrectly.
I’m going to explore another passage with this idea that if we read the Bible right it does something in us that challenges, stretches, or convicts us. Let’s take for instance this passage from 1 Corinthians 6
The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.
Paul, the ancient church planter, is writing to a church that has a ton of issues. One of which is that there are a bunch of folks who are lawsuit happy and dragging people to court, including other Christians. Now for Paul, this is a big deal that shows they are missing the point. Paul has preached this gospel about Jesus being wronged for the sake of the world, and that part of taking Jesus seriously is doing the same. And here it comes up. Paul asks why instead of bringing lawsuits up, why they don’t just allow themselves to be wronged or cheated.
Everything in me reacts against this – I can immediately think of reasons to not be wronged or cheated. But in the end, it always comes down to me realizing that I think I am more important than everyone else. And that is the power of the Holy Spirit through the scripture to challenge us, to stretch us, and to feel convicted. I could add that as we read through Judges with my small group, we came across these depressing stories, about how bad things have gotten in Israel, to the point that a guy shoves his daughter and his visitors wife out into a crowd to keep his visitor from being raped by a gang. This story disturbs me and makes me angry. And yet, there it is in the middle of the Bible, telling something and illustrating the screwed up nature of things that people who are supposed to be God’s people do.
I realize that I tend to bring up topics that can get folks a little bugged and maybe shake them up a little bit. Truth be told, this is part of my goal. I hope I can push you, I can push my friends, I can push those I minister with and to, to break out of our easy answers and formulas to a raw, gritty faith that can stand the test of storms. I suppose to borrow the name of our no longer functioning church plant, I hope to help pepole move more towards becoming anchored.
If I read the bible and don’t feel challenged, stretched or convicted, I’m probably reading it incorrectly.
I said this the other day as the thought I have been dwelling on. I still find this true, and found a great example of it in a conversation my friend Amon started with a provocative blog Tuesday.
You would think of God as someone who treats everyone equally, right? Wrong. Matter of fact you shouldn’t be thinking about how God plays his favoritism game. He is God and it is His game. With this in mind, I have never stopped wondering why God plays unfair. At least in my human mind. And there is no better place to find God playing unfair than in Genesis 4. Two good guys Cain and Abel choose different jobs. Call them a lawyer and a doctor or something like that. Cain brings something from his profession and so does Abel. God looks at Cain’s gift and decides, “Well, I don’t think I care for that”. I am curious to know what you think about God’s game of favoritism.
What ensued was a conversation about the heart behind the gifts being offered. What is tough about reading this passage in the Bible, is that there is no justification given for why God favored one gift and not the other. We want there to be a why, a way that we can control this God: the how to for how we earn His favor.
and instead we get the statement that God favored Abel’s gift over Cain’s.
This is a great example of the thought I’ve been processing, for it is a passage that does not work well with my box that I try to put God in. He breaks it by not fitting my systems. Instead He does something I don’t like.
While the discussion of whether or not God shows favoritism is much more nuanced than just Genesis 4, we must deal with this story of God showing favoritism with no reason really given for why.
I’m working on some stuff, including a question Jeff put up through skribit. The question has to do with church and deconstruction. It’s an interesting thing for me, as I am no philosopher beyond the amateur level.
I had a great weekend camping and partying with family and friends in Eastern Washington. Highlights included Coulee City parade, bbq, bad dance off, volleyball, white elephant lottery gift exchange and laughter. All in all a great time!
Here’s one thought I was pondering in the car yesterday on my drive home(and already shared on twitter): If I read the bible and don’t feel challenged, stretched or convicted, I’m prolly reading it incorrectly.
Oh, one last thing, I got chacos. It has changed the way I think of sandals forever.
HT:Peter Rollins (who coincidentally has a new book out that I am currently reading, title “The Orthodox Heretic, and other Impossible Tales”)
I’m tired and don’t want to blog too much tonight, but I do have a couple things to share.
My small group finished our study through Judges and Ruth and I got to lead a discussion on the big narrative behind the individual stories. We focused on the question “why tell these depressing stories?” I am left thinking that there is indeed a place for depressing stories, but that I am happy to have Ruth included as that story lets us know that even while everything is going wrong, God is working things toward His purpose. This is comforting for us as individuals and as the church in my opinion.
Also, Tony Jones is starting an interesting discussion on Lectio Divina, check out one of those blog posts here.
Here’s a question: is there a place for us to tell depressing stories? what would be the point for us to make in those stories?
