The Unlikely Disciple

2009 was a bit of a funky year reading wise for me. I'm sure I read some books, as I always do, but I don't have any serious recollection of them.

However, this year, I've already devoured 3 books and I'm looking forward to reading even more. The Pixar Touch fed into my tech geek and movie geek side (Excellent read). The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood
fed my Star Trek nerd side (OK. The Star Trek parts were very interesting, but Nicholas Meyer's is a bitter, bitter man).

The most significant read I've done this year is Kevin Roose's The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. And it might be one of the best I read this year. The upshot is that Roose is an Ivy League college student who decides he doesn't know enough conservative Christians. So he decides to take a semester studying "abroad" at Jerry Fallwell's Liberty University. But he decides to do it undercover as a conservative Christian. He rightly ascertains that Christians would put their "best face forward" if they knew he was writing a book about it or was not a Christian. So after a crash course from a Christian friend, he registers for classes and spends the spring semester of 2007 at Liberty University.

There are several excellent aspects of this book. Roose is an excellent writer. He has an engaging style and the fact that the book is written narratively makes it flow incredibly well. 2) Roose enters the world of a conservative Christian with as much of an open mind as it's possible for him to have, growing up outside of that world and having most of his opinions of Christians formed by the media. And it's because of this open mind that Roose himself is actually changed by his exposure to Christianity. Spoiler aalert: He doesn't become a Christian as a result of this, but what he does do is realize that Christian college students aren't much different than his friends at Brown. They're interested in pop culture and the world outside of Liberty. Roose also decides that he will abide by Liberty's rules (mostly) and do the things that a Christian would do. He dates but doesn't pursue sex (which he says frees up a man and woman to actually talk and find out about each other, rather than pursuing carnal pleasures), he prays (which he says forces him to focus on other people and their needs rather than his own [a lesson many of us Christians could stand to learn]), and he participates in a Spring Break mission trip (that one's best left for the book). Here's the other way I know this is a great book: Sheryl read it almost as quickly as I did and found it just as fascinating.

I've always been interested in alternate perspectives, especially ones of things that I believe or participate in. The Unlikely Disciple is a great example of this, and I think it's one that Christians should read to see what an outsider pretending to be an insider really thinks of us and one that nonChristians, especially nonbelievers in any religion, should read. Do we have flaws? Yes. Are these flaws sometimes so apparent that it's hard to see the good in us? Yes, maybe, but just as Roose looked at us with an open mind, not only would I hope that others look at us similarly, but that we should to those who don't share what we believe charitably as well.

Haiti is Not Cursed

What did it take to get me to break my blogging hiatus? Not the wonderfully entertaining insanity of the Late Night TV shuffling. And not even necessarily the tragedy in Haiti, but one Christian's response to Haiti. I understand that by even talking about this I'm giving Pat Robertson a smidge of publicity, but I also feel like I have to make a couple of things very clear.

First the comments from Robertson. "Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

"But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic," he said. "Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable."



Two responses to this.

1) The majority of Christians do not agree with this statement. I can't think of any that I know, and I'd love to say that no other Christian agrees with this, but I also know that a lot of people watch Pat Robertson's show, so there are probably many who do agree with him. But in the majority, Christians think Pat Robertson is wrong about this.

2) Even if he were right, this would not mitigate the need of Christians to act in support of the people of Haiti. That we would have a responsibility to assist in any way possible for the good of the Haitians. It seems that Robertson thinks that way as well, but it doesn't change the fact that I think not only is he wrong in his estimation, but somewhat dangerous as well.

However, even in my disgust for Robertson's comments, I have to remember that God loves him just as much as the grieving mother in Haiti, and that my love for him should not be affected by his unguarded tongue.

A couple of other pieces. One of my Facebook friends posted this about a cause of Haitian poverty. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/13/haitis-real-deal-wit.html It's well worth the read.

Also, Pat Robertson has issued a clarification on his statement. http://www.patrobertson.com/pressreleases/haiti.asp

And Donald Miller also posted a great and much more eloquent response than mine on his site. http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/13/1513/

Why Ministers Matter and Don't

In one of my last blog posts, I talked about the Sunday before Josh Graves and David Rubio were installed as the teaching and preaching ministers at Otter Creek. It was one of those days that stuck so strongly with me, even almost 3 months later. And while I still remember Lee’s sermon as one of the best ones that I’ve heard, what has stuck with me is the sight of John Rucker, Howard Justiss, and Charlie Brandon standing up in front of the congregation. And it was on that day that I realized the level to which our paid ministers both matter a great deal and don’t matter as much as we sometimes think.

Here’s what I mean.

Otter Creek was without a paid pulpit minister for around a year, give or take. During that time, we heard from some incredible speakers. Otter Creek is a church blessed with people who can communicate the Gospel passionately and fervently, and we heard from a lot of them. And while there was a strong push and pursuit of new minister(s), one thing that didn’t happen was the work of the Kingdom of God at Otter Creek stopping. We still ministered to children, we still cared for the homeless and the prisoners, we continued worshiping God, and doing God’s work. Having one or two paid individuals in that role didn’t stop us from doing that.

And seeing those three lions of the congregation made me have another important realization. As much as I’ve grown to love and respect Josh over the last three months and David in the years he’s been at Otter Creek, the great likelihood is that they won’t be at Otter Creek their whole lives. In today’s more transitory preaching environments, most churches are fortunate to have one minister for more that 10-15 years. What does tend to last, and what has lasted at a congregation like Otter Creek are the people. The people who get down into the dirtiness of ministry and hard work, who laugh and cry and will be there no matter who is speaking from the pulpit, because they realize that Otter Creek is more than her preacher or worship minister. Are those people important? Yes, as I’ll say in a moment. But they are not so important that if they leave, Otter Creek falls apart. John Rucker, Charlie Brandon, Howard Justiss, and so many others have been through more preaching and teaching ministers than I can remember, but those transitions haven’t stopped them from continuing the long journey of discipleship. Nor should it.

But that’s also not to say that the people who preach and teach to us aren’t important. They are and should be, because what we should hear from them is that constant push to pursue Christ and the imitation of Christ in our lives. We should hear that we are not nearly as strong individually as we are together, empowered by the Holy Spirit. And we should hear that God didn’t offer us salvation to sit on our behinds and not do anything, but that we have work to do. We have a Kingdom to enact. But those people who preach and teach us, can’t do it for us.

Nor should we expect them to. We all partner together. Josh and David are no more or less gifted in serving God and working in the Kingdom than I am. But we can partner together. Minister don’t matter as much as we sometimes might think, but they matter, as do all of us, as we grow together in discipleship to Christ.

Tokens: Hear the Plight

Hi all. A quick reminder that this Thursday is the final Tokens Show of the year, called Hear the Plight, which I've talked about before.



Even though I've only been able to go to one, I know the quality that goes on there, because of the people involved. Sheryl and I won't be able to be at this one, but having Scot McKnight, Ashley Cleveland, and Odessa Settles should make for a great evening. You can visit www.tokensshow.com for more info, but it will be a great night and if you're in Nashville, I highly recommend taking the time to attend.

U2 in Atlanta

I don't have a lot of things on my list of things to do before I die. I'd like to go skydiving. I'd like to visit each continent. I'd like to write and publish a book.

Seeing U2 live was one of the things on my list and Tuesday night I got to accomplish that. Thanks to the kindness of some friends, the Weems, the two couples went down to Atlanta Tuesday night to see U2 play at the Georgia Dome.

When you experience something in life that you've ALWAYS wanted to experience, it's difficult to put into words what you've seen. On some level, you don't want to spoil it with words, because on some level that cheapens it. It almost tries to make something concrete that should be left more ephemeral, almost like trying to describe the wind or love. But I style myself a writer, so here goes.

It was one of the best experiences of my life. I've loved U2 since the Joshua Tree and I really like No Line on the Horizon a lot. Seeing and hearing and feeling songs like Magnificent performed live and then singing out I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For matched with Stand By Me is a live music performance that I haven't ever had whether in an arena or a bar or a small concert venue. U2 puts on a great show, but every now and then, amid the noise and rhthyms and lights and screens, there was a whiff of something else, something Higher and Truer than even music performed at a staggering level shared with 75,000 other people. I believe that somehow God was a part of that time, whether everyone recognized it or not. Was God Worshipped? Not by everyone, I'm sure. But when I sing,

"I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
But yes I'm still running.
You broke the bonds
You loosened the chains
You carried the cross
And my shame
And my shame
You know I believed it"

I worship God.

And when I sing Amazing Grace with 75,000 other people before I sing about where the streets have no name, I worship God.

On Taking a Break

It's been kind of weird for me to not be blogging for the last little while. After having done it for basically 4 years straight, losing my "voice" so to speak has felt both disconcerting and freeing. Freeing because I don't feel like I have to have something to say about something every day, but also disconcerting because I don't feel like I have anything to say. When you write what is basically a journal for 4 years, filling it with your thoughts and opinions and the other mind rubbish that comes up, not having much to say feels strangely empty.

I suppose I could "assign" myself something, like I'll talk about each member of the Trinity for one post a week. Or I could examine the traditional 5 steps of salvation over the course of 5 weeks. I could probably come up with some decent insights and opinions about that, but again, that almost feels like busy work.

Maybe I'm thinking too highly of myself and/or expecting too much out of myself, wanting to have something deep and insightful each time I write something, which is both extremely narcissistic and unfair to myself as a writer.

So I guess I'll just wait for the Muse to strike me again. Maybe I'll hear something at Zoe next week that will push me to share a thought or two. Or maybe not. Be that as it may, I'm not abandoning blogging. I'm just waiting for it to have meaning for me again.

Peace.

New Chapter

Last Sunday, Otter Creek started the next chapter of her life as a church family with the installation of Josh Graves and David Rubio as the Preaching and Teaching Ministers. You can listen to the audio of the class, Josh's first sermon, and the installation.

I for one am pretty excited about this new chapter in Otter Creek's life. We have been blessed over the last ten years to have Tim Woodroof's teaching which brought many aspects of how Otter creek exists now and helped us shape a vision within God's Mission. We are now even more blessed to have two men that I know have a passion for leading us into deeper thinking about what it means to follow Jesus and to partner with God.

I don't see this as a new beginning for Otter Creek. It's simply the next chapter of the story. Josh and David are going to continue work that has been done at Otter creek for 80 years. I don't hold them up as men who will work miracles, but I believe that God can do great work at Otter Creek, if we as the members have ears to hear, hearts committed to Christ, and hands and feet that are willing to get dirty in the lives of people who need Jesus.

The Otter Creek Church is a Christ-led, Spirit-powered, Grace-motivated family of believers. Our mission is to:

* reach up through worship and holy living
* reach in by fostering community and maturity
* reach out through service, witness and influence

God is changing the world through us as we become Christ’s presence in this place.

Otter Creek Church of Christ: Neither a Conservative Nor a Liberal Church

Yesterday...

Yesterday was just one of those days you kind of want to hold onto. It was one of those reasons that I still count myself a member of Otter Creek and am happy to.

Let me start with the end of the Sunday morning worship service. We had a member of our congregation there who hadn't been there in a while. Howard Justiss is turning 98 years old today and attended yesterday for the first time in a while. He's cared for in a nursing home these days, but he is one of those "lions" of our congregation that provided the foundation for who we are today. He was one of the original movers and shakers of AGAPE, an adoption and counseling agency in Nashville. With him there, another one of our lions, John Rucker, got up and with his prerogative as a former elder and being in his 90s as well, he took the mic and gave a wondrous tribute to his friend Howard, also inviting up Charlie Brandon, ANOTHER Lion of Otter Creek. Seeing those three men up there reminded me about the roots of Otter Creek and how deep they run and how blessed we are to still have men like them among us.

But honestly that wasn't the best part of the morning. The best part of the morning was the sermon. Lee Camp, who I count as a friend, gave an incredible sermon. My initial reaction is to call it the best one I think I've ever heard, but I know my tendency to overreact to things while I'm still in the halo of them. It was called Neither a Conservative Nor a Liberal Church. If you've read Mere Discipleship (and if you haven't, why not?), then you'll be familiar with some of the concepts, but Lee took it in some new directions that just really worked and he was passionate about, all with a focus on us looking like Jesus personally and corporately. I highly, highly recommend listening to it.

The day closed out with an ice cream social and a night of worship with the Sanctuary band which was really excellent as well.

Otter Creek is entering a new phase of life with Josh Graves and David Rubio starting their preaching and teaching ministry on September 1. And thankfully, it won't be a "new" work. It'll be the continuation of work and preaching and teaching done at Otter Creek for 80 years. There are great foundations to that congregation and my hope is God doing greater things through that congregation than we can imagine.

Addendum: Cory Martin has transcribed part of the last portion of the sermon. http://murribu.blogspot.com/2009/08/neither-conservative-nor-liberal.html

On a break...

I obviously haven't done any serious blogging in a couple of weeks and I'm honestly not sure why. I posted on Twitter/Facebook last night that I can't decide if I have less to say, I'm less narcissistic than I used to be, both, or something else entirely.

So, I'm just posting to say that posting will probably become much more sporadic around these parts for the next little while. If something strikes my fancy, I'll bang it out. At some point, I'll probably be back on my regular posting schedule, but for now, I'm going to take advantage of the blogging writer's block and be on a break for a bit.

Thanks for reading.

"That's not a moon..."

Inspired by this...

http://i.current.com/images/asset/898/921/95/phpX3l9oD.jpg

Give It Away and a Confession

Last Saturday, Kinsey and I travelled around with Doug Sanders to deliver our old crib to a family he'd come into contact with. It was a father, mother, and young baby. The apartment was very small and in a not-great neighborhood of town. What I loved seeing was how Kinsey interacted with the couple and their baby. For one thing, Kinsey would talk to a brick wall if she thought it was listening. But she really engaged them and really got into picking stuff out at the house that Otter Creek keeps for donated furniture. It was really great to see her get that engaged.

But Doug mentioned something really thought-provoking to me on his blogpost about that day. He said:

Since my interaction was more with the father and the neighbors who were asking what all was going on, I’ll have to talk to the baby bed assembler team and see what impressions they came away with from the day. For me, I saw the potential for relationships to be built.

And that really gave me pause. Because, you see, in all this time in the last few years that I've been exploring post-modern/emergent/whatever faith, it's primarily been a theoretical exercise. Sure there have been times that Sheryl and I have engaged with people outside of our comfort zones, but the truth is that we value safety, security and comfort, and being around the poor or the homeless typically (but not always) takes us out of those areas of our lives.

It's been one of the reasons that I've been wondering if my spiritual life feels a little stagnant right now. Almost like I know what I should be doing, but not really pursuing it. And part of the reason is that I don't really WANT too. When I do something, it's almost more out a sense of duty. That because Jesus commanded to care for the least of our brothers and sisters, that if I don't do it, I'm failing Christ.

I can say that enjoyed what I did that Saturday and I enjoyed being around the couple that we helped, and while I've thought about them over the last week, I can't say that I've had a strong desire to drive back downtown and see them again. I hope they are well. I hope he finds a job and he and his wife and child can stay safe.

And it's weird. On one hand, I can feel very self-satisfied with what I did that Saturday. I didn't just give the crib to Doug and say, "I hope you find someone who can use this." I went with him myself and put it together and took my daughter with me, exposing her both to service and selflessness. But on the other, it always feels like I could do more. I guess it's one of the reasons I admire people like Doug and several of the others at Otter Creek who have devoted themselves to the service of others that I can't see myself doing yet. Maybe I'm using the kids as an excuse or my drive for comfort. I'm not sure.

So that's my confession. I want to serve the poor, but on my terms. And if I don't have to live around them, that would be great too. Pray for me, that I would seek to follow Jesus and be open to the opportunities that he provides.

Tent City Benefit with Phil Keaggy

Everyone is invited to a benefit for Tent City on Wednesday night at Otter Creek Church of Christ, 409 Franklin Road. There will be a reception for Tent City residents at 6pm, and then a concert by Phil Keaggy from 7 - 8:30. As a part of the evening as well, an art show of pictures taken of Tent City residents will be given to the Temple, a Jewish synagogue in Nashville, for display.

It will really be a great night and I hope as many of you as possible can be there.

A Night for Tent City - Ministry Moment Video from David Woodard on Vimeo.

Age of Entertainment: "Worship"

A couple of weeks ago, I started discussing the idea that we are living in an Age of Entertainment. I've talked about love in this age and now I want to think some about worship.

The first 7 months of 2009 have seen a lot of deaths of people considered famous.

• Patrick McGoohan
  
• Ricardo Montalban
• Natasha Richardson
• Bea Arthur
• David Carradine
• Ed McMahon
• Farrah Fawcett
• Michael Jackson
• Billy Mays
• Karl Malden
• Steve McNair
• Walter Cronkite
• John Hughes

What was interesting to me surrounding these deaths was the amount of grief that accompanied some of them, particularly the death of Michael Jackson, which on one level is very understandable as is the grief surrounding any of these deaths. Because of their fame, they had a tendency to give people a common experience. People who loved Karl Malden's performances, people who loved Michael Jackson's music, people who loved watching Steve McNair play. They provided experience that many people could have together and so when they died, that grief provided another common experience for people to share.

What is curious to me is that it's very easy to transfer admiration into a form of worship. To so admire a person for what they are good at and ignore their flaws becomes dangerous, because it's so easy to put faith in a person and have that faith crushed. People believed that the hard-nosed admirable play of Steve McNair would transfer to him being a moral guy off the field as well, and that wasn't true.

The good thing about this is that it shows how much we want to be able to admire and look up to people, but it's so dangerous to put all our faith in people. People are screw ups. We fail. When we seek to worship something other than our Creator who made us, those pursuits ultimately become empty. Whether it's a person or a TV show or a piece of technology, those fall short. Devoting our lives to the pursuit of entertainment and pleasure falls short of devoting our lives to pursuit of what God wants us to be: people seek after him and look more like Christ.

YouTube Thursday: Rick Astley Is In Nirvana

I'm a fan of mashups. Taking two unlike songs and putting them together to form something... new. Here's the latest one I found... It's equal parts brilliant and disturbing.

No Time to Blog

I realize the irony of blogging about having no time to blog, but there you have it. I'll resume the Age of Entertainment series next week, time willing, with Idol Worship.

Peace.

YouTube Thursday: Jon Stewart Isn't a Fan of FoxNews Personalities

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
So You Think You Can Douche
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Big Week

Accomplishments for Connor this week:

• Successfully transitioned to big boy bed and hasn't fallen out yet.
• Successfully achieved most potty training.
• Successfully signed up for soccer (pics of him in outfit to follow).

It's really been a big week for the kid. He's come a long way this summer, especially in a summer where he's had a broken leg and a tonsillectomy. And if it feels like I talk more about him than Kinsey right now, well, she's pretty static at this point. She's still working on some attitude and behavior issues, but 90-95% of the time, she's just a sweet girl. We're gearing up for the school year here soon and that will be an interesting transition since she's moving to a new one due to rezoning. It's been an interesting summer for the Wilson's and will probably continue so.

Age of Entertainment: "Love"

After the age of Enlightenment, this age will be known as the age of Entertainment.

We spend more in our lives on Entertainment than we do on just about everything else
for our media players, our computers, our TVs, our media collections. We pay our actors and sports players obscene amounts of money to entertain us on a regular basis. As a result that entertainment shapes us we get our ideas about life from our media and entertainment.
And it works. Media influences us. If it didn't why would there be commercials?

Because it shapes us, we believe what it tells us about life. And very prominently, love. We see couples on TV and movies and in our songs who are madly deeply in love, all the time. And that becomes our frame of reference. So we marry for what we think is love/romance/whatever, and when the reality of life doesn't match that expectation, people might try to make it. We might give it our best shot, But in a quick fix society, it's easy to take the quick fix.

It's deeply troubling to me that couples tend to spend much more time preparing for the first day of their marriage and not for the rest of their lives.

The truth of the matter is that love is there. It really is. It just doesn't look like what we see in the media. It can sometimes look like being so frustrated with your spouse that you can't see straight and deciding in that moment to work it out. It looks like being honest, even when the honesty is the worst thing you can do.

We allow ourselves to be shaped by what we choose, and many of us choose to allow the media to shape us.

And in fact, not only can the media be destructive in our mindsets about love, but just as much or more so about sex. That's the absolute worst thing about porn. Well, maybe not as bad as the degredation of the people involved in it, but the thing about porn is that it sets guys (and some girls) to have expectations about what sex is. And porn is the furthest thing from God's idea about sex.

Sex viewed from a pornographic standpoint is basically just mutual masturbation. And for a guy to go into a marriage expecting his wife to do what porn stars do is so incredibly destructive I can hardly put it into words. And regular media depictions of sex to a lesser degree, but still destructive.

We have to be responsible consumers of media. Not all media is bad and not all entertainment is bad. But as followers of Christ, we have to understand how the media affects us and our journey to being like Jesus. Sorry if this was a bit scattershot, but it's trying to get some ideas down...

YouTube Thursday: Don Meyer at the ESPYs

Most award shows are stupid or irrelevant and the ESPY's on ESPN are no less so. An awards show for athletes? Seriously? Like winning championships and making stupid money for playing games not an award enough? Well, honestly the best thing about the ESPY's is the awarding of the Jimmy V award to a deserving sports figure for overcoming adversity and this year's award went to current Northern State and former Lipscomb University coach Don Meyer. It's a long video, approaching 10 minutes, but it very good and well worth the watch.

Turning Corners

Well, it looks like we're starting to turn some corners with Connor. I've talked about some of his issues with eating before. He's refused to eat food that he doesn't want to, going to far as to vomit it up.

As of the last couple of weeks, we've been able to bribe him with ice cream to get him to eat a couple of green beans, and that's a pretty huge deal for him. He still looks like he's swallowing that tastes like feet, but he's chewing them and taking them down, so we're just working through baby steps.

He's also really starting to do some serious potty training. We're getting pretty solid with #1 when he sits on the potty, even though he's not really able to discern the "pee feeling" yet. We bribed him with some "Cars" toys for that one, plus making a big deal about when he does it.

We've also procured a mattress and frame for his "big boy" bed that he'll be moving into very soon, as we take down his crib. It seems like this stage has lasted longer for him than it did for Kinsey, but that's probably just my bad memory. At any rate, big things are happening for Connor. He's adjusting well and really doing well. We're very grateful to have such a great kid, as well as his awesome big sister.