Just a photo update of the boys...

How am I doing?

I am usually pretty tired this part of the year. I have been interviewing many people. I really have enjoyed many of the people I talked to, as is the usual, which is why I love my job so much.

I met one woman, who has been a christian for five years and in that time has been to communist Asia for an extended time to help equip the believers, share the truth of Jesus with her family and now they are followers of the Truth, is a Bible study small group leader at the university, is highly respected by her peers, is about to graduate and is asking if she can work at the camp. I am asking her not to come work for me but to continue her ministry at the place where I do mine. Partners in ministry. Isn't that what it is about? Sitting with her outside a Starbucks, on a beautiful winter day after an intense storm, was the most refreshing spirit filled time of conversation in a long time.

I am having another conversation with a youth pastor who is asking how Calvin Crest can put our staff in the boys and girls areas during free time so that his youth group will not do any more pranks and are safe. They are the ones doing the pranks.

I got a call from a young woman who is looking for an opportunity to teach at CC this summer so that her resume will look good when she begins her search for being a teacher..

I am having conversations with people who have served on staff about their public foul language and excessive drinking as they inquire if they can be in leadership next summer.

A biweekly Bible Study that I lead where 2 out of 22 adults bring a Bible.

I just heard that a man that has been on my case for many years because I challenge the church, is a part of a group who is leading his church to leave the PCUSA.

I wonder about all the conversations, conferences, meetings, and other times together where we have talked about christian behavior but never bore fruit of the Spirit. We are very excited about attending meetings where we know some well known people of Christiandom will be the keynote. The ones who just put out the book on what is the latest movement in the church. It is sad if we think that the latest movement is happening and no one is seeing the fruit of the Spirit somewhere in the first few weeks of it.

If the fruit isn't there, I ain't following. If it involves looking into Ikea catalogs and not more into Scriptures, I can't do it again. The more that it is about technology and less about relationship and hope, it is through.

"Test everything, hold on to that which is good." How do you know if it is good, check for fruit. Not signs and wonders. Fruit.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control...

I have to ask myself, am I more concern about shopping or being?

Photo Conversation... 1

This gets my head churning... What do you think?

Don't read this if words offend you...

Masturbation.
I was raised hearing that if I did that I would: 1. become blind; 2. grow hair on my palms; 3. go insane. No one ever talked about the truth.

It separates and isolate. It causes the focus to be drawn on to an image instead of to another. It reduces people to things that are there to satisfy the flesh and cause momentary pleasure instead of relationship that can create a lifetime of love, caring, sacrifice, intimacy, encouragement, value, hope, wisdom, understanding, risk, pain, peace, character, etc.

It is more than just rubbing of genitalia but of turning to yourself to find something that should involve someone else and pleases someone else. The idea of mutual pleasure versus self pleasure is huge. Mutual pleasure does not rob or reduce the identity of another to a single act or role. It is not self focused for results but it finds that result while provide results for others. The most important thing in mutual pleasure is not on the measuring of results but on the time and relationships involved in the process of getting to results. The result is not a finality but a celebration of intimacy. There are no celebrations in self gratification and it never is satisfactory.

When we are focused on self to bring pleasure or gratification, we lose our focus on what is possible and settle for that which is only attainable. It is very short sighted. What is possible is a journey into uncharted territory. Failure is possible. It raises heartbeats and deepens breath. It brings life to the surface instead of being locked in a room with a single light on. It opens the eyes and there is no looking away in shame.

Intimacy is a gift to others that grows the soul. Why settle on only momentary biological pleasure when you can change the world? It adds value to others to see their worth and part in the ballet of community.

This is a gift from God that can be consumed by the self or invested in another.

In|Site Photo

In|Site Photos

Just a thought...

I was thinking about Cosby's question to me about what I thought about the difference between 3rd world and Western christianity. (Cos, I have been thinking about it a lot.) It got me started thinking about baseball.

I use to love baseball. I was 8 years old and I started watching baseball with my father who was a SF Giants fan. They were playing the Dodgers, who just moved to Los Angeles. Sandy Koufax was pitching and I was hooked on LA. Very low key game but there something about baseball that I loved. It seemed an everyman sport. Black and white television didn't show the beauty of the Candlestick park nor the uniforms. But a few years later, watching my first game in Candlestick was incredible. LA vs SF, a double header. Koufax vs Juan Marichal and Don Drysdale vs Billy O'Dell. I saw Maury Wills, Johnny Roseboro, Frank Howard, Willie and Tommy Davis, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepada, the Alous, Jose Pagan, and I was in awe. Maury Wills stole 3 bases. I walked down to the Dodger dugout and got Maury's autograph before I got run out of there by the guy who was selling CrackerJacks. I wanted to be, Maury Wills, a base stealer. I studied him and memorized his stats. (Later, I met a woman who was married to Maury's son.)

I bought baseball cards which came with a free piece of chewing gum. I studied them, I looked at the pictures every weekend and evening. Even in the off season, I thought about baseball. I played in the street with a bat that I had and a ball that my neighbor had. We all had gloves. We made up games like Indian Baseball, three flys up, and others. It was very organic.

I played little league a couple of years later. We played at the K-8th school down the street. The teams had matching t-shirts with the sponsor's name on the front. Ours was the little grocery store down the road. A few years later we got full uniforms and they built a stadium, it even had a concession stand, where they sold hot dogs, seeds, soda pop, snow cones, Wrigley's gum, and not much more. They put in lights so we could play at night. It was pretty cool. I was selected to play in the All-Star team my last two years. It started turning into a big deal. It was then that I saw that the game was beginning to change. It started to become more about the stadium than the game and a pocket full of sunflower seeds.

I saw Roger Maris hit his 61st home run on television! But I wasn't impressed with Mark McGuire or Barry Bonds beating the record, so pumped up on steroids, they looked like the scientifically altered guys that Rocky Balboa fought against from Russia or Nazi Germany. Big deal!

There is an intrinsic power and authority in baseball when it is left to the purity of the game. There is a naked truth when it is played in vacant lots or in the streets with the kids from the neighborhood. It is easy to replace the game with the buildings, statistics, professionalism. When the game becomes an event it loses the power.

I think 3rd world christianity is still about Christ and not about church buildings. I was at a service once when the electricity went out. It was a morning and sun was shining but we didn't know what to sing because the projector didn't work, the band was out of business, and the microphone didn't work. Finally someone sat at the old piano and started playing, They will know we are Christians by our love.

I got an email a while back from someone who asked why I don't like the church (I have gotten a few) and I replied that it isn't the church I am against, it is people who are more interested in that which powers the building than that which powers our soul...

It doesn't matter how you voted...

...it is still an amazing thing.

South Africa elected Mandela which was incredible, this is significant.

Liturgy

I have been at a retreat at Lake Tahoe and am realizing what is missing in my soul is liturgy that reminds me of the majesty, power, love of God. Not empty words and form but life giving truth from scripture as told through story and verse. Being led in song and responsive reading engages my mind, heart, and soul. The thought that goes into the planning and design brings inspiration to me. I have the kyrie ringing in my soul throughout the night and following morning.

I think I am going to start writing liturgies.

I think this is it...

I am not sure I want to do this anymore. I think I have said everything I need to say. I don't think it is making any difference except irritating some people, of which I seem to have done much. I

I don't trust anymore in the church-institution as it now stands but I believe in the followers of Jesus who are seriously following the way, truth, and life of Christ as written about in the Holy Scriptures as well as by the counsel given to them by the spirit of God. I don't believe that is the best we can do. I think it has become ineffective and full of itself. It is not attractive anymore because it doesn't believe and contain the power, mystery, and wonder of the living God who redeems lives and offers hope. It seems more interested in knowing academically more that experiencing more. Entertaining than releasing, consuming than feeding, judging than releasing. I don't trust the academic institutions which know what happened last century but isn't equipping for the next century.

I am aware of a new work that is beginning to reach out, set free, use their building for ministry 7 days a week instead of just Sunday and a few nights out of the week. I am excited to see old building saved from the wrecking ball downtown and retrofitted to meet other churches needs than just the one who paid for it. Churches who are leaving the denominations because they are tired of arguments of redefining the gospel instead living it out. People who are meeting in house churches and are taking their faith seriously and giving to individuals in mission, or beginning missions themselves in the neighborhood around their homes. Some are leaving their medical jobs to be parish nurses through a neighborhood church or clinic. People leaving older ministries and churches to start new missions that reach out to the kids that the churches have kept out of their buildings.

Ministries are beginning that deal with everyday issues that people have, such as tutoring reading and math, instead of just an "evangelistic message" of how they will be after they die. One friend is creating microloans for people who are trying to start a family owned business from their home or trucks. Some have started small bakeries which begin to employ a few others in the neighborhood.

I believe in that church, not the former...

(ok, boys it is your turn)