Some of everything

Curt Cloninger will be at the Woodbury Church of Christ in Woodbury, Minnesota April 27th. He's good and tickets are cheap.

Or, if you happen to be in Tulsa, go watch "Invisivble Children" at the Garnett Church of Christ. TONIGHT at 7 PM.

W gave us a huge, "What the...?" when he mentioned human/animal hybrids at his State of the Union address. Here is more about these hybrids.

News on the emerging church from ReligionLink. Thanks emergesque for that one. At the bottom of the article is a list of emeringing church bloggers, theologians and "diversifiers." This article is a good collection of resources. It even has vocabulary words at the very bottom. And, at the very, very, bottom is a list of articles.

Running With The Lion might be giving us something good as he starts this series of posts.

Teens and Sex

Rank the following factors in teens deciding not to have sex (rank of 1 means it is the most influential factor and rank of 5 means least influential) Feel free to explain yourself.

Parent's religiosity
Teen's Religiosity
Low opportunity for sexual contact (not dating)
Teen's attitude about sex
Being Female

The Last Christian Generation?

Josh McDowell's new book out is called, The Last Christian Generation. I have read the first chapter. You can too right here. I like Josh and respect the work he does with youth. He does have a way of connecting that is powerful. So, I write this critique as a fan, not an enemy.

I think that he does have his finger on the pulse of the emerging culture, but I wonder if he is maybe a little too dramatic with his assessment of it. I don't think he is really trying to use scare tactics, but with the numbers he uses and the way he uses them, I kind of wince every now and again. De facto, he is using scare tactics. The way he portrays the emerging culture in no way, shape, or form leads his readers to find much good in it, nor does it motivate engaging the culture. And if he does at all, it is counteracted by his critique.

My concern is that his lens is so evangelical that the depth of spirituality inthe emering culture is of no value to him. A mistake, in my opinion.

No, the emerging culture is not evalgelical Christianity. I think we call all agree on that. However, does the fact that the emerging culture's divergence from evangelical Christianity necessitate all of the alarm? One would have to assume that all is well and good with evangelical Christianity to have alarm for that reason. And, my friends, all is not well with evangelical Chrstianity.

Despite some of the things McDowell addresses (which need to be addressed), the emerging culture has some significant advantages as well. The emerging (postmodern) culture is willing to self-critique and willing to be wrong. OK, they have their sacred cows as well, but they are fewer, I believe, and certainly different. There is openness, willingness to talk, technological savvy, a love for story, a love for mystery and question, a skepticism of certainty (this is an asset and a detriment), and lots opf the other things that the evangelical world has much, much less of to offer.

I wonder if McDowell might do better in engaging with the culture AS WELL AS critiquing it.

There is at least as much good to be found in a postmodern world as there is in a modern world. That is not to exalt a philosophy to a religious or spiritual level, but let's be pragmatic - if there is good it is worth engaging. No philosophy is going to be the Kingdom of God in this world. Philosophy is too small to contain the Divine.

I do not believe that this is the last Christian generation. In fact, I wonder if there ever was a Christian generation - in America or anywhere. To speak of a generation being of one religion or sliver of religion is just too overstated. I think to equate evangelicalism and Christianity, too, is to make a significant mistake.

Fainlly, every person has the chance to be a Christian person, unique to their God-given creative senses and limitations - even if they are not so evangelically inclined.

40 Days of Fat & Commercial Song

It is that time of year again when men and women who have accrued certain habits and the consequences therein join together for one cause. They unite in the war against fat. For those of you who are not familiar with 40 Days of Fat, it is not merely a "get healthy" physically initiative, but it carries with it a "get healthy" spiritually component. So, 40 Days of Fat encourages people to lose weight, exercise, and get fit with dollar amounts attached to successes. For example, "I will give $1.00 (or whatever amount) per pound lost(miles jogged, minutes worked out, tennis matches played, belt/dress size reduced etc) to _________"

Starting May 1st, 2006, the next incarnation of 40 Days of Fat will begin right here at Straying With The Truth.

On this go around I am supporting church planting. I told you in an earlier post about a friend and colleague of mine who is investigating church planting. His name is Greg Brooks and he is married to Carolyn Brooks. They are working with this organization and this church to go further into investigating God's will for their church planting future.

I would like you to join me in this effort. All 40 Days of Fat posts will appears on this blog. Whereas once upon a time I was in blog expansion mode, I am not in blog consolidation mode.
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I am sure many of you are curious about what song is being played on the Chase credit card commercials where the lyrics take the singer through various stages of life following the kinds of credit cards you can get for that stage fo life.

The band is named Five For Fighting. The song is called "100 Years." The CD is entitled, "The Battle For Everything."

The cd is here.

There, now you can quit wondering what that song is.

House For Sale

I really liked this Easter post from the Archbishop of Canterbrury found in The Anglican Communion.

And now, about that house for sale. Would someone please buy my house?

Finally, want a free book? The first 50 to respond are promised Scot McKnight's new book "Praying With The Church."

Can You Speak Emergent?

Slice of Laodicea is going to give you a little help in speaking emergent.

Are you an emergent Bad Boy? Are you a Bad Girl of emergent? Find out here. Hint: Bono and C.S. Lewis are in the crosshairs.

Emergent NO is also Spiritual Formation NO. Hmmm.

More frustration with Stetzer. Stetzer yes, categories no.

And finally, if you want to know where to discuss the DaVinci Code, Stephen Shields links wildly here.

Stepfamilies Don't Blend - they stew

Not only am I marriage and family therapist, I am a stepson. Stepson is a strange and unusual title to hold. I don't like it, but it's growing on me.

My transition into stepsonhood was later in life (meaning not while I was a child or adolescent). My parents divorced when I was 21 years old. I was far from home when it all went down, so I was insulated, in a sense, from watching the thing end. However, I had seen the slow death of the marriage over several years.

In the 10 years after my parents' divorce, my mother met a man who is a pretty terrific guy. They toggled between friendship and romantic friendship over the years. Both my mother and her friend limped out of their previous marriages and were in no condition to remarry - so they didn't.

But in 2001, after 9-11 and after a man at church asked my mother out on a date, my mother's friend asked her to marry him and she said, "Yes." I was privileged to officiate the wedding ceremony. What a treat. At the same time, I was helping to initiate a new kind of relationship between me and this man. He was no longer my mother's friend, he was my stepfather. Weird. I didn't want a stepfather. It wasn't personal, geez, the guy could have been Billy Graham and I still woundn't have wanted a stepfather.

The second Christmas into their marriage, my mother indicated to me that his son had sent her a Christmas card addressing her as, "mom." The indication was that I should do the same thing with her new husband. I didn't want to do that, so I didn't. I still addressed him by his first name in writing. She was trying to blend the family, but I was not interested in blending. It had been two years, but that was far too fast for me.

Fast forward to yesterday. It was my brother's 40th birthday, so the family traveled to Indianapolis to celebrate his birthday. So, it was me and my family, my brother and his family, my sister, my mother and her husband. It was fine. As usually happens when the family gathers, pictures were taken (mom with children---my family---brother's family---mom with grandkids etc). Finally, my stepfather was going to snap a picture of "the family." Then a neighbor strolled on by and asked my stepfather, "Would you like to get in the picture?" She offered to snap the photo.

As if it were supposed to happen, we all said, "yeah sure," and he came into the picture. It was the first family picture he ever in (maybe with the exception of an obligatory wedding photo).

My stomach got a weird and almost nervous feeling. In that photo, my stepfather occupied the place that had always been the place of my father. Not that we took a bunch of family pictures over the years, that's not what I mean, but moreso the emotional sense that that was his place.

As most of you know, my father passed away 3 weeks ago. So, when my stepfather literally and symbolically "stepped into the picture," at the same time that my biological father no longer even had the chance to be in the picture, it was a weird moment.

Part of the weirdness of the moment had to do with the normalcy I felt. "This is really the place where my life is," I thought to myself, "and I am OK with that."

My stepfather does not replace my father - that is an impossibility. He does now have a place in the family, so far as I am concerned. It's been five years. That ain't blending, my friends, that is stewing.

Bible Belt Emergence?

Joneboro Sun
15 April 06
Chris J. Gonzalez

What happens when religion no longer assists a person’s spirituality, but instead, gets in the way of it?

This question may confuse some readers and outrage others. Some might simply scream, "Blasphemy!" However, for many readers this is the question that means most to them. For people comfy and cozy in their church life, this conversation might seem meaningless (though it will not be), but for spiritual people who feel the constraints of denominational, organizational, and rule-laden religiosity, this conversation might be what brings hope to their situation.

Let me ask the question again in a little bit different way: What happens when Bible Belt Evangelicalism and the loyal mainline opposition leave little room for the emerging spirituality which is experienced by hundreds, if not thousands, of Northeast Arkansans? What happens when spirituality means more than not drinking, not smoking, and not cussing? What happens when spirituality is less concerned with anti-liquor, anti-gay, anti-abortion and is more concerned with social justice, creative expression, holistic spirituality, and theological discovery? What happens when a new kind of spirituality emerges that is equally repulsed by religion that condemns culture and religion that gets too cozy with culture?

Could it be that there is new spiritual wine in Northeast Arkansas, but no new religious wineskins? I say yes.

How do I know this? In conversations I have with people, the topic of religion and spirituality keeps coming up (not on my initiative) and there is a certain sound of discontent in their voice. They feel a sharp contrast between what they sense deep inside and what they are fed at church, programmed at church, and asked to do at church. The church meeting is no longer adequate to satisfy their spirituality. They want more, but not more of the same.

In conversations I have with teens I sense a deep spirituality, but also an intense desire to ditch their church. How can this be? It might be tempting to conclude that these rowdy teens need to grow up and get with the program. The problem is that year after year, teens like these graduate right out of their youth group and right out of church. So, that could mean these teens never really do grow up (a simplistic and insulting conclusion), or it could mean that there is something happening in our culture that the church is either blind to or unwilling to engage.

What many of these people are looking for is a religious experience that is more interested in difficult questions than simple answers, more attracted to social justice than social posturing, more organic than institutional. They are done with the certainty that lurks in every single corner of the religious world. Rather, they seek to enter the mystery of a God whose creativity goes well beyond a mere human’s capacity to box it in. They want their time and money to go to feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and lifting the poor more than they want to build larger buildings and perpetuate a denomination.

They have had it with hierarchies that oppress people, authority structures that gather enormous power to the elite few, and a church that is almost completely contained within the walls of expensive buildings. They are not interested in slick marketing called evangelism, exciting entertainment called worship, or programmed social events called fellowship. They want authentic friendships, meaningful conversations, mystical (but not weird) worship experiences, and service opportunities.

So, what happens when the available religious structure is unable to carry the emerging spiritual energy of the people? Sadly, the eventual result is a city full of religious museums, which used to be church buildings, marking a time in history when religion used to matter.

Northeast Arkansas, there is a new kind of Christian in your neighborhood. So I wonder, do you have the courage to create a new kind of church?

Related national story here. Scroll down to "A New Kind of Christianity?"

1000 person world

Spiritual Conversations ponders if the world were a village of 1000 people.

Post-Stetzer Emergence

As the emerging church emerges, people are doing their best to get a handle on the thing. Ed Stetzer is one of them. Stetzer has created three categories for emegent-types. Below is my poorly done summary of his categories:

Relevants: Same old church thing with a new church package.

Restructuralists: New church structure for the same church old thing - house church.

Revisionists: Re-thinging the thing.

Stetzer is getting a little nervous about the "Re-thingers."

I like Stetzer. His book on church planting in the postmodern age is informative and helpful in ways, for new church planters. So, I am a Stetzer fan. At the same time, Stetzer makes an errror in his analysis/descritption of the emerging church.

It seems Stetzer, as well as other critics, cannot resist the temptation to view the emerging church through the lens of denominationalism. They are trying so hard to make the emerging church an established denomination and then critique it that way. Read their stuff and ask if they are talking about the emerging denomination or not. They are and that is the problem with their assessments and conclusions.

Look at how Stetzer has already created three branches of the emerging chruch denomination. Look at how critics complain that the leaders of emergent do not have on coheresnt doctrine. Yes, complain about denominations not having that, but not the emerging church. To make that complaint it to completely miss what is happeing here.

The emerging church is happening inside and outside of denominations. It is happening in house churches, in coffee shops, in conversations, and in the hearts of people who don't give a rip about church at all. Thus, emergence is going to appear different in different places. It has to. That is the nature and beauty of postmodernism. Sameness is not a requirement. In fact, too much sameness is cause for skepticism.

The emreging church is not an organization, it is a phenomenon that is spontaneously occuring in many unrelated places. Emergent Village, the organization/gathering/group/friendship, is merely a way of organizing to make any kind of sense of it, to find out where this phenomenon is occurring, and a way to perhaps offer some guidance to this thing that they, and no one else, can or should control. Look to the Tall Skinny Kiwi for more on understanding emergence the phenomenon.

So, if you view the emerging church as simply one more crack at protestantism, the critics have got their critiques and categoires pretty much spot on. However, if the emrging church is a phenomenon, a movement of the kingdom of God which is not under the rule, control, authority, colonization, influence of organizations, denominations, or people in general, then the critics are going to have to accept the fact that what we are dealing with is something new and too young to properly critique - certainly with old categories of criticism.