Dear Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I'm more happy tonight and less grumpy than earlier this evening. Three things happened to help.
First, you staring me down and telling me to treasure the little time we had together tonight was a good thing. You're a tough and very adult young lady.
Secondly, I read somethng about inner peace, and I realized that I was tired and in need of such peace as I've recently been dealing with many wounded people.
Thirdly, a group of us did some good work tonight beginning to lay some groundwork to create ministry for Hispanic people in our area.

Anyway babe, I'm happy tonight and I love you with all my heart.

Peace,

Daddy

Like a Bloom Ready to Burst

Jesus said,"I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God...for I was sent for this purpose." (Luke 4:43,44) Wow! That's an amazing scripture. Jesus' main message in Matthew, Mark, and Luke was that the kingdom of God is at hand ready to burst forth like a bloom in spring. Disciples of Jesus are experiencing, teaching, and advancing this kingdom of God by:

1) Experiencing the kingdom and being transformed...developing eyes to see and ears to hear the kingdom...loving God who loves us...giving our lives to Jesus and his ways.

2) Being servants.

3) Offering healing to the broken and going to the outcasts.

4) Doing kingdom things quietly without making a big deal out of it.

5) Forgiving those who hurt us just as God forgives us.

6) Doing God's will. (radical obedience)

7) Rejecting and confronting false kingdoms.

8) Using our God given talents and resources to further the kingdom.

9) Living in community.

I desire to give my life and help others give their lives to this Kingdom, Way, Reason for Being, Rule of God's Love, Story, Revolution, Conversation, and That which the life of Jesus was about and which he gave his life for.

Cry Out!

I cry out to God in the night.
Where is the justice in the death of the young students in VA?
Where is the justice when young children die for whatever reason in the world?
I say to God
there better be some sort of justice for them.
There better be a place...a way... that their life can continue on for them.
I hear no response back.
But it seems that there should be some kind of provision for them
in this thing called the kingdom that Jeshua cared so very much about.
But all I can do right now is cry out.

Midwest Emergent Gathering

A special message from Mike Clawson, Chicago emergent cohort coordinator:

A church of 10,000 people that meets in a mall...
A small urban community that meets in an art gallery...
An African-American church on the south-side of Chicago...
Web communities that connect tens of thousands of people...

What do all of these have in common? They are all emerging faith communities discovering what it means to be missional in their own unique context. AND they will all be represented at the first Midwest Emergent Gathering, July 20-21 in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. Come learn from Tony Jones, Denise Van Eck, Spencer Burke, Nanette Sawyer, Doug Pagitt, and Alise Barrymore & James King and many other missional practitioners from a wide diversity of backgrounds as we learn together about "Creating Missional Communities."

Contribute to the conversation as we discuss, network, and learn in community together via fast-paced mainstage sessions, interactive workshops, and unstructured times for dialogue with old or new friends. Whether mainline or evangelical, emerging or traditional, high church or de-churched, you will find inspiration and ideas to help you and your faith community become more effective agents for the mission of God in this hurting world.

If you and others from your cohort would like to attend, the cost is only $40/person before June 1st and $60 after that.Also, if any of you would like to be involved with helping us make this conference happen, please let me know at emergentmidwest@gmail.com, as we'll need plenty of volunteers during the event and before.

Click Here to Register for the Midwest Emergent Gathering!

Mike Clawson
up/rooted (Chicagoland Emergent Cohort) co-coordinator
www.up-rooted.com

A Heretic's Guide to Eternity

Just finished Spencer Burke's A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. Burke identifies with "heretics" such as Galileo and Copernicus, who challenged long-held beliefs of the church in the area of science. The book is also sprinkled with historical and graphic glimpses of how the "church" has dealth with heretics.

Burke comes down pretty hard on what he calls "institutional" religion without balancing that with the good that many, many local churches are doing. But his point is well taken. As a whole, the Christian faith has become both unfocused in their vision for the world and too focused on itself. Burke argues that God's grace is too large to be confined in the walls of a church, and that grace is an "opt-out" rather than an "opt-in" proposition. Burke also comes so close to universalism that he uses the term to describe his beliefs, but he hedges a little. He also uses the term "spirituality" as a way to differentiate between "church-going Christian" and "non-church-going Christian." He doesn't explain his use of these terms very well - certainly not as well as N.T. Wright uses the term "spirituality" in his new book, Simply Christian. (I'll say more about that book in another post.)

I don't disagree with Burke overall, I just think he hammers too much on the "bricks and mortar" churches. He virtually "gives up" on "institutional religion" and accuses churches of being barrier to individual spiritual growth and excluding people from God's grace, rather than extending God's grace to everyone. I think this is a result of Burke's background in the evangelical church, where exclusion and election are common themes.

One interesting part of the book is the periodic invitation to log onto Burke's website and discuss a specific topic. Very interesting way of tying paper to the web, and a great way to continue the dialogue.

I do recommend that you read this book (especially you, Craig!).

Receive it!

It was a dark day today.We remembered and relived that Jesus died on the cross today.

And also today, the LaSuer family had some hard and challenging stuff go down.

But then in the afternoon we received an Easter card from New Hope Church

that said they were remembering us and offering us an Easter blessing

of gladness and abundant blessing upon Joy and me and all our family.

And as my friend Michelle says whenever anyone offers her a blessing,

I receive it!

And so too on this day I offer you and your family an Easter blessing

of joy and peace and power and God's Kingdom presence to be with you and come through
you.

So, receive it!

THEY ARE HEROES BUT IT SUCKS!

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, I DO SUPPORT AND PRAY FOR OUR SOLDIERS BECAUSE I THINK THEY ARE HEROES. BUT I ALSO THINK THIS WAR SUCKS AND THAT WE SHOULD GET OUT OF IRAQ!!!!!

Derrida

I'm reading a book for an Emergent event I'll be attending in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks. I just finished a chapter that was very touching. The author is discussing the faith of a particular modern day, or postmodern day, philosopher named Derrida. The philosopher said that he was probably viewed as an atheist and yet he speaks of "my religion about which nobody understands." He speaks about his mother not wanting to ask him whether he still believes in God or not " but she must have known that the constancy of God in my life is called by other names." He states that there is always an atheist within me who contests my professions of belief, just as there is always a believer within me who contests my professions of unbelief. And finally Derrida wonders "if I ought to tell them that I pray," adding, "for if you knew...my experience of prayers, you would know everything, you would tell me whom to address them to." He wonders, too, "if those reading me from up there see my tears, today, if they guess my life was a long history of prayers, for these readers have understood everything, except that I have lived in prayer, tears."

I believe the author is saying there are believers who have almost all of the things of God figured out...and that is ok because it works for them. But there are many believers, especially in these days, who like Derrida, struggle greatly with what they believe and do not believe and yet continue to pray with tears and experience a constancy in their life which they may or may not name God. Perhaps most of us are somewhere in between these two kind of believing places.

I just know that I desire to listen to, learn from, and speak to people like Derrida who have a faith which many folks assume is not present but is actually quite real and authentic.

And that in the end, it is through the questioning, that new life emerges. Who am I? Who are You? Why am I here? And through the prayers and tears, life can be fully lived.