Disconnected and Connecting

Lots of things have been rattling around in my brain of recent. In order to clear space for Bruin Football scores, its time to dump at least one thought out.

Disconnected
While flying to Nashville for our vacation week, I listened to this podcast, which reminded me, yet again, of how often disconnected my own life, and our lives together in our modern culture, have become. Disconnected from one another. We prefer to spend time with our Tivos, Ipods, laptops and email, rather than with real flesh and blood people. And when relationships between friends becomes strained, (and this is particularly acute in the church) we often choose not to work to heal, but rather to disconnect, to distance ourselves. I will admit, I sometimes am tempted to behave like this.

The podcast was with Dr. Edward Hallowell, who wrote a book entitled Connect back in 2001 that urges readers to “make time for connectedness,” which he alternately defines as having person-to-person interaction or being involved with something greater than oneself. He identifies “Twelve Points of Connection” (i.e., marriage, family, friends, work, beauty, the past, nature, pets, ideas and information, institutions, religious concerns, and self-knowledge) that can supply this grounding.

As I heard this, looking out the window of American Airlines flight 1974, at majestic thunderheads floating past, I thought "Yes! I need this! I need to connect!"

Our family has spent the last four days in Huntsville, Alabama, population 160,000. This was a town that had a population of 15,000 in 1950. But then, in the middle 1950s, NASA developed the Marshall Space Flight Center here, populated by Dr. Wernher von Braun and his band of German rocket scientists, and nothing has ever been the same.

And yet. It is so very different here from our home in Southern California. First impression: where are all the people? The streets here seem nearly deserted, compared with the clogged, congested, traffic snarled streets of Los Angeles.

And the people. Oh, the people. They have time. Time to talk, time to listen. And at least with the good Christian folk we spent time with, they have time to grow community, to love, to laugh. There is much we can learn from these folks. They seem to understand what it means to be connected to one another. I envy their connection.

What can I do, in the metropolis of Los Angeles, to become better connected? I wonder.

Rev. Jill Leslie Williams

This is the Rev. Jill Leslie Williams. Over the past four years, she has become very dear to the hearts of our family.

Yesterday, she was ordained a pastor of Word and Sacrament. Below is the prayer I offered during the laying on of hands, at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.

"Lord, today we come to you with hearts that are very full. Full of praise and thanksgiving, full of hope and joy, hearts warmed by our friendship with this, your servant, Jill. Many of us here have known what it is to be loved by her, and our lives are so much richer for it. God, we give you thanks for the great gift of our dear friend Jill; hers is a life truly marked by the joy of the Lord.

And now, on this afternoon, we join together in a mystery. With countless legions of the faithful, crossing every generation, hand to shoulder in an unbroken line, You have lead us, and You lead Jill to this ordination moment. We humbly count ourselves among this procession of Believers, eager to lay our hands on upon our friend, and ask your blessing and commission. It is You, Lord that has called Jill to this place…..and we would,….. all of us, seek to know and find the face of Jesus in our time.

Father, we pray your blessing now, on Jill. Your blessing……... We use these words like we might understand what they mean, and yet we often struggle to work out our own understanding of You and your Kingdom. But these things we do know. We know you are infinitely Good, and so, we pray your goodness might shower down on Jill, in the days, months, and years ahead. We know You bring us into Christian community, and so, we pray for deep, meaningful, genuine community to surround her as she begins her journey as a pastor. Lord, we need you. We know you provide deep peace and rest for our souls. And so, in the midst of busy days, and the middle of time spent ministering to the needs of others, we pray that You might afford Jill with deep peace in the form of your presence and peace. Daily. Abiding. Ever present. Be always beside our dear friend Jill, oh Lord.

We know you are a God of mercy. We pray you would continue to expand and deepen Jill’s great gifts for compassion and mercy. Jesus, show yourself through the caring and love of Jill’s pastoral and personal life, so that all those who meet her might sense something truly remarkable, as so many of us have. Something deep and rich. Something of the Risen Christ.

Lord, you are a God of joy. Your Creation shouts at us of your joy, if we will but listen! You have created Jill’s soul with an unmistakable imprint of your Joy. Abundant. Overflowing. We know that to laugh with Jill is to really laugh! And so, oh God, would you now, and each day of her life……. continue to fill Jill with a great, immense, immeasurable joy.

Oh Christ, you are our Hope. You are our Salvation. You are all we have to offer an often dark, and wandering, and wondering world. You are light, You are home, You are hope! Lord Jesus, will you please shower upon Jill, your servant, great light to see the way, abundant hope to serve others, and fill her with a depth of grace that might know that You, Oh God, are our ultimate place called…… Home.

And so, now with great joy, we send Jill forth, with hearts full, and eyes set upon Christ. And will You send each of us,… into Your world,… to proclaim Your Kingdom come, now!

And with this, ALL of God’s people said together…………Amen!"

Bruin Football is BACK, Baby!

Its Saturday afternoon here in Huntsville, Alabama, and college football season is with us again. Its also half time at the Stanford / UCLA game, and the Bruins are up by 14-7....we need to bury the Cardinal. Take no prisoners, for, at the end of the season.....is coming another epic battle.

Forgive me for reliving the past, but this video is too good to not post:

Christ in the City

Recently, I began to share some of my observations from the recent PGF conference in Houston. Michael Frost had some thoughtful insight on what the church needs to become in order to more effectively reach a watching and waiting world.

Interestingly, all this talk about the missional church is not really so new. Some people were thinking about it a long time ago. One remarkable example that was birthed out of our church, can be found right here, from the archives of this blog.

And so, being missional is not really some new scary thing. It is tested by time. It is good. Kingdom stuff.

Remembering Jude Gilliam

Our family is in Nashville, Tennessee for a brief vacation to visit good friends. Right now, my teenage girls are asleep in the next room. All is quiet.

This is Jude Gilliam. I never met him, but heard of his tragic struggle for life and recent death via a close friend.

I do not for a second understand this sort of thing.

After reading the order of worship at his memorial service, I felt moved to right this note in the journal at his web site.


"Silent now is the laughter, the noise, the commotion that must have been Jude. But bold and strong, without fail, sustaining through the ages, is the praise to the God of All Creation from His created. This sound will not and cannot be silenced.

I just read through the order of worship for Jude's service, and was touched by the balance of genuine grieving, praise, longing, and celebration. What a remarkable balance - no denial, acceptance, and through the pain a deep joy and rest that was, for me, almost palpable.

I wish you all, Jude's family, the full impact of those things we share in faith in Christ. Grace. Peace beyond understanding. Balm for your weary souls. Mercy. Love abounding. Joy.

Through the countless and abiding tears, there is hope in a World beyond time. We will all dance and play there together, someday. Amen."

I have!

I think I may have

I think I may have figured out how to blog from my Treo!

gotta love these ladies!

As A Child

I remember Jesus saying something about little children.....



ht to kc

A Memory

Today I received an email from Gregory Lang, who is working on his latest book, and has chosen to include one of my blog posts about being a Dad.

He asked me this:

"Thinking back on the night of the comet, what about it meant most to you? Why might Kelly think it was a special evening worthy of its place as an important daddy-daughter moment?

This was my response:

"What meant the most was the simple grace of climbing that hill, along side of my daughter, holding hands. She thought I was wonderful, and would do anything for her. She still thinks those things, but has evolved into a hip teenager, who would never utter such thoughts today. Maybe someday, after college she will be able to say them. Time will tell.

And so, it is the memory of a simple walk up a hill, to glimpse something "out of time" if you will, from "down here" on a planet, and a life so bound by time. To see something of the creativity of a God who gifts us with life, and friendships, and hills to climb up, and even comets to spy on. Who gifts us with family, friends, and in my case, a wonderful daughter.

In the end, so much is a mystery, but I am so thankful for the journey, it is hard to convey in words. I think I caught Kelly's current emotions/reflections well in my blog post:

"In the car on the way to the ballfield, I turned to Kelly and said, "Do you remember, a long time ago, when you and I climbed to up to the water tower, and waited for the comet to appear in the night sky?" Kelly did remember. We both smiled; Kelly, thinking of her impossibly dorky father, and me, giving quiet thanks for a small moments like these of shared memories, and for the simple grace of the memory itself."

I still see that fleeting smile on occasion now, or hear a slight giggle on the cell phone, which means we connect, we know each other so well, we are so much the same. Another gift of grace.....

Just thought I should share this.....its a big part of my heart.

Three Latin Words

The Kingdom of God is not always warm and fuzzy, and just what we like. Toward the end of "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe", by CS Lewis, one of the children asks whether Aslan the lion is safe.

"Course he isn't safe," comes the reply. "But he's good."

And so, this is what our Kingdom work is going to look like. Not safe, but good. Very good, good of the utmost kind, eternal good.

This past week, I was here. I had the chance to hear the thoughts of Michael Frost, which revolutionary for American Christians to think about, if we take them seriously. I have outlined some of this below, for my own reference, and hopefully for your edification.

If we are following Christ in a way that is consistent with His own life, as He lived it here, we will see three things happening in our lives.

We will see God differently.
God is not far and distant. God is involved in the world to bring order. God is persistently seeking us; God is constantly in search of man. And so, we must constantly be in search of what God is doing in the world, and join him in this effort. This is what much-smarter-than-I theologians have coined as "Missio Dei", or the "sending of God". We will need to get ready to be sent.

We See The Church Differently
Church just won't be a place to go on Sunday any more. It will be an integral, essential part of the city, of the makeup of the community. The church will add great "value to the village".

Implicit in this is a completely new view of what communities of faith can become. We have to remember that the inside of our churches are largely a complete mystery to the majority of people in our communities. Can our churches be completely obliterated from where they stand today, and no one would notice? Oh, that the city might greatly grieve the loss of our churches! We then are to participate in what Christ is doing in the world (Participatio Christi) through the work of the church. We neither determine our own agenda, nor merely imitate His, but rather participate in His, according to His call and guidance. John 20:21, So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

You Will See the World Differently
If we begin to view God as well as the church differently, we will begin to also understand the world differently, and our place in it. We will have new perspective on our common broken humanity. We will begin to understand more of the Imagio Dei, the image of God in those around us.

We just might need to rearrange our world view. He is not Safe, but He is Good.

Next up, a story of Missio Dei, Participatio Christi, and Imagio Dei.....right in Hollywood.

For KC Wahe - 10 Things

My friend KC - asked for this. Scratch the part about George Bush.

A Glimpse of the Kingdom

Ever wonder what the world would look like, if people really acted out what they believed? This might be a glimpse:

Sugar Cube Missions, We Minister Here

In elementary school in California, everyone studies the Missions. I did it, and so have my daughters. When I was a kid, we built our Mission models our of sugar cubes, and you got sick making your Mission, because you ate more of the construction materials than you used. Now, you can build your Mission out of styrofoam; not very environmentally friendly. Even the mission of building Missions has changed. That's life, just about everything changes.

There is much buzz in church circles these days about what it really means to be "missional", and its not about sugar cubes versus styrofoam.

Last Sunday, my wife and I had the rare opportunity to just sit and talk for several hours after lunch with an old (ok, not really old) friend who is a pastor, and to swap ideas about the church, being a pastor, and what it might mean to embrace things missional. He has written a book about such things, even. The thoughts below are from Tod, my good friend. They help to illuminate this conversation.

Missional basically means...we, the church, see ourselves as an extension of God's mission in Christ to the world. Jesus said, "Just as the Father sent me, so I am sending you." To be missional is to see oneself as a "sent" person or community.

So, like the missions of California, we, a particular people in a particular place (in the case of my church, Hollywood) see ourselves as God's mission to a particular people (those surrounding our church) in a particular place. The difference between the "missions" of California and our "missional church" is that there is no "mother church" that sent us, but that we believe, like Paul himself, that we are "sent" by God through the Spirit's call in our setting to this particular place.

It pretty important to note that this is a shift historically and theologically backward toward the first century church from the model so many older mainline churches, including ours and other great 20th Century churches have had over the years. These once great, tall steeple churches, saw themselves not as "missions" but as "Mother Churches" who did the sending of "missionaries" to the "uttermost part of the world."

Its upside down from what our old church model was. Time to break out a new model.

So, we can frame up the discussion like this: Missional is: "We Minister Here". The three key questions to this discussion are then:

"Who is We?"

"What is Minister?"

"And, where is Here?"

So these are the kinds of questions, our church will need to embrace, struggle with, and work together to define in the weeks and months ahead.

I am excited for the journey, and for the conversation.