Music Monday (ok, Tuesday)

sarah mclachlan – wintersong

voice of the day

“Jesus was the first world leader to inaugurate a kingdom with a heroic role for losers.”
- Philip Yancey, Rumors of Another World (Zondervan, 2003)

voice of the day

So, last weekend I was supposed to speak at Kairos, but got really sick (for the 2nd time in week) –Michelle thought that I should go into the doctor to see if I had pneumonia. naaaaahhh -I dont need to I thought.
Well, looking back — maybe I should have. but I do feel better now.

Anyway, I had this great, & I mean great talk put together
About Isaiah 61, Leviticus 25, Luke 4, etc…. regarding the Jubilee.
Well, suffice to say — I did not give it, but Dave (a Fuller student, friend, Kairos intern, and theologian) — emailed me this quote today.

“Walter Brueggemann preached at Mars Hill (in Michigan) and he said something about jubilee that reminded me of what we talked about last week. I thought I’d pass it on to you:

‘I have never talked about [Jubilee] with pastors or seminarians or anybody where someobody doesn’t raise their hand and say “there’s no evidence that they ever really did this, is there?” It’s the only text that people ever say that about. Because people intuitively recognize that it’s the most dangerous text in the Bible. It’s the most dangerous commandment from God, that neighborliness should impinge upon our private economic well being. And my answer to that
is: ‘Well, this book is filled with stuff that hasn’t been tried yet.
So why don’t we try that?’ “

Yes, lets do that — lets try.

this is a test

test…

some thoughts from a creative friend…

I have a friend (Matt) — who used to go to my church in Minneapolis (the Rock). He went to seminary and now he is a pastor in NW Iowa. He is extremely creative, and out of the box (as pastors go that is…). Mmaybe I can convince him to move out to L.A. someday Actually, I don’t think that will happen as he seems to love where God has him.

Anyway, he emailed me this in response to an email newsletter that I had sent him. I was blessed by it.

“Sunday, over the midnight hours I was sitting in the black – on the floor – in the living room. My only light: a computer screen. Literally!

Reading an email from a friend in Los Angeles .
- I began to think about location & distance.
- I was sitting in NW Iowa
- But I was gone / experiencing LA with my friend.
- Just for a moment, wanting to be there

As I was dreaming, reading, thinking – I was also listening.
- Ears hidden. Tucked inside headphones
- Listening to some utterly brilliant & beautifully bizarre electronic music from Berlin / then London .
- Again, I was sitting in NW Iowa
- But I was now transcending space & time.
- Music is one of those things that can do that.
- Take you away. Well, I was there – I was in another world.
- I was gone: drifting / dreaming.

Then I caught the song title as it scrolled across the screen: “Iniquity.”
- “Iniquity!” That sounds like sin.
- I can relate to that
- I experience that (hand on chest) HERE

Next: another song / another title: “It’s Not the End.”
- “It’s Not the End!” That sounds like hope.
- I can relate to that
- I experience that (hand on chest) HERE

It made made me think / It reminded me.
- NW IOWA , Berlin , LA , London , LaLaLand
- Wherever we are God reaches out to us – somehow – someway – to remind us
- Who we are (and),
- Who He is

o Seeker & Savior
o Giving grace / meaning / hope
o Glory be to God!!

voice of the day

“Church planters under 30 whom I’m meeting don’t seem interested in planting churches that will become megachurches. Rather, they want reproducible small churches–which, incidentally, matches what’s happening in the business world. Leadership guru Warren Bennis’ The Future of Leadership speaks of elephants and fleas: The elephants get all the attention, but the new ideas mostly come from fleas.”

Fall 2002 Cutting Edge
–Eddie Gibbs,author of
ChurchNext: Quantum Changes In How We Do Ministry

a vision of the church

Don & Dave spoke last night at Kairos & did a great job. They envisioned us with what a community of hope could be like in this neighborhood & in this city. One quote that they shared, I thought was a fantastic vision for the church, and for us…

“It’s a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It’s where the homeless drop in for a bowl of soup and the elderly stop by for a chat. It’s where one group is working to help drug addicts and another is campaigning for global justice. It’s where you’ll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose, and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It’s where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.” (NT Wright, Simply Christian, 123)