Caught between two extremes

I feel stuck between to inner longings. On one side I long to be called to something inspiring, beyond me that moves my soul. I want to be part of great change next to close friends, family and complete strangers. I long to inspire others. Embedded in the kingdom of God exists this sort of inspiration. At least I think so. We, the church, are called to be change agents in this world, to be hope and light where there is total darkness. We are to fight injustice, take on the sex trade, better our schools and love all as part of the gospel. These social injustices caused by sinful reality are beyond any one of us which is why taking them head on can cause the same sort of dismissal or inspiration as climbing a mountain. I want my life to be given to causes like these.

At the same time I long for a rest and a peace that is from the Spirit. I long to be satisfied in my identity in Christ and okay with being used for whatever purpose I have been created. I think of the older couples’ story that I heard this past week. For the past 40 years they have regularly and faithfully volunteered at a retirement community in their backyard. They taught music, help put on plays and spent time with the residents there. They are not part of a organized movement. They have not made any sort of noticeable change in our community and yet their simple, steady form of service inspires. What are the little things each day where obedience can be lived out and with it comes a sense of peace that God will do what he does? How do these two longings, if both proper to have, coexist?

How does peaceful, simple obedience dance with taking on ‘bigger than I can get my brain around’ initiatives?

book list part 3

Now that I am a veteran youth worker, that v-word makes be feel old, I agree with almost everything Mark DeVries writes about in his book. However I wonder how helpful this book is as a resource for senior pastors, search comities and new youth workers who seem to be the target audience. There is so much good advice that I would think it would feel overwhelming. There are a few learnings that I plan to write more about later.



We have recently done both bathroom and kitchen remodels at our house so this book has proven to be a timely read. Crawford shines a spotlight on craftsmanship and the value of hands on work that has largely been lost in our society. I found it a insightful read as it relates to people being created in the image of God to work and find joy in their work.



This was just a fun read and a bit of a guilty pleasure. I know that the series is popular with the students I work with and while I would recommend it to other adults, it is pretty intense for students.

looking for patterns

(warning: I did not proof this entry.)

Throughout my sabbatical I have been hoping to see patterns in culture and the church. This is how my brain works. One pattern that seems to be emerging from what I have been reading and listening to is a widespread return to local. From Omnivores Dilemma to Shop Class as Soulcraft there exists an apologetic for the economic, moral and societal good of local production. Crawford in Shop Class as Soulcraft argues that the human work experience is more fulfilling when one is involved in the tangible and holistic process of production of a good or service. It would follow then that being a very small part of a large corporation is likely less fulfilling than being part of a smaller business where real ownership can be more easily created.

As both a reaction to our vocationally mobile parents’ generation and thanks to the increasing ease of working from home there seems to be an increased desire to prioritize where we live based on relationships. This seems no more or less individualistic than the recent past, it is just that now there is the potential for us to have our cake and eat it too. There is a felt loss in my generation of knowing our neighbors and feeling a sense of community and this is felt by both those outside of and within church culture.

As another response to localization of American culture, more and more churches seem to be thinking in terms of zip codes and neighborhoods. Many small churches have always been this way and continue to be so. However larger church communities seem to be moving away from creating large campuses that create an attractive place to gather people and are now instead structuring their small and medium size gatherings by where people live. This is a significant change from people coming together because of common life stage and replacing the commonality with zip code. This trend is both influenced by the aforementioned longing to connect with people in our proximity but made easier by technology that is driving the multi-site movement. With this movement comes the ease of being part of what is emerging as core Christian orthopraxy, sustainable food consumption, greener living, less transportation costs and loving your literal neighbors.

City planning seems to be part of this greater pattern as well. I quickly leap into ignorance here but it is my understanding that more cities as they design expanding neighborhoods are looking to create walkable, self sustained neighborhoods and in doing so creating less suburban sprawl, fewer transportation issues and a greater sense of ownership in residents neighborhood.

This trend interests me the most as it relates to the church and I believe that in coming years or even months we will see the structure of the American church transform and localize.

to try and publish?

For several months now I have been toying with the idea of trying to publish the content we have created as ministry that we call Madison Missions. After going down a few rabbit trails and coming up against more work and less clarity I had hoped for I was prepared to let go of the idea until this weekend. I hung out with some of my closest friends from college and they convinced me that the idea was worth some effort. This morning I began a proposal and we shall see.

I still feel caught between wanting to publish this material because I truly believe it is some great stuff and could help ministries in very different settings connect with their local communities in new and exciting ways through service. At the same time there is a piece of this that just thinks it would be cool to publish something with my name on it. I am not sure how big that piece is and I want to be careful that is not my driving motivation.

This struggle takes me to a bigger issue of how naval gazing has a way of stalling action. I wonder, this blog included, if I take too much time to figure out what my motivation is when I should be quicker to act. I know this comes up a lot when it comes to acts of obedience that are uncomfortable. It is much easier to waste time pondering what is really at the root of my conviction than it is to take action. With that said I am going to get to work and see what comes of all this.

Great weekend

As I was trying to write some thoughts about how great this past weekend was with my old college friends I kept coming up short until I found this which I really think says it best.

individualism, materialism and racism in the church

I just got done reading The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah. Rah unpacks the changing landscape of the global and American evangelical church. His main point seems to be that current evangelicalism is captive to Western, white culture and that the hope of the evangelical church can be found in the emerging minority churches around the country and around the world.

There was a lot in the book that exposed my own racist tendencies and challenged me to be cautious of allowing my faith in Jesus to wed my culture of individualism, materialism and racism. I especially appreciated the challenge to carefully consider who you think of when coming up with a ‘successful’ church and/or Christian leader. I can’t help but think of Willow Creek, North Point, Mars Hill and Saddleback. All of these communities are relatively wealthy, large in numbers and primarily led by white leadership. Why are they successful my mind? Without being aware of it, I have defined success as wealth, numbers and influence or which the first two make the last one more probable.

But what really is success in the kingdom of God? Who are the leaders and communities we should learn from? What can we learn from American minority churches that are quickly becoming the global majority? And should I really care who the majority is? Race is rarely part of my conversations about faith.

I see an immergence of teachers and leaders moving away from individualistic language towards a more corporate view of the church. I see an increasing reaction to consumerism and a longing to be part of a multi-ethnic community. However a missing piece is that I am still unaware of much increase in the diversity of church leadership.

I wish that Rah would have offered more stories of hope in his book for even his examples of good things happening often came across as critiques but I am thankful for his challenges and work to continue this important conversation.

recent book list continued

This was an okay read but not something I would recommend, unless you love Christian music and hearing about the lives of sub-culture, famous musicians.



Good stuff from Chan. The middle chapters were personally convicting as to how I use my time, money and abilities.



The The War of Art is made up of short reflections on change, art and resistance. The authors insights range from pop psychology to profound.

thoughts on social justice and the church

I have been thinking a lot about the church and social justice. I believe there is a new term or at least an unpacking of an old term. Social justice is defined as ‘the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society’. Social justice is about political, economic and social equality and fairness. The kingdom of God has overlap with the values of social justice but not total alignment. Both call us to value of human beings and take action in the here and now instead of merely banking on a future, afterlife hope.

But the church needs a new term. Maybe kingdom justice would work. In the kingdom of God all people are invaluable because they bear the mark of God himself. Kingdom people share and our in relationship with one another so that all may have enough to eat, drink and wear. The kingdom is like a family that learns from one another, shares openly and out of love, not out of a sense that it makes the sharer better. In fact I am pretty sure in this reality there is a sense that sharing always is a two-way deal. There is no one way transaction. When material rich people share they recognize that all they are giving is material stuff which in eternal standards is nothing. They always are given something in return. Kingdom people actually are dependant on one another so that justice is not an issue of ‘I have’ and ‘you need’ but instead there is a constant sense of ‘I (we) need God’ and ‘I (we) can’t know him without each other’.

I like the language of Christianity offering a third way. We are not about social justice nor are we against it. We are neither blue nor red. The kingdom is something else that is better, deeper, more mysterious, life transforming and calls us to both live radically in this world and long deeply for the one to come.

meeting with gerry

I just got done with my meeting with Gerry which is pronounced ‘Gary’ not ‘Jerry’. He is a seminary professor and he has been pretty influential in the church planting movement. I am not sure what I was hoping for so I was not disappointed. We talked about multi-site and social justice. Gerry did not express any concern about the growing trend of multi-site churches. He views multi-ste having no conflict with church planting. They are both strategies and they can both be done well and both can be done poorly. He did emphasis the need for a healthy site or campus to have a gifted leadership team and a focus on their geographical area. That gives mission to a given community and helps them be more than a franchise and more than a venue that you can watch a video.

He repeatedly expressed that onsite leadership was a must. They must differentiate themselves through other methods than the sermon. I still have a lot of questions but I'm least persuaded that the multi-site model is not inherently unbiblical. He told several stories of how it can be a great model. We did not unpack what this model communicates about community, discipleship, etc. Maybe his books on the issue will help.

I then asked Gerry his thoughts on the church engaging in social justice and if they were going too far towards deed and away from Word. He thinks we, the American church, have not gone far enough. He feels that evangelicalism is moving in the right direction of expressing their faith through deeds and should keep moving further in that direction. However we must work off a biblical and not social understanding of justice. He defined justice as putting ourselves in a position of less power for the sake of another and that injustice was seeing our stuff as our stuff. This is in contrast to social justice being the process of dividing wealth evenly throughout all people. He felt that the latter understanding creates social dependence and an unhealthy class system. God came down and became less.

I am not really sure exactly what this could look like lived out but that is the gist from our time and a helpful framework to process through.

on a recent hike

Mary and I came across this on a recent hike. Wow.