:: in.a.mirror.dimly :: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other.

You won’t believe this: western burger 911 call.

In an e-mail correspondence with a former Prof. from Taylor University, my prof. shared the following:

“My wife and I are strongly committed to the belief that building families and raising kids in the faith is the first and foremost task of the Great Commission. What is popularly known as “evangelism” is secondary or tertiary at best. This is where we can learn something from Roman Catholics.”

Very though-provoking . . .

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<%image(20050430-green mountain.jpg|145|94|green mts.)%> Jules and I scoped out our rental home in the Green Mountains and it looks like a winner. Hard wood floors, a bright and wonderful bedroom on the second floor, and mountains towering all around. We can’t wait for the move in June!

<%image(20050429-divhrs_sm.jpg|66|100|hours)%> I found a great web site called explore faith where you can find the divine hours, a daily prayer guide that was put together by Phyllis Tickle. I have been praying through it today with my class and it has been immensely helpful, encouraging, and life-giving. God’s Spirit really has been working through the scripture and the prayers. I encourage you to check it out. It’s well worth the visit.

Nate’s blog is now back and up to date. He’s been posting up a storm lately. They are deep posts with some humor mixed in. He was put on blogger probation a few weeks ago when I pulled his link off this site. I figured that he had discontinued his sojourn in the blogosphere. Last weekend he told me that he’s online again and I promised to put him back on the list. Check sacred scarred out today. I particularly enjoyed his post about staying up late with his wife. It’s almost “Seinfeld-esque.”

“I’ve never seen so many people at a train stop all on the cell phone . . . what were they doing, calling each other???” Ah, the corny joke. I relish in corny jokes. I could tell corny jokes with my father-in-law all night. I’ve always thought that my jokes were dumb. But now I know that they’re a different kind of dumb. They’re corny. And that little corny joke about the cell phones was how I struck up a conversation with a lady on the train back from Philly (the most depressing place on earth!).

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<%image(20050426-philadelphia.jpg|313|160|philly)%> Going onto msn this morning I noticed a picture on the home page that looked curiously like Philadelphia, my birthplace and the home of water ice, cheese steaks, scrapple, and pessimistic sports fans.

And then I noticed the caption, “Is Your Town Down?” Uh, oh, I think I know what’s coming. It turns out that in a survey of the happiest and most depressed cities, Philadelphia came out on top, # 1 that is, in the depression category.

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Nate’s comment needs to have it’s own post:

My working definition (Todd Hunter has helped) of authentic biblical spirituality - “Routinely, naturally, and easily embodying, announcing, and demonstrating the reality of the Kingdom of God”

And the question that needs to inform our practices of evangelism, worship, prayer, community, and whatever else is…

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<%image(20050425-evangelist.jpg|89|108|pushy evang.)%> I had a great meeting with some friends in NJ over the weekend. The coffee, coke, and brew flowed freely as we covered a wide range of topics. Two things in particular struck me. One is the group’s desire to be a counter or parallel culture of sorts and the other was a discussion about authentic spirituality and its ramifications on things such as evangelism. Nate (whose blog is back) shared a definition of authentic spirituality that revolved around what is natural for us to do within the leading of the Spirit (or something like that, I hope he posts something about it to clear things up!).

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<%image(20050421-clouds.jpg|141|106|clouds)%> In light of Brian McLaren’s latest book The Last Word and the Word After That, I have been struck at the reaction of people to it. It seems that many Christians, perhaps including John Stott, consider the doctrine of hell one of those lines in the sand that define whether you’re in or out. It strikes me as ironic that those who have a relationship with Jesus can be kicked out of his church because of beliefs concerning those who do not know Jesus! And I know that the exclusivity of Christ is a big deal for some, but I wonder why the doctrine of hell has become one of those dividing line issues.

Well instead of pulling those strings, I thought that perhaps it would at least be more constructive to rethink some of our traditional conceptions of heaven. NT Wright, a Brit. theologian and Anglican Bishop, has some top shelf talks entitled The Future People of God. He proposes in talk 3 that our conception of heaven deviates from scripture, is way too boring, and involves some kind of life on earth. Whether you agree or not, at least no one’s trying to kick him out of the church over it!
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I went to bed last night listening to the Bible when this passage was read:

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15)

The verse doesn’t come out and say so, so I suppose this is theory not facts here, but I have heard it said that this commander was a personification of Jesus.
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<%image(20050419-PICT0491 (2).jpg|120|90|)%>My wife and I just got back from a much needed solace in the cold regions of Northern Maine (Rockwood to be exact). We were amazed at how much we’ve both been reacting to circumstance(Tyrrany of the Urgent), and how little we changed our daily lives to meet the important changes the Lord has brought our way. Being the proud parents of two young kids, it has been so easy for us to get frusterated at the time required to tend to needy infants rather than cherish the special lives God has entrusted us with.
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<%image(20050419-ratzinger.jpg|73|98|ratzinger)%> So Ratzinger is Pope Benedict the 16th now. Catholics all over are celebrating and I guess that I’m happy for them. Of course I’m also wondering what this “conservative theologian” will really bring to the church (I found a short bio here). The competition for Pope was pretty rough I hear. My friend has a breakdown of the process.

I find myself hungering for more info about this man who has been entrusted with so much power and authority. I did a little search and found an interesting summary of his Good Friday Homily here. I found it to be challenging and a good sign of what may be to come from the new Pope.

I pasted in some of the good parts below.
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The latest excitement in my life is a relatively new laptop computer. It runs XP, is much faster than my previous 6 year old laptop, and has a wireless card. I spent just about my entire day on it yesterday. Whoops. While sitting in class and browsing for jobs in the Arlington, Vermont area, I realized that this new computer has become far more than a hunk of wires, plastic, and chips. sigh. Repentence follows . . .

<%image(20050417-last word.jpg|51|75|last word)%> While at Borders last night, my home away from home, I couldn’t resist purchasing Brian McLaren’s new book: The Last Word and the Word After That. I read the first chapter in the store and was sucked in, reading 40 pages into it by the end of the night. There are two things that stand out in Brian’s controversial conclusion to the New Kind of Christian Trilogy that winds up by tacking the doctrine of hell. The first is . . .

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