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

I have a half-baked thought that I need to throw out here for discussion. I’m not sure if that will help or impede progress, but I tend to only post ideas when they are fully formed . . . and where’s the fun in that. I want other people to do the thinking for me.

The stage is set with a weekday breakfast and the book of Jeremiah. I was reading through Jeremiah and I kept noticing a conflict between Jeremiah and the prophets of the king. The king’s prophets continually proclaimed victory and prosperity for Israel, while Jeremiah listened to the Lord and predicted destruction.

In a flash it occurred to me: well of course the king’s prophets said things were going to fine, they were on his payroll. Add echoing voice-over “they were on his payroll,” “they were on his payroll,” “they were on . . .”

My mind immediately turned to pastors and the pressures they face.

Now I am currently immersed in the non-profit world and I know what the directors of art centers and social service organizations face with the services they provide. People look to them for art exhibitions, events, food, entertainment, and even cheap heating oil. That brings a lot of pressure.

Yet, the stakes are immensely higher for pastors who are expected to provide for people’s spiritual needs. I will spare everyone a lecture, tirade, or rant about the failure of the church in consumer culture. Let’s just acknowledge for now that the church often places unrealistic expectations on elders, pastors, etc.

Pastors essentially have to care for the people in their congregations and somehow help them grow spiritually. Unfortunately they are dependent on the goodwill and generosity of these same people. Am I the only one who sees how this can become abusive and manipulative?

I am not saying that it’s wrong or impossible for Christian ministers to be supported by freewill donations. I’m not even saying that a minister cannot be supported by the same people receiving the ministry.

What I am saying is that money can be used to exert influence and manipulate. In some cases it may be enough to have open conversations and dialogue among the pastors and their congregations about this danger. In other cases alternative funding options may need to be explored.

And here is where we arrive at my half-baked idea.

Is it possible and even desirable to make the church self-sustaining? I’m thinking of monastaries who can pay the bills by training dogs or operate electricity via hydro-electric power (really, there’s one near Mt. Equinox here that uses the mountain streams for this).

So take the most highly regarded if not overused ministry idea: a coffee shop. Everyone who wants to minister for the Gospel at one point or another will want to have a coffee shop. Churches start them as little side ventures and some people become nervous. They wonder if the church is becoming too commercial.

Now hear me out. What if the coffee shop was the church? That’s right, you open a huge coffee shop/community center, hire some staff for it, and let it pay a chunk of your bills as a sustainable business.

Now you have done several things: you can pay your bills with minimal donations, your congregation’s $ can be used for something other than your own facility, you’ve created a space for your community to gather, and your pastor(s) would theoretically be less dependent on the donations of church members. This certainly does not change the expectations placed on pastors or even solve manipulation issues outright, but perhaps it creates a healthier environment.

You can insert whatever sustainable business model you want. This is certainly not for everyone and I’m sure it has some woeful shortfalls, but I wonder if it’s worth exploring further. I know that Karen Ward does something like this and so does Todd Hiestand at The Well.

Any one care to jump in on this?

Relationships cannot be used as leverage for the Gospel. No one would say it so blatantly, but it happens all too often.

If I may borrow a metaphor from Spencer Burke, I think it is more accurate to say that relationships act as a green house where the Gospel is planted, takes root, and grows.

I’ve been reflecting lately on what makes a good blog post. In particular I’m thinking about the structure of a post.

I grew up learning that a typical paragraph is 4-5 sentences in length, if not longer. In addition, sentence structure should be varied and words should be chosen carefully.

The world of blogs seems to change this a little. I find that I prefer reading posts that are broken up into paragraphs of 2-3 sentences. The width of the typical blog is at least half, if not a third, of a typical page.

Less immediately becomes more.

In checking up on my stats, I have found that most visits to this blog last less than a minute. So if I have something important to say, I need to break it into small pieces and put it out there. A long paragraph becomes burdensome to blog readers. They would probably say that I should have begun a new paragraph with the previous sentence. Ah, but I have kept going here just to make my point. If I had something fairly weighty to say, you would have a hard time persevering simply because of the way this is all stretched out down the blog. In fact, you may have even given up by now with my drivel.

I am still a firm believer in writing clear sentences with carefully chosen words and varying structures, but even with shorter blog posts, the craft of writing can suffer. Most blogs are simply first drafts.

A blog of first drafts is OK if you’re only trying to put information out there. If you want people to take it seriously, then my guess is you’ll want to polish it a little.

Us Cyzewski’s (that’s my last name by the way) tend to Polish things as well.

Sorry, that pun is with me every time I hear the word “polish.”

If you can help it, take the time to think about some of the following:

- Your point of view: Are you going to afflict readers with a preachy use of the second person “you” or are you going to be chatty and personal with “you.” Perhaps third person is better for certain topics. The first person can be useful as a narrative device.

- Word Choice: The careful choice of words can make all of the difference in a carefully crafted post. Needless repetition detracts from your main point. Needless repetition detracts from your main point.

- Read It Once: You can’t catch everything, but give your post a satisfying read upon completion. You’ll find errors, complete your incomplete thoughts (see previous point about word choice), and may even decide to scrap the post altogether. I think the courage to delete is essential for bloggers. We need not take ourselves so seriously.

- Keep Paragraphs Short: This may be completely wrong, but in my opinion 2-3 sentences should be the standard limit for blog post paragraphs. I find it incredibly hard to plow through large chunks of text online. Heck, most ministries like Billy or Franklin Graham keep the paragraphs of their mailings pencil thin, and that is no accident.

Keep in mind that newspapers often indent one sentence as a complete paragraph. The key is adjusting the flow of your content to the media.

- Out to Lunch: The most important thing to keep in mind is this: if you think I’m out to lunch; you’re probably right. The Vermont Turkey sandwich at the Lawyer and the Baker (in Manchester, VT) is my current favorite by the way.

Vermont Public Radio is close to raising $60,000 in 2 hours. Genius, sheer genius. I actually listened to the first hour of the non-stop pledge drive just to hear if it’s working.

A two hour pledge drive is better than throwing it in your face all day. You get half the programs and the personalities they choose just beg and beg and cast endless heaps of guilt upon listeners.

But two hours is another matter. They throw in a short commentary by Ira Glass about paying for radio complete with the music of This American Life (if you listen to the show, then you know what I mean about the music). They play clips of clips of callers who share why they give. They are forced to be creative since two hours is a heck of a long time to talk about giving money.

Julie told me that past fund drives have been extended in the past just to meet the budget. That sounds like purgatory, if not worse. So three cheers to VPR for going outside the box to pay the bills in the least annoying way possible.

Even if the fund drive redirection page used a lame, washed out picture of the West Arlington covered bridge (yes VPR, I have tons of better pictures of that same bridge that you can use any time!), they tried something new and it works. Good job!

As of 8:37 am they have $8,500 to go.

UPDATE: As of 9:27 AM VPR raised over $68,000. Way to go Vermont!

I was going to post some thoughts about North Korea this morning. I woke up to NPR’s report that North Korea claims the U.N. has declared war with its sanctions. Oh, and the US wants to intercept ships bound for North Korea, but I’m sure that’s nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately I’m still down in the dumps over yesterday’s post about Bush’s duplicity and use of Christians for political gain . . . so no posts on politics right now.

Fortunately I did read the Bible this morning and I came across this passage in 2 Corinthians 10:

10:3 For though we live as human beings, we do not wage war according to human standards,
10:4 for the weapons of our warfare are not human weapons, but are made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds. We tear down arguments
10:5 and every arrogant obstacle that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ.

It’s amazing how small we think God is. His ways are not our ways, and so we don’t give him the credit that is his due. Can God open hearts and minds to the Gospel? You bet. Can he bring a peaceful resolution to international crisis without a war? I think so.

I’m not saying that I know how God is going to handle this crisis with North Korea. What I am saying is that we need to pray for the leaders of North Korea and the leaders of the U.N. as they fight this out.

God has weapons that we don’t even know about. And he is willing to use them.

In my head I’m a Republican, but in my heart I’m a Democrat. That is a horrible generalization, but here’s the rub:

I don’t believe in big government = Republican.
I believe we have a responsibility to care for people in society = Democrat (not that Republicans don’t care, but once you get past tax cuts and trying to ban abortion, Republicans tend to hope that trickle down economics will work for the poor, rather than taking proactive steps like a Democrat)

And though I’ve been a bit leary about Bush, I at least have always liked the idea of his faith-based initiatives. Funding the non-profit sector always seems like a much more efficient and accountable way to deal with social problems. Even if churches should be wary of hooking up with the state, there are plenty of Christian charities that could do for some extra funding.

As time goes by you wonder what ever became of those speeches and promises . . . And then you find out it was all fluff and puff and lies.

David Kuo, formerly of the faith-based initiative team under Bush, has published a book, Tempting Faith, about Bush’s betrayal of his Christian supporters. Worse than that, many high-ranking Republicans actually hold Christians in a sort of contempt. Read the Time Magazine article.

So now I’m transitioning from a moderate-liberal, disillusioned Republican to a philosophical Republican looking for moderate Republicans or Democrats.

And if you’re not riled up enough, here are some clips from the article:

“After two years in the White House, I had come to realize that regardless of where the President’s heart lay on the matter, the back-office Republican political machine was able to take Evangelicals for granted—indeed, often viewed them with undisguised contempt—and still get their votes. G.O.P. operatives trusted that Christian conservatives would see the President more as their Pastor in Chief than anything else.”

Or how about Chuck Colson:

“Chuck Colson used to oversee outreach to the religious community. “I arranged special briefings in the Roosevelt Room for religious leaders, ushered wide-eyed denominational leaders into the Oval Office for private sessions with the President,” Colson later wrote. “Of all the groups I dealt with, I found religious leaders the most naive about politics. Maybe that is because so many come from sheltered backgrounds, or perhaps it is the result of a mistaken perception of the demands of Christian charity … Or, most worrisome of all, they may simply like to be around power.’”

Ouch, I’m not feeling so good about myself right now.

I feel even worse about the Republican party right now. What a shameful bunch of punks.

But really, can we expect anything better from the Democrats? I swung towards the Republicans during the Clinton era because I was so fed up with stream of lies flowing from Democrats. Power, even if it’s not absolute, corrupts.

I’ll tell ya, this is why I don’t blog about politics too often. It’s too dang depressing.

I stayed up last night and updated the right bar a little bit. I got rid of that hideous “Christian Top 1000″ button in favor of clean and simple text. The link still works, I just don’t wince anymore when I look at it.

I also revamped the blog roll a little and made a new category: “These May Admit to Knowing Ed and/or Josh.” For the most part they are fellahs I met in seminary or in college. I keep in touch with some more than others, but I do read all of their blogs.

To my shock and amazement, I found that several blogs that I read every day via rss in bloglines are not in my blog roll. My brothers and sisters, this should not be so. I haven’t put all of them in yet because I had a really hard time copying and pasting due to the afforementioned swapping of “Fn” and “CTRL” on my keyboard. Yes, I almost detroyed the right bar of this blog last night.

The one blog I made sure to include was Natasha Tynes. Natasha is a Jordanian journalist who lives with her husband in the Washington D.C. area. She’s friends with Jill Carroll and has the unenviable duty of blogging about Jordan, a country caught between the east and the west.

She has important insights on world affairs and the status of Jordan, but sometimes it can be depressing to hear about the murder of women by thier own families because they brought disgrace to the family through immoral behavior. I mean, gosh, you just killed your own sister to save your family’s honor?

And speaking of Jordan . . . I thought that I would afflict you with a few stories about my time in the country of Jordan.

Read the rest of this entry »

As part of my commitment to provide the latest in fall colors for the readers of this blog, here are some pictures from yesterday before the rains swept in and afflicted us with a dreary day.

First we have some trees on the slope of Mt. Equinox in Manchester. The second picture shows Red Mountain from 7A. This is from the same spot as a previous picture, but it’s a different time of day with better light and slightly clearer skies.

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People steal all of the time. They wouldn’t call it theft per se, but they really do steal.

I work at an Art Center (museum, galleries, and more). Part of my job involves the front desk and let me tell you, people swindle, cheat, and steal all of the time.

What brought this home was our new promotion. We are trying to switch to e-mail for all of our communication. Part of the process is soliciting for e-mails at the front desk with free post cards.

It’s really simple. Fill out a slip with your e-mail address and you can take one of the four beautiful post cards by a local Vermont photographer. One e-mail address nets one card. Two e-mail addresses net two cards. Simple, right?

But here’s the thing, after explaining this clearly to three women, one of them immediately filled out the e-mail slip and took a post card. The second swiped a card deftly and proceeded to hide it behind our free catalogue.

“If you could fill out this e-mail request slip, we’d appreciate it,” I asked.
“Oh, I live in California,” she replied, never looking at me with sunglasses to shade her guilt-ridden eyes.
“But if you fill out the e-mail request slip, then you’re free to take the post card. That’s the point of the promotion.”
Silence, evasion, and awkwardness.
She ended up putting the card back and walking away.

The third woman eagerly filled out the slip for her free post card.

And this happens all of the time. I explain the promotion and someone greedily takes two or three post cards. If I’m lucky, they may leave an e-mail address. Today one couple did not.

And here’s the thing, they just looked intent on evil. On disobeying the rules. I knew they wouldn’t care about filling out the slip.

Another guy was friendly as can be, smiled with glee at the news of the promotion, and then swiftly took two post cards in his fat grubby paws.

What gives?

Part of the problem is that we have removed the monetary value of the cards. Filling out an e-mail slip is a laughable barter. It’s almost free, so why not just take it. Dismiss the terms of the barter if it’s already stacked in your favor.

But I see this culture of theft elsewhere. People try to get in free to the arts center all of the time. As if their children are going to starve if they can’t save $8. Posh, I say. Posh.

It goes beyond finding a bargain. It’s deception. It’s trying to nab what isnt’ yours. It’s bending the rules and even by-passing them.

And let’s be realistic, I let people in for free a lot. Trust me, it’s the best way to get the word out about a great institution. But I am truly bothered when people try to pass as members when they haven’t payed their yearly dues. Others try to get in as members on account of being a United States citizen. Yes, it’s been tried.

This propensity toward theft is not limited to art centers. We steal music, software (is your copy of Windows Genuine???), and lesser commodities that do not carry a harsh penalty if there is one at all.

Yes, if you can get away with it, then it must be alright.

And what does this mean? It means that we as a nation have departed from absolute truths. We need to return to morality and rigid moral laws that will guide us to the path of righteousness. Yes, more truth is what we need. Bigger, better, badder, louder, more obnoxious truth that stares us in the face, pushes us around, backs us into the corner, knees us in the gut, and then clubs us on the head with its pure absolute moral guidelines and goodness. Oh yes, that is just what we need.

And if you just bought that, you’re even more hopeless than the thieving thieves who are currently committing theft right now.

It really means that we need to acknowledge our brokenness, turn away from our stubborn sin, and seek out God. Stop justifying ourselves. Stop comparing ourselves to the “real” criminals. Drop the entitlement game. Get real about our depravity.

Seek out someone who isn’t muddled in the same mess. Seek out someone who can actually bring change, redemption, and new life. Someone who can free us from our sham freedom that really is just selfishness on a rampage. We need real freedom, real life, and a real God.

And no one, not even ourselves, should be able to steal that.

I have been sitting on this e-mail for over 3 weeks now. And today I can finally post it.

September 13th was the culmination of 2-3 intense weeks of lap top shopping. When I get into a project like this, I can be dauntless, determined, and insufferable.

Julie was often so tired from school that the only time I could talk about the lap top hunt was in bed. So I’d print out the day’s findings and then we’d discuss things until she fell asleep. Usually within 2-3 minutes.

My father-in-law found a sweet deal on a new Lenovo lap top at buy.com. With a $200 rebate and a buy.com credit card, I got the price down to a measely $455. Not bad for these specs:

Lenovo 3000 C100 Notebook — 1.5GHz Celeron M 370,
512MB DDR2,
80GB,
DVD -RW/CD-RW,
Windows XP,
15″ TFT

The problem was that the deal was too good. Too good for Lenovo to keep up with the demand. And so I waited for a week without any word. Then another week passed and I began sending e-mails. Finally buy.com got back to me and said that the manufacturer needed to send them more computers.

To their credit, buy.com got the computer out overnight. I received an e-mail at 4:30 pm on Tuesday and it was in our mud room by Wednesday afternoon. And to Lenovo’s credit, the lap top is pretty nice so far. It received rave reviews and was only lacking in appearance (big deal) and multimedia functions (I guess I’m not so well equiped to play with the tech. junkies of the emerging church).

The keyboard is nice and the touch pad works fine. We use a wireless USB mouse anyway. The only qualm I have is with the joker who swapped the “Fn” key with the “Ctrl” key. I use the Control key ALL of the time for cutting, pasting, and copying. That will be hard to get used to. Other than that, so far so good.

Of course we had to make a big event out of the computer’s arrival, so we let the bunnies have a celebratory meal on the box. Bunnies love cardboard.

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In my effort to prove that Arlington, VT is one of the best places to view fall foliage right now, I present two recent photographs. One from my backyard on Monday around 3 pm and one from route 7A around 5:00 pm yesterday.

You can literally see the colors sweeping onto Red Mountain from the north. There are still plenty of trees with a full complement of leaves that are waiting to change.

Oh, and here are the pictures . . .

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Some of the best fall foliage is in Arlington, VT right now.

There’s a beautiful maple tree behind the ugly Stewart’s gas station, but if you can find the right vantage point there are some beautiful trees to spy up on Red Mountain.

One of the best places is right by Laver Road. If you can walk over to the bridge that goes over the stream, take a gander at Red Mountain. It’s rich with color right now.

Also, our very own back yard has some amazing red and yellow thanks to a number of towering maple trees. You can view them all from the rec. park in Arlington. Just walk around by the playground and you’ll see them in the woods off to the right.

So if you were thinking of driving up or down Route 7 today, shoot off in Manchester or Bennington and swing through Arlington on 7A. You won’t regret it!

Pictures to come soon!

The New York York Times has an article about the evangelical reaction to the Foley scandal: