Hello friends!
I may or may not have something else later today, but I would be remissed if I did not mention that my wife has thrown her hat into the blogging ring, and that you should become a regular reader and commenter.
http://sarahfett.blogspot.com
See you soon.
J
As I noticed earlier this morning, I have yet to officially review the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, and this is an absolute shame. Honestly, it's been one of my favorite books of the last year. I finished it a while ago, but I'm seriously considering going back in for a re-read. It's that good.
The book follows Don as he begins working on plans for a movie about his book Blue Like Jazz. (Side note: what could be my only real complaint about the book is that there's no mention of when said movie might come out. I'll be first in line I can assure you!) Some movie producers come to Don and being working on a screen adaptation of the book. Don starts noticing that the producers are saying the story of the book needs to be updated a little bit if people are going to spend money on it. In other words, it's not interesting enough. This would probably be all well and good except Blue Like Jazz is a memoir, so to say the story isn't interesting enough is to say that Donald Miller as a person isn't interesting enough.
And that's when things get interesting!
The book centers on Don editing his life, trying desperately to tell a better story. Through it all, Miller challenges us to live a better story. He questions us the whole way through the book, wondering if living the way we're living is good enough for us. Would anyone come to see the movie of our lives, or would it simply be too boring? And he does all this questioning not as a high and mightier than you author who has an idea about life, he does it at someone who has tried to live a better story, succeeded, and invites us all along on the journey.
This book has in recent months has changed my world in a variety of ways. The biggest (and most evidently successful) was our confirmation class this year. Rather than trying to just flat out teach them things, I did my best to invite them into the story of God. I'm trying to get on my bike a bit more and lose some weight. I'm trying to teach our youth group to tell a better story with their lives. The moral of the story is whether you find yourself working in a church situation or not, this book is incredibly relevant to all of us!
Pick one up at Amazon today!
Grace and Peace,
Jason
First of all, I'll have to dig a little bit further through the blog, but it seems as though I never got around to reviewing A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller. This is a travesty! I'll get right on that this afternoon, but in the mean time I'll sumerize by saying you need to get to your local book store and read it. Now. Go.
In the meantime, enjoy this humorous video. H/T to Stuff Christians Like.
God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature (Genesis 1:26)
After yesterday's blog post, and reading a quick article on Relevant magazine, I discovered I might have a few more thoughts to weigh in on the issue of race and the church. Forgive me if I'm a broken record.
One day during confirmation class this year I held an open Q and A with the kids. One of the first questions that was tossed out was "Was Jesus white?" I wasn't exactly thrown off by this question. If you walk the halls for even a little bit at Westminster you will find several (dare I say tacky) paintings depicting a Jesus I've grown up with all my life. He's got long hair, a stylish beard, a beauty contest sash, and skin that is (somehow) whiter than my own. I could understand why the student might be confused. I spent a little bit of time talking about how Jesus came from the middle east, and actually (almost a little ironically) would have most likely looked like one of the people we have so quickly labeled enemies.
That almost always gets people going. To think that Jesus would have looked like a member of the Taliban.
What scared and perplexed me even more was last week when, following confirmation Sunday, that same student and I were walking the halls by my office. He stopped and stared at a painting of Jesus for a couple of seconds, and asked me if I was sure that Jesus wasn't white. I said "I'm certain of it." And his response sent chills up my spine.
"Then why do we have some many paintings of this guy?"
As I said in the post yesterday, the emergent church is not alone in it's segregation. The Relevant post correctly points out that the most segregated hour in the United States is on Sunday mornings. We go with people who look like us. We do more than that too. We go with people who act like us, who think like us, who talk like us, who vote like us, and who flat out are like us. Westminster is no exception.
The danger in this movement in the church is that we are more likely to have pictures (both physical and mental) of a Jesus who doesn't at all match the glory and grace of the Jesus proclaimed in the Gospels. Being white is one thing. But what if we start to assume that Jesus would vote for our favorite political party? What if we start to imagine that Jesus would worship with a guitar in his hands? What if we start to assume that Jesus would only hang out with people that look like us? What we're doing in those situations is that we are creating God in our image, rather than the other way around.
Like I said, Westminster is as much to blame in this situation as anyone. But it doesn't have to be this way forever. One of my favorite scripture quotes comes from Ephesians: (make) every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." If our churches are segregated, then we are not making every possible effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit. So let's start! Even if we're lone voices in our congregations, we still need to make every possible effort to maintain unity. So let's start today!
A lot more coming today. The brain is spinning!
Grace and Peace,
Jason
Hey friends,
By no means do I pass myself off as an expert in the Emergent movement, or Emergent Theology, or whatever you might call it. But I do have a passing interest in the emergent conversation, and so when I saw a few articles today that caught my attention, I thought I'd pass along some thoughts on my very-seldom read blog.
First, Sojourners had an article in it's magazine titled Is the Emerging Church for Whites Only? Frankly, this isn't a bad question, but it might be limited in it's scope. As I read I realized they were correct on a number of points, that most of the "leadership" (we'll address this later...) are white men. Even if you don't want to label a "leadership" group for the emergent movement, certainly most of the authors and vocal proponents of emergent are white dudes. I haven't frequented many emergent congregations, but my take on the ones I have visited is that it's mostly white people. Sure, this is an issue, and it certainly should be looked into. But I would argue that the problem extends well beyond the walls of the Emergent Church. I work at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper Saint Clair, which is about as Emergent as a five point theology lecture. We're also incredibly single sided when it comes to race. We are predominately white. By no means am I celebrating that fact, or making excuses for the Emergent Church. I'm simply saying that the problem extends well beyond the walls of that particular group. I agree that we need to take action on this, but I think first we're going to have to examine our hearts and figure out what the best action would be.
But then, Tony Jones through his blog wrote a couple of responses to the original article. Now, I think Tony is an amazing thinker, and an incredible theologian. However, I think he may have overstepped himself a little bit in these articles. A few thoughts just in case Tony's reading along with us:
Grace and Peace,
Jason
Greetings friends!
When was the last time you too some time to celebrate your ministry? I feel like a lot of times as youth pastors we work on encouraging each other, trying to tell each other that though our jobs might suck at times, that it's for an important purpose and all of that. This is all very true, and incredibly necessary, but I wonder if we're also spending the appropriate amount of time celebrating.
Case in point: This weekend was HUGE for us at Veritas. Friday and Saturday we took our leadership team (both students and adults) on a retreat to work on some system upgrades for our program. It went swimmingly! We worked through a series of small but effective changes to implement into our program. Nothing that's going to stress us out too hard, but at the same time small changes that will make a TREMENDOUS difference. The weekend left me feeling energized, encouraged, and ready to get to work on making a better youth group for our students and their families.
Sunday was Confirmation Sunday. Unlike last year, I walked away from Confirmation class feeling super encouraged and energized! It was an amazing group of kids, and the few subtle tweaks that we made to the system wound up working just as well as could possibly have been expected. On Sunday, we capped it all off by having the kids read their statements of faith and doing some storytelling for the whole congregation. It was an incredible time of worship for me.
At one point on Sunday, while I was walking around in the bowels of the church, I did a quick little jig. It had to happen. There was too much good going on! I had to dance, and I didn't care if anyone saw me (though thankfully no one did).
When was the last time you danced over the things that were going well in your ministry? When was the last time you recognized how well things were going? If you're in a dark season, can you take some time out of your day to search through the darkness and find the bright spots? What would it take to make you dance?
Let's dance together!
Grace and Peace,
Jason
Hello friends!
Just wanted to jump in real fast and let you know that I'm looking to speak out a little bit in the not too distant future. I've been busy with Confirmation and all of that (more on this later), but now my schedule is freeing up a little bit, and I haven't spoken out in a long while. It really helps me keep myself sharp to speak at other people's groups, so I'll do it for pizza or something like that! If you're interested hit me up in the comments!
Grace and Peace,
J