pre-post-protestant discontent and searching

(is 'pre-post' anything redundant to say?)

Andrew's stirred things up with his post on mega churches again.

I don’t know much about them really. I don’t even come from suburbia. We live in rural USA. FBC is a congregation of around 100 or so on Sunday mornings.

Always a sermon/pep-talk. Always some old hymns. Always stand up-sit down-turn around-shake hands. !0 to 15 minutes of coffee or juice and drive-by ‘fellowship‘. Leadership pretty much like most places. Pastor doesn’t have all the control right now. They let that happen with the previous one though. He did everything. Him and his wife wanted the service planed like months in advance. The church learned from that I hope.

I’m sure there are plenty of relationships going on between folks of FBC. I would hope so since like 1/3 of them are all related. It’s very much, “things have been done this way. We will continue to do them this way.” When it is seen that their needs to be change. When it is seen that the congregation isn’t growing, numerically or spiritually, the order of the service is changed. We’ll add this new program. We’ll call them teams instead of committees. We’ll do a study out of this new workbook.

Singing the same drab songs year after year, setting in the same pews, facing the same ’show’, re-paving the same parking lot, doing the same thing only in a different order, without any growth spiritually has led me to here.

My wife is a young Christian. So am I really. I have two kids with another on the way. We don’t really get out much right now. My kids need to interact with other children. My wife expresses that she needs more than what she is getting right now spiritually. She’s not big on the service either. She enjoys and gets something out of the hour of class/‘conversation’ in that group that meets afterward. I guess I just wish I did too.

The thing is, it’s not just me. The folks that don’t even notice anything wrong. Don’t acknowledge it. So many of them are just attendees of an event. An event that doesn’t do anything more in affecting their lives than coming back to the same event next Sunday. Unchanged. Where change happens it is so minute, even in my own life, that it does not measure up to that which Christ’s Spirit has called us out to.

I struggle right now, not because I am battling on whether or not to go back to FBC. Not because I am angry at God or FBC or all our fathers before us that allowed this to happen. Tozer’s right. It’s no one persons fault. Neither is anyone free from blame. I am guilty of settling for someone else’s drab life as a ‘christian’ or lack there of. James’ words mean more and more to me as I grow. My faith without works is dead where it stands. My life in churchiosity is completely unaffected and therefore ineffective. If it is affected it is affected like it was by drugs. Slowly doing what is cool and feels good becomes routine....gives way to habit....then I’m hooked. My life becomes mere existence because I was sucked into the illusion that I was living to the fullest when I was only really feeding my habit.

I need to physically go face down in the dirt/snow to God and repent for my lack of life. For neglecting my relationship with Him. For mimicking someone else’s bad reflection of Him instead of walking with Him day by day and moment by moment and just being infected with Him.

I stir and I ache in my bones for more of Him. For real face to face relationships with people who ache in their bones. With people who don’t want to settle for a show. Who want to live it.

I want to get dirty! I want to do things that I am not comfortable doing because it is what I must do to love you. I want to learn to start conversations. I want to learn not to preach. I want to learn not to just talk about this and how to get up to do something where and when something needs done. People are hurting all around. I want to learn to be slow to anger. I want to learn to love my wife and kids better. I want to learn what you like on you pizza. I want to learn what makes you cry and what secret fears you have. I want you to learn mine. I want to be ‘post-protestant’. I want to be catholic (little ‘c‘). Both/And. I want my life and our relationship to be full of Christ so that it will infect the community. I want to learn to live and to enjoy living. I want to learn to shut up and listen to..........

everything's going white

I’m typing this off-line at home. I’ll put it up whenever I get back over to my in-law’s.

Setting here in the kitchen in my sock-hat, these huge pants that look like they’re made of shag carpet and my fuzzy baby-blue cardigan sweater. I’m sure I’m a sight to be seen.

It’s cold and arctic like outside. I was supposed to be in Lafayette by 5:30am to connect with folks from work and then head off to Indy to do inventory at a Lowes. Because of the snow and ice I got up about 2:30am and headed out by 4. Didn’t make it too far. Nothing is plowed here at 4am. Not even the high-way. There was no road! Only snow and sleet. It was snowing so hard I couldn’t see from one block to the next most of the time. I came back home while I could still tell how to do that.

I had talked to Phyllis from work last night and she new I might not be able to make it so all is cool! Sucks not getting to work only a couple of weeks into it though. Feel like a slacker. Get to spend an extra day with Heather and the kiddlings though. It’s all good.

how in the world did i miss this?

Thanks Bill Bean for this link.

This is from the January 17th Opinion page in the Indianapolis Star. The Star is Indiana's largest news paper.

Rod Smith
A new definition of church

If you know the name Todd Hunter, former president of Vineyard Church of USA, you might be interested in attending a conversation occurring "live" next Saturday in Indianapolis.

"Live," I say, because such vibrant faith conversations are occurring all the time, all around the world, primarily via the Internet (www.allelon.net, for example). Hunter will lead a discussion about the "emergent church," which seeks to empower people to live openly, to discover authentic community, to empower lives of greater relevance, lives capable of addressing the woes that plague the world rather than perpetuating the problems we all face.

If you've read any of Brian McLaren's or Parker Palmer's books, if you have respect for the work of the late Rabbi Edwin Freedman, or have been challenged by anything Richard Foster and Dallas Willard have written, I know you'll love the dialogue.

Conversations about the so-called "emergent church," about downward mobility, authentic community, loving the world by unusual means, are happening one-to-one, church-to-church and denomination-to-denomination. The emergent church seeks greater relevance to issues of race, poverty and division -- issues that are so often, and ironically, kept locked out of the front door of many faith communities. The "emergent church" represents people of every expression of faith, but it is most visibly expressed in the pursuit of smaller communities. It's a "new" theology, an "open" theology, where participants are trying to grasp what it means to love the world, value the world, address injustice, while embracing and discovering authentic community.

"So this is new?" you might ask. Isn't this what the church has been trying to do for 2000 years?

The conversation typically challenges "top-down" styles of leadership, the mega-church approach, where "the professionals" do everything. It's about smaller-groups, the house church movement and hearing God together. The "new" theology questions the effectiveness of the "Wal-Mart Church" concept ("get all your spiritual needs met under one roof"), where the voice of God comes to the people primarily through the voice of the pastor.

The authentic community cannot be simulated. It either is or it is not. The emergent church is the "church within the church," it is about sharing life and resources and ideas and allowing our lives to significantly impact each other toward greater impact in changing our world.

Pseudo-communities give themselves away. It's top-down leadership no matter what the leadership says it is. There are constant appeals for more group activities, more game nights and fun events so "we can get to know each other." There's constant pressure on the pastor to deliver, to hear and communicate with God, to please people, to keep the offerings flowing, to meet the budget, to placate and please unhappy people with their super-duper programs that will keep their children and youth from straying. Pseudo-communities are "me-first" places, generally seeking to keep the woes of the world out, or at least, not take them home!

Join the conversation from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. next Saturday at Tabernacle Presbyterian Church (32nd and Central Avenue on the near Northside) in their "upper room." No, it is not a Tabernacle or a Presbyterian event. The conversation will occur at Tabernacle because of their gracious hospitality.

Smith is executive director of Open Hand Inc. His column appears Saturdays.

I really wish I could have been at the event. I also think it a significant thing that what is going on has reached an Indiana newspaper. When I first noticed I wasn't alone it seemed that everyone who was thinking the way I am were all in big cities and big states. I am learning that it has spread much further.

What to do locally though? I believe Heather is needing and wanting to stay a bit more involved with folks RIGHT NOW and I believe I am going to have to walk beside her on this. We may be jumping in to the little group that gathers after service at FBC on Sundays again. I question whether it is the best place for me right now, but I do not question that we need to be in some kind of relationship with some folks locally. Maybe this will be something just for Heather to do for Heather. I have a lot of frustration with my 'old home'. I seem to need to separate while Heather needs to remain in a sense. I must put my frustration and hurt to work for me though. Like crap for fertilizer.

As I try and grow past the point of frustration and hurt and disappointment I can not allow myself to slip into a place of apathy. That would not be growing at all. Things are messed up! "...we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward." I would rather be taking action which molds a humble-servant-saint of me than just being a part of talk and theory that produces a theologian.

What I want is change and growth and discipleship for His Church. His whole Church. This community. That community. This home. That home. Not just change for this little family. The thing is we must begin with this little family. I don't know what ACTIONS we will be taking next, but I trust that in God's great plan that while this little family does what it needs to be doing for them we will be a part of saturating the world and this nations homes with Him. I can't plan this. I can't construct the 'best' way to do this. But damn it we've got to do something.

it's time

Lot's of snow and more to come. Taking Mikah sledding this afternoon if the freezing rain holds off.

Not much to say today, but I want to post another quote. This one from A. W. Tozer. It's found in chapter 5 of The Pursuit of God.

For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another’s notions, copied one another’s lives and made one another’s experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed.

It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large- scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return maybe expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now.

I believe the time is now to return. Not only to return but to move foreward.

God is found in the garbage that is _______(enter your name)

I read this in the bathtub today. Made me cry. It is from SoulSalsa by Sweet.

“.......God has this habit of choosing the little, abused, maligned things to do his greatest work. Like planet Earth. Nothing special, this planet called Earth. The more we know about where Earth fits in the Milky Way galaxy, the less special it seems. It’s a planet that goes around an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in an ordinary super cluster. Yet in this ordinary place God found an ordinary town, and some ordinary parents, to smuggle into the cosmos the very being of God.

That is the message of the Gospel. In the least likely of times and places, God does God’s greatest work. Wholeness is not the absence of disease but the creative combination of affliction and health, independence and dependency.

A boat-full of suffering and pain can be either a casket or a cradle.

The links between creativity and pain, creativity and suffering are symbolized in the story of Kopi Luwak coffee, the emost expensive, exquisite, exotic, flavorful coffee in the world. The story of what make Kopi worth $300 per pound is the gospel in a coffee bean.

The Luwak is a rare kind of civet cat native to Java and Sumatra. In Africa th ecivet cat (or more precisely it’s sex glands) is the source of musk, the chief ingredient in men’s perfume. In Indonesia the civet cat is the source of the world’s best coffee beans. A lot rides on the health of these fox-size creatures.

The Luwak has a very picky appetite. You might call it the Juan Valdez of the animal kingdom. It eats only the choicest, most perfectly matured coffee cherries, which it partially digests. The coffee beans then travel through the animal’s intestinal tract and are evacuated.

The hard bean is then collected, roasted, and brewed. Stay in an East Java plantation, and this is the coffee they might serve you for breakfast. For the rest of the world, there are only about five thousand pounds of it available per year to people outside Bahasa, Indonesia - at $300 per pound. The most expensive coffee in the world carries the name “Dung Coffee.”

Nature is filled with “dung coffees.” What is honey? What do truffles grow in?

The message of the gospel is this: God can take the worst and turn it into the best. In the most wasted places, God does the greatest work. God can turn and Sheol into a Shiloh.

Where was Jesus born? What goes in a stable? What were baby Jesus’ first smells on earth?

Where was Jesus crucified? What were Jesus’ last smells on earth?

The classic image of Ash Wednesday is burned garbage. Ashes are more than recycled palm fronds. They are a powerful reminder of that defoliated tree planted in the midst of Jerusalem’s garbage dump, a place called Galgotha, a symbol of cruelty and ugliness and death that at the same time became the “fount of every blessing.”

We coo about the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Artists paint doves sitting on the head of the Virgin Mary. But what is a dove? A dove is a pigeon, a trash bird. Pigeons become “doves” only on paper and out of the pens of poets.

The gospel of grace is a waste aesthetic: there are treasure chests buried in trash cans. Grace moves us from buried trash to buried treasure.”

identity and 'feeling like a homeless outsider'

I’m grateful for Andrew’s post “cant keep people happy”.

It brings me to want to blog about where I’m at right now. Really I don’t know where I’m at though.

We have found ourselves stepping away from the ‘structure‘. Where the ‘structure’ or the church kinda defined for me, as one who grew up going to this same local church, what I was and did as a Christian. I seemed to have lost that identity.

I went through this period of sounding really rebellious against the church over the past year. That is how I defined who and where I was for a period. I was hurt, angry, disappointed and passionate about change in His Church.

I suppose I am still all of those things, but they do not define me any more. I want you to be a witness to Christ when you encounter me. Not a rebellious, angry and hurt disciple.

I do not question whether or not my family is on the right trajectory. I do not question that we were lead to step out.

Personally though, my identity is gone. When I, as a Christian, stepped out I was no longer defined by structure or program. Now that I have grown past resentment and what could have been viewed as rebellion I have lost my self.

I desire to be identified by Christ. By love.

The past year has been really lonely here. This may be a massive movement of God’s people right now, but we seem to be physically alone here. We have had many of you be with us on this journey though. We’ve made it from noticing and acknowledging problems within the church to stepping out and through rebellion and to here because all of you were right there with us. Where ‘here’ was defined by structure and program and event before it is now defined by searching.

In the past five years or so I’ve gone from being a drunken-sedated-pink floydian-philosopher of mundane thought to being a father. Then I returned to trying to follow Christ when I realized I did not know how to love this child as I wanted. Then I became a sober father of two. Then husband. We’ve been all the way to Dallas tracking God.(I’ve never traveled much so that is a very long way for me) Again, we’ve stepped out of the box. Now, we are expecting our third child and I am taking a theology course! A theology course!?

Most of you haven’t known me for long and haven’t even met me in person, but....I’ve found it easy to look at Heather and see that she is not the same girl I knew 6 years ago. Ya’ know what? I’m not the same boy I was six years ago! Imagine that!? I have been and I am being transformed. I have been forgiven much! I am much loved!

I think I want to ask all of you a question. Or at least let you know the question that I am asking now.

What now? What does my family need to be doing? We are called to not forsake the gathering of ourselves together.

I don’t know....

I am not a leader. My little family needs mentors. I don’ want to go ’church shopping’, but my family needs tangible fellowship. We don’t have much of a social life. There wasn’t much for fellowship or relationships at our local church, so that isn’t something we’ve lost from stepping out. We plan to make pilgrimages to be with many of you. We plan to be a part of regional gatherings with the folks at Vineyard Central. We are hoping to move to Indy to be in relationship with Riley and Bill and those who are IndyChurch, but we don’t know what to do now. We need something daily-weekly-monthly. We need to take on some spiritual practices. We need to be discipled!

I AM NOT TRYING TO BE IDENTIFIED BY A NEW STRUCTURE OR PROGRAM OR EVENT!

I guess I’m just asking you to pray that God would bless us with some relationships locally. Please pray that God would show us and we would see what we need to be doing right here-right now. That he would show us what we should not be doing.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a Bible study? Suggestions for something Heather and I can do together daily or at least regularly?

Spiritually, as a disciple, although I’m almost 26 and grew up in the church, I feel like a teenager that has been trying to be a grown up too fast. I am my own person, but I am still a young disciple and have much to learn. Pray that I would be patient and content with my place on the journey and yet still press on, out and in.

(Weird! As soon as I finished writing this I heard one of the children on PB&J Otter say, “Mom, is it ok while I’m growing up and all that I can still be a kid?” :>)

ps - I still want to be in Texas ;>(

still here

Started work last week. It's going well.

Also began Old Testament 101 from SemiNEXT. Looking forward to getting more into this. I think it will help me better understand the New Testament. Thanks to Shannon for encouraging me to do this and for helping me to get the recourses I needed.

Mostly just enjoying my family and getting in to the routine of working again. Sorry I haven't been very much involved with ya'll. You really notice how much your own input has to do with you being a part of a community when you stop contributing. I'll get more in to this when I find my grove.

Eric Keck, I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to meet at Mayhem. George, thanks for the encouragement and the link. I'm adding you both to the blog list.

cafe hookah

New Cafe Hookah offers ethnic alternative on west side

'Cultural infusion' or "devious manipulation of people's social desires"?

Either way, notice the selling point besides tobacco.

confessions not convictions

I like what Leonard Sweet says in Soul Salsa on page 107:

“I try to have confessions, not convictions.”

“I am more interested in relational prepositions than in doctrinal propositions. Relational prepositions are words that draw into/within/among/between/amidst a divine connection. Doctrinal propositions separate people into categories and camps and positions. It’s the difference between faith as a set of ideas about Christ to be believed or a relationship with Christ that is lived.”

trying to get unstickified

I want to unlearn much of what I have learned growing up. Some of the mental pictures I have of what Church is are just wrong. They are hard to shake though.

I need to remember that we are not called to build churches. Jesus said in Matthew 16:13, “I will BUILD MY CHURCH, and even the gates of hell shall be able to prevail against it.”

I am aware that each fellowship of believers will not be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all needs. There is no reason it needs to be.

We have been called to ‘make disciples of all nations’. Trying to build one-stop-shops’ or structuring things in such a manner that we are not engaging the culture and the community in our daily lives as the Church means we have become a ghetto and/or an institution and not living expressions of God‘s love for the World. Whatever it is that keeps me and keeps us from engaging the community must go. Any way of doing this that keeps us from engaging each other in an intimate fashion as to truly deal with each other’s crap and truly love one another is short of what it is called to do.

My life in Christ should always be viewed as foreign mission.

Being a Christian should be defined by whom I serve and the lifestyle that is that service.

My life as mission. Our lives as mission. The Church as the mission. No project. No construct. Nothing but our lives, in and through Him, engaging our communities.

If a ‘worship service’ has become the focal point of our lives as the Church and where so much of our time and energy are thrown while the world and people are dying around us and if we are buying, consuming and throwing away as much crap as the rest of the nation we need to look at the life of the one we worship and see if that really models what He has laid before us to do. I think we need to speak to The One who is in our midst about what worship is.

One thing that I am completely swinging on is discipleship. My need for it. My family's need for it. It’s what happens when we are edifying each other. I believe that if this is happening in a fashion that is authentic it will involve engaging the culture and community around us. I believe that when this is being done Church happens. Christ is there. I believe that to question whether Church planting is needed in the West is silly. Church planting and growth will happen.

Being part of the Church, I repent for doing things out of fear instead of out of faith. I repent for trying to do them out of my own understanding. I pray he leads me to turn and look at where He is working and how He is working in the lives of those around me. I pray, out of faith, I join Him.

stuckness

“I have a lot to learn as a disciple of Christ. I live in a small town and I have just recently started to search for my place in the Kingdom. My families' place. We want to serve so bad. I've grown up sitting in my pew and now that I want to get out and serve I feel stuck.”

I found that in an email I sent someone a while back. It rings true today as much as it did then.

makes me proud....

.....to be in the same Kingdom. This is a pic of my cousin Asa with one of the beautiful little children from the orphanage he is helping at in Bogata, Columbia. Check out some more picks here.

Truly a guy with the heart of Jesus for these little ones.

a gift

Since I didn't walk away from it with written notes, but only experience and some mental notes, go check out Jeremiah Smith's notes taken during Mayhem. Incredible! (thanks to Alan for the link)

Favorite quotes from Brian:

"I'd like to start a new movement called Fundamentalism. There are only two fundamentals. Love God and Love your neighbor." ----and---- "Success is trying to learn how to love people."

not alone indeed

It was so incredibly good to meet so many people this weekend. People I’ve been speaking to online for a while. People I didn’t know from a whole in the ground and people that I have only just heard about. It was amazing to me how many people showed up. Amazing! Their expectations went from like 180 people to 260 or something like that in just the last few dayz. Very cool that it was pointed out that almost everyone heard about it through word of mouth and word of blog. Very reassuring to me. Also reassuring that so many people from all over the country and Canada expressed that it was the ‘you are not alone’ theme that drew them there. That says so much. It also says a lot for the variety of backgrounds folks were coming from and all differences were set aside to put the Kingdom first.

It may seem mayhematic (don’t think that’s really a word, but I like it) from our point of view, but I think it is obvious that the Kingdom is at work. If nothing else, I walked away from this experience being reassured in the hope that lies in that.

I pray God works in the midst of the relationships that were begun and enriched this weekend.

from Mayhem to mayhem

Made it home safe from Cinci. I actually stopped off in Indy to check out a the hockey game with Heather and her mom and brother before finally arriving. Hockey fans enjoy the fights more than the game I think. Game was cool though. I think we’ll do that again.

I don’t know how to put too much into words about Mayhem. Brian said something like, and this isn’t an exact quote, “you are not a failure that is all alone. You are here with a whole bunch of failures.” I think that about says it.

Some concepts that were brought up that stick in my mind are being ‘post-protestant’. That is - Not being a protest against that which we view as being faults with other church groups. I interpreted that, for me, to be about focus on who I am and who we ARE and what we are about and for and not what we are against or what we think is better about how we do things, but instead focusing on our doing coming out of our being. I think it comes down to being a matter of the heart. The fact that I do things different and say things different and the way we do things looks different some are going to view what is being done as a protest. But that doesn’t matter what they think really. It’s a matter of my motives and where my heart lies. I think that has been an issue for me. I’ve worded some things in protest:ant fashion, but in my heart it’s just me asking questions and seeing where some change needs to be made. Me searching for what I am to do.

I have those around me who feel that it is all about protesting though. When I seem to get that so much I have begun to question myself. I know some would look at separating to plant a new church that is doing things differently as the same thing that has been going on for years in the Church. I disagree. First, I don’t look at it as separating. I didn’t think there were separate teams to leave and join. I thought we were all one. Second, I think we need to wake up! All of us. I think those in my church experience have never looked at ‘church’ as being the mission. Our lives as being the mission. We do the thing where we send money or some well-gifted person over seas to ‘do mission’, but to me that’s almost like watching James Bond to be a spy. I guess that’s not the best way of explaining that. Brian talked about going to Epcot Center to experience Norway. It looks cool. You think it feels like being in Norway, but you don’t get the frigidly cold temps and the 16 hours of darkness. You don’t get all the crap that comes along with actually living in Norway. I believe that’s the way I’ve done, or not done, Church my whole life. I’ve grown up in this Epcot version of community. We talk about being one and doing this project or service because it is ‘for the group’. Whatever. I’m sure a few of the ‘leaders’ have to deal with the crap in other peoples lives there, but the rest of us just don’t. We have this few minutes where there are prayer requests and we hear about what is hurting one of our brothers or sisters, but we don’t live life with them to know what really bothers them. We see them on Sunday in their best dressed and pretty smile and say hi and maybe even set and talk for 10 minutes during ‘fellowship’ time around the coffee urn. We never get to experience their crap. You never really get to smell mine. Ya’ know? We have Sunday school and/or bible study one night a week for maybe an hour, but it is generally all ‘directed’ conversation, so you don’t get to know anyone real well in that context. Where are we being discipled here? Are we really doing what we are supposed to be doing in this context? I don’t know. I’m not trying to be protest:ant here. Just thinking in text.

So what are the Miller’s going to do?

Brian also mentioned ‘self evangelism’. He spoke of a friend who when Brian asked if he saw himself as an evangelist the guy replied that he was indeed an evangelist. He had been trying to reach himself for Christ for some time he said. That kinda opened up a lot of thought for me. We talk about God blessing us and also us being a blessing. Our blessing to other’s coming out of the overflow of His blessing on us.

I am going to speak for me here. People scare me. When I started high school I used to hide in the bathroom or the library to avoid having to choose which table to set at during lunch. I was afraid of being rejected by what ever click happened to view that table as theirs. I went to lunch twice during my whole freshman and sophomore years. No joke! Staying in my recent church context is too safe for me. It is sterile to the point of being toxic to me. Does that make sense? It completely works against my being discipled. If I am not discipled and if I do not try and reach myself for Christ I WILL NOT be a blessing. The other thing is that I do not know how to be a blessing on my own. Nothing that is solely Scotty will be a blessing. I know that I need His Church. I need you and Him and You in Him and Him in You and me to grow. To be filled. To be filled to the point of overflowing. To be a blessing.

What are the Miller’s going to do? Daddy is going to stop focusing on problems with the church. He’s going to focus on what he and his family is as the Church. I am going to love my family better. Every day damn it. And I will not stop. Man my focus has been off for a while!!!! And (I was going to say ‘also‘, but loving myself and my family properly is not separate from this), so I just say And this includes pray for you. Praying for existing relationships and those that God will put in front of us. We need them. We do feel alone. Right now we feel alone while we are alone, but I think that is a lot better than being alone in the middle of a group that is supposed to be family. At least that makes sense.

Concepts that will not leave my head that were discussed are:

monastic-missional-catholic (small ‘c’, but including the larger ‘C‘)-community

We are not called to build churches

-called to love one another and God
-called to make disciples of ALL
-called to not forsake the gathering of ourselves together in Him

Wanting the map set out before me before I head out on the journey I want to know what that looks like. LOL :^) This weekend reassured me that what God is calling this little ragamuffin family into is much more than theory. It is messy. It is mayhem!

But off we go....

Mayhem

Getting ready to leave for Cincinnati. There's a good question over on Bill's blog -"What does one do to get ready for Mayhem?"

I may not be alone, but I'm comming by myself. Heather has decided to stay home due to the morning sickness and such. Please pray for her. Please pray I am able to fuction without her for a couple of days.

Peace to all and please pray we would have safe travel.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

I just realized today that Heather and I havn't had a cigarette for over a year. Very kool!!

I've come here to post a couple of other times today, but I just didn't have anything I felt was worth putting down. (Not worth putting down? What does that mean anyway? How am I measuring that when I think it?) I have the itch to change the settings so only the next posts I right can be viewed. I feel like clearing all this out and starting with a clean slate. Whatever that means. I'm not sure if it's that I don't want you all to read previous posts or if it is that I don't feel I've said, in recent posts, what I wanted to say. I don't know.

I think the key phrase was, "starting with a clean slate". I so much want to be a blessing to people. I want to be a part of peoples lives. In close relationship with you. I don't know what I'm trying to say....

I've talked so much about wanting to be raised up as a leader in his ever-emerging Church and the past months have opened my eyes to how much molding needs to be done with this ugly piece of clay we call Scotty.

I want to be a part of...I am a part of you-His Church and I just have so many more questions than any thing else.

[I sigh while shaking my head]

I so easily look at you and have so much to say to try and lift you up. So much I can point at in your life and say that is good about you. I so much want to look at myself and say, “you’re a good, successful person.” [shake my head again] I stop and think again about what my ideas of success are. I realize I’m doing pretty damn good.

I recall that it is not my own glory that I look to achieve in life.

I guess I just get tired of feeling like I run in circles struggling with the little quirks that are me. As goes life I suppose....I stop and think that maybe it’s that I would like to walk a little closer to the Lord than I do. Pay a little more attention to Him. Talk to Him more. Ask Him what He’s up to. Ya’ know?

I am thankful for being able to go to Mayhem tomorrow in Cincinnati. It is good to know that we are not alone. We wouldn’t get very far if we were. I thank you all for lifting me up as you do. I wish I had every one of you a little closer to me. Geographically I mean. You come a little closer relationally as time passes and we keep walking with each other. This is just what I want with our Abba. He does so much for me and is always right here and I take such little time paying attention to Him. I feel I barely know Him. I hope I begin to walk with Him a little closer, but I pray I always realize I can know Him better. I pray I always desire to walk a little closer.

(I think I will change the settings. It’s my blog ya’ know. Click on the archives if you wish to read something that was here. I decided I wanted to change it for me. ‘Cause I can. :^)

The Pursuit

“In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: ‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?’ This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it.”

“If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as always God discovers Himself to ‘babes’ and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.”

“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I’ve come to realize that I have not been letting the Lord be the ruler over my heart and life. When I came to the realization that the world could not provide for me what I needed I began to be crippled by fear. I, a child of God, had been trusting in myself and in the things of this world to provide for us. I had put in the ‘temple’ of my heart things other that God.

My God shall be the Lord of my life! All else shall GO! I shall love all, but none outside of my love for my Father and His love for me.

I pray along with Tozer, “Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all Those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

I press on in pursuit of my God and realize that knowing him will only come through an intentional-intimate-life-long relationship that was and is initiated by Him.

together

Everyone, please go read the first January 6th post here.

I have tried and tried to say this myself many times, but could not find the words.

Thanks Riley

Guess What!

First off I want to apologize for my last few posts. I suppose I needed to vent. I let my fear almost get the better of me. Being broken does make me focus my attention more on my relationship with God though. And like Heather says, sometime I just need smacked around. :>)

Anyhoo, I got a job!!! Yea! Starting out it doesn’t pay the best, but it will put food on the table and pay the bills. I feel sooooo blessed by it though! GOD is good! Thank you for your prayers! I drove 35 miles this evening to Lafayette for the interview in some not-so-good weather. I drove home with the biggest smile on my face. Every few minutes I would yell, YEA!!! The cherries on the top of it are that I still get to go to Cinci this weekend and to the Indianapolis Ice game Saturday night with Heather and her mom and brother. Plus if and when we move to Indy this job will transfer. YEA!! I’m so excited. I’m also going to go Wednesday to a Starbucks open house in West Lafayette. They are hiring for a new store opening. I’ve never worked a service position before, but I have always wanted to work at a coffee shop so that would be really cool. Plus Startbucks would give us the insurance we need and would surely be transferable to Indy too.

I’ll be working for RGIS doing inventory. A bit of traveling, but that’s cool by me. They are really flexible with the schedule too. So if I got a part time job with StarBucks I could still work there and fill in the gaps. Either way...I GOT A JOB!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!

Thank you all sooo much for your continued prayers for us. We love ya all. A whole bunch!

And please forgive me for my lack of faith at times. I know how much I am unable to do and that He can, but sometimes I just can’t get my head off of what I can’t do. Forget to hurry up and give it to Him before I get all beaten down by it.

Peace and Love to you all.

WOOOHOOO!!! (doin’ a little dance)

Moving forward

Forget the last two posts! I'm moving forward!

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me, I wish none of this had ever happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given.

But please, may we all still pray for eachother. I'm thankful we don't journey alone! :^)

PS

I realize the past has been placed behind us and we are moving forward. This family will always get up and move forward!!

It’s just been a while since I’ve worked and we’ve been struggling for a bit with the money and job thing. Heather and I know that she is probably going to end up being the primary bread winner in the family, but we can not pay for her classes until I get a job. And then you figure in the felt need (don’t get stuck on the word ‘felt‘. It‘s just the one I chose to use) to move away from here to Indianapolis and it just seems so out of reach.

Some can’t understand why we are still thinking of moving away with the baby coming and all, but it is on us to be a part of some folks’ lives that do not live here. We desire to step out of the ‘tradition’ I’ve grown up in and be a part of what he is doing in Indianapolis and beyond. We can not be just the Miller’s. We must be an active part of the Church’s lives. This is more important to us than anything. It is not separate from taking care of our family. It is the best thing we can do for them, to try and follow Him.

And another thing-If it is to be that we do not move from this town we WILL be doing a LOT of traveling. A LOT!

I thank I might be Crazy!

“I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.” Phil 4:13

“For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you.” 2 Cor. 5:13

I must admit to all who know me, including God, that I am scared.

For whatever reasons we can barely remember we moved into my parents place. We have been here for a bit. Even staying here we’ve struggled financially. We have to admit that having this safe haven to stay has caused us not to step out as we should as people of faith and as parents. (not that the 2 of those should be viewed separately) We no longer feel that we have the choice but to step out on our own.

Heather and I had Mikah pretty young. I was 21 she was 17. (some of you probably didn’t know that I’m sure) We were both pretty into drugs when we found out she was pregnant. Literally a sobering experience for us both! After Mikah was born we lived together in Indianapolis before we were married and became pregnant with Kiara. A while after we found out we realized we needed to move back home. Humbling. We were married in July of 2002. Kiara was about 9 months old.

Mikah is now 4 and Kiara is 2. I am thankful for this time that I have been able to ‘awaken’, as it were, from my few years of drug use. I stopped growing up the moment I started using I think. It’s been good to have the safety of our folks’ homes to raise our kids for the first few years of their lives. I truly believe we needed it, but I believe we are beginning to stay past the time necessary and it is becoming no good.

I am in a really scary place that many have been before. Getting ready to step out into the great big world not knowing what lurks around the corner for us. I broke down last night talking with Heather. I admitted for the first time that I just do not know how to care for my family. We have another child on the way and I do not know how to provide for the ones I’ve got. I have not been trained to do anything to get a well paying job. With Heather being pregnant I am the only one who is going to have a job. “How will we make it?” I cried. “I just do not no [what] to do or [how] to do it. I don’t know how to be to take care of all of you.”

From Sweet’s Jesus Drives Me Crazy!:

The apostle Paul, while in prison awaiting death, said he learned the ‘secret’ of smashed rainbows. What’s the secret--the secret of ‘being content’ in any and every situation, the secret wherewithal to endure all smashed rainbows?

Paul’s secret is this: ‘I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.’ -Phil 4:13

The secret is the three-letter word all. A secret so simple, yet so complex, so mysterious. ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’ If you are Christ’s, ‘all things are yours.’ God wants to do in your life ‘above all that we ask or think,’ and God will supply ‘all your need.’

Because of the all word, God adds an apostrophe and an opening to that word impossible: ‘I’m possible.’ When the rainbow is most smashed is when God is at work I you and perfecting the divine in you.”

“This three-letter word transforms whatever your manse into mansion, whatever your Sheol into Shiloh. Because of this word, we can praise God for every side of life-for friends, lovers, art, literature, knowledge, humor, politics-and the little red cloud away there in the West.

But all the all promises cling like Krazy Glue to this one verse: Is Christ your ‘all and in all’? When Paul talks about God being ‘all in all,’ he recognizes that God is already ‘all.’ It is our ministry to put God ‘in all’ so that ‘all things are subject to him’ and he will be ‘ all in all.’ Is it your prayer ‘that God may be all in all’?”

“All reminds us that God likes to appear in strange and unlikely places. All tips God’s hand to the divine penchant for working in our lives and world in ways beyond our comprehension. Like Jacob’s dream ladder, where angels were ascending and descending and God was speaking -‘Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go’-we too awake from sleep and say like Jacob, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place-and I did not know it!’

You know how much you love and care for your kids. You want to give them everything that is good for them. Do you think God would treat you, a child of his, worse than you, a parent, would treat your own children?

God’s possibilities are endless. NUTS disciples dream big. Little dreams have no magic. The crisis of faith today has more to do with imagination that with intellect. The Greek myth of Prometheus had humans stealing fire from the gods and being punished for it. In the Christian tradition, God gave humans the fire and rewards humanity for exercising its call to dream-to be creative and continue his creativity by dreaming his dream for the world.

Jesus calls us to refuse to accept life on the terms offered us by smashed rainbows. We are not called to make our own terms in life. We are called to make God’s terms with life.” pgs. 127-130

I don’t know how to care for my family as I should, but He does. I pray He helps me with my faith.

I pray that He will give me the faith to step aside and that I can give him my all. To give him my family. My self. My need for a job. My breakfast. I give Him our dreams. I pray they are His. I pray that I can be a creative expression of Him, here and now. I pray that I may love. I pray for relationships. I pray for you and you living out His dream.

We have been given each other and I know that I need you.

May I live with a little more imagination and more through Him every day

I pray because ALL my hope is in Him! I can do nothing without Him!

Warrior Swanz and Spirit Candy

No. It's not a new musical. We have been given the gifts of two new blogs by two of my favorite bloggers for the new year.

Brad has blessed us with WarriorSwanz. He says, ""WarriorSwanz" is based on a story from The Silmarillion. It honors the mythological memory of these swans who served, explores the courage of journeying Elves and others, and mines as opals some truths behind Tolkien's mythos. (Be sure to read the archived first entry in December 2003!)"

We have been blessed by Andrew with OurDailyBlog.com. He calls it "Spirit Candy for New Media Pilgrims". It is a daily devotional site using "Imitation Of Christ" by Thomas a' Kempis.

Go check 'em out!