noisyragamuffin

test

2005-12-03T01:17:00.000-05:00

just testing comments

the switch

2004-04-02T23:41:00.000-05:00

After some more looking into the options, friendliness and the potential of Squarespace I've definitely made the decision to switch. One thing that will change about my blogging is going to be more focus on the life and lives that make their way into the posts. For now though-please change ya' links to this 'cause we is movin' on.....

title

2004-04-01T15:52:00.000-05:00

New blog coming I hope. I've been playing with squarespace. (heard about it over on Jordon Cooper's blog)

Don't know if I'll leave this one behind or not yet.

We're off to the children's museum!! I've never been so it'll be as much fun for me as for the kids I think.

update: >>1. We didn't go to the museum. Should have realized earlier the kids were just to worn out and grouchy to go on the excursion. Heather a bit tired and worn and me a bit worn and grouchy too. We stayed home to relax and play together. But hooray for bedtime! >>2. I've decided to go ahead and put the new blog up. No reason to wait really. Time for something new anyhoo. I'll be hanging out there until further notice. Squarespace is pretty new so if things don't work out we will either come back or go elsewhere. For now - here's to new beginnings for noisyragamuffin.

To live to love

2004-03-31T13:41:00.000-05:00

Being sick, Jess’s link and comments on this, watching the episode of E.R. where Dr. Green sees his last patient because he is dieing of a tumor, and just looking around at the lives of those who live in our apartment community reminds me how well I have it. Reminds me to be thankful for what I got. The life that I have. My beautiful family. Reminds me to enjoy my freedom in Christ and not get so stressed about what I am supposed to do with it.

My children are beautiful. My wife is beautiful. The growing baby in her belly is beautiful. My life is beautiful.

What an ass I am to ever take that for granted.

Stressing about bills seems so silly when I think about other people’s realities.

To live to love....

To enjoy the company of a stranger. An old friend. The laughter of my children. My wife’s smart-aleck comments....

To enjoy my life. To live it to the fullest. To love to the fullest. All done in/with/through Christ. That is what my neighbors need. What my family needs.

ginger ale and minestrone soup

2004-03-31T12:34:00.000-05:00

I feel horrible today.

At home and resting.

Just going to spit this out

2004-03-30T14:04:00.000-05:00

(I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe nowhere. I’m typing this for myself. I will probably post it to share my struggle.)

My family has a lot of growing to do. We’ve come a long way though. Through our relationship with Christ and you the Church we have grown considerably over the past few years. The past year we have seen so much of what is important in life to us as individuals and as a family change. We believe we have and still are becoming disciples.

Always learning. Always room to grow.

I’ve said that I’ve come to Indianapolis with no expectations and perceived ideas about what things should look like. Now, we all know that is a little hard not to carry about with us our own ideas about how things should be and what we would like to be doing.

I try and shake off what needs to be left behind.

The thing is - I have in my heart and in my mind the need to reach those in our communities living ‘alternative lifestyles’. (That’s broad, but I think I will leave it at that for the time being.)

I have a heart for all of God’s children and, as Alan put it, His “un-children”. Rich. Poor. Urban. Suburban. Rural. Sick. Well. Pierced. Tattooed. Long hair. Bald. Comb-over. Gay. Straight. Anything-goes. Atheist. Ala Carte. Apathetic. Etc. etc. etc.

I do feel this time for the Miller’s is about our own growth as a family and as individuals. Much rest too. It is never just about “me” or “us” though. Should never be.

I have to think about how to best love my neighbor.

In my conversation with Matt in the comments a couple of posts down I said that I think sometimes we try too hard to look busy. I was preaching to myself there.

I’m asking what we are to be doing as the Church. How does Scotty begin to ’reach’ the community when He himself has soooo much to learn? So many of you that I love and admire and have learned from and I am inspired by have been about Church planting and such for some time. Many of you have been to Seminary. Many of you have traveled the world. So many of your lives have obviously touched so many others. I’m not talking about the quantity of the people but the quality of the relationships and the transformation that has taken place in people lives. The discipleship that has obviously happened.

Oh!

Did I just stumble on to something there? “....the quality of the relationships and the transformation..” “The discipleship..”

I’ve grown up with programs and big events as my examples of ’outreach’ and ’discipleship’. (well, I am from a small town so they weren’t quite so big. But they tried to be) Committees and missionaries doing the work and talking it through for us. Now that we have CHOSEN to live a missional (ever noticed that word doesn’t show up in spell check?) life....Ah....

One relationship at a time. One deed at a time. One conversation at a time. One story at a time. One pizza at a time. One tear at a time.

It doesn’t make me a ‘big-important’ person. It might not look like I’m doing a lot. Will probably look more like I’m playing than I’m ‘working’. Who am I to want to be ‘big’ and ‘important’ anyhoo? I am nothing but a ‘fellow worker’. 1 Corinthians 3

Hmm? Rest!?

(thank you Matt and Geo)

home alone

2004-03-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

The fam has gone to see grandparents and I am here alone for the first time.

Broadband and coffee are my companions until I head off to work around 5 o'clock.

question: who can and who can not see the image to the left? When I add "align=left" to the image tag it doesn't appear in my IE browser, but I can see it in Mozilla. I've noticed that with IE I can view other's images who use the "align-left" in their postings. I don't understand.

another post

2004-03-27T00:35:00.000-05:00

I know I haven’t commented on many of your blogs for a while. I just want to say that I am excited as I look around and see what Christ is doing through the Church. Through you that is.

I read today in “The Emerging Church” about how the US is the fifth largest ‘mission field’ globally and if all the ‘unchurched’ people in the US were gathered together as their own nation they would be the fifth largest nation in the world. WOW!! I cried reading this today. I got emotional when reading about Hudson Taylor. (cant’ believe I’ve never heard of him) It got me right at the heart. I realized I have this heart for you the Church and for the world at large and that my focus has been off. I have neglected my relationship with Christ. I want and do “dream missionary dreams.” I “must bleed missionary blood.” I “must pray missionary prayers.”

My wife and I have chosen to be prisoners of His. We have chosen to be held captive by him and to live our lives on mission. But we still do the things we do not want to do and don’t do the things we want to. He is perfect at this. We suck at it!! I pray that this young family, in serving Christ the Head, you the Church and the communities around us, would stand firm and stay focused. I pray we do not neglect our relationship with Him nor our relationship with you. Doing so would be neglecting our relationship with Him, I believe.

....I don’t really know what else to say at the moment. I love you all.

We are here in Indy to learn and to serve. To laugh and to cry with you. To work and to play. To tell stories and to listen to yours. Other than that we have know idea what we are doing. Our story is an open book.

And I say again....I am excited about what Christ is doing through the Church. Day to day it doesn’t look all that exciting. Not big and flashy that is.

This Sunday we will be driving to the home of a family we haven’t even met to do Church with other people we haven’t met. Honestly it scares me. Having grown up in the Church I know that I can walk in to FBC Anywhereville and I can hide in the corner. I can disappear in the crowd. I know from experience that I can go though a long period of going to that place and never be challenged much. I know my sins can go unnoticed for a long time. I know I can make it in and out with a smile and a wave for fellowship and never have to face my anxiety about meeting new people and opening up my life to them.

Sunday I know there will be no place to hide. There will probably be no crowd. In all probability I will set on a couch next to someone or across a kitchen table from someone and my anxiety about opening up and conversing with new people will have to be faced-by me. I know that discipleship happens in this setting. I know that discipleship means growth and I know that growth means being vulnerable and it means pain before gain quite often.

It’s the little things. The stories. The kids. The praying for each other. The sharing. The dishes. The plumbing. The tears. The food. It’s Christ being in the midst of all that that makes it so exciting. It’s going to be real. Not pretty. Just real.

I’m excited!!

Bless you all

And Peace

sleep blogging

2004-03-26T01:32:00.000-05:00

It’s late. The kids and Mommy are tucked away safely in their beds. Daddy’s up, loving the chai tea. Tired, but can’t sleep.

I’ve tried to comment on people's blogs a few times tonight and tried to send a few emails, but I found myself deleting what I had typed before I would press post or send. Didn’t seem to be saying what I wanted to say. (wouldn’t that be cool if you could do that in conversation? You say something you didn’t want to say or shouldn’t have and you could just press delete and it didn’t happen) Silly I suppose. Maybe just too tired and too judgmental of my own thoughts. Could be I just don’t have the vocabulary to say all that I want to say. Takes too many words. My thoughts get lost in their own translation.

Maybe I should just sleep.

I had something to say-I’m sure of it

2004-03-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

My mind’s been all over the place today. Haven’t been able to focus on the task at hand. Whatever that may have been at any given moment.

The day is done though.

Feeling kinda low but not sure what about. Just feel....blah. Ya’ know?

Think I’m going to go soak in the tub with a cup of Earl Grey and read some Merton or something.

Yeah! That sounds good.

update:: opted not to take the bath and settled for the tea and the book.

monday

2004-03-22T14:05:00.000-05:00

Just woke up about 11:30. I’m doing an inventory of a JCPenny in one of the west-side suburbs tonight. Probably wont get home unitil after midnight. Waking up this late is horrible. So much could have or should have been accomplished by now.

Ah well, I’ve got the rest of the week off to go job hunting though.

Sitting here sipping a freshly ground-freshly brewed cup of Newman’s Columbian Especial. Yummy!! (forgive me if that sounded too much like a commercial, but the stuff is good) Kiara’s laying on my bed watching Jimmy Neutron. She’s got her hands behind her head and one leg crossed over the other looking like such a big girl. She’s talking so much these days. Quite the attitude too.

We enjoyed our time at the Beans yesterday. Got to meet Jim and Syndie Best and their children. Beautiful family. Big hearts.

It was Church. We had chocolate chip pancakes, regular pancakes, conversation and stories, bacon, eggs, kids going every which way, plenty of coffee, scripture reading and prayer.

**(kiara’s sooo cute!!)

Heather and I felt very much welcomed and accepted by Bill and Mollie. Good, authentic, loving people. The kidz loved the experience too. We asked Mikah what he thought of Bill after we got home and he says, “Oh, that funny-weird guy!?” :-)

The Miller clan is settling in.

I'll have to tell him when he has kids

2004-03-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

The day we found out we were getting the apartment we left the complex and went to Wendy’s to have lunch and call to get broadband and electricity set up. (everything else was already taken care of)

Anyway, Mikah says he has to go to the bathroom. The place isn’t busy and we are not far from the bathroom and I’m facing the door anyway, so I let him go ahead and go by himself. His request of course.

Some time goes by and this older gentleman gets up and goes in to the bathroom.

Another minute or two and I’ve decided I should go in and check on Mikah.

I walk in to the bathroom. Sink on the left, stall in front of me and the urinal to the right behind this little piece of wall. I walk in and don’t see anyone. I know there are two people in here and I don’t see anyone!? I look down and see large feet in the stall....you know where my mind was going for that second or two. Finally, I look to the right, at the urinal, and see Mikah SITTING in the urinal. POOPING!!!! LOL!!!

It was the funniest thing I have ever seen! OMG!!!

My little four year old with his pants down sitting on the urinal. The thing was too far up for him to have peed in standing. He had to have climbed up there to get in.

I said, “Boy! What are you doing!” He looked so confused. What do ya do when you’re done pooping in a urinal and there is no toilet paper?

The guy in the stall just busts up laughing!! He says while laughing hysterically, “I walk in. I look at him. He looks at me and I say, ‘Boy, I think you are in the wrong place!’” Then the guy is rolling!!

So the guy passes some toilet paper out and I get Mikah cleaned up and wash his hands and send him on his way. I stick around so I can clean up and the guy comes out of the stall with his face beat red and eyes watering from laughing so hard.

It was great! Wish I had a camera. It was the funniest sight I have ever seen! Oh man!

i arise...

2004-03-17T14:31:00.000-05:00

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

we are in Indy

2004-03-17T14:23:00.000-05:00

The Miller's are moved in and resting. Heather's a bit tired. She's officially grounded and not allowed to do any work.

Kiddoes are lovin' it.

blog more later

peace and a St. Patrick's Day blessing to ya'.

what?/why?

2004-03-13T17:23:00.000-05:00

George had asked about what we were doing in Indy or why we were going.

As far as a job goes my place at RGIS transfers. It will not be enough to take care of everything so I will be doing the job search thing as soon as we get there.

Heather and I lived in Indy for a bit before we got married and we have always talked about going back. (except when we were looking at going to Dallas of course) The past year to 2 years we have changed a lot. The Lord has been busy. It’s a good thing he has big hands otherwise they would be full with us. We have more and more viewed our lives as mission, but as disciples we feel we have sooo much to learn and Heather being a young Christian and I being new to viewing my life as mission and being young parents I have always felt that we needed to be somewhere where we could be mentored or at least in relationship with people who viewed there lives as mission as well. We are placing ourselves down there open to what God has in store for us. We are looking forward to meeting new people and expanding our relationships with Bill Bean and Riley Kern and I am praying that God is preparing a place for us with Indychuch. They seem to be in transition and I would love to be a part of the journey with them.

Really we are just down here to ‘get a life’ really. To live and learn and to share stories with whomever God places into our lives.

Our story has many blank pages and we are excited about what the Lord will have us do.

To sum it up: We have no idea what we are doing!!!! It should be fun!!

phone

2004-03-13T16:49:00.000-05:00

Hey!! I was wondering if any of you have used Vonage before. Positives? Negatives?

Since we're already getting cable internet we think this would be the best deal for our phone service.

it's happening!!!

2004-03-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

We are signing the papers tomorrow. We found a place on the south side of Indy about 10-15 minutes from downtown. Heather and I are so relieved and happy. We've been waiting for this for....ever! Thanks for all the prayers. And please don't stop! This is just the start of a new beginning for the Miller clan. Woo-hoo!!

The place is a little small, but it is pretty cheap and that rocks!! It is going to make that part of the transition soo much easier.

Please pray that I keep my butt in gear. I want Heather to have to do as little as possible in the packing and moving phase.

The babies been kicking a lot more. I still haven't felt it. Every time she calls me over the little bugger stops and then starts up again after I leave. I'll have to catch'em off guard. hehe!

(-: I AM SOOO HAPPY FOLKS!!! :-)

house hunting, soul searching...

2004-03-07T23:42:00.000-05:00

..and continuing to reflect on where I am right now and how I got here. Not dwelling on mistakes mind you. Just being honest with myself about where I am and praying that God will show me the me that He sees.

If I am to be about discipling others I must first be honest about where I am at as a disciple. I must also remember that it isn't so much about where I am as it is about the journey itself.

Also, please pray about the house hunting. Heather, Shane, Mikah and Kiara and I are all going to Indy tomorrow to apply for a place on the South side and also do a bit more looking around. If we are approved for this place and we don't find something that suites us better it will only be a little over a week until we are living in Indianapolis. Woo hoo!!!

PS

2004-03-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

By now you probably realize that I am full of searching questions and struggle off and on in this journey.

Story of your life huh?

In this season Heather and I find ourselves in - our journey has lead outside of our local ‘church’. It’s lonely. It has confirmed to us our need and the purpose for you the Church though.

I can not express enough how much all of you have meant and continue to mean to us.

I question often if leaving was the right thing, but I am reaffirmed that there are things that Heather and I are to learn that we would not have been able to learn there.

Satan…now there’s someone we don’t blog about much. Satan is obviously trying to rape this vulnerable point of our journey and have his way with it, but we press on....

With Luther I say, “’Sir Devil, I am not afraid of you. I have a Friend whose name is Jesus Christ, in whom I believe. He has abolished the Law, condemned sin, vanquished death, and destroyed hell for me. He is bigger than you, Satan. He has licked you, and holds you down. You cannot hurt me.’ This is the faith that overcomes the devil.”

And as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

searching...

2004-03-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

This is not some attempt at being philosophical, but a sincere question I am asking in light of Lent and of looking once again and closer at what Christ did on the Cross.

What does it mean to be a Christian today? What is evangelism? What is a disciple and what is discipleship?

labyrinth

2004-03-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

A local church is hosting a labyrinth throughout Lent. I finally had my first experience today. It was actually set up using the Prayer Path kit which is a collaborative production of Group Publishing and the Labyrinth team which of course includes the infamous Jonny Baker.

A wonderful experience and something I plan to do again before Lent is over and something I hope I get to do again and again throughout my walk. I don’t want to say too much about my experience other than it was just wonderful.

** When I add 'align="left"' to the image link in my post the image does not show up in my blog. It will show up in the post section of my Blogger edit page, but not here. What's up with that? Any suggestions?

the cube

2004-03-01T10:42:00.000-05:00

A colourful online worship resource.

Thanks go to Julie Poe for this link.

‘paralysis of analysis’ and the limit of these very words

2004-03-01T10:35:00.000-05:00

I spent some time meditating and praying on my stuckness yesterday. On what the cross and the suffering means to me. To you. To everyone.

I do not have to understand all nor do I believe that my understanding is a complete view of what is there. There are things you do not see when you look out of a window. What you see is there, but there is so much more out there to be seen and experienced.

First thing is that I have not been conversing with the father as I should be. And I have gotten stuck from trying to verbalize, systematize and sterilize my faith. I have not meditated on the cross and the suffering and the forgiveness for a while.

I read that Gibson said that he wished he could tell people to enjoy the film, but he knew that no one ever did.

I did not enjoy it at all. It was a good film, but between the film, Lent and the Holy Spirit I have not been able to look away from the awfulness of what I saw. What I have believed for most of my life that Christ went through.

I am right. It doesn’t make since. George you are right in your comment. What Christ did, especially since He was God and had the power to stop it all, did not make since to my human mind.

What I put my faith in is this:

While he hung up there, after being placed up there by the ones that He came to love, He forgave them. He knew He would be rejected by the world and yet He continued to love. In life and in death. And on into eternity.

Knowing full well these people, you and I, all that we have done and still do, He loves us. He loves us as we are, not as we should be. None of us are as we should be.

I put my faith in that love. That man. That God.

I pray that I am but an image of that. I pray that I never look away from that again.

No way of doing things. No heavy yoke should I invite people to as part of the Church. Just that love and acceptance. Respect and companionship. I pray for any and everyone’s forgiveness everyday - every moment that I fall short of that. Anything other than that that I try to invite people into as the Church is the very reason they do not come. Anytime I perceive and act as though my marriage is to be anything less or more than that it ceases to grow and mature. I begin to expect things and am disappointed.

I ask Heather and my Abba and all of you to forgive me for doing that and for the things that I am sure to do in a life time and eternity of walking together.

As much as we all need and want a love such as this the world tends to reject it. As I begin to walk closer to and with Christ and more and more I die to myself and begin loving like this the more that much of the world will reject me.

It is a dangerous thing to love.

I am thankful I am not in this alone.

a journey

2004-02-28T16:47:00.000-05:00

When I was in junior high and high school I didn't really see where I fit. Through my eyes I did not see people like me. I would look at history books or hear stories about people who succeeded at doing this or that, but they were not me. I would look at family and church and see those that were 'successful' as being the preachers. That was not for me.

An insecure ball of feelings, deep emotions, desires and superficial dreams.

Rock and Roll!

I would go home and turn on Mtv the radio and hear myself in these people. I was empathetic with them.

I tried to live life similarly to how I perceived those people who I connected with lived there’s.

They were also perceived to be successful. Something that I did not picture myself ever being.

I never did quite fit in with everyone that I got high with. Existed with. They didn't care about anything. I only pretended not to.

We got pregnant

How do I love? Where do I look for success here? Where do I, in my current reality, find someone I connect with or perceive to be successful at loving?

Mom, Dad and Christ

My own experience of love at home mixed with my own experience and all I knew about Christ left only Christ to look to. Our only companion for this new journey. (Christ that I experience in my parents and others as well)

In trying to model myself and allowing my heart to be modeled after Christ's I began to love much more than just my own family. How do I go about helping this world? How do I go about helping The Church? So many of us have missed the point! About life. About love. About the mission of the Church. It's all about love! Doing it and experiencing it. His love in us for each other.

Being the insecure person that I am I have looked for my path to be plotted out for me. I have, subconsciously, tried to mimic your's or his or her life.

I need to return to, not even mimicking Christ's life, but letting go of myself to allowing Him to live in and through me.

"We must become the change we want to see." - Ghandi (and Joshua Rudd(?))

All of my life I have been the little brother. The tag along. A follower. A layperson as apposed to a leader. Never quite fitting in or being excepted. Even in my church. My wife has the same problem in church although she is definitely not a follower.

I pray that God takes me and guides me and my family, as individuals and as a unit, into the mission and purpose he has for us. I know that to be loving.

My ego wants me to stop being the little brother and the one who's different and doesn't quite fit in and to start being a 'leader'. I want to have a degree and a cool job that you envy or admire. I want to be able to write well so you think I'm smart. I want to have something big and profound to say.

Forget all that though. More than any of it I desire that change in me and in the world. And the only thing that little Scotty can do is to be that change. My house a sanctuary. My family a church. Our lives a mission. That mission love.

It's not big and important by the world standards, but whether you are white, black, red, have spots, gay, straight, modern, postmodern, male, female, confused, sick, well, republican, democrat, Muslim, Christian, atheist, Hindu, upper, middle, lower, no-class, Southern Baptist or Catholic, you need love.

"Live simply that others may simply live." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Jesus

after the passion

2004-02-28T12:03:00.000-05:00

(I wrote this Thursday night, but didn’t think I wanted to put it up. I now feel that I need to be honest about my own struggles and questions. My brother-in-law has been asking questions off and on for some time and, though he has not seen the movie he asked about sacrifice. “Why did Jesus have to die? What about people before Jesus? Did they all go to Hell?”

I found when I was faced with Christ’s pain and suffering I was asking the same sort of questions. Especially about those who were not Jewish in the Old Testament.)

I saw The Passion tonight....[long sigh]

As I watched this happen to this man I kept finding myself saying to myself, “This doesn’t make any since. This doesn’t make any since.”

What is it that my faith is in here?

This blood
All this blood
Punishment
Pain
Murder
Sacrifice
Anger
Forgiveness
Greed
Power
Fear
Love

Love....

We say he died for our sins.

What does that mean?

Was it murder or sacrifice?

A death of a companionate and loving man at the hand of fear and hatred and greed is what I see and is there to be seen by all. (that is the fear and hatred and greed of all parties involved. The Romans. The Jews. The crowd of people, who in Isreal would have been a mixed group of people, views and religions.)

Murder(?)

But the loving God I rest my faith in is not about doing this to anyone. That is not love. I don’t see that. That is what does not make since to me when I see all that damn blood and you say, “Jesus died for my sins.”

Christ says that he lays His own life down, but he didn’t just whip himself and climb up on the cross on his own.

This does not make since.

It only begins to make since when I begin to see a glimpse of the whole which is that it is both. Not one or the other, but both.

On the ride home alone(?) I was reminded of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. He had told his brothers he was going to forgive them for selling him into slavery and they questioned whether he was or could really do that. Joseph understood who his brothers were. He was not naïve. He knew that his brother’s, after their belly’s being filled and pocket’s filled with cash, would walk away bickering. He told them that what they had intended for evil the Father used for good.

God didn’t cause Jesus’ death. Sin did. All of it. Christ didn’t save himself from it because he knew it was the loving nature of Our Father to use it.

I was told once by someone while we were talking about engaging cultures that are not necessarily our own that he didn’t thank that God called us out of our comfort zones. If that’s the way ya’ want to look at it I suppose, it is so obvious that following Him will lead us WAY outside of them though.

Christ was a loving, companionate, and innocent man who engaged everyone with open arms and an open heart and we are called to do the same. And He made it clear that if the world did not spare Him for it than neither would they spare us.

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - from John 13:35

Love! Not being the Hip New Church. (that title of that article ticks me off by the way) I’m not learning to pray to a different drummer. I am learning to pray and drum alongside The MixMaster.

The heart that I have right now as a Christian causes me to focus on the whole story. Not the blood and the pain and not just the flashbacks in the movie where you find that it is in the context of those relationships that this pain is put to use and the only place that it makes since to me.

I don’t understand why Christ had to die. I don’t understand sacrifice in the old Testament. I do understand that Love is a verb. God is love. I have my faith in Him. The love to me isn’t that Christ hung on the cross. It is that he didn’t get down because He and the Father are one and He understood that the Father is love and He would not just allow this to happen without using it.

ps - And another thing. If you think I would be pissed about my son being hurt like that you know that God is going to be a bit moved. The difference between Him and I is that He used it for good. I on the other hand would smack the stuffing out of ya’.

this wife of mine

2004-02-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

We were eating lunch today and Heather is telling me about taking Mikah and sissy to the pet store the other day and one of the dogs they held. We started talking about what kind of a dog or dogs we would like and how much we would be willing to pay for one and how much we would be willing to pay if we were to buy a purebred dog or dogs and begin breeding them. Not that we are planning to do this anytime soon, but anyway. My very pregnant wife turns and says to me, “Yeah! I'm all about breeding someday.” LOL!! She didn’t realize what she had said until I about choked on my cherry-coke.

it's all about me...

2004-02-27T15:41:00.000-05:00

just kidding

It's my 26th birthday!!!

Ben and Jerry's Everything But The... and Phish Food, family, internet and bit of the Game Cube.

Heather and Kiwi have the sniffles so please pray for them and the baby. Please pray for Mikah too. We have realized that he is worried about the baby. He has been really acting up the past week or so and it has finally occurred to us that he wants the baby here now because he is worried not just impatient. The little guy's got a big heart and he just doesn't know how to express some of his feelings.

socksual appetite

2004-02-25T16:15:00.000-05:00

I am beginning to think that there is a creature in our laundry room that eats all of our socks.

Lent

2004-02-25T16:12:00.000-05:00

I’ve not paid much attention to Lent before. In thinking about it today I have wondered what went through Christ’s mind as the day drew nearer.

He was alive and sacrificing his life daily through love and compassion in those forty days.

How do you prepare yourself for such a think?

Prayer is all I can think of. The contrite heart Alan points out from Psalm 51.

This time apart from the local church we had been attending, the baby growing in my wife’s belly, the clear and present danger of hormones, attempts by someone I used to work with to evangelize me through email and convince me that I am not saved because I do not speak in tongues, and all the rest of my life experience to date continually confirms to me one thing.......that they will know us and He who has sent us by our love for one another. And not just for one another, as in other Christians, but love of all those who don’t even love us. Those who hate us. Those who just don't agree with us.

What I will do for Lent is reflect on what that really means and looks like to love and be compassionate for all of ya’. Even those who have it out for me.

I have the tendency to be offended and want to argue when someone does not agree with me. That must go out when I flush with the rest of it.

Peace to you .

I hope your day is fully experienced.

ps - Keven Rains has a good Lenten post ...on waiting

you know i'm smiling...

2004-02-20T22:49:00.000-05:00

Regular image host is blocking me for today. My boo-boo. I left the ultrasound pics I was going to put up in a temporary fotopage. Go check them out here.

These photos don't show it, but it appears we will be having a boy!!!!

Estimated time of arrival is August 7th.

He seemed to have hiccups for a spell and was sucking his thumb bit.

Mikah was in there with us. He thought it was "totally awesome"!

ps- we are still going to think about girl names just to be safe...

picture coming....

2004-02-19T12:17:00.000-05:00

pizza and an ultrasound this afternoon!

to you all...

2004-02-18T16:44:00.000-05:00

....blessings and much love.

we're going to paint the town...translucent

2004-02-18T16:26:00.000-05:00

I’m going to take my loverly wife out to dinner tonight.

We have not been out in ages.

::Side thought:: - I can’t wait till we are in Indy. We don’t have any cafes here and I know we both would like to go to poetry readings. I would love to be able to find some good jazz and/or folk playing somewhere for sure.

stuck

2004-02-18T16:13:00.000-05:00

I’ve been so grouchy and stuck in my head lately. Really it’s more like my head has been stuck up my hind-end. Ya’ know?

It stinks up there.

Lost in self-pity I think. A bit of fear maybe. Not for sure.

I do know that for my little fam it hasn’t been the nicest being around me.

That’s not ok.

I refuse to let myself remain stuck here.

I need to let go....

....but first I need to figure out for sure what it is I am holding that is making me this way.

Pray for peace...

brad

2004-02-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

(just holding myself accountable here)

I just realized I didn't do the beta-test-thing for brad that I promised.

This brain of mine. I think I will take a bit of tomorrow to do those profiles for ya', Sir Brad.

update: I just sent them out @ 3:45pm-Sunday. Now I must get ready for work.

Words Without Borders

2004-02-14T20:43:00.000-05:00

I just discovered Words Without Borders... and lovin' it.

Why Words Without Borders?

Along with the myriad ancient virtues of storytelling--giving pleasure, passing time, stimulating thought, connecting strangers--literature is a passport to places both real and imagined. In an increasingly interdependent world, rife with ignorance and incomprehension of other cultures, literature in translation has an especially important role.

Few literatures have truly prospered in isolation from the world. English-speaking culture in general and American culture in particular has long benefited from cross-pollination with other worlds and languages. Thus it is an especially dangerous imbalance when, today, 50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated *from English,* but only 6% are translated *into* English.

Words Without Borders undertakes to promote international communication through translation of the world's best writing--selected and translated by a distinguished group of writers, translators, and publishing professionals--and publishing and promoting these works (or excerpts) on the web. We also serve as an advocacy organization for literature in translation, producing events that feature the work of foreign writers and connecting these writers to universities and to print and broadcast media.

Our ultimate aim is to introduce exciting international writing to the general public--travelers, teachers, students, publishers, and a new generation of eclectic readers--by presenting international literature not as a static, elite phenomenon, but a portal through which to explore the world. In the richness of cultural information we present, we hope to help foster a "globalization" of cultural engagement and exchange, one that allows many voices in many languages to prosper.

yea!!

2004-02-14T13:31:00.000-05:00

September?! I Can't believe I missed this.

Impoverished coffee farmers around the world won a victory when Procter & Gamble, the largest seller of coffee in the United States, announced on September 15 that it would begin offering Fair Trade Certified coffee though its specialty coffee division, Millstone.

Procter & Gamble's agreement to sell Fair Trade coffee came in response to a grassroots campaign by Global Exchange, Oxfam America, Co-op America, the Interfaith Fair Trade Initiative, and socially responsible shareholders calling on the corporation to assist the millions of coffee farmers hammered by the collapse of coffee prices. For the last year and a half, thousands of people across the U.S. have sent letters, faxes and emails to Procter & Gamble demanding that it offer Fair Trade coffee. Now, thanks to the efforts of people of conscience around the country, more farmers than ever before will be guaranteed a living wage for their harvests.

the passion

2004-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

Typing this off-line.

It’s 8:31am. I just clicked to a local news channel when they were flashing some miscellaneous flicks from The Passion of Christ by Mel Gibson. I only saw maybe four shots, but there was just one, that was up for maybe a second, that caused the tears to start. It caused this lump to swell up inside until it burst out. I broke. Crying like a baby who just saw his father hurting and dying and didn’t understand why.

The quick shot was of Jesus’ hand. The nail was brought to it and you could see the flesh be pulled. It was only on the screen for a second or two.

I can’t say that I have totally ever grasped why Christ had to die, but I have committed myself to following after this man. After God.

I have felt like I’ve been in this spiritual slump for some time now. Often feels as though it is pushing me towards the beginnings of depression. It frequently makes me feel as though I am completely lost about what it is to be a Christian.

I know it’s not really a slump at all. It is Him drawing me out of the one I didn’t even realize I had been in. It is me realizing that life with Christ isn’t pretty like the Christian book stores and most of the churches I’ve been in. It sucks. It’s hard. It’s dangerous when actually lived out. It can be as painful as watching those nails go in or as feeling them.

You know we only do it for love.

My friend Mark Thames says it like this, “The more we get to look like Jesus, the more we look less and less like each other and more and more like ourselves.”

It’s a lonely feeling when you realize that you’ve been a fraud. Living this pretty little life claiming to be a Christian. Realizing you’ve been modeling yourself off of the wrong image or images. It’s Christ. The life. The blood. The infinitely-unselfish-all-inclusive heart and lifestyle of God who sacrifices all for me that I recommit myself to following.

I pray I am able to continue to see the passion of Christ through my mixed tears of anger, hurt and frustration for knowing I cannot ever repay Him for taking my place. All I have is me.....

John 15:12-13 - "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

First Fervor

2004-02-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Reading In the Spirit of Happiness this morning in the tub the monks seemed to be speaking to me.

In the second chapter of the book called “First Fervor” the monks speak of the beginning of their spiritual journey and prayer life and compare it to the ‘honeymoon’ stage of falling in love.

“A guest at the monastery was speaking with one of the novices one day, describing his recent conversion to Orthodoxy. ‘It’s been such a blessing, you just can’t imagine! I feel such support from the people in the parish-totally different from where I formerly went to church. And the services, well, they’ve made such a difference in my prayer life! For the first time in so long, God feels very, very close.’

The novice listened politely , having a good sense to recognize that the individual was on a religious “high,” and not wanting to belittle that. He had experienced something similar himself, and he understood that in the context of conversion this is something all of us go through. Yet it illustrates perfectly the dynamic involved whenever we make a serious change for the better. Our emotional reaction is profound and often exaggerated, and we naturally overflow with unbridled gratitude. For a time, we live with a palpable sense of God’s presence, as a pungent and pervasive as the finest incense. We fall in love with God, for a while, everything is wonderful.

So this is a legitimate, powerful, inner awakening that always happens at the time of conversion. The temptation here, however, is to think that we have arrived when actually we are just beginning. Even in a monastery, novices will encounter this to one degree or another as they begin their new life dedicated to God. It takes a lot of hard work to attain a broader perspective.”

Most of you have been on this journey for sometime and I know I do not need to point out to those who have been coming here for a while that for a long period I was on that high. Having discovered that there were new/old, more authentic ways of expressing myself as part of the Church. New/old ways of living life with Him. All the talk about meal sharing, community, and living life together etc. etc..

I was so excited about this new WAY OF LIFE. I was making a conscious decision to step out of a way of life that was not much of a life style at all and into something more real. Something fuller.

The thing is I have not done it yet. We haven’t.

At least that is what I thought.

I think what has happened and is happening is that, and you have read my recent frustrations that past few months, the high has gone. It is becoming a reality that we have not arrived and that this way of life is just that. Real life on the way. It sucks sometimes. Like marriage, life with Christ isn’t this ever-blissful journey like an infinite honeymoon. It takes work.

“The rewards of heaven, and what - ultimately - we shall get from our labors, these monastic tradition leaves to God. It knows that whether we are monks or not, each of us is called to happiness - true happiness - the sort of happiness that stands up to the tempestuous nature of everyday life. This kind of happiness comes only through the integrity and maturity that result from sustained spiritual effort, and not from more transitory pleasures that may come to us in the course of our lives. And though the particular spiritual path each of us follows will vary according to the context in which we live, nevertheless, they are all pointed in the same direction.”

I don’t think I need to say that the glitter is gone from what was once the fresh face of the ‘emerging church’ and what is left is everyday life. Sometimes alone, sometimes with you, sometimes cool and exciting, but mostly mundane, but by choice always lived with Him.

People are rude. Personalities clash. I can really be an ass. But we love merely to love. This is wisdom gained. There is true happiness found in that. When I love for personal gain it is not love and happiness fades when I do not get what I was striving for.

We will love God for God’s sake. No other.

As I am called closer and closer to Him it becomes a realization that the greatest walls between us are the illusions that when I don’t feel Him and life is just not all to wonderful that He is not there. Further growth makes it more and more clear that Christ is always here. No matter what I am feeling or not feeling He is there. Always present. Always a present.

Not that I claim to have reached....perfection already. But I keep going on....I do not consider myself to have grasped it full even now. But I do concentrate on this: I forget all that lies behind me and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead, I go straight for the goal - my reward the honor of my high calling by God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

I like the Message translation:

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me.

Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward - to Jesus.

I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

peace

Mikah again

2004-02-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

The two kids were in their bedroom last night and Sissy just started going on about something. She was really miffed.

I asked Mikah what she was crying about and he said with his hands in the air, “I don’t know what she is talking about. Is that English or is that Spanish she’s talkin’?” :>)

Mikah's ordinary construction

2004-02-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

Mikah was building a little fort in the living room last night that he called "The Castle of Ordinary.” LOL

still 'building' the foundation

2004-02-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

I haven’t been posting much because I’ve been working a lot lately, but also because I don’t seem to think I have much to say.

I made that commitment to make five posts about relationships, but have realized again that I don’t have many locally. Also, do I think that because we don’t do a lot of cool and exciting things that there isn’t much to blog about? I realize that I need to get out of my shell and engage the communities around me, but it bothers me that somewhere in my head I seem to think that ya’ll don’t want to here about my ’boring’ life.

I have realized that I have been too ’protestant’ and done more complaining about problems with this way and that way of doing things and I have not done much in the way of getting to know Christ better and getting to know you better.

(I am reminded of Brad’s question- “what does it mean and what might it look like to be a holistic, 24-7 disciple?”)

I pray that when we get to Indy God will place those people in front of us that need us to be living out our faith with them and for them. There is so much need there. I am sure He has a place for us. I pray that there will be those who push us and encourage us into growth by there lives.

I pray that I continue this current and emerging-focus stirred within to search Him out instead of searching out ‘new models’. I pray whatever you see me and the people around me doing it is all centered around our desire for Him and for loving those around us rather than being ‘pomo-cool’. Construction that is began with the foundation built on the Rock rather than deconstruction founded in….anything else.

Peace

(Ps- I am already tired of the current header and color scheme. It seems very crisp and clean looking to me, but maybe it is a little too much so for me. It will be changing again.)

Indy

2004-02-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

Moving to Indy is coming more and more into reality.

Looks as though we are going to be able to pay off all our hospital bills and still move to Indy very soon.

I am so excited and yet nervous about getting started down there. There are some folks I have been talking to, primarily online, that I am looking forward to journeying with for a while. I've met Riley and Bill, but only for a short time. I'm sure in no-time we will be getting on each others nerves. (an inevitable part of the journey)

Notice how I jumped right from being excited about chillen out with them to thinking about how I will probably get on their nerves. I do this. "What if this? What if that?" I am so tired of that part of me. I just want to start loving folks. Truly loving them. Which means being vulnerable and putting myself out there. I shouldn't worry so much about a person's rejection of me.

family

2004-02-06T09:16:00.000-05:00

It was so cute. I walked in the door of the house the other day after work and Heather was sitting in the recliner with the two kids facing her in their little chairs while she read them a story. The three most beautiful faces all look up at me in unison to say , “hi, daddy!”.

BEAUTIFUL!

Latter, Mikah had made a puppet and was in position behind a blanket covered laundry basket to give me a puppet-show , but he got too embarrassed and just stayed hid behind the basket. Reminds me of his daddy. I’m always hesitant at meeting people for the first time, getting up in front of people and even just starting conversations.

Mikah and Kiara’s fresh paintings are hanging all over the kitchen.

Heather’s been having a lot of needed fun the past few days.

peaceful and uneventful couple of days off

2004-02-04T20:50:00.000-05:00

The Miller’s have spent the past couple of days just chillen out with each other doing nothing.

We all did go to the library today though. The kids love it. I don’t ever remember getting so excited by the library when I was a kid that I did not want to leave. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays they have a story and craft time for kids around Mikah’s age. He thinks it is “totally cool“.

Kiara shares so well with the other little ones. I realize how well she is speaking for her age. She is saying Mikah now. Until a couple of weeks ago she would only call him Buddy. (which we all found very cute of course)

Mikah is four and he is so intent on learning how to spell and read. You can really see his frustration when he wishes he could read a certain book.

Heather grabbed some books on home schooling. Something we feel lead to do, but not totally equipped for. (has or is anyone else doing this? Any good resources you suggest?)

I picked up The Monks of New Skete - In the Spirit of Happiness. Meant to pick up a couple of National Geographics. Must of slipped my mind at the time.

Things I noticed:

-I was the only father

-We were the only couple

-Our kids were very well behaved

-I don’t look forward to Kiara being 3

-My wife is soooo cool

Additional side notes-

*chai tea is so yummy!

*a church in a neighboring town is going to have a labyrinth set up throughout lent with. Looking forward to getting to experience that for the first time.

the red pill and choice

2004-02-01T14:20:00.000-05:00

While I see that I have made some mistakes and putting the title ‘emerging’ or any title for that matter on what is going on has misdirected me, there is a movement of His people towards closer and more authentic fellowship with Him and with each other. I don’t have to leave this little town to know that.

Christ IS alive and moving in His people! My life is shaken and broken as a result.

Fellowship. 24/7 organic discipleship. Meal sharing. Authentic community. Story telling. Life sharing. Love-house-to-house. These are not idealistic thoughts. These are realistic. These are things I desire for my life. These are terms which represent a way of living in Him that is more real than what I have had. These are a part of a lifestyle which I feel called into when I am called in closer to Him. These require complete submission to Him and complete change on my part. They require more of me than I have ever had to give. These are things I desire from living as the Church. These require me to do what I do here in this blog in the flesh. Doing these things scares me. What if this? What if that?

If I were to continue chasing after the ‘emerging’ church I would still be searching when I was in the middle of authentic community. There is no ideal. There is the Church. We can either fake it and pretend that we are the ideal or we can be honest and live in the real. I choose the red pill.

Taking the red pill requires me to be honest about what I do not know. Requires me to start unlearning some old things and learning some new. It requires me to look at who I really am in Him and break the illusion of who I thought I was.

My name is Scotty Miller. Christ loves me. I have the honor of living this life. I am choosing to live it with Him and with you. I choose that I am.

I am committing my next five posts to be about the Church. Not the ‘church’. I will only post about actual relationships. Actual people. My kids. My wife. You. Him.

Why I’m making the transition from going to ‘church’ to ‘being’ Church so difficult.

2004-02-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

At the center is exalting God. Consciously putting Him first and Lord of My life.

God is “not a God of confusion but of peace.” (1 Cor. 14:33) If this be so then the struggle be of my own making. The sin in my life confusing and confounding me.

The term ‘emerging’ has been used too much as a noun when it was and is meant as an adjective. I have been pursuing the noun while desiring to emerge-verb. My intentions were right, but my attention was focused wrongly.

I am a consumer. My 25 years of only ATTENDING church fed that. So, when I read about what so and so is doing over here, and they are ’emerging’, I buy in to it. There is no question that God is doing something. Something is emerging from the ashes of modernism. The problem is that what group A is doing is ‘emerging‘. I buy that. What group B is doing is ’emerging’. I buy that. What person X is doing, and they are clearly a maturing disciple, is ’emerging’. I buy that.

Now, I’ve bought all this. (please don’t get stuck on the term I use) The problem is that A, B and X are all good. They are all right. None perfect, but they are better than the last thing I bought. They don’t fit together though. A is not B is not X. They are all part of the ALPHAbet though. The Kingdom. At least part of it.

As a consumer this sucks. I can’t actually buy it. I can’t take it home. I can’t land on it. I can’t build anything on it. It’s not a solid and tangible thing to pick up. I can’t sit in front of it and watch it.

I am not A or B or X. Not sure which I am. But what A, B and X do that my only attending church didn’t, even though I have not yet met A, B or X, is require action on my part.

To ’be’ an active-growing part of this organic ALPHAbet soup, the Kingdom, I have to begin to ’emerge’ myself.

I have separated myself from the local church group that I grew up with. I agree with Banks that “According to Paul’s understanding Christian life centers primarily around fellowship, expressed in word and deed, of the members with God and one another.” My attending a service and a Sunday school class/Bible study did not provoke or inspire me to change. To grow. I do not engage people! I am a hermit! My frustrations stem from my own sin and from lack of fellowship within the church of my experience. (fellowship I believe, when God centered, is the vehicle for discipleship and edification of one another. It is where the rubber meets the rode in our calling to love.)

Yes, I don’t learn best in a classroom setting. Yes, hour long sermons every Sunday suck. Yes, the coffee sucks. Yes, everyone at that particular church does not ‘get’ me. Yes, there really isn’t anyone close to my own age. Yes, they all seem content with what is there being all that church is. Yes, it does seem toxic to me. But, did I ever invite anyone out for coffee? Did I so quickly leave in my frustration that I did not allow the stirring, the Christ in me, to be a catalyst for something more? Yes, I want to be a part of something more. I want and need it. I need you across the kitchen table from me. I need us living life together not attending events together. We talk so much about being both/and. Am I, out of my own ideas of community making it either/or while I rant about it being both/and?

Right now we don’t have our own home to invite folks to. We live in a town where it is limited on where to go out and socialize. I am in an obvious growth process right now. In this town, in this setting, with these people…..my head finds it hard to change and be the new and emerging me here. I find it hard to do new things in the little town where I have for all my life not done them. I never understood why people had to go to some other far away place to start over. I do now.

pre-post-protestant discontent and searching

2004-01-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

(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

2004-01-27T13:17:00.000-05:00

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?

2004-01-26T17:10:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

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)

2004-01-24T13:44:00.000-05:00

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'

2004-01-22T15:32:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-18T16:06:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-14T14:22:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-14T12:31:00.001-05:00

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

2004-01-14T12:31:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-14T12:28:00.000-05:00

“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....

2004-01-13T15:20:00.000-05:00

.....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

2004-01-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-11T17:26:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

“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

2004-01-06T13:52:00.000-05:00

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!

2004-01-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-05T11:59:00.000-05:00

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

2004-01-04T18:26:00.000-05:00

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!

2004-01-04T17:44:00.000-05:00

“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

2004-01-02T08:40:00.000-05:00

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!

our hope-filled odyssey

2003-12-31T00:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, not sure where all this will go....

Sometime in 2002 the Lord really pressed on my heart to come into a deeper relationship with him and also to see that there were many lives not being reached by my expression of what a Christian is and the Church as a whole in my experience. “What Is Jesus Doing?” I realized was a better question to be asking.

I was attending the American Baptist church that I grew up in. I began getting more involved with Bible study groups and even tried my hand at teaching the senior high youth class. Which Scotty is just not equipped to do when it comes to teacher up here - student down there settings. I didn’t like it that way. Thought it needed to be more leveled out as just a conversation. Blah blah blah.

Word of my passion for those who don’t know Christ reached the mission committee. So, I was on the committee for a bit....yuk!....I got out of there ASAP! It makes me sad thinking about how missions is looked at. What it is viewed as being.

At the beginning of 2003 I began looking to see what Scotty wanted to be when he grew up. I’ve got a little family now ya know? In a search via the internet one evening a want add or something came up for a position with some mission sending agency. After a few links I ended up at the IMB website and somewhere in there was this page with a picture on it where a family was all seated on a couch in a living room. The page was for something about some form of training for cross cultural missions. I remember crying and trying to tell Heather that night about how I just knew that somehow and some way the Lord was going to use us in ‘missions‘. In fulltime ministry....

Began searching for what I might want to go to school for that could be of use in the ‘mission field’ somewhere....

The war was beginning in Iraq. I found a link to Salam Pax’s blog via Yahoo news. After a couple of days of clicking links it occurred to me that this blog thing would be a wonderful outlet for ministry. As Christians putting ourselves out there openly and honestly about our life - our journey. I did a search for Christian bloggers and...hmm (shaking my head and smiling)...the very first blog I clicked on was Tallskinnykiwi. :^)

I think it was March 27th. There was a picture of Bea at the Peach with red hair. I began emailing Andrew almost immediately. It wasn’t long before he was telling me I needed to get my own blog. LOL! I think I was clogging his email box with questions. :^) Even before I began blogging and on into it I was emailing other bloggers with my thoughts and questions and worries and more and more questions.

At some point we were invited down to Dallas by Josh and Kristen Rudd. Then we were invited to move down. The three Rudds, by the way, are the coolest little fam! Josh and Kristen are both the same age as me, but I have OH so much that could be learned from them. There was a long period where Heather and I were sure that was going to be where we were in the very short future. The Lord has other plans as far as we can tell. We’ve been down to Dallas though. The Thames at LGBC are...(sniff sniff)...the most loving people. Amazing! Everyone we met down there...man. (shaking my head) If we don’t ever move down there, at least somewhere close, Heather and I will be greatly disappointed. And we got to meet Shannon and Brad! I don’t even know where to begin with them....I just want to say that...I don’t know. You guyz rock so incredibly much! (and we are really sorry we missed Jessica by something like a week) You are all family.

We experienced a loss this year. (sigh) I’m glad we were in Dallas with all of them when this happened. I know that sounds weird that we were more comfortable there with people we were just getting to know than folks here, but we were so loved by all of them. (Heather really wanted her Mommy though) Dawn....you are an amazing individual!

We are pregnant again! And as Brad would say, “Harooh! Hoorah! Hooray!”

I wont go on to speaking about our worries because I just want ya’ll to know we feel blessed. We struggled, more this year than any other, but we are truly blessed.

Mikah’s almost in school and Kiara is talking like crazy. They amaze me everyday with who they are. I smile to think that they were made in the image of our God.

And Heather....(moment to reflect and wipe a tear)...Good golly! She is the nuts and the bolts the Lord uses to keep this little fam together. The one that grounds me. She kicks me in the rump when I’m being a fool. She is beautiful and by far the most amazing person I have ever met. I have seen Christ’s work in her like I have seen in no other. She is so not the same girl I began dating almost six years ago. The person she has become in and through Christ is so amazing to me. Man! I would truly be lost without her. She is my best friend.

We have taken a step back from our church experience and asked, ”what are we doing here?” and “what are we supposed to be doing?”. Not just “what are the Millers doing?”, but we have really asked this year for the first time and are continuing to discover ourselves along the way by asking, “what is church?” I really needed to take a step out of the boat and look at who and what we are in Christ.

We haven’t been to First Baptist in a few weeks. It makes me sad, but I suppose it’s kinda like leaving home for the first time. We need real, face-to-face, relationships though.

That is what I want for us in 2004. God has blessed us with all of you. We’ve discovered we are Not Alone. Now the Millers need to get on living our life ‘with’ some of you. Some of you we may only be able to make pilgrimages once a year to see. For others we will most likely be moving a little closer to get to journey together with you for a while....

Of course it is going to be everyday kinda stuff we are going to experience together. Well, at least everyday kinda stuff in the Kingdom. Regular human and relational issues being dealt with. I think that’s where relevance is seen by the rest of the world. That’s why I’ve learned that ‘relevance’ isn’t an important issue. If we are living it, together, the way we should....the rest of the world will see Christ in each of us. As we are living together - seeing Christ ALIVE in each of us.

I look forward to seeing the “world in new and wonderful ways, filled with hope.”

I look forward to the adventures we will have on this odyssey.

May you all be blessed in 2004.

*(ps - i still don't know what I want to be when i grow up, but i think i'm just going to go about it searching for 'how' to be)

"'emerging' into what?"

2003-12-27T18:25:00.000-05:00

I think that is a better question to be asking ourselves.

In Alan’s post on Dec. 26 he addresses talk “about the term ‘emerging,’ referring to the emerging church.”

A few quotes:

“trying to get to the heart of the matter - what IS the church? Why is it here? All the answers we have EVER been given are on the chopping block - they won't do simply because they are there. So, we lay them all down and we pick them up one by one and ask, "why is this here?" - "is this legitimate?" - "does this harm or help?" - and the big one - ‘does this or that help to effectively form me and those whom I am bound together with into the image of Jesus Christ?’”

“I am not talking about one model over another. I am not advocating ‘house church’ over ‘cell church’ or whatever. The only reason I would ever suggest anyone look at any model whatsoever is if I thought somehow, part of that model caught a glimpse of the core of the matter better than another perhaps - so look at that - please! But don't just look to find things that seem cool and copy them - damn! Jump off the cliff and hit the freakin' rocks below and die a bloody death to everything before! Do it now!!! If you do not, you will never ever know if any of it is good and healthy and formational or not. ”

“If you die that death, allow God to slowly resurrect you, and then end up with a building - awesome!! But DO NOT simply refuse to question whether or not it is legitimate to have a building as a "church"! Don't do that. Don't simply refuse to question paid staff ministry because "that's all I was ever trained to do" and you're afraid you won't be able to support your family - DON'T do that! Wow! We can't get past the front door to see the street! It's NOT about models or labels or styles of worship - crap, crap! It's about busting it all down because it really, really has not worked very well - a good deal of it - and allowing God to rebuild it - ALL of it - for us, through us, in us. So, doing it the same old way with new garb on is not going to cut it. Not allowing yourself to question pretty much everything because of fear will not get it done. This is it. This is what is ‘emerging.’ I'm sure other things are too, but this is what I'm seeing and hearing and doing - trying to do.”

And in the conversation in the comments for that post Alan says, “So, our answers are not in essay form but in the form of action. These aren't generally seen so it's understandable that many would think we have none. None of that was meant to be a ‘how to’ for this new journey. There is no ‘how to.’ We just keep searching, praying, listening and doing.”

My thoughts:

“We just keep searching, praying, listening and doing.” ‘We’….that is much of what Church is. Isn’t it? It is a living, breathing organism that is prone to ‘growth’ and change. The Church has emerged. It is emerging. And it will continue to do so as long as there are people who think for themselves and continue “searching, praying, listening and doing.” It is the ever-emergent Church.

(chopping Alan's post up does not do it justice - click over to his blog and peruse it yourself) - I knew I would be able to use the word 'peruse' sometime today.

The humble and edifying confession of one who refuses to die a rock-star’s death

2003-12-27T15:10:00.000-05:00

Before I begin I want to make clear that drinking alcohol is not something that I have allowed myself to do often as to not make a bad habit of something that could have been enjoyed.

But, alas, I must confess. The first hour I was awake this morning I was crying like crazy. I awoke, thank God, to find that I had vomited in my sleep. Heather said she could not get me to wake up. She stayed up half the night watching over her fool of a husband.

I’m not sure how much I drank. I’m sure it was not as much as you are probably thinking, but being that I do not drink often or much when I do it didn’t have to be a whole lot. It was too much though. I remember playing cards and then.......nothing. Just waking up this morning to the scary realization of the filth that alcohol brings out of me.

My head is hung in shame today (partly because of the headache, but mostly shame). I have found it hard to look at anyone. As many of you know for a few years of my life I lived on drugs and alcohol. How foolish of me to think it safe to stroll on that cliff edge.

From this day forward I will no longer be drinking. So if I am in your home and you ask me to sit and have a drink with you, which I pray you would not do after reading this, do not be offended when I decline. I just want to be alive to enjoy your company another day. Besides I have not sold any hit records yet and therefore I do not think it fitting that I die a rock star’s death.

It is so not ok that I let this happen. I am so hesitant to post this, but I am having a really hard time forgiving myself. I know by making this confession I am open to judgment and condemnation, but no one could condemn me more harshly than I am right now.

It is my intent to serve our God alongside each of you and I am in no position to be doing that if I am not wise enough to learn from this and move on.

As tears begin to well up I want to beg of you not to hate me for this or look on me as one who is unable to serve. Please forgive me. I am not prone to drunkenness. Only prone to be a half-wit.

I’m really sorry. I really disappoint myself sometimes.

Again, I am SO not ok with this.

a heart for the least of these

2003-12-26T13:15:00.000-05:00

Please go and read Asa's blog post for December 26. It is the voice of a compassionate and loving heart that hurts.

proud/blessed to be in the family

2003-12-26T11:53:00.000-05:00

Heather and I are so blessed by my grandparents and their family. We gathered for Christmas yesterday at their home and had Church. It is so wonderful to be part of a family who celebrates the Emanuel (God with us).

We all gathered in the living room. Grandpa read the Christmas story from his Bible and afterward we all sang silent night. Before we proceeded to the gift giving my aunt Nina stood up. She had a bag filled with misc. Celtic styled crosses. Each of the couples were to reach in to the bag and grab a cross. After we picked out the cross we told what we were going to give to Christ for his birthday in the coming year. There was much weeping and lots of tissues. Then my Grandfather felt pressed to give his observation of what he had heard from all of us. He said that he heard all of us struggling with the separation of the secular and religious parts of our lives and our need to realize that they are not separate. He pointed out that each of us were so obviously, from the depths of us, trying to find or hear what God would have us be and do with our lives as gifts to Him in response to His gift to us. Grandpa beamed as he said that he believed that the coming year would be a revival, if you will, in our family and would be the catalyst to many revivals to come.

My thoughts…my Grandparent’s home was Church to their family. Their children were discipled in their home and lives from childhood. Because my grandparents struggled to press on in their journey as they have I am at where I am in my journey. I am grateful for that gift.

I had a thought last night that many people like those in my family do not realize that after they go home from Church ’service’ on Sunday mornings they go home to Church. Many others in our churches don’t go home to that and therefore are not raised up as some are privileged to be. I pray that those who are privileged to go home to be ’raised up’ will realize that blessing and pass it on to those who are not….

May we realize it is our job as parents, brothers and sister in Christ to disciple those we are in relationship with. May we not leave it to anyone else.

exeGeses

2003-12-26T10:21:00.000-05:00

Ok. Numerous books on Christian subjects were given to my grandfolks and I was told to look through them and take what I wanted. One of my family members told me that I should grab the "exeGeses parallel Bible". So, I picked it up and brought it home.....I need some help here. It seems to me that what it has done is taken the KJV, translated and transliterated some words they didn't find were translated and transliterated correctly and have, what they claim to be, a presentation "written with awe and reverence in the classic contemporary language of today."

I mean I like the 'exegeses' in there. It's good info, that I assume to be accurate being uneducated, but the rest of it.....I don't know.

What is it that is to be translated? The exact letter or the message/story? Is this really helpful to the common person? I thought that an "exegesis is the careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning." The everyday-non-expert person, like myself (who does desire to be discipled) is not always trained the best at this.

What is it that is not to be added to or taken away from? The message or each individual letter? Is a literal transliteration necessary? Is this really a literal translation and transliteration? Is the 'exegesis' in the left column even accurate?

It is something new I have never come across before and I am leery of it.

Thoughts? Advice? Comments?

I've also picked up "The Training of the Twelve" by A. B. Bruce. Have any of you read this?

Beginning Again or 'There and Back Again'

2003-12-24T03:55:00.000-05:00

I can not sleep.

Talk about wanting to run forward and not being content with where we are on the journey...thoughts about what God has me right here-right now for. Where it is he’s leading us and....incomplete thoughts.

If you’ve been coming here and reading my blog for even a short time you will have noticed much frustration. Lot’s of questions. Confusion. Much going in circles. Searching.

I am thankful my heart is wrestles with want to serve, but I realize in my coming from much discontentment in my church life a year ago and discovering this ’conversation’ within the ’emergent’ Church I was awakened to potentials of life and love and service that I have only ever hungered for, but never seen realized in my own setting.

I’ve grown to know and love many of you.

I have been very discontent the past few months. Discontent to the point of tears...anger...at times almost depression.

What is it Scott? Hmm? What are you looking for on this journey?

jour·ney 1. The act of traveling from one place to another; a trip. 2. A process or course likened to traveling; a passage: the journey of life.

What is that ‘other place‘? Hmm...it is a journey to a place I don’t believe will be seen in this life. Or is that the right way to look at it?

In Philippians 3:14 Paul says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” -nas

The Message says, “I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.”

When we pray, “on earth as it is in Heaven” we mean that don’t we? Don’t you Scotty?

I am very much aware that I will be “pressing on” all the days of this life, but why the discontentment that has brought anger and almost depression?

I am pretty sure at this moment (3:03am 12/24/03) that it is because I have lost sight of “the goal”. At some point I was just running in circles like a chicken with it’s head cut off. (you can imagine the chicken’s frustration) I took my focus off of Christ. I slowly moved further and further away from my relationship and worship of Him till all that I was left doing was asking questions and running in circles and not getting the direction I needed because my eyes were on that head that I had cut off myself.

Obviously my Christ is still with me or I would not have found my way to here.

So, I go to him on my knees and begin to move forward from there.

I don’t know where He will lead this little family and I. I have thought and spoke and typed so much about wanting to be raised up to be a leader in His ever-emerging Church, but I just want to live to be who he says that I am. I hope that each day I have a chance to serve. I look at the lives of people like Andrew, Brad, Shannon, the Stuarts and so many others and I desire to be of as much help to people as they are, but I can not plan that life. I feel like school of some form is in my future....that scares me. I was never good at school even when I showed up. But I don’t know what I am to do besides continue working whatever job the Lord blesses me with and loving my family, you and of course loving our God along the way. Serving in whatever context I can for today. If at some point, by some miracle, I am being a good enough example to be considered a leader at that moment for that person or peoples....cool, but I’ll let the byproducts of my life lived in Him come as they will.

Before I stop....Riley is right. I am thankful for the birth of Jesus. I am thankful for his death and resurrection. But may we remember this Christmas is just the beginning....

me wife...

2003-12-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

....always has a way of letting me know when i am being a fool.

I am blessed and grateful for the gift that is Heather. She is my best friend.

the Fleadom

2003-12-20T23:12:00.000-05:00

I want to introduce everyone to my cousin Asa(and also the Best Man @ my wedding). He is now blogging from Bogata, Colombia. He went there earlier this month to work at an orphanage that is positioned very much in the thick of it there.

A sample of his blog:

Yesterday I saw an old man robbed at gunpoint, thirty feet from the children´s home front door. A couple hours later we took food up the mountain to the refugees displaced by the druglords. There was at least 2000 people there. We only had 400 bags of groceries. Pray that the Lord multiplies our tiny offering.

Please be praying for Asa and the children there.

The gift, gifts and giving

2003-12-20T15:03:00.000-05:00

"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
Not so much to be understood as to understand;
Not so much to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

- St. Francis of Assisi

"You know of Jesus of Nazareth ....... how He went about doing good and healing ....... for God was with Him. - Acts 10:38

breathe in....

2003-12-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.

Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?

All this time and money wasted on fashion - do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop,

but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers - most of which are never even seen - don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving.

People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.

Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

The Message Matthew 6:25 - 34

....breathe out

i'm sorry I don't go to my knees more

2003-12-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

Oh....please pray for me folks. I’ve worked general labor jobs since high school and at the present time there is just not a lot of those right in front of me. I’ve been applying for everything under the sun and it is just a little frustrating when you can’t get hardly any interviews because of the holidays....(sigh)

I hate that I have let it get to this point. I had been working a seasonal job and should have been looking for future work a long time ago. And now with another little one on the way....

I start to ask God if he is sure he knows what he is doing by putting these lives in my hands, but....I realize that they are never out of his.

Please pray. I really need work. Pray for this growing little family....that their daddy would grow as he needs to, to care for them as he is called.

May we continue to put our hope in the Lord and may our children learn from this.

the fam

2003-12-16T15:54:00.000-05:00

You've gotta see pics of my wonderful kids over @ Heather's blog.

another day....lookin' for a dollar

2003-12-15T21:37:00.000-05:00

I am in Arcadia right now. I am staying with my Grandfolks while I look for work in Indianapolis. I'll probably be staying here during the work week until we get moved down. It's only day one and I really miss Heather and the kiddoes. It's kinda cool talking to her on the phone....reminds me of when we were dating ;>)

Didn't get as much accomplished as I wanted today. Feeling poorly....kinda slowed me down. I have some folks I want to meet when I'm down here, but I'm feelin' pretty rotten at the mo and I really need to use my energy to find some work.

Please pray for my little family. We are really being humbled right now......(sigh)....please pray.

I am luvin' brad's last few posts.

"my calling is to primary work, I want to think it through and interpret situations for myself first - not have a lot of other peoples' answers when I don't even know my own questions yet."

"Everyone has their own passionate idea about the style that is "right." We get excited about what excites us, and we want everyone to share in that excitement. But we go beyond that to conformity when we pressure people to do it because we "know" it's the "right" way."

"whatever our hopes, fears, self-doubts, longings, gifts, talents ... are we letting God work out the kinks in us so we have the character of His son being formed inside, and are we giving ourselves grace to grow instead of guilt for our flaws? those are questions worth asking every day ..."

"pray we give each other the freedom to use the tools we need and to think about our experiences critically, in line with our privilege of demonstrating Christ's Kingdom on earth."

"i think we don't give ourselves permission to be who we really are - but we desperately desperately need to."

I need what brad calls, "tools for developing your own understanding of culture".

.....my little family luvs ya brad. And yes! It's worth it. We are thankful for who you are and thankful that you get up day after day to be.....you! Love ya.

NOTE on Arcadia, Indiana: This is the little town Ryan White went to school.

Salam

2003-12-14T11:10:00.000-05:00

Hearing this news of Saddam being captured I pray for the people of Iraq. I pray that the Sunnis would realize their ability to be a part in HELPING the country and it’s people. I pray that children and mothers and soldiers can sleep a little easier. I pray for the hearts of the Christians there. I pray that the people would make use of their freedom to write and speak. I pray that the US and British would not pound their chests too much about this.

I pray for peace.....salam

shalom

To You

2003-12-13T00:18:00.000-05:00

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me,
why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?

more Whitman

Carpe Diem

2003-12-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

from Whitman

O me! O life! of the question of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless,
of cities fill'd with the foolish...
What good amid these O me, O life?

Answer
That you are here--That life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

KEATING in Dead Poet's Society

"That the powerful play goes on,
and you may contribute a verse."
What will your verse be?

maybe it's just me...

2003-12-10T23:46:00.000-05:00

Thoughts about [re]thinking leadership, preaching, community and such.....I think that often times (we) I can get caught up in talking about this [way] of doing/being church for today. Conversations, articles, emails, comments, whole websites and so on about ‘house’ church vs. ‘traditional’ church. ‘Leadership’ vs. no ‘leadership’. ‘Preacher’ vs. no ‘preacher‘.

Notice the ‘vs.’....

I know that a lot of folks' blog, mine has been one of them, is used often to rant about this or that. It lets us get some frustration out. There is a problem that can occur. If a lot of my resources and conversations are on the internet and via these blogs....starting out, I can be ‘taught’ that it has to be one or the other by the same folks who are saying “we are one”.

Bill’s posted some quotes from Bonhoeffer’s "Life Together":

"The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.”

I went through a period, and I am still trying to shake it off, where I felt that the way this local ‘traditional’ church does things is completely wrong and that they should try doing it this way. I felt as though what I saw going on in the ‘emerging’, ‘simple’, ‘house’ church thing was the best possible answer to all the problems that were at FBC and any other church for that matter.

What I realized is that all these conversations, the blog posts were from people with names and faces and stories of there own who are on a journey. They sometimes will post some frustrations. They sometimes will right articles and be wrong. A lot of those in this sphere are part of church planting movements and new church plants and they are just having an honest conversation on how to do things. Asking how leadership should look in there context. Should they have a pastor. So on and on....

The problem I think has come in when persons or groups come up with answers for there specific community or culture and feel it is THE answer. They go about telling it to everyone and trying to sell their “ideal of community”. We all do this at some point. May God forgive us for missing the point.

If what I (we) are doing isn’t pointing to The One....it is pointing to ourselves probably.

In my situation, I see that a lot of people need to separate there idea and experience of ‘church’ from God. Those who do not know God are not going to be able to do this. Those of us who have a problem talking with him often enough are going to have a problem too. A lot of people’s only experience of ‘church’ has been a very impersonal ‘service’ on a Sunday morning. Maybe someone telling them what not to do and how not to live. A sermon. An organ. What needs to happen is that they need to come in regular contact with people who are going to love them. People who are going to be willing to share time and effort and meals and coffee and beer with them. People who’s lives point to the God that they follow. What ever context this happens in....that works! That is what I want to focus on. I am sorry I’ve wasted sooo much blog space missing and time missing the point.

“as above, so below”

“Keep us safe from ourselves”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

grouchy, but only for a stint

2003-12-10T20:58:00.000-05:00

The world tells me I need a college degree to get a job that takes up 75% of my time to buy a house that’s too big, two too many cars, a large screen TV and all kinds of other stuff I don’t really need.

The world says I am failing as a person and a father because my little family lives with my parents. I don’t have a degree or any special skills to get a high paying job so I will always make a ‘small’ income they say. They say that I need to do a lot and get a lot of things to be successful.

They say a lot.

I think they say wrong.

I may get a college degree someday. I may spend the whole of my life studying in academia after some point, but it will not be to get a lot of products that are not necessary to life and were probably made somewhere in Asia by an overworked, underpaid, sexually harassed 13 year old who doesn’t have the luxury of buying those same products because he’s saving up to buy his sister back out of prostitution.

The world and some of my family will tell me that taking courses through a means that does not offer a degree that will get me that job that will get me that stuff is pointless.

I don’t think it is me who’s off the mark here.

I let myself get held down by this way of thinking. Sometimes for minutes....sometimes for weeks.

No more!

We have made some mistakes, but....ahh!.... My little family is moving forward with there lives together. No, we don’t know exactly what we are doing a lot of the time. But we sure as Heaven know what we are not going to do.....

If you don’t like the way we live....cool. There’s still a place at our table set for ya’.

Point Blank

2003-12-10T14:39:00.000-05:00

I need the shepherding, the guidance, the direction and discipling to examine my own life.

If I am ever going to be a leader, the father I want to be or involved in any church planting in the future I need to examine my life and be open to the possibly painful metamorphosis that will ensue.

How does my life affect yours? My children's? My wife's? Anyone's?

Just In

2003-12-09T12:38:00.000-05:00

Now, I don’t know exactly WHAT all of you prayed back in October when we had problems, but….hee hee…WE ARE PREGNANT AGAIN!!!! (six weeks is what the doctor is guessing) - I JUST found out…

As you can imagine we are a little worried. Please pray.

“Yeah baby!”

MMM It's Goood

2003-12-09T11:57:00.000-05:00

This recent conversation with brad and bill has woken me up a bit. It stirred me.

I am, today, content with being on the journey. I’m ok with the fact that I am asking questions. Not always getting answers, but more often just more questions.

“It’s gooood!” -my attempt at a Bruce Almighty impression

Good coffee this morning! Shade grown, organic and fair trade and it’s yummy! (no plugs for the brand this time)

Actually this is all I’ve been drinking for months. My concience wont let me do otherwise. That’s ok though bc it is soooooo yummy.

yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy

asking-seeking-traveling

2003-12-09T11:24:00.000-05:00

I have been told that I am asking good questions....I hope I continue if that is so.

In Bill’s comments Matt wrote,

“Your assignment: LEAD ME TO FOLLOW CHRIST
My assignment: LEAD YOU TO FOLLOW CHRIST”

I think that’s pretty on. I believe the problem comes when I or you think that we know the ‘best’ way to do that. I [need] it done in a day-to-day basis in the context of personal, living life together, sharing meals kinda thing. Who knows me better and what I need than the folks who are going through it with me.

Our problem in our church now, with all those people with names, faces and stories of there own, is that all we focus on is the same old Sunday ’service’ and that’s about it. A Sunday night thing here and there, but...how is it that that is community? Stand up-sit down-turn around-say hello-and out ya’ go. How is it that that is the only way we are to get to know each other and love each other as God has commanded.

When that is all ’church’ and Christian community has been for me it really sucks. I just want to live life with people who are asking those questions too! People seem afraid of them here. “We’ve always done it this way.” Yea I know.

I don’t know. Everyone is just too damn busy for us here. I want to be involved with a Christian community on a daily basis. With people with names, and faces and stories of there own. I know that takes time though. We need to be with others who realize that time with each other 'hearing stories, shedding tears and telling stories' is for the edification of all. That is Church.

I’m all about having a good teaching or preaching or “info-download” time, but I think when church, our relationships, our community is based around that, it is...(sigh)...not for me. I don’t think that having a ’speaker’ even once a week would bother me so much if there was more to my church/Christian community experience.

We could be wrong about a lot of things.

This could get messy.

We'll keep asking, seeking, and traveling though.

pieces of old posts....simple....but they are me

2003-12-06T19:31:00.000-05:00

"Lord Jesus I pray that it is not any agenda of my own that I aspire to. Your will be done. Please help me to get off of my butt and out into the world around me that you may touch lives. Help me to not hide it under a bushel or under a steeple. Please make yourself real and visible in my life that others may see. I can do nothing without you. Guide me Father for I feel so lost. Use us to go to those places and those people who are not being reached by the traditional Church. Please bring some people in to our lives that will guide us and challenge us to seek God. Help us to love 'em all. Even when they're as messed up as we are. Thanks for being here even when we're lookin' the other way."

*******

"I want to light a candle and have some time with God. I want to go sit down with a cup of coffee and talk about my kids. My wants. My hurts. I want to listen to you. I want to serve the Lord! Full-time."

*******

"I don't know what God has in store for me or us as a family, but I do know that we need some close relationships with people who will " challenge us to seek God, either within or outside our church's walls"(thanks Kristen) I have become part of some relationships in my blogging community that are this way and I hope that I have as much to offer them, as well. I need this in my geographic community too though."

*******

"I want to learn how to love. How to guide people who want to be servants also. Not telling them what to do, but guiding/directing/challenging them."

I Cor. 3:7 - "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."

As much as my ego wants to be known as a success and a 'big-important person' i just hope that somehow we can spend our whole life-full-time 'pointing to God.'"

*******

My kids are so cool!!! Love 'em-Love 'em-Love 'em!!!

*******

"discipleship is the most effective method for evangelism under heaven."-brad

(ok that last one wasn't mine, but it is......true and the struggle i find myself in)

The Journey

2003-12-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

I had a thought. Nope. It’s gone....Oh, there it is.

As far as I see that I have come as a whole person over the past 4 years or so I realize how much I still struggle with all things. When you are on drugs you don’t get real far growth wise. It was actually more like a backwards motion. In four years of being clean and trying to follow Christ I realize that I am still Scotty. I still struggle with stupid, petty things. I still am selfish. I still run thoughts around in my head and in my blog and get nowhere. It’s kinda like why I am bad at ‘Axis and Allies’ and chess. I know all the moves. I know the goal. I see the enemy. Though, in these games you have to be able to think moves ahead. I am no good at this. And I will forget 3 moves from now what my plan was. No good when you are trying to save the world from the tyranny of your brother-in-law. You have to be able to look at the board and know which way to go. I can’t in ’Axis and Allies’. I can in ’Risk’. Risk isn’t as complex. I need someone there during Axis and Allies to remind me what I’m doing. Someone who is better at looking further down the road. Someone to fill in the gaps where what I am good at isn’t good enough.

Kinda sounds like Church....

Any way, I forgot what I was saying....oh. I forget that what all I’ve been babbling about all this time in my blog....what it comes down to is that *I need discipled. I....we are not growing where we are at.* We realize it is not just about us and our needs, but about others in the church as well. About those who still have yet see the love of Christ. I truly believe that we will naturally grow in a more natural form of Church. The form of 'a small group on a journey together'. I look at how Christ discipled his followers and remember that it is not Christ that has changed, but the Church. I don’t feel I can help these specific people here at FBC until I have grown. I don’t know how to help them in this context right now. If I could ever have time to have coffee or set around a table with any of them to just converse and share life together....I believe there would be growth. Not mine or that persons doing, but Christ’s. No one takes time together. Except the one-third of the church that is all related to each other.(we live in a small town)

I get frustrated when my only link to the outside world is here. The web. Especially when I stop giving input or getting it from you.

I can’t wait to get to Indy and ’shake off our feet’. What we are doing here, to me, is exactly what Alan Creech was referring to as “rehashing ways of doing things, slightly reworking them and never really changing ” - and yes, that is insanity.

a few thoughts

2003-12-04T10:47:00.000-05:00

Ice covering everything this morning. It's a very cold 34°F. Mikah is a little sick. Pray it’s not the flu. We got the tree and lights put up last night, but the kids were too tired so we will put the ornaments on today.

I have such a beautiful family! :^)

I’ve spoken and thought so much about the second greatest commandment, “love your neighbor as yourself”, that I have neglected the first. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matt 22:37-40) I realize that my inability to be ANY good at the second one is my neglect of the relationship with my God. I’m just trying to take some one-on-one time there.

A few thoughts that are sticking around:

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. (it‘s not just as I love myself, but as Jesus loved me that I am to love others)

John 15:18-19 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”

Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

“bodies a living and holy sacrifice”.....service! Obviously that is in the practical context of this world. That is how Jesus did it.

In our fellowship with one another, our ‘community’, we have all forms of chances for service. All kinds of needs to be met on all different levels. We know that our church is to be inclusive and visible(visible doesn’t mean a larger steeple). - “not the righteous, but the sick” - Isn’t this worship? Worship is soooo much more than singing (Ps. 66:4) and lifting up our hands (Ps. 63:4). These are obviously good, but.......I think of John 13:35 which says "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." This would have to be visible. There would have to be service. It has to be practical to be understood and seen.

Breaking News......

2003-12-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

I am going to be taking a break from this space for a bit.

Might be an hour - might be a week - might be a month - might post another directly after this one - just feel like I need to stop talking and listen for a bit.....

Samaritans in the AIDS Crisis

2003-12-01T17:54:00.000-05:00

A biblical parable offers important lessons about how Christians should respond to the global AIDS epidemic.

By Richard E. Stearns - President of World Vision

Two thousand years after Jesus gave the church the parable of the Good Samaritan, we are still asking the question, "Who is my neighbor?" And we’re still getting the answer wrong.

Jesus used this parable to challenge the religious establishment of His day. Today, the parable compels us to challenge our own community of faith, an American Church that is only belatedly responding to the AIDS pandemic, which last year alone killed 3 million people. Most of them were in Africa.

The lesson, which begins in Luke 10:25, answers one of the most profound questions in all of Scripture, asked in the story by an expert in the law: "Who is my neighbor?"

We find Jesus' answer in the actions of the four main characters: the victim, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan.

The only thing we know for certain about the victim is that he was in dire need: beaten, wounded, bleeding, and possibly dying. We don't know why he was beaten. He may have been an "innocent" victim, unjustly attacked. He may have been a robber, beaten by fellow thieves. Jesus did not feel that it was relevant whether the man who had been beaten was at fault.

Today, as many as 46 million people are infected with the AIDS virus. In southern Africa, one in five adults is infected. If Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, did not distinguish between those who became victims because of sinful behavior and those who were innocent victims, should we? In truth, we are bound by Scripture to respond to all those beaten and left by the side of the road by this devastating virus.

Scripture makes clear who has the right and the responsibility to judge: It is God, not us. Yet we judge people with AIDS. We conveniently forget that we all would be dead if we faced such a certain death for any of our sins – including indifference to those who are suffering.

That sin, of course, is the only one Jesus condemns in the story of the Good Samaritan, and is embodied by the next two characters in the drama: the priest and the Levite. They represent the religious establishment of the day. We are told that they saw the man and yet they passed by on the other side of the road, unwilling to help. They knew what was right, but failed to act.

In 2002, World Vision commissioned a study through the Barna Research Group to determine the willingness of the Christian community to get involved in fighting the AIDS epidemic. When evangelical Christians were asked whether they would be willing to donate money to help children orphaned by AIDS, only 3 percent answered that they definitely would. More than half said that they probably or definitely would not help. The survey found that by many measures, non-Christians were more inclined to help. How should the Christian community respond to those affected by AIDS? The fourth character of Jesus' parable shows us.

The Samaritans were often despised by the Jews, and considered them heretical and unclean. Nevertheless, this Samaritan saw the man at the side of the road “and took pity on him." He bandaged his wounds and poured oil and wine upon them as a salve. He put the man on his own donkey, transported him to an inn, and left money for his care. And he promised to return to check up on the man again. It was not a minimal response. It was a complete engagement.

The Samaritans of the AIDS crisis seem just as unlikely to today's religious establishment: the homosexual community, Hollywood, political liberals, the U.S. government, the United Nations, secular humanitarian organizations, and even a rock star. Bono, lead singer of the group U2, has been a prophetic voice on AIDS. When addressing a group of Christians in Washington, Bono asked, "Will American Christians stand by as an entire continent dies for 'small money'?"

Years from now, the AIDS pandemic will be judged as one of those rare crossroads in human history, where everything that comes after it will be seen through its lens. Every generation struggles with events and crises that ultimately define it. Every generation has its sins – of commission and omission. The lens of history can be brutally honest in its judgment.

How could American pioneers justify their treatment of Native Americans? How could pre-Civil-War America have tolerated slavery? How could churches in America have turned a blind eye to racial discrimination in the '40s and '50s? And how can the American church, with all its resources and influence, fail to respond proportionally to the greatest problem facing the world?

I am certain that God expects His people to act, not remain silent. I am certain that God sees these widows and orphans as our neighbors, lying beaten and bleeding on the side of the road, helpless and needing our help. And I am certain that He calls us to stop, show compassion, comfort them, bind up their wounds and see that they and their children are cared for.

How? By advocating for right theology in our churches and right policies by our government. By praying for people with AIDS, for the children they leave behind, and for their caregivers. By volunteering with local organizations serving people affected by HIV/AIDS. And by supporting our brothers and sisters in Africa and elsewhere in their efforts to stop this epidemic and care for those whose lives already have been shattered.

Jesus ends the Parable of the Good Samaritan with a powerful challenge. When He asked the expert in the law which of the three men had been a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers, he answers with a new understanding: "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus then looks at this man and concludes what is perhaps the most powerful moral teaching in all of history with a command of just four words. "Go and do likewise."

found this @ Beliefnet