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With apologies to John Donne

John Donne is famous for declaring ‘no man is an island.’ With all due respects to the poet extraordinaire, it appears that someone will be, in fact, their very own island. Introducing the world’s first giga-yacht. On this personal floating island, you can have your own pool, tennis court, and garden. According to the Daily Mail article linked below, “Wally's Monica Paolazzi said the vessel, an artist's impression of which is above, would fulfil the dream of someone who wanted to "live comfortably on board like on their own estate".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=541299&in_page_id=1811

So you can imagine someone floating around the world totally isolated from others around them. In fact if you stretch things out a few years, why not imagine an ocean full of giga-estates floating around each completely isolated from one another, each owner-operator living in their own little world, seeing what they want to see, interacting with whom they want to interact, avoiding whom they want to avoid.

It’s pretty much the antithesis of Christian community—that way of life in which we are inextricably bound to one another in good times and bad. But it’s the way we are headed. Need evidence? Consider another technology sweeping through society with which each owner operator lives in their own little world, seeing what they want to see, interacting with whom they want, etc. . . .the ipod.

Re-Judaizing Jesus or Re-Jesusizing Christianity

This week’s Time magazine has an interesting look at “10 Ideas that are changing the World.”  Along with developments in assessments of global wealth, the movie industry, customer service, cooking, geo-engineering, and other topics, Time suggests that a movement is afoot to ‘re-judaize” Jesus. 

Most people realize, I think, that Jesus was a Jew.  He was born, lived, and died as Jew under Roman occupation in what we now know as the first century AD (or BCE if you prefer).  But the truth is that for many Christians, Jesus’ Jewishness has been an afterthought or an answer to a Bible trivia question.  In other words, sure Jesus was Jewish, but what difference did that really make?

It turns out that it was hugely significant, as hugely significant as any of our identities are.  One of the awakenings of post-modernity is that each of us is shaped and formed by the communities in which we are born and live.  While we may come to reject some of the premises of our particular community of formation or we may come to some sort of change, to some extent we are each a product of the environment and culture into which we are introduced. 

Jesus was no different.  He was a Jew.  And as such, when we remember that he was a Jew, what he did and said can take on the meaning it had when he first said it.  The words Jesus used: salvation, Kingdom of God,  Son of Man, disciples, his yoke, the cross, etc. had meaning in their own context. 

Thanks to scholars and some pastors today, the full-bodied context of Jesus’ language, actions, and meaning is being recovered. 

The only thing I would question in the Time article is the description that we are ‘re-judaizing’ Jesus.  Jesus was always Jewish.  Maybe what we should be doing is judaizing ourselves.  If we are his disciples, and ‘disciple’ means something particular from its context—those chosen to follow and learn from a rabbi—then what it means to be a Christian may take a somewhat different shape than we may have thought.  Being a Christian is about entering into his world as much or more than welcoming him into ours.  Being a Christian is about being shaped by Him rather than molding him to fit comfortably into ours.   At the risk of continuing to make up unhelpful expressions, I think the real movement afoot is about re-Jesusizing Christianity.  This is the movement that has been in my own heart and head for some time now.  It’s interesting to see that others much sharper than me are leading the way in the same direction.

Here’s the link to the article:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1720049_1720050_1721663,00.html

A Good Article on Emerging Churches

Gathering In Light (see the blog list on the right hand side) has put together a typology of emerging churches and movements. I think this is helpful and wanted to give it additional viewing so I have copied it all here. But please click in his link to read more. I find this helpful and have visited several of the churches he mentions in the last year, so it's especially helpful to me to help think through the differences I encountered along the way. Here you go:

Four Models of Emerging Churches

January 13th, 2008 · 21 Comments

I’ve had a lot of vested interest in the emerging church for a number of years now, partly because of my own previous experience in communities that reflected many of the qualities present in Bolger and Gibb’s “Emerging Churches,” and partly because upon reading that book I was better able to organize my own disparate thoughts on the future of the “emerging” Friends church, or what we now convergent Friends. But there is often a too complicated debate over who and what the emerging church (EC) is, whether it is a good thing, and who really represents this “movement.” I am not really interested in defending or critiquing this movement, though I am personally in favor of at least some of the expressions within these groups, because I think the church should always be contextualizing its message the best it can. But this doesn’t really help us understand the who and the what of the EC. That said, I have been playing around with various ways of categorizing these various emerging groups, and I wanted to throw out this very early, proto-typology and see how it flies.

A Couple Disclaimers

But before I give them, let me offer a few disclaimers. First, these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, I’ve seen some of these groups sharing practices, and thinkers and are influenced by a variety of theological and philosophical positions. So my “proto-typology (if you will allow me the designation),” is meant to offer a really broad stroke to start a conversation, about the rich variety in this post-modern church. Hopefully, the conversation will be one that will in fact help make this list more accurate and better yet, help us be more faithful to the Gospel in our world. Second, I absolutely hate typologies. Absolutely and completely. Third, these categories are not based on new field research, but rather my own readings (and interpretations) of a variety of authors and positions. In other words, I am not trying to create a final word on this, but rather a (really) rough guide. Fourth, my stock is ultimately not in the emerging church, it is in the Quaker tradition so if anything my bias lays with the peace church.

Wow that’s a long list of disclaimers!

The way I’ve tried to construct these categories is around a) philosophers and theologians who have influenced these groups, and b) their stance towards Western culture.

Four Types of Emerging Churches and their Thinkers

1. Deconstructionist Model: Probably the most well known group of emerging churches these churches are truly postmodern in just about every sense of the word. These are Christians influenced mainly by deconstruction, a philosophical approach invented on the continent. In their holy readings of philosophical discourse Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault and Caputo would be there. Much of the focus is on adopting postmodernity, and contextualizing the Gospel accordingly. Peter Rollins’ Ikon in Ireland would be a good example of one such group. I think Tony Jones and Brian McLaren would also fall under this category. I would say they are accommodating to postmodern culture, against modernism, and often against the institutional church making them lean towards a sort of non-denominationalism.
2. Pre-modern/Augustinian Model: This model would be the second most influential within the EC, and can be in (friendly) opposition to the first group. Instead of understanding postmodernism in terms of Nietzschean philosophy as group one would do, this model leans more towards a Renaissance styled post-modernism (similar to what is represented in Toulmin’s Cosmopolis). Whether this group is truly early modern or whether it reaches back further to the pre-modern era I am not quite clear on, but St. Augustine and St. Thomas are key figures for this group. This is the where the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank, James K. Smith and others would fall. We see some catholics here, as well as other theologians that tend towards placing a higher emphasis on tradition within the overall framework of the Christian faith, rather than simply contextualization. This group would be see history as having shown us a better way, and if we reach back far enough we may be able to find wisdom that will help us in our quest of faith today. They would be more favorable towards institutional church, and have a pretty clear understanding of what kind of church we ought to become, but would also be seen as nostalgic and trying to uphold an institution that has often oppressed and violated those we are called to help.
3. Emerging Peace Church Model (Or Open Anabaptism): This model of the emerging church stresses the non-conformist tendencies of Jesus, and thus the church should follow in his footsteps through non-violence, love of enemy and caring for the poor. This one may be closest to a kind of new monasticism that has so often been written about in recent times. While there are people from the various peace churches involved in this type of church, there are also people from a variety of traditions who are seeking to contextualize the Gospel within our culture. This group does not accept any one style of culture as being good, thus their non-conformist attitude is directed at modernity and postmodernity alike. They see Jesus (and his incarnation) as their primary model for engaging culture. They are influenced by Wittgenstein, Barth, Bonhoeffer, John H. Yoder, McClendon and Nancey Murphy to name a few. In this group you will find people like Jarrod McKenna and the Peace Tree, Shane Claiborne, some Mennonites, Rob Bell’s Mars Hill, Submergent, Jesus Radical and convergent Friends, to name a few. This group is counter any kind of Christendom styled church and thus would be sometimes for and sometimes against institutionalization, and would see contextualization as important only up to the point that it remains ultimately an extension of Jesus’ ministry and message.
4. Foundationalist Model: This model of the emerging church is more conservative in their reading of Scripture and modern approaches to ecclesiology (standard preacher-centered teaching, music for worship, etc) while seeking to be innovative in their approaches to evangelism. This may come in the form of people meeting in pubs, having tatoos, cussing from the pulpit, playing loud rock music for worship and adding a layer of “alternative-ness” to their overall church service. These churches can be found within larger church communities, or can be on their own, sometimes as a large (possibly mega) church. They follow standard Evangelicalism in that they aren’t attach to traditions, and come out politically and theologically conservative, while maintaining a more accomodational stance toward culture in the name of evangelism, they will ultimately look similar to older church communities theologically. This is where I think Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus and many “emerging services” within mega-church congregations like Willow Creek might be found.

Update this week

I hope you enjoyed Harriet Harral’s time with us this past weekend.  She had a really good time with Broadus and came away very impressed with your questions and mission ventures in the local community and beyond.  Please make a note that on the weekend of April 27, Daniel Vestel, the CBF Coordinator will be with us to help wrap up the CBF Global Missions Offering Emphasis. . . You may have noticed some changes in the parking lots.  We’ve just about got them finished.  Besides handicap spots, the upper lot is still a free-for-all first come first served parking.  The main level now has two spots designated for ‘Nursery Parking’ and three designated ‘Special Needs and Guests’.  If you feel you need one of those spots, please take it.  On the lower level, we have five spots for visitors and two designated ‘elderly’.  Please use those as you see fit.  Please, when you see someone parking in a guest or visitor spot, please be sure to welcome them and walk them into the building.  Your hospitality in those first few moments speaks volumes about the kind of warm, loving church you already are.  Also note the basketball court that has been painted on the lower lot.  We’ll get a second goal up soon and have a nice place to play some hoops.  You are welcome to park within the court lines whenever you need to even though they are not marked.  See you Sunday!

 

Reading the Gospels

On Sunday we began an intense focus on what it means to follow Jesus. In other words, what does it really mean to be his disciple. This series will continue at least through Easter. Obviously if we are to know what it means to be his disciple, we need to know what Jesus was all about. The best way we know that is through the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Between now and Easter, I want to encourage you to read every word of all four Gospels. If you’ve never really sat down to read the Bible like this, it might seem daunting, but you can do it. And I think you’ll really enjoy it—seeing the story of Jesus as whole and not just in scattered bits and pieces. There’s atleast a couple of ways to go about it. One is to read each of the four books in four sittings. Another way is to pace yourself through them. If you choose the latter, the following is a schedule you can follow to get you through them by March 23, Easter Sunday:

The week of:

January 13 Matthew 1-9

January 20 Matthew 10-18

January 27 Matthew 19-28

February 3 Mark 1-8

February 10 Mark 9-16

February 17 Luke 1-8

February 24 Luke 9-16

March 2 Luke 17-24

March 9 John 1-7

March 16 John 8-14

March 23 John 15-21

When It's not the best time of the year

Blue Christmas Service
Wednesday, December 19
4:30 PM

The constant refrain on radio and television, in shopping malls and churches, about the happiness of the Christmas Season, about getting together with family and friends, reminds many people of what they have lost or have never had. The anguish of broken relationships, the insecurity of unemployment, the weariness of ill health, the pain of isolation, the gut wrenching loss of a child, the loneliness of no longer having a beloved spouse to share each day, the loss of a dear family pet - all these can contribute to a feeling of being alone, of 'feeling blue' in the midst of others 'being happy' and 'celebrating'. There are years when we hurt at Christmas time and can't get into the festivities others seem to be able to do.
It's at such times that we need to make the space and take the time to acknowledge our sadness and concern. We need to know that we are not alone. For these reasons, Broadus invites you at 4:30 pm Wednesday, December 19 to come and join in sharing and hearing prayers, Scripture, music, and sharing communion in ways that acknowledge that God's presence is for those who mourn, for those who struggle - and that God's Word comes to shine light into our darkness.
Please accept this invitation to be with us - a time for those feeling 'blue' to experience the wonder and hope of Christmas. No need to RSVP - our doors will be open to all who come so please feel free to invite others to come with you as your support, or if you know that they too are finding that Christmas hurts.

Jamaica Mission Trip Planned

On August 19th, while we were sitting in church, the southern coast of Jamaica was battered by Hurricane Dean. Shortly thereafter, the Virginia Baptists committed to providing supplies and work teams to repair the homes of folks who are now homeless. We are getting a group together to be one of those teams.

One week, between February and April, we want to take a group to Jamaica to repair homes and make relationships that, we hope, will turn into a long-term partnership between our church and Jamaican Baptists. My hope is that eventually we can partner with the Jamaicans to work in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

If you would be interested in swinging a hammer for a week and meeting some new folks from a different part of the world--and being a part of God's restorative and redemptive work in the world, please let me know. I'd love to work along side you.

Interesting Evangelism Strategy

 

Sigh.


I saw this invitation to a new life in Jesus in the parking lot of a state park in Michigan this weekend. I was in Grand Rapids visiting Mars Hill Church. Mars Hill was a great experience. Their mission statement is telling of their commitments, "To live out the way of Jesus in misisonal communities and to announce the arrival of His Kingdom by working for measurable change among the oppressed." Somehow, I don't think the owner of this vehicle has the same spirit as my new friends at MH. Just a guess.

A New Social Gospel?

I remember thinking as far back as early in college that I didn’t fit in the categories that were out there.  It seemed like (now remember this IS 1980’s Texas I’m remembering); it seemed like people were either conservative Christians or liberal democrats/ atheists.  I didn’t mind a lot of the ethical positions of conservative Christians, but my atheistic/ democratic friends (that was a sort of redundancy back then and there, I must admit.)  cared more about the things that Jesus seemed to care about than my conservative Christian friends.  It seemed like people were either on this ‘side’ or that ‘side’ and I didn’t fit either one.  I appreciated some of moral positions of one group and some of the economic/ social positions of the other group. 

 

I remember even asking in seminary, in an ethics class, who’s doing this right?  Who is really embracing the “Politics of Jesus”—to borrow from John Howard Yoder’s wonderful and challenging book--?  The response was “The Catholics”.  Well, ok.  Maybe.  But, nothing against Catholics at all, but that didn’t seem like a likely path for me. 

 

What I have since come to discover is that there were then and are now a LOT of people feeling like I was and do.  People feeling like our faith and our faith commitments had been hijacked by political parties who use religious leaders to drive the masses to their political brethren.  I’m not really a ‘masses’ kind of person.  I bet you aren’t either.  It doesn’t seem so revolutionary to say it, but it seems like it is to practice it: Jesus is bigger than any one political party.

 

I’ve come to appreciate the folks who identify themselves as ‘emergent’.  They are seeking and finding a new paradigm for what it means to live out our faith in all areas of life: social issues, economic issues, political, religious—without being herded as, you know, ‘the masses”.  It just seems like with the emergent folks, the fences are lying in scrap pieces all over the landscape.  It’s messier than having the fences in place, predictably dividing us.  But Jesus was pretty messy too.  It just seems to me that our nation needs a little less vitriolic religiocentic partisanship and a lot more thoughtful, prayerful, engaging, loving, truth-telling Jesus following on whatever the issue may be and whatever the cost to us.

 

Here’s an interesting article from Newsweek about what’s happening among New Evangelicals trying to transform the world:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566389/site/newsweek/

 

 

Transformational Ministry

Here is a link to a story that PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly did on Lawndale Community Church in Chicago.  It’s another example of a local church making a significant difference in the life of its community. 

 

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1102/feature.html#

 

This kind of ministry seems to me what Jesus would have us be about.

 

Here’s the church’s website too: http://www.lawndalechurch.org/

Email address change

Greetings.

I have changed my email from ericahowell@earthlink.net
My new email address is:

ehowell95@gmail.com

After October 31, I will not be able to receive mail through earthlink.
Thanks and sorry for any inconvenience. 

Eric

PS For those of you who received so much enjoyment from 'erica', your days are thankfully numbered.

Recent Concerts

The last two weekends, we have been treated to some remarkably wonderful music as part of our House Concert and CoffeeHouse series.  We are so fortunate in Charlottesville to be blessed with tremendous talent in music and the arts.  At our House Concert we had Peyton Trochterman and High Society perform.  They were great.  These guys blew away the small-but-enthusiastic crowd away with thoughtful lyrics, trumpet riffs by John D’Earth, and Matty Metcalfe on the accordion.  The whole evening was a lot of fun for everyone.  Here’s a link to his site: http://www.peytontochterman.com/.  The Paramount Theater has invited High Society to perform a CD release party.  They are the first local band to be welcomed to the Paramount—and with good reason.  On Sunday evening, we were blessed to have Alex Mejias give a warm, spiritual Coffee House concert at Broadus.  Alex is a local musician who loves to play re-tuned hymns and other spiritually rich melodies.  He left Monday morning for Nashville to record his next album. 

 

My only regret about both events is that more people weren’t there to enjoy them.  I don’t really know what to do about that (if anything can be done.)  Perhaps we need to do a better job getting the word out or personally inviting people.  Well, whatever the case, this kind of stuff is just too good not to share.  I genuinely feel that way about our whole church experience.  This stuff is just too good not to share. 

 

Huge props to the folks who pulled these events together, Jacob Goodson in particular.  All of you did a really nice job! 

 

One Old Church Adapts

One of our alert members forwarded me this article from this week's New York Times. A white, Southern Baptist Church in Georgia that was sinking woke up to the changing reality around them . . .and changed radically!

An Old Church Adapts

Radical change has a cost and some people were left behind along the way. Not every congregation can and should so radically change, but perhaps far fewer do it who should.

One interesting aspect of this church's transition is the response the church made to a changing world. In their case, the change in the world was evident to those who had eyes to see--internationals were transitioning the neighborhood in significant ways.
For most of us the shifts are less obvious--but just as significant. Our community specifically has groups of people who are as different from traditional Baptist church-goers as the Eastern Europeans and Africans in Georgia. To significantly reach post-moderns may require shifts in our approach and outlook that rival that of the Georgia church and feel radical to all of us to varying degrees.

It seems like the big first issue is to recognize that we are increasingly in a post-Christian culture. This should be no real surprise to us. Peter said that Christians would be residents in an alien culture. The opportunities are no less than the Georgia church faced--increasing numbers of neighbors who do not know much at all about Christ and even less about church.

The second big issue is: what, if anything, are we going to do about it? How pro-active will we be in living out the gospel and sharing the story of Jesus right here in ways that meet people right where they are?

Sep 9 Town Hall summary

Thanks to everyone who was a part of our visioning town hall meeting last week.  The attendance and interest was impressive.  In a nutshell, on behalf of the visioning community, we presented three aspects of the process at this time.  1) We revisited ‘core beliefs’ and distributed a revised draft.  You can view that draft by scanning a couple of posts below.  We welcome your comments.  2) We began a process to identify and articulate core values of the church.  Core values express the ways that we do church.  Every church is different.  These values ought to express what is at the very center of what makes Broadus what it is.  3) We presented three areas in the community for focused ministry in the coming years: a) Senior Adults, b) Wilton Farm, c) Fontana, as representative of the many other similar neighborhoods in the Pantops area.  The visioning community has divided into three teams to research and examine these areas and paint a picture of what these ministries could look like over the next 10 years.  We will come back with a report and further conversation in Town Hall session on November 18.  Thanks for your input and continued participation in this process. 

What is postmodernism?

The term ‘postmodern’ gets thrown around a lot these days to describe everything from philosophy to architecture to technology, to how ‘disobedient and disrespectful’ the younger generation is today.  But what does it really mean?  Admittedly the definition is a bit slippery.  I heard a bit of an interesting conversation on NPR last night that was helpful to me in articulating what postmodernism is all about.  The speaker put it in terms of English grammar and a bit of history. 

 

When the Enlightenment emerged and, with it, science and reason, the world of thought was broken into two very different spheres: Fact and Opinion.  Facts were things that could be ‘proved’ scientifically.  Opinions were anything that could not be ‘proved’ by the methods that were approved for proving things.  Get it?  So, Fact and Reason is the world of science.  Opinion is the world of emotion and religion.  Religion, faith, belief—whatever you want to call it was (and still is) relegated to the realm of personal opinion.  So that’s how you get politicians who can say, “My religion will have no influence on the way I govern the nation.”  Think about that statement again.  What they are saying is that My religion (the world of opinion) will not have an impact on the way I govern (the world of facts and reason) the nation.  In a modern context that is a perfectly acceptable answer.  Or take a church-going religious person who prays on Sunday (his personal opinion) and then runs his business (the world of reason) during the week according to what is reasonable for generating maximum profit without any consideration for Christian virtues that might inform how he treats his employees. 

 

This distinction gives rise to breaking our lives apart into Public and Private.  Economics and Science are public.  Religion and Faith are private.  Thus, “My (private) religion will have no influence on the way I govern (public) the nation.”  Well, that’s just one example.  It’s really a question of how we know things.  How do you know something is true?  The modernist says, “I have facts that prove it.  If it cannot be proven by the scientific method, it’s just your personal opinion.”  

 

Now, in terms of grammar.  In grammar, there are three persons: 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd.  (I, you, he/ she/it)

 

First person is the world of opinion (What I believe to be true; what I feel)

Third person is the world of ‘fact’ (What is proven)

 

Postmodernism looks at this and asks two questions, “Who are you who believe something to be true?” and “By what criteria do you determine something to be fact?”  The answer that postmodernists offer for both questions is the 2^nd person—the world of social location—the you (plural, likely).  Each of us is part of a larger story that any of us standing alone.  Acknowledge it or not, you are part of a complex social matrix comprised of your socioeconomics, skin color, religious heritage, national identify, time in history, and on and on.)  This “2^nd person” identity is informative and formative for who you are even when you think you are coming to independent conclusions about what you believe.  And furthermore, this “2^nd person” identify is formative for how you determine what is factual (3^rd person). 

 

Some postmodernists go so far as to say that there is no 1^st person and no 3^rd person.  You cannot come to independent conclusions aside from who you are in your social location and there are no universal facts at all—everything is a product of your social location.  (While I’m compelled by the postmodern correction of modernism, I think this goes a bit far—but hey, who am I, right?)

 

This move to postmodernism has everything to do with young people returning to Tradition in worship and church.  The modern manifestation of church is a worship service disconnected from the social construct (the Tradition) from which it comes.  It’s a ‘contemporary’ service that doesn’t use church language, church symbols, or anything having to do with church.  It only focuses on the 1^st person (what are you feeling today—what is your private belief in God and why you should have such a belief (the fact of the authority of the Bible).  Postmodern or ‘emergent’ movements return to the second person and young people are leading the way.  They are saying, “We know we are part of a bigger story and we want to experience it.”  So, let us experience the richness of the Tradition, but make that Tradition as expansive as possible, including elements not found in our parents and grandparents American, Protestant services—that’s not wide or deep enough.  Give us Celtic meditations, Orthodox prayer practices, Catholic candles, give us incense and silence, give us ways to express our own appropriation of the Tradition and then let us lead the way.  Be honest about the chaotic and mysterious origins of the Biblical letters and their formation as the church’s canon.  It’s a 2^nd person book of narrative, not a 3^rd person book of fact disembodied from the community that produced and collected it.  I want to be part of something bigger than me, but also something that makes me part of the community as well.  Give me a worship/ church experience that is 3^rd person (tell me what is known and I can trust), 2^nd person (let me experience who we are together), and 1^st person (let me experience all of this for myself and make it my own.)  Isn’t it interesting in light of the grammar of faith that theologians long ago figured that God is best understood to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--One in three persons.

 

      

Visioning Update--Core Beliefs

Thank you to everyone who came to the Visioning Town Hall conversation Sunday evening. I was impressed by both the number of people who attended and also the good questions, interest, and commitment demonstrated by so many of of you. Thank you! As promised, here is the draft of the core beliefs that we discussed. I can't figure out how to link to a word document, so I've just pasted it here. Enjoy!

Core Beliefs

September 9, 2007 Draft

Genesis
God created the world and all that is in it. He created human beings to be in relationship with Him, but when we choose our own desires and exercise our own wills against God, we repeat the sin common to all humanity, alienating ourselves from God, damaging our relationship with one another, fragmenting our society, and abusing our world. Shame, guilt, selfishness, arrogance, greed, and cruelty degrade our lives. All creation suffers in our broken world.

Gospel
The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to restore us to full relationship with God. As the complete revelation and physical embodiment of God, Christ came to restore wholeness of body, mind, and spirit and to show us how to love as we were meant to love. When we confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, we experience reconciliation with God, forgiveness of our sins, fullness of life in this world, and hope for eternal life in the world to come.

Acts
We believe that a church is a local body of baptized believers whose commonality is their individual experience of Christ as Savior and whose unity is their voluntary association as a spiritual community committed to worship, evangelism, fellowship, study of the Bible, and service in Christ’s name. We desire to be worthy of the New Testament designation of the church as the “body of Christ”; thus, with Him as our Savior and example, and with the Holy Spirit as our empowering guide, we will strive to live as a community of faith, to embody the love of Christ in relationship with one another, to minister to the broken world, and to share the good news of Jesus with everyone who does not know him.

Reconciliation
We live with the assurance that God restores us to right relationship with himself through our faith in Jesus Christ. Having received this gift of salvation, we are called to share the gospel message and live our new life in Christ in ways that foster peace and reconciliation among people and nations.

Destiny
Until Christ returns, we will strive to be faithful stewards of God’s creation and
ambassadors of his kingdom on earth, trusting the future to God, knowing that he alone has the power and grace to bring all history to completion and fulfill our hope to live with him in the eternal and perfect kingdom to come.

Scriptures
We affirm the Holy Bible as the inspired Word of God and the basis of our beliefs. We interpret the Bible in the light of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and the complete revelation of God.

Choosing a Bible Translation

I get asked from time to time, “Which Bible translation should I buy?”  It’s a reasonable question.  Over 50 modern translations exist in the English language.  But that is further complicated by the many commentaries and versions added to the biblical text: The Women’s Bible, The Student’s Bible, The Oxford Bible, The Ryrie Study Bible, etc.  These take one of the 50 translations and then add some commentary.  So which to choose?  Hard to say.  If I were going out right now to buy my first Bible to study and take to church, I would probably buy the Life Application Bible in either the New International Version (NIV) or the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).  But the Bible I use these days is the English Standard Version with no commentary.  I enjoy this translation especially for use in preaching as it avoids the old English of the King James, but still reads nicely.  Plus, I believe it to be accurate in most cases.

Here’s an attempt from another pastor to give some help for Bible translations.  http://www.firstpresb.org/translations.htm.

Bottom line when you are standing in Barnes and Nobles looking at the shelves and shelves of Bibles: find the one you think you will actually read.  And then enjoy!

Questions for God

I ran across this page on the web: http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/questions_for_god.html and I thought it was interesting.  There are several dozen “Questions for God” on here and answers from religious people are listed if you click on the links.  I must admit that I’m more than a little reluctant to click the links.  What will be there?  Anger?  Smug self-satisfaction?  Unqualified certainty?  Most of these seem like genuinely good questions.  I hope the answers are humble and equally good.  But, like I said, I’m a little afraid to look.  Sometimes I find myself more comfortable with the questions atheists ask than the answers Christians provide.  It’s not that I think they are unanswerable, but sometimes it’s more honest to live a bit in the tension of the question than to leap to the simple answer.  Well, here’s a few of the questions.  Got any answers?  Got any more questions?  God knows that I do- maybe a few answers, and definitely a lot of questions.

 

 

·  Why don't you show yourself?  You supposedly made us and want us to believe in you, right?  Why the big mystery?  You're also omnipresent, right?  Why don't you show yourself to all of us at once and have a personal discussion with us?  You can pick the date and time, we'll all stop what we are doing, I'm sure.
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why do you let your followers murder and rape us?  Why do you let your Catholic priests sodomize our precious children?  I think it's safe to say that we really don't like this.  Isn't your Catholic hierarchy hand chosen by you from the top down?  Are you afraid to admit to making a mistake in your choices?  Can you please admit the mistake and let our children grow up in a normal, ethical and safe environment?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Did you really make Eve from one of Adam's ribs?  Why didn't you make her from dust just like Adam?  And, why do men and women have the same number of ribs if you stole one from Adam to make Eve?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why do you make your followers suffer so much?  Why do they die at the hands of other religions?  Can't you put a stop to this?  You're omnipotent, right?  Can you 'show us your stuff'?  Why do you let all those Church buses crash?  Why do you let all your religious followers die in plane crashes, terrorist attacks, car accidents, famines, floods, hurricanes, tornados, etc.?  Is this part of 'Your Plan'?  If you needed more Angels or something, why didn't you just create more Angels?  Why do you cause so much pain down here?  Are you sadistic?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why are their so many conflicting religions?  Did you make man so screwed up that he cannot hear the 'true' word of God... yours?  Every religion that exists today and every one that has existed throughout history has professed that THEIRS is the only true religion.  Did you come to Earth as Zeus once?  Did you make all these religions because you thought certain societies could only understand certain concepts?  What about the Jews?  The Muslims?  The Baptists?  The New Adventists?  The Mormons, Hindus, Incas, Mayans, Protestants, Apaches, Buddhists, Methodists, Gideons, Greeks, Quakers?  The Catholics (American, European, South American, etc.)?  Were you just looking for some diversity or is it just a childish game to see who will follow the 'right' religion?  Which is the 'right' religion?  I'm sure many denominations would REALLY like to know that they're worshipping the 'wrong' God, don't you?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Was physics different when Noah built the ark?  I mean, seriously... how did he get all the animals from all over the world... and the dinosaurs, etc. on that boat?  How did he get penguins to the Middle East?  How did he get them back after the big flood?  Why didn't the dinosaurs eat all the sheep?  I know from reading that you are jealous and envious and want nothing more than for all of us to believe in you...  wouldn't you like to let us in on your secret?  Come on, how'd he do it?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Who can hear you and communicate with you?  Are the Catholics correct in saying that only their priests can communicate with you?  Why is this?  To ensure the hierarchy and security of the Catholic Church?  Or, can anyone communicate with you as most of the other religions believe?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why is there war?  How does it agree with "Thou Shalt Not Kill"?  Why are there so many wars in Your Name?
View answers we've received.
 

·  If you made Adam & Eve first, and they had three sons Cain, Abel & Seth, what happened next?  There's 4 men and 1 woman, right?  What happened next to propagate the species?  Who did the children marry?  Who did they procreate with?  Isn't incest bad?  Adam & Eve had other children, so brothers and sisters; or Eve's sons and Eve were having sex?  God, why aren't we all retarded genetic mistakes?  Why didn't the whole human race get physically deformed and mentally handicapped from mixing familial genes?  Surely you knew about the gene problem, right?  Or did it not exists back then?  Did you just create it recently in one of your more spiteful moments?
View answers we've received.
 

·  The Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not kill."  Didn't you order Moses to do a lot of killing?  Why did you do this if it violates one of 'your' commandments?  Why did he wipe out entire cities, kill all the men and rape the women and children?
View answers we've received.