A follow up to the AllConsuming entry from yesterday…
Brian McLaren’s latest, A Generous Orthodoxy has been the fifth most mentioned book in blogs both yesterday and today, according to AllConsuming.

I have wrestled a number of times on this blog regarding how organizational values should fit in a church. I’ve not been one who has endorsed the pure dismissal of leadership and organization as so many appear to have done, at least in principle. Stephen Shields, from what I have seen in a number of his posts, appears to think along the same lines as I do. His post this morning, entitled organizational excellence and spiritual life in community tackles some of the thoughts swirling around this issue very well.

As I stated in my comments on his post, if all truth is God’s truth, than there is some truth and wisdom that some wise organization specialists have implemented and it is worth evaluating. I think that many have swung the pendulum too far in trying to completely remove structure and leadership from the church. At the same time, it is dangerous if our churches incorporate these leadership tactics at the expense of no longer being a Spirit-led movement. There is a balance, and one of these days, perhaps I will find it…

I’ve been visiting AllConsuming.net from time to time. It’s a website which shows what blogs have been talking about what books. You can see the most commonly mentioned books, or look up a book and see what blogs have mentioned it. If you mention a book in your blog, you can trackback to the page for that book so that someone else can find your comments. It’s a really handy site if you are a reader, and will only become more useful as more people become aware of it.

Unless you are completely allergic to Windows, you may be familiar with this picture:

This picture is preloaded on every Windows XP machine. It is called ‘bliss’. When I see it, I want to crawl through my computer screen and run through that field. I want to lay in that grass and look at the clouds and think about nothing. Unless your soul is dead, you probably have similar longings. It is simply a beautiful snapshot of someplace I would often rather be — especially when working on Windows XP. (That’s not actually true…I just thought that Mac users would appreciate it.)

I’ve made several entries, including the last one, entitled “What doe church look like?” I think this picture should be entitled “What should the church look like?” After the quote I posted below, Lesslie Newbigin goes on to describe how the church is a glimpse of what is to come. The Kingdom of God is here now, but not yet in all its fullness. The Church is a portrait of the Kingdom. It is here in this world to give a glimpse of what God has in mind. Just as this picture compels me to frolic on a grassy knoll (perhaps not the best description ), so the church should pull people toward the Kingdom.

This is best evident in Acts 2:42-47. Right after the Spirit of God fills them, the church begins to live life as God planned — life in the Kingdom of God. Never in this passage does it say that they were actively participating in what we would now call evangelism, but yet it closes by saying that “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. They were simply being the church, and giving a glimpe of the kingdom, and the people who saw it wanted it.

No church needs to be perfect…nor will any church ever be. But the Church exists to give this world a glimpse of something so beautiful they must have it.

Found some great thoughts in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. I think this quote says what I was trying to say here — it just happens to say it a lot more clearly:

In discussions about the contemporary mission of the Church it is often said that the Church ought to address itself to the real questions which people are asking. That is to misunderstand the mission of Jesus and the mission of the Church. The world’s questions are not the questions which lead to life. What really needs to be said is that where the Church is faithful to its Lord, there the powers of the kingdom are present and people begin to ask the question to which the gospel is the answer. And that, I suppose, is why the letters of St. Paul contain so many exhortations to faithfulness but no exhortations to be active in mission.

Thank goodness for packaging. It’s not reasonsable for any of us to go to the store and purchase sugar without it’s pretty packinging. It wouldn’t be convenient to transport it. Without the packaging, I can think of any number of rather ridiculous scenarios of what it would be like to purchase a handful of sugar and bring it home.

This is a good way for us to picture Jesus’ use of the parables, and also a good picture of how we should think of preaching, teaching, and even language. We are trying to take the deep truths of God and make them portable for people to take with them. It is almost a shame at times to try to reduce the concept of the Godhead to a word like “the trinity” or an analogy of ice, liquid and steam. Yet, this is a convenient and good way for us to transfer these deep truths to others.

Even more ridiculous, however, than the thought of buying sugar by the handful is the thought of a pantry loaded with sugar in packages that have never been breeched. I fear that much of our teaching in churches does just that. We package the deep truths of God for people to make it easy for them to take away. We use brilliant metaphors, fancy outlines and sharp looking handouts to assist people in taking it with them, and that is good. If, however, they don’t open up into that packaging and consume those truths, it is all lost. I’m not sure if the fault lies on the side of the teachers who aren’t compelling enough to open the packaging later, or on the listeners who are so preoccupied that they just stuff the package away never to be opened.

I have the advantage of being both a teacher and a listener at different times, and perhaps many of you do as well. As teachers, let us be teachers that leave time bombs in the packaging. Let us present the deep truths of God in a way that is so compelling that they aren’t easily dismissed. Let us present the truth in a way that is hauntingly beautiful, like a piece of art that just stays with us. Let us raise more questions than answers so that people are forced to grapple with those truths.

As listeners, let us not become content just to have a notebook full of outlines with every blank filled in. Let us not be happy just because we have yet another gold star of attendance next to our name. Let us ask God to connect the message with our souls no matter how well we connect with the messenger.

Note: Just so you don’t think that I’m far brighter than I am, I should point out that credit for this original analogy goes to NT Wright.

I’m trudging through The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin right now. Some good stuff, though it is taking some time to process through what he says. Here’s a quote I read this morning that jumped out at me:

In the Fourth Gospel Jesus defines for his disciples what is to be their relation to him. They are to “dwell in” him. He is not to be the object of their observation, but the body of which they are a part. As they “indwell” him in his body, they will both be led into fuller and fuller apprehension of the truth and also become the means through which God’s will is done in the life of the world.

I love to study the Scriptures and to hear people teach who really help develop my understanding of what the Scriptures have to say. I know I’m not alone in this, as many have praised churches that are really known for teaching the Bible, or critiqued those who don’t. However, how well we do or don’t teach the Scriptures isn’t the best criteria to gauge a church by. How much better to be called a “Jesus indwelling” church than a “Bible teaching” church. Unfortunately it is far too easy too intimately know the Scriptures and still not experience the Jesus they point towards. If our study of the Scriptures doesn’t lead us to life in Jesus, then we have missed it.

I recently heard Reggie McNeal speak, and I really like what he had to say, especially about the condition of the church and the direction it is heading if it does not change the way it does some things. Most of what he had to say is in his book The Present Future which I’m looking forward to reading based on what I heard that day. Apparently Jordon Cooper is reading it right now, and he has some good information available from the book here, here, and here. If the book is like what I heard him say that day, it’s not just a prophecy of doom. He does have some good practical things to say to help us think about what we are doing in our churches.

722 did something really cool a few weeks ago. They spent the whole program in silence and directed it from the screens. You can watch what they showed on the screens through their website. Watch the one from October 5.

Ginkworld has an interview with George Barna that is a worthwhile read.

I have downloaded and been playing around with something called ipodder. It’s a program that lets you download all sorts audio content to an ipod or any other mp3 player. It’s very new, but has created a lot of buzz in the last few weeks. Anyone can create audio that others can download, and a lot of ‘podcasts’ have already burst on the scene.

This is one of the best representations of the new era we live in. It’s an era where literally anyone can have a voice and speak their mind to anyone around the world who is willing to listen. There is now a podcast that takes this to the ultimate extreme — OpenPodCast. Anyone can now call in to a number and record a message five minutes or less to be distributed to everyone who subscribes to the OpenPodCast channel.

We live in a different world. We live in a world where everyone wants to, and can, have a voice. How much longer can churches thrive that offer the ‘audience’ no opportunity to participate. People want to interact. They don’t want to just listen — they want to have their say as well. What does preaching need to look like in a world where people can participate everywhere they go?

I have a great passion for teaching Scripture with learned insight. I think in an era of opinions, more than ever, we must have a solid understanding of the original context and meaning of the Scriptures. In this new society, it can’t simply be a matter of everyone throwing out opinions about what a passage means to them. However, there is room for interaction, and the best of Bible teaching must include it. I envision a style of teaching where the context of a passage is laid out, and a group then wrestles together to see what that passage has to say about how life should be lived today. Preachers can’t be control freaks who know every word they are going to say anymore — we must be guides who tune in to what the Spirit is saying through a conversation with others.

Don’t panic if you don’t see your favorite sport…there’s more!

Donald Miller’s website has been updated and it’s worth a visit.

I just ran across something called PubSub and I’m trying it out. It will let you create an RSS feed for any specific term you want and search all the blogs that it reads for that term. For instance, you can tell it to look for the phrase “orange and purple cow”, and it will alert you anytime a blog entry is published with that phrase.

Lest I take myself or this blog in particular too seriously, I respectfully submit from Everyman’s Talmud the quote found below: (I also submit this, because I think it has a shot at dethroning “cuddle parties” for the most comments.)

A prayer for thanksgiving was included in the liturgy to be said after attending to nature’s call: ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who hast formed man in wisdom and created in him many orifices and vessels. It is revealed and known before the Throne of Thy Glory, that if one of these be opened, or one of those closed, it would be impossible to exist and to stand before Thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord, Who healest all flesh and doest wondrously.’