I went to see Invisible Children tonight with my wife and a few other friends. It’s a must see. I would encourage every person who reads this blog to order the DVD, watch it yourself, and share it with others. It even comes with two copies, so the sharing part is pretty easy. And if you blog…blog about it.

The story of how it happened is pretty fantastic. Three guys from San Diego heard about what was happening in Sudan two years ago when they were 19. They decided to buy a video camera off of ebay and go document it. What they stumbled on, however, was children being abducted in northern Uganda to fight as soldiers. They came back to tell the world, and I’m glad they have.

Though it wasn’t at all central to what they had to say, it is pretty evident that these guys are followers of Jesus. (For one thing, they are now partnering with World Vision.) I love the heart of how they are going about this. This isn’t intended to be some evangelistic crusade. They see some huge evil at work in the world, and, with the heart of Jesus, they are acting to help change that. Out of that, the fact that they follow Jesus will likely be known to many, and that will be their best witness.

Now if you will allow me a minor rant… I am a big believer in missions, and sending people to unreached peoples in the world. However, I wonder if the North American church tends to focus on that too much? We seem less inclined to care about starving children and other social injustices if they happen to be taking place in a country that is primarily Christian. That doesn’t seem to line up with the heart of Jesus.

I think the problem is that we consider everything to be missions that isn’t somehow a ministry of our church. Generally, any ministry, cause or parachurch organization seeking funding is referred to the missions committee of a church. Many missions committees want to focus on unreached peoples, and that is very worthwhile. Would it be best if we just let them focus on that, and gave a portion of money toward that? What if, in addition, our churches had teams devoted to social injustice in the world, that helped raised awareness and funding for those needs? What about a team that focuses on how a congregation might be able to best support what is already happening in their specific community? This world is just too complex and the needs too great to simply lump everything into what we would consider to be missions.

Donald Miller preached a message called “Selflessness” this weekend at his home church. The MP3 is already available.

A good friend of mine is doing some studying for the young adult/college ministry he is developing at his church, so he asked me for some book recommendations. I figured I would post them here for him. Feel free to add a comment if you have other suggestions…

Here’s some books, along with some comments about each, for your study. I don’t know how much reading you want to do, but this would be a good start. I can always give you more suggestions. These are in a bit of an order, though you could pick and choose what interests you most. I think all would have some value as you are trying to develop a ministry to 20somethings.

Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller - Great book and popular with the young adult audience. From what I understand, Campus Crusade has bought thousands of copies to give away on college campuses.

Searching for God Knows What, by Donald Miller - His newest book, and my favorite of his books. He does campus ministry at Reed College, so he connects well with college students.

The Present Future, by Reggie McNeal - I think this book does a good job of capturing what the church needs to be moving towards, and younger generations are already moving that way.

Radical Reformission, by Mark Driscoll - Driscoll has some critics, but he is certainly reaching younger generations.

The Celtic Way of Evangelism, by George Hunter - This is a book I just continue to revisit in my mind.

Search to Belong, by Joe Myers - Helps you think about what true community really should look like, and how it doesn’t simply fit into a small group program.

A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren - This book is a bit controversial, but is influencing a lot of people, especially younger ones. There are also two sequels - The Story We Find Ourselves In, and The Last Word, and the Word After That.

The Younger Evangelicals, by Robert Webber - This book explores some of the trends of how younger evagelicals are expressing their faith.

Missional Church, by Darrell Guder - This is probably the most academic book on the list. I think it describes the kind of church that many young adults that I know seem to be longing for.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers - A secular book, but very popular with your target audience.

Urban Tribes, by Ethan Watters - I haven’t actually read this one, but it has been recommended to me. From everything I understand, it is about the people you are targeting.

I’ve added a few new things to the blog today:

1) There is a tagboard near the top of the righthand column. This will let you put a quick comment on the blog that might not relate to a specific entry. Thank goodness I don’t have the kind of friends who would use it to leave sarcastic wisecracks…

2) I started using a service called AudioScrobbler which tracks what you listen to in iTunes and let’s you find what people with similar tastes are listening to. Further down in the righthand column is a list of the most recent tracks played in my iTunes. Perhaps it’s useless, but yet is still has a gadget-like feel to it, and therefore I like it.

Invisible Children

I really don’t know much of anything about this movie except that Dave mentioned it a few weeks ago and it looks interesting. There is a screening on Monday at ASU for those of you in the valley. Check out the trailer.

Here is some more about it from Demand Media:

Invisible Children is a film documenting the effects of a rebel group in Africa’s Northern Uganda, which for the past 17 years has forcefully and brutally abducted children from their homes. The film chronicles three naive journalist’s as they discover thousands of children sleeping in the streets. The story unfolds as the filmmakers try and understand why these children run for their lives each night, and who is responsible for this attrocity.

The rock formation above is known as the Areopagus (Mars Hill). In ancient Athens, it was a gathering place for philosophers to debate all the latest ideas.

It was to this gathering of philosphers that Paul was invited in Acts 17:16-33. Some of them had heard him speak in the marketplace, and wanted to bring him so that his ideas could be shared with all of them. When he arrived, they said to him: “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”

The truth of the work of Jesus often seems like a strange idea, whether you hear it for the first time, or you’ve known it for years. But these philosophers understood that Paul’s ideas, no matter how strange, were worth listening to. Some of them, according to Acts 17:33, even become followers of Jesus that day.

This blog exists to explore some strange ideas. Some of them are strange to me. Some of them are just me thinking out loud. Some of them may be completely wrong. But hopefully, somewhere in all of this, deeper truth will be found…truth that makes your next breath worthwhile.

I have renamed this site: SomeStrangeIdeas.com. I will explain what the new name in a forthcoming post. I still have the subvergence.org domain and the web address and email address will automatically forward to the new addresses.

When I first saw that there was a book called Postmodern Children’s Ministry, I rolled my eyes. It seemed to me that we were now taking the concept of postmodern and turning into another Christian brand (ie Purpose-Driven). I feared that soon we would have book titles about everything with Postmodern in front of it, because the publishing houses knew it would sell: God’s Postmodern Politics, The Pomo-Driven Life, and Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Stories About Living at Your Full Postmodern Potential .

However, I’ve read a couple of really positive things about this book on other blogs, and even added it to my wish list a few weeks ago. Today, Sivin posted a quote from the book that just about guaranteed it’s something I’d like to read:

The church’s ministry to children is broken. A cursory look doesn’t reveal its brokenness. From the outside children’s ministry looks healthier than ever. But it is broken. It’s broken when church leaders and senior pastors see children’s ministry primarily as a marketing tool. The church with the most outwardly attractive program wins the children and then the parents. It’s broken when we teach children the Bible as if it were just another book of moral fables or stories of great heroes. Something is broken when we trivialize God to our children. It’s broken when we exclude children from perhaps the most important of community activities: worship. It’s broken because we’ve become dependant on an 18th-century schooling model, forgetting that much of a children’s spiritual formation is affective, active, and intuitive. It’s broken when we depend on our programs and our curriculum to introduce our children to God — not our families and communities. It’s broken when we’ve come to believe that church has to be some other than church to be attractive to children. It’s broken when we spend lots of money making our churches into playlands and entice children to God through food fights and baptisms in the back of fire trucks. And perhaps most importantly, it’s broken when the church tells parents that its programs can spiritually nurture their children better than they can. By doing this, we’ve lied to parents and allowed them to abdicate their responsibility to spiritually form their children. A church program can’t spiritually form a child, but a familiy living in an intergenerational community of faith can. Our care for children is broken and badly in need of repair. Let’s imagine together a new way, a new future.

As someone who is about to be a part of a church plant, and then possibly be a lead planter in a few years, I had better care about children’s ministry — not because it is a program to be done right so that we can attract young families. It has to be a part of the all-encompassing strategy of how the church functions so that children will be intentionally raised toward spiritual maturity. I have plenty of questions about how to do this — perhaps this book can help ask the right questions, and maybe even point toward a few answers.

This month’s issue of Fast Company has a short, but good article, from Marcus Buckingham. It is based on his new book, The One Thing You Need to Know. I really liked his first and second book, so I’m looking forward to this one as well. It’s worth picking up the magazine to read this article, or waiting for a month when it will be available herefor free.

To sum it up, he gives describes a leader as someone who gives us a clear picture of the future. That is the most important role of a leader. In every culture in history, people have feared the future, and great leaders are those who give people a reason to move forward into it.

Justin, a good friend of mine, has recently started a blog called Trying Not to Sell Out. He will have some thoughtful and challenging posts, and it’s one I think will be worth adding to your blogroll. I did.

I couldn’t hold out any longer :), and I upgraded to WordPress 1.5. That also means I’ve got a new look. I’m not sure how long it will last because there are a few things laying out funny, but it seems to function at least. If you run into problems with how it is functioning, please let me know.

Being in a major life transition, I see this as a good time to create some healthy new patterns of how I go about some things. I’m not actually that unhappy with how I organize my productivity, but I do know I could sharpen it, which motivated me to read Getting Things Done, by David Allen. The book was pretty straight-forward for the most part, but it affirmed a few things I do well, and definitely pointed out a number of ways I could do things more effectively.

I’m sickened and in awe sometimes of how much more it seems like some people are able to get done than I am. Most of us have probably experienced this, and just assume we will never be able to get as much done as some of those people. We think that we just aren’t as competent, or will never be able to work as hard as they do. Perhaps there is some truth in that, but it’s not the whole story. It’s not that we need to learn how to work harder, we just need to learn how to be more productive with how we utilize our time. There is a big difference. Below are a few thoughts shaped from the book that are worth passing along. Some of these are straight from the book, and some are my own variations.

The two-minute rule.When you are going through email, voice mail, etc., if you run across something that can be done in two minutes or less, do it. Get it done and get it out of your mind. One of the greatest enemies of productivity is how often we have to revisit things because we didn’t take care of them the first time. If someone sends you an email with their address in it, add it to your contacts and be done with it.

Write it down.Always carry a PDA, a moleskine or something similar so you can write down thoughts and ideas. Get them off your mind so that you can focus on whatever is in front of you, whether a book you’re reading, a project you’re working on, or throwing a football with your kid. Take a few moments at the end or start of the day to act on these thoughts. Add them to your to-do list, or, for those that can be done in two minutes, do them!

“What is the next action?” Don’t add general or vague things to your to-do list. Always put things down in terms of the next action step. If there is a leak in your roof, don’t just put down “fix leak in roof” because that requires more thought when you are going through your to-do list, so you will be inclined to avoid it. Think specifically in terms of what is the next action step, (”Call Vern for roofer recommendation”) and put it down.

I hope these are helpful to you. May your working times be more productive, your relationships more enjoyable, and your times of Sabbath more restful as a result.

WordPress 1.5 is now available. I really want to upgrade, but this template isn’t available, and I really like the look of the site right now. That’s what you call blog vanity.

I’ll try to hold on for a few days and see what new themes are released…or maybe I’ll actually try to figure how to convert this one or even create my own…

But probably not.

I moved the site over to a QuikBlogs server today. Please let me know if you have any troubles with anything.

We were given a copy of Mark Driscoll’s book, The Radical Reformission at the Acts 29 Boot Camp. I read it on the plane on the way home. Driscoll can usually rile people up with some strong statements, but he has some good things to say. If nothing else, it is worth reading the chapter called “The Sin of Light Beer.” Here are a few things I thought of some further thought:

Pg 39 - One of the underlying keys to reformission is knowing that neither the freedom of Christ nor our freedom in Christ is intended to permit us to dance as close to sin as possible without crossing the line. But both are intended to permit us to dance as close to sinners as possible by crossing the lines that unnecessarily separate the people God has found from those he is still seeking.

Pg 69 - At some point, God may grant saving faith to their lost friends and enable them to pass from death to life, but their salvation is ultimately between them and God, as he alone gives salvation. The precise moment of their conversion is known by God, but it is often unknown to them, because authentic conversion is commonly experienced more as a process than as a single moment. Ultimately, what matters most is not when they meet Jesus, but that at some point they begin loving him with new hearts and will continue to do so forever.

Pg 78 - How sick are we when the most popular books among American Christians are about how to get blessed by praying a small section of Old Testament Scripture like a pagan mantra, and about the Rapture, as if the goal of the Christian life were to get more junk and leave this trailer park of a planet before God’s tornado touches down on all the sinners? Only through repentant eyes will we see that God has a plan, by the power of the gospel of grace, to build a community of transformed people.

Pg 152 - Reformation is not about abstention; it is about redemption. We must throw ourselves into the culture so that all that God made good is taken back and used in a way that glorifies him. Our goal is not to avoid drinking, singing, working, playing, eating, love-making, and the like. Instead, our goal must be to redeem those things through the power of the gospel so that they are used rightly according to Scripture, bringing God glory and his people a satisfied joy.