The following is cross posted from The Great Omission study blog. Comments are closed here, but you are welcome to comment on the original post…

Some may think it is strange that such practices, the disciplines for life in the Spirit, are all bodily behaviors. But it cannot be otherwise. Learning Christ-likeness is not passive. It is active engagement with and in God. And we act with our bodies. Moreover, this bodily engagement is what lays the foundation in our bodily members for readiness for holiness, and increasingly removes the readiness to sin… - pg 89-90

What I’m about to say certainly isn’t original and it isn’t overly profound, so hopefully it can at least serve as a reminder to those of us who serve in leadership positions in a church. If, as Willard describes above, being Christ-like is not passive, then how come so many of our methods to create Christ-like people are? I love to think and ponder as much as anyone, but the best way to facilitate an active engagement with God in the life of a community of people is not to let the passively receive while we talk about it. We must also be developers of a culture where opportunities are give to engage in a life of Christ-likeness.

Since this blog is geared to be a group discussion, perhaps we can do that here. What are effective ways you have seen active engagement with God facilitated through a church community? I’ll start with an easy one. In the decade I did student ministry, I saw far more growth through counter cultural experiences than anything else because they are so fully engaging. And to take that even further, with Willard’s thoughts in mind, it seems like the most beneficial experieinces were the ones that provided the most rigorous activity.

I’d love to hear what the experiences of others have been in developing opportunities for people to engage in a life of Christ-likeness. And somebody remind me of this once a month so I can weigh how well I am doing it!

Thanks to Sony, I’m now two for two with laptop batteries that need to be replaced so that they don’t burst into flames in my lap. I already have a new battery on the way from Dell for my work laptop. Thankfully, I had a spare battery that isn’t in danger of incinerating my thighs, so I can still use that one in portable mode.

Now, I discovered that our family iBook battery is also quite combustible. No backup battery for this one, so it’s power supply only.

Dell gets the nod in replacement time — only 2-3 weeks compared to iBook’s 4-6 weeks. It’s not helping that Apple’s site is really slow right now…must be a lot of people checking on their batteries. So much for using the iBook for upcoming fall classes.

UPDATE: Finally got through on Apple’s website, and it is telling me that my battery isn’t eligible for the recall. That might be good news, but I’m pretty sure that my battery’s serial number of 6C539 clearly falls between 6C519 - 6C552. I’m pretty decent at math. I tried calling Apple support number, pressed the option about battery recall, and a recording told me they could help me right now due to technical difficulties, and that I should go to the website.

UPDATE #2: Hey JJ, this probably applies to your PowerBook too. I know you probably wouldn’t find out otherwise…I’m just hoping you actually make it past the first sentence of this post since you never care about what I say.

UPDATE #3: No more technical difficulties when I call the support line…I’ve stepped up to a busy signal.

UPDATE #4: I finally got through to Apple this morning — their hold music is a bit sketchy, by the way. They are, in fact, sending me a replacement battery. Kind of troubling that the website told me I didn’t need one. Seems like they are only opening themselves up to bigger problems if someone’s house burns down because the Apple website told them they didn’t need a new one.

I’ve experimented a few times with an easy way to add a moblog, but never quite found what worked best — until now.

Shozu seamlessly grabss photos I take on my SDA and sends them to Flickr. WordPress then automatically puts those images in the righthand column of my blog thanks to a plugin called flickrrss.

Now, hopefully I can find enough interesting things to take pictures of…

The following is cross posted from The Great Omission study blog. Comments are closed here, but you are welcome to comment on the original post…

I’m sorry to say this, but too much of what we call Christian is not a manifestation of the supernatural life of God in our souls. Too much of what we call Christian is really just human. And now I’m going to say something really terrible, so brace yourselves or stop your ears. The church of Jesus Christ is not necessarily present when there is a correct administration of the sacrament and faithful preaching of the Word of God. The church of God is present where people gather together in the power of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. It is possible to have the administration of the sacraments and the preaching of the Word of God and to have it simply be a human exercise. - pg. 51

Ouch.

Yesterday I sat for most of the day in a training seminar about small group ministry in churches. The church putting it on has a great small group ministry from what I know, and they had some really worthwhile things to say.

However, as they described how people learn how to be in a community and care for others, I wrestled with one question over and over: How does Jesus fit in this? I think everything they said was great, but I kept wondering what made it special from what any other religious system might call people too relationally.

This isn’t meant as a critique of that church…just what I was pondering. It is easy for us to get caught up in what we are to do as a church, and how we are to do it. Unfortunately, it is often too easy to forget the why. We don’t just gather in large or small contexts to celebrate the resurrected life of Jesus, but to continue it. We invite others to Life as he showed it to us, and it is through grace that we are empowered and enabled to do so.

Conrad Gempf emailed me to let me know that, with Zondervan’s permission, he is making Jesus Asked available for free in the form of a audio book/podcast. I’m subscribing.

I’ve said it before, but I appreciate Conrad’s writing, because he brings his scholarly study of Jesus to us in a package that is readable by all. I’ve also recommended this book many times to others in different trainings I’ve done for those who lead in small groups or other discussion settings because of the insights Conrad gives about Jesus’ conversational style.

Subscribe in iTunes | Download MP3s directly

My (somewhat ir)regular summary of links added at inbreaking.com:

• 3Text Learning Event with Brian McLaren and Ron Martoia
• Disowning Conservative Polititcs, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock
• Isolated Americans Trying to Connect
• The Emerging Church Comes Into VIew
• Free Derek Webb - Derek Webb’s album to be available online as a free download
• Anne Rice: From An Interview With a Vampire to Christ the Lord
• Why is NT Wright Misrepresented and Misunderstood by so many of His Reformed Critics?
• Come On Driscoll - Rhett Smith comments on Driscoll’s definition of masculinity and the lack of it in the church

If you like a link, please vote on it…that’s what makes social bookmarking happen. Note…this only includes links I post…there has been more activity by others posting links of late too. You can find more information about inbreaking.com here.

I have a bit of a unique relationship with Mark Driscoll.

On the one hand, whenever I dialogue with him, I come away really respecting and appreciating him. I admire his passion to keep Mars Hill Church focused on mission, the way he values study of both theology and culture and how to intersect them, and his overall insight and ingenuity.

On the other hand, there is much where I don’t agree with him. Just to name a few — he is much more of a literalist than I when approaching the Scriptures, I don’t hold to the reformed theology he espouses and am not as conservative overall, and I often think he comes across too sure of himself and his views.

Most unique about our relationship is that he doesn’t know anything about our conversations. They’ve all taken place in my noggin as I’ve wrestled through his ideas in books or talks he’s given.

Regardless of what you think of him, I find great value in his ideas. His confidence in his views at least pushes me to clarify my own. When I react to something he says, whether positively or negatively, it causes me to ask what brings about that reaction, and define my own response to it.

Whether or note you agree with his theology or ecclesiology, I think Confessions of a Reformission Rev is a must read for anyone who wants to start or lead within a church community. He openly shares his own experience, both the good and the bad, in the birth of Mars Hill with humility and confidence. Better yet, he describes his ecclesiology as he goes, pushing the reader toward clarity on their own.

There’s much to chew on, but here’s two thoughts I find especially valuable:

• “Over the years, I have accepted that I’m really not much of a pastor but rather am a missiologist studying the city who leads a church filled with missionaries who reach the city and with pastors who care for the converts.” (pg 51) He is defining his role as a pastor, but this is worthwhile for anyone in that role to chew on. Is this what the role of lead pastor should look like for anyone, or is it a matter of style that best suits him?
• “I decided to never view our church as a church but rather always to view it like a church planter with a core group launching out to reach the city. Now we simply had a core of one thousand instead of the original twelve that began in the living room of my home.” (pg 147) YES! Even in the short ten months of Pathways, I can see how easy it is to start thinking that we’re going to make it and be a real and established church. What a dangerous way to think because it so distracts from the mission.

I’ve learned a number of things from Rob Bell over the years, and you can see his ideas shrouded in my clumsy words throughout this blog. One very practical thing I learned from him became a reality today…

Several years ago, he mentioned that he got a weed burner for his birthday. I’d never heard of a weed burner. We had weeds in Arizona, but they were pretty managable in our tiny yards, so it wasn’t a big topic. In the Pacific Northwest, weeds can get out of hand. Enter your friendly neighborhood equipment rental dealer, and $10 for a weed burner for four hours.

I smell like a chain smoker, but I had a great time!

(Disclaimer: the included image should only be considered a representation of my morning. No evergreens were harmed in my destructive binge today.)

Last November, Joe Myers was talking about his new book, Organic Community, at the Off the Map conference here in Seattle. It was due out in the spring. I thought Joe’s previous book, The Search to Belong, had some good stuff to say, so I pre-ordered the new book from Amazon. A few weeks before it was to be released, it was pushed back to August. Now, Amazon is saying it won’t be released until August 2007! What’s up with that?!

Macey picked out And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street tonight. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of reading it. It’s one of the all time literary classics.

The following is cross posted from The Great Omission study blog. Comments are closed here, but you are welcome to comment on the original post…

“We need to emphasize that the Great Omission from the Great Comission is not obedience to Christ, but discipleship, apprenticeship, to him. Through discipleship, obedience will take care of itself, and we will also escape the snares of judgmentalism and legalism, whether directed toward ourselves or toward others.” (pg. xiv)

It seems like I often hear the Christian life characterized as a way of living to say thank you for the salvation God offers us. We’re supposed to obey God just because of all he’s done for us. There are undertones of guilt in this that don’t quite capture the fullness of what God offers.

We strive to live like Christ, or better said, follow Jesus, not just to say thank you. We long for it because we truly believe that his way is the real Way of living. The salvation he offer isn’t only something that comes later, but a Way of living now. We are apprentices of the master liver, the one who fully demonstrated how humanness should truly look.

(Yes, I did perhaps create some new language in there, but that’s part of the task that I think is before us as we try to shake free from incomplete understandings of discipleship.)

The following is cross posted from The Great Omission study blog, which I will likely do with any entries I make there. Comments are closed here, but you are welcome to comment on the original post.

Wow, so many things in the introduction alone to chew on! One that stands out for me is Willard’s paraphrase of the Great Comission. Rather than “baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, he renders it “submerge them in the Trinitarian Presence”. (pg xiii)

This is a far cry from our common understanding of the Great Comission. We normally boil it down to Jesus commanding us to perform what we would now see as a sacrament signifying one’s entry into a relationship with Jesus. Could Jesus, as Willard suggests here, have meant so much more than that?

Willard refines our understanding, and reminds us that Jesus’ ultimate goal was not to get us dunked, but for us to enter into a life that was connected with His, a life lived in the Way he has set before us. Coming from a tradition that places a high emphasis on baptism by immersion, this might be seen as a challenge to our views. However, we have to remember that following Jesus is exactly the point, not the ways we have tried to define it for the last 2000 years. Besides, even if one accepts Willard’s interpretation, it does not in my mind undermine the meaning and value of the baptismal celebration.

For me, this is a welcome perspective on the passage, and one that merits further consideration.

Anyone else out there having trouble with Bloglines? When I click on some of my feeds, even though it says there are unread items, nothing shows up. I have confirmed by clicking through to the sites in question that there are new posts. I’d hate to see Bloglines become unreliable, because it’s been such a useful tool to me for the last few years.

The Great Omission book study blog officially begins tomorrow. Feel free to join in or follow along!

We took a day trip to Hurricane Ridge today. The panoramic above is five different pictures meshed together. It does such a poor job of capturing the view that I ought to be arrested. It was absolutely stunning.