Twitter Updates for 2009-08-01

Posted on August 1, 2009 by PaulVK

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A happy generalist grazing widely

Posted on July 31, 2009 by PaulVK

After 19 years in ministry I finally have an article filing system I’m satisfied with. When I was in seminary I’d hear from the preaching teachers about the importance of developing a file system to clip newspaper and magazine articles for future sermon illustrations and pastoral situations. I never got there. It wasn’t really needed for my job in the Dominican Republic and I’ve never liked managing paper.

Things have changed. I have my Google Reader where I take in RSS feeds. I get links from Twitter and CRC-Voices as well as paper things I read (they’re still not as convenient as I’d like).  I scan headlines and read articles that make me think “I might want to recall that someday…” After I skim it or read it I decide if it’s a keeper. If it is I use bit.ly to compress the link, I tweet it with a little summary that has keywords I’ll think of later to search, my blog captures my tweets and if later I think about the article I can search my blog and pull it up and use it. Wonderful!

I also get the secondary benefit of seeing what “sticks” with different people. You can measure response on bit.ly and I can easily post things to Facebook and hear different people’s responses to different articles. It’s so much more rewarding that reading something and putting it in some paper file someplace where I’d have to store that paper and hope to retrieve it somehow.

As I was doing some of that this afternoon (note all the tweets and FB posts) it occurred to me how broad and general my line of work is. Social issues, psychological issues, cultural artifacts, interesting stories, all kinds of things might have to be rolled into a sermon or a conversation or a piece I’m writing.

Pastors are one of the few generalist occupations left and that makes me happy. So many fields are now specialized and sit in silos, mine is one where I get to grace in open fields, in the fields of others and get to mix what I find all together. It’s an interesting and good thing and I’m happy I get to do it.

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The "emergent" promise isn't different from the "seeker" promise for those who wannabee "successful" at doing church

Posted on July 31, 2009 by PaulVK

Don Heatley (or Heat Donly as we used to call him sometimes) went to high school with me and we did the drama club together. A bit ago we found each other via Facebook and I discovered he was a church planter. He has a blog. He recently wrote a terrific piece on his experience with the vaunted “young” generation that should be flocking to the emergent churches. Terrifically honest post! I wanted to keep my response to him so here it is.

Great post Don! It raised a couple of thoughts for me.

The success tease even for the “authentic” emergent: Read the literature and supposedly there is a large pent-up “market” of persons such as you describe and all you need to do is create this venue, as you describe that embodies this mythical “third way” and they will flock. You rightly expose the gas and “vapor ware” that this is. It is simply an echo of the previous ambition induced enticement of the seeker movement that suggested that if you “create a safe place for people to hear a dangerous message” by replacing the organ with a jazz band, adding a praise team and a positive “how to fix your life/kids/marriage with Jesus” message then “seekers” will flock to your church and you’ll be Willow next… Perhaps the emergent movement isn’t as “turnkey” an operation as the seeker wasn’t either.

I imagine your “sample” is dead on correct because it speaks to human nature and the realities of community. Nobody likes to face the fact that their current reality is “authentic” and that the institutionally-offered “upgrade” they hope to acquire by virtue of identification or attendance whether from the big-box seeker mall down the road or the hipster emergent save-the-world community are really the same thing. You are still you whether you buy your coffee at Costco, Starbucks or the locally owned place down the road where the guy swears third world locals get a fair deal. Where you buy your coffee doesn’t change your life.

The seeker movement teased by offering transformation on the cheap. The emergent movement has the same potential of offering community on the cheap. Neither transformation nor community can be had on the cheap, it costs us our lives which is exactly what Jesus said it would.

Thank you for speaking the truth and daring to unveil the market and success temptations of every new American wrapping of the church that seduces us into short-changing the basic gospel which is cross first then resurrection. pvk

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"hearts and minds renewing God's world"

Posted on July 31, 2009 by PaulVK

Calvin College recently announced receiving 150 million in their campaign. I’m thrilled. I love Calvin College. I’m sending my son to Calvin College. For me Calvin College is the happiest place on earth and I am not kidding when I say that. I love it that much. Every time I go to the campus for CRHM meetings a part of me jumps for joy. I lived on that campus for 5 years and went to school on it for 9 and those were some of the happiest years of my life. I could go on and on and on about Calvin College.

but… their tagline makes me uncomfortable. To me this sounds triumphalistic. This is the kind of sloganeering I often hear in GR when I’m back there and it always gives me the creeps. The Banner article posted on the “new Calvinism” had some of this too. I’d be much more comfortable with talk of the God’s Spirit renewing God’s world and sometimes he uses us when we’re not getting in the way.

The CRC has toes in both the emergent movement (transformation via social action, social justice, etc.) and the Calvinist movement (by confessions we feel awkward about as related in the “new Calvinism” piece) but in some ways we’ve got the liabilities of both movements. When I hear some of this triumphalist talk I always think “if we really knew how to fix the world then our own communities wouldn’t have the messes they’ve got. Why do we think we can tell others what to do?” When I hear people talking in exalted terms about all the tools and smarts that we have which will “transform lives and communities” I always ask them to give me the location of a “transformED” community. If we’re so smart show me that place where we’ve arrived!? Until then, I’m not buying your program. Sure you can do lots of helpful things. Fine. But in the age of decay they all fall short and we are thrown back down onto our knees seeking God’s face and relying on his power and trusting in his providence that when we don’t see the way he sees still. (My new favorite line: the insufficiency of all things attainable).

I’d feel more comfortable with phrases talking about SEEKING the renewal of God’s world. This would bring in worship and action and relativize our role hopefully reducing the idolatrous temptations of our own agency in the process of renewal. pvk

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Urban Mission "Case Study" from 89

Posted on July 31, 2009 by PaulVK

Found these online. Articles written by my parents and myself back in 89

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Twitter Updates for 2009-07-31

Posted on July 31, 2009 by PaulVK

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Two little tools called "policy" and "exception"

Posted on July 27, 2009 by PaulVK

I wrote this for CRC-Voices in a discussion on whether churches should accept designated gifts.

We invented this thing called “policy” in order to make future decisions easier and more understandable. “Policy” shapes culture. “Policy” is an excellent tool.

We have another tool called “exception” to make sure that “policy” does not make us:
1. Hide behind it to avoid conflicts or decisions we really need to own up to.
2. Keep “policy” being our tool and not our master.
3. Allow “policy” to not get in the way of love or generosity.

To me the question of “designated funds” falls into the category of “policy” (if chosen) but keeping “exception” around is a good idea too.

Discouraging (rather than a zero-tolerance rule) helps keep people who are not mature or generous with financial resources from manipulating or coercing the will of the body. “Policy” encourages community. “Exception” is something best used sparingly and selectively also for the building up of community and allowing individuals to express their love and generosity. Neither “policy” nor “exception” eliminates the need for wise leadership or can offer perfect security against our own foolishness or even conflict.

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Twitter Updates for 2009-07-24

Posted on July 24, 2009 by PaulVK
  • RT @cicw: RT @craigadams49 "Five Things I Would Change If I Were a Pastor Again" http://is.gd/1IJv0 (via @ThomRainer) #cicwrt #
  • RT @tonystiff: Eugene Peterson on "Spirituality for all the wrong reasons" http://tinyurl.com/c5xklp from 2005, great stuff #
  • RT @TimBlackmon: Steinbeck's East of Eden: "There's a capacity for appetite that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy." #
  • RT @firstimportance: Today's Quote: The restoration of the entire cosmos http://tr.im/tHWv an Abraham Kuyper quote #
  • RT @cicw: RT @CatalystLeader Five Future Trends (or guesses) of Church Planting http://bit.ly/SfJae #cicwrt via @craigadams49 #
  • Fixing an @johnpiper CS Lewis quote on unquestioned assumptions. It's actually from Alan Jacobs' bio of Lewis http://bit.ly/RWPyl #
  • RT @tonystiff: template for urban church planters: Here's a generic example of "city church" approach http://tinyurl.com/mbyal4 #
  • WNYC Radio labs: Krulwich interviews Dawkins about Darwin. "a flower isn't here for beauty, it just copies its DNA…" http://bit.ly/YOnXM #
  • RT @RachelleGardner: Best wedding video. http://tr.im/tKHc culture, creativity celebration, watcha think @dannyfast? still time to plan 🙂 #
  • RT @zeylstyle: "Pride is the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration on the self." C.S. Lewis #
  • What is hell like? You can find it on the Internet. http://bit.ly/nA4lD #
  • I'm not unconvinced reading fewer books more times might be better than more books fewer times. #
  • Did humans kill the neanderthals? Time Mag. http://bit.ly/17PUBA #
  • children of stressed & anxious parents were 50% more likely to develop asthma than kids with non-stressed parents http://bit.ly/Kfh27 #
  • Epidemic of teen pregnancy for teens in foster care, Time Mag. http://bit.ly/I9EDE #

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What is hell like?

Posted on July 23, 2009 by PaulVK

WNYC Radio Labs is a terrific show. Every single episode I find to be challenging and thought provoking. In two episodes Robert Krulwich (a practicing Jew) goes it alone and wanders into the area of science and religion. (In Silence, and In Defense of Darwin)The comment sections of their website light up with fury.

This must be what hell looks like. Endless insulting, asserting, posturing, maligning, abusing, each blow felt motivating the next in infinite fury and violence as long as their tender egos feel themselves the misunderstood and undervalued victim.

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Fixing a @johnpiper CS Lewis twitter quote

Posted on July 23, 2009 by PaulVK

John Piper went from zero to 60 in nothing flat on Twitter. He tweets a lot of really good stuff, much of which I retweet. Part of why I retweet as much as I do is because I use my blog to capture my tweets and retweets so I can find things later. Usually when I’m working on a sermon or working on something I’m writing I remember something I read and think “oh, I need that, that will be helpful” so I turn to my blog to find it. After a while I notice that I turn to some of the same things over and over. This is a kind of solitary thought-cloud sourcing that helps me find really good tools on my shelf.

@johnpiper tweeted this CS Lewis “quote” that I had never heard of, but it was very much in keeping with what I knew of Lewis.

@JohnPiper: Our era too is “a period in history, with many unquestioned assumptions that later generations will find absurd.” CS Lewis

I thought of it a few times, almost referenced it on some things I was working on, then decided to so I figured I should find where in Lewis this comes from. I Google searched the phrase only to discover (thank you Google books) that the quote isn’t from Lewis but rather from Alan Jacob’s terrific biography of Lewis “The Narnian” which I own and had read (and loved). The quote is true to Lewis but not of Lewis. Here is the paragraph containing the “quote” in its entirety.

The first obstacle to a proper appreciation for “old books” is this common failure to understand that our own world is also merely a “period” in intellectual history, with many unquestioned assumptions that later generations will find absurd. It is certain that those later generations will look back at the ancestors that we despise or mock and conclude that they got many things right that we got wrong. (And after all, do we not sometimes say that there was wisdom in ancient Greece or Rome or China or India that the modern Western world has neglected or forgotten?) But this is a very hard lesson to learn in an age that believes that its rapid technological development must be accompanied by like progress in morality and wisdom. Lewis was not even convinced that technological changes should regularly earn the label of “progress”—he thought that buttons served far better than zippers to keep the fly of his trousers closed, and he dipped a pen in an inkwell to the end of his days—and was thoroughly skeptical of any claim that we morally exceed our ancestors. In his first book of Christian apologetics, The Problem of Pain, he argues that human cultures are prone to “lopsided ethical developments”: they have their “pet virtues” but also their “curious insensibilities” to other virtues. Why should our time be any different? Or perhaps we believe that the “pet virtue” of our time—which in this book Lewis identifies as “humaneness,” though soon afterward he settles on “unselfishness” as the better word for it—is such a great virtue that “God might be content with us on that ground.” If you are inclined so to think, then Lewis suggests that you “ask yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of cruel ages because they excelled in courage or chastity…. From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get some inkling of how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.”

“The Narnian” by Alan Jacobs pg. 165-166

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