Ship of Fools - Synchroblog Updated!

So this is a real conversation that really happened... for reals. Only the names have been changed to protect those involved because I have not asked permission from them to use their names. Except "Pomo" who is me.

The room upstairs is dark and the smell of coffee fills the air. Already sitting on the scene are three church leaders; Deck, Art, and Mode. They proceed with small talk but also appear a bit nervous because of the conversation that is about to take place.

Enter Pomo, who is shocked at seeing all three of them sitting there. He usually only met with Deck.

Pomo: Um, hi guys. What's up?

Deck: Hi, how are you?

(Now 3 or 4 minutes of small talk ensue which not need be elaborated here. Then some specifics were brought up regarding vision and direction and trust; which is too laborious to get into on a blog. But now, for the exciting conclusion!)

Deck: I was trying to think of an analogy and this is the best one I could think of: Your on a bus and those with you are also on that bus. And your driving this bus but you really don't know where you are going. You're just going off in some direction but you don't have a map.

Art: See, when you drive a bus you need a specific address. We feel like you maybe have a city, but a city is pretty big and you need an address.

Deck: So, we'd like to ask you to step down from leadership, just for now. Until you know what your address is. If you find out that address is the same destination as ours then you can come back, but for now, we feel it's best that we take over the ministry.

Art: Then you can ride our bus until you get a map and go in the same direction we are going.

Mode: But we need you. We need you to stay on the bus so we don't loose all the people who got on the bus with you.

Deck: Yes we need you to ride our bus and follow our map. We can't do this without you. But you have to let us drive the bus for a while. You need to give us the wheel until you figure out exactly where you are going.

The conversation pretty much ended there but if I thought of it at the time, this is what I would have said:

"But you see, we aren't a bus. We don't know the destination. We are like explorers on the open sea. We just know we need to go West because land is East. There may be dragons and their most assuredly are storms, but we will let the wind guide us and whether we succeed or fail, we will venture into unknown territory, see amazing sites, meet amazing people, and live each breath by the grace of an amazing God.

"Call us a "Ship of Fools" if you like, but God uses the foolish to confound the wise. I think following Jesus should be more like a sea faring explorer with a compass and the stars and the wind, than a bus driver with a map and a paved road and a gas station every 50 miles."

We are still a ship of fools. I deeply respect those who feel otherwise but we wouldn't change it for the world.

*for the record, I did say that we would step down from leadership in the best possible way, but we would never ever ever come back. It ended very amicably on a Sunday morning a few days later.

Synchrobloggers now here!

The Foolishness of God and the Foolishness of Christians by K.W. Leslie

Fools Rush In by Sonja Andrews

The Power of Paradox by Julie Clawson

That Darn Ego by Jonathan Brink

Won't Get Fooled Again by Alan Knox

Strength on the Margins by Igneous Quill

Foolish Heart by Erin Word

A Fool's Choice by Cindy Harvey

Quiet Now, God's Calling by Jenelle D'Alessandro

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right... By Mike Bursell

Hut Burning for God by Father Gregory

God Used This Fool by Cobus van Wyngaard

Fool if you think its over by Paul Walker

Blessed are the foolish -- foolish are the blessed by Steve Hayes

What A Fool I've Been by Reba Baskett

What a Fool Believes by Sue at Discombobula

Shhhhhh "many 'moderns' want to see change too"

I was listening to some friends today that are not of the say, post-modern mentality.
And though some of the things they said I disagreed with, I chose to stay quiet and as I did something occurred to me: These people want to see change in the world too. They want to see the church become more than what she is right now. They want to see people live better lives, they want to help the poor and feed the hungry and pray with the sick.

So...we sail a ship and they drive a bus... but in the end, we still see the same thing wrong and see that something must change.

Now granted these are more progressive modern thinkers who although may not be able to wrap their minds around the whole 'post' thing, it was still encouraging and enlightening to me that we ... in fact ... want the same thing. And it's important for us to realize that they have their place and so do we.

We can philosophically debate till the cows come home (I'd really like to know where that phrase came from) but sometimes it's better to stay quiet and find commonality...after all aren't we telling everyone to do that anyway?


By the way the pic is of Owen and Mzee an unlikely pair...

Cussing and Drinking in Los Angeles

So, when you listen to the Counting Crows, do ever just want to move back to Los Angeles and get drunk? Or is that just my own personal thing?

And to borrow a Monty Python title, “And Now For Something Completely Different.” I had some blogwatchdogbloodhounds whatever the term is, find my post about cussing and decide to warn others abut the evils of the Emerging Church, and more specifically me.

I’m okay with that. At first, I wanted to explain myself and debate, but decided that responding above the line was the best and most Jesus like approach. Bless those who curse you kind of thing; which is rather ironic considering the subject at hand.

Anyway, for a group of people who are coming from a modern mindset – which let me be clear - IS PERECTLY FINE, I thought this was interesting (and not that unusual):

Modernity is based on reason. The more rational we are, the better the world will be. The church adopted this same philosophy (and it’s not wrong; it just is, just like post-modernity is not wrong; it just is) determining that reason was the best way to advance the kingdom of God, study scripture, share the good news of Jesus, etc. So if reason is the philosophy of the practice of their faith then why are these statements so unreasonable? I’m just curious. Please understand, I’m just trying to think this through myself because I would have flunked “Argumentation” in college if I reasoned like these statements below (I got an 'A-' by the way).

Next you are gonna tell me that homosexuals are going to inherit the kingdom of God. PLEASE!

Our society is in a shambles because everyone wants to do what they want. No community (society as a whole) standards of anykind, will result in anarchy.

The Christian light is dimming.

A quick note: If you want to read these comments in context (because I don't like anyone taking things out of context including myself) please go to the "The Art of Cussing and Suggestions on Proper Cussing Etiquette" and read the comments there.

So, can anyone help me understand these two things:

1. Why do I want to go L.A. and get drunk when listening to the Counting Crows?

2. Do these comments make sense to you? If so, why?

Honestly I’m more curious about the first.

Keep Our Buts Silent - A Brief Thank You

In spite of levying much criticism upon the modern era church over the past several months, I thought I'd just say thanks to her as well. After all, she's been the church for the past 500 or so years and with all her ups and downs, by the grace of God, she has continued on.
The church is never without criticism even from within herself, and I for one welcome it because we all look through a mirror dimly and we can all learn from each other. That's why I call myself Emerging because I welcome the conversation of varying points of view; as long as it's done with a humble apologetic and an eagerness to learn from others.

So, thank you to the high liturgical church, that has kept the Eucharist the central point of worship. Thank you for standing up for justice when others failed. Thank you for much of the rich tradition that we can all learn from.

Thank you to the evangelical protestant church who has held firmly to the reading of the sacred scripture. Thank you for providing an environment of intellectual study where everyone can learn to read the text...and more importantly allow the text to read us.

And thank you to the Charismatic church who has received the revelation that God is powerful and at work in lives today with miracles beyond our comprehension. Thank you for igniting a worship revolution that creates thin places where heaven meets earth. Thank you for understanding the power the prayer.


And yes, there can be lots of buts in these thank yous, but let's just keep our buts silent for now.

Mars and Venus, Modern and Post-Modern...sort of.

Sometimes I like to torture myself. While channel flipping this lazy Saturday afternoon, I came across something on TBN that caught my attention - and not in the wacky bling-bling way.

It didn't last long.

But something occurred to me.

We all see the problem. We all just have different solutions that are unfortunately often times at odds with each other.

The statistic this preacher gave off (unverified) was that only about 4% of teenagers today have a Biblical world view. Their grandparents were at something like 65%.
No matter how literally or liberally you define a Biblical World View, the results are a bit astounding. And we all know that America is only a matter of years behind Europe in being a post-Christian culture.

The concern from this man was genuine and heartfelt. A rare moment on Christian Television that to me didn't seem contrived or hypocritical - but maybe I'm just jaded. He even spoke of how the millions of dollars and the pomp and circumstance and flash and media are not doing anything to change the direction of our culture and we should be concerned. For a minute I thought we was turning emergent on me!

It was creepy, but I actually bonded with this guy...for a moment.

Then his solutions came:

First was prayer. None can argue with that.

But then it fell to the same old rhetoric. That we're not yelling the truth loud enough; that we aren't kicking evolution out of the schools; that psychology is for humanistic God haters; and that the church as been not vocal enough in making things right.

Actually his last point might be correct. We haven't been vocal enough. But in a broad sense, the modern definition and the post-modern definition of vocal are two vastly different things. And although many times we can coexist and even work together; there are other times when our approaches are diametrically opposed to one another.

There have been numerous times recently when I hear what a church is doing in order to promote truth, and my desire is to go apologize on behalf of all those who have been hurt by people who hold rational truth as the fourth member of the Trinity.

With all do respect to the man inside my TV this afternoon, I can resound a hearty "Amen" (It is TBN after all) to his premise (after throwing out some really bad theology - which leads to another point - how can someone who holds truth so dear, have such bad hermeneutics?), but to his conclusion, I must say we are like Mars and Venus. You can decided who's who.

Why it's okay to call Christians whores, but not everyone else.

This is in response to "Fred's" comment in the previous post. My response comment was getting to long...
:-)

"Fred",
It is absolutely true that we should be sensitive to other members of the body of Christ. We (and I'm one of the worst) do a great job of shooting our own wounded and fighting amongst ourselves rather than fighting for a thing truly worthwhile like social justice and the reduction of poverty. If we could work together, how much more could the world change!?

However, there's another side of the coin here, and although we should always be respectful and loving, there is time for confronting. Peter says that the church will be judged first. Therefore we must 'judge' ourselves. There are two reasons for this:

One, is that we are 'in the light'. We have the greatest revelation given to us in the person of Jesus. And to whom much is given, much is required. I don't expect the self driven agnostic to give income to help the poor, but I expect the middle class surbanite with the Jesus fish on the family mini-van to not only give to the poor but to spend time with them (or whoever God lays on their hearts). The practical end result of this is that I may show mercy and love to the agnostic, while giving correction in love to the surbanite who claims to follow Christ.

We have a great example of this in the person of Jesus. He was accused of being a drunk and glutton and he was condemned for being friends and partying with sinners and rebels (tax collectors). Yet Jesus spent time with them, associated with them, laughed with them, loved them, and in that context, taught them and showed them God. At the same time, he rebuked the religious leaders, called them a brood of vipers, and proclaimed them white-washed tombs (insults of the worst kind in the day).
And yet, he still loved them, and for those who responded to Him, we dwelt with them and ate at their houses as well.

Revelation is very clear that Jesus not only encouraged the church, but at times had harsh words. We too, in love, can have harsh words. One can argue that God's judgement of Israel doesn't apply to the church because that was the Old Testament. I would argue that although we are under a new covenant, the same principle applies and you can read it in the Gospels, and throughout the New Testament (Annanias and Saphira for example).

The second reason flows from the first. We have within us the Holy Spirit, a supernatural phenomenon that should draw those in darkness into the light. We are Jesus on the earth, and people are looking for him. And yet in many cases, they see no difference. What they see, is a church spending millions on a new buildings and special effects for the stage. They see a Jesus fish on a Mercedes driving by a homeless person without stopping to give. They see a political giant fighting for rights in schools and denying others the rights that they desire. They see shallow, two faced hypocrites, who proclaim that rated R movies and cussing is bad, while millions die from AIDS on the other side of the world.

Now one can argue that I'm using a Strawman here, but I'm not saying that this is how all Christians act, I'm saying that this is how Christians are perceived because a significant number do indeed act that way. As a result we must heeds Paul's words as an entire body; that we should hold ourselves above reproach and act in a manner worthy of Christ.

And when we don't, we need to say so. We need to say that something is wrong. I believe that as we live honestly with ourselves, and we love those in darkness, while at the same time calling our own lives and the lives of other Christians into accountability we can see Jesus touch the dark places of our world.

People have seen us put on the perfect face long enough. But the whore still shows. Let us expose the whore, wipe our tears on Jesus feet, and allow Him to raise us up and call us His bride. The pharisees may wonder why Jesus is allowing a whore in the house, but world will then see Jesus as the lover of our souls, and us, as people who simply need a relationship with our creator, without all the whorish make-up.

We all desire something real. The world has had enough of "Jesus is my boyfriend, bobble-head doll, fake it till you make it Christianity." Let's get back to the raw, messy, Jesus. The one who drank with tax collectors, and pulled out the whip in the temple.