Change Your Bookmarks and RSS Feeds

I'm resurrecting this blog and moving it to a new website:

www.ben.bechurchne.org.

Look for new posts in the new year!

Thanks to Leonard Sweet for this idea:

One woman uses her celebrity to draw attention to global poverty and has adopted a child from a third world country.

One man formed one of the most explosively successful anti-poverty organizations in the Western world and who reminded lawmakers in Washington D.C. that:

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.[1]

Another man lives without refrigerator, trash, or electricity in the middle of New York City, so as to better respect the environment.

Can you guess who they are?

Angelina Jolie. Bono. Colin Beavan.

How many are Christian?

None of them.

Angelina Jolie doesn’t practice any religion. Bono is a lapsed Christian who is not involved with a church. Colin Beavan is a non-practicing Jew.

Where are the churchgoing Christians in this picture of courageous witness?

Still thinking?[2]

If God can’t use the church for God’s work, God will use the world.

---

[1] This is from Bono's speech to the National Prayer Breakfast.

[2] Here are a few names: (there are distressingly few): Jim Wallis, Shaine Claibourne.

Post-Wedding Thoughts

It's been a wonderful past four weeks, since Melissa and I got married. We received generous gifts and thoughtful messages and the love we felt from those who surrounded us was one of the best parts of the post-wedding experience.

In many cases, it was clear that people had given something of themselves. We received a couple paintings, several personalized gifts (a clock, etc.), and a few photos that were taken by our givers.

For instance, Marion Fuller, who I have known from church since I was a little kid, gave us a set of salad bowls.




They were made by her husband Harley, who passed away just a little while ago. She wrote in her note that "this was the only set that he made...he would have wanted you to have them".

These gifts are tangible reminders of community as we enter our married lives together. Every time I see them, I give thanks for the wonderful community God has blessed us with.

An Article

Hello Everyone,
I know this isn't an update so much as it is shameless self-promotion, but if you're online today, check out umc.org. If you log on later during the week, check out this link and then give me feedback!

MIA- Wedding

Quick bullet point update on my life

1) Life is good, but crazy- less than four weeks to go before the wedding. Melissa and I were at a high school friend's wedding this weekend, and it was a very "real" moment for both of us. As you might imagine, both stress and excitement are definitely up.

2) I finished the final Harry Potter today and really enjoyed it- thought it was the best book of the series. (And, for those of you who haven't read it and plan to, that's all I'll say!)

3) Wedding planning is also stressful- I finish up tuxes and hopefully finalize the service this week, and then have tons of details to wade through in the next 3.5 weeks.

4) Needless to say, blogging is not the top priority for me now, unless I can do it in ten minutes or less, so expect me to reemerge more once August 18th is past!

Beauty

Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned

And not posted for a full 22 days. Quick update on my life:

1) Annual Conference was wonderful- Melissa and I did two postmodern-y presentations, one on the shift from modernity to postmodernity and the church's response and the other on emerging worship. Despite being given the worst slots available, we did relatively well in terms of attendance, with 12 coming to our presentation on postmodernity (despite it being directly before the ordination service) and 40 coming to our presentation on emerging worship.

2) The Generation X/Y Conference, as I have mentioned before, was utterly wonderful- thanks to Cameron, Laura, Amy, (who are all online, so I have to mention them to make them happy), and all the other fantastic people who made it one of the best conferences I've ever been to. I have to write an article for GBHEM about it, which should be completed this week- I'll post it here once it's completed.

3) We sinned horribly and got another bookcase, a dish rack, two sets of plates and bowls, an office chair, the largest candle I've ever seen, and a small deep freeze for about $300 (oops!). That would have been the case except for the small detail that we actually got it all at garage sales, and made out like bandits, getting all of the above for about $40.

Why I've Disappeared

Not a good idea to have links driving traffic (like a whole extra 12 people to your blog!) and then not post. In my defense, my computer's monitor has decided to stop working and so had to be sent back to the Repair Gods of IBM for fixing. Naturally, my notes from the conference, e-mails, and life are stuck on a now impotent hard drive. Hopefully, this will be a temporary condition!

5/24-5/25 Gen X/Y

A quick post today, I'll try to post again tonight, once everything wraps up. What a fantastic conference! Doug and Tim are absolutely fantastic and this event has provided a great deal of clarity for me as I continue with my discernment process about church planting.

A few quotes that I've cut and pasted from my notes (and then off to lunch):

“We have detached our imagination from our faith”- Tim Keel

“Our brand of Christianity has been hard on faith because faith involves imagination, dreaming and seeing things that…we had before not been able to see.” - Tim Keel

“I don’t think there’s a more exciting time to be alive than today. I think that for the past millennium and a half, the church has power…Now, for the first time ever, we’re contesting what it means to be Christian in the world.”- Tim Keel

“We need a broader narrative about what God’s doing in the world that’s not differentiated by sacred and secular.”- Tim Keel

Another Lesson in Balding E

Another Lesson in Blogging Etiquette: Do Not Mention the Folically Disadvantaged Head of a Presenter, Especially If He Has a Google Tool Which E-mails Him Every time His Name Is Mentioned In A Blog. (It's Probably Not a Good Idea to do Self-Psychoanalysis Either)

P.S. And in case said presenter, (who by the way is a fantastic, wonderful, awesome, amazing pastor) visits my humble site yet again, I hereby retract my "baldness" comment, especially in light of the steady retreat of my own hairline, which will no doubt have disappeared, along with my hair, by the time I approach his age, judging by my genetics. (In case he's wondering, I'm not calling him old, not even "chronologically advantaged".)

P.P.S. And if he'll still talk to me after said sarcastic post, then I must be a lot more likable than I thought! :)

5.24.2007 Gen XY Conference Mid-Day

First, let me officially send a gloating smirk to my friends, Matt and Farrah, and my fiancée, Melissa, who are not at this incredible conference that is setting my mind on fire as we speak. It’s going to take me weeks, (if I retain anything in my sleepy daze) to process everything I’m hearing. What a fantastic conference!

Notable Quotes from Doug Pagitt this Morning

“Fear is powerful, but is just doesn’t motivate. Possibility has to motivate us.”

“There is no acultural Gospel or Good News, there is only Good News within a context.”

“Every place is as suitable for the Gospel as any other.”

"Truth is always played out in a situation."

Gen X/Y Conference Wednesday, May 23rd

Time I Awoke (Arkansas Time): 3:20 AM

Time I Spent In Transit: 11 Hours

People I Met On the Plane: Claudia, Freddie, and Isabella (who is 11 months old and remarkably well behaved) Martinez

Time I Arrived At the Mount Sequoyah Retreat Center: 3:00PM

Time the Conference Was Supposed to Start: 3:30 PM

Time It Actually Started Due to the Inevitable United Methodist “Technical Difficulties”: 4:15PM

Presenters: Tim Keel (The bearded, earringed, long haired pastor of Jacob’s Well in Kansas City)

Doug Pagitt (The balding, wispy-goateed, completely real pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis)

The Content of Our “Worship Experience”: 2 Songs, 1 Sermon, Communion, and 1 Song (Which depending on whether you like cookie-cutter contemporary or not, was either heaven or hell)

Time I Began to Lose It Due to Lack of Sleep and Excessive Extroversion: 5:30PM

Time I Ended Up in Conversation With Doug Pagitt: 6:00PM

Number of Times I Unwittingly Spilled Out My Angst Regarding My Discernment Process To A Crowd Of People: One

Number of Times Doug Pagitt was Around When I Did That: One

Number of Conference Presenters Who Now Think I’m Crazy, Uber-Intense, and a Little Bit Troubled: One

Number of Times I Now Wish That I Had Kept My Bloody Mouth Shut Until I Got a Full Night’s Sleep: Beyond count

Memorable Quotes From the Day:

Tim Keel on Losing His Faith: “I wasn’t losing the content of my doctrine, I was losing my way of life”

Tim Keel on Seminary Education: “I felt like I was being trained and going into deep debt for a world that didn’t exist” (And I completely agree with him!)

Tim Keel on Church Ministry: ““The Church has loads of organizations, but don’t have enough organism”

Doug Pagitt on Living the Christian Life: “I got into Chrisitanity thinking that I was going to be a full participant” and ““If I’m going be a Christian, I’m going to be one fully and completely, I’m not going to outsource any part of it”

Amount of Sleep I Got Last Night: 9.5 Utterly Comatose Hours

Hopes For Thursday: To Be Slightly Less Crazy Than Yesterday

I’ll post a midday update if I get a chance.

Wow...It's Been Way Too Long

Hello Everyone,

To my 30 or so readers, sorry for my absence...I have no good excuse, although a lot of good reasons for not being around, like reaching the end of school, renting an apartment, and having some computer issues. So, very briefly, a quick update on my life.

1) Wedding planning continues apace, the rest of the save the date cards will go out this week and we're putting together the details for our reception this week.

2) I start my job as music director and (very) part time youth pastor at Trinity UMC and Monroe Community Church on June 3rd.

3) Melissa and I have rented our first apartment at Birchview Gardens, (I'll stay in it now, Melissa will move in during August).

Also, I will be blogging daily (perhaps even twice a day) in a couple weeks from the Generation X/Y Event, which will be led by Tim Keel and Doug Paggit, who are two of the top pastors in the country when it comes to engaging with postmodernity. Come check it out! Bring your friends!

Gifted and Graced

I remember, going through the candidacy process for ministry, (although whether it was in the official material or not I cannot remember,) a lot of discussion about whether one possessed the "gifts" and "graces" for ministry: gifts being those things that come easily to us, that are blessed and magnified by God in our calling, and graces, those things that perhaps did not come easily to us, but are given to us by God to help fulfill our calling. (For some reason, I don't think this is what the UMC meant by this, but it made sense at the time to my teenage mind.)

This phrase has captured my attention over these past few months, as I continue to recover from a year-long relapse with my chronic illness and at the same time discerning whether or not I am called to plant a church.

Unfortunately, although I would like to be of normal health, I'm not, nor will I ever be. Chances are, the place I'm at now: about 80% of normal physically and not being able to do more than 35-40 hours of work a week without serious repercussions is where I'll be for the rest of my life. Getting in better shape, learning to stick with a routine, and getting extra rest will help, but it will not significantly change my physical capacity to do work over the long term.

Based on this, it looks like church planting would, not be a great option for me. (For that matter, full time pastoral ministry wouldn't look like a great option either.) Church planting involves very high levels of stress, 80 hour workweeks, and few (if any) breaks for rest, especially as the church is getting off the ground.

And still, in spite of this, I still feel a tug to continue discerning in this path, and I will be faithful to that. Ultimately, I believe that if God calls me, then God will grace me with the strength necessary to respond, whether that be through miraculous healing, job sharing, or a setting that can work with my physical limitations. And, if this means that I am not called to church planting, then God will call me to a ministry that will be even more deeply meaningful than the path I'm on now.

I think that we often forget, as a church, that in order to accomplish truly remarkable things, we must trust in God, and we must be willing to risk: in our ministry, in our personal lives, in our finances, in our expectations, and trust that God will carry us., even if we can't see how.

This is certainly one of those times for me.

Holy Week

Every pastor-blogger would understand why I've been mysteriously absent this week- the grueling marathon commonly known as Holy Week. For laity, it is chock full of wonderful worship services, easter eggs, easter dinner, and generally a good (or at least meaningful) time all around. For pastors, it is a long endurance test, at least four services (Maunday Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunrise, and Easter), several sermons, high pressure, and a lot of late nights.

To round up my Holy Weeks stats:
10.5 hours driving, 3 nights getting to bed at 11:30 or later (not by choice), one prayer group, four services, three practices, 10 songs led on Easter morning, and countless cups of tea.

I am simply thankful that I've survived. Once I've recovered, I'll post something more.

Why Professors Should Blog

If anything has inspired, amused, and occasionally annoyed me at seminary, it is that so many professors are under the impression that their ideas can change the world. I've read countless articles and books implying that if people really believed what the author believed about (insert relevant theology/methodology/interpretation here) then the church would be saved, oppression ended, and the world redeemed.

Unfortunately, most of them have chosen a very clunky and cumbersome way to proclaim their message: books. The process of publishing a books (especially an aspiring PhD's student's first book) takes in the neighborhood of five to ten years, and its end result is often so expensive and esoteric that only academic libraries and other professors in the same field can afford to buy it. (And, if it gets really successful, then perhaps it gets foisted off on a few unsuspecting college/grad students as well!) Therefore, the reach of most academic books, (unless they are absolute dynamite) is extremely limited, measured in the tens of thousands, or perhaps even the hundreds of readers, rather in millions.

So I wonder, if professors care so much about their ideas, if they believe, that their ideas can change the world, then why not blog about them?

Blogs carry with them several sizable advantages over books:

1) They're cheap- anyone with a computer can write one, anyone with a computer can read one, without having to shell out $50-$150 for the privilege.

2) They're contemporary- if a burning issue comes up, then you can write about instantly, rather than having to wait 5-10 years to get a book published (at which point it is automatically outdated.)

3) Their success based on merit- If (and I admit, this is a big "if"), you engage with other blogs and post interesting, compelling material, then people will read your work. It doesn't require a PhD, a slick proposal, or connections with a publishing house to get your ideas out there.

4) Their potential audience is gigantic- An academic book reaches a very small subsection of the population (measured in the tens of thousands), a successful blog could reach millions.

Granted, there are some drawbacks. Blog posts don't lend themselves too long, complicated, interconnected arguments. However, with the advent of easy to make e-books, or even publishing on demand, it is still possible to disseminate more complex academic works to a wide audience. (In fact, blogging provides a built-in customer base for any would-be book author.)

Therefore, may I suggest to all the professors reading this post (of which I believe there might be one, who is already online here), if you truly care about disseminating your ideas, blog!

Liberal Tolerance Is A Lie

I was sitting in class this evening, and someone brought up a book that a lot of us were reading in a separate class, Purpose Driven Church. Immediately, almost everyone gasped in horror and disgust (someone even made the symbol of a cross at the book!) The passage in question, Rick Warren’s suggestion of starting worship with an upbeat song (never mind that most mainline churches do that) became the symbol of all that was wrong with evangelicalism- shallow, demanding only a one time commitment, and giving no impetus for long term discipleship. At the end of the conversation, the book symbolized everything wrong with all those big churches and those conservative pastors: it was “manipulative”, “shallow”, “boring”, and “irrelevant” for mainline ministry.

This was blatant, first class, shameless, theologically fundamentalist stereotyping. In the end, for many of my classmates, Rick Warren’s conservatism invalidated everything he said about pastoral leadership. Furthermore, their criticisms willfully ignored huge stretches of the book where Rick Warren talks about member’s rigorous discipleship training program (which would put most of our mainline churches to shame) or where he notes that his chapter on worship primarily refer to “seeker services”, which are geared exclusively for non-Christians, while members get a service with more depth later in the week.

I am not surprised by this episode, but I am disappointed. It’s a shame that my classmates, who have been lectured by liberal professors time and time again to “read a text in its entirety” and to “not prooftext”, have just willfully done exactly that.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve seen this happen at Drew. (And if you talk to any conservative student at my school, they can tell you stories about the times they’ve been stereotyped or even demonized by other students and professors.)

Oh well, so much for that much vaunted liberal tolerance.

Zoom!

Churches often encourages their leaders, especially their pastors, to be culturally static. The pastor is expected to dive head first into the church’s little universe- their social circles, their traditions, their activities. Many pastors take this leap for what seem like good reasons:

1) Why take time getting to know non-Christians in the community when I can spend time building relationships with the people who will support my ministry (and pay my salary)?

2) Why listen to “secular” music (or for that matter, engage with secular media of any type) when I can fill my heart and mind with music that will bring me closer to God?

3) Why participate in activities in the larger community (e.g. school board, community theater, rec-league sports, etc.) when the church needs my help for their programs (e.g pot luck suppers, family fun night, meetings, etc.)

This thinking entails that ministers have little contact with the outside. Their perspectives get warped. Inch by inch, they begin to think that their church members are the norm for the wider community: that everyone knows what words like “doxology” or “benediction” means, that activities beloved by the church will appeal deeply to the unchurched, that advertisements and promotions that resonate with our church members will touch the wider community as well.

If we, as the church, are primarily concerned about engaging the community for the sake of transformation, then this is a deadly rut. Seth Godin, who I have blogged about before, talks about the same phenomenon with business leaders, and has a technique to help them break out of their ruts, called “zooming”. The premise is this: in today’s world, cultural/technology/business shifts are happening so quickly that it’s important that business leaders remain flexible. Therefore, successful leaders must consistently challenge their norms by engaging by continually challenging their assumptions and their routines. (He suggests simple techniques, like taking a different route to work in the morning or listening to a CD from a genre of music that you don’t like.)

This technique is equally important for church leaders. So, here are a few tips for how to start zooming, church style:

1) Get involved in the community. Join a book club, a community theatre, or a volunteer project and build relationships with people who don’t go your church.

2) Keep track of cultural trends- subscribe to a few blogs, watch the latest popular television show, or turn on the radio to the top-50 music station to see what people are listening to.

3) Change up your spiritual life- experiment with new spiritual disciplines, read parts of the Bible that you’ve avoided (and preach on them!),or find a spiritual director to help keep you accountable.

4) Read the top books in both church leadership and business leadership, especially from those who will directly challenge you. (e.g. Adam Hamilton, Peter Rollins, Shane Claibourne, Seth Godin, etc.).

5) Never say “I don’t have enough time! The church needs me to do (insert important ministry here)!” This is as (perhaps even more) important than your committee meetings, pot luck suppers, and other church-centric activities. Churches that effectively engage with their community grow spiritually and numerically. Churches that remain isolated die. If you, as a church leader, can’t break out of your box, how will the congregation ever be able to?

Another Quick Post

You know you're getting old when it's 8:30PM and your body's telling you it's time for bed. So, since keeping awake right now is my greatest concern, I'm going to keep this short. First, a stream-of-consciousness preview of topics that I'd like to write about in the next few weeks. (And you, my faithful reader, are allowed to harass, threaten, or blackmail me if I don't come through!)

1) Zooming (Another Seth Godin idea)
2) Why Professors Should Blog
3) Who is Church?

Finally, links to a few nifty websites and posts that I came across this week.

1) Swap your paperback books here
2) Wikihow- wikipedia plus how to manuals
3) How to save electricity
4) An insightful post about privilege and charity in the West

A Quick Update

I’ve been meaning to post regularly, and over the past month or so, I’ve done pretty well. However, with the craziness of this past week, I blinked and realized that it was Saturday, I hadn’t posted in a week, and I was driving home the next day.

So, with my abject apologies, here’s a quick update on my life. I’m home this week, so I have absolutely no excuse for not posting again.

At any rate, here are this week’s highlights.

1) I got into my inaugural accident on Wednesday evening. Note to all you young drivers: always check your blind spot before you switch lanes, especially during NJ rush hour. Thank goodness, the other car wasn’t damaged, but my front side driver’s door is not looking good, and my driver’s side mirror was completely obliterated. The car is currently camped out in a NJ body shop, getting fixed.

2) Yes, the wedding plans are coming along. If we really like you (and have your e-mail address), expect a save-the date e-mail by the end of the week. The rest of you will have to wait for it to come in the mail, which will happen hopefully next week!

3) School is remarkably sane. My chronic illness is under control, my coursework is reasonable (and I’m even enjoying most of my classes), and supervised ministry at my church continues to be enjoyable and challenging.