Greg Boyd

Greg Boyd has become one of my favorite theologians over the past couple of years. In his blog he claims that he is a Mennonite - Random Reflections

He actually has some interesting thoughts about Mennonites.
Greg states that many Mennonites are "open theists". An open theist is a person who believes that God has plan for the world but does not control every detail. God is going to bring history to its proper conclusion. However he does not know what choice every person will make. He knows all our possible choices and the consequences of each.
What do you think?

Misplaced

Check out this video. It will make you think.

Misplaced

Let me know what you think?


Edited:
Ok this video takes a really long time to load up. Sorry about that.

cyclocross

Yesterday there was a cyclocross race in our town. Cyclocross is sort of like mountain biking, except there are times when you have to get off your bike and carry it.
My daughter joined the kids race. She did totally awesome. I am so proud of her. The winner of one of the adult races gave her his prize because he thought she did great as well. My wife says she won the cutest kid award.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
A couple of thing that I am thankful for:

• My wife - who is the most beautiful, wonderful, smart person I have ever met
• My children - they are amazing and I am so proud of each one
• Family - wish I was with them this weekend
  
• Friends
• Laughter
• Health
• A van that works
• A house that keeps me dry and warm
• A wonderful bed
• Freedom
• School
• Books
• Stories
• Different languages
• Enough food to eat
• Beauty of creation
• Rain
• Internet

What are you thankful for?

Blessed or cursed?

If you have grown up in the church you most likely will have heard of something called "the curse". What happened is that Yahweh created people in a perfect world and placed them in the Garden of Eden. However people chose to rebel against God. As a result humans fell under a curse. Growing up I was under the impression that God had specifically cursed people.
However I just reread the story in Genesis. Yahweh actually does not curse people specifically. The ground is cursed and we suffer consequences for our actions. But no where in Genesis are humans cursed by God.
My teacher in Genesis says that this is important because foundationally we are blessed by God and not cursed by him. God never removes his blessing from humans and places them under a curse in Genesis.
Do you see yourself as blessed by God? Or cursed by him?
How can we help people see that God has blessed them not cursed them?

Death

This fall I am taking two classes with Winnipeg Center of Ministry Studies (an Anabaptist seminary) - Genesis and Death (actually my Death class is called Death, life and happiness but our teacher told us that he was forced to put in life and happiness). I have had one class of each so far and they both seem to be totally fascinating.
In my Death class our teacher read a chapter from Michael Wyschogrod's book, Abraham's Promise: Judaism and Jewish - Christian Relations, called "A Jewish Death in Heidelberg". It told the story about how a Jewish man died in Heidelberg. His Christian friends wanted to bury him next to the woman he loved (though never married) in a Christian cemetery. In fact he had expressed this wish (though he never left a will). The Jewish community objected to this and insisted the he be buried in the Jewish cemetery. They argued that being buried in a Christian cemetery is contrary to the Torah. This story raises several interesting questions. How binding is the desires of a dead person? What if their wish goes against their religious convictions?
Who has the authority to decide these matters? In this story the man had no family. So do his friends or does his religious community have the authority?
What does it mean to honor the dead?
Fulfilling the final wish a person is often seen as a way of honoring them. However this was the struggle. The Jewish man was apparently very Jewish (though he did have a falling out with the Jewish community). So is it more honoring to bury him in the Jewish fashion (keeping the spirit of who he was) or by fulfilling his desire?
These are difficult questions. I wonder if they are more difficult because I do not like really talking about death.

Aliens

Do space aliens actually exist? I am not sure how many of you actually think about questions like this. But it is something that I occasionally think about. I really enjoy reading/watching science fiction. One of my favorite movies is Star Wars and favorite TV is show is Star Trek. So on occasion I wonder about life on other planets.
Now I have often concluded that there is no other intelligent life on other planets. However the other day I was driving all my reasons began to fall apart. I had suddenly thought about angles. Angles are intelligent beings that God has created. Which means that there are at least two intelligent beings that exist. And if there are two why not more?
Right now I do not believe that aliens have visited our planet or that there is any really good evidence that they exist. But I do not have any reasons for them not to exist either.

First reactions

I wonder how a person changes their first reactions. Often in my life my first reaction to things is to see the problems and negatives. It may be a great idea (even the greatest idea ever). Still I often start listing the problems. I think I can see the potential of some ideas. But my first reaction is not to list those benefits and blessings.
And my initial reaction can get even worse if something disrupts my life. I am convinced that deep within is a belief that I am the center of the world. I deny that I believe this but sometimes...

The Missional Leader

Just finished reading the book The Missional Leader (an excellent book if you want to know how to move a church to being more missional). One of the concepts that the authors talk about is dwelling in the scriptures. The purpose is not to read lots of the bible or to even study the passage in depth (though those are both good things and should be done). The goal is to stay in one story long enough that this biblical story begins forming new questions in your mind, challenging your assumptions.
I know that when I have spent lots of time in a passage it seems to almost take on a mind of its own. I begin to see and understand new things. The passage comes more alive.
Have you ever experienced anything like this?

Rain

The other weekend I went camping with my family. And we wanted sunny weather. The only thing we could do to try and get sun shine was to pray. After all God alone controls the weather. Right? Humans don't control the weather. Or do we?
Global warming is a reality and science is stating that we as humans are the cause of this. And global warming is affecting the weather. I just read an article by cbc stating that rain and global warming are linked (Changes in rainfall man-made, Canadian scientists say).
Now I am not saying that we should not be praying. We need to pray more and pray about everything. However we cannot just pray and pretend that our actions do not affect our world. Changing the way I live today will not give me sun on the weekend. But we are changing the weather of the world.

Convention II

Convention is over. It was great to hear about how God is moving in our conference. There were many stories from the different parts of the world. Stories about people coming to faith and churches being planted. We were called to continue to be faithful to God and pursue him. The best part of convention (as mentioned in my last post) was connecting with people. I talked to several different people about how we can equip and empower the people in our churches to reach out and spread the gospel. It is so energizing and exciting to connect with people who are totally passionate and on fire for God.

Convention

I am at convention right now. It has been a really good time. The highlight is connecting with people from around the world and hearing what God is doing. There are some really cool things happening.
Another fun thing was playing killer bunnies last night. What an interesting game.
Well I have to take off to a meeting so I will write more later about convention.

Blink

Have you ever made a decision based on your 'gut' or instinct? You make a decision without really knowing why you made that decision. It just felt right (or not). When I was in grade 12 our school got a new choir director. When I first met him he immidiatly asked if I would join the choir. For some reason I said yes without hesitation. Now this is strange because I am not a singer (I had been told by people in church to sing quietly). And I had no desire to be in a choir. Yet for some reason I said yes (I still do not really know why). And being in the choir turned out to be one of the best things of grade 12.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is about these kinds of decisions. It is about "the power of thinking without thinking." He reasons that we can make great decisions using our 'gut'.
In the first chapter Malcolm argues that we can (and do) make decisions based on very little information. He calls this "thin slicing". We can ignore the useless information and just focus on what is important. In fact he states that sometimes the more information the worse our decisions are. He tells a story about 80 college students. Their friends are asked to take a test and describe the students. A group of strangers are also given 15 minutes in the college student's room and then given the same test (so these people actually never meet the students). The strangers actually do better in describing the students. Amazing.

Malcolm is a great writer and story teller. It is an enjoyable book to read.

God on Mute Part II

I finished. And now I am sitting at the computer trying to figure out how to summarize this book. Pete Greig says too many things to be wrapped up in a couple of paragraphs. So I am not going to try.
Just read this book if you have ever experienced unanswered prayer. If you have every been crying out to God and he seems distant, uncaring (even cruel), powerless...

God on Mute

Nathan gave me another book that I "have to" read, God on Mute, by Pete Greig. I have read a couple of chapters and it is good. Pete deals with the question of unanswered prayer. Here is something for you to think about (let me know if you agree or disagree):

The thing that keeps God out of our lives is not our sin. It is our compulsion to pretend, to cover up our nakedness with fig leaves, to climb sycamore trees in order to see without being seen. (Chapter 4, page 78)

The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.
Shane claims to be an ordinary radical. He says that he is just an ordinary person (there is nothing magical or extra-ordinary about him) who is living a radical life. Shane has taken the call of Jesus to follow him seriously. Within this book Shane tells stories and talks about what it means to give everything to God. It really gets a person to think.
Community is a very important aspect to this book (and to Shane's life). There is a realness when it comes to discussing community. Shane clearly states that it is hard to live in community. However he also states that it is natural and normal. I know this. Many times my wife and I have thought about how natural and normal it would be to share garden tools with other people (like lawn mowers). But the problem is that sharing means that I cannot have it whenever I want. I may feel like mowing my lawn but someone else is using it. Or what happens when it breaks? Especially if one person seems to be harder on it than another. Community is natural and hard. Through out the book Shane notes that community is the best way to live though. To live without community is to not really live at all. He states that he grieves for the rich because they are so lonely.
Another statement that really got me thinking was Shane's response when people would ask him what issues they should be involved in. Instead of listing the issues Shane states choose people and the issues will chose you. We are to be passionate about people not issues.
Shane deffinetly lives out his faith. I do have questions about some the things that he does. Not sure about all the protesting that he does. I wonder about his refusal to receive help because other people did not get the same help.
This is a good book.

Outreach

At semi-annual meeting we talked about vision for our church. The leadership proposed the idea that outreach be the vision for our church. At the meeting this is what was shared (with some modifications and additions):

This vision is really about how do we empower people to live Jesus in their communities. Which means things like how do empower people to be better friends, neighbours, parents, workers, leaders, etc? How do we bless the people who are around us? How do we do this organizationally?

This vision also joins our spiritual world (church) with the secular world (everything else). What I mean is this. At church we speak about God and Jesus and pray. Often everywhere else we don't bring God into the conversation and pray with one another. This vision seeks to bring the two together - talking about God and praying with people outside of our church. And this needs to be done in a way that sensitive and blesses people (not condemning people). There are times within our church where we have not really engaged in what is happening in the world (we act as if church is all that there is). An an example would the AIDS crisis. What are doing about this as church (or conference)?

Further this vision pushes us into missions. How do we support our missionaries? How do we raise up new missionaries (ones who will go for life)? How do we get involved with the changing face of missions (with people from third world becoming involved in sending missionaries)?

What do you think?

World Environment Day

June 5 is World Environment Day. This year's theme is climate change, which happens to be the hot topic of the day. It seems that every where I look people are talking about global warming. This is really good because I believe talking about global warming naturally leads people to discuss what does it mean to take care of our world. And this is something that the church needs to really address. There have been some really good things happening - but there are some really appalling things also happening. For example the other day I was reading in a "Christian" newspaper and there was an article on theology. Within in this article caring for the environment was not seen as a God given responsibility but as just a fad (with the impression that it should be resisted). So I am happy that climate change is being talked about - with enough noise even the church cannot ignore what is happening. We may be even worse than the government when it comes to denying reality.
However there is one concern that I have. It does seem that climate change is the latest fad. There have been many other issues that have been talked about: AIDS, poverty, sex trade, slavery (yes this still is happening today), child labour, etc. Each seems to have its time and then fades into the back ground. I wonder has anything changed? Climate change sometimes feels like a smoke screen. We can talk a lot about it but what can we do? Will it actually be effective? It feels a lot safer talking about climate change than about justice - for to live justly will call us to change. Climate change calls for the industry to change.

sex, lies and paratroop deployment

My friend Lee put up a post talking about sex, lies and paratroop deployment. It is a little long but really worth reading.

Music

A while back my wife and I bought a couple of DVDs that are suppose to teach us how to dance. Dancing seems like such a fun thing to be able to do. Inspired by Swing Kids one of the DVDs is on how to sing dance. It looks so simple, easy and fun. So the other night we put it on and began to learn.
What did I learn? That it is not simple or easy - it might be fun once you can do it. That my feet do not move the way they are suppose to. That as a guy I am suppose to be the one leading. That I have no idea how to lead. That my wife can dance really well.
It was like there was a barrier between my brain and my body. My brain would tell my body to do a certain move. After a delay my body would begin moving the wrong way then jerk the right way. But now I would be a step behind so I would rush and then stumble. The whole time my brain would be yelling at my body "move this way. Not that way you idiot. Faster, no slower." And well all this is happening I am suppose to be listening to the music, the video instructions, lead my graceful wife and in some way connect deeply with her through dancing.
I think I need a lot more practice.