emerging mosaic

Doug Pagiit found Jesus in  the wood trim at his house (tongue firmly planted in cheek).

I was taking a picture of the trim work in one of the bedrooms of our duplex in order to get a matching piece for the other side. When I looked at the picture I notice the strange little “Jesus” face on the right - kinda creepy. I also kind of looks like Abe Lincoln. Face in the wood

 My advice: Quick rip it out put it up on ebay and the Golden Palace Casino will buy it for thousands of dollars.

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Here is a reimagining of the footprints poem that someone sent me. makes me want to shout the affirmation faith is a dance! Enjoy

Imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord’s footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace. But your footprints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures, and returns. For much of the way, it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord’s, soon paralleling His consistently. You and Jesus are walking as true friends!

This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: Your footprints that once etched the sand next to Jesus’ are now walking precisely in His steps. Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones, you and Jesus are becoming one.

This goes on for many miles, but gradually you notice another change.  The footprints inside the large footprints seem to grow larger. Eventually they disappear altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one.

This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse! Zigzags all over the place.   Stops.  Starts. Gashes in the sand.   A variable mess of prints. You are amazed and shocked. Your dream ends. Now you pray:

"Lord, I understand the first scene, with zigzags and fits.  I was a new Christian; I was just learning.  But You walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with You."

"That is correct."

"And when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps, following You very closely."

"Very good.. You have understood everything so far! "

When the smaller footprints grew and filled in Yours, I suppose that I was becoming like You in every way."

"Precisely."

"So, Lord, was there a regression or something? The footprints separated, and this time it was worse than at first."

There is a pause as the Lord answers, with a smile in His voice.

"You didn’t know?  It was then that we danced!"[thumb:392:r:l=g]

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Technorati Tags: dance, faith, footprints, Jesus, spiritual-practice, steps

Via Crucis Stations of the cross blog

Here is a wonderful quote from maggi dawn’s post when God vanishes in response to her son’s comment about Good Friday.

"Why is it called Good Friday?" asked my son. "It’s not good at all, it’s really bad."

hope doesn’t forestall the depth of blackness that can descend even upon people of faith. And the recollection that the Easter faith was born in the darkness is, perhaps, a reason to hold on and not to give up.

Via Crucis Stations of the cross blog  

That is the powerful truth of Good Friday. Hope in the midst of darkness, in the throes of death, suffering  and agony one of those hanging on the cross next Jesus found it. Jesus said today you will be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43Luke 23:43
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
43 Jesus replied, “I promise that today you will be with me in paradise.” n paradise: In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word is used for the Garden of Eden. In New Testament times it was sometimes used for the place where God's people are happy and at rest, as they wait for the final judgment.

I can find it, We can find it. Today is a good day

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In an article on On Evangelicals and Interfaith Cooperation, an interview with Tony Campolo makes this statement that I think is relevant to the spiritual practice of (racial) reconciliation I suggested in my post emergent thread.

TC: Rather than making theological statements, we need to tell each other our stories. Jesus would tell stories and then say, "what do you make of this story?" One more story.

I believe the being of reconciliation of any kind (but especially racial reconciliation) is when we  can safely tell our story.

What’s your story?

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Yesterday I picked up N.T. Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is in preparation for my talk a the next emergent west Michigan "conversation Wednesday".  The quote that caught my attention.

"We cannot assume that by saying the word Jesus," "still less the word Christ, we are automatically in touch with the real Jesus who talked in first-century Palestine." Even less are we automatically in touch with "the Jesus who … is the same yesterday, today and forever."  

Then today I came across this quote on Jazz Theologian from James Cone’s (often thought of as the father of black theology) book God of the Oppressed 

 "If twentieth-century Christians are to speak the truth for their socio historical situation, they cannot merely repeat the story of what Jesus did and said in Palestine, as if it were self-interpreting for us today. Truth is more than the retelling of the biblical story. Truth is the divine happening that invades our contemporary situation, revealing the meaning of the past for the present so that we are made new creatures for the future."

This is exactly the kind of theological dialog that i think can happen if the emergent church will expand its theological framework to include  African American and other non Anglo theologians.

Can it happen? Will it happen? Only the shadow knows….

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The Old Bill has gathered an incredible collection/galleryof  images of Jesus it’s well worth a visit.

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Technorati Tags: art, icons, Jesus

Are the leadership models of choice more than an reaction to unhealthy leadership patterns of the modern church. Some don’t think so. In response to my previous post and comment on his blog Lucas over a my four walls continues the conversation about the flat model of leadership in the emerging church, by comparing Jesus as pastor and leader to these unhealthy patterns. Our current patterns of living out these biblical leadership roles are distorted. That much is true but I don’t think that means we just swing to the opposite extreme of no leadership no pastor.

Can we acknowledge the distortions as John Frye does, then ask how then should we lead/pastor if we are following Jesus’ pattern? Jesus often pastored "his flock" by  leaving them to go and connecting with God the creator through prayer. That’s pastoring by example. Why don’t we do that instead of saying we don’t need pastors? Jesus lead by serving others can we do that instead of saying we don’t need leaders? Instead of advocating no structures how about cultivating organic structures instead of mechanical ones?

subversive influence also raises some interesting issues

Problems here are (a) the flat model is not non-analogous (by the way, what’s the opposite of analogous, anyway?) to servant leadership, as I would argue servant leadership will naturally exist in flat structures; and (2) effective servant leadership is not necessarily hierarchical (this facet is redundant to the prior point

He also points to a whole other aspect of this distributed leadership the complex Christ where I raised the issue of organic vs mechanical. I think this raises a much more important issue. Is the model of individual professional leadership sustainable for the church moving into the future? Distributed leadership may be the only sustainable way to go.

This raises all bunch of other question about money and the accumulation of wealth being discussed over and into the mystic (Alex McManus blog)

This is a very stimulating question

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Technorati Tags: biblical_leadership, church_leadership, emerging_church, Jesus, leadership_models, pastor, servant_leadership

Evangelicals for Social Action have  a great article illustrating how anglocsed the chrstian faith has become. Choosing Christ over culture shows how we need to detach our the christian faith from the dominant cultural thinking if we are to connect with all God’s children.

Are we following Jesus or doing the Christian thing?

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About six years ago I started preaching every February about the spiritual and emotional issues raised in songs nominated for song of the year a the Grammy awards. this year is the first year to do it with mosaic life and there is just so much to explore. Jesus walks by kanye west if I ain’t got you Alcia keys, the reason hoobastank, and heaven Los lonely boys.

kanye west’s is up first. he straight up calls the church out for not speaking Jesus to the world and being the presence of god to the lest of these

I ain’t here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathy Lee needed Regis that’s the way I need Jesus

and and hip-hop world for being hypocrites for rapping about any and everything but God.

So here go my single dawg radio needs this
They say you can rap-about-anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes
But if I talk about God my record won’t get played, Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope it take away from my sins
And bring the day that I’m dreamin bout
Next time I’m in the club everybody screamin out
(Jesus Walks)
it begs the questions who did Jesus walk with? and who does he walk with today?

stay tuned

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last fall when i read Brian maclaren’s book generous orthodoxy i was particularly taken by his chapter the seven Jesus’ I’ve known. it really got me thinking about Jesus and the way that we, i interpret him. is Jesus our understanding of Jesus completely culturally conditioned?

then i found a book simply titled Jesus catchy isn’t it. anyway it featured reflections (mostly excerpts from their books) by max lucado, Sheila Walsh, billy graham and Charles Swindoll (yea not exactly the emergent crowd) on the many ways we experience Jesus. that got me thinking about the various images of Jesus in the scripture and culture. right after that i discovered a series on beliefnet.com called in search of Jesus essays by Jesus scholars on the various ways we interpret Jesus. i knew i had to share this stuff.

so for the last four week I’ve been exploring (investigating) with the folks of mosaic life images of Jesus in scripture. we’ve explored Jesus as lord, peacemaker, fighter and healer. pretty interesting to me that Jesus could be all of those things. but in each case he turned the conventional wisdom on its head. he was a servant lord, claimed peace in the middle of trial, fight for things that are not of this world and offers healing for the “unhealable”. as Len sweet says in this book following Jesus could drive you crazy. he is just so different and unconventional and not caught up in the stuff we human being get caught up in.

following him calls me to a unconventional lifestyle of serving others and living beyond myself, being courageous enough to seek peace in the middle of turmoil, being willing to fight for kingdom values, and surrendering my whole life to his healing power.

what a ride! the journey continues this week as i shift to looking at the images of Jesus in pop culture particularly music. I’ll be exploring Jesus images in four Grammy nominated songs by Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Hoobastank and Los Lonely Boys.

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