intersections

The Best of 2006

For some time now I've been wanting to post some reflections about 2006 and hopes for 2007. This is by no means comprehensive. But, as I'm sitting here in our quiet apartment, two and a half hours before midnight (on the West Coast) this is what comes to mind.

Personal Highlights of the Year
1. Climbing Mt. Whitney with my dad and brother. We hiked all summer in preparation for our Sept 25th ascent. We did the climb in two days (it can be done in one long day if you don't want to camp over night). We nearly froze our butts off, but it was a wonderful experience. Click here for more pictures of our hike.

2. Standing with Jim Wallis in support of Proposition 86. Ultimately this Proposition failed to pass, but the experience of working in partnership with so many great people was truly inspiring. The highlight came in an opportunity I had to meet Jim Wallis. He was in Los Angeles and offered to partner with our PICO affiliate here called LA Voice. Jim spoke first and I followed him, speaking about the work the faith community had done in support of this proposition.

3. The growth our the Hollywood Church toward an authentic missional community has been deeply rewarding. We are only just beginning this journey and the further we get into it, the more we know it will take much longer that we originally thought and will require more from each of us that we know how to give. 2006 was a year of self-awareness as a congregation. Our listening groups did an amazing and difficult job. Our leadership retreat was nothing short of miraculous and the response of our congregation to our future is truly inspiring. In addition we have been able to turn around a multiple year deficit budget and end the year in the black for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long. Trust is being rebuilt and relationships are growing. We had the awesome privilege to baptize 7 people this past Easter and welcome dozens more by transfer from places all around the country and the world!

4. The opening of Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts was a huge accomplishment. Elysabeth and I have given dozens of hours to this, and we are so grateful to the other families that make up this amazing school. We have made deep friendships and Zoe is growing socially, intellectually and emotionally in this rich environment. Elysabeth founder and director of "After Arts" the after-school program which runs every day from 1-6 pm. It's an amazing program and she constantly gets compliments from parents about how great a job she's doing.

5. In addition I am deeply grateful for the relationships that continue to sustain my life. My wife and children are the stability. They ground me, day by day, in the things that are most important. They keep me honest and balanced. I am grateful to my church family and my staff (paid and unpaid) who work hard to make the day-to-day life of the church happen. I am particularly grateful to have met Johnny Ramirez this year and have him join our staff as a ministerial intern.

I am thankful for the new people I have met this year (in person and just online or on the phone), in no particular order: Brenton Reading, Melvin Bray, Trevan Osborn, Sherman Haywood Cox II, Julius Nam, Michael Peabody, Alexander Carpenter (I met him several years ago but couldn't resist mentioning him).

Also, the steady friendship and support of people like Samir Selmanovic, Jeff Gang, Monte Sahlin, Paul Richardson and Raj Attiken are vital, on so many levels, to the work we are doing.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my D.Min. cohort at Fuller. These guys (there are no gals at this point) have become true friends along this journey which is entering it's 4th year. In particular, Jim Amstutz and Michael Wilson have been faithful partners in this journey. Thanks, guys, for making me a better pastor and student!

It's now nearly 11 pm so I am deeply sorry if I have forgotten anyone. A few more things, if your attention span is still holding.

The Best Books I Read This Year
Again, in no particular order:

1. Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith, by Diana Butler Bass
2. The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day
3. The Missional Leader, by Alan Roxburgh
4. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition, by Christine D. Pohl
5. How (Not) to Speak of God, by Peter Rollins
   

Most Significant Films of 2006
Naturally I haven't seen every film made this year, and most importantly, I'm not a film critic, but these are the films that had the greatest impact on me this year, in no particular order:

1. An Inconvenient Truth
2. Blood Diamond
3. Little Children
4. Babel
5. Happy Feet

And, "just for fun," my favorite movie of the year is Nacho Libre.

Best Music Discoveries this Year

1. How To Save a Life, The Fray
2. Mockingbird, Derek Webb (thanks for Mark Feldbush for this recommendation)
3. Grown, Kendall Payne (we've been listening to her for years - but my good friend JR is good friends with her. Still haven't met her though...hint, hint, JR!)
4. Nothing is Sound, Switchfoot (these guys just keep making smart music - new album in stores  now!)

What I anticipate in 2007

1. The Hollywood Church will continue to grow toward it's vision of being a missional community. Our Missional Action Teams will engage in genuine experiments in mission that increase our church's capacity to innovate.
2. We will enter into a development partnership regarding our church property. In the next 12 months I believe we will develop the master plan for the property and possibly even start moving dirt by year's end.
3. A coalition is forming, across many relational networks, for a progressive, missional Adventist future. I expect that this year progress will be made toward this "coming together."
4. I will write a book...finally.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

Merry Christmas

Real quick, before my kids start fighting over their gifts...again!

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. My family and I went to All Saints Episcopal Church (where I'm a member, incidently - a solidarity member) in Pasadena last night for their 8:00 pm Christmas Eve Service & Eucharist. It was amazing. There were no seats left (I think we got the last two) and there were even people in the overflow! Christmas Eve worship is my favorite part of Christmas.

We've been doing the family thing all morning - opening presents, breakfast, more present, playing, fighting, more playing.... Ah, life is good! The turkey is in the oven and my dad is coming over later for dinner.

Oh yes, and I got a Bose SoundDock for my iPod, which is very cool, and a new messenger bag since my other one was falling apart! I got Elysabeth an Wacom Intuos, which I'm just as excited about as she is. What's that, you ask? Ah, click here and your life will never be the same again!

What are you doing on Christmas? Drop a comment below and share the love! In closing here's a great quote I read today:

"O inexpressible mystery and unheard paradox: the Invisible is seen, the Intangible is touched , the eternal Word becomes accessible to our speech, the Timeless steps into time, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man!"  - Saint Gregory of Nyssa

A picture post

Isn't she cute??

The Challenge of Sentimentality and the Importance of Advent

While I admit to not following this closely, it seems the pundits have resumed the “war on Christmas” debate. Remember all the attention from last year? So, what is the war on Christmas, according to these folks? It’s the loss of “Christmas” language, remember? It’s about pluralism; about the fact that we can’t say “Christmas trees”, they’re “Holiday trees”.

Now, the big deal is that Walmart is again calling their trees…”Christmas Trees.” And this is a major victory for Christianity in America! All is well again!

Okay, I know, the whole thing is a little silly, but here’s where I think it’s actually tragic if we get caught up in this nonsense. Christmas is truly in danger, but its primary threat is not from pluralism in America. I don’t even think that’s a significant threat. The greatest danger is not even commercialism (that’s where you thought I was headed, wasn’t it!) The commercialization of Christmas is an very important challenge we must face, but it is a result, not a primary factor.

The great danger facing Christmas is Christians who sentimentalize it. Once we’ve sentimentalized Christmas – de-clawed it – neutered it – tamed it; once we’ve reduced Christmas to sentimentality, it lays wide open to every abuse.

We Christians have given away Christmas. And this is why Advent is so important. Advent helps us take Christmas seriously. Christmas is too big, too important, too vital to the Christian story, to just dive into it all of a sudden. And it is certainly too important to hand it over to the “free market.” So our forebears, by God’s grace, developed the discipline for the church to prepare for Christmas for four weeks.

But what do I mean by sentimentality, you must be wondering? You see it all around you, don’t you? In our culture today Christmas is a rich celebration of family and friends – gift giving and receiving – good food and drink. In many ways, Christmas embodies the best about humanity. And as far as that goes, I love it. I love the warm feeling and the cozy evenings, the lights and the food. The smell of gingerbread lattes at Starbucks! It’s glorious. I truly love that Christmas.

The problem is, that Christmas has nothing to do with the coming of Christ into our world. Modern western civilization has created this almost completely secular vision of Christmas. What role does Jesus play in the modern Christmas? And this is where maybe the conservative pundits have a point. Jesus, in this secular vision, is a cuddly, cute baby with a warm glow about him set in an idyllic barn setting. What could be better?

But again, this isn’t the way the story goes, and we Christians have almost completely forgotten the story. But (and this is where the pundits get it wrong) it is not someone “out there” stealing our precious Christian Christmas. It is we Christians who “gave it away! So it is vitally important that we begin Advent at the end of the story, talking about the re-appearing of Messiah.

These words are from my sermon from December 2 - the First Sabbath of Advent. You can listen to the sermon here or subscribe to the Hollywood Adventist Church Podcast here.

I realize this post is about a month or three weeks too late, but better late than never, right. What are your thoughts about the sentimentalizing of Christmas or the danger of sentimentality, in general? One of the central tasks of the missional church is to help the people of God remember and reconnect with the story of God. This is the rational behind much of what I've written here.

I wish I had time to post about the irony that, for the most part, ADVENTists don't celebrate ADVENT. I have my suspicions about why. What are your thoughts? Did you celebrate Advent growing up? Why or why not? What are your thoughts about Advent now?

Procrastination is not Anticipation

Advent is a season of anticipation; of learning to wait well. Procrastination is something completely different - a strategy of avoidance. That's what I'm doing right now. Instead of working on the first draft of my thesis proposal, which is due on Friday, I am writing this post to show off our family's new crèche which is hand carved from olive word by artisans in the West Bank. I bought it at Ten Thousand Villages in Pasadena (a fair trade store). It's all very exciting! We decorated the house for Christmas on Monday night and now we're completely in the Advent/Christmas mood. I have a longer piece I want to write about the importance of Advent in our time and place, but this will have to wait until after I put in more work on my thesis proposal. In the meantime, if you care to see pictures of my family decorating, click here.

Icons at the Getty

This past Sabbath afternoon a few people from our church took a trip to the Getty Center to see the new exhibition of Orthodox icons from St. Catherine's monastery at Mt. Sinai in Egypt. It was the first time some of these pieces have ever left the monastery and the first time they have ever traveled together like this to a museum.

Lying in the shadow of Mount Sinai in Egypt, the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine is the world's oldest continuously operating Christian monastery. Since the third century, monks have resided here, at the foot of the mountain where Moses is said to have encountered God. The present church and monastery walls were commissioned by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, who ruled over most of the Mediterranean region, including the Sinai peninsula, between 527 and 565.

Icons are about prayer. The one pictured above is called the Virgin Hodegetria, after an original icon believed to have been painted by St. Luke from the Hodegon monastery in Constantinople. In it, Mary is gestures to her son and son gestures back to Mary. These icons are more than merely art. They are born in prayer and they are used in prayer to mediate an encounter with the holy.

For we in the modern West, this type of spirituality and spiritual practice is foreign. I found myself in deep appreciation of the beauty and spiritual depth of the artwork itself, but struggling to relate to a world that seems so far from my own. Modernity is so clinical and mechanical. I struggle, like most moderns, to pray at all - to relate to how prayer works. (How something works, of course, is important to a modern, mechanistic world). Also in my mind are all the evangelical and sentimental notions of "pouring my heart out to a friend." These icons are light years from that world. They speak of a world in which God is profoundly present and at work. The liturgy of the church, of which the icons play a major role, is about human being entering that divine world and being caught up in God's life. This is the kind of spiritual life that has been nurtured at the base of Mt. Sinai since the 3rd century.

For more about this amazing exhibition, click here. If you're in Southern California or playing to be here before March 4, you owe it to yourself to see these priceless artistic devotionals.

Ted Haggard's "Restoration"

"The Rev. Ted Haggard this week formally begins his long journey toward recovery from a drugs-and-gay-sex scandal that forced him to step down as one of the most influential evangelical leaders in the nation.

Haggard, 50, has turned himself over to a team of counselors who are "assessing his spiritual, emotional and mental condition," said the Rev. H.B. London, who is helping to guide Haggard through the process. London and two other pastors will then set out a rigorous "restoration plan" requiring Haggard to spend hours each week in counseling, Bible study, prayer and soul-baring talks — by phone or in person — with his mentors."

Read the rest in today's LA Times. I feel immense sadness for Ted. I'm afraid he's setting himself up for an even bigger emotional train wreck. This "restoration" also has major implications for Evangelicalism in America. At issue here is:

• The nature of homosexuality
• The integrity of the Christian anti-homosexual groups
• And most importantly, Ted Haggard's life (spiritual, sexual, relational, familial, etc.) and ministry - past and future.

I just feel sad...

A Cow's Story

I am so excited to see my Heifer thermometer going up. A HUGE thank you to everyone who has contributed. I'm starting to think I set my goal too low. Please watch the video above (it's only 42 seconds long) and be inspirted. A gift of $20 can change an entire community. To donate, click the Heifer badge at the top right of this page. Thank you!

Relevation

My good mate, Nathan Brown, just published his first book. Now, he's edited many books and written many chapters for books and he's written countless magazine articles and other good essays that may never see the light of day until he is more famous some day. But until this, he's never written his own book. Way to go, my friend. May this just be the first of many!

Anyway, I would strongly encourage you to visit the website for the book - http://www.relevation.com.au - and order a copy for yourself.

At the website you can read the Forward by William Johnsson, recently retired editor of the Adventist Review, a Review by Julene Duerksen-Kapao, and a short piece by Nathan.

But of all the book, my favorite part is the dedication...

Ryan and Samir,
Thank you for being my mentors, pastors, encouragers, friends and co-conspirators for the kingdom—albeit mostly from afar.

Thanks, Nathan, you're too kind - really!

An Advent Peacemaking Opportunity

In this Advent season the hearts of those who follow in the way of Jesus can't but feel ambivalence as we celebrate the coming of the world's lord and saviour to bring "peace on earth" and "goodwill to all humanity" and then must acknowledge our shortcomings in not doing all we can to make this dream of God, which God has entrusted to us, a reality. Kid Cultivators' Love Your Neighbor Advent Campaign is just one small way we might make God's missional hopes come true. Two summers ago my friend, Melvin Bray, director of Kid Cultivators, met a young man, Elias D'eis, at a Peace Workshop. Elias is a 20-something-year-old Palestinian from a town you might recognize, Bethlehem (of Judea). He is working to bring about peace in his homeland through his social service work with children and entrepreneurial work with young adults.