intersections

Pitching My Tent with Manhattan Faith House

By now, most of you probably know about Faith House Manhattan. If not, click on over and check it out. My dear friend, Samir, is leading this innovating ministry in New York City.

I recently posted an article there called Pitching Our Tents. This, in many ways, is the heart of Missional Church and the work we are trying to do in Hollywood. Samir's vision is bold and risky in many ways and my request is that you check out what he's doing and simply ask yourself, "If Jesus came to our world today, as he did some 2000  years ago, what strategy would he take?" What does the incarnation mean in our world today?

Encounter Point

There is a new documentary coming out very soon. It's called Encounter Point, and you can read about it here. It's the story about how Palestinians and Israelis who have lost a family member in the ethnic violence coming together in conversations to build a coalition for peace and healing. Kirsta Tippett also interviewed these two people for an episode of her radio program called Speaking of Faith. Check out the radio program here.

You can also read Christian Science Monitor's article from today about this documentary.

This story is truly amazing. If you are at all interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how ordinary people can be a force for peace in ways that governments cannot, you owe it to yourself to listen to Krista Tippett's interview at the very least. I'm going to see about hosting a screening of this documentary.

Urban Art

In an effort to get out of the house for a few minutes and get some fresh (L.A.) air, I photographed some scenes from an intersections near my church (Hollywood & Western). Click here to see more.

Calling all (modern-day) abolitionists

At our staff meeting yesterday God really put more pieces in place for what is an emerging ministry of the Hollywood Church. It's an interesting thing to study the anatomy of conviction. This post is an attempt to describe how my wife and I, and my congregation, are coming to understand God's calling on our life regarding the issue of modern-day slavery and human trafficking.

A picture post

Click to enlarge picture

A Tangible Example of Missional Engagement

I am so excited to share this YouTube video with you! This 6 minute video documents the recent events in the life of a small missional Adventist community in the community of Carnegie in Greater Pittsburgh. The pastor in this video, Andrew Clark, is a friend of mine and we pastored together in Pennsylvania for a short time before I moved to L.A. Later this year I'll be spending some time talking with these guys about their community's life and future, but as you can see from this video, they are well on their way.

Andrew writes:
As many of you know, we have been searching for a home for two years in the Pittsburgh Metro area.  Although we found a place to set up shop, our whole project in Pittsburgh hinged on small-town politics, and it did not look good for us.  So we asked our supporters to come to borough council and speak on our behalf to see if we could put the decision in God's hands through the voice of the community He has been speaking to through our mingling, sympathy and meeting needs. Not only did the community show up in droves, but they made a short film of it.  A friend of our makes commercials for Comcast and regularly films town meetings.  After the meeting, I asked him if he could turn a three-hour meeting into a 5 minute short to help our friends get the gist of what went down!  The result is a secular view of not only the meeting, but of Adventist Community Services Greater Pittsburgh.  The film has NO Adventists involved in the production, make-up, or action in the film, other than a few clips of what I said at council.  It is my desire to show our church that we can be the difference we want to see in our communities, and that at least in our small corner of Metro Pittsburgh where Adventism was unheard of two years ago and no Adventist has ever set foot in our community prior to our arrival; regardless, the community gets us, whether the traditional churches looking on do or not.  I hope films like this can bridge that gap.

Also, click here to read the article in the local paper (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) about this hearing. Way to go guys! You inspire us!

Rose Parade 2006

For the first time in my life, I attended the Rose Parade! My friends Lavelle Whitehouse and Renee Harms live one and a half blocks from Colorado Blvd. and they graciously invited a bunch of people to eat breakfast as their house and then walk up to the parade, which is exactly what we did! It was great.

The first picture (from my phone) shows Zoe sitting high atop a utility box where she had the best seat in the house! The second one is from a Sophie's-Eye-View. It was really amazing to see the floats in real life. TV just doesn't do it justice. I think we're hooked now!