intersections

NEW BOOK: The Promise of Peace

There's a new book out from Pacific Press that I highly recommend. I had the chance to review the manuscript before it was published and write a blurb for it. Here's what I wrote:

Charles Scriven's The Promise of Peace will give hope to a new generation of Adventists who desperately long to re-appropriate their faith and traditions in a way that gives meaning to their lives and helps them shape a more peaceful and just world. I will be using this book with all my new members.

I just got my copy in the mail, but I plan to order a bunch more. After all, I have to make good on my promise!

Order yours here!

Video: Holy Saturday worship

The video includes excerpts of our Holy Saturday worship service which I have written about here and here.

All of our Holy Week resources, including sermons and the program and liturgy we used for Friday, Sabbath and Sunday, are compiled at the Hollywood Adventist Church website.
Easter 2009: Holy Saturday on Vimeo.

Holy Saturday and the Death of God

"Cross"-posted at the Spectrum Blog

In Hollywood, our Lenten journey is nearly over. Today is Holy Saturday. For Adventists, every Saturday is Holy because we remember those words in the very beginning of the story, "So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation" (Gen 2:3). Each Sabbath is a wonderful pause in the creative work of God. Indeed, the pause itself is creative, like a musical rest or dramatic pause in theater. The absence of speech or activity is, itself, creative and moving.

But this Sabbath is different. As Eric Severson has said, "The gaping silence between Good Friday and Easter Sunday cannot be explained as a welcome pause or an artistic hiatus.... Holy Saturday is blunt and bleak and uncomfortable."

Stained Glass: Hollywood Blvd. (Episode 1)

I just realized that the first episode of the four-part documentary that the North America Division is doing about the Hollywood Adventist Church is now online at the Vervent website.

I'd love for you to have a look at it and tell me what you think. This was written and directed by one of our members, Melody George. (As an aside, you will be hearing a LOT more about Melody in the coming months...just sayin').

There are three churches that are a part of this project and each church will have four episodes. Stay tuned for the rest of these in the very near future.

Now, have a look at Episode one...click here and look under Featured Resources for "Stained Glass: Hollywood Blvd - Episode 1."

SONscreen Film Festival is coming

I know I'm biased, but I think if you can make it to the SONscreen Film Festival this year, starting April 13 16 at in Simi Valley, you definitely should. All the information about how to register is here.

In addition to the Official Festival Selections there are some other very important screenings that are happening that are very dear to my heart. They include:

• “Stained Glass” Documentary series with Filmmakers Q&A
  
• “Marbles with Thoreau” -- short subject drama (16:00)
• “Jesus People: the movie” -- a feature film comedy (87:00)

The reason this is so exciting for me personally is that these three special features above are done by members of the Hollywood Adventist Church.

"Stained Glass" is a documentary film project commissioned by the North American Division, taking an up-close look at three congregations. One of those three congregations is our church in Hollywood and the film is by Melody George.

"Marbles with Thoreau" is also by Melody George. This is Melody's personal project that has been close to her heart for a very long time. Several others in our congregation have been instrumental in creating this film. This project was four years in the making and I am so excited to see this film.

"Jesus People: the Movie" is a hilarious comedy by my friend and fellow church members, Rajeev Sigamoney. I've seen this film already and I'm just dying to see it again.

Finally, I will be a panelist in a panel discussion on Sabbath afternoon entitled, "Reel Community: Rediscovering the Church's role in a place like Hollywood." You can read more about the panel and the panelists at the website here.

Lent and Adventism - a discussion

A week or so ago I had the privilege to join in on a conversation with some friends about the meaning of Lent in Adventism. I was out of town and the time and actually had to leave the call half way through but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

You can listen to or download the podcast here. I'd love to hear what you think.

A while back I wrote a post on the Spectrum Blog about our congregation's Ash Wednesday experience, which I briefly mention on the podcast.

The other partners in the conversation are:

• Lisa Clark Diller, Associate Professor of History at Southern Adventist University
• Trudy Morgan-Cole, a writer and teacher in Newfoundland, Canada
• Julius Nam, Associate Professor of Religion, Loma Linda University

I'm tele-commuting to Walla Walla tonight

...and you can join me, online.

The Walla Walla University chaplain, Paddy McCoy, has invited me to do a short interview, by Skype, at the Friday night vespers service. He sent over some really great questions about our congregation's theology and self-understanding, how we think about ministry in a post-Christian world and God's live among us. I'm really excited about this. I've only got about 8-10 min, but we do the best we can with what we have.

If you want to listen in, I understand they have a live streaming video feed of their worship service. The service starts at 8:00 pm. I will go on around 8:20 pm.

Click here after 8:00 pm and it should work. You will need QuickTime Player, or some equivalent video player. Hope you can join us.

Current reading

It's only mid-February and already I'm off track with my ambitious 2009 Reading List.

While I have completed a few of the titles on my list I've gotten "sidetracked" into a few books that weren't on my list. I knew this would happen, but I always naively underestimate the degree to which it will happen.

 

Currently I'm reading...

• Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination, by Colin Greene and Martin Robinson
• The Orthodox Heretic and other Impossible Tales, by Peter Rollins (advance proof copy from the publisher). Available March 1.
• Manuscript of a the forthcoming Pacific Press publication, The Promise of Peace, by Charles Scriven.

I need to finish Scriven's manuscript this week to submit a blurb. So far this is a very good book that I am looking forward to using in my ministry with new members.

The Orthodox Heretic is outstanding so far. This is a book of short parables followed by equally short commentaries about the parables. Some are original with Rollins. Others are his adaptations of previously existing stories. Still others are retellings of biblical stories with major plot twists designed to draw attention to neglected aspects of God and faith.

As you probably know we will be hosting Peter Rollins here in Hollywood in two weeks for a gathering we've entitled Beyond Evandalism. You can read more about that here.

I'm about one third of the way through Metavista and I need more time before I can write anything cogent about this book. So far it has revisited the philosphical ground that I've read several times before in different ways about modernity and postmodernity. However, I would say if you feel you've been playing around the edges of philosophy and want to go deeper into this issues this book can help you. If you are not familiar with the various philosophers and their key ideas you will find yourself getting lost from time to time, but it is important to wrestle with these thoughts at this level. I will say more about this book soon.

Jan Paulsen strikes the right note...again!

Dr. Paulsen makes me proud to be Adventist. Check this out, from his address to pastors and evangelists at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama this week.

"The church must be such a place of healing, where all will feel, 'I am home,' "said Dr. Jan Paulsen, speaking at Oakwood University Tuesday. "The church is not meant to be a battlefield. The church must be a city of refuge." <snip>

Those members and leaders who emphasize high standards of behavior can inadvertently turn what should be a place of healing into a place of rejection, Paulsen said, quoting Jesus' parable in Matthew 13, where the owner instructs his field workers to allow the weeds to grow with the wheat to make sure none of the wheat is harmed by weeding.

"Many youth disappear from the church because they have been made to feel unworthy, and unloved in the church," Paulsen said. "They hear the church say to them, 'God doesn't like you very much.' "
"Is it possible, is it possible that God may be more generous than I am?" Paulsen asked, to a rustle of agreeing "amens" from the mostly male crowd.

Unless someone becomes openly hostile to the church, God must judge, he said.
"I hate to be around people who think they have everything worked out," Paulsen said. "They tend to become arrogant, narrow and judgmental."

Read the whole thing here.

In Conversation | part 3

Today, Julius Nam, Lisa Diller, Kumar Dixit and I had our third conversation. You can listen to it here. I'd love to hear your feedback. I hosted this conversation in which we considered the question, "How are people, especially younger Adventists, constructing community/church for themselves?"

Along the way, we talked about:

"What are the appropriate/realistic expectations that we ought to have about church?"
"How much should churches try to cater to the needs of the younger generation?"
"Can one have a vibrant religious life apart from commitment to a local congregation?"

You can also listen to our previous conversations here:

• Part 1
• Part 2