intersections

Baloney's not the answer

From time to time I write book reviews for Molossus - an online broadside of world literature. I recently reviewed the new book, Tunnel People, by Teun Voeten (PM Press).

Teun Voeten is not the first to document the lives of the people living in the tunnel systems of New York City. His newly updated account, Tunnel People, is unique, however, because of Voeten’s commitment not only to his craft, but also to the people. Articles and books have been written about the tunnel people and Mark Singer’s award winning documentary, Dark Days, introduced the world to this underground society in what Voeten himself calls a “shockingly honest portrayal.” But Voeten went a step further, living in the Amtrak tunnel on Manhattan’s west side for five months over two years, digging beneath the surface of the tunnel people’s lives as well as their complex and diverse social environment. “To add something new to the earlier studies,” Voeten writes in the introduction to his book, “I decided to take the anthropological approach, using its favorite research method of participant observation” (3).

Read the rest here.

My take on The Good News

My friend, JR Woodward, who is the pastor of Kairos Los Angeles and lives just down the road from me in Hollywood, has an incredible blog called Dream Awakener, which if you haven't seen it, you really need to check out. During the season of Easter he's asked 50 different writer to contribute a 300-500 word piece about the "good news" written for their local newspaper.

Here's how I start my piece off. You can see the list of all the contributors here (some pretty prestigious people) with links to their pieces.

My friends John and Aileen serve breakfast to about 150 hungry people on a relatively quiet sidewalk in Hollywood. They do this every weekday. They naturally have help from friends in the neighborhood. The only way you can distinguish the volunteers from those being “helped” is by the rubber gloves worn by the volunteers. I, too, look like I’ve just rolled out of bed. Some of those in line look more prepared for a job interview than I do. That’s probably where a couple of them are headed next after they finished their turkey sandwich, fresh strawberries and yogurt.

To me, John and Aileen embody the good news.

Read the whole thing here.

Join the fight for affordable housing in LA

Los Angeles Families Phone City Council Urging Passage of a Mixed-Income Housing Ordinance By June!

Housing Advocates establish a hotline this week to urge city council to take decisive action on the Los Angeles Housing Crisis and pass a mixed-income housing ordinance by June. This ordinance would ensure that in every new development in the city would include units affordable to working families.

To learn more and download a Press Release, click here.

"From the Margins: Engaging Missional Life in the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Over a year ago Ryan Bolger (Fuller Seminary) asked me if I wanted to contribute an article to a series of articles being published in Fuller Seminary's theological journal call, Theology News & Notes. Each contributor was asked to reflect on how the emerging church conversation was taking shape in their respective denomination. My article, one of nine, is entitled "From the Margins: Engaging Missional Life in the Seventh-day Adventist Church," and begins like this:

“It sounds to me like this church wants to have a conversation without an agenda with its community. Am I hearing you right or . . .”

He never finished that sentence, but several of us knew exactly what he was thinking. This comment was spoken on a recent January afternoon at a gathering of our congregation to discuss progress and next steps for creating a public art mural on the wall of our church property that faces the Hollywood Freeway—one of the busiest freeways in Los Angeles. The comment came from a first-time visitor, a gifted musician, and a Seventh-day Adventist deeply disillusioned with church as he has experienced it for his 30 or so years of life.

What several of us felt, and later confirmed, was that this man (who I’ll call Jason) was sensing something hopeful, but he could barely believe his ears.

You can read the rest here, along with the other eight articles.

There has already been a considerable conversation started over on my Facebook page, but I'd love to hear your comments and reflections after you read it. Please leave a comment below.

The contributors are...

Talking about Hollywood on SpiritFlash

My friend, Rich Dubose, who runs the website, SpiritFlash, came to Hollywood recently and videotaped a short interview. It's now online. You can see it below or at the SpiritFlash website here.

            

Off to Moscow

In a few short hours I'll be heading to Moscow, Russia. For over a year now I've been thinking and planning for this trip. Paul Richardson, of the Center for Creative Ministry, graciously invited me to join him in presenting an Urban Ministry Conference to the Pastors in the Moscow Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

The Urban Conference runs from Monday, October 13 to Wednesday, October 15. In addition, I'll be speaking in two of the churches in Moscow on Sabbath, October 11 and 18 and to a gathering of lay leaders on Sunday, October 12. All in all, that's a lot of speaking. It's been fun to organize my thoughts and I look forward to interacting with these pastors and churches.

Please pray for us as we travel. My wife, Elysabeth, is able to go with me on this trip, which makes it so much more exciting. We'll get a little time to tour around Moscow and hopefully St. Petersburg.

I will have some time on the internet so check back here for mid-trip updates. If you want to follow our experiences on Twitter, you can follow me here. Babette will also be Twittering here.

Upcoming Travel

I'm entering a period of travel that has me a bit tired just thinking about it. However, it's all very exciting stuff. I hope I'll be able to interact with some of you on one or more of these trips.

• Spectrum/Adventist Forum Conference - September 26-28 - Orlando Florida
• Conference on Innovation - October 5-7 - Columbus, Ohio
• Moscow Urban Conference - October 13-15 - Moscow, Russia (we'll be in Moscow from Oct 10-19)
• Holy Land Tour - December 2-9

Elysabeth and I will be traveling together to both Moscow and Israel, which is a real blessing for us. It's been years since we've been able to travel together like that - 6 years, to be exact.

Post a comment below if you'll be at either the Spectrum Conference or the Innovation Conference. I'd love the chance to meet and catch up.

Praying at the Pump

This is certainly not breaking news, but it made page 10 of the A section in today's LA Times:

WASHINGTON -- Forget Congress. Forget President Bush. About four months ago, frustrated by the apparently immutable laws of supply and demand, Rocky Twyman turned to a higher authority in his quest for cheaper gasoline.

The recent dip in prices, he says, is proof of divine intervention.

"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life," said Twyman, founder of the Pray at the Pump movement, whose members huddle around gas pumps and ask the Almighty to lower gasoline prices.

"If the whole country keeps on praying, we can bring down prices even more, to even less than $2," Twyman said.

Read more here

Really?

In case you haven't been following this story since late spring when it first broke, Rocky Twyman is a Seventh-day Adventist from the Washington, D.C. area. He has been gathering groups of people to pray around the gas pumps, asking God for lower gas prices. When prices went up shortly after they began, Twyman urged patience saying, "true faith does not demand instant gratification," adding that "he plans to keep his pump-side prayers going 'until God tells us to stop.'"

Now prices have come down consistently for about a month and today's article claims that it is a direct result of God's intervention due to their prayers. Prices are still higher across the nation than when they started praying.

Missional Museums?

I have a new post at Allelon's Missional Journey blog called "Missional Museums?" As I mention in the article, I got this idea when a few of us from the Hollywood Church went to the Getty Center to hear our friend and artist, Man One, speak as part of a panel discussion called, "Art in L.A.: 1997-2007."

Here's an excerpt:

Last December, the Getty Center turned 10, which caused so small amount of reflection not only in the art community but in the architectural community as well. An article on the front page of the LA Times by the resident architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne, caught my attention. As I read his article I had this impression that I was listening to a conversation I am frequently a part of – that of the relevance of the church as an institution in our communities.

Hawthorne opens his December 2007 article, entitled, “Getty at 10: Still aloof, yet totally L.A.”* like this:

During much of the 1990s, as the Getty Center was rising on its Brentwood hilltop, a couple of stubborn questions dogged the hugely ambitious project: Would Richard Meier’s design ever have anything meaningful to do with, or say about, the city over which it loomed? Or would it exist as an expensive import, a vast collection of smooth enamel and rough travertine conjured up by a New York architect who looked west for commissions but east, to Europe and its Modernist past, for inspiration?

Questions worth asking, to be sure. Questions church leaders would do well to ask as they are “building” their churches. I hear a lot of talk in my denomination and others about building a great, relevant, healthy, significant churches. But often it seems like we do nothing more than build “expensive imports” inspired by our “Modernist past” that have little do with the cities in which they exist.

Read the rest here.

Affordable Housing Victory in Los Angeles

Today I had the privilege of participating in something truly historic in our city. The Los Angeles City Council today enacted two ordinances aimed at curtailing gentrification in the city. These are complicated issues, but I feel that my role is to stand with the poor and the disenfranchised whenever I get the chance.

The main issue before City Council today was an ordinance that essentially protects "residential hotels" from being demolished or converted into luxury condos or other market rate housing. The folks at LA CAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network) have been leading the charge on this issue for something like 6 years. I spoke for a grand total of 1 minute before the City Council members who were mostly chatting with either other and their staff. Nevertheless, good organizing finally won the day and we have successfully protected over 18,700 affordable units from being lost forever.

Residential hotels in the City of Los Angeles are basically "housing of last resort." If these units are converted to market rate housing the people who currently live there will be homeless. They have nowhere else to go. By preserving these units we essentially prevent thousands of people from becoming homeless and insist that the working poor have a place in our city.

Read the Los Angeles Times report of this ordinance and the other ordinance referred to as an anti-mansionization ordinance. I'll let you figure out what that means.