Too much Bible?

I never in a million years thought I'd be saying this: Our church service today had too much Bible in it.
I've felt it for many weeks since we've been here - the churches and ministries we've visited and been part of have a strong emphasis on Bible-reading, Bible-teaching, and Bible-believing. My children have been taught songs to sing about the Bible: "Read your Bible, pray every day..." is one of them. I have heard ministry leaders complain that people in their ministries don't know their Bibles like they should: "They don't even know the order of the books". And I've had to sit quietly while people are questioned about whether they've been reading their Bibles every day.
Sometimes I just want to shout - The Bible is not GOD! We do not worship it, we worship God who speaks in the Bible. We do not want to know the Bible, we want to know the Living God. We are not called to join relationship with the Bible, but to be reconciled to God and join relationship with Father/Son/Spirit.
I know there shouldn't be this dichotomy between God and his Word, but today I'm pretty sure I encountered the Bible in church without having much fellowship with the Living God.

United Prayer Meeting

Sunday afternoon and I'm remembering some things that were forgotten that should not have been.
This past Wednesday we had the united prayer meeting for Dagenham. About 11 churches represented - Baptist, Independent, Anglican, Ghanaian-Baptist and others. Becontree Ave Baptist hosted.
Prayer meeting was focussed around 5 or 6 sessions of prayer for specific age groups, starting with young children and going on up through young parents to old age pensioners (that's OAP for short - feels a bit uncomfortable to my American sensibilities - I'm not supposed to call anyone old, even if they're old). After each time of prayer, we sung an English translation of the Kyrie together.
Then at the end, we broke up into groups of seven, took large photocopies of maps and colored our roads on the map. Then we prayed for the people living on those roads. We were also given a photocopy of a set of praying hands and we were told to write the name of one person we'd like to see come to faith in Jesus. Then we placed the names in big bowls on the stage and prayed for all those people we had written down.
In my opinion, one of the best prayer meetings or services I've been to here (apart from the cheesy "praying hands" photocopy - c'mon, does anyone really hold their hands with palms flat together and fingers pointed up when they pray? It's kind of an unnatural position.)

Bank Holiday Weekend

It's another bank holiday weekend here in the UK. Lots of plans for the weekend. Saturday morning Julian and I are playing soccer with others from LCM. We invited some of the guys from the Hub to come with us, and Julian was going to try to call them again tonight - hopefully one or two of them will join us. Then on Monday we're planning to head down to Southend (about an hour east of here on the coast). The Southend Airshow is supposed to be really good. Donna and Tina from moms and tots are going to be there, and we're planning to meet up with them. Hopefully getting to spend a little quality time with them and their "partners". (Partner is the generic term here for the person you're in a romantic relationship with - used for husbands, boyfriends, etc.)
Other than that, Somer and I are having a lazy Friday evening. It's hot here today - in the 80s for the first time all year. The sun is already staying up until close to 10pm, so it's really hard to go to sleep before 11. I'm rambling, and my battery is dying...

Sunday Roundup

Worshipped today at Dagenham Parish Church. We stayed for lunch afterwards with the pastor and his wife. We ate at "The Vicarage". Not only is it the pastor's house that's two doors down from the church, but it also has a sign that says "The Vicarage" above the door - probably as a warning, just in case anyone was confused and wandered there by mistake. We had a wonderful lunch with Mike and Debbie - roast lamb, sausages, parsnips, veggies, and sponge cake with lemon juice, golden syrup and ice cream. Traditional English cooking at its very finest...we loved it. Especially the Lamb with the parsnips...a good combination.

Gospel in Culture

A great discussion going on among WTS grads over at Jerry Fourroux's blog. Click here to join in.

Sharing Our Faith at Andi's Party

Had a great party for Andi this morning. Well, it was great because Andi loved it, and she was the birthday girl. The games didn't go very well, it rained off and on, and I didn't get to spend much quality time with our guests. But Andi, knowing what is most important, called me over to sit with her while she ate lunch. It was like one of those shots made popular by the Matrix - when everything around seems frozen in time, and the actor at the center of the camera draws all the attention. God gave me the grace to see that sitting with Andi was much more important than making sure the kids didn't trample the tomato plants or throw sand out of the sandbox. So we sat and talked.
While she was eating, she said "Daddy, I love my pirate party". In case you were wondering...we did a Dora the Explorer party with a pirate theme. Not the typical girl's birthday party, I know. But our family had fun with it.
Also, we did what our family always does on a person's birthday - we paused to give thanks to God for the life he's given them, and to ask his blessing on their next year. It was cool, because we had two Buddhists and a few non-religious types at the party, and it was the first time we'd done anything overtly Christian in front of them.
We shared our faith with our friends today, and it wasn't forced or artificial. It flowed out of our life. I had thought about it beforehand - but there's a difference between being planned and being artificial. Sharing our faith isn't primarily about telling people things they ought to believe, it's about letting them see, experience, and possibly participate in our faith-response to God.

Seminary Courses That Should Have Been

I'm taking a Restraint & Removal course today - taught by a former night club bouncer. Looking forward to it. I think every pansy seminary student should have to take a course like this before starting their ministry. It made me think about what other kinds of courses should be required learning:

Sight & Smell 101: The use of candles, inscence and highly flamable materials in worship
Sight & Smell 201: Drug identification for non-users

Restraint & Removal 101: How to safely remove a stoned teenager who outweighs you after he punches another member of the youth club. I'll tell you all about it later this evening.
Restraint & Removal 102: Weapons - how to remove 'em, how to use 'em. An advanced self-defense course focussing on weaponry. Provides a complete overview of weapons that are commonly found in Churches and youth clubs, including pool cues, mugs of hot tea, candle sticks, and the ever dangerous pulpit Bible. Also includes instructions for creating and maintaining an amnesty box at the entrance to your facility.

Government 301: Police involvement - when to call them, how to give a statement, when to press charges

Sermon Delivery 301: Advanced sermon techniques, including how to out-swear the kids who are listeningtalking while you talk without grieving the Holy Spirit, and proper use of dangerous items for non-verbal sermon illustration - successful completion of S&S 101 is a prerequisite.

That's all I got for now. Anybody else have any thoughts on what should be included in the seminary curriculum?

We burned a goat

As I walked to the gate, the guys from the Hub were hanging out with one of their moms, smoking a cigarette. "Do we have to listen to the talk?" Luke says. "I ain't gonna listen to that f***ing bull-s**t any more."
"If you listen to me for about 30 seconds, you'll get to destroy the goat" I reply.
Luke again: "We get to destroy the goat? F**k yeah, I aint missin' that."
I read from Leviticus 4, verses 27-31, the instructions for making the sacrifice if a person breaks on of God's commands.
"Yeah, but how does that solve the problem? So you sin against God and then kill a goat? What good does that do? The goat doesn't do anything for God. It seems like all you've done is killed a goat - you haven't really done anything about your sin" - Luke, one more time.

I was shocked, and a bit excited. These are exactly the questions I should be asking, but don't because I've been hearing these stories my whole life. Luke and the others were (for once) entering the story of God's dealings with humanity. Beautiful.

We take the goat outside, and after each person lays their hand on its head and confesses something they're ashamed of, we let the boys tear the goat apart. Then, we BURN IT!! Spurred on by the entire can of gray spray paint I used on it this morning, the goat becomes quite a large fire. Then, as quickly as it flared up, it was gone.
No more goat.
No more sin.
Until next time.
Is this all?

Well of course I don't think that's all there is, but I don't feel the need to give these guys the "Well, the goat points to Jesus, who takes away all our sin" answer just yet. Wait until next week, and the week after that. The beauty of it is, these guys aren't going anywhere...they keep coming back, week after week. Maybe I'll never have to give that answer...maybe the Spirit will make these guys work it out on their own.

Sacrifice

It's 4 in the afternoon here. Working on the finishing touches for the East London Gospel Partnership handout and listening to Live. The younger Hub starts in an hour.
Last time we talked to the guys about the provision God made for sin in the Old Testament. Tonight, we're going to let them experience what those sacrifices may have been like. Don't worry, we won't actually kill a goat. We've gotten a pinata from a party store that looks like a goat. We spray painted it grey this morning. A couple of the guys have already been around to see us today, and they were asking if they'd get to beat it with a stick. I told them it'd be even better than that.
The plan is to read them the instructions for making a sin offering from Leviticus, then have them go outside, where they will put their hands on the goats head and say something they're ashamed of. Then we'll tear the goat apart and burn it!

East London Gospel Partnership

Today, the East London Gospel Partnership was born. Well, the idea has been going for a while, but the name is brand-spanking new. Julian and I met with Mike, vicar at the local parish church in Dagenham. Mike's the driving force behind the gospel partnership in our area. The idea is for churches to work together to see ten percent of the population of the area connect to Christ-centered churches. It means partnering together in training, evangelism, and quite possibly church planting. Julian and I are beginning to contact all of the evangelical churches in Dagenham to share the vision and invite them into the partnership. There will be a meeting in June of representatives from all the churches involved to begin putting together an action plan.
I'm really excited to see churches working together, and am hopeful that it will translate into action - you know, the "faith expressing itself through love" kind of idea. Unity expressing itself through shared evangelism and discipleship.
The East London group is part of the larger South East Gospel Partnership.

Pentecost Sermon

Full text of my sermon on Pentecost can be downloaded as a PDF by clicking here. I thought we were doing a family service, where the children stay in, so I had prepared some things for the children to contribute to our listening to the Bible...but alas, I was wrong. I had also prepared a video loop of violent wind sounds accompanied by a flame that continues to multiply...but alas, I forgot the video output converter cable. So it was just me talking...I think it went o.k. Of all the sermons I've done, this one felt most like a lecture, which I'm not really comfortable with. Henk - the guy who helps run City of Peace (the church where I preached) - was encouraging about it, though.
We had dinner with Henk and Elmarie after the service, and it was a really good time. They think about life, ministry, culture, and church in much the same way we do. Also, Somer got inspired to maybe work at Cafe Forever in the kitchen a couple mornings a week to get some food-prep and cafe experience.

Saturday Night

Sermon night. I really don't like writing sermons. I like giving them, but not writing them. Am I just a slacker? Quite possibly. In any case, I'm supposed to be finishing my sermon tonight. It's on Acts 2 - the story of the Holy Spirit coming on the day of Pentecost. A powerful story...I got goosebumps while I was reading some of the background prophecies and teachings of Jesus...'course I was also listening to a little U2, and that might have had something to do with it.
In any case, I'll try to post what I've got here before the night is out for your perusal.

Saturday Afternoon

We met our American friends Jeremy and Mary Ellen and their three children at Holland Park this afternoon. We had a great time together, indulged in a globalized, mass-produced, over-processed lunch at McDonald's that was very satisfying to our tongues and brains, if not to our hearts and colons. Talking about our shared experiences and reactions to moving to London and attempting to begin ministries here was really good. It's good to be with people who know you.

Hell under fire

Great discussion about hell over on tallskinnykiwi. Sparked by Brian McLaren's new book. While it may seem like hell is a bit of a peripheral doctrine, this discussion gets to the heart of the gospel. It's a fairly diverse disscussion, and definitely challenges some of the assumptions I have about the nature of hell, and also about the work of Christ.
So, go check it out. And while you're there (a bit of self-advertising here) look for my comment half-way down the page, and for Brian McLaren's response to my question.

Question 5: Has the western church forgotten Irenaeus?

Apologies for the emphasis on Steve Chalke lately, but this will be the last question from his book; though once I've finished the book I may have something to say about his comments on the atonement...I just haven't gotten there yet.
Chalk claims that the Western church has become engrossed with the doctrine of Original Sin; while it seems to have forgotten the Original Goodness of humanity. He says it was Augustine who led the way for the West. Meanwhile, in the East, Irenaeus was much more influential with his teaching that humans bore the image of God and were "coaxed into full bloom by God's love."
In some ways, I think Chalke is not saying anything all that radical, he's just trying to stir things up by saying it in a controversial way - he basically says Jesus didn't believe in original sin, he believed in original goodness. I guess my question is Has the church in the West really forgotten Irenaeus?
There are two issues embeded in the question. First, is Chalke correct in his reading of Augustine and Irenaeus, and their influence on the West and East, respectively? Second, do we in the West need to rediscover the image of God in people?
In some ways, reformed theology (my heritage) is very good at remembering that people are made in the image of God. However, this understanding is usually used to draw conclusions about the nature of work and creativity, or else applied to discussions of apologetics/evangelism in the sense that people cannot run from the knowledge of God because they are made in his image. Rarely do we hear talk about being enamored with people because as people, they are beautiful. Blue Like Jazz really challenged me to see the image of God in people...to love them because of who they are. I think we could use that reminder a little more often in the reformed Western church.

Welcome Somer!

Somer has entered the blogosphere with Daily Offerings. Her cooking is world-famous (well, people on at least two continents know how good it is anyway), and now she is welcoming anyone who cares to stop by to sample the fare from our table. You'll also find the occasional glimpse into other parts of our life in London. I'm pretty sure her blog looks better than mine (as is the case with our persons as well), and she may have me beat for vulnurability as well. In any case, go check it out.

Question 4: Does God suffer?

Again, this one comes from The Lost Message of Jesus. See Question 3 for the first question Chalke's book raised. Chalke is fairly critical of the Westminster Confession of Faith and other Western Church creeds that claim that God is impassible, or without passions.
I guess I'm really wondering if Chalke is right in claiming that the major creeds assert the impassibility (and by implication the inability to suffer) of God. If he is, I suppose my issue is not so much with Chalke as it is with the creeds. I can see why they would want to shield God from suffering - in general, suffering is seen as a deficiency - if God is perfect and full of goodness and joy within himself, how could he suffer?
On the other side, though, there is the sense that suffering is often brought about not by a deficiency in the person who suffers, but by wrong committed against them by another. My understanding of forgiveness is that it involves acknowledging the cost of what was done to us and the pain it causes, and committing to absorb that cost ourselves rather than demand payment from the offending party. If this is so, God's commitment to forgive us would involve a significant amount of pain...rather than exacting vengeance on us, he absorbs the cost of the wrong we've done. Correct me if I'm wrong (seriously, someone please correct me), but isn't it generally regarded as orthodox to believe that God did not separate himself from the person of Jesus on the cross, but that it was in fact God himself who suffered for us on the cross? (My appologies to my systematics professors at WTS if I have just put forth a grave heresy. It's not their fault.)

Election Results

Seems like Tony Blair has won a third term as Prime Minister (though there's speculation that he may be asked to hand power over to Gordon Brown sometime during that third term...something I don't really understand). Labour lost 47 seats - mostly to the Conservatives. Margaret Hodge, the local MP from the area around Bethel Christian Centre won reelection. The scary thing is that the BNP came in third, with over 16% of the vote.
It's been interesting the different perspectives that people in the church here have on the candidates. Different people support the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, or one of the smaller parties. There is much less of an association between Christians and a specific party here than in the States.
So, congratulations to Blair and the rest of Labour for holding onto control of Parliament, and congratulations also to Michael Howard and the Conservatives for their strong showing and gain in seats.

Election UK

So I had a fun day. Our center was used as a polling place in the UK general election. It was really cool to be involved (even in a very small way) in the election process.
We basically sat outside the center and talked to people we knew as they left from voting. Saw a couple guys from the Hub and a number of the pensioners we know on the estate. The Labour party candidate for our district stopped by to say hello and greet a few people who were walking down the street. Margaret Hodge is her name, and she's also the Children's Minister in the current government under Blair. Another Labour worker was taking voting numbers from people, so he could cross them off the list as having voted. At 5 PM, they were going to start knocking on doors of people who said they were going to vote Labour but hadn't voted yet. Quite a system.
There was also a guy from the BNP (British National Party - quite racist in their campaign advertising). He had gotten permission to sit inside the polling place and check to make sure the poll workers were doing their job correctly. Quite intimidating if you ask me. At 9:30 PM I arrived back at the center to help close things down. The polls were due to close at 10 PM. There was a steady trickle of voters right up to 10. Then a flurry of activity to get all the ballot boxes sealed, packed up, and shipped off to the counting location. And now we await the results.

Question 3: Does God exact violent vengeance?

First, a confession: I'm currently reading The Lost Message of Jesus by Steve Chalke. Don't know if that's a problem for my American readers, but for some over here in the UK Steve's a controversial guy. I've been really encouraged, challenged, and moved by the book so far. Admittedly I haven't come to the most controversial part.
In Chapter 3, Chalke argues that John's definition of God - "God is love" - was the point of Jesus' message, and should control how we read everything else in the Bible. He says that in the Old Testament "Yahweh's association with vengeance and violence wasn't so much an expression of who he was but the result of his determination to be involved with his world. His unwillingness to distance himself from the people of Israel and their actions meant that at times he was implicated in the excessive acts of war..." But this asssociation was born out of love - God's love for his people. Basically, God was willing to get his hands dirty because of his love for his people.
So there's my question: Does God exact violent vengeance? or is violent vengeance the necessary result of his involvement with this world, but not really part of his character?
The only thing I'd add is that this morning I was reading in Numbers, where fire comes out from the Lord and consumes some of the camp of Israel because of their grumbling. Doesn't so much sound like the violence of the Israelites getting projected onto God as it does his vengeance lashing out at them. But I'll stop there, 'cuz I'm still wrestling with this one and more wanted to just pose the question and see where the discussion goes.

Question 2: What does "growth" look like?

This one was inspired by Ivy Beckwith's account of her conversion in Postmodern Children's Ministry. She grew up in the church, and made an outward commitment to follow Jesus at the age of 7. She makes a passing comment that there wasn't a whole lot in the life of a seven-year-old that needed cleaning up...and it got me thinking.
I was raised in the church, and don't remember a time when I didn't love Jesus and believe on him. So what does it mean for me to grow up in the way of following Jesus? See, my behavior when I was seven was a whole lot better than it is now. And let's face it, the church's doctrine of Sanctification is usually defined as growth in holiness - i.e. once a person decides to follow Jesus, their behavior, attitudes, etc. progress (however slowly and imperfectly) from bad to good.
But how does this explain my experience? By almost any standard, my behavior and attitudes have deteriorated since I was seven. As I matured, so did my ability to "invent ways of doing evil" (as one of Jesus' early followers says in the Biblical book of Romans).
I think we in the church need to wrestle with our understanding of what it means to grow in maturity as a follower of Jesus so that our understanding encompasses more than a change in moral behavior and attitudes. The understanding we come to needs to incorporate the reality that many people literally grow up knowing Jesus - and their "Sanctification" doesn't begin at a point in their lives when they've sufficiently matured to be able to sin like an adult. It begins from the very beginning of their lives.

Question 1: Who am I?

Thanks, Doug, for your comment. These questions are significant for various reasons...some are more life-long quests, others are important only for the small part they play in the larger story of my life. But here they are, in order according to when they first arose in my mind during our holiday.
Who am I? Hopefully not being asked in the sense that I need to be committed to a home, but in the sense that I was revisiting my sense of self-understanding.
My first thought about how to answer this question was: I'll read the Bible and make a list of every passage that says something about who I am. So the answer to "Who am I?" would look something like: I'm a child of God, an heir of the king, a sinner, a saint, deeply loved by God, etc. Then I wondered - Am I just a list? Isn't there something more to how I understand myself? I realize that many of those things in the list are profound truths and contain important elements about my relationship with God and other people, but in the end, it's still a list without any reference to my specific life. I mean, those things are true of every person who follows Jesus.
So I started thinking about the pomo preference for story/narrative. The idea that story communicates truth better than generic lists. I like this, though it means the answer to "Who am I?" is currently 26.4 years long, and getting longer every hour. I wonder if there's a way to condence the story of my life into a manageable format - like give little snippets that accurately reflect who I am, though without ever completely answering the question. Kinda like what John did with Jesus, where he says that many more things could be written, though they would fill many volumes, and that what he did write was written so that his readers would follow Jesus.
I guess maybe that's partly what this blog is all about - sharing glimpses of my life. So thank you, for reading and so helping to answer the question "Who am I?" I'll try to tell more stories in the future.