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A wonderful funeral. Can I say that? Does it sound sacreligious? Dangit, i will say it anyway. An amazing thing happened during my brother's funeral yesterday and it brought healing and laughter into our lives. We disrupted the funeral service, not intentionally . . mind you. But the elderly Roman Catholic Priest had to stop his sermon less than a minute into it and find out why our entire row had started laughing. This is what happened.
My dad died on Friday night. He was told that I was on my way to Australia and that means a lot. He went quite suddenly - his time had come and it wasnt a surprise. I am glad he didnt have to attend his youngest son's funeral - "No father should have to bury his son" (LOTR)
So tomorrow we have Lewis's funeral and the day after we have dad's. Who would have thought they would go out together?
Cool. I havent been here for many years. The airport is way cool. A swimming pool on the roof and free internet everywhere. I will be coming through Singapore next Saturday and will have time to meet with any emerging church people. Send me an email.
I spent 5 weeks in Singapore and Malaysia back in 1985 with OM. Very different now.
I am in London tonight but am traveling out to Australia tomorrow for the funeral of my brother and will be in Brisbane on the weekend. I might also be able to pop down to Melbourne later next week. I will be spending time with my dad who is very sick and possibly seeing his last days. I might also be able to pop down to Melbourne later next week. I will be in Singapore the morning of Saturday Dec 4 for about 6 hours, if anyone wants to hook up for a spicy breakfast. I will back in london late Saturday night, the 4th Dec, too late to speak at the Emergent UK Conference - my apologies to those who were going to hear my seminary on Saturday. The last time this happened (Nashville) I suggested people go to hear Jonny Baker who was speaking at the same time. Well this time, Jonny happens to be speaking the same time again, so go and hear him.
I had a nice dinner with Maggie and Phouc-Tan tonight in London, and a visit to the Apple Store. Great time. But i do feel a little depressed right now. thanks for your prayers.
Here are the details of my presentation "Like a Rhizome Cowboy: The Skinny on emergence principles for network-based churches" given at The Sheffield Centre, November 2004.
Off again for meetings and a conference. This is my schedule: Aberdeen today Sheffield Tues - Thursday. London - Friday to Tuesday.
I have Saturday free in London if anyone wants to meet up.
I go to Rio . . . De Janeiro . . . next May, and not just coz my baby smiles at me (she does), but because i will be speaking and learning at Tribal Generation's yearly event, the event that i always get invited to, and yet never get there.
"New Generation or Urban Tribes is a global phenomenon where frontiers are not barriers, where the values are still being defined in a world called post modern. In EUA and Europe the phenomenon is called Emergent Generation and it is made of people that have their values and aims strongly influenced by a global world . . ."
That quote (as well as the images) is from the Brazilian TribalGeneration.org website, translated for English speakers like me. Olgavaro Bastos Jnr has been involved on a leadership level with many of our global emerging church events - we were together in Japan, Colombia, Texas, England, Portugal and Prague. The emerging scene there is huge, and is all over Latin America, but Brazil and Chile seem to be hubs. Much for us to learn from and a welcome mat to contribute what we can.
New pilgrimage site in London, one that i hope to pay my respect to in about 2 weeks. The Apple Store opens in London in about an hour. WISH I WAS THERE!!!!!!! I have been waiting over a year for this - it should be a highly spiritual experience, and a droolworthy one, as this cartoon from GeekCulture shows.
Apple may be a cool company and sometimes I may get a little too excited about their products, but I really do owe a lot to them - through their simple products, I have been able to create stuff, publish my thoughts, put movies online (since 2000 on my old iMac) and more. and that . . . is my testimony.
Next big Apple Temple? Probably Toronto.
Google has been experiementing with a blogging system for corporations. Its called Blogger in Google (BiG) amn we may see it soon. Here is an screenshot.
It looks like Emergent is about to enter a season of blow torching from the mainstream church. How should we handle it?
Is Emergent a recapitualtion of the Renaissance? The question is asked by Thomas Brown in a comment this morning. I say yes, but . . . we would have to look at Emerging Church in 3 stages . . .
Continue reading "Is Emerging Church a Renaissance Recapitulation?" »
Just another day in the life of the family Jones. Today a freak hail storm popped up and my wife is STRANDED on a remote island called Westray. The windy hail storm was so strong that it blew over one of Samuel's school mates. The ferry home was cancelled due to weather and the possibility of being BLOWN OVER TO NORWAY! So Debbie and Miriam are staying in a youth hostel (only 5 pounds) and are having a great time. They did some praying over there today, and made some new friends.
So i am playing mother tonight and i am thinking about a blog post i wrote over 2 years ago called "5 Trials of a Postmodern Apostle".
Is the Emerging Church attempting to reform the existing church? I was responding to a comment on an emerging church definition that likens it to a new reformation. What I said was . .
" I dont think Reformation describes what we are doing, and the vandalism of the reformation (destroying art and church buildings, etc) is actually the opposite. I feel we are seeking to unite the body of Christ and reconcile it from a fragmented Christianity, not fragment it further by reformation. Our goal is not to reform the church, but to be the church for a very different group of people."
BTW - Orkney Islands, where i live, has 2 churches that survived the Reformation. Now thats "Deconstruction" for ya! One was the St Magnus Cathedral, that must have been too difficult to knock down with sledge hammers, and the other one was St Boniface church that was built in the 8th century or perhaps earlier.. I am not sure why the reformers didn't smash that one. Maybe they were having a bad day? ;-)
Better word than Reformation? I like "Renaissance" since it points to a rediscovery of the past as well as to the fact of a very different present.
Worship is justice. And there is a devotional life that is bigger than one's personal time with God. This is what i am thinking today.
Debbie and Miriam (another pilgrim who moved up to Orkney to pray) are on a ferry to visit the island of Westray today. According to a book i am reading "Pilgrimage sites of the Orkney Isles", Westray has at least 2 of those 15 significant Celtic monastic sites..
Interesting thought from the book: "Modern day pilgrims are following in the steps of those who were determined to keep the devotional life alive . . "
THE devotional life . . . not OUR or MY devotional life.
Its been a year since i shifted my blog from Blogger to Typepad. I lost a lot of traffic, of course, but i think the shift was worth it. Thanks everyone for changing your link or adding me to your links. You guys rock, all of you. Thanks for linking me over the past 12 months. I have gained more friends and connected with more people because you put a link to me on your site. I feel bad that most of you are not on my front page in a reciprocal link and I need to find some creative ways of saying thanks back to you.
My list of bloggers below is really outdated- it hasn't really changed for 2 years, apart from some corrections. Let me think about it more. . .
OK- when my book comes out in digital form, I will send a copy to anyone with a link to me on the front page - a token of appreciation. Hows that? In the meantime, take a tour of the list and see who else you are connected to through me. Start here.
I am thinking a lot about the place of generosity and the gift economy. I was checking out the writings of Marcel Mauss (1925) this morning, alongside passages of the bible that speak of gift-giving, and i found a community of thinkers in France called MAUSS (after Marcel Mauss). All of them are helping to rethink the current economic philosophy. A Mauss quote from "Give It Away"
"Work could be co-operatized, effective social security guaranteed and, gradually, a new ethos created whereby the only possible excuse for accumulating wealth was the ability to give it all away. The result: a society whose highest values would be "the joy of giving in public, the delight in generous artistic expenditure, the pleasure of hospitality in the public or private feast."
The writer of that article argues that Americans only want to read French pop-philosophers and they can only be found in the 70's and 80's. French thinkers in the past 15 years have been deconstructing selfishness and greed, and Americans don't want to deal with that. Interesting argument.
Jesus has much to say on generousity and gift giving:
"To everyone that has, more will be given" (Mt 25). Why do they have in the first place? Because they are generous.This is the way Google rates websites and gives favor. Those that give gifts attract hits, and a trail of hits increases google rating, which attracts more hits from other sources, and the website that has most is the same site that is giving most, and it gets even more. So Jesus teachings about giving are very appropriate for understanding the web. The internet was started as a way to give gifts, and gift-giving seems to work on the web. Those that try to violate it through greed suffer in the long run.
This is also how one downloads DivX movie files through the bit-torrent system. The one who is giving (allowing uploads of stored data) is the one who can download data the fastest. Try to stop others from uploading (taking from what you already have) and you will slow down your own download. The givers receive more.
- The hacker ethic is also based on gift, with reputation replacing renumeration. "A good name is better than riches" is says somewhere in Proverbs.
- Orkney, where we are now based, has been a gift-economy in the past, and still functions this way beneath the surface. We were given a piano this week. And we gave a gift back. People here give gifts, all the time. Its the way things function.
Keith Green would agree- the guy GAVE AWAY his records to those who could not afford them. We started the day with Keith Greens records playing on my old Hitachi record player. The favourite song for my kids is "Run to the End of the Highway". I dont know why they like that one. but the lyrics are written on the album cover and my kids can sing along. I really need to create some Keith Green Kareoke - with video and cheesy words scrolling horizontally, even if only our family will enjoy it. But in the meantime, we will do Keith Green singalongs.
- It snowed 2 days ago. Christmas is coming and we are playing Christmas carols. Christmas is where the church comes out of the closet to remind the world about how close gift-giving is to the heart of the Father. Hope you have a great day!
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymoreI"
Emergent's Tony Jones totally loses his Lutheran composure with "Throwing Down the Gauntlet." Just what i felt like reading this morning. Thanks Jonny for the link. And when your done watching Tony jump red-faced around the room, saying things like . . . .
"But we will not allow ourselves to be marginalized, to be labeled as "left," "right," "angry," or "immature." No, we have been disenfranchized. We have taken the blue pill, and there's no going back."
. . . then go take a look at his interaction with Andy Crouch re: "the emergent mystique".
An interesting thought. Two words that have created a lot of controversy in the church over the past decade have been "emergence" and "postmodern". Both words were first used in the same decade. The word "postmodern" was first used in the 1870's by British artist John Watkins Chapman. The first use of the "Emergence" in a philosophical sense was by George Henry Lewes in Problems of Life and Mind (1875).
Our family is eating Clapshot for the first time tonight.
Len Sweet is ripening with age. His latest book, Out of the Question . . Into the Mystery is a far cry from the number-crunching "Soul Tsunami" and more subtle than the poppy "Carpe Manana". Its a grey-blue minor-key book that finds its power in the pure simplicity of the discipled life, rather than catchy titles and ambitious prophecies. Thats why I liked it. Of course i liked his other books also.
Len is one of the few guys I know who has crossed the river of complexity and can write a simple book from the other side. Simplicity after complexity is widely informed and never insulting. Out of the Question is a simple book on following Jesus, being church, throwing parties (sounds like me?) celebrating the elements of new life, building a devotional life and more. Its an attractive book that anyone could give without cringing to a brand new believer. In fact, thats what I plan to do with mine.
Buy it? You may not need it, but some of your friends do. Wait for the paperback and buy a dozen.
I am officing at the Kirkwall Airport this morning - possibly the only place in Orkney to catch a WiFi signal faster than 1MEG. Of course my own Wifi on North End Road is available to anyone who walks by, but then 48k isn't really worth the trip, especially when we share it around.
So here i am, downloading hundreds of MGs and feeling like Neo on Matrix. . .
Want to update some more programs? Want to download some more demos?
HELL, YES!
"I don't know why they say Expedite is the computer saint. St. Isidore is the saint of technology and the internet. Yet these people insist on praying to Expedite. Like all things that concern this saint, it is a mystery." Rev. Michael Amesse
New software that could change the way we share books. Delicious Library enables you to re-create a virtual image of your old-media library. You can use a scanner to get your books loaded up, and you can also write reviews, help others buy the books, or even be open to lending them out to others. i will probably buy it and test it out. My greatest fear is that you guys will discover all my cool books and will be asking to borrow them. And I will then need to buy more software to track down which person has borrowed which book, and which nasty email message will be sent automatically to remind them. Dang. This could ruin our relationship! But it could also save us money if it would help us share our stuff more. Which is a good move.
Is there a pattern here? According to the newspapers, THE CHURCH in USA put the person they chose into office last week.
Earlier this year, THE CHURCH in USA turned a movie called The Passion from a predicted failure into an outrageous success.
The year before, THE CHURCH in USA emerged as an economic entity in making Contempory Christian Music one of the stronger performers in sales of records. Political strength. Cultural strength. Economic strength. Regardless of whether you agree with the actual decisions made (most of you in blogdom DO NOT), we have to ask the question, "Is the American church being trained for something?" and "Is God up to something?"
To quote another American, who was also in a sticky, messy, ugly, bi-partisan situation called The Civil War,
"He who does not see the hand of God in this is blind, sir, blind"
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
Like it or not, more and more people are reading what we write on news-readers, or through links from Google or their home page.
I am already writing with aggregators in mind
Barry Taylor takes Blah number 4 in London tonight with a talk entitled "God is in the house". I met Barry 10 years ago at Fuller Seminary when he was a student. Now he teaches there on popular culture. Great guy - you really should meet him! Read more from Jonny Baker.
I just received a Skater DVD in the mail from Kevin Palau of The Palau Evangelistic Association. They have been setting up skate parks at their Festivals and have a heart for skaters everywhere. Livin' It the Movie was directed by Stephen Baldwin and filmed in Portland with some of the best skaters and bike riders in the country. Nearly 60,000 videos have been sold already. Anyone out there seen the video?
There are of lot of churches for skate boarders around - Sweden, Switzerland, and ExtremeChurch in USA come to my mind, but there is there is only one that is over 25 years old. Its called SkateChurch and its in Portland, Oregon. [Link to review]
This morning we are attending the service at St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney. [i didn't get over to Sheltand Islands this weekend]
According to Ehabitat , "The cathedral of St Magus in Kirkwall, Orkney, is the northernmost cathedral in Britain. Work started on construction of the cathedral in 1137 under the orders of Earl Rognvald, the nephew of Magnus." BBC adds that the Cathedral of Durham was constructed at the same time.
BTW- I wish some new-media pilgrims out there would begin construction on a decent web site for the St Magnus Cathedral - its very hard to google around for information, like, for example, what time it starts (11.15am).
Saint Magnus is a beautiful building, reddish in colour, and is the only cathedral in Britain with its own dungeon. This will be the first time we have gone there for a worship service. In the sanctuary, I mean, NOT the dungeon . . . . although the dungeon would be a cool idea . . . hhhhmmmmmm . . . .Spirituality & Meditation in a Gothic Dungeon - now there's a catchy name!
I met the Minister G. Fraser MacNaughton last summer at the St Magnus Festival - very nice chap, and like me, interested in the current emergence of pilgrimage around the world. In fact, he had returned from Norway where he attended a celebration of pilgrimage at one of the Norwegian cathedrals. I would imagine there is some future for us together as we figure out how to let the redemptive and historical gifts of Orkney get re-discovered and opened up for a new generation. [Images stolen lifted from BBC and Orkneypics]
". . . the LORD hath anointed me to publish good tidings to the meek." Isaiah 61:1
In our new media world, publishing is back in the hands of the people. We are in the midst of a publishing revolution, a Renaissance of Writing, a world where some people write more than they read. We have entered the era of Post-Post-Literacy, and God is looking for storytellers to PUBLISH good news.
We can publish something by simply verbalising it (you don' really need a blog to publish) or we can post it online for millions to read, within seconds. One of the best ways to do this, many of us have found, is to start up a simple blog - an online journal, where you can publish good news to the meek, and everyone else.
I was told in Seminary (by Bible translater Ron Allen) that the word "praise" in the Hebrew language means to make God's deeds public. Or in other words, it is impossible to praise God by yourself - Praise is only praise when you have made something PUBLIC to others by PUBlishing it in some way.
The word "Hallelujah" is a command meaning "Hey you, go ahead and praise (publicly acknowledge) what God (Jah) has done". The word only appears in relation to telling humans to publish God's mighty deeds. This is why that song "Sing Hallelujah to the LORD" makes no sense at all. We don't tell God to praise Himself - thats dumb!. Hallelujah is an encouragement we give to each other to publish (make public) what God is doing in our lives. Which is why I give you this encouragement today . . . .
Hallelujah . . . Yes, you . . . Hallelujah . . Go ahead . . . Hallelujuah . . Get a Blog.
This weekend, unless tidal waves stop the ferries, I hope to be in the Shetland Islands for a conference on prophecy and hearing God. Ruach Ministries, the people behind the "Fire From the North" Prayer Conference next August, have invited me over to meet some of the Shetland people and to check out the scene.
Here are some thoughts on prophets and apostles in the emerging church that Church-Geeks may want to read . . .or if you dont have time . . . . here is a thought from the next page.
The emerging church is NOT where charasmatics meet non-charasmatics. The emerging church IS where post-charasmatics meet post-non-charasmatics, and of course, those that have absolutely no idea what those words refer to.
Thanks everyone for your comments and prayers over the loss of my brother this week. I hope I can be there for you also in your dark valleys. Your comments on the last post are like flowers on his grave - much appreciated!
Well I have had some phone calls with the family in Australia. Here are pieces of news;
- Lewis, apparently, died of an accidental drug overdose. His body was found in a public toilet at a railway station. There were syringes, etc found with him. no reason to suspect suicide or foul play.
- Lewis's son is Alex, born in March this year, and the spitting image of Lewis. He is cared for by the mother of Lewis's ex-girlfriend, a lovely caring lady named Sue. Sue and her sister are organising the funeral. I guess i have more family than I knew about.
We found out today that my little brother Lewis died in Sydney, Australia, 2 days ago. He was 34 years old.
Latest Update is the next blog post called "In the Land of the Living.
Update: Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. My family is meeting tomorrow to discuss who will go over to Sydney for the funeral, and when the funeral will be. i am looking into flights myself. Very hard news for my mum. And my dad is not in good health right now, but he was the one who received the news.
A few words about Lewis. . .
Tim Bednar of E-church.com has a good article on blogging at Christianity Today. Its called "Blogger Predicts Web Revival via Web". Tim has done the research, in community with all of us theoblogians, and is qualified to speak on this. Thanks to CT for putting out a good article (I was suggesting that they write something good on the blogging revival). Will Samson, who is the best blogger to talk to about political issues in USA, tipped us off.
We may have found the buildings that will become our monastery. Let me tell you about it, and show off some pictures I took today. You will notice that the weather is incredible - clear sunshine on damp green grass. Just love it!!!!
Big hat tip for USA. I love that country. It is partly mine. I am a resident of USA (resident alien) and have spent a quarter of my life there. My wife is American and all my kids. Its a great country, and the world was watching today as Dubya was reelected.
I'm glad that America has a leader that believes his leadership is a "mandate" and believes that God has placed him there for a reason.
His acceptance speech a few minutes ago talked of a "season of hope" and "reconciliation" for the country, as well as helping to develop democracy in countries like Iraq and Afganistan. OK - we all know it has been really messy so far - please dont complain here on my blog post. Putting the mistakes behind us, I am hoping that George will use his power to bring peace for the gospel in the Middle East . . . that he might follow in the footsteps of the last two-term Republican presiden, Ronald Reagan, It was Reagan that helped open up a door for Eastern Europe, a door that our family walked through and helped the people there take advantage of the new freedom. If George W. is able to do the same thing, then in 15 years time, we might be blogging from Bagdad, or Saudi Arabia, or Istanbul.
Anyway, we all give pause today, we stop what we are doing, and look at America, and acknowledge that it has huge potential for making the world a better place, not just for Americans but for everyone.
The church of England have submitted a new report - with the suggestion of a "men-only" branch of the Church.
The Archbishop is "happy to commend it for prayerful study within the dioceses of the Church of England and to invite other Churches in the Anglican communion and our ecumenical partners to let us have their reflections on it."
Link to Rochester Report PDF in BBC article.
Why not?
Getting a Yahoo account is kind of like shopping at Walmart. I usually avoid places where everyone else goes, unless I have an urgent reason to be there. That reason was given to me yesterday by a PDF report from Morgan Stanley, found on an article called "The Blog's Long Tail". If the report is somewhat true in saying that my.yahoo.com will be the leading RSS reader, then i want to read my blog in the same way that most other people will be reading it - my RSS feeds coming into their my.yahoo.com customized home page.
So I got a new account, since so many years have passed since i used Yahoo, and started a home page for myself. I have to admit . . . its pretty cool. I typed in a few bloggers that i know and then asked for recommended RSS feeds. And they recommended MY VERY OWN BLOG . . . to myself. So Yahoo can't be all bad. Besides the feeds, i also get my local weather, TV listings, flights, news, and whatever else I want to put there.
My.yahoo.com It's like Walmart or Woolworths: mainstream as anything, but eventually we all end up going there.
"Emerging church is a mindset ('we'll come to you') rather than a model. It is a direction rather than a destination. It rests on principles rather than a plan. It arises out of a culture rather than being imposed on a culture. It is a mood, scarcely yet a movement."Michael Moynagh, "How is Emerging Church Different?", on this months Emergingchurch.info
Note: I met Michael a few months ago in London - really nice guy!
I am a man haunted by my past words and actions. Tom Jones and WWJD are coming back to curse me.
Autumn is upon us. Chilly winds howling around my bare neck. Oh how I wish I had a mullet! A retro, 80's throwback bi-level haircut, short on top and flowing down my neck in white trash glory.
If you have followed my blog for a long time, then you will know that i often go through periods of craving a mullet, before giving in to pressure from my peers. And you guys always send me the best Mullet Links, like Hotmullets, RateMyMullet and MulletsGalore.
When I asked my blog readers if i should get a mullet in May, 2002, Abigail from Sheffield presented a strong argument against it:
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