Archive for August 2008
Gone.
I am going to be away this long weekend, so you probably won’t see me blogging. Just go back and read something you haven’t read yet, it’ll be alright.
The Wounded Healer: Loneliness
I found ‘The Wounded Healer’ particularly insightful. It took me longer than I expected to get through as the pages are weighed down with content heavy enough to support a book 3 times its size. One thing is for sure, Henri J. M. Nouwen did not mince words!
At the end of his book he speaks of the loneliness of a minister, he says:
But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon-a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding.
Later he continues,
We get an idea of the kind of help a minister may offer. A minister is not doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared. When someone comes with his loneliness to the minister, he can only expect that his loneliness will be understood and felt, so that he no longer has to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of his basic human condition.
Not from the Cookie Cutter
I’m in a predicament.
Even though I’ve blogged for several years on different sites here and there, I actually don’t have any friends who blog regularly. Some of my friends blog intermittently, some think it’s geeky, some probably don’t know what a blog is.
It’s a predicament because I like blogging as a team. I had tried it before (with a friend who rarely blogs) and when it was active and we were bouncing ideas and concepts off each other through blogging it created an interesting scenario.
Church: Accountability & Leadership
I talked about leaders being accountable for the people they disciple before just as the Mike Guglielmucci story was breaking and so as time has past and the leaders have been given there time to speak it’s become clear that what is happening with Mike is the same thing that continues to happen in Christendom, leaders are not being accountable for what their disciples say and do.
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Church: Community of Believers
Community has gotten a bad wrap in the last 30 years. It was all the rave in the hippie movement, YWAM picked it up and has been using it dogmatically since. Then Jonestown happened and community has never really been looked at the same.
On a side note, PBS did a fantastic documentary on Jonestown which I would encourage anyone to watch!
Our society doesn’t really allow for community to be done in the Jonestown sense, or (unless you’re a deliberate mission organization) in the YWAM sense either. But still, there is something that is supposed to be communal about the church. I’m not saying that we should all sell our properties and move at a discrete location together but I think that the church is on the other end of the fence, we’re too private.
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Church: What is it for?
Last time we discussed that churches were for Christians, and we also discussed why breaking away from that (biblical) ideal was a dangerous move for any church. It produces something that the world has lots of, shallow Christians, the church should be working on digging deeper Christians.
I think Acts 2:42-47 gives us a good idea of what church is for:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers … all who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
The Wounded Healer
I am in the middle of reading another book by Henri Nouwen. This one is entitled, “The Wounded Healer”. Although the book has it ups and downs there are some really insightful moments in the book. In one part, I have never read anyone articulate the need and dangers of formal ministry training so well. He says:
More training and structure are just as necessary as more bread for the hungry. But just as bread given without love can bring war instead of peace, professionalism without compassion will turn forgiveness into a gimmick, and the kingdom to come into a blindfold.
Then he goes on to describe exactly what I use to be like:
The man who does not know where he is going or what kind of world he is heading toward, who wonders if bringing forth children in this chaotic world is not an act cruelty rather than love, will often be tempted to become sarcastic or even cynical. He laughs at his busy friends, but offes nothing in place of their activity. He protests against many things, but does not know what to witness for.
I have found that the book is quite good at explaining the human condition still, even though it was written over 30 years ago. Nouwen, to a large degree, manages to look past culture and talk about man.
I would recommend anyone in ministry or thinking about ministry to pick up this book. If you can make your way past the first chapter the rest is quite insightful.
The I Hate Church Blog (and it isn’t mine!)
There is a new blog that’s asking people to rant on why they hate church … which is pretty fun and exciting … except the blog is being done by a church … which kind of makes me think it’s an attempt at some sort of sermon illustration … which isn’t as fun …
anyways …
If you’re dieing to live through all that hurt and pain again to tell them your story go here. I did!
these posts may be related …
Wow … i kept this option that shows others related blogs at the bottom of my blog on without really thinking about it. Then I decided to click through some of them and they all turned out to be really weird Christian blogs which consisted of unformated Bible verses chapters, quotes from people they thought were heretics and thier own opinions rants and raves sprinkled in between. So I turned that option off.
I think I did my good deed for the day!
The power of pornography and the power of confession
There is nothing that will destroy a man more quietly than shame.
There is nothing that a man will avoid more than shame.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the source of Mike Guglielmucci’s fall. It’s an all too common threat, especially since the internet, that has deceived many young Christians. What is the deception? Just one look.
What young men and women don’t understand is that once is never enough, and the enemy of our souls knows and understands this. And in a Christian culture where there is a lot of shame attached to sexual sin, and especially pornography, that shame is more of a stumbling block to healing than the actual sin itself.
