Posts
School of Prayer soon
By Summiteer | March 9, 2010
Jody and a team of women have been working hard to put together a series of training schools: a school of prayer, of leadership and of ministry. Each school, presented by Abide Ministries, will be offered at low or no cost to regions that request them. We’re looking forward to the first school of prayer in Vancouver, WA in June and then in Columbia and Ecuador in December. For info about Abide Ministries and the schools you can click on the site link: http://abiding.airset.com .
Topics: Abide Ministries | No Comments »
Letter from the Earth
By Summiteer | January 16, 2010
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?
Job 26:14
Topics: Quotes I like | No Comments »
Veteran Suicides: What lies beneath?
By Summiteer | January 14, 2010
I keep reading various news reports, the latest just this week, of the unusual number of military suicides, particularly among army veterans. Other statistics that don’t receive as much press are the staggering number of substance abuse issues that are appearing, and alarmingly, the disproportionate number of veterans who are incarcerated or otherwise working their way through the legal system. The link to the article is above, but here are the opening paragraphs of the report:
WASHINGTON, Jan 13, 2010 (IPS) - Suicides among United States military veterans ballooned by 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to new statistics released by the Veterans Affairs (VA) department.
“Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are acts by veterans,” said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki at a VA-sponsored suicide prevention conference on Monday. “That means on average 18 veterans commit suicide each day. Five of those veterans are under our care at VA.”
The spike in the suicide rate can most clearly be attributed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high number of veterans returning to the U.S. with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
To connect the dots, the middle east is the most spiritually volatile region on earth, the home of biblical Babylon and the epicenter of the visions of the Book of Revelation. Is it coincidental that it has become the cradle of devotion to a demon god and jihad by suicide? The military is fighting a war in “the devil’s sandbox” or as I often put it, on hell’s manhole cover. The psychological toll can’t be written off, but a spiritual root cause is not taken seriously. After all, isn’t that Revelation stuff just myth and superstition? Seriously…isn’t it?
Topics: Nat'l Guard, Random Thought | No Comments »
Of Human Faith
By Summiteer | January 1, 2010
Human faith gives spiritual weight to things. It is powerful, but exhaustible. Until faith is invested in God, who is real and inexhaustible, faith eventually drains away like water from a leaky bucket.
~~~
Our greatest task is not to do things, but to believe things.
-Oswald Chambers
Topics: Quotes I like, Random Thought | No Comments »
Diversified Church
By Summiteer | November 30, 2009
I took the video clip in my last post from a site called Recycle Your Faith which bills itself as a place to find “weekly videos for spiritual explorers.”
Intriguing…I’ll start following that site.
This fellow, Chad Estes, the guy on the clip, is from Boise. Apparently, he’s a former pastor of a fairly large congregation, but decided to, as his blog tag-line says, go on “a journey from fear to love, from rules to relationship, and from religion to freedom.”
He is not alone in that. Lots of people have begun to question their understanding of the church and finding their questions leading them to places they never expected to go. Many are amazed to find that there is living, active, relational faith outside of organizations and buildings. Moreover, they are discovering anarchy and heresy aren’t the inevitable outcomes of journeys off the well-worn path, or at least any more so than in the inherited structures of our parents and grandparents.
What I’ve discovered on that journey (we started meeting almost exclusively in homes in 1990) is that the real joy in following Jesus is in the relationship. Early on, I thought that meant that there needed to be a “clean break” from the traditional, but as the adventure unfolded I realized there was a flaw in that thinking. Breaking relationship can hardly be considered a good way to deepen fellowship within the body of Christ. Consequently, as we pursued the “simple church” course, we realized that if we kept our attitude right we could encourage our brethren in the more structured world, even as we deepened relationships outside it.
What I think I see happening now, is diversification. It isn’t “either-or” when it comes to church community, it’s “both-and”. Whereas, in the early days, we had to talk persuasively to convince people we weren’t a protest against the traditional church, nowadays there seems to be a growing understanding that the message of the gospel can—even must—be delivered on multiple channels. Furthermore, bricks and mortar needn’t create a Bastille. Buildings may serve a community; they don’t have to confine it. When buildings contain systems that control, dominate, and confine the followers of Jesus, they might better become real estate—galleries, coffee shops and bookstores. But when they shelter a community of faith; one that meets by love, mutual respect and gracious interdependence, such places become a light in the city.
Topics: Christian Living, Community, Simple Church | 1 Comment »
Church Done Simple
By Summiteer | November 28, 2009
Church Alumni from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.
Topics: Audio, Christian Living, Community, Simple Church | No Comments »
When problems = identity…
By Summiteer | November 23, 2009
No person ever is so helpless as the man in whom joy and misery sleep comfortably together.
No physician can give health and happiness to the man who enjoys his affliction. For such a man health and happiness are always contradictory.
~Calvin Miller, The Singer
Topics: Quotes I like | No Comments »
Health care among Christians
By Summiteer | November 2, 2009
Since Jody and I lost our insurance a few months ago we joined a medical cost sharing group. These organizations are set up so that Christians can share one another’s medical expenses rather than rely on insurance. We’ve been participating in one called “Samaritan Ministries” through which, every month, we receive the name of somebody who has incurred a medical expense. This month it was a family in Idaho whose five-year-old had been hospitalized with pneumonia and a respiratory infection. Upon receipt of the notice we send our monthly contribution directly to the family with the need.
This is a pretty cool way of dealing with health care costs without traditional insurance! It sounds a lot like what Paul says in Galatians: “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” It’s pretty affordable, too–240.00 a month for Jody and I.
What’s got me bothered right now is that the health care reform bills that are coming out of Washington may make it mandatory to buy government-approved health insurance. So where will that leave those of us who want to take care of each other through a cost-sharing pool? What if it becomes “buy government-approved health insurance or pay a fine.” Yikes! I hope our legislators build enough flexibility into these bills to let people be responsible for one another if they choose. I’ve already sent a note to our Representative. Now, it’s wait and see…
Topics: Christian Living, Community, Personal, Politics | 2 Comments »
Let’s have a “faceblog”?
By Summiteer | October 30, 2009
when cyberspace meets face2face
Does this ever happen to you? You get this cool idea and you tell somebody about it and they just look at you like you were a chicken that just laid a square egg. And then they say something like, “that’s nice” or, “cool,” and then they go with some other subject and you know they’ve already forgotten your great idea?
You haven’t had that happen? I was afraid of that… It’s just me who has really great and really dumb ideas. Well, anyway, I have this great (maybe really dumb) idea. Since computers can be so isolating, what if somebody hosted a “faceblog?”
So, what’s a “faceblog?” Call it a “cybersation,” a web-born conversation where the blog post is open to comments from real people (moving faces and everything) in the audience. And as long as we’re at it, let’s throw in coffee, tea, food and a microphone — eat and drink the first ones, talk in into the other. People could bring a recent blog post — their own or a favorite from the blogosphere and they or somebody else could read it “open mic” — kinda like karaoke blogging.* There could be a blog, and then people could “comment” around a table; maybe another blog and talk; then throw in some music for a change of pace; do a couple more blogs…comment, talk some more. Real time, face-to-face interaction. What a concept.
* No hate speech, sex talk, shock-jock stuff and potty-mouth rants or really long rambles. Just thoughtful observations — four minutes or less — about life, God, the universe, and related subjects. Make them serious or funny; poignant and thoughtful; critical, maybe even angry, but always respectful.
Topics: Christian Living, Random Thought | 1 Comment »
Jody: Arrived PDX
By Summiteer | October 23, 2009
Jody arrived home safely at around 8:10 this evening. It’s been a long two weeks, but made all the more successful thanks to your faithfulness in prayer for the work in the Balkans. To say thank you seems too small a gesture, but it’s the best we can do. It’s good to have her safe at home.
Topics: Balkans, Travel Blog | No Comments »
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