-John Fischer, Fearless Faith.

(This is a book I often recommend, by the way. It challenges comfortable norms of churchy-ness.)

~~~

I only know the names of two angels, Hark and Harold.

Gregory ~ age 5

Everybody’s got it all wrong. Angels don’t wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it.

Olive ~ age 9

It’s not easy to become an angel!  First, you die. Then you go to Heaven.  And then there’s still the flight training to go through. And then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes.

Matthew ~ age 9

Angels work for God and watch over kids when God has to go do something else.

Mitchell ~ age 7

My guardian angel helps me with math, but he’s not much good for science.

Henry ~ age 8

Angels don’t eat, but they drink milk from Holy Cows!!!

Jack ~ age 6

Angels talk all the way while they’re flying you up to heaven. The main subject is where you went wrong before you got dead.

Daniel ~ age 9

When an angel gets mad, he takes a deep breath and counts to ten.  And when he lets out his breath again, somewhere there’s a tornado.

Reagan ~ age 10

Angels have a lot to do and they keep very busy. If you lose a tooth, an angel comes in through your window and leaves money under your pillow. Then when it gets cold, angels go south for the winter.

Sara ~ age 6

Angels live in cloud houses made by God and his Son, who’s a very good carpenter.

Jared ~ age 8

All angels are girls because they gotta wear dresses and boys didn’t go for it.

Antonio ~ age 9

My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got a big head start on helping me while she was still down here on earth.

Ashley ~ age 9

Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal sick animals and pets. And if they don’t make the animals get better, they help the child get over it.

Vicki ~ age 8

What I don’t get about angels is why, when someone is in love, they shoot arrows at them.

Sarah ~ age 7

If you’re interested in the full article, you can find it at

http://www.tiplady.org.uk/pdfs/EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.pdf

“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

On the horizon is something on Saturday nights–how’s “Saturday Night Church on the Boulevard” sound? Wait, though. I don’t know how it’s going to look, or even if that’s what we’ll call it, because our first couple of gatherings (May1st & 8th…wanna come?) are going to be to ask the “head office” for directions (ie, pray, listen, plan). I hope to see an open, participatory, and relational time. Maybe start with food (YUM!) and then do something artsy–let’s do some DRAMA. I’d love to mix in some THEATER–and then we could…Hold on, now, I’m getting ahead of myself. We haven’t even had our first meeting.

I’ll keep you updated. Message me if you have any ideas.

Help! I’m a prisoner of my generation! I don’t mind an occasional stroll down memory lane, but don’t leave me there. There is so much that is new. I don’t want to miss it while staring into the rear view mirror. Older isn’t necessarily better, it’s just, well, old.

“You can’t save yourself through art. You can’t save yourself through music. You can’t do it through travel. You can’t do it through wealth. All your attempts at saving and transcending through other means will ultimately fail. You save yourself or God saves you when you turn to Him.”

Full interview: http://www.iamsecond.com/#/seconds/Anne_Rice/

Job 26:14

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?

~~~

Our greatest task is not to do things, but to believe things.

-Oswald Chambers

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.

Church Alumni from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.