welcome to the story.

The new Harry Potter book is coming sooner rather than later. More info here.

Reading: The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright, Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf Listening: Regina Spektor, Iron and Wine, Weezer, Jack White, The Decemberists, Josh Ritter, Damien Jurado Viewing: Waiting for Guffman, Arrested Development

I think if you asked us what the purpose of The Phoenix Project was, I hope we would respond with a two-fold answer. 1) That it is an environment where we can all come and be challenged, encouraged, and become more faithful to the way of Jesus. This is not to say that our current churches and small groups are not doing these things. However, it is to say that we all need to be a part of a community that seeks to provide answers to the questions we are asking (challenging environment). It is to say we all need to be a part of a community that inspires us, refreshes us, and leaves us better off than we were before (encouraging environment). Again, it�s not saying our current churches and/or small groups are unable to do these things for us. However, many of us are small group leaders, or worship leaders, or volunteers. We spend so much time giving and pouring our lives into others, that we rarely have a chance in our current environments to be challenged, encouraged, and inspired to become more faithful to the way of Jesus. 2) That it is an environment where we can feel safe and comfortable bringing friends and family who have questions about God and Christianity. There is a large group of people who will never walk through the door of a church. No matter how nice the buildings are. No matter how great the music is. No matter how good the message is. There are a growing number of people who simply do not see how the church can help them in their spiritual lives. The Phoenix Project will attempt to provide a safe space where people can �belong� to a faith community before they necessarily �believe� everything that we think they should. This is the opposite of the way most faith communities operate today, where you have to believe rightly before you belong. So it�s a two-fold purpose. It�s for the sake of our own spiritual journey and it�s for the sake of our friends� spiritual journey. We are not against our local churches. We are not against the traditional types of small groups. We are not against our pastors. We are not against those who are immersed fully in church world, those who are still challenged and encouraged by their local church and small groups. I�m pretty emphatic about that. This is not an �us versus them� thing. We will not be critical. We will not be judgmental. We will not be prideful. We will not act like those who are not �with us� are �against us�. And if we come to The Phoenix Project with this type of spirit, with that approach, I think we�re missing it. And missing it big. Humility, learning, authentic community, exploring what it a new kind of Christian looks like . . . these are our goals. We are not separating ourselves from our local churches . . . we are still active participants. We are a part of the local church. We are just creating an extension from it, another platform to challenge us, encourage us, and to help us become more faithful to the way of Jesus. And to create a context out of which we can �do life� with our friends and family who would never walk through the door of a church.

Al Mohler, Southern Baptist leader and spokesperson for the religious right, is critiquing churches who are not having services on Christmas day. Funny. Secondly, on a recent interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper, he made the claim that if you're married, its a God-given mandate that you should have kids. That parenthood is a sign of maturity and marriage without kids a sign of immaturity. For audio on both issues, you should go and listen to the mp3's posted at AlbertMohler.com. Interesting stuff. Interesting stuff indeed.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I like this piece.

I've added a new post at The Phoenix Project for anyone interested.

Reading: Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age by Ed Stetzer, Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf, The Gospels Listening: Ozma, The Decemberists, Damien Jurado, Sufjan Stevens, Iron and Wine, Sigur Ros Viewing: Season Two of Arrested Development, The Life Aquatic, Bottle Rocket, Melinda and Melinda, The Chronicles of Narnia - it was a long weekend and I was sick To check out some really great doors decorated for Christmas over at Relevant Magazine, click here: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/door.php

From the weekend . . .

Thanks Kristen for the pictures. And thanks friends and family for a good time. I'm 25. And thats hopeful and bothersome. More time left. Not enough done with the time that I've had. On a side note, I've added Kristen's blog to my blog roll. Kristen is recently engaged and soon to be married. Her fiance is over in Iraq and putting his life on the line while on "vacation and shopping for stationary". Think about that Kristen. He is also involved in a very intense research project to determine the per capita boogers of the dry and dusty Iraq climate in comparison and contrast to the Atlanta climate. Results are pending. As well as, I've added my friend Seth who is offering an Eastern Orthodox perspective to many of the conversations that have centered and begun off of my blog. A much needed voice in the conversation. Both blogs are worth checking out.

The following quote comes from the book I'm reading by Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Volf is a native Croatian and much of this book centers around the ethnic cleansing performed by Serbian fighters in the early 1990s. I just got finished reading one of the most intelligent, stretching, uncomfortable, thought provoking chapters that I've ever read. And it has to do with the topic of exclusion. And how in the deepest part of humanity is a desire to separate from those who are not like us. And in many different forms, exclude them by domination, assimilation, abandonment, indifference, elimination, etc. Brilliant thoughts. Brilliant ideas. And its really prophetic to us as Americans and to us as followers of God where it challenges us at many levels. The following is from this chapter and talks about how hysteria can so easily be stirred up among "decent" people and a culture of exclusion can become the norm and the practice of exclusion justified. _________________________________________________________________________________ In extraordinary situations and under extraordinary directors certain themes from the "background cacophony (discord)" are picked up, orchestrated into a bellicose musical, and played up. "Historians" - national, communal, or personal interpreters of the past - trumpet the double theme of the former glory and past victimization; "economists" join in with the accounts of the present exploitation and great economic potentials; "political scientists" add the theme of the growing imbalance of power of steadily giving ground, of losing control over what is rightfully ours; "cultural anthropologists" bring in the dangers of the loss of identity and extol the singular value of our personal or cultural gifts, capable of genuinely enriching the outside world; "politicians" pick up all four themes and weave them into a high-pitched aria about the the treats to vital interests posed by the "other" who is therefore the very incarnation of evil; finally the "priests" enter in a solemn procession and accompany all this with a soothing background chant that offers to any whose consciences may have been bothered, the assurance that God is on our side and that our enemy is the enemy of God and therefore an adversary of everything that is true, good, and beautiful. As this bellicose musical with reinforcing themes is broadcast through the media, resonances are created with the background cacophony of evil that permeates the culture of a community, and the community finds itself singing the music and marching to its tune. To refuse to sing and march, to protest the madness of the spectacle, appears irrational and irresponsible, naive and cowardly, treacherous toward one's own and dangerously sentimental toward the evil enemy. The stage for "ethnic cleansing" and similar "eruptions"* of evil - personal as well as communal - is set. The first shot only needs to be fired, and the chain reaction will start. * (Volf referring to the ethnic cleansing of his people in Croatia) In many "wars", there seems to be an insatiable appetite for brutality among ordinary people. Once the war started and the right conditions were maintained, an uncontrollable chain reaction was under way. These were mostly decent people, as decent as most of us tend to be. Many did not, strictly speaking, choose to plunder and burn, rape and torture, or secretly enjoy these. A dormant beast in them was awakened from its uneasy slumber. And not only in them. The motives of those who set to fight against the brutal aggressors were self-defense and justice. The beast in others, however, enraged the beast in them. In resisting evil, they were trapped by evil. Carl Jung on the eve of World War II wrote: �The impressive thing about the German phenomenon is that one man, who is obviously �possessed�, has infected a whole nation to such an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling on its course towards perdition.�

Kindgom of God - the reign of God

Check out the new Golgotha polos. Just in time for Christmas. You can check out their full catalog here. Happy shopping . . . muahahahahahaha!

The gospel is not good advice, its good news. - Bishop N.T. Wright from a message on Jesus and the Kingdom So often we've turned the gospel, the Bible, Jesus . . . into good advice. 10 ways to have a better marriage. 5 ways to become a better leader. 3 ways to get rid of sin. 5 Laws from Romans that will lead you to salvation (gotta love the Romans road). The gospel is emphatically good news and not good advice. People talk about the emerging church being to loose. Or not as rooted as some of our previous traditons. I think the things that are being articulated are actually more difficult to be faithful to. To carry out. I have actually found it more difficult to be this new kind of Christian, than the previous way I was attempting to do it. But thats what is so intriguing. That's what takes this beyond fluff. Beyond sugar coated Christianity with sugar coated answers. Everybody loves sugar. It tastes good. Its not really all that good for you though. And has anyone ever seen anyone hopped up on sugar. Or better yet, a group of kids (community) hopped up on sugar. Man the hysteria. The bedlam (I've been wanting to use that word for a while). The chaos. Sugar will do that to you. The obvious correlation is to look at the churches that are hopped up on sugar. Running around in hysteria. Over the 10 Commandments being taken down. Over same sex marriages. Over Democrats. Over war. Over evangelism. When you're hopped up on sugar and living your life in a frenzied hysteria, you start playing God. And so you worry that if you don't share your faith with every person you meet, then that person's blood is on your hands. What?!? God is God. You are not. We play God. And we do it well. So much so that many people confuse Christianity with God. And the "gospel" that they believe is not actually the gospel at all. Or even worse, the gospel that many people refuse is not even the gospel at all. So whose at fault? Traditional churches want to give aliterated points that are disconnected from practical living, i.e. three simple ways to know God's attributes. God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscience (i like how the last word is science, so modern). Those words aren't even in the Bible. Jesus never really called God omnipresent, omnipotent, or omniscience. He called him Abba. The things that my friends and I are wrestling with are not shallow. We're not trying to come up with more good advice. More easy steps. Easier ways to make things "seeker-sensitive". We're embracing the cross as a lifestyle. Pick up your cross and follow me. Doesn't sound like good advice . . . hardly sounds like good news. But thats where these really strong claims and strange teachings of Jesus take shape. Thats where good news is found. In the struggle. Not in the superficial advice and self help readings of the Bible. I think we read the Bible like its one of those yellow and black "Idiot's Guide To Life". Complete with easy answers. Self-help formulas. Good advice. The gospel is good news. Not good advice.

On Community I know Anna will be happy. Because I'm actually devoting a whole post to a quote of her post. She has said something better than I could say it or any pastor or teacher for that matter. She has said it well. And I won't add to it. ___________________________________________________________________________________ More and more I'm realizing the value of community. I've talked about it for a long time. Now I think I'm starting to live it. Rubbing elbows with people utterly different, yet shockingly similar from you really is the kingdom of God. I don't understand the words used all the time. I surely don't grasp all of the concepts, but it's nice to be on the fringes. Rob Bell said in Velvet Elvis, "Sometimes a majority of learning is done by eavesdropping." That's me. I'm the one just listening in on the conversation, not really adding much, but enjoying the dialogue. And I'm learning a lot. I'm not learning about menasticism (sp?), but I'm learning that I don't have to really understand it. Eventually I'll come to appreciate the knowledge, and I'm somewhat eager to learn it, but all I know is I want to be in community. That's where I'll learn. That's where I'll grow. That's where real issues are rubbed out. Fleshed out. Not perfectly communicated, just brought to the table and thrown around. To me, that's beauty. That's worth. That's the amazing gift of community. Long ago I learned that my greatest words to God were my groanings. The sighs, the screams (mostly internal), the puffs. The la la's in songs are my absolute favorite. I used to not understand the point. Now I know that the la la's say more than all of the eloquent words that surround them. All this has been inspired by the events of the last few weeks. Dinners at pubs with old friends. Laughing on a nightly basis with two new great and wonderful friends. Bedside chats with my lifelong best friend. Fireside discussions with those closest to us. "Pillow talk" with my new husband. Honeymoon fun with new friends from Wisconsin. Even long distance phone calls with the people I feel are in the next room. God intended community. I feel like that's why we have emotion. That's why we have desire to know other people. And I want to live the rest of my life in community.

I�ve been thinking a little bit lately about �repentance�. And what that word means. Not just as some shallow word that religious people like to say. Or like zealots when they say, �Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.� Whatever that means. The word has just been rolling around in the back of my head over the past week or so. Repent. Repentance. What does that mean outside of the clich�s? I think the word needs to be redeemed from the way it�s been used. It�s become a church word, indeed a clich�, and I think it has lost some of its meaning because of that. A quick and easy word that is supposed to provide a quick and easy solution. But I think to treat it as a clich� misses it. Its not really that faithful to the guts of it. So I�ve been trying to think fully and deeply on this word. To sit with it. I�ve wanted to quit. I�ve wanted to walk away from it. But it keeps playing on my tongue. Keeps darting around in my thoughts. In my self-dialogues. The Hebrew language uses two verbs to describe it. These words are where we get our English word of �repent� in the Old Testament. From this original Hebrew verbs . . . shuv and nicham (the best I can do with an English keyboard). Shuv means to return. Nicham means to feel sorrow. In the New Testament, a Greek word is used . . . metanoia. This is a compound word, with �meta� meaning �after� and �noeo� meaning �to think differently�. So metanoia means to think differently after. To return. To feel sorrow. To think differently after. Its hard to make that a clich�. To think differently after. What does that mean? What do I do with that? How do I . . . �repent�? What does it look like? Does it even have a look? I don�t know. For the longest time, I thought repentance was about saying words. Kind of like confession. If I confessed it . . . made myself feel guilty . . . in order to make myself feel sorry . . . then that was good. Just confess it. Try to make myself cry. Try to make myself feel sorry. Learn from my mistake and try to do better the next time. I don�t know but that feels shallow. I feel like I�m robbing the word. And for some reason I always associated it with like big sins. Like if I looked at some bad stuff . . . I should repent. Or if I kissed my girlfriend for to long . . . I should repent. Or if I was living in this huge, gross, over the top �sin�, I should repent. If I was gay . . . if I killed somebody . . . if I beat an old lady with her own cane because I wanted to take her groceries . . . I should repent. You know like all of these BIG, BAD �sins�. I needed to repent of those. And I guess the good news for most of you, including myself, is that I don�t really have a lot of BIG, BAD �sins�. I stopped being a pervert a long time ago. And I haven�t really struggled with killing anybody or beating any grannies up lately. But as I�m learning that �sins� are simply a separation from the way of Jesus to my way. And that there isn�t actually a degree of difference in the outcome between these "sins", between these separations. Where there are BIG, BAD sins and little, baby sins. That a sin is anything that takes me from the path of Jesus out onto my own little path. I�ve begun to realize that I have a whole lot of . . . how shall we say . . . "stuff" . . . that I need to repent of. A whole lot. Not a clich�. Not a confession. Not a word. Not a prayer. But an actual deep repentance. �To return� from my path to the path of Jesus. From my way to the way of Jesus. To perhaps �feel sorrow�. But to �think differently after�. To let my experience change me. To let it shape me. To learn from it. To become different because of it. So maybe I don�t do these BIG, BAD things anymore. But I am really kind of a cynical guy at times. Is that sin? Is that devination from the way of Jesus? I�m constantly seeing the junk in other peoples eyes before I take a look at the freaking plank in my own. Have I left the way of Jesus on that one? I�m constantly sizing people up. Judging people by what they think, what they believe. What path am I on, on that one? This kind of fits in with what I�m reading about exclusion and embrace. Because for me, embracing is a kind of repentance. The �other� � those that are different than me � I really need to embrace. That�s the way of repentance for me on that issue. The way of embrace. On being cynical . . . I need to overcome that with hope and perspective and generosity of spirit. That�s an action. That�s a punch, counterpunch. I want to separate from the way of Jesus . . . punch. Counterpunch* . . . I repent. I turn it from a clich� into an action. Into a lifestyle. Into a way. Repentance is a way. It�s a path. I�ve used that language for a reason. Because its just that. Its not a noun. Not a theology. Not a church word. But a path that we must CHOOSE to enter into. Saying prayers of repentance are easy. Giving a confession of repentance is easy. Entering into a way of repentance . . . that�s hard. Real hard. But it�s my choice. To treat this word as something nice to say, but rarely do . . . or to live the word. Let it make me uncomfortable. Let it unsettle me. Let it inspire me. And I think that�s repentance. As much a social and physical reality as it is a spiritual reality. Repent. Repent. To think differently after. To think differently after. To think differently after. * Sorry about all the punch, counterpunch talk. I�ve been playing Mortal Kombat a lot lately so I have some kung-fu imagery in my head these days.

If you get a chance, stream this mp3. If you want to download it, go to the Imago Dei sermons page and look for August 7 talk. Its Rick McKinley, pastor of the Imago Dei Community and Don Miller's pastor. He talks about this idea of sin management that Dallas Willard talks about in The Divine Conspiracy. This leads us to put much more emphasis on the individual and afterlife, as well as focusing on sins of commission. He talks about the need to focus on our sins of ommission as well. Good thoughts.

As most of you know, I've been involved in a pretty loose organizationally, but deep conversation among friends, called Emergent. And after my conversations with a really great Eastern Orthodox friend from school last night over drinks and dinner in a nice cozy little pub down in Decatur, I must insist that its still not a label, although it may seem that. But some fundamentalist critics (my favorite kind because their arguments are so well thought out and articulated in such concise intelligent ways--sarcasm implied) have given you a way to define us. Albeit from their hyper-critical, fundamentalist perspective. But its still quite humorous. This blog is hilarious.

crowder's thoughts on their song, resuce is coming . . . and while we yet were sinners, christ died for us. he did not leave us alone. he stepped into our condition to bring us back to god. to bring us back to what was intended. the divine, bearing all depravity. the most horrific of collisions. the most tragic and beautiful. the breaking is glorious and loud. we have won. it might not feel like it. you might not can see it just yet. but the reality of our situation is that rescue is present. every second of life is spent in the very presence of god. there is not a second of human history that he has not been present. majesty is here. and it is coming. finally. just be quiet. and wait.