The Work of the People

Tom Wright on Hell & Bell

2011-05-26T09:47:00.004-06:00

Haven't blogged much recently since we've launched Alter Video Magazine. I'm sure we'll ramp up this form of dialogue in the future, but for now we invite you to join the conversation over at Alter.

Our current post is an interview with NT Wright on hell and Rob Bell. (The Work Of The People films with Mr. Wright coming soon).

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Kahlil Gibran on Love

2011-01-04T12:02:00.001-06:00

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

ALTER VIDEO MAGAZINE

2010-12-16T21:43:00.002-06:00

I Guess I'm "Liberal"

2010-11-03T08:46:00.002-06:00

Guess I never thought of myself or TWOTP as liberal or conservative, just a fractured glimpse of something broken but still raised from the dead and daily stumbling towards Jesus. I say that because I got a letter titled "Saddened" from a pastor saying I was propagating the liberal-pluralistic-Unitarian movement and that I should start leading people to Jesus who alleviates all problems. Uhhhh...I don't think Ted watched any of the films he's criticizing, and most of his peculiar speech act could easily be discounted as silly,flippant, youthful and unattached to good fruit-producing struggle, but I'm assuming his "truth grenades" are shared by few others, so I thought I start this dialogue although I doubt many are interested. I tried to connect with Ted without any success and I'm not the wordsmith...(Get it? I stopped writing..because I'm not a wordsmith....Hahahahahaha!) Anyway, all that to say here's Ted's "saddened" email and a note from my pastor about the soil from which I come...again if any body is interested.

TED'S SADDENED LETTER

Hello,

As a pastor/church leader for the past 11 years, one who was fully schooled in the works of Hauerwas, Sweet, McLaren, & Bell, who grew up in a liberal-Mennonite church, I was deeply saddened by the advertisement I received for the Scott Alexander teaching series. I have watched the liberal-pluralistic-unitarian movement continue to try in vain to harness humanism to change the world. I have watched the world of evangelicalism, in it's attempt to put flesh on it's message, begin to swing towards this same tired, powerless belief system. I have watched wonderful friends leave for long term mission trips of mercy & service come back not with spirituality, but a social justice philosophy. I am so weary of seeing people trade in a gospel that has power for one that does not, & I am disappointed to see Work of the People propagating views that narrow the person of Jesus down to what we can do without him. There is such a rich expanse of Christianity that is not fundamental-right-wing-nonsense, but this liberal movement misses the kingdom of God in it's reaction. Both sides exemplify a narrow, lacking worldview. There is more than both of you realize. Evangelicals preach with words but no actions, pluralists/etc preach with work but no actual message (aside from humanism). When unitarians like Alexander feed a starving village but fail to address the issues of sin, hunger will always remain. Jesus provides freedom from the characteristics in people that cause hunger/greed/apathy/etc. Oh how I wish my compassionate liberal friends could see that they are leading the world into a place that is not free of problems & rejects the one who can alleviate them. I don't know what the point of writing this is, except that I'm bummed. So, please, stop spreading this stuff. Sigh.

Sincerely,

Ted

NOTE FROM MY PASTOR AARON EDWARDS

Ted,

I am not officially affiliated with The Work of the People but I am deeply connected to their mission because the church that I pastor shares the same soil as TWOTP. So I get the chance to see what Travis sees since he has taken root in the community. And what we see on a regular basis is dead things coming back to life and broken things being put back together. Our community is filled with homeless people and addicts who are at the end of their rope and they have taught us that being at the end of our rope is the easiest access to total surrender which then leads death which then leads to life. We are well aware that this process is only possible because of the One who had the ability to lay down His life and take it back up again. Its not just about Jesus, it is Jesus. TWOTP's purpose is not to push a liberal agenda or an evangelical agenda or humanism of any sort. It is to tell stories of hope and transformation. I haven't seen the Scott Alexander piece or the advertisement for it so I am not defending him or his beliefs but if you have seen even a small portion of the films that TWOTP has produced, you know that there is a wide variety of belief systems from a wide variety of brothers and sisters. Maybe there should be a disclaimer for people who may be confused, that the views of these pastors, theologians, and artists don't necessarily reflect our views, but really I think these films have done an incredible job of not only sparking healthy debate, but also to force us to get even more clear about our own visions/missions. Your email was a perfect example, you were very clear about what you believe and why you believe that both sides of the fence come up short when representing Jesus, recognizing our need for a Saviour, and what that may look like in action. You are a brother and you a part of the Body. Thank you for caring and thank you for your passion and desire for people to see that physically feeding the hungry without spiritually feeding the hungry will offer very little nourishment. We agree. But also please rest assured that Travis and Steve have talked and prayed and thought about everything you just said long before you just said it. So the only thing I would disagree with is your assumption that what you realize is more than what they realize. Please keep up the Kingdom work and thank you for perpetuating a healthy dialogue that can bring us all back to the foot of the cross where we are only left with one agenda, and that is His agenda to save and reconcile that which was lost.

Aaron Edwards
sOndays church

Greg Boyd on TWOTP's Alter Video Magazine

2010-09-28T17:01:00.002-06:00

New Video Magazine

2010-09-24T09:43:00.003-06:00

We started a new video magazine called Alter. We believe there is an altǝrnative narrative to the prevalent narrative of scarcity and fear. We believe God is moving and is behind an altǝrnative narrative of abundance and freedom, a narrative in which Satan gets defeated and love wins. We believe God’s narrative requires we altǝr our perspective, that we step, in faith, into God’s upside down reality. In God’s reality we listen for, live and speak God’s upside down voice of faith, hope and love, not striving for ourselves but serving our neighbor. For all these reasons, this is Altǝr.

Stir imagination. Spark discussion.

3 Seedbeds For Visual Stroytelling

2010-09-21T06:49:00.004-06:00

TWOTP's Steve Frost article Worship Leader Magazine article "Vulnerable Visuals - Mining the rich Vein of Psalm-stories in your congregation. Click image below and got to page 32...

Story-Driven Order Of Worship

2010-09-20T07:45:00.002-06:00

TWOTP's friend Sean Gladding article in Worship Leader Magazine about story driven worship. Also on see one of the TWOTP films with Sean from his new visual curriculum series The Story oF God, The Story of Us...

Postmodern Negro

2010-09-10T10:21:00.001-06:00

Quick chat with The Postmodern Negro, Anthony Smith about burning Qurans, 911 and Brother Beck...

Coming Soon...

2010-09-10T10:20:00.001-06:00

Here's a trailer from the TWOTP film series will Sean Gladding called Story of God, Story of Us that's coming out in a couple weeks...

Dan Spencer Outtake

2010-08-29T15:23:00.000-06:00

Outtake from recent Dan Spencer filing for the On Our Way project.

Comfort Vs Challenge

2010-08-23T17:44:00.000-06:00

An outtake from a recent interview with contemporary liturgical artist Tony Alosno on glossing over the difficult things in life during our community gatherings.

WB Outtake

2010-08-13T15:06:00.000-06:00

What's saving Brueggemann's life today...Finishing up edits on visual curriculum with WB...Here's an outtake on what's saving his life today and what he said he needs to die to...

Hauerwas On Himself

2010-08-13T15:05:00.000-06:00

An outtake from a visual curriculum I'm working on...

Music, Restoration & Reconcilation

2010-08-09T05:59:00.002-06:00

It seems like the word between those two places is usually "versus" in our minds and news media...Israel versus Palestine...I think in God's world, the word is "and." As in, God seeks restoration and reconciliation in creation and His family!

Aaron Stumpel, one of my favorite artists and an important muse in my work is traveling in October with a team of people to live incarnationally, to seek and promote reconciliation and healing...

He need to raise $3,500 to cover the costs...which is only 700 copies of his new EP, "Vespers."

It's sort of a push - the first half is due this weekend - would you consider buying a copy of what some people say is his best work yet and at the same time sowing into his trip to Israel and Palestine? It's totally the coolest win-win ever! :)

Tell your friends, get the word out - I really believe we can do it!

GO HERE TO LISTEN AND BUY HIS NEW ALBUM!

Thank you so much for the sonsideration!

Travis & Aaron

p.s. If you just straight up want to contribute to his trip, it's a tax-deductible donation. You can paypal him donations at aaron@aaronstrumpel.com or jot him a note if you'd rather send a check.

Latest TWOTP Newsletter...

2010-08-06T12:16:00.001-06:00

Check out my @constantcontact newsletter

An Economy Of Love

2010-08-06T08:49:00.003-06:00

Here' a few trailers and one full video from the series we produced with The House Studio and Relational Tithe called The Economy of Love. This 5 week video series with Shane Claiborne for small groups or any size church is available on DVD w/book HERE. TWOTP Will be offering the series soon on digital download through our site.

Economy of Love will challenge individuals to join in community, journeying together as they begin to consider a new standard of living-a personal economic threshold oriented not around the size of a monthly paycheck, but around the value of enough.

In this five-week study, unpack what the patterns of God's kingdom look like compared to the patterns of our world. What is the value of enough, and how do we become more like God who is close to the poor, the hungry, the meek, and the merciful?

ECONOMY OF LOVE TRAILER

OUTTAKE FROM ECONOMY OF LOVE

A New Imgagination from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

OUTTAKE FROM ECONOMY OF LOVE

We Are The Temples from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

OUTTAKE FROM ECONOMY OF LOVE

Three More Planets from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

TENSION: ECONOMY OF LOVE'S SESSION 1 VIDEO

Mumford & Sons - The Cave

2010-08-05T16:54:00.001-06:00

This nurtures my soul and enlarges my heart...

Scott C Alexander On Interreligious Dialogue

2010-07-21T16:28:00.002-06:00

An outtake from my recent interview with Author and professor Scott C Alexander on interreligious dialogue...

Evelyn Parker Outtake

2010-07-17T21:42:00.001-06:00

Outtake from my time spent yesterday with author and Perkins School Of Theology professor Evelyn Parker...

Stop Running The Business

2010-07-14T08:23:00.002-06:00

Are you running a business of leading sheep? Reflections from Sally Morgenthaler and Claudio Oliver...

“Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.” Jean Vanier

Lose Your Job. from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Who Needs A Pastor? from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

* Available for purchase and download at www.theworkofthepeople.com.

Sonday's Lament

2010-07-09T09:49:00.002-06:00

I'm part of a small, diverse community made up of broken people called Sonday's and we lost two saints this week to cancer. Edna and Debbie both received new bodies. Bitter sweet. Here's a glimpse into our sonday gathering hours after Edna's death.

Matt Sings On Ednapendence Day

Mark (Edna's husband) Expressions On Ednapendence Day

Pastor Aaron's Thoughts On Ednapendence Day

Footage of Debbie's baptism just under a year ago. She was diagnosed with candcer the same week she was baptized. She died on Tuesday.

God Loves Us & Tecate, Mexico

2010-06-30T16:59:00.001-06:00

A visual reflection from last weekend's trip to Tecate Mexico...

Club Dust: God Loves Us & Tecate, Mexico from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

God loves us. Nuff said.

Friendships For The Journey

2010-06-29T08:13:00.001-06:00

The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by
others, is of great importance in our lives can be our Friend, in the
grandest sense. These are Friends who do things together, but often
things more inward, less widely shared, and less easily defined;
they're still hunters, but of some immaterial quarry; still
collaborating, but in some work the world does not, or does not know
how to, take account of; still travelling companions, but on a
different kind of journey, a fantastic inner voyage. Hence, we
picture lovers face to face, but true Friends side by side; their eyes
look ahead together.

That is why those pathetic people who simply "want friends," because
they're lonely, can never seem to find or make any. The very
condition of having Friends is that we should want something else
besides Friends, together. Where the truthful answer to the question
"Do you see the same truth?" would be "I see nothing and don't care
about the truth; I only want a friend to be with me." no deep
Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. For there
would be nothing for the Friendship to be "about"; and Friendship MUST be "about" something. Those who have nothing, not even a dream, can share nothing; those who are going nowhere constructive, nowhere purposeful, can have no fellow-travellers, it seems.

-- C.S. Lewis, in "The Four Loves"

Friendships For The Journey

2010-06-29T08:13:00.000-06:00

The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by
others, is of great importance in our lives can be our Friend, in the
grandest sense. These are Friends who do things together, but often
things more inward, less widely shared, and less easily defined;
they're still hunters, but of some immaterial quarry; still
collaborating, but in some work the world does not, or does not know
how to, take account of; still travelling companions, but on a
different kind of journey, a fantastic inner voyage. Hence, we
picture lovers face to face, but true Friends side by side; their eyes
look ahead together.

That is why those pathetic people who simply "want friends," because
they're lonely, can never seem to find or make any. The very
condition of having Friends is that we should want something else
besides Friends, together. Where the truthful answer to the question
"Do you see the same truth?" would be "I see nothing and don't care
about the truth; I only want a friend to be with me." no deep
Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. For there
would be nothing for the Friendship to be "about"; and Friendship MUST
be "about" something. Those who have nothing, not even a dream, can
share nothing; those who are going nowhere constructive, nowhere
purposeful, can have no fellow-travellers, it seems.

-- C.S. Lewis, in "The Four Loves"

iPhone Liturgy: Belief Vs. Make Belief

2010-06-11T09:16:00.004-06:00

I'm part of a diverse community made up of broken people that are learning that being at the end of their rope is the easiest access to surrender. Even though some are mentally impaired, addicted, and shunned from the system of the world, they come together believing that not only was Jesus resurrected, but He is in the process of resurrecting everything. Right now.

One of the families Jesus is using to lead our community through death and into life is the Ingalls family - Mark, Edna & Robert aka "Bobi Nini." Mark is a poet and a prophet. Bobi Nini is one of the worship leaders at our community and God is using Edna to glue us together through her illness.

At the same time Edna is battling terminal cancer she is also teaching us what it means to go from "finger painting" to "making art." Here's a clip of Edna and her husband Mark singing and praying for our community from her hospital bed. We showed the clip as our benediction at our gathering. I filmed on my iphone. No need for HD video just truth.

iPhone Liturgy: Bedside Benediction from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Some of our community watching the benediction at Sonday's...

Charles, the ex-drug dealer (a very good one at that) comforts Mark Ingalls during the benediction...Beautiful.

Steve Speaks at Regent On Art & Worship

2010-06-11T08:25:00.000-06:00

Satan Speakes Google...Do You?

2010-06-10T09:59:00.001-06:00

Will the "Google world" be the delivery system for learning and faith development? Len Sweet gives his thoughts...

The Google Language from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Will the "Google world" be the delivery system for learning and faith development? Len Sweet gives his thoughts...

Health Care and a New Imagination - Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove - God's Politics Blog

2010-06-10T09:43:00.003-06:00

We created a set of 10 short videos to spark conversation around Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's book God's Economy. Here's one with a short reflection by Jonathan on Sojourners...

The Work of the People and Jamie Moffett Media Design & Production Release New Video Curriculum.

2010-06-02T10:14:00.003-06:00

$29.99 Six Week Video Curriculum Based on the Award Winning Movie The Ordinary Radicals titled Learning from The Ordinary Radicals

Today, the Christian church is rediscovering what it means to “do church” based on the original teachings of Jesus. Many Christians are exploring what it means to live life based on historic Christian practices and principles. The Learning from The Ordinary Radicals Video Curriculum lives on the edge of this dynamic conversation and grass roots experiment.

Learning from The Ordinary Radicals explores issues such as: the churches role in social justice, What is the Mission of the church?, How did Jesus “do church”?, role of wealth and money, responses to acts of violence, imbalances of wealth and power, homelessness and more.

“When I first saw the The Ordinary Radicals documentary, I realized there were a ton of great stories here that the church can learn from” says Travis Reed, Founder, The Work of the People. “We’re about inspiring people to live upside down and this video curriculum is a step along that path”.

The video curriculum comes with a discussion guide authored and created by The Work of the People’s Steve Frost, making it an easy to use curriculum for groups large or small. “With the discussion guide, we’ve tried to create a space for conversation and exploration. We want people to walk away with questions to wrestle with and ideas that can be tested in their own lives instead of trying to provide a nice neat ‘solution in a box’”.

“We traveled 11,000 miles across the country to shoot this critically important film and I’m excited about getting these stories into the hands of people from every faith perspective.” said Jamie Moffett, Director of The Ordinary Radicals."Folks seem to have misplaced the core values of what the Christian faith tradition truly means and I hope sharing these stories can recalibrate the audience back towards what started this tradition more than two millenia ago, someone they called 'The Prince of Peace'".

The video curriculum can be viewed, purchased and downloaded online:

• Video Curriculum Bundle with Discussion Guide

• What is the Mission of the Church? with Ron Sider, Theologian and Christian Activist

• Do I need to sell it all? with Brandt Russo, a homeless advocate

• Supernatural Forgiveness with Dr. Kraybill, Professor and Senior Fellow at Elizabethtown College

• Manhattan vs South Bronx with Leroy Barber, Pastor, Author, and President of Mission Year

• When the Homeless Become Family with Brooke Sexton

• Unlikely Teachers with Nate Brooks Buchanan from New Jerusalem

About The Publisher: The Work of the People creates visual media for everyone. We work toward reorienting our little piece of God's creation around Jesus' good news and mission to make all things new.

About the Director: Jamie Moffett is the owner and founder of Jamie Moffett Media Design & Production, Inc., an independent film company located in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhod. Over the past ten years, he has produced, directed, and edited over 50 short films, music videos, and commercials. His feature-length documentary "The Ordinary Radicals" has screened in over 20 cities across the United States and worldwide since its 2008 release and received recognition at several film festivals, including the Garden State Film Festival, Crossroads Film Festival, ION Film Festival in Dubai, and the Acolade Film Awards. Moffett also co-founded The Simple Way, a non-profit organization focused on community development, homeless advocacy and dedicated to the betterment of the Kensington community. As a director, he is dedicated to capturing stories of peace and social justice movements worldwide, making them relatable and relevant to an American audience.

Contact: Jeff King
The Work of the People
281-705-6042
info@theworkofthepeople.com
Website
Twitter
Facebook

Lord Hear Our Song

2010-05-28T11:01:00.002-06:00

Lord Hear Our Song, by Matt Davis and performed by Matt Davis recently at Sondays gathering...

Matt Davis - Lord Hear Our Song from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Matt Davis singing his tune Lord Hear Our Song live at Sondays.

Great Cornell West PBS Interview

2010-05-28T08:14:00.001-06:00

"Jesus is like James Brown up in me..." Beautiful.

Skype Video: Collective & Community Vs. Condominium

2010-05-24T10:07:00.001-06:00

Note form Claudio: "We forgot to say that those obligations are autonomously (not individualistically) set up. Like in a marriage, nobody forces you into them, but the WE, not the "me", discern, chose and set up it. When communitary autonomy is the frame we have obligations to attach to. love man... you are definitively brave posting this improvised conversation here...."

iPhone Voice Mail Liturgy

2010-05-24T10:04:00.002-06:00

iPhone Voice Mail Liturgy: Ephesians 3 from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Message this week from friend Aaron Edwards...

Love In The CIty Outtake

2010-05-17T09:27:00.000-06:00

Outtake from upcoming Love In The City twotp.com film with Aaron Edwards.

Love In The City Outtake from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Take In This Light

2010-05-14T08:30:00.002-06:00

take in this Light.
truth, once pierced & spilled now whole
& living within you.

Spirit invoked
into our heart, a once-troubled
now encouraged by a presence
beyond understanding—

God’s will accomplished:
we are forever freed from the order of this world.

oh, love can’t you feel Him in you?
raising you up by your chest as if you could just reach up and catch Him in
your arms?
He births love, breathes love, swells and compels love—
dear brothers and sisters:

He is love & dwells in those who love His name.

- By Kelly Hall

Pregnancy In The Kingdom

2010-05-04T09:06:00.001-06:00

What can pregnancy teach us about faith? How are are pregnant woman a witness to the church? From here forthcoming book, Mother, wife, pastor, writer, speaker and new monastic Sarah Jobe discusses how pregnancy can teach us the logic of the Kingdom of God

Mother's Day & Pentecost

2010-05-04T08:50:00.003-06:00

Mother's Day and Pentecost are always around the same time of year and Pentecost, one of the prominent feasts in the Christian liturgical year, is usually trumped by hallmarky Mother' Day church services. Any new imaginations? Oh, Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove offers up a beautiful perspective...

Redemption In An Image-Driven Culture

2010-04-29T14:52:00.004-06:00

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove wrote a post about the Work Of The People on Duke's Faith & Leadership blog called "Redemption In An Image-Driven Culture." Read it HERE.

Steve Frost Poetry On IAM

2010-04-29T14:46:00.002-06:00

One of Steve's poems titled Family Photos was selected by the Internatioal Arts Movement to commemorate National Poetry Month. You an read it HERE.

Fight or Die: How to Lose Friends and Irritate People

2010-04-21T22:47:00.003-06:00

Enterprise™

2010-04-18T17:33:00.005-06:00

Shane Claiborne posted an interesting article on the emergent movement over at Sojourners. Our 2¢ is posted below. Head on over and join the discussion, or pick it up here. Agree? Disagree? Corrections? Amendments?

===========================

I believe the people who coined the term "emergent" borrowed the term from the field of systems theory. It is one term from a cluster of terms, along with "self-organizing" which provided relatively new and rich language with which to talk about a new moving of God the coiners of the term perceived as happening on a global scale. Here's a handy wikipedia article on the scientific notion of "emergence."

and an exerpt from said article:

"The common characteristics [of emergence] are: (1) radical novelty (features not previously observed in systems); (2) coherence or correlation (meaning integrated wholes that maintain themselves over some period of time); (3) A global or macro "level" (i.e. there is some property of "wholeness"); (4) it is the product of a dynamical process (it evolves); and (5) it is "ostensive" (it can be perceived). For good measure, Goldstein throws in supervenience -- downward causation." (Corning 2002)

In the early days (doesn't that sound quaint) it was a rather rich term for those using it. Unfortunately the term has been bled of most of it's original richness—thus rampant confusion as to its meaning. It has shifted away from an attempt to talk about something "already happening," and has shifted toward a branded enterprise of one's own making. It has shifted toward, as Shane so succinctly put it, Emergent™.

I imagine those who first coined the term would be the last to defend its current iteration. I imagine they would hold more tightly to God's actual moving, which may be described as having emergent properties, than they would hold to an un-radical, un-novel enterprise which had become, by definition, non-emergent. That is, they would hold more tightly to "emergent" as a description than they would to Emergent™ as an enterprise.

I tend to think the people who are involved with the Emergent™ enterprise in its current iteration are people who need an enterprise in which to operate and "emergent" happened to be handy. I imagine they need the "work of God" to be a self constructed, self propelled enterprise. They are uncomfortable with quiet, small, ill defined workings which are inherently out of their control.

I propose the division "emergent" vs "non-emergent" is a red herring, a more useful delineation would be "enterprise" and "non-enterprise."

Enterprise™ comes in many guises: robed, sombre, formal; gelled, tattooed, casual. Any organization imbued with a culture of control, enamoured of its own cleverness and its own innate ability to achieve its way to definable ends is a culture of Enterprise™.

What I find around the world, what I hear Shane saying he has found around the world, what I know many have found around the world is a wild cornucopia of quiet, small, ill defined movings of God which are already happening, it's just a matter of noticing them. The opposite of Enterprise™. You can't, by definition, go to a controlled, centralized, managed Enterprise™ to get a sense of these movings of God. They are antithetical to Enterprise™. People engaged in Enterprise™ would be moving too quickly and loudly in their cloud of clever achieving to notice the quiet, small and ill defined. The only way to get a sense of these movings of God is to sit down with others and listen to stories, or, barring the freedom to travel, sit down with someone who has travelled and listen to their stories about other's stories.

Johnathan Wilson-Hartgrove On Caesar

2010-04-16T14:28:00.002-06:00

Jonathan reflects on taxes and Caesar...Films with Jonathan coming soon to TWOTP...

The Epistemology Of Sugar Cubes

2010-04-08T21:53:00.003-06:00

Is your church sugar-cube-ish or rock-candy-ish?

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF SUGAR CUBES: seeing the world in a sugar cube way.
- People, in general, are discreet entities that can be counted and managed in a predictable way, like a sugar cubes.
-Discreet sugar cubes can be placed in relationship to other discreet sugar cubes.
- To live well is to be constrained. The task of forming Christian people is similar to forming sugar cubes, it is one of constraining. One brings messy and unmanageable material into a uniform, manageable and correct shape. Correct Sugar Cubes.
- A Correct Template is required from which to form Correct Sugar Cubes. A Correct Template is both definable and obtainable.
- The task of forming Correct Sugar Cubes is carried out by “the church.” “The church” consists of paid professionals who have been given the task of forming Correct Sugar Cubes or attracting already formed Correct Sugar Cubes.
- The process of attracting and forming Correct Sugar Cubes is definable, measurable, analysable and therefore can be controlled in a predictable manner through systems and techniques.
- Correct templates can be approved by a seminary. Correct systems and techniques can be taught in seminary.
- Templates, systems and techniques are universal and therefore reproducible. Because templates, systems and techniques are reproducible, franchising is possible.
- The inter-relationship of a collection of discreet Correct Sugar Cubes can be managed and controlled
- “Change” consists of altering the configuration of a collection of Correct Sugar Cubes while retaining the overall epistemology of Sugar Cube-ness.

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF ROCK CANDY: seeing the world in a rock candy way.
- People, in general, are like a lump of Rock Candy. Lumps of rock candy naturally form in an organic unmanageable way.
-Rock Candy crystals are mutually individual and relational, not primarily one or the other.
- People’s Rock Candy-ness is derived from their being created in God’s image, that is, for community. It is impossible to separate one crystal from the cluster of crystals without in someway affecting the whole crystal.
- The task of the church is offering a living narrative (a stick) alternate to the dominant narrative (the usual stick) to which the church might adhere itself.
- Even though two clusters of Rock Candy church form in exactly the same way, no two clusters of Rock Candy church are the same. The crystal lattice of the Rock Candy is an underlying and unifying truth which ensures the uniqueness of each cluster of crystals.
- The stick to which Rock Candy adheres will fundamentally determine the shape of the cluster. Because the stick is embodied, not abstract, no two sticks will be exactly the same even if derived from the same alternate narrative.
- The formation of Rock Candy can’t be managed, it just happens.
- While one is not involved in the actual formation of Rock Candy there are four activities one may embark upon as it forms:
FIRST - Create a simple stick to which the Rock Candy might adhere. Create a communally derived living theology. That is: remembered expressions of divine grace (past, present and future) arising out of simple truth; namely that Jesus lived among us, died and rose again, therefore, love God and love your neighbour.
SECOND - Live theologically. The stick to which the Rock Candy Church adheres is embodied through the articulated remembering of the church, so articulate away.
THIRD - Notice and articulate the mystery of formation. God is forming you, be amazed and talk about it.
FOURTH - Notice and articulate the beauty of the multifaceted crystal lattice that is the Rock Candy, God’s Delight. God made you beautiful both individually and relationally. Be beautiful and talk about beauty.
LAST - Live escatologically. Imagine how good the Rock Candy, God’s Delight, will taste at the end.

Steve Frost
The Work Of The People

Little Leaves

2010-04-08T21:52:00.000-06:00

I was on Keats Island over the weekend, it's on the Pacific coast not far from Vancouver. Looking west there's nothing but ocean. The trees are tall and, this time of year, the weather is raw. A small storm blew in Friday night and the sound of the wind in the trees was awe inspiring. The wind in the trees is one of my favourite things and when it picks up in Vancouver I usually go for a walk just to listen. On Keats I could walk right into the middle of a huge stand of trees, enveloped by the sound. Just a little storm, but such a big expansive sound.

It's a ragged sound with no sharp edges. Where does it start and where does it end? I can't say, it's a sound made of a million little pieces. It pulses with life, rising and falling unpredictably but still with shape. It's a gathering, it is drawn together, it coalesces into shape, but it does have shape. I can't deny its presence.

I think of each little leaf. What is their job in this performance? Simple, be supple and bend. To dance in the wind. A small cluster dances together, touching; tethered to and moving their little twig. Leaves and twigs and branches, all moving to the same wind; moving in the same supple way, but all unique in their movement. An orchestrated mess of unity. A million little pieces of sound coalesce into one awe inspiring sound. I can't explain it, pin it down with language, put numbers to it, yet I can't deny it's presence.

What are leaders of little leaves to do? A leader is a leaf helping other leaves be supple, a leaf helping other leaves to dance well. A little leaf can't orchestrate the wind. Why would it think it could even try. Silly little leaf. Enjoy the wind, and dance.

Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.

"So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God." John 3:5-8 (The Message)

Steve Frost
The Work Of The People

Big Little Church

2010-04-08T21:51:00.001-06:00

I went to visit a friend who works at a church. It's a big little church. The building is big, built in the early 80's. The congregation is little, the result of a number of socio-economic happenstances.

The building got built on honest dreams. Several churches in the city built large buildings at that time hoping to fill them, and they did; they became megachurches. Except this church. It never got full. The main sanctuary holds about 1000 people, these days there's a little less than 200 people gathering on a Sunday morning.

The place is a little bit run down and a little bit sad. This church, as an avenue of possibility for a megachurch-like idea of the future—whatever a megachurch-like future might be—is, for all intents and purposes, a failure. But to hold only to megachurch-like possibility is to insist God choses only to work through megachurch-ness. If a megachurch-like future is let go of, then possibilities open up into a God-shaped future. This big little church (as an avenue of possibility not limited by megachurch-like-ness but as an avenue of possibility as wide as God-shaped-ness) holds, literally, infinite possibility.

To be an avenue of infinite possibility this big little church must first lay down its hopes, it must lay down its picture of itself, as it saw it would be. It can't afford to deny its quiet desperation while it rattles around inside its broken dreams. It must dismantle its dreams and stand outside them, vulnerable, at the end of its rope. Rather than run to Nehemiah, it must cling to Psalms of lament. Perhaps Psalm 44, which includes these words:

18 Our hearts had not turned back;   our feet had not strayed from your path.
19 But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals   and covered us over with deep darkness.
Rather than rush to fix itself, it needs to acknowledge its pain, wait in its pain. But it must not wallow, it must wait expectantly.

The temptation to fix things is huge. It wouldn't be that hard to fill the place up, to find a crowd. As Kierkegaard points out, "For to win a crowd is not so great a trick; one only needs some talent, a certain dose of untruth and a little acquaintance with the human passions." But the crowd is untruth. A crowd is anonymous, statistical, a disconnected mass. You attract a crowd. But people, people are different. People are named, specific, connected by relationship. You attract a crowd but you serve people. The easiest way to attract a crowd is by appealing to crowd-ness while pretending you're serving people-ness. It's the quietest but most effective untruth.

It wouldn't be that hard for this church to ignore quiet desperation and just manufacture success. But it would be a false success that has denied here and now, that ignores people, that would be untruth shaped rather than God-shaped. So, this church where my friend works, this big little church, seems to be in a good place. In fact it seems to be in the best place of all, at the end of its rope, with nothing to lose, without out pretense to let go of. There isn't a busy-ness machine churning away, distracting them from their desperate need for God, which is maybe something their contemporaries, the "successful" churches, can't say.

This big little church seems interested in people and one thing is for sure, God is interested in people. To be interested in people is to be open to the wideness of being God-shaped, whatever that surprising wonderful mysterious shape may be. To be God-shaped is to step into a future of infinite possibility. Enjoy the view big little church.

Steve Frost
The Work Of The Poeple

Life And Mind Off-Grid

2010-04-05T13:41:00.001-06:00

Intro to the eco doc "Life And Mind Off-Grid" by TWOTP contributor Dago Schelin...

Life and Mind Off-Grid (intro) from Dago Schelin on Vimeo.

2010-03-31T06:36:00.004-06:00

EASTER PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
(Book Of Common Worship)

You are holy, O God of majesty,
and blessed is Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
whom you sent to save us.
He came with healing in his touch,
and was wounded for our sins.
He came with mercy in his voice,
and was mocked as one despised.
He came with peace in his heart,
and met with violence and death.
By your power he broke free from the prison of the tomb,
and at his command the gates of hell were opened.
The one who was dead now lives.
The one who humbled himself is raised to rule over all creation,
the Lamb upon the throne.
The one ascended on high is with us always, as he promised.

Fuel For Forgiveness

2010-03-30T23:38:00.001-06:00

Free Robbie Seay/TWOTP Easter Video!

2010-03-25T13:05:00.003-06:00

Download for free HERE

Man In Black

2010-03-25T10:49:00.002-06:00

Still relevant...Dwell IN the pain, not ON it....Friday's coming...

Stanley Hauerwas On Healthcare

2010-03-22T09:40:00.001-06:00

I chatted with Stanley Hauerwas a few months ago & here's a clip with his thoughts on "healthcare."

An Easter Contemplation

2010-03-19T10:45:00.006-06:00

Stories We Like, Stories We Don't

Why do we like stories of triumph over adversity? Why don’t we like stories of endless peace and happiness in an innocent and endless Garden of Eden? Why don't we like stories of perfectly average people to whom nothing overly good or bad happens? At the same time, it is the ‘over’ part of adversity we seem to like more in our personal lives. And also at the same time, we tend to run from suffering like "we hid our faces from him."

Is Easter about ‘Over’?

What if Jesus had come to earth, taught, prayed, worked miracles, healed people, suffered, died, and rose from the dead, but did not appear to anybody? The Jesus we ‘know’ – how would he be different?

What if Jesus didn’t die, or even suffer, but had overwhelmed his crucifiers with a bolt of lightning and floored them all with his transfigured glory? The Christianity we ‘know’ – how would it be different?

We believe that he is coming again, but what if he had already come again, and we were born after that? The faith we ‘have’ – how would it be different?

What would it be like if the story was all just ‘over’?

Good and Evil

(Looking at my own life…) What if I had always been ‘good’? (There was a time when Tiger Woods had always been ‘good’; when did Good-being Tiger end, exactly?)

What if all (or even most) of us were like:

Billy Graham
Mother Theresa
Albert Einstein
–or–
Dylan Klebold
Timothy McVeigh
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot…

What if God was like a powerful government: Cross the line far enough and He attacks you? (Incidentally, a religious government is still a government.) That might put a limit on 'evil'...

But maybe God doesn't exist, like some say, and the reason we like the Easter story is because it gives us relief from all the suffering and doubt.

Three Questions

What if Easter is more than an event in history, more than merely a metaphoric 'three day story', but a real glimpse into the unchanging character of God? What if suffering is as much in God's character as are forgiveness, compassion, love, holiness, righteousness and power?

What if suffering is transcendental, in the same way as "transcendental meditation?"

What if suffering is like fuel that powers forgiveness?

We might boil all this storytelling about God and good down to three questions–

How do we 'know' God exists?
To what extent is the Easter story 'true'?
What is its meaning for us today?

How We 'Know'

(This line of thinking comes from C.S. Lewis, by way of John Ortberg.)

How we 'know' something depends on what we believe 'know' means. For example, we might 'know' that Billy Graham is good and Timothy McVeigh is evil, while some other person might 'know' exactly the opposite.

Still, all of us have concepts of 'unjust' and 'inhumane', because we all have concepts of 'just' and 'humane'; we recognize 'good' by differentiating it from 'evil' and can differentiate 'beauty' from 'tawdriness'. So we 'know' what we believe we have experienced or felt.

We can also 'know' something even when it is not always 'true'. For example, we 'know' we can trust our close friends and loved ones even though we also 'know' they have (or will) let us down.

There is another way to 'know' something. If someone we trust tells us 'the truth' then we 'know' their 'true' story even though we have not experienced or felt it ourselves.

Historical 'Truth'

We all know that our beliefs about past events can change– like our beliefs about 'Good' Tiger Woods, for example. Even our beliefs about events in the distant past are subject to scrutiny. One example is that we used to believe Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, but now we believe that Leif Ericson did, and some people even think there is evidence that the Phoenicians came here even before the Vikings.

So, our picture of history is constantly changing as we discover new artifacts and documents from the past. Some artifacts and documents may be viewed with suspicion by historians because they don't appear to be 'legitimate' or because they tend to promote one particular viewpoint over others. Other times, the obvious falsehood, or 'embarrassment' of a document is what makes it historically 'true'. For example, an ancient Egyptian monument called the Merneptah Stele is inscribed with the words, "Israel is laid waste; its seed is no more," sometime between 1213 and 1203 BCE (before the Christian era). Now today, we know that Merneptah's claim of wasting Israel is not 'true' because we know that Israel existed after that time. But what the 'untrue' Merneptah Stele proves is that there was a group of people named 'Israel' large enough for the King of Egypt to brag about 'wasting' in 1200 BCE!

'Doubting' Thomas

You could say that the disciple called Thomas was somewhat embarrassing to the Gospel story, because he was a skeptic: "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands..." We don't hear anything about him after Acts 1:13, where he is reported to be present with the other disciples. The only other association Western historians make between Thomas and Christianity is that his name was attached to a 'heretical' early Christian document, written much later than he would have been alive. Thus does Thomas disappear from the traditions of the Western church.

Mar Thoma Church

On the Southwest coast of India is a tiny, ancient sect of Christians, who call themselves, 'Mar Thoma.' They started out as Jewish refugees in India who were converted to Christianity by (they claim) Doubting Thomas, the disciple who needed to see the nail marks, in 52 AD.

There are many independent (though obscure) historical verifications of their claims, such as the report by the philosopher, missionary and church father, Pantaenus (died by 200 AD), who wrote that he had personally found pre-existing Christians in India who used the Gospel of Matthew, written in Hebrew, as their only New Testament scriptures. (This is an important 'embarrassing' detail, because the only manuscript copies of Matthew's Gospel ever found have been Greek, and Matthew's Gospel is supposed to have been originally composed in Greek, according to modern biblical scholars.) Another embarrassing fact of history was the Synod of Diamper convened by Portuguese Catholics over the Mar Thomas. As one result of the synod, all Mar Thoma religious texts differing from the Catholic Bible were burned.

The fact that these embarrassing ancient 'Christians' who were not like us and didn't have our Bible still celebrated Easter (and communion) goes a long way toward convincing us that the Easter story is 'true'– at least we know it was a story that truly existed far away from the Western church very long ago.

Suffering

'Suffering' used to be the go-to argument in the philosophical debate about the existence of God. I've personally never understood what the big deal is, because clearly God suffers. But what good is suffering and why does it matter to God? Let's try to take a fresh look at suffering by asking what the world would be like if suffering never was.

How would we know we loved somebody (or some thing, even) if suffering never was? No delayed gratification, no emotion attached to being without our love object– How can 'take-it-or-leave-it' and 'love' coexist? So we see that a world without suffering might also be a world without love. Similarly, we can make a case for each of the following claims:

No suffering, no comforting
No suffering, no forgiveness
No suffering, no grace
No suffering, no peacemakers
No suffering, no patience...

To Everything a Season

We might now come to the point of view that evil and good, suffering and joy, sin and love, are all necessarily balanced in tension, and this is the way it must be. "To everything there is a season" appears to be the point of view of the writer of Ecclesiastes, after all. But it is also the writer's point of view that:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."
Ecclesiastes 1:2
This is the pre-Easter state of humanity: everything balanced and meaningless... Twentieth century philosophers called this "Existential Dread"...

Balance, Beauty, Big Bang

The idea that the universe must be in balance runs deep in us. For example, symmetry has been known to be an important component of aesthetic beauty. Attractiveness studies show that composite (balanced, symmetrical) human faces are deemed more beautiful than any of the individuals' faces used to create the composites. Mathematics seeks to balance equations. Physics theories strive for balance– "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Life is about balance... or is it?

The universe we know exists because of a huge imbalance: "matter" far outweighs "antimatter" in our universe. The reason for this bald fact is one of the unsolved questions of theoretical physics, because "The Big Bang" should have created equal amounts of antimatter and matter. To a physicist, there is no mathematical reason that the universe as it is would even exist. Where is all the antimatter? God only knows. Ultimately, then, life as we know it is about a huge imbalance: that of matter over antimatter.

Unbalance Makes Meaning

So, here we are living in a universe where, if you want to study antimatter you have to create it in the laboratory. If we imagine a theoretical physicist who had never witnessed our universe, he might say that this was an absurd idea– "Matter must be balanced by antimatter; symmetry must be preserved!" But I think we can 'know' our experience is 'true'...

In a similar way, the pre-Easter man would say that a universe without suffering and pain is absurd. But what if someone came to us who had been to that universe, someone whose report we could trust? What if there is a universe where, if you want to study suffering, you have to create it in a laboratory?

Necessity for Suffering Only for Awhile

In this universe, God (who is attested to exist by Jesus, who is attested to have risen by Thomas, who is attested to have converted to Christianity the Mar Thoma, who are attested to have used a Hebrew gospel similar to Matthew and to have existed before 200 A.D. by Pantaenus and attested to have been 'heretics' by the Portuguese, ...) suffers. We don't have a proper theory for that, we just know it is true, just like the matter/antimatter imbalance.

In this universe, we have no way to understand the meaning of good without evil, because we are somehow wired to perceive truth and beauty in symmetry. Again, we don't have a good theory for the idea of aesthetic beauty in averageness, but it's true nonetheless. At the same time we find composite faces attractive, we find composite lives of composite people boring, and there's no theory for that either. It's just 'true'.

In this suffering, loving universe a suffering, loving being is said to have appeared talking about peacemaking, humility, forgiveness, and joy. This being claimed to be the inventor of everything. This being, this Christ, claimed to have also created another universe, a parallel universe where suffering is like antimatter. In these 'truths' is the meaning of Easter for us today.

(All 'fact-checking' can easily be done using http://en.wikipedia.or)

- Mark Ingalls
mark.w.ingalls@gmail.com

Ira Walking

2010-03-16T10:28:00.000-06:00

With God - All Things Are Possible...

Who Needs A Pastor?

2010-03-12T18:59:00.003-06:00

Who needs a Pastor? A must read from dear friend Claudio Oliver. Good manure for the brain.

Go HERE to read.

Father's Ashes

2010-03-12T03:55:00.001-06:00

Lent is in full effect. Here with Mark Pierson and his family as they bury the ashes of Mark's dad on the one year anniversary of his father's death. Sacred.

Creativity is Not A Novelty

2010-03-10T03:47:00.001-06:00

TWOTP's Steve Frost discusses...

Creativity is Not Novelty from Transposition Films on Vimeo.

"Enough"

2010-03-10T03:45:00.001-06:00

Australian Brother Jonathan Cornford of Australia Oxfam offers up thoughts on what is "enough." Films coming soon.

Providing A Safe Place

2010-03-03T08:31:00.005-06:00

A couple of the communities that TWOTP is rooted in are the SOnday's community in Tomball Texas and The Mosaic in Vancouver, Canada. Here are a couple raw interviews with Aaron Edwards of SOndays and Steve Frost of The Mosaic chatting with Walter Brueggemann about providing safe places for lament and the transformation they are seeing in those places.

PROVIDING A SAFE PLACE - Aaron and Steve chat with Walt about pain, lament and creating a safe place for people to cry out to YAHWEH.

Go HERE to watch.

TAUGHT BY THE WOUNDED - I turn the camera on a little late her, but Aaron and Steve discuss the transformation they are seeing in their communities and Walter delights in the confirmation of his own work.

Go HERE to watch.

iPhone Liturgy: Love Conducer

2010-03-02T22:07:00.002-06:00

Recently had the the joy and privilege of chilling with Bobbi Ninni one our community's worship leaders. We're taking in the car wash here or the "puchi train" as Bobbi likes to call it. Here's a link to Bobbi leading us in worship at Sondays HERE

TWOTP's Steve Frost responded after watching...

Read this in Corinthians 12:11 about spiritual gifts:

"All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:

wise counsel
clear understanding
simple trust
healing the sick
miraculous acts
proclamation
distinguishing between spirits
tongues
interpretation of tongues

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when."

There's your simple trust right there.

Bryan Duncan Rap

2010-02-26T10:25:00.002-06:00

I met this guy at lunch this week in California, turns out he's a pretty "big deal." Gave him a Google and I'd recommend taking in THIS sweet piece from his band The Sweet Comfort Band. His story is worth a documentary...

Diana Butler Bass on Lent and Dying To Self

2010-02-26T09:04:00.005-06:00

iPhone Liturgy: Refrigerator

2010-02-17T21:42:00.000-06:00

Taking a fridge to our brother Fuller...Liturgy...The work of the people.

iPhone Liturgy: Refrigerator from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

SABOTAGE, SURRENDER & HEALING

2010-02-16T15:18:00.001-06:00

SABOTAGE, SURRENDER & HEALING

The Message translates this beatitude like this; “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule.”

Spiritual poverty recognizes that all we have and all we are is a total gift from God. We are totally dependent on God, a good and loving God, who is in charge of the universe and in charge of our lives. Are we humble enough to acknowledge our total dependence on God? Are we ready to admit that we don’t have all the answers in our own right? Not until we get to the end of our rope, which usually means sabotaging ourselves, which leads to surrender, which leads to healing.

For those of us who have chosen to follow Christ, we are always in one of these three stages. All three stages feel very different than the other but there is hope in each one.

Sabotage—This usually starts to happen when we start believing that we have it all figured out. We start to get a taste of worldly success, we start to count our gains as gains, and we start to distance ourselves from that sweet place of surrender that we once believed would last forever. Fear begins to set in. Fear that He doesn't exist, or that His cost will be too high for us can make the journey seem so heavy and exhausting, so weighed down with anxiety and pressure (both of which are not even real things - they are simply the pain of resisting what is). That’s when we fall off our chosen path and begin to live lives of quiet desperation, wondering what happened that left us in such a malaise, which is essentially a living death. This is the process of sabotaging ourselves until we have no choice but to get back to the place of…

Surrender—Now we are at the end of our rope again. It once again becomes crystal clear that we cannot experience the peace and joy that our souls long for unless we realize that we are not the ones in charge of our lives. We have to let go of everything we thought would satisfy us in this world. We tried to manage our lives and discipline ourselves but it didn’t do for us what we thought it would do. So now we have to become Poor in Spirit. We have to emotionally and spiritually die, to be crucified with Christ. This can make us feel like we are going to lose everything, we have to jump off the cliff, so to speak, in hopes that God will catch us. And He does, and everything makes sense again, God welcomes this spirit of surrender and lets us know that He has always had us in the palm of His hand. We can now experience His nurturing Spirit and so begins the…

Healing—This is the place where we get to see the point and purpose of sabotage and surrender. It all makes sense. We see that God has never left us, that He uses all three stages to point us back to Him. He works all things together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes. We stop walking around in a living death (mere existence for the purpose of continued eating and breathing and sleeping) and we start to live a dying life (a letting go of attachment and fear to boldly walk the path of greatest worldly resistance - and yet his yoke is so light - to live for the purpose you were born for, to leave the mark you were literally made to leave). But because of our fleshly natures and our sheer forgetfulness, the beauty of His purpose for our lives begins to fade and it eventually stops being an experience and it starts to turn into a memory. We can only live off of our last “surrender’ for so long until we once again start to…sabotage.

- Aaron Edwards

Candid "Walt" Outtake

2010-02-16T15:08:00.001-06:00

Candid outtake from "Walt" during our recent visit. WB films on TWOTP coming soon...

Declaring The Alternative Narrative

2010-02-12T23:14:00.003-06:00

Spending time with Walter Brueggemann always spurs us on to good things and our last visit was no exception.

We were fortunate enough to sit in on a few of Walter's lectures at Truett Seminary's "Winter Pastor's School" in Waco TX this past week. We also managed to have a little chat with Walter which we happened to film, so look for that in the not too distant future.

Talking with Walter we are reminded again, there are two narratives in the world: a dominant narrative which promises to keep us safe and make us happy through technology, self-actualization, and the attainment of consumer goods and which must be secured by means of force and violence; and an alternative narrative rooted in the Bible which turns the dominant narrative upside down and says we find ourselves fully human when we lay down the dominant narrative of self-managing, self-striving, self-constructing, when we refuse the way of domination and force and when we relinquish our denial as to the brokenness and loss created by the dominant narrative.

This contestation of narratives is one of the main threads running through Walter's writing and it is good to be reminded, yet again, that this picture of reality is deeply true in our current context.

As artists it reminds us again of the tension between decoration and declaration. The program to decoration tends to require a sub-narrative derived from the dominant narrative. Decoration might use God-words, but the structure required to uphold it's function is derived from dominant narrative DNA. The sub-narrative derived from the dominant narrative is focused first and incommensurately on technology which includes our techniques and cleverness; it's language is of us achieving, managing and controlling; it ignores large and unmanageable systemic greed and violence focusing instead on domestic and privatized moral turpitude. In all these ways the sub-narrative reflects the dominant narrative rather than articulating a new alternative.

If, as artists, we declare the alternative narrative we must do so from within that alternative narrative. At the center of God's alternative narrative is a dying to self as seen on the cross; a vulnerable brokenness as seen in the bread of the Eucharist, a willful pouring out as seen in the wine. At the center of God's alternative narrative gathered around Jesus at the table are those most dear to him; the outcasts, the visibly broken, the people at the end of their rope. In God's alternative narrative, the margins are in the centre. It is from this vulnerable centre—among the broken and as one broken—that we declare a radical upside down world. A world of possibilities counter to illusions leading to safe despair, a world of relationships counter to imperatives leading to happy violence.

Can A Tree Be A "Christian" Tree?

2010-02-05T08:19:00.001-06:00

Conversation with Gary Molander

2010-02-01T18:47:00.003-06:00

Had a good conversation worth sharing. It's a lot to get through, so pace yourself.

We read a great article by Gary Molander at Collide about the cry of the artist. Go ahead and have a read, we'll wait.

[pleasant flute music]

STEVE RESPONDS:
Gary, thanks for this article. It is much needed precisely because the broken quiet people won't push themselves to the fore. That isn't an indictment regarding some kind of lacking on the part of the broken quiet ones, but an affirmation of their unwillingness to toe the line in a system that's intrinsically broken. i.e. it's a system in which voices unwilling to put on the mantel of power are pushed to the side and left unheard. They would rather remain unheard than take up the mantel of power; which, to my mind, is laudable.

I too am disturbed by the tragedy that most executive leaders won't think they need to read this article. I guess I wonder what you think about "where to from here." The intimation seems to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, that status quo is A-OK and will be with us for a while, so here's some ways we can all get along within status quo.

I tend to think, as you may have surmised from the opening paragraph, that a structure in which the lead pastor might be construed as the voice of God is fundamentally skewed. He isn't Moses, I mean that literally, and Pentecost happened. Perhaps a system only able to hear "loud" voices which has no ears for broken quiet voices isn't worth protecting. Maybe artists wonder what impact they have because they wonder what impact the whole thing has.

Genuinely curious as to your thoughts. I know people need to be in status quo, pushing from the inside to effect any kind of valuable change, and it ain't easy. If that's what artists are called to, there's no room for whining. I guess I wonder if you'd call the current state of affairs a "status quo" that needs a-changin'.

==============

GARY RESPONDS:
Thanks for your response to the article. Very thoughtful and well-articulated. And you're asking a great question: Do artists simply need to learn to live in a flawed system, or is there something we can do to change the system? I think the answer to both questions is yes.

Not all church systems are flawed. I should make that very clear. But many church systems are very flawed. Most lead pastors and executive church leaders aren't creating flawed environments intentionally. I honestly believe that most are already SO busy and SO driven, that they unintentionally miss the softer cry of the artist - that's the tragedy that I spoke of at the end of the article. Church leaders like this are either evil or naive, and I'm choosing the latter.

And that's why I wrote the article - to give artist's a voice in the middle of the screaming that defines church life. These comments are their comments, but also affirm what I experienced when I was a pastor.

Artists need to learn the difference between being honest and whining. Pastors already know when anyone on their staff team is simply whining, or honestly pleading for some small change. Whining usually has pride at the core, while honest sharing usually has desperation there. Whining says, "I can do it better than you", while broken honesty says, "I can't keep going this hard, this far, for this long... and I need your help."

Lead pastors need to be willing to sit down regularly with artists and ask them, "How's your pace?" And they need to have the inner-security to hear the honest truth. I've found that many key leaders (in any organization) struggle to listen to a subordinate's honest cry, without becoming defensive themselves.

I'm not visionary enough to see a way out of this. I do know that we must learn to function in Christlike ways, while living in the middle of it. I wish I had more vision for a restart here.

And finally - for Lead Pastors and Church Executives who are running their staff environments like the CEO's of large organizations, I would pray that they'd think again how how upside-down the Kingdom of Christ calls us to be.

Blessings to you.

==============

STEVE RESPONDS:
Hi Gary

Thanks for responding right away. Very cool.

I guess I should clarify I'm not talking about specific churches being flawed, I'm talking about the whole ball of wax, the way we do church in North America is maybe flawed. For example, you wrote:

"And that's why I wrote the article - to give artist's a voice in the middle of the screaming that defines church life."

Which, again, is awesome. Fantastic! Yes! We need to give artists a voice, that's at the centre of my vocation so I couldn't agree more and applaud you for saying it.

But, if screaming defines church life... shouldn't we be addressing the screaming rather than give artists a voice within the screaming? Shouldn't the artist's voice be heard simply because there's less screaming?

I really believe being a disciple of Christ is as simple as love God, love your neighbour. I also believe from that simplicity comes implications of unresolvable complexity and the voice of the poet, not our systems and structures, is the way to navigate those complexities.

So, I guess my question is, do you think it's acceptable that "screaming" defines the life of the church? If so, why? And if you don't think it's acceptable how is there any hope to stop the screaming if the voice which can guide us away from the screaming can't be heard?

I know tone is often missing in written communication, so let me state these are all honest questions and I'm interested in your answers.

SF

==============

GARY RESPONDS:
Steve:

You're asking a really big question - the flawed nature of the church in North America. So here's my honest (perhaps brutal) take on the North American church (doesn't include Mexico).

In my parent's generation (1950 - 1980 ish), a pastor was lured into the pastorate with the promise of doing two primary things: Preaching God's Word, and shepherding the people. To "shepherd" the flock meant to care for them. Pastors basically did two things - Sermon prep and visitation (home, hospital, and graveyard). My father came to faith as an adult with the Senior Pastor of a 1,000 member church visited him in our home, on a Monday night.

But in the 80-90's, there was a huge shift in that role. The role of preaching God's word continued, but the role of the "shepherd" was replaced with the role of "CEO". Now, instead of seeing himself as the shepherd of a flock, the pastor saw himself as the Chief Executive of an organization - an organization whose primary goal was to become larger through conversion growth.

I believe that you and I sit in the middle of that fallout - where most Senior Pastors are trying to grow bigger churches, not love people unconditionally with the love of Christ. Most of them would strongly disagree with that statement, but their staff turnover proves it. They busy themselves with staff meetings, growth charts, goals and objectives, and budgets - all in the (spoken or unspoken?) hope of growing their church numerically. Whether they admit it or not, that is the most important thing - church growth. Because somehow, a growing church means that evangelism is taking place (their belief, not mine).

Now - around to the conversation at hand.

Artists and Creatives are on the staff teams of thousands of these churches, serving in the middle of these environments. And this is where their cry comes from. They are being asked to create, and are judged by graphs, numbers, and reports.

I had hoped that the "emerging church" would help us revert back to a more organic view of "church", but anything "emerging" is seen by the mainline churches as "doctrinally incorrect", perhaps even "heretical".

To stop the "screaming", I think it's gonna take an entirely new generation of Senior Leaders who are fed up with the Church = Corporation mentality. I also hope that, if enough Senior Pastors get frustrated with what's going on, maybe God will strip them of their "ideal church", and give them something completely different in its place - a group of people growing together, where the artist is seen as a prophet, and not a nuisance.

The leadership role of a Senior Pastor is still desperately needed - but he needs to lead from a place of brokenness, not power and control. And he needs to lead from the middle, not from the front. But that's another discussion for another time...

Blessings to you.

GM

==============

STEVE RESPONDS:
Thank you and good night everybody.

==============

STEVE ACTUALLY RESPONDS:

"You're asking a really big question - the flawed nature of the church in North America."

Yeah, I'm kind of annoying that way :)

"Artists and Creatives are on the staff teams of thousands of these churches, serving in the middle of these environments. And this is where their cry comes from. They are being asked to create, and are judged by graphs, numbers, and reports."

Preach it brother. Oh, man, we keep hearing that cry. The broken wing. I have an image in my mind that puts fire in my belly, it's of poetic voices sitting in pews; they are judged by graphs and numbers and reports and they think it's right that they are. They judge themselves for not measuring up. They're crippled by self doubt and the beautiful gifts the Father has given them lie unused and atrophied while they struggle in vain to measure up to the graphs, numbers and reports. I'm all about releasing those people to fly. Man, we need them to fly. I don't know how and I'm stumbling through, but that's what Travis and I are pressing into.

"I had hoped that the "emerging church" would help us revert back to a more organic view of "church", but anything "emerging" is seen by the mainline churches as "doctrinally incorrect", perhaps even "heretical"."

Yeah, or churches pick up this new emergent thing and try to be organic-ish CEO church, which is kind of awkward. But I do sense something organic, ecumenical and international is being raised up.

"...a group of people growing together, where the artist is seen as a prophet, and not a nuisance."

Yes.

"The leadership role of a Senior Pastor is still desperately needed - but he needs to lead from a place of brokenness, not power and control. And he needs to lead from the middle, not from the front. But that's another discussion for another time..."

Again, amen. Power and control are the things we hold so dearly in our highly technologized, highly rationalized age. I don't know that Senior Pastors can willingly let go. It's so hard. Not sure where that leaves things other than in God's hands. It's also the point at which I find myself wondering about the roll of the artist in this.

Thanks for your honest engagement Gary, really appreciate it.

iPhone Liturgy: Knowing What God's Doing

2010-02-01T14:05:00.001-06:00

iPhone conversation with Sondays pastor Aaron Edwards after breakfast about 1 Corinthian...Can you name the background music?

Return On Ministry

2010-01-29T16:38:00.002-06:00

Satan has has strategies in place to disrupt the effectiveness of efficient ministry management. Here's how to make sure that doesn't happen...

Power Mad

2010-01-29T12:28:00.001-06:00

"My argument with so much psychoanalysis is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness. When in fact possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering. That the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth, but to make it inform our lives instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly, and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call happiness. There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age which is power mad."

~Arthur Miller (from documentary footage appearing in "Century of the Self. Episode 2: The Engineering of Consent")

iPhone Liturgy: Letting Go To Live

2010-01-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

Conversation with Aaron after lunch...chatting about love, surrender, Haiti, hope, lent, dying and rebirth...

Declare Vs Decorate No. 3

2010-01-26T21:38:00.002-06:00

In regards to visual media in the church, we tend to "decorate" the church services rather than "declaring"new possibilities this side of the New Jerusalem. More on declaration vs. decoration, standing aside & staying"wild" from TWOTP's Steve Frost. (Go HERE for No. 1. Click HERE for No. 2)

Matt Davis' Hallelujah Cover

2010-01-26T13:30:00.002-06:00

Sonday's Matt Davis Hallelujah Cover from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Matt Davis does Cohen & Buckley proud with this offering during a gathering at Sondays.

Can You See Us?

2010-01-21T10:15:00.002-06:00

"Can You See Us" is a TWOTP film produced with/for the Bahamas Human Rights Network to help facilitate the dialogue around one of the greatest social issues facing the Bahamas, the influx of Haitian Nationals. View the film in three streaming YouTube clips below. If you're interested in download of entire film for free Contact Travis at travis@theworkofthepeople.com.

This Is How the World Will End

2010-01-20T17:46:00.001-06:00

Brian Mclaren on The Ooze.Tv

2010-01-20T17:36:00.002-06:00

Brian and Spencer chat it up about Brian's upcoming book...Go HERE to check out Mclaren films on TWOTP.

Hope For Haiti Concert

2010-01-20T16:52:00.005-06:00

If you're in the Houston Area tomorrow or Friday come by Taft Street for the Hope For Haiti concert series with Derek Webb, David Gamboa, Galin Elms and others. All proceeds with benefit Real Hope For Haiti & Hydrate Hope. For more info visit www.iamchange.org. Check out video TWOTP made for Hydrate Hope below.

The Hydrate Hope Project from IAmChange on Vimeo.

Declaration Vs. Decoration No. 2

2010-01-19T16:58:00.002-06:00

Kingdom Community Soul Juice

2010-01-19T10:22:00.002-06:00

"At 3 years old with 29 years of experience," as his father likes to say, Robert Ingalls - better know as Bobi Nini - leads our community in worship this past Sunday. Rumor has it God asked Bobi if he'd give up some of his brain functions on his way into this world in order to reflect God's glory and to help show others that God's love is not a commodity. So far…mission accomplished. Bobi Nini gives our community better eyes and better ears. Community Jesus glue. Not a bad singer either, although he did sound a little pitchy on a few notes. Just sayin'

No Fear In Love

2010-01-18T10:00:00.000-06:00

From King's last speech...

HAITI: PRAY...LISTEN...RESPOND WITH LOVE

2010-01-14T15:59:00.000-06:00

Avatar: Too Good to be True?

2010-01-12T09:47:00.004-06:00

After having already raked in more than 1.4 billion at the box office, it’s safe to say that James Cameron’s latest visual masterpiece, Avatar, is touching a nerve with the audience. It seems that for some, it only makes the “real world” that much more dull and lifeless. CNN recently released an article called Audiences Experience ‘Avatar’ Blues (HERE) which tells of a similar effect among thousands of people who have seen the film.

There are now chat rooms dedicated solely to the hopelessness that moviegoers have experienced after leaving their local theater. One was quoted as saying, "When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."

As a pastor and lover of films, I am fascinated by this phenomenon. I saw the film the day it was released and, like everyone else, was swept away into the visual imagery of Pandora, a planet that has very little similarities with the industrial world that I see all around me. The entire film was chocked full of spiritual metaphor, showing the clash and overall separation between the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God, I don’t know James Cameron, or should I say he doesn’t know me, so I haven’t been able to ask him personally if he had this metaphor in mind whenever he made this film.

But the hopeless effect that this is having on Americans only validates the metaphor. Every soul in creation longs for a Kingdom that is not of this world, individuals long to connect with each other on a spiritual level, like the Na’vi race of Pandora. That desire has been implanted inside of all of us whether we believe in the quenching of that desire or not. C.S. Lewis, who also created metaphorical fantasy worlds, often referred to that same desire. He would point out that there are no inherent thirsts that cannot be quenched. Whenever a duckling is born with a desire to swim, that is because water exists and he instinctively already knows how to swim. And if we humans have a desire for something that nothing in this world can satisfy or quench, that can only mean that we were not designed only for this world.

But there is a Kingdom that will quench all of our deepest thirsts, and I can only imagine how depressing it would be to think that the closest we will ever get to it would be a 2 1/2 hour three dimensional escape from reality. The most exciting part is that this other world that we long for isn’t on some other planet like the film or even some Christians may suggest. In the Gospel of Luke 15 it says that:

“Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst."

We have access to a kingdom that is in great contrast with this kingdom. It’s what happens when we completely surrender. We see through different eyes, we are illuminated, we are connected to everything and everyone, beauty is all around, we are truly born again, seeing everything for the first time. It actually feels somewhat like what the Avatar imagery looks like. And just like the avatars in the film, I don’t actually live in that kingdom…yet. But I get glimpses of it, sometimes in the form of my church community, sometimes when I look deep into my children’s eyes, sometimes when I’m all alone with the windows down and the radio up. It’s pretty much anytime that I decide to truly be present to the Spirit of Christ. My prayer is that we will radiate God’s love enough to be able to show a hopeless world glimpses of our glimpses. 

Aaron Edwards
The Work Of The People

Leonard Cohen on the State of Christianity

2010-01-07T09:32:00.010-06:00

From an online chat with Leonard Cohen...

Seth: You have such vivid Christian imagery in many of your songs, and much of it is contrasted with the selfishness of the "modern" individual. I was wondering what's your take on the state of Christianity today?

Leonard Cohen: Dear Seth, I don't really have a 'take on the state of Christianity.' But when I read your question, this answer came to mind: As I understand it, into the heart of every Christian, Christ comes, and Christ goes. When, by his Grace, the landscape of the heart becomes vast and deep and limitless, then Christ makes His abode in that graceful heart, and His Will prevails. The experience is recognized as Peace. In the absence of this experience much activity arises, divisions of every sort. Outside of the organizational enterprise, which some applaud and some mistrust, stands the figure of Jesus, nailed to a human predicament, summoning the heart to comprehend its own suffering by dissolving itself in a radical confession of hospitality.

And, as he relates to his faith and his experience with human beings as he walks it:

"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a very remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is because it is beyond our imagination. I think it has something to do with the energy of boundless love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise and experience of a strange kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man even attempting to set the universe in order by himself. It is a kind of tortured balance that is his glory. He rides the snow drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world (because he was instructed to do so) that he gives himself completely to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is totally at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of their hearts. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

- Leonard Cohen, in the intro to the novel, Beautiful Losers (1966)

Talking Jesus & Peace On Recent Road Trip...

2010-01-06T08:08:00.001-06:00

Artisan Vs. Expert

2010-01-05T20:11:00.003-06:00

TWOTP's Steve Frost talks about, in regards to visual media in the church, the "artisan" creating from a community vs. the "expert" creating "for" a community.

Living With Death w/Hauerwas

2010-01-05T10:21:00.003-06:00

New film series Living With Death with Stanley Hauerwas available on TWOTP site HERE.

Here's one of the films, "Learning How To Die."

Hauerwas On Leadership

2010-01-01T00:39:00.003-06:00

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas discusses the term “leadership” and how he prepares his students to provide it. Go HERE to watch leadership series form Duke University.

Does Sex Sell Movies?

2009-12-31T18:03:00.007-06:00

TWOTP friend and board member Craig Detweiler discusses next generation rebellion in this CNN story "Does Sex Sell? Uh, not really."

Go HERE to read the article.

Declaration Vs. Decoration

2009-12-30T12:04:00.002-06:00

In regards to visual media in the church, we tend to "decorate" the church services rather than "declaring"new possibilities this side of the New Jerusalem. Thoughts on declaration vs. decoration from TWOTP's Steve Frost.

Be Made New

2009-12-20T11:38:00.001-06:00

New King. New Kingdom. New Life. Happy New Year. TWOTP friend Tom Yaccino from Del Camino Connection (www.delcaminoconnection.org/en/) invites us to embrace Jesus and a new life. Music by www.theautumnfilm.com.

Panther Creek Inspiration Ranch

2009-12-17T14:23:00.001-06:00

Here's a piece I created for my friends equine therapy ministry. For more info visit www.pciranch.org.

Panther Creek Inspiration Ranch from Panther Creek Inspiration Ranch on Vimeo.

Lilly Lalime Anniversary

2009-12-17T09:54:00.004-06:00

13 year old Lilly Lalime had just gotten off the her school bus when she was struck and killed by a drunk driver this time last year. (Original story HERE). Lilly was a beautiful soul who who sought out the least of these. She was also an advocate for Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International. Yesterday Cy Fair Christian Church had a benefit concert raising over $7000.00 for Living Water to build yet another well! This film gives a small glimpse into Nicole's story and ongoing ministry. (Go HERE to download film from TWOTP).

Craig Detweiler's "Halos & Avatars"

2009-12-17T08:03:00.004-06:00

Get the first chapter of Craigs upcoming book, Halos and Avatars, available as a free download HERE.

Purchase Craig's TWOTP films for download HERE or preview below.

Brueggeman Advent Prayer

2009-12-14T11:37:00.000-06:00

Pray with longing for a better world and the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.

And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.

Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.

Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.

We do not want our several worlds to end.

Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.

Amen.

Walter Brueggeman
Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

Christmas Kingdoms

2009-12-04T14:01:00.001-06:00

The last will be first. The consumer is consumed. The power of love takes over the love of power. Life springs forth from death. TWOTP friend and pastor Aaron Edwards talks about kingdoms and his community's upside down Christmas tree.

Go HERE to purchase video.

Recapturing Advent Homily

2009-12-03T07:26:00.004-06:00

A homliy written by TWOTP friend Samuel W. Huxford, Vice President for Student Development and Dean of the Chapel Atlanta Christian College. Watch, read and consider...

Recapturing the Patience of Advent

2 Peter 3:9

If nothing else, I hope that the brief video we saw with Stanley Hauerwas reminded us all that living out the life Jesus has called us to live in this world is a challenge. It is beyond merely hard to be a person of peace in a world that values violence; a person of integrity in a world that winks at dishonesty; a person of purity in a world stained at every turn by the invasive presence of sin.

How do I manage to “love God and love neighbor” when it is so much easier to be frustrated with God and hate my neighbor?

The season of Advent calls upon us to think about those kinds of questions as we anticipate the glorious reappearing of our Lord.

Fred Craddock, a great preacher and story teller, tells a story about a hospital visit he made as the “chaplain for the week” at the Fannin County Georgia Hospital. A baby was born the week he was serving as chaplain – a rather unusual experience in that little 30 bed hospital.

It was about nine o’clock in the morning and he saw a group of people gathered, looking through the glass. He also looked and sure enough, there was that tiny little baby that had caught the attention of the clan of people gathered about the window.

Craddock asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a girl,” the reply came quickly.

“What’s the name?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Well, is the father over here is this group?”

“No,” someone replied. Craddock looked over in the corner of the room and there sat a young man.

He said, “I’m the father.”

Craddock said, “Baby’s name Elizabeth?”

“Yeah.”

“Beautiful baby.” She was squirming – you couldn’t hear through the glass – but she was squirming, and red faced, and all like that. Craddock thought that perhaps the new father was concerned, and so he said to this young man, “Now, she’s not sick. It’s good for babies to scream and do all that. It clears out their lungs and gets their voices going. It’s all right.”

The young father replied, “Oh, I know she’s not sick. But she’s mad as hell.” Then he said, “Pardon me, Reverend.” Craddock replied, “That’s all right. Why’s she mad?”

The father said, “Well, wouldn’t you be mad? One minute you’re with God in heaven and the next minute you’re in Georgia.”

Taken aback a bit by that comment, Craddock replied, “You believe she was with God before she came here?”

“Oh, yeah,” was the immediate reply.

Craddock said, “You think she’ll remember?”

The father said, “Well, that’s up to her mother and me. It’s up to the church. We’ve got to see that she remembers, ‘cause if she forgets, she’s a goner.”

(Craddock Stories, pages 126,127, adapted)

We might have a little trouble with some of this young father’s theology, but it is hard to argue with the “she’s mad as hell” idea – if you once were in heaven, but ended up in Georgia – or anywhere else on earth for that matter.

But that is, in significant ways, the dilemma we all face. “Having tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,” as the writer of Hebrews (6:5) describes us – we struggle daily with the weakness of our own flesh, the temptations of the world that surround us, and our own awareness that we are, in some sense, “stuck in Georgia.”

But we would do well to remember that God has not forsaken us. That He continues to allow this world to be is a sign of His patience and love – He wants all to come to repentance – not a sign of His slothfulness.

It is in being Jesus to this world in every way we can imagine that we learn to accept the reality of our mortal natures, the challenge of our present lives, and the hope of one day sharing in the eternal weight of glory that far outweighs every momentary and slight affliction we face. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

One of the ways we can do that on our campus today is to bring a simple gift of a pair of shoes. Most of us have plenty of shoes. For some, the question each day is not “do I have a pair of shoes to wear?” but “which of the many pairs looks best with what I’m wearing?” Most of us I suspect can’t imagine what it would be like to go shoeless – even for a day.

My prayer is that perhaps through the gift of these shoes, that a lot of children in the world, who have far more reason than you and I to be “mad as hell,” will know of a Jesus who loves them and who, in His great patience, God joyfully welcomes into His arms.

Help us Spread the Word: Advent Video Collection

2009-11-22T23:13:00.034-06:00

Everyone knows the Advent season can be the busiest time of the year, especially for church leaders. So how can you lead people into the stillness of Advent when you're running on frayed nerves, caffeine and raw adrenaline—and still not keeping up?

Despite the chaos you still sense the need to pause and reﬂect.

We'd like to offer two video bundles for the Advent season.

View the Videos

Get the Flyer to Send Via Email

Download
Advent Collection Flyer

Post a Banner to Your Blog or Website

Download
Presence and Patience 728x90 Banner

Download
Upside Down Christmas 728x90 Banner

Download
Presence and Patience 125x125 Banner

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Upside Down Christmas 125x125 Banner

Are You Aware You're Going To Die?

2009-11-19T20:46:00.003-06:00

One of the new nine films from the upcoming TWOTP series Living A Dying Life with Stanley Hauerwas...

Ministry Media Manifesto

2009-11-11T09:56:00.008-06:00

TWOTP VISUAL MEDIA MANIFESTO
(For now anyway...)

Intro
Profound visual imagery which moves the soul will not be the result of an institutional interest in an updated status quo. It will be the result of long hard work, sustained passion and an unshakable sense of vocation. We believe we are in the early days of a releasing of creative passion. Like Christ’s Passion it will involve suffering and sacriﬁce. Like the 12 stations of the cross it will involve a journey. Like the cross itself, it will require a pouring out of ourselves for the sake others.

We believe we are in the initial wave of those not settling for decoration, but instead pressing into declaration--as hard as it may be--pressing in, pushing back, opening up space for the voice of the poet. We believe those who embark upon this initial breaking-through, who open space for the poet, won’t attain the heights of those who come after. Yet it is this initial breaking-through that is profoundly important.

Juice of Emancipation
“The Prophetic Imagination,” by Dr. Walter Brueggemann has beenfairly pivotal in the development of TWOTP. Travis and I recently had the honour of spending some time with Dr. Brueggemann. As a result our thoughts, of late, have been basting in those conversations. In particular Dr.Brueggemann bestowed upon us a term I’m not sure is in writing anywhere. He was speaking about the Exilic story, the confrontation of Pharaoh and YAWEH, the centrality of this story to human experience, that we all experience Pharaohs in our lives, we all cry out in pain over some kind of bondage. The Story of Israel is the story of YAWEH’s redeeming vision for all of human kind--bondage, liberation, reconciliation. The story of Israel is the story of God’s unshakable resolve to redeem all things; love, justice and righteousness overcome the mechanizations of power, wealth and privilege. In the context of this discussion Dr.Breuggemann referred to “the juice of emancipation.”

It is a beautiful term. We love this term. It is raw and rich and and it speaks to the earthy reality in which mission and worship take place. This term connects with TWOTP because we try to make visual media that is the juice of emancipation. We aren’t as interested in making visual media for something--a service, a market, a demographic--as we are in making visual media that comes from something. This is the gift of the poet to the Church: to create from something rather than pragmatically for something.

Expose and Declare
As we create from something, we hope our visual media does two things; it exposes and it declares. It exposes, it names and it challenges: Ecologies of denial; ﬂat Kingdoms of Pharaohs calciﬁed in numbers and control; Kingdoms of selﬁshness, monuments to greed, the worship of relationship-destroying power. At the same time it declares, it describes and it afﬁrms: God’s eternal kingdom of steadfast care, of a ﬂourishing belonging and of making all things right. God’s kingdom of love, justice and righteousness. hesed, mishpat and tsedeka.

In as much as we are falteringly able to make what we try to make, in as much as we are little green shoots in the soil of God’s redemption, we manage to make media that moves the soul.

Good
Further, in making visual media that exposes and declares, we aren’t trying to make things that are perfect, we’re trying to make things that are good. Good in the same way God created the world and saw that it was good. Our understanding of good bears a Hebraic inﬂection, specifically that it refers to something being in-right-relationship-as-it-was-intended.

Associated with the “good” of Divine creation are a couple of other words, “order” and “chaos.” This triad of words--good, order and chaos--is important to how we go about creating visual media. If we start from the notion of good as right-relationship: order, then is a state in which things are in-right-relationship; and chaos is a state in which things are out-of-right relationship. These inﬂections are important to draw out because I think our highly rational Western minds tend to see order and chaos through a highly rational lens: we tend to see order as things which have been categorized, counted and analysed rendering them manageable, understandable and controllable. We watch a butterﬂy’s ﬂight path and if we lack the algorithms from which to make numerical sense of the ﬂight path, we declare it chaotic. So we catch the butterﬂy, stick a pin through it, label it and put it under glass; thereby declaring it now ordered.

In contrast, a Hebraic understanding of order would tend to see a butterﬂy being a butterfly and doing the butterﬂy things it was intended to do in a context in which it was intended to do those things--no matter how mysteriously messy looking it might be-- as being ordered. A Hebraic
understanding of order would see the butterﬂy as being in-right-relationship and therefore “good.” Further, removing the butterﬂy’s ability to do butterﬂy things--by sticking pins in it and putting it under glass--would be seen as counter to right-relationship--chaotic. In Hebraic thinking, an ecology of activities, values, systems or structures which impinge upon, hamper or even destroy right-relationship, is an ecology of chaos.

Equipped with this Hebraic understanding of good, order and chaos, we see the timeline of Creation as being: from nothing to things-in-right-relationship. There is void. Then God, ex nihilo, creates order. Then humanity sins and now we have chaos, things-out-of-right-relationship:humanity out of alignment with God, humanity out of alignment with each other and humanity out alignment with creation. In chaos we have oppressor and oppressed, domination and enslavement, the powerful and the powerless, those with water and those without water--things-not-as-they-were-intended. It is at the point in time and space, the point in history that man moves toward chaos that God begins to move, His vast loving tearful and sweeping arc toward all things-in-right-relationship-as-they-were-intended.

God’s moving starts immediately. Immediately after man’s move to chaos, God moves to order. In Genesis we see some initial small arcs, from chaos to order. They lead to the prototype, the deﬁning shape to the arc of God’s moving--the Exodus story. The Exilic story traces the unexpected, breath taking, mysterious, good and ordered shape of YAHWEH’s moving. The shape of God’s moving--it’s good-ness--sheds light on the length and depth and breadth of the triune God’s commitment to restore his children to right-relationship with Him, with each other and with creation. From nothing to things-in-right-relationship to things-out-of-right-relationship and now back to things in right-relationship. This is where we ﬁnd ourselves, as co-creators with Christ, invited into God’s work of redeeming all things.

Not Pretty
This eternal arc of God’s redeeming grace is good and ordered, but it isn’t pretty. It is blood and guts and tears. It is dirt and mud and trying and falling. The arc of God’s grace is alive with quotidian messy-ness, precisely because God moves among us and to be among us it to move in chaos. The arc of God’s grace is messy, but it is good.

When we create visual media, we don’t want to make things that are pretty or perfect, we want to make things that are--in all the ways just discussed--good.

Remembering
Lastly, when we make good visual media we don’t want to make things that forget, we want to make things that remember. Our culture is littered with liturgies of denial, liturgies of distraction; actions, habits, things, systems, techniques which manifest a self-created ecology of denial. They sentimentally ignore evil for the indulgent sake of pleasant feelings; they are subservient to Pharoah-nic machinations; they uphold the language and epistemology of Empire. These liturgies of denial are everywhere, and we don’t need more.

We want to make liturgies that remember, liturgies that break up through suffering and pain and miraculously, wonderfully amazingly create new life. We want to make liturgies that remember because we need help--every day--remembering Pharoah is a liar, YAHWEH holds the throne; Satan is defeated, God’s kingdom is here. We need help remembering--every day-- we are in this world, but not of this world. Liturgies for remembering are daring. They dare to expose real oppression; they dare to name real pain; they dare to confront local Pharaohs who perpetuate systems of scarcity and fear. But liturgies to remember don’t stop there, they go on to attempt the impossible, they dare to declare liberation and strive for reconciliation. They dare to declare grace, dare to describe a world in which it is okay to be good, dare to afﬁrm there is another way and it is not Pharoah’s way of scarcity and fear; it is the way of shalom--of deep abiding peace whichenables profound generosity. It is the way of steadfast care, a ﬂourishing belonging and making all things right; It is the way of love, justice and righteousness; hesed, mishpat and tsedeka.

Closing
We ﬁrmly belief that as long as visual media--or any creative endeavorwithin the church-- is an object of acquisition for the sake of upholding institutional status quo, it will not be aligned with God’s arc of redeeming all things. As long as visual media is pursued as a perfectible commodity, it will fall ﬂat. As long as visual media is used as decoration, it will continue to be less than it could be. As long as visual media is driven by enterpriserather than poetry, it will remain hyper-kinetic eye candy and nothing more.

As we said in opening, we believe we are in the midst of a profoundly important breaking-though. The voice of the poet is awakening and creative endeavour is moving away from decoration and toward declaration.

Visual media ﬁnds itself uniquely placed within that breaking-through. In as much as visual media is able to ﬁnd its impetus in speciﬁc, contextual, ongoing stories of oppression, liberation and reconciliation; stories of chaos, Divine Movement and order; in as much as visual media
names our Pharaohs and points to freedom; facilitates Divine and human relationship; in as much as visual media is the juice of emancipation; in as much as visual media gives voice to the poet who lives in the tension between Empires and grace; in as much as it manages to be any or all of these things, it will touch our humanity at its core, it will caress us, it will shake us, it will hold us, it will linger in deep places long into the night--and maybe, just maybe, we will remember for one more day--there is another way.

- Steve Frost/TWOTP