Category: <span>Church</span>

Yesterday was very full. Three baptisms at church… I missed Noah’s but was there for Bek’s – one of the youth girls… love the death stare at the camera, and Dylan’s – my friend Ana’s younger brother, who’s testimony was fairly full on. It was a good morning.

bek

dylan

We trouped back to Bek’s place for a celebratory BBQ lunch and played some Guitar Hero with a good crew of the youth (We fit right in, despite someone insisting Geoff and I were ‘the adults).

It was also my Grandma’s birthday, so we took her out for afternoon tea with my family and then went and saw my Grandpa in the nursing home. I haven’t seen him for ages – and not since he’s gotten worse.

grandparents

Church Life

coffehousetheologyCoffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life
Ed Cyzewski. NavPress, $14.99 paper (240p) ISBN 9781600062773 Freelance theologian Cyzewski enters into the Emergent conversation from the conservative end of the evangelical spectrum. He urges readers to explore theology while reassuring them that they don’t have to become postmodern philosophers: theology can be considered, as it were, in the coffeehouse. Arguing that “[o]ur local settings and cultural values—in other words, our context—influence how we read God’s Word,” Cyzewski approaches “contextual theology” by weaving together discussions of mission, culture, God, Scripture, tradition and the global church. Personal anecdotes of his own growth in faith are disarming in their honesty. While this accessible work is a useful introduction to aspects of Emergent theology, Cyzewski’s summary of modernism and postmodernism is sometimes too sketchy to be useful; however, each chapter includes valuable suggestions for further reading. Gently nudging his fellow Christians to listen to diverse points of view, Cyzewski doesn’t explain why he is committed to engaging in dialogue with some aspects of culture and not others (say, progressive theologians and secularists). This addition to books about emerging and missional forms of Christianity ends on a hopeful note for unity across denominations.
(Sept.)

This book came out today! I will be reviewing in October some time as part of the online ‘tour’… when it arrives in my mailbox that is.

Selling on Amazon,
bummer about the exchange rate at the moment.

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So she now has the internet and technically could be blogging, but does she?

No.

Instead she points you toward PagePlane.com with it’s fun header and lovely wealth of design resources.

It seems that the writing in the fingers needs sufficient time to warm back up and the fingers aren’t exactly sure where to start while also otherwise being preoccupied with lovelies such as rotoscoping and GilmoreGirls (*yes I did just say GilmoreGirls) and sometimes-lovelies such as branding. Yes. And other homework.

Basically things are progressing at a very standard rate-an even plane. Small things only. Like coffee today with an *Indonesian girl she only knows a little bit from uni. Like Pratchett novels. Like minute progressions to different perspectives. Little conversations about church. Bedtime conversations with CS Lewis…her own head. And the teeter on the edge of what feels like some bigger conversations/explorations with God which currently have no tangibility whatsoever – maybe they’ll get relevant when I work out what they actually are?

All up it’s rather boring but rather nice. I am not sure that is a good thing.

*Relevant country totally just included for you Sammy

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It does well to quote the CS Lewis guy once in a while as I tend to find him quite wise and he simply refuses to be annoying in any way whatsoever- which is much to be said about a theologian. I found this quote this morning and rather than glossing over yet another lot of clever words, I read it, mainly because it had the word renovation in it. That word seems to have jumped around in my face inadvertently lately, like a lemming.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: William Collins, 1970), 172.

It feels like a bit of renovation is going on at the moment.

I picked up a copy of Organic God the other day and it’s one of those books where you kind of get half an idea that God has dumped it in front of you quite purposely.

I am jaded about the church and expression of Christianity that I see, the messiness of the lives around me and frustrated by my own apathy.

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Somewhat disassociated with the previous post (kind of, kind of not) was that on Sunday evening we had a guy come speak to the youth/young adults at our church.

To be honest, I wasn’t really very impressed. Yes he said some good stuff, but I don’t understand and it disturbs me when what someone is saying in regards to Christianity starts sounding like a bit of motivational guru. And although I know the intentions are good when you’re talking about being more expectant of how God can use you, but it’s such a fraying rope between explaining God’s role in this and our role, and when our role seems to wear the boots it’s just plain wrong. Just how highly can you think of yourself? There were also some other small things that made me frown…

Yes humans are fallible and I as much as any, but when you’re ‘teaching’ there surely must be some kind of extra care when choosing words? God forbid I ever have to be in such an influential role – it’d scare the pants off me.

Church at the moment frustrates me. The one I am in is growing and although that’s very positive, it comes with challenges, both organisational and personal. It was interesting to condense one very big community into a smaller demographic, I think on the whole I deal better with a smaller community. Yet I’m still trying to evaluate where youth fit in with some of those ‘smaller communities’ that I’d probably jump at otherwise. I still really, really love my youth kids.

One of the topics of the evening was prophesy (we split off into smaller groups). Anyway God gave me a good old, needed kick up the bum with something and encouragement in another area (that is also thought matter). Thanks Ruth and Kerrie!

I had a good old chat with Susannah post-prophecy-stuff about what we thought, what was good, what we didn’t really get/agree with etc. The whole evening my brain did not stay still, sifting and sorting information into take it or leave it.

Someone once gave me this helpful metaphor of eating fish. None of this battered stuff that comes with chips, but the real deal -meat and bones. Sometimes it’s like eating fish. There’s meat there, but you have to pick out the bones leave them to one side. Take the good, ignore the crap. There must come a point though when there just becomes too many bones to bother with eating in the first place…

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