today I was listening to NPR and there was an individual on “The Conversation” that was talking about the reality of blogs and the reality of unedited news and the authorship of all people. This particular individual wasn’t too keen on the idea of blogs and the way they are shaping how we connect and how we view relationship to one another. I strangely found myself agreeing with this individual as he talked about how suddenly people think that we, the reader, care what you ate for breakfast, and what you are doing today. His argument was that it wasn’t truly connection, instead it is similar to voyeurism in that we feel connected because we know data, or have certain information about someone, and yet we can go for days without actually seeing the person or using our vocal cords to talk to the person.

For me this has always been the catch22 of a blog. I want people to know what is going on in my life and yet what is ‘important’ enough to broadcast internationally. for a while i thought that the more surface info i gave the more people would feel connected to me and me to them. so i put on my blog, pictures, books i was reading, songs i was listening to, and other blogs i read. and most of these are still on my site — simply because i haven’t had time or the desire to edit the PHP to get them out of there. but what i found, was that in posting this stuff people would randomly say to me, “hey i saw on your blog that you are reading….” and granted, i liked this, or should i say, my ego liked this, because i felt important — and so over time my blog became self serving, a digital form of narcissism. these comments became my idol, something i sought after . but soon, i realized this and became disgusted with how my blog was being used — so i stopped blogging. i retreated into digital silence, and therefore to some people i disappeared C-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y. It was like i never existed in their life because the pixels of connection no longer existed. WEIRD — ehh? so what is better, voyeurism of life and narcissism, or ceasing to exist?

as a friend of mine would say, “that is quite a conundrum”

peace
joel

today is a great day, but tomorrow is better — you know why?

because tomorrow is longer than today, and the day after longer than that — no longer are the days getting shorter.

all of us in the north celebrate today.

joel

Growing up in a Protest-ant Non-Denominational church left my church history lacking. For one, most protest-ants claim the beginning of their church from the 1500’s and by being in a non-denominational church we truly had no history. No sending church, no traditions to drink from. We were simply an island of faith. No advent, no liturgical calendar — we had the protest-ant basics — worship through song, sacrament, and teaching of the word. Granted, i appreciated these aspects, but after being introduced to the deep deep deep history of Christianity i began to long for something more to be connected to, something more universal that i could celebrate with more than just one church. This led me to the lectionary and the church calendar.

So this year as Kai (the new church i am a co-founder of) begins to get its feet on the ground we thought that we (the four of us, Cote Palacios, Tim Soerens, and Brooke) would participate in the Advent Season. Every Tuesday we gathered around a table with basic food, and read the lectionary readings and ended our time in prayer. Then, this past week, since we are a week ahead because of travel schedules we had an Advent Feast complete with King Salmon, Shrimp, Sweet Potatoes, Eggplant, and Cheese cake for Dessert. For a variety of reasons, as we sat around the table on tuesday we all recognized that this advent was the most anticipatory advent we had ever experienced. The last month had been dark and heavy for all of us and as food often does, this food enabled conversation and a coming together around our collective grieve and collective sin. Tears were shed, laughs were laughed and as the night closed we all sighed a sigh of relieve that we have hope, that sin and grieve is not the end of the story.

So here is to an Advent season that was truly a waiting period for the coming of Christ. And next week as we officially celebrate Jesus’ birthday I know that I am incredibly grateful that life after death (both metaphorical and physical) are possible through the baby that Mary brought into this world 2000+ years ago.

blessings
joel

Here we are in the year 2006, almost 2007 and depending on your perspective and philosophical bend you have a take on the condition of the world. There are those of us that think that Armageddon is right around the corner and that all the prophecies in the Revelation are coming true right in front of us. Then, there are those of us that really don’t care what is happening with the world, we naively assume that everything is going to be ok because of the providential nature of God. And still, there are those that have worked tirelessly this year to make the world a better place for us and for future generations.

Each day i ingest news. I get it through Google alerts, BBC, CNN, and NPR. I get it through ‘breaking news’ reports while watching Amazing Race and Survivor. And each day as i hear about more and more tragedies in the world i find myself fighting to hold onto hope that, indeed, everything is ok, or that indeed, the world is going to end.

A little while ago i was involved in a conversation with a group of women and men. This group had gathered around an issue — rather, this group gathered around a fragmentation in the Church. As each person went around the room and began to speak about why they were there I remember one individual saying, “I am here as a person that needs forgiveness and needs to live a life of repentance” (or something like that). This phrase, and this idea has stuck with me for over two years and i am, in my heart, only beginning to understand the depth of such a statement.

Is it possible to live a life of repentance?

I believe it is, in fact, i believe that it is the task of our generation. There was a Heretical Jewish Rabbi that walked the Earth about two thousand years ago who’s given name was Jesus, but through his life he began to be called Jesus the Christ. At the center of this man’s message was a simple phrase, “Repent and you will be saved.” This phrase has been recapitulated over and over throughout the 2000 years after his martyrdom and has taken on many different ’causes.’ Some have made the world a better place, some have made it worse — but most have done both.

So as we sit hearing the edge of the year 2007 i can not help but think that this Rabbi was calling his followers to a life of repentance and to work actively toward reconciliation. It is not enough for individuals to do their individual thing — Jesus knew this. So in his wisdom, he called together a band of people and told them to go out and heal people.

Now, in Jesus’ day one of the main ways that people needed healing was from disease and so many of the miracles and healing acts that Jesus and his followers did involved healing people from disease or blindness, or some physical pain. If we fast forward to our generation and look at the past 100 years of history we are confronted with many sorrowful acts that need healing. Many of these sorrowful acts have to do with systems of people and systems of countries. One country killing another country, one tribe killing another tribe, AIDS killing nation after nation (just to name a few). If we stop and think about the core of these tragedies, we soon realize that all of these tragedies are intimately connected to a fragmentation of relationship.

Therefore, i say again, it is the task of our generation to be people of reconciliation. To have a posture of healing and a posture of repentance for past harms and future harms. May it be so.

Joel

so i woke up this morning and there was this large yellowish object in the sky. i didn’t know what it was and just thought that since i was out late last night that maybe my brain was playing tricks on me. so i closed my eyes again, reopened them, and this thing was still there. suddenly i gor freaked out, what is it? is the world ending? is it a UFO? a terrorist?

so much like all normal people, i logged onto google and searched for a “large yellowish object in the sky” hoping that at some point someone else had seen this object and either blogged about it, or posted something about it. but all i could find was lyrics to a song by somebody named shari bauer on some website called 96 decibals. i was starting to think google was going to let me down, and just then a google calendar reminder appeared on my screen and took me to my calendar. as i was looking over my calendar for the day i saw a small image of something similar to what was in the sky, i clicked on the image and began to read, “scattered clouds in seattle” this left me even more confused, clouds? what are clouds? is it possible that the sky is not gray? and that the grayness is clouds?

then i was brought back to my childhood and i remembered my mom telling me stories of this warm object in the sky that made sure life went on, and helped keep the earth warm. i seem to recall her calling this object the “sun.” so, i googled that. but unfortunately that didn’t even seem to lead me anywhere, except to this thing called “sun microsystems”

so can anybody tell me what this thing in the sky is called? and how long will it be around?

peace
joel

another week of my life has gone by — i wonder how many i have left? and once again, i have stolen away to put some words on the world wide web for anybody to read and interact with.

this past friday i was at a meeting with an individual who does church coaching. rather, he described himself as ‘the bridge’ between past forms of the church and emerging forms of the church. he gave us a hangout that had on it three forms of church that he has seen, or been a part of, in his lifetime. the first is the ‘historic church’ where everything is believer center and the leader is a man/woman that preaches the word. the second, that was born in the 80’s through bill hybels and others is the ‘contemporary church’ that is seeker center and the leader of the church is CEO. where all decisions go through the pastor and the pastor teaches sermons as well as does capital campaigns, hires, fires, and casts vision. the third, and most emerging of the three is what is called the ‘missional church.’ The missional church is a church that is other centered and the leader is a missionary that is sent out into a geographical context.

the leader of this meeting then had us gather into groups and discuss our church history. as i ran through my head the types of churches that i have been a part of I found myself landing, at least for a time, at each of the three. the church that i attended growing up, Berean Bible Church in Holland Michigan was and still is a ‘historic church’ that on occasion looks outward but mainly does so through the desire for growth. My parents and I then made the decision at the age of 16 to leave that church to go to a ‘contemporary church’ that was more seeker centered and have an overwhelming attractional model to it. everything was at the church. the youth group had a huge gathering area with ping pong tables, pool tables, a coffee house. from there, i left for college and after about a 2 year religious sabbatical i found myself in a church that may look like a seeker centered church, but is kind of a hybrid of contemporary church and missional church. i then left that geographical area completely to attend seminary in Seattle and now, after i have graduated I find myself in the process of birthing what is labeled a ‘missional church.’

ok, i’m sure you are thinking, that’s great joel, but why do i care about your church history?

i’m glad you asked.

in the process of going through all three of these labels the speaker said something that i learned early on, and am continuing to learn. he said, the tendancy of anyone of these when speaking about what they are and what they aren’t is to say “we aren’t this” and “we aren’t going to do that” he went on to say that this isn’t a profitable way forward because the more one talks about what they aren’t the more they continue to subtly subvert that which exists and in time will alienate themselves and lose track of who they really are. a philosophical category for this is sometimes called a ‘reactionary movement.’ where movement happens, but it is simply in reaction to something and therefore it ends up being short lived and shallow with no real sustainability. i call these movements ‘hip-blips.’

so the challenge for me became a gut check. where is my identity in my ecclesiology? is it an ecclesiology birthed out of a reaction to what i feel doesn’t work? what isn’t me? or, is it an ecclesiology birthed out of who God is calling me to be in and through him?

now, granted i can never remove myself from my context, and i am consciously and sub-consciously influenced by my surroundings, but, because i believe in a spiritual realm and in a story that goes on apart from me i have another realm in which i can defer to.

so thank you Steven Ogne for being a bridge and for giving me a gut check and reminding me of what my identity is truly found in.

peace
joel

today is my day-off. i don’t get many days off but when i do i value them a lot. I usually do some thinking that I should do, reading that I want to do, and praying that I’m compelled to do followed up with lots of tea, maybe a nap here or there, and a lot of n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

so as i sit here i have been thinking about a wide variety of topics lately, none with a whole lot of congealed thought — but that’s ok, the thought of a thought is often more exciting than the actual thought. (that’s Heideggar speaking, not me — although i tend to agree)

Thought of a thought 1: Forgiveness. In the last couple months i have really been thinking about what salvation is, and what salvation means, and why salvation matters to the here and now. On this thought journey I have bumped up against two things. One — the typical theory of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins) is incredibly limited and is steeped in legal metaphors and not impacted by relationship at all. Two — since I am thinking about starting a church the need for me to have an understanding of salvation is incredibly important. Otherwise what do I call people to? This is where I think many churches run-amuck. Instead of calling the faithful to salvation churches will call them to politics, or to be against ‘agendas.’ or to isolation from culture. But that is a conversation for another day and another topic.

So my researching of what can be called relational salvation led me to the territory of forgiveness. In reading Moltmann, Barth, Grenz, and Pannenburg there are undertones (or overtones) of forgiveness being necessary for salvation. Therfore I hopped on Amazon and went to town looking for books on salvation and forgiveness. To my surprise and strange delight I found a book written collectively by a therapist and a theologian, The faces of Forgiveness: searching for wholeness and salvation. I was instantly hooked. Could this be the beginnings of a relational salvation? After all, forgiveness is a relational act that is necessitated by an interpersonal injustice.

As it turns out the book is excellent. The first part runs through forgiveness from a therapeutic perspective an apart from talking about ‘face’ a lot it does a really good job of differentiating the ways in which the word ‘forgiveness’ is discussed. The second part though, being a wanna-a-be theologian, is the part that i ate up. Leron Shults examines forgiveness throughout the Bible, starting with the Jewish understanding of a forgiving god and then goes into the Greek understanding of god forgiving through Jesus and the Spirit. Shults then does a brief examination of how the global ‘C’-hurch has viewed forgiveness as it informs salvation. All that to say, what i am coming to believe is that salvation to the emerging post-modern Christians is a deeply relational act that has forgiveness and reconcoliation as its conduits. Without either of these, salvation tends toward escapsism, and after-life-isms that do not inform the fact that I have 70+ years of life on this Earth that I get to participate in the Kingdom of God now. Forgiveness is also deeply important, in particular, to the emerging generation because we see the global harms that both the myth of progress and the Enlightenment era have done to global health and global welfare. So on a very basic level, the world can not continue as is — forgiveness and repentence and therefore reconciliation must occur.

Thought of a Thought 2: I had more, but now i forgot them and have spent all my blogging time already.

peace
joel

p.s. the next book on forgiveness and salvation i plan to read 9starting tomorrow) is No Future without Forgiveness by a South-African Genius Bishop by the name Desmond Tutu

this past weekend marked an event that i have been waiting 3+ years to do. And i was finally able to purchase the necessary equipment (thanks to a misc. check from MH that i didn’t expect to get) to brew my own beer. This is step one for a dream that is about 20 years out which is for Brooke and I to own a microbrew/restaurant.

I purchased a book ‘How to Brew’ and all the fun equipment necessary to boil, steep, ferment, and bottle. and I purchased the ingredients for a Winter Ale that is dark is color with chocolate overtones. As I sit and type i am watching the airlock bubble as the fermentation process does its job. I can wait to have a party over here to celebrate this — as there is no way i want to drink 5 gallons of the same beer. That is, assuming that after i take my first drink I don’t have to throw the whole thing out because i screwed up somewhere in the process (which is perfectly possible).

Sometime in the next couple weeks I hope to make another beer, i’m thinking i’m going to make a cinnamon spice beer with some other flavor in it. Certainly a winter, or Christmas beer.

And a hearty thanks to Bob at Bob’s Home Brew for owning a phenomenal store and an overwhelming sense of wanting to help me get off the ground.

peace
joel

Part of what I will be doing this next year is raising funds to support many aspects of my life. The CRC has very graciously given us a stipend to buy some of our time, but as is the case with all church plants, this money isn’t even enough to live off of, let alone cover expenses that we may incur for the development of Kai.

As I write this I am just emerging from a dream. As is the case with many of my dreams I don’t remember it, but what I do remember is that the moment I woke up the phrase, “pray-seed-money” was repeating in my conscious stream of thought. So, i’m guessing the dream had something to do with that?

So this is why I am posting.

Kai has three major aspects (mission, relationship, spirituality). One of the ways that Kai will meet its mission is to be an active participant in the economy of our neighborhood — namely through a small business. Over the past 6-8 months I have been in conversation with a few people as to what this small business might be, and am in the process of having a market research company do some work for me to figure out the market i am entering into. But apart from having a heart and a calling to open a small business not much else is in place yet — especially finances.

So once again, this is a call to those of you that believe in the power of prayer. My subconscious told me I needed it and so this is a plea for prayer for a couple people to come along side Kai and say, “I believe in you and your mission, and I want to show you that through supplying you with seed money” And as you pray, if you see or hear a response (of any kind) please let me know.

blessings
joel

The first step toward being an indigenous community in South Lake Union (SLU) is to move there. Now, housing in Seattle is ridiculous, let alone downtown Seattle. But over the past 4 months Brooke and I have been jumping through loops, taking out a home equity loan, consolidating debt, and praying alot because Vulcan Real Estate has a project called Veer Lofts. This project is geared toward first-time home buyers and therefore Vulcan has decided to place the listing prices under market value (how much? no one really knows, because they are still expensive). But because of this, and because SLU in in the process of taking off, there are over 600 people that want in on 99 units (ouch). Vulcan expected this though and so what they did is put all of us that jumped through all the loops into a lottery process. They then drew out the lottery cards, one by one, to establish the order that people could choose their unit. Obviously, we have no control over this process and so we had to wait patiently for a phone call to tell us when our date was that we could come down and pick out a unit. Well, the phone call came about a month ago and we found out that out of 600+ people our card got drawn 33rd. HOLY MOSES. we were stunned. but to top it all off, our friend and my partner in crime with Kai has gone through the same process and his card got drawn 39th. HOLY MOSES. The laws of probability tell me that there was less than a 2% chance of that happening. (i just made that up). So as we cautiously celebrate the day and time (December 4th at 5:15) get closer and closer.

So, if you are the praying time, please pray that a unit that we can both afford and like is still available for both Tim and Us. If you are the ‘thank your lucky stars type, then thank them for us. Or, if you are the ‘good luck’ type, then do what you can to throw luck our way.

peace
joel