Bastions Of Democracy

"The elections have one great benefit for Hotel Djenne Djenno: the International Election Observers  are staying at the hotel and eating here too.  There are two nice young European men staying: one Hungarian and one Romanian, sent here by the European Union.  And then there are two Africans: one from Liberia and one from Sierra Leone.  Keita  giggled about this: ‘ Those two  great bastions of Democracy and Human Rights are overseeing our elections!’ Malians, inspite of their two year crisis, still feel that they lie well over the West African average when it comes to progress, civilization  and democracy" (djenneDjenno.blogspot com)

Don't Criticize The Church Just Accept The Pain And Abuse As Good For You

"Expressions of sharp and even violent criticism of religion and the church have been welcomed [in this collection], for they usually imply sincerity of thought. If caustic criticism of religious institutions and practices is irreligious, then Amos, Isaiah, and Jesus were very it religious men. In fact, that is exactly what many of their contemporaries took them to be."
(Halford E. Luccock (1885-1960) & Frances Brentano, The Questing Spirit)

The Church That Doesn't Change Me.

Like..... da!..... That dirty little secret we can't talk about.... Church attendance does not actually help grow many people.
Jesus has this job......

"More and more researchis disclosing something the Christian churchwould rather deny. Church activity does not
necessarily result in spiritual growth.
We do a lot of good things, but we aren't doinga very good job carrying out our core mission,which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

After five years studying 1200 churches andexamining the results of 280,000 in-depthresponses, Willow Creek's seminal "RevealStudy" concluded, "Church activity IS NOT ablueprint for spiritual growth." In fact, theydiscovered that the longer someone attendschurch without significant spiritual growth theless likely they are to ever experiencesignificant spiritual transformation."

Save The Worlds Dishes

"Everybody wants to save the earth;nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes." (P. J. O'Rourke)

Knowing.... In The Real Sense

"We live in an age where we know
about a lot of things, but we don't really know them"
(Richard Louv. Last Child In The Woods)

"Nouny" Community Is For Me

"One of the missiological 'misses' of our day is the use of the term 'community' as an adjective, and not as a noun." (Pathfinders Fellowships)

Religious Shaping

Winston Churchill remarked that "we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us."

What If Church Fundraising Just Disappeared?

"One of the greatest challenges which the organic church movement comes up against in the West, is the refined, efficient and effective culture of fundraising which is so often associated with full time ministry / church leadership ... clergy roles. As one who excelled in these in the past, it has taken me years to reframe the legitimate (and limited) role these truly have in the big picture." (Pathfinders Fellowships Canada FB Page)

The Diabolical Self

"If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither."
Clive Lewis

Thy Kingdom Came.....

Nowhere in the New Testament are we told to "build the Kingdom." It is already built "from the foundation of the world," built into the nature of reality. You "see," "enter," "proclaim," "suffer for" the Kingdom, but never "build" it. For the
Kingdom is not a relativism to be built, but an absolute to be accepted, submitted to, obeyed. (E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), The Christ of the American Road)

A Sharing Poverty

"Although by our standards these were among the poorest people in the world, each of them would give free fish to those families most in need. Many centuries ago these people learned to share in both good and bad times; it is now their heritage.” (living Poor PCS )

Belonging to God Is Our Identity

"Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion." (Brennan Manning, 1934-2013 from Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

Things We Take and The Things We Leave Behind.

Describes the life of international workers well.

"Their’s will be a story of what they gain, and what they lose. Their’s will be a tale of the things they take with them, and the things they leave behind. Their’s will be a song that sings the names of the places they belong, and the places they never will.

And I feel like all I write is about how things are hard but good, but this is the experience that is constant: that nothing is constant. It is the tension of this fluid life."
Loss. Belonging.

"THERE ARE FAR, FAR BETTER THINGS AHEAD THAN ANY WE LEAVE BEHIND."
(C.S. LEWIS)

I Prefer A Bruised Church

Amen Pope Francis from a non Catholic....

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,” the Pope said in a major new statement.

Neither Do I Pope Francis

“I do not want a Church concerned with being at the center and then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures,” (Pope Francis 2013)

Change Us Then Let Us Change The World

"The secret of Christian quietness is not indifference, but the knowledge that God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget, and worry becomes an impossibility.
It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes us, and then we change things. Consequently we must not ask God to do what he has created us to do. For instance, Jesus Christ is not a social reformer, He came to alter us first, and if there is any social reform to be done on earth, we must do it. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of redemption alters the way we look at things. Prayer is not altering things externally, but working wonders within our disposition." - Oswald Chambers 2 Corinthians 5:17

Church is....... According to Emil Brunner

"The ekklesia (church) in the New Testament is a communion of persons and nothing else."
(Emil Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church. 1952)

Adjusting To New Culture And Simple Living Situation.

"When I seriously thought about what I was going to do in this unrewarding spot for eighteen more months, it sent me spinning into a real depression. I locked myself in my room for three days and read Ian Fleming novels and drank about five gallons of coffee. In the afternoons when the little kids knocked at the door, I held my breath until they went away. I had thought that I could move into a completely different culture and, if not love it, at least accept it enough that I could do the job I had been trained for. It came as an ego-shriveling shock to discover after the first month that I wasn't doing much of anything but reacting naively and emotionally to the poverty around me. Then little by little I began, however superficially, to become involved with the life of the town."(Living Poor. A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen. Pg 35-36)

Twinkle In Worship...................

"Similarly, if we resort to techniques in our churches - or once we resort to them - it is very hard to get rid of them. Worship gimmicks create superficial Christians. Once we condition our congregation to Twinkles in worship, it is hard to help people appreciate good vegetables.12 As spiritual leaders, we must be constantly on the alert against methods, gimmicks, marketing strategies."

(The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call.  by Marva J. Dawn, Peter Santucci, Eugene H. Peterson)

Drinks Only Beer - No Water

"He never drinks water, you know, only beer, about a case a day. Imagine being so rich that you don't have to drink water." (Ecuadorian Alexandro's observation about a balsa mill "gringo" owner, who was a good man.

When A Church Building Kills Mission To Muslims

”A physical church building is not important and is sometimes a liability
more than an asset because anyone who enters it will be branded as an
apostate from Islam. There is no such negative stigma against joining a church meeting in someone's home. Newcomers, seekers, those not so
strong in their faith can more easily attend a meeting in a home without
facing the wrath of their community." (SIM Now Magazine. Pg 8. October 2013)

Love Everyone Mr Rogers

"Frankly, there isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story." 
(Social worker quote carried in Mr. Rogers' wallet; shared by Andrew Stanton, PIXAR director of Toy Story WALL-E, in TED Talk The Clues to a Great Story.)

It's Always Your Fault

According to any institution.

"Christian culture has no category for anger at harm done in God’s name. They label it all as cynicism rather than the first step to healing” (Stephanie Drury)

C. S. Lewis Did Not Like Church

C. S. Lewis wrote in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy,

Here is what he wrote:

"The idea of churchmanship was to be wholly unattractive. I was not in the least anticlerical, but I was deeply antiecclesiastical.
…But though I liked clergymen as I liked bears, I had as little wish to be in the Church as in the zoo.
It was, to begin with, a kind of collective; a wearisome “get-together” affair. I couldn’t yet see how a concern of that sort should have anything to do with one’s spiritual life. To me, religion ought to have been a matter of good men praying alone and meeting by twos and threes to talk of spiritual matters.
And then the fussy, time-wasting botheration of it all! The bells, the crowds, the umbrellas, the notices, the bustle, the perpetual arranging and organizing. Hymns were (and are) extremely disagreeable to me. Of all musical instruments I liked (and like) the organ least. I have, too, a sort of spiritual gaucherie which makes me unapt to participate in any rite."

God Gets Lonely When God Has No One To Walk With in the Dew of the Day.

If this is true..... It is the most hopeful, powerful, encouraging, and enriching message behind the scripture accounts. Makes the Cross make sense.

"Why did God create us? There is only one answer: for relationships. God
decided not to have a life of God's own but to share the divine life with us.
God gets lonely when God has no one to walk with in the dew of the day. This
is one of the greatest self-disclosures in all of history. Amazing, vulnerable,
divine self-disclosure. God created us for companionship."

(Leonard Sweet. What Matters Most. Pg 16)

Decisions For Beauty

"I came to a decision. Whatever anyone said they believed, including myself, if it didn’t produce love, freedom and beauty, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it." (Jim Palmer. On Being Off The Grid of Christendom.)

"I found that most people don’t really want to know the truth. There are plenty of people who want to know the truth on their terms or require that the truth be contained within certain boundaries of comfort. But truth can never be known this way. You have to seek truth from a place of not knowing, and that can be a very threatening place because we think we already know the truth or we are afraid of what the truth might be."

Women Can Not...........?

"When I Googled “women cannot,” the popular searches (each search page has eight of the most popular searches for each term towards the bottom of the page) include “be priests, speak in church, teach the Bible, be pastors.” In this search, 50 percent of the issues mentioned were church related. In contrast, the corresponding search for “men cannot” had only one that is church related–man cannot live on bread alone;  that is hardly gender specific." (Felicity Dale)

Popular Google Search Terms to Show How the World Really Feels About Women
A campaign from UN Women places popular search terms about women in front of portraits

A  cartoon sketch about women and church by the NakedPastor, David Hayward.... What do we do with women

12 Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening

12 Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening
1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
2. Frequent attacks of smiling.
3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.
4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.
6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
7. A loss of ability to worry.
8. A loss of interest in conflict.
9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
10. A loss of interest in judging others.
11. A loss of interest in judging self.
12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything.

Go Ahead - Criticize The Church

Expressions of sharp and even violent criticism of religion and the church have been welcomed [in this collection], for they usually imply sincerity of thought. If caustic criticism of religious institutions and practices is irreligious, then Amos, Isaiah, and Jesus were very irreligious men. In fact, that is exactly what many of their contemporaries took them to be.
(Halford E. Luccock (1885 1960) & Frances Brentano, The Questing Spirit.)

Truest Friends Are Few

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." (George Eliot)

I Found A Bigger God

"Aslan says to Lucy, "Every year
that you grow, you will find me
bigger."  (In C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian.)

Distorted Pastoral Power

"If your Christianity depends upon a pastor’s preaching, then you’re along way from being where you should be." (AW Tozer)

Immensely true......

When Church Organization Takes All Your Time

"The Church ceases to be a spiritual society when it is on the look-out for the development of its own organization." (Oswald Chambers)

A Good Religious Experience Market

"There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness."  (Eugene Peterson)

God Bless You With Anger At Injustice

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
- Franciscan Benediction

The Kingdom is Already Built. So You Don't Have To.

This just blew me away.....theologically and practically. A good reminder of my actual position in things.

"Nowhere in the New Testament are we told to "build the Kingdom." lt is already built "from the foundation of the world," built into the nature of reality. You "see," "enter," "proclaim," "suffer for the Kingdom, but never "build" it. For the Kingdom is not a relativism to be built, but an absolute to be accepted, submitted to, obeyed."
(E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), The Christ of the American Road)

"

multiplication of man's machinery and the diminution of God's power

"We live in a day characterized by the
multiplication of man's machinery and the
diminution of God's power. The great cry of our day is work, work, work, new organizations, new methods, new machinery; the great need of our
day is prayer. It was a master stroke of the devil when he got the church so generally to lay aside this mighty weapon of prayer. The devil is perfectly willing that the church should multiply its organizations, and deftly contrive machinery for the conquest of the world for Christ if it will only give up praying."
R. A. Torrey (1856-1928), How to Pray

multiplication of man's machinery and the diminution of God's power

"We live in a day characterized by the
multiplication of man's machinery and the
diminution of God's power. The great cry of our day is work, work, work, new organizations, new methods, new machinery; the great need of our
day is prayer. It was a master stroke of the devil when he got the church so generally to lay aside this mighty weapon of prayer. The devil is perfectly willing that the church should multiply its organizations, and deftly contrive machinery for the conquest of the world for Christ if it will only give up praying."
R. A. Torrey (1856-1928), How to Pray

School Destroys Some Kids For No Reason

"But what hit me hardest was this. One boy stood out: he had remarkable powers of observation and intuition. When I mentioned this to his teacher, her reply astonished me: “I must tell him. It’s not something he will have heard before.” When a child as bright and engaged as this is struggling at school, the problem lies not with the child but with the education system. We foster and reward a narrow set of skills." (George Monbiot. Rewild The Child)

We Are Church Members. Some Just Can't See It.

"Are we all members of one Body? Yes. Does every member need every other member? Of course.

And that is exactly why so many millions of people are leaving institutional Christianity. It is not because they don’t want to be members of Christ’s church, but because they are members of Christ’s church, the Body, and have found that Jesus wants them to serve the Body and love the world in ways that waste less time and money." (Jeremy Myers. I Am A Church Member (but Thom Rainer doesn’t get it))

"Here are Rainer’s six recommended commitments (summarized and reworded for this review):

I will devote as much time and energy to my local church as possible, because if I don’t, I am letting Jesus down.
Nobody is perfect. Not even my pastor. So I won’t talk or think negatively about him in any way, or challenge anything he says or does, because doing so would damage the gospel.
Church isn’t about me. Even if I don’t like the music, can’t stand the preaching, there’s nothing for my kids, and I think the church is wasting my time and money, I will still attend faithfully.
No matter what, I will support my pastor and pray for him every single day.
I will bring my entire family to church with me, because the future of my family, the church, and the entire world depend on it.
I love being a member of this church, and I never, ever, want to stop being a member. It’s the best! I promise. It’s a gift from God.
Yes, yes, my summaries are a bit snarky. But if you read Thom’s book, you will see that my summaries are not that far off from what he actually wrote. I am using satire to point out how guilt-laden and performance-driven these commitments are.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because I am tired of church leaders with expensive church buildings and bloated church budgets trying to shore up their ineffective church programs by demanding further sacrifice and greater commitments from tired and weary church members. What ever happened to “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”?

While there may be some people are leaving institutional Christianity because they are rebelling against God or forsaking Jesus, the vast majority are leaving so that they can better follow Jesus into the world. Isn’t this something to be praised and encouraged?"

Why Our Life Is Like This.

When our lives aren't what we long for them to be, we often fall into blaming someone else. At first glance all of our problems appear to be because we didn't get something—or someone—we wanted. It often takes years of life chipping away at us before we’re willing to peek inside ourselves for the source of our discontent" (Kimberly L. Smith)

Getting Rid Of The Life We Planned For A New Ecosystem

Choices exclude other possibilities, and in life we have to understand this, or we will never be happy. The path we have chosen means we get to share in the enlightenment, joy, or sorrows following that path brings. We get to experience, enjoy, or despise the kind of people and relationships that are nurtured among people who choose this same path. It also means we cannot experience or benefits or struggles this other path and people share. How's your path working for ya? You can always change routes, but you can't have both. "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us ."(Joseph Campbell. Reflections on the art of living. 1991. Pg 18)

"Whether it is the character you show or the persona you project, the individual is part of an ecosystem or group., integrated into a community or group. And almost by definition, being fully integrated into one ecosystem means pulling away from another-following something or someone means not following something or someone else." ( Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg, 217)

The First Step Is To Leave.... Just Go!

For all the longing, crying, and whining, about a new journey, vision, or direction. The first step is always the one that trips most people up..... you've got to leave the old first. If you stay, you will tweak what you have, you will never venture out to  new reality. This my friends is what separates the crowd. Most never leave the familiar to risk encountering the unfamiliar. I was there for a few years and then went. Returned "home" and it became a prison to my mind, soul, and body. I had to leave once again to stay alive. But this time the leaving is divided between six months here and there.  Read this Quote, he hit a studio point.

"The very first sign of a potential hero's journey is that he or she must leave home, the familiar, which is something that may not always occur to someone in the first half of life. (In fact, many people have not left home by their thirties today, and most never leave the familiar at all!) If you have spent many years building your particular tower of success and self-importance —your personal "salvation project" as Thomas Merton called it—or have successfully constructed your own superior ethnic group, religion, or "house" you won't want to leave it. (Now that many people have second, third, and fourth houses, it makes me wonder how they can ever leave home.)

Once you can get "out of the house" your "castle" and comfort zone, much of the journey has a life—and death—of its own. The crucial thing is to get out and about, and into the real and bigger issues.

In fact, this was the basic plotline of the founding myth that created the three monotheistic religions, with Yahweh's words to Abraham and Sarah: "Leave your country, your family, and your father's house, for the new land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), We seem to have an amazing capacity for missing the major point—and our own necessary starting point along with it. We have rather totally turned around our very founding myth! No wonder religion is in trouble."
(Richard Rohr. Falling Upward)

The Worst Disease is........... Acording to Mother Teresa......

"Mother Teresa once was asked about the worst disease she had ever seen. Was it leprosy or smallpox? Was it AIDS or Alzheimer's? No, she said, the worst disease I've ever seen is loneliness." (What Matters most. Leonard Sweet. pg 20)

By My First Pair Of Shoes....

"That night Ramon came by the house and apologized for the long doubts he had had about me. "I want to get started right away on the new chicken house," he said. "I'd like to buy forty-three of the new chickens to make an even fifty, and then after the corn is planted, build another chicken house. By June, God willing, I will have one hundred chickens. You know what I'm going to buy when I am rich?" he said, beginning to laugh with delight at the idea. "A pair of shoes. Oh, my God. My God."
(Living Poor. A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen. Pg 83)

Impatience With Religious Games

WORD

"The first indication of spiritual health is your impatience with religious games Accepting church politics, empty routines,
meaningless repetitions, and other vacuous practices does not make you a saint; it makes you a robot, The point of the Christian faith is not to be a good church member; it’s to be a transformed child of God whose mission is to bless God and other people in ways that change human history." (Maximum Faith. George Barna)

Dressing Scandalously

"His beautiful old mother, the Senora Pancha, stopped me on the beach one day. She needed a sewing machine, one with a pedal. Would I please bring it to her the next time I went to Quito? "No." I told her. "I don't have that much money: it's impossible."
"When it comes," she said, "I'll patch your clothes; the way you walk around is scandalous."
(Moritz Thomsen. Living Poor. Pg 130)

Who Would Simply Help For No Payback?

"Wai could never understand what the Peace Corps was all about. It went against everything he had learned about life;there was something preposterous, something dangerous, about a rich white man living in his town and talking about working with him, helping him make more money—for nothing. He knew that there were strings attached, that he would end up compromised, his integrity flawed. No, no, no. No thanks.......
Later in  that same month Wai  came to my house on a Saturday night. He had been drinking a little, which was about the only way he could ever talk to me easily. He began to thank me for the rice, but he choked up, stopped talking, and suddenly burst into tears. When he could speak again, he told me that I was the only one in town who had helped him and that I was his friend forever. For a dollar's worth of rice and beans, I figured it was the biggest bargain of my life. He told me that he had talked everything over with his wife and his mother, and they had decided that there would be no danger in working with me. "The truth is," Wai said, "you were like a god out of heaven to us." Since I was already secretly convinced that Wai was some primitive deity, it turned into a real confrontation of the gods.
(Moritz Thomsen. Living Poor. Pg 128, 129)

"A Few"... Means Different Things In Different Cultures

"I think it was at this meeting that I asked a farmer if he would bring me a few bananas next time he came to town. He would be enchanted, he told me, and the next day he appeared in the street below my room leading a horse almost crushed beneath at least two hundred pounds of bananas, for which he charged me twenty-five cents. I hung them up on the porch, and the kids used to steal them and bring some of them to me as presents.
(Living Poor. A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen. Pg 55-56)

We Need More Lousy Followers.... Courage To Step Out!

When you begin to think outside the box, you often become some other "leaders" lousy follower. This usually costs something"
(Andy Rayner)

There are so many books on leadership today and yet, the New Testament never once uses the word leader. (I will continue to point this out for years to come)

We have a great fear of bringing people to Jesus and leaving them there with him.  We seem to act as if we have this great doubt that our indwelling Jesus can show people what to do, how to serve, or how to live.

We have this visceral need to get up in front if them to show them how it's done, as leaders. How's that working for us?  Under this new leadership ethos, the last 25 years has seen pew sitter activity reduced from 20% doing the work, to 10% doing the work (but they are more highly professional).

Let's put it back on the followers, and teach them how to think, listen, hear his voice, and get direction for themselves ("my sheep know my voice"- I can assure you few do.... Few even know what that means, understands how that looks, or how it's even possible- most get visions of some crazy, hippy, wing nut, loose cannon, kind of person )

We often substitute His direction, for the voice of a man with his own vision.
My sheep know my voice? (Ask your church buddies if they experience this living reality)

I'm not saying that what leaders point us to is wrong. What I'm asking is if leaders should be doing that much pointing to "things" anyway. They should be sending us to Jesus to get orders. 

A leader always points us to Jesus, every time. Not to some "thing" Jesus might want us to do, but to Jesus himself, period.

Yes, being that kind of follower of Jesus, makes us some other leaders lousy follower.

However, as for myself, I want more lousy followers, of me.

 AJ  (Somewhere in Islamic North West Africa)