Moving Shadow Dance

One must not have a heart if this does not move you.

Life is Better For The Imagination Than Books!

I think this is powerfully so. We praise the goodness of the mighty book, but in 1969 this Peace Corps worker made an interesting statement. Life IS better than books.

"During my first year in Rio Verde (Ecuador) I think I read only two books; life was so full, so emotionally stirring, that reading seemed like a gray and tawdry substitute for all that surging life around me." (Moritz Thomsen. Living Poor.)

Proposition or Proposal?

I prefer proposals.....  they are much more romantic......

"....... Christianity wasn't founded on a statement or even a rational argument. God didn't send Jesus to deliver a proposition. God sent Jesus to deliver a proposal: "Will you love me? Will you let me love you?" In fact, Jesus not only got on his knees to deliver this proposal, Jesus was nailed to a cross to deliver God's proposal." (What a matters Most. Leonard Sweet. Pg 21)

Is Christianity (Our Christianity) Coming True?

"Elie Wiesel has said, "Christianity did not come true during Auschwitz." More than 20 percent of the German SS officers, the
expert killers, were professing Christians. This is a disturbing nightmare, a religion that is so impotent and so removed from relationship that it could not "come true" when millions of Jews were being incinerated. Jesus gave us a relationship test whereby we can know whether faith "comes true." The test, according to Jesus, is that his disciples are known not by how well they defend orthodox propositions, but by how well they "love one another." (What Matters Most. Leonard Sweet. Pg, 21)

Judged by How We........

And should we not be judged by how we love God and people? It's what Jesus said these two are the greatest things of all. Forgives us; forgive me, for making it about intimately, bismally, about insignificantly trivial pursuits, visions, plans and small dreams.

"The worst thing you can do to Christianity is to turn it into a philosophical endeavor. Faith is more than beliefs to be learned; it is bonds (relational) to be lived. Faith is more than holding the 'right' beliefs; it is holding the 'right' hands. We are judged by the world not on the basis of how 'right' we've gotten what we believe but on how well we're living it - on how we love God and people." (Leonard Sweet. What Matters Most.)

Good Leadership Is Not Managing Events?

"I don't think good leadership are people who manage  events or meetings, or entertain people with their gifts of oratory. Good leadership are brothers and sisters who are on a journey of transformation, can sit down with younger brothers and sisters and help them know the  God they know. That to me is good leadership." (Wayne Jacobsen. The God Journey Podcast. June 14, 2013)

Bono on Jesus

"Religion can be the enemy of God. It’s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. [laughs] A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship." (Bono)

Writing is Easy?

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
- Ernest Hemingway

There Is Enough Food

"There is enough food for everyone, but not everyone has enough food, says the Enough Food for Everyone If campaign."

No More Messages......

"I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages." (Umberto Eco)

I think I am getting there too. I don't want to be the center of anything. I don't want attention, approval, a pat on the back. I just want to be invisible in the processes of life.  I'm not trying to leave a mark, rather, I'm simply trying to be better with, and too, people. Nothing more.... nothing less.

If You Love A Girl, You chase her down.

More of Jesus and less of stuff, and management, and vision statements, and controlling, corralling, and manipulating the people of God. Why don't people serve, share their faith, love others, lack generosity and hospitality? Because their leadership needs better policies, procedures, plans, and programs to herd these mindless sheep into activity? 

No! The issue us a lack of love. When you love a girl, you chase her, and it's obvious. Same with Jesus. Want to fix the church. Tell them to find Jesus, really find Jesus, and kindness in word and deed will flow from them, without the "plan".

This is a powerful quote.

"Neither of us could get beyond Colossians chapter 1.… Let me give you some background to this text. The church in Colosse is about four years old. And they have accepted a false teaching. Scholars have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the Colossian heresy was. One of the reasons why there's so much debate about it is because Paul never defines it, and he never addresses it directly.

Now all church leaders should listen.
Paul's primary way of dealing with a church problem is to give God's people a stunning unveiling of Jesus Christ.
For Paul, Jesus Christ is the solution to all problems. And any problem that a believer or a church has can be juiced down to one common denominator: They have lost sight of Christ. Or to put it in Paul's words, they stopped "holding fast to the Head" (Col. 2:19, KJV).

West Africa Is Unique.

"To be sure, Africa is not homogenous,
and there exist great variations in her
faiths and customs. At the same time, a
commonality in thought and observances
persists throughout West Africa, especially among the Mande-populated countries of Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and parts of Liberia, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone. (The Way Of The Elders. Adam & Naomi Doumbia)

Distant Voices To a Different Path

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." (Henry David Thoreau)

Who's Laughing At God......??

"No one laughs at God in a hospital.
No one laughs at God in a war.
No one's laughing at God When they're starving or freezing or so very poor.
No one laughs at God When the doctor calls after some routine tests.
No one's laughing at God When it's gotten real late and their kid's not back from the party yet.
No one laughs at God When their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake.
No one's laughing at God When they see the one they love hand in hand with someone else And they hope that they're mistaken"

Never Able To Resume "Normal" Life, After Living In Rural Africa

"I lived in Africa almost half a lifetime ago. I was very young when I went, not just in years, and I return home feeling prematurely aged. For months after coming back, like the ancient mariner with his gray beard and glittering eyes, I cornered anyone half willing to listen and try to describe what I had seen and done and been over there. I would tell the story......and the sympathetic nods would last about 5 min. before my quarry's eyes shifted toward the exit......the experience proved as incommunicable as the need to explain was urgent.
Family and friends waited for me to resume normal life, but I seemed unable to complete the trip back. Part of me remains stuck in Africa,..... I missed the intensity, the surprise, the sense that life was real and hard and lovely. Nothing in America made me feel as alive as I felt in Africa..... And yet I can't shake the sense of having left behind Africa and obligations I can neither fulfill nor escape...... The book was supposed to provide a resolution, but in some fundamental way my time in Africa remains unresolved. And, of course, African itself is unresolved,....."
( The Village Of Waiting. George Packer. Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 2001, pg 317-318)

Women in Missions- Examples of Invaluable Contributions! Suck it up Men?

"Overall, probably two-thirds of the missions force has been, and currently is, female. Many mission executives agree that the more difficult and dangerous the work, the more likely women are to volunteer to do it! David Yonggi Cho concludes from his experience that women are the best choice for difficult, pioneering work. “We have found that in these situations, women will never give up. Men are good for building up the work, but women are best for persevering when men get discouraged” (p271)

(Example Illustration)

"After the last road ended, it was a two-day hike to where the Balangao people lived. The Balangao, a tribe of former headhunters, still sacrificed to powerful and demanding spirits who caused sickness, death and constant turmoil. Two single women missionaries, trained in Bible translation, were on their way to work among them.
When they arrived, they were greeted by men wearing G-strings and women wrapped in cloth from homemade looms. It is hard to say who was more amazed. The Balangao had asked for Americans to come live with them and write their language, but they never dreamed the Americans would be women!

An old man offered to be their father and was faithful in looking after them. Besides the work of translation, these women began giving medical assistance, learning about the spirit world, and answering questions about life and death. One of them, Jo Shetler, stayed for 20 years, winning her way into the hearts and lives of these people and completing the New Testament translation. Because of this dedication, thousands now know Jesus as Lord of the Balangao.
Jo Shetler, a shy farm girl with a dream, has stirred many with her story. However, stories remain unwritten of multitudes of women who likewise obeyed the call of God to serve Him on the far horizons. Many women do not realize how greatly God can use their giftedness and commitment in situations such as this.” (p 269)

("Women In Mission” , Marguerite Kraft & Meg Crossman. "Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 269, 271)

Settlers Often Oppose Pioneers

Should we stick around? Settlers are always opposed to the pioneers, and think them wreckless and irresponsible with their head in the sky. Kingdom wise, I think pioneers are still required.

"Spaniards......And all along the coast Indians came out against them, shouting and calling that they were "banished men." They taunted them with the hair on their faces, saying that they were the scum of the sea, and that they could have no other ancestry since the sea had thrown them up. "Why do you wander the world," they cried. " You must be idle vagabonds since you stay nowhere to work and sow the earth."

(Agustin de Zarate. The Discovery and Conquest of Peru.)

Faith is a Relationship.

"The Bible does not cast faith as a spiritual footpath to heaven or an inner stirring that we try to rev up when the chips are down. Neither does Scripture describe faith as a cognitive capacity that God activates to effect our justification. Rather, faith is consistently defined in Scripture, at base, as a set of trust relationships — with God, with neighbor, with the world, with creation."

(Leonard Sweet. What Matters Most. Pg 14)

Life thinks Our To Do List Sucks!

How true

"Life doesn't give a fat turd about my to-do list." (Jamie Wright. Jamie The Very Worst Missionary Blog)

Lifedoesn't give a fat turd about my to-do list. It just piles stuff on,all willy-nilly, without an ounce of consideration for my lack ofcapacity to get stuff done.

Outsiders Should Care About Our Churches Inner Family Fueds?

Well if the issues, doctrinal or otherwise, are worth fighting about after we are in, we may as well tell them as gospel to other who are outside, so they get into the right church, the truer church, the real bible church. ;-)

"... use of reformation language delivers more questions than answers. A reformational paradigm implies reform, but of what? For five hundred years we've struggled with reformational questions: What are the marks of a true church? How do we make a pure church, or a restructured church? A reformational paradigm is inward looking, revolving around the word come. Such a paradigm suggests that outsiders should be concerned about the family feuds within the household of faith. Besides, if we can't get the Reformation 'issues' right after half a millennium of trying, then having another go at it coining new reference reformational terms and lists and requirements won't help things now."

(What Matters Most. Leonard Sweet. Pg 8)

Is Christianity About Not Cussing?

The God of the universe—the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and e-minor—loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss."

--Francis Chan

No One Goes Through Life Unscathed!

"No one goes through life unscathed. Sooner or later someone you trust will betray you, a business deal will go south leaving you in a financial crisis, illness strikes or someone you love dies. Make peace with your pain.When you have been wounded it is critical to turn your pain into an ally. Embrace it and learn from it. Remember God has a long history of turning life's tragedies into
opportunities for personal growth and development." 
(Richard Exley)

Second Coming Of What?

"We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." Oswald J. Smith

Nature Has Become a Shallow Relationship

I loved playing outside as a kid.... and my kids did too. Their friends would comment on that every time they came over. "We like coming to your house, because we do fun things outside and in the woods. We never play outside at home.".... It's kind of sad to have boy out of tune with nature and dirt.

"Due to modern-day preoccupation with general busyness, indoor technology-based entertainment, and the taming of nature for our convenience, there is less and less common knowledge of the natural world. Nature is paved over and built on, and is finding its way farther and farther from our everyday lives. And where it remains, nature is becoming a distant place of postcards and vacations instead of being a comforting friend with whom to commune and interact. Nature has become a shallow relationship."
(Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate. John Kallas. Pg 27)

Saving Yourself?

"The church may clutch Jesus to its side, but it no longer clutches Jesus to its insides. For the Jews, the unique place where God encountered humans was the temple and (before that) the tent or tabernacle. For Jesus, the unique place where God encounters humans is the human heart. But the church has embalmed Jesus in rules, codes, canonicities, and traditions that have everything to do with the church's saving itself and nothing to do with the church's saving the world." (What Matters Most. Leonard Sweet, pg, 5)

Play.... Learning to Play Again....

"..baiting the serpent and battling each other, rather than being the people who like to play in the garden." (Theologian John Baker-Bastel)

Relationship: People Are Losing The Art of Living With One Another.

How true it is, and why people like myself have stopped playing the artificial pasted smiley games we once called "Fellowship" and are out looking for genuine people... where every we find them. And when we find them, we become a tribe, with a new song of our people. 

"The way to save the world is not through more rules to live by, but through right relationships to live for. People are fast loosing the art of being with one another.... They are detached from God, from others, and from creation. People are losing the art of living with one another. Relationship is the soul of the universe. And the soul is sick" (Leonard Sweet. What Matters Most, pg 1)

Real Christians.................

We designate people as "christian" according to what they believe. The World designates people Christians by what they do............... and that could mean..... how they emulate who they follow! Just an interesting thought.

"If you want to know who the true Christians are ask the poor, the imprisoned and oppressed. They will tell you."  (Gandhi)

Chains of Conformity.....

"The Chains of conformity click in tiresomely monotonous unison. But Jesus' life was anything but conformist, the lives of his followers anything but mechanistic. For first followers, there is only one "right" answer. And that is Jesus. (I am A Follower. Leonard Sweet. Pg 222)

Stop Fighting

"Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms." C.S. Lewis

Working the Church Machinery is fun, fun, fun.....!

“What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use— men of prayer, men mighty in prayer" 

E.M. Bounds

It's Hard To Look At Our Soul......

"It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean of one's own being alone. (Henry David Thoreau)

Sometines Preachers Voices Should Just Be Silenced.

I'm speaking about myself. I'm tired of the sound of my voice when I speak. I no longer feel scripture is muffled and in need of my exposition, stories, illustrations, quips and quotes. The truth is there. Look at it, read it, digest it, live it. When you do, you will finally understand how small the pastoral role could become, should become. There is a place, but its working from behind, as we walk with sheep.

The more visible " Leaders" become, the more invisible Jesus becomes. Trust me, one day when you're older, you will look back and see it.

"One of the most famous sermons of the Middle Ages was given by an anonymous monk who announced he was going to preach on agape, or the "love of God" The sermon was to take place on a Saturday evening just before dusk. For those who were present the next moments represented what Walter Benjamin once called "chips of messianic time." Instead of mounting the pulpit that evening, the monk sat silently in his seat. The setting sun shone through the stained-glass windows with an eerie glow. When the cathedral was finally dark, he went to the altar and lit a candle. Then he walked over to a statue of Jesus on the cross. In silence, he held up the candle to illuminate the wounded hands. For several minutes he lit just the hands. Then he moved the candle down to the feet and held the candle there for several minutes. Then he moved the candle up to the open side and then finally to the crown of thorns. After doing all this, the monk pronounced the benediction, and everyone left the church in silence—pondering the greatest sermon they would ever hear, a wordless worship of the One who loved us so much he would die on the cross for us." (Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 243)

Missionaries: Sexy Flashy Shiny Pasted Smiley Crispy Pastoral Suity and 1940's Hand shaky People Need Apply

This article so resonated.... "What sells" gets the Moula..... I know a lot of great international workers who had to drop out, who were excellent at their job, but lousy at church sales. And other showmanship stars lousy workers, and lousy to work with.....They were too sexy for their church, just way too sexy...... so how could you not support them.

But just for those of you out there who are not kiss ass kind of people, but genuinely love Jesus, and his church, but are too humble to "Sell themselves".... I got out of that Sexy game, and we still get support. We stripped off umping to a lot of foolish demands and expectations of supporting churches, and you loose some, you win some others....Just be you... don't play a game... Never tell your story.... tell the story of the people you live among so that we westerners can get out of our ethnocentric and myopic self and get a glimpse  of the world. Print this off and give it to every mission committee and recruit.

The Sexiest Missionary Wins

Dear Missions Pastor/Church Leader/Generous Supporter,

You know that thing we talked about the other day? Where sometimes missionaries use misleading language in their newsletters and updates to sound more productive then, perhaps, they actually are? Remember that?

Ok. Well. Sometimes, you're the problem.

xoxo,

~jamie

In 2006, U2 frontman, Bono, (literally wearing rose-colored glasses) called the Church to action in Africa during an interview for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. I was there. It was kinda awesome. It was a bold and honest interview and it created a fervor for justice and aid for Africa's poor and marginalized nations. It lit a fire. And that fire launched Africa Missions to the top of the missionary food chain.

Africa became a rockstar. Everybody wanted in.

Six months later, El Chupacabra and I found ourselves sitting across the table from a pastor as he explained that he wouldn't support our effort to get to Costa Rica because, “You guys are great. You're good communicators, you've got vision, and I really believe in what you're doing... but... I just can't sell Costa Rica... Are you sure you're not called to Africa? Our people want Africa.”

As we left, reality sunk in; Our mission wasn't sexy enough.

Honestly, we could totally understand why. I mean, really, sending a family to a largely Christian, tropical, vacation destination to do missions should be a tough sell. But, we were going to help launch Latino missionaries into the world, and “the world” includes Africa - so we hitched our wagon to the “Save Africa” train and had all of our support raised in 7 months. The end.

Just kidding. That wasn't the end.

Sometimes, the message from church leaders and individual supporters is that a paycheck is directly linked to a missionary's ability to come up with a good story. That's how the “Missionary Code” is unwittingly pushed on hard-working missionaries with boring but important jobs... like, I dunno... maintenance. (It's hard to write home about plunging the same toilet twenty six times in three days for Jesus. It's not sexy, but I know missionaries who do it.)

Everybody knows that “building relationships” is a Sunday bulletin snooze-fest, but the people in the pews go wild over Wham-Bam-Raise-Your-Hand evangelism. (Oh, sexy street-evangelism, you sly dog.) So “building relationships” morphs into something more palatable, like “planting seeds of Faith” (nobody ever argues with “planting seeds”- it's, like, Holy Spirit approved). Then, five hours of office filing becomes “praying over every detail of our ministry”, and having a beer with another missionary to engage in the messy but necessary act of commiseration, makes the newsletter cut as “fellowship, planning, and development”.

The point is that, while, yes, there are crappy missionaries who take advantage of this creative language to get by doing little or nothing – and we cannot ignore that problem – there are others, invested, engaged, hard-working men and women in the field, who sometimes feel roped in to this word play because the Church insists on overly spiritualized reports from missionaries whose work they don't entirely understand.

A good missionary needs more than your money. They need your sincere interest in what they are doing and how they are doing it. They need you to cheer them on through the rare exciting moments in missions, and also, the dragging, boring, everyday, “why the hell am I here?!” times. They need your f-r-i-e-n-d-ship. They need your prayers to stave off the very drama that so many crave hearing about.

Sadly, when sex sells, crime and illness become a missionary's bread and butter. When your house is burglarized, or your car is stolen, or you blow out your knee, or you give your kid a concussion by accidentally hitting him in the brain with a surfboard... *ahem* I mean, like, for example... that's when supporters perk up. They want to know more, they connect with your 'suffering', they feel bad and they want to help – and all of that is sweet, and kind, and caring (and, truly, missionaries need extra $$ during those times!) -  but, ironically, when a missionary is dealing with junk like that, they are the least engaged in their work. Drama steals a missionary away from the good and important things they ought to be doing. But drama is sexy, and the sexiest missionary wins the prize.

Sexy missions doesn't equal healthy missions. We are remiss when we simply assume that, because a missionary's reports are filled with spiritual fireworks, they must be thriving. Every missionary's well-being depends on a trustworthy relationship with their supporters, and the ability to express their struggles, defeats, and failures without fear of losing their resources. (Oh, and here's a tip: A missionary who never seems to have struggles, defeats, or failures should raise some red-flags.)

Healthy, real, legit missional work begins with a heavily invested church and a fully understood missionary. Pastors, leaders, and supporters need to make the time to connect with and be available to the missionaries they're in bed with. Only through loads of regular two-way communication will a missionary be able to share the true ways God is working in and through them. In the same way, by taking a keen interest in what our missionaries are really up to, the Church will be able to wisely discern the truth about a missionary's effectiveness and/or appropriate fit in the field.

We'll have to take off our rose-colored glasses and bring our expectations of missionaries down to Earth, but when we finally throw off that trendy neglige, we'll be left with the actual body of Christ, doing good work in the world. 

And that is just...um... titillating?

All Of Life Is A "Mission Trip" Join The Greater Journey

There should be no such thing as short-term missions. This is where we live now..... everything is about kingdom mission.

"Is what you are doing right now worthy of Jesus' incarnation, death, and resurrection? Are the footsteps you are following the ones that lead to unexpected places, outside the bounds of institutionalisms, legalisms, moralisms, and mannerisms? When all of life becomes a mission trip, you are a pilgrim on life's greatest journey." (Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 232)

The Fake Me - What's The Real Story?

The fake me is the glossy image I try to portray so that I look better than I am, and the fake me is also the image most people develop about me... the good or the nasty image. I've lived most of my life feeling like no one knows me, because few if any have tried.

"Living out of the false self creates a compulsive desire to present a perfect image to the public so that everybody will admire us and nobody will know us." (Brennan Manning)

"Our lives are composed of stories and songs, each an extravagant artwork worthy only of its Creator. And they don't need to be perfect to be beautiful." (Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 231)

Discussing Church Issues......

In Church culture you can't actually discuss any weaknesses, issues, or down right failures in the church system without them waching you with a label that is meant to just shut you up....  But in my book to understand a problem, you have to be open to looking at it, disceting it, discussing it, accepting the flaw, or failure. And only then can you actually build a better option.  

This guy is just negative, bitter, and justifying his negativity ;-) .

"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) From....... KI

Preserving Your Faith.............!

Why Organic Church Is Not Exactly a Movement by Frank Viola

"I've been gathering in organic expressions of the church (as defined above) for the last 21 years. And from my observations, many of the people who are leaving the institutional form of church presently are leaving because they are following a spiritual instinct. They are saying and thinking, "There has got to be more to Jesus Christ and his body than this." Or as Reggie McNeal once put it, "A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost their faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith."

(Frank Viola)

Hierarchy Is Great... As Long As I Am On Top.

"Followers move more from Spirit than from strategy and structure. If we have learned anything while under the lash of the leadership literature, it's that the more you spit into the wind, the more spit gets blown back in your face.

First followers don't begin with an end in mind so much as they begin with a horizon in view. This is not easy to understand—or to do, as horizons are ever vanishing and then reassembling. But tell the astronauts in Apollo 13 that they should have stuck to the plan
and kept the end in view. After an onboard explosion in 1970, the
three astronauts saved the mission and themselves not by undeviating
attention to the original plan but by improvising and by keeping the
horizon in view.

Such improvisational living tends to cut against our Gutenberg
grain. Francis Fukuyama, in The Great Disruption, argues that
"human beings by nature like to organize themselves hierarchically.""
Even democracy is a form of hierarchy—a hierarchy of the majority.
We don't dislike hierarchy in principle, only "hierarchies in which
[we] end up on the bottom.""
(I Am A Follower. Leonard Sweet. Pg 228)

Who Will Come Out And Play?

"Many stories emerged in the wake of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in November of 1963. Most poignant of all, perhaps, was the event that took place in the life of his young namesake, John Jr. Shortly after his father's funeral, little John-John, whom most baby boomers can still picture saluting his father's casket, approached a family friend, William Haddad. "Are you a daddy?" John-John
asked. When Haddad said yes, John-John pleaded, "Then will you throw me up in the air?"

Little John-John missed his father and yearned for the lift that only a flesh-and-blood father could give him.'' We all long for that kind of lift from time to time, which is another reason we need to be part of a community of followers."
(Leonard Sweet. I am A Follower. Pg 224)

Friend of Missionaries

My husband's grandparents headstone reads, " Friends of Missionaries"

 

Usha Rees  (India)

Simple Service By Simple Servants With Simple Love

"A follower does not need credentials or recognition. A follower does not need to be the trained lifeguard, the seasoned executive, the fount of all wisdom, or the one in charge. A first follower only needs to show up and be there and, when appropriate, point the way for
others who are traveling the same direction."
(Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 211)

The word Written On Our Hearts Goes With Us Everywhere.

Some times we forget the word is written on our hearts....... like if the book was miss placed for a few days... the word is, some how, no longer there or in our life. The word in the mind is better than a word sitting on a table, every time.

"For decades a story has been passed around about the legendary writer G. K. Chesterton. Among a group of friends the question was posed, "If you were stranded on a deserted island and could have only one book, which one would you choose?" Most in the group said, "The Bible." When Chesterton answered, he replied, "Thomas's Book of Ship Building.". (I Am A Follower. Leonard Sweet. Pg, 206)

When The Work Is Finally Over

A touching story.....

"Ruth Bell Graham (1920-2007), the wife of evangelist Billy Graham, is buried on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her headstone bears a phrase she chose herself—words that so moved her husband that on his first visit to the gravesite, he asked his staffers to read them to him three times. They are worth rereading here as well, a fitting reminder of the nature of every life's journey: "End of construction. Thank you for your patience "" (Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 204)

Jesus Said Geed My Sheep.... Not Lead My Sheep.

This quote does a great job expressing every danger I see about about this current leadership conversation today.

" Our leadership fetish has created knuckleheaded, clenched-fist categories of clergy as leaders and laity as followers. Clergy are the high and lifted-up people. Laypeople just "lay" there and receive the ministrations of the high up and lofty. Such a view reflects an underfaithed understanding of the power of Christ and the mind of Christ that dwell in every disciple. Pastors tend to call the body of Christ followers and themselves leaders. But like leader, pastor is a term used but one time in the New Testament. This very fact should cause us to stop in our tracks. We have come to believe that most Christians cannot follow Christ on their own. They need mediating offices, intermediaries between Jesus and themselves. This has created in the church a culture of control that is fast approaching clericalism. Besides, we never forget the scriptural defensive: shepherds are the leaders, and sheep are the followers. But Jesus' charge to Peter was to 'feed My sheep,' not 'experiment on my rats," "teach my performing dogs new tricks" or even "lead my sheep to follow the shepherds of the moment," The disciples were instructed to feed the sheep, not lead them, Christ will lead them. Jesus is the Shepherd, We are the sheep. All of us. (Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 180)

Get A Clothesline....For Relationship

It can be argued that all that has gone wrong with the modern world can be traced to the invention of the clothes dryer. (Well, almost). Hanging clothes on the line was when people talked to one another in backyards and across balconies, shared clothespins and swapped family stories, arranged front-porch conversations and restaurant rendezvous." (Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower. Pg 176)

I Don't Need To Stand Out Of The Crowd.

This Quote is where I feel I am at these days. Not making a point, not trying to sell a message. Just simply and silently living, on the back burner, behind the main dish, out of sight... drawing no attention. I like being here, and wished I understood it when I was younger. Life is so much better when your not trying to build a legacy, something that will out last you. Only thing I want to leave behind is Jesus, and some good relationships, in Africa, and in Canada. 

 

“In the second half of life, it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor. Life is more participatory than assertive, and there is no need for strong or further self-definition” (Falling Upward. Richard Rohr.120).

I'm Just Beginning To Understand At 45 Yrs Old

What I thought I knew and understood, I no longer understand so well any more. Not because I've compromised on anything, it's simply I'm seeing the holes in the platitudes I've been fed and adopted at every level. There are holes in theology.

"The first of Luther's 95 Theses was about brokenness, that Jesus willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance. in other words, brokenness is the ongoing, lifelong reality. It isn't something you get past It's a continually deepening revelation of your own impotence without the Spirit that's why you meet people in their eighties, godly men and women, who say, 'I think I'm just beginning to grasp the gospel." (Larry Crabb)

Placing the Stepping Stones Of Failure.

I've made a lot of stairs..... ;-) ..........

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." (Johnny Cash)

We will help......

Will we..... really?

"To those people in the hut and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves." (JFK's 1961 inaugural address in reference to Peace Corps)