Fights within non-tradition

So I have recently come across a pretty interesting debate between Brian McLaren and Marc Driscoll about homosexuality. I personally side with Brian McLaren on this issue. Driscoll sounds like he just wants to pick a fight with McLaren over a lot more than this subject.

Also I found Driscolls comment at the end of his response to McLaren pretty offense and totally out of context. Driscoll failed to present his opinion intellectually and even biblically, but decide for yourself who is in the right.

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o.html- this is Brian's first article

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o_2.html- this is Driscoll's response

Biking is good for your health....so are friends...and good things, like community.

This morning my best friend Alison and I woke up at 4:30 to ride our bikes to church so she could open the cafe. I've become a wierd morning person. And Ali's wierd in general. So it's been a fun morning. Anyway, she decided to start riding her bike to church for two reasons. They are as follows:
1. She's lacking in the vehicle department and rollerblading to church has proved dangerous in the past... lets just say someone who wasn't alison and might have been me might not have known how to operate the brakes on her own blades and may or may not have been inches from

death on rickertt.

2. The fresh air will do her good
Sitting in the cafe this morning, I realize more and more the beauty of community. Donald Miller speaks well on the method of personalized spirituality that is projected in so much Christian teaching today. He goes on to point out that Biblically, community and faith go hand in hand. When I try to grow in a vaccuum, (even that of a Christian community) I begin to lose the relational ability to connect with people in a relevent, empathetic way. I get caught up in my development and my thoughts and faith becomes something that is driven by a strange selfishness. I think its safe to say that a lack of shared faith can lead to a lot of spiritual pride. Have you ever been discouraged by a Christian leader who isn't able to admit struggle or weakness? It leaves others in the community with a feeling of shame and an inability to connect at a heart level. The community as a whole misses out. When we practice this self-involved faith, we reject the fullness God offers us in the community he has created us for, and take away from those whose stories are inseperable from our own: friends, co-workers, leaders, aquaintences, those we are leading, people we chat with on a plane... Why is it that I find myself experiencing guilt when I realize I'm lonely? Because too often and too casually Christian culture reminds us that we must only rely on God, never man. And while this is true in the sense that God is our first love and the only One who will never let us down, i think an evil misconception seeps in that to need others is to be weak, to be lacking in faith. I love that God has created us as relational beings, and love the community he has surrounded me with. Amidst hardship and change and confusion there have always been these beautiful people who I've gotten to share life with. I pray that God will continue to reveal to me how to love recklessly.
written by Alison's best friend-the great and ohh so humble Kelly Shea

Answered prayers

God answered my prayer through small bills on Friday night.

Innovators

So I work at one of the most influential churches in the country. I am the affectionate face that everyone sees when they walk in the front doors.

Yep, that's right...I make the coffee.

Which is a good job because I not only get to meet new people everyday, I also get to serve the staff of the church.

These people are the cutting edge leaders in America today. The innovators of the mega church world. These minds are brilliant and these people are the adrenaline pumping, risk takers of vocational ministry.

So you would think that this risk taking, and innovation would branch into their coffee drinking.
Not true. These staff members like what they like and they are not willing to change that.

As one staff member told me this morning, "We need something stable in our lives, something that's consistent and the same."

To all those who enjoy their cafe' o lays, skim lattes with two packets of splenda, their vanilla caramel chai frappes, and their safari sunset ice teas with honey I salute you, and will continue to make those drinks so that you may feel some consistency in life!

Questions

So as I was openening today I was thinking about my first semester of college. I have discovered that God totally blessed me with my first year. I had the best classes, with the best proffesors or all kind. I also met some of my closest friends my first semester. It was a blast.

I realized this because I think that one of the biggest problems at Bible college is the fact that everyone is afraid to ask questions. It happened to me second semester. I just stopped asking questions in class because I was afraid I would look stupid, or worse heretical.

That scares the crap out of me, literally. If I stop asking questions how in the world am I going to help people in ministry? If I stop being invested in and growing how in the world am I supposed to help people grow?

To all who are in college, highschool, jurnior high, Ask questions!

To all who are out of college...do the same.

To everyone in life...ask questions! Get curious about life. If we don't ask questions we start assuming and you know what happens then.

The world ends, because no one knows what really is going on, and we end up electing a communist/socialist marxist who thinks that the best thing for the American people is apple jacks with chocolat milk.

"Home is where the Heart Is"

So, I moved home last week. It was really hard. I had no desire to come home, but I know that God has placed me here for a couple of different reasons.

It was fascinating how in the beginning of the year I felt like I was leaving my family and last week I had that same feeling. I had developed such rich and incredible friendships this year. Friendships that really are soul filled. I didn't think that I would have such a sadness on moving home but then I realized that part of my heart is in Lincoln. Actually more like there are different parts of my heart around the midwest because I seemed to have given it away to those whom I loved at Lincoln.

My heart has been scattered around the midwest...some of it is in Mexico and some of it is in the foggy streets of London. As I look around I see my heart in different parts of this place too. I have invested and developed great relationships with certain people here in my 'home' town and it is like slipping my hand back into a fitted glove in the summer time. It feels good because it fits, but it tends to sweat and become uncomfortable after awhile because its the wrong season.

My "home" are the people that have captured my heart.

"American Beauty"

So, I have come home, and God moved right when I stepped into my old room, but that's for another time and place.

I have finished the book Captivating, and it was Amazing. Stasi and John Eldredge write it together and it is a book about what it means to be a women of God. Yea, that was my reaction to it too. I scoffed at it all year until I sat down and read it and my calling from God has cleared up a bit more. It's still extremley blurry but I feel like God is slowly making things known to me.

I see women like Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore who are women of great faith and great teaching, but their primary audience is to women. This role needs to be filled because women need leaders who they can learn from and who they can relate to. I am not one of those women.

My role, my calling, is to bring beauty back to the church, through communication and leadership. I'm not talking about the beauty the world seems to be fixated on, I'm talking about the beauty that is found in Christ alone. The beauty that was given to Eve on the day of her creation. The beauty that made God think that things were "very good."

It is a beauty of feirceness and gentleness. This beauty has been stripped from the church and needs to be nurterd back to health. Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore have started that nurturing with women of their generation, and with the family.

I want to start that nurturing with the leaders of the church. I want to see this beauty be brought to the stages of every church so that the men can be called back to the strength of who they are meant to be.

Sickness

I'm sick of Postmodernism.

Give me something solid, concrete, real.

crazy friday nights

me and my two closest friends at lcc, jess and scotty

me, scotty, mel, corbin
me, jess, mel

So I have had some interesting and adventurous friday nights, but this one tops the charts. A buntch of my friends and I decided to go to Buffolo Wild Wings for dinner. We ended up taking three cars but by mishap at the end of dinner there were six people crammed in one car. So off we went to first Wal-Mart and the Meyjer we were on a mission to find the game Balderdash which we did and while in these stores we also played the game follow the leader.

We then headed back to Lincoln to play the game that we had purchased, now you would think that is where the night ends. However, you would be mistaken. At around 11 the game ended and we decided that we wanted to get into mischief. So Scotty, Corbin, Nick, Christy, and I headed off to find an Adventure of some sorts. We ended up in Kenny in the basement of a school with one of the largest boilers I have ever seen. We then went to Clinton from there. One of our last stops was a one room school house, and this is where our tail takes a turn for the worse.

We only had one flashlight inside the school house and we heard this noise. It was a scratching noise of some sort coming from the basement. As we shifted our weight suddenly our good friend Scotty fell through the floor, and what he saw was something that he couln't really describe. He stood up after gaining his balance and saw a man, bending over and eating something. Scotty didn't know what it was, it could have been an animal or a small child. Well that will get you running in the first place, but the only problem was the mean dog that was gaurding the stairs. As we watched in horror I knew we had to do something. So three of my companions and I decided to distract the dog so Scotty could get away. We headed down the stairs and started taunting him. Which was good enough for him. He lunged at us with his foaming mouth and we ran. So did Scotty. As we all ran down the long road to the car all we could hear was the dog chasing after us and the pounding of our own hearts. We all got in and started driving away.

We all still wonder who that man was and what he was eating, but some things are left untold.

I love the Foo Fighters. There are many bands that have filled my time up in the last three months, but I can always come back to the Foos and they treat me with the utmost respect.

I think that redemption is one of the most beautiful images I have ever encountered.

Shower Time

Last semester, there were lines occasionally in the shower room. Everyone was on their own and if you were late to class then it usually was because someone was taking a long shower. Usually it didn't matter but this morning it was different.

You know you have become a communal floor when the girls know each others schedules and are asking each other if they want to take a shower first. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal but God has transformed this floor in such a short time.

I guess that happens after eight months living with each other. It was cool to listen to, this morning.

God is Good.

Book Plug

So I recently bought Brian MCLaren's new book the Secret Message of Jesus, which I am quite excited to read but I am not allowed to read it until I get home. My friend also bought it today and said that he fell alseep reading the first chapter, but I'm still holding out for it.

Instead I am going to read his book Generous Orthodoxy, which I have been avoiding kind of.

I'm just really really excited about my new purchase and I am excited to get challeged. Pick it up if you get a chance.