Category: personal

Last night I was talking with Pam about some thing I have been thinking of for a while, and especially after finishing the book “Practicing Theology“, a collections of essays editted by Miroslav Volf. I often feel like theology is treated like something ethereal and other worldly that has nothing to do with real life. Christians often have little ideological “check boxes” that you need to say the correct thing concerning, which are then once they are checked they are promptly disregarded as  having nothing to do with real life.

“Do you believe in the Trinity?” “Are you Calvinist or Arminian?” “Please explain your understanding of salvation?” “Okay, now that we have gotten through that stuff let’s talk about practical things.”

But our big beliefs are really what define how we live. If you say you belief in one thing and then you consistently do the other, even when confronted by a realization that you big belief says otherwise, then there is a really good chance that you don’t actually believe what you say you believe.  That’s why they are called foundational beliefs. Everything else, from further beliefs to daily practices, are based off of these foundational beliefs. The big things are the most practical, not the least practical.

For example, one Christian practice is the practice of hospitality. This isn’t begin good at throwing parties, actually when done wrong parties could very well be the exact opposite of the definition of hospitality found within the Bible. We understand biblical hospitality through understanding the foundational beliefs of Christianity. our understanding of the Trinity, as the God Who is community in and of Himself and invites others into His community, should lead our understanding of biblical hospitality. If you just invite people over for big, fancy, controlled gatherings is that really representative of  a God Who invites us into His real self? Our understanding of salvation also affects how we live out hospitality. If we understand salvation to be a free, gracious gift that is unearned and we aren’t worthy of receiving on our own, how does that change the ones we invite into our lives? If you and I only invite the worthy into our lives, do we really believe that salvation is the grace of God, or do we secretly believe we are chosen because we are worthy?

For those of us who are believers our foundational believes are/should be the most important thing in directing how we follow Christ. A.W. Tozer put it this way:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. 

I would put it this way:

For good or bad our real foundational believes are the most practical things in our lives.

So for a while on Thursdays I am going to be posting about various foundational Christian beliefs and how I believe them to be incredibly important for our daily lives, rather than just theological “checkboxes” to be checked and then forgotten. I’m not saying that i will do this every week, but I will do it consistently till I have covered the ones that I believe are foundational. In other words, I will pretty much cover the beliefs that are covered in the Apostles’ Creed. For those who don’t know it, her is the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,born of the Virgin Mary,suffered under Pontius Pilate,was crucified, died, and was buried;he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again;he ascended into heaven,he is seated at the right hand of the Father,and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,the holy catholic Church,the communion of saints,the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body,and the life everlasting.

Amen.¹

So I was talking with Pam about this while we netflix binged on episodes of the Blacklist and I told her I was thinking about doing a weekly blog about this. When I get passionate about something I have a tendency to start talking pretty fast and raise the pitch of my voice a little. I’m sure I was doing this when I was talking with Pam because this is important to me (just ask Mindy at Emy J’s who I talked with concerning this earlier today as she was pouring my coffee). Pam started smiling as I was talking and I was sure it was because she recognized the brilliance of this idea. Instead she said through her smile “You should call it ‘Theology Thursdays’!” I tried to convince her that Theology Wednesdays would be better because of the fun of the dissonance of people thinking “He should have done this on Thursdays because it would sound better.” Since one of my foundational beliefs is that Pam is among the smartest people in the world I figure I should listen to her. Therefore, Theology Thursdays begin next week with the Trinity.

1. If you have ever been to a baptism at a Tapestry worship gathering the Creed will sound familiar, since it forms the questions that I ask of anyone being baptized. [↩]

According to Adam, my oldest son,  I have a tendency to get involved in circumstances that almost, but not quite, leave me in serious harm. He said this after I told him about my latest such event and he is right. I do often come awful close to getting seriously hurt.

This past week I fell from painting the second floor soffits of our home. The section I was painting was above our clotheslines so I needed to place the ladder a significantly shallower angle (see the drawing above for an idea of what I was doing). It felt safe when I was going up the ladder, but once I reached the top, and it was too late, I realized it wasn’t safe. When I started to fall I quickly decided it was best to stay with the ladder all the way down, so that it would slow my fall, but that plan changed when the ladder hit the clothesline pole and flipped me off the ladder. Thus I fell 10′ or so into the loving arms of the clotheslines.  The clotheslines caught me and saved me hitting the group from 18′ above the ground. Of course, once they stopped me from hitting the ground, they quickly decided to realize me and let me tumble the remaining distance to the ground.

While it left some interesting marks on my back, the reality is the accident could have resulted in MUCH greater harm than a sore and bruised back.  Instead of being really hurt I ended up with a fun little story of the time I was almost seriously hurt. I kind of like that.

Today I wasn’t quite as close to serious harm. While the single track mountain biking trail at Standing Rocks Park isn’t my favorite single track trail around, it is the closest. I am very thankful to have a close place to ride my bike. One of the things I like about the trail is that I always see a fair number of deer when I am riding there. In fact, sometimes I see those deer pretty close up and personal, because they are standing on the trail when I whip around a corner. I haven’t hit one yet, but I have literally scared the crap out of one before. Literally. Today I got a little closer than normal to actually hitting one of the deer. I went around one of the tighter corners at Standing Rock and scared a deer that was so close that it kicked dirt into my face. That was kind of fun. I don’t really want to hit a deer while I am riding my mountain bike because 1) that could really hurt me and the deer, and 2) it could really hurt my bike and I don’t want that to happen.

I usually try to go to a conference each year. These conferences push me to consider new ways of Tapestry being the church. The past few years I have gone to the Q conference and it has been really good, but two years ago I decided I needed a break from it. I spent the next year finishing my dissertation, which was enough for me. I’ve started looking for something else and to be honest I haven’t really found anything that I am really excited about. Must of the conferences I have looked at seem to center around bringing in a Christian celebrity pastor to preach a sermon at you. I’m not real interested in that. I can listen to those preachers online so there is no real advantage to spending lots of money to go to one of those conferences.

I’ve recently asked a group of ministerial friends that I love and respect if they would just pick a conference and I would go there to join them. I figure I’ll get more out of hanging out with them and asking what they are struggling with and succeeding with, than I will with any conference. I actually wish I could just develop my own conference but I don’t really know what it would look like.

At this moment this is what I think I would like to do.

• Get 20-30 ministers from various backgrounds together in a cabin secluded somewhere. Perhaps in the woods.
• Pick a very simple theme . I tend to think that simple questions/theme have way more depth than more complex questions/theme. For example, I think it would be fun to ask such a group of 20-30 ministers to define what it means to be the church in their areas. I feel like we don’t usually ask that question, and therefore don’t really even know what we are trying to do. Instead, it feels like we Christian ministers often ask “how do I do church better.” Which is my opinion isn’t the more important question.
• Ask a few decently respected theologians/thinkers to recommend some books and articles and the simple theme/question we will be discussing and then get all the attendees to read those articles and books before coming to the cabin.
• Kidnap one of those respected theologians/thinkers to lead a group discussion or two. As you can tell I a would be all in on this conference because it would probably result in some prison time afterward.
• After each kidnapped theologian led discussion group send all the participants out for some solitary speculation concerning what it discussion would look like in their ministry contexts.
• Come back together and discussion what we each thought out concerning our ministry contexts and learn from each other.
• make some awesome meals together and do some fun outdoor activities together.

This is the conference I would like to find, or maybe create. So, anyone have access to a cabin and willing to kidnap Miroslav Volf or perhaps Kathryn Tanner (whose writing I am beginning to like a lot)?

I’m presently reading “A Public Faith” by Miroslav Volf. One of the things that I love about being married to Pam is that every now and then she will stop from what she is reading and say “I have to tell you this,” and then start quoting from something she is reading that she thought was great. Part of why I like this is because it means I get to do the same thing to her. 🙂

So two nights ago I was reading from “A Public Faith” and Volf quoted Jurgen Moltmann. Here’s what he said:

Christian faith adds another layer to this everyday usage of “hope.” In Theology of Hope Jurgen Moltmann famously distinguishes between hope and optimism. Both have to do with positive expectation, and yet the two are very different. Optimism has to do with good things in the future that are latent in the past and the present; the future associated with optimism – Moltmann calls it futurum – is an unfolding of what is already there. We survey the past and the present, extrapolate about what is likely to happen in the future, and, if the prospects are good, become optimistic. Hope, on the other hand, has to do with good things in the future that come to us from “outside,” from God; the future associated with hope – Moltmann calls it adventus – is a gift of something new. We hear the word of the divine promise, and because God is love we trust in God’s faithfulness. God the brings about “a new thing” aged Sarah, barren of womb, gives birth to a son (Gen. 21:1-2; Rom. 4:18-21); the crucified Jesus Christ is raised from the dead (Acts 2:22-36); a mighty Babylon falls and a new Jerusalem comes down from heaven (Rev. 18:1-24; 21:1-5); more generally, the good that seemed impossible becomes not just possible but real.

Yes, I know it is a long quote but that’s not the point (and besides it is really good, long quote). The point is that my awesome wife automatically recognized that Volf, a theologian that I love, was quoting from Moltmann, a hugely influential theologian in my life, and immediately responded with “THEOLOGY-CEPTION!”

I love this woman.

SIDE NOTE – as a former youth minister who was heavily involved in the early Contemporary Christian Music scene I am now convinced that DC Talk’s song “Nu Thang” wasn’t just a cheesy, early Christian hip-hop song but also a cheesy, early Christian hip-hop song that was also an exploration of Moltmann’s definition of hope. Who knew DC Talk was so deep. 🙂

SIDE SIDE NOTE – to use an old church cliche concerning Volf’s description of what Moltmann said, “that’ll preach.” How often do those of us who are followers of Christian act more off of optimism (futurum) rather than hope (adventus). to pray for God to merely help us doing something nice, rather than make the impossible reality?

I was listening to NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour’s episode “Live From San Diego Comic-Con” and heard a great description of the difference between a nerd and a hipster. This is important at Comic-Con because Nerd Culture has gained a coolness to it that makes people who are just more concerned with being hip claim to actually be nerds.  The whole episode is worth a listen but I would like to share their description of the main difference between a nerd and a hipster.

A NERD is passionate about something and sharing what they are passionate about is part of the enjoyment of the subject they love.

A HIPSTER is passionate about something and they define themselves through the exclusivity and hidden nature of what they are passionate about.

In other words, nerds evangelize concerning what they love and hipsters focus on what the exclusivity of what they “love” defining them as better than others. (i.e. why hipsters move on to something even more exclusive once what they were passionate about becomes mainstream).

I could see how this could relate to lots of things in life, including faith. I think I would rather be a nerd than a hipster.

One of the things that Terrell No TV month means is that we take up household projects that we have been trying to avoid. For me that involves work in the backyard. I enjoy cutting grass, but for some reason I don’t enjoy landscaping and other yard work. Our backyard is connected to a local school forest and therefore we thought it was too shady for grass to grow. So all I thought I would have to do in it was build a fence for the basset hounds to be able to roam around within. 4 years ago I built a “temporary” fence out of snow fence and said I would build a nice wooden picket fence to replace it soon. “Temporary” has a wide meaning for me when it comes to some things. For building a fence “temporary” incrementally equaled a gate and a few 8′ panels of pickets three years ago and then the majority of the remaining panels 2 years ago. Unfortunately I stopped with the two hardest sections and let them stay that way. I just left the snow fencing there because no one really saw those sections unless they were looking for it. Or at least that is what I told myself. That changed when Pam came up with the great idea of talking to our county agent and discovered that we can actually grow grass in our backyard.

So last weekend we started the great backyard project. We picked tons of stuff out of our backyard, sprayed the rest with Round Up, tilled the space, fertilized everything, and finally spread seed everywhere (which has visible sprouts as of today). Working that much in the backyard and trying to grow a lawn made me think that it might be nice to have a convenient way to get my lawnmower into the backyard. I realized I should finish the picket fence. It was finished today. Two gates installed and lots of pickets hand installed in place (these sections were too abnormal for 8′ picket panels).

This left me with two things I needed to get take care of to finish the job.

1. Get rid of the 150ish feet of snow fence that I originally bought last year.
2. Clean up, which included removing 35ish one foot sections of what I thought was treated (I later discovered they were cedar rather than treated) picket ends.

I thought it would be pretty easy to get rid of the snow fence on Craigslist. Here is the ad for it.

I bought 150ish feet of snow fence to create a temporary fence for my dogs in our bakyard. “Temporary” is a relative term being as I took my sweet time building the wooden picket pence that now keeps my basset hounds in the back yard barking at deer that run through the forest behind our home. 

The good news is that the snow fence has now finished its “temporary” job and is ready for another use. Perhaps you need some “temporary” fence to hold a creature, such as your husband, who isn’t house trained and you need a way to release him into the backyard to relieve himself without fear that he will see a squirrel and run away forever. I’m not here to judge. I’m here to provide you with 150ish feet of snow fencing for you and your spouse to use as you please. As long you are using it for something legal you are welcome to it. If you want to use it for something illegal … well just don’t tell me about it.

This “temporary” snow fence is yours for free … REALLY IT IS FREE … okay if you want to buy me a cup of coffee that would be fine. I prefer the house blend at Emy J’s in Stevens Point.

I was sure the snow fence would go fast, which it did. I wasn’t as sure what to do with the 35ish one foot sections of what I thought was treated wood. You aren’t supposed to burn treated wood and these pieces were too small for anything that I would do with them. So I piled them up and went to throw them in the trash, walking right past Pam. Which is why she asked “what are you doing?” I told her and see said I shouldn’t throw them away, but instead post them on Craigslist. I was dumbfounded. Nobody would use these things and definitely no one would look for them on Craigslist. So I told her that. She said Pinterest had changed everything and people looked for junk like this on Craigslist now.

I hate Pinterest.

Actually I don’t hate Pinterest, but I do definitely have some strong, and mixed, feelings about the stupid website.  Anyhow I thought I would prove to her that she was wrong and I posted the following Craigslist post.

I have around 35 one foot long end remnants from treated fence pickets. Since they are treated they aren’t supposed to be burned, yet I feel stupid just throwing them in the trash for them to end up in a landfill. My wife is convinced that Pinterest has changed the world and therefore some creative person might want these things and be able to turn them into something beautiful. Like a plank sided house for injured squirrels or crazed turkeys. I, on the other hand, think they are just scrap. I kind of sound like a grumpy old man right now, but that isn’t usually the case on Saturday evenings (just Monday mornings – HEY! KID GET OFF MY LAWN).

So how about one of you creative types prove my wife right and me wrong and message me about getting these scraps before our trash pick up happens Tuesday. All I ask is that you send me a photo of what you have made with this stuff.

I received my first inquiry about the the stupid pieces of scrap wood 35 minutes after I had posted concerning them. I should never doubt Pam.