So what's stopping the mainline from rising up together as one to reclaim the f word once and for all, changing the tenor of our national conversation and sharing good news with the world?
I've been on the road all week and, so, literally out of the Loop. But THIS guy has got to be out of his mind. According to The Smoking Gun, he's suing the Holy Spirit for getting injured when he "fell out" in church:
I'm attending the annual assembly of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA (where lots of cool stuff is happening) this weekend. In the bishop's report, she introduced us to the confirmation class of Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, PA. Their "Law & Order" parody gives a funny take on the ten commandments. It's a little long but it gave me a smile. It might give you one, too, on this Saturday morning. Enjoy!
OK so I am pretty opinionated when it comes to what churches need to do, be, change for the sake of renewal. If I didn't have such a winning personality, I'd probably be annoying. Even more often.
David Hayward, "an artist trapped in a pastor's body," doing a Vineyard ministry out of New Brunswick, Canada, continues to be one of my favorite and I think one of the most honest Christian bloggers out there today. Check out his "Jesus Love Me, This I Knew" T-shirt concept at nakedpastor. And, if you're somebody who, like me, is committed to helping the mainline move out from under the shadow of the radical Christian mega-right so that the world hears a different, compelling, but more nuanced voice (and, ok let's just say, wants to see mainline and progressive churches GROW again!) go ahead and laugh at yourself here:
Yesterday I started making a top ten list of words and phrases that people Googled over this past year and that led them to the F Word. Here's the rest of the list, starting with:
#5 - Are there Lutherans in the emerging church?
Good question. The conversation about what it means to be the church in a postmodern, post-Christendom, post-denominational culture "emerged" from within the Evangelical tradition. It is a mostly internal, deeply theological conversation that seeks, in the words of Brian McLaren, to find a "postcritical" perspective that embraces "the good in many traditions and historic streams of Christian faith, and to integrate them, yielding a new, generous, emergent approach that is greater than the sum of its parts" (A Generous Orthodoxy, 2004). It isn't clear to me yet whether or not this conversation will connect in any meaningful way with people who have never been a part of a church, but it has been an important and helpful conversation for those who HAVE been. Mainline Christians (including Lutherans) have been largely missing from and/or slow to participate in this conversation. But that isn't because we're not as cool as hipster McLaren and friends are. It's because, for the most part, this just isn't our conversation. Our particular challenge isn't to become less, oh let's call it, DOGMATIC about what we believe. Our challenge is to figure out whether or not we believe ANYTHING strongly enough to want to share it with somebody else. For the most part, we need to be having a DIFFERENT conversation in the mainline. So, how come people Googling for info on the emerging church ended up here? Maybe it's because of posts like these:
Continue reading "Top Ten Google Searches Ending Up At The F-Word (con.)" »
You can't turn around these days without tripping over somebody's top ten list of something or another. I've got a few lists of my own. Here's a fun one. Using a little widget from Sitemeter, that tracks visits to the F Word, I can see what people have "Googled" to get here. This is my list of Top Ten words or phrases somebody typed into the Google search engine this year that led them to this site:
#10 - How do Lutherans listen to God?
It's not clear, of course, whether this was typed in by some Lutheran who really and truly wants to know how to hear what God is saying...or by somebody who is suspicious, for some reason, that Lutherans haven't been paying enough attention. Either way, their curiosity led them here which is just pretty cool. They might have ended up reading any number of F Word posts that talk about listening for God...through the stories we read in the Bible...through the conversations we have with each other...and through the voice of a stranger. It's likely that they read this post, for example:
Continue reading "Top Ten Google Searches Ending Up At The F-Word" »
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