Trucker Frank- Episode 3

There will be six more of these Trucker Frank videos released on Mondays. I think they are pretty cool, essentially because they are snippets of real life that illustrate the diversity of God’s activity among people.

Trcuker Frank- Episode1: Frank’s Story- A pastor becomes disillusioned with the church.

Tracker Frank- Episode 2: Marie’s Story- A young adult tells us why she quit church.

Trucker Frank- Episode 3: Michelle’s Story- Frank gets kicked out of the Christian bookstore.

SeWi: Southeastern Wisconsin Cohort

Harborside Common Grounds, Kenosha, Wisconson

A new Southeastern Wisconsin Emergent Cohort is launching 7:00PM, Thursday, May 15th, at the Harborside Common Grounds, 5159 6th Avenue in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This will be a convenient location for those of us who live in Kenosha, Racine, and Walworth counties in Wisconsin, Northern Lake and McHenry counties in Illinois, and possibly, points beyond.

The Harborside Common Grounds is a great coffeehouse and deli with a beautiful view of Kenosha Harbor on Lake Michigan. Look for us in the room to your right as you walk in. We look forward to the fascinating discussions, shared experiences, and new friendships and collaborations that will develop.

For more info email us at sewi@emergingconversation.com

Map

Re-dreaming the Dream

The road unforeseeably twisted and long.
Emotions swinging wildly.
Staggering like a person stepping from a crazy carnival ride,
I realized I was homeless.

A new kind of Christian.
A new kind of confusion.
Heretics and reformers,
And me, the new outsider and troublemaker.

Cyber searching, reading, finding an occasional stray.
Refugees battered and weary.
Wiley, wounded wanderers,
Wondering if they are alone.

A glimmer of peace, a hint of grace, a slight smile.
God is here too?
New wine better than the old?
God tricked me with a treat.

I can dream.
And I can live in the moment.
Something new happening,
And I am a participant in re-dreaming the dream.

“Your Turn” Summary

I am trying to summarize and synthesize some of the reoccurring themes in the sychroblog responses. Here is my rudimentary attempt. You may also want to check out the updated list of participants.

Holdover Issues

• Frustration. It is a time of frustration for some who are still in the church system.
• Abuse. It has been an on-going struggle to recover from abuse or addiction in relation to the church system.
• Confusion. It has been a confusing season of life and it is still full of unknowns.
• Performance. It is challenging to grow past a performance oriented mentality as we have been programmed to think of following Christ in terms of an activity check list.
• Community. It has been a hard to figure out how to do church in this new chapter of life as we don’t want to go back to the old system, but understand the value of community and mutual mission.
• Children. It is a time of concern about what to do about our children concerning church.
• Caution. It is too early for some people to get immersed in some dream about what God is doing and their role.

New Discoveries

• Rest. People are learning that it is O.K. to rest.
• Freedom. Several people mentioned a new freedom to experience God, often in the “ordinary.”
• Grace. Some of us are going a lot deeper in our personal understanding of grace.
• Identity. Some people are finding that their crisis lead to their uncovering their God-given identity.
• Relearning. Many of us are relearning some basis stuff about following God.
• Simplicity. People are enjoying a simpler life with time to experience God, and invest in their families
• Art. Some are growing in their love for creative self expression.
• Messiness. We are being reminded that all ministry is relational and messy.

I can’t help but be encouraged when I look over the second list. I think God is up to some cool stuff and that our painful journeys will be used for his glory and our good!!

Please feel free to comment or add to the list. Thank you all for your participation!

Feeling Free

Here is my response to the “Your Turn Synchroblog.” Scroll to the end of the post for a list of links to all of the participants. It not too late to jump in. Please let me know if I missed your post.

How am I doing?

I am on an upswing. I have spent a good chunk of my life pastoring churches that offered severe leadership limitations and I have spent the last six years trying to figure out, through trial and error, what I should be doing in this next chapter of life. By the way, I am finding this experience is more common than you might think. Now, it seems like I am entering a season of freedom. I am finding an identity and purpose that is not tied to the institutional church. That is something that I could not have even conceived of a short time ago, but now that it is finally upon me, it is a like a breath of fresh air.

Off and on through the last six years, I have vacillated back and forth through a wide range of emotional responses and I have had several different ideas about what to pursue. As hurt people do, I became more suspicious of people, more withdrawn, and probably a little more self righteous, but I never quit dreaming.

You can understand why I am excited about leaving that chapter of life and moving on. The upswing that I am experiencing is the result of finding a new sense of identity that is true to who I am and what God is doing.

What am I doing?

Today, I will hear about a job that I interviewed for last Thursday. It offers a very attractive blend of customer service and technology in a small, progressive company. It would alleviate some financial pressure, provide me with a fresh challenge, and put me into a new circle of relationships. Also, it would alleviate the need for financial sustainability in a volunteer ministry venture that I have been developing.

There is a good chance that we will connect up with our friends at The Fringe that would give us a nice outlet for friendships and service. Communitas Collective, the ministry that I have alluded to several times, will hopefully launch in about a month. I am looking forward to being involved in this new venture that will be a creative catalyst for encouragement, resourcing, and collaboration, providing community and opportunity for people to join the kingdom of God in a way the is right for them.

I look forward to a growing involvement and support of the good work of Lesindeng Soup Kitchen in South Africa and coordinating a southeastern Wisconsin Emergent cohort, beginning later this month. I will continue to blog as I have time and I am the September editor of the Porpoise Diving Life webzine. When you through in the kind of projects that a home owner gets has to do from time to time, a few recreational pursuits, and a few visits with family in Minnesota and Missouri, my life is definitely filling up.

What Am I learning?

God leaves a lot up to us. Through my transition time, nothing overtly miraculous happened. I have had to pray, soul search, and struggle with who and I really am, what God has been up too, and what I should pursue. It was a hard, but immensely useful process. So often, we float through life fulfilling expectations or doing something because it’s there or because we can. This experience has caused me to get down to the core of my identity. The results have surprised some people and even myself.

A little desperation is not a bad thing. Desperation started the whole re-evaluation process and a lot of good has come out of it, but mostly desperation brings us to God with nothing in our hands and nothing on our agenda. It’s called trust.

Watch for the beauty, the compassion, the humor, the joy, the peace, the wonder, the blessed moments that today has to offer. God is in everyday. You don’t want to miss him.

What looks like the end, may be a new beginning. Perhaps, we would never come to the new beginning, if the old way of life didn’t falter.

What am I dreaming?

I have great hopes for the job prospect and for Communitas. I look forward to having more of a sense of fulfillment as life gets more relational and purposeful and I look forward to helping people who have been through some of the stuff I have been through. Yet, right now I am just enjoying the moment, the freedom, and the sense of moving on.

List of participants:

7catz: May Synchroblog

Alan: You Are Here

Aaron: Life After The Gravitron

Barb: One Year Check Up

Erin: My Turn

Gary: Synchroblg Subject: How Am I Doing?

Glenn: Feeling Free

Happy: Better Late Than Never

Heidi: May Synchroblog

Jeff : Mile Marker Reflections

Jeromy: Our Story- Chapter 10

Kathy: It Stinks Down Here, But I Really Love The Smell

Lyn: Your Turn

Mike: Lost Or Found (Depends On Your View)

Rachel: Sychroblog…

Sam: Synchroblog Monday

Sarah: Glenn’s May Synchroblg

Tera: May Synchroblog

New Wine

The Passage

One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?

Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. 39 But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.

~ Luke 5:33-38

Thoughts

I am been pondering this passage for quite a while. My overarching thought about it is that the way of Jesus is such a completely counter intuitive, scandalous, antithesis to religion, that the religious are threatened by him. One is a system full of expectations, the other a way of life full of grace. The guardians of the Jewish tradition lost the concept of mission and, instead got hung up on their privileged status. The guardians of the Christian tradition, likewise lost their sense of being a part of the kingdom and mission of God, making the church the end in itself.

I really liked the old wine. I was an addicted drunk! It has taken considerable time for me to detox from my addiction and I am just now beginning to see that this new wine goes very well with (real) life.

I started playing around with an old wine/new wine list. Admittedly, it is a little generalizing and simplistic, but you cannot deny that there is a contrast. Do you have anything to add?

Old Wine / New Wine

• Faithfulness to the church / Faithfulness to the way of Jesus
• Using personal gifts and abilities within the confines of the church / Using personal gifts and abilities within their community
• Giving of finances to keep the church running / Giving of finances to demonstrate the Gospel
• Emphasis on externals / Emphasis on the heart
• Emphasis on avoiding sin / Emphasis on representing Jesus to others
• Fitting into a system / Being who God made you to be
• Seeing people as saved and unsaved / Seeing people as individuals whom God loves
• Discipleship is about learning / Discipleship is about living
• Retreating into a subculture as a place of safety / Diving into culture as a place of mission
• Worrying about what people think / Just trying to follow Jesus
• Praying in public / Living life as a prayer
• Corporate, musical worship / Life as worship
• The Gospel is about believing facts and the hereafter / The Gospel is about belief and life, us and others, this life and the hereafter
• Faithfulness is rewarded by being a church leader / Faithfulness is rewarded by being a people server
• Easily offended / Understands people are just being normal
• Clergy/laity division / Everyone trying to live life in the way of Jesus
• More… Bible reading, prayer, etc. / Fewer meaningless exercises, more heart for God
• Majoring on guilt / Majoring on grace
• Faithful attendance in church meetings / Involvement in the community and in peoples’ lives
• Support the pastor / Support one another
• Criticize the pastor/ Cut each other some slack
• Get involved in a church ministry / Get involved with people
• Dependence upon the pastor’s teaching / Learning from personal study, asking questions and discussion
• Emphasis on a weekly service / Emphasis on daily service
• Expectations of God because of faithful service / Acceptance of the mystery of God
• Tenaciously holding on to our doctrinal beliefs as non negotiable / Realizing that if something is true it can withstand questioning
• A place to gather with friends / Making friends in the natural course of life
• Needing a building / Gathering anywhere
• Professional staff / Anyone can convene and facilitate the group
• Fellowship / Parties

Ponder This

These three thoughtful quotations have been stirring around within me.

Reasonable people drive fanatics nuts. - Steve Brown

I have found that just asking questions or bringing things up can really set people off. When I say that our healthcare system is broken, I usually get the response, “You’re not for socialized medicine, are you?” I can see that the person’s blood pleasure is rising. Then I reply that maybe I am since we pay far more for healthcare than any nation in the world and there are so many people without medical insurance. Then the person’s blood pressure goes through the roof and I get called a liberal or socialist. The opportunity to engage in helpful debate is not there. I wonder why we can’t ask hard questions about complex problems and receive the input from all perspectives that we need. I think the answer has to do with vested interest and maybe having to say we were wrong, which leads me to the next quotation.

The church operates from an insecure center. - Kevin Shinn (I think.)

Why else would we have to affirm our finite believes in an infinite God? For a long, long time, I have been thinking that we don’t have God as figured out as we think we do. Again, we leave no space, no welcoming place for the questioners. If something is true, it can withstand questioning. I can’t picture Jesus operating this way, which leads me to the next interesting quotation.

Sin is about control. - Guest on the God Journey Podcast

I sin because I want to control my life. When I think God isn’t doing such a great job, I get mad at him and want to try to control things myself. Husbands try to control wives to get their needs met, when they find out they can’t, they get mad. Sometimes, they get divorced. I have seen parents obviously trying to manipulate their children, even into adulthood to meet their needs, when they don’t, they get mad. The way of freedom and grace is to try to discern how to get in rhythm with God’s ways, which is always a somewhat mysterious for us. We usually stumble around a lot bobbing and weaving in and out of sinful control.

When I started writing, I had no idea that there was a relationship between these quotations.

Andrea & Travis

Click on the picture for a slide show.

It was a beautiful, windy, happy day last Saturday at the Chapel in the Pines in northern Illinois when Andrea and Travis said their marriage vows. Travis has been a good friend of my son, Nathan since fifth grade and we kind of like him and Andrea, too. I was glad to have a part in the happy occasion. Congratulations!

Trucker Frank- Episode 2

Moments

Modern worship music has been much maligned as being shallow, repetitive, predictable, syrupy, Jesus is by boyfriend drivel. Some of it is. Some of the songs have been overused.

We found that the emotion of a church worship service didn’t seem to matter much when we left the church building. We would be disappointed and critical, if the worship leader didn’t deliver on the feeling we were hoping for.

The whole concept of a Christian musician or band struck many as odd. Why not just be the best band you can be and write and sing what God gives you, whatever the topic?

In these circles, we have been talking about toning it down, making it real, and finding God wherever he shows up, especially in art. That’s good too. God is in everyday and in the everyday and we can live a life of praise and worship.

Yet, there is power in praise and worship that is vocal and musical, whether it is corporate or personal.

In all of this, God blesses us with special moments of reassurance and awe.

My friends, may you catch a glimpse of God today.

Yea!

I really like Fernando Oretga and have been to a couple of his concerts. he seems like a very authentic (and funny) guy, as well as an awesome musician. Here is my favorite musical version of Our Great God with Fernando and Mac Powell.