Categotry Archives: Meanderings (look it up)

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In Praise of the Institutions?

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Categories: church, Meanderings (look it up), Rantings

Yesterday, I came across a book review on a blog that got me stirred up about institutional church issues like I haven’t been in a long time. The book is Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, written by the same guys who wrote Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be).

Now I haven’t read either book, so it would definitely be unfair for me to issue an actual review of something I haven’t read. But the blogger posted some select quotes from the book, and that was enough to get me started. 🙂 Here is just a tidbit from the book:

This is a preview of In Praise of the Institutions?. Read the full post (1530 words, 1 image, estimated 6:07 mins reading time)

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The Next Step

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Categories: How I am, Meanderings (look it up), My Story

So for those of you who have been tracking along on my journey…first of all, my apologies. Thirteen-days-no-blogging-here has to be a personal record for me.

Shortly after moving to Denver a year ago (!), I mentioned here that I was helping some friends with worship at a church plant they were/are doing–an…um…institutional church. I’ve talked on occasion about the irony and tension associated with that relationship, the various discussions we’ve had from differing points of view. After a year there, I’m still scratching my head a little, because I’m still a little baffled as to how I got the job in the first place. These guys know about my deconstruction and my feelings about institutional Christianity, and furthermore, they read this blog. If I had been them, I probably wouldn’t have asked me, because I would have assumed I would be trouble. 🙂 But for some reason, they did ask…and I’d have to say it’s been a healthy exchange all around.

This is a preview of The Next Step. Read the full post (761 words, 1 image, estimated 3:03 mins reading time)

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Sunday Morning Blogging–or, a Much-Needed Break

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Categories: Meanderings (look it up), What the heck was THAT?

This Sunday morning, I’m taking a much-needed break from leading the worship for the congregation I’m helping out.

No, I didn’t get fired for the sermon I preached. I was just kidding about that. (That actually went quite well, by the way.) This vacation of sorts was already on the schedule. 🙂

This is a preview of Sunday Morning Blogging–or, a Much-Needed Break. Read the full post (380 words, 2 images, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

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Not Knowing the Future Is What Makes the Story Good

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Categories: Meanderings (look it up)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lifelong struggle with making decisions, particularly large ones. I’m a lot better than I used to be (I think), but it’s still there. It’s mainly because I understand enough about cause and effect that I get afraid of what ramifications that decision might have for the future–what chain reaction it might cause, all that kind of thing. I also think it’s because for so many years I carried a misunderstanding about destiny. I used to see destiny as this divine goal or purpose God had for my life, something I had to live up to, and any decision I made would bring me closer to, or farther from, fulfilling said destiny.

No wonder I’m such a control freak. The stakes were just way too high.

This is a preview of Not Knowing the Future Is What Makes the Story Good. Read the full post (1170 words, 2 images, estimated 4:41 mins reading time)

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The Myth of the Consumerist God

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Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)

My family and I were having a conversation the other night about some of the honest struggles we sometimes have with faith in God, and what that even looks like. In particular, when we either ask God for something that doesn’t manifest, or when we believe something was of God that didn’t turn out the way we thought or hoped, it raises some questions in our soul about trusting God, or about trusting our perceptions. Did we ask wrongly? Did we hear correctly? How can we trust our perceptions in the future?

This is a preview of The Myth of the Consumerist God. Read the full post (1459 words, 1 image, estimated 5:50 mins reading time)

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Coming Up for Air

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Categories: Meanderings (look it up)

You probably haven’t noticed (or maybe you have) but I’ve gone almost a full week without posting here.

Gasp! What’s happening to me??

Actually, I’ve spent the last week being pretty much consumed with tasks in front of me that I believe HAVE to be done NOW, solving problems (or trying to, anyhow), etc. It’s taken all my attention, and when I’m not doing that, I’m too fatigued to do anything else.

This is a preview of Coming Up for Air. Read the full post (943 words, 1 image, estimated 3:46 mins reading time)

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Adventure Worth the Risk

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Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)

When I tell people much about our recent story, how we’ve pulled up the stakes, left our home of ten years to move to another place where we knew few people and had no set prospects for an income–all because we wanted to explore a better quality of life by focusing on pursuing our God-given passions and gifts–I usually get a predictable array of responses. Some people say they are happy for us (and the loved ones in our lives genuinely seem to be); but some say it a bit wistfully, as if to add, “I wish I could do that.” And some say it, but it’s apparent they don’t mean it–because when someone takes that kind of a leap (especially if it is successful), it flies in the face of the excuses they’ve made for themselves not to pursue their own dreams, and the bitterness in their soul causes them to resent the ones who’ve done it.

This is a preview of Adventure Worth the Risk. Read the full post (1184 words, 1 image, estimated 4:44 mins reading time)

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Sunday Meditation: Convinced in Our Own Minds

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Categories: Meanderings (look it up), Sunday meditations

One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him….One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind….I know and am convinced in the Lord that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (Rom. 14: 2-3, 5, 14, NASB, emphasis mine)

This is a preview of Sunday Meditation: Convinced in Our Own Minds. Read the full post (992 words, 1 image, estimated 3:58 mins reading time)

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Democracy and Citizenship

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Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up), politics? oh puh-leeze., Rantings

This post has been on the burner for several months, and I haven’t really made mention of anything political since the last presidential election (mainly because that’s not what this blog is about). But in just watching the unfolding of current events (including the health care debate), and continuing to ponder what the church’s role should be in such things…I think it’s time to write.

This is a preview of Democracy and Citizenship. Read the full post (1511 words, 1 image, estimated 6:03 mins reading time)
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