Tim Keel's Blog

60th Wedding Anniversary

If you ever come to our Sunday evening worship gathering then you have probably seen John and Ora Oliver.

John and Ora are in their eighties. They live in the neighborhood. I met them first when they attended Roanoke Presbyterian Church - the church that opened themselves and their space to Jacob's Well in its infancy. When Roanoke "closed" its doors most of the people who were a part of that congregation moved on to different churches. Not John and Ora.

They are a beloved part of our community. They come to our youngest gathering. They sit in the back. Ora wears earplugs. We are so glad to have them as part of our congregation.

Last week John and Ora celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Amazing. John no longer has family (apart from Ora's). Ora's family is in Oklahoma. So we decided to have an anniversary party for them. We had a great time sharing lunch and listening to them talk about how they met, their engagement and wedding (two weeks after they met, they got married over their lunch break, then went back to work...work was hard to find and so you couldn't assume that your job would be there if you were gone too long), their marriage, Kansas City in the 1940s. It was a great time with the Olivers. As you can see, they have a great sense of humor.

New Art at Jacob's Well

During the call to worship at Jacob's Well yesterday, I called attention to an art installation that was recently added to the sanctuary. At the front of the sanctuary there is an engraved "Lord's Prayer." On either side there are panels covered with burgundy patterned fabric that is somewhat thread-worn.

Several months ago a textile artist in our community, Debbie Barrett-Jones, approached Jannelle Mastin, one of our creative team members, about designing and creating two new pieces to replace what was there. We gave her the go ahead. She hung them last week and they made their first public appearance yesterday. They are amazing...from a distance, but even more so up close.

Click here to see a gallery with pictures of the project's progress.

In the slide show you'll see that Debbie hands dyes her yarn. How cool for an artist to be involved in nearly every aspect of the creative process. I am jealous. I remember as a fine arts major being unable to get elective courses in textiles. They only allowed majors to take the textile courses. The only experience I have weaving was from a middle school art class I took. I remember weaving on a loom and being captivated/entranced by the process. Looking at her weaving the pattern into the cloth reminds me of that experience.

Amazing work. Thanks to Debbie.

Khrusty Brothers Concert

On Friday night, May 9, my friend Don Chaffer's band, The Khrusty Brothers, will play their second concert at The Crosstown Station. If you missed their Record Bar debut don't miss this.

To say that it is a "spectacle to behold" is an understatement. The concert is a piece of musical, conceptual performance art that is a freak-show of epic proportions - in the best tradition of Meatloaf/The Flaming Lips/KISS. To say that the music is amazing is...well, exactly what you'd expect from anything Don Chaffer is connected to.

They received a great write up in the newest issue of The Pitch. You can also give a listen to one of my favorite songs from the debut record: "Sympathy for Jesus." The mp3 is embedded in The Pitch article.

Read: "The Khrusty Brothers bring their weird-ass gospel to the stage"

Leadership Journal Review of Intuitive Leadership

Former seminary classmate and Leadership Journal columnist Angie Ward has reviewed Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos in the most recent issue of said magazine. Kind of...

Actually what Ward does is compare my book to another recently published leadership book called Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point, what Ward describes as a mega-church near Atlanta.

It is a pretty interesting review of both books and she does it by comparing and contrasting what she sees as two very different approaches towards church and leadership. Here is a sample:

"The differences between Keel and Stanley go beyond style, however. They have very different views of the leader's role. For Stanley, the leader is central to a church's vision, responsible for creating it, communicating it, and maintaining it. 'When a leader blames the follower for not following, the leader has ceased to lead,' he writes. Keel, by contrast, presents a decentralized approach in which direction is discovered from within the community. In this setting, the leader's primary role is that of environmentalist, not program director; one of asking questions, not giving answers. 'Such a move requires that you trust the people with whom you dialogue enough to listen to what they have to say.'"

It's a short review but I feel like Ward has interact and understood what I am getting at with my book. I can't speak to her review of Stanley's book, but by her description it sounds interesting and worth reading.

In writing a book (or preaching a sermon) I am not so invested in whether or not someone agrees with me. What I desperately hope, however, is that they interact with what I have said. It makes me crazy to read something when it becomes clear that someone has not understood or taken the time to truly process what is being proposed. Thus I am grateful when Ward reports and then summarizes:

"Both books are worth reading, but they have very different objectives. Keel wants to change how leaders think. He seeks to convince readers of the need for a massive shift in how leadership looks. Stanley keeps the goal simple: to make vision stick.Taken together, the two books with their divergent perspectives, provide a full and complementary picture of effective leadership today. That's some real brain power."

Christianity Today has posted the review online:

Read "Which Half of the Brain Do You Lead With?"

T.D. Jakes on Race and the Church

I really like Bishop T.D. Jakes. He is the pastor of The Potter's House, a multiracial, nondenominational church in Dallas, Texas.

I remember one night several years ago when I was home by myself and flipping through the channels on the television. I can barely tolerate any religious broadcasting and so when I flipped by Jakes preaching and stopped it was with the implicit understanding that I would only be here for a moment to once again affirm the manifold reasons why I don't watch anything religious on TV. Except once I started watching/listening I could not flip the channel. The man and his words captivated me. I was blown away, challenged, pushed, etc. I have subsequently only seen him a few times but usually I am provoked by what he has to say.

Once again flipping through channels (this time on my RSS reader), I found an article posted today on CNN.com regarding the recent furor surrounding Barack Obama's candidacy and his relationship to Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I think Jakes does an admirable job not only dissecting some of the rhetoric and division of the past weeks, but also casting a vision for a future where the church takes the lead in embodying something different. In that sense I think Jakes's message connects to the most profound aspect of what makes Obama such a compelling candidate for so many people: a refusal to accept politics on the terms and terrain it has occupied.

T.D. Jakes article on CNN

Disorientation

In his book "The Psalms and the Life of Faith" Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann employs Paul Ricoeur's study and understanding of the use of language in the life of faith. Brueggemann reports Ricoeur describing "life as movement, dialectic but not regular or patterned, of disorientation and reorientation."

In our worship gatherings for the last two weeks we having been engaging the Psalms as a means of developing a fully-orb vocabulary of faith. Brueggemann then broadly categorizes psalms in one of three possible locations: psalms of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. The first week we interacted with Psalm 145 as a psalm of orientation. This last Sunday we warily approached Psalm 88 as a psalm of disorientation. It was a powerful and moving experience for me, and based on my observations, for many others as well. My premise has been that as Americans consumed with success and the realization and actualization of our selves in our circumstances, we have no way to engage God and/or the life of faith when such things are frustrated. We don't know how to faithfully complain, lament, etc. This pattern of engagement is missing from our worship lexicon. Not so in the psalms.

Today Eric Hurst IMd me this link with the message: "So I read this Monday morning. I wish you had it for Sunday's teaching." The artist is Chris Harding, a local KC artist apparently. I think it describes the dilemma most of us feel but that hopefully we are undercutting as we build our worship vocabulary to include the same kinds of sentiments and realities present in Psalm 88.

Give a listen here.

The Monks of Moyross

Here is a really fascinating/enjoyable interview with three monks from Brooklyn (Brother Shawn, Brother Martin, and Father Sylvester) on an Irish late night television show. They moved from Brooklyn to a poor estate in Ireland and are now living there among the people.

I don't know how long it will stay up on the main page but for now you just need to scroll down a bit. The segment is called The Monks of Moyross. It runs around 15 minutes.

Ringing the Bells...really!

If anyone is interested in praying the daily office during Holy Week, much in the manner I described in my sermon from a couple of weeks ago, then we can help you do this.

In the sermon on discipling the day through the discipline of fixed-hour prayer, I described how beginning at 6:00 a.m. bells were rung throughout the Roman empire to signal the opening of the market. It was subsequently rung every three hours as the day passed and concluded at 6:00 p.m. when the markets closed. Jews and Christians alike incorporated the ringing of those bells as a call to prayer throughout the day.

We generally lack similar kinds of prompts through our days that help us to be "called" to prayer. This week we are experimenting with just such a prompt: text messages or email reminders. Since many people sit in front of screens or are out and about with only their phones, using technology to prompt us to pray in many ways is analogous to the ringing bells of the Roman markets.

If you would like to receive either a text message or an email three times a day (at 9:00 a.m., noon, and 3:00 p.m.) with a psalm to pray, then follow these simple instructions:

• To receive a text message 1) send a text message from your phone to 40404 that says "follow jacobswell". 2) When you receive verification (within minutes) text back (to 40404) your name. You are now signed up.
• To receive an email, email Beth with "Ring the bells" as the subject line.

Visualizing the Bible

No, this is not "Walk Through the Bible" 2.0. This is an amazing work of mapping the Bible in view of social networking. Chris Harrison is the creator of this amazing visual data set that cross-references the Bible for aesthetic, not just academic purposes. He also goes on to the narrative of the Bible mapping names and how they are interconnected. It reminds me of the "friendwheel" application on Facebook. He describes the scope of what he seeks to do in this way:

"I wanted to better capture the story, most notably the people and places, and the interactions between them. I did this by building a list of biblical names (2619 in total) and parsing a digital copy of the King James Bible. Each time two names occurred in the same verse, a connection was created between them. This produced essentially a social network of people and places. Because such relationships had no ordering or structure (unlike the cross references), I used a spatial clustering algorithm I developed for one of my other projects. This process causes related entities and highly connected groups to coalesce. I themed the output like an old piece of parchment."

There is a lot of amazing information to be observed. Check it out.

Visualizing the Bible

I Am Geek

Okay, I admit it...I am a geek - and this is the post that is going to totally expose me.

I really like good speculative fiction. There. I said it.

"Huh?," you say.

Speculative fiction is a snob's way of saying science fiction. For most people science fiction as a genre evokes images of bad robots from 1950s B-movies or legions of geeked-out Star Trek/Star Wars fans living in their parents' basements in some kind of alternate fanboy universe. For sure those images and people exist. And I am not better or all that different really. Or, perhaps I am - not in kind but in degree. I like hard science fiction. I like science fiction that engages the science of quantum realities, that explores the limits of what it means to be a human, a species, a society, etc. I like science fiction that is about big ideas that conventional literary forms, grounded as they are in the world as it is, cannot begin to engage. I like to engage my imagination with the world as it might be. Science fiction allows one to position a narrative in a possible future, even if it is only a minute further into that future, and posit, "What if?"

This is why I like the term "speculative" as a modifier for fiction. It speculates about another world, either a little beyond our own or so far removed as to be nearly unrecognizable. Often such a world forces its protagonists to wrestle with significant moral/ethical issues that might not be as accessible or as interesting in a standard format. Writers like Orson Scott Card (in his early writing especially) and William Gibson (who continues to amaze) create worlds of possibility and invite you to engage there deeply. If you are interested in engaging speculative fiction on a more philosophical level, you might read the articles connected to the following links.

Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing

William Gibson Explains Why Science Fiction is About the Present

But back to the ultimate purpose of this post...You know where 99% of the bad rap science/speculative fiction originates from? Poor film adaptions of what is usually incredible source material.

Last Christmas season Will Smith starred in a movie that got a lot of advertising attention, moderate critical reception, and a decent box office: I Am Legend. Go ahead, hit the link, watch the trailer, then come back. I'll wait...This movie is based off a "legend"-ary work of what I would consider fantastic speculative fiction that dates to the 1950s. Written by Richard Matheson in 1954, this book tells the story of the last surviving human, Robert Neville. It's not that everyone else is dead; it's that everyone else has been transformed into some variation of a vampire. Sounds cheesy, I know. Except that Matheson wraps the vampire convention in a plausible life-science scenario of genetic mutation and species evolution. It's a big idea kind of book. And it builds and it builds and it builds and you have no idea where it is going until wham! You are on the last page and there is the big reveal and it is over and there you sit - astounded by what Matheson has pulled off. Something you never see coming. Just like the ending of The Sixth Sense.

Back to the film. Imagine if the movie studio heads determined in the end that audiences weren't smart enough to understand what M. Night Shamalayan was doing in The Sixth Sense and told him to erase the part about Bruce Willis's character being dead - scratch that part. Let him solve the murder mystery conventionally and become a fond uncle to Haley Joe Osment's character. I can hear them: "Let's let him watch the young man mature, reunited and living happily with his wife, far into the future. Much brighter that way. Audiences like bright." Except that didn't happen to The Sixth Sense and that is essentially what happened to I Am Legend. Some studio head at Warner Bros. decided that people were incapable of handling a big idea movie and instead settled for science fiction movie conventional ending #435. I was fuming when I left the theatre. They took an amazing plot and eviscerated it. And that happens all the time.

Now - why the aneurysm today? I found a blogpost about I Am Legend. It is about to be released on DVD. And guess what? They filmed an ending much closer to Matheson's original. The fact that they understood and filmed something in the spirit of the original and then butchered it? Unconscionable. But through the wonderful opportunities that DVDs and director's cuts create, we speculative fiction geeks have the opportunity to see a more faithful (but still not perfect) rendition of Matheson's classic.

I don't want to blow the ending for anyone whose curiosity is stoked, but if you go to FirstShowing.net, you can read that blogger's take on this, with a little more detail on the plot itself and what makes the ending so good - and see the five-minute long alternate ending!

Okay. That is all.

I Am Geek.

Ringing the Bell: Some Fixed-Hour Prayer Resources

Yesterday I gave a sermon titled, "Learning the Rhythms of Prayer." It was the fourth in our Lenten series exploring the seven spiritual practices that migrated from Judaism to Christianity. Here's a brief refresher on what we have covered thus far:

• Discipling the Body: The Practice of Shared Meal - Eucharist (02/10/08)
• Discipling the Body: The Practice of Fasting (02/17/08)
• Discipling the Body: The Practice of Tithing (02/24/08)
• Discipling Time: Discipling the Day: The Practice of Fixed-Hour Prayer (03/02/08)

The final three also revolve around discipling time and expand around the week, the year, and the life. Conceptually it has been really fun to explore these rhythms and practices. It has also been great to examine them in the context of a community that is always hungry to engage opportunities for added depth.

The discipline of fixed-hour prayer is a challenging practice for most people to begin to engage because for many of us it is such an alien orientation to a spiritual practice that has largely been individual, spontaneous, and self-directed. Like I mentioned in the message yesterday this has been a slow process of learning for me that begin when I first visited Conception Abbey seven years ago. In the hopes of helping others access this rich stream of prayer I am posting some resources that I think are helpful for those who want to journey here, too.

Books:

"The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime"

This is a four volume set that follows the liturgical year (it doesn't sell as a set). It has a marvelous introduction that if you read you will find much of the material I used yesterday to set up the cultural history of fixed-hour prayer. My wife, Mimi, uses and loves this resource.

"The Divine Hours, Pocket Edition"

This prayer book is also by Phyllis. It is simply a condensed version of the longer four volume group. This is the prayer book that I am currently using to shape my prayer life.

"Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings From the Northumbria Community"

I have reference this prayer book resource several times in the context of the Jacob's Well worship gathering. We often use the prayers and readings when we do more liturgical worship experiences. Likewise, when I shared the first-footing prayer called "The Open Door," this is where it came from. Additionally I mentioned that the Northumbria community has a wonderful online prayer resource. If you sit in front of a computer all day and would like to access a way to prayer the office that is simple, beautiful, and accessible, then check out this link: Northumbria Community online.

"The Glenstal Book of Prayer: A Benedictine Prayer Book"

This is the final book I'll reference. It is another small and simple resource for prayer. I like it a lot. I have a friend who is a Presbyterian pastor who travels to Glenstal Abbey once a year on pilgrimage and study leave and loves the community there. He carries this around with him. I actually found this a number of years ago in the bookstore at the National Pastors/Emergent Convention in Nashville.

Web Resources:

Northumbria Community (again)

Sacred Space

Sacred Gateway

Magazine Articles Referenced Yesterday (from Christianity Today):

"Learning the Ancient Rhythms of Prayer," by Paul Boers.

"The New Monasticism," by Rob Moll.

"Ancient-Future People," by Mark Galli.

Finally, here is the Pepsi Blue commercial we included yesterday. Enjoy.

An Efficient Gospel?

Last fall Andy Crouch invited me to write an article for Christianity Today's Christian Vision Project. The question he invited me to consider was really rather limited in its scope: "Is our gospel too small?" See what I mean.

Anyway, I appreciated the opportunity Andy gave me and took this assignment as a challenge. I submitted my piece in November and while the finished article has been edited to half its original length, I am pleased with how it turned out.

It recently ran in the winter issue of Leadership Journal, one of the magazines in the Christianity Today International family of publications. The magazine came out around one month ago but they have just now made my article available online. Marshall Shelley, editor of Leadership Journal, has decided to make this question, "Is our gospel too small?" the focal point of the Christian Vision Project for 2008. My article is the lead offering. They retitled my piece, "An Efficient Gospel?"

An excerpt:

Asking "Is our gospel too small?" implies that something is off kilter—that somehow we have gone off course in the way we answer "the gospel question." But it may not be just our gospel that is too small. It may be that we have been living in a world that was too small—the small, reduced world of modernity.

One of the features of the modern world was "reductionism": the belief that complex things can always be reduced to simpler or more fundamental things. To reduce something is to take it out of context and to take it apart. Church leaders have become experts at reductionism. Ministries that are successful in one context are reduced to "models" that we try to duplicate in other contexts. Sometimes such reductionism is effective. But when we use reductionism indiscriminately, we end up in a world so simplified it is barely recognizable.

So in a modern world, we tend to reduce the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to simple systems, even when our systems flatten the diversity and integrity of the biblical witness. We reduce our sermons to consumer messages that reduce God to a resource that helps the individual secure a reduced version of the "abundant life" Jesus promised (John 10:10).

You can read it here.

Sulking Along on the Edge of Rage?

I got to hang out a couple of nights ago with a friend that I don't often get much time with. It was rich. How great it is to have a couple of people in your life in whose company you are largely unaware of your self - you are just free to be what you are.

As the time we spent catching up was winding down, he got a bit of a look in his eyes, got up and after a few minutes perusing my bookshelves, pulled down Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" and shared this quote with me.

"Thomas Merton wrote, 'There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.' There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus."

Thank God for writers like Annie Dillard and for friends who read her (and others like her) and share the wealth they find plumbing the depths of pages not always easily navigated.

Final JW Advent Conspiracy Video + News

Andy Michael, our own resident Welshman, has been putting together amazing little films for the Jacob's Well community for a couple of years. Some of you will remember three films he made during Advent last year. You can refresh your memory or see Andy's artistry for the first time here.

Throughout the Advent season this year Andy chronicled our liturgical observance as we joined the Advent Conspiracy. He then assembled his footage and an amazing collection of other images, ideas, and music together into the video that we showed on Epiphany Sunday (January 6). This was also the Sunday that we revealed to the JW community the amount collected for redistribution for fresh water.

After showing the film we then announced that our church community, and many people that surround our church community, contributed $65,000 towards fresh water for communities without access to this basic human need - specifically, people living in the Pokot region on NW Kenya. Amazing...and money is still coming in. In partnership with Living Water International and a few other communities of faith who also participated in the Advent Conspiracy it looks like we are going to be able to dig the five wells necessary to allow this group of people to become settled. That is good news. I will be continuing to provide updates on this in the near future.

In the meantime, here is the video summary of the Advent Conspiracy at Jacob's Well. Andy sent me a link to the video that is hosted at a high quality on his website. It takes awhile to load because of the size of the file, but it is worth the wait.

[JWAC] Video Link

If you want a lo-res/quick-to-download version, then here is the same video that I uploaded to YouTube. By the way, the opening music is from Don Chaffer's wildly creative alter-ego band, The Khrusty Brothers.

The Holy Ground of Daily Life

On Wednesday evening, January 23 at 7:00 p.m., Father Adam Ryan of Conception Abbey will be speaking about prayer and daily life.

Many who have been around Jacob's Well for awhile will perhaps remember that Father Adam preached at Jacob's Well a number of years ago. However, it has not been his preaching that has been so influential as has been his friendship to many in our community for a number of years.

I met Fr. Adam in 2000 when I was on study leave at Conception Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in northwest Missouri. We met and quickly formed a fast friendship. Fr. Adam has been a fixture in my life ever since, giving me both spiritual direction and a great many other gifts as well. Over the years many other people have begun to travel to Conception Abbey, many to meet with Father Adam.

Last month Adam called me and mentioned that he was going to be hosting a talk about prayer and contemplation and their benefits to daily life. Adam often talks about monasticism generally and spiritual practices specifically as human, humane, and humanizing. He invited Jacob's Well to participate in this event. It was originally to have Ryan Lefebvre, the play-by-play voice for the Kansas City Royals. Ryan is a great guy who I have had the opportunity to meet on a couple of occasions. He has been very up front and public about a very significant bout of depression he weathered a couple of years ago. Critical to his healing/ongoing health was/is the discovery of prayer/contemplation/meditation. In that vein, he connected to Fr. Adam. I think the original idea was to have them both talk tomorrow night. Then at the end of March a prayer pilgrimage to Conception Abbey was being discussed as a continued opportunity for learning and integration. At this point I do not know whether or not Lefebvre will be there tomorrow night or when the pilgrimage would be. However, I do know that Adam will be speaking tomorrow night and I believe it will be well worth your time.

We have had fliers up around Jacob's Well for a couple of weeks. Here is how they describe the gathering:

"God calls each of us to holiness now in our current life situations: our homes, jobs and relationships. Prayer and contemplation are available to everyone everyday. The evening will explore practical traditional ways of prayer from centuries of Christian life and holiness-practices by which men and women have experienced and shared the grace of Jesus."

Event Details:

Wednesday, January 23, 7:00 p.m.
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
(gold-domed church downtown)

Genetic Code Feedback

Although I wasn't initially that keen to enter into the most recent sermon series at Jacob's Well (the reasons I explained in the opening sermon), I have been surprised by what it has evoked from me and some of the response I have received from others. "The Genetic Code of Jacob's Well" seems to be a good thing for our community. For that, I am grateful.

One of the most satisfying aspects of preaching for me is when our dialogue provokes further creativity and dialogue beyond Sunday. Let me give you a simple example. When talking about our "core identity" in week one as a holistic missional Christian community, I used this quote by Lesslie Newbigin to illustrate the necessity of a robust communal orientation for the purpose of mission.

“How can this strange story of God made man, of a crucified savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world that can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: congregations that believe it.”

That quote provoked JWer Roger Strong to share this one with me from the deceased archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Suhard. Roger has this on his computer at his place of work.

"To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."

Rich.

Today I received another quote, of sorts, that inspired me. This comes to me via email from Brian Hull, another JWer and also a muckety-muck in the Nazarene denomination who works on a macro-level on issues related to youth. Brian sent me this prayer that I think serves to illustrate the posture we try to host as we go seeking after God as a community in the midst of this brave, new world. The prayer can be found in William Barclay's Prayers for the Christian Year.

O God, you are the fountain of all truth; we ask you to protect your church form all false teaching.

Protect the Church

From all teaching and preaching which would destroy men’s’ faith;
From all that removes the old foundations without putting anything in their place;
From all that confuses the simple, that perplexes the seeker, that bewilders the way-faring man,

And yet at the same time protect the Church

From the failure to face new truth;
From devotion to words and ideas which the passing of the years has rendered unintelligible;
From all intellectual cowardice and from all mental lethargy and sloth.

O God, send to your Church teachers,

Whose minds are wise with wisdom;
Whose hearts are warm with love;
Whose lips are eloquent with truth.

Send to your Church teachers

Whose desire is to build and not to destroy;
Who are adventurous with the wise;
And yet gentle with the simple;
Who strenuously exercise the intellect,
And who yet remember that the heart has reasons of its own.

Give to your Church preachers and teachers who can make known the Lord Christ to others because they know him themselves; and give to your Church hearers, who, being freed from prejudice, will follow truth as blind men long for light.

This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I think about this prayer especially as we had the opportunity to host 23 Korean United Methodist pastors last night at our evening worship gathering. Truly, we live in an amazing time.

Thanks to Roger and Brian.

New Podcast Interview is Up

A few friends at YouthFront recently interviewed me about the contents of my book, Intuitive Leadership (among other things). It was posted earlier today.

YouthFront hosts a youthworker's podcast called Studio 47. However, you don't have to be a youthworker to listen to this or find something of relevance to you (I hope). In fact, I think I was only asked one question specific to youth ministers. It runs a little under an hour.

I had a great time and I hope you'll take some time and give it a listen.

Studio 47 Podcast

The "Open Door" Prayer

In my sermon yesterday, "The Opening Door," I made use of a New Year's prayer my wife found in the book "Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings From the Northumbria Community." We love this prayer book, in fact, you can find the daily office and readings online here if you are so inclined.

A lot of people asked me for the prayer we prayed so I thought I would make it accessible here. Enjoy.

This day is a new day
that has never been before.
This year is a new year,
the opening door.

(Open the door)

Enter, Lord Christ -
we have joy in Your coming.
You have given us life,
and we welcome Your coming.

I turn now to face You,
I lift up my eyes.
Be blessing my face, Lord;
be blessing my eyes.
May all my eye looks on
be blessed and be bright,
my neighbours, my loved ones
be blessed in Your sight.

You have given us life
and we welcome Your coming.
Be with us, Lord,
we have joy, we have joy.
This year is a new year,
the opening door.
Be with us, Lord,
we have joy, we have joy.

Waterdeep Record Release Party

I have been listening to Don and Lori Chaffer's most recent Waterdeep offering, Heart Attack Time Machine, since last May. It is an incredible record - in fact some of the best music they have ever done, IMHO. Until recently you have only been able to buy the record in digital form. However, that has now changed. Heart Attack Time Machine is being released on CD. And to kick off its release, Don and Lori/Waterdeep will be playing a CD release concert at Jacob's Well this Saturday night, January 5th. Here are some details from a recent email promotion:

Don and Lori Chaffer will be playing a CD release show THIS SATURDAY! Heart Attack Time Machine was released in MP3 form in April and in CD form just before Christmas. Both are available at www.waterdeep.com/store and of course, CDs will also be available at the show. Details are below and we really hope you will be joining us...and feel free to invite everyone you know! The show is $10 at the door and will begin at 7:30 p.m.

I hope to see you there.

Yes, Virginia, I Do Blog About Things Other Than the [AC]

Once upon a time I blogged about all manner of things interesting to me like books, films, ideas, software, people. None of those things have ceased being interesting - it's just that there has been so much [AC] stuff to do, engage, etc.

So, in the spirit of remembering some of those other things...and in wanting to give a good (and free) gift to all my friends out there in the blogosphere...and in wanting to continue to perpetuate all things Apple/Mac - I give you:

LETTERBOX

Letterbox is a great little utility for people who use Mac's Mail program. Created by Aaron Harnley, it changes the inbox/preview screen of your mail application from two small, horizontally split screens to two full-size, side-by-side vertical screens. Actually, it is easier to view than describe.

Here is the original way the mail application is formatted.

Here is the modified Letterbox version.

I don't know about you but I rarely open a specific email if I don't have to. Letterbox allows me to see the full page at once. And that is a good thing. Also, Harnley has just released a version for Leopard. If you don't use Leopard there is still a version for previous versions of OS X.

So, enjoy.

Water Project: Amhara, Ethiopia

David Albright is a videographer/filmmaker in the Jacob's Well community. Last year he was contracted to go to Ethiopia to document a water project happening in Amhara.

Most of the Jacob's Well Advent Conspiracy videos we have shared have focused on the need side of the water equation. This video begins to demonstrate the impact water can have on a community over time. Thanks to David for putting this edited version together and sharing it with us.

Jacob's Well Advent Conspiracy Artwork

One of the many things I love about the Advent Conspiracy at Jacob's Well is the creativity it has unleashed in our community.

Most of the readers of this blog know now (due to my consistent posting re: [AC]) that we are asking our community to give different kinds of gifts this year and then contribute the money to the [JWAC] to provide fresh water for a specific community without it. We then ask people to pick up a [JWAC] water bottle and a card that they can give to represent the fact that a donation has been made in the name of their loved one.

Here is are the pieces of original art that are on one of four cards. They correspond to the four themes of the [AC]. Our deep gratitude to each of these artists for their amazing contribution. Enjoy.

"Worship" by Eric Disney.

"Resisting the Empire" by Jeremy Collins.

"Relational Giving" by Jannele Mastin.

"Redistribution" by John Raux.

Ben Stein Talks About Relational Giving, Too

Yesterday was the third Sunday in Advent. Our topic was "Relational Giving" and our text was Revelation 21:1-4.

When I returned from home after our morning worship gatherings and our afternoon gift-making workshop, an email from Mike and Ginger Broyles was waiting for me. I guess Ben Stein "preached" on a similar topic yesterday on CBS's Sunday Morning. His video essay is called "What Makes a 'Good' Christmas?" You can read the transcript or stream the video from that link. Here's a blurb:

"I keep seeing in the newspapers that it might not be a "good" Christmas because while visits to stores are up, purchases per visit are down very slightly. There is also some fear that it might not be a "good" holiday season because fears about the housing correction will scare shoppers into keeping their wallets zipped. I'm fascinated by this, because I have looked through a Concordance of the Old and New Testaments and I do not find the word 'shopping' even once."

Advent Conspiracy: Jacob's Well Pokot Water Project

We shared last Sunday (week two of Advent) that we have determined the water project our church will help to fund. The decision was an easy one to make.

Last week we had the opportunity to host Pastor Edward Simiyu from City Harvest Church in Nairobi, Kenya. The Jacob's Well Amahoro Team met Edward in Kampala, Uganda, last May. After the conference concluded, three of our group traveled with Edward back to his home in Nairobi where we spent three days learning about the challenges and opportunities he and his church face. They have an incredible ministry to people infected with HIV/AIDS. In fact, that is not even really an accurate way to describe what they are doing. They have an amazing community and their community includes many with HIV/AIDS. As a result they are figuring out what it looks like to be the body of Christ to those among them with this disease. They are also involved in economic development through micro-finance. These are things we witnessed while we were there.

It was when I was sharing with Edward about the Advent Conspiracy and Jacob's Well participation in it that I learned that he is also involved in helping a remote community in northwest Kenya. The region is called Pokot and is considered by many to the "wild-west" of Kenya. It is a very unsettled and violent area with few resources. Though many pastors and missionaries have been killed there, and the military will not enter apart from armed air support, Edward has made significant relationships with many men there and has been asked by them to help them develop their community. This is going to involve a number of things (schools, medical clinics, e.g.), but first it is going to require access to clean and accessible water. This where we get to come in. Ultimately this region will require five wells to sustain the community. But for now we are excited to see how God will use the people of Jacob's Well to partner with our friend Edward and his community at City Harvest Church.

I will share more of this story in coming days, but for now let me share the video we showed on Sunday. The video shows Edward and a village in the Pokot region where a lack of water is a real problem. The video concludes with Edward and members of the community praying for the ground where a well will hopefully be dug.

Broadway Cafe in the KC Star Today

Here is the amazing headline:

Westport Starbucks closing; Broadway Cafe left standing

Broadway Cafe was opened around ten years ago by a good friend of mine from high school, Sara Honan. It is now co-owned by Jon and Kendra Cates, who come to Jacob's Well. Best coffee in the city - no offense, anyone. I might be biased, but then again...

Advent Conspiracy: Chacocente Video

On the first Sunday in Advent we shared a video to give people at Jacob's Well a tangible way of understanding why we are choosing to celebrate Christmas and worship Christ differently this year. The video is of a water project in Chacocente, Nicaragua, undertaken by the Ecclesia community of Houston, TX, in partnership with the Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International. As you can see in the first half of the video, the community lives in the town garbage dump. It is hard to fathom that reality. Friend and Ecclesia founding pastor Chris Seay sent me this last year and every time I see it, it still provokes emotion in me that is overwhelming.

The original version Chris sent me was almost ten minutes long (and though I haven't looked, I believe you can find the long version on YouTube). Beth Mercer edited that version down to the four-and-a-half minute one here and that was used in our worship gathering at Jacob's Well Church on December 2.

We have heard from several people that seeing that video allowed them not only to conceptualize why this is so important, but also share with others (friends, family members, co-workers) why they are choosing to engage Christmas in such a dramatically different way this year. We are trying to create an Advent Conspiracy page on the Jacob's Well Church site that has all of the different resources we are creating and using, but until we do I want to make it for people to access here.

So, without further explanation...

A final remark about this video. Yesterday we received an email from a man in our congregation, Clay Masters, describing his reaction to both the Advent Conspiracy generally and this video specifically. His words really affected me and so I asked his permission to share them here.

The Advent Conspiracy has been grace to us. I think we are more peaceful this year at Christmas than we ever have been. After watching the video last week, a thought came to me. All those recipients receiving clean water were also receiving a "baptism" of sorts. I am not sure how to describe the beauty and grace of what I saw....it was as if the people were getting a baptism into grace without words being spoken. Or another image comes to mind. Perhaps the water that they played in and so joyfully received was more than a channel of H2O, but also a channel of grace. And the only thing we can do in it (water=grace) is dance to the goodness of God!

What a beautiful reflection. The only thing that I would add to it is that it seems to me that it wasn't only those receiving the gift of water who were being baptized, but those who provided it, too. There seems to me to be a mutuality present in this exchange that can also be seen when Jesus (who himself is living water) asked the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar to give him a drink. What beautiful interdependence.

Finally, tomorrow I will post the video of the water project Jacob's Well is taking on in NW Kenyan region of Pokot.

An Assortment of Life at the Beginning of the Week

I had the opportunity to meet Rebecca Neuenswander at JW yesterday. I had seen an article about her and her work this summer in the KC Face magazine. She introduced herself to me yesterday after our 11:00 a.m. gathering. Rebecca founded HALO: Helping Art Liberate Orphans. Her organization currently works with orphanages in Mexico, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Africa, and Nicaragua. The children in these homes create art and then submit their artwork to be auctioned off at an auction hosted by HALO in the U.S. Proceeds go back to the orphans. What an amazing deal.

Some HALO resources to explore: a short video of Rebecca talking about the work they are doing: Helping Art Liberate Orphans; a photo album with some pics from an orphanage in Uganda where HALO is at work; and here is another article in Present Magazine (the same one that highlighted Andy Woolard and Interwoven Threads): Rebecca Neuenswander's HALO for Children.

Also, reading Scot McKnight's blog, Jesus Creed, I stumbled across a blog called ParadoxUganda last week. This is the blog of missionary doctor who lives and serves in Uganda with his family. [Updated: I just discovered that both the husband and wife are doctors serving in Uganda; her name is Dr. Jennifer Myhres] I can't find his first name anywhere, but their last name is Myhres. [Updated: his name is Dr. Scott Myhres] Apparently a new strain of the Ebola virus has broken out in Uganda in the last couple of weeks. As of today, there are 115 confirmed cases with 29 known deaths.

It is more than heartbreaking to read this blog. I added it to my RSS reader and everyday get an update on the situation in the Bundibugyo region of Uganda. To go back a few weeks and read forward through the posts is to read an unfolding and heartbreaking tragedy. At the heart of it is the friendship this doctor has with a Ugandan doctor, Jonah Kule, who went out to respond to a new sickness before anyone knew what was happening. He contracted this strain of Ebola and died shortly thereafter. Please pray for this family, for the family of Jonah, and for what is happening in Uganda.

Here is an interview with Dr. Kule about his life and work in Uganda: Dr. Kule Lived to Serve.

Finally, if anyone wanted to discuss my book Intuitive Leadership but wasn't able to make it to the Emergent cohort gathering last Thursday, I will be joining an Emergent cohort of seminary students from St. Paul School of Theology tomorrow at 11:45 a.m. to do another discussion. I am sure anyone is welcome to join us at the seminary for the discussion...that is if there isn't a sheet of ice covering everything in the city. [Updated @ 10:00 p.m. - there is a sheet of ice covering the city...I just saw that SPST is closed tomorrow so we'll have to reschedule this discussion.]

Kansas City Star Advent Conspiracy Article...

...can be found here.

Interwoven Threads

Check out the great article in Present Magazine on Jacob's Well-er Andy Woolard and his great company, Interwoven Threads.

Green Way - Interwoven Threads: T-Shirts Promote Environmental and Social Awareness

Advent Conspiracy in the Media (and other odds & ends)

I had a surprising conversation last Friday afternoon. Helen Gray, religion writer for the Kansas City Star, called to interview me about Jacob's Well's participation in the Advent Conspiracy. One of the editors saw an article come across the wire last week about Imago Dei (in Portland, OR) and the Advent Conspiracy (hereafter designated [AC]). They were just going to run the AP story. However, when they went to the [AC] website, they found us on the list of participants so they decided to write it from a local angle.

The story will appear on Saturday in the "Faith" section of FYI. My hope is that it will inspire other local congregations to become co-conspirators. Or maybe even encourage people from outside the Jacob's Well community to contribute to our water projects (more on that later). We received our first [AC] check in the mail, by the way - a check written to Jacob's Well (with [AC] on the memo line) by a congregant's parents in lieu of a gift that would have directly benefited their daughter. My heart jumped.

In other [AC] news, here is the AP article that the a Florida newspaper (the Ledger) picked up: "The Advent Conspiracy" Urges Christian Giving

Also, Imago Dei pastor and [AC] founder Rick McKinley interacts with Morgan Spurlock on his new film What Would Jesus Buy? You might remember Spurlock from his last film, Super Size Me. Check out both the interview and a trailer for the film here. The film premiers in Kansas City on December 14 at the Tivoli Manor Square in Westport (maybe we should do a midrash on the movie...stay tuned).

Until then, the best line? "The Shopocalypse is upon us … Who will be $aved?"