Tim Keel's Blog

VOICE Recording Project

Chris Seay has been developing a pretty interesting project for awhile now: a translation of the Bible called "The Voice." I believe Word Publishing is behind it. Several people who are not traditional Bible translators have been invited to participate in a dramatic re-telling of the Scriptures. I am translating Nehemiah. Lauren Winner is doing Ruth, I think. Brian McLaren is translating Luke's gospel. It's been a great experience so far.

My friend Don Chaffer is translating the book of Job as well as several Psalms; in fact, I think that it is mostly musical artists that are undertaking the Psalms. Anyway, in addition to simply giving new translations of the Psalms, they have decided to record a record putting several of these psalms to music. This is the week that all the artists are getting together in KC to record: 13 songs in four days. Don has a recording studio in Kansas City that is part of a arts ministry called, "The Culture House." He is producing this venture in addition to writing for it and playing on it. Several great artists are in town participating: Sarah Groves, The Robbie Seay Band, Derek and Sandra Webb, most of the members of Waterdeep (Lori, Brandon and Christena Graves, and Luke Sullivant), Jamie Smith...there were a few others, too. It is being recorded much in the same way Don's solo record, Whole 'Nother Deal was: big room, lots of musicians playing live with all the mics turned on. Very cool.

I had the privilege of joining them this morning and leading a devotion as they begin their day of creativity and worship (and hard work). The space is amazing, but unfortunately my camera phone is not. Based on what I heard this morning, I think this record is going to be great.

Reckoning with Intuition Resources

[updated May 25; click below for more resources] Several people have asked about resources from the seminar I did at the eYs Conference. Here is a list of resources that were helpful in my research. I pulled the book descriptions off Amazon.com. I've posted a link or two to some articles as well. I describe the seminar this way:

Increasingly, the missional context of our culture is being transformed. To respond, pastors and leaders must develop new sets of competencies and learn how to attract and release leaders with those competencies already in place. Unfortunately, most of our systems and structures are ill-prepared to deal with this new environment and the opportunities and challenges before us. The modern age was ruled by science and structures of control. In that environment the humanities were relegated to margins. In the postmodern milieu, the humanities are asserting themselves, not in terms defined by science, but with a language set all its own: artistic, intuitive, prophetic and poetic. New structures and systems are emerging to release this kind of creativity. In this seminar we will dialog and explore intuition as it relates to leadership, imagination, and creativity applied to the local church in the context of the emerging culture.

The Rise of the Creative Class, by Richard Florida
"Florida, an academic whose field is regional economic development, explains the rise of a new social class that he labels the creative class. Members include scientists, engineers, architects, educators, writers, artists, and entertainers. He defines this class as those whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and new creative content. In general this group shares common characteristics, such as creativity, individuality, diversity, and merit. The author estimates that this group has 38 million members, constitutes more than 30 percent of the U.S. workforce, and profoundly influences work and lifestyle issues. The purpose of this book is to examine how and why we value creativity more highly than ever and cultivate it more intensely. He concludes that it is time for the creative class to grow up--boomers and Xers, liberals and conservatives, urbanites and suburbanites--and evolve from an amorphous group of self-directed while high-achieving individuals into a responsible, more cohesive group interested in the common good."

The Wounded Healer, by Henri Nouwen
"The Wounded Healer is a hope-filled and profoundly simple book that speaks directly to those men and women who want to be of service in their church or community, but have found the traditional ways often threatening and ineffective. In this book, Henri Nouwen combines creative case studies of ministry with stories from diverse cultures and religious traditions in preparing a new model for ministry. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen has come up with a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature. Emphasizing that which is in humanity common to both minister and believer, this woundedness can serve as a source of strength and healing when counseling others. Nouwen proceeds to develop his approach to ministry with an analysis of sufferings - a suffering world, a suffering generation, a suffering person, and a suffering minister. It is his contention that ministers are called to recognize the sufferings of their time in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service."

The Revenge of the Right Brain, by Daniel Pink, from Wired.

"Beneath the nervous clatter of our half-completed decade stirs a slow but seismic shift. The Information Age we all prepared for is ending. Rising in its place is what I call the Conceptual Age, an era in which mastery of abilities that we've often overlooked and undervalued marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind."

A Place of Mourning

A friend of mine had surgery yesterday. I went to hang out in the waiting room with her folks and on my way into the hospital a man passed me by.

He was a middle-aged man, with salt and pepper hair and as I watched him approach me I knew he was looking right past me. He walked like a man in a heavy mist: he was dazed and I had to step out of his way or we might have collided. Collided may not be too strong a word because while he seemed dazed, he seemed angry at the same time, but in a unfocused and diffused kind of way. He was moving slowly carrying a few things in him arms. Then I saw someone else coming up behind him, uncertain and keeping a distance of about ten feet. He was trailed by a teen-aged girl. Though her arms were empty, hanging by her side, they seemed to carry more than the weight of her whole body - they carried his weight, too. Whereas his eyes were nowhere, her eyes were tightly focused on him, and brimming with tears. She moved so tentatively. I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess, they had both just lost someone: he a wife, she a mother. She needed him so badly, I could feel it coming off of her. But he was lost. Unavailable. His own grief swallowed him whole and left nothing for anyone else. I wanted to yell at him, "Turn around. Pay attention. Don't lose her, too." Instead I knew that she would have to be the strong one. She would have to take up the slack. And so for her I grieved and I prayed, "God have mercy." And for him I prayed a solace that would comfort and overflow and reach out and take in this little girl, this daughter so potentially alone.

eYS Highlights

It’s been a great week in Nashville. In fact, in my opinion this gathering was the best of all the eYS events over the last three years. It was such a good time of being with the Emergent family. I feel physically tired, but emotionally and spiritually refreshed. Here are, in no particular order and without coming close to exhausting all that was good, some of my conference highlights: Listening to LeRon Shults tell west Texas family reunion stories that were so funny that even hearing them the second time, I nearly soiled myself. Theological brilliance and self-deprecating humor make a lethally potent combination. Run, don't walk, to anything that contains these three words: LE RON SHULTS. Hanging out with Denise van Eck and Shauna Niequist and the four horseman of the Apocalypse: Nate, Matt, Brad, and Nate. God help Mars Hill Bible Church, especially if Nate ever sings that squirrel song in public again. Don’t forget to mind your dog-jaw, boys. Anytime I see John Bradley, the wandering fisherman. Meeting Miriam Mendez from Portland, Oregon, and Liz Rios and Edna Quiros from Wounded Healer Fellowship in Florida. We met at the Emerging Women’s Leadership lunch hosted by Mars Hill Graduate School. These are three amazing women who all hale from Puerto Rico, then New York and now Florida and Oregon. The conversations I had with them were some of the best of the week. Talk about some attitude. I want to be like these three when I grow up. I hope our paths cross again soon. Trying to continue to take page after page of notes, despite the cramping hand, from Dan Allender’s seminar, “Leading with a Limp: Being the Chief of Sinners in Your Community.” I purchased the CD because I need to listen again. Sneaking away Wednesday night with Mike King and Dieter Zander to watch the second-to-last episode of “Lost.” Oh, baby. Watching Phyllis Tickle and her husband Sam walk everywhere, hand-in-hand, like two young kids in the first-flush of love. There is nothing trite when I say that in them I see the joy of the Lord. Being exhorted by Phyllis to reckon with the priestly function of ordained ministry wasn’t bad, either. Listening to Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones speak our gratitude and blessing to Mark and Jeanne Oestreicher and Carla Yaconelli of Youth Specialties. Chatting briefly with the very kind Adele Sakler in the Bridge Bar. The free Krispy Kremes were nice, too. Seeing Rodger Sellers one year from the week he came to NPC, immigrated to eYS, set off on an 84 day cross-country emerging church pilgrimage and has since planted a church. Having a nice, quiet meal and conversation with Ivy Beckwith and Tim Conder. Feeling the crackle of energy in my brain listening to Brian Walsh and Brian McLaren answer questions about the Scriptures, especially their explanation of who, exactly, gets “left behind,” and why Matthew called the Gentile women a Canaanite while Mark called her a Syrophoenician. Meeting DJ's delightful wife Rachelle. Alan Roxburgh. Drinking coffee and eating creme brulee late with Joe Myers and Dwight Friesen. I love these two guys. Anytime I see Troy Bronsink is a gift. Getting to hear him sing only added to the blessing. After spending the Fall of 2004 trading e-mails and talking on the phone with Will Samson as we redesigned the Emergent website, it was really great to meet him face-to-face, even if I am the last person in Emergent to do so. Good luck on your move to Kentucky, bro. Sitting in the airport waiting to fly to Kansas City and receiving a phone call from Mimi telling me that we get to move into our new home on June 18, not August 1 as we had feared. Seeing my wife's face when I stepped off the plane tonight. Thanks, friends, for a good week. I needed it.

Traveling Mercies, Indeed...

I am not having a good day. I am not having a good week. Last week my car is broken into and my stereo is taken. Today, I am driving in my minivan to the airport, on my way to Nashville for the emergent/Youth Specialties conference when WHAM! - my hood flies open and snaps completely backwards, smashing my windshield at 70 mph...on I-29...with Mimi and Blaise in the car. I can't see anything. I have glass in my lap. And my adrenalin is still spiking somewhere north of Alaska right now.

Fortunately, I was in the lane next to the shoulder of the highway. I rolled my window down and pulled to the side of the road, coming to a complete stop. I shut my hood (it's going to need to be replaced), then drove on the shoulder for another 10 miles until I got to the airport. We called a tow truck and Mimi's aunt came and picked up the two of them.

I am thankful to God for a safe resolution to this deal but for the record, I am only traveling on foot and in enormous armored shuttles this week. Or I'm going to become a stuntman. I can't decide.

Robertson Davies

Part of the fun of temporarily moving into another person's home is that if they are a reader, there is a good chance you're going to find some new treasures, maybe even a whole new world to inhabit. My friend Beth has not disappointed me. My new discovery is Robertson Davies, a Canadian novelist, playwright, essayist, and university professor who died in 1995 (what a distinguished looking old goat!) I am reading the first book out of a collection of three books called The Cornish Trilogy.

The first book is titled The Rebel Angels. The back jacket cover is elusive in its description of the book's content, but it gives a clue to the character-driven nature of the novel:

Simon Darcourt, a goodhearted priest and scholar...Clement Hollier, a professor with a passion for the darker side of medieval psychology...the defrocked monk John Parlabane...Arthur Cornish, a rich young businessman who inherits some troublesome paintings and manuscripts...and Maria Theotoky, the beguiling graduate student who exerts a strange power over all these men. Davies weaves together this remarkable cast of characters, creating a wise and witty portrait of love, murder, and scholarship at a modern university.

It's not worth trying to describe it beyond that because nothing I could say would make it sound interesting or compelling. But it is. It is great. The characters are wonderfully and fully realized. It is fabulously written and it actually feels like it the longer it goes, the better and more complex it gets. I can actually imagine the plot arc of a novel like this taking three books to realize. We'll see. I'm only 190 pages into it. I do want to whet your appetite with what I believe are a couple of really well-written passages.

I am hard at the great task with the person who lies nearest and who is most amenable to my best efforts, and perhaps by example I may persuade a few others to do the same. Oh, endless task! One begins with no knowledge except that what one is doing is probably wrong, and the right path is heavy with mist. When I was a hopeful youth I set myself to the Imitation of Christ, and like a fool I supposed that I must try to be like Christ in every possible detail, adjure people to do the right when I really didn't know what the right was, and get myself spurned and scourged as frequently as possible. Crucifixion was not a modern method of social betterment, but at least I could push for psychological crucifixion, and I did, and hung on my cross until it began to dawn on me that I was a social nuisance and not a bit like Christ.

Smash and Grab

I had a nice morning yesterday. I met a former ministry colleague for coffee and we spent the better part of two hours catching up. Then I went back to the church and parked on 42nd Street, 11:15ish. Thirty minutes later Deanne popped her head in my office and said, "A couple of guys just came in asking who the gold Celica belongs to...they say the window is smashed and the stereo is gone."

As you can see, they were right. So...bummer. They also left some nasty, half-eaten sandwich under my hand-brake. This is the third time in the last ten years I've had a car broken into, so to speak. The first time was in Denver when I was going to seminary. That one cost me a window and 96 compact discs. The second time was two weeks before Christmas in front of (what was) my house on Cherry. That one cost me the whole minivan. Amazingly, the small community of Jacob's Well rallied and helped us replace it, and at an order higher than we lost. Then there is yesterday's adventure.

You know, I had a bit of an adrenalin surge. It's weird to look at your car and see glass everywhere, your dash torn up and a big hole. But beyond that, I just can't seem to get too worked up about it. The only thing I'm upset about is how the theft caused me to look at every car that passed by with a suspicious and nervous glance. "Was it you that did this?"

I had a couple conversations this week that put my little incident into a broader context. On Tuesday, I had lunch with Chris Jehle, good friend and executive director of The Hope Center. Last week 14 year-old Cortez D. White was gunned down in his neighborhood because of a misunderstanding over a lawnmower. Chris told me that Cortez had been in The Hope Center just a couple days earlier. His younger siblings are involved in the ministry. You can read about this tragedy here.

Then I got an e-mail from friend and fellow Jacob's Well staff member Phil Lesniewski. He wrote,

FYI....You may hear this evening that a woman was shot and killed by her ex-husband last night in the Valentine neighborhood. I received a phone call today at 2:30 PM informing me. The woman, Jennifer Burton, was the mother of (my daughter) Grace's friend and classmate. Grace plays soccer and is in first grade with six year old Isabelle Burton. A grief counselor is available for all the kids in Grace's classroom. The kids were informed today around 2:00 PM. Be thankful for your family and pray for those who are mentally unstable.

More information can be found here.

Finally, my family spent the evening at the home of Jim and Mary Patten on Wednesday with others from Jacob's Well and shared a meal with James and Monika Hetherington, missionaries in India and founders of the Bread of Life Bakery and Restaurant (follow the "Widows and Orphans link) in Varanasi, India. It is always so wonderful to be with them. Hearing their stories about abused and neglected children and the hope and redemption that is being spread through Jesus both sobered and encouraged me.

As I sat in my office after vacuuming up some broken glass those conversations put things like a smashed dashboard and a missing radio in perspective. Thank God. And if you would, say a prayer today for the Burton children, the White family, and the ministry of James and Monika Hetherington.

This Space for Lease

Just kidding, though it has been a long while since I have posted anything. You might note the new design co-conceived by me and Tim Samoff, but wholly executed by Tim himself. Much of the time I have previously spent posting content has been redirected to design. It's been fun working with Tim and re-engaging in the design process. As an under-graduate design major I could no longer stand the Movable Type off-the-shelf template. Hopefully you will find it more pleasing to your eyes, too.

More Current Events:

In the last month we have sold our house, bought a new one, and moved into a third, temporary shelter until the people we bought from find a place to move into.

Little league baseball has begun.

I am hard at work on a little book project.

My wife has taken a new job.

I traveled to Pasadena for a consultation on developing missional leaders (I've included some shots below).

"24" - Jeez! And props to Uchenna and Joyce.

So, all in all, it has been a productively busy time. I am excited to begin writing for this blog again and am hopeful the new design will motivate me to channel more creativity to the regular discipline of blogging.

Oh yeah, I saw a great concert the other night in Lawrence: The Shins were great but the big highlight was the opening act. The Brunettes came in from New Zealand and stood the place on its ear. Holy Cow! Why doesn't the iTunes store have any of this stuff?

P.S. Tiger is, pretty much, the awesomest OS ever.