DanSheffield

Howard Snyder on "Creation Healed"

Just finished reading Howard Snyder's Salvation Means Creation Healed.

Here is a video clip of him giving an interview that summarizes nicely his thoughts in the book very well.

 

Kurelek Christmas - The Holy Family as [Inuit]

My favourite Christmas reflection -- artwork and narrative. Canadian artist William Kurelek's A Northern Nativity: christmas dreams of a prairie boy is a stunning collection of images and incarnational imaginings.  Kurelek (1927-1977) based this book on his own childhood dreams (in the Depression years) coupled with his adult life experience -- on the theme that Christ came to all people, everywhere. What would happen if He came now? He imagines that the nativity takes place in northern snows. He dreams that the Christ child is born to Eskimos, to Indians, to Blacks, that the Nativity takes place in a fisherman’s hut, a garage, a cowboy’s barn, that the holy family is given refuge in a city mission, a grain barn, and a country school. Try getting through one page without tears... that the God of the universe knows, recognizes, accepts and incarnates in all cultures, spaces and worldviews.

The Holy Family as [Eskimo]

Against a deep black sky, the northern lights play -- and the perpetual night of outer space is pricked with the sharp jabs of a million stars. Fluted snow fields stretch toward the horizon where hummocky crags of ice have been piled up by the crunch of the tide against the land. In a seal hunter's half-igloo shelter sit a woman and child. The child is fondling a roly-poly husky pup. Nearby, a fur-clad man is tending some sleigh dogs. Around his head, a strange light flickers. It also surrounds the faces of the mother and child.

A surge of excitement fills Willam as he recognizes the Holy Family -- the simple, saintly Joseph; the virgin Mary, gentlest of mothers; and the infant Jesus, the Son of God Himself.

William feels an urge to sing in celebration of the scene. But the words of the carol come out jumbled... "And Arctic nature sings, and Arctic nature sings..." He sees himself asleep at the edge of the dream, and he wants to wake himself up so that he will remember forever the picture and the joy it brought him.

[see last year's post, here]

top 3 posts on my blog in 2011

Google analytics tells me that the top three posts viewed on my blog in 2011 were:

Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, over at my Multicultural Leader blog

Mubarak: shame and honour; interesting how things have turned out in Egypt now...

Neighbourhood stumbling blocks;

there's light beyond the thicket and the fog

pic from earlier this week, while retreating, reading and writing...

is what we are doing (in our congregational life) making disciples?

with some colleagues I have been doing some reflecting the last few weeks on "discipleship" and what we are really supposed to be doing with this thing we call 'church.'

It's interesting to note that nowhere in the new testament are we asked to 'plant churches.' Partly because, if we are 'in Jesus,' we are the Church, the body of Christ; in that sense, God has already 'planted The Church.'  What we are given is the mandate to 'make disciples.' Try this... Jesus said,“I’m leaving; the Holy Spirit will guide you; now go and make disciples yourselves – incorporate them into our family and help them learn to be a follower in the same way I taught you!”

So, as we go about this business of 'making disciples,' people are naturally brought into a collective/community setting -- cuz that's how Jesus did it. That little 'called-out', counter-cultural, collective/ecclesia is the setting in which we make disciples. I think our greatest challenge is that we have made the assignment about "initiate a collective and find ways to sustain it," rather than about the real assignment -- make disciples.

Then we get preoccupied with those elements that sustain a congregation: worship, community, spiritual formation, service, and evangelism -- all necessary, but not the main point of congregational life. Congregational life is just a context to 'make disciples.' But what if we asked ourselves -- is what we are doing (in our congregational life) making disciples?, or just forming Christian consumers/attenders/congregational sustainers (or whatever...)?

Overlay the "things" we do in the name of church in that box where it says 'make disciples' and ask, "are we making disciples as we do these things?"

And that is a profoundly Wesleyan question as well. This is one of my favourite John Wesley quotes:

"What is the end (or purpose) of all ecclesiastical (church) order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God, and to build them up in His fear and love? Order, then, is valuable so far as it answers these ends; and if it answers them not, it is worth nothing."

 [hang on, for further thoughts on "what kind of disciples are we making, with the things we do?"]

 

josh garrels -- music for the soul and mind

Thanks to Al D. for pointing me in the direction of Josh Garrels, a great singer-songwriter.

So far, this is my favourite -- a revisiting of the old gospel song, "Farther Along"

Read his lyrics here/below and then give a listen to the live performance

 
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by

Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves em’ both
We’re all cast-aways in need of ropes
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen

Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home

So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that will unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
And wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright

Chorus

Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on

Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levee and my bluff
Let the flood wash me

And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the son of god is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing Lord, come soon

Chorus