We’re having a great discussion today over at Ginkworld on the iconoclastic, “good guy/bad guy” tensions we’re wrestling with in the emerging Church.

Comments under the “I think I’m gonna vomit…” post.

I also posted a new “What Is The Church” post at Ginkworld that’s just beginning its discussion. It refers to my earlier post here called “The Church As We Know It.”

Comments under the “What Is The Church?” post.

A scientifically-inclined friend of mine informs me that there is no new water on the earth.

In other words, the water that dinosaurs drank, oceans sprayed and clouds released has been the same since the beginning of time.

Water created, water present, water used, water renewed, in an endless cycle of sharing the gift from earth to sky to earth to sky.

What is old must be treasured, but must also be renewed. Once renewed the old invests the new with a timeless strength, and a source of replenishment.

Time and natural effort can reclaim the old, filter it and present it in fresh ways to us.

We are refreshed by the old now renewed, and from us the old enters the cycle again — to be used by a new generation after it has been embraced, used, renewed and now… shared.

What old things do you know of that are going through a redemptive process?

According to Nasa scientists, now roving over Mars vicariously through the robots Spirit and Opportunity, the evidence is becoming clear. At one time, according to National Geographic Magazine, it seems that all indicators tell us that there was water on Mars.

How do they know? Shapes, formations, deposits and many indicators similar to places on earth exist there — affirming the former movements of the silver liquid of life.

I would love my life to be marked by more than remnant shapes, formations and deposits left by former soul activities of the Spirit of God. I would love to be a man in whom the healing waters are in constant motion, and from whom they flow to the lowest places around me.

It was said in Hebrew lore that when an angel stirred the waters at the pool of Siloam, there was healing to be received (John 5:4).

God is stirring the waters of creative souls in these days. Our privilege, and our call, is to sense the wave of His hand, move and ripple in the wake of His breath, and create from the source of His image within.

When we allow the waters of our soul to be stirred, we will be an innovative healing agent in the world.

Last night, I sat with my wife and two friends praying for, and ministering to, a wonderful young person. God met us in a beautiful and tangible way in that time.

For all our discussion about the emerging Church, it can seem to be a primarily cerebral exercise, engaging the disciplines of history, theology, philosophy and metaphysics.

Yet people will always be people, no matter their cultural milieu or -ism, and community will make us tick.

Furthermore, there will always be the need for the “tools in the tool belt” that Jesus gave to the Church — the tools of healing, deliverance, redemption and care that infuse the Kingdom into lives by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Our capacity to be strong disciples is not only based on the form of worship we choose today, or eventually choose, but rather on the content of the Kingdom being lived out in our lives. Some choices will strengthen that content within us, others will degrade it.

Let’s major on the majors as the conversation continues. Let’s read and live out the gospels — as often as we read the blogs and books.

Phyllis Tickle, a well-known writer on the Divine Hours of prayer and other topics, has a great site, linked to the Ann Arbor Vineyard’s pattern of daily offices. I’ll put this link in my blog roll to the left, for permanent usage. Check it out.

I apply the daily offices to my own prayer life, and have for about 2 years. Here is a starting point of connection if they’re unfamiliar:

The Divine Offices.

Today I’m putting my hand to a number of smaller projects, each with its own July/August deadline and each with its own joys and challenges. A bit of planning/office cleaning, a bit of writing, a bit of DVD work, a bit of prep creating the next Inside Worship magazine.

I’m reminded of the expansive and accurate way that Romans 12:1-2a is rendered in The Message by Eugene Peterson:

1So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.

The word “liturgy” means “the work of the people.” As we apply our energies to both the romance and the responsibility of life today, let each task rise as an act of unabashed worship.

We’re having a rich discussion over at Robert Webber’s blog on whether “God as Object” of our worship is as sufficient a worship paradigm as “God as Subject” of our worship.

Though some will balk at symantics, and other’s will question the discussion’s relationship to Darfur and world poverty, I believe with others that:

Great thoughts about God lead to great actions; great actions lead to great habits, great habits lead to great characters, and great characters lead to great destinies from the heart of God into the heart of the world.

As promised, some photos from the St. Mary’s event in Prince Edward Island. Sadly, we have few photos of the place with all the people in it that evening! The lighting proved difficult, though the atmosphere was sweet.

Flickr: Photos from danwilt

It was a rich evening exploring the ancient, present and future of worship liturgy with the Christians on the Island.

The importance of worship in the world is this; that our songs and expressions fix our attention on One who is Himself the supreme reason for our living, enabling us to walk steadily through the gauntlet of the voices and fears that seek to demand our attention, toward Him.

The gift of worship is then completed by the fact that He is moving toward us through that gauntlet, dismissing fears and voices to come as we draw ever nearer to His Person — and He draws ever nearer to us.

The frequency of times set apart to engage our living worship in these singular expressions can shape and enhance the Godward motion of our lives.

Reed Arvin is a musician and producer, who turned his creative craft toward novel writing. Some of you may know him best as Rich Mullin’s producer.

He and I exchanged a few emails a few years back when I was asking he and a number of other artists to be an influential to today’s worship and creative community across streams of the Church.

Here’s his blog on the book tour he’s on.

Thrills, Spills and the Printed Page - Reed Arvin’s Blog.

This is an 2 part interview including Brian McLaren, founder of Emergent, with PBS, and others. Video via Real Player is also available.

Part One:
Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER STORY . The Emerging Church, Part One . July 8, 2005 | PBS

Part Two: (features more of Brian McLaren)
Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER STORY . The Emerging Church, Part Two . July 15, 2005 | PBS

Yesterday, while attending my daughter’s soccer game in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick, I walked by one of the many gorgeous little churches that dot the landscape. I wanted to see if the door was open, to satisfy my lifelong fascination with church architecture.

I could hear echoes of people speaking in unison as I entered the small breezeway at the side of St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church. There, in the stunning, mid-sized sanctuary, I saw 8 people scattered throughout the pews. A priest, clearly of African descent by his skin and his accent, was dressed in beautiful white robes garnished with a gold collar as he led the proceedings.

I felt for a moment that I was in the deep south on a hot summer’s night, standing wistfully outside of a revival meeting happening on a local campground. Peeking through the screen door that seperated the breezeway from the sanctuary, I hear familiar words.

“Now, let us extend the Peace Of Christ to one another.” The eight gray-haired people within turned to one another, smiled and exchanged the words, “The peace of Christ be with you.”

In my mind’s eye I saw that beautiful sanctuary packed with teens and twenties, accented with both younger and older worshipers, exchanging the Peace Of Christ with laughter, hugs, joy and expectation.

The priest continued on with his liturgy, host to those 8 worshipers in the room, and I walked away both joyful and saddened by what I had just seen.

I am joyful that worship happens, and that space is created for attention and devotion to be directed to God. I am saddened that such aesthetic beauty and such wonderful liturgical ideas aren’t mingled with contemporary forms as primary shapers of many young worshipers today.

For today, just a life update for the summer.

I’m writing in the Perspectives On Worship book for Broadman Holman,

planning a course for St. Stephen’s University in the fall,

completing the new What Is Worship? DVD,

putting together some book proposals,

reading for my masters, fixing my house and

trying not to stress about life turns in the autumn.

Family and friend visits are occuring in a steady stream. The east coast of Canada calls, and we’ll poke our heads into favorite spot, Prince Edward Island again.

I’m also preparing for What Is Worship events in Northern Ireland (Alan and Kathryn Scott) and Oxford this September, and doing some worship development planning for the Vineyards in Canada.

And eating ice cream often. Nothing says summer like a Peanut Butter Cup Flurry (blizzard) my friends. Speaking of which….

I’m appreciating the utter deconstruction of the Platonic spirit/body dualism in emerging Church thinking. Worship is all about this world, and the world to come.

I appreciate how Robert Webber phrases this at www.ancientfutureworship.blogspot.com:

“The unique nature of Christian worship and of spirituality is their embodied nature. Worship and spirituality both affirm this world, this history, this life. Worship recalls God’s actions in this world to redeem it. Spirituality contemplates God’s actions in this world and participates in God’s life in this world. In this way, worship and spirituality are grounded in the work of Jesus Christ incarnate in this history, who died on the wood of the cross, left the tomb empty, and ascended to heaven. He gave the church the calling to proclaim, sing, and enact his mighty saving deeds and to live in union with Him and His purposes for this world while we anticipate the new heavens and the new earth.”

Realizing that we were made for earth-living, we embrace God both in the here and now, and in the there and then.

Embodied Worship echoes the words of Iranaeus of Lyons:
“The glory of God is a human being, full alive.”