What a beautiful crew is here for this Intensive. We’re all regaining our energy from travel slowly, and some renewing words from Peter Fitch on the Value Of Tradition and Judy Davids on the Self-Care Of The Leader have been a great seed bed for our two weeks together.
It’s been great to meet long distance friends like Kim Gentes face to face, and to have great pals Cindy Rethmeier, Monique Tute and Marc Pusch around. Heck, without going name by name, a great community is, and will be, slowly forming among us.
Every morning we’ll have MorningFire, a blend of contemporary and ancient worship practices, and today we have Lorna Jones leading us in Ignatian Prayer forms, and Gregg Finley on Celtic Spirituality & Concepts In Community.
As well, with all these creative people in one room, it won’t be long till the jammin’ and musickin’ rolls on and on. 5 nations among us as well, and that alone is a sweet experience.
It’s a gift to lead this Intensive, and it’s a privilege to be starting this Institute this year; it’s been a dream in seed form for so long, and now it’s quite startling to see, as I look around the room, the beginnings of what I trust will be a formative training forum for the Church across the world – and the streams of the Church.
Thanks for your prayers for us as you read this post. God is very near, and we sense His closeness.
P.S. This year, we have 16 students in our Institute Programs (for our first year of launch!) with worship leaders from the UK, US, Canada, Brazil and Germany. Brian Doerksen will be a guest teacher with us as well.
Most roll in Sunday afternoon, so I may not post for a few days as we wrap up prep and get started. I’ll try to give a play by play as I can.
A very interesting sermon from N.T. Wright on the role of the artist, and beauty, in cultures moving in postmodernism.
Here’s a teaser quote for you:
“Let me spell this out a little more fully. A fully biblical worldview, which I shall be trying to sketch out further in the lectures over the next three days in terms of three great cultural pressures of our day and the gospel’s answer to them, requires that we hold on tightly to three things in particular.
First, the goodness and God-givenness of the present creation: the whole earth is full of YHWH’s glory, and any attempt to suggest that the created order is itself bad or shabby is a denial of that glorious truth.
But, second, with Isaiah’s protest, the world is also full of radical evil, of human wickedness and its fruits, and to deny that is to live in a sentimental cloud-cuckoo-land. Sometimes, as in gnosticism, but not in scripture, this second truth is allowed to trump the first, so that the evil in the world blots out the recognition of its goodness, of the presence within it of the creator’s glory.
But, thirdly and vitally, biblical writers from Isaiah to Revelation, and not least the great New Testament theologians Paul and John who will feature prominently in the lectures this week, speak of new heavens and a new earth, the renewal and restoration of creation as opposed to its abandonment. And, when they do so, they speak in particular of the new Jerusalem: not, as in some would-be Christian imagination, a purely heavenly city which has left earth behind, but precisely the city which comes down from heaven to earth, in the final fulfilment of Jesus’ own prayer.
…And the point of art, I believe, is not least to be able to say something like that, to draw attention – not, indeed, to a shallow or trivial pietistic point, as though to lead the mind away from the world and its problems and into a merely cosy contemplation of God’s presence, but rather – to the multi-layered and many-dimensioned aspects of the present world, to the pains and the terror, yes, but also to the creative tension between the present filling of the world with YHWH’s glory and the promised future filling, as the waters cover the sea. When art tries to speak of the new world, the final world, in terms only of the present world, it collapses into sentimentality; when it speaks of the present world only in terms of its shame and horror, it collapses into brutalism.
The vocation of the artist is to speak of the present as beautiful in itself but as pointing beyond itself, to enable us to see both the glory that already fills the earth and the glory that shall flood it to overflowing; to speak, within that, of the shame without ignoring the promise, and to speak of the promise without forgetting the shame.”
Eugene Peterson once called it “a long obedience in the same direction.”
To build over time is costly, and even will come to crisis and renewed process again and again. Yet in end, I still think that this is the most fruitful path in following Jesus. Maybe its the most fruitful path in doing life.
Everything in us wants to “start over,” and with redemption’s gift, we can. However, to hit the delete button, and utterly take a new course in one’s latter years, I think may be neglecting the riches of what has been both built in us, and revealed in us, over time.
To listen to our past, to engage in our present, and to draw those riches into our future, seems to be an equation of import tonight.
Tuesday October 24th 2006, 10:34 am
Filed under: Brainwaves
Anniversaries are important. Retelling, renewing, reclaiming – all are important ideas in remembering our story in holidays, festivals and special occasions.
My lovely wife and I, as of today, have been married for 19 years. She still takes my breath away, startles me with her wisdom, and draws me to a place where I think I can be whole one day. I couldn’t be more grateful for my shimmering girl.
It’s not surpising to me that today, a day of natural wonder for us in our marriage, that this ensign would appear in the celestial sky. Thanks to Heidi Turner for directing me to it:
Tuesday, October 24, at twilight – about 30 minutes after sunset, scan the southwest horizon for Mercury and Jupiter to the right of the thin waxing crescent Moon, and the star, Antares to the left of the moon and slightly above. Quite an arrangement. (Binoculars helpful!)
I feel like our marriage is remarked on by God in this constellar pattern of dance.
Monday October 23rd 2006, 10:34 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
I’d venture to say that the most credible source of information on any topic is one who has been there, done that, and sat in silence for decades considering the implications both of their environment and their actions.
On a lighter note, and utterly disconnected from that last thought, we have begun something called iD.Core, a discipleship training program for junior and senior high’ers in our community.
Tonight, I sat with a 12 year old who was able to name the secret identities of 4 out of 5 superheroes.
I was astonished, and bowed my head in humble admiration.
How many can you name? Let’s build a list – who is the Flash? Who is the Hulk? Who is Captain America? Who is DareDevil?
I’m in full, head-long, strong mode preparing for our Institute Of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies (I type it out for the search engines, of course!) Intensive Certificate Program beginning next Monday, Oct. 30th.
The deep breath before the plunge – even a joyful and refreshing one – is always hardest for me, it seems. My brain is working overtime and my heart is full, while at the same time other courses and activities continue to occur simultaneously.
Our 15 participants will be coming in from Brazil, the UK, the US and Canada to join our One Year Diploma crew from Germany, the UK and Canada.
Folks such as Kim Gentes (WorshipMusic.com), Cindy Rethmeier (Vineyard songwriter and recording artist), and many others will be making their way across the vast North American landscape to us.
Yesterday, our class had a rich and thoughtful video chat with Kathryn Scott, all the way from her home in Port Stewart, Northern Ireland.
For our InResponse post this week, our students were to have read a chapter I’ve written for a book to be released with Broadman Holman Publishers, entitled (the chapter) Contemporary Worship: A Perspective.
Blending narrative with forays into views on the interface of Church and culture, this chapter seeks to explore the place of contemporary worship expression in the culture, and in the whole body of worship work that has flowed from the Church over its life span.
Here is the question:
“What quote or insight most intrigues you as you read this chapter, and what particular value undergirding the contemporary worship movement, from among the list noted in the second section, has most impacted you in your own worship journey?”
We had a great time with Brian McLaren today. After a sweet time of worship, he spoke to us in the Red Room of SSU (aptly named due to the fuzzy, Victorian Paisley, red wallpaper adorning the room).
We covered topics political, biblical, social, creative and economic. For a brief time, it was a rich time. I also was pleased to discover areas that I disagree with Brian, which is always a welcome discovery in any context.
What a gift to have him, and I’m grateful again to Garth Williams and the Atlantic Baptists for making a way for him to come to us.
We also had a great Leadership In Contemporary Worship Practice class, with Kathryn Scott speaking to us via iChat all the way from Northern Ireland. It was a wonderful time, and our class was enriched by it I believe.
Alan, her wonderful husband, along with Emily and Sophie also joined in the chat, and it was a beautiful connection.
Due to the kindness of my good friend Garth Williams, I had the privilege of spending an hour’s car ride with author and emerging church thinker Brian McLaren (for those who don’t know him).
He’s going to be joining us at St. Stephen’s University on Wednesday of this week for a chapel, taking time out from a conference he is doing for the Atlantic Baptists in our sister town of St. Andrews.
Divine appointments are a beautiful thing, and Brian’s clarity when it comes to articulating the landscape in which we live is lucid and freeing to those who listen. I’m very grateful for this time.
Sunday October 15th 2006, 3:47 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
My good friend, artist Janie Reynolds from the UK has finally put up her website.
She trained at the Royal College Of Art and has done work for Habitat, The National Trust, Good Housekeeping, Marks & Spencer as well as illustrating a number of natural history books.
She’s done some incredible work in books, on tea ware and has a stunning portfolio I look through every time I go to England.
Drop by her site if you would and pay a little visit to encourage her. She’s freelancing now, and has begun a business based around her work.
Friday October 13th 2006, 11:22 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
I’m just beginning to think…
That much of our lives are spent reacting, or responding, in such a way to compensate for our greatest weakness.
In other words, the person who is needy for community gathers community around themselves, the person who is afraid of being misunderstood over-communicates, etc. etc.
While the idea is not rocket-science, it does make me want to be sure that my responses to people and to life decisions are not simply “equal and opposite reactions” to an area that is flawed or needy within.
Over-reaction is neither helpful to the reactionary or the reactionee – it can unduly inflate emotions or create adversarial communications. reactions should be evaluated from time to time, as they expose what is really at stake in the underworld of our hearts.
Like pain in the body, over-reactions or over-responses are intended to be a guide to us, and indicator of internal fragility, focusing us on a point in the system that needs care and attention. In a sense, corners of the heart shout in order to get some regard.
Monday October 09th 2006, 9:51 pm
Filed under: Brainwaves
Just beautiful. Just wonderful. The mystery of glory hidden in the human mind. More confounding a thought than all, is that this man, in many circles, is labeled mentally and emotionally broken by Autism.
Could it be that everyone’s genius is coupled with everyone’s thorn – that the great brokeness we readily identify in others is simply a gateway to understanding the great gift they could offer us all?
