We’re in the middle of the Parenting From The Inside Out Seminar here in Prince Edward Island, and its been fantastic. Anita is really in her element doing these, and its such a privilege to team up with her and take the more background role.
Last night and this morning, she went through ideas in Parenting Philosophies, Character Development, Cultivating The Garden of your child’s heart, Obedience, Discipline and more.
Tonight I open up Identity and Destiny (who you are, and who you’re becoming), and we crack into the father end of parenting. Lots of small group and group interaction have really opened all of it up in beautiful ways.
We got a chance to run up to the North Shore of the Island (Anita calls it “my island;” i.e. her island). It is breathtakingly beautiful, even in winter, just like the Anne of Green Gables film.
My darling wife and I are off to Prince Edward Island this weekend to do a Parenting From The Inside Out Seminar for folks on the island. Our kids circled around us just now and prayed for us to send us out to the task.
And… I finished the work for the Broadman Holman book yesterday, so that is a great relief. Any prayers for the event in PEI would be embraced.
If nurturing families is not integral to the contemporary and emerging Church ethos, then all is lost; but if it is, generations are gained.
This term, our One Year Diploma students at the Institute Of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies are engaging with the riches of spiritual formation literature throughout the ages of the Church. We are also engaging together in a Spiritual Formation Group, based on Richard Foster and Renovare’s model, and participating with resident SSU Spiritual Director Lorna Jones in Ignatian Prayer activities.
To become present to God, to His activity in history, to His word, to ourselves and to one another inside and outside of community – this is a primary goal for this course.
Anyone is welcome to join in these InReflection blog posts on spiritual formation, which will be for our course participants to reflect on ideas they have been reading about and applying from historic spiritual formation literature.
Our next readings were focused on Thomas Kelly and othersand the students will write something vital they learned from each, focusing on the most important ideas to them personally as leaders.
INRESPONSE QUESTION:
Reflect on the key ideas presented in these writings, and reflect on how they personally apply to your life as a follower of Jesus, as a spiritual influencer and as a creative leader. (300-500 words).
I’m finishing up my work for the chapter commissioned by B&H (Broadman Holman) publishers for their book entitled, Perspectives On Christian Worship: Five Views this week.
They kindly gave me an extension, and the chapter plus responses is being accepted as my primary thesis work to complete my Masters here at St. Stephen’s University.
It’s been a good and important ride for me. Writing alongside Dan Kimball and others is a privilege, and I’m noting some key themes:
* The Church/culture interface is the primary issue hiding behind questions of the efficacy of particular models of historical worship expression.
* There is a general confusion of the word “Word,” as it relates to “Word and Sacrament,” “Word as Jesus,” “Word as Scripture,” “Word as Spoken Elaboration on Scripture,” and “Word as God.” In the tumult, there is an elevation of some Word ideas that I think are confusing the dialogue. Those “Words” are not all the same, and we handle them differently.
* The gravitas of certain formats enhance a sense of mystery, wonder and gift in the face of God’s love, often through specialized, sensory ritual. Others are more concerned to make God seem to be “accessible” to the average human being, minimizing the role of a religious professional and elevating the spiritual influencer - enjoining the participation of all saints in the process of worship planning and experience.
* All the traditions have something that shimmers and shines about their movement. All are lacking something only the whole body of worship work can give. All are in process, holding tradition in high tension with innovation, orthodoxy (right belief) in high tension with orthopraxy (right action). In fact, the latter two movements of th piece, contemporary and especially emerging worship, challenge themes in orthodoxy and advocate fresh themes in orthopraxy.
* New forms of high intellectual content/low meditation practice, and low intellectual content/high meditation practice, seem to come and go. We must elevate Great Thinkers and Great Feelers to find our keel evened, it seems, generation to generation.
Just some random thoughts on the morning I teach all day, and write all night.
This is a solid article from an interview with Phyllis Tickle on Out of Ur. It’s worth a read, especially as it considers the next 500 years of the Church (may we be so bold). Put on to this by Andrew Jones’ blog.
After a night of listening prayer among a circle of friends for a family in our community, I’m deciding something in the midst of the emerging Church and worship process that I think will engage me for a longer haul than some of my present patterns of thinking.
God is greater than the challenges that face the Church, and there is no distance between He and the future that lay ahead. Therefore, with confidence we engage and discuss, decide and defer, toward growth.
We honor the past, engage the present, and listen for the future. We tend to one another in the process, but we all are not called to hold back and wait for agreement. Pioneers, pioneer. Settlers, settle. Enlighteners, enlighten. Pastors, pastor. Bustlers, bustle.
I look forward to the silencing of battle and winning of the day; a Day that God Himself holds both forcefully and tenderly until the waking of timeless dawn.
In the following piece, beauty is rampant. We may not agree with the spirituality represented, but it is a lovely work of dance art by human beings.
All of the performers are deaf according to the site this origates from.
Let this be a call to aesthetics and excellence in all manner of Kingdom faith expression. Beautiful; to see human beings creating in such vibrant ways.
This was sent to me by good friend, Kris MacQueen in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Some very good discussions around here precipitated by the “Jesus Tomb” debate. So much could be written here, but for those wrestling with the Discovery Channel piece, I hope they are helpful.
Big budget productions can be very convincing, of course, and would indeed have significant implications if “true,” though truth has many faces it seems when human beings are involved.
My favorite moment was spent with my brother-in-law, when we went to the extremes and cast a wide orbit around faith in Jesus, the scandal of particularity, and the battle that, as Father Raneiro Cantalamessa (preacher to the papal household for Pope John Paul II) stated to a group of us as Vineyard leaders in Rome, is always “around the King.” God conversations are easy; involve Jesus and the fray begins.
If redemption has not come into a clearly beautiful, but bent world, then the random universe has no reason for hope. That’s a limited sentence covering a vast amount of territory.
I look forward to science scrutinizing science, as can be seen below in some of these media pieces, over the next 30 years on this one.
This is a lovely little spot for transcultural images and world loving themes pointed out to me by my great friend Tina Brown.
The imago Dei emphasis near to my heart (and the “wish I was a cultural anthropologist” side of me) was invigorated by some of the images. My wife and I used to work with YWAM, and this site is a “photomission” site for one of their schools.
We’ve been discussing in our Ancient and Emerging Worship Studies class the influence of artists on culture, and on the faith community growing up in postmodernism. As John Lennon became a spokesperson for a generation (rocky as his worldview was - enter the artist’s nature), Bono has become probably the premier artistic voice representing a generation.
Dr. Peter Fitch here at SSU suggests the possibility (or probability) that the rediscovery of Greek statues, and the reclaiming of the celebration of the three-dimensional human form in art (after the two-dimensionalism of the medieval era) may have been the single most precipitating factor of the Reformation. A celebration of humanity, but with a God-oriented focus, turns us from humanism toward a God-centric anthropology. Human beings are beautiful, and to be treated with care and dignity, because God is beautiful and reflects His image in us. Through all the rocky story of U2 and Bono’s faith, this story is punching through, and challenging the sub-culture of the Church to see a new way of being in this generation.
Here’s the YouTube version of Bono’s speech delivered to the National Prayer Breakfast and president Bush, along with leaders of many faiths:
We’re going to be doing some worship worldview work together based around the What Is Worship? concepts (imago Dei, Kingdom and culture, fully alive), with attention to the sacramental life and the incarnational tradition in the Church.
We’ll play in and out of the Church as SubCulture vs. the Church as SeedCulture, and explore the joys of repetition and monotony (not unfamiliar to weekly worship leaders) that Chesterton said make the universe a magical place – God and children love to say “Do it again! Do it again!”
With a sprinkling of practical “how to” in worship ministry, as well as some devoted time to pray for one another and get some hang time, this promises to be a rich weekend.
If you’d pray for us as you read the post, we’d be so very grateful.
University Level Study and Certificate (St. Stephen’s University)
Study Retreat Optimally Designed For Creative Leaders
Roundtable Discussion with Scholars
Spiritual Theology & Personal Formation
Emerging Church Reflection
Studies In Community
Theology Of Aesthetics & Creativity
Creational Theology
Spiritual Formation Of The Leader
Ancient Worship Forms
Community Learning (3 Voice Learning)
Ignatian Prayer Forms
Celtic & Non-Western Spirituality
Worship History
Emerging Songwriting
Video Chat With Guests
Beauty of Dominion Hill Centre in New Brunswick
Live teaching with Dan Wilt, Dr. Peter Fitch, Dr. Gregg Finley, Spiritual Director Lorna Jones, Dr. Peter Davids and others, along with Institute video training offered by N.T. Wright, Matt Redman, John Eldredge, Brian Doerksen and others.
Study Bonhoeffer, Athanasius, Lewis and others side by side with other creative leaders in our unique, small size, roundtable learning forum. Some reading to do ahead of time, so…
