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liturgy after charlotteville

The following are the brief remarks I made at Immanuel Church on the Sunday after the White Nationalist rally in Charlotteville, Virginia

I don’t have many words because, frankly, I’m embarrassed and broken hearted. For most of the weekend, as I saw report after report as to what had happened, my emotions went back and forth between sadness and infuriation. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because I have been predicting this stuff for a long time now, but I was still flabbergasted that what I was watching could be happening in my country in the year 2017. read more

A Prayer for Shalom in an Insane World

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Desert father Abba Anthony said,

“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’ ” read more

A Liturgy of Peace

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I wanted to put this out before it moved from the front of my thinking. A few of us have been very concerned about the increase in violent activity in our city (here is a different recent post about this). The question I have been grappling with is what is the church’s response to such issues. To be honest, the complexity of urban violence is beyond me. What can be done? What can I do? I am not sure.

Liv Larson Andrews

One thing we (Eric Blauer and Liv Larson Andrews) arrived at was we did not want to become desensitized to how these brutal acts fractured shalom. I believe many Americans are becoming fatigued by the constant cascade
of news of this kind; that they are in a way de-selecting it for their possible choices of issues to be concerned about. read more

Cry for Peace

Honestly, it seems like there are a millions things on the minds of Americans right now and the potential of entering into another war seems like a strange little (and inconvenient) “gnat” only mildly clouding our attentions. We have been in international conflict for so long, for some it just seems like a “same old, same old” thing.  I can remember not long ago that when our country was on the precipice of a international conflict (war) people would freak out.

Have we become that desensitized? Are we that callous? Does it not alarm you that our country is about to drop more bombs…on a different country? read more

Why Do We Call Him Lord (HT – McKnight)

Friedrich Peter the Suffering Servant

I came across this today and felt like posting it, particuuarly as our country continues in its warring posture and stands on the precipice of another engagement.

We call a poor man “Lord” and in his name determine friends and enemies on the basis of who has oil for us. read more

Sowing Shalom – Common Good

I just got back from a conference in Chicago that specifically dealt with how Christian congregations can sow shalom into their local contexts.  It was fantastic.  Almost simultaneously, I came across this new site by CT.  It is worth looking at.

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Finding Nemo in the Church

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Anyone who has watched the movie “Finding Nemo” knows that clownfish live where? “In an anemonenene”. The symbiotic relationship between the clown fish and the anemone is truly beautiful. The fish constantly feeds on small invertebrates that potentially kill the anemone, and the anemone protects the clownfish with its stinging cells. If either of the two organisms is not present, the remaining one will struggle to survive and probably die.   A healthy church has a similar relationship between the sodalic and modalic structures. Examples of sodalic organizations are Youth for Christ and Campus Crusade, while most churches are examples of modalic structures; this is where people are primarily fed and grow in their faith. In simple terms, sodalic organizations bring many new converts into the church, while modalic structures nurture and develop these new converts into servants (which often results in sodalic servants). Do you see how this symbiotic mutualism is similar to the clown fish and the anemone? The modalics feed the sodalics and the sodalics feed the modalics. An example would be a small church that is also a Youth for Christ center. The YFC center would constantly be bringing new converts into the church and the church would reply by developing these converts and placing them in the YFC center. When both organisms are functioning together, life flourishes.     However, in America this symbiotic relationship is rarely found. You see churches all over the place trying to function and draw people in on their own, and you see sodalic organizations converting people and then trying to “place” them in a church (which is similar to transplanting a killer whale into a mountain lake in many cases). Since these two categories in the church are not functioning together, both are struggling to survive on their own. It is similar to a clown fish trying to survive without the anemone; while the fish may survive, it will not be healthy and will constantly be attacked by its enemies. This is all because the clown fish is not living the symbiotic mutualism that God designed it to live in……. and the same is true about the church.

Suspended Space – Peter Rollins video

This is a helfpful and thought provoking little video.  I love Rollins' line, referring to the church, "I am not going to let anyone colonize the space…including myself."  I wish this were true of all churches in the west.

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