:: The Art of Creation ::

Exploration in Revelatory Arts

Painting a canvas till it disappears
And reveals the painter;
Tuning sounds and rhythms with silence,
So music can breathe, incarnated;
Morphing its visible and tactile energy,
The sculptor bends matter to will a new form
Defying its primal essence;
Exposed to the elements,
The writer's soul pays dearly
With every pen stroke,
The gift of naming beyond words;
Pulsating from grace and gravity,
Rest and movement reveal
The still point of dance…

O u t o f s i l e n c e e m e r g e s t h e u n s p o k e n...

From the dark waters of the soul,
The self, at times deceivingly evanescent,
Projects unto the screen of awareness an image of itself
Wrestled from the creative forge of light and sound,
Merging time, space, ether and matter,
Into the living substance of an experience.

From the clear waters of the abiding spirit,
Intently peering into the soul of God,
A divine reflection settles,
And from a revelation of essence
The human soul is defined
As it soaks the Embrace:
Destined for glory,
Our earthly journey appears in a new light,
We behold perfection
And glimpse into the womb of eternity.


Andre Lefebvre - Stratford, 2004

Luther, the movie, and some thoughts

Can one watch this movie (Luther, a new release in video stores) and not feel the incredible and relevant actuality of it... see how the people massively welcome him in Worms, albeit already making him a Catholic saint... but what strikes me is the passion his writings have stirred in the population for accessible truth and exposing what they already had been thinking, although maybe with a double-sided emotions: misplaced faith and defense of the indulgence system where their submission to it gave them a promise that all would be well, because how could a Christian leader lie to them?? Then there's this underlying disgust for what they feel underneath the whole pomp of the hyper-rich and political Church, feeding on the crumbs they demand from the faithful as they abuse their trust in God...

There was a good piece on Oprah about child molestation: she says it's not about abuse, but about seduction. It starts as a game with tickling, then up the ankles it goes. I also know, for I have been that child, that the child is confused but does not know why, then in the end, the crime has been committed, and as long as there is silence, the crime is perpetuated. And as the confusion persists and endures, the personality splits and damage continues, opening the way for decades of more abuse of all sorts.

One can go so far to silence the voices that push on the envelop of the establishment, both fundamentalist and contemporary. but one day, the silence is broken and people around start wondering why they kept silent, because silence and conformity can be the tool of the enemy to make sure spiritual incest persists.

Some are busy walking out a new way, some still struggle with the wounds as they reach for that new way, and to blame them is to encourage a silence that has been all but silent assent to abuse...

:: KILL ONLINE ::

A new site is born: http://www.live-shot.com.

[LIVE-SHOT is a new concept. You can challenge yourself and compare your skills to other members with our on-line target shooting. We have developed a system where you can control a pan/tilt/zoom camera and a firearm to shoot at real targets in real time.

While your membership is active, access the viewing cameras to see how others stack up to your abilities, control the pan/tilt/zoom camera to take a look around, and schedule a reservation for your on-line shooting experience.

Currently, shooters will be able to fire 10 (ten) .22 caliber rounds at paper and silhouette targets. You may also have a DVD recording and/or the paper target from the session shipped as an option. Look for additional, varied shooting systems along with competitions to come online soon.]

Kill ONLINE, not sure when they will update this for warfare and killing for hire...

What a bored civilization...

:: Art Katz on Morning Devotions ::

Art Katz:

"Just a thought that this issue of personal morning devotion before the commencement of the day; it might be more significant that anyone knows, and it might be the actual factor of Israel’s hope of deliverance. For this, I use the text of Mark, chapter nine, of the young man who was thrown into the fire by a demonic spirit. “How long has this been going on?” Jesus asked the father. “Since childhood” (v. 21), since infancy, since the inception of his life, so that, prophetically, I am thinking, “What is being represented here? This is not just a child being molested, harassed. This is a child that is the particular object of demonic fury seeking to kill him.” This must represent Israel itself. The disciples, being unable to cast this out, asked Jesus, and He answered, “This kind [this ultimate kind] cometh not out but by fasting and by prayer” (v. 29).

The way that I have been given to understand that in the light of my own experience is that it is a prayer beyond petition. It is that communion with God where we linger and wait in His presence, because He is God and not because of anything that we would receive of utilitarian kind, that imbues us with something of Himself, so that when we have to confront Last Days’ demonic activity, we bring that reality, which is the accumulation of the daily times with God, that is greater than the visible reality of their power. What we obtain in that early morning communion will be critical in the Last Days for Israel’s deliverance. It is not heroics; it is devotion."

"I would just encourage those who are reading this interview to be inspired to not neglect the commencement of the day with the Lord, not just for the issue of their petition or reading of an obligatory chapter, in order that they have done their religious duty, but to spend sufficient time in the Lord’s presence, even when it is not felt, so that something is given of what is God Himself, ultimate reality. In the Last Days, we will defeat and move and deliver a victimized Israel from the clutches of those dark powers. That would be a last encouragement that I would like to express."

Art Katz Biographical Interview

About Reformation & Change

QUOTE FROM Teri Lee Earl: Generally, two words are used to describe an over-all change coming to the Church, 'restoration' and 'reformation'. Each has its strength and weaknesses in what it portrays or communicates.

Restoration often presumes that there are lost truths or practices that need to be 'restored'. As in the article posted on this site, Restoration of the Church by Arthur Wallis, God does work to 'revive' dead obscured truths, often in conjunction with a revival or spiritual awakening movement.

There are various restoration theories, however, that are in effect, various forms of deception. They tend to be loosely based on scriptures such as Mark 9:12-13 (please cross-reference this with Luke 1:13-17) and Acts 3:21 (please notice the context of verse 20 there, Jesus is the one who "comes to restore all things").

Commonly, these theories of restoration suppose that all expressions of the Church right after the early church have been deprived of 'real' truth and power. To solve this problem, the current movement and its teachers or prophets or apostles have come to save the day. They will now help 'restore' the Church to her former glory. At the very least, they will prophecy or teach that missing something. Perhaps it is that important truth that was previously-not-known-nor-ever-understood before they arrived upon the scene. Perhaps it is something that was lost to the early Church in times past-- until now.

Typically. these types of 'restoration' theories culminate in a fantastic expectation of the current movement, whatever that may be, to finally become the 'true' or 'victorious' Church. In other words, their group are the ones to be 'restored' to either as good as the first century church, or even superior to it.

These restoration theories lend themselves to gross spiritual pride on the part of their leaders and followers. They begin or end with odd heresies and practices that are just as bad or worse than the very things that they had rejected as 'inferior' to themselves. Failing to produce the fantastic expectations they set up, many a person is left disillusioned. It is the wise man who prudently avoids certain restoration theories. END QUOTE

Teri Lee Earl
www.harvestnet.org

:: Building the Kingdom - quote ::

"If my Church believes in an everlasting temple, here on earth, they must build in a more temporary, less permanent way. There are many possible church structures, all of which can be good and useful, but people must not try to make any one of them into an absolute. People must keep hold of the content, and give it a new form, which is suitable for the people of this age."

(Frans Horsthuis - The Royal Way, p.168)

:: The Lowest Price is Lawless ::

Are Dollar Stores and Wall-Marts (and their various off-shoots and disciples) lowest prices actually a storefront for products manufactured by cheap labour and political prisoners in countries that violate human rights for the sake of profits?

It does not matter if it's China or Indonesia, or countries in South America, there has certainly been a mass exodus toward developping countries where construction, production and environmental laws are slacked, which attracts many brand names manufacturers. THing is, wages and absence of Unions are also a big dog in the balance.

The result is that there is an exponential increase of products that are imported here that have been built by people who's quality of life suffers tremendously. We would never work under their conditions.

Granted, our countries did work under those conditions, and is it our place to dictate the flow of their history in conquering these prematuraly? Shouldn't there be a genuine movement born from the people asking for reform? Even if it will massively mean imprisonment, where they will continue working just the same... or death?

How aware do we want to be? How responsible do we want to be with our money? What control do we have over all this? How should we shop, since Fair Trade isn't possible in countries living under political oppression?

Well, I don't know. Being poor forces me to look for lower prices, but I can't shake the deep malaise I have any time I walk in a Dollar Store, Wall-Mart being on my black list for violation of social environmental ethics, and for being a landscape eye-sore and a black hole for local economies... and being relentless at wanting what they want just because they can afford the lawyers and the years it takes for them to violate the population's request that they do their business elsewhere, or at a specific spot within the city's development plans.

Anyways, here's a good one from Voice of the Martyrs on that sort of topic that I got from the latest "Virtual House" newletter from Christianity.ca.

:: The Pain of It All... ::

"If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in his hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across."

Oswald Chambers

:: HUMANITIES COLLIDING ::

POST-MODERNISM IS A CANVAS, NOT A GOSPEL

I don't think we have to defend Post-Modernism, it's only a very useful canvas. I do think, however, that we need to stand for truth. Anywhere that lie and deceit reign, it is healthy to identify them. Not being able to do so put us, and those who rely on us, at risk.

The Gospel is what I contend for, it is about knowing God and be known by Him, and living a life that reflects that relationship. And it is about doing what He does, guided and empowered by His Spirit, and being able to lay down whatever we're doing to follow where He leads.

The whole stack of Paul's Epistles were about church problems raised by improper leadership and discipleship. So it's not something contrived out of thin air when people also need to look at that reality. Granted, often it might start with bitterness, and the expression of it. But it should evolve and become a journey from bitterness to understanding of one's own sins as well, leading to a better understanding of grace, leading to an incarnated application of forgiveness, leading to a collective radiance from reconciliation: humanities colliding.

But whatever we go through this side of redemption, at any given time it is about the one who sees, for God will give light to those who thirst for it, but He will also bring us further into that light, into the raging fire of its core, so we are purified from our fleshly ways.

Yes, He'll redeem any situation if we'll let Him. And as long as we remember it's about change, then we will allow each other room to express outwardly things we still haven't found words for, only impressions. And we'll trust that within that grace mentality, we'll have found a place where we can grow. And those we minister to will also benefit from this dynamic.

Questionning leaderhsip is part of growing up. The problem could very well mutate ito a nastier cluster if what we come up with as far as solutions only reinforce a spirit of "independance." But the same can be said if the only thing we do is fear and keep silent when we witness abuse, when we decide we won't be our brother's keeper. The main tragedy of fallen leaders was isolation and unaccountability.

The ultimate expression of the prophetic is 'love.'

Blessings,

:: OUTDOOR KINGDOM ::

This morning, Breakfast with Blumhardt had, once again, an interesting relevance...

= Breakfast with Blumhardt =

October 29, 2004

If we remain in the petty, selfish attitude in which everyone has his own "dear Savior" and cooks himself a nice sweet pudding to eat comfortably to his heart's content, we will remain without Jesus, without the one who says, "I am the light of the world." We will not become children of God. We will not get away from our own nature.

We do not really know how to live in a way worthy of God. We remain always the same miserable people, stirring around in our own nature. So we go to pieces and finally complain to heaven that God does not care about us. Certainly God does not care about your selfish interests. He came into the world. If you want to meet the Savior then you must go out into the world, leaving behind your personal concerns. Be on guard against your own pettiness and seek the world. There you will find Jesus.

Of course I don't mean that world which is penetrated by sin and death. That is a false world. Jesus says, "I come into God's creation. I am here to serve this creation of God, so that God's will may be done, and so that one day it may be as in the beginning, when God saw everything that he had made, and said it was very good." We have to find the way into this creation.

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, from Christoph Blumhardt and his Message, The Light of the World.

:: oN tHE tURNING aWAY ::

ON THE TURNING AWAY

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
"Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away"

It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it's shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

:: tHE dOGS OF wAR ::

THE DOGS OF WAR
(Gilmour, Manzanera)

Dogs of war and men of hate
with no cause, we don't discriminate
discovery is to be disowned
our currency is flesh and bone
hell opened up and put on sale
gather round and haggle
for hard cash, we will lie and deceive
even our masters don't know the webs we heave

one world, it's a battleground
one world, and we will smash it down
one world...one world

Invisible transfers, long distance calls
hollow laughter in marble halls
steps have been taken, a silent uproar
has unleashed the dogs of war
you can't stop what has begun
signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
we all have a dark side, to say the least
and dealing in death is the nature of the beast
one world, it's a battleground
one world, and we will smash it down
one world...one world

The dogs of war don't negotiate
the dogs of war won't capitulate
they will take and you will give
and you must die so that they may live
you can knock at any door
but wherever you go, you know they've been there before
well winners can lose and things can get strained
but whatever you change, you know the dogs remain

one world, it's a battleground
one world, and we will smash it down
one world...one world

:: The River and Post-Modernism ::

The River In Our Postmodern Culture
An article by Steve Osmond from Alberta...

"Every generation must have its own unique encounter with the Spirit of God. The promise of the Father is that the person and power of the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh, upon all ages and all generations, including modernists and postmodernists. The good news is that the postmodern mindset will be able to relate to spiritual experiences such as the Holy Spirit baptism, divine healings and physical manifestations of the presence of God. In other words, this is a great season for River people."

"This is even reflected in popular Christian literature. In the early 1970’s the best-selling KNOWING GOD, by J.I. Packer, emphasized the cerebral study of God’s attributes as the key to spiritual growth. Packer, in his forward to this book, actually targets modernists as his audience. By contrast, in the 1990’s Henry Blackaby and Claude King wrote another best-seller, called EXPERIENCING GOD. In this work, Blackaby and King make experience acceptable and even beneficial for spiritual growth. This emphasis on experience is a significant characteristic of postmodernism and opens the door for a “River” theology, which has been born out of an outpouring that emphasizes experiencing God. Bottom line? Postmodernism is “River friendly.”

SOURCE: Spread the Fire Magazine (PDF file... For better viewing, right-click and select Save Target As, and save the document on your desktop).

:: THE RULE OF EVIL ::

The rule of evil affects all human beings. In our day it has reached massive proportions. We come across it in every form of government, in every Church, in every gathering no matter how pious, in all political parties and labor unions, even in family life and in our Brotherhood. It has a demonic power that shows up in every one of these structures, however different they may be on the surface. They are pervaded by the inclination to obstinate self-determination, the tendency to present what is one’s own as the only thing that counts – one’s own person, one’s own nation, State, Church, sect, party, labor union, one’s own family or community – or at least, one’s own way of thinking. Eberhard Arnold - 1926

There has hardly ever been a time when it was as evident as it is today that God and His righteousness and love do not yet rule. We see it in our own lives and in current events. We see it in the fate of the hopeless, the millions upon millions of unemployed. We see it in the unjust distribution of goods though the earth offers unstintingly its fertility and all its potentials. There is urgent work that must be done to help humankind, but it is obstructed and destroyed by the injustice of the present world systems.

We are in the midst of a collapse of civilization. Civilization is nothing but humankind’s orderly work in nature. And this work has turned into a disorder whose injustice cries out to heaven.

There are hundreds of signs that something is about to happen. Nothing in history takes place, however, unless it comes from God. So our plea to Him now is that He make history, His history, the history of His righteousness. And when God makes His history, we all have every reason to tremble. For as matters stand today, He can do nothing unless His wrath first sweeps over all the injustice and lovelessness, all the discord and brutality, that rule the world. His wrath will be the beginning of His history. First must come the day of judgment: then the day of joy, of love, grace, and justice can dawn.

But if we ask God to intervene, we must bare our own breasts before Him so that His lightning can strike us, for we are all guilty. There is no one who is not guilty of the wickedness in today’s world. Eberhard Arnold - 1933

Both quotes taken from God's Revolution - a free e-book download

:: What's the Church to be? ::

Someone asked on Resonate: "...in this conversation is the "church"
referred to the institutional denominational systems?"

It got me thinking:

What will happen when Israel turns en masse to the Messiah? How much revelation will they unlock to us western minds? Between some people's call to simple and straight-forward action, and the processing of ideas that lead many to feel inspired, there's a wealth that's spelled "C-H-U-R-C-H."

I think the move has been that people started walking at a level where their church party line appeared to be lacking in depth and passion. Maybe they felt something pulling in their own lives, as if realizing they were following the wrong leader and woke up on a deserted road, not on the road to Emmaus. But all the while, they were told they were going to be doing all that stuff for God, and finally, it was more to keep the collective religious unit busy.

Something of the message resounded: "Father loves YOU." And the journey it started us on has been anything but well defined. Most of us have found fuel for it by reading the mystics, as well as theologians that have addressed the relevance of the Gospel on their generation's social canvas. We're searching right now, and should be opened to the temporary nature of our findings, but we should encourage the profusion of expression so that the small gems would be pourred out by the generous flow of authentic inquiries.

What I see happen is the Church seeking its Savior. Because the Church needs to reconnect with salvation in a fresh way if the world is going to see our light, and if the Church is to be the place of refuge (and sacrifice) that will allow the members to come together and become an organic spiritual body. We need to clean-up and rescue the world from the extreme christian fundamentalism that threatens to take over the world and declare itself the new and only valid Christianity.

When I refer to extreme christian fundamentalism, I refer to the Christian Right which plasters its fear of sin all over the media and political agendas. I fear that by keeping the world out of the church, "them", we keep the church out of the world... so we need to redefine church not as a political power, but as a social changing factor, the kingdom of God.

:: Excavating the Kingdom through brainstorming ::

I don't know about those who try to find a lazy way and shortcut toward change by just applying formulas that mimic a movement, be it post-bs. I just hope they'll find their own footing and be "inspired" and not just copy. However, I also think we learn by models, and so there's validity in labels.

I personally believe that we are just a bunch of people connecting together, sharing our journey and not wanting to label our quest other than that we felt lost in the ocean of visions out there, or lack thereof. We felt processed like rats in a maze toward the collective purpose to bring souls to the church. And many feel we don't even know what the kingdom should look like in a western contemporary media civilization. We're struggling to see the tree in the forest. To hear when it falls.

Other than that, of course labels are what we need to define where we're at, in relation to others. The challenge, to me, is to find a way to hold them loosely, from generation to generation.

Of course feed the poor, pray for the sick, intercede for the family and the nations. Go and preach the gospel. But before you do, like the rest of us, you surely had a time of reflection over what it would look like, taking baby steps, growing up as you went. I can't invalidate anybody's verbal outpouring over a life of faith lived in community, because I myself have babbled before I could speak. And it's all about blessing each other's journey in integrity and honesty.

I was tired of NOT reading anything alive concerning the focus group the Church had become. I really want to articulate where things went wrong because I want to leave a legacy for other generations so they don't have to get stuck like we were, without having relevant material to ponder. I want to see what went wrong in my life so I learn from my mistakes, and hopefully next time embrace the way of the kingdom and not just blurt out my own immaturity, waiting for the world around me to adjust to my tunnel vision, or waste away isolated from real people with real needs, while I got water that's stagnating in my cup.

And it's nice when the people I disciple don't have to stay beneath my own limitations, but I can bless their unique adventurous spirit and learn from them too, validate their own journey as they experiment. It's not just about the goal, but how we take people to a place where their hearts burn without ceasing to do the deeds out of genuine passion, with the ups and downs that go with this.

We shouldn't be afraid of trying things out in a conceptual conversational way, because even for a moment we believe it would bring something alive to us. Sometimes, we will as quickly distance ourselves from it, and that reaction is a sign of a healthy anchored heart who's looking for Christ to be revealed and the kingdom to advance. Through grace maturity comes, not through fear.

"When a torrent sweeps a man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory." [ Robert Louis Stevenson ]

:: Motion Sickness ::

Here is a great new Canadian site that's worth visiting regularily: Motion Sickness. Enjoyed the conversation about the prodigal son's story...

:: Prodigal Sons ::

Reflecting on the prodigal son's story, inspired by Adam's blog "Here Comes Your Man"... (Thanks to Len for pointing it out...)

You can feel the power of the quote "...Meanwhile, the older son was in the field..." Of course, I get from this: "go and do the work of the kingdom." Could it be saying that being busy doing the works doesn't keep a heart from hardening?

The father comes to the elder's rescue: "Your inheritance is still all here, but I had lost half of mine, and now he's back! Wouldn't you rejoice if you had lost half of your inheritance and suddenly it came back to you?"

I think it's about the heart, once again. God loves a cheerful giver, pure hearts will see God, love one another as you love yourself, integrity and justice in deeds.

I also love that the youngest son wasn't able to completely articulate a whole theology of sorrow for feeling unworthy... "I screwed up and I lost more than I gained. If I could just be back here and work the field now...?" What could have made the Father happier?

The elder still needs to walk the journey back to his Father. Repentance should come to him too, but how will it? Will he follow the steps of his young brother? How will his present attitude affect his work in the field now? What will his relationship with his Father be like from now on, since he's not "the one who stayed faithful to honor his Father" anymore... How about his relationship with his younger brother as he too returns to work the harvest?

Maybe the elder's son dramatic journey is only starting, at home, understanding that the pilgrimage he needs to embark on is one of the heart... actions don't tell the whole story...

:: Emerging... from the past? ::

Emerging...

Seems to me, as blind as I can be, that the emergent movement (ouch! I know... don't throw rocks, please... note I didn't put quotes around the word...I use movement to say 'something's moving') we witness right now, is steering away from the whole explosive prophetic/apostolic scene on the one end, with the "mega-heaven-coming-down-end-times-Bridal-destiny" conferences circuits (what worship levels they reach!), and from the lethargical evangelical churches that have refused the waters of renewal for whatever reasons they found, although they can't deny the divine call to more that's embedded in all the new songs they've been singing during their services for the past 10 years.

Reminds me of the Vineyard movement: their songs reached us and expressed the deeper thirst of our hearts for more. Years later, many mainstream churches defected from their denominations to be a new church. Running on the success of the freshness, many still failed to maintain a constancy, and those who did, did so by "reinventing" themselves as need arose.

... from the past?

I was just thinking that this emerging movement has been happening for centuries, in little pockets maybe, but often resulting in big waves of change, called awakenings.

The main power source of most of those awakenings, seems to always have been an extreme refocus on the foundational still point of grace: Christ, through genuine devotion, excavating truth from the wallpaper of contemporary religious culture, a deliberate lifestyle of godliness, and heartfelt intercession.

Reading emergent conversations, many have been about dissatisfaction, and a sense that many leaders don't know where they're going, being more or less employed at maintaining the course for a church format that many find archaic. Many blogs and posts have also been about excitment that they found other people feeling the same way about the church perpetuating professional/business models, and those people are eager to meet and openly discuss the path before us for which we have probably no prior models, except a short historical account in the New Testament.

We're searching for an external community-based organic form that would be a direct reflection of our internal passion for the purity of the Gospel in its simplicity, and that's a great start. But I'm wondering this morning, "in what way can the Gospel be culturally relevant?" A danger is always there to perpetuate the error that the form is enough to draw people, while in the end, its the presence of drinkable water that makes a well a life-giving place of meeting.

Christ is building His church. We are co-workers. Where can we glimpse on the model and get our orders from, so we know what to do? How well do we feel the foundations have been laid, how far has the construction progressed, can anyone make sense of what Christ has built at this point?

To be continued...

:: Crickets singing like Angels? ::

What do we really know about reality?

What we see, isn't it actually upside down? The colors we identify, aren't they actually a rejection? What mysteries still remain concerning the light we can see, the sounds we can hear, the flow of time, the movement in space?

Listen to the following recording that someone shared with us last summer in California. It is a recording of crickets, time-stretched according to a calculation taking into consideration the life span of a cricket compared to that of a human.

stream
download

I was so moved when I heard this... we could hear nature sing...

If these links don't work, visit XNAmbient and scroll down.

:: Practice Time ::

"The day is coming when, from every colour and tribe and nation, those who have a heart for what the Lord wants to do they are going to come and say, "Lord what is on your heart?" And the Lord will say, "I want to do something in the Philippines." Or "I want to do something in Taiwan" ... And the body of Christ will mobilize itself to move where God is moving."
-- David Demian, Director, Watchmen for the Nations

To me, THIS is closer to my present understanding of God's heart for the Bride, and the human race than anything I've read or heard anywhere. All the local stuff we have such a hard time coordinating, and maintaining, aims to establish a global beachhead, if we could recognize and follow God's coordination plan.

Growing up locally, so we can show up globally. A recognizable kingdom, moving as one, with the strength of countless ones whose character is fully engaged in the dynamics of transformation according to the image of Christ, which is beheld with passion.

Now, THAT will be power! How we need Josephs and Daniels and Nehemiahs for this to happen... Is there a way to discover God's grid, and where we fit individually and collectively?

:: Forget post-modernism ::

I'd be happy with "post-bs" ...

Because "the Gospel" has quite a different cultural flavor from one denomination to the other, I think the challenge is to make it so that people are informed quickly as to what is culturally variable, local flavor, and what is intrinsically relevant to Jesus' message, as well as the Holy Spirit's work in us. Because from embracing the simplicity and depth of that work will flow "the works." Jesus didn't succeed in changing His generation while He was alive. Paul did much better. And then Constantin came around. Then Luther. And then global awakenings poured all over the planet. Still, we debate as to what the church should look like. We're tired of the inhumanity of most of our churches when measured against ministry to the poor, including the poor in spirit which might not be so easily spotted in the crowd.

We're polarized between a need to protect the integrity of our own denomational values (after all it is difficult to know everything and we need to trust our teachers if we're to graduate), and the need to be relevant to our generation, which puts us at odds with some of the inherited dynamics we have become routinely comfortable with. But how many of us truly embrace the Gospel only in our formative years of salvation, and then come back to it years later when finally realizing that God's work is often silent, but really foundational and takes time, real time and real efforts.

I vote to elect a new expression: post-bs: post-barely_significant. That's the only "post" that can resist the test of time. When believers travail to articulate socially the living and beating heart of God's work through redemption, they will come up with something relevant and significant. But it can never become what we need to protect against the onslaught of a miraculous harvest. As soul pour into the kingdom, the kingdom should also pour in them from those who have been walking this path for a longer time.

As long as we hold to our denominational traditions without reserve, we express that the form is more important than the content, we reveal that the grid is actually for us the world, and not the worldview it was supposed to articulate through liturgical means.

I believe the only enduring value of liturgy is when it recreates the movement of approaching God with total transparence, with uncontrived fear and awe, and when it expresses the beauty and immediacy of God's response to us, but not only as a doctrinal assessment, but as an actual experience.

Just some thoughts...

:: XNA - ChristianAmbient ::

On the flowing stream of artistic expression, creative prayer evolves like a DNA helix, like feeling forward, surfing the crest of a wave completely abandoned to the will of the sea, treading barefoot the spine of the spiritual earth, a trail where the conscious awareness that there is an underlay to it obscures the confusion of any illusion, that the words used to describe its destination are actually the substance of its vertebrae which we can feel, thanks to the spirited nature of another part of ourselves which is honest, focused, daring, hungry for the spiritual feast of God's breast ...

Originally, ambient works draw [or derive ] from the old Ambient school (Brian Eno, etc) and branches in all kinds of variations, including the use of soundtracks and free-form collages, environmental recordings, famous speeches by famous people, floating chords, subtle rhythms and percussions. Everything is in the treatment of the sound, using effects, reverbs, flanges, time-stretching, pitch-shifting, the "drama" evolving so slowly, you almost feel like time is being pulled back to a grinding halt. Almost. Our whole being tittering on the threshold of the present moment... what an experience!

There are many ways to be creative within the Ambient genre, and this site would like to be a hub attracting artists who create life-giving, thought-provoking, meditative, ministering music which explores the human journey, the path of Christianity, as well pre-verbal or unspoken prayers. Works can spring from any of the fivefold ministry. Through all, of course, the goal is edification, exhortation and comfort in an inspiring way. One thing we'd like to see happen is that we'd ULTIMATELY revisiting the environmental ambience of the manifest presence of God in private and social settings.

Read the complete notes HERE...

:: MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK ::

In the US:

Mental Illness Awareness Week is an annual, national observance that was created by a Presidential proclamation in 1990 to focus attention on the high incidence of mental illness in America. This year's theme, "Take Action to Change the Nation," reflects the goals and recommendations of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. This annual observance, sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, provides an opportunity for evoking change in the Nation's mental health service delivery system through grassroots commitment and action. Activities during Mental Illness Awareness Week reach out to the media, schools, libraries, houses of worship, and State capitols. [more]


In Canada:

This year's campaign materials, produced by CAMIMH and distributed through more than 3300 organizations across the country, feature four Canadians who are living successfully with mental illnesses. The campaign theme - "FACE IT. Mental Illness Concerns Us All" - encourages Canadians to face the reality of mental illness in Canada. Nigel Bart, a Winnipeg-based artist; Loise Forest, an active volunteer in Montreal; Victoria Maxwell, a Vancouver-based actor, producer and consultant, and Ottawa-based student Justin Perkons all provide wonderful examples of how life can be lived to its fullest. [more]

"Face it" "Take Action to Change the Nation" I prefer the US theme... I'm hoping it will soon come to Canada...

I'm working through finding ways to live a balanced life, and frankly, I'm not able to right now, work is draining most of my energy and resources are worst than before. I'm supposed to work on a musical with Spark of Brilliance this year, but up to this point, I've only attended one workshop. It's hard... As far as themes, I prefer the US one, I know by experience that there needs to be much more support at many levels for people like us. We still meet disdain and harshness, discrimination and judgement within the health care system itself, anything to do with money usually brings out a coldness in some government workers. Is it a culture of government?

I had the priviledge of making music for a CD last year, Healing Embers, a collection of songs from members of Spark of Brilliance who wrote songs and poems about their experience with mental illness. The CD is available at Spark of Brilliance (Judith Rosenberg 519-766-4450). Some of the songs clearly reflect the faith of some of the writers. All the songs are quite inspiring and moving. An uncensored look into the tragedy mental illness can be, many times rendered worst by the immaturity of the health system.

About faith:

As far as help from the believing community, there have been some breakthroughs in the past 10 years that have exponantially opened the doors for Christian counselors to be much more effective in therapy, not just praying for change and healing, but actually accompanying patients on a journey through the dramatically "interrupted" parts of their evolution and allowing God to come in at those points to bring restoration. None greater I think than Theophostic.

Blessings to all this week, just go hug someone close to you who can't find words to express what they're going through... but displays signs of distress or aloofness...

:: Real Christians Don't Watch Porn... Part 2 ::

Some people read something else in my post former which wasn't intended. They were concerned that I was pointing the finger and saying that believers who engage in watching porn are not Christians. This is my response to bring precisions to my thoughts:

--------------->

If you go back and read again, I specifically stress the fact that guys (and women who struggle with that as well) should not take this lightly. I never would think to even hint that anyone watching porn or masturbating are not real Christians. That was never the focus of the article. Maybe I should have titled it: "Real Christians Aggressively Pursue sexual Purity." I tried to use "Real Christians" as some would say "Real Men Do Cry." Doesn't mean that men who don't cry are not men.

Rather, I tried to turn the focus from the inward position of godliness, to an outward one of looking with human and Christian eyes at the objects we lust after: women. These are people, and the fact that we would demystify their status as being just another toy to lust after, that should wake us up. I know it did wake me up.

Secondly, I will use this analogy: I heard it said that the Holocaust didn't happen because of hatred, but because of apathy. In the same way, we are surrounded by a culture that is trying to make our children into sex objects. If you're a parent, when was the last time you shopped for hours trying to find a decent bathing suit for your daughter? How many times are you assaulted visually by TV ads that use lust to entice you to loo? How many movies have you seen since Bring It On and American Pie that exalt adolescent sexuality, using all the cliches currently powerfully used in porn? These things come in our homes, in our psyches. And in our lifestyles.

Finally, how many families have been destroyed because they opened the doors to immorality through the father's own sex addiction and dysfunction? The Church carries the load of bringing the kingdom in a territory. Often, the demonic is at work in a place through immorality, empowered by the cliche: everybody does it. I'm advocating for purity and action, not for condemnation.

I am a survivor of sexual abuse. As a child I've been molested. As an adult I've been molested. And I've battled for decades before finding a way to victory. I don't brag about it, I just share the way I've found. Although I understand the weakness of the flesh, I would never excuse it. I don't intend falling prey to it ever again. That don't mean I'm standing in judgement of others. I just know that one can conquer certain sins if one really wants to get to the bottom of things. We don't have to remain in bondage.

I've been on that road long enough to know the tricks my flesh plays on me. But I would never think that when I lust and indulge in masturbation, that I'm any different than those who abduct and rape innocent victims, groom them to be sex slaves and make the movies or magazines I'd use to satisfy that sinful urge. In essence, it's like I'm standing in that room and perpetrating the acts myself. And that's what lust of the eye is about. We are never innocently watching. The drive of lust is that we imagine ourselves engaging in the act.

Therefore, should I apologize? I'm sorry if anyone felt diminished or insulted. But I'm not sorry to speak out and be a voice for those victims. And once we start forgetting about porn and look beyond, seeing the humans in there, in need of salvation yes, but also potentially in need of rescue, then the picture changes, and the motivation that hits us is unlike anything we've known before.

I'm pointing the finger on the culture around us and in our homes, a culture that's attempting to put us to sleep while they promote sexuality as a "cool darkness." We won't have any real power to oppose it if we draw pleasure from it.

And it's not about telling people to be remorseful and sorry for their sin, but about remaining human as we witness our own fallenness. Then can we hope to raise above temptation and become a freedom fighter, instead of sleeping with the enemy.

Hope this makes more sense. Thanks for all who shared in response to my post. I hope my position is understood as being one which attempts to bring life, and not stupidly point fingers and pour judgement on other as if I thought myself to be better... I would never do that intentionally. I have enough memories to go back to in order to take away from myself any power to judge...

Blessings,

:: Real Christians Don’t Watch Porn ::

Real Christians Don’t Watch Porn

Real Christians don't watch porn, and don't excuse masturbation. I use the slogan "Real Christians Don't" so as to make a point: WE SHOULD NOT...

There are reasons why we engage in these sins, but they are not to be used as excuses. And the reasons are not about needing relief, but about why we believe the lie that it gives us relief, while we block out the whole backdrop and real nature of said relief. The price being paid for us to indulge in our sin is catastrophic, and as long as we ignore it, we're no better than a drunk or a drug addict who's sacrificing their own family's need, because all the money is going toward providing them with a fast-track to their obsessive entitlement for immediate twisted pleasure.

I am a believer. Over the years, I’ve battle with masturbation and pornography and realized that I really am not alone. Two years ago, in the midst of an important spiritual struggle, I finally experienced a breakthrough and ever since, have not engaged in watching any porn, either on the net or printed-paper. And temptations are so few they’re almost non-existent.

Like I said, I was in the midst of a huge struggle, work-related and spiritual. As a member of a Board of Director for a University Community Radio, and Dj of the same, I was faced with the acting out of really nasty spirits of control and discrimination. A bastion of lesbianism, and pagan worship, the radio station had been under severe attack for many years, and men in particular were the targets of vicious attacks aimed at kicking them out. Anything would go: loosely using the Union, harassment, lies and deceit, manipulation, false accusations, etc.

I didn’t succeed in bringing much actual change. My health was badly affected and weird things started happening that were signs that real danger for my wife and I was approaching. In the end I resigned because I couldn’t continue my duties and enjoy it in such an ambiance. Or maybe my time was up, who knows?

However, as I fasted for weeks, the Lord showed me that if I wanted to conquer those spirits at work through those people, I would have to draw a line and conquer the influence of the same kinds of spirits in me. Pornography, sexual deviance and violence go together. The Lord gave me a few pointers and I had an about-face that changed my life. All I needed was to be determined and focused. The addiction stopped having power over me almost overnight.

There are a few things that need to be addressed in our societies about pornography and how it is culturally and economically accepted, justified, encouraged, created, packaged, delivered and protected: that is the objectification of women and men. Make no mistake, the saying is true: the younger the better. If you’re a father, think about this one.

They call it the world’s older. But prostitution is only the final destination of a need to act out the many fantasies spawn by pornographic impulses. Watching and taking pleasure in porn defiles the viewer as well as the object of its lust. Once on the fast track of masturbation, it’s almost impossible to back-out.

During my time of denial and sexual dysfunction (sickness), I’ve seen the most horrible things you can imagine while surfing the porn sites. Yes, there are such things as bestiality, child pornography, children forced to have sex with animals, homosexuality, orgies, outward demonically and ritualistic abuse sites, unashamedly promoted incest and rape of children from the crib up to adolescence, web cams galore, peeping toms, etc.

You don’t even need to surf all these sites, because they pop-up on your screen while surfing other sites, trying to lure you deeper into defilement and eventually pop out your credit card. Ever wondered why they invented pop-up screen stoppers? So people could watch porn without being bothered. The Internet is by far the biggest pool of sexual deviation and twistedness you can find, and your children may easily have access to it.

Do you watch the sex scenes in popular movies or TV dramas? Or do you flick the remote or fast-forward to resume the movie? Do you take your time to follow the lines of the body of a woman or man on a billboard? Do you “check-out” people at work, or while waiting for the light to change, do you get lost looking at ladies cross the street? When in church, are your eyes roaming free to watch young girls or boys? Or the people on the worship team?

Do you ever catch yourself in the process of doing any of the above and not feeling it’s wrong? Do you then go home and surf the net, or buy a magazine to finish off with the stormy emotional lust that’s been unleashed? Or do you feel it’s wrong and wish you’d find a way to stop? There are a few things you can do.

The first one is: call it what it is. A sin. A dysfunction. A deviation. Using people as objects. It’s sleeping with the enemy. It’s a crime too. The only difference is, you’re not there in person. Or maybe you are? Maybe you go to those places where anything goes because it’s called “adult” entertainment. Bestiality is a crime. Child pornography is a crime. Kidnapping is a crime. Rape is a crime.

Countless boys, girls and teenagers are abducted every year to serve in the porn industry, drugged up, beaten, and subjected to the most awful defilement imaginable. Even in their own neighborhood and families, these young people are groomed or lured into reprehensible behavior. And seemingly, the legislation is postured to encourage sexual deviance by listening to those who call for lowering the age of consent.

Addiction to pornography and deviant sexual behavior is excused in our society. Mothers don’t mind watching their daughters being dressed up like pin-ups to the delight of passerby’s. Church goers find it hip and cool to have their teens dress up in provocative ways, not completely oblivious to the charm and the lustful rewards for them. And if some find it offensive, they won’t speak, in fear of making a big deal of something that could blow up in their face: “So, why were you looking at her there? You have the problem, don’t bother my daughter trying to make her feel like a slut.”

Did you know that every year, I hear of government offices and corporations putting out numbers about how many of their own employees have been caught watching porn at work. If you do that, you’ll be found for sure. It’s only a question of time. You can do something about it NOW.

1- When looking at pictures, imagine that woman or man in their real life. Find that place in you that asks if that person is doing these things because they want to, or because they’ve been drugged, beaten, kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Then shut the computer.
2- Pray for the person you’d abnormally be lusting after.
3- Porn isn’t a life, it’s an industry, an image, a bait for your money, but also for your soul. If you’re a father and engage in porn, you are opening your home to the enemy. And he will come in, I guarantee you. You’re exposing your whole family to the demonic spirits you are in bed with. Don’t focus on how badly your teens are acting out, wonder about how you have given access to the warfare they’re stuck in.
4- Tell your spouse or a trustable friend about your problem. You don’t need to name specifics, just that you’re battling with this. And tell them every time you’ve fallen. The first step to reinforce the sin is to hide because of the unbearable shame that could ensue. The first step to deliverance is to stop hiding from the horror pornography actually is.
5- Do not sacrifice your money or substance to the porn idols, for you are actually sacrificing to demons. Masturbation is called “shaking hand with the devil.”
6- ACTIVATE that adult-content filter on your Internet computer. Stop going to any adult video store, change to a video store that doesn’t have an adult section. Throw away any magazine with suggestive pictures. DO NOT linger before the magazine stands in convenience stores, or look at the top shelves to see what’s there.
7- As soon as a thought comes in your mind that would usually drag you down to sin, shake it off you, like a spider from your shoulder. It could be while checking the street before turning, looking at a billboard, seeing an ad on TV, etc. Picture the thought in your mind and see yourself holding a sword and aggressively shred the thing. This should take half a second. Repeat as often as needed. You will quickly overcome.

There is a life after porn addiction. You will allow your spirit to awaken in a way that’s much more alive and crisp than before. You will stand as a guard over your household and not as a traitor who’s negotiating his/her pleasure by exposing your family to the enemy and his filth. Your life will become intercession for territorial purity.

Pornography is a plague. Children are sacrificed to its demons. Relationships, families and ministries are wrecked because of it.

We can do something, if we stop accepting as normal the gradual pull downward from this Age into the mire of defilement. We can’t conquer the sin out there that hasn’t been conquered inside of us. I do hope this blog entry has inspired change and action in your own life.

Let’s stand and be counted.

:: THANK GOD FOR RENEE!! ::

:: STUMBLING TOWARD FAITH ::

I discovered Renee Alston's book on Andrew Jones web site. Here is what she's posted there:

my name is renee. i'm the author of stumbling toward faith, and this is my message for much of the church.

(thanks andrew! for the opportunity)

i want to talk about the things that people don't want to think about. i want to talk about power, and how it has potential for unspeakable damage. i want to talk about pain, and how we spend countless breaths trying to force it away; to fix it. i want to talk about grace, and what it has meant to and for me, underneath my pretending.

i believe that much of institutionalized christianity and its christian bubble culture has created a world that will inevitably leave us less human. the church has become a place that justifies its treatment of people with (in) the name of god. the church has a short tolerance for grief, for brokenness, but it has a timetable for treating it. the church has an instant answer, a heavenly prozac: the lord jesus himself.

i know that for me, on some days, i can't get out of bed in the morning. i'm no less a believer than i was the day before. i'm no more a sinner than i was before i awakened. but healing, and trust, and moving on, is a journey. it's a cycle. it's one moment after one breath after one sigh. and somehow, i don't understand it, and some days i don't even believe it, but god is there in those moments and breaths and sighs, and god waits with me in my sadness.

when will the church be willing to enter into its people's brokenness? when will it learn the value, the necessity, of holding a friend's hand and being silent? when will it allow people their own journeys through their pain? their own timetable for being well? when can the church truly believe, and accept that even in sorrow (and perhaps, especially in sorrow) itself we find god?

Please, READ MORE!! on Andrew Jones blog site...

"AS YOU DISCOVER, CONSIDER..."

Consider:

- every step as transitory
- every articulated goal as an incomplete sketch
- all efforts as naturally needed exertion
- most discoveries as recoveries
- most recoveries as personal advancement toward maturity
- confusion as mainstream as can be
- the medium and message as symbiotically interacting
- the medium and message as sharing the same obscure quality of morphing according to outside and inside forces
- the medium and message as retaining the same essence while maturing into a higher form of incarnational reality

I totally have stumbled into EVERYTHING that have determinedly inspired change in my life. It's only when the bicycle is cycling that one can change gears. Standing still does not engage the gears. Seeking is everything: findings will find me.

:: SPONTANEOUS QUOTE ::

Things that come to mind when thinking about a dear friend's ongoing ordeal, who's calling it 'a prison'...

"...the prison of the thorns in our side...

EMERGING CHURCH: love it...

Emerging Church (excerpt)

From Wikipedia:

While there is no co-ordinated organization behind the emerging church globally, and no guarantee that the Emerging Church will mature into a coherent movement at all, the term is becoming increasingly common currency among both leaders of Emerging Church groups and Emerging Church thinkers. Many of these leaders and thinkers have written books, articles and/or blogs on the subject.

So far, Emerging Church groups have typically contained some or all of the following elements:

- Highly creative approaches to worship and spiritual reflection. This can involve everything from the use of contemporary music and films through to liturgy or other more ancient customs.

- A minimalist and decentralised organisational structure.

- A flexible approach to theology whereby individual differences in belief and morality are accepted within reason.

- A more holistic approach to the role of the church in society. This can mean anything from greater emphasis on fellowship in the structure of the group to a higher degree of emphasis on social action, community building or Christian outreach.

- A desire to reanalyize the Bible against the context into which it was written, in search of a reconstructed theology that is free from Modernist baggage.

The Emerging Church movement is closely related to the House Church movement in that both of them are challenging traditional notions of how the Church should be organized. Not all House Churches are as influenced by Postmodern philosophy as the Emerging Church, but many Emerging Churches are also House Churches.

I think

:: Cir-convict-vo-lo-cation ::

:: Reflexions about the necessity of being part of a local church ::

My wife and I have wanted to move to this here town since we left Manitoba. This past June, we finally got a house rental... In the meantime, the churches we so wanted to be part of, and who sooooo wanted us to be part of, have demonstrated a solid stucture of denominational leadership and function. I am talking about churches who could be seen as surfing the crest of the wave of the renewal/prophetic.

Even with all the best intentions and professed desire to walk into "the new things of God," as some need to define "growing onward into deeper maturity," they find they cannot function out of the paradigm of the greater circuit of churches who follow the evolving contemporary movement of apostolic/prophetic.

We have become friends with many of the people, getting to know them through attending church, or outside of the bounds of church life, as we both work with believers who attend there. But still, evey time we would go to a Sunday meeting, something just doesn't feel right. Worship times are basically when we really connect corporately with the Lord and coffee times, with other people.

I would benefit from more of these, but loike someone said, some of the rituals just drive me nuts. And hanging out with them would just bring me to a place of questioning the way things are, and I'd put my foot in my mouth far too many times in search of proper words to define my quest, and why I just can't sit in church anymore and really feel it is the Lord and our Family I am communing with in an unrehearsed way.

So we are here, finding renewed hope in a community like Resonate that there exist life beyond the dummy Church we've created to try and represent the passionate pursuit of God that was sleeping amongst so many, and that the Renewal re-awakened.

I must say I do deeply miss the corporate worship and fellowship times, however, I can't shake the feeling that there is a collective agenda of self-preservation that confuses things. And that's what I'm staying clear of. For now. It helps trying to perceive the actual true bonds of brother/sisterhood that makes a "natural intentional church" a faithful articulation of God's kingdom as a social unit as well as a spiritual one.

What qualifies a church as being a church? In my opinion, it is a local community of believers who gather together to worship God, take communion, and learn to love each other according to the Lord's command. That many groups around the country would affiliate themselves to increase their ability to serve the poor and missions seems to be a natural extension of such a clustering.

But then, they need to come up with a shared and common creed to preserve the homogeneity of the membership, and what happens when protecting the integrity of that creed takes precedence over the founding reasons of these affiliations?

Is there really a way to reinvent ourselves within each generations to follow God's leading?

Andre

BESLAN - RUSSIA - Sept 5, 2004

Beslan - Russia : the school massacre: around or over 350 dead, nearly 650 wounded, and close to 250 have disappeared, can't be found.

How can anyone even remotely think that killing children is a justified act of nationalism? This is beyond insanity !! Demonic at the core, perverse to the max. There is a wind of dementia that is sweeping our world. This was seemingly pre-planned suring the summer.

Those who believe terrorism is a justified war strategy have lost said war. I cannot buy any idea that steeps so low, even if those people have experienced injustice. I don't even have ears for those people. I am pleading with God to bring them to their knees and let them feel the pain of death of all the innocents they presume to use as bartering currency.

It is a abject as those who use children for pornography and prostitution. To think that God is going to allow sin to be expressed in its fullness in our societies... I cannot but ask: "why Lord?"

Why isn't God intervening directly publicly to stop these people?

US&THEM-ISM

On Resonate.ca, Marc has shared about a situation of "us and them" he found himself in, and the interrogations this brought him.

I have come to accept that the "us and them" serves two purposes:

1- to draw boundaries
2- to define individuation, trace the contours of individuality

Now comes the real problem: what we do with us&them-ism when it is active in a problematic situation, when "us and them" becomes the polarization of our inability, or unwillingness, to get to the heart of our real individual issues, which also can confuse the real issues: maybe someone needs to be confronted because their attitude hurts others. Or 'they' might think the same.

Any way we look at it, I believe 'us and them' is here to stay. Jesus even clearly states that at the end, there will be a "you and them." The Law of Moses is another example. Here is a quote:

The Rituals Which Set the Rules
"There are rituals, sometimes understood only in retrospect, which mark the turning of a page in the story of one’s life. Without a hint of self consciousness, and with the skill of a practiced teacher, my father, like Jacob of old, passed on the birthright in the only way that he knew. It happened in this way. Two sandwiches, a cookie or piece of cake and a small thermos of coffee, twice a day, mid-morning and mid-afternoon. This was my father’s lunch when he was working in the field. At the age of 6 or 7, it was usually my task, and not an unhappy one, I am pleased to say, to carry this repast out to him."

"These were the days when the farm implements were drawn by horses. While my father quietly ate his lunch, I would pet the horses. On occasion I would slip a stolen sugar cube from my mother’s cupboard into the mouth of my favorite, enjoying the slobbering lips against my palm as much as the animal relished the sweet cube. Such were some of my earliest experiences with raw sensuality!"

"By the time my father had finished the sandwiches and poured his second cup of coffee, I was back at his side, strategically placed for a ritual I had come to expect. Eyeing the piece of cake thoughtfully, he would say, “Well son, I’m not sure I’m up to the cake today, so could you eat it for me while I roll a cigarette?”

"While he performed his own ritual of shaking a measured amount of tobacco out of the small cloth sack into the thin paper, licking the edges with his lips and striking a match on the sole of his shoe to light it, I devoured the cake. The cigarette seemed to lighten the load for him, as well as loosen his tongue. When he talked it was usually as much to himself as it was to me. My role was to listen. It was not, you might say, a real conversation; hardly man to man, and certainly not man to boy! At the same time, in its own way, these times were intensely relational, as I now look back upon them."


"He talked about the horses. Each had names so that they could be startled out of their laggard ways by a shout and maybe a touch of the whip when pulling the plow. Like Santa’s reindeer, horses respond to their names and their master’s voice."

"Star (named for the white splash on his otherwise brown face) is limping a bit, I think we better take a look at his hoof tonight. Might have a stone in it.” That was a promise of course, and that evening we, he and I, would examine the foot and perform the simple operation."

"The ‘we’ was his language of love. He often used it when speaking of his life and tasks including me as a participant. “We will plant corn in this field next year,” he would say, as though I needed to know in order to make my own plans accordingly!"

"I was not just a boy who carried his lunch, but a partner in the enterprise. He had no need, indeed, no language to talk down to me. Nor did he attempt to treat me as a man with the pretense of ‘man talk.’ What a marvelous word is ‘we!”’ While inclusive, it is able to allow for the difference between ‘you and me’ and yet equalizes the disparity of age, gender, race and yes, even religion. What I did when I was alone or with other kids never seemed of much interest to my father. If entering into the games of children and becoming their cheerleader are the skills and duty of parenting, my father was woefully deficient and delinquent. He excelled, however, in the ageless and timeless wisdom of the ‘we.’"

"As it was, the ‘me of we’ was not big enough for both him and me. My life was narrow and my pursuits were trivial. My peers were competitors as much as they were companions. My siblings were rivals as much as relatives. Yet, his utterance of ‘we’ was as deep as the bond of father and son and as broad as the common destiny on earth that bound man and boy in the struggle between faith and fate."

"[...] God did not call me away from the farm to some form of Christian ministry. I did not leave the farm and attend seminary, preparing for a vocation of pastor and eventually teacher, because I heard a specific call from God. It is seldom as simple as that."

"A new and vital life of faith in God, shared with friends and experienced in a community of love and fellowship opened a door which could never again be closed. Through this door my passion spilled out like a river that overruns its banks. At the same time, once this door was open, warm breezes blew in and swept over sleeping segments of my soul. I awakened to what I thought was the sound of God talking, as if to himself, knowing that I was present, “Tomorrow, we will go to those who are like sheep without a shepherd and bring them to a safe place.” It was the ‘we of God’ that reached out and included me!" [Ray S. Anderson - The Soul of God (Wipf & Stock)]

Although I don't think that I have to identify with satanists and rapists and refer to them as "us," I feel there is something in God that has, through the Incarnation, embraced the whole of humanity so as to say "we." And that's quite an exploration into God:

The human heart can go to the lengths of God,

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul men ever took,

Affairs are now soulsize.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God. [Christopher Fry]

I believe we are now entering the core of the Incarnational truth that leaves churchianity, as we called it, to its papier mache replicas of the Gospel. The life of God, as expressed through the life of Christ, and now through the Body of Christ, is inclusive in a way I cannot touch, and maybe through divine impartation I can long to one day attain to that. That kind of love is beyond me. I can do acts of kindness, and sometimes even feel love for the hurtful and abusive one, compassion even, but I have not found a way to walk this way 24/7. I cannot BE love. It is a mystery.

We're purposefully called the Body of Christ. Jesus' body walked the dusty roads and streets, that embraced murderers and prostitutes, the lepers and demon possessed, that body was a vehicle for the soul of God to touch humanity in its fullness. Emptying Himself, God took us in.

Of course there is a place where we have to be careful in our exploration of 'emergence' and not become judgmental. However, it is my opinion that we need something to define the 'before and after' of our evolution, and the 'us and them' of the daily status quo of our particular churches or movements.

Change happens 'within' a community, not outside of it. Otherwise it's just a new thing, not a change. Granted, sometimes, we need to get out to find our way and connect with others, because there is more life in a virtual intentional community than an unintentional local one.

As an aside, Pink Floyd's song "Us & Them" describes the natural, twisted and hurtful way some use the concept of Us VS Them. When paranoia moves leadership:

Us, and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it’s noz what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it’s only round and round.
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside.

I mean, they’re not gunna kill ya, so if you give ’em a quick short,
Sharp, shock, they won’t do it again. dig it? I mean he get off
Lightly, ’cos I would’ve given him a thrashing - I only hit him once!
It was only a difference of opinion, but really...i mean good manners
Don’t cost nothing do they, eh?

Down and out
It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?
Out of the way, it’s a busy day
I’ve got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.

PEERING :: THROUGH :: A :: MIST

I found out my tune on DarkDuck.Net is still available for download for a while. DarkDuck is a web site that promotes Ambient music of all sorts. The piece is called Peering Through a Mist, #56 on the list:

http://www.darkduck.net/drone.htm

My other piece "Impression of Car On Rainy Afternoon" is part of their first MP3 compilations CD DarkDuck released: DDP-MP3.

This link would work to download (right-click/Save Target As)the tune: Peering_Through_A_Mist.

Hope you let me know what you think...

You will also find great Ambient and quite unique alternative music at Epiphonic.Com.

Andre

ABOUT BEING MISSIONAL

On the Resonate.ca mailing list, Linea wrote:

"Sometimes I see the spurts of 'Missional" activity as a bit artificial, as if to show that we are doing some good deed for Jesus. You know what I mean? Then the activity is done and we go back to our own routines. Would be much better if our routines were missional wouldn't it? Like a light burning 24/7 in some dark corner rather than just a match struck from time to time."

I'd venture to say that living our lives daily and loving people, is missional. It's a lifestyle or letting ourselves be changed with regards to other people's perceived needs. Mission is to bring the kingdom to someone, ourselves being the vessel, and at times we're blessed to witness the response from the person who has, through these acts of kindness, been brought to the kingdom.

For myself, I discovered that programs were necessary, but for a season. They are field trips at the school of discipleship. However, yes, we need to graduate, and as the field expands, As I walk into the field by myself, and my exposure to its condition is unprotected, challenged by someone else's need, I can walk into the reality that surrounds me responding from a heart of compassion, where the immediate end-goal is not to see that person come to my church, but rather for me to love that person.

I've lived in Winnipeg for a couple years, and was part of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard on Main (in the old place). For the first few months I was able to hang out at the Centre almost every day (I wasn't working), amidst the glue sniffing crowd. Sometimes, I was given $20 to go buy this guy or that one a pair of shoes. These people's stories are unreal. 99% native and often coming from families decimated by abuse, drugs, alcohol, violence.

The main room there was divided in two sections: on one side, a small kitchen, tables and chairs, on the other, chairs and a stage. There would be worship from 10:00 to 11:30 am, then sandwiches and coffee, tea or pop was available. We would walk around and pray over these precious ones, not try to convert them. We'd sit with some we felt led to, or simply respond to their invitation to talk a bit. Just being one suffereing human with another suffering human, although one's suffering can sometimes be more visible than the other.


After a few months of that, helping and being helped, I couldn't do it anymore. I was traumatized by so much brokeneness barging in on my own. I stopped going. I met those broken friends on Sunday, David (Ruis) insisted that all we were asked was to love them, not to convert them. Some of them only started to open up and tell their story after 2 years of coming to the Centre almost every day.

Early on, John Rademaker, one strong lover in action, asked me to drive the main drug dealer who hanged out at the Centre (!) to get some shoes as well. John knew who he was. But still. In my car, the smell coming from the man was so foul, I was driving my window fully opened, my head almost completely out, on the edge of barfing the whole time, there and back. He kept asking me to take him, and there, finally to take him home.

There was too much I could not process. My own needs were screaming out. I myself was going through horrible circumstances that left me emotionally debilitated for years, and coming to Winnipeg was the beginning of my healing. Now I was in the midst of a community that believed in loving the unlovable, the poorest of the poor. And it was really hard, every time.

One morning I was playing with the worship team, and afterwards I kept playing softly. Charlie came to the piano and just stared for a while, under the influence. He asked me to show him how to play some time. Charlie was a prolific poet. He loved writing. Inside I was screaming, unable to feel the moment, running from the implication of having to face my fears of not knowing how to be with people under the influence. I come from a heavy drug abuse background, and got very triggered by the intensity of the needs. I just could not see the person. And mumbled something to the effect that yes, it would be cool, and I'd do it... some time soon... I never created the moment for it, I never responded to that simple request.

After singing on the album No Fixed Address, a collective work from WCV with Kevin Hildebrand and Andrew Smith, Charlie was found one morning in an alley... he had been murdered, and I'm convinced it was for some stupid reason.

I never fuly recovered from that.

So yes, being missional is being who we are, where we are, where we're at, being exposed to the needs of people who are where they're at. And that is the stage where the Lord comes in and work in us at the very moment where we work for others.

My own dysfunction is still very much alive, but I found that at the moment of meeting with people in need, if I want to, if I have that mind in me, then there is the presence of Jesus between us, like a spark between two rocks. I only wish I could slow down time so as to take in the moment and be pliable to the movement of giving of myself. But more blessing than that would be that I'd be healed from the expectation that things should be different. Love can often be a sacrifice, it can hurt. Does it always have to? Something about boundaries?

I think I might have taken this beyond the point of the discussion, I hope you'll forgive me...

Being missional is being present in the moment of need as if this was a "Eucharist moment," taking communion. In reality, isn't it dying to self, preferring the other? Maybe one day this will crash the walls I've built for self-preservation, replacing them with the steady presence of God's Fatherness through the Holy Spirit.

Oh how I long for that day... !

I also think that loving people AND letting ourselves be loved is a very important part of God's design for reaching out with a kingdom heart. By me reaching out, God reaches out to and through me.

Andre

WORSHIP, COMMUNITY, AND FELLOWSHIP WITH THE TRINITY

All I really want to do is engage in worship with others who just want to go as long as they find life in it, usually a couple hours. And then move as the Spirit moves, not forcing anything on anyone. And it doesn't need to be loud and all pumped, just simply opening ourselves to the Presence, in the quiet. If I could find a group of people, and able musicians, who would want the same thing, I guess, for myself, that would "ignite the fountain" and feed me so I can live and work. I need that collective manifestation of worshipful longing and surrender, tender expression of passion, and receptivity to the wind of the Spirit.

Right now, it's all basically framed within a time slot, although at times, I've been in places where the people wanted the Presence more than the ministers, and for different reasons. Elaborating a program of "emergence" is just as human as the old order, I think we need to frame what we are exploring in a way where we 're-interpret' the traditional and mainstream Church in a new light to come out with an action plan. But if our reference is always the Church and how we can make it different, we should not forget that our reference should actually the heart of God as revealed in Jesus.

What I want to know is not how I can love my neighbour, or die to my self, because that is already a journey I'm on, and will be for life. What I need to see happen, what I'm trying to see articulated at last, is how I can "fit together with others," gathered around the Trinity, willing to meet them in those gatherings, cemented in a dynamic way by the bonds of love, as rudimental as it can be at times, to create a community, a social manifestation of the kingdom of God. We'll still need structures of government, concerted contribution of various giftings, sharing of projects and resources, or not.

For sure, we'll be putting things into words, write books, develop over time a definition of what it should look like. But ultimately, as the Studio will reveal in a very fascinating way, I'm sure, it's how we work it out, what we do when our enthousiasm meets the others' limitations, and vice-versa.

I believe that the very effort of trying to collectively articulate church is in itself the best we can do to honour God's heart desire for us to make room for the King and His kingdom, allowing others to be sweeped by the centrifugal force of a band of believers willing to grow. The "form" will take care of itself, and will be "regionally flavored." The core of it, though, nay!, the vibrancy of integral and intelligent passion, will become a node that will carry the signal and connect with other nodes from place to place in the spirit, and socially, and will illuminate a path for those who seek Life.

As an aside, France has decreed that any outward sign of religion will be outlawed, from the muslim veils to crucifixes, beards and bandanas, etc. Soon, it will be illegal to have any recognizable material signs promoting your own particular faith.

Here is a previous link about it:

http://www.voices-unabridged.com/article.php?id_article=55&numero=2

Watch the news tonight and you'll hear about it. School starts tomorrow in France...

That's an interesting step. I do not believe they could or would ban acts of kindness...

It's a process... and I'm getting a cramp ... ;O)

Andre

A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE ARTS

The conversation on the Resonate mailing list is touching on the Arts today...

A few things about Art.

It is the nature of the arts to inspire, to open a window in the fabric of our immediate reality.

There is the way it is viewed, and how it impact us, and the way it is "used" to create a specific response from us.

On the latter, I have these terms I came up with in my reflexions:

I believe in the prophetic nature of artistic expression. I find usually that if I bring a pen and paper at church and spend time on it, I come out with more revelation that if I just sit there and enjoy the view.

I also believe that a lot of who I am is embedded in the art I make. Not just always sure how to decipher it, but I can feel something of my own soul in what I do.

The powers of the world and the powers of the Church use the artist to create tools of propaganda as well as the tools that reinforce their particular "Matrix."

Art is substance of revelation. From the seed of revelation grows the outward manifestation of that word in the substance of an artistic medium.

Artist have much further to go than cater to the present agenda of people who lack the vision and leadership to open a way for people to pursue their exploration of the soul of God, individually and corporately.

THE SUBMERGING PROPHETIC

THE :: SUBMERGING :: PROPHETIC

Resonate.ca received this question today:

[...] I don't really see the gift of prophecy as very evident in my particular community, and I was wondering what other people's experiences were with encouraging and training people in it? It seems like something that would certainly be beneficial considering the emphasis that Paul puts on it when speaking of spiritual
gifts."

Here are a few thoughts I wanted to share:

You are asking the right question, for by doing this, you are fixing kingdom paramaters to the exercise of spiritual gifts: how are the gifts relevant to a particular community of believers, and how can the community at large, secular and believing, can benefit from the breath of God to infuse it with divine life, through a body of believers. I hope I understood your question properly. I'll share a few thoughts just as a way of processing this with you. We all see dimly, as peering through a mist... I'm addressing a few things here, but they are not directed at you as a person, but rather hopefully relate to the topic, as well as other "by-product" (ah! here's where lack of English gets in the way... :O) of the current prophetic culture. I beg for mercy for any error in the way I express myself, or for just plain errors in my 'understanding' of the truth and the articulation of said understanding of truth...

Let's begin.

I've been part of churches prophetically active, and some very pro-active ones as well. By prophetic, I refer to timely and pertinent encouragement, revelatory healing prayer, directive statements for individuals and for the church. In one of them, a group of prophetic people were meeting weekly to worship, compare notes and share revelations, dreams and visions, many revealing a timeline of growth for that church's to walk into its "greater destiny," with years (and miles of pages) of confirmations, and they would pray that it would come to pass. Although the leadership always encouraged and welcomed these, I can't say I have seen the said leadership move over to make sure they were letting the Lord do what He seemed to have revealed He would do. It ended up in disaster.

Granted, out of that another leadership was finally brought in and things started to look a bit more like what had been prophesied. However, I do think that when we refer to "prophetic" in most circles, we usually use the term to mean "those who hear what God is saying today." I have much problem with that. Don't get me wrong: I've been visited in my bedroom by the same renewal manifestations months before I ever set foot in Toronto. It has opened a door to my spiritual life that was unlike anything I've ever experienced. Being a musician, I've been involved in worship and hanged out with rather cool "prophetically-enhanced" worshippers from various churches from around the world.

But at this point, I have become tired of the sales pitch of most prophetically endowed movements and churches. If it's all about the greater destiny of the Church, then it can't be about the great mystery of the Incarnation. There is something I can't put my finger on that bugs me. Every believer is prophetic, but I think we also need to move beyond the "I now can have a ministry" syndrom, and the conference culture that sprung out of that, with sessions of "activation" of your gift by "recognized" prophetic leaders.

I speak of what I have seen. And I've become disinterested by the "latest word" of the so-called prophets. I've had my season of desiring to be singled out in a crowd with a smashing word of glorious destiny for all to see. The lust for recognition it revealed in me was one of the greatest revelation I've received.

It's not for me to say who's a prophet, but I for one hope for the day where it's not going to be about the big names, but about the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. I'm also sure there are many local needs for prophetic revelation, that embraces all the arts, the structures of local government and the loving your neighbour bit. All an outflowing of God's vibrant grace resting and moving in a person that has known redemption beyond the contemporary flaws of Christiandom, where finally the race has slowed down and space is made for a relationship with our Creator and Savior. The prodigal son makes his way home only for personal gain, but the Father's response is pregnant of his son's coming home from the heart, and beyond the story I am called to grasp the deeper meaning of the kenosis (self-emptying) of God. And that changes the whole scene for me.

So, what I'm saying is: blessings on all who seek to hear God and realize that they actually can hear Him. Our lives would be a greater mess if we were left to ourselves in the dark, but Jesus did not leave us alone. What I question is the theology of most of the prophetic and the fruit that comes from that in my own life. The temptation is great to generalize, and I'm sure I will succomb to it at times, but empirically speaking, I have seen, heard and experienced the dark side of prophetic: all gift, all gift. I would say it is a school, an important part of the journey, and one has to do homeworks, not just received everything without exercising discernment. After all, that's what Paul instructed:

" 29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace."
(1 Cor 14:29-32)

This sounds like it takes time to weigh things carefully. Just think how long I've bee writing to try and say something while processing and considering many facets of the topic... Do we address the prophetic voices of our time? Do we feel qualified to test their word and respond as the Lord instructs us? There must be a reason why Paul included that in this chapter. Was he trying to warn us against something? Or qualifying the use of prophetic withing the parameters of community where all should be encouraged to speak the words inspired by God. He thus says there will be mistakes made. I also suspect he was trying to encourage us not to limit our expectation of His revelation to a "chosen few," but that by sharing within the community of faith, there lies the better rule of balance, and the better use of His words.

Otherwise, we get a culture of the prophetic that's unbiblical, exclusive, unaccountable, "mistaught." The spirit of the world also point its head in there: people tend to leave the responsability to the leaders to chew-up the theological meat and serve them the pablum. Then, most theology will serve the voted vision, justifying the current dynamics of leader worship, and not the cyclical process of maturity.

There are questions we need to wrestle with as created beings, as redeemed beings, and they might not directly answer the technocratic needs of church-growth. But unless we challenge our thinking with other substances than what is presented by the packaged 'prophetic' of conference circuits, we won't be able to properly discern the real from the temporary. And our impact on our generation will suffer from not seeing us bring the kingdom into the world, but try to bring the world into the kingdom.

Read: square peg - round hole.

Just a few thoughts, also in process...

Peace,

R E S P O N S E :: T O :: L E N

[Response to Len who wrote: It used to be that I thought of "the prophetic" narrowly in terms of dreams, words of knowledge, visions etc.. I used to think that was the "big picture" and the main thing. I have since changed to see the heart of the prophetic as expressing Gods heart for the church and for the world. Geez.. How dumb could I be.. Read the OT.. How many personal, private words do you read there? ]

OK, well, now that would probably start to answer Chris' real question: how do you teach people to hear God's voice? I'd say most of the time, it's just a question of growing into it. Just like we have to learn pretty much everything from someone, we do learn also to hear God by hanging around godly people.

But the rest deserves also some development. Not sure I got the energy today but I would say this: we will touch something unique and personal in our relationship with God if we try to learn what it is that happened when He incarnated Himself to live here, how He emptied Himself completely of all his rights to divinity, then, emptied Himself of all His rights to be human, plunging into death.

Something happened in God, and in Jesus. Just like one might try to understand why they're loved by their buddies, or their friends, why someone would be mean or kind to them, because in that analysis we hope to find our value as people. I would venture to say that God likes when we try to understand His heart, not just in an evangelistic way, but in a human way, because I'm not sure we really grasp the divine yet.

Encouraging people to grow in the prophetic would also find substance in making them aware that there are many types of language, and that God also speaks through dfferent means, and for different reasons. Nature is a good and easy one to get, beautiful landscapes, the intimidating and breath-taking power of natural disasters, the infinite tenderness of textures and colors, but in nature, you also find a deeper expression of God's perfections in the way nature relates to nature.

Taking a pencil and drawing, or writing, reading or dancing, having a meal, all means of expression that we live with every day. God speaks through them all. Just as we do. It's as simple as that. I think the gradual realization of the reality of things takes us on a journey that can be quite long. Then one day, we realize that we have been following a path that kept us within the boundaries of integrity, honesty, purity and charity. We have heard God's voice and obeyed it. It all depends what image we're trying to conform to.

[ Chris: But it leads into a more practical problem in that I don't really see the gift of prophecy as very evident in my particular community, and I was wondering what other people's experiences were with encouraging and training people in it? It seems like something that would certainly be beneficial considering the emphasis that Paul puts on it when speaking of spiritual gifts.]

Maybe, you could start looking for what measure of God is expressed in the life of that community. The rule of the kingdom, in action. Also learn to discern in what way your own heart is triggered by the prophetic environment you find yourself in. What is revealed to you about yourself when God speaks, and when man speaks.

I would encourage people to know God through His love, and to do likewise unto others. And not expect to be perfect overnight, but live with the rawness of the blahness of the human experience without trying to hide your nudity, but relying on God's covering, and His ways of changing you. As I believe the Lord spoke to me one day as I was musing over all this, "Love is the ultimate expression of the prophetic."

Blessings,