Home for the Holidays

My biggest best Christmas gift this year - having the family all together at Christmas. This everybody on Christmas eve.

Does it really matter?

Somewhere in the 1500's an astronomer by the name of Copernicus proposed a "scientifically based heliocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth from the center of the universe." This theory was regarded by The Church as "false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture." (The Church would have been the Roman Catholic Church - but before the Protestants really got rolling so it would have been in essence "the church" of the day.)

I wonder what weight the debate or discussion regarding this issue would have carried with the average joe church person back then. Copernicus theory to most probably seemed absurd. But I wonder how many would have thought "what does it really matter anyway?" I mean after all, the sun rises every morning, sets every night, there are seasons, and we can go to beach and get good tan. Does it really matter if the sun revolves around the earth or the earth revolves around the sun?

It mattered more if you realized all that Copernicus was saying in his "heretical" theory: that the sun, not the earth is the center of our solar system; that "there is no one center of all the celestial circles or spheres"; that "what appear to us as motions of the sun arise not from its motion but from the motion of the earth and our sphere " and thus the earth has more than one motion.

And it matters today in so many discoveries that have been opened up through the acceptance of Copernicus's "theory".

I wonder how many "church" people have the same attitude toward the discussion of the emerging church. On the church needing to be "incarnational" rather than "attractional". On whether the Christendom model of church is broken, over, or irrelevant today.

Does it all really matter anyway? I mean, so long as people are being "reached", the gospel is being preached, and Jesus is coming back does it really matter anyway?

It might matter more if our goal is authentic disciples and not just getting people to attend a church or have a better life. It might matter more if Jesus wasn't returning to take His church out of the earth but to bring His kingdom to earth. It might matter more if "modern" culture is over (and that "modern" isn't good or bad - just a describer and the same with post-modern; but they are a way of thinking, seeing, understanding and the ramifications are far reaching just like Copernicus's were.)

Does it really matter how we do church anyway? When you consider all that we are really saying through the way we do what we do I believe it does.

(Did you get that last sentence? I'm not sure if I do - but I'll try it like that.)

Go on over

Good discussion going on on my friend Sam's blog Eleven on "an interesting concept" Sam thinks might work for under-used church buildings. Plus a question from Chris welcoming enlightening comments on what and why the traditional church mode of meeting needs to change.

Christmas Joy

Next

I recently rented "Next" on DVD . Next features Nicholas Cage as a guy that can see 2 minutes into the future. The government becomes aware of this and hunts him down to get him to help them prevent a nuclear attack by a terrorist faction. The plot was little hokey - I mean they literally hunt him down with big time manpower and equipment - I never could understand why they didn't just go up and ask him for help. (If anyone else saw this one maybe you can explain this to me.)

Anyway, even though the plot was rather hokey I thought the "moral of the story" was pretty cool. I'm not going to tell you what it was cause I don't want to jeopardize the ending for any who might want to see it. And this movie is all about the ending. (At first I didn't like the ending but after thinking about it I got it - then I liked it - the ending that is.)

I'm blogging about this not to develop any skills as a movie critic - which I'm not - I just know what I like and what I don't. I write to post a "rave" (a comment - "speaking out wildly") and a couple questions.

My comment - I have movies I like which I wouldn't necessarily recommend - not because of content, per say, or most times - but because I didn't think the movie was that well done for some reason usually acting or plot. "Next" would fit in this category. LBNRS - liked but not recommended strongly. Then there are movies I liked and would also recommend (too most people - my mother, though, that's tough one - I don't use her for a "filter". ) LAR - liked and recommended. The last movie I rented that I would put in this category is "Reign Over Me".

My questions - what is the last movie you saw that you would recommend someone to watch? And what is your "rating criteria" for recommendations to friends?

On becoming someone to be remembered

Amazing! - several of the of my favorite blogging friends (Love Wins - to name one) are pondering on a similar thought I find myself wondering about this Christmas season - how God emptied Himself and became a man. Not a super man but an ordinary man. Who began his life as we all do - as a helpless baby.

The idea of God emptying himself really blows me away.

I'm not sure who wrote this poem but it really spoke to me. (I got it from Kingdom Grace and it looks like she got it from Kester Brewin's book).

THE GREAT REVERSAL

Walking with the crowds
Carried along by the pressing forward.

Each one eager to get ahead
But each one starting the same:
Born as a baby, and from then on, struggling towards
meaning, power and influence.

Be someone
Be remembered
Make a big impression
Leave some indelible mark in your 3 score years and 10

From birth, a struggle to find eternity, to burst
through life with such dazzling intensity, that
everyone will remember forever.

But walking the other way, picking out a route
against the crowds, a solitary figure passes me…
passes all of us - all straining away innocence, to be someone,
And he passes us, a quiet chaos in the crowd.

Christ, eternal, omniscient, creator, beyond time,
source of wisdom and beyond petty claims of influence…
in very nature God, slips into reverse
and walks back past us -

away from Kingship, away from power,
away from influence, away from eternity,
away from wisdom… towards infancy.

Calmly stepping into the body of a tiny child.

And even as this baby grows,
figuring out how to control the body he himself designed,
he still walks the other way,
realizing that life cannot be found in the struggle for permanence,
but in giving it up.

This Great Reversal subverts me.

Tired of pressing forward,
I realize I need to turn,
for what I have been searching for
has just walked past me the other way.

Happy Birthday Kaden!

Kaden Cole Stryffeler is 2 years old today! Kaden calls me "Poppee" and I think he is the smartest most advanced two year old I have ever known! Happy Birthday Grandson!

A Toast to Sean

That's my boy, Sean. He turned 23 today! Happy Birthday - and many more!

I hate when this happens ...

I've had some (rare) quiet time this weekend. I saw it coming so I went to the library to get a novel. (My usual reading is "study books" as my wife likes to call them and I usually have 2 or 3 going at the same time. But sometimes - especially when the weather gets colder I just like to get into a "story book" - I don't usually read anything too deep or complex here.)

I picked out Ken Follet's A Dangerous Fortune - I've read most of his stuff - most of them are what I would call time period soap operas. I'm reading along and every once in a while I get this deja vu feeling. So I start thinking - wow - I don't remember his plots as being so predictable.

By the time I get to page 350 (it's the large print edition)I figure out what is going on - I've read this before.

I hate when this happens because...
* I have never read any book more than once. Not that there haven't been excellent books or stories - I just figure there is so much else to read, I'd better move on to something else.
* It scares me that it took me 350 pages to finally be sure I read this before. The book was written in 1993 - and I'm sure I read it less than 14 years ago. The large print doesn't bother me as much as this part.
* I don't know what to do now. I'm halfway through a book I already read and the more I go the more I know what is going to happen. It musn't have been that good the first time or I think I would have remembered it more. Unless there is more to my reason above and again, that scares me.

Has this ever happened to any of you, my friends? Please tell me it has. My wife told me it has happen to her numerous times but she reads so many books (I bet she reads 100 or more novels a year. I might read 2 -4.)

Sam Shouted At Me

I told Sam if he shouted at me I would give this a try again. So here I am - no promises on blogging everyday for a month. But I do want to do this more regularly. I appreciate the way my friends share their thoughts and their lives and I fell richer reading their entries. I'm glad they write regularly - I look for new additions everyday. Occaisionally I'll comment but mostly I read and listen. I guess that makes a "lurker" or a "voyeur" (Wikipedia comment: "A literal translation would then be “seer” or "observer", with pejorative connotations.) I don't like the pejorative connotations associated with these words. But I do feel something is missing - I am a wanna be - I wanna participate more.

So how do some of you guys do it? (Don't make the sexual connotation here!!!) What satisfaction do you get from posting on a regular basis? Has writing down your experiences, thoughts, and feelings made you a better person or richer relationally?