Featured Celebrating Our Interdependence (1 Corinthians 12:12-26) This is the text to the message I gave on July 3, 2011. _intro: (dis)membership I was reading in a magazine called the Christian Century the other day and they recently put out an issue that deals with issues related to church membership. The title of the main article
Prayers Morning Prayer by Henry T. Hodgkin I ran across this prayer from Quaker Henry T. Hodgkin (1877-1933) in the most recent Friends Journal issue on Pendle Hill: Firm when all round me is in flux and seething Strong when the knees are quivering and fail, Beat of my heart’s beat, energy of breathing, Over my
Quotations On Love, Meekness and Watching Over Each Other (Isaac Penington 1667) My friend Vail Palmer recently recommended to me to read Isaac Pennington’s book of letters. While I was at George Fox University this week for a conference on discernment and leadership I took the chance to visit the Quaker collection there and borrow the Pennington collection. This is the
The Biblical The Res. Community Part 2: Finders, Seekers (Jn. 20) This was my prepared message for worship last Sunday. It is the second in a series looking at what it means to be the church in relationship to the final resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospel of John. _profiles of Thomas the Seeker I dont know about you
The Pastorate The Resurrection Community Part 1: Standing in the Midst (John 20:19-23) This was my prepared message for worship last Sunday. It is the first in a series looking at what it means to be the church in relationship to the final resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospel of John. _behind locked doors What is the first thing we can learn
Blog Entries Short, Pithy, Deceased Jake Bouma asked on twitter the other day: “Friends: Suggestions for short (100-200pgs), pithy books by deceased theologians?” Good question. I’ve been rolling this around a little while. Here are a few that come to mind. There are more of course, and I recognize some of the limitations of
Blog Entries The Present Work of Atonement Came across this quote today by one of my favorite theologians and it sums up in a really nice way some of what I talked about on Easter morning: “That Jesus died by crucifixion in first-century Palestine is as well established as any fact in his disputed life history. That
Easter Jesus, the Risen One (Jn 20) This is the message I gave on Easter morning. This morning we celebrate and remember Jesus raising from the dead. It is not uncommon on Easter Sunday for those in the church to focus in on the fact of the Resurrection. For some, this is the perfect Sunday to bring
Blog Entries Art and Protest: BP and Tate Modern Saw this today and thought it was awesome (ht: GOOD). This art protest is from the liberate tate group. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4-vGbsBLKM&feature=player_embedded&w=572&h=497] YouTube – Human Cost – Tate Britain Performance, charcoal and sunflower oil.
Blog Entries Who is Raised? I’m enjoying preparing for worship this coming Easter Sunday. What a great day to celebrate and reflect on. I came across this quote from William Stringfellow (from Sojourners in 1976) and love it. It made me think, who is it that we think was raised to life that Sunday
Church in Mission Connecting with Poverty in Our Community A week or so ago the Oregonian published an article about poverty in our neck of the woods. The article profiles the “subtle shifts” of poverty taking place in Clark County, the county of which our meeting is a part. The city of Vancouver has worked to push poverty out
Blog Entries (Untitled) One of the blog I really like to read, Special Communion, just posted an upcoming event that I’d like to bring to your attention. Eda Uca-Dorn (You really need to listen to her recent interview here) and others from People’s Seminary (www.hopesem.org) will be doing an
Elizabeth Woolman Prayers: Elizabeth Woolman I’ve recently re-read John Woolman’s Journal and have found it to be very challenging and nurturing once again. If you haven’t read it yet I can’t recommend it enough (here is a free ebook version. It is also available via independent bookstores like Powells (see below)
Featured Jesus, the Prophet of Mud This is the text from a recent sermon of mine taken from John 9 where Jesus heals the blind beggar. (We used the Message version of this story which seem to capture what was going on more clearly than the more literal translations). Intro: Our text in John 9 is
Blog Entries Waiting for Spring DSCN7306, a photo by C. Wess Daniels on Flickr. This was a picture I took a little more than a month ago, but when I saw it today it struck me. We have been waiting for spring to break here in the Northwest. It’s not that it’s running
Featured Christ the Gathering Point (John 4) This is some of the text I used on Sunday. I ended up preaching a message that was pretty different in a lot of ways from what I originally prepared, but I thought I’d still post this because I wanted to share the general idea. If you’re interested
Featured Love Was the First Motion (John 1) At our church for Lent we’re reflection on two interrelated questions “Who is Christ?” and “What Canst Thou Say (about this Christ)?” So there’s an inner tension in these two questions: what has been said about who Christ is? Who does he claim to be? Who do we
Blog Entries Travelogue from Quaker Heritage Day (Audio) This is probably the last of my Quaker Heritage Day reports, but a few Sundays back I shared during worship about our trip. If you’re interested you can listen to the Camas Friends Church podcast from that day: Travelogue from Quaker Heritage Day
Quotations Ancient Paths Read this today and found it inspiring: It is of the new things that men tire – of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young. There is no skeptic who does not feel that
Featured Remix Culture and the Church During Quaker Heritage Day one of the key themes I discussed was the idea of remix culture recently written about by Lawrence Lessig in his book with the same title. ((You can download Remix for free from here)) Remix culture has a long history that began back with the advent
Blog Entries Listening to God Being open to the truth within the various branches of Quakerism is one way we exemplify the virtue of listening to God. When we listen to others, we also allow ourselves to be made subject to them, and in this form of humility we have the hope of hearing God
Featured A History That Doesn’t Aid Us In reviewing some of my writing on philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in preparation for my exams I am reminded of the importance of writing (and re-writing) history. Much of our moral disagreements in today’s society stem from an inability to recognize where things “went wrong” historically. The tools of analysis,
Blog Entries On Grief (John Wilhelm Rowntree) This seems appropriate given the events of today involving a friend and Fuller prof. of mine. Quaker John Wilhelm Rowntree wrote in 1905: Every [one] knows in [their] heart that there is no greater thing in the world than pure unselfish love. Death cannot conquer, nay he teaches ever that
Featured Follow-Up Materials From Quaker Heritage Day For now, I’d like to share the materials that were requested by those there at the Quaker Heritage Day event in Berkeley, CA this past weekend. A number of folks hoped I’d share the slides, and other documents. You can find those things below. Hopefully these things can
Blog Entries I Heard the Words of Fire I heard the words of fire spring forth from a child (of God); words that sparked an inferno and swallowed the whole world. It was an unintended outcome, but the devastation surprised no one. Simple words carry with them, the power to pick up, and the power to tear down.
