Dustin has put together a swanky video of last year’s Jesus and the end of . . . week at uCalgary. It’s an important reminder to beware “preconcpetions.” Good things happen when we come together as followers of Jesus to bless the U.
This year’s Jesus week will centre on a public debate between an athiest and a Christian apologist to determine whether it is, in fact, rational to believe in God. I’m glad that BSM has been able to add more to the planning and preparation this year. We serve alongside the finest people.
Having found an excellent online advent resource, I must correct what I wrote yesterday. The appvent calendar is giving away an iPhone app per day everyday until Christmas. It might not help with your spiritual journey, but it’ll make that holiday visit to Aunt Edna’s a little more tolerable.
The season of Advent began Sunday, inaugurating the liturgical year, though, for most of us, Advent began yesterday, because that’s the first day on the calendar with all the chocolates behind its little doors. In years past I’ve posted a list of online resources, but I can’t find anything good this year, which is just as well, because I’m inviting you to a simple and significant practice that can’t be contained within embedded Flash.
Traditionally, Advent is a time of expectation, when we slow down and share in the messianic expectation preceding Jesus’ birth, and look forward to the return of Christ to put the world to rights. It’s a time to dream of what the world will one day be, and a time to look for God incarnated in and around us. This should resonate with you students, who, once finals are over, are about to take an academic advent: a few precious weeks to rest and prepare for a new semester. This year, you’re invited to transform these weeks by looking forward to more than another semester dissecting lab animals, working out mathematical oddities, or delving into books old and obscure. The practice is simple: find an old napkin or some spare scraps of paper (the backs of those first draft essays all over the floor of your room work great) and take some time everyday from now until Christmas to write a few, short, twitter length lines about where you have observed the presence of God and signs of the Kingdom that day. Some days you’ll have more to report than others, but, if you do this, you’ll be surprised at how the concerted practice of expecting God’s presence will change the way you live.
Now, to set the mood, Bono and the boys from Dublin singing a similar meditation.
If you like the advent calendar in the photo above, check out tapestarian Sarah’s crafty cool stuff at creative wallart.
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963)
The CCMN Christmas Party is tonight. We’ll meet at the Chinook Centre at the entrance between Chapters and the theatre at 7:00 pm for an elf hunt, followed by dinner at East Side Mario’s. Bring $20 for dinner, and a camera phone if you’ve got one.
There are already a lot of ways to keep up with Symbiosis, but now there’s one more. Too cool to be my Facebook friend? To old to have any idea what Twitter is for? Not techie enough to have a sweet feed reader? Do you tire your finger out hitting the refresh button on Symbiosis, hoping and praying for another exciting update? Fear not, dear reader, because you can now prolong the life of your mouse button by keeping track of the latest updates the old fashioned way, via email. Sign up for the new email subscription in the sidebar, and all you’ll need do is obsessively check your email to be the first to know.
It can be a little awkward running into your pastor in the wild, especially if you attend a big church where you don’t regularly interact with the guy. As a minister, it can be a little awkward to be run into. For the next time it happens, check out Jon Acuff’s list of fun games to play. My favourite:
2. Ask “is this what you do all week?”
Regardless of the “this,” that question is going to be a little awkward. Whether they’re playing golf or renewing their driver’s license, what you are essentially saying is, “Oh, see here I thought you spent all week praying. But it appears that you’re kind of like me. I suppose you need to eat too and go to movies but, I was kind of hoping when you weren’t preaching you were locked in a hermetically sealed prayer closet. Hmmm.” From Seeing your pastor in the wild | Stuff Christians Like
Jesus once compared the Kingdom to a mustard seed, which, though small, grows up into a large tree. Then, in the same breath, He compared it to yeast, which, when it is placed into a large lump of flour, eventually creeps and crawls its way through the entire lump, permeating every part. I’ve long known that the latter, the yeast, was an insidious metaphor. Yeast was considered somewhat unclean in Israel, and was discarded every year and replaced for the sake of purity. It would’ve had a negative connotation, and been a surprising choice of metaphors for the Kingdom of God.
The story of the small mustard seed sprouting into a great tree seems to be less insidious, stressing instead the size and growth of the Kingdom, which turns into a happy home for chirpy birdies, but Stuart Murray spent a few minutes on this parable that changed my mind. The mustard tree isn’t really a tree at all so much as a sprawling and weed-like bush that grows tall, but also spreads out and digs in. If you needed to clear the ground that a mustard tree was on, you’d wish it wasn’t there. It carries very much the same connotation as the yeast, making this a textbook example of Hebrew parallelism: two stories with the same meaning told to emphasize a point.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a new semester, which begins with reading and lectures, but slowly takes over your entire life. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a new girlfriend/boyfriend, which begins with dinner and a movie, but eventually doesn’t want you spending so much time with your friends.
So if the Kingdom is not an oak tree but a persistent, crawling bush, then what we need, according to Murray, are churches that keep interfering, that outlast, out pray, out imagine, and out suffer all those who stand against them. Translate this into university ministry, and what you get is ministries who spread themselves out across the campus, embedding themselves into different departments, different subcultures, and different locations to follow the way of Jesus, blessing and working for the good of the U. You get crews that are not dependent on one large gathering, one location, or one leader, but that are diffuse, difficult to root out, difficult sometimes to point at and identify, but springing up everywhere to ultimately, one day, change the whole U for the good of all. It means our measure of success ultimately can’t be how many people are coming to us, but how many people we are going to and living the way of Jesus among, working to make the U a good and just place.
Of course, this takes time. Another theme stressed all through Renov8 was that this is a path that requires patience and endurance. Ten years seems to be the expectation for something like this to take root here in Canada, and along the way it’s going to take some work. At the same time, it’s likely to be a whole lot more fun than event planning, meetings, squishy pigs, and whatever else we so easily get distracted with.
Mike Frost told some good stories of what this looks like, but the best story of all may have been Wagdi Iskander’s story of becoming a follower of Jesus in Sudan. I’m still processing what I need to do about this, and will be for awhile, so rather than adding my own thoughts, I’ll point you once again to the more industrious blogging of Michael Krahn, and his write-up of Wagdi’s talk.
Here are some quick initial thoughts, from a university ministry standpoint, on the first session with Mike Frost at the Renov8 conference.
As always, I love the way Frost ties mission to the Missio Dei, the Missional God, and makes it clear that mission is not something God does, but is central to who God is. As Frost put it, If you take the mission away from God, you don’t have God anymore. Sending and going lie in the very heart and nature of God.
Frost’s definition of the gospel is also important. He defines our mission as alerting people to the rule and reign of God in Christ. It’s the same as N. T. Wright’s definition, which I prefer: The gospel is the declaration in word and deed that Jesus is Lord. What this means is that the message of salvation, the message that you and I can be saved, while important and the direct result of it, is not the gospel. The gospel is actually about Jesus. (Who’d have thought, eh?) The gospel is the good news that Jesus has won a great victory, and is going to finally bring justice, goodness, and wholeness to all of creation. Heaven is coming to earth. (Sound familiar, theologues?) The best way to take part in this mission, according to Frost, is to create foretastes of what is to come by living and speaking that future reality in the present.
Combine the last two paragraphs, and you get the essence of the evening. Jesus is Lord, He will one day restore the world, do justice, and put things aright, and in the present we are sent to the world in the same way that Jesus was, to bring that future reality into the present. Frost’s ultimate measure of this is just as good for campus ministries as churches: are the people to whom you are sent (for us that’s uCalgary) better off because you are among them? We are to be Jesus among and for them, and that means loving and blessing them. We already do this in a lot of ways, but it still has me thinking. What do we need to do next to make the university a better place because we’re around? What could we do so that, in 3 or 4 years, people who never come to anything we do would still miss bsmucalgary if we disappeared? What could we do so that, in 3 or 4 years, uCalgary looked more like a university in the Kingdom? What problem does uCalgary have that we could help solve? Answering these questions will move us forward as the missional people of the Missio Dei.
More ways to follow Renov8
- I’m planning to share a few more thoughts during the week, as I find things worth sharing, so I’ve created a Renov8 category on this blog to make it easy to follow.
- For up to the minute quotes and quips, you can follow me on Twitter.
- Follow everyone tweeting the conference with the #rv8 tag.
- Michael Krahn, who is more industrious than I, has written a good synopsis of the first evening, and looks intent on live blogging the week, which is more than you’re going to get out of me.
- For the old fashioned, there’s in person communication. Calgary Church is hosting an after-hours conversation in Kensington Wednesday night. Think of it as a virtual chat room with very realistic avatars.
The Marda Loop Justice Film Festival is this weekend here in Calgary. After a week away at a conference, I don’t know that I’m going to make it, but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t or shouldn’t. For you students, this is an opportunity to get exposure to some films that you’ll never see at a Cineplex on a Friday night, and many of them may raise your awareness of justice issues that you could very well have a say in, both now and after you’ve graduated. Plus, maybe the best part for students, it’s free. That’s right, not pretend free, like when it comes out of your student fees or taxes, but real free, like when it comes out of someone else’s taxes (which, coincidentally, would be a good topic for a justice film). I missed last year too, when they played A Lesson of Belorusian, a documentary of political opposition in Belarus, a country near and dear to my heart. Fortunately, Youtube to the rescue, so I can watch it this year and pretend that I’m at the festival, instead of comfortably at home in my housecoat with a hot mug of tea. Why don’t we just put everything online and stay home? It’s so much easier, and I’d get to drink more tea.
I went to church this morning not knowing that it was the international day of prayer for the persecuted church, but I soon found out. We skipped the sermon and spent the morning praying for persecuted Christians around the world. I’ve visited some of the countries on the map and worked with the missionaries and national believers there. Remembering what they put up with everyday reminds me of just how much this gospel is worth, and how little I’m called on to suffer for it on a normal day.
Please block out some time today to join believers around the world in praying for our brothers and sisters who suffer the most for the sake of Jesus. God answers our prayers, and they certainly need them.
I’m off to the Renov8 conference this week to swipe missional pointers from the best, and from whomever else happens to be there. I’m generally not that big on conferences (they’re like podcasts, but, annoyingly, I can’t do anything else while I listen to them), but I’ll get to hang with my buddy Dave and hear a favourite missiologist of mine, Mike Frost, which makes this one worth attending. If you’ve never encountered Mike Frost before, you should. These talks from the end of last year in Southampton are a great summary of what he has to say, and the most mature expression of it I’ve heard from him yet. If you like what you hear, you can catch him for free 7:00 pm Tuesday night at Centre Street Church here in Calgary. I’m planning to swing by the U on my way to snag anyone who wants to go, so let me know if you’re in.
Yes, this is a church planting conference, and no, I’m not a church planter. There’s not a lot out there for university ministers, and what there is tends to be a long way from Canada, so I’ll be taking Benson’s advice and doing my best to co-opt this thing and attend it with a collegiate slant to glean what I can for my context. You can expect to have much of this shared, with news as it happens on Twitter, and thoughtful post-conference reflections here.
Thanks to my denom for footing my bill, Dave for tracking down the fundage, and all the guys at bsmucalgary for letting me take a week off to learn and grow as a minister. I’ll miss hangin’ at the U, and I’m hoping that it doesn’t become too apparent in my absence that I’m not needed.
(ht: jonny baker)
It’s reading week, so I spent the day running around the city with the bsmucalgary crew. Peters’ Drive-In, exploring downtown, cream puffs, Pocky, and no particular agenda was the right thing to do on a day off. We need a rest from TheThing@ThePlace and our other scheduled activities as much as students need a rest from classes now and then; I’m just glad that when we decide to take a break from each other, we do it together.
I hope that you also find the time to rest and have some fun with the people who matter to you during this break. Oh, and don’t forget to do some reading.
Tomorrow’s the last day of classes for the week at uCalgary, so we’ve cancelled all our regular activities, and will instead be holding irregular activities. We’re meeting for lunch at the iconic Peters’ Drive-In on Thursday, followed by urban wanderings as we quest for the perfect dessert. If you’re in, meet us at Peters’ at 12:30 pm (directions here). Let me know if you need a ride and I’ll do my best to hook you up.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, give eyeball.fm a try. You can listen full versions of just about any song, plus you get artist info, lyrics, and anything else you’d ever want to know about, oh, say, Elliot Brood. You can upload your library from iTunes or Last.fm to make it accessible from anywhere you’re connected, and it works as a great springboard to discover new music or build your own station. Best of all it’s free and legal (well, however legal youtube is).
It’s my friend Ryan’s new startup, but I would think it was cool even if he wasn’t my friend, because it’s just that cool. But I wouldn’t if he was my enemy. Then I wouldn’t at all.
Many of the Christian ministries at uCalgary are partnering together with the Free Thinkers to hold a debate next semester along the lines of Is it rational to believe in God? We want to do some creative, engaging, experiential followup, and we have some serious space booked in Mac Hall the week following the event, so here’s the question: what do we do? Send me your most creative followup ideas and I’ll pass them along to the party planners. I’m all for setting up an argument clinic, but so far nobody else is convinced.
I’m an immigrant! I can’t tell you how happy I am that the title of this post is not Greetings from Montana. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and for the emails, IMs, tweets, facebooks, phone calls, and myriad other forms of communication I received. It was really encouraging to know that most of you actually wanted me to make it back in. There are times when I find clear evidence of God’s provision because I’ve made it through despite things being incredibly hard, and there are other times when I find God in things having gone so surprisingly well. Though the whole long process of changing my immigration status has been the former, last night’s border crossing was definitely the latter, and I am grateful for God’s answering our prayers so graciously.
On an expatriotic note, let me say that I find myself in good company. I can’t count the number of immigrants and children of immigrants I’ve known in my years in Canada. This nation may have had more quiet success with multiculturalism than any other nation in the world, and that is certainly something to be proud of. Bringing disparate peoples together into community and harmony is at the very heart of God, and one of my favourite things about living here has certainly been regularly rubbing shoulders with people from all over the world. I’m grateful I get to be one of them.
Hailing from the great State of Colorado (go Avs!), I have lived in Alberta (go Flames!) for many moons: however many moons there are in 5 years and 2 months. I have resided here under various temporary legal statuses, first as a student and then as a worker. All this comes to an end tonight, when I will make a cannonball run to the border to present my final documents along with the permanent resident visa stamped into my passport, and either return to Canada an immigrant, or become an unintentional resident of Montana, which is how I assume they get a large part of their population. Once Regent professor Eugene Peterson tried this years ago, and has been a Montana retiree ever since. If you pray, please do pray for me. If you don’t pray, you should pray, so please do pray for me. This is an important step for my family and I. We trust that the God who brought all of Israel across the Egyptian border can get me back over this one.
If you’re up for a 4:00 pm roadtrip, a stamp in your passport, and the magic that is Coutts fading into Sweetgrass, let me know, ’cause I wouldn’t mind some company on the drive.
There’s a university ministry tie in here, so hang in ’til the end…
Sunday’s u2ube concert was as good as I’d hoped, even from the receiving end of youtube. Lots of cool moments, small sermons, and social justice, but my favourite moment of the evening was when Bono sang Amazing Grace as the intro to Where the Streets Have no Name, increasing the focus of what is already a song of worship and mystery. Cool moment or not, it would be easy to blow it out of proportion simply because it was sung by a superstar before a worldwide audience, and equally easy to dismiss it out of hand as insignificant and ineffectual. How much do the words of a frontman really change things once the concert’s over?
I have long loved U2, mostly for their sound and lyric, but also because they blur so well the boundary between sacred and profane. I always knew I liked what they did, knew that I would take it over anything Hillsong ever put out, knew that it was different somehow than the country singer dropping in a song about Jesus or the Christian rock band offering up Jesus filled parodies of whatever’s the top iTunes download. I just didn’t have a good way to express what it was I liked about their style so much until a couple years ago when I picked up U2 Live from Chicago on the cheap at an HMV sale. At the end of that concert the band sings Yahweh, which is the Hebrew name for God in an etymologically interesting sort of way, and they invite thousands of fans to join them in crying out His name.
Then they sing 40. U2’s rendition of the 40th Psalm, it’s a standard concert closer, with a forward looking, kingdom oriented refrain: how long to sing this song? Again, thousands sing along, waving their glowing cell phones in the air (lighters are so passé), and they keep right on singing the refrain after Bono and The Edge have left the stage. They might even be worshipping.
This brings us back to our initial question: does this matter? Is it good? Let’s assume that most of these people are not followers of Jesus, and many of them barely even know who Yahweh is. Should they be calling out to Him if it’s nothing more than joining in the moment at a rock concert? Again, I liked it, but at the same time, I was bothered by it. Who else can get that many people at a rock concert crying out to Yahweh? But were they treating Him too lightly? It bugged me for days before I figured out what was going on; it’s parable.
The disciples asked Jesus once why He told so many stories, and His answer was not one we might give. It wasn’t to communicate with greater clarity; rather, it was to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah by keeping those who hear and see from understanding and finding salvation. Now, there are enough passages about God’s love for the world, confirmed by the death and resurrection of His Son, that we can be certain that He wanted these people to believe, yet there He went, telling story after story for the express purpose of befuddling. And this is exactly what Bono and the boys from Dublin are doing. That’s why we love it and hate it. It’s parable. To those with ears to hear and eyes to see, as Jesus put it, the stories He told had incredible value and opened their eyes to see God at work in the overlap between heaven and earth. All who were seeking would find, but to those who weren’t, it was just a good story. If you follow Jesus, if Yahweh is the God you serve, if you are watching, waiting, and working for the Kingdom, then these songs are moments of intense worship. If not, then they’re simply good rock songs.
We’ve been spending a lot of time at bsmucalgary this semester finding answers, learning theology, honing our spiritual disciplines, and even preparing to dialogue with people of different faiths. These things are good and beneficial, and I’m glad we’re doing them. But we must remember in the midst of all this that the Son of God Himself did not think that giving people all the answers was going to get the job done, and I’m pretty sure He had a few more of them than we do. We can’t be so naive as to think that merely passing out answers and winning arguments will change lives. People need parable, mystery, enticement, and invitation. They need to be inspired and set free to explore, and sometimes the plain simple answer is the antithesis to people finding God. So how do we tell parables at the U of C? What song do we sing?
