becoming

A Primer on Missional Theology: overview and outline

To bad I won’t be in town for this. But if you are Christian living in Toronto or within GTA, I strongly encourage you to go!

From EmpiredRemixed:

On Friday November 14th [New date], we will be screening the Ordinary Radicals film at the Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto. Director Jamie Moffett will be with us in the audience, and ready to answer your questions after the film.

Jamie compiled much of the footage from this film while touring with Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw on their Jesus for President tour, including their stop in Toronto at the end of June.

The film features interviews with: Becky Garrison, Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, Rob Bell, John Perkins, Brooke Sexton, Michael Heneise, St. Margret Mckenna, Logan Laituri, Zack Exley, Aaron Weiss and our very own Brian Walsh.

You can purchase tickets for this event here.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the film:

In the margins of the United States (and Canada), there lives a revolutionary Christianity. One with a quiet disposition that seeks to do “small things with great love,” and in so doing is breaking 21st Century stereotypes surrounding this 2000 year old faith. “The Ordinary Radicals” is set against the modern American political and social backdrop of the next Great Awakening. Traveling on a tour to promote the book “Jesus for President”, Shane Claiborne and a rag-tag group of “ordinary radicals” interpret Biblical history and its correlation with the current state of American politics. Sharing a relevant outlook for people with all faith perspectives, director Jamie Moffett examines this growing movement.

As Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw write in the book, “This is not a set of political suggestions for the world; this is about invoking and embodying the alternative. All of this is an invitation to join a peculiar people- those with no king but God, who practice jubilee economics and make the world new. This is not the old-time religion of going to heaven; this is about bringing heaven to the world.”

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Lifehacker’s Top 10 Ways to Stay Energized:

10. Make your own energy products.
9. Listen to brain-stretching music.
8. Deal with job burnout.
7. Schedule around your energy peaks.
6. Get outside—even if it’s cloudy
5. Crank out some morning exercises.
4. Eat the right nutrition mix.
3. Put your senses to work.
2. Switch from venti to smaller caffeine doses.
1. Master the power nap.

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早前Craig G. Bartholomew 及 Michael W. Goheen 合寫的The Drama of Scripture，是將NT Wright 在How Can The Bible Be Authoritative? 所提出，聖經作為一個包含5幕（他們之後修正為6幕）的故事，擴張和引伸的作品。我在「神與聖經」的主日學討論中，就是用The Drama of Scripture作為主要課本。

現在，他們再次合著：Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview。先看看撮要：

This engaging introduction to Christian worldview explores how Christians can live faithfully at the crossroads of Scripture and postmodern culture.

Ideal for undergraduate students and laypeople, Living at the Crossroads first lays out a brief summary of the biblical story and the most fundamental beliefs of Scripture. The book then tells the story of Western culture from the classical period to postmodernity. Authors Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew next analyze how Christians live in the tension that exists at the intersection of the biblical and cultural stories. They proceed to tease out the implications for key areas of life, such as education, scholarship, economics, politics, and church. The result is a deeply thoughtful yet approachable text that draws on the rich tradition of Reformational thinking but contextualizes it to a postmodern setting for a contemporary audience.

從內容看，此書將會是The Drama of Scripture 的續本，特別是補充在這個6幕劇中，我們身處的第5幕、第2場的內容。若然今日基督徒以前4幕為劇本，眼望著第6幕這故事的終局，那麼在我們在第5幕，應該怎樣演呢？The Drama of Scripture 的篇幅只能草草略過，我期待Living at the Crossroads 會有深入一點的討論。

Craig G. Bartholomew 和 Michael W. Goheen 都在加拿大作神學工作。前者是舊約學者，後者是宣教學者。

這書將於本年11月出版。

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Yes, we all know about the “I’m a PC, and I’m a Mac ” anti-Microsoft ads launched by Apple for quite some time. I first wrote about how Apple changed from the cult that was once being proud to be marginalized, to become another totalitarian rule back in 2007.

And when you are cornered, stereotyped and labeled with the look and feel of John Hodgman, what do you do? You react. And Microsoft first trial of counterstrike was a complete disaster. The Seinfield-Gates series is ambiguous, and nobody knows what they are talking about.

But the great change of seats occurred with the recent “I am a PC” ads. The PC users are now victimized, and one by one they are coming out and tell you that they are nothing like Hodgman. The once-victim mac users are now portrayed as the new non-tolerated sect which demands that everyone MUST look like Justin Long in order to be cool and casual kinda guy.

The message is clear and to the point: don’t you dare stereotype us. At the end, who cares about which platform is stable and which is more user-friendly and productive and powerful? It is all about politically-correctness. Are you telling me that if I do not look like Justin Long, then I am cool no more? Don’t cry like a baby now, you asked for it.

Oh, by the way, who is Justin Long? Did the Mac ads make him famous? Nope. But it did make John Hodgman a star. Why? Because what Long depicts is not innovation, but an average user, who knows jack about how things work, but pretend to be hype and cool based on what the mac allows him/her to do. Long lacks personality and character, he follows the crowd — and that’s a big no-no in a world where diversity reigns supreme.

That’s more like it, PC.

Archbishop of York, John Sentamu’s recent comment on poverty and the global economy:

Tomorrow morning I will attend a meeting to launch a campaign of ‘Education for All’ as part of the global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including the eradication of global poverty by 2015. Of course for such a target to be achieved there needs to be stable financial systems. There needs to be stable financial systems. Without a solid global economic base to work from, the eradication of world poverty would be an even greater task. But as one columnist recently noted, “the President of the United States recently announced a $700 billion bailout plans for banks and financial institutions. One of the ironies about this financial crisis is that it makes action on poverty look utterly achievable. It would cost $5 billion to save six million children’s lives. World leaders could find 140 times that amount for the banking system in a week. How can they now tell us that action for the poorest on the planet is too expensive?

[via maggie dawn]

The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world’s main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.

Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can be achieved if all actors work together and do their part. Poor countries have pledged to govern better, and invest in their people through health care and education. Rich countries have pledged to support them, through aid, debt relief, and fairer trade.

And across the Atlantic, a similar question was asked by Andrew Stephens-Rennie of Empire Remixed:

There’s something dirty about this. Incredibly filthy. Breaking down the $700B bailout to a per-person cost, this averages out to $2,333 per person. And yet, what did the average American receive when these companies were profitable?

The silence is deafening.

How is it that the American government races to socialize corporate debt, all the while shunning the socialization of corporate profit? Privatize profit. Socialize debt. Another spectacular example of ways the rich get richer and the poor poorer. I don’t think I’m too far off in naming this a system of oppression.

And he concluded with this: “we need to respond with clear heads. We need to find ways to root ourselves in stories of hope, not simply the tales of fear being delivered to us from Wall Street’s prophets of doom.”

Yes, which story are you in?

擇自《加國華人教會》——「華人信徒在本土教會機構事奉」：

…在以西人為主的機構內事奉，曾弟兄欣賞的是大家都有開放的態度去議事。雖有異議，但決定後便會「同一聲音」。而在華人為主的機構內，較親切些，但同時也許是文化傳統，大家較為客氣，相討事務時不夠開放，而決定了後，有些異見人仕往往還未能同一聲音…

…他也建議今天在加國的華人教會，應把國度觀放大些，多點跟西人教會聯絡。尤其是多點參加區會的會議，好讓西人能了解華人的想法。

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No, I am not making this stuff up:

Yes, it is Jesus’ birthday, and he is inviting Jocelyn to his birthday party on a Sunday morning!