theothegrey

Last week I cleaned out my office at WHCC and moved out. A few of my non-sentimental thoughts:

I migrated from paper to digital some time ago.
I brought a box into the office thinking I was going to transport some of my paper files home. Instead I ended up throwing ten feet of paper files into a recycling bin. I’ve generated a lot of files over the years, especially when I first entered the ministry. In the days before backup drives and online storage I used to make paper copies of everything — message notes, leadership files, contacts, etc. Now have multiple digital copies of everything. I haven’t referenced my paper files in years.

I have books I need to get rid of.
For years I used an old seminary textbook as a stand for my lcd monitor. The book has been there so long I completely forgot it was a book. I’m glad I was able to use it for something.

I remember when CD’s were considered valuable.
I found a bunch of unlabeled CD’s in my desk. I viewed their contents, but I didn’t find anything worthwhile so I threw them away just like my paper files. It wasn’t long ago when CD’s were expensive and I used to handle each one with care.

This week I’m focusing on my new work for the church plant.

Our staff team visited a Buddhist temple last week. We had an opportunity to dialogue with a Buddhist nun. Some points of interest from our tour and conversation:

- The temple we visited has started doing several things to adapt to their new Western environment. They use pews. They have a piano which they use for meditation in addition to the traditional drums and bowls.
- Our guide repeatedly emphasied that Buddhism is about cause and effect. You reap what you sow.
- Again, according to our nun guide, Buddhism does not teach people to pray for supernatural intervention. It’s a way to ask for wisdom and opportunities to do good things.
- Very few people make it to Nirvana. The nun we spoke with doesn’t expect to make it there in this lifetime.

I really enjoyed the trip and especially the time we could spend talking with the nun. She was articulate and genuinely helpful with our questions. She was a nurse for twenty years before entering monastic life, a very compassionate person. One thing, however, that struck our team was how foreign the idea of grace was to her. Our senior pastor, Dave, tried to explain grace to her. But her response to the idea was simply a denial, that the world simply doesn’t work that way.

In a little over a week, our community will be celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s the cornerstone of grace in Christianity, that God sent his Son Jesus to die for humanity, bring forgiveness, and heal us of something we can’t fix on our own. Is it true that the world doesn’t work by grace? I hope my life can be a better example of how it can.

Thanks to my friend, Bing, for alerting me to this video. It uses the PC vs Mac commercial to talk about Christian culture. Unfortunately, I couldn’t post it directly to blogsome, so you’ll just have to follow the link.

The following quote caught my eye. It’s from Rich Stearns, president of World Vision.

Compared to her male counterpart, a girl growing up in the developing world is more likely to die before her fifth birthday and less likely to go to school. She is less likely to receive adequate food or health care, less likely to receive economic opportunities, more likely to be forced to marry before the age of 16, and more likely to be the victim of sexual and domestic abuse.

Girls are forced to stay home from school to work. In fact, two-thirds of the nearly 800 million illiterate people in the world are women. Only one in 10 women in Niger can read. Five hundred thousand women die every day from childbirth complications—that’s one woman every minute. Girl babies are even killed in countries where males are considered more valuable.

Women are denied property rights and inheritance in many countries. Worldwide, women own only 1 percent of the world’s property. They work two-thirds of all the world’s labor hours but earn just 10 percent of the world’s wages.

Being female, in much of our world, is not “heavenly.”

And yet, in my opinion, the single-most significant thing that can be done to “cure” extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities—educationally, economically, and socially. According to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan: “No tool for development is more effective than the empowerment of women.” This one thing can do more to address extreme poverty than food, shelter, health care, economic development, or increased
foreign assistance.

There is a saying in Ghana: “If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” When a girl is educated, her income potential increases, maternal and infant mortality is reduced, her children are more likely to be immunized, the birth rate decreases, and HIV infection rates (especially in Africa) are lowered. She is more likely to acquire skills to improve her family’s economic stability, and she is more likely to ensure that her daughters also receive an education. Educating girls pays dividend after dividend to the whole community.

You can read the rest here.

February was an eventful month. I was in Orlando for Humana 2.0. Then, I visited Seattle for another conference. In between those trips, I was down and out with a five day fever and a nasty respiratory infection. Thanks to my good neighbor, Dr. James Toung, I was able to pump some antibiotics into my system and heal.

Lately, like everyone else it seems, I’ve been drifting into thoughts about the health of the environment. A few weeks ago I watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” I enjoyed it. I’m not a fan of Al Gore but his movie was good. I also enjoyed the latest issue of Fast Company and the article on Business 3.0 about entrepreneurial businesses tackling the world’s problems. It’s hopeful. If you read the article, be sure to click on the slideshow on “Next Best Buisness Ideas.” I especially like Idea 43. Apparently, someone in Holland has come up with the brilliant idea of embedding water pipes in the countriy’s asphalt roads. According to the Fast Company editor, if these pipes are placed in 15% of Holland’s roads it would produce more energy than the nation’s utilities!

As someone born and raised in California, environmental messages fit easily into my view of the world and my beliefs about what needs changing. I lived through water shortages and for a time I learned to take three minutes showers — 1 minute rinse, 1 minute turn off water and soap, 1 minute rinse. I was taught to “give a hoot, don’t pollute” and I still find myself deeply annoyed if trash isn’t in the right place. Last week my trash can tipped over and junk spilled out into the street and on to neighboring lawns. I was compelled to pick up every last piece of litter and stick it back in my can. And, speaking of cans, I also recycle. Recycling was something my parents were really good about.

What strikes me, is that in this area of my thinking I’ve been shaped more by my Californian childhood and less from my being a follower of Jesus. My beliefs and practices are more informed by Woodsy Owl than Scripture.

Last week, I started teaching a class on the Book of Genesis. I think it’s very clear from the the first pages of Scripture that we human beings were meant to be environmentalists. God put human beings in the garden to take care of it (Gen. 2:15). I think this is part of the message we were meant to get in Genesis. To be human as God intended is to be an environmental caretaker. Scripture is certainly not silent on the issue. It’s just that most modern evangelicals have been more concerned with asking questions about darwinism and evolution when they read Genesis. But this is changing. I’m sure we’ll start hearing messages about being an ecofriendly Christian in the near future.

I’ve got a lot to learn and change in this area of my life. Even with my California upbringing, I fall pretty short. If anyone in our family is an environmentalist it would be Amy. She still keeps the three minute shower habit to conserve water. But I’m learning…

Your thoughts?

Welcome to the future.
Click on the picture to see more.

There’s a good article in Christianity Today by Scot McKnight summarizing Five Streams of the Emerging Church. The five streams are Prophetic (or at least provacative), Postmodern, Praxis-oriented, Post-evangelical, and Political. I like it because it shows a little more of the breadth of the conversation going on in the movement.

Your thoughts?

I’m nearing the end of my marriage enrichment class. I’ve taught 5 out of our 6 sessions. This coming weekend we’ll have a Q&A session. Then in December we wrap things up with lesson 6. The discussion has been great every week.

Here are a few more quotes from one of the sources I’m using, Empowering Couples. Thoughts to chew on over Thanksgiving…

One study found that single mothers spend an average of 16 hours per week on chores while married mothers spend an average of 20 per week (Thornton, 1997). This has caused some researchers to conclude that, for many husbands, their major contribution toward the household is to create more mess. Women who “do it all” tend to suffer from chronic exhaustion, have a low sex drive, and get sick more frequently. The result is that both partners forfeit their health, happiness, and often the vitality of their marriage. (Empowering Couples, p. 73)

According to a survey of 21,501 couples, 84% of couples report that having children has reduced marital satisfaction. (EC, p. 160)

Researchers often find higher levels of marital satisfaction in child-free marriages than in marriages with children. However, this difference is not significant with parents who get along well and have a strong commitment to co-parenting. (EC, p. 165)

Many of us in the class have grown up with one parent doing most of the “parenting,” so it was good for us to discuss ways to shift towards a co-parenting style where both mom and dad are involved in disciplining, communicating, caring, etc.

What do you think of these stats?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been teaching a class on marriage. Yesterday morning we were on the topic of leadership and roles. We had a lot of discussion about traditional roles, biblical roles, leadership, women in the work place, and more. According to one of the sources I’m using for the class, Empowering Couples, the topic of leadership and roles is the top “stumbling block” for couples today. I wish we had another hour for the class. Participation was high, we had different viewpoints, and I think people were really thinking. Controversy is fun in the classroom.

A couple of quotes from the book caught my attention.

Studies indicate that many unhappy couples stay married. In examining different marriage types, Fowers and Olson (1993) found that couples who have a more traditional marriage (strong religious views, traditional role allocation, and high agreement in children and parenting and religion) were less happily married than any other marriage type yet were least likely to divorce. p.5

The second most important category distinguishing happy and unhappy couples is couple flexibility. Couple flexibility reflects the capacity of a couple to change and adapt when necessary. p.10

The book isn’t advocating a marriage without roles. I’m not sure it’s possible. The authors are pointing out that happy couples have the capacity to switch roles when necessary.

This past weekend I played guitar for Ed and Alicia’s wedding. It was a bit of stretch for me to get back into leading music wtih my six string. I spent the last several weeks practicing my guitar in my closet at night so I wouldn’t disturb the kids. There were some people at the wedding who were amazed that I even knew how to play the guitar. One friend joked and asked me if I remembered what a D chord was. How times have changed! I used to lead a worship band in college. My Fender Strat was my “girlfriend.” While I was doing my internship during seminary, people couldn’t imagine me doing anything BUT play the guitar and lead music in the church. I remember it being a slow transition for people to see that I could also speak messages.

In our previous home, we used to have a room where I kept all my music gear — several guitars, drums, recording stuff. We called it our music room, and for a short time it was. People would come over and we would jam. But as I became more involved with different leadership roles in the church this room became neglected. After a few years I began referring to the room as my former identity, a dream that died.

It’s not as bad as it sounds though. Music is still an important part of my life. I can still spend an entire evening browsing iTunes for music. And I had fun playing at Ed & Alicia’s wedding. But my guitar has shifted from being a deep part of my identity to the sidelines. God has awakened within me deeper passions for leadership in the local church, building spiritual communities, and for helping people find the joy of being in a relationship with Jesus. And in my case (this certainly isn’t the case for many people) this deeper passion has required some sacrifices. It’s a transition that hasn’t come easily, but I have no regrets.

On a completely different note…
We had a water softener salesman come by the house the other day. We’re already his customers so he wasn’t trying to sell us anything. But he did bring with him a couple of large black briefcases, probably full of brochures and samples. On the way out the door he said, “let me just get my kits and I’ll be on my way.” After he left, Emi, who happened to be standing next to me listening to our conversation, whispered to me with a very concerned look on her face. “He’s got kids in there!”

(Edit 9/7/06: Something about my comments above bothers me. My life is more fragmented than I’d like. I need to find a way to integrate my passions into a whole experience.)