CCDA speaker: Shane Claiborne

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Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

With governments that Kill...we will not comply.
With the theology of Empire...we will not comply.
With the business of Militarism...we will not comply.
With the hoarding of Riches...we will not comply.
With the dissemination of Fear...we will not comply.

But today, we pledge our ultimate allegiance to the Kingdom of God...we pledge allegiance.

To the peace that is not like Rome's...we pledge allegiance.
To the gospel of enemy love...we pledge allegiance.
To the kingdom of the poor and the broken...we pledge allegiance.
To the king who loved his enemies so much He died for them...we pledge allegiance.
To the least of these, with whom Christ dwells...we pledge allegiance.
To the transnational Church that transcends that artificial borders of nations...we pledge allegiance.
To the Refugee of Nazareth...we pledge allegiance.
To the homeless Rabbi who had no place to lay His head...we pledge allegiance.
To the Cross rather than the Sword...we pledge allegiance.
To the Banner of Love above any flag...we pledge allegiance.
To the One who rules with a towel rather than an iron fist...we pledge allegiance.
To the One who rides a donkey rather than a war horse...we pledge allegiance.
To the Revolution that sets both oppressed and oppressors free...we pledge allegiance.
To the Way that leads to Life...we pledge allegiance.
To the Slaughtered Lamb...we pledge allegiance.
...
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit...Amen.


I got more thought provoking stuff out of this guys 10 minute talk than a lot of the other speakers at the conference. I have read his book but in person...wow, radical to say the least.

-http://www.irresistiblerevolution.org/

Hipster Jesus

Some homogenous units that are meeting behind closed doors in suburban or ex-urban megachurches act out the concept of Sartre’s play “No Exit”, which depicts hell as three self-consumed individuals who are locked up in a room with no escape and whose eyelids cannot close. These christians gather there, with eyes wide open, some of them hanging around the coffee bar to check out the possibilities for future dates, perhaps in hopes of building cozy christian homes. Some others plan evangelistic ski trips to Vail, with the only aim of showing their non-christian homogenous friends that Christians can have fun, too. -Paul Metzger in the book “Consuming Jesus”

Can I say something to you 20 somethings?

Church is more than how many people of the opposite sex are gathered together.
If you are choosing to worship somewhere that takes a half tank of gas to get there, just so you can increase your chances to land a mate or sip a latte with hipster Jesus...you are building a christian life that is dangerously self centered.

I know, I know that is harsh but...when are we going to stop looking to the church as the grand love boat and return to the church as a place of mission and worship? If I hear another college aged person tell me they are choosing their place of worship based on how many “peeps” attend there, I am going to puke. Friends are grand but what if Christ is telling you to plant your butt someplace that isn’t going to add a whole lot of pics of hot chicks or swell fellas to your myspace page? I fear we are attending churches to dance around the social phallic symbol or modern asherah poles. It’s egocentric christian hedonism turned into snazzy latte worship...it’s all about our own needs being met. It’s really just spiritual narscissim. I am praying for some young Josiah’s who will cut down the asherah poles and usher in a season of dedicated zeal to serve God with purity of heart and willing hands to serve.

we drink blood...

"Compassion is your pain in my heart"
- Augustine

As the dust settles in Burma as far as the recent protests are concerned...we must not forget that the suffering still continues among the ethnic people of Burma. These little guys above are refugees from Burma. We have to keep present in our minds that they are a link to the tragedy back in their home land. They are part of our eucharist when we gather...a reminder of death and life. Pray for them, for Burma and for us as we continually figure out how to love the nations right in front of us and far away. Pray that we would be able to rejoice with those who are joyful and suffer with those who are suffering in a way that is redemptive and meaningful.

When we eat of the bread and drink of the cup of Christ...it is His body we share in.
The sharedness of the eucharist is a mystery...that many become one.
Together we are united in a way that is holy and deeply spiritual.
That bloody altar is a prophetic picture of not only the past death of Christ but also of His brokeness that is here.
We forget that we drink blood...we gather around a symbol of oppression, injustice, brutality and suffering.
Our communion is with more than the past...it's also about the suffering of Jesus in the present.

Red and yellow, black and white?

Church is not an event. It is people--people whom God calls us to love. What is more, it is in a very important sense an involuntary community of people: we don't choose our brothers and sisters--God does. And sometimes (oftentimes) those people are not terribly compatible with us--not the people we would choose to hang out with. But it is this very incompatibility that is so important, for at least two reasons. First, learning to love the people I don't like is by far the best way to learn how to love (it's easy to love people I happen to like). Second, the church is supposed to be a sociological miracle--a demonstration that Jesus has died and risen to create a new humanity composed of all sorts of people. -Charles Drew

I am blessed to be pastoring a growing church community that is becoming more and more a reflection of the area it works within. So far we are kind of carmel. Our neighborhood is about 30% black, 15-20% asian/hispanic/cuban and 50% caucasian. You can see from this picture (thanks Darin!) of our Kid's Church that diversity is becoming a way of life at Jacob's Well. I am learning that the "emerging church" is really a multi-ethnic community of faith. Figuring out how to pastor in the center instead of out on the white bread edge of our communities is a new challenge.

God is giving me fresh eyes to see people I never saw before. He is awakening in me a love for the cultural "samaritans" that I have been missing or passing by or crossing the street to avoid. I am realizing that my middle class economic place in my community has privileged me to choose who I associate with and who I don't. In the end my homogenous church experience was more about economics than faith. I could drive to a "good" church. One of the beautiful things about cultivating a neighborhood church in a lower income area is you find a diversity of ethnicity of people that become part of your church family. If you intentionally reach out and then embrace those you come into relationship with...you can see the Kingdom in all its colorful glory begin to emerge.

I came to East Central Spokane with the desire to give living water to those who were spiritually thirsty...I am realizing now, I was culturally thirsty.

Mom my ride...

Anyone who has had children and owned a mini-van will laugh at this.
(Thanks April)

John Perkins

"We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside... but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved."- Dr. Martin Luther King

I had the honor of sitting under the teaching of John Perkin this week at the Christian Community Development Association's Conference. I truly believe this man is an old prophet of the Amos quality. I felt like I was hearing history being made in those morning sessions. I also felt like a baton was being passed by an old leader who had fought the good fight. As a man who experienced the call to racial reconciliation in a jail cell while he was being beaten into a heart attack and near death...this is a man you need to hear in person. The wisdom on prophetic power that was in this man's loving words was deeply moving. The next church I plant will be in part because of this man's ministry this week. God used his words to confirm, expand and unleash the Spirit's work in the seasons ahead in a fresh way. God used pastor Erwin Mcmanus (www.mosaic.org) in a similar way in 05/06 before I launched out to plant our current church. It is in moments like these when God's word is being preached and the Spirit is using those words to open you heart, light your mind and awaken your will...that you are glad to be alive. I wept a lot of tears in these sessions. It was awesome to be among people engaged in the same call with the same heart and with years of experience. It was convicting to see men and women who were not just talking about working for the poor but were working among the poor. It was rejuvenating to be in a room with 1,500 people from many different racial groups. It was good to be with Christians who had works to show their faith...not just words. I was inspired by the call to not stop but expand and dream bigger...not in a upward mobility type of consumerist christian way...but in a Christ like way. Going to them...living among them...serving those God loved enough to spill His blood for. What are we willing to do in response to such a Lord?

"You guys are all into that born again thing, which is great. We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too... But I guess that's why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest." -Rich Mullins (deceased musician)

Back from CCDA in St. Louis, Missourri

I just returned on Sunday from St. Louis, Missouri where I had the privilege to attend the 5 day Christian Community Development Association's 19th annual conference (www.ccda.org). I was blessed to go because of a local ministry in town called Cup of Cool Water (www.cupofcoolwater.org) sponsored me.
Mark Terrell, is the head of a ministry that works with street youth here in Spokane. We have been friends for a number of years and have talked about going to this conference together and this year he made it happen. I am really grateful he did.
The hotel we stayed in was called The Adam Mark and is just to the right of the Arch in the photo, it's also where the conference was held. The Gateway Arch was an amazing monument to see in person. It's over 600 feet high and towers over the Mississippi and frames the downtown St. Louis area majestically. I didn't have the guts to ride inside to the top...I am just to paranoid of really small spaces for that. But the stainless steel structure is a marvel to see.

Brandi Carlile

WOW! I am speechless. I have not heard a voice that moved me more than this one, in a really long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq-ZmAYLeB8

Just get in....

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Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

The month of October has been set aside for daily prayer at our church. We have the building open at 6:30-7:30 AM and 11:30-12:30 lunch hour every day except Sunday. During prayer this morning, I got a picture in my spirit of people sitting on the edge of a rushing river...unwilling to jump in. They were thinking they just didn't have the energy or strength to swim or navigate the water. They were wanting to be in it but not willing to jump in. I knew intuitively that if they just got in the river...the power of the current would take them where they never have gone before. They didn't need to worry about not having "enough" whatever to do it...just dive in.

I felt the Lord calling me to pray for people to jump into prayer.
That they would discover there is a mighty current of God's purposes rushing along the riverbanks of our homes, cities, churches and nations. That if we just do whatever it takes to get in...He will carry us along.
If you can pray with us...come.
If you can not come...would you pray for us.
This is a month of pivotal change.
It calls for a tear soaked floor.

Nights of terror...

Taking advantage of the shift of world attention to the diplomatic stage, Burmese authorities are continuing their nightly raids on homes and monasteries, searching for anybody associated with the demonstrations that rocked the country, writes Edward Loxton from Chiang Mai, in neighbouring Thailand.

A resident of Rangoon’s Yaydashay Road told a Radio Free Asia correspondent by phone that he had seen his neighbours, including children, bundled into army trucks in the dead of night and driven away. “They [the security forces] left only old people in the [apartment] house,” he said. “Those who were asked to leave were asked to bring three sets of clothing. They were all put into trucks and taken away with their heads bowed and their hands on their heads.”

One contact in Rangoon told me over a clandestine phone link: “It’s a reign of terror. The streets are deathly quiet by day, but you can feel the tension. People dread nightfall and what it will bring. My children are terrified of going to bed.”

Mizzima, a news service run by Burmese exiles in New Delhi, has reported that bodies of badly-beaten and tortured monks have been surfacing in the Rangoon River, which runs past several of the city’s monasteries.

(article: http://www.newsdeskspecial.co.uk/burma/index.html)
(photo: http://blog.frontfilms.com/)

What China is saying:
"Burma's interal affairs that do not threaten international peace and security"[1]. China's Ambassador to the United Nations Wang Guangya said "These problems, we believe, are basically internal. A solution for the Myanmar situation has to be found by the Myanmars themselves."

What the past has said:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King, Jr

Faith without works...leaves people dead.

I pray the UN will accomplish more than just more talk.

love has come to reign...

"Show me a person in whom love has come to reign, show me a congregation that has been baptized in the self-giving love of Jesus, show me a people who have entered into this vision of the outward-turned life and I’ll show you what the world has been fantacizing and dreaming about for millennia…but could only speak of in the form of fiction! Show me a human heart, that has been turned from itself, turned outward for others, that has undergone the Great Reversal, and I’ll show you a miracle that defies all realistic expectation, a miracle that no sorcerer can duplicate, and no magician can approximate. Why? Because a people who are entering into this kind of love, are entering into that rare song of love echoing back and forth between the Father and the Son and the Spirit in the eternal fire of free self-giving and receiving. To sing this song is to be sharing in the very life of God."
~ Dr. Joe Dongell,

A look at what it means to be missional...

The task of the Christian community

"It is the task of the Christian community to remind the civil community unceasingly, through word, act, and presence, of the righteousness and justice of God and of his coming kingdom. The church is not like a sect, separate, and there only for itself. It is there for all human beings, and for nature in this earthly creation. The future for which Christians hope is not the consummation of the church in the downfall of this world, nor the salvation of the redeemed at the world’s end; it is the kingdom of God, which will redeem everything and put all things to rights, the kingdom which will come “on earth as it is in heaven.” The church has no “public claim” for itself, but only for the cause of the kingdom of God it propounds. Its task is not to “churchify” the world but to prepare the way for the coming kingdom. There is no such thing as a nonpolitical Christianity."
From-The Future of Hope : Christian Tradition amid Modernity and Postmodernity

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.
-Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero ~
(murdered on March 24, 1980)

do something...

Our Karen service...

I know its not a great photo but I had to try to capture last nights service. We have been blessed to see the Spokane Karen/Burmese community really grow this year. Many of the Karen in Spokane which is around 50-80 now, make their way to our church on Sunday. Some join us in the morning english service and then join together for the afternoon for food and fellowship and help with resettling issues. Then they gather for worship at 7PM. The service is a mix of all the children singing up front in a choir like manner, gospel hymns, prayers from various people, scripture memorization and repeating from kids, a teaching from pastor JC and reciting the Lords prayer at various intervals. It's refreshingly a shared experience.

I invited the english congregation to join the Karen service last night as a show of solidarity for the people of Burma. To come together and pray, worship and hope. It was a good service even though only 10 of us showed up to support the Karen. I preached a deeply burdened message on Sunday about Ruth and Boaz and how the purposes of God move towards us from a distance until they end up in our bed, calling for a full commitment. I felt it was a powerful picture of our experience with the refugees. First hearing about them, then seeing them, than eating with them, then providing for them, then entering the gate of the city to face the system for them, and then marrying them in the sense of fully embracing the call and purposes of God found in the coming of the refugees. It was just like Boaz and his experience with the coming of Ruth. I felt it was an anointed word for our church. And as a final confirmation of that word...last night, Pastor JC's message was from the first chapter of...Ruth. Amazing.

Shot dead trying to show the truth In Burma

Nagai Kenji, a 50-year-old photojournalist working for APF News, a video and photo agency based in Tokyo, lying injured on a Rangoon street after he was shot by Burmese troops. Kenji later died.