"thanks to you" by: copeland

well, it has been quite a while since i have had access to a computer. i've spent the last four days back home in huntington. on friday night i was fortunate to be able to participate in bethany's recital. i was co-emcee for the event, sang a duet with bethany, and then participated in two group songs. it was SO GOOD to sing again, to be challenged with learning and memorizing new material, and then to PERFORM. oh it was awesome. i must make room in my future adult life to perform in some capacity whether it be community theater or church productions or whatever. anyways, that was friday. then on saturday i spent the day in fort fun and found two awesome bargain book stores. my catch?

"desire of the everlasting hills" by thomas cahill
"death on a friday afternoon" by richard john neuhaus
"Jesus Christ for today's world" by moltmann
"dangerous wonder" by mike yaconelli
"the secret message of jesus" by brian mclaren
"the sacred way" by tony jones
"real sex: the naked truth about chastity" by lauren winner
and two youth ministry curriculum books from doug fields for a dollar apiece

all of that for around $30. wow! then on saturday night i watched the ufc ppv with my good friend dan. good times were had as we were able to catch up with each other. this morning was church and we had a very intriguing discussion on civil disobedience. the question posed for the class was, "at what point is civil disobedience expected from Christians?" and a couple examples were given: one of harboring slaves in the mid-1800's and the other harboring jews during nazi-occupied germany. my response came from Jesus' teachings to give to caesar what is caesar's and to god what is god's. in the two examples, the civil disobedience is concerned with human life, something that i believe we can all agree would be god's above of caesar's, thus the civil disobedience is expected. now matters such as taxes i believe should be of much less importance to christians. when suffering and cruelty exist in the world, how dare we look past that in favor of fighting a battle over taxes?? unfortunately, the discussion in class moved to the recent trend of "tea parties" all over the nation and several people advocated for those. their reasoning was that we give taxes to the government and trust them to do the right thing with it, so shouldn't we rebel when our tax money isn't being used how we want it?? someone then brought up how the constitution is being perverted and we must fight to protect it. my friends, again and again i wonder: what would happen if we got as upset about Godly matters (such as injustice) as we do about frivolous issues such as these?? I tell you what would happen: a revolution.

...but i digress.

i wanted to throw in this little tidbit on civil disobedience but couldn't due to time constraints, so i'll bring it up here: i read a book recently that described baptism as a form of civil disobedience. i immediately felt a resonance to that description. baptism is our initiation into a different way of living, in stark contrast with our culture. thus, it is a direct act of civil disobedience. i love that image, what do you think?

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the very first book i opened from my haul was the winner text "real sex." not completely sure why i jumped to that one first, but so far i am happy i did. i am four chapters in and am being sufficiently challenged by what she has to say about the virtue of chastity and the role of the church in advocating that virtue. look forward to some discussion of this book in future blog entries.

for tonight, though, i want to follow through on my previous entry and continue our discussion on what it means to be missional. so far we have discussed how missional means a different way of evangelizing and how it means we look at the human race in a much more optimistic light, that God is at work in redeeming the imago dei that exists within each of us. tonight i want to touch briefly upon the missio dei. missio dei, much like imago dei, is a latin phrase meaning the "mission of god," or "sending of god." the missional church is the body of Christ united together in the fulfillment of the missio dei. missio dei is the understanding that God has intiated his mission in the world: the redemption of the world. he sent his son for this purpose and sends the church for the same reason. missio dei is one of the very key foundational aspects of missional. it implies an active working of the church, in contrast to the passivity that can be seen in many branches. align this with my first entry in this series, about how the missional church goes to the people instead of expecting the people to come to them. this happens because of the missio dei. God sends. and it is God that has this mission, not the church. the church participates in the missio dei, it does not initiate it. our God is a sending god, and the church must be an active participant in that mission.

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another old poem (this one i am proud of!):

"I Reached" by: jeremy daniel bixler (10/20/2004)

I reached into my pocket
And found yesterday.
Dirty and disgusting it was,
Covered with thorns and bristles.
I quickly covered yesterday
And threw as hard as I could,
Watched it darken
And slowly disappear.

I reached into my pocket
And found today.
Beautiful, yet blemished it was,
Imperfections throughout.
I carefully covered today
And placed upon the altar,
Turned my back
And walked away.

I reached into my pocket
And found tomorrow.
Shining and shimmering it was,
A kind of beauty not known.
I lovingly covered tomorrow
And wrapped in fine lenin,
A gift for you
And for us.

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"I'm waiting to give you whatever the world may bring. I'd give you my life, cause I don't own anything. It seemed like the bottom was all that I had until now. I'd give you my life if you'd give me yours somehow."