Perhaps people are right to focus on the corporate worship experience as a touchstone for postmodern God-seekers. People certainly seem to be hungry to experience God. How is God experienced?

We imply, by of our ways of doing church, that God is experienced when we sit in pews or chairs in a big room with lots of other people and have preaching and music. There’s got to be more to it than that - church history has forced too narrow a focus, for worship is but one of many useful spiritual practices, exercises, and disciplines. Perhaps, rather than try to get people to come to churches for theologically dubious worship services, the church should provide exercises and resources to point spiritually inquisitive people Christward.

It is to the modern church’s impoverishment that it has ignored the spiritual practices of the saints throughout the centuries. Perhaps it is the fear of all things Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, or perhaps it’s a preference for the more rationalistic disciplines of study and singing. But it is time to meet the disciplines practiced by our forbears. Some examples:
-Lectio Divina
-Morning, midday, and evening prayers
-Writing psalms
-Writing prayers
-Public commitments to pursue a certain spiritual exercise for a time
-Liturgies, including those with experiential components, e.g. lighting a candle, holding a symbolic object, sitting in a certain posture, etc.
-Silence
-Taking communion
-Taking a focused meditative walk

What frustrates me about many of things of this type is their tendency to be spiritual but not particularly Christian. A common Christian Scientist ad shows Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with the caption “Fuel for your spiritual journey.” But providing fuel without direction doesn’t make sense. It’s like Disney World giving travel discounts to people visiting other theme parks. The purpose of Christian spirituality is not to be more spiritual, but more deeply Christian.

I’m starting a new website to explore a more ancient-future Christian spirituality and journey with those in the process of seeking God. I’d love to hear your input (I’m not posting a link because I don’t want it to be overrun with already-Christians). Let me know what you think in the comments.

Janet Tu, who has written several great articles on emerging churches in Seattle, has written a piece for Northwest Weekend on Mars Hill Church. She focuses heavily on Mark Driscoll, whom I’ve mentioned before.

Often these [emerging] churches are small and less top-down, more like a gathering of friends. They value intuitive experiences of God, encouraging a vital relationship with him, rather than assuming people already have one. They are often culturally liberal (welcoming of, say, nose rings and expressing one’s love of God through punk rock) but theologically conservative, emphasizing early Christianity and the root meaning of Bible stories.

But here, too, Mars Hill has become an anomaly. With its sheer size and orthodox theology ? far more conservative than most other emerging churches ? it no longer fits neatly into that niche.

Very good article.

I took today and yesterday off from work because I’ve had a nasty chest cold. I felt guilty at first because it makes a short school week even shorter, thus letting my classes get less done than ever. But I think I needed to - I wouldn’t have taught well, and I’d be a germ clearinghouse.

I realized today that I need work. I need to get out of the house, do something that’s a little outside of what I would do for fun. Today I read books, went to Starbucks, blogged a lot, exercised, and rested. And I’m tired of it.

I want a full life, one that finds meaning and purpose in significant work that requires effort and preparation. I am glad I am a teacher, and glad I am kept busy by the responsibilities such a job entails.

Different people have this need to differing extents, and I am in no way being judgmental of those who have chosen other paths, e.g. working part-time and living on less. This involves disciplines such as frugality that I am lacking in.

But what I have learned about my own emotional state is most important: I need to be productive to be happy. Reading books and blogging is not enough. It sounds strange, but I felt great this weekend when all the dishes were clean, and I kept it that way for three days. Felt great.

Is this a bad thing, to need to feel productive? Where does it come from? How does it relate to spiritual discipline?

Real Live Preacher just got a book deal from Eerdman’s. If you’re not familiar with the site, he’s a (real live) preacher who tells stories, great stories, in blog format. He consistently gets 30 to 100 comments per post, which is unheard of for Christian blogs. He epitomizes the postmodern Christian pilgrim. Check it out.

I love Satsuma Mandarin oranges. You can peel them in five seconds, separate their seedless, sweet slices, and have a vitamin-C-rich snack in under a minute, and all without even getting orange juice on your hands. Satsumas rock.

(Valencias, hard to peel, seedy, and sour, do not, for the record, rock).

Dr. Stockstill at Harding had a profound saying about the connection between the way we do ministry and the fruit it produces:

What we win them with
Is what we win them to.

He applied this to youth ministry first and foremost, as that is his field - if youth are attracted to a church because it has cool parties and free pizza, we can expect them to develop a lifelong allegiance to…cool parties and free pizza. If the Gospel itself is not ultimately what we’re offering, we will attract a following that follows the wrong thing.

I see the same thing happening in alt. worship settings, and in what Pete Ward is advocating regarding embracing consumerism.

By competing in the markeplace of diversions and “entertainments,” religion was…transformed into a product….from about the eighteenth century religious institutions have been competing with the leisure industry for people’s time and attention (and money). The result has been that in order to compete, churches have reshaped faith as an attraction or a commodity. If this argument is true, then shopping for a church makes perfect sense, and spiritual consumers are what most churches have set out to produce.

…it is possible to see how market processes and patterns of production and consumption have shaped the Christian church. Far from rejecting such developments as superficial or theologically problematic, I believe that the commodification is essential for evangelism. A good example would be the What Would Jesus Do craze that swept through youth groups and churches a few years ago….

The problem for solid church is that its one-size-fits-all environment is adapted only for one or two kinds of spiritual consumers….What is needed is a more flexible church, one that is able to respond to the changing needs of people. The challenge for the liquid church is how it can do this without losing its theological heart. p62-64

Indeed. How can it do this? I’m glad the chapter ends this way, because it points to the real challenge of what Ward is suggesting. Unlike him, though, I do not see the connection between targeting spiritual consumers more precisely, and greater success in helping people become disciples of Jesus Christ. When he mentioned WWJD?, did you cringe? I think most of us now see that movement as a vacuous and pathetic fad, more in the tradition of crimped hair than a religious revival. People may search for meaning in the objects they shop for, but it is a hollow substitute for what we’re all really searching for, and everyone knows this at some level.

Are we really pleased with the results of WillowCreek-model consumer Christianity? It seems from this chapter of Liquid Church that Ward is advising us to make a monolithic consumer church into a highly personalized consumer church. Perhaps it is a parody, but Steve Collins’ alt worship/art site seems to be little more than a smallscale, pomo, ?ber-individualistic version of the megachurch programs we’re all so tired of hearing about.

A reordering of priorities is needed, as Dallas Willard proposes:

What message would we preach [or, I would add, what alt. worship events could we hold] that would naturally lead to a decision to become an apprentice to Jesus in the Kingdom Among Us? …Almost every problem that we see afflicting, paralyzing, and even killing Christians and groups of Christians today would never even arise in a context where the primacy of apprenticeship to Jesus is accepted and developed through a corresponding course of training. …the intention to make disciples is essential. It will not happen otherwise. We are, of course, not talking about eliminating nondisciple, consumer Christianity. It has its place. But we are talking about making it secondary, as far as our intentions are concerned. We would intend to make disciples and let converts “happen,” rather than intending to make converts and letting disciples “happen.” The Divine Conspiracy, p304

Willard speaks to the uncomfortable parts of our ecclesiology and evangelism, where we do not want to change things, lest it push us too far into unknown waters, or perhaps back into familiar waters that we have recoiled from.

Thoughts? This one’s a mind-bender.

National Science Board Report Indicates Strong Need for Professionals in Science and Engineering Workforce

Via NSTA:

The National Science Board (NSB), the governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), released a report on the U.S. science and engineering (S&E) workforce indicating the nation’s dependence on foreign-born workers in S&E occupations at a time when the number of H-1B visas issued to these workers is sharply decreasing.

According to 2000 census data, foreign-born workers with bachelor’s degrees now represent 17 percent of the total in S&E positions held by people with bachelor’s degrees, 29 percent with those with master’s degree, and 38 percent among doctorate holders. NSB members also reported that from 2001 to 2002, H-1B visas for foreign workers in science, engineering, and technology-related fields declined sharply from about 166,000 to around 74,000.

Everyone in science knows that a lot of our talent pool comes from overseas. If we cut off this influx, for whatever reason, science will suffer in America.

Method of exercising a cat (US5443036)
Via despair.com:

A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.

Yes, it’s a patent on shining a laser pointer on the floor to “exercise” your cat. Wow.