From a tip off from fellow Brighton resident, Grendel, I point you to the cover story of TIME magazine in the US.

You can read the whole thing for free if you want just by ‘viewing an ad’.

Or… if you want to save some time then the short answer is ‘no’.

I had a friend emailed me yesterday regarding my post on the WCA Summit which was inappropriate in its tone and criticism.

I hadn’t done any homework and had a rant without solid information on which to base my criticisms.

I rang WCA today and apologised to the Australian director (John) for my comments as they were harsh and quite nasty. I then asked for some clarification on where the money was going. The short version is that they believe they need to charge that amount to produce a quality event and to pay staff to run it, host it etc. I won’t go into all the details.

John spoke to me for 20 minutes and was open to my questions. As we finished the conversation I was still not convinced of the appropriateness of the cost so he offered me a free pass to the two days to go and check it out.

I will be in Broome while the Summit is on, but if you are a genuine skeptic regarding the cost of the project and would like to attend then he has told me I can share the ticket with you – either one person for the two days or two people for a day each.

The deal would be that you would need to attend for the whole time you commit to and then write a fair review for me on the blog here.

If you’re up for it then drop a line in the comments.

In the past I have always appreciated WCA’s commitment to integrity and while I am yet to be convinced of the need for such expense I am again impressed at their up-front-ness.

Some great insights download ring of death dvd on spiritual formation from the CT blog.

I am sooo very tired of reading many inaccurate critiques of this beast that is labelled ‘the emerging church’. And while its a tag that I don’t much care for (because of the associated vagaries) it is also a label that I find myself sitting under for better or worse.

So for those who feel the need to continue writing their critiques let me offer some guidelines:

1) Your critique is welcomed

. I know I am always happy to learn and I would not claim to be the final authority on issues of theology, missiology or ecclesiology. A well thought out and well researched critique will actually help those of us who see it as our calling to live as missionaries in this world to fulfill our calling more effectively. Some have done a great job of this. Thank you.

2) Make sure your research is expansive and accurate or your conclusions are gracious and provisional. With all due respect to my American friends, it seems that every critique I have read of the EC only addresses the USA scene and it does feel rather narrow in perspective. I would suggest that the shape the EC takes in the UK, NZ , Canada and Australia (to name just a few places) is as varied as the shape the mainstream conservative church takes. If you refer only to Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt and Brian McClaren and then make some strong and vitriolic assertions, don’t be surprised if some of us wonder about the credibility of your research and treat it with disdain.

3) Remember Brian McClaren is not our spokesperson – but he is a person. I have never met Brian but I feel for the poor bloke. He is probably the most quoted of all so called EC leaders and yet I would not regard Brian as either my leader or as my spokesperson. For that matter there would be no American who I would feel could accurately speak for me or for the bulk of my Oz mates in similar situations. But please remember that Brian is a human being like the rest of us who is simply gracious enough to admit that he doesn’t know everything about everything. (And as Ellie (see the comments) reminds us, Mike Frost and Alan Hirsch do not speak for the rest of the emerging church in Oz)

4) Not everyone is down on propositional truth in fact I don’t think I know too many EC Aussies who would dismiss propositional truth at all. A more humble approach to scripture is not a denial of its truth, simply a recognition that we do not know completely. Please frame this correctly as you misrepresent many of us in this assertion.

5) Please don’t tell me what I believe!. You don’t know me. You probably don’t know 99% of people in EC’s so please don’t assume you know what we believe. I am constantly amazed at some of the stuff I am apparently signed on to! I am unashamedly conservative theologically, but I am willing to ask questions and I am open to other people’s questions. I think this is called ‘learning’.

6) If you write nonsense then don’t get precious if you get taken to task on your critique. Chances are you will get ignored as most people can’t be bothered fighting futile battles, but occasionally you might get shirt-fronted by someone who has had a gutful of spiteful critics. I try to stay away from the uninformed one eyed bloggers and writers but occasionally I will spend a few moments responding to the vitriolic tirades that turn a crank in me. Then I will usually spend the rest of the week wishing I hadn’t…

I’m sure there are more guidelines to add so if you have also been on the receiving end of some of this critique and have a few of your own ideas then add them in the comments.

The last couple of times I have been to a normal church they have had communion. I grew up in the era when kids weren’t allowed to take it because” well” I’m not sure entirely why, but I think it was something to do with the fact that it was ‘important’ and we were just kids”

It was important to be quiet and sombre and only men dressed in suits and ties were allowed to serve it. Kids and communion just didn’t go together.

What would Jesus say to that?…

Perhaps this has been one of my theological shifts in the last 10 years, but now every time communion comes round I encourage my children to take it if they want to. (Fatboy was preoccupied with his toys last Sunday so we didn’t push it on him.) As they do this we speak with them about what the bread symbolises and what the wine (or blackcurrant juice) is all about.

Given that kids learn thru more solid means it is a great way of helping them reflect on the story of Jesus and remember the death of Christ.

Do they really get the significance of the cross?

I don’t know. Maybe they get it in ways that we adults have long forgotten. Maybe its potency affects their little hearts in ways we have become immune to.

They probably can’t articulate 5 theories of the atonement, but they keep telling me they love Jesus and that he died for their sins, so I reckon they must have a few clues.

This is great.

I find myself caught in two minds every Good Friday. Part of me wants to go and join with other Christians to remember the significance of the day. But all too often I come away frustrated and feeling ripped off because we have missed the pain of the day and tried to help each other feel better about it.

Or we have done the ‘service’ and then come out and drank coffee and eaten hot cross buns like nothing has happened.

Today I just read the story again on my own and then tonight we will be watching The Passion with our community.

Its not a party night – its not a movie you eat popcorn to and laugh about afterwards, but maybe that’s the point.

We need to feel the reality of the day – the darkness rather than the light. Yes, the light comes and there is much good in the cross – but I don’t think anyone was thinking like that 200 years ago.

The decision to enter into the Lent period has been already been an interesting one for us as we have chewed over the question of what to ‘give up’ for 40 days.

It has caused us to reflect on what our life is composed of. What is healthy/unhealthy? What grips us and would be hard to let go of…

At present my in-laws are with us and meeting with our community, so they have been co-opted into Lent also! Tonight and last night we sat around the dinner table and discussed our lenten fasts. (Hirschy has been there as well but he reckons he doesn’t believe in Lent!)

My M in law is giving up sweets, my F in law caffiene, Danelle still doesn’t know (she reckons she has no vices so I have suggested she give up ‘self righteousness!) and I have chosen to forego for sweet foods and cakes for 40 days. The discussion around why we chose what we did was interesting and shed some light on who we are. It was interesting making the choice. I realise what we choose to fast from isn’t necessarily a ‘vice’, but i get the sense that there is little point giving up activities that contribute to our health and much more value in refraining from activities that are potentially damaging to our health.

As we sat around tonight I realised that without even trying we had already provoked some valuable assessment of life and personal habits.

Mark Driscoll writes alligator ii the mutation dvd that Ravi Zacharias is concerned that the emerging church is a breeding ground for heresy.

It will be interesting to see what he has to say.

I would fairly confidently say that both this and the next generation of Christians are nowhere near as biblically literate as their parents and definitely run that risk.

It is a concern of mine that so may people who claim to be Christians simply don’t read and don’t know the what the Bible says about stuff. If we don’t know what it says then we are at risk of inventing what we think it says.

If we can arrive at heresy after reading the Bible, then I’d say we’d have a much better chance of getting there with no knowledge of it!

However this biblical illiteracy is hardly to be confined to one branch of the church. I’d say its pretty much normal in the church as a whole. While I’d hardly claim to be a biblical scholar, I am now grateful for the degree to which I was grounded in the Bible even if I do see parts of it a little differently to what I used to. (At least i know those parts exist!)

It will be interesting to see what Zacharias writes on this. While we do need to hold to orthodoxy, we also need people prepared to ask tough questions and diverge from the main track and explore if we are to learn new things.

Maybe we need to have our cake and eat it…

“Leaders who are looked to constantly, who give our answers competently, who everyone assumes are living what they are saying often have acute experiences of dissonance. Who I am and what people think I am isn’t anywhere close to being the same thing.”

From Eugene Petersen : Christ plays in 10,000 places

Another danger of itinerant (and even regular) speaking is that people form opinions of you that are based on a ‘charicature’ rather than on really knowing you. Because the up front persona often neccessitates a level of competence and confidence, its possible for people to see you as someone you are not and to have expectations that are neither true nor fair.

There are times I like up front speaking because it makes me look different to the person I really am – I look like the ‘all together guy’. And its even nice to feel like people think that!

However I think as I’ve got a little older I’ve come to realise there is always a dissonance between the ‘profile’ and the person and these days its not so much because I want people to see me as something special. Its more because people actually want someone to look to – someone who is a picture of spiritual vitality and competence in discipleship etc etc. People want to know there is someone out there who can actually live the faith – even if its not true!

What would it do to the folks in our churches if we as leaders were to admit that we are no more competent than them in our discipleship?

Would they believe us?

I reckon if we are gifted public communicators they will struggle to believe that. There is a vibe that often goes with good communication that makes a person seem to have it all together. If we fumble over words and are boring then people might see us as other mere mortals. Such is the power and deception of public presence. And yes – I do believe its possible to be a gifted public communicator and also genuine in discipleship.

I think one of the strengths of the smaller church / network structure is that its quite difficult to hide behind ‘knock em dead’ public persona. You don’t ‘preach’ to 12 people! You can’t. It’d feel dumb. So leadership and inspiration occurs more thru the true reality of personal influence and integrity rather than the imagined reality that ‘my pastor is a spiritual superhero’.

I remember at a YS conference Mike Yaconelli saying that ‘we (ministers) impersonate ourselves’. I didn’t get it for quite a while… But I reckon its a great description of what we fall into as spiritual leaders – putting on the appearance of the person we want people to think we are.

The flip side of this is that there is power and value in the sermonic form to inspire and encourage people, as well as to provide some aspects of visonary type leadership. The difficulty is in doing it all while retaining an accurate perception of yourself and while helping others not to depend on your own charisma.

Anyway that’s my Monday morning reflection!

Now I’m off to start that SCUBA course.

My old kiwi friend is recommending a Bible developed by a distant relative. He reckons its a ‘kick ass Bible’!

Here’s some stuff about the it

“The NET BIBLE is the first modern Bible to:

The first to be completely free for you to download completely (download the whole Bible and 60,932 notes)

The first to offer you a “Minstry First” copyright approach

To first to offer you insights into the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts to enrich your study of God’s Word like never before . . . .

The NET BIBLE …® is breaking traditional barriers to do “ministry first”

Worth a look I reckon