cogitatio

Isn't She Beatiful -- "Neat-o"

A church leaders conference unlike any other.

I just spent the past two days in Grandville Michigan, the conference hosted by Mars Hill Bible Church was definetly something else. When you think of church conferences where does your head go? Lots of worship for sure, sessions on governance structure to bore your socks off, and hype that is quite litrally through the roof. Not so for Isn't She Beautiful, worship was the punctuation of this event rather than the focus, and the major sessions were focused on bible study, being the eucharist and the importance of the sabbath, the creative process with regard to hermeneutics, Salvation and all the different things the bible says about it. That made up the three main sessions taught by Rob Bell, he spoke for at least 8 hours over the two days and all I have to say is wow communicator, I love his simple style.

There were also two break out sessions with a few options: Approaching the Aids epidemic, a lot of info and new thoughts like have you ever thought about getting an HIV test so that you can connect and relate more to those who may have HIV, you could relate its confidentiality, you could actually say I have had it done, a step towards trust. The session with their student ministries gave more details on where they have been and come from with it, they have gotten beyond the children are the church of tomorrow to actually believing and having a ministry which has this ministry as an active and integral part of the church today. During the second session I attended the Elders workshop and really got an inside look at how they operate, the pain they have gone through over the past few years to have a healthy loving supporting elders team, and the processes they are looking at in ensuring that their community some 10 000 strong is all heading in the right direction. It really showed that their community isn't shiny and perfect and that they are not scared to be real about it.

The main thrust of the entire thing I think was to bring hope and to be a eucharist, a soul feeder to the pastors and leaders in attendance, something which really culminated in the final session where Rob talked about prayer shawls and the symbolism they carry. Which was followed by a worship and reflection time where you could take communion, be annointed, pray beneath prayer shawls... all being served by their community... their elders serving us, providing us with opportunities to serve each other.

I think that it was a great encouraging weekend which although it may not have had any profound lightining flash aha moments said old things in a new light, perhaps the correct light.

The greatest part was definetly the opportunity to spend time with some great guys, our conversations alone on the conference on church on whatever were great, Our group of nine consisted of my friend and pastor Dom, Of Joe Manafo, Nathan Colquhoun and Darryl Sylvestri of theStory a new church in Sarnia On., Phil Prendergast (Dom's Brother in law) and Marty Lewis (a.k.a. Mega-Mart) of New Hope in London On., Jared Siebert National Growth Director "Guru" (he seems pretty darn smart to me) for the Free Methodist Church Canada, and James, also of London On, he is currently in the process of starting a new church community in the downtown core of London, it sounds exciting!! Anyways I cant remember his last name (I did just meet him) so I hope that one of these guys will comment and give us more info on him.

Anyhow, a great time, lots and lots of stuff to inspire and reflect on.

Later Kerr

posted by Steve @ 1:11 PM 1 Comments

Google vs. intelegence

The End as we know it has arrived. Perhaps my cynical view is to disparaging for your tastes, but I dont think that anyone knows how to think for themselves anymore. One of my friends is a prof. and recently while grading some papers he found that one of them had been "downloaded" almost entirely from an internet source, someone elses work was plagiarized. Can people really claim ignorance, that they don't know this is wrong. Maybe our new moral standards should go something like this "if it's easy it's wrong" I am all for sharing knowledge, but for goodness sake do your own work.

When my friend first told me that he had a cheater I thought it was a random act of stupidity, yet as I sit here today two guys opposite me in this very computer lab have done exactly the same thing a quick google search has led them to an easy assignment, which if chance has her way will most likely recieve an admirable grade.

What part do we share in this easy society, how often do we limp work together in order to meet deadlines, how often do we shirk difficult projects in order to do the things we want. What role have we played in todays quick fix internet reality, and how do we fix it?

posted by Steve @ 8:43 AM 0 Comments

Isn't She Beautiful

Over the past several months I have been working through some issues that I have with the local church. Things like how it fits into Christ's vision, so many comunitites feel that they have an edge on just what God's mission is maybe they are the only ones doing it right.... grrr. How do we all come together to serve kingdom know missions, how can we serve together.
Another major stumbler for me has been issues of leadership, how to govern our comunities, individually and together as a group. So many of the communitities we are a part of struggle and falter because we put too much emphasis on what we get from it not what we give, and we bog down our pastors those who have a calling from God with administrative jumble, no wonder we cant sometimes don't feel God in our church, we arn't taking the time to look for him and those who are suposed to be inspiring us to move forward are feeling drawn out and tired, how can we serve them.

This week I am preparing to head to a conference hosted by Rob Bell's community which I hope might point out that I am looking in the worng direction, answer questions and give me new hope, new reason to continue to listen, and new resolve to serve.

More on this next week after the conference

posted by Steve @ 9:16 AM 0 Comments