Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Questions of an Emergent

DISCLAIMER: In no way is the following sarcasm directed towards the (anonymous) individual who asked the questions, but towards the general vibe of the entire "Emerging, Emergent" dialogue.

So I haven't blogged in a year, yet I still keep this thing going.   I was attending these Emergent West Michigan Meetings and reading every "emergent" book I could get my hands on.  Well, since that time, I have resigned from working with Churches officially and have taken great joy in furthering our companies which focus on DJs MCs Photographers RocknRoll Bands Promotions Nightlife & Wedding Receptions.

So today, I receive a random e-mail from a student at RBC, sorry....I mean Kuyper.  It does sound so ....how do you say?......less reformed.  Anyhow, this student wanted me to take time to answer some questions about the "Emerging Church Movement".  Really?  A Movement? 

I think the whole emerging thing is great.....but, it's not a movement.  It is more of an idea, or a way to feel cool amongst your lame christian friends. 

So below are my answers to this student's questioning.  If you have thoughts, I would love to hear them.

Questions:

1. Would you define in your own words the emerging church movement?

Sure, the Church……emerging.  In other words, the movement, in my opinion is an unfortunate occurrence of the whole thing.  It shouldn’ t be classified as a movement, although to many it has become one, simply because those that participate in the “emerging” conversation do not feel, think, or even necessarily believe the same way.  How can something be a movement when there is such diversity within it.  I participated with the West Michigan group for a while and they are fantastic people.  The beauty of the gatherings was that it was ok to be who you are and express your feelings, questions, doubts, pains, joys, etc.  It was an example of the “church’, emerging into something else.  That something else cannot be defined, because that is what makes a movement.

2. Are there any major differences you see between the emerging church movement and traditional expressions of Christianity? If so, what are they?

I don’t really see differences, because an individual that is in the process of emerging will most likely have many uncertainties.  This person will most likely be in a detox, or deconstructive mode.  While they may hold on to some of the traditions they may have experienced, they may also be interested in asking tough questions about their beliefs and why they think and feel the way they do.

3. Is the emerging church movement significant to Christianity and why?

I believe an emerging state of being, rather than one who is emerging, is essential not just to Christianity, but all of life.  Emerging individuals should not be threatening to us, but encouraging.  Someone who is truly emerging, is asking questions, examining themselves and the influences of those around them.  Asking questions, searching, and not becoming stagnant can only bring us all closer to truth.  It is when we stop pursuing, that we find ourselves in trouble.

4. In your opinion, what positive things is the emerging church movement bringing to Christianity?

I believe the permission to emerge is the greatest thing someone who is emerging is giving to others within Christianity.  It is the permission to be ok with “I don’t know” and “ I’m not sure”.  It is the freedom to become friends with and form relationships with individuals that look, act, think, and feel differently than somebody else does.  It is the security that god still loves you and cares about you amidst your doubt, questioning, and uncertainty.  Many have been brought up without the freedom to challenge and ask questions…….now they are getting it.

5. In your opinion, are there any dangers or risks associated with the emerging church movement?

Since I believe someone who is truly emerging, is not part of any movement, but a conversation and a learning, deconstructing, and discovering process, I don’t see any dangers.  There may be some element of threat to the business, politics, and control that the church enjoys maintaining over people.  But, I find no threat to human beings, their hearts, minds, or souls.

6. Any other thoughts you would like to share?

Simply this…….if you find the word emerging to represent a movement, you truly may not know what it means.  If you call yourself emergent, you are probably not.

Websters defines the word “emerge” as rising up, to become manifest, to rise from an obscure or inferior position, to evolve into being.

To me it represents the idea of “ever changing”, or continually reforming oneself.  It suggests to me that  we cannot allow ourselves to get comfortable or become stagnant.  It cannot be a movement because once you emerge, you will emerge again……you may find yourself to be continually emerging

Ted Haggard - Meth Gay Kimmel

Ted Haggert (the evangelist) who was caught in a pattern of homosexual behavior, agreed to admit himself into a spiritual restoration program for 5 years.

Focus on the Family says that “Spiritual Restoration” for fallen religious leaders works about 50% of the time.  The ones that fail usually end up selling cars or shoes and “being miserable for the rest of their lives”

According to Jimmy Kimmel, he asks, “How does that make shoe and car salespeople feel?”

Huh......

Rick Warren on "Life"

This is kind of funny......I typically don't get all excited about Rick Warren, but I do like this interview....check it out.  Tell me what you think.

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal.  God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness,"which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD.

CNN's Snuff Film

CNN's Snuff Film by Mark Early

My Response to Mark Early's Article, his article follows my response:

My opinion is that christians overreact.  And I feel this response to what CNN showed is an overreaction.

The religious people in this country think they know what is good and bad, true and untrue, and think that they ought to be able to moderate that for the masses.

The fact is that any thinking person can watch what CNN airs and judge for themselves.  Just because something is aired as news, or "truth", does not mean that one has to accept it as such.

If God is alive, and the Holy Spirit is active, we as christians have to let God and the Holy Spirit do their work.  That is convicting, challenging, and speaking to the minds and hearts of God's people.

It is not our responsibility to police the world, or object to everything we feel threatened by.  And, that raises another question.  Why are there so many groups claiming to be christian groups, and all they do is battle ideologies and schools of thought with secular groups and organizations.  That was never the call.  It was the call, however, to love.  It was the call to put the ressurrected Jesus on display through our actions. It was the call to preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words.  It was "NOT" the call to argue, fight, and win battles over words, thought, philosophy, policy, and actions.

We are responsible as individuals, through community (those in like mind with us) to put on display for everyone else the sacrificial love of Jesus.

In my opinion, it is a waste of time and energy to battle CNN on what they air.  Let them air what they want to.  It is time to trust the spirit of God to guide the hearts of His people, and convict and draw near to Him the hearts of others.

James Littell

CNN's Snuff Film by Mark Early:

In the first century before Christ, a slave named Spartacus led an unsuccessful revolt against Rome. As a warning to other would-be rebels, Roman soldiers crucified 6,000 slaves along the road to Rome. Their bodies were left hanging on crosses for all to see.

The Romans are remembered for their cruelty. But at least they weren’t guilty of the kind of hypocrisy CNN is now engaging in.

As most of you know, CNN recently aired a video showing a terrorist sniper taking aim and killing an American soldier. The video was a gift from a terrorist group.

CNN said the network understood that some viewers would be deeply upset. However, CNN’s goal, “as always,” was “to present the unvarnished truth as best we can.”

Is that right? I can hardly wait for CNN to broadcast a videotape showing “the unvarnished truth” about, say, partial-birth abortion.

CNN has forgotten, if it ever knew, that for television, any real truth is impossible. British media critic Malcolm Muggeridge noted that “the one thing television can’t do is express ideas.” By translating life into an image, television “is falsifying life.”

Francis Schaeffer agreed. Far from offering truth, he said, “every television minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the event. He sees . . . an edited image of that event,” one that gives an illusion of objectivity and truth.

And as Christian philosopher Douglas Groothuis notes, with television, reality becomes the image, “whether or not that image corresponds to any objective state of affairs—and we are not challenged to engage in this analysis.”

This is dangerous. Groothuis quotes a college professor who complains that his students “tend to have an image-based standard of truth.” Because of that, if the professor invites them to provide evidence supporting or contradicting their views, students look at him as if he came from another planet. This is because, he says, it’s “foreign for them to think in terms of truth, logic, consistency, and evidence.”

This erosion in the ability to reason from images is something to remember when we’re tempted to get all of our news from the tube—especially from CNN.

After all, the insurgents could have given CNN films of themselves blowing up Iraqi children or beheading journalists. Instead, they are heard discussing how to avoid killing innocent people. We’re not invited to recall the thousands of innocents the insurgents have tortured and murdered over the past two years. So much for the “unvarnished truth.”

Finally, and most appalling, CNN deliberately gave aid to the enemy of freedom-loving people everywhere. After all, do they really think Islamic radicals would hand over a videotape that would hurt their own cause? Of course not. They had to know the horrific impact their snuff film would have on the families of servicemen—or upon those considering joining the war against Islamo-fascism: It would have the same impact as the sight of those crucified slaves in ancient Rome. To claim otherwise suggests CNN editors are not playing with a full deck—or are engaging in the rankest hypocrisy.

When we watch television, we need to remember the scriptural call to “test everything.” That certainly applies to network news claiming to give us the truth.

I'm Back!!!

I'm Back.....

So, I haven't blogged in quite some time.  Time to get it goin' again.  There is plenty to talk about!!!

I Look forward to hearing back from many of you and reading your comments once again.

Thanks

James

Rob Bell - Everything is Spiritual

Rob Bell - "Everything is Spiritual"

I love the idea of the tour.  Granted it is now over.  But, for Rob to tour the country for a month, stopping in a different city each night, and speaking to sellout audiences with no frills, and then speak to a group inside of Numbers night club in Houston, TX was excellent.

My wife is from Texas, and grew up in Houston going to Numbers and dancing with her friends.  It was fun to hear that Rob spoke to a group of people there.  It is also worth pointing out that one can order a nice Martini at Estrada, the bar nearby.  We were just there at Christmas time and loved it.

- James Littell

Anyhow, I will attach the article from the Houston Chronicle below:

Download rob_bell_numbers_in_houston.pdf

Evolution of Dance

Weird Dream .....

Last Night’s Dream……

I was hanging out at a country club member’s party with my niece, Savannah. She is just 9 years old and about to be 10 in September.  However, in my dream she looked exactly like Dakota Fanning and she was telling people she was 19.  They were buying it, too.

To back up a few steps, it began with just the two of us hanging out, having some good Uncle/Niece time together.  Then, of course, we were magically beamed to this particular Country Club.  In the beginning of the dream, we were having a wonderful time together and she was behaving like a 9 year old should.  I slowly began to realize that every time I would leave her alone, she would behave differently and convince people she was much older.

The bulk of the dream was how she and I interacted once the boys began to hit on her.  We were sitting at a table, when 4 young boys came up and began to flirt with her. They were all trying to get in close and touch her, not inappropriately, but just a hand on her shoulder, arm, kind of thing.  I became extremely protective, and I yelled at all the boys and told them I had better not catch them even looking at her any more that evening.  While I was saying this one of the boys moved in towards Savannah. I kicked a chair and knocked him down like a bowling pin.

A little while later, I found her sitting at the bar, (she’s 9), convincing people and telling boys she was 19.  I walked over and found her talking to an older boy, and this older boy was gently stroking her chest and neck area.  I pulled him off his barstool, punched him in the face, and threw him on the ground.  I was yelling at him, “She’s only 9!”  This is when Savannah’s attitude towards me changed.  She asked what I was talking about, maintained she was 19, and told me to leave her alone.

Later on I realized she had become drunk…..she was asking me to drink even more with her.  She claimed it was her one chance to get drunk.

I woke up in a weird panic.

Rob Bell - Embracing Mystery

"Embrace Mystery rather than conquer it."  -  Rob Bell

As I have maintained since "Velvet Elvis was released almost a year ago, I find it to be one of the most intriguing books I have ever read.  I think what Rob has written has been helpful and encouraging to so many disenfranchised christians. Yet, there are still many who see what Rob has written as being harmful. I am posting this critique only because I always find it advantageous to be familiar with all sides of an issue or argument.

This critique is titled, "Hip, Relevant, Pink Plastic Flamingos in the Front Yard."  It is taken from challies.com

Let me know your thoughts....

James

Download rob_bell_velvet_elvis_critique.pdf

Freedom to Marry

Freedom to Marry

One year ago next month, a letter was circulating to build a grassroots effort to defend marriage in America.  Below is an excerpt from the letter as well as my response:

To win this marriage battle, it is critical that grassroots Americans from across the nation rise up against special interest groups who have arrogantly and openly declared their plans to use the federal court to destroy marriage and silence the voice of the people.

By adding to our grassroots ranks we are building critical muscle mass that is vital as we continue building support on Capitol Hill. AFM has told us that this battle will ultimately be won at the grassroots level--when Americans stand up and demand that AFM's Marriage Protection Amendment become law for the land.

Please forward this message to 15-25 of your friends and family. Let them know the severity of the situation and the need to have them add their name to our "Save Marriage" petition.

Thank you for taking immediate action. Your commitment and support of marriage is vital to our success and victory!

Steve Elliott, President of Grassfire.org
Alliance and Partner with Alliance For Marriage

My Responce

Re: Michigan Marriage Law under attack

Why is everything always battles, battle cries, victories, defeats, and destruction?
Nobody is attacking marriage, and nobody is trying to destroy marriage.  This is a deceitful attempt to rally people into thinking that marriage itself is under attack.  It is not.

This is about same sex marriage and gay rights........everybody has their panties in a wad and are afraid that somehow if gays are allowed to be legally married, then marriage itself will be destroyed.

Michigan banned same sex marriage by a majority vote of the people in the last election......there of course is a movement to try to overturn that in the courts, as well as keep the issue on the ballot for upcoming elections.

My opinion:  if you want to ban same sex marriage, then you should also ban (and make illegal)  divorce, adulterous affairs, having children outside of wedlock, sex before marriage, getting married before the age of 22, Harry Potter, Star Wars, 9 1/2 weeks, Marilyn Manson, the Purple Teletubby, Spongebob, the Smurfs, shopping malls, football, bars, hair salons, and day spas.

Matter of fact, out of everything I just listed, I would say that same sex marriage (gay marriage) is the least harmful to marriage itself.

Not to mention that gays want the privelege of being recognized by the state as having committed themselves to each other as life partners in a monogamous, loving relationship.  How does that hurt marriage?

One more thing.........it might be time to start praying for people who call themselves christians, but forward this garbage around town and try to stir up the kind of trouble that gives all of us a bad name amongst our gay friends. 

How can we truly be the light of Christ when we are too busy calling people to prayer over whether or not gays should be allowed to be married (all in the name of destroying marriage).
 

How will we be allowed to love people when they don't let us near them because they think we are one of those
"gay hating christians"

Jesus would have loved.

James