I was going to say top 5 but you'll see I'll sort of be cheating. I have at least one series in the list that I'll include as "one." It's hard for me to narrow down 5 out of so many. I have to start narrowing down my own criteria. So I guess these posts are ones that I think are "good" - i.e., meaningful, important in some way, and helpful. Here they are, each followed by a brief excerpt.
I still believe. Jan. 3, 2006 Unless we somehow come to recognize a Christian Orthodoxy that transcends our wants and feelings, what kind of real revolution can we have? I don't know that I want in on that. I'm not sure we want another out of hand protestant reformation. Things will spin off much faster now than they did then. We have a big head start on individual goofiness. We have to have some anchor to hold on to.
Brokenness: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3Feb. 9,10,11, 2006 So whatever happened at the beginning, with people, however, and we know the basic Biblical story, we fell - however that all took place, it did, it happened and it broke us - US. At the ontological level a breaking happened. Our collective being was fractured. Now, theologians have labeled this original sin. It is this deep ontological fracture which separates us from the Life of God. To do away with this shared broken nature is to put undue weight on each individual.
Discernment and tradition: Part 1 - Part 2Feb. 27, March 2, 2006 I do not believe that everything we need to know about what it means to be a Christian is contained, verbatim, in the Bible. The Bible itself grew out of Tradition passed on inside the Church. It is a result of what was commonly held as True and taught and read from as the Word of God among the early churches. I'm not beginning this way in order to argue the point. I'm simply stating where my foundations are so that I can go farther and talk about other things.
The whole life. April 6, 2006 During this whole crazy new Life's journey we're being taken through - Life in Christ, Real Life - things are often confusing. We often get tired and frustrated. We want to try and think concretely and simply about things and get answers. The pupils of our minds are not open wide enough to see all the light and color and texture that surrounds and is in us.
The purpose of the church. May 10, 2006 The purpose of the Church is to be the Church.What or who is the Church? The Church is the collected people who have been spiritually united with God through Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Those of us who have been gathered back under the wings of the Mother Hen. The Church is alive people - the assembly of Living People - the Resurrected ones. I've said this before (of course) in one way or another, but the whole purpose of the Jesus thing is so that we all will be Human Beings again, real ones, Alive ones, the kind we were created to be. That's IT. That's the whole thing. That's all. Everything else flows out of that.
Untitled monastic Benedict and Francis ramblings. July 13, 2006 My purpose in talking about these two men and what they did and influenced is, basically, to talk about us, to talk about you and me. That's one of the points in any veneration of the saints - that is, to understand that they are us and we are them. We are part of the same Body of Christ. We are inhabited by the same Spirit of God that they were (and are). Therefore, there is hope that God can and will do the same kinds of things in and through us. It IS possible.
Emerging church burnout. July 20, 2006 I'm tired. I really am. I really can't be worried about who knows it either. I'm tired of hiding. I don't even know why to keep talking if it will bear no fruit. It's hard to even ask for Grace any more.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
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