July 4, 2008
While on my very very very very long drive from Seattle to Austin last week, I was reminded of the first time I went rappelling…
Early in the morning, we parked our church vans full of students near the base of the cliffs. After our guides went over some safety precautions and got it all set up, we got started. From the ground below, it didn’t look so bad. We could make out the faces and expressions of each person as they stepped up to the edge. Some descents were quick and confident, others were slow and cautious. No one died.
I watched several others go. I had a mid-morning snack. I watched some others go. I had lunch. I watched some others go. For the second and third time.
Truthfully, I wasn’t that nervous. Until I climbed up for my turn. All those people who seemed to be normal sized when I had been gazing up now looked horrifically small as I peered down. Most unnerving was the ground below, or lack thereof. Standing above, you can’t see it. Knowing that it had been there before I went up provided little comfort as I backed over the edge.
It seems that I survived.
As our family moves to a new city with dreams of starting a new church movement in Austin, it’s kind of like that. We’ve seen others do this. But now, we stand at the edge, wondering what’s below. It would be nice to know what it looks like down there, but the only way to find out is go over the edge.
GULP!
Tags: austin, church, church planting, life, rappelling
Posted in life, musing 
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July 3, 2008
One of these days, we might once again have a place we can call our own.
Last week, the same day we left Seattle, someone looked at our house. They liked it enough to put an offer on it. After a few shenanigans, we reached an agreement at the end of the week. Monday, we found out that he lost his job, and the deal is back off again. So, our house has flirted with the idea of being sold, but has proved to be just a tease.
As far as houses in Austin go…sheesh. Yesterday, we applied to lease a house in Central Austin that would be perfect. Unfortunately, they received two other applications yesterday, one of which got there about 20 minutes before ours. We had already let them know ours was on the way, so now we are just waiting for an answer.
It’s been a challenge for us to try to merge our sense of mission and calling to the city into the reality of place that might work for our family. Central Austin is still where we think we need to be, but the selection there, especially in our price range is a lot more limited. There are plenty of homes that are vacant and available today if we decide to move a little further from the city center. But, our stuff isn’t arriving until early next week, thanks to the holiday, to that has bought us a little bit of time.
For now, we are still staying with my parents. It really is working out okay, all things considered. It’s a little tight, but they are gracious hosts, and we aren’t feeling the pressure to find something soon. They are supportive of us finding just the right place.
Our realtor is leaving town for the 4th so we won’t be looking for anything for a few days if this house doesn’t work out. We are exhausted and glad to have a few days to just relax, and maybe even play a little.
Tags: austin, church, family, life
Posted in life, musing 3 Comments »
June 30, 2008
About ten years ago, I went with a team of other pastors to the Philippines to help do a conference for students. During the trip, I got a little lazy on the shaving side of things and was surprised to discover that my facial hair could actually connect around the sides of my mouth. My goatee was born.
Last week, it died.
Playing around with my appearance on Tiger Woods Golf gave me a glimpse of what I might look like without it. (Tiger Woods Golf, by the way, is the ultimate exercise in male vanity.) Last Monday, before I climbed in the car for the drive to Austin, I decide to see how it might look for real. My chin is now naked…and I think I’m sticking with it.
Tags: goatee, life
Posted in life, random 5 Comments »
June 27, 2008
The call of community isn’t about finding people just like us, or at the exclusion of any people. Community in the biblical sense is clearly about unlike people finding Christ at the center of their inclusive life together. — Hugh Halter & Matt Smay, The Tangible Kingdom
Tags: church, hugh halter, matt smay, quotes, reading, the tangible kingdom
Posted in musing, reading No Comments »
June 25, 2008
I made it.
Monday afternoon, I dropped the rest of my family off at the airport, and my dad and I started driving toward Texas. We finished the 35ish hours of driving late tonight (Wednesday).
My butt hates me.
Tags: austin, family, life, roadtrip
Posted in life 4 Comments »
June 17, 2008
A few months ago, my friend Doug Paul posted this prayer of Thomas Merton. It grabbed a hold of me when I first read it. It seems ever more suitable this week as we are packing up our life to move into a foggy future:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Tags: church, doug paul, life, prayer, thomas merton
Posted in life, musing 2 Comments »
June 6, 2008
Below is my first go at writing some values that will help shape a new church community in Austin. I think they still need some molding, but I’m excited about the potential of these, and have a number of ideas about how we can shape the life of the community around them:
Story
At the heart of our faith is a story. It is the story of how God’s kingdom has unfolded through history. But each of us has a story as well. Just as we look to see how God has been at work through history, we also reflect on how God has been at work in our life. Faith happens when we see the intersection of God’s story with our own. Our community longs to join God in the writing of how this story will continue to unfold.
Wholeness
While we see the work of God in this world, we also hold a deep understanding that not everything is as it should be. God is not finished with the story. In the structures of our world and in our own lives, we see brokenness. But we hope. We long for the final redemption when God will join a new heaven and a new earth together in the ultimate act of restoration. Until then, we choose to live in the Way of Jesus because we believe that is how we will see life flourish in our souls, our homes, our community, our world and in creation.
Presence
As a church community, we are the presence of God in the world today. God is continually moving into the brokenness of this created world, and so do we. Compelled by God’s love, we partner with the resurrected Christ to recover the beauty, renewal, and justice that our broken world longs to see. We pray that we will be able to help God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Tags: austin, church, hodos project, presence, story, values, wholeness
Posted in musing 1 Comment »
June 3, 2008
There is all sorts of talk about the need for churches to be creative. While I agree, I think the assumption is usually that this creativity happens in the form of programmed expressions from the stage in a Sunday service. This quote reminds us why creativity should be so much more that that:
The reality is that creatives walk into our communities, systems, and structures all the time, and when they do, they intuit the environment we have created and know immediately whether there is space for them. Most often, they discover there is not. If we are going to have systems and structures that allow our communities to respond to the context of our world and what God is doing in such contexts, we must be allowed to create systems and structures that are organic to this emerging world. In order to do this we must be creative! We must allow our imaginations to be funded in news ways from new sources across multiple disciplines, ideas and metaphors. We must allow emergence to happen in our midst by fostering the environments that will allow us to hear God through engaging each other. — Tim Keel, Intuitive Leadership
Tags: church, creativity, intuitive leadership, quotes, tim keel
Posted in musing 2 Comments »
May 27, 2008
Today, a package came in the mail. It has been a long time coming, and it is a result of the Rob Bell effect. Be patient. I will explain.
As Rob Bell has become a national figure over the last five years or so, the Rob Bell effect has grown. He has recommended many books through his teaching and speaking. This is especially of interest for those of us who like some of the history he digs up. The problem is, some of these books are out of print. Low supply and growing demand means these books get expensive. Really expensive.
That’s when it becomes fun for me. Some odd part of me loves to hunt these books down to find a price I can afford. Each of the books below suffers from the the Rob Bell effect. They are selling for $150 and up around the internet. But I’m now happy to have each in my library, having paid less than $30 for each:
- The Seven Cities of the Apocalypse in Greco-Asian Culture, by Roland Worth - This is the one that arrived today. I found it used on Amazon for for $25 last week. It looks brand new and I can’t wait to dive in. Rob mentioned it in the endnotes of Velvet Elvis. It was only published in 1999, so I’m not sure why it has gone out of print.
- The Seven Cities of the Apocalypse in Roman Culture, by Roland Worth - This is the counterpart volume to the above book. It was not directly cited by Rob, but it is still hard to find. I was able to find it on Eisenbrauns brand new a year ago. Unfortunately, they don’t have it any more.
- Christ and the Caesars, by Ethelbert Stauffer - I heard about this one from Rob several years ago. I think it was already hard to find because it was on Ray Vander Laan’s suggested reading list. I found it in the online inventory of a used bookstore in the UK for under $15. (No, not the bookstore on Notting Hill.) I was a tad delighted.
If you are hunting for out of print books, Alibris or BookFinder are useful. But, I’ve probably had the most luck just using Google to search for the title and author. Once again, be patient.
Persistence bordering on psychosis helps too.
Tags: books, ethelbert stauffer, ray vander laan, rob bell, roland worth
Posted in musing, random 1 Comment »
May 27, 2008
A few months ago, I blogged about mustard plants. (Never mind that that post was supposed to be the intro to a series. The ideas have continued to flow, they just never made it to the blog!)
Some of that thinking has really helped form some ideas about the initial stages of what our church community might look like. I was able to develop the ideas in a paper for a class. While at a church planting boot camp a few weeks ago, I reworked that paper to form a general strategy for developing a multiplying church model. It is linked below for those who are willing to take the time to read it. I’d be thankful and honored if you would share the thoughts and questions that it stirs for you.
A Mustard Seed Church (pdf)
Tags: church planting, hodos project, life, mustard
Posted in life, musing 2 Comments »
May 27, 2008
God did not create a divine subculture and then wait for humanity to wise up and join in. God joined a story. God got dirty. God entered. God engaged. And this is the calling of the church as well–to join in and participate in God’s story at work in the world. In that sense to be incarnational is to live in the world the way God lived in the world. — Tim Keel, Intuitive Leadership
Tags: incarnational, quotes, tim keel
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May 21, 2008
Lots of airplane time in the last week meant lots of time to read. And a nap or two mixed in here and there. Here are a few books I was able to finish off that are worth mentioning:
Feel, by Matthew Elliott
A few months ago, I was leading a training session for some youth leaders. I asked the question: “What does spiritual maturity look like?” One response was a suggestion that to be mature is to keep our emotions in check — we don’t get too up and we don’t get too down. That portrays a common, but flawed, understanding in Christianity that emotions are bad. Thankfully, Elliott challenges this idea, and shows why emotions are central to what it means to be a relational human who is made in the image of God. I had not heard of Feel before being sent a copy for review, but I’m glad I can help others hear about it now. It’s an important book with a message that needs to be heard.
The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller
I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I first saw that Tim Keller was publishing this book. I love his heart for mission and church planting, and would have liked to see him write a book on these topics. But the disappointment didn’t last long. Keller is intelligent, thoughtful, and gracious in this explanation of why he has faith in the Christian God. It is born both out of his own study and his dialogue with people during his ministry in New York, and the combination of these two sets the perfect tone for this book. He does dig in pretty deep, so I did bog down in it a few times. Even if one just buys it as a reference book, it would be handy to available.
The Multiplying Church, by Bob Roberts
As we’ve been forming strategies for our new church community, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to start a church that is structured for ongoing multiplication. That pretty much explains why this book caught my eye. The fact that it was written by a pastor from a church that is actually doing this stuff is what caused me to buy it. I think this would be a helpful book for any church leadership that is trying to think intently about what it means to give birth to other churches locally or globally.
Tags: bob roberts, books, church planting, feel, matthew elliott, reviews, the multiplying church, the reason for god, tim keller
Posted in random 2 Comments »
May 17, 2008
A few weeks ago, I was sent a copy of My Beautiful Idol, by Pete Gall, for review. A long plane trip earlier this week gave me the chance to really dig in to the book. Once I did, it was easy to stick with it.
Much like Blue Like Jazz, My Beautiful Idol is a spiritual memoir of a young man trying to make sense of life in his early 20s. I’ve even seen the two books compared in this way on a few occasions. The similarity should end there, because otherwise it will distort the way one reads My Beautiful Idol.
About a third of the way through the book, I was struggling with whether I wanted to continue. Spending some time reflecting on it helped me to see why — I didn’t really like Pete Gall. But as I continued to read, I realized that that is kind of the point. Pete Gall writes of his journey as a young man to fully devote himself to God. He offers a great deal of transparency as he shows his own immaturity in that season. And as he does, I was invited to watch how he gradually becomes aware of that himself. And I respect him for showing us so much.
So, don’t confuse My Beautiful Idol with Blue Like Jazz — it’s written from a different stance and should be read as such. But do consider reading it if you want to be refreshed by the honest reflections of one man’s journey through the Christian faith. You might even see some of your own self along the way.
Tags: blue like jazz, books, donald miller, my beautiful idol, pete gall, reading
Posted in musing, reading 6 Comments »
May 12, 2008
I have tagged a number of blog posts in the last few weeks that my heart was in tune with. Each of these somehow captures pieces of what I am hoping for in a new church community:
Tags: church planting, hugh halter, links, notables, pat loughery, todd hiestand
Posted in musing, notables 1 Comment »
May 11, 2008
Done…but not finished.
These are words my friend Blaine offered yesterday about graduation. They couldn’t feel more true.
Yesterday, I walked. It’s official. I have a long black robe and the fancy cap made famous by the gentleman on the Yahtzee box. I have a diploma (or at least a piece of paper promising me that I’ll get one if I passed my spring classes). I have a beautiful black, red and white hood. I have photographic evidence that I walked across the stage.
I am done. And it feels ridiculous to say so.
Tags: life, mhgs
Posted in life, musing 4 Comments »
This is the personal blog of John Chandler. The wonderings -- and wanderings -- you will find here were probably true when I wrote them, but that doesn't mean they will be when you read them.
