Emergent Brethren

Annual Conference will soon be here (in San Diego)! How many of you are planning to attend? I just heard that as of today, registration is only about 1800 people. Thus, conference attendance will be really low compared to last year. But, this was expected. Besides, it’s on the West Coast, too. 🙂

If you are planning to attend, here are some activities that you might be interested in:

Emergent Brethren Conversations — Friday, 9:00pm, Pacific Salon 7. This is our annual informal conversation time, where everybody can share what’s happening in their ministry, what they’re exploring, how they see God moving in their midst, and ask questions. This is an informal time of sharing. There are no “presentations”, unless you have something to share. Please pass the word of this event to your friends!

Worship Music Celebration — Saturday, 9:00pm, Grand Hall. This is a different kind of a worship service planned to start shortly after the regular evening worship. It will feature three groups, video, prayer, and scripture readings. The first worship leader will be Lindsey Wildey, from Flood Church in San Diego. She will be performing contemporary praise and worship music. Next, James Washington and Best Friends will be sharing their African-America Gospel music. Following Best Friends, the praise team from Principe de Paz Church of the Brethren will be performing Latin-American praise and worship music. So, in addition to this being a different kind of worship service, it will also be a cross-cultural experience! It will go till about 10:30pm.

Worship at Flood Church — Sunday, 9am, 11am, 6pm and 8pm. Flood Church is less than 9 years old and has an average attendance of 1500 in San Diego. I have been participating with them since their beginning in many capacities. They now meet at Kearny High School, less than 4 miles north of the Town and Country Hotel. I’m planning to attend the 8pm service and would be happy to give people a ride. I can also introduce you to any staff who will be attending. You can view their website at www.diveintoflood.com. This is NOT an officially sponsored Church of the Brethren activity. But, if you’d like to see some smooth video, a great band, and some good preaching, just let me know.

Enhancing Worship with Digital Stained Glass — Monday, 12:30pm, Hampton. This insight session will look at using digital imagery in worship or websites, reflect on effective uses of media and show what some Brethren are doing. If you have an example of something that you’re proud of, contact me ASAP at konajeff@gmail.com. I might be able to get it included.

If you know of people who are attending, please forward this information to them, or better yet, give them the link to this website and have them click on “Annual Conference” on the link in the right column.

Also, if you have any questions about where to, what to do, or where to eat, please ask me! You can also get information about San Diego at 101SanDiego.com.

Hope to see you soon in my home town!

Jeff Glass

A few years ago at the National Pastor’s Convention, one of the freebee’s given to everyone was the just released book called Chasing a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars (by Mark Batterson, Multnomah Press). As I was clearing-out some stuff from my office last month, I ran across this book. I thought it might be a good one to take on our vacation/job hunting trip to Hawaii. I was right, there’s lots of inspiration in this book!

The book is based on an obscure story in the Old Testament of Beniah, who chased and killed a lion (2 Sam. 23:20-21). It’s not a story I remembered in my Old Testament reading, but it now certainly is a story that has impacted my life.

There are many great quotes that I’d love to share, but it would take-up too much room here. I scanned the book, after reading it to pull-out my top 10, but have decided that even that’s too many.

So, here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“. . . success is making the most of every opportunity. Spiritual maturity is seeing and seizing God-ordained opportunities. Think of every opportunity as God’s gift to you. What you do with those opportunities is your gift to God. I’m absolutely convinced that our greatest regrets in life will be missed opportunities.” p. 17

“Guaranteed Uncertainty: To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation.” quote from Oswald Chambers, p.79

Faith doesn’t reduce uncertainty. Faith embraces uncertainty. p.85

Jesus never promised security. What he promised was uncertainty. . . I know that part of us wants God to take us to a 3 act play with a clearly defined plot. . . But Jesus takes us to the Improv instead. We want the entire script up front, but that would undermine our dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Following Jesus and keeping in step with the Spirit require the art of improvisation. We’ve got to develop an affinity for uncertainty and lear to enjoy the journey.” p.90

“Have you read the Bible lately? Faith is risky business. The goal of faith is not the elimination of risk. In fact, the greatest risk is taking no risks.” (Think of the Parable of the Talents) p. 109

Failing to take a risk is almost like losing a jigsaw puzzle piece of your life. It leaves a gaping hole. When we get to the end of our lives, our greatest regrets will be the missing pieces.” p. 115-116

To the average person, the circumstances presented to Benaiah were problems to run away from, not opportunities to be seized. But Benaiah didn’t see a 500 pound problem. He saw a lion skin hanging in his tent. p. 132-133

This book probably means a lot more to me now, than if I had read it 3 years ago. I now find myself in a situation I didn’t choose (being laid-off by the Mission and Ministry Board). A few people have tried to encourage me to see this as a time of new opportunity, of pursuing dreams and passions that I might not have done by staying in my former position. So, I’m here in Hawaii with my wife to explore a dream we’ve had for 10 years: living here and serving God.

The author, Mark Batterson, also writes on page 30, “God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go.”. What a comforting thought! God is seeking to guide us in greater ways than our seeking to be in God’s will. But as the author says over and over again, we have to take risks, and not wait for every detail to line-up before stepping out.

How do you take risks? What needs to be in place before you “step-out in faith”? What’s your dream? What steps do you need to take to reach that dream?

I’d love to hear from you!

Jeff

Last night, my wife and I watched Wall-E, a movie we got from Netflix. This is an 2008 academy award winning Pixar film about a robot left on earth, after the humans had destroyed it. A probe named, Eva, arrives and a love story begins. Later, you find out that many of the humans that left the planet are in a huge space ship waiting for the time to come back to earth. When Eva discovers a green plant growing on earth, it goes back to the space ship to inform them of the discovery of “life” on earth. This starts the chain of events that brings the humans back to earth to repopulate it. (If you haven’t seen the movie, there’s a lot more to it than what I write here.)

As I watched the movie, I thought, “This is awfully heavy material for a children’s film!” One of the major focuses of the movie was how terrible humans have treated our planet. It shows the planet as a virtual wasteland, filled with garbage made by people. Wall-E is a machine whose purpose if to box and stack-up the garbage to clean things up. While watching the film I thought there are several scenes in it that could be used to illustrate a sermon on caring for creation.

Later on, after we finished watching the movie it dawned on me. . . this is a highly adapted story of Noah’s Ark in a science fiction genre. Garbage all over the earth is symbolic of the flood of water in the Biblical story. Eva is symbolic of the dove sent-out by Noah to find signs of land. The space ship. . .

Have any of you seen this film or used it to illustrate your sermon(s)? What other movies have you watched lately that would be good fodder for a sermon?

I’m always intrigued when there are reports in the newspapers about surveys or polls on religious or spiritual life in America. Yesterday, I was given a copy of USA Today and found a very interesting commentary on the back page of the front section. We’ve all heard speakers at conferences say that our nation is becoming post-Christian. You may have even seen statistics saying that less and less Americans are believing in God. So, imagine my curiosity when I see this headline: Post Christian? Not even close. Stephen Prothero, the author of the article, is the chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University. He cites several studies. I invite you to read it with interest.

Today, imagine my curiosity when I see this headline: Loss of faith attributed to spiritual drift. This article originally appeared in the Washington Post. Here’s the opening lines of the article: “More Americans have given up their faith or changed religions because of a gradual spiritual drift than switched because of a disillusionment over their churches’ policies, according to a study released yesterday.

It also illustrates how personal spiritual attitudes are taking precedence over denominational tradition.”

Later today, I saw that John Ortberg has written about the latter survey for Christianity Today. His article is called, Snapshots of Religious Life: What do the recent surveys tell us about the future of faith?.

To add to the above this week, Leadership Journal has a poll going this week on the topic: “Evangelicals are talking a lot more about “social justice.” How do you see this development?” As of Wednesday morning, here’s how the vote is going:
Wonderful, it’s long overdue. 62%

Happy, it’s making our message more attractive. 12%

Indifferent, it’s not relevant to my ministry. 2%

Confusing, it’s not something I understand. 3%

Disturbing, it’s a distraction from the Gospel. 21%

If you would like to add your vote to the poll, you may do so at: take poll

Any comments as to what the news is telling us about faith and culture in the U.S.? How does this impact your ministry? Is The End of Christian America here, or is coming, like Newsweek and Ryan writes about below?

As the administrator of this site, I occasionally look at the stats of how many hits it gets, how long people stay on the site, how many pages are read, etc. Today in looking at the stats I was surprised.

The second nation with the most visits is Canada (a long ways behind the U.S.), and a close third is United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom has more page visits (3.17) than Canada (2) and has the longest average visit (2:34 minutes). The country with the most page visits is Saudi Arabia (5). Other countries that have readers who drop-in to read this site include Ivory Coast, Nepal, Russia, Australia, Norway and France.

Thanks to everyone who drops-in on this site! Don’t be shy about leaving comments to those who post. Everyone is invited to be a part of the conversations here!

Jeff Glass