HOW VIOLENT ARE YOUR CHILDREN'S VIDEO GAMES? (2)

Just to confirm the previous blogpost's point: even bowling can be dangerous, especially if played during church service times!

(Thanks to toonfever.com for the cartoon)

HOW VIOLENT ARE YOUR CHILDREN'S VIDEO GAMES?

I doubt this is the best advice in determining the level of violence of your children's video games. It does make a good cartoon, however!

HOW JOHN SHORE BECAME A CHRISTIAN

John Shore wrote the following article. It was published in The Huffington Post. If you click on the title you'll see the original posting.

John Shore

I, a Rabid Anti-Christian, Very Suddenly Convert

In the comment threads of some of my posts here on Huffington Post, people have speculated about whether or not I'm "really" a Christian. (I'm used to getting that question from the right; it's new to me from the left.) So, I thought I'd share the story of my conversion.

The split-second before I very suddenly became a Christian, I couldn't possibly have been less of a Christian. If anything, I was anti-Christian. The religion struck me as ridiculously immature, a way-too-obvious system designed mostly to capitalize on people's guilt: Big Daddy in the Sky knows you did wrong, but will love you anyway if you'll only admit that he's perfection itself, and that you're a wretched, sickening sack of sin.

Please. I always figured that if I wanted Father Knows Best, I'd watch TV.

And it wasn't like I didn't believe in anything. I did. I very seriously believed in me. I hadn't a doubt in the world about the fact that I was somebody truly worthy of my utmost affection and devotion. I was strong, capable, friendly, competent -- I was just a general, all-around good guy. I was thirty-eight years old. I'd been happily married for sixteen years. I had a good job. I had friends. People liked me. I liked me.

That is, I liked myself as much as it seemed reasonable to. I was certainly aware of my own shortcomings (which I won't share with you here, in order to save my friends and former friends the shock of suddenly realizing what happened, that one time, to their stashes of porno and pot). But I didn't need God or anybody else to forgive me for the times I behaved poorly. I was perfectly capable (if not spectacularly efficient) at forgiving myself, thank you very much.

Because I knew that, at my core, I was a good, morally sound person.

On the other hand, I was a human being. And human beings, I knew (boy, did I know) have natural needs, and natural weaknesses.

The paramount imperative, I believed, was to love myself. That's what it was all about: loving, and forgiving, oneself. Those who mastered that mastered life. You had to be your own parents, your own nurturer, your own best friend.

Who could argue with that?

Then one day I was sitting at my desk at work during a totally typical weekday, feeling regretful about a particularly immature, semi-destructive thing I'd recently done, when this feeling started coming over me that in about four seconds had my undivided attention.

"What the hell?" I thought. The next thing I knew, I was very nearly desperate to be alone somewhere. It felt like warm water was filling me up inside -- but downward, starting at just beneath my scalp. Right about when the "water" had moved from my neck to my chest, I knew that whatever was happening to me wasn't going to stop.

And I could tell it was something spiritual, or psychological -- or something basically non-physical.

"I'll be right back," I said to a co-worker -- and then cut out for an auxiliary supply closet in our office that no one ever used. I flipped on its light, closed its door behind me, and waited.

I closed my eyes. The intensity of what was happening made that seem like a good idea.

And what happened, rather all at once, was that I saw what a complete asshole I was. Isn't that awful? All at once, the truth was before me that instead of being a good guy who's basically always trying to do the right thing, I was a selfish, emotional weakling who was always doing and saying whatever best served my own needs at the time.

I never lied; but I'd fudge the truth here and there if it didn't really hurt anybody and would help things roll my way.

I never cheated; but life is complex, and sometimes one has to make deals that more directly serve a Larger Good.

I wanted to help others; but there were so many good shows on TV, especially after a long, rough day at work.

What suddenly became a fact to me was that I'd been fooling myself for so long I'd forgotten the act. I wasn't the great, honorable person I started out to be, that I'd meant to become -- that I actually thought I was. I was just another guy so busy thinking he's constructing the perfect home that he doesn't realize how long ago he stopped using a level.

Man, I hate it when that happens.

I hate it when my whole view of myself is suddenly deconstructed and replaced by a view of myself that is so not what I expected.

I hate it when in one second I go from being Batman to being the Penguin.

Actually, though, that wasn't the worst part. By far.

The worst part was that, accompanying that less-than-peachy view of myself, was the very real knowledge that I was never, ever, ever going to change.

Ever. Never. Ever.

I was born as I was. I had spent my life as I was. And I would die as I'd always been: small, selfish, and mean as a pissed-off penguin.

And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I'd already spent my whole life trying to. Miserable mediocrity was the best I could do. I could achieve that only when I'd somehow pulled it together enough not to be a completely craven animal.

On a good day I was the Penguin!

And then here's what happened: I saw my death. I mean, I didn't see myself writhing around after I'd been hit by a truck on the freeway or anything -- I didn't see how I would die. But I did see, in a sort of direct, open tunnel, the disturbingly short distance between where I was, and where I was most certainly going. I saw my mortality. I saw the simple fact that I would die -- and that, as surely as one day follows the next, at the moment of my death I wouldn't be any different from how I'd been at any other moment of my life.

I wasn't going to get better. I wasn't going to become stronger, or wiser, or smarter, or more honorable. It just wasn't going to happen. I was thirty-eight. I was who I'd die being. At best.

Oh, but that was a bad, bad moment for me.

And then my legs disappeared from underneath me. I actually fell on my knees.

In the supply closet.

At my job.

Looking at my miserable, weak future, straight to my miserable, means-nothing death. It was just me and the cold, hard, gray, flat fact of ... me. Which was never going to change. I just did not have the will or means or character to change who I was, which was exactly who I'd always been.

I saw that my life, in any way that could possibly matter, was over.

Then I did something I never, ever do. I started to cry.

Because isn't the whole point of being alive to be someone you'd really want to be?

So I'm kneeling there, blinded by my sad, stupid little fate, when, from up and off to my left, I hear a disembodied voice say something.

And it says what it says in a clear, distinct cartoon voice.

Listen: I grew up glued to cartoons. As a kid, I had absolutely no idea what was happening with adults, who were clearly insane. But Daffy Duck I got. Porky Pig was my kind of guy. Wile E. Coyote? Please -- my very alter-ego!

To this day, I practically shiver with joy when The Simpsons are on.

Anyway, of course I can't exactly describe the cartoon voice I heard. But, you know: goofy, precise, rich, psuedo-edgy. Cartoonish.

And what that voice said, from up and off to my left somewhere -- from offstage, as it were -- was, "Isn't this what Jesus is for?"

And just like that, I stopped crying.

And do you know what I knew at that moment -- what instantly imprinted itself upon me? That the story of Jesus is historically true. That it happened. That God, desiring above all else to show the people he'd created that he loved them, became a human, and came to earth, and sacrificed himself, and in every way did every thing he possibly could to show people exactly how deeply and terribly he loves them.

That's what my conversion consisted of: a sudden, sure knowledge that the historical story of Christ is true.

It wasn't, like, wisdom at all. I wasn't suddenly filled with the Mind of God, or anything like that. My soul didn't light up. Angels didn't sing for me. Nothing like that happened. In a way, it was about as boring as learning the year house paint was invented, or that your bank has slightly altered its Saturday hours. All that had changed was that I was now sure that the story of Christ, about which I had always scoffed (if I ever thought of it at all), was true.

Then it was like how, when it starts to rain, you think about the only thing you can think, which is: "Oh. Now everything will get wet."

That's about what I thought: "Oh. Now I'm a Christian."

So I stood, wiped my eyes, opened the door to the supply closet, and went back to work.

And that was that.

HEY PASTOR, ARE YOU TRYING TO BE THE MESSIAH?

The Pastor as Docent

Moving beyond the "messiah" and "manager" pastoral models.

Magrey deVega

A friend told me that Eugene Peterson’s Under the Unpredictable Plant should be required reading for every pastor who has served for at least five years. That was how long it had been since my ordination. I picked up a copy.

Peterson claims that there are two common types of unhealthy clergy. The first is the messiah. Messiahs seek out wounded, broken people, to make them healthy again. It is a noble task, except for its motivation: messiahs need to feel needed. They consider healed people to be numbers, accumulated to suggest pastoral effectiveness.

Then there are managers, who seek not the unhealthy but the healthy: talented, faithful, and prepared people. Managers plug them in, finding the right places for them to serve in an ever-expanding congregational machine. The bigger the church gets, the better managers feel effective and useful. Once again, people become numbers.

I have both messianic and managerial tendencies. It is too easy for congregants to become statistics, which I can use to inflate my sense of clergy effectiveness.

That realization prompted me to search for a new pastoral identity, one that treated people more personally. I found one at the Louvre.

Rather than being my church’s messiah or your manager, I see myself as its docent- a tour guide in a museum or art gallery. Clergy showcase to the world the architecture and artistry of the Christian faith. We are tour guides, leading people from one gallery to another, shifting their attention from one work of God to the next. At times, we offer language to describe the unutterable: magnificence, awe, anguish. We are wordsmiths for life’s most muted moments.

Sometimes that moment demands explanation, and like a docent we offer information. We love when someone looks at a familiar passage of scripture in a fresh way, or unpacks some mystery of God in their life that transforms. Those are galleries that buzz with energy.

But other rooms we visit demand nothing but silence. We pause, speechless, when confronted by the mysteries of our liturgy: the breaking of bread, the lifting of a cup, the pouring of water. And there are times when our silence emerges from the ache and anguish of souls: the graveside of a loved one, a doctor’s diagnosis, or a future swirling with shadows. Our job in these moments may not be to speak but to stand. To let people know they are not alone in this gallery, and that someone has been there before.

We also know that our tours are temporary. It is a holy privilege to serve as pastor temporarily. Contemporary mobility ensures that our relationship is only for a season, so we cherish this time together.

This leads me to best thing about this metaphor: the docent never steals attention from the artist. I can tell you about some amazing works I’ve seen: the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Code of Hammurabi, and The Thinker. But I can’t for the life of me remember the name of a single docent that explained them to me. That’s the way it should be.

Too many churches are served by pastors focused on their own celebrity. Congregations might swell in numbers as they gravitate toward these larger-than-life preachers and their personal charisma. Such a model is blasphemous and unbiblical. Pastoral docents merely point to the Artist, rather than becoming the art itself. We must decrease so that God might increase.

The docent image isn’t perfect. Churches aren’t museums -- mere mausoleums of entities long deceased. People are drawn to churches that are committed movements, not to monuments.

Nevertheless, the idea of serving as docent energizes me and grounds me in my calling. I am neither messiah nor manager, and parishioners are much more than statistics. Together, we journey in awe through the splendor and artistry of the work of God in our lives and throughout the world.

Magrey deVega is pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Cherokee, Iowa. This post first appeared at Faith & Leadership.

REDISCOVERING THE ART OF A GOOD SPEECH

I recently discovered some of the books of Eugene Lowry. I know he is an old hand in the art of communication, but I only recently took note of him and I am quite impressed.

In his book, The Sermon - Dancing the Edge of Mystery, he described the "Transconscious African American Sermon" which quite strangely resonates with my current efforts to re-invent my preaching to adequately speak to the hearts of the younger generation. While I am neither American nor black I am able to appreciate something worth emulating.

Lowry says of this sermon: "it is logical on more levels or wave lengths. " While it is traditionally structured (moving from exegesis through interpretation toward application), there is also a transconscious narrativity happening (p. 25). It has been described as a slow and deliberate build-up, creating the impression the preacher is heading somewhere and taking his/her time to get there.

Lowry describes the determining ingredients of the sermon as a pattern of rhetoric, repetition, rhythm, and rest, folk-based orality and eyewitness biblical stories drawing on these transconsious connections moving toward the culminating sermonic celebration. It depends on creating a narrative expectation on its way to the climax.

I also read through Chip & Dan Heath's "Made to Stick" and studied their communication model in some depth, trying to utilise these insights in some of my sermons (not necessarily successful, mind). Luckily I have the grace from our congregation to experiment and I try to be not too weird (although they sometimes tend to correct my language in mid-sermon!).

I am going to try and combine these two insights into my next sermon. Is there perhaps someone who can send me some YouTube links to African American preachers of note that I can learn from better qualified preachers?

LIVING BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE

If you ever had to wait for an answer to something but the response stays away, you know the frustration it creates. This classic cartoon tells it exactly as it is.

THIS PASTOR SERVES PIZZA FOR A LIVING

This testimony was shared on Scot McKnight's blog. Read the original HERE.

Surprising ministry in my community? Scot, I know I have shared my story with you before, but I think this fits in with the question you've asked.

I am a pastor and had spent nearly a decade in our community pastoring a congregation full-time and doing what churches normally do related to outreach and the like. I became acutely aware that I didn't know the folks in our small (about 1,000) neighborhood/community. Eventually frustration grew to a tipping point (the Jesus Creed helped with that) and we decided to do a really crazy thing, we opened a pizzeria. The whole idea behind doing this was to get to know our neighbors. We got a lot more than we bargained for.

My wife and I and our four kids jumped in with all 12 feet. We knew more people in our small town after six months of making pizza, than we did in 10-years of pastoring the church; we've been at it three and a half years now. We're just serving them and being kind -- it was the sole purpose of the venture, to just be with the people in our community that we can't seem to get to.

Our level of customer service is high, but we've sacrificed away the edge of professional sterility with genuine warmth and hospitality. We're training the staff -- both believers and non-believers -- to offer Christ-like hospitality. And, additionally, for the non-believers, we're not only ministering to them (which in some cases is primarily expressed in patience and long-suffering, mostly suffering), but we are also changing the shape of their work environment from what they have ever known.

Thus, the place doesn't feel at all contrived, nor like a restaurant that is a tract. We're just meeting the folks, being kind to them, and it is opening doors allowing us to pray for them, pray with them, and minister in many ways we'd never have had the chance, simply because we're becoming their friends. We connect with 600+ families a month. 75% of them are in at least twice, 35% are in every week. I've been waiting on them a few nights a week for the last 3.5 years and have developed some great relationships; been invited to cycle with some, attend a wedding of another (which I ended up performing), helped someone decide on a new computer, helped a bunch of parents with their kids and parenting skills, helped kids with their homework, prayed with a devastated young man who just watched his cousin die, read to elementary school kids in their reading program, sat with and prayed with an older lady whose husband had just been diagnosed with cancer, helped kids with their entertainment choices and family problems, I've been serving on a civic committee, we regularly feed various community groups, the police department sends the hungry to us, we donate food and services to the non-profits (PTA, etc.), I was just named 2010 Citizen of the Year for our community, and I have just been asked to run for City Council (though I'm not sure that last thing is a good thing). All of this around our table. Jesus' table really.

It's taken a lot, with 80+ hour work weeks a regular occurrence. I've had pastor peers tell me I needed to get back to preaching/pastoring like I was called to do, that this was a distraction, and that I wasn't honoring God with my gifts and calling. They were serious. I love them, but they haven't a clue. Besides, nothing has changed regarding my public ministry at the church. But, I can tell you this, I have changed, and my family has changed, and even our congregation has changed and it continues by being shoulder to shoulder with the folks in our community.

RESIGNATION AS PASTOR

Two pastors I know recently resigned as pastors. The one was ministering in a Vineyard Church in Canada and the other in a Dutch Reformed Church in Pretoria, South Africa. Both got known as critical thinkers towards ministry structures and practices of the church in general and theological issues in particular. For example, both of them became fierce advocates of the plight of gay Christians.

Both of them reflected in their online writings how their views slowly and inexorably started a process of estrangement between them and the establishment. Both decided to pursue other avenues outside the scope of congregational ministry.

Yet the comparison ends here. While one of them reflected how he prayerfully considered his future and decided to pursue ministry through other avenues, the other bluntly stated he is looking for anything else to do as long as it has nothing to do with the church.

You cannot have faith apart from the church, unfortunately. God's plan of redemption for a broken world and the establishing of his Kingdom on earth works through the church (the local congregation). Therefore, even if the church is traditionalistic, fundamentalistic or filled with narrow-minded bigots, it stays the mechanism of choice for God to change the world. Thus we need each other.

I pray for you, David, as I am convinced that you will be more excellent in your ministry than ever before. I also pray for you, Izak, that you will not harbour bitterness or resentment .

WEAK IS STRONG

I found this cartoon by ASBO Jesus.

FOUND: THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF THE MEANING OF LIFE!

Pitooey! I seem to have lost it again ...

TEN THINGS BBC WANTS YOU TO KNOW ABOUT AFRICA

You can download the full Pew Report HERE.

Read the original BBC article HERE.

Ten things we have learnt about Africa

Christians from several African states trace their origins to Israel or Palestine

The Pew Research Center has just released one of the biggest ever studies on attitudes to religion and morality in Africa, which has revealed a host of interesting facts.

Here are 10 things we have learnt from the study, which surveyed 25,000 people in 19 countries.

1. 75% of South Africans think polygamy is "morally wrong" - bad news for their president, as Jacob Zuma took his third wife earlier this year and is engaged to a fourth. However, the survey also revealed some possible double-standards. While only 7% of Rwandans approved of polygamy (although this did include women), a rather higher number - 17% - of men said they had more than one wife.

2. An overwhelming majority of respondents disapproved of homosexual behaviour. In three countries - Zambia, Kenya and Cameroon - this was a massive 98%. Interestingly, one of the countries with the highest numbers of people - 11% - accepting homosexuals is Uganda, where an MP is trying to get legislation passed which would punish homosexual acts with life in prison and even death in some cases. The former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique were also relatively tolerant of homosexuality.

3. Africa is probably the world's most religious continent, with more than 80% saying they believed in God in most countries. At least half of the Christians questioned expect Jesus Christ to return to earth during their lifetimes. In Ethiopia, 74% of Christians say they have experienced or witnessed the devil or evil spirits being driven out of a person and in Ghana, 40% of Christians say they have had a direct revelation from God. About half of all Muslims expect to see the reunification of the Islamic world under a single ruler, or caliph, in their lifetimes.

4. Zimbabwe, where the Lemba people say they are the lost tribe of Israel, was not one of the countries surveyed. But 26% of Nigerian Christians said they traced their origins back to Israel or Palestine.

5. Belief in witchcraft is also common - about 40%; a similar percentage also visit traditional healers to cure sickness. Belief in witchcraft is highest in Tanzania with 93% - this is the country where witchdoctors say that magic potions are more effective if they contain body parts of people with albinism. Ethiopia had the lowest levels of belief in witchcraft - at just 17%. Belief that juju or sacred objects can prevent bad things happening was generally lower - between 20 and 30%. In Senegal, however, 75% thought such things worked - far higher than in Tanzania (49%). It may come as a surprise to learn that South Africa had the highest number of people - 52% - saying they took part in ceremonies of traditional religions, or honoured or celebrated their ancestors.

A majority of people disapproved of Sharia punishments such as amputations

6. Predictably, there was also a religious split concerning alcohol, banned by Islam. Surprisingly, however, more Muslims in Chad (23%) approved of booze, than Ethiopian Christians (5%). This comes as a huge surprise to Ethiopia experts, however, who point out that it is traditional to welcome Orthodox Christian clergy with traditional honey beer when they visit your house. Maybe "alcohol" was only taken to mean spirits by some of the respondents?

7. Attitudes to divorce showed a strong divide along religious lines in Nigeria. A massive 79% of Christians thought it was "morally wrong", while among Muslims, a narrow majority (46-41%) accepted divorce.

8. In recent years, Islamist hardliners in Somalia and Nigeria have introduced strict punishment based on Sharia law, such as amputating the hands of thieves and even stoning to death for adultery. The majority of people disapproved of such Sharia punishments. In Nigeria, they were backed by about 40% of Muslims and less than 10% of Christians. However, a majority did approve of whippings and amputations in Senegal and Mali. In nearby Guinea-Bissau, even 50% of Christians backed them. This was double the rate among Muslims in Ethiopia (25%) - maybe it feels like a more realistic prospect to them, as they share a border with Somalia and most Muslim Ethiopians are ethnic Somalis.

AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY

The blending of religions like Islam and Christianity with African religions is one way of ensuring survival of traditional religions

BaDumisani, Berlin

Send us your comments

9. The survey also asked about material well-being in the world's poorest continent. Not so long ago, Cameroon regularly topped surveys of champagne consumption per head. However, a shocking 71% of Cameroonians surveyed said there were times in the past year when they did not have enough money to buy food. In Ethiopia, which is commonly seen as a country struggling to feed itself, the rate was far lower - at 30% - the lowest of all countries surveyed.

10. Ethiopia did, however, have the lowest numbers of people - 7% - who said they regularly used the internet. Rwanda's President Paul Kagame is striving to turn his country into Africa's answer to Silicon Valley and is being helped by the arrival of several new fibre optic cables off the east coast of Africa. He will be encouraged by the finding that 30% of his countrymen - the highest number - regularly browsed the web. Mobile phones, were far more common - with 81% of respondents in Botswana owning one. Many countries reported more than 50% having phones but here, Rwanda lagged behind at just 35%.

WHO DOES GOD HATE?

YOUR CELL PHONE IS YOUR FUTURE

During the last web2church seminar I conducted I made the remark that the future of the internet and social media ismobile. It turns out I was right. Read the original article HERE. It is written by Jolie O'Dell.

New Study Shows the Mobile Web Will Rule by 2015 [STATS]

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In a dense, 87-page report, Morgan Stanley analysts have charted the most important online trends and predicted the future of the Internet. In addition to forecasting more online shopping and showing the geographical distribution of Internet users, the study also shows a dramatic shift toward mobile web use.

Including devices such as the Kindle, the iPhone () and other smartphones, web-enabled tablets, GPS systems, video games and wireless home appliances, the growth of the mobile web has been exponential — and we’re still just at the beginning of this cycle. Morgan Stanley’s analysts believe that, based on the current rate of change and adoption, the mobile web will be bigger than desktop Internet use by 2015.

The mobile wealth creation/destruction cycle is in its earliest stages. The proliferation of better devices and the availability of better data coverage are two trends driving growth; having better services and smaller, cheaper devices has led to a huge explosion in mobile technology that far outpaces the growth of any other computing cycle.

And speaking of coverage, global 3G penetration is expected to hit 21% this year. In Japan, where the U.S. looks to find its mobile roadmap for the future, 96% of mobile subscribers already have 3G coverage. In Western Europe, the penetration is around 54%, just slightly above 46% in the U.S. In developing and/or economically depressed areas, including the Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia, Eastern Europe and South America, 3G penetration is still in the single digits. Morgan Stanley identifies 3G access as a key point in the success of the mobile web.

Finally, mobile e-commerce is ramping up faster than online e-commerce, now making up 4% of total retail sales. In certain categories, such as computers, consumer electronics, music, movies, tickets, video games and books, online sales account for between 45% and 20% of the total retail market. Japan’s Rakuten shows how the mobile share of e-commerce is growing as well, from 10% of e-commerce in 2006 to nearly 20% now.

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Notes on the Social Web

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Social network use has already eclipsed e-mail use. People started spending more time on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace () back in 2007; in 2009, there were more users on social networks than users of e-mail.

In the past three years, two sites have gained a huge amount of mindshare around the world. The number of minutes spent online from a global audience was dominated by Yahoo and MSN in 2006. Today, Facebook is the website that gets by far the most attention, minute for minute, with YouTube () holding a steady second position.

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Other Stats of Interest

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• 48% of all Internet users come from just five countries (Brazil, Russia, China, India and the U.S.).
• Video () accounts for 69% of mobile data traffic.
• Facebook is the single largest repository for user-generated content such as pics, videos, links and comments.
• Apple and Android () platforms are gaining in the mobile OS market, while Windows Mobile, RIM and Palm decline.
• More and more, we are expecting to have access to our “stuff,” i.e. music, documents and applications, in the cloud.
• The overlap between mobile users and social web users continues to grow; more and more users are accessing the social web from a mobile device.
• If Skype were a telecommunications carrier, it would be the largest carrier in the world, with 521 million registered users.
• Games are bigger than any other app category — both for the social web and for mobile devices.
• Real-time technology and location-based services are expected to drive mobile retail.
• Online ad sales are growing, but virtual goods, premium content and other models are big business, especially for the mobile web.
• The average iPhone user only spends 45% of his on-device time making voice calls.

A NICE STORY ABOUT A NERDY KID

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, 'Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd.' I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.


As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him ... He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, 'Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives.' He looked at me and said, 'Hey thanks!' There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.


I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before ... He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have never hung out with a private school kid before. We talked all the way home, and I carried some of his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I asked him if he wanted to play a little football with my friends. He said yes.


We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my friends thought the same of him. Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, 'Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!' He just laughed and handed me half the books.


Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor and I was going for business on a football scholarship.


Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak.
On Graduation Day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous! Today was one of those days. I could see that he was nervous about his speech. So, I smacked him on the back and said, 'Hey, big guy, you'll be great!' He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled. 'Thanks,' he said.


As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began: 'Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach ... but mostly your friends ... I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story.'


I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told of the first day we met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile. 'Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.'


I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile.


Not until that moment did I realize its depth.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE NAME OF MY WEEKLY COLUMN

I received the following suggestions for my weekly, found on the internet column. What do you think? Feel free to comment (also with new proposals).

* Catch of the Day
* Special of the Day
* You've got mail
* 4 a Week or 2

DO YOU FLUSH EVERY TIME YOU WEE?

Yesterday, the lady working in our home as cleaner (our maid) turned thirty. We decided to arrange a small birthday party for her. "We" refers to my extended family - or two of the households for whom she works. It wasn't a big affair, we would make hamburgers, eat a piece of birthday cake and just visit. This would happen at my house and Wendy would bring along her friends.

So it happened. I was designated to fetch Wendy and her friends in Bloekombos. Bloekombos is a shantytown on the outskirts of Kraaifontein, a suburb of Cape Town. At six in the evening the place is bustling with people. As they live in very small houses - more shacks than RDP houses - the people tend to spend a lot of time outside. You have to drive very carefully: a little girl (about three or four years old) decided to run after her older sister (or mom) right in front of me across the street. I could see the look of horrid shock on sis'/mom's face. I also had to stop to allow four boys playing with a soccer ball to make way for our car. They waved at me in thanks, as they were trying to avert a goal or to score it (depending from the side you'd be cheering on).

My own boys went along for the ride. They wanted to know if people living in this township have little food to eat. I confirmed that reality. The wanted to know why so many houses were made of metal and wood. I explained about building with whatever materials you can get. They also asked why there were so many black people in South Africa. I explained that black people originally came from Africa, thus South Africa is their natural country. We, as Afrikaners, originally came from Europe and only became a tribe/ethnic group (I used the Afrikaans word volk) with our own language and culture in Africa, therefore there aren't so many of us.

At Wendy's house we could see that the contractors started with her RDP house - she shares the house with her aunt as they didn't know they could apply separately. The whole house is about as big as my study (4m x 4m). When finished, it's going to be the home of six people.

What struck the most of last night's party, was the fact that I was actually scared to go into Bloekombos (it wasn't my first time, mind, but it was the first time since ET's death and Malema's openly racist remarks towards the British journalist on TV). Perception is a strange thing: You think the people will hate you. You even expect they will hijack your car. You prepare yourself for the worst. But reality is oftentimes far from these perceptions. Most of the people hardly noticed us. We were just somebody driving in Bloekombos. They were even friendly - a few waved at me when we passed.

I really believe the vast majority of South Africans only want to live in peace and harmony. They don't have a voice or a pulpit or a blog or a political position. They have life, and hopes and dreams. They have poverty and a daily struggle with surviving. And they respect people. I kept thinking that a person living in a home-made house would be more susceptible to crime than I am in my fenced-in home. I wondered how Wendy keeps her daughter safe from being molested and being safe from other forms of harm while she's at work during the day and her child is alone on the streets during the afternoon (where else would she go?). These people would not be able to live in such close proximity to each other, sharing the same living space, if they do not at the very least respect one another - respect with regards to humanness, with regards to culture (Afrikaans-speaking people and Xhosa-speaking people live here as neighbours) or with regards to each other's dignity.

Wendy brought along four of her friends and two children. My sons played with the girls and we had to call them over and over to come and eat, to come and get a piece of cake, to go home, eventually. They clearly had a lot of fun.

I noticed two things, and Cindy (my wife) afterwards shared with me something she heard about this. The smallest of the two girls seemed quite thirsty. She kept getting water from the tap in the kitchen. And some of the ladies were frequently in the bathroom. Afterwards, Cindy said she heard one of them say she never had water under her while sitting on the loo before. Then the reality hit me: To be able to drink water from a tap in your house isn't part of their lives. Neither is the ability to sit on a lavatory with a flush bowl.

These are things I take for granted.

I NEED A NAME FOR MY WEEKLY POST

For the past few weeks, except over Easter, I've posted a weekly article on interesting stuff I've come across on the Internet.

Would you please help me to find a catchy name for this?

Feel free to leave a comment.

YATTA ... RICKROLLED, JAPANESE STYLE!

The clip is actually four years old. Please don't feel offended by their clothes. There's no way male diapers can be construed as remotely erotic. Weird, just weird!

View the original Youtube posting HERE.

BEING BORN AGAIN ... AND AGAIN AND AGAIN

The following article is written by Chris Rice, for Christianity Today. You can read the original posting HERE.

The article is especially relevant, given the racially polarised context South Africans live in and the church context of a no-grace-theology.

"All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful."—Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being

After 17 years of intense church-based racial justice and reconciliation ministry in Mississippi, my gospel had largely become a matter of trying harder and doing more. And things I held dear began to fall apart.

At the same time that my African American colleague, Spencer Perkins, and I were traveling the nation preaching about reconciliation, we could hardly sit at the same dinner table at home, where our families shared daily life in an intentional Christian community called Antioch. The long friendship and partnership that we had forged in Reconcilers Fellowship, the national ministry we co-founded, was on the verge of breaking up.

While Reconcilers Fellowship was vibrant, in my eyes the Antioch community had shriveled up inside. We were riddled by unresolved relational difficulties, financial stress, and constant and intensifying busyness. I could no longer live with joy and excitement in one sphere and discouragement and hopelessness in the other. Nor could my wife, Donna. I was striving to make a national impact, but that wasn't enough anymore.

I didn't know it at the time, but I needed to be born again—again. This is how it happened.

Interrupted by Jesus

In 1997, Donna and I decided we had to tell the Antioch members what we saw and felt. But could we reveal our deepest concerns and have them received with compassion?

We took the plunge, sharing in a letter at an Antioch meeting what had become an unbearable contradiction. To our great surprise, a number of others responded positively. "That letter could have come from me," one said.

For Spencer, though, any talk that sounded like leaving was betrayal. What hurt me even more was that he threw down the race card. "Why do only white folks make ultimatums like this?" he asked. My anger, and his, escalated. This was the final straw, Spencer accusing me of being a deserter of the cause.

We asked two mentors to fly in for a last-ditch attempt to save us from a split-up. John and Judy Alexander had spent many years in Christian justice ministry. John had been the editor of The Other Side, the leading prophetic evangelical magazine at the time, alongside Sojourners. Now they were part of a small church in San Francisco.

John and Judy talked to Spencer, to me, and to Antioch members. A couple days later, we all gathered. I was on the edge of my seat when John gave his diagnosis of our problem.

"Which does the Bible speak more of, loving God or loving your neighbor?"

I thought it was a trick question. How can you separate the two? Jesus didn't! (Matt. 22:36-40).

After watching us squirm, John laughed. "I'm a very anal person," he admitted. He described how once he had actually counted all the Bible verses about loving God and loving neighbor. They were innumerable, of course; the latter included many about loving the poor that had profoundly shaped my work with Spencer.

But John said he had made a discovery: Far more than verses about loving God or loving the poor were stories about God's love for us. The most important truth in the world, said John, is not our trying harder to love God or others, but God's acts of love for us. "If you don't get God's love into your bones, you will become very dangerous people," he warned. "Especially activists like you. The most important person in this community is not Spencer, or Chris, or any of you, or the people in the neighborhood. The most important person in any community is Jesus. Your life has to keep Jesus at the center."

Afterward, John and Judy met with Spencer and me to see if we could resolve our differences. But the more we talked, the angrier I grew.

Our old wounds spilled back into the room—the painful residue of renegotiating leadership roles, our very different styles, the constant submitting to each other. My long struggle with being jealous of Spencer was always a card he could play. We each held tightly to our "lists": "You did this to me"; "Well, you did that to me." John said the problem between me and Spencer was mostly about me. I didn't want to hear that. My list about Spencer was too long, too full of truth. I was tired of such an intense life together. Tired of living in a culture of demanding so much from myself and others. Tired of being tired. And all I wanted to do was to win.

Over the next two days, John and Judy failed to get me and Spencer to forgive each other. But when human efforts fail—when we come to the end of our own resources and somehow let go to God—the Spirit intercedes.

On October 18, 1997, Spencer and I were interrupted by grace. In the last meeting before John and Judy were to leave, still on the verge of splitting up, somehow the love of God that John had spoken of began to work itself into our bones.

Spencer somehow gave me grace to leave Antioch. "I want Chris and Donna to be happy," he said, "even if it means them leaving."

I somehow found the grace to stay.

And we gave each other the grace to make a new beginning.

Spencer told how he had responded to John:

"Yeah, yeah, I know all about grace, I thought. I could quote John 3:16 when I was knee high to a duck. Grace is God's love demonstrated to us, even though we don't deserve it. But in all my 43 years of evangelical teaching, I never understood until now that God intended grace to be a way of life for his followers. Maybe I'm the only one who missed it, but judging by the way that we all get along, I don't think so. Sure, I knew that we were supposed to love one another as Christ loved us. But somehow it was much easier for me to swallow the lofty untested notion of dying for each other than simply giving grace to brothers and sisters on a daily basis, the way God gives us grace. Maybe I'm dense, but I just never got it.

"At our relationship's weakest moment, Chris and I saw, as clearly as we had ever seen anything, that only by giving each other grace could we find healing and restoration. We could either hold on to our grievances, demanding that all our hurts be redressed, or we could follow God's example, give each other grace, and trust God for the lack. We chose grace."

Going Back to Kindergarten

A new reality demolished our lists, and the interruption shook our life at Antioch to the core.

We decided to replace a culture of demands with a culture of grace. Spencer said it felt like going back to kindergarten—learning a new language and new practices. For us, "telling the truth" had come to mean telling the church and each other how they needed to change. But now we saw that the greatest truth was telling and showing each other how much God loves us. Our paradigm for daily life had shifted to John's mantra: "Caring for each other, forgiving each other, and keeping the dishes washed. We are forgiven. All the rest is details."

Grace's ripple effects spread further. Spencer had seen his father, John Perkins, the morning after John's bloody beating in a Mississippi jail cell in 1970. Ever since, Spencer had been on a long journey to understand the power of racial strongholds in American Christianity.

Three months after the October breakthrough, during the closing message of a conference we hosted in Jackson, Spencer told the story of our friendship being restored. Speaking on "Playing the Grace Card," Spencer translated that breakthrough for the church's racial challenge in America.

"Nothing that I have been learning about grace and forgiveness diminishes my belief in Christians working for justice," he clarified, "especially on behalf of the poor and oppressed."

But how we work for this justice must change, Spencer said. "Although we must continue to speak on behalf of those who are oppressed and warn oppressors, my willingness to forgive them is not dependent on how they respond. Being able to extend grace and to forgive sets us free. We no longer need to spend precious emotional energy thinking about the day oppressors will get what they deserve.

"What I am learning about grace lifts a weight from my shoulders, which is nothing short of invigorating. When we can forgive and accept those who refuse to listen to God's command to do justice, it allows them to hear God's judgment without feeling a personal judgment from us. In the end, this gives our message more integrity. The ability to give grace while preaching justice makes our witness even more effective."

Spencer's words that night were not received with thunderous applause. But just three days later, at age 44, Spencer died of a heart attack. Afterward, many told me they were now taking his words very seriously.

Getting Love into the Bones

During the 12 years since being born again—again—I have sought to create more room for grace from God and with others. I used to live as if the psalmist had written, "Be busy, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10). I hope I have become as radical about receiving the gift of Sabbath as I am about pursuing justice. I remain deeply committed to being shaped by Jesus' story of the Samaritan who crosses social and racial divides to offer hospitality to the other (Luke 10:25-37). Yet I have also sought to be like Mary of Bethany in the story that immediately follows: She "wasted time" listening at Jesus' feet ("the one thing needful," he said) while her sister, Martha, slaved away doing good deeds in a world of ever-pressing needs (vv. 38-42). I hope I increasingly embody the difference between trying to be a minister and trying to be a messiah.

What does it mean to pursue racial reconciliation in and through grace?

First, it means to recognize that reconciliation is God's gift; it does not begin with our activism. The language of sociology, marketing, and rights often dominates our talk: "America is changing demographically; therefore, the church must change. Everyone should share in power. Now let's go out and make it happen."

Such visions don't say enough about God's desires and God's power. Second Corinthians 5 offers a far more beautiful and radical vision: God's "new creation" in Christ, and our becoming his ambassadors of reconciliation (vv. 16-21). Reconciliation has already begun with the work of Christ. And God invites us on the journey of reconciliation, the same journey that the early church was on: a journey that includes interruptions (Pentecost, Acts 2), a reconciliation among social divides (Peter's discovery that the gospel is for Gentiles, Acts 10), dismantling discrimination (against Greek widows, Acts 6:1-6), a new intimacy (the church in Antioch, Acts 11:19-26), speaking to injustice (Paul confronting Peter, Gal. 2:11-14) and, especially, the Holy Spirit—not Peter or Paul—being the central actor.

Second, it means working for justice with a spirit of mercy. Even during the grip of apartheid, with no guarantee that justice would win, Desmond Tutu preached "no future without forgiveness." And Nelson Mandela, from his imprisonment through his presidency, strove for a future of blacks and whites living together. Different ethnic communities have different captivities, and all are in need of the conversion that grace and the new creation make possible.

But bitterness can blind an African American from imagining why her church should bother building relationships with whites who "don't get it." Legalism can prevent a white Christian from listening to the painful story of a Mexican who crossed the border illegally to feed his family. In everyday situations like these, a lack of grace is tearing Christians apart.

At the same time, a major challenge in post-civil rights era America is seeing the depth of racial brokenness. Ethnic communities continue to be segregated, as witnessed in school cafeterias, the faculties of Christian colleges and seminaries, and at 11 a.m. every Sunday morning. But rather than starting with activism—"What should we do?"—grace calls us first to slow down and start with God's gift of lament: to see, name, and feel the brokenness. Only when we experience lament, feel helpless, and let go of control can we open up to our need for God and God's gifts—the only things that can rescue us from our alienation. Getting God's love into our bones gives us a holy boldness and mercy to take the time to see what's going on in our communities and institutions—the residue, the powers, and the imaginations that exclude others or lead to self-sufficiency.

Third, conversion by grace takes time and does not leave us standing complacently where we are. Fourteen years before the breakthrough, our church nearly split over a racial crisis. Yet a spirit of grace kept both blacks and whites at the table long enough for the whites to see the power and privilege we held tightly to, and for African Americans to see their spirit of unforgiveness. This first breakthrough of grace taught us about the continuing power of race, the later breakthrough years about the power of God's love. Both were necessary; both altered people at their very core. So grace not only takes time but gives us time to pursue reconciliation, not with desperation but by embracing long-term practices and disciplines that in the light of God's love become "graces" through which we and our institutions can be converted.

Finally, pursuing racial reconciliation in grace means to journey toward holiness. As my friend Glen Kehrein once said, "I believe in racial reconciliation because it's the best way I know of for a white male to die to self."

Spencer wasn't always the friend I wanted, but he was surely the friend I needed; I don't know who I would be without him, or who he would have been without me. What is at stake is far more than solving the race problem; it's about the renewal of the church—becoming and being a new people. We are deprived and impoverished without one another. Reconciliation is not an event or achievement but a journey that forms the fruits of the Holy Spirit in us—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Grace insists that segregation in the intimate places of our lives is not normal, inevitable, or acceptable—and that reconciliation is beautiful. When knit and transformed together in visible friendship and common mission for the sake of the gospel, we become not only like Christ, we are also joined into Christ.

Terrifying, Beautiful Grace

In 1997, we at Antioch declared every October 18 "Grace Day"—a day to remember God's wondrous interruption into our lives. It's a day to remember that if the gospel we live and the social change we seek come to be mostly about trying harder and doing more, it is not good news. It's a day to remember that how we choose to care, forgive, and advocate for a new reality in this world matters greatly—all the while not taking ourselves too seriously. It's a day to remember, as the old folks used to say in Jackson, that "God might not come when you want him, but he's always right on time."

For the good news of the gospel is that it is God's timing, not ours, that matters. We are not the central actors in saving the world's brokenness. In the life and resurrection of the crucified Christ now living in heaven, God has given us everything we need to live well in a broken world through the Holy Spirit. God has already changed everything through the power of a grace we do not deserve.

Flannery O'Connor was right: To receive this kind of grace is a bit terrifying. We and our churches and institutions will surely be changed in ways we'd rather not be changed. It is painful to give up our lists about others—and ourselves—for this other way. Grace is not safe or tame. But it is beautiful. If we receive this gift of God deeply into our bones, and speak it into the bones of those both near and far, everything changes about who we are in the midst of a world wracked by injustice and death. Every Grace Day, I celebrate that.

Chris Rice is co-director of the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation. He is author of Reconciling All Things, Grace Matters, and More Than Equals. He writes regularly at the Reconcilers blog (reconcilers.wordpress.com).