Catching up on all the great stuff in my google reader this week and just had to share this great video I found over at Missio Dei where Jonathan Brink wrote a great post about True Justice. The video is about forgiveness with Mary Karen Read’s last words in her journal entry before her death at the Virginia tech shooting. I have to warn you – it will probably make you cry.
Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man’s opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.
If someone tells you they’ve read this book and they “enjoyed it” or they “liked it” or they think it’s a “good hook” then maybe they didn’t read it – it’s well written and funny and interesting and all that, but it’s also disturbing. Really, really disturbing. Don is into provocative territory here, wrestling with The Story and the role each our stories play in it . . . this is very convicting, powerful, unsettling writing. I felt like this book read me more than I read it. —Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis
In the first few chapters of Don’s new book, Don got me thinking about Don and his interesting life. Then for several chapters, he got me thinking about my own life. And then for the rest of the book, I couldn’t help but think about God and other people and the kind of future we’re creating together. That sounds like solid evidence that this uniquely talented and sagely writer/thinker/storyteller has given us another wonderful and life-enriching reading experience. —Brian McLaren, Author, Speaker, Activist, brianmclaren.net
You can preorder the book here, follow him on twitter @donmilleris, find out about his tour dates here, and read his blog here.
Last year I attended a women’s bible study for a short period of time. We met on Monday evenings for a couple of hours. We prayed together, studied scripture together and socialized. We are new in the community and I was hoping to make some new friends. It didn’t turn out that way.
One evening, a few weeks into the study, I shared with a few of the women that I had been participating in an interfaith dialogue and that I was really enjoying it. They had never heard of such a thing and wanted to know more. They were uncomfortable with the idea that an interfaith dialogue is not focused on trying to convert others to Christianity. They could not grasp that we, as Christians, could learn anything of value from someone outside of our faith. They thought it was probably a sin to be willing to take the position that we might discover that we are wrong about something we believe. In the end they believed that there was some sort of evil involved in the idea of interfaith dialogues and that there was probably a hidden agenda of syncretism. The result for me was that I became someone they, at least, were worried about or, at worst, suspicious about. Needless to say, I didn’t keep attending the Bible study for long after that.
My understanding and experience has been that interfaith dialogue does not require one to give up or hide one’s own beliefs. It is true that it is not a dialogue that is focused on validating one’s own religious conviction but at the same time there is a need for one to be rooted in their own tradition in order to have a meaningful dialogue. I believe that the dialogue not only offers us the opportunity to learn about the faith of others but to also discover dimensions of our own faith that may have been unknown or forgotten by us. In addition, I believe that interfaith dialogue opens up the possibility of people of different faiths working together for the common good.
Still, there are many who believe that it is not worth the risk of our faith becoming polluted with what they would consider false ideas and beliefs and that the most probable outcome is a blended belief system.
What do you think? Is interfaith dialogue a slippery slope that leads to syncretism that will just end up dilluting and harming Christianity? Or is interfaith dialogue a worthy endeavor that will heal divides, make the world a better place and lead to Christians becoming better followers of Christ because of our encounter with others?
This month a group of us have decided to synchroblog on syncretism. The synchrobloggers so far:
How To Cook Up A Personal Jesus by Matt Stone
How to be a Syncretist by Ellen Haroutunian
Our Uncomfortable God by Susan Barnes
Synching on Syncing by Phil Wyman
The Man In The Moss by Steve Hayes
You may have heard someone warn against praying for patience because God will create a situation that will require a lot of patience. I heard someone say once that we should be praying God-sized prayers – prayers that we can’t fulfill on our own – prayers that only God can answer. I want to share two prayers with you that are dangerous, God-sized prayers.
The first is a Franciscan Benediction that Philip Yancey quoted in his book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference. It was also used at Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change tour. This beautiful prayer is a dangerous, God-sized prayer because it asks God to mold us into people who are broken by the things that God is passionate about.
The second prayer is actually a poem by Amy Carmichael called Make Me Thy Fuel. Amy Carmichael was a Christian missionary who devoted her life to helping poor kids in India. This poem is a dangerous prayer to pray because it asks God for the opportunity to die to ourselves and live for Him and others.
May God bless you with discomfort,
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger,
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
My God bless you with tears,
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their
pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness,
to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
Amen.
From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from wind that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
The soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified),
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire.
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.
What dangerous prayer have you prayed? What happened?
Watch this video all the way through – you will like it.
Have you created a short film full of passion and imagination for your church and/or ministry?
Go here to check out the Reel Spirituality and LAFSC 2009 Film Contest.
Hurry – you must enter by January 30, 2009.
I am not participating in the synchroblog this time around but wanted to link to the ones who are. I love this group of bloggers – they are kind, talented, thoughtful, sharp and just all around “good people”. Be sure and let them know what you think of their posts as they all enjoy hearing from their readers. And if you are interested in joining the group go here for more info.
The following posts are part of a synchroblog on the general theme of “Faith and ethnicity”.
Phil Wyman (That’s me) on Seeing the Middle East from a Jewish Perspective
Joshua Jinno the Antechurch
Raffi Shahinian on Faith and Ethnicity: A True Story
Susan Barnes on Just a God of the West
K.W. Leslie on Why I went to an all-white church
Adam Gonnerman on Multicultural experience (and inexperience)
Matt Stone on Is the church ready for a multiethnic future?
Beth Patterson on Viva la particularities
Steve Hayes on Christianity and ethnicity”
Matthew Snyder asks What’s Your Nation?
Jeff Goins on Gypsies in Spain
My good friend Colleen sent me these pics in an email. I thought they were adorable.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Something to think about:
Your stuff matters but maybe not in the way you think!
In case you haven’t seen it yet – The Story Of Stuff 
______________________________________________________________
Politics: 
Who can get to the issues when there are so many juicy rumors?
The Obama camp confronts rumors at Fight The Smears.
Charles Martin has a full list of Palin rumors, along with facts & rebuttals.
__________________________________________________________________________
I should have posted this at the end of August but it is still very useful as premiere week has turned into premiere “months”!
Printable 2008 Fall TV Premiere Calendar at TVAddict 
____________________________________________________________________________
Current Emergent/-ing Conversation Topic: Emerging and Emergent Church Distinction
What’s In A Name? from the Central Ohio Emergent Cohort Blog
Open Letter To Dan Kimball from Raffi at Parables Of a Prodigal World
The EMC As An NSM from Tony Jones
Claiming Emergent from Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
______________________________________________________________
Posts I wish I had written: You know how you read something and you think “that is exactly what I wanted to say”….
Ugly Politics from Minnowspeaks
5 Things We Got Right In The Emerging Missional Church by Jonathan Brink posted at Emergent Village
I Won’t Sin another great post by Jonathan Brink at his blog Missio Dei
______________________________________________________________
Ever wonder what that song you heard on Grey’s Anatomy is called?
Grey’s Anatomy Insider has a list from every episode.
______________________________________________________________
Looking For a Good Movie Blog: For lots of movie reviews and some news.
____________________________________________________________________________
Cute Animal Pictures Check them out – they are adorable.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Back in November of last year the United Nations’s food aid agency called on budding film-makers to help raise awareness of hunger and bring the reality of abject poverty and suffering to the YouTube generation.
The World Food Programme (WFP) launched a contest for “edgy 30 or 60 second video(s) that would make the online community buzz about global hunger.”
“For those of us doing the day-in, day-out backbreaking work of getting food to hungry people, it’s sometimes discouraging how few people understand that hunger stalks and kills a child every five seconds,” said WFP communications director Nancy Roman.
The five best films will be posted on the WFP’s YouTube site, with the overall winner receiving a trip to one of the agency’s relief operations.
Film-makers stand a better chance of winning if they get play on blogs or networking sites like Facebook or MySpace before the competition’s July 2008 deadline, WFP says.
The creator of the video receiving the most views by World Food Day (5pm GMT October 16, 2008) will be sent with a friend to make a video at a WFP relief operation in Asia, Africa or Latin America.
Check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/hungerbytes
RSS feed for Grace Rules