yesterday at the Simple Way we had our very first session of Conversations at the Simple Way which three of us had largely been working on pulling together for a while - 15 people signed up to hang out with us as we did a couple of different sessions including one on intentional community, a practical serving the community aspect, a story over lunch from someone in the neighborhood who is involved in doing some [...]
oh David... David, David, David... after many Psalms of "Crush the wicked!" and "The evildoers are gonna get it" he seems to have changed his strategy or approach to the more nonchalant one of "ah, it doesn't matter, God will take care of it in time" 'Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they [...]
for some reason, my 'the simple weigh' blog [stories and experiences and reflections specifically linked to the time the beautiful val and i are spending at the simple way] receive an incredibly lesser number of hits than my irresistibly fish blog and i'm not quite sure why that is cos the same links to both get posted to facebook and twitter. the one thort i had was people who have subscribed to the irresistibly fish [...]
"Are you doing what Jesus did and taught?" that line came up in the bible devotions this morning at the CCDA conference and it's not like it's anything new or particularly revolutionary, but it is a line i think must keep on being said and cried out and shouted and written down and sung about until more and more people take a moment to really hear it and digest it and pour their present life [...]
...continuing with an extract from the 'Why I am Mystical/Poetic' from Brian Mclaren's 'A Generous Orthodoxy' 'This mystical/poetic approach takes special pains to remember that the Bible itself contains precious little expository prose. Rather it is story laced with parable, poem, interwoven with vision, dream and opera (isn't this the best contemporary genre to compare to the book of Job?), personal letter and public song, all thrown together with an undomesticated and unedited artistic passion. [...]
i have been busy reading brian mclaren's 'Generous Orthodoxy' and as a previous not-a-big-fan-of-brian-mclaren am absolutely loving it and highly recommend it - breaks open a lot of different boxes and helps clarify a bunch of christian labels in a very helpful way... here is an extract from the latest chapter which i really enjoyed titled, "Why I am Mystical/Poetic." and the context is using metaphors to understand God: 'So we reach for another metaphor [...]
at this present point in time my wife valerie [aka the beautiful val] and i are living and working and interning and ministering with the simple way community in philadelphia... before this i was a youth slash student pastor [disclaimer: no youth or students were slashed during my time there] at a vineyard church in stellenbosch, outside cape town in south africa for 6 years. i remember the one staff meeting we had in the [...]
Back in the day there was a funny guy called Jack Handey who wrote deep thorts like: 'One day one of my little nephews came up to me and asked me if the equator was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one. I had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn't know, and I thought that maybe by laughing he would forget what he asked me.' [Jack Handey] [...]
So today i was on a semi long-distance trip and penned a couple of new brett andy’s – usually i try them out on facebook/twitter first before i see what people really like, but these have never been viewed before and so i would really appreciate it if you would take a minute to mention if any of them make you smile or laugh or silently chortle... “As I finished sewing up the incision, there [...]
well, by now you know the drill... written a bunch of one liners and want to know which of them, if any, you really like so if any of these made you smile, laugh or need to change some item of clothing please leave a comment and let me know which ones: “How did the first person figure out it’s not okay to look at the Medusa’s snake hair and still be able to warn [...]