SITE UPDATE:  I’ve added a lot more resources to this site, including a blog “Resources” category that organizes all my posts that point you in the direction of helpful books, videos, music, and conferences.

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Today as part of my studies in Comps, I’m reading…

The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James

Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, by William P. Alston

Philosophy for Understanding Theology, by Diogenes Allen and Eric O. Springsted

and

Imagination and Authority: Theological Authorpship in the Modern Tradition, by  John E. Thiel

…all have been a stream of thought I usually don’t have a chance to swim in, but are always very intriguing.   What’s keeping my heart rate up however isn’t the reading material, its the Pandora audio!  Below is the cover image on James’ book; “Memory” by Elihu Vedder, a creative way to “picture” the varieties of religious experience.  I think about this passage of Scripture when I see it.

I think this is some of the most imaginative architecture I have seen in a long time. It is an art school out of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. Leave it to Asia to come up with a heart shaped building with grass runway-roofs. Check out the pictures:

Just a quick update late Sunday night to say we made it back from the weekend PRE-MAC retreat just fine.  We got back around 9pm Saturday, and invited the Fittz’s to stay at our apartment and send them off proper after breakfast this morning.  Daniel, the Fittz’s, Katrina and I had a great conversation about our team, about the church planter’s assessments we went through over the weekend, and what our next steps will be together.  I may have some reflections on the retreat later on.

Now if I can just bring my mind down from the clouds for long enough to finish a book and a 10 page paper for class tomorrow night.  Oi.

Yesterday has been coined “Blue Monday.” It’s the one day of the year when people have the highest tendency (statistically speaking) to commit suicide. Contributing factors include, but are not limited to: post-Christmas financial realities, post-holiday depression, massive weather changes, etc.

And many of those realities are the case in Abilene (especially the weather). Be extra sensitive, listening and caring this week.

To tie up the Brain Dump series we started at the end of the year, I’d like to recommend a resource that gives some insight on why we have a day like Blue Monday in our calendar year. It’s a very small book called “Who Switched Off My Brain?” by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I highly recommend this book. She has written this easy to read, well formatted book (on a sixth grade reading level) in a way that heightens the reader’s engagement and answers questions thoroughly. (I read the entire text in one sitting.) In the text, she discusses two electrochemicals that govern the way we think and feel. Briefly, she makes the case that we only have two types of major chemicals flowing through the brain - faith based electrochemicals and fear based electrochemicals.

Faith based (love, joy, peace, patience, trust …) chemicals actually increase our ability to learn and develop and grow us all the way down to the cellular level.

Fear based chemicals (anxiety, worry, etc.) actually paralyze our neurons from being able to ‘communicate’ with one another and this affects our bodily systems in ways that most of us are unaware. (i.e. Have you ever studied for a test and “blanked out” at the actual sitting? The feeling of anxiety can actually paralyze our ability to learn for a short amount of time.) Leaf says that our thoughts have been proven to be more carcinogenic (cancer causing) than smoking or eating poorly!

This book is available and affordable through James and Betty Robison’s web site lifetoday.org. (Click on Resources.) You also may be able to find it used on Amazon.com or at drleaf.net.

Ultimately, she talks about our need as humans to rely on God for his supernatural guidance and healing. I’ve seen lives changed in the past few months because of the content in this well presented book.

 I met Greg Scott online through his blog.  He is a teaching pastor for a network of a simple churches in Joliet, IL (southwest suburbs of Chicago).  Our conversations are always edifying - thought I’d share just one:

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me: for me, i love a good parable - i’ve got friends who make youtube video parables

4:02 PM not sure (about the hc layers) - i know that in life, we sociologically have “crowds” the “72″ the “12 disciples” the “peter, james and john” as well as a “beloved”.

4:03 PM my fear is that in church entertainment, we have lost the beauty of a “band of brothers” (or sisters) that fight for our heart and encourage us on the journey

4:04 PM my friend wrote a great piece on how the church is like a fractal community. check it out here: http://towardsimplicity.net/?page_id=925

i think this has profound implications for being a fluid, organic church

4:06 PM Greg: hmmm. I’ll check it out becasue I basically disagree with the socialogical statement you made. I don’t think that happens naturally at all and so, most people don’t have that at all

4:07 PM me: tell me more

4:10 PM Greg: Well, in our society expecially, there is a natural tendency toward selfishness and self-centeredness. combined with our “conecting” via technology (any I am not against using it as a tool) almost exclusively is creating a society that is more and more shallow, selfabsorbed, unconnected and detached -

  and we like it taht way.

  Most Christinas don’t have two or three other families that they conect with except on a sunday or a formatted small group

4:11 PM who are there 72?

  Who is intimate enough to speak to as Jesus spoke to the 12?

  RARELY do we find someone iwth a 3 or 4 that can be intimately discipled through life circumstances

  It is all too time consuming and requires more than most are willing to give

4:12 PM Okay, I’m ranting a bit, but it is going to be on e of the most difficult things that the SC’s will face

 me: yeah…maybe i should say its not a “sociological” reality, but a divine desire

4:13 PM people DESIRE community - those 2 or 3 bro or sis’ - but few are ready to see it become a reality

  sort of like Cole’s LTG’s, but more like life, less like a program

4:14 PM Greg: Well, again - are you sure?

 me: they desire community, but they don’t know how to FEED that desire.

4:15 PM not sure if that makes sense…i’m interested in your feedback

4:17 PM Greg: what I mean is that most of the 20 somethings that I run into and get a chance to talk with - are AFRAID of relational intimacy. they are avoiding it unless it comes with a built in buffer like alcohol, internet, limited time involvement such as work, etc. Several of them are now Christians and NOW they see that the life they were choosing was keeping them alone and lonely, but at the time - it was their security

  BTW - same is true with many older people as well

4:18 PM me: that sounds like a bunch of people i know

  myself included. tacit intimacy (blogs, txts) are good for keeping in touch, but few seem to know what to do with more than “keeping in touch”

4:19 PM so the big q for me is: do we even proclaim another reality? one that speaks of God’s innate intimacy he shares with himself and his creation? and if so, how?

4:20 PM Greg: It sems to me that we are entering a phase of spiritual living that will require us to encroach into peoples “space” and security - but as a culture and as a church we are running the opposite direction trying to meet the felt neds of people who are feeling things in a decidedly unhealthy way

  sorry was typing istead of finishing reading

  I think yo have to more thna ever

  and lovign enough to risk losing relationships is going to be hard and vital

4:21 PM me: good point

4:22 PM Greg: I may also just be involved in what Gpod is saying to me about this church I’m speaking at that I’m overanalyzing the whole thing too…

4:23 PM me: ya know, i think if anyone can teach us community, it is Christ…him and maybe the the most elderly in our nation.

4:24 PM they lived a life of community - neighbors in each other’s kitchen cabinets, children playing together in the street…and NO internet!

  while community would’ve been limited, it would’ve meant something

4:25 PM anytime intimacy in community is pursued by my wife and i, others consider us joining a cult or something

4:27 PM Greg: makes me wonder if there is a connection between Daniels “Many will go here and there to increase knowledge” and Jesus’ “the love of many will grow cold”

  If they called Jesus andhis follwers a cult

  we should expect the same

  maybe we should be most concerned when we are accepted as “normal”

4:29 PM me: ha, good point

  let me ask something of you -

4:30 PM trina and i are moving to chicago in the summer. i know we’ll be in contact in some way, hopefully staying in meaningful friendship and ministry together…

4:31 PM …trina and i want to pursue community hard - communion with God, and with his people. But I think friendships that help guide HOW we do that is of utmost importance.

4:32 PM through discernment, wisdom, etc, i’m hoping you’ll help us find healthy, deep community that helps us get over our self-centeredness

 Greg: Now, while I agree with you - God thinks you are completely funny…

4:33 PM Sam and I have been struggling through how worldly we have become with our possessions, home, - all the nice things we’ve accumulated over a few years

  and I should be asking you to help me consider how to give up these “hard earned” things

4:34 PM His calling is a constant reminder that we are to be a people wo “mourn”

  nothte dead around us…

  but the things we are constantly dying to to follow Jesus adequately

  If I can help you, yo have whatever I can give, but I will not claim it to be much…

4:37 PM me: great. this is encouraging. at times i get overwhelmed with the task of “casting vision of the good news” to people who have no concept of it and seem not to want it at all. it seems you’re equally as frustrated with people who just want to remain isolated and selfish.

4:38 PM Greg: I think I am past being frutrated, but that leaves me -

4:39 PM me: its great to discover that i’m running beside others like yourself- those who are truly desiring another way of life - another economy of God’s shalom

 Greg: angry is the word that comes to mind - but it is an angry at myself that asks “What are you goign to do about it?”

4:40 PM Yes, It is good form my perspective to not feel alone as well

  It helps me to be bolder

  and less fearful

4:41 PM me: that to me is good news! that to me is part of what the “church” is - learning to get over ourself and learn from others/love others.

4:42 PM Greg: yep

  a thought about your friends blog…

4:43 PM It seems like pretty much what you read from SC/HC advocates until he says, “and nobody needs to have more than two of these centered groups..”

4:44 PM At that point my interest is piqued as I have been wondering how to get the tow house churches I am working with out of thier “church in a box in a home” mentality of being happy with their circumstances and loving each other - but not reaching out to anyone else

4:45 PM And is it as simple as implementing a “2 group” expectation?

4:46 PM Your “safe” group where you are built up and encouraged - and your “dangerous” group where everything you are is on the line with Jesus?

 me: i like the language there

4:47 PM Greg: I’m wondering if I shouldn’t modify his thought to everyone NEEDS be involved in two groups to be trulyhealthy

4:48 PM I have been at the point of simply wanting to disband the whole thing just to try and split them up - but the truth is they do a LOT of ministry together. But it seldom involves more than them packing boxes or writing checks

4:50 PM Itis weird, but if churches were suddenly the targets of terrorists and people began meeting in homes

  each one of them could and would lead a SC

  But to reach out to the world around them in this way is beyond their willingness to do

4:51 PM I do have to smile, though, at the thought of Jesus drawing out the fractal diagrams in the dirt for his disciples…

4:52 PM me: ha, yeah