Charlie Wear’s Notes

I just finished reading Susan Isaacs excellent book, Angry Conversations with God. I laughed. I cried. I was moved. This book is so insightful about the mess we humans make of our relationship with God.

Here’s a particularly insightful excerpt:

“Be careful to whom you bare your grief, especially if it’s someone churchy, like Martha. Because the Marthas of the world can’t leave a question unanswered, a problem unsolved, or a sorrow unhealed, they have to fix it. An no matter how long you’ve been a Christian (I’d been one all my life), Martha will know a Bible verse you haven’t heard (or haven’t heard the right way), or she’ll have a book or a sermon tape or a worship CD designed to answer your questions, silence your doubts, muzzle your grief, and make Martha feel better.”

 ^14-16“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16, The Message)

It’s been over fifteen years since a fellow staff member of a denominational church called me an “iconoclast.” At the time I thought I knew what he meant, but I’ll admit I had to look it up in the dictionary. He was the creative arts pastor and he was irritated at changes I was promoting in the way we “did church.” All these years later, I am still trying to figure out whether I need to apologize for my iconoclastic tendencies.

My response to some of the silliness I see in ‘church life’ is natural. In fact, it may have been inherited. It probably started when one of the sunday school superintendents chewed out my twenty-something deacon father because he was sitting down outside the door to the sanctuary during the sermon. It was his job to open the door for anyone going in or coming out of the sanctuary during the service. Mrs. Overbearing admonished my dad that the job required him to be standing during the entire service. That was my dad’s last service as a regular church attender. When my mom and he divorced some years later and the elders came to tell him that they were disfellowshiping (kicking him out), he wasn’t very upset.

Years later when my first marriage ended, I got a letter from the church elders revoking my membership. It hurt bad. One result of this experience is that I am highly suspicious of “church membership.” I liked the Calvary Chapel approach of the 1980s. If you show up, you are a member. I have tried to decide whether I need to join a recovery group for my problem, however I am reluctant, I might get kicked out.

This is just too good…

I just booked my tickets for Verge, a missional conference being held in Austin, TX from Feb. 4-7. I am part of the “social media” team for this event. I hope to meet many of the readers of Next-Wave at the conference. Speakers include: Francis Chan, Matt Carter, Alan Hirsch and many others.

Via Brother Maynard:

Join us on a blog tour of Tony Jones’s new book, The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing and Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community beginning the first Monday of Advent, November 30:

November 30: An introduction with Tony Jones

December 1: Chapter 1 – The Most Important Book You’ve Never Heard of – with Adam Walker Cleaveland at pomomusings and Thomas Turner at everydayliturgy
Tony’s response

December 2: Chapter 3 – The Didache Community – Then and Now – with Ted Gossard at Jesus Community and Amy Moffitt at Without a Map
Tony’s response

December 3: Chapter 4 – There Are Two Ways – with Tripp Fuller athomebrewedchristianity and with Holly Rankinzaher athappydaydeadfish
Tony’s response

December 4: Chapter 5 – Sex, Money, and Other Means of Getting Along – with Chris Monroe at Paradoxology and Mike Todd at Waving or Drowning?

December 5: Chapter 6 – Living Together In Community – with Brother Maynard at Subversiveinfluence and Mike King

December 6: Chapter 7 – The End is Nigh – with Greg Arthur atHolinessreeducation.com and Mike Stavlund at Awakening

December 7: Epilogue – with Luke C. Miller and Carl McColman at The Website of Unknowing

December 8: Special Question – Is this text – The Didache – really so important? Why? Do we know that it was important to the earliest communities of Christians? with Jonathan Brink at Missio Dei

December 9: Special Question – Does the Didache teach or advise anything that substantively differs from what was decided at the earliest ecumenical church councils (such as Nicaea) with Dwight Friesen

December 10: Special Question – Why is the Didache relevant, in particular today? Is it more relevant today than it was, say 100 years ago? Why? with Bob Hyatt

Starting Dec. 1st purchase 3+ copies of this book at a 40% discount. This special offer ends on December 11th, with the close of the blog tour!

My friend, Larry Kapchinsky, runs a great relief organization, KidCare International. From his most recent newsletter: “For many families, celebrating the holidays this year will be an extraordinary challenge…Locally, (in San Bernardino and Riverside County, California) many poor children depend on KidCare International’s educational enrichment. food, shelter, and clothing, but there are thousands of children in South Africa, Tanzania, Russia, and Sri Lanka that would have little or no hope without the help of humanitarian agencies like KidCare International. Thousands of children die each year in these countries from a lack of the most basic human needs—food, shelter, clean water and sanitation.”