*Re-publishing this on the one-year anniversary of his passing. His thought still shapes my own, and the few times we met still leave a lasting impression.
If you’ve had a heart for missionary work overseas you may or may not have heard of the name “Ralph Winter”. Hands down, his was THE MOST influential voice in global mission in the past 50 years. While not the hagiographical superstar, his thought has subtly, yet profoundly influenced – no – charted the course of global Christianity and steered it toward new dimensions. Pop ideas like the 10 / 40 window would not be were it not for him, and those themes only scratch the surface of his ideas. Sadly, Ralph Winter passed away yesterday (5/20/09) at his home in Pasadena, after a long and courageous battle with Multiple Myeloma. He was well into his eighties. Read more…
I annually re-post this as reminder to fix my eyes on the prize:
Ten Things To Do Before I Die:
1. End genocide.
2. Stabilize the Middle East.
3. Master a foreign language.
4. Eradicate one disease, pathogen or virus.
5. Alleviate unnecessary human suffering.
6. Write one well-written and scholarly book.
7. Promote racial unity, diversity and reconciliation
8. Experiment with micro-loans
9. Provide clean water for those who don’t have it.
10. Finish school dang it.
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as per Out of Ur – credit where it’s due.
I wanna say right off the bat that this is in no way an attack on Bell who has done brilliantly as a pastor and church leader. Much respect and props there, and I dig the glasses and the emergent thing. But in a recent interview Bell was asked to define evangelicalism to which his answer betrays some of the vagaries the emergent church has been accused of:
Q. What does it mean to you to be an evangelical?
A. I take issue with the word to a certain degree, so I make a distinction between a capital E and a small e. I was in the Caribbean in 2004, watching the election returns with a group of friends, and when Fox News, in a state of delirious joy, announced that evangelicals had helped sway the election, I realized this word has really been hijacked. I find the word troubling, because it has come in America to mean politically to the right, almost, at times, anti-intellectual. For many, the word has nothing to do with a spiritual context.
Q. OK, how would you describe what it is that you believe?
A. I embrace the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That’s a beautiful sort of thing.
Read the full interview here.
I dunno. It just seems a very shallow answer for a deep thing and Bell has gotten into trouble for this before… Read more…
Soong-Chan Rah: Another Angry Asian Man?
Reading “Prof Rah’s” The Next Evangelicalism is like gargling with salt. It stings in the throat but at the same time clears the sinuses of the stuffiness and congestion of poorly thought-out racial dialogue. Sure, we like to talk about color-blindness, and melting pots, and model minorities, but do we know what we’re really saying when we talk about these things? Surely the Church – that glorious multicultural reality – is exempt from these faux-pas assumptions… Or is she? Perhaps a little deconstruction is in order – and maybe that aint such a bad thing.
Read more…
I found this article terribly compelling (thanks to Daniel Eng for the heads up) – especially the following snippet – this has everything to do with defining * success * in church, or entrepreneurship, or just plain life: Read more…
Tech writer Clive Thompson calls Twitter "ambient awareness"
I’m re-publishing this as a convo about Twitter is jump-started by Time mag’s recent cover story on the 140 character cultural phenom. A friend dialogues about it (Twitter) here too. But specifically I am interested in Twitter’s implications for how we do church. I don’t mean so much using Twitter IN church, but the implications for end-user innovation in how we do church. Or be church. What if the church became “open-sourced” and congregant or laity-driven innovation? Original post here: Read more…
Listen to this rhetoric coming from the Republican party re: Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor:
“White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.” – Newt Gingrich
“a reverse racist” (comparable to KKK leader David Duke) – Rush Limbaugh
“picked because she’s a woman and Hispanic, not because she was the best qualified.” – Curt Levey
“a Latino KKK without the hoods or nooses.” (on National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group) – Tom Tancredo(Colo.)
These were in response to Sotomayor’s comment: Read more…
We had a discussion among our staff about the art of Makoto Fujimura this morning. He’s a New Yorker. He’s a Greenwich Village artist (my old haunting grounds back in the day @ Parsons School of Design). He’s asian (yay!) And he’s a Christian. So it intrigued me to watch an emerging figure who represents two worlds I inhabit, as an Asian-American as well as a Christian within the arts. So I did some homework only to find this little endorsement here to the left that he receives from CT mag, and to find out that he’s received some accolade from some great sources. See his blog here and professional page here. So I’m thrilled for this guy who is making a statement in numerous ways – as an urbanite, a religious person, an ethnic person – just thrilled. But the one question that seemed to echo in our group was: Read more…
I’ve been making my way through Korean-American author Soong-Chan Rah’s recent new work The Next Evangelicalism. Now careful here, reading it is like gargling with salt – it stings on the way down but clears the sinuses of quaint tokenisms and so-called “color-blindnesses” that perpetuate faulty systems. Basic premise: while the de facto representation of American evangelicalism is predominantly a Caucasian playing field, the fact of the matter is, “American evangelicalism” is fast becoming non-white. I think this is no mystery, and just today heard this sentiment expressed, by a Caucasian brother for that matter. What’s the big stink then? Why the ranting against the establishment, when folks recognize the nation over this phenomenon of “the browning of America”? Read more…
Call me old-fashioned but I am just not sold on the idea of internet church.
Now, it’s not my intention to rant and get polemical on folks, but I am just wondering if this is any way to do church. I’m mildly irked by invitations to attend Easter services online or on TV and it causes me to reflect on the nature of communion – can it indeed happen in such a venue? Yes, Word is communicated, but sacrament? Is not worship about coming out of place into another Place? Conversely, I’m not anti-social media / tech as the recent article in Regent World suggests: Babel and Pentecost, but I do agree with one thing – over reliance on social media and technology as a means to market yourself is a way to sell your soul. Don’t get me wrong; there is a place for it, and to shy away from technology is like saying the Gutenberg press should’ve never happened. (Dare we ignore the fact that it was technology that launched Luther’s Theses all over Europe?) I think the internet is having a similar impact. But still. Somebody tell me why I get itchy and scratchy all over when I get twitter invitations to attend online church?
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