Hey,

I was killing some time this afternoon and found a bunch of movies that have had their copyright runout or something so their legally downloadable. Among them I found this Gem:

The real story of how Gilligan and his friends got off the island. :)

Shop Class as Soulcraft - John 3

The article "shop class as soulcraft" was so valuable for me. The jist of the article was that working with my hands is of less "value" and intellectual than theoretical thinking jobs. Ie. The example of working in a think tank and being paid way more than a labourer. The authors thesis defends that the value of craftsmanship, doing something well for its own sake, and makes a good point that craftsmanship opposes consumerism and the throwaway mentality something very prevalent in our culture.

Crawford articulates the feelings and values that I've felt most of my life as I would work on my truck or bike with pride. Hands on work is all intellectually stimulating, tactile and fulfilling in its own way.

Article:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5GEyN-fhA6WZWExYTM0YTItNDZlNS00YjlmLTkyOWUtMDFkNzlmZjIwY2U1

E*TRADE Golf Baby updated 2/19/10

Evangelism and Social Action

This is a reflection from my last year at CBC that Christina thought I should post. Does it spark any thoughts?

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today, is Christians, who acknowledges with their lip and walk out the door and get on with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Remember this?

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor. 

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

(Luke 4:18–19 NIV) 

What characterizes a disciple?

            As I sat down to reflect and draw my thoughts to the front of my mind, I thought about the transparency that we have enjoyed in this classroom and the relationship that has developed between us. When my mind found rest the theological bubble that rose to the top was obvious. As a boy trained up in modern categorical thinking I spoke my question into existence, “did Jesus come to preach or to live the good news of the Kingdom of God?” This question carries a lot of baggage for me so please forgive me if you’ve heard this from me before, but this is my story.

I grew up with a theological foundation that prioritized preaching, prayer and holiness with the hope that if people are saved one-at-a-time then we will have a transformed world. I think I was taught that my role was to walk hand in had with nonChristians toward Jesus and after he takes their hand I can let go and find another person to bring or drag toward him. My assumption was that Jesus would transform them once they became Christians.

Then I got married and marriage brings many different things, including new theological perspectives and personal stories that give life to how God leads people to what they believe.

My wife’s family is very Anabaptist, meaning they fit into Harold Bender’s definition of the Anabaptist Vision. They believe life in Christ is about committed discipleship, which was different than my understanding that life in Christ is about a moment of salvation and transformation. Secondly, they understand that a person is a follower of Christ rather than a believer in Christ, meaning, we choose to follow Jesus daily we do not passively wait for him to change us. Finally, they believe that a follower of Jesus must live a life of peace (Shalom) and nonviolence and that didn’t seem relevant to me.

One year after Christina and I were married we left for the Philippines on my ICS internship where we witnessed bombing, military checkpoints, internally displaced people and “stupid poverty” as Bono put it. I started to see the gospels in the context they were written. They were written to a nation oppressed by Rome and waiting for a savior who would lead them to military victory. But, when He came He demonstrated his love for all by living and teaching justice and mercy for the “other.” He lived shalom with all people. I saw Jesus through the eyes of the oppressed and I understood the liberation theology of Oscar Romero, Dom Helder Camera and Mother Theresa. His image is in the other and as followers of Jesus we must lift up the poor paralytic, the roman soldier, the widows son, the sinful woman, the Samaritan and Zacchaeus the Tax collector just as He did. All of these people in the gospel of Luke were examples outsiders to the Jewish system and Jesus brought them all shalom in different ways.

My assumption that someone needs to be preached at to receive the good news was challenged by this experience. “What is following Christ if someone does not really follow him in action? Can there be a Christian believer and not a do-er?” In my passion, fueled by the stupid poverty and by systems of injustice that I am part of, I came back to Canada screaming, “No! You cannot just believe, you must follow in obedience!”

The scripture I read, Luke 4:18-19, became a call to action for me this last year. Bring good news to the poor, bring freedom to the prisoners, and release the oppressed. The gospel must be lived in order to change the world and bring the evidence of the Kingdom of God. Now I see in hindsight, I tried to leave much of what I grew up with as I reacted to the injustice I saw and in this reaction I lost my balance and changed from a caricature of a soapbox preacher at YWAM to a liberator with the passion and fervor of Che’ Guevara.

For the past few months, I have been in the gap of living my faith recklessly and preaching the faith recklessly because both of the Mennonite perspectives I’ve described symbolize the different families that I represent. Through this reflection exercise I have decided that I have struggled long enough between the two. I am wrong when I think that I have to pick a side. “When faced with two options, choose the third,” says an old Hebrew proverb and so I have chosen to lead my family a different way. We will live our faith and testify about the goodness of our God in bold actions and words.

He does give us breath and that is something a hurting the world should know I am thankful for. He does call me to obediently sacrifice myself for a single parent or an addict and live my life obediently as a disciple of Christ. The important thing enmesh in my thinking is that these two perspectives, speaking and actions, were not exclusive in Jesus, they were always integrated.

This may not be new for some of you, but the conclusion was for me. Jesus commanded me to live as an obedient disciple that sacrifices time, money and comfort for the literal and figurative oppressed, blind, prisoner and poor. And because this is good news I am going to testify why. 

Exposing the Israeli Occupation Industry @ whoprofits.org

Israeli and international corporations are directly involved in the occupation: in the construction of Israeli colonies and infrastructure in the occupied territories, in the settlements’ economy, in building walls and checkpoints, in the supply of specific equipment used in the control and repression of the civilian population under occupation.

The information on this website is to educate every consumer about the companies that are benefitting from the illegal occupation of Palestine. This information enables us to act in unison with the a global community who condemn the injustice and abuse that Palestinians suffer daily.

I hope and pray that the occupation will end.

Your kingdom come You will be done.

They are Jesus

"They" and "them" are divisive words that open a chasm that grows wider every time they're spoken. I've been hearing them often as I coordinate Abbotsford's Extreme Weather Shelter at Emmanuel Mennonite in January.

They, in this case, are the people who live without homes, and they are the people we think have problems. "What do they like?" "How do I talk to them?" I'm often asked. All this talk have been rubbing me the wrong way, some hting doesn't seem right. I don't think Jesus is OK with us seeing other people as "them." The good news of the bible is that Jesus' disciples (that's us) draw people together in unity and mutual love the opposite of an us/them division.

I think that for many of us the problem is a vision issue, we don't know how to see people who are different than us.

At one point Jesus had some people gathered around him and told them a story about helping him out. "Many of you guys have been blessed by my father and are blessing others because of it. You had water and gave me something to drink, you had food and gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was a stranger and you invited me in. You people who've loved me are the ones who understand that my disciples have upside-down values compared to the values of society. We spend time with the poor and invite the rich to come along. We love our enemies and we stand with the people that are unpopular to stand with.

This is a definition of biblical righteousness= living every day the same way Jesus did by loving people we as "them." (Anyone who's different)

So, back to "us" and "them." When we see them over there, and us over here the devision in our mind is so great that we don't know how to cross it. Jesus is addressing this vision issue in Matt 25. He says, "Remember that's me that your serving." He's cold and wet, been abandoned and possibly needs a friend. Do you see him?

This winter some of us will have to live in righteousness by deciding that it's OK to be friends with Jesus when he wants to come in from the cold or go out for a smoke at the Extreme Weather Shelter.

Next time you see someone very different from yourself, poor or rich, and you stay away because they're different, remember, you see Jesus.