..- JIM BENTLEY -.. artist, Vineyard pastor and retired art teacher

Wills Creek Vineyards

2011-02-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

Wills Creek Vineyards

Jahn and Janie Coppey have started booking weddings at Wills Creek Vineyards and Winery in Duck Springs. It's a good location to make a memory. They have asked me to be an on call minister. This will be fun.

2010-09-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Chandler Mountain. One hundred degrees out there this afternoon. No rain coming for days. Yet the mountain looked cool. "I lift my eyes up. Where does my help come from?..." May humility grow in the hearts of the people of Alabama. Send Your rain, send Your rain.

One Hot Summer

2010-07-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

Working on what I call an English column. Mixing brick and stone. The sun slowed me down. So I started getting up at 5:15 and worked on it until the sun hit the brick. Think I will find something to do inside.

2nd Annual Southeastern Plein Air Festival

2010-05-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

I noticed that the Festival had started with artists painting in downtown Gadsden today. I stopped by to meet the one closest to the Vineyard's back door. She happened to be Gina Brown, former artist student, former graphic artist, now fine arts painter. That was fun. she paints great.
I go for lunch at the Coffee Well and on the way back see another painter. I stop by and it is a former practice-teaching-art-college-student who still teaches in a nearby county. I haven't seen Gale D. in thirty years.
LORD, are You speaking about art and artists to me today?

ART IS (1980)

2010-04-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

"Art is. It need not perform a function. Bring to the viewing of the work what you will. Just as you are unique so will be your experience." - Jim Bentley, August 1980

I have yet to find the original quote. I posted it under a painting of mine that was showing at Hokes Bluff H. S. I had overheard two teachers commenting on the piece: "I don't get it. What is it?"

Facelift - A Mosaic Family of Living Stones

2010-03-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=media#!/video/video.php?v=1273009944383

My facebook video of the FACELIFT.

Or go to my FLICKR site: Jim Bentley183.

Paste this line:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbentley/4462742886/

ART IS

2010-03-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

In a conversation with my wife a few weeks ago she says: "After being married a few years now I've noticed that you approach everything in life as an artist." I thought back: 'That's not true. Wait a minute. That is true. She's right, she's really right.' It wasn't something positive or negative or even neutral. It was correct. It was reality. I don't think I had embraced that I was an artist until that conversation. It's on the same level as someone asking you what's your career versus if they had asked you whether you were a male or female. The career answer wouldn't come as quickly as the gender answer. In a flash I know: I am male, I know GOD personally, I am an artist.

I changed the blog's title today. I added a podcast player with a "message" uploaded on it. The Wind is changing and Winter is past.

What's the thing you are avoiding?

2009-07-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

The photo is from our back yard - Spring 2009

I have a weed eater, i.e. string trimmer, that I haven't used in over a year. It got hard to start and I didn't want to take it to get it serviced. I stuck it in the corner of our shed.

Some of the guys from Vineyard trim and cut grass so I've been hiring them to come and trim up our yard.

God has a time table we all know. Knowing what's on it is another thing. Usually it is way into His schedule before I say, "Oh, I see now. So that's what You are doing." If I am in a 'boy' place then it is, "I can't believe You want me to do that--right now."

So a few weeks ago I called Nathan to see if he could trim the yard. He tells me his family has loaned their string trimmer to a friend for the weekend. "Fine. We will trim next week." The next week I cut the grass, then call Nathan and he says, "The string trimmer is still loaned out." "That's okay. I have one we can use." Nathan comes and it won't start. It smelled flooded out with gas. We give up after a while.

At two and a half weeks of no trimming but still cutting the main parts of the yard it has become easy to spot what needs trimming.

I don't want to spend energy or money on my string trimmer but I have got to do something.

One morning I decide to try and do something about it. First I plan to check out my socket wretch set. Maybe there will be one long enough to remove the spark plug. When I look in the box there is a socket with lettering under it: "spark plug socket". I've had that socket set ten years and never noticed it had one for a spark plug. I go to the store that sells lawn gear and get a spark plug. At home I ask my wife if she knows where her book is for her string trimmer (when we got married we happened to have the same model). Of course she has the book. It is stored in section "23" of the manual folder. I look over the manual. "Interesting." "Didn't know that."

By the time I was finished the string trimmer had it's carb adjusted, new spark plug, reset of it's shoulder harness and it's air filter cleaned out.

Not so long ago I would have taken it to be serviced, paid the money and took it home. I would have used it but would have learned NOTHING about this string trimmer, NOTHING about some of my tools. I would have missed God's plan to encourage my masculine heart. What else have I been avoiding that are hidden lessons to be learned about myself and my Father who loves me?

Spring 2009

2009-03-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Remodeling two days a week or maybe three. I must keep on to try for a stopping place. I took a photo a few days ago.

A Year without Christmas

2008-12-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

I was looking at LauraCatoe.com and chose to hit the link to my blog. We are still remodeling. I would say don't do it unless God has spoken very clearly to you. It has been fun, creative, exhausting and at times a nightmare.

We hoped to move into the other 2/3 of our house before Christmas but the floors decided they wanted a fourth coat of poly. We get to walk on them tomorrow afternoon. Christmas dinner may be served on paper plates with great thanksgiving.

Closed on the House

2007-08-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

We closed on the house on Monday August 13th. Since then the heat wave has kept us from working directly on the house very much. We keep designing and dreaming. Now if we can just remember the address: 183 Azalea Drive.

Circling the Field <---> post 15

2007-07-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

January 2011 (just adding a photo - nothing to do with Circling The Field)

TOO SOON TO SAY <---> post 14

2007-07-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

We moved to 431 Turrentine Ave. Apt. A in the first week of March 2007. The building is an English style apartment building built in 1929. There are many wonderful features of this apartment like ten foot ceilings. I rag washed the walls and reworked the bathroom with my paintbrush. But we are longing for sunsets that we had so enjoyed that we almost took them for granted. Ever looking for a place to settle, we kept asking for direction. With no answer we decided that we would do the part we could do — keep moving. Spend the time and energy, learn the parts of the county that we felt attracted toward.

Slowly we came to a decision. There was this sloped lot in South Ridge. It was wooded, quiet enough, and close in to the city. We put a contract on it and the owners accepted with no counter offer. Wow! Okay! We start designing and planning. Darryl Cox, pastor of the Albertville Vineyard, came down to see it. Yes! No signs, dreams, symbols, words — just peace. Still good.

A family member's wedding in Birmingham on 7-7-07. The drought breaks. Patsy had heard about the rain and drought and God's grace for the spiritual change marked by the rains.

Tuesday morning July 10 I'm going down Rainbow Drive at 6:30a and look up at the mountain. The top is in a cloud and a faint impression comes to drive up there later in the morning when I am free. I start up the mountain and a new realty sign is posted. An L.A.H. Realty sign. My daughter-in-law's new mother-in-law is an agent for LAH in Birmingham. Never seen a LAH sign in Gadsden. The sign points up the mountain. I smile. I guess God is saying our lives are connected with Birmingham at a greater level. (Already my only brother and Patsy's only sister live a block away from each other in Birmingham.)

I go on up the mountain.

Back in late Autumn we had made a list of things we like. One of the items was a place on a mountain that faced the setting sun. I did my research thing with maps and aerial views. One of the few places in our county that fits the bill is one on this mountain. I had driven over the streets that my research revealed and one of the houses that I thought would fall in our budget (if it ever went on the market) was on this mountain.

I drive by the house with a sign in the yard. (not a LAH sign but a sign just the same.) We already have a lot under contract. We have peace. We call Lisa our agent and make an appointment for the next day. We walk around the outside of the vacant house on Tuesday evening to the back yard as the sun is setting. It has a view. We drive back and forth that night comparing the lot and the house. In a kind of whirlwind we choose the house after walking through it the next day. It needs TLC as they say in the realty books. The lot owners let us out of the contract. Little signs begin. I come across 23 cents as I have to watch where I step (dogs). The contract writing starts on the 11th and finishes on the 12th. (11/12 split as we call it — occurs often in our relationship since dating days). YES, to our offer with no counter on Friday. Went to see Evan Almighty in the afternoon. Had multi encounters with Holy Spirit at the movie. Hard to explain but I knew the movie and the house thing were connected. Waiting for an inspection report coming up this Friday. We walk it out, waiting in peace but weakness and listening for understanding. Expecting direction and confirmation. I'll let you know what happens.

ED. NOTE: 1-3-11 We live in our "as is" house redesigning as we go.

On The Banks Of The Marne, 1938 <---> post 13

2006-12-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

On the Banks of the Marne, 1938 by Cartier-Bresson.

This is Annie Leibovitz's favorite photograph and she owns the original. I had read an article about her in Newsweek. I made a note about what she liked herself as a photographer. When the photo came up on my screen I could feel the artist in me stir. One of my old high school art students came by the church today. He asked if I had been making any art. I said, "No. And I don't know why I don't."

What labels do I wear naturally? Christian. Pastor. Artist. Father. Son. Brother. A labels that is becoming more natural as the days pass: Husband. I'm a 55 year old Man but I'm sure that my mental age is closer to 40.

Words that cause a warm feeling to come over me: Art. Painting. Mystical. Mystery. Lord. Faithfulness.

What do I see in the photograph? Today I see friends stopping to fellowship along the banks of the river of living this life we have been given. What's around the river's bend? Don't know. But it never hurts to stop and laugh and love each other. I figure we will get around the bend soon enough.

Autumn on Scenic Drive <---> post 12

2006-11-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the sunshine of a mid-afternoon in late November. The sky is a deep blue and the last of the oak leaves glow, lit from behind, with a golden and reddish light. One lone Japanese maple is shining in a red-hots candy palette with a background of hazy blue ridges spreading in an almost surreal IMAX 3-D landscape. Autumn is almost over. We have not stopped enough to enjoy it as we could have. With cutting timber in the surrounding forest this past summer I had no idea exactly how it would affect our view.

When we got married two autumns ago the forest vista didn't change a great deal as the leaves fell away. The woods opened up here and there, but we lived among many pine trees and huge hardwoods. Springtime would blaze for a few weeks with dogwood blossoms and then our private green view would only become greener and more dense. But this year has been special. The end of summer came and with it so did the road paving crew. For years Patsy had been asking the city to pave Scenic. It has been seventy years ago since fresh pavement had graced this road. Nowadays it looked like a road that had been washed out somewhere in West Virginia. They paved up just past our driveway. Wow, to be able to drive from your carport all the way to the church on asphalt. We felt like we lived on a road, no a highway.

Then autumn came.

Just as the leaves began to change we cut all the undergrowth in the stand of trees from the front of our home to the street. Driving up to the house the view began to change almost everyday. I got out of my truck one day and walking out the trash, I saw a mountain that had been freshly revealed. Street lights and tail lights began to appear at night where there had only been woods. Deer came to play in the front yard."Patsy, we live on a hill." I had a change of perspective of how high we lived. Then came the listing of our house in a realty book: mountain area. I didn't feel like I lived on a mountain these two years. "You turn off 431 onto Cornelia Street. Go over the train tracks. The road's name changes to Scenic Drive. Ours is the first house on the right." Sure I noticed that the road rose a little as I drove home. "Yes we live on Scenic but not the mountain end. We live on the Alabama City end at the beginning of the street."

More lights at night, more mountains broke through from morning till twilight. The autumn color was the greatest display Patsy could ever remember on this “hill.” We took a second anniversary trip to Chattanooga and by accident came down Lookout Mountain by way of Scenic Highway. We wondered: maybe once Scenic stretched from one end of Lookout Mountain to the other which totals ninety plus miles.

Then one afternoon a thought formed: The road changes names at the beginning of our yard because this house is the beginning of the mountain. Just like a fountainhead is the beginning of a river so is this property the beginning of the mountains that stretch to Canada. The dense forest has hidden the awareness of where you really live.

You live on a MOUNTAIN.

The beginning of a lookout point. It is time you change your perspective. Thin out the forest so you can see the truth. You live on a mountain surrounded by mountains. Enjoy the view while you live there. Enjoy the changing vistas as autumn gives way to winter. Enjoy the high places that you see which are higher up the mountain. Underbrush may have obscured your view and the fact that you LIVE ON THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD.

12-28-2010 ED. NOTE: God would lead us to another mountain which has an elevation of twice the height of the Scenic home. Where Scenic was leaving my log home of thirty years and moving to my wife's house project — the new house, the as-it-is-house has been the most costly project so far. Wonderful, hard, expensive, designing our heads off, sleeping on floors with boxes draped in quilts to stay warm, broken foot (still three years later), nail into my foot (still a constant reminder)... Snow still on the ground from a four and a half inch Northeast Alabama very rare Christmas Day snow that was supposed to be on flurries. I miss the house on Scenic. I miss my log house, still unsold but rented. God You are amazing!

Getting Back into the WATER <---> post 11

2006-11-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

Patsy and I have been reading blogs from our friends. This hopefully is my re-entry into blog space. We have been home sick with head colds. The interesting effect has been to increase our "friendship." Most of the time it will be the woman who notices a change in a relationship before the man. One would think we would have run into being friends before some other level of relationship but it appears we haven't. It has been surprising and nice. (I didn't say that in case she read this entry.) The air in our kitchen is full of garlic roasting. God bless the inventor of vent fans!

JDB

12-28-2010 ED. Note: Blogging is like brushing your teeth. You don't need to get out of the practice or you may get out of the habit entirely.

Chinese ponytail anyone? <---> post 10

2006-05-04T14:40:00.000-07:00

WhatWhat are some of the issues that the Church faces in 2006? I'm hoping the Christian community will spend the time to look and listen to what and where our culture currently has arrived. We must be able to communicate to the culture. We don't have to look or act like the culture. "Christianity is a counter culture," says James Engel. Dr. Engel reminds us that we will always be out of step with ALL cultures. Our culture is not of this world. Jesus told us his kingdom was not of this world. We, his brothers/bride/children/servants/friends, are not going to be of this world. BUT we are making excuses (and maybe a little lazy) to not spend the time to understand the culture in which we find ourselves living.

"Hudson Taylor didn't end up in China communicating his English cultural gospel. He tried it like the missionaries before him. BUT he didn't write off the Chinese for not accepting his English ways. He didn't water down or change the Christian message or lifestyle. He did get to know the Chinese. He did leave his English coat and tie at home and began to dress as the Chinese. He shaved his head and grew a queue (a Chinese ponytail). And a funny thing happened - the Chinese started reponding to the gospel. Okay, so you and I are not Hudson Taylor BUT God might ask us to learn the language or the current worldview or who knows.

More ideas to ponder...."

From George Fox Journal Fall 2005, Vol 1, No. 3

“God sent a person, not a proposition”

A conversation with Len Sweet

Interviewed by Tamara Cissna

Len Sweet, futurist and best-selling author, is the lead mentor of the seminary’s Doctor of Ministry Leadership in the Emerging Culture program. Calling on his understanding of postmodern ideals and his years as a mentor to pastors, he shares his insights about today:

GEORGE FOX JOURNAL (GFJ): What is the emergent church?

LEN SWEET: It probably would mean something different to everyone you would ask, but from my perspective, the “emergent church” is an ongoing conversation about how new times call for new churches, and that the mortar- happy church of the last half of the 20th century is ill-poised to face the promises and perils of the future. In fact, attempting to define the “emergent church” betrays the essence of the movement because the emergent consciousness questions the notion that there is such a thing. Rather, there are only individual emerging churches that are missional in orientation that grow out of the indigenous soils in which they are planted. In other words, no two emerging churches are alike.

GFJ: Are there some common practices in emerging churches?

LEN SWEET: Pews are now antiques. Since the focus of emerging churches is on community, their worship space is flexible. Some have tables and chairs. Others have a more living room look and feel. But emerging churches are proving to be very surprising. For example, hymns are now back. And the church’s liturgy and Eucharist are being rediscovered in creative and compelling ways. A lot of emerging churches are very “smells and bells” in their worship. Whatever the diversity of spiritual practices, the key words for emerging churches are incarnational, missional, and relational.

GFJ: Can you explain those key terms?

LEN SWEET: I’ll try ... although books literally have been written on each.

• Incarnational: That means that Christianity does not go through time like water in a straw. It passes through cultural prisms and historical periods, which means that Christianity is organic. And like with any living thing, in order for things to stay the same, they have to change. There are some who think that Christianity is meant to stand in and for itself as a bounded discourse, impervious to cultural influences. That’s one reason it took the Vatican 300 years to come around to heliocentrism: the idea that the sun, not the earth, was at the center.

• Missional: Does the church face inward or outward? A missional church faces outward toward the world, not like a porcupine stands against its enemies, but like water fills every container without losing its content. In fact, many in the emerging church reject the dichotomy between the church and the world . For too long, churches have faced inward, offering religion as a benefits package — something that “meets my needs” or offers good outcomes.

I tell churches to look at their mission statement. Many of them are no more than self-statements, not mission statements. This is how you can tell. Is your mission statement based on how to get people to go into the world, or how to get more people to come to church? The missional mantra that people are saying today is this: The church is measured, not by its seating capacity, but by its sending capacity.

• Relational: The gospel is all about the formation of community. The individualistic “meet my needs” orientation is seen as antagonistic to the ministry of Jesus. The African word ubuntu is often used, which literally means “It takes a ‘we’ to make a ‘me.’’ Emerging churches are discovering the “we” part of “me.”

GFJ: So it’s the incarnational characteristic of emerging churches that threatens its critics. Some remark that when churches try to become “relevant,” they really mean “relative.” True?

LEN SWEET: There is all too much panic over that word relative. I believe in absolute truth (which I believe, by the way, is Jesus the Christ, the way, the truth, the life — notice here that absolute truth is not abstract truth, but incarnate truth). The notion that there are no absolutes is self-defeating and self-contradictory.

Not all truth is absolute. Some truth is relative — to a person, to a culture, to a historical period. What brings together absolute truth and relative truth is relational truth.

GFJ: Then you are not connecting the concept of relative truth with the idea that it’s equally valid to choose any of the “many paths to God.” What are some examples of relative truth that you do endorse?

LEN SWEET: Relativism is illogical and selfdefeating. If all truth is relative, what is the truth status of the assertion that all truth is relative? What I am trying to do is end the apartheid of absolutism and relativism in Christian theology. I am a relative absolutist. That means that absolute truth has to become incarnate in relative time. Faith is for the living of this hour, and the Bible has reference to and relevance for the living of this hour.

The world in which Jesus came could not conceive of a world without slavery. In fact, the ancient economy was based on slavery. Jesus did not deal violently with human nature and first-century culture. He did not go about brandishing “absolute truth.” He dealt tenderly and patiently with the culture and people of his day. If he was harsh with anyone, it was the religious establishment. By regulating our treatments of others, and rejiggering our thinking about others, Jesus led us inexorably into a place where things like slavery and polygamy were abolished.

Just as absolute truth had to be made relative to the culture in which it was first proclaimed, so absolute truth today must be made relative to our day and to our 21st-century culture.

GFJ: How are emerging churches any more relational than evangelical mainstream churches? Isn’t this what small groups are all about?

LEN SWEET: Much of the evangelical mainstream makes small groups a program of the church. It’s an add-on, or a drive-through.

In emerging churches, community is constitutive of their identity. It’s the very essence of who they are. There is also a relational component of the theology of the emerging church, where truth is seen more in relational than in propositional terms. After all, God didn’t send us a principle. God sent us a person. God didn’t send us a statement. God sent us a savior . . . who is Christ the Lord.

GFJ: How are emerging churches distinctively missional?

LEN SWEET: Karl Rahner, the great 20th century Catholic theologian, referred to what he called Thermos-bottle Christianity. This is a form of pseudo-church where you keep everything inside warm and cozy and fresh, but let the outside freeze and take care of itself.

Missional churches are focused on what God is doing in the world. Their circles face outward, not inward. This is a culture that loves gated communities, and there are gated churches to match.

Missional churches are putting back together what for too long has been rent asunder: the whole gospel, both the personal gospel (evangelism), and the social gospel (justice and kingdom ministries).

GFJ: Please elaborate on what it means to promote justice and kingdom ministries. Can you share a few examples?

LEN SWEET: It seems like every other week I have a favorite book. But for a few months now my favorite book has been Greg Paul’s God in the Alley. Greg is pastor of a church in Toronto called Sanctuary, a community of people who have covenanted with each other to focus on the people who live and work on the streets of Toronto: the homeless, drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes, etc. There are other churches similarly focused on peace or on hunger. Woodman Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs adopted a squatter camp in Johannesburg, South Africa, and sends youth and others there to help elevate these poorest places on our planet.

GFJ: Finally, why might a pastor of an emerging church tell me I should follow Christ? And so what if I don’t?

LEN SWEET: Everybody follows someone. We all give our lives to something. The only questions are who, or what? I invite you to give your life to Jesus.

I like how philosopher Dallas Willard does it: He challenges his students to the reality test: Put Jesus into practice.

Go ahead. Got someone better than Jesus in mind to follow? OK, try someone else first. Put Sigmund Freud into practice. Put Charles Darwin into practice. Put Karl Marx into practice. Put Aristotle into practice. Put Plato into practice. Put Pablo Picasso into practice.

The only who or what that can stand up to the reality test is Jesus the Christ, who is bold enough to say to each of us, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

There’s only one reason to follow Christ: Truth. Truth or consequences. from GFJ

Brad Cecil's Article <---> post 9

2006-04-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Brad's chapter in Stories of Emergence gave some more language to what we are seeing in our culture. (Thanks MB for seeing the book. Thanks DH for telling me about Brad's chapter.) This list is from Brad's footnotes for the chapter.

These two lists remind me of a painting I did back in 1970. I painted a design that was in blue and red. (This was on the back walls of the stage area of the Other Door Coffee House across from Gadsden High School on the corner of 12th and Walnut. The Other Door was also the Campus Crusade for Christ building.) I used flashing blue and red lights on the design. So when the blue lights were lit you couldn't see the parts of the design that were painted in blue and the red parts turned purple. Red lights reversed what you could and couldn't see. One would have needed a pair of glasses with one blue lense and one red lense to see the whole design at once.

Seeing the Modern and Postmodern in our culture requires the right lenses to observe and communicate in this day and age. I may need to start myself a tool box with two sections. Sort of a flathead and phillips screwdriver set so I will be ready for whatever need arises.

*****************************

Brad Cecil's list of modern (Enlightenment) tools:

- Foundationalism. We can find an irreducible starting point to build all knowledge upon.

- Sufficiency of Language. Language is pure and without cultural bias.

- Objectivity. Truth resides in the objects of the world and is without interpretation.

- Rationalism. All rational individuals have the same interpretation.

- Empiricism. We can trust what we validate with empirical senses (sight, sound, smell, etc.).

- Certainty. We can find a place of no doubt.

- Truth. The way things really are.

- Universalism. The quest to find truths that are undeniable to all of the universe.

- Absolutism. We can obtain a complete, accurate, pure understanding of reality.

*********************

Brad Cecil's list of postmodern tools:

- Web. Our knowledge is built within an intricate web of concepts, language, relationships, and experiences and is always changing.

- Cultural Linguistic. Language is tied closely to the concepts embraced in a culture, and it is not pure.

- Pluralism. All individuals have a unique and varying understanding of the reality of the world.

- Empirical Mysticism. There is more to the world than what can be validated by our senses.

- Contingency. All we understand and know is contingent upon many things and what we believe, we believe with prior assumptions.

- Truth. What we call truth is actually an agreement formed within a cultural setting.

- Limitations. We have begun to understand the significant limitations of language, concepts, culture, and understanding, which prevents us from obtaining complete understanding.

from Stories of Emergence:Moving from Absolute to Authentic (Zondervan, 2003) Mike Yaconelli, general editor, p. 230

Confessions from a Control Addict <---> post 8

2006-04-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

The last few months I have been having anxiety experiences. (Sometimes saying to myself: "If this got worse I might have to get one of those jackets with the really long sleeves.")

Then comes one of those times when my mind is clear. Where did all that anxiety come from? (I think) I look behind the curtain and see myself at the TRYING TO CONTROL LIFE PANEL. The truth is so easy and so painful. I want to be God. I want to be in CONTROL. I made a list the other day of the things in my life that give me anxiety. I stopped counting when I listed the eighth major area.

I'm stuck at the end of Chapter 6 of Matthew. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to read the New Testament and how hard it is to live it?

Inculturation <---> post 7

2006-02-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

INCULTURATION: "The process of a deep, sympathetic adaptation to, and appropriation of, a local culture in which the Church finds itself, in a way that does not compromise its faith." - W. Reiser

"The inculturation of the Church is the integration of the Christian experience of a local Church into the culture of its people, in such a way that this experience not only expresses itself in elements of this culture, but becomes a force that animates, orients and innovates this culture so as to create a new unity and communion, not only within the culture in question but also as an enrichment of the Church universal." - J. M. Waligoo, writer from Africa

"To be in the world means to be with the cultural and intellectual circles of the day, but never of them." - Leonard Sweet, Aquachurch, 1999.

Making disciples that live and speak in the PRESENT yet their foundation is grounded from the writing of Genesis. Matthew quotes Jesus: "...he who hears my words and acts on them is like a man building a house upon rock..." (Matthew chapter 7) Update the house but don't mess with the bedrock.

Grace Land <---> post 6

2006-01-18T13:24:00.000-08:00

I heard a good many definitions of what Grace is the last few years. Like: the power to be and do what God is calling you to be and do at that moment. Not a bad explanation.

Example: yesterday was a day full of grace. 1. For a few weeks nothing has be happening concerning selling our-single-family-dwelling-which-is-really-a-two-family-dwelling. Walking it out can make me crazy unless there is grace, peace and mercy present. Yesterday I awoke with desire to work (that in itself is grace). I went by my house in Southside (photo: view from my garage loft and squirrel retreat residence) and I had caught a squirrel. (I thanked God with much rejoicing). 2. I wanted to work on the passageway between our buildings (note: I want to stop the "419/417" description. Hence I plan to refer to our church location as 419 Broad Street. Let's come up with some real names for the East building and the West building) Wow! Grace to take out bricks. This desire last came a few months ago. 18 bricks gone yesterday! (Grace continued today: 20 more bricks.) 3. Grace to straighten up my study at home - amazing. 4. Much peace and grace during the afternoon and evening with my wife. No working to relate but more like breathing. It was a day of grace. I pray for days like that and then watch/listen for them. Grace feels like sailing. No effort, no work, thankful to be aware of it - like taking a walk and it starts to snow. There was water leaking into my church study for the first time yesterday (plus our East and West buildings). In our past at the Vineyard when water broke out somewhere there often followed an outbreak of the Holy Spirit's work. I'm watching.

Johnny Cash <---> post 5

2006-01-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

I saw Walk the Line last night. I found it touched places in me that are still sensitive. (Grief is strange how little pieces of it shows up at unwelcomed moments.) How could a movie about Johnny Cash affect me? My mother tells me he's a distance relative on her side of the family. (Mom was a Cash.)

During the movie I felt like I was running downhill and couldn't stop. Was this the intent of the director or something in me? Couldn't tell.

I went away wanting to tell everyone I knew how much they meant to me and how I loved them.

I had a skin cancer removed on Thursday. My wife was spending the weekend in B'ham puppy sitting.

The LORD had been with us in our first combined service yesterday morning in a manifest way. (Michael Bynum, my associate pastor, had been holding a Sunday morning service for a few years. I had started our Vineyard at 6pm, then moved it up to 2:22pm, only to move it again in a few weeks to 3pm, finally to settle on 4pm. 4pm was better for an art teacher that had to go back to work on Monday mornings. I gave up 4pm and moved to the morning with Michael.) Lunch with friends. I personally had a wonderful day. Emotionally powerful the last few days but not restful, not stable.

We are all like the way Johnny Cash was portrayed: we can't make it in life by ourselves, we need a savior. June Carter and her family acted like Jesus. They protected, loved, encouraged him to ride his DTs, chase off his tempters and stayed by his side. Without the real Jesus I'm running downhill unable to stop. "HELP, LORD!" Then, suddenly, I am aware of His presence. Peace-stillness-calm-rest... like king David said: "I am like a weaned child..."

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ED. NOTE: It's now five years since I wrote this entry. I can't even remember the state I was in when I wrote it. Eternity will be this way. LIFE will so swallow up the past tears and sorrow that we will look upon them but they will be painless memories.

Michael when on to pastor at Rapha House, a men's substance abuse center, and start a Saturday night service there. You can check on him online at Greene Street Letters.

I still have the morning service, here in December 2010, but miss the afternoons sometimes. I love the journey of it all. Hope to read all of these old entries as I work to bring this blog back to life.

The Second Time Around <---> POST 4

2005-12-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

I've been remarried 59 weeks today (420 days). I find it hard saying, "This is Patsy, my second wife." I am so thankful for her and I so miss my first wife, Jan. I have friends that have never gotten to have a first marriage. I have been given this gift of getting to know two wonderful women.

I have come to love that standard with the lyrics: "Love is better the second time around." It is better because you take nothing for granted. I had a great home life with my wife Jan and our daughter Laura. We lived in a log home in Southside, Alabama that I helped to build and had some great Christmas parties there (I think about the parties this time of the year). Then it ended slowly.

Now I have this gift again. It's not the same. It's not supposed to replace my first love. The second time around is bitter sweet. Full of love, only a different flavor this time.

Moses said in Psalm 90 to "number our days". My watch also goes off every day at 4:03pm because one of Patsy's friends at our wedding came up to me four times to tell me the exact minute that we were official married. I stopped in front of the friend and set my watch to go off at that time everyday.

We can't stop time. 1. We can look forward toward the future from this present moment. 2. We can walk backwards into the future while loving or regretting our past as we look back. 3. We can worship and serve Him in this present moment seated with Jesus at the right hand of our Father. Door # 3 sounds really good, doesn't it?

THINGS TO SAY IN THOSE AWKWARD MOMENTS <---> post 3

2005-11-21T10:04:00.000-08:00

"The more I know God, the more I know a great deal and virtually nothing about who God is."

- A friend of Leonard Sweet

"I have considered the Church's dialogue with the cultures of our time to be a vital area, one in which the destiny of the world at the end of this twentieth century is at stake."

- Pope John Paul II from SoulTsunami, 1999 by Leonard Sweet

WISH LIST (or the church I would join) <---> post 2

2005-11-09T10:21:00.000-08:00

"She's the perfect 10 for me!"
"This guy is everything I want in a husband."
"That house has got it all."

And so it goes if you're a little romantic about parts of your life. The harshness of the real world has always got a long hatpin and I can't seem to keep it away from my bubbles. I think I was born with a loaded bubble wane in my back pocket.

How does a church culture get formed? It starts with the Holy Spirit planting a seed in someone's heart. Whether it grows into a home church or into a worldwide movement no one knows when the seed gets planted. That seed has to be protected, nurtured, encouraged (watered), and watched over. If it was the Holy Spirit's seed something will happen — something wonderful. If it was just your heart's desire that's okay too. There's nothing wrong about wanting great things for the Kingdom.

Discernment is only learned by application of the words/visions and finding out, over time, if what one was seeing/hearing was from Him. One can only miss if we don't try to walk on the water. Whatever one does, we know He so greatly loves us.

This is MY list of things that stir ME. (It's a random list.)

1. I would like to be a part of a church that was always working at ways to be understood by the guy on the street. This guy/gal could read our signs, messages, or hear us talk and he/she would know what we were saying without needing a Christian-to-English pocket translation.

2. Since culture has moved on from a Modern worldview to a Postmodern one how can I work with God at this time in history? A growing need will be for some churches that speak and live as disciples of Jesus, surrounded by postmodern culture, yet not trying to mold themselves into postmodern churches.

3. ... (pausing to think, listen, dream)

Go make yourself a list...

GET SPIRITUAL <---> post 1

2005-11-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to stop myself from breaking into teaching about the difference in being spiritual or religious. Right in the middle of a perfectly good give and take conversation someone says a phrase packed with religious verbage and I want to... give a lecture about the difference. It would change nothing. I would feel the worst for saying it.

Maybe instead I will spend my energy with things like: being real with people, be honest, work to listen to what their heart is saying,... Maybe make a reply that has some wisdom and could be spiritual useful.