I started reading Sonia Sotomayor: The True American Dream this weekend. It was 
written by Antonia Felix, who doesn’t hide her admiration for the 111th Supreme Court Justice.
So far, I’ve read about her mother’s impoverished beginnings in Puerto Rico, and Celine’s style of mothering. A great story of upward mobility through hard work and education.
I’m looking forward to learning about Sonia developed her values and lived them out.
I just started reading Deep Church by Jim Belcher. Belcher is a pastor, a trained theologian, and friend to the Emerging Church movement. His book tries to bring all of his backgrounds together in proposing a new (or, really, old/basic/classic) form of ecclesiology. His book is for those who aren’t completely happy with traditional church OR the Emergent movement. As I read this book, I wonder about things like
I’m still reading Stephen L Carter’s novel, Palace Council, which is set in African-American circles during the Civil Rights Movement and the growing distrust of government that culminated with Watergate. Carter’s clever and engaging writing makes me wonder . .
Christian hope is not built on “hoping” something good will happen in the future. The power of our hope is its foundation on what God has done in the past and is doing right now.
In my meditation this morning, I was struggling for hope and felt God pointing me to Ephesians 1:15-23. This is Paul’s prayer for the church at Ephesus. For Paul, a church’s strength is determined by its manifestation of faith, hope and love. Ephesians doesn’t quite measure up, for in verse 15, he can commend them for only faith and love.
So we would expect that Paul’s prayer for them would ask God give to give them hope — which he does in verse 18. But notice that when Paul asks God to give them hope, he does not ask God to inspire them with pictures of will happen in the future. Instead, he asks God to let them see what they are right now (God’s inheritance), what God has done for them (the resurrection and gift of the Spirit) and what God is doing for them (making Christ head over all things for the benefit of the church.)
When I realized this in terms of “hoping” for a job, I started to list what God is doing in me right now that gives me confidence of his financial provision. I about blew about my pen, I was writing so fast! Before I caught my breath, I was up to twelve significant ways in which God is making His person — and making an employable person.
I just finished The Strategically Small Church. I hope I get the opportunity to work through this book with a local congregation sometime.
O’Brien says the title refers to a change of attitude from “we’re just a small church” to “we’re a strategically small church. This involves leaving behind the theology of scarcity (noticing all the things we don’t have) and embracing a theology of abundance (claiming the strengths that God has blessed us with).
Here are the strengths that most small churches have:
Of course, being small doesn’t make these automatically happen. But churches that will abandon mega-church envy and set out to cultivate these strengths will add much to Christ’s kingdom.
Brandon J. O’Brien quotes Tom Sine who estimates that those born in the 1930s spent 30% of one income on a mortgage; those born in the 1980’s need 50% of two incomes to support buying a house.
I remember that my parents bought a house in the 1960s on just my father’s income. Jan 
& I are struggling to make a house payment on just (her) one income right now, and we have to dip into savings every month to make ends meet. I know several families that have two incomes and still can’t buy a house.
Does anybody have a solution for this? Some of it is learning to live in smaller houses again. You look at houses built in the 1950’s and they are the size of just the great room of many homes built in the 1990s. But maybe people of faith are finding other ways of responding to this crisis, as well.
As long as I can remember, many local congregations have made a priority of the Ephesians 4 ministry of “equipping the saints.” Unfortunately, most of us artificially restricted what we equipped people for. Mostly, we just equipped folks for doing church activities that can be done in a church building on Sunday morning.
The Strategically Small Church suggests that a strength of the smaller church is the ability to equip people for ministry. But Brandon J O’Brien turns the definition of “equipping” around. Noticing that people are in church for only 3 hours a week; but at work for 40-50. What if that dictated what we equipped people for?
What if we equipped people not only for what they do in the 3 hours of church time, but also equipped them to live effective Christian lives for the 50 hours they were at work?
I read in my favorite blog that the richest American’s now earn almost a quarter of American income, making us worse in economic distribution than the Banana Republics of Central America.
This distresses me for two reasons: #1, I’m not one of America’s richest (and this does bias everyone who writes on this topic).
#2 The church seems to favor tax laws and economic “realities” that increase this disparity. We seem to forget that many of the laws of the Law were designed to foster economic equality, and that the Old Testament prophets condemned policies which helped the rich get richer at the expense of the poor.
I’m not sure what the solution is, but I wish the church would say louder “this is a problem.”
(Just for the record, I’m free-market oriented and think people who work hard and smart deserve good incomes. What makes me nervous is the sense I get from people that its OK for CEOs to receive 530 times the income of the average worker of their companies.)
Someone asked me today about my job search.
I don’t have any realistic expectations of landing a ministry job before the first of the year. That realization this week re-focused my job search and surfaced my first real trepidation.
The new focus for the job hunt seeks a seasonal job in the retail world. For instance, it would be fun to work for Borders during the holiday season. I would enjoy selling books, and it would give me some helpful experience in (and insight from) customer service.
The trepidation is this: I’m starting to see the end of our savings come quite plainly in view. Or I can put it this way: for this week, the reality of our limited finances hit me more powerfully than the possibility of regular employment.
In the midst of this God used Psalm 66 twice this week to remind me to remember all he has done for me in the past.
I found a dynamite quote in The Strategically Small Church in my reading this afternoon.
O’Brien quotes Jim Belcher, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church as saying, “synergy between the people’s heart and the pastor’s heart” produces church activity that changes lives.
Can you imagine the excitement about a church planning retreat that focused on finding the point where the passion of the pastor’s heart and the member’s heart flowed together to touch people for Jesus?
Everyone who pastors a church smaller than 500 people owes it to themselves to read Brandon O’Brien’s The Strategically Small Church. He believe in church growth — just that healthy churches plant other churches, rather than continuously growing larger.
In his chapter on “The Nimble Church,” he commends this mentality for small churches: “We won’t run a program unless we are particularly gifted and equipped to run it or unless no one else is doing it.” Most churches of about 100 people feel the pressure to break this rule in two ways: you have to run every program that “all churches are supposed to have,” even though they are not gifted to do so. So they struggle to have a youth group, VBS, and big worship team even though they don’t have people with the ability to lead those programs, and even though three churches down the road are doing the same programs, only much better.
O’Brien’s solution is simple: do what you do well, or what no one else is doing, and cooperate with other churches on everything else. I know of two churches in a nearby town that sit across the street from each other (but are from different denominations). One does well at VBS, the other does well at a Harvest Party outreach program. Rather than competing, they cooperate. This allows each church to do what it does well, and to contribute to God’s kingdom with other congregations.
