Moving??

I haven't been totally happy with blogspot so for now I've moved to the following sight. There is still a question as to whether this will be permanent, but for now testing the waters is in full swing.

North Portland Bible College

This afternoon Linda and I attended the 25th Anniversary Celebration of North Portland Bible College. NPBC is a community-based, inter-denominational, evangelical school with classes offered primarily in the evenings to accommodate employed students. It offers both an associate degree program and four certificate programs. The board, faculty and student body at NPBc are multi-ethnic and multi-denominational. Course content often provides a foundation for racial and religious reconciliation and positive cross-cultural relationships.

The amazing thing is that this small inner-city Bible College has been providing an excellent education for those who often times for multiple reasons a unable to attend other learning institutions. NPBC has trained and equipped literally hundreds of men and women for kingdom ministry. This is a school has served with excellence in the midst of adversity, both physical and financial, serving as a model for what God can with limited resources.

I viewed a video presentation of testimonies from various individuals who had been served by what NPBC offers, who now serve the kingdom of God across the globe. It was just amazing to see what God had done over 25 years with mostly volunteer people and resources. Linda and I were blessed to share in this wonderful celebration. They are looking forward to a wonderful future as God continues to bless.

In addition to all this, I have the privilege of Teaching New Testament this 2007-2008 school year at this beacon of light. I am so looking forward to what the Lord will do in this segment of my journey with Him.

The Jena 6

After viewing the clip below regarding the Jena 6 on a couple of blogs, Rick's and Jamie's, I thought it worthy of posting here as well and deal in a positive way with my anger. There are several other clips available at You Tube regarding this situation.



There is also an online petition you might want to sign after viewing the video clips.

Than, lets remember we still have work to do in regard to race and reconciliation.

The Shack

I just finished reading The Shack by William P. Young. I've had it on my shelf for a while always with the intention of reading it soon. I started it twice but because its not unusual to be reading several books (3-5) at the same time, I'm not always prompt in reading the entirety of a single volume. I was nearly a third of the way through when my daughter Joy came to me asking if I had a good book she could read. Involved with a couple of other books at that moment I loaned her my copy of The Shack. Having some real spiritual depth to her I wanted her opinion before I finished it myself.

Finding it difficult to put down, she finished it quickly and gave it to her husband Matt. He finished it in short order and approached me asking if I had finished reading it. I reminded him than my copy was in his possession. Thrusting my copy which was in his hand at me he said, "hurry up and finish it, I want to talk. This might be the best book I've read." The interesting thing was that he was not the first to say those words; several others had voiced the same thing.

I also gave the book my son James who reads extensively and writes a bit occasionally. So impressed by the book, he ordered a dozen copies to give away. I have another friend who has given 36 copies out. And this book has yet to be released to the public. You can order copies of The Shack at on the book's website.

Its not the best book I've read, but definitely on my Top 10 List. I do agree with Eugene Peterson's blurb on the front cover; "This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his."

There are many good elements to this book, but preeminent is the picture it paints of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit working with and in one person's life in the midst of great tragedy. A fresh perspective of the Godhead that is authentic, real and engaging. I believe the narrative and truths therein will be welcomed by many within contemporary culture. I'll probably say more about this wonderful book later.

missio Dei Group

I recently met a new friend Dan Steigerwald who with his wife Ann and their two daughters moved to Portland a year ago from the Netherlands. His heart is to network and develop partnerships that will send healthy Christ-centered leaders and teams who will start missional initiatives and churches in the urban centers of the Pacific Northwest.

To start he has invited several individuals from the Portland/Vancouver area who have a similar passion to join a Missio Group. Linda and I have been invited to join Missio. As Dan describes it, Missio will be a face to face learning community that gathers regularly to stimulate each participant’s natural missional engagement with their neighborhood, workplace(s) and social network. The format envisaged is a weekly small group experience over three or four months involving conversations about how we might join Jesus in the missio Dei (mission of God) within our contexts. This includes discussions about how to apprentice disciples in their “missional formation.” Attention is also given to thoughtful interaction over how we might help seed a misional DNA within existing and new churches. It is hoped that Missio might become a proto-type for a group learning experience that is reproducible within local churches and other expressions of Christ-centered community around Portland.

The following are some of the questions we will be discussing.

What does it mean to be “missional” and why it matters?
How might we “live prophetically” in our context?
What does it take to make friends with those who’ve yet to know Christ?
What does incarnational living look like in practice?
What does evangelism look like and what is the message we speak/live?
Why Christianize everything when there’s already great waves to catch?
What is “time-banking” and how does it foster community?
How does spiritual formation relate to missional church?
What does it look like to be creatively missional?
How do we form and link local communities for maximum missional impact?
What have we learned and how can we pass it on?

To say I'm excited is somewhat of an understatement. These are questions that not only need to be asked, but also wrestled with, and than applied for the sake of the missio Dei.

Worship As Evangelism

I came across an article on Allelon's website written by Sally Morgenthaler who in 1995 wrote Worship Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers into the Presence of God. I read her book while still a pastor in a conventional church setting, and encouraged many to read it, because her insights connecting worship to evangelism were extremely insightful.

As I remember, the focus of the book was making conventional church worship more evangelistic; that worship and evangelism go together rather than being separate elements. The result would be another means for presenting the gospel to the un-churched, without compromising the nature and purpose of worship informed by Scripture.

The article titled Worship As Evangelism was originally published in the May/June 2007 issue of Rev! Magazine. What was so striking concerning the article was her transition away from much of what she proposed in her book due to the fact it might have contributed or at least aided in the creation of "worship driven subculture," with the excuse not to do the hard (dirty) work of evangelism. There was idea among some that one could remain inside the walls of a worship center participating in contemporary worship and simultaneously fulfill their evangelistic responsibilities. Worship now becomes the attractional tool for evangelism to occur. Her study revealed that "worship evangelism" type of Sunday worship experience had not attracted to any significant degree the unchurched to enter the church. The article chronicles some of her research regarding the impact of the Worship Evangelism emphasis of the 1990s on the American Church Sunday morning worship service.

The end result might have been a reaffirmation to the conventional church that worship is about where you go and who you worship with rather than what you do and who are 24/7.

Here are a couple of paragraphs in the article I find both refreshing and encouraging.

Conference organizers were confused. They wondered what had happened to me. Where was the worship evangelism warrior? Where was the formula? Where was the pep talk for all those people who were convinced that trading in their traditional service for a contemporary upgrade would be the answer? I don't have to tell you this. The 100-year-old congregation that's down to 43 members and having a hard time paying the light bill doesn't want to be told that the "answer" is living life with the people in their neighborhoods. Relationships take time, and they need an attendance infusion now.

I understood their dilemma, and secretly, I wished I had a magic bullet. But I didn't. And I wasn't going to give them false hope. Some newfangled worship service wasn't going to save their church, and it wasn't going to build God's kingdom. It wasn't going to attract the strange neighbors who had moved into their communities or the generations they had managed\ to ignore for the last 39 years.

What I believe Sally is saying; that true Worship Evangelism is relational engagement with friends and neighbors that involves more time than a once a week hour to hour and a half worship service. It is a commitment of time spent with those individuals we want to see enter into a transformation encounter with the One who is the Savior of the world.

Her closing paragraph in article is worth hearing and pondering:

I am currently headed further outside my comfort zones than I ever thought I could go. I am taking time for the preacher to heal herself. As I exit the world of corporate worship, I want to offer this hope and prayer. May you, as leader of your congregation, have the courage to leave the "if we build it, they will come" world of the last two decades behind. May you and the Christ-followers you serve become worshippers who can raise the bar of authenticity, as well as your hands. And may you be reminiscent of Isaiah, who, having glimpsed the hem of God's garment and felt the cleansing fire of grace on his lips,cried, "Here am I, send me."

I commend the article to you.

40th Wedding Anniversary

Well today the love of my life and I completed 40 years together as husband and wife. One of the more striking features of this day, was the realization that time has passed quickly. It seemed like yesterday when two kids really too young to recognize what they were entering into joined their hearts to voice several "I do's" and began a life journey together.

A journey that has involved multiple ups and downs, a lot of "in sickness and in heal, for better and for worse, in good times and bad," along with four children and ten grandchildren (and counting).

So thankful to the Lord for a life-partner who is a great encourager and supporter, who is both stronger, and wiser than I. A woman who is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. The longer I share life with her, the better it is, and the more my love grows. I love her so much more now than I did back in 1967.

Maybe the greatest feature of this day, is a renewed awareness of how blessed I am - 40 years marked by God's grace and love.