Archive for the 'Interact' Category

Liturgy and Lent

Published
by
Julie Hoke
on March 3, 2008
in Community, Dialogue and Interact
. 1 Comment

After weeks of using the Book of Common Prayer to shape our Lenten worship, I experienced the public meeting at Broad and Washington differently this week. I am not sure why this week was different. Perhaps I needed the repetition of the previous weeks for things to finally sink in. In the course of the evening, I finally settled in to the rhythm that comes from liturgical practice. The cycle of corporate prayer, confession, absolution, passing the peace, celebration, thanksgiving, and communion is a full circle experience. I don’t always incorporate or recognize all those aspects in the private practice of worship much less in the regular public meeting. It is a structure of worship that walks me through key elements of my relationship with God and the world.

With the discipline of liturgical worship, I spoke things that I had been too busy and distracted to speak earlier this week. I prayed with my community about this city and the world. I was gently reminded to come before the Lord with all my heart and my mind. I voiced out loud my confessions. I received the truth of God’s mercy and forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. Through touching and seeing and speaking with the people around me, I shared and received the peace of the Lord. I proclaimed the mystery of my faith. I physically and spiritually took part in the remembrance of Christ’s death.

I did all this with a community of believers in corporate worship. As I listened to the voices around me, as I moved through the crowded room trying to get to the communion table, as I felt the energy of thanksgiving as we praised together, I was filled with gratitude. I am blessed to worship with people who will try, week after week, to know God more fully through the liturgy and prayer and song and art, through Scripture and teaching and theology and communion. I love that this season of the year, this time of quietness and waiting, is marked with liturgy. Somehow, by the grace of God, the repetition each week draws us deeper into patience and unity, constancy and peace.

Old Cells Can Regenerate

Published
by
Rod White
on January 7, 2008
in Community, Dialogue and Interact
. 0 Comments

Our assumptions about the church are biotic. “Biotic” is something that relates to, is produced by, or is caused by living organisms. The church is a living organism, created the same way God called humans into existence and created everything else.

So biologists often have something to teach us about how to be the church. The scientists who study cells can really enlighten us, since the basic building blocks of our church are cells and it’s all biotic. One of the things we have been thinking about is old cells. A cell that has been together for more than nine or ten months is getting kind of old. Some of our cells have been basically the same for even longer than that. Some old cells recently died and their members have yet to re-engage. What do we do?

Bring in the scientists. Researchers have been pondering whether old cells can be rejuvenated. They know it can happen, but how? One way to do it is to introduce new cells who have an impact on the old. But they have also discovered that old cells have the capacity to rejuvenate, themselves. Here’s the quote from The Scientist magazine:

“Old cells may regain a youthful phenotype when exposed to a young cell environment, say researchers in Nature this week. The results, say the authors, indicate that aged satellite cells have an intrinsic ability to regenerate.

We know old tissue repairs poorly, but it’s not because there aren’t stem cells ready to do the repair,” coauthor Thomas Rando told The Scientist. “The problem is, with age, the environment the stem cells hit changes, [and] it makes them less responsive.”…

We don’t know what the factors are [that control cell proliferation]… It may be as important, if not more important, to remove inhibitory factors from old serum than it is to add positive factors from young serum.”

We’re not an old church, but cells and cell leaders don’t necessarily have that long to live if they don’t consider how to regenerate. One way to stay “young” is to introduce new people. Cells gain “positive factors” when “young serum” is introduced. Another way to stay “young” is when the people who are already part of the cell are activated by God’s Spirit. Cells can revive when “inhibitory factors” are removed.

Have any ideas of what are the inhibitory factors making your “old” cell deteriorate? If they are removed, you might flourish. It is not an exact science, but you could try some things.

Let me get you started on listing some common inhibitory factors and you can complete your own list:

  • Maybe you won’t talk over the problems you have with or about someone and you talked to someone else about them instead – that’s a sure killer, usually. Remove the “anti- Matthew-18-factor.”
  • Maybe you only show up part time. Remove the “ambivalence-factor.” If you are “taking a break,” remove the “I’ll-get-back-to-you-when-I-have-time-to-care-factor.”
  • Maybe God is not obviously welcomed. The Lord is hardly impolite enough to crash your party. Remove the “I’m-controlling-this-factor.”

You get the idea. Warm up those test tubes! Let’s figure out what is going on before something deadly happens, or one of our cell dies of natural causes.

ask what you will

Published
by
Robert Lairmore
on October 30, 2007
in Dialogue, Interact and Uncategorized
. 3 Comments
A man will get from life everything he asks for, because he does not ask for that which his will is not in. If a man asks wealth from life, he will get wealth, or he was playing the fool when he asked. ‘If ye abide in me.’ says Jesus, ‘and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ We pray pious blether, our will is not in it, and then we say God does not answer; we never asked him for anything. Asking means that our wills are in what we ask.

You say, ‘But I asked God to turn my life into a garden of the Lord, and there came the ploughshare of sorrow, and instead of a garden I have been given a wilderness.’ God never gives a wrong answer. The garden of your natural life had to be turned into ploughed soil before God could turn it into a garden of the Lord. He will put the seed in now. Let God’s seasons come over your soul, and before long your life will be a garden of the Lord.

As I read though this devotion by Oswald Chambers last night, I thought a lot of different things. Initially, my gut response was to be repelled by what appeared to be fuel for prosperity preaching. But after allowing my mind to wander into all of the reasons I’m repulsed by this line of teaching, I realized Chambers had something in mind much deeper.

What slowly began to sink into me was the emphasis that Chambers puts into the word ‘will’ that Jesus uses. Before, I had always read

this passage by interpreting ‘will’ as what I wanted. Chambers deepens this by transforming ‘will’ into something that’s at my inner most being. It is my passion. It is my might. We cannot expect to receive things that we do not truly want. I cannot expect to lose weight no matter how hard I pray if I have an open bag of Oreo’s in my lap.

Now this does not mean I do not ask for things that are too hard for me. No, Jesus tells us to ask, seek and knock. Another time he tells us of the man who so desperately needs bread for his newly arrived guest that he continues to pound away at his neighbors door, even though it is the middle of the night, until the other man relents. It is like Lewis’ phantom with the red lizard. We cannot expect our inner most desires to be changed with the first halfhearted and often dishonest request. But it is with this constant repetition of asking that we begin to trust that our request can be answered. Then we begin to realize that God can take our oftentimes misguided request and transform it into something that is far more beautiful than we could have initially imagined. ‘By our prayers we come to discern the [heart] of God.’

Battling Systemic Racism

Published
by
Paul Kohl
on October 10, 2007
in Community, Dialogue, Interact and Peace
. 3 Comments

Systemic Racism is on my heart. I know about it, I have been taught about the backpack of white privilege. I have seen good work in the area of reconciliation. I have made and kept specific friendships. All this adds not to my absolution but to my ability to continue the battle. Being antiracist is not a destination but a process. The process requires self analysis, social analysis, and a life with the Holy Spirit. As I get older I realize just how far we have to go, just how hard it is and just how hopeless and impotent one can feel in the face of it. Recently I was made even more aware of the power of it and have a distinct call to respond to the sin of it. The injustice of it can be quite motivating but as I get older I also see the practical limitations of it. Making a diverse team, at work in our church, is not just nice, it is powerful. If we continue to play by the rules of race, a myth, we continue to settle for less. I am tempted to think of racial reconciliation in terms of ‘wouldn’t it be nice.’ Now I see failure and lack, and I look to see that racism is at the heart of it, and not simply in the comparison of the haves with the have not but within the operational reality of our society. We all suffer not simply because it is wrong (which it is and we do) but also since we allow outward appearance to limit access to talent and disposition. All the above has been explained to me on previous occasions but now it makes more sense than ever. I may be in a position to effect change in this area at work unique to me at the present. I am excited.

The Power of Time

Published
by
Joel White
on August 16, 2007
in Community, Dialogue and Interact
. 3 Comments

Recently at my cell we had a discussion about what biblical writers refer to as “The Powers.” The term is used to refer to things in our life that actively suborn the will of God. The Bible uses this term to refer to the demonic, but also more concrete and mundane ideas. The government, money, drugs, anything other than God that claims some part of your life is a part of “The Powers.”

Money, Safety and Time were the three main powers recognized in our cell. These were all things that we are trained to consider first before considering God. Of this trinity, the greatest tyrant in my life was Time. Even as I write this, I’m thinking about how long its taking, what else I could be doing, and just how much needs to be done.

Time has somehow become just one more commodity to be spent on the things we want. It is one more item to budgeted and invested properly to ensure maximum returns. Thinking about it in this way makes it understandable why every second can be considered in terms of gains or losses. I never spent enough time on it, so now I’m no good. We try to buy quality with time. And this of course is what leads to the metronome. No matter how much time we spend attempting to create quality lives, they will always lack for something.

If time really is a commodity, then it must be like every other one in that it is of limited supply. And not only is it of a limited supply, its constantly being used up. The time it took me to hit the “period” key is a split second I will never get back. Just think of how much I lost typing this sentence! Time then becomes even more demanding because it requires constant attention. We have to find ways to appreciate it. It won’t last forever after all. It’s as if an invisible metronome were constantly clicking off the rhythm in the background of my life. A tick-tock that dictates the pace and demands that something be done.

So what do I do with these two things in mind? I attempt to get as much out of Time and of Time as I can. I don’t sleep enough, I’m never satisfied with what I accomplish when I’m awake and I feel constantly guilty that I wasted Time not making better use of my Time. The truth about time is that it is limitless. We are not slaves to Time because God has freed us from its constraints. As followers of Christ, we will live forever, making Time almost irrelevant.

Obviously how we live still has real consequences as people do die and the world will end. Thinking about time this way doesn’t mean that I can indulge endlessly in some vice, it means that I am freed to follow God in the knowledge that there are infinite days of joy ahead. What do we really sacrifice if we spend time at Cell instead of watching T.V. or reading a really good book? Not much in the long run. We are free to serve unbegrudgingly because we are the beneficiaries of an unlimited gift.

Getting Away

Published
by
Rod White
on July 6, 2007
in Community, Dialogue, Family, Interact and Partnerships
. 1 Comment

I flew and drove madly for a week for a little “vacation.” On the way out, I spoke to our lawyer in some airport (don’t you love cell phones?). On the way back, Ben called me while I was in the Phoenix airport to offer a ride home from the airport (don’t you love children?). In between I drove through Friday traffic in LA, came to a stop in Oxnard (!), drank champagne in the Firestone Vineyards, ate a Danish sandwich in Solvang, and sweated to 112-degree heat (but it is a “dry heat” they kept saying). And we saw my mother and Gwen’s parents 79, 79 and 85. It is nice to see everyone, but I don’t really miss the West.

One of the things I did miss while in the West was you. I went to an old church filled with lovely old friends last Sunday and I could not help comparing. Here’s what you have that they don’t: 1) a surprising depth of community (the cells are so important!), 2) a sense of what we’re doing together (they were just doing what they always do), 3) youth, 4) enough anarchy to let people get moving in the direction God is moving them, 5) the inspiration to develop that having more people coming through the door demands, 6) dialogue (I forgot that most churches don’t talk too much), 7) technological savvy, 8 ) lot’s of music (and many kinds of it).

It is not that the other church was “bad.” It was certainly good enough to make me thankful for what I have been given! It made me want to dash home and say “Thank you!” to every person who makes us who we are with such passion and devotion. Thanks, especially, to the Cell Leaders, Cell Leader Apprentices and each Host/ess. It is truly amazing that Jesus found 40 teams of three (presently) to extend the kingdom of God face-to-face like we do. I’m glad to be back.

Welcome to the New Site!

Published
by
Mark
on March 28, 2007
in Interact
. 3 Comments

I guess it’s official. We’re up and running!

(Bear with us as we do the final tweaks and whatnot to the design…)

If you find crazy bugs in here, let us know. Thanks!

Just about ready…

Published
by
Joshua Grace
on February 24, 2007
in Community, Dialogue and Interact
. 0 Comments

we’re just about ready to “go live” with this new site. Thanks for checking it out. Some of our functionality has gotten worked out and we’re trying to get as much of the content as possible up in the next 2 days so we can launch.
Thanks a ton to Mark Schoneveld for all his work on this! Thanks also to Justin Kay, Chris Vasquez, Paul Schoneveld, and of course NICK and JUSTIN at Martnet.

Our hope is that the new site can be used exactly like the old one, for people taking information away. The paradigm shift is that if you want, there is much more. The direction that the web seems to be moving is to where users add info to the site to help people interact virtually and get cross-pollination of lots of different kinds of folks and ideas. Obviously, face-to-face relating is what we are about and multiplying cells is how we typically do that. This site is to maybe find some more partners out there (I know there’s at least a couple thousand out of the 5million in metro Phila), and help some of the people already connected to be able to have some way of interacting together on the web.
3 of the biggest new features right now are the Google Calendar, the Flickr Group, and this blog. Sorry that taking full advantage of these features requires that we at some level bend the knee to the internet corporate giants Google, Yahoo!, and some others…as well as having several email accounts. Some of you already have 5 or 6 email accounts and 2-3 myspace profiles so it’s no big deal, but there are some out there who aren’t at that level and I want to especially let people know who don’t have all those accounts and don’t know what RSS feeds are that we have you in mind, too, while we are building these sites.
If you have a gmail* account you go to http://calendar.google.com and search for “circle of hope” or “circle venture”. This new calendar feature can help you to find out what events are going on across the network. You can view the public calendar on your own google calendar or you can check out the “what’s new” section of our site.

Mark explained the Flickr group in a previous post. Click on any of the randomly selected images to the right, here, and you can view the whole group. You need a yahoo! account to post pics to the group.

This “Interact” page will have something new pretty often (every day, or a couple times a day) once it gets going. You can look for articles or thoughts from us, with the hope that you’ll want to comment and INTERACT. I hope you can find some meaningful ways to connect.

*if you don’t have a gmail account and you would like one, they are free. Go to http://gmail.com and follow steps for “sign up for gmail.”

What Do You Think?

Published
by
Mark
on February 20, 2007
in Interact and Planning
. 17 Comments

If you’ve got comments and questions about the new site, feel free to leave comments here. Just click the “Comment” link above, and it’ll tell you what to do. Looking forward to reading your thoughts!

We’ll be fiddling with settings and colors and typeface and such for the next week or so… give us some tips!