Lord, Please Have Mercy
I've felt the need to express my emotion concerning the devastation on the Gulf Coast. But what to say? It's overwhelming.

Lord, show us what to do if we can do anything.
Have mercy on those who are in the midst of this.
posted by Jimmy at 8:26 PM | |

 
My Beautiful Children:




More Pics Here.
posted by Jimmy at 10:09 PM | |

 
Meeting Tonight

We'll be meeting tonight at St. Patricks again. It's a good place. We like it. We'll meet at 6:30. We're gonna do the translation activity that Jimmy's been preparing for us tonight. So come tonight. It'll be fun.

St. Patricks is on 81st Street just east of Highway 169, on the north side of the street. You can't miss it.
posted by Stephen at 11:08 AM | |

 

Thanks to that guy at Spinsouth for the link:

The Way of the Master is to grab a camera and harass people by making them answer your questions about God and what horrible people they are until they either become irate with you or, realizing that you're never going to shut up, tacitly say, "Yeah... that's something interesting to think about" with the hopes that you'll be a sucker enough to really believe that they're going to go home and think long and hard about your overly simplistic questions and manipulative dialogue.

Socrates you ain't.
posted by Stephen at 7:10 PM | |

 
Why Words Matter
"Grammar goes deep, and grammar shapes conception, even perception.
--Thomas De Zengotita in his book Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It

The word "church." My wife calls me a legalist about the subject. Just about every comment left by Blake for the past month or so has made light of the importance that some of us put on words. So why does it matter to me?

Disclaimer: The views expressed below are held solely by the poster and do not necessarily reflect those of the rest of liquidthinking. Happy?

So, why does it matter? If DeZengotita is right (and there is ample evidence, in our media saturated culture, that he is), then it matters immensely. What words we use to describe our relationship to Christ shape the way we view them and the way we respond to those views.

But is DeZengotita correct? I recently watched a Frontline documentary by Douglas Rushkoff called "The Persuaders" about the advertising industry, and how their techniques are extending out into other areas, like politics. They specifically talk about consultant Frank Luntz, who many credit as being one of the chief engineers of the Republican takeover of Congress back in 1994, and, most recently, has advised the Republicans on everything from tax policy to the military. What does Luntz focus most heavily on? Words. Remember the recent flap about the overturning of the estate tax? For years, most people supported an estate tax. Luntz encouraged Republicans, who fought for its repeal, to begin calling it the "death tax." Within months, the tax went from having the support of the majority of Americans to being opposed by over 70%. The War in Iraq? Not if you listen to Luntz. It's "the War on Terror." Global Warming is now "climate change." Does it matter? Aren't they talking about the same thing? Yes and no. In details, you may be talking about the same thing, but the words you use reflect everything from how you perceive the circumstances around that topic to your philosophical approach to responding to it. Especially in a media-dominated culture, words are of extreme importance.

So why make a big deal about the word "church." Because use of that word, as with any other word, brings with it all the baggage and connotation that hundreds of years of use has built up.

I began writing an extensive history of the word, but this post is already long, and here's the point: At some time in it's history, the term became bastardized... removed from its theologically and historically proper meaning.

"Where do you go to church?" "When is church?" "Why didn't you go to church today?" "When will you become a member of the church?"

All of these, in their very use of the word, display a fundamental lack of understanding of what the church is (assuming that it's a place you go and, ergo, that there is another place where you can go to get away from it... or that there is a time when it starts and stops... or that it's actually something that, as a Christian, you can choose not to engage in... or that you have to actually do something other than be a child of God to be "in the club"). Ultimately, it leads to one of the biggest problems in the American church today: compartmentalization. I have my sacred life and my secular life. I have my "Christian" friends and my regular friends. Finally, and most unfortunately, there is the "church" me and the regular me.

Is all of this the necessary outcome? Perhaps not, but it's difficult to deny that your words do betray your perspective on things more often than we'd like. For me, the understanding of what it truly means to be part of the church was life-changing. I felt as if I, at one time, had been a divided person, but was now whole. I didn't need to have a "church" Stephen and a regular Stephen. There was just me. At the same time, it made me take my role as part of the church more seriously. If the church is my identity, not a place I go, then what I do every day matters. And I'm not talking about in that phony-balony "don't want to make others stumble" way. I mean that what I do every day can now be an act of worship (and don't get me started on the way we've shredded the meaning behind THAT word).

Personally, it doesn't sound at all unreasonable when someone else suggests using other words besides "church" or "Christian" which are so loaded with unnecessary baggage. Their use may be utilitarian, but when I say those words, other people hear things that I do not intend. So I guess you could say that it makes me a legalist. I choose to think that it's because of my desire to be an effective communicator.

Oh, okay... and it's fun to rattle the cage sometimes.

posted by Stephen at 7:03 PM | |

 
Farewell to the Rapture
(N.T. Wright, Bible Review, August 2001.)


The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears puzzling, even bizarre[1]. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based: that there will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” This pseudo-theological version of Home Alone has reportedly frightened many children into some kind of (distorted) faith.

This dramatic end-time scenario is based (wrongly, as we shall see) on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, where he writes: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

What on earth (or in heaven) did Paul mean?

It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event[2]. The gospel passages about “the Son of Man coming on the clouds” (Mark 13:26, 14:62, for example) are about Jesus’ vindication, his “coming” to heaven from earth. The parables about a returning king or master (for example, Luke 19:11-27) were originally about God returning to Jerusalem, not about Jesus returning to earth. This, Jesus seemed to believe, was an event within space-time history, not one that would end it forever.

The Ascension of Jesus and the Second Coming are nevertheless vital Christian doctrines[3], and I don’t deny that I believe some future event will result in the personal presence of Jesus within God’s new creation. This is taught throughout the New Testament outside the Gospels. But this event won’t in any way resemble the Left Behind account. Understanding what will happen requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.

The New Testament, building on ancient biblical prophecy, envisages that the creator God will remake heaven and earth entirely, affirming the goodness of the old Creation but overcoming its mortality and corruptibility (e.g., Romans 8:18-27; Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17, 66:22). When that happens, Jesus will appear within the resulting new world (e.g., Colossians 3:4; 1 John 3:2).
Paul’s description of Jesus’ reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21: At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. This is all that Paul intends to say in Thessalonians, but here he borrows imagery—from biblical and political sources—to enhance his message. Little did he know how his rich metaphors would be misunderstood two millennia later.

First, Paul echoes the story of Moses coming down the mountain with the Torah. The trumpet sounds, a loud voice is heard, and after a long wait Moses comes to see what’s been going on in his absence.

Second, he echoes Daniel 7, in which “the people of the saints of the Most High” (that is, the “one like a son of man”) are vindicated over their pagan enemy by being raised up to sit with God in glory. This metaphor, applied to Jesus in the Gospels, is now applied to Christians who are suffering persecution.

Third, Paul conjures up images of an emperor visiting a colony or province. The citizens go out to meet him in open country and then escort him into the city. Paul’s image of the people “meeting the Lord in the air” should be read with the assumption that the people will immediately turn around and lead the Lord back to the newly remade world.

Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord are not to be understood as literal truth, as the Left Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere.

Paul’s misunderstood metaphors present a challenge for us: How can we reuse biblical imagery, including Paul’s, so as to clarify the truth, not distort it? And how can we do so, as he did, in such a way as to subvert the political imagery of the dominant and dehumanizing empires of our world? We might begin by asking, What view of the world is sustained, even legitimized, by the Left Behind ideology? How might it be confronted and subverted by genuinely biblical thinking? For a start, is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God’s world on the grounds that it’s all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn’t this be overturned if we recaptured Paul’s wholistic vision of God’s whole creation?
posted by the fly at 9:36 AM | |

 

I really like this site: dyingchurch.com
Be sure to read this: http://www.dyingchurch.com/about.htm
posted by Jimmy at 8:57 PM | |

 
Randomness

• Interesting post by Dan Kimball.
• I've heard this twice in the past two weeks: "Perception is reality." Thoughts?
• Ford and IBM provided goods for the Nazis. Should corporations (recognized in the U.S. as persons) have consequences imposed on them for such actions?
  
• Every week 150,000 people die in Africa from preventable causes according to Doctor's Without Borders.
  
• This article was a very key item in my teaching at Metro this year.
• The leader of a very well known urban missions program here in Tulsa told me that maybe 5-10% of the organization's support comes from churches.
  

posted by Jimmy at 8:48 PM | |

 
Andrew Jones, Barna, and Emerging Trends
If what Andrew Jones says concerning Barna's book is true, it sounds like a good read (or recommendation to your local pastors):

George Barna's book “Revolution” arrived a few days ago - advance copy - thanks David Robinson - and I have read it a few times. Its not a large book at all - light, short, to the point, and unfortunately lacking in references to other books or researchers. More cul-de-sac than connection-hub. But what he says could indeed be considered revolutionary, it certainly is a change of strategy for him, and it will be for many ministers and leaders who read the book. Especially the part about followers of Jesus who progress spiritually WITHOUT going to a local congregation - a group of people that will grow from 30% to around 70% in the next 20 years, making the FRINGE Christians the MAJORITY, and giving churches a good reason to rethink the next building program, and Seminaries to rethink their aggressive recruiting strategies.
Well, actually, those repercussions are mine, not Barna's. But his book informed them. And Barna does a good job in softening the blow to the traditional church with gentleness and honor, while at the same time giving a case for the necessity of other forms (housechurch/simplechurch, cyberchurch, family-faith, emergent, postmodern, mini-movements, etc).

Of course, the kicker is that Barna's book will no doubt seem "ground-breaking" even though so many have seen and felt these trends for years. I can't wait for all the "home church" programs to begin to be franchised in Church™...so much easier to copy someone's model than figure out your own context, community, and call (how do you like those 3 c's?).
posted by Jimmy at 4:50 PM | |

 



Pray for Jordon
God, please have mercy on this man and his family. Bring him healing...make his body whole. Give him a long life of loving and serving You, his family, and others.

Update:
Jordon's wife Wendy writes :
"Spent a couple hours at Royal University Hospital while they did a series of tests on Jordon. The results are very, very bad. Jordon’s nervous system is breaking down. We had to face the possibility today that he won’t survive this. It’s a bad day."
posted by Jimmy at 8:11 PM | |

 

Monday Night
Ok...so maybe we should just follow Mark's lead from his group in Michigan and say that something (some thing?) meets on Monday night at 6:30 pm?

We're still looking at the transmission of the Christian Scriptures to us. We'll continue with variants in the MSS (both unintentional and intentional) and begin looking at the various principles scholars use in attempting to get as close to possible to an early source. We'll be meeting at our house in Broken Arrow.

Files for this week: Transmission Errors and Principles of Textual Criticism
posted by Jimmy at 7:04 PM | |

 
Well, well...OS X runs faster on a PC

Interesting article (definitely follow the article links for more info) detailing the new hacked version of Mac's OS X called OSx86 that runs on PC boxes...faster than it does on a Mac platform.

But, gee whiz, I'd rather pay way more to be fashionable than run it on a PC...
posted by Jimmy at 3:27 PM | |

 

Tisha B'Av

Today is Tisha B'Av in the Jewish world--the ninth of Av on the Jewish calendar. It is a day of mourning and fasting. It just so happens that several tragedies have happened to the Jewish people on this day. The first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians on the 9th of Av in 586 B.C.E. Herods Temple, the second Temple, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. on this day. The Bar Kochba rebellion was crushed in 135 B.C.E. on Tisha B'Av. In 1290 King Edward I signed an edict compelling the Jews to leave England, and on this day in 1492 the Jews were forced from Spain. The outbreak of World War I took place on Tish B'Av, which many Jews consider to begin a long period of suffering for them (marked by pogroms and mass executions in Russia, Poland, and other Eastern European countries) that culminated with the Holocaust of World War 2. On the eve of Tisha B'Av 1942, the mass deportation began of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, en route to Treblinka. (Of course, many modern settlers in Israel also find it to be no coincidence that the withdrawal from of the Gaza Strip is scheduled for this week starting today.)

Interestingly, well before many of the modern tragedies, the rabbis held that Tish B'Av was marked as a day of tragedy for the Jewish people by God because of the Israelites' refusal to enter the Promised Land on the 9th of Av in Numbers 13-14. According to the Talmud, God declared: "You wept without cause; I will therefore make this an eternal day of mourning for you." (B. Ta'an, 29a)

As part of the commemoration of this day, from sunset on the 8th of Av to the appearing of the stars in the evening of the 9th, practicing Jews (if their health permits) fast from both food and water, taking baths, shaving, or wearing makeup. They even fast from studying Torah. It is a day of mourning--they do no ordinary work and keep themselves from smiling, laughing, and idle conversation. The book of Lamentations is read in the synagogue and the prayers of mourning are recited.

During this time Jewish people are also encouraged in their remembrance of suffering to also think about its causes, spurring them to consider how they can work towards tikun olam...the repairing of the world. Many Jewish materials from the medieval Period maintain that the Messiah would be born on this day.

Mourners Kaddish
Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

posted by Jimmy at 9:18 AM | |

 
Ghandi Was Amazing
"I am asking you to fight...to fight against the anger, not to provoke it. We will not strike a blow, but we will receive them. And through our pain we will make them see injustice. And it will hurt...as all fighting hurts. But we cannot lose. We cannot. They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then, they will have my dead body...not my obedience." --Ghandi
posted by Jimmy at 1:25 PM | |

 
Interesting Note About Myself:

people always remember me as being taller than myself, and then they are shocked to remember how short i am.
posted by Jimmy at 1:05 PM | |

 

15 Tony Campolo Talks on MP3

Some great stuff here to download and listen to. They're available in MP3 format. The one on church is powerful...as a lot of them are, of course.
posted by Jimmy at 10:31 AM | |

 
Holiness, Schmoliness
at John Frye's Blog

http://jesustheradicalpastor.blogspot.com/2005/08/jesus-scandalous-pastor.html
posted by Jimmy at 10:20 AM | |

 
Recommendations
Hey, a good friend of mine sent me an I-tunes gift certificate for $20 for my birthday (isn't that a great gift?)...are there any recommendations on what songs to purchase? I'm looking to expand my music horizons a bit.
posted by Jimmy at 8:13 PM | |

 
Note:
As of right now, I will be teaching at Metro this year.
posted by Jimmy at 10:38 PM | |

 
A Couple of Links

here and here

Discuss.
posted by Jimmy at 10:35 PM | |

 


Email me if you need directions. It's an all ages show, but, of course, you don't get the beer if you're "all ages." Let's pack the place out with all 4 of you in the area that read this.
posted by Stephen at 7:00 PM | |

 
History: A Christian Invention
Recently, someone alerted me to the presence of a group of (let's be honest) nutcase Christians hoping to get enough like-minded people to move to South Carolina so that they can secede from the union and re-establish "Constitutional government based on Christian principles."

One of my first reactions (other than the typical "What the CRAP are these people thinking?") was excitement... that I can't wait to show this to my U.S. history students as an example of how history is mainly about ideas, and, somehow, the same competing ideas that we fought over in the Civil War haven't gone away.

Most everyone I've told about this group has brushed them off. And my inclination is to do the same. I mean, they're obviously nuts, right?

But I think about the current national dialogue and the role that evangelicals are playing in it, and sometimes I wonder...

-With so many Christians equating cultural and philosophical traditions (like "limited government" and "property rights") with "Biblical Christianity"
-With so many Christians seeking to justify their religious/political rhetoric with distorted, fragmented historical arguments (such as the fashionable appeal to the "Christian heritage" of our nation's founders)
-With so many Christians having trouble believing that people with political differences from them can even serve the same God (one church in North Carolina even excommunicated people from fellowship because they voted for John Kerry in the last election)

...I wonder if such possibilities are really that remote. All it would really take is enough people to get inflamed enough by the political rhetoric to act, albeit in a pretty dramatic way, on their convictions. Is this so difficult to imagine? Have we become so apathetic in the status quo to think that people today wouldn't be capable of such an act? Some people today are willing to strap explosives to themselves and walk into a crowded market because of their religious/cultural beliefs. One might even argue that our nation's founding tended toward the dramatic. In the "grand scheme", is it really that great of a sacrifice to sell your house and move to another state to be counted as "one more vote"?

What if the religious right was responsible for starting a second War Between the States?
posted by Stephen at 9:29 PM | |

 

Monday Night
We're continuing our look at the history of the Scriptures. We're moving on to the history of the New Testament writings.

There are around 5,500 manuscripts (MSS) of the New Testament...many are partial fragments, some are complete codices, the majority date to after 1,000 A.D. Among the 5,500 MSS there are 100,000 variants (or differences) and no single manuscript is the same as any other. What this all means is the topic of Monday's discussion. We'll be meeting at St. Patrick's again. Prayer service from the Book of Common prayer is at 6:30pm. Study should begin about 7:00pm

Files for Monday: Errors and Variants in Scribal Transmission and a Gospel Variants List.

Image is a page from Codex Sinaiticus, 4th Century
posted by Jimmy at 10:13 PM | |

 
liquidthinking is officially located in Tulsa
Mark is back from Michigan, Andy is back from Nashville. I guess Stephen and I could move now...
posted by Jimmy at 6:33 PM | |

 
Poverty in the U.S. - 2003
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html

Addendum:
The stats from the report show that in 2003 the official poverty rate in the U.S. was 12.5%. An estimated 35.9 million Americans are living in poverty. The poverty rate for children under 18 in 2003 was 17.6%. The share of aggregate income received by the lowest 20 percent of households had a slight reduction – from 3.5 percent to 3.4 percent.

In terms of ethnicity, 8.2% of white Americans were in poverty in 2003, 24.4% of African Americans, 11.8% of Asians, and 22.5% of Hispanics. Median household incomes broke down as $47,800 for whites, $29,600 for African Americans, $55,700 for Asians, and $33,000 for Hispanics.

Interestingly, real median household income has increased from $33,300 in 1967 to $43,300 in 2003...a 30% increase of $10,000 per household in almost 40 years (this number factors in the inflation rate from '67 to '03 which was 452.28%). In terms of income comparisons from the 2003 census, the breakdown looks like this: (for a chart click here)

Lowest 20%: Household income, $18,000 or less, 3.4% shares of overall income
Second 20%: $18,000 to $34,000, 8.7% share of overall income
Third 20%: $34,000 to $54,500, 14.8% share of overall income
Fourth 20%: $54,500 to $86,900, 23.4% share of overall income
Highest 20%: $86,900 and higher, 49.8% share of overall income

In essence, the highest 20% earned a little less than the entire other 80% of the American population.

In terms of health insurance, the "net result was that 15.6 percent of the population, or 45.0 million people, were without health insurance coverage in 2003, up from 15.2 percent in 2002.

So What?
I agree with Federal Reserve chairperson, Alan Greenspan, when he says "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history." There's no doubt that the standard of living and economic opportunities for the majority of Americans far out-weighs most of the world. However, there may be reason to be alarmed at the growing disparity between "rich and poor". When addressing a Joint Economic Committee in Congress in June, Greenspan pointed out that the lower 80% did not see a growth in income while the upper 20% did, and then commented, "As I've often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing." It's worth noting that Greenspan isn't normally the kind of guy that "liberal" economists qoute as someone on their side.

According to Greenspan, the issue is really one of education, pointing out that U.S. children test above world averages at a 4th grade level, but lower than world averages by their senior year. As a teacher I whole heartedly agree that our current educational system doesn't do much to foster a desire for learning, so it is no surprise that the above statistics are true. Many American students are driven to succeed by parents, teachers, coaches, etc. in all the areas that are measurable (grades, test scores, AP exams, wins-losses) but not essential...and the essentials (the ability to think, reason, work through a problem, and a desire to learn) fall to the wayside.

If Greenspan is right, I think it simply confirms what many have known for a long time: the best thing we can do in combating poverty in our own country (and around the world) is develop new and creative methods for education--making sure that those in the lower income brackets are offered the same educational opportunities as those in the upper brackets. Equality and progress in education lends itself to equality and progress in culture. However, how many groups of Christians (including those I am involved in) are willing to expend the time, effort, and assets to create these new educational ventures? It is so much easier to simply give away the hand-me-downs and do short term missions.
posted by Jimmy at 7:08 PM | |

 

posted by Jimmy at 7:15 PM | |

 

An Invitation From MonkInTraining
Terry sent some of us this note:

Hey Guys. I know some of you are interested in Benedictine spirituality, others may not be, but it is a local event, so I thought I would pass this along. I am certainly planning on going! Lots of emergent people are interested in a Rule of Life, well this is how you develop one.

Please pass it on and invite anyone you might think would be interested. Any of you that are interested, please let me know and I will try to get a little group together. I thought we might meet before the speaker, then perhaps discuss it afterwards.

You are invited to hear Robert Benson, noted spiritual author and speaker. Mr. Benson's talk is entitled "The Rule of Saint-Whatever-Your-Name-Is" and will build upon the wisdom of Saint Benedict, a 6th-century Monk who used compassion and practical living to create a rule of life which included balancing prayer, rest, community, and work. This talk is presented by the Sisters of St. Joseph Monastery and is free to the public. A reception will follow in the Monastery Library.

August 14, at 2:00 PM
Malcolm Deisenroth Performing Arts Center
2206 South Lewis Avenue (on the campus of Monte Cassino School)
Tulsa, OK.

posted by Jimmy at 6:47 PM | |

 
From a Friend:

Dear God
the world runs away with my heart grasped tightly in her fist
laughing as if its some kind of joke.
i sputter and fall into that which i hated – still hate somehow
so that i hate myself, somehow,
even while i revel in the pleasures of the world:
partaking of her lusty madness and drunken dances
tasting the sensuous flavor of wantonness.

i scream at the sky and its “god” that inhibited me for so long!
where are you!? nowhere. you never were there.
id rather know you aren’t than know you at all.
meaningless is much more comforting.
death and nothing means more to me than forever.
why waste one life for another?
an eternal life is not worth giving up this one.
each individual moment i breath means more to me now than you ever will again.

i don’t care where i came from, i don’t care where i’m going!
i care that right now i love to write and breathe and think.
i care that i could make life better for them... don’t you?
no. you let them die. or rather, you cant make life better for them.
you don’t exist. not to me. not anymore.

shayna williams 6.17.2005
posted by Jimmy at 1:25 PM | |

 

Ecclesiolae
People keep asking me if I'm starting a church, or they say, "I hear you're starting a church." My typical, tongue-in-cheek-but-honest, answer is something like, "Jesus started the church, we're just expressing our part of it." Perhaps it's more like the term ecclesiolae in ecclesia used in the Pietest movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, the idea of the "small church within the big church". We already are the Church...we are believers in Christ following the way...but at this point of the journey we choose to travel together and fulfill His call on our lives together. Who knows if our time together will be long or short, quick-paced or slow-going, a motley band or throng of people--but for now we are together.

Right now our little group--our ecclesiolae--is looking at the history of the Scriptures. We're finishing up the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanak, and are going to begin looking at the Christian Scriptures. Tonight we're meeting at St. Patrick's. The evening service from the Book of Common Prayer will begin at 6:30 pm sharp and will be led by our resident Friar in training, Terry. Study will begin around 7:00 pm.

Files for tonight: Scribal Transmission and Errors of the New Testament
Files from the Hebrew Scriptures: Old Testament Textual History
posted by Jimmy at 11:38 AM | |