Without further ado...

I bring you "Little Superstar." He's graced the pages of Josh Brown's blog for a couple days now, and I showed it to some guys and gals at seminary; quickly causing several of them to laugh so hard they were crying. Evidently it's of Indian Bollywood origin, but wherever it's from, it's great fun to watch. :)

In the interest of balance...

Here's the interview of George W. Bush by Matt Lauer earlier this month, where Matt asks him about the CIA secret prisons and techniques used to extract information. Watch and listen carefully to Bush's responses, and gauge if he handles the issues as upfront and as indepth as Clinton did.

Suggestion. I don't think he does. Snippets. "So what" "We're at war" "I'm protecting your family" "I won't discuss techniques because i don't want the enemy to adjust."

I'm trying (and have tried) to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. I'm just really struggling here.

Here's the link to the video for you to watch. I would urge you to take the same approach I asked of the Clinton/Wallace interview. Both Bush and Clinton responded with intensity. Did both respond with substance and integrity? Honestly now...consider what you heard.

Another development in the Clinton/Wallace interview

For those of you who are in the dark about the Chris Wallace interview of Bill Clinton on Fox News, here's a link to watch the video. Just so you know where I'm coming from, I think it was one of the most effective frontal attacks on the Fox News conservative bias I've ever seen; plus Clinton exposed Wallace for asking one set of questions to him, and another set of questions to those more conservative. I spoke fairly clearly on Jessica's blog on the same issue..

Some people call Clinton's response angry, I call it someone finally speaking their mind in a principled and consistent manner without degenerating into baseless attacks...it was pretty obvious where Wallace was going, and Clinton willingly addressed his questions. We need more of that in this country.

But, predictably, the Fox News chief Roger Ailes suggested this morning that Clinton's response was an "assault on all journalists"...trying to play the network as a victim.

Here's the link to Ailes' response.

If you're one of those folks who gets all uptight about these political discussions without taking the time to step back and look at the situation, I'd urge you to watch the interview in its entirety before commenting. The call to truly listen to a situation, work through initial emotions, and then respond as best as one can is a laudable goal to work towards. Not uncritically supporting Clinton because you're a self-identified "liberal" or uncritically slamming him because you're a self-identified "conservative." Show some layers and the ability to go deeper, and I'd love to talk.

Check out this guy!

Flying judo kick! Evidently this guy still believes he's the Man of Steel...the rest of us stopped jumping off the couch thinking we could fly at age 4.

Here's the link to the vid...from the Glass City 200...yes, Glass City. Can you already tell what this guy kicks through?

Further thoughts

I was playing pickup basketball with some guys at EMU from 12 - 1 and I found myself humming over and over a tune that I finally started paying attention to. I haven't sung, hummed, whistled, or thought about this song for awhile, but it's been sitting in my subconscious self for awhile waiting to be rediscovered. One of the best songs ever. From the best cd (the first) of a great band. I thought I'd share...I'm thinking this was a God thing, this humming, judging from what I've been thinking of recently. You could chew over this song for a lifetime...it's got layers to it. Link to the lyrics here. The additional lyrics are great as well, but I didn't want to make this post too long.

Jars of Clay "Worlds Apart"

The ridiculously awesome (and flawed) life of Bonhoeffer

Ok, so I've started "The Cost of Discipleship" (known just as "Discipleship" now, I think) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer recently, and the man is just slicing through all my layers of cynicism, self-protection, and defence mechanisms like a knife through warm butter. I'm always wary of things that sound good and get me emotionally fired up both because emotional ploys only last so long without heart change; and sometimes the "sounds good" stuff can rip the rug right out from underneath me (in a bad way)...so I try to be as objective as possible.

But just like AW Tozer, Bonhoeffer won't let me occupy this place. Both their writings pulse with life and truth, and make me want not only to be a better man and follower of Christ, but engage and embrace the hard steps of discipleship to get there. The glaring flaw of Bonhoeffer's life of seeking to assassinate Hitler (as well as his anguish in his decision-process leading up to and after his imprisonment) helps me to see him for who he was. A normal guy given an incredible opportunity at true life who pursued that life with all he was; who stumbled and fell, but had the guts and courage to get back up and keep running. Here's a longish quote from the Intro that keeps striking me...

"In the last resort, what we want to know is not, what would this or that man, or this or that Church, have of us, but what Jesus Christ himself wants of us. When we go to church and listen to the sermon, what we want to hear is his Word - and that not merely for selfish reasons, but for the sake of the many for whom the Church and her message are foreign. We have a strange feeling that if Jesus himself - Jesus alone with his Word - could come into our midst at sermon time, we should find a quite different set of men hearing the Word, and quite a different set rejecting it...the real trouble is that the pure Word of Jesus has been overlaid with so much human ballast - burdensome rules and regulations, false hopes and consolations - that it has become extremely difficult to make a genuine decision for Christ. Of course it is our aim to preach Christ and Christ alone, but, when all is said and done, it is not the fault of our critics that they find our preaching so hard to understand...it is just not true that every word of criticism directed against contemporary preaching is a deliberate rejection of Christ and proceeds from the spirit of Antichrist.

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus....They are convinced that it is not the Word of Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching. Of course we know all the answers to these objections, and those answers certainly make it east for us to slide out of our responsibilities. But perhaps it would be just as well to ask ourselves whether we do not in fact often act as obstacles to Jesus and his Word."

If you took the time to read the entire quote, the end is what strikes me so directly. I can't help but think that society for a long period of time knew they had questions and assumed they could "go to church" to find answers to those questions. However, as they pursued, they found more and more that churches often hit them with careful and well-laid-out doctrinal formulas and systematic theologies that, by hook or by crook, ended up confusing them or frustrating them. Is it possible that incrementally people have darkened the doors of churches less and less because they weren't finding space there to investigate the longings and questions of their heart? Have our three-point self-help (or process-oriented, but just as empty) sermons and black and white answers to grey questions in fact driven people away from the very places and people they should have the space to explore?


Often the interplay between Emergent worship and more rigid structures of worship centers around preaching and worship structure. I think the heart of the issue runs much deeper than that. It's not about candles, but candles can help. It's not about preaching, though active-learning models help. It's not about participatory worship, though participatory worship can help. I think it's about strategic leaders in churches pursuing Christ first and foremost, though all else would fall away. It's not about the financial or butts-in-seats or sermon type or worship structure bottom line. God is forming a people to stick by Him and depend on Him no matter what...

When people come to Middle River on Sundays for worship, do they see more Nate and less Jesus or more Jesus and less Nate? When the youth God has entrusted us with see me during the week, do they see more Nate and less Jesus or more Jesus and less Nate?

I weep at my inadequacy and self-centeredness that is being so ruthlessly exposed by God through men like AW Tozer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the other young men in our Bible Study, and the crisis situations of those suffering in our church. May we the global church define our lives by the "single eye," that whether we are busy or not, we cultivate the continual attention to God's movement and desires for how to use our lives...that as we simplify and obey the call to love God and neighbor sacrificially, we find true life and (not so ironically) that life glowing before others.

I'll probably have a few more comments in the future regarding thoughts this book sparks in me.

Thoughts on avoidance, alcohol, tobacco, and obesity

In keeping with running my own avoidance pattern on posting blogs from my head, I stopped by David Fitch's (author of "The Great Giveway" pictured to your left) blog this morning, and read an incredibly insightful post on virtue/vice, the development of character, and the strange reality that in many churches that hammer alcohol and tobacco from the pulpit, the vice of overeating is overlooked...even encouraged. Combine that with the fact that your average pastor across the face of this land is heavier than his/her parishioner leads to some interesting thoughts.

Fitch manages to toss some post-postmodernism in there as well. ;)

The post is here.

Happy reading (thinking, and praying).

On the search for community...

Hey all...

I haven't been the most active in the blog-o-sphere here for a bit because of the beginning of the seminary year, but there's a GREAT conversation taking place over at Josh Brown's blog, the one with the sweet name of iamjoshbrown.com/blog. To fill you in a bit on the conversation he started, he has a few friends and compatriots who have found themselves in ministry outside the organized church who have been writing about their stories and struggles. If you go to the main blog page, you can see them all one by one, but the one I've gotten involved in is Leslie's response to Josh's invitation...

Soooooo, in lieu of (isn't that phrase only used in funerals? "In lieu of flowers"...anyways) a post on my part, I think your life and your thinking would be tremendously sharpened if you link up with the convo over with Josh and the other ladies and gents. His blog is very substance-driven, he's not afraid to tackle important issues, and he has inspired a load of thinking for me over the last couple months. This most recent series is a part of that. So feel free to check it out...plus check out a couple of my thoughts as fodder for agreement or disagreement. :)