great minds

well, someone beat us to it. kinda. our secret plot (no bombings involved, i promise) is a bit more controversial and will likely offend both sides of the abortion debate. we’ll see if it ever gets off the ground. cheers to Peachtree Presbyterian Church.

Spiritual Practices

at our last Eikon sunday night gathering, we discussed some actions that anyone can take to explore and develop their faith. stealing completely without permission from the practicingourfaith.org website, we listed honoring the body, hospitality, household economics, saying yes and saying no, keeping Sabbath, testimony, discernment, shaping communities, forgiveness, healing, dying well, and singing our lives. we chatted about ways to keep our “yes” and “no”strong and singing our lives. you may view the suggestions by clicking the links. what did you think? should we continue to cover these ideas in the immediate future?

cheers!

1 and 1 together

i did it! i put one and 1 together and got Roose. first…. read this interview with Jerry Falwell. be in awe over how strange it is that someone got close to the untouchable Religious Righty. and then read this article that talks about the interviewer.

i’m astonished at a couple of things, but it’s murky. i have different responses to each article. the more lasting impression is of the article that talks about Roose’s ruse, and how he responded to the whole thing. i think his experiences speak rather loudly. his background is hardly unique. but his headlong dive into the dark side of Christianity is. and the thing that send shivers down my spine is that this is an example of exactly what it is that Eikon hopes to do on any sort of scale. obviously, few people are that ambitious about exploring faith. but his time spent in the dorms, the classes, and the churches drastically altered his life. and in many senses, regardless of whether you embrace or cringe at Falwell’s messages and methods, the light of Christ shone through. and it CHANGED HIS LIFE! we’ve hashed out the idea of loving people with an agenda (which isn’t really love, now is it?) or simply screaming evangelistic phrases is the antithesis of Jesus’ modus operandi, it’s practically lying, it’s disrespectful. but if Jesus says that as we are going, we are to baptize and disciple (verb) those we meet, isn’t a similar effort fitting? can you disciple someone whether they’ve asked you to do so or if they don’t even realize it? can’t you point the way to Jesus or live the love of Jesus or show the immense value of the values of Jesus without being obvious or obnoxious about it?

like it or not, Kevin Roose says you can.

reeling me back in

there’s been a silence on the blog so deafening that i receieved an email from a lover (well, my only one) about how i need to get back to it. so what has been occupying my time? let me tell you:

-we have cable. with HD. Anna Torv has never had such striking strawberry blonde hair and baby Matt Parkman has never been cuter and the Michael Scott Paper Co has never had clearer marketing and that girl from Buffy calmly reminds me to “be my best” every friday night. also, our download speed beat up your honor student.

-we’re goint to NC  in June for a wedding. and we’re going to SC to see Naomi (no, not to LA to see the University of Spoiled Children). and we’re renting a car which can only mean 2 things: road trip.

-i’ve had more interviews in April than i landed in the several months immediately after we moved here. and i don’t even need a new job. (Seth Rogen says the best time to look for a job is when you don’t need one. or was it Seth Godin?)  i won’t tell you what for until i’ve heard a firm “no” or “yes” from them.

-michelle got a raise. wut.

-michelle is a weiner. and a winner, too. first place in the Tarrant County College spring art show for 2D design. grad school, here we come. (her friend Pam won 3rd for a neat abstract piece. cheers, Pam.)

-we used the lumber from the pool’s original hard cover to build a planter box around a tree in the back yard. we finally finished it and planted some squash, tomato, peppers, etc. we also have cilantro (only missing lime for fresh salsa weekly!), basil, and mint for mojitos. as the plants grow, you’ll have to come over for drinks.

-i still have a vicious dislike for the dog michelle brought home. within minutes of us finishing our planting, the durn beast was ripping plants up. worthless waste of money, that pale, musty hairball of a dog.

-i’ve had 4 very good conversations with people who are a good distance from the Church. people who have dealth with truly horrid Christians or still can’t get the bad taste out of their mouths from their early childhood contact with churches.

-i ran the Fort Worth Zoo Run 5k last saturday. i’d been training with some friends (team name–Mach: Joke. like rather than Mach 3 or something, it’s like we’re so far from being fast that it’s a joke to even mention it. just for those of you slower folks out there.) i told michelle that my goal was 3 eight minute miles (5k = 3.1 miles) and she looked me square in the eye and told me that 25 minutes was for people who trained hard and stuff. see the results and the awful pictures of me staggering around at your leisure. you can search for my last name on the results page (take that, michelle.)

-you probably didn’t miss it, but i reconsidered and decided against any more sly. as the title of the blog so aptly asks, what is Eikon? and how do we figure it out? it seemed fun. it was fun to post and to pretend anyone actually cared about my pithy responses to crazy events. so, bye bye, Sly.

-on that note, i WILL post more frequently on things and thoughts regarding Eikon. if they’re less organized and a bit more scattered, please pardon me.

-i thought it would be neat to have a prayer wall type deal (don’t have a facebook, but the idea of encouraging graffiti is appealing) that we could use along with an RSS feed instead of lame prayer emails. also, a quote wall for amazing things people say?

-a lady emailed Christina through the Eikon website because of MOPS. website: success.

-we’re going to see Phil Wickham saturday night. he’s opening for some no-name.

and i’m out.

$HOLY CRAP FOR CRAP!$

you need to read this, yo.

 

what does it mean? you tell me…

let’s have a chit chat about things we ought not to take for granted.

Euckon the First

 

 

a couple of thoughts from the widely talked-about church identity melting night, Euckon (a …

-it was kind of weird to see people segregated. the Eikoners were mostly sitting on the right side, the Euc-ers on the left. this is normal–to sit with people you know when given the option. and it also has to do with the fact that we’ve been there before and that we like to be closer to the screen, which isn’t big enough for our purposes by a long shot (but does fine in the pinch that we’ll be camping in for a while). but i was a bit disappointed.

-i got a chance to meet 4-5 people i’d never spoken to before. Craig Clarke, who was the guest speaker’s husband, a fellow wearing a Moody basketball hoodie (do they even know how to play at Moody?), and then Felicia and Mike. Felicia had a unique smiley face shirt on. Mike looked a bit older and more hardened, complete with stubbly face and black leather motorcycle jacket. they have a cute 3 or 4 year old named Kaylee, i believe. Felicia is a Fort Worth city employee (i believe) who has started or will be involved with a task force on human trafficking. fascinating stuff! i had to poke around a bit to find out how she came to even find out that we were doing this, but finally the truth slipped out. Phil had contacted her, but they’d never even met before and she was going to go introduce herself as we ended our quick conversation. i was as warm and welcoming as i could be to everyone new i met. and it felt good to be an initiator for the first time in forever (when’s the last time new folks have been at our services?)

-everyone was segregated again at Central. but apparently, there was now a good reason. someone was being combative about the speaker.

-Noel Clarke was great, i thought. after the fact, it seemed that she wasn’t normally a public speaker. she got quite a bit of criticism from more than several people, which i didn’t think was deserved on her part. her vocabulary betrayed a bit of charismatic roots, which seemed to irk some people. she mentioned wanting to raise an army of prayer warriors, which is a great word picture, but again, the violence conveyed by that term is perhaps unneeded. the video that she showed was from a group called Exodus Cry, a clear reference to the then-enslaved nation of Israel. the spokesperson was very passionate and even started yelling (speaking loudly and strongly) a bit towards the end. i appreciated that sort of passion, but again, it’s always weird to be around someone who’s screaming. especially when the person isn’t actually there. and they’re not yelling at you. feeling defensive is a knee jerk reaction to a screaming person, but when a person is keenly aware of the fact that said screamer screameth not at you, feelings of awkward tension follow. and as you might guess, this impassioned “cry” irked some people.

-perhaps everyone else has moved on, but i feel the need to defend Noel and x-odus Cryer from the undue critiques… first off, if Noel isn’t a trained or paid public speaker, then it’s hardly fair to expect her to be impressive, organized, crystal clear, and eloquent. she is a caring, open lady who came to share her story. so if people resent Christianese or churchy language, if they’ve had bad experiences with Christians or church leaders or denominations in the past, that’s fine (it’s too bad, but it’s fine), but expecting her to instantaneously chameleon into her post modern, post Christian, post denom surroundings without even having really hung out with Eikon or the Euc before seems unrealistic. some people are great at blending in and dropping colloquialisms like hot irons. others…. not so much. so be graceful, and unless you voice specific expectations ahead of time, don’t expect them to be met. secondly, if you are looking at action oriented organizations to serve with and invest in, wouldn’t you want your leaders to be passionate? perhaps yelling at a video camera isn’t the best PR in the textbook, but how many people are going to forget that? it made an impression and clearly communicated his point, which, in my book, is essentially a home run. the video was well made and compelling. i can demand nothing more.

-Ryan’s music was truly Texas appropriate. and i couldn’t pull it off like he did if i tried. i think i’ll stick to rock and roll.

-as for the actual subject of the night, i’m glad to have been a part of something that hopefully opens people’s eyes. ignorance is bliss in this case, and we just rocked a lot of boats. the human trafficking industries are truly the dirty secret of globalization. and just like illegal drug trade, Americans out -scum the rest of the world by far. we are the root of this evil, demanding the drugs which led to 6,000 people being slaughtered last year alone in Mexico as drug lords struggle against a recently wakened government. and the 20,000 people a year that are stolen from humanity are far too many, and Americans are the chiefs of thiefs. i’m not proud to be an American, because i see how we directly cause people to no longer be free…

-finally, i have to echo what several folks are saying… that it’s super that 2 church communities, regardless of size, just did this. yes, we’re small and young, but it was so neat to not worry about any spirits of competitiveness (we could never hang) or ego-centrism or arrogance. it seemed pure (even though Phil said “shitty” during the middle of the service. out loud.)

i eagerly await the next Euckon event.

amazing meta link for the day

do you think the church could learn from this?

the long awaited mystery guest blog.

our guest blogger is none other than the world renowned contortionist and philotheolosigian, Chad Presley. we here at whatiseikon hope you enjoy this hot-off-the-press weblog…

While Joseph tends to bottle up his thoughts and then release them in a bitingly witty way, spilling over many paragraphs in poetically creative destruction, I tend to simply say things as I think them, with not much poetry involved, but with not less passion. So, in the spirit of Paul, who did as the Romans did when in Rome, I will do my best to be as wordy, descriptive, and poetically sarcastic as possible as I guest star on my favorite rock star’s blog.

The other day I went to see Valkyrie with Christina, Joseph, and Michelle. Beyond what comes next, I thought it was a good movie. It was not too presumptuous, nor was it boring or long winded, just an open window into a story from WW2 that to my knowledge had not been told because primary sources did not want to tell it. It concerned a group of freedom fighters who were not anti-war activists or especially decent folks, but they united together to secretly plot for the good of Germany over and against Hitler’s mad schemes. Full disclosure time, and if you haven’t seen the movie, don’t worry, I will only spoil minor plot points, but the crux of the movie revolves around an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Apparently, many clergy at the time were involved in attempting to assassinate the guy with the fuehrious mustache.

My favorite line in the movie one that I talked about on my blog (insert shameless plug here). It was the following exchange between tom cruise’s character and someone who he has just hired as an assistant in a government job. Before his actual job begins, tom cruise’s character, in an act of brazen and fairly reckless abandon says to the recruit, “”I am involved in high treason with all means available to me. Can I count you in?”

Can I count you in? That is the question I find myself confronted with when Jesus talks. Literally, not in my sexy spirit, but in the gospels. He is not reacting against the moral decay of western civilization, he is not trying to get us to rebel against hell itself or abortion, or gay marriage, or biblical illiteracy, or rap music, or rock music in church, or conservative politicians, or even liberal politicians. He was inviting us to stand up against Rome and the leadership of Israel, which at the time were the physical instruments and in some cases the actual embodiments of what Walter Wink calls the Domination System, what the Bible calls Satan, what we in our culture might describe as Technological, Militaristic, Therapeutic, Consumerism (according to Walter Bruggeman).

Jesus was involved in high treason against the God of this world. The powers, principalities, the anthropomorphic descriptions of the collective spirits of our institutions such as families, places of worship, governments, and entertainments that have taken a life of their own and like a computer virus unleashed by a pimple-faced, too-smart-for-his-own-good-hacker, it has spiraled out of control and now threatens the very people that created it and are now subject to it. Like Germany was to Hitler.

One particular part I liked about Valkyrie, was that in the midst of trying to wrest power from Hitler, they almost succeeded. They had a grand plan which had fingers extended into every possible power structure of Germany and once unleashed, they were able to take power fairly easily and at one point, Tom Cruise asks a compatriot how a certain front is going and he responds positively, noting that “not one bullet was fired”. Ghandi was once asked if his non-violent political action would work against Hitler. He said he didn’t know until it was tried. And that is one of the single most repeated questions I am asked when I talk about non-violence. What about Hitler? Well, I think Valkyrie gave me a window into what is possible. If a few German officers were able to almost take control of Germany in a matter of hours, given less than a year to plan, what might have been possible for others who might have followed in their footsteps? Would Hitler have ever been deposed by anything less than a violent solution? Who knows? But I believe Jesus invites us to think harder about those kind of questions, because when Jesus asks if he can count us in, violence and war are large parts of what he is involved with treason against. Jesus refused to use the enemy’s means to fight for his ends.

In a world where might makes right (yes you mr. bullhorn in downtown Fort Worth, and you mr. sit back in washington and send my friends to Iraq, and lets not forget you mr. too-big-to-fail banker who F*&%$# me in the *%^ with your business practices and when your business is heading towards bankruptcy the government gives you lots of dough which you keep to buy other banks and give large bonuses, and lastly you mr. gas-guzzler maker, who cries in their soup when america won’t buy their crappy cars anymore because the other countries can make them better, most cost effective, and export them cheaper than you can make them here, and then you ask for handouts from the taxpayers to bail you out, having flown in your ^&$^&%$%^&ing private jet to get there!), Jesus asks us to join him in high treason, not against people, but against the System.

Can we count you in?

 

Chad Presley is the lead pastor of the most bad-assed church plant in the world, Eikon. he lives in a state of perpetual awesomeness rivaled only by the dance moves of Rick Astley.

a way too long entry about witnessing

i’m familiar with a common view of witnessing that was introduced to my formerly good Baptist mind as a kid. i’ll mention some related phrases to see if they resonate or if you recognize them. and by all means, react and respond, be it laughing or scoffing… 4 spiritual laws. tracts. the sinner’s prayer. evangelism explosion. altar call. rededicating a life to Christ. Christian $20 bills. testimony.

i knew that the first church my family was a part of in California was identical in size, atmosphere, staff, and demographic when we arrived until we switched memberships 2 years later. the same can be said of the next church, for the first years we were there. then, the primary unit of church growth was the number of attendees and members. and they didn’t come easily. i remember Sunday afternoons spent knocking on doors and hoping no one would be home so we wouldn’t have to talk to them. i remember watching video cassette after video cassette about how people could be argued and preached and convinced into relationship with the supernatural. i remember praying a prayer with Nick in fourth or fifth grade, with my mom leading in broken English, and my sister holding my hand, with a feeling of victory swelling inside me. Vania and i rode our bikes with Nick back to his house, and then raced home screaming and shouting mostly unintelligible but encouraging things to each other-Nick had been saved. i also remember getting a call a few days later from a very Nick, who cautiously asked if the saving could be undone, that his mother wasn’t sure what we believed and was worried we might be Jehovah’s Witnesses (!).  i called a friend, who pointed to the gospel of John, using some admittedly warped interpretation, and said in classically naïve fashion, “once saved, always saved.”

so…. now what? i’m ashamed of the little bit of witnessing i did when i was younger.

i was reading through some random person’s thoughts, who claims to be a Christian ministering on a college campus whose job it is to plot trends (or some similarly vague and likely overstated occupation). he challenged any average Christian of my age what to quantify how many times s/he has explained the gospel message to a friend over the last month, even the last year (wow, this guy’s sure he’s on to something). he was (pre)determined that the numbers would be appalling. (i’m so clever.)

2 thoughts: first, define “gospel message,” because i guarantee i’ll blow our unnamed friend out of the water if he allows the explicitly Biblical definition to stand. i would humiliate him so thoroughly that he would sullenly go back to embarrassing himself at various campus events, handing out Christian teeshirts to upside down frat boys doing kegstands. it’s not that i’m a super evangelist, but i’ve had conversations recently with so many different people, relatives, friends, people older and younger than myself, people unfamiliar and intimately familiar with the Christian faith. additionally, i would submit that against this criteria, that mr. on-campus crusader (shouldn’t that allegory be removed from our vernacular already, or are we so quick to forget how horrifying a catastrophe the Crusades were for our faith and the human race?) would be shut out completely.

this, of course, begs the question of my idea of what the Gospel (capital G) is, but there are smarter, more eloquent people than i who i springboard off of anyway, such as Jesus, the authors of the gospels, and another author named Brian McLaren. i’ll wait for everyone who’s put off by my liberal, heretical, unevangelical, whateverelseyouwant-al self to file on out of the room.

ok. now that we’ve thinned out the crowd a smidge, i’ll give you my second thought… i going to wager a guess that this fellow’s idea of sharing or explaining the gospel message (whichever definition you pick) is pretty narrow, also. it’s off base. the idea that the explanation is limited to a conversation, one or two sided, that covers mans’ need for God, the separation that exists between Creator and creation, et al. ad nauseum, is too small. sure, it’s a piece of the whole, a slice of the pie.

by the way, my wife home made me the best berry pie ever last night, and this is me saying thanks again. i better recognize.

anyway, i blame our predecessors wholeheartedly for allowing and even promoting the idea that the Church is a building. that worship equals music. that expository preaching is the key to how Christians mature. that a conversion experience means you are saved. that spending every weeknight with other Christians doing Christiany things in non-secular places is the best way to achieve humankind’s highest goal-avoiding sin.

i would venture to say that based on the life of Jesus, actions speak as loudly, if not louder than words. a famous St. Francis of Assisi quote submits that words are not necessarily necessary to preach the gospel. some folks are eager to point out the numerous times Jesus preaches to the crowds. he spends so much time teaching his disciples. the sermons and messages fill up so many more pages than everything else Jesus did. i’m equally eager to turn a few pages farther in and accentuate how many of these people he taught and discipled and discoursed with were with him at his death. who are the people that are commended by Jesus for faith? the dudes who gave some unfortunate homeowner a reason to get a new roof and lowered their friend into Jesus’ presence for healing. not for a quick sermonette. the woman who had hemorrhaged her entire adult life reached out to physically touch Jesus’ clothes. the Gentile woman who begged Jesus to heal her daughter from a demon possession. she threw a BF, screaming and crying for the attention of the rabbi, and engaged in witty banter before convincing Jesus that she was worth his time and attention.

think of one of the first miracles recorded after the death and resurrection of Jesus: Peter and John headed to the temple for prayer and were stopped by a crippled beggar. they didn’t offer him a tract and move on. they didn’t sit down and chat him up. they couldn’t even assuage their responsibility (guilt, even?) as Christ’s followers with a few dollars. instead, they opened a new realm of possibility for this man whose physical condition had kept a slave to his body in all the worst ways. (whether this man was Jewish or “Christ-ian” is of little consequence. the end result is his praising of the Almighty and the people around him are filled with wonder and amazement. God’s kingdom incrementally grew that moment.) these are the people at whom Jesus marveled. for faith. and in God’s economy, if it’s not a stretch to make the analogy, faith has value. it unlocks a world of possibilities. so-whose lives were struck by lightening-the masses who listened to brilliant sermons, theological arguments, and verbal presentations of the highest homiletic order? or the people to whom someone reached out. someone spread tidings of great joy by offering hope. offering love. offering themselves, just as Jesus had done.

i don’t mean that Jesus’ words were empty or ineffectual. far from it. but a complete look at the body of work reveals far more dimensions than any chat about going to heaven when one dies could ever entail.

thus, i submit that every time it’s 148 bloody degrees outside and Eikon is out tossing a football around and grilling burgers in Lake Como, that’s a damn near perfect way of sharing good news. every time the Euc (a sister church) has a sing-along at the Presbyterian night shelter with swarms of homeless folks, faith is being shared. as Kris and Chad battle mythical creatures with sword and bowstaff and magical spells on a Warhammer board with social outcasts who cling fervently to comic books and animé and action figures, Christ is preached. when John and Becky raise thousands of dollars to support research for Leukemia and Lymphoma cures, and when Michelle spends afternoons with Wanda, an elderly lady across the street, and their dogs wrestle in the front yard for hours, people are healed. in the smallest, but most important ways, humanity is being restored. loneliness subsides. sickness is healed. love is bestowed. stomachs are fed. and through so much more than the frail words that escape our lips, may our faith and gospel be dumped unceremoniously but lavishly on every home and school and neighborhood and city where a God-seeker in the way of Jesus Christ can be found.