Man Gathering!

Less than a week to go my fellow councilmen.

Dave and I spoke yesterday and tried to figure out some plans for this gathering. We figured that the more proactive we can be beforehand, the more productive our time will be and the less time we'll spend sitting around saying "It doesn't matter to me; what do y'all want to do?" over and over again in Dave's house. Here's the basic idea we had; everything is provisional so if anyone else has ideas just say so:

--Everyone get down to Dave's place around 2:30 or 3 on Friday. He's going to email us directions and his address.
--Dave lives really close to a park complex where we could go hang out and through a frisbee/football and just hang out for an hour or two and be outside in the (hopefully) warm sunny South Carolina winter weather.
--Grill burgers and hotdogs at Dave's place for dinner. That way we can go out to a bar afterward and be able to afford more than one beer.
--Return to the house and video games?
--Saturday morning we can lounge and maybe play a few more video games. We could maybe pick up some breakfast food on Friday and have breakfast at Dave's place that morning.
--Go out for lunch somewhere to hang out and watch the International Bowl (Buffalo v UConn) which actually might be a good game.
--From there we can head out or do whatever.

So, that's a loose plan. You guys think about it and add anything that you think would be fun/productive.

As far as my topics for discussion.......let's see...... One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, kind of going off of one of my points in my comment on the review link that Joel posted about Velvet Elvis: everyone seems to be very okay (and rightfully so) with God's grace being over our moral failures. In fact, even in the most Reformed churches that believe the most in what I would consider a right view of sin (that our problem is in our hearts and our actions are just the symptoms of the inner problem) the preaching on sin is usually focused (especially if the message is to unbelievers) on how we've fallen short of the glory of God by doing wrong things and things that are outside of the will of God. My question is, how much does God's grace extend over our wrong beliefs? I know that's a big question, but it's one that I've been trying to figure out lately. It's been an issue because since I've come back from l'Abri I've found myself more and more comfortable with vastly divergent stances on issues within Christianity. I don't want to end up watering down the confrontational aspect of the gospel, but it seems to me that God extends some amount of grace over people's wrong beliefs so how far does it go? That might be an impossible question to answer. It's kind of in the same vein of "How much do you have to believe to be a Christian?" But there it is.

I like the idea of calling and spiritual growth too. Also, with Jeremy, I'd love to hear y'all's ideas about living out your spirituality without running off to join a commune, which is what I find myself thinking about constantly.

See you guys on Friday.

Something to ponder...

"What the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies."

~ Bishop F. Allison recently preached at a new members service at St. Andrews.

You can listen to it here.

The Kingdom of God + Texas Football

It is impossible for me to fully explain to you how reading things like this story make me feel, so I will just say that when I see someone doing things like this it always makes me go, "Oh yeah, the Kingdom of God. I remember you."

Man!

Mario Kart?

So a few of us are thinking of a Mario Kart Turni tomorrow (Sat) say around 1:30? Anyone else want in. If so we need your friend codes etc...

mine is 4210 4716 7747

Topics for Discussion?

Yesssssssssssssss. Not only is tomorrow Christmas, but also there's only 9 days until the man gathering. Randy and I had a preview a couple days ago over breakfast. We thought it might be helpful if we all submitted some ideas for topics of conversation before getting down there.

So, if anyone has any articles, blogs, videos, books, etc, you want the rest of us to check out before we get down there, post them on the blog. In fact, it might be cool if everyone just posts something that they've been thinking about and we can all take a look at them and either read them all or just pick one or two to focus on.

Does that sounds good to y'all?

What you can get me for Christmas...

Update- Christmas Version

I know that one of the points of this blog originally was just to keep up to date/ in touch, so having just mouthed off on Sewell's post, I thought I would come back with something a little more grounded.

My house is down to two occupants at this point in time. Tim moved back to New Jersey to fight the good fight re: Cron's Disease a few months ago, and Alex moved out last week and is living in a hotel for a week looking for places to stay. He's very much a bootstraps kind of guy in that regard.

While trying to pay off my debts and live off of an absurdly low amount of money (I'm into my roomate/landlord for significant cash, at least for me) I've been playing the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons with some friends around here. It has been crazy fun! Everyone except for myself and Kris (who just became fully vested as an Episcopal priest last weekend) have never ever played a tabletop roleplaying game before, and the amount of emotional buy-in has been pretty astonishing. Nothing scary from a wellness/spirituality standpoint, just a surprising amount of enthusiasm. It is pretty sweet to be a part of something people actively want to do, rather than feel that they should do. Refreshing!

I'm looking forward to being 'off' from work this week, the quotes around off coming from the fact that I'm temping and I'm just sort of assuming that after my current job I won't get any calls until next week. That's not necessarily true though. I'm considering looking up a method I heard about to eat for less than a dollar a day to quicker erase my debt to the Bank of Shane, but I've heard that it is stunningly un-nutritious and makes the people who go on it somewhat ill. I will keep you updated!

ok, so here's an article about everyone favorite Liberal Christians', Rob Bell, book, Velvet Elvis.... tell me what you think...http://www.irishcalvinist.com/?p=1283

Time for some cultural exegesis

Found this full page color add in a local paper. What thoughts come up? What does this say about culture?

What's a Christian's response to it... ?

Man Gathering?

Okay guys. We seriously need to start talking about this, so please post in the comments section whether or not this would work for you.

The date that works for me is the weekend of Friday, January 2, 2009. I could also do the weekend right after Christmas (Dec 26-28) but I wouldn't be able to come down until Saturday the 27th.

Are we thinking this will be a one day/one night thing or what? That's up to Dave (ie Lisa) since we're crashing at his place so really only his opinion counts for that.

Who's in?

You don't know the power of the dark side....

I am currently in possession of a friend in need

Ok. Really quickly (because I have to run out the door and get to work): I have a roomate here in Pittsburgh who has been thinking about moving for the last four months or so, has finally made his decision, and is ready to move by (roughly) this weekend/next week. He was working on a doctorate in chemistry, got tired of the academic scene (which I empathize with) and left the program. He's been floating since last spring, just enjoying the feeling of not being tied down to meaningless responsibilities (again, school, yada yada). He's got money saved up, and would like to move to South Carolina. Like immediately. 

I understand that this is last minute, but I want to help my roomate as much as I can. His name is Alex, he's 25, following the way of Jesus, and crazily service oriented. He's looking for a place to orient himself for a week (or less'ish') while he looks for a more substantial living situation etc. If that rings anyones bells (Oh hey I know a place/a person), please let me know. I realize (again) it's last minute and Christmastime, but I wanted to put this out there to see if anyone had anything.

Help me Council of Men, you're my only hope!

Catechesis

Ok question for you…

We’re kicking off confirmation in a few months I’m looking at what topically we should walk through this year. Here’s the question what ten topics stand out as seminal to the faith?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

????

Not looking for anything super deep just what off the cuff comes to mind. In no particular order.

p.s. Man gathering my place in late December / Early Jan????

If so i might have some of my home brewed St. Andrew's Stout leftover. I'm tapping it tonight to see how it turned out.

Beyond the Goodwill - tweed jackets and salvation...

I saw this on CurrentTV this morning. Circle of Hope church has been around since '96 and looks pretty unique. It's also in Philly. The pastor interviewed said that they go into deserted parts of the city to set up churches in an effort to resurrect the dead areas of the community. He believes this reflects Jesus because he "raised the dead."

I think my favorite part is the incredibly large "human chain" toward the end of the video. (I wonder what the Guinness record is for the "human chain"?)

Choir Music

I don't know if you guys are as big fans of choir music as I am. But, this video is a great example of why this form of art and worship will never die.



I'm not sure whether my favorite part is seeing the ladies say to "Shake it like a polaroid picture", the choir leader saying "Break it down!", or the finale.