It is fascinating to me that some of the things that have been happening in my discipline (computer science) also seem to be happening to the church. Andrew referenced this in his blog today. My first exposure to some of the background to what was happening (both in software and in the culture at large) first came from ESR’s book The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Eric first wrote the book “online” before it was later printed and published. This is something that perhaps some of the emergent authors should explore– first putting their thoughts, ideas, and theology online before or while publishing it. This might nurture, for good or bad, some of the decentralized contribution that has benefited software in the opensource movement. Some of this is clearly happening now through blogs and other online media but it would be interesting to see what would happen if it was applied to more formal and typically more lengthy collections of thoughts such as books.

Perhaps those working/assisting/struggling with the emerging church (and the context) could learn something from what has happened with software and the opensource movement. A good place to start would be the The Cathedral and the Bazaar and some of the related writings and critiques that ESR has compiled on the same site. We might learn something about spiritual formation from the hacker culture too.

I first stumbled upon NT Wright under the resource list at emergent village. There are four MP3s there of talks that he gave on The Future of the People of God. These talks opened up a whole new world for me. When I was telling a friend about the talks a few months ago, he suggested that I read The Challenge of Jesus and let me borrow his copy. It took me a little while to get through it, but it was a great read. It opened the veil for me to some larger story lines in the bible and the pivotal role that Jesus played in ushering the first day of the new creation.

I really enjoyed his walk through of the road to Emmaus story on the afternoon of the first Easter and his connection back to Psalm 42 & 43. He talks about how the Jews expected the exile to end with Jesus through the traditional means– holiness, zeal for God & the law, and some kind of military revolt– and their disappointment and confusion when he is crucified by the pagan Romans that he is supposed to overthrow. He ties in 43:3-4 to the frustration and fear they must have felt on the road to Emmaus after the death of Jesus and how Jesus comes, gives them the skinny on God’s redemptive work through the law and the prophets culminating in Himself and reveals Himself to them causing them to run back to Jerusalem with Joy and join up with rest to figure out what in the world had just happened (boy that was a long sentence). He then wraps this all into thoughts on post-modernity. He has some great insights into post-modernity and the Churches challenge in addressing/comprehending it. Good stuff!

About a day or so ago, I was browsing Andrew Jones’ site and found this post on monastic vows. I was intrigued by the list of vows that he listed from the Vineyard article. I tried following the links to the source, but they have since moved. If you are interested, you can find the source article here.

The issue of Cutting Edge referenced also has a great article on the Church of The Saviour in DC. What a great article. It has some amazing quotes from the founder Gordon Cosby. Their ideas on cultural captivity are fascinating. They have done a lot of work on helping followers of Jesus find freedom from the ways in which the culture has captured their imagination that God did not intend. They have developed a framework of intense training in spiritual formation that is part of the membership process at the church. The cool part is that it is not just about spiritual formation but preparing the individual for their call or “mission” and the “corporate” mission of the community. This is distinct from the more individualistic notions of spiritual formation that are more common.

Mark and Nate of reimagine are starting a six month process to establish a network of people committed to a common life inspired by the example and teachings of Jesus. The idea is to get a group of folks together to be intentional about being and making disciples in a first world urban context like such as the SF bay area. I’m pretty excited about such an idea. I have my reservations about what value I will add to the venture. I feel like a bit of a novice to be participating in forming something like this. I long for a deeper foundation in scripture and church history to guide me and help inform the process. But maybe this is one way to get there. Undoubtedly a rhythm of study will be one stream of this common life. Perhaps that will afford me the opportunity, and the encouragement, to pursue a deeper understanding of scripture, theology, and apprenticeship to the master.

I have been working with some friends on a project called have 2, give 1. The project is about looking at the teachings of Jesus on possessions, wealth, generosity, etc. As part of the project, we’ve been looking at our stuff, selling what we don’t really need and giving that money to the poor. We decided that we wanted to cap the process with some kind of prophetic event on the busiest shopping day of the year.

For the prophetic event, we put together some post cards to hand out in Union Square in down town San Francisco. On the front of the post card in the middle of the hand we glued a nickle– a small but very real token of our generosity and the invitation of the master to a life of generosity and abundance.

It is a lot harder to give away money than I thought. People weren’t as receptive to it as I thought. Maybe it was because of the bombardment of other stuff that is pressed into your face on a busy day– the biggest shopping day– in down town SF.

We tried all kinds of catch phrases to try and get attention. Here are a few:

“My friend and I are trying to be generous and give away some money.”

“We’re trying to encourage generosity by giving away some money.”

“Here is some spare change. If you can’t use it, give it to someone who can.”

“Do you want some spare change.”

As the day wore on, it seems like the third one was working the best to get people’s attention. We noticed too that some people were more receptive than others. For example, middle aged, mostly upper class Caucasians seemed to be the most skeptical. It seemed like the most negative response came from them. The hipsters and art students were intrigued by the hand and the most curious.

Mark and I were handing out the cards in front of a Louis Vuitton (sp?) store. At one point, one of the staff came out (a younger Asian fellow) to have a smoke. He was curious about what we were doing, so we chatted for a few. When he told me he worked there, I asked him what his average sale was. He thought for a second and said about “six G” meaning six grand. He casually mentioned that he was holiday help and that some of the other staff do much better. Louis Vuitton is a high end luxury store. To give you an idea, they sell purses for around $3K.

The juxtaposition of this kind of retail/consumption and the fact that about 1/5 of the world lives in abject poverty blows me away. Where are we? I think this is a place where as followers of Jesus we should be on knees in prayer with the scriptures in one hand and the painful juxtaposition in the other seeking guidance and clarity on pointing in a new direction.