Chris Bishop

I have been reading still more of Shane Claiborne.  I have finally finished “Becoming the Answer To Our Prayers.”  I love his perspective.  One of the things that struck me wile reading was something that he actually said in another one of his books.  He asks the question if we have created a way of life with the need for miracles.

Throughout all of the convenience when we are hungry we go to the store, and when we are sick we go to the hospital.  He goes on to tell a story of a friend in Latin America who was running a clinic.  All kinds of people were coming in needing treatment.  Supplies were short and all the missionaries had was a bottle of pepto bismol.  Rationing it out to all who cam by…poeple were actually feeling better.

I can’t say that it would have been from the great power of the pink bottle, but the power of the Creator.  they needed God to show up.  They needed a miracle, and that is just what happened.  God showed up.

Like the fishes and the loves, when we we have nothing left but to rely on God we are able to catch a glimpse of the Kingdom.

Where are you taking the plunge and relying on God?

Shovels, bulldozers and oil drilling
When you study scripture how do you go about it?
Shovel Slinger: Fling open your Bible, put a finger on a verse (get a scoop of dirt), read it, pray a bit done. You might wonder why God wasn’t very visible in the story that you read about the suffering of Job and his friends. Over time you have a pile of random scoops.
The Oil driller: Find a story in mind, read it, read the study notes about the story, read and research more about it. Drill down to the deep theological meaning. Dredge up the goodness form that story. Then move on to the next thing that you have. (This is what pastors do for Sermons)
The Bulldozer: This is a larger approach to studying the scriptures. This is where you will slowly read, interoperate, digest the scripture layer by layer. Like a bulldozer takes out layer by layer, we read and understand the larger picture and gradually move deeper and deeper.
*Sorry for the not so eco-friendly visuals, but I think that they work on a purely visual level. Rest assured I would have something else to say if we were talking stewardship*

I have a huge stack of reading right now on my desk. I am reading one right now called “Unlearning Church”. I the first chapter Michael Slaughter is talking about what thing the church has as a “radical product”. He says that

revolutionary people are this product of the church.

Now this sounds great!! Especially as today is election day…woot. We are going to flex our voting muscles and have a voice. We are going to vote in a way that we think would be best for our faith, the country, the world and all of creation.

However, what happens when people don’t show up to the voting booth? Your views aren’t counted, or worse nothing happens. Even worse is that you can’t complain when things go your way because you didn’t vote.

Now turning back to Slaughter’s comment. What if the church just sits in the chairs, but doesn’t act upon the message. The church needs to be in the streets voicing, revitalizing and causing a revolution.

What are we doing to live our faith rather than just being culturally Christian?

What is Prayer?

Seems an easy enough question, but when we get down to it, “IT” becomes something that is harder to define than we would think.

On all saint’s weekend this is what our later looked like at church.  We lit candles as an act of living prayer for those we have lost in the past year.     We pray aloud for those who gave their lives in the military, and for leaders of the church.  We named aloud the names of saints in our lives.  We even have a pumpkin on the alter with the names of every family in our congregation as an act of prayer for the saints in our church family that are still here with us.

I have heard prayer referred to as “Holy Leisure”.  I have practiced silence, drawing, walking and even napping (it’s not as hard as you would think) as forms of prayer.

But I want to know how and what prayer is to you.

But is this this thing that we call prayer?  Why pray?  What does this mean?  How Do you pray?  What do you pray?  When do you pray?  How do you feel after you pray?

*Please note that when you post I have to approve first timers (and people who use different e-mail addresses each time ) before the comment shows up.  This eliminates spam–thanks*

On Sunday I met Katie and Eden for lunch at McDonald’s for a very fancy meal (oh yeah big spenders). We sat down, ate and watched people play with the giant slide puzzle (you can see a guy with camo on playing with it in the pic).

We had a delightful meal and then Katie went to a meeting and Eden and I finished our food, but not before something struck me.  Eden was eating only her bun with Ketchup on it. This is
not something that is very strange I guess but it got me thinking. Katie loves Ketchup sandwiches. I was mesmerized but the fact that Eden was chomping down on a Ketchup soaked piece of bread.

I had just read a passage from Deutoeronmy 6 the day before where the people of Israel are being told how to pass on their faith to the next generation. Here is what it says:

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Corinthians 13 paraphrased for youth workers » JakeBouma.com

This is a great post from a a guy who knows a thing or two about youth ministry (or can fake it well ). I thought that ti was a fun post, and a passage that we should all read before every day to seek being made perfect in love.   

Last night at SPRC we approved that our Safe Sanctuaries policy was fitting and plan to move on to passing it to the church counsel in August.  Very cool

This past weekend I conducted my first weeding while flying solo. I have help with some others and officiated parts of my friends weddings, but this was the first where I was THE guy. Read the rest of this entry »

This post comes from a wonderful book by Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith, Devotional Classics.  This book is one in a collection of books called Renovare resources. The intent behind developing these resources is that they will revive some of the great Christian thinkers and theologians that have written throughout the journey of the Christian faith.

This devotion comes after a reading of 17th century theologian Francois Fenelon. The thrust of the argument in the excerpt from Christian Perfection is that we find real and true joy in only one thing…loving God. I was struck by the piercingly simple words and understanding he has of being a child of God. At youth group we just did a lesson about being yourself and the person that god created you to be. Using Psalm 139 we talked about the way that God knows us more deeply than we even know ourselves.

Fenelon says that: “everything that we do for him [God] is easy.” When I read that i thought about how hard it is to walk the narrow path and stay true to what God has in store for me. It seems andything but easy. Then again this guy was all about the quietist movement and complete seperation from the world. reading further he talks about the freedom and liberation of walking the narrow path of God and the way that then when we choose God over all else we find true joy because we are not concerned or worried about judgment of others, malice, uncertainty of life, our own weakness…and the list goes on.

The trouble comes from us thinking that we are on the narrow path when indeed we have one foot on the path and the other off of it. It is like we have one foot on a canoe and the other on the dock. When we try to push away the strain of the boat and the dock becomes apparent as the gap grows and something has to give. Sometimes we tend to see a life of real faith as a life of depravity and disconnection. Yet in reality it is a life of liberation and connection with the One who created and formed our hearts.

Palm Sunday is like the starting gun of the Boston Marathon for me.  There is so much anticipation (lent) and so many feelings throughout Holy Week that at the end we don’t know weather to cry, dance or laugh at the events that finally unfold on Easter morning.

Today in worship we did a reading of a pseudo stations of the cross and it was awesome.  to hear the voices and commentary of the Easter story played out from the perspective of poeple who were main players in the story is awesome.  Susan said that she heard this reading about a year ago in Scotland and finally we have been able to do it.  It was a great set of services this weekend.

I think that the most powerful message that we can here this week is the scripture themselves.  The words of God are anything but dull and this week we are filled with the most powerful truths we will ever encounter.

You can download a samp of the Bible Experience here and listen to the powerful Easter story.