I’ve been following with interest Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, where he’s recently begun working through the rather contentious book: The Evangelical Universalist. Since it’s such a controversial theological issue, but also one which often sparks huge interest, I thought I’d draw your attention to Scot’s discussion of the book’s main arguments.
On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!
So, we’ve reached the last day of Christmas and the last day of this little series. If you haven’t been following so far, we’ve been studying the underlying religious symbolism behind the song, the Twelve Days of Christmas, looking at the Christian/Catholic folklore surrounding the song. Within this tradition the song can be used as a way to teach the Christian faith, with each day representing a different aspect of faith.
Today, the song culminates with the twelve drummers representing the twelve phrases in the Apostles’ Creed.
On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
There is a general consensus (at least on Wikipedia) that the Calling Birds aren’t actually “birds that call”, but that this line is actually a corruption of “Four Colly Birds”. A colly bird is, apparently, olde English for a Blackbird.
The four birds respresent the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Links to stuff that’s taken my interest online over the last week or so.
Scot Mc Knight’s article on The Gospel for iGens in Leadership Journal is really relevant and important for those engaging in mission with young people/young adults.
I’ve just caught up with FlashForward on Five on Demand (UK only) – it’s really beginning to grow on me. Also, Design for Life on BBC iPlayer looks really interesting.
Ed Stetzer’s video for The Nines is really good – “Mission is the opposite of self” (video after the jump):
In his video for The Nines, Rick Warren talks about the need for a process of discipleship in a lot of the churches he is aware of. The question a lot of church leaders are asking is ‘how do we move people along from a needy attitude towards faith to a more committed “what can I give?” attitude?’
Is the problem that this is the wrong question? Instead, perhaps we should be asking questions about the way we market our faith in the first place?
Kester Brewin has been blogging about what Christians can learn from Pirates. Saw his talk on the same theme at Greenbelt and found it a really interesting way of looking in on Christianity from outside the box – and good fun to listen to.
His posts start here – I strongly recommend having a read.
How does the image of mission as liberation help us in understanding how God is at work in the world around us, and how we can get stuck in alongside him?
I’m currently working my way through Mark Sayers‘ book The Trouble about Paris (well worth reading), which has been causing me to think a lot about this concept of hyperreality and the effect it has on our lives and our spirituality.
Hyper-reality is this idea that our culture is constantly causing us to buy into a “larger than” life – the dream life which we see epitomised by our images of celebrity and success, and ultimately happiness. This hyperreality claims to provide us with happiness and fulfilment, but leaves us living in a kind-of denial of the actual reality we live in.
The main, most obvious way we can see the effects of this “larger than” life is in consumerism and the effect it has had on our culture and our spirituality. The hyperreal myth that “just one more” will bring happiness leads us to become both material and spiritual consumers. Hence the Church finds itself having to attract and cater for a generation of Christian consumers – who are after maximum result (perceived value) for minimum investment (cost), and are always looking for the best deal.
Recently I've been thinking a lot about the effect that our consumeristic culture has had on the level of commitment people are willing to give. I've often spoken out against the Facebook "Maybe" option as responsible for a lot of the problems with our society – particularly youth/student culture. But actually, I think that it's actually a symptom of the problem rather than a cause.
With the slimline new blog design, I don't have room anymore for my Del.icio.us links and tags – so instead thought I'd try and make a habit of sticking up some recent links instead on the blog…
Frank Viola has an interview on Neue – Does the church care about the poor?
David Fitch writes about the dangers of a (post-modern) gospel message which is too big for people to understand.
Found this NYTimes article about funny little houses – kinda weird.
Leadership Journal has an interesting article about sermons and incentivisation – not sure whether I agree, but its along the right lines…
Pre-ordered the New Rob Bell book from Amazon.
Weirdest sermon series I've ever seen Mark Driscoll do.
Alan Hirsch thinks about what missional cells can learn from terrorist cells.
Five things we got wrong in the Aussie emerging-missional church.
Guerrila Gardening – fancy doing some of this in Alway. 'Course we need to sort our own jungle garden out first.
Using Wordpress for church websites. This is what we do with the Lab – and have St Paul's to get up and running in the next few months as well.
A bizarre exam answer from an American chemistry student – is hell exothermic or endothermic? Think this is an old one – probably fiction. Still pretty funny.
Downloaded Google Crome – cool in some ways, strange in others. Think I'll hang onto Firefox as my main browser for the moment.
Welcome to the blog of James Henley. I'm a young church leader / youth worker and student based in Newport, South Wales.
Read more about me.
