• "I wish Captain Jack would get some kind of ointment to put on that sore on his cheek. It hasn't healed for three movies now."
• "Was I supposed to take LSD before watching this scene?"
• "I want more Chow Yun-Fat!"
• "I can't keep all of these guys in the white wigs straight."
• "I don't really care what happens to these people...I just want to sleep."
• "must....stay...awake"
• "hrmph...where am I? Holy cow...this movie is still going?"
• "Is Alex still in the bathroom?"
• "Is it Thursday already?"
• "I sat through the credits for that?"

Dean gave me the month of May to put some of those thoughts into a teaching series which I just finished today. Here's links to each mp3 for anyone who is interested:
1 - Ecclesia: Called Out
2 - Ecclesia: The Inbreaking Kingdom
3 - Ecclesia: The Redemptive Kingdom
4 - Ecclesia: A Missional Community

Todd Hiestand gave me a heads up on Virb a few months ago and I set up a profile. It's a much cleaner site layout and even the basic template gains my aesthetic approval. So, if you are ready to flee the garbage heap, come on over to Virb. I'll be your friend...

(If you are reading this by feed, and the video doesn't appear, please click here for the original post.)

Being aware of spring is giving me a refreshing anticipation of Easter. The new life reaching out of the soil is a very fitting reminder of what Easter is about. The geological and the religious seasons are crashing into each other -- and I'm happy to be standing right in the middle of it.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a beautiful day in the tulip fields of Skagit County. Getting out to celebrate spring like this is quickly becoming one of my most treasured Easter rituals. The video below can't completely do justice to what we experienced, but I hope it can serve as a reminder of new life springing out of death... (If you'd like a larger -- 350mb! -- hi-res version, you can download this one. Right click and Save As...)

Exclusion and Embrace, by Miroslav Volf
This book is probably one of the most important theological reflections of the last few decades. I read through it in a few weeks for a class. I know there is far more to it than I was able to fully digest, but the parts that stuck with me were profound. Definitely worth another read...

Silence, by Shusaku Endo
Read this next time you are in the mood for a novel. It's translated from Japanese, but the writing is still beautiful in its descriptions. The story is haunting and is being made into a film to Francis Ford Coppola. Like most movies, I'd suggest you read the book first.

Affluenza, by John de Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H Naylor
I mostly read this book for a teaching I did at Pathways, but the content was intriguing. The presentation is fun without minimizing the serious message of the book. It would serve as a good introduction to anyone wanting to explore the effects of our consumer-driven and unsustainable culture.

Sex God, by Rob Bell
Rob continues to be a fresh voice for the church. The style of writing here is once again pretty simple to read through, but some of the thinking behind it deserves some time for processing.

The Last Week, by Marcus Borg and JD Crossan
Borg and Crossan have gained enough noteriety that I wonder if they just wrote this book knowing that it would sell based on subject matter and their names. The book was only average for me, but a few highlights made it worthwhile. The highest point was the chapter on Palm Sunday, which Mike Devries blogged about here.

Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner
The title of this book is unfortunately trite, and does not do justice to the words tucked inside. This memoir of the author's journey from Judaism to Christianity is both emotive and intelligent.

Young Mountain -- This Will Destroy You
Amazon | iTunes
(Thanks to Josh Longbrake for the recommendation.)

The Four Trees -- Caspian
Amazon | iTunes

All is Violent, All is Bright -- God is an Astronaut
Amazon | iTunes

He made a striking parallel that I have never heard before between the contemporary tendencies toward a Gnostic dualism and the ruling forces of empire. In my understanding, empire could be defined as either both political forces or commercial forces such as consumerism. Empire will always by sympathetic toward a religious belief system that is rooted in dualism. Dualism pushes religion toward a private experience of the heart, where it is less of a threat to conspire against the forces of Empire. It is there that it poses the least threat to empire. (Of course, he says it far better than this brief summary, and if you find this remotely interesting, I'd encourage you to go and listen.)

Unfortunately, for followers of Jesus, when our faith is tucked neatly away in our heart, it is also where our faith becomes most difficult to grapple with in everyday life. May we always take care to see how God is present and active in every reality. May we long to see his Kingdom break in as we weigh what it means to follow Jesus in every moment.

Exiles is deeply thoughtful in eccclesiology and theology, and yet I appreciate that it seems to be written not with the theologian or pastor in mind, but with any one who desires to be a follower of Jesus. This is critical since much of his premise is that it is lay people who need to be involved in thee real work of mission.

Here are a just a few bits that I underlined that I thought were worth further reflection:

• "Whether it is as simple as joining the local jogging club or as complex as owning a third-place business, most Christians can't do it because they simply don't have the time. The reason for this is that for most Christians their church has become their third place. Their churches soak up every bit of their spare time." (pg. 62)
• "This plays into the classic postmodern belief that the truth can never be found at the center of society. It's assumed these days that powerful hegemonies such as the legal system, the political system, big business, and the church can never be trusted because they have too much to lose if the truth were told."... Conversely, many others believe that the truth can come only from the margins, from those who have nothing to love by telling it the way it really is. Only the most marginalized people -- the gay and lesbian commnity, artists, filmmakers, the poor, the young-can show us the way forward." (pg. 72)
• "When the language used by clergy and worship leaders is always loaded with hyper-real images and unlikely expectations, audiences slowly develop, first, a feeling of alienation. Public Christian discourse seems to regularly concern itself with happy Christian families, answered prayers, and parables with an obvious moral inserted in the punch line." (pg. 96)
• "In fact, I realized that the inclusivity of sharing possessions, eating together, and gathering under the apostles' teaching, as delicious as it seemed, was actually a contravention of Jesus' command for them to take the gospel to the very ends of the earth." (pg. 107)
• "In her book A Royal Waste of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World, Marva Dawn builds a biblical case against those who advocate turning worship into the congregation's evangelistic tool, because this notion lets all believers cop out of their responsibility for reaching out to their neighbors by actually being the church. It is Dawn's assumption that when a community of believers, churching together, meets to worship, they are formed more deeply into the people of God." (pg. 287)

Well...all I gotta say is that Lost knows how to put on a finale way better than Heroes!