Finding Our Way Again: An Interview with Brian McLaren
by Thomas
Everyday Liturgy: When I started this blog a year and a half ago I did it in part to begin to explore ways to expand my relationship with God. I had recently graduated from a Bible college and wanted to build on the foundation in Scriptures I had been given. The evangelical answers, quiet time and prayer cards, no longer seemed capable of leading me further in my spiritual journey. Bible-software, inductive study, and individual petitions no longer seemed adequate. What role do you see "Ancient Practices" having in our technological, individualistic world?
Brian McLaren: Thom, I think you've really diagnosed a key dimension of the problem: individualism. I think our spiritual lives languish in a "Jesus and me" isolation chamber, but they become robust and deep when we realize that God calls me into an "us for all of us" way of life. To echo Paul's amazing words in Ephesians 3, I come to know the love of God "with all the saints." Knowledge in this sense is a knowing with - knowing God with people of different periods of history, different cultures, different denominations, and so on. So the ancient practices draw us into a wider, deeper way of knowing God that includes but also transcends my individual experience. ... more
Lent and the Renewal of Discipline
March 13, 2008 - 11:44am by ThomasLent is sometimes viewed as a masochistic spiritual deprivation. We give things up and clamp our mouth, fast, and bear the burden for no other reason than that's what we were taught to do.
... moreDisciple Not Young
February 14, 2008 - 4:07pm by ThomasThis is the last part of a two part discussion on age relations in the church. The first part was Elder Not Old.
If young people continue the way they are we are all going to end up like Icarus, our potential melting away as we crash land and smash our lives to pieces. In Elder Not Old I examined how older folks need to step up and become elders, and not just fade away in grumbling and apathy. The same needs to happen for the young folks who are part of many congregations: after college they are going to church because they want to be there, and not because of any societal or cultural obligations, which do not exist anymore.
It is crucial for the young folks in the church today to stay young, to change, to move with the Spirit, but all to often that is interpreted as being the perpetual follower. Follow the new leader from sermon to sermon, follow the new praise songs from service to service, follow the new programs from day to day, follow the cool people from church to church. I have not seen a lot of old folks church-hopping, but I see middle-aged persons on down doing it consistently within Protestant circles. ... more
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