Wound thoughts

With a recent Boot Camp, that organic conference, a meeting with a man named Bart, and beginning a new church with others, a lot of thoughts float through my head. After being off-schedule for two weeks, I think this week will be off in another way -- extra posts to catch up.

This thought came during a meeting with Bart on Friday at CPK. Readers of John Eldredge's Wild At Heart and especially those who've been to a Wild At Heart Boot Camp know of what is called a wound. These are more or less psychological wounds that change who we are and keep us from the glory God intended for us. Typically these come in our youth from our dads or a father figure. As I heard my Psych 101 professor said one day "we all spend our entire lives recovering from our childhood".

One such wound with me was what was essentially a poor example of a friend my dad was to other men. That combined with other "wounds" kind of resulted in a "vow" that friends and friendship had to be earned. One way that came was being the guy with answers and provoking ideas. Talking with Bart on Friday about what I liked to do, I came to realize that despite about four years of awareness of that, I still practiced a behavior that resulted from such beliefs -- reading almost exclusively non-fiction.

So I'm weighing a strategy of breaking that -- right now I'm thinking I might give up reading any non-fiction book (other than the Bible and referencing commentaries and the like and possibly work-related books) for a year. I'm leaning toward making it simple -- doing it for a calendar year starting Jan 1, 2009.

Let you know the final call on that and how it goes.

Erwin McManus' Wide Awake

A bit off schedule this week, with posts a little later. Forgive me on that.

I've digested just about everything Erwin Raphael McManus writes. He is one writer (along with some like John Eldredge and Brennan Manning and a couple of others) that I buy the books of without checking reviews. When his Wide Awake came out as his first book in some time, and given the topic being one near and dear to my heart, I eagerly anticipated reading it.

And I must say, I was disappointed in this book. It does have a strong start -- making a inspired case that we are to be creative and we are to impact our world. But when it moves to giving direction on discovering what that is for yourself, what impact you should have and how to get there, it reads like so many good sounding sermons -- sounds good, but how do you live that? Or as one of my favorite characters in Braveheart, Stephen, says "Fine speech, now what do we do?". In the end, when it comes to this book, I think William Wallace's response is more useful than anything this book offers "Just be yourself".

But God is an amazing God. An author I've grown more and more to appreciate, Bill Johnson, put out a book awhile back called Dreaming With God that covers similar subject matter. I'm about midway through it, and so far I've found it more useful. We'll see if Johnson's writing keeps it up through the rest of the book, and either way, I'll post a review when I've finished it.

As for McManus, I'll likely pick up his next without recommendations or checking reviews. No author can score a home run every time, call this one a single from an author I'd say has previously never hit anything less than a triple.

New post

Got back Sunday from my fourth Wild At Heart Boot Camp. You think, why four? Well, of course there is the first, and way back there once was a requirement to make two boot camps to go to the Advanced Camp. That's two. The last two I've volunteered at, first in Oct '06 and then last weekend on the work crew.

Great time hanging out with the work crew members in down time, what little we had. Some great guys. There's talk of a reunion next month for those of us along the front range. I assume the guys from Oregon, NY and Arizona are welcome to fly in if they wish.

I think there were three great "wows" from the weekend. Fourth if you count John Eldredge's great quote "Rescue sex is almost as good as makeup sex". Now how many "men's retreats" can you go on and hear that kind of advice?

Great "wow" number one: the fall foliage was peaking. Such beauty. I'll probably edit this post later or add one to embed some photos I took of it.

Great "wow" number two: God speaks. Actually I hear his voice regularly, but usually something extra comes through at these boot camps. I don't know why God doesn't speak these kinds of things elsewhere -- is it something with me that I'm only willing to listen at a Ransomed Heart event? Or is there something about the situation that God just can speak clearer -- is the lines of communication clearer? Really need to figure that one out, because I can't wait between events like this to hear like that.

Great "wow" number three: Such men on the work crew. There were two men on this crew I knew before -- Bill from Castle Rock who I met at a previous event and had lunch with a few weeks back, and one of the leads Scott who was a "wingman" on my previous volunteering with Ransomed Heart. In no time we bonded. Why can't the church be more like this? Well, in part, we were the church of course. But why can't the "church" as most think of it be like this? I cling to the belief it can ... and continue to suspect the "institutional systems" about her interfere with her full functioning. But I love how she often performs despite those handcuffs.

Organic Conference -- questions answered

Some have inquired for more details, mostly from where this blog feeds to. So, quickest to respond to them all from here.

First of all, how did I hear about it? I signed up on this website to find organic churches. Back in August, Milt Rodriguez, a partner to Frank Viola, contacted me about my interest and the potential of hosting a conference and help with local details. Couldn't help, but was interested in the conference.

Milt, Frank, and a couple of others in different parts of the country are looking to help hook up some interested in organic church in different parts of the country. Since starting that website linked to above and fueled by interest sparked by Frank Viola and George Barna's book Pagan Christianity?, they've had several thousand inquiries around the U.S. from folks looking to connect with others interested in organic Christianity. Colorado Springs had a pretty decent concentration, so it was picked for one of the early conferences.

So what happened? Well, we met with Milt from Friday night to Sunday morning in someone's home (thanks Edith for hosting!). Friday night was for two and half hours, and a bit more than half the time was spent on introductions and why the interest from everyone, while the second half Milt did some teaching on Christ and Christ in us. Milt on the weekend was trying to really drive home that it was about Christ, not church. A secondary theme was that he also heavily emphasized was that there is mystery to it all, and that God still uses revelation -- it is a spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Saturday morning continued in the teaching of mystery, more on Saturday with the emphasis on reconciliation - that fact of equality due to each of us having Christ in us so we each have valuable contributions -- we don't need the preacher to reveal God for us, we each have it in each other for that. He tied it back to Genesis 1 and 2. Great teaching (though a couple of the finer points I have a bit of an issue with -- but it was those finer points) about the work of Christ about restoring to the original intent of Genesis 1 and 2. I really liked it because too many preachers make it all too simple ... and trying to explain the points Milt made here in this short account won't do justice. It really is about being separate and joint at the same time, and the Trinity being one and three, et al.

So, anyway, setting a stage about Christ in us, we in Christ and how we are one and Christ is one ... Saturday afternoon was about answering questions. This was the open forum for Milt to answer questions about organic church. Interestingly, little was about practical matters as I suspected. I think most had read enough of the available books to get the practical matters, so we got to heart matters and brushed some theological matters about it. Saturday night was more of the teaching that draws us to Christ first, and a little instruction about how to spend the first few months together -- things like taking time to detox from traditional church, focusing on relationships with one another. That continued a bit Sunday morning, and we also got to the practical matters of organizing who goes where in our trial attempts at forming organic fellowships.

That is it in a nutshell, short of the time we spent just talking with one another over our long lunch and dinner breaks.

Milt's website is Rebuilders. That first link will take you to a joint resource with his allies around the country -- I'd advise that as a place to start unless you might be in Colorado or Utah (Milt's based in the Western Slope region of Colorado).

My reaction -- I'm diving into this. I've been to so many churches that promise "authentic" fellowship. I think organic type fellowship holds the best hope for that. I look forward to this attempt we're making, with some caution, but no plans to hold back.

Organic Conference

It has been more than a year since regularly "attending church" (if we are the church, how do we attend ourselves?). This past weekend I attended an organic church conference with a number of other folks interested in organic church here in Colorado Springs and along the Front Range. Looks like an outcome is two somewhat connected communities, one along the I-25 corridor of the town, one along Powers Blvd (for those not familiar with the Springs, the area is really stretched n/s, but it is typically quicker to go n/s than east-west because of I-25 on the west side and Powers on the east -- nothing really comparable to those two going east-west).

We've got an outside "consultant" -- a church planter if you will -- who is helping direct this from experience. He'll be back in a few months, but for now, we "detox" from institutional church and just gather and build relationships. Lots of things are banned for now that sounds almost heresy to do so -- no bible study, no theological discussions, no "prayer requests" at gatherings -- it's about relationship with one another and Jesus for now.

Excited, wary, and a number of other emotions. We'll see what happens.
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Reminder -- I'm out of town and away from a computer from Wednesday late until Sunday. So this will likely be the last post of the week unless I do one Wednesday for some odd reasons.

Boot Camp

Well, a week from today I'll be helping prepare Frontier Ranch to host another Ransomed Heart Wild At Heart Boot Camp.

For those unaware of what a Boot Camp is, I believe the best selling Christian book title this century outside of some Bible translations and Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life is probably John Eldredge's Wild At Heart. Years ago, John and his ministry, Ransomed Heart, started offering men's retreats in the mountains of Colorado to help men explore more deeply what it means to be a man and to become fully what God intended. These have helped hundreds if not thousands of men, and the impact of these men have improved the lives of thousands more. For example, if you read Donald Miller's To Own a Dragon (Miller's more famous books are Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, and one of my favorites Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance), you see his journey in dealing with an absent father and realizing the impact of the lack of a male influence had on him. He specifically mentions Wild At Heart and his trip to a boot camp in that book and the impact it had in sorting out his journey.

I first made a boot camp in May 2004. Great time of listening to God, and unpacking who I am and how the events of life have shaped me. I went back in January 2005 and volunteered in a role for the October 2006 event, and a few weeks back got recruited to return as part of the work crew (the manual labor for the event).

The power of the event seems to vary for each man. I think the honesty of each man who speaks (John, Craig McConnell, Bart Hansen, and in the past Gary Barkalow) in their journey holds the greatest power to me. I've gained from each time I've gone, first with the teaching and stories, then as a volunteer with the interactions of others and their stories. This is a weekend into what the movement of Christ should be.

reduced load

Normally I post here on Sunday or Monday (as well as Wednesday or Thursday). My batteries for this kind of thinking and inputting are a bit drained right now, so I'm going to skip today's.

Lots going on right now, but honestly I think I will be able to post what is normally my second post of the week later, and hope to post the first one of next week as scheduled. The second post of next week will probably be skipped. This weekend I'm attending a conference on organic church (Friday-Sunday) that has the hoped for outcome of planting a couple of churches in the Colorado Springs area, and then the following weekend I've got a long weekend volunteering with Ransomed Heart for a Boot Camp (leaving Wednesday, back Sunday).