Lost and Found

The Perils of Recycle Bins…

kaminj — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 05:05:21 +0000

Katherine and I recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Even though it’s only been a couple of weeks, we’ve already discovered many wonderful things about living in this city. Of course, near the top of the list is that our city is located in a state that has multiple instances of double letters in its name. Not far behind that, however, are the GIANT recycle bins!

I’m sure I don’t have to enlighten you as to the benefits of having a city-sponsored recycling program, or what it says about the values of a community that has recycle bins that are as big as the trash bins. Instead, I want to briefly point out one of the dangers by way of a little story about our experience moving into our new apartment.

When we moved in, we naturally had a prodigious amount of cardboard boxes. We had so many that for our first week in town our place was more of a Harry Potteresqe labyrinth with ever-changing paths and only one way through to the toilet-er-goblet. Not to be conquered by the cardboard siege, we methodically dismantled the walls of boxes and slowly found all the nooks and crannies in which we would be storing our lives for the next while.

As big as the bins are in this town , they are by no means big enough to contain all the boxes that contained all the belongings of two pack rats now married almost five years. And the bigger problem was that the giant bins only get picked up once a month. So we packed that bin like the one faux burlap bag you brought to the food co-op when you were shopping for Thanksgiving dinner, and we settled in for a long wait. Maybe a few long waits.

We lined our actual walls with the boxes. We stuffed them between the couch and that extra mattress that we still need to get rid of (any takers?). We practically cooked on them. And we waited for the nice recycle people to empty our nice recycle bin in the wee hours of the morning on the second Friday of the month.

It didn’t take too long for the situation to wear on us. Finally, a thought occurred. A crazy idea, really. We could take the extra boxes to the recycling center! So we did! No more boxes.

The thing that scared me about this experience is the fact that the presence of a convenience made me fail to see the simple and common solution to the problem. Taking your cardboard to the center is not as convenient as walking it to your bin, but it sure gets you your place back a whole lot faster. We were in danger of starting our own in-house cardboard biodegradation operation or something! Fortunately we were spared. But I wonder… What other well-intentioned conveniences might be out there threatening to make my life substantially more complicated because I decided to stop thinking? Perhaps I am already a slave to my conveniences. Hmm…

I’m gonna surf the web!! Yesssss!!

Where is Missional?

kaminj — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:16:19 +0000

I just started reading Richard Foster’s book, Streams of Living Water, today, and I’m reminded of a couple of things. First, we seem, in our Christian faith, to have a tendency to distill the faith into a somewhat narrow sample of what actually encompasses Christianity. You might go to an evangelical church, avoid people who are charismatic, espouse the virtues of incarnational ministry, regardless of whether or not you actually do incarnational ministry, and wish you had time to lead a more contemplative life…

I was chatting with Rick Snyder, the senior pastor at 1st Church, recently, and he pointed out that we all have a natural tendency to gravitate to certain elements of the faith, and we tend to neglect, be suspicious of, or just avoid the others. We tend to fear what we don’t understand, and even within the traditions of one faith we end up fragmented and afraid of people and beliefs that are different from that to which we are accustomed. Foster reminds us that there is tremendous value in the various traditions of the faith, and we would all do ourselves a great service by exploring them and appropriating as much as we can. But at least, if we cannot take much benefit from a particular tradition, maybe we can appreciate those other traditions and the benefit that they bring to the kingdom of God.

I find this refreshing because (to make a gross generalization) Christian writers tend to only see one or two of these traditions when they look at scripture, and they harp on it as if it were the only thing that was there. It’s nice to have someone point out that there’s more to our faith than that. We probably need each other to help us continue to see the broader perspective and get us out of the formulations of faith that seem the most comfortable for our personal preferences.

Second, as I am reading, I suspect that the missional movement falls somewhere in the incarnational tradition. That said, I think an important piece of what it means to be missional is to look at where it is that you live your faith. Missional might say it’s not so much a part of a particular stream or tradition so much as it is a focus on where all of these traditions are practiced. It’s vital that we realize our identity as agents of God’s kingdom, but an agent isn’t doing much if it’s just drinking coffee at HQ. You may worship on Sunday morning and learn some wonderful things about God, yourself, and your relationship to the rest of the world, but if you can’t then be changed and live according to the calling you got on Sunday, it’s really of no use. Faith does not find expression so much on Sunday morning when we worship as it does Monday morning when we’re back to work or taking the kids to school. Sunday prepares us for Monday. Sunday is not the point, Monday is.

Oh Christmas Tree!

kaminj — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:15:09 +0000

The Christmas Tree means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I know, for example, that some Christians deliberately choose not to put up a Christmas tree due to it’s connections to pagan rituals. For these people, the Christmas Tree doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus, so they don’t want to have anything to do with a Christmas Tree. For other people, the Christmas Tree is precisely a reminder of Jesus. Just as important a fixture as the nativity scene on the mantel. For others, the Christmas Tree is primarily a reminder of family and the importance of staying connected to the people we love. It’s a nice family tradition.

The Christmas Tree means radically different things to different people. In a sense, it’s what you make of it. I like having a tree in the house. It smells nice. It looks pretty with lights on it and it has fun decorations on it. Some of those decorations are reminders of my family, some are reminders of Jesus, and some just look cool. Sometimes I think about Jesus when I look at the tree, but I think that’s in part because…it’s Christmas.

Anyway, I was thinking about this, and I realized that church has this same characteristic: it’s what you make of it. For some, it’s a family tradition. You do it cause that’s what you do. What’s the point in asking why? For some people, I think church is even a place where you go to be seen-it might be a place to do some networking. For some people, it’s about Jesus. It’s about wanting to meet with him, be changed by him, and worship him with other people who love him. For most of us it’s probably been all of these things in different season, or weeks, in our lives. At times I think church is more about who you are or what you do than where you go on Sunday mornings…

There may be a sense of safety in taking church for granted, but I think there’s value in asking why we do church. So… Do you go to church? Why? Or, how do you “do” church? What’s your take on the Christmas tree?

Anti-venom for a Consumeristic Church?

kaminj — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:03:35 +0000

People sometimes say that the modern Western church has become severely consumeristic. It’s has become a competitive “industry” where different churches vie for a slice of market-share by having the snappiest service, the best children’s program, or even the most compelling preaching. People sometimes say that the church has become consumeristic, and people are sometimes right.
The thing is, we have needs right? Don’t we need an environment where we can focus on God? Don’t we need to hear a sermon that will challenge or encourage us? Don’t we want to feel like our kids are being taken care of and discovering the love of Jesus? I dunno… Sometimes?
The thing I am wondering is, maybe there is a cure for consumerism that doesn’t leave us feeling like no one cares about us.
Here’s the thing I’d like to try, and I’d love for the five or so people that occasionally glance at my blog to consider this as well.
What if we prayed for the leaders in our churches? What if we prayed that God would be near them, and they would know His deep love for them? That they would discern His leading and they would have courage to pursue it with passion, determination, and boldness? That God would rebuke their wayardness? What if we prayed that God would hold them up in their weakness, and bless their strengths, and give them humble hearts to do the wild and treacherous work of leading the church?
I’m not going to suggest that the result of this will be that we will suddenly feel like the church is meeting our needs, whatever that means. It might mean that we could start to have a little more confidence that God is with us as a community, and He is leading us as a community. If this was the case, we could at least know, maybe, that even if we didn’t feel like all of our needs were being met, we could see that God was still taking us somewhere together.
I don’t know. Maybe not… but maybe.

“Sent People” Sermon

kaminj — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:02:54 +0000

Here’s a little sermon I gave on what it means to be a sent people. It’s part two of a three-part vision series we are doing.
At the end, there is a question for reflection. The sermon ends after that, so if you feel like you’re getting a long time to reflect, that’s why: it’s over.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/xsyb4yjkz8.mp3

Why Connect?

kaminj — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:02:19 +0000

At the Launch, we talk a lot about being God’s “sent” people. We are not here to live for ourselfs, but instead, we exist more for everyone around us. But here’s a confession: I’m not very good at being “sent”. I’m very good at being selfish. I tend to look after me. I tend to do things that will be good for me. Sometimes I realize this and think to myself, “Dang. I’ve got to be praying more. I’m so focused on myself. I need to connect with God so that I can be more focused on others.”
I was having one of these conversations recently (not actually with myself, but with my wife) and I got a bit of a wake up call. Ultimately, I shouldn’t be praying just so that I can be more focused on others, but rather, I should be praying in order to stay connected to my God who loves me and gives me life. This is not to say that I don’t want to be focused on others- I’m just saying interaction with God is good in itself. It’s not supposed to be a means to an end, at least certainly not exclusively. I want to share in the peace and joy of Jesus, AND I want to be a different person because of it.

Furniture and Change

kaminj — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:01:29 +0000

My office is in an old, old building. It’s awesome. I love it. There’s a parlor around the corner, and recently, the facilities manager of the building rearranged all the chairs and couches and the piano. All that stuff.
We talked about it, and I guess he was a little nervous that people would not receive the change too warmly. I’m only guessing, but I would assume that the reason people may not like the change is because they were used to the way it was. From looking at it, there was certainly nothing wrong with the new setup.
This got me thinking a little. Furniture is movable. Sometimes it gives the impression of permanence, and sometimes the stuff might be challenging to move around, but it can be done. It’s not permanent.
I think sometimes we treat a lot of things we do or have done like it’s furniture. We like it, we got used to it, and we think it’s permanent. The fact is, sometimes rearranging things can give us a fresh perspective that’s incredibly helpful. Sometimes we may even have to get rid of the once beautiful sofa which is now stained and musty. We’re still thankful for all the years we got great use out of that couch, but it’s time for the couch to go.
It’s so easy to fall into this trap of doing things as a church a very particular way. We do it cause it worked, and then maybe at some point, whether or not it still works, we keep on doing it because it makes us feel safe. I’m just as susceptible to this as anyone else. Sometimes there are new, more effective ways of doing things, and sometimes old methods work great. Sometimes that chair that was banished to the attic comes back out decades later to make a stylish reappearance.
I just don’t want the value to be that we don’t change things. We need to change things.
What if we never switched to the telephone because we really liked the telegraph?

New Music Player!!

kaminj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:46 +0000

After a great deal of tinkering and toil, I’m very pleased to announce the new music player, which plays music! It’s right there on the sidebar. Check it out. I will try to add more music on a regular basis.

Multi-Cultural Church

kaminj — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:59:41 +0000

Here’s a church that I would say has a successful multi-cultural congregation. What’s one way they do it? Hip-hop music. Check it out.

Here’s an article by the pastor, Efrem Smith:

http://msainfo.org/articles/building-community-in-a-multicultural-church

Here’s his church:

http://www.sanctuarycovenant.org/joomla/

They have a potluck and hang out on the day of their annual meeting too. I thought that was interesting!

To Save a Chef

kaminj — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:58:59 +0000

I watch a fair amount of TV. Thanks to the internet and iTunes, I can catch up on the years of TV that I missed when I didn’t have a TV. Yes!
So I’ve been watching old episodes of Top Chef, a competitive chef elimination showdown!
Anyway, a ways into the season a situation occurs where one of the better chefs, Elia, has kind of a bad day and is in danger of being eliminated. It was looking pretty bad for Elia, but then another chef (who also had a shot at elimination) stepped in and said she would resign so that Elia could stay in the competition. They don’t ever tell us if it was actually Elia who would have been eliminated, but the judges accepted Mia’s resignation instead of eliminating someone.
I think about how Elia must have felt, knowing that someone else gave up their chance at winning the competition for her sake, and I think that must have been really motivating for her. Knowing that someone cared enough about her and wanted her to succeed bad enough that this person would give up her spot so that Elia could continue, must have helped her work pretty hard to succeed.
I hope this isn’t too terribly cliché, but I was struck by some of the similarities between the situation with these chefs, and our situation with Jesus.
Jesus gave up his life for us. But it wasn’t only so that we could be a part of the big party, it was also so that we could do the work that he wants to do: sharing the gospel through these lives we’ve been given by loving the people around us in the way he loves and giving ourselves to a world in desperate need.
The analogy breaks down of course, because Mia might have been toast anyway, and Jesus didn’t give himself up for us because we were doing so well in the game. But I felt there was still a little something there.