Sivin Kit’s Garden

Totally delighted this morning to check out Vineyard Church Sutton where Jason Clark is the Senior/Founding Pastor

Got this via Jason Clark who credits imagine! .. anyway, good stuff …

Father Richard Rohr (Franciscan father from the States who spoke at last year’s Greenbelt). This is his “five messages that a teenage boy needs to learn to become a wise man”:

1. Life is hard
2. You are going to die
3. You are not that important
4. You are not in control
5. Your life is not about you

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Thanks to Mark Norridge who posted this on >article which focuses on the Old Testament Sciptureson the Organic Church blog Mind Mapped some thoughts and hope to explore this further relating it to my journey through BLC and beyond. Here’s a liberating gem from Walter Brueggemann,

“There is no one single or normative model of church life. It is dangerous and distorting for the church to opt for an absolutist model that it insists upon in every circumstance. Moreover, we are more prone to engage in such reductionism, if we do not keep alive a conversation concerning competing and conflicting models. Or to put it positively, models of the church must not be dictated by cultural reality, but they must be voiced and practiced in ways that take careful account of the particular time and circumstance into which God’s people are called. Every model of the church must be critically contextual. “

I’ve never really followed USAmerican elections or Presidential race. The last jolt may have come during the Bush-Gore Episode - “What’s going on here?” was the popping question. Now, just having a glance at PRIMARY RESULTS: Delegate Scorecard makes me wonder how our Malaysian Political process really works (For a non-mainstream viewpoint in Aliran read New Politics In Malaysia) … because what I read about in USA is really foreign to my experience here in Malaysia.

Plan to read A Big Theory Of Culture: A Talk With Brian Eno tonight …

Thanks Justin Baeder for this idea:

Purpose: To allow people to explore Christian spirituality in a multisensory, move-at-your-own-pace environment of immersion in Christian word, symbol, and practice.

Format: 12 or so stations set up in a large but cozy room.
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Lots of resources on this area from Father Thomas Keating in Contemplative Outreach Website (yes … it’s ok to learn from a Roman Catholic Cistercian “Trappist” priest)
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“See, I’m a little nervous about the “emerging” leadership discussion, because I think our reaction against the “authority and control” leadership style, is to just simply NOT LEAD.

Leadership in itself is not an evil. Vision is not evil. Mission Statements and all that rigamaru, not evil. The problem is, leaders screw up. I would hope that most of us though, have had an experience with a leader that made us want to be around them. Be like them. Be led by them. Be influenced by them. And to commit to them. Follow their vision. ETC. ”
~ a new Jason I’m reading (Sailor and a Scholar on Servant Leadership (with cool Last Samurai Picture! )

Working through Henri Nouwen’s wonderful little book In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership did me much good … I stumbled on this study guide on the net, I think I’m going to swim through it’s 81 pages one more time after Jason’s “samurai” blog!

“America’s self-help gurus are making millions. Francis Wheen traces the rise of mystic mumbo-jumbo…”, for more read Would you buy a way of life from a guru?

“After a lifetime in the church and 28 years as full-bodied participant, here is my suggestion: whatever one’s diagnosis about the leadership disease, the answer is not to throw it out. A better option, in my view, is to locate it on a different map or in an alternative story. “ ~ Todd Hunter

For more, read Dirty Dancing: Leaders and Followers