soupablog

livesketching

"If I only had a ball of string, a rock and some tape" — Rev. MacGyver

I'm reposting two fun iPhone snapshots from Tim Snyder at the new Netzer Co-op digs at First English Lutheran in Austin. Jonny Baker might need to further repost for one of his Worship Tricks.

Tim writes: "…This is why you shouldn't worship in a box -- well not literally anyways.

PROBLEM: Worship is designed and set-up. With the final touches in place, we discovered a slight problem — no remote to control the Keynote slide show as we utilize rear projection while worshiping inside a "box" of transfiguration white sheet (our dwelling place for Jesus). How will we ever control the computer placed outside the box while worshipping inside the box?

Solution: Call in Rev. MacGyver (Tim and Ryan with their powers combined)

RESULT: A ball of string, a rock and tape are acquired. We throw the ball of string up and over the rafters of the church and dangle a rock guided by other strings suspended from the pew to create a pully mechanism. One end will be in the box — the other will suspend a rock above the space bar of the the computer outside the box.

Brilliant.

Dr. Peter Rollins at St. Marks — This Sunday

stations of the cross

two of my stations of the cross from last year.
i miss that harmony guitar.
photographed by reallivepreacher

Station 10: Jesus is Crucified (detail on right)

Station 14: Jesus is Laid in the Tomb (detail on right)

i'm available by commission to finish the other twelve.

Liveblog: Conversations with Phyllis Tickle (FRI PM)

-- note -- sorry about abandoning the live blogging last night. it was engaging, to be sure, but just not conducive to blogging.

5:52 pm - I'm here at St. Mark's, San Antonio, in the historic heart of downtown. The room is abuzz, and for a so-called emergent topic, the place is brimming with folks over 50. At 39, I'm clearly the youngest person here. Mary Ellen is here from ¡Viva! — and we were able to talk a bit about the upcoming Open House. Phyllis Tickle's flight was delayed, and she just showed up.

reminder - Phyllis Tickle Conference this weekend in SA

Conversations with Phyllis Tickle
Faith in the 21st Century: The Emerging Landscape

Conversations about Christ-following in the 21st Century with one of the most compelling voices on religious life. Phyllis Tickle has her finger on the pulse of the faith community in America and offers a compelling glimpse into its formation and coming transformation.

Phyllis' new book "The Great Emergence" is in bookstores now.

NOTE: Registration is online

Student scholarships are available. Contact Jonathan Wickham (admin of this event) through facebook or Lou Taylor at the Diocesan Offices. (210-824-5387).

Schedule of Phyllis Tickle Conference
November 14 – November 15, 2007

Friday, November 14
5:00 to 6:00 pm      Registration and Reception
6:00 – 7:00 pm      Introduction and First Presentation

Saturday, November 15, 2008
9:00             Registration and Breakfast Reception
9:30 – 10:30          Second Session
10:30 – 10:45      Break (we will distribute discussion questions for use during the break)
10:45 – 11:45      Third Session
11:45 – 12:00        Break (more discussion questions available)
12:00 – 1:00        Fourth Session

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Phyllis Tickle will teach a class at St. Mark’s at 10:00 am

levity

House Concert Photos, one week late

last sunday lane ayo took some photos of our third Casa Soupiset house concert,
hailing from woodland park, colorado, tim and laurie are the blackthorn project.

my mandolin never sounded so good.

more house concerts to come. if you weren't on the invitation list, contact me and i'll add you.

San Francisco Trip, rear view mirror

So like I said, Amy and I just got back from eight days in California.
Click for a first gallery (more to come)

It was wonderful on so many levels. First and foremost? Time alone to rediscover, enjoy and relax with Amy. A celebration of fifteen years of marriage. The weather and the flights and food and the downtime were all superb, the journey and the destinations were picture-perfect and meaningful. The friends we reconnected with along the way were hospitable and fun and funny and myriad. The trip was even educational (learned a little about wine during the first third of the trip and a little about youth media in the last). I did a much better job about living in the moment. Didn't spend my whole time behind the lens or buried in sketchbooks. Our 5 senses were each a little more alive, aware, acute.

Wednesday
We flew San Antonio to San Diego to San Fransisco (the via santa?); wove through the City, over Golden Gate Bridge (stopping only long enough to snap a quick photo) and drove all the way up hwy 101 to our B&B in Cloverdale. Stopped along the way in Santa Rosa for farmers' market. Italian  for dinner. Strolled Cloverdale's main street; Explored our B&B's gardens.

Thursday
On Thursday, Amy and I were awakened by the time zone difference and the excitement of being in a new place — plus, we got a good night’s sleep in a very comfortable bed. Where the night before had been hot and humid — Wednesday had reached 106°F in this inland part of northern California — this morning was crisp and cool. Large temperature differentials are a hallmark of Sonoma County — good for grape-growing. We got up and milled around the upstairs of the B&B a little: there’s a little hospitality room on the other side of the house that has coffee, hot tea, a small ice maker, and a fridge with sodas, juice and water.

After a bit we decided to go out for a pre-breakfast walk in downtown Cloverdale. The B&B is on Third St. just a block off Cloverdale Drive, the main street, and pretty much in the center of this tiny town. We took our time, snapped some iPhone shots of interesting buildings, and after some searching, eventually found Underground Coffee wedged in the back of an antique store. Amy: a blueberry muffin; me: a dolce latté. On the side wall of the antique store four large murals depict historical scenes of life in Cloverdale — one for each season, though the seasons were vaguely depicted and to the point where for  a while we weren’t sure which painting matched which season. Heading back, I snapped a tiled panorama of Pick’s, a hamburger joint that’s been around for 70 years or so.

Breakfast was fun: we had two house mates, a young couple from Stockholm, who were enjoying California while on vacation and probably enjoying the favorable exchange rate as well. We were served Dutch pancakes with homemade pomegranate syrup— as well as some apple-gouda sausages, mini muffins and coffee. I also had a light peach nectar which had the consistency of apple juice, and Amy and the Swedish couple had orange juice. Don, our host, would disappear from time to time, bringing out the small courses; first, the muffins, then the sausages and pancakes, then returning with the syrup. He’s a good conversationalist and was very interested in helping us plan our day in the Dry Creek appellation. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, we had recommendations and a highlighted map.

We toured a handful of Dry Creek wineries and ended up sampling wines at fewer than we stopped at. Asti's Cellar No. 8, Fritz, Ferrari-Carano (mostly for its well-tended gardens). We enjoyed a picnic luncheon overlooking Lake Sonoma (note the Dublin Dr. Pepper we enjoyed with panini from the Dry Creek General Store. Later in the day we fell in love with Bella vinyard and its wine caves and checked out quaint Preston winery as well. Romantic drive along West Dry Creek Road to Quivira. Poked around bookstores and stationers in touristy-but-serene Healdsburg, and walked barefoot in the cool grass in their town square. Back at the B&B's beautiful gardens, we watched dusk turn into night as we traded stories with the innkeepers Don and Mary before turning in.

Friday
More fascinating breakfast conversation. More guests had arrived, and our table mates included a couple from Nova Scotia and our Swedish friends. We packed up the car and kicked back in the gardens before bidding farewell to Don and Mary and the Swedes. Instead of retracing hwy 101 back to San Francisco (hereafter, the City), we decided to take the scenic route, which allowed us to explore the Eastern side of 101, back through Healdsburg (found some cute shops and a really cool kwanset-hut antique store). Peeked into Simi winery but didn't stick around for the tour.

Lunch in Windsor, mostly to find free Wi-fi. Happened upon a pizzeria on its second day of business. During lunch's email-check, we discovered one of my dear high school friends is pregnant, and another high school friend was in the Bay area touring colleges with her son and her high school aged daughter.

Friday afternoon we made our way into the City, did a driveby of The Haight, and settled into Golden Gate Park where we toured the Botanical Gardens for a couple hours. Then it was off to Grace Cathedral (that's where my friends Vanessa and Will are both associate pastors), where we met up with Ryan, Holly, Paxton, and others in the Seven community, because the Jesus for President tour coincidentally had rolled into town. Cobalt Season played during the intermission, and I had an amazing evening, and got to say a brief hello to Shane and Chris. And I met the head of Grace's labyrinth guild. They have a guild that takes care of their two Chartres-styled labyrinths (one indoors, the other out). Made me want to learn more about the Psalters.

The Sharps pointed us to Liberty Café for a late-night nosh in Bernal Heights, but it closed as we were walking up. Rats. We ended up getting really turned around and frustrated with driving around the Mission District before settling on a 24-hour diner, then coming back to Ryan and Holly's and crashing.

Saturday
Slept in. Way in. Smelled the coffee sometime after 9:30 and stumbled toward the aroma. Then I saw it. The view. The house where the Sharps are house-sitting has this amazing view of the water. It's breathtaking in daylight and beautifully sequined at night. We chatted with Holly and Ryan, ate some AMAZING Cali cinnamon toast, watched Pax, and made plans to hook up with Lisa and her kids at the notable Zachary's Chicago Pizza at Berkeley (note to self: the drive from Oakland Hills to Berkely on 13 was amazingly beautiful in July). We walked around Trader Joe's, then made our way (with a hot pizza in hand for our hosts) back to Casa Sharp where our Emergent friend Adam Klein was celebrating his birthday. His extended family members were there as well as his Seven friends, many of whom Amy and I met for the first time. From about 1pm to maybe 1am we enjoyed the longest pool party in my remembrance, with some really neat people as well. I built a little fire when it got cold and we were thankful for the heated pool (thanks again, Ryan). At some point in the evening, rock-n-roll photographer and friend Daley came to the house as well, after shooting a wedding in Berkeley. Everyone was in rare form that evening. Rare form.

Sunday
Our original plan was to visit St. Gregory of Nyssa for a "now-for-something-completely-different" worship experience (watch the whole video if you have time). But the pool party and travels had decided for us: more sleeping in. So here's what we did. More morning coffee and cinnamon toast. (Sorry, Bob, we never made it to bakesale betty either)... we lounged and caught up on email. So did Daley and Ryan and so the whole breakfast table looked like an Apple convention. We just embodied the sabbath. Rested. Then said some sad good-byes and snapped some photos before Amy and I left for the Union Square area. Crossed Bay Bridge into the city and before long, arrived at Hotel Nikko. Checked in and rested a little in our room before walking up (and up and up) to California, back to Grace Cathedral, where Amy and I were the guests at a Sunday School class (in a beautiful library) where they were talking about being Ordinary Radicals. Vanessa and Will invited us there so we could talk about our faith-journey, our Trinity House experiences as well as our Covenant experiences, and a little bit about my role in illustrating Jesus for President.

Then we went up to the choir part of the cathedral and had a beautiful evening contemplative service with a Eucharist. Sigh. It was really amazing, and an amazing cap to an amazing weekend. Vanessa, Will, Matt, and Anna treated us to dinner and laughter at Farmerbrown afterwards. Then it was back to the hotel, time to shift into Conference Mode.

Monday/Tuesday
Soon I'll blog more about the 2008 YPulse Mashup, an international youth media conference that drew a diverse crowd. Prosocial was the meme this year. Like founder Anastasia said here:

"While we do focus on effective ways to reach youth with technology, our audience is about one third non-profit/advocacy organizations so branding could be branding for a company or branding for an agency serving youth. [We had] sessions on this year's election, youth activism, on whether girls are the new geeks, and [one on] what folks who create web sites for youth can do about cyberbullying.

So it was not just about "selling stuff to kids" it was also about using those technologies effectively and authentically to reach them whether it is with a product that is actually useful or a message that could save their lives or inspire them to create social change."

Wednesday
Was a travel day, so following a night of Chinatown and cable cars, it was nice to just sit on a plane and be. The kids gave us a great welcome, as did my parents, who along with my mother-in-law, took care of the four little ones.

More blogging soon. Again, check out the photos.

I'll post more once our 35mm gets digitized.

Tony Jones’ Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

Thankfully someone's finally done it ... Tony Jones took the last year or so and gathered and codified many of the stories, theologies and artifacts from the first decade of the emerging church conversation. The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (2008, Jossey-Bass) offers hope-filled, engaging views (at times wonderfully granular, other times, appropriately birds-eye) of many of the facets of the imperfect gem that is emergent. Part history scrapbook, part emergent church travelogue, part theological and epistemic treatment, this primer may well become the de-facto "on-ramp text" for the next decade.

Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals + Ryan Sharp Snippet

It came in today! My advance copy of Jesus for President, the new Shane Claiborne + Chris Haw book for which I contributed 40 or so watercolor illustrations; designed by my friends Holly and Ryan over at SharpSeven. I'm really geeking out over how cool it turned out, thumbing through it like a little kid. It's cool to finally see the other contributors' work (several artists, photographers) and see how the whole thing comes together.

Please consider buying a copy.

It's four-color throughout, but somehow the price is less than $12 over at the big box place. I'm sure VivaBooks will sell it as well.

Here's an illustration I did, which you can see closer when you buy the book:

file under: filet'o'fish'o'war

Here's designer Ryan hard at work with his other love. This is fresh footage BTW:

Catching up with Claude

Tonight, Emergent|SA got together at our downtown San Antonio hangout, Ruta Maya Coffee Co., for an evening with Claude Nikondeha, Amahoro Africa. It had been quite a few years since I had spoken with Claude in person, and it brought joy to catch up with him again. He has a missionary's heart for Christ's work in Africa, with none of the imperialist, colonialist baggage. He's open to God doing things in new, different, unconventional ways, and his whole being seems bent toward lives engaged in God's Kingdom-work, whether its lone outposts of conversational gospel in red-light districts or serendipitous sermon-free church plants in urban Africa, or charting an emergent type of accountability/edibility among his close friends in Phoenix.

It was good to see TJ, Lane, Danielle, Tim and Bob there as well.
I'll leave you with a large pull-quote from Bob about tonight:

"What a hope-filled night it was, crashing the Emergent|SA Feb gathering. ... I got to Ruta Maya early, in time to stumble upon the San Antonio Obama staff, squatting for the past 3 days until their offices open this Sat.  It was great to hear their stories of community organizing in Iowa, Idaho, Nevada and Washington - a swarm of people in their early 20s helping connect people to a powerful campaign.

It was even more hope-filled to hear Claude Nikondeha of Amahoro Africa.  Claude talked with great energy about how this network helps build relationships, sharing stories and exploring the shape of the emerging church in post colonial Africa and beyond. He was quite moving talking about what God is doing in East Africa, particularly in terms of new models of faith communities and courageous people fostering new model of  transformation. 

Founded in just the past few years, Amahoro is now consists of over 200 leaders representing 200 communities. For more about Claude, see this interview.

Two things Claude said really grabbed me:

• he talked about what a contrast America is with Africa - particularly how un-involved or interdependent our lives are with one another in the U.S.
• he used a term I had never heard or even considered - pre-emptive reconciliation. Talking about the recent conflicts in Kenya, Claude talked about the power of engaging in reconciliation BEFORE an outbreak or a provocation.

I came away from these two hours just brimming with hope, eager to see the world that these Obama staffers and Claude are birthing." — Bob Carlton

Year A :: Advent II

The drawing above is of my friend Tim — the associate pastor at Covenant — and some of the kids of the church. One of the best rituals I've found at our little church is Children’s Time on the Blanket. Kids from two to maybe ten or so come up in the middle of the service, not for a children's sermon, but rather just for a time for the pastor to talk with the kids, to take up their offerings for a given missionary family, and to pray together.

Emma (our almost three year old) will walk up front to 'blanket time' and always catch herself mid-step, five or six paces into it, and do an about-face and come back to us for money; we'll give her a dollar bill or a quarter to put in the bag (like most kids she prefers shiny, weighty coins to paper currency any day) and then she and the other kids will go up to talk with Tim or Gordon.

Thanks, Tim and Gordon, for keeping this tradition alive.

I think if some of our present-day world leaders had, as children, walked up for Children’s Time on the Blanket, the world might be a more peaceful place.

Wednesday I asked another friend up at church to sing and play our Call to Worship for this morning, and she said yes. So this morning she got up with her guitar and voice and brought something that was wonderful: a simple Advent spiritual, Come, Lord Jesus (Come and be born in our hearts), delivered with a calypso strumming pattern — she told me it was the way the song had been passed down to her.

I hope the congregation received the song with open ears and hearts. Sometimes I wonder how this friend feels because of her present situation: She is a new San Antonian not by choice, but is here because she was displaced from her native New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. She lost everything, relocated. She still brings her infant granddaughter weekly, and they come to worship God. They get a ride up to church because she cannot afford a bus pass. She gets by without internet or email. I met her at the Franciscan retreats we have up at church, and since then we've talked about guitars and songs and her old life back in New Orleans. She's got a lovely singing voice, and in a strange way, I really feel like she's one of the reasons I'm there up at Covenant these days.

I picture her learning today's spiritual, chord-by-chord, decades earlier in Louisiana, perhaps singing with family or friends around her New Orleans living room. Perhaps she picked it up by taking in the sounds flowing out of the African-American congregation which I'd imagine she once regularly attended. Now days, her stories come in trickles, perhaps a little cautiously, usually while we're tuning instruments or handing out chord sheets. I'm convinced there's a deep well of story there.

Imagine my surprise when, close to the end of the service today, I looked up and spotted a couple of Emergent Village folks filing into the back of the church — the esteemed Glen Barbier and the inimitable Lance White, as well as their well-spoken sustainable gardener friend Steven Hebbard — all had made the morning road trip from Austin. I understand they got a little turned around, so they missed a good bit of the service.

But, as is often the case, a shared meal proved deeper and perhaps just as soul-satisfying as the service anyway (not to diminish from the service this week, or from the thoughts of John the Baptist swirling in my head). We all headed to Chipotle and spent at least two? two-and-a-half? certainly not three? hours eating and talking and connecting. When tribes collide.

One more missive. This afternoon Amy took a page from the Soupablog School for Nabbing a Christmas Tree this year, and went out and got back with a nice tree in well under an hour. Maybe more like 40 minutes. My kinda woman. Hunters: 1, Gatherers, 0.  We had that sucker in the stand and unfurled in record time. Now our house smells like pine, and we'll have to bring in some ornaments over the next few nights. We're usually Late Decorators when it comes to Christmas. Lots of reasons, but if I explained them, it might sound like I'm railing on you Early Decorators out there.

Kate (see note, right) says I should draw a picture of our pretty tree. Maybe once it's decorated. I've got other pictures I'm drawing too, but how can you say no to a note like this?

Some days:

My life is one big wonderful also/and.

Here's the Advent II lection from this morning's service.
We focused on the Isaiah and Matthew passages.
Looking ahead, here are the Advent III readings.

Dogwood Abbey

"In our world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found." - Henri Nouwen

My college-mate and former Trinity House denizen Pete Z is currently off at grad school (Wake Forest) and experiencing community with the folks at Dogwood Abbey in Winston-Salem: "…we meet once a month so far and hope to up that within a bit to move to meeting for communion and prayer one week, skip a week, then full service...then skip a week."

Their monastic model is described like this :

The Abbey will be a...

1. Center for reflective theological exploration. The Abbey will be an open space for conversation about God where anyone can participate.

2. Center for spiritual direction. The Abbey will provide individual and group spiritual direction via retreats and/or personal appointments.

3. Center for contemplative practice. The Abbey will be open daily for folks to come pray, and will hold regular retreats and studies on prayer and contemplation.

4. Center for ecclesial experimentation. The Abbey will be a place where the traditional church can experiment with new ideas in community and worship through use of space, apprenticeship, and through staff retreats with Abbey leaders.

5. Center for deep ecumenical friendship. The Abbey will host regular ecumenical gatherings for fellowship, dialog, and activism.

6. Center for community engagement. The Abbey hopes to blur the lines of the sacred and secular dichotomy by partnering with local businesses, farmers, and artisans in whatever ways we can.

Sounds beautiful, huh?

Austinchange and McLaren recap

Austinchange.org and Brian McLaren hosted a series of conversations in Austin yesterday revolving around his new book EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE. Some links from Bob Carlton… The Austin American Statesman had some great coverage:

Here
Here and
Here

Per Bob,  "These initial blog posts represent the breadth of POVs from some of the 600 people who came to one or more of these 4 events:"

Rick Diamond
Jacob Vanhorn
Clifton Stringer
Charles Whitmire

Walter Brueggemann's 19 Theses

Once upon a time, Emergent Village carried the MP3 of Walter Brueggemann's near-famous 19 Theses. Their link went dead when the new website went live; tonight I'm bringin' 'em back for you, the Soupablog reader, along with Paul Fromont and Alan Jamieson's transcription.

My friend Troy Bronsink moderates the session, and it's also interesting to hear them dialog during the nearly 40 minutes of Q&A which follow.
I tried to keep the files intact, but edited out a few long audio gaps.

Click here for the Brueggemann 19 Theses Microsite.

of Webber and McLaren and charting it on paper

Interesting. Hm. I just went back and found these handouts I created way back in 2004 ...€” they provide a tabular [ironically modern] outline explaining the postmodern paradigm in light of the last 2000 years to an audience of evangelical types. the material borrows heavily from Webber and McLaren, and would be good for evangelical or post-evangelical audiences. Maybe one or two of my readers can benefit from me making this available again on the blog. who knows. posted here as a free resource [caveat: it's 3 years old] for you the soupablog reader.

Download paradigms talk handout (LTR-sized PDF)
and the accompanying chart
Download the chart thing (TAB-sized PDF)

o the weekends

Friday i worked from home on client work until mid-afternoon, then started out on a trip up to austin where i met bob carlton for dinner prior to the Austin Emergence 2007 panel discussion thingy.

Intuiting, perhaps, that i was born just miles from leon springs, texas, bob suggested we meet at Rudy's BBQ on 183. Over brisket and sausage and Rudy's now-famous BBQ "Sause" [sic], we shared in some good conversation and learned about the "hand-spa", then headed a couple miles away to this well-groomed, mall-like mega-church campus (ewww; i was half-expecting the perfect landscaping to have piped-in music from those injection-molded theme-park rocks. instead i quickly found the money-changers — err, sponsors — in the campus café).

so not a very likely setting for an emerging church confab; in fact, it had all the trappings of the contemporary-pop-culture-church-as-performance i've been running away from the last ten years: professional lighting rigging, three massive projection screens, tech geeks in back in a mixing board booth worthy of a concert hall, elevated-stage-instead-of-altar, auditorium, overstuffed chairs for the speakers, lapel mics, slick, auditorium seating for the rest of us and pre-produced video loops with schmutzy typefaces and royalty-free video loops. nothing to situate itself in time and place. OK: i'm not being very gracious. and i know this. and i will stop. now.

what came next is articulated well by bob here and here.

In the end I was impressed by most of the speakers and by the moderator, Scot McKnight, who I already had been tracking via books and weblog posts (and my bro-in-law syler's coffeeklatches with the prof) ...

The evening session (atonement theories!) finished. then comes the obligatory "we're in Austin, who's up for Magnolia Café or Kirbey Lane?"

My late-night dining partners were my buddies from Netzer Co-op. The entire current incarnation of the co-op was present, I believe: Lay-abbot Tim, Abbess/Painter Brianna, Contemplative Michael, Worship-Artist Ryan, and Novice Jonathan. I was honored to play the role of, as my friend Mark Menjivar would say, holy listener. They were/are at a turning point in their fledgling community all-too-similar to where Trinity House was at a year or so ago. Then I gave them some imperfect sage-green advice to go with Bri's green-green enchiladas. Usually-silent Michael suggested that after an evening of talking about theology, that they ditch the next morning's event and go buy sandwich fixings and spend the morning handing out food to the poor in Austin instead of listening to talking heads at the conference. Which is exactly what needed to be said. And done. I could've hugged him, the suggestion was so spontaneous and on-point. We stayed out too late and dragged ourselves to my gracious in-laws' where beds and sofas were awaiting my friends and me.

Next morning, thanks to Google Maps and the iPhone, we discovered Pacha, a cool little fair-trade coffee joint in Austin. Must return to soak in more. Planning to go to just the first session and then go with Netzer, I was drawn into the conversation in a deeper way than the day prior. I also got to meet Danielle Shroyer, the pastor of a fellowship in the DFW area that a few of my friends frequent. I like her: she's got a great perspective on many things.

And I love the theological underpinnings of Josh Carney's mind. Resolved: after his commendation (being the third or fourth this year, I will next read Jürgen Moltmann).

I felt pangs of guilt for Tim and I never joining up with the rest of Netzer on their outing. The praxis engagement and resultant reflection would've been better for me. I rationalized it away several times: I was Tim's ride so I needed to stay; I'm too old and just got in the way of their youthful missional expression; I knew I needed to get back on the road at about 2pm; I really wanted to talk to several of the folks afterwards, including Glenn and David (right). Kept thinking about the distribution of the food going on while I was wrapping up my stay at the conference. But I never went. Tim and I left and grabbed lunch and sat down to record a podcast interview for his blog at Jo's and then I hit the road for SA.

Came home, and prepped for this morning: I facilitated a discussion in our 'mystics/cynics/pilgrims' class at church (sort of the sunday school dropouts) about the way of the pilgrim, and led hymns, a taizé chant, worship songs, and an original composition in front of the congregation. the song that I wrote I dedicated today to my grandmother who turns 90 years old this week.

That's where I was this evening: at Lorraine Pearman's 90th birthday party.

Read a little Alan Roxburgh this evening, blogged this, and will be going to sleep.

Sorry not much critical reflection of the conference.

more later.
p

the cobalt season | mark scandrette | dan harrington

between 35 and 40 people crowded into our little house on irvington drive last night to eat and drink and listen and sing and converse and laugh and cry and think. i'm still processing, but it was a good, good evening. i hope to post photos (jonathan?) and eventually video clips (thanks to emma davis), and to blog about it in depth later. the cobalt season and mark scandrette are on the long road to dallas. thanks to all who came.

Emergent Gathering 2007: of aspens and other gold

Paul.

To the twelve readers of Soupablog dispersed abroad; greetings. :)

I was able to get a much earlier flight to DFW today and I've been waiting here at the airport: standing by for one of two potential “earlier flights” back to SA-town.  They're oversold, however.

So: hello.

I'm back in TX following a week long gathering of friends old and new in the hills of New Mexico, just outside of Santa Fe. Meanwhile, Amy's flying to Chicago to see Syler run the marathon (we’re proud of you, Syler), and Jordan leaves for a campout while I watch the three girls. And I guess I will now wax sentimental, even though I know that tendency bugs a few of you... too bad:

Word and table. I learned something about both this week. I also learned a bit more about myself. And I tasted pumpkin waffles at Harry's Roadhouse Café thanks to a kitchen-staff request from Doug P. Later, I fell in love with a painting and a retablo of San Antonio de Padua on Canyon Road.

I laughed until I cried on Wednesday night — and last night, walking back to my room in the rain, I cried. And cried. I think I was lamenting something I lost.

But, then, I also found much. Common ground with other parents, Christ-followers, authors, artists, photographers and musicians — and we examined differences as well. We sat and participated in respectful (dare I say generative) conversations about parenting, dockside conversations about art, and others. What else. I listened to and gave input on several friends' book manuscripts and/or fledgling book ideas — and encouraged a fourth to restart her blogging and manuscript; I showed my book idea to several friends, and my sketchbooks to others. A handful of us sat on a back porch and dreamed about launching a new periodical.

I received Holy Eucharist and holy listening as a gift from one friend. This morning over breakfast I received a much needed story about failed intentional communities — and the perseverance to keep trying — from another. Over a cigar we discussed being kind to our detractors on the same porch where two years earlier I had assembled pizzas with a tall skinny Kiwi. The one action in 2005 [pizza making] being an action of hospitality, and the other action a study for my own part in inhospitality (not only because poor Saranell kept avoiding our smoke, but also because I unthinkingly brought my smoky  self and clothes into the apartment where my friends were sleeping.  And because smoking is banned at Baptist encampments). I discussed Schrute Bucks with Laci, hyped up Robot Chicken Star Wars for Damien and Lisa, and was called “Kern” repeatedly by Becky. We lived, slept, and ate in community. Everyone missed Amy and the kids, as well as others who didn't make it this year. We met new children who had been born into this community since our last gathering; we welcomed newcomers who had found their way into the conversation. I shared an apartment with two other graphic designers by complete coincidence.

We had a nice meal paid for unexpectedly by a new friend: perhaps buzzed by the serendipity of it all, we immediately conspired to obscenely over-tip our server. Fives, tens and twenties were passed around the table: I handed the speechless guy about a hundred bucks over-and-above the auto-assessed gratuity our culture’s dining establishments reserve for large parties. We laughed like crazy on the ride home. I'm reminded I'm blessed to have such friends. We shared our wounds, our dreams, our fears and questions. I was reminded of faith-things to which I want to cling more tightly, and other faith-things I might need to shed. I was reminded to stop apologizing so often.  In any case my heart is full.

These people are my tribe.

p.s. I did get on the second “early” flight home — Chris A. picked me up at about 11:pm. Meredith was home watching the kids. Community is a good thing. (Thanks Alvarez fam)

Here are the photos I snapped on the mobile phone.

falling into rhythms

Just returned from helping facilitate the second Franciscan spirituality retreat out at Covenant.   I was blessed to part of the first one back in March, and it was good to return to the rhythms of fixed-hour prayer with others, good to contemplate a rule of life. Tim Heavin is really doing the organizing, with several members leading vespers, compline, lauds and terce; I'm left to plan some of the canticles and other music.

i went ahead and also added a makeshift prayer station, sort of inspired by something lily lewin would do. it had a good set of headphones playing chants and choral settings appropriate to the canonical hour. i also found use for the century-old, rusty, square nails i had pulled from boards recovered from Sue and Tom's house in Galveston: we set up a little silver dish offering the nails that folks could take as a memento/artifact from the retreat (jokes about stigmata ensued).

Our family's spiritual journey has led us to the community here at Covenant — a simple community; cross-generational, ecumenical (generously incorporating practices and cues from everything from Baptist to Wesleyan/Holiness to Anglo/Catholic), self-described as "a place where the less than perfect are more than welcome", and one with a growing contemplative culture. Here Amy feels loved, valued, and welcome; and the kids are loved, and engaged with friends. I'm healing and re-engaging and worshiping God here. We joined the congregation as members today.

emergent manifesto of hope book discussion

had a good get-together today at ruta. gordon, tim h, christopher, travis, ian and myself were there, talking a little about "Emergent Manifesto of Hope" and a LOT about mainline and other institutional denominations and their future (or lack thereof). The gathering photo was backlit, so it didn't do justice to the group. you can make out christopher's cool clerical collar. how's that for alliteration.

Emergent Manifesto of Hope [Book Discussion]

Today in San Antonio five cohort learners gathered over Cuban sandwiches, grilled panini or tomato-basil soup, to discuss the first two major sections of Emergent Manifesto of Hope. We camped out for a while on Mark Scandrette's and Troy Bonsink's essays, chased some on-ramp rabbit trails, described the Gatherings to some folks who hadn't yet made the pilgrimage, some discussions on parenting, the missional movement, etc. I had to leave early, so I'm hoping Tim, Travis, Rudy or Michael can post about what happened in the second half. We'll continue the Manifesto conversation in June. Please come join us, it's not too late! (Location and Time TBD)

Robert Webber (1933-2007)

My favorite emerging voice from the evangelical world is silent. Robert E. Webber died Friday. His deep understanding and "long view" of church history—and the way it informed his ecclesiology, worship, spiritual formation and missional perspective—will be missed. I had the privilege of hearing him speak in person in California and in Kentucky, where he bought my lunch once (when I only had plastic in a cash-only joint). He embodied the McLarenesque adjective "winsome" and was a uniter. He understood discipleship and rejected cheap soteriology. Bob, you will be missed. I hope to continue conversations with you in the beyond.

[obit]

A Day of Dialogue & Sabbath - Who's with me?

 

Emergent San Antonio invites you into
A Day of Dialogue & Sabbath
April 28, 2007

You’re invited to the major Emergent|SA Cohort event for this spring. The event will be a day of praxis (action + reflection). Jump in your car — or better, share the half-hour ride — out to a relaxing little internet café in Seguin where we’ll start things off. In the morning we will begin with an “open spaces” dialogue with our cohort lead learners Tim Snyder, Paul Soupiset, and Travis Baker.

If you’re new to, familiar with, or vaguely curious about the emerging church conversation, this slow-paced day is a great way to get to know some kindred spirits, find an on-ramp into the emerging conversation, meet new friends and chill over coffee in Seguin. There will be plenty of time for stillness and personal reflection as well as group interaction. Extroverts and introverts alike will feel at home.

After lunch, we'll have several Sabbath opportunities available in the surrounding neighborhoods. We’ll close the event with an evening prayer together.

Location: ChiroJava in Seguin, Texas
    (114 S. Austin Street on the main square; see map below)
Date & Time: April 28, 2007 9:30am - 5:30pm
Cost: FREE (bring your own money for lunch and optional dinner)
Hosted by: ClayPeople Community, ChiroJava, Emergent|SA, and INTERMISSION at Texas Lutheran University

Comment over at the Emergent|SA blog to organize ridesharing and to give us a rough headcount.

CHIRO JAVA:

back from emergence

just got back from emergence! at TLU.  good for the soul.  t.j. and chris and tim and i were there from the cohort, and i think we may have added a few to our SA menagerie as well: expect the cohort to include a share of seguin citizens as well :) dr. nate frambach and karen ward and aaron strumpel are wonderful people with wonderful stories of emergence. as with all institutional gatherings of like-minded people, it's not the "bricked-in" time — the scheduled program — but rather the unscheduled "mortar" in between — that really sticks: shuttle van conversations. breakfast conversations. guest housing conversations.

after the conference, we chilled at chiro-java (not "cairo" or "chi-rho", but chiro, as in "yup: a chiropractor's office is here in this coffee house"). we got to look upstairs at a dusty former masonic lodge that may be a potential long-term site for the intermission community.

smallfire::redux

if you're interested in alternative worship, you already know about smallfire.

it had been a while since i'd visited, and was again amazed by all of the creativity and collaboration across the pond. here's some screen grabs. thanks steve collins, for all the work you've done documenting this phenomenon.

collins writes:

"Alternative worship is what happens when people create worship for themselves, in a way that fully reflects who they are as people and the culture that they live their everyday lives in.

Because most forms of church have become culturally disconnected from the wider world, alternative worship can seem like a radical break with conventional church practices. It uses the technologies and media of our everyday lives - TV, video, CDs, computers - things that we take for granted in a domestic environment but seldom see in churches. It takes much of its content from the secular world - the music, the language, often the imagery - because it sees the presence of God in these things, and knows that spirituality has to make sense in the context of our secular lives if it is to nourish us and help us be salt and light.

At the same time, alternative worship searches the traditions of the Church for resources that fit the needs of the present. Christianity has rich storehouses of spiritual treasures. Many of these lie neglected or forgotten, but have renewed relevance - others have been exhausted by overuse and need to be rested, or have become irrelevant to the current needs of church and world. Alternative worship tries to interpret tradition faithfully into new contexts - but this may mean changing the form in order to preserve or revivify the meaning.....

Alternative worship is deeply concerned for community. Community is a place of honesty, commitment and support, where people grow through relationship. Community is essential to living any kind of authentic Christian life in societies which work against it in fine detail. Community is not clique, but reaches out to others, maybe locally, maybe globally. Whenever we meet as God's people we are aware of those not present who are also God's people. And we are aware of those who do not consider themselves God's people but are, more than they ever think.

Alternative worship is intensely concerned with creativity. Partly this is because reinventing worship requires it; but more because of a belief that creativity is essential to human wholeness and should be offered back to the Creator in worship. Since we are made in the image of a creator God, we are all creative - but life, and often sadly the Church, conspires to tell us that we are not, that we have nothing worth offering. Alternative worship offers people the chance of creative expression in worship. Not just the team making things to be admired by the congregation, but the congregation making things as worship, to be admired by the team...."

resource communicate belong explore

I saw this graph i had made (below) and the photo (below that) and a bunch of other things tonight while I was cleaning up my external hard drive. I don't think I ever did anything with this infographic. but it's kinda nifty, so i keep it, the digital packrat that i am. the photo below it is of mike and ginger, two people i really respect [both for their willingness to relocate to abandoned spaces so easily, and for the generous arts education they've provided for their clearly artistic son dev], and they're smiling, which is good.  i think mike and ginger are still traveling overseas. godspeed. oh, and happy birthday cheryl, if you ever read this!

austin churches

my mother-in-law lives up the road in Austin.
her boss is blogging here about visiting churches in Austin.
(read Jan. 1 entry for background).
interesting reading! -- thanks, susan....

winter hush

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community (even if their intentions are ever so earnest), but the person who loves those around them will create community.”

        —Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

it would take a really long lunch—or an evening at a coffee house—for me to fully describe the last few years of my life viewed through an ecclesiastical lens. a 'church' lens.

from 1993 to 2003 or so, my tidy, conservative evangelical grid was shaken by some amazing Christian artists, thinkers, poets, musicians and philosophers i met via Mars Hill Review, the Trinity Institute, Communiqué Journal, Image Journal, and the like. Great stuff. It was sometime around 2000 that I was handed a cassette of a speaker (he'd later become a friend) talking to a gathering about church in a postmodern context. i had started deconstructing, and looking at the modernist, consumerist trappings of my faith-life through a critical lens.

had you caught me about 2003 or 2004 you would've seen a layman rapidly digesting books on theology and 'doing church'. excited about the possibility of even planting a community of faith that aspired to and embodied much of what i was learning—of embarking on a journey with other imperfect, wounded souls. i had found a conversation partner on the journey who at the time was also conveniently my pastor. he became my best friend, and dreams of this community slowly turned into reality. i felt God was using my talents for his purposes. i felt fulfilled.

in 2005 and 2006 a group of couples committed to a new community of faith. we met regularly for worship and mission, and tried to continue to impart a vision to the community. at some point the euphoric honey-moon was over. the hard work of being community set in.

The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall. [St. Matthew's gospel 7:27]

some churches withstand the rain and floods. idealism. agendas. finances. fragile souls. arguments about leadership and inclusion. ours simply did not. our pastor left the community. at that point it was a matter of weeks. some wanted to be a community of friends, but not a group that was a church. others wanted spiritual formation and mourned the loss of the idea of a sacramental community. some sheep liked not having a shepherd. others craved guidance.

in the last three years i have experienced two kinds of death. the first death was [leaving a large church with its constituent pains] the second was having a partially-realized dream abandoned by our small, fragile, community. the latter death hurt more than the former, and moreover it has left me frequently numb. agmar-barrow-downs-numb. but i would choose to be wounded in this second way a hundred times a hundred again. thank God the numb isn't every day.

now my family and possibly a few others from our community are seeking comfort, solace, worship, and refuge in another community. it's a longer drive, but the kids absolutely love it so far, and there are some constants: lectionary, the occasional taizé chant, time for cultivating silence, and an active sense of mission beyond its own walls. it helps that there are some familiar faces there. and gordon is a pastor without pretense, which i need. but i'm taking the approach more slowly. the way the walking wounded do.

God, protect my uprooted family while we test new soil.

[photo shamelessly appropriated from RLP]

Some quotes lifted from Tall Skinny Kiwi:

In community, "you get hurt more deeply. You laugh harder," says Shane Claiborne of The Simple Way
"It's like a freaking operating room," Brian Ollman says. "It's bloody but it's beautiful. It's scary but it's safe. Everything you think you should be … goes out the window. You're just getting life on life."
"I think we need to raise the bar of what it means to be a Christian so that it includes living in some form of community as normative for Christian life," Tom Sine
"Discipleship involves almost detoxing from the wider culture." Kevin Rains
Within the group, "all the gifts are there and everything that's needed is somehow available for ministry," Andrew Jones

Shane Claiborne: “Many congregations are in love with their mission and vision and rip one another apart in committee meetings trying to attain it. And many social activists I know tear each other up and burn themselves out fighting for a better world while forgetting that the seeds of that world are right next to them.”

 

strangely warmed

a spiritual forebear of mine, John Wesley, used the term to describe a spiritual awakening:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ I felt my heart strangely warmed
- John Wesley, writing in 1738

i'm using it for more mundane purposes tonight, but in any case, for the first time in a long while, my heart is strangely warmed tonight — i was able to welcome into my house a dear old friend and brother, waldemar, and catch up for a few hours since he's passing through san antonio on business. we talked about our journeys, about the joys and trials of work and family (they've got five kids which must make our four seem like childsplay) and his relocation to phoenix, and many other things. the french press coffee did well tonight, which is also a good thing, and we're entering into monday with a more or less clean house, which is remarkable. to top it all off, i just checked email and got to see photos of baby sophia burns to boot; here's one, below:

here we see young casey and even younger sophia sharing the same smile.

this morning at trinity house we tried something i called unchained church — kind of a tip-o-the-hat to unchained radio (not the reformed baptist radio station, but the older idea of a free-form radio broadcast wherein you might hear Willie Nelson, Wham!, Yo Yo Ma and Dave Matthews Band in the same segment). i digress. okay. there were three boxes in the middle of the worship space, each painted to vaguely correspond to 'prayer' / 'word' / 'music'. inside each box were folded slips of paper with various worship cues, instructions which the community unfolded, read and followed — they essentially participated in the leading of worship today.

the 'word' box had all the lectionary readings on various slips, for example; the 'prayer' box had prayer cues (one slip said 'the Lord's prayer' while another directed the body to pray for our church, and still another simply said 'silence'…); the 'music' box had slips reading 'hymn' or 'chant' and allowed the 'chooser' to either pick a song or defer to the worship leader's choice if they didn't want to pick. get the idea? it was an interesting experiment in worship. it still contained a fourfold ordo of greeting / word / table / dismissal, and was surprisingly chaos free (at least for our chaos-friendly congregation), and meaningful, not just novely for novelty's sake, but wanting to make a point about participatory worship, about the importance of the consitiuent pieces of a given service, and to hopefully have a service stick in one's mind past noon on that given Sunday.

unrelated:
today (call it bad planning) i actually drove not once, not twice, but thrice to our grocery store.

here's emma and daddy:

quick austin roadtrip

organic growth vs church growth strategy

i've been watching small, beautiful, organic growth in my own church community. unplanned, unkempt, unforced. and i also found myself recently writing a new friend about my suspicion of growth or "multiplication" in church circles in general. here's a few fragments and artifacts from my brain and my emails with him. in no particular order:

+ organic growth is different from the last few decades' "church growth" strategies. I’m not one to prooftext very often, but to me this verse in Mark’s gospel account (emphasis added) speaks of growth and multiplication in an un-planned, God-centric, wild, organic way:

"God's kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows — he has no idea how it happens." (Mark 4:26-27)

this stands in contrast to the man who “knows exactly how it happens” — the end (growth) is still present, but the control, the planning, the endless training programs we’ve concocted is what leaves me and many of my ilk circumspect :)

+ Way back in 2003 Vineyard guy Jon Reid said:

“Churches press through … to plant other churches. How? By making it a clear priority from the beginning. … This simply needs to be made the genetic code …  of micro-churches: it's not about being comfortable, it's about the kingdom of God. It's hard, but it's fun and worth it. Keeping all the good stuff to ourselves is selfish …  everything that happens in the kingdom of God happens relationally.”

+ there's a severe mistrust of numbers-centric approaches found in the hyper-modern church-growth movement, and in ‘multiplication’ strategies, etc. Basically it is a healthy, postmodern Christian mistrust of numbers and control and power: (for more on the topic, listen to and read The 19 Theses of Walter Brueggeman…

+ Many are very much “done” with ‘contemporary services’ and all their trappings (lighting trusses, fog machines, worship leaders front-and-center, CDs sold after the service) and seeking a simpler, contemplative alternative; many are the so-called walking wounded from these type-A machines. The neo-monastic movements appeal to these folks, and there is a definite tension between emergent church types and their CCM church counterparts…

+ And I blogged earlier (maybe a little melodramatically) on the general topic:

"…the illusion of getting it "right" [we're] giving up. because that kind of mindset only leads to a performance-based metrics, which uplifts technique as an idol. i'm not saying we don't bring quality gifts (cain, abel, hold that thought boys), nor that we should dumb down our worship. i'm saying neither. [we've] been influenced by evangelical-on-the- canterbury-trail robert e webber in that regard, but [we've] also been influenced by a generation licking their "church-growth movement" wounds, coughing and cutting through the fog-machine thicket with machete arms, squinting past the stage lighting, tripping off risers, eschewing entertainment-as-church and tossing their timekeeping, nursery-pager sunday mornings for something with either more majesty and mystery, or more organic simplicity, or an eclectic hybrid of both, the latter of which being where we find ourselves."

+ Apparently this book which I have not read, does a good job of dispelling the idea of the Emergent Movement as a “church growth” strategy or a new niche branch of Christianity…

+ I return to: “The only ultimate hermeneutic for the gospel is a believing community” (Newbigin).It's good to have that on the top-of-mind, and to scotch-tape the following to the end as a safeguard: Kevin Rains wrote in an Allelon article, "When we sacrifice mission by clinging at all costs to community we've maligned both community and mission."

invincible cities | Camden NJ

i'm appending this to my last post: if you didn't click the link and find this, you might miss the excellent context of that photo: invincible cities, an interactive flash app featuring photography and essay by camilo josé vergara, sponsored by rutgers and the ford foundation, and designed by crimson.

McLaren @ UBC/Waco

Brian McLaren @ UBC/Waco @  Hippodrome this Sunday 10:30amB

Map of 724 Austin Ave
Waco, TX 76701-2020

Roxburgh and others continue work on new missional order

Earlier this week, Alan Roxburgh and the Allelon Community hosted a group “work[ing] on the formation of a Missional Order for the purpose of training and releasing leaders in local contexts.” at his home in Vancouver. Present were Chris Erdman, Tim Keel (Jacob's Well), Karen Ward (Church of the Apostles in Seattle), Patsy Fratanduono (Cedar Ridge), Bob Roxburgh, Ed Searcy, and Gary Waller, according to Keel, who also posted [this] robust 12-page new monasticism PDF from the Community of Friends in Renewal (CFR) -- [download file.]

Erdman writes in his own blog, that they set out to “sketch the broad contours of a Missional Order that will sustain and nourish a dispersed community of missional leaders around practices, mutual commitments, and on-going learning. The Order is initiated by the Allelon Community which will provide updates and more information in the months to come.”

Two related links:
Allelon Community Center for Learning and Missional
and Communal Catechesis :: A Major Conference in 2007

Listen: Brian McLaren in SA (MP3) 11.28.05

   
    Podcast: Listen to the Nov 28 2005 Brian McLaren talk in San Antonio here .

    (thizzzanks to M Dizzle for the pizzost)

Brian McLaren, redux

free the dalit!

my post late last night was eaten by amy's PC: about 45 minutes of typing down the drain. so i'm not gonna even try and reconstruct. here's the synopsis of what you missed:

I. brian mclaren came and talked to our cohort and other guests in san antonio last night. i wrote about how much I enjoyed my time getting to know brian better, how much fun it was to play host to such a gracious, enjoyable guy, how good the company and food and drink was at La Fonda, but that's all since been better said by others, here, and here, for example. despite several times being at the same events, this was the first time we'd been able to talk uninterrupted, for more than ten minutes at a time.

II. sounds like the austin cohort is now in good hands. between jim mueller, scott hall, glen barbier, greg willis, and whomever from ECN chooses to engage... let's just say our group will be able to gain a lot from the folks up the road.

III. communique journal is moving along nicely now that it's being delegated properly -- i'm hoping it's one of my hobbies that i can continue with -- it's meant so much to so many people over the years -- look for a new issue in december.

IV. what I've really been wanting to blog about is Trinity House's first advent service. But I'm afraid the PC will crash again, so let me post this, and start typing on the 2nd post.

V. in the meanwhile, here's two stanzas i really like from a poem by my friend pam (amahoro means "peace" in bantu):

for the calloused hands trembling
after years of hard labor
yet no rest for the weary
amahoro, amahoro

for an untouchable people
the “lowest of low”
unaware of their value
amahoro, amahoro

breakfast with friends...

from paul on the road:

amy and i had breakfast with duane and elisa cottrell this morning up in mcKinney, tx. they had their two kiddos with them and we had our youngest two with us..  they're doing well and miss everyone... i can fill you in more next time we get togther. photo soon.

this afternoon we took the extended family and walked around downtown mcKinney's town square, took in some excerpts from the Nutcracker there in a small downtown auditorium, and i read a bit more from "School(s) for Conversion" back at my father-in--law's house. it's been a good time to hang a bit with my in-laws, nieces, nephew, and amy and the kids...

we're going to be on the road most of the day tomorrow.

i'm excited because Sunday is [a] the beginning of the church calendar, the first sunday of advent, a clean slate, tabula rasa, [b] trinity house's first open-door, ready-for-prime-time sunday [c] all of the above.

time to go clean out the minivan for the roadtrip home. (pretzels ground into the carpet, art supplies strewn, stuffed animal managerie, typical...)

MP3: McLaren at Princeton

Brian McLaren's Recent Address at Princeton Seminary:
Please listen here. An excellent audio clip
(thanks to Glen Barbier for the heads-up and to
PomoMusings for posting & hosting this MP3.