The Heart Grows

Every group of Believers that get together is (a) church. Church is not a building. It is not an organization. It is not a name or a denomination. It is people! It is the fellowship of all believers, it is the Body of Christ with Jesus at the head. All of us other Christ following human beings are the bits and pieces of the Body. Every group of Christ followers that get together are the Church. When a bunch of hands get together or a bunch of feet of all ages, or different parts that get together on a sunday morning, wednesday night and/or Friday lunch. Whatever label you slap on “youht group” bible study “sunday morning worship” Bible Study, Addiction Overcomers. You are the Church… you are a church and have a responsibility for reaching out. If everyone at the same building is a church and they all belong to a certain larger church expression which belongs to global one church that loves and follows jesus of which He is the head. Reverse it and how small do you get? You get to the...

Check out a great blog on Church Health.

It seems that a lot of us 20 to 30 are in the same boat. We are looking for a church home. Many of us have moved and we are no longer find ourselves in the towns we grew up in. We have changed life circumstances. We may even have two home churches, one for each of us. For these and many other reasons, we are looking for a new home, a new family. We have pretty short but significant list that we are looking for right away; not crazy, loves Jesus, loves people, loves us, “unity on the big things, liberty in the small things, love in all things” to paraphrase the Moravians. I think it is okay to have a few homes. My parents home is home, my in-laws home is home, my home is home, my uncle’s home is home. Friends we lived with for a few years is home. Certain big cities are home. So why can’t it be the same with church? Why do local churches seem to get so jealous? Seriously, they are like a crazy girlfriend sometimes. I am not dating the church, the church is my family ;) Sure, I know ...

In a previous post, I brought up the concept of art being visionary. What can we do as people? What should we do? What should we not do? When should we say "just because we can doesn't mean we should?" I know that is from Jurassic Park but it is applicable. Art should show the terrible or beautiful scene of what would happen if we continue along a certain political, scientific, sociological, or belief path. Art can encourage and discourage and the what ifs are important to see and hear.  The artist should play the part of a PROPHET or SEER. The artist should be a futurist. We can see where people can be, we can speak hope into lives, we can see where things are now and the potential of the good that can become. We, the artists, can portray that good. If people don't have a vision of what they are trying to reach, then they die. They either give up and become complacent or they make an island full of dinosaurs that will only end badly.  Tell the story, paint the pictur...

Why is the past important? This is the question at the core of any advocacy or integrity argument. The response is nuanced and varied. So as an archaeologist I do fancy myself a storyteller. Context. Something we value in excavation. What is the context of a fact? You find one pottery sherd and it is like one brush stroke in a greater painting or one word in a larger story.What is the whole story? What is the context of the artifact, the context of the data collected, or the context in the stratigrahy of a multi-layered site.  Context. What is the context in the greater story of humanity? I do not live in a vaccum. There are people that have been here before me and people that will come along after me. Learning and discovering and respecting the greater story of the land I come from is important. We need to know where things fit and the details of the greater story of humanity. We human beings should want to know that story. We should want to know the streams of that story. The bigger...

check it out

This invisible car project is great. First of all its a brilliant idea. As a SF geek I appreciate the whole desire of creating tech for invisibility. Pardon the pun but this piece gives great vision for invisibility. That is one of the things any work of art should do. Art should be visionary and give vision to the engineers and politicians and policy makers and business folks. The artist should be the dreamer. The artist is the thought pioneer that blazes the trail for the engineer to follow. That is what Sara Watson has done. She made a car invisible, not through slight of hand, or any trick, but through vision and hard work. You can't tell me that was easy. I just simply want to say kudos to you Sara. Well done.