New King. New Kingdom. New Life. Happy New Year. TWOTP friend Tom Yaccino from Del Camino Connection (www.delcaminoconnection.org/en/) invites us to embrace Jesus and a new life. Music by www.theautumnfilm.com.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Panther Creek Inspiration Ranch
Here's a piece I created for my friends equine therapy ministry. For more info visit www.pciranch.org.
Panther Creek Inspiration Ranch from Panther Creek Inspiration Ranch on Vimeo.
Lilly Lalime Anniversary
13 year old Lilly Lalime had just gotten off the her school bus when she was struck and killed by a drunk driver this time last year. (Original story HERE). Lilly was a beautiful soul who who sought out the least of these. She was also an advocate for Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International. Yesterday Cy Fair Christian Church had a benefit concert raising over $7000.00 for Living Water to build yet another well! This film gives a small glimpse into Nicole's story and ongoing ministry. (Go HERE to download film from TWOTP).
Craig Detweiler's "Halos & Avatars"
Get the first chapter of Craigs upcoming book, Halos and Avatars, available as a free download HERE.
Purchase Craig's TWOTP films for download HERE or preview below.
Purchase Craig's TWOTP films for download HERE or preview below.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Brueggeman Advent Prayer
Pray with longing for a better world and the arrival of the Kingdom of God.
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.
Walter Brueggeman
Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
Friday, December 04, 2009
Christmas Kingdoms
The last will be first. The consumer is consumed. The power of love takes over the love of power. Life springs forth from death. TWOTP friend and pastor Aaron Edwards talks about kingdoms and his community's upside down Christmas tree.
Go HERE to purchase video.
Go HERE to purchase video.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Recapturing Advent Homily
A homliy written by TWOTP friend Samuel W. Huxford, Vice President for Student Development and Dean of the Chapel Atlanta Christian College. Watch, read and consider...
2 Peter 3:9Recapturing the Patience of Advent
If nothing else, I hope that the brief video we saw with Stanley Hauerwas reminded us all that living out the life Jesus has called us to live in this world is a challenge. It is beyond merely hard to be a person of peace in a world that values violence; a person of integrity in a world that winks at dishonesty; a person of purity in a world stained at every turn by the invasive presence of sin.
How do I manage to “love God and love neighbor” when it is so much easier to be frustrated with God and hate my neighbor?
The season of Advent calls upon us to think about those kinds of questions as we anticipate the glorious reappearing of our Lord.
Fred Craddock, a great preacher and story teller, tells a story about a hospital visit he made as the “chaplain for the week” at the Fannin County Georgia Hospital. A baby was born the week he was serving as chaplain – a rather unusual experience in that little 30 bed hospital.
It was about nine o’clock in the morning and he saw a group of people gathered, looking through the glass. He also looked and sure enough, there was that tiny little baby that had caught the attention of the clan of people gathered about the window.
Craddock asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a girl,” the reply came quickly.
“What’s the name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Well, is the father over here is this group?”
“No,” someone replied. Craddock looked over in the corner of the room and there sat a young man.
He said, “I’m the father.”
Craddock said, “Baby’s name Elizabeth?”
“Yeah.”
“Beautiful baby.” She was squirming – you couldn’t hear through the glass – but she was squirming, and red faced, and all like that. Craddock thought that perhaps the new father was concerned, and so he said to this young man, “Now, she’s not sick. It’s good for babies to scream and do all that. It clears out their lungs and gets their voices going. It’s all right.”
The young father replied, “Oh, I know she’s not sick. But she’s mad as hell.” Then he said, “Pardon me, Reverend.” Craddock replied, “That’s all right. Why’s she mad?”
The father said, “Well, wouldn’t you be mad? One minute you’re with God in heaven and the next minute you’re in Georgia.”
Taken aback a bit by that comment, Craddock replied, “You believe she was with God before she came here?”
“Oh, yeah,” was the immediate reply.
Craddock said, “You think she’ll remember?”
The father said, “Well, that’s up to her mother and me. It’s up to the church. We’ve got to see that she remembers, ‘cause if she forgets, she’s a goner.”
(Craddock Stories, pages 126,127, adapted)
We might have a little trouble with some of this young father’s theology, but it is hard to argue with the “she’s mad as hell” idea – if you once were in heaven, but ended up in Georgia – or anywhere else on earth for that matter.
But that is, in significant ways, the dilemma we all face. “Having tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,” as the writer of Hebrews (6:5) describes us – we struggle daily with the weakness of our own flesh, the temptations of the world that surround us, and our own awareness that we are, in some sense, “stuck in Georgia.”
But we would do well to remember that God has not forsaken us. That He continues to allow this world to be is a sign of His patience and love – He wants all to come to repentance – not a sign of His slothfulness.
It is in being Jesus to this world in every way we can imagine that we learn to accept the reality of our mortal natures, the challenge of our present lives, and the hope of one day sharing in the eternal weight of glory that far outweighs every momentary and slight affliction we face. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
One of the ways we can do that on our campus today is to bring a simple gift of a pair of shoes. Most of us have plenty of shoes. For some, the question each day is not “do I have a pair of shoes to wear?” but “which of the many pairs looks best with what I’m wearing?” Most of us I suspect can’t imagine what it would be like to go shoeless – even for a day.
My prayer is that perhaps through the gift of these shoes, that a lot of children in the world, who have far more reason than you and I to be “mad as hell,” will know of a Jesus who loves them and who, in His great patience, God joyfully welcomes into His arms.
Fred Craddock, a great preacher and story teller, tells a story about a hospital visit he made as the “chaplain for the week” at the Fannin County Georgia Hospital. A baby was born the week he was serving as chaplain – a rather unusual experience in that little 30 bed hospital.
It was about nine o’clock in the morning and he saw a group of people gathered, looking through the glass. He also looked and sure enough, there was that tiny little baby that had caught the attention of the clan of people gathered about the window.
Craddock asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a girl,” the reply came quickly.
“What’s the name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Well, is the father over here is this group?”
“No,” someone replied. Craddock looked over in the corner of the room and there sat a young man.
He said, “I’m the father.”
Craddock said, “Baby’s name Elizabeth?”
“Yeah.”
“Beautiful baby.” She was squirming – you couldn’t hear through the glass – but she was squirming, and red faced, and all like that. Craddock thought that perhaps the new father was concerned, and so he said to this young man, “Now, she’s not sick. It’s good for babies to scream and do all that. It clears out their lungs and gets their voices going. It’s all right.”
The young father replied, “Oh, I know she’s not sick. But she’s mad as hell.” Then he said, “Pardon me, Reverend.” Craddock replied, “That’s all right. Why’s she mad?”
The father said, “Well, wouldn’t you be mad? One minute you’re with God in heaven and the next minute you’re in Georgia.”
Taken aback a bit by that comment, Craddock replied, “You believe she was with God before she came here?”
“Oh, yeah,” was the immediate reply.
Craddock said, “You think she’ll remember?”
The father said, “Well, that’s up to her mother and me. It’s up to the church. We’ve got to see that she remembers, ‘cause if she forgets, she’s a goner.”
(Craddock Stories, pages 126,127, adapted)
We might have a little trouble with some of this young father’s theology, but it is hard to argue with the “she’s mad as hell” idea – if you once were in heaven, but ended up in Georgia – or anywhere else on earth for that matter.
But that is, in significant ways, the dilemma we all face. “Having tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,” as the writer of Hebrews (6:5) describes us – we struggle daily with the weakness of our own flesh, the temptations of the world that surround us, and our own awareness that we are, in some sense, “stuck in Georgia.”
But we would do well to remember that God has not forsaken us. That He continues to allow this world to be is a sign of His patience and love – He wants all to come to repentance – not a sign of His slothfulness.
It is in being Jesus to this world in every way we can imagine that we learn to accept the reality of our mortal natures, the challenge of our present lives, and the hope of one day sharing in the eternal weight of glory that far outweighs every momentary and slight affliction we face. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
One of the ways we can do that on our campus today is to bring a simple gift of a pair of shoes. Most of us have plenty of shoes. For some, the question each day is not “do I have a pair of shoes to wear?” but “which of the many pairs looks best with what I’m wearing?” Most of us I suspect can’t imagine what it would be like to go shoeless – even for a day.
My prayer is that perhaps through the gift of these shoes, that a lot of children in the world, who have far more reason than you and I to be “mad as hell,” will know of a Jesus who loves them and who, in His great patience, God joyfully welcomes into His arms.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Help us Spread the Word: Advent Video Collection
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
Are You Aware You're Going To Die?
One of the new nine films from the upcoming TWOTP series Living A Dying Life with Stanley Hauerwas...
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