somber and sober
One of my blog readers has now passed on, due to a freak accident. Kyle Lake, pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, had emailed a few weeks ago about his new book, (Re)understanding Prayer, and I was going to read it after these crazy few weeks pass (with my overdrive attempt at event planning while away on business in Dallas right now) b/c I sure could use help with some semblence of a prayer life. Now, I’ll never get to meet him in person, and he’s leaving behind a young family. I can’t imagine what would happen if a freak accident hit me, and what kind of impression or legacy I’d leave. [ht: Dan Kimball]
[update 11/01] and tons of sympathies are going out to the Lake and UBC families out on the blogosphere
[update 11/03] Prayed with some friends while in Dallas, for the Lake family and their church; even Drudge Report linked to this tragic news; found some heartful reflections by el mol, Brian McLaren, Chris Seay (who startedup UBC Waco), InternetMonk: Laughter in the waters of death, and UBC Waco - holder page provides audio to funeral service for Kyle Lake, has verbatim excerpt from his last sermon, and info to express love via donation and sharing loving memories; CT acknowledges the tragedy and reprints excerpt: Does Electrocution Happen for a Reason? What young church leader Kyle Lake might have said about his own death.
the last passenger
Thursday was a full day, full of adventure. Rudy Carrasco was in town for an one-day trip, and he was antsy after a half-day of conferencing, dropped me a line, and we met up and hung out. I first found him huddled up in the corner, savoring an Internet connection at a Starbucks hotspot. We drove from Howard University up to Chez Lemen, hung out there for a few hours, got a ganga food for lunch.
Then drove Rudy back downtown near the White House for some evening reception he had lined up; my 1998 Dodge Caravan was struggling with shifting gears on the way back. I suspected it was Rudy using his car adapter to recharge his cell phone, sucking the juice out of my engine. After I dropped him off, the problem didn’t go away. I’d get up to about 25 mph, then the engine would rev louder and louder, but it wasn’t finding the next gear, nor the gear it was in. I don’t know much about cars, but the transmission was slipping.
I got to Silver Springs by about 4:40pm, amidst mounting traffic, and my engine stalls halfway up the hill from the DC line to Silver Spring. Cars are beeping behind me, rightly irate. I turn off my engine, pop the hood. A police car shows up a minute later, asks me to call someone to get me towed or something. I try one more time, and was able to drive a little further, off to a side parking lot. I wave the police car off. Wondering what to do, I scan the road side of stores. Lo and behold, there’s an Aamco transmission shop just a half block away! God really provided in my time of need, or this was sheer luck, depending on your spiritual perspective.
I eventually get home, I’ll spare you the details. Next day the diagnosis was that the transmission needed rebuilding or replacing. I look up the blue book value. By the book, in insurance speak, my car was totaled. It’d cost more to get the car back up and running, than to get it fixed. We decided to dispose it and sell. So, the last passenger in my Dodge Caravan was not a member of my family. It was Rudy Carrasco.
In June 1999, when I had just started blogging, was the other time a car died on me, en route to a national denominational conference. That was a Mitsubishi. The common theme: both of these cars that died on me were white in color.
becoming a multiracial church, part 8
Some great recent conversations in the blogosphere about church diversity, or the lack thereof. Don’t have the time to add my own thoughts and comments, but I’m tired of holding back all these links in my draft folder. Here’s some I’ve found, in no particular order:
…what about some other brothers and sisters?
“Every emergent gathering I’ve been to in recent years is extremely white concerning skin tones. What possibilities of inter-racial and ethnic working together are being talked about…and actually done…within the Emerging Church…especially in North America?”
Postmodernegro in The Church, Embracing Grace, and Racism links to Jesus Creed’s Church, Embracing Grace, and Racism Part 1 and Part 2, who used tapas, salad, and other foods to describe diversity models, whereas I had used ice cream flavors to describe multiethnic churches, similiarly.
Quite a thread going at funkateer74’s xanga about the lack of diversity in the “church that is emerging” conversation.
“I really don’t see real racial reconciliation coming out of the emerging church just yet. It really seems like a largely white movement here in the states.”
One Voice podcast is finally online with Mark La Roi, who had previously noted that God is not colorblind!
“I don’t believe that the different colors of people are “races”. Why? Because if you accept the term “Human Race” as valid, everything else is sub-division. I’m not sub-human, are you?”
More personally and poignantly, Andrew Seely ponders on his own ethnic identity:
Or this just is an ongoing issue between how I see myself, how others see me. … It is my hope that people look beyond the initial appearance that I carry with me and look deep into my character in God’s eyes.
And, this Leadership Journal article slipped through my radar, from Spring 2005: An Army of Ones: Does diversity in the church work? This was a panel discussion of sorts with Craig Keener, Larry Osborne of North Coast Church, and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church.
[update] Plus, let’s not forget the lively thread over at TheOoze.com: Seeking Diversity in Emergent, with 46 posts to date, and counting.
Just 2 wishes
I don’t have 3 wishes today, just 2.
1. My Firefox quick search for amazon.com broke recently (aka Firefox Smart Keywords). I used to use the URL http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=blended&field-keywords=%s and now that is a “400 Bad Request”. Apparently it has been broken since September, according to the mozillaZine support forum >> Quick Search for Amazon not working. Help?
[update: Fixed, thanks to radicalcongruency. I now use this URL for Firefox Quick Search to search amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?keyword=%s&mode=blended&tag=djchuang]
2. I write comments on other blogs. I'd like to find my way back to those blogs, and to see if the blog author or others have responded or referred to my comments. Several great blog search engines are around for finding blog posts -- used to be only Technorati and BlogPulse, then there was IceRocket. Now there’s Google’s and Yahoo’s. But, how do I find comments I’ve made elsewhere? (this’d be great to go with my wish for a smarter integrated Web search)
maybe Starbucks like to stir
Some conservatives don’t like the quotes on Starbucks cups and Christian group objects to gay-related quote on Starbucks cups. That was earlier this year, but the year’s not over yet.
|
Now, probably some liberals and/or atheists won’t like the purpose-driven quote to come, hinted at in: Starbucks stirs things up with a God quote on cups
“Coffee drinkers could get a spiritual jolt with their java in the spring when Starbucks begins putting a God-filled quote from the Rev. Rick Warren, author of the mega-selling The Purpose-Driven Life, on its cups.”
Good chance the quotes will be selected from the 40 Purpose-Driven Bullet Points.
