Archive for February, 2008
comments overheard about Erwin McManus
So, I’m at the National Pastors Convention. I missed Tuesday’s main session, where Erwin McManus spoke cleverly, in fine form, confounding many of the older people in the audience, and jazzing up the (fewer) younger crowd. I’m told by a reliable source. And, then, I hear comments like these:
- “erwin mcmanus is a great communicator, but his new floppy emo forelock is very distracting…“
- “Erwin looks like a 13-year old girl…”
- “… he was all over the place. Good stuff, mind you, just a little free range!“
- “Erwin is talking about ideas that are so advanced… most people just didn’t appreciate it.”
- “It was interesting to watch the younger folks in the crowd track so easily with his timing, rhythm and cultural references while for others the cues were perhaps not as clear.“
See for yourself. What would you say?
[update] you can listen to a 5-minute excerpt of Erwin McManus, saying he was nervous, Speaking of Faith’s Krista Tippett interviewing Greg Boyd in a panel, and many other NPC speakers too.
5 shortcuts to reading the Bible
Delighted to hear Scot (jesuscreed.org) McKnight in person this afternoon, talking about how in the world we can have the confidence to know what parts of Bible apply today and what doesn’t. He suggests that there’s a third way to read the Bible, less of a pick & choose, and more of an adopt & adapt discerning kind of way.
In the middle of the talk, he observed 5 shortcuts to Bible reading, implied less-than-ideal::
- Morsels of law
- Morsels of blessings and promises
- Rorschach ink blot
- Piecing together the puzzle of God’s mind
- Maestro approach
They’re selling MP3s for $6 each, probably more of a production quality. I recorded a raw unofficial audio a few minutes after he started ranting about blue parakeets — listen to 2-part audio below:
Scot wanted to be quoted saying: “Calvinists, who believe most in the Noetic impact of the Fall seem to believe it has affected their system the least.” the Noetic effect that has affected all humanity, somehow has affected Calvinism the least?!
Scot McKnight belives that the Bible is a collection of wiki stories. That, we construct the story based on the wiki stories in the Bible, based on wiki stories of The Story.
His 3 keywords to reading the Bible: story, listen, and discern.
Scot’s closing mantra: In moses day in moses way… God speaks today in our way, as we discern together in community.
pastors congregate in San Diego
I over-estimated the attendance here at the National Pastors Convention 2008 in San Diego– it’s closer to 1,800 than 2,000. Got here last night, after taking a detour off of Interstate 5 which was a parking lot, came down on PCH, grabbed a quick dinner en route.
Sat next to headsparks (Daniel So). Listened in on compelling remarks from the Bishop of Rwanda last night. He started with re-languaging that it is much more correct to say that Jesus accepted me, than to say I accepted Jesus. He went on to say how we are partakers and partners in God’s kingdom, and experientially see God at work in people’s heart and soul.
Was live-blogging that on my Blackberry, and then the battery was too low. The radio auto shut off. My entire blog entry was lost. I’m trying to reconstruct it with this re-enactment.
Staying with Daniel So for the 2-nighter, appreciate his family’s hospitality very much. And, congrats to David + Sunita, and their newborn baby girl! Born 21 hours ago!
Wearing my bright orange shirt today. Saw James Choung here working at the Intervarsity sales booth. Just ran into James Yu before hopping on here at the Digital Cafe. Will try to connect with those guys later. Andy Crouch is here too, haven’t seen him yet, but hope to.
connecting resumes to jobs, pastors for churches
I don’t think it’s the turn of the economy as it is that it just so happens that I know people seeking jobs, and churches seeking pastors. But those 2 circles often don’t connect. What makes this connection harder to make is geographical preferences — not every company knows how to manage telecommuters + not every worker can relocate.
Internet strategist & online interactive marketer Rob Williams is on the job search, using both his blog and LinkedIn to get connected to a web worker opportunity, with preferences in Orlando, Greenville, or metro Washington DC.
Presbymergent progressive pastor Adam Walker-Cleaveland and his wife Sarah are both looking for ministry jobs– for Adam, being an Associate for Youth/ Young Adults or a College Chaplain/Minister; for Sarah, she’s a solo pastorate and/or Ph.D. studies. Both of them would probably want to be in the same place, and both want to go west while they’re young. Not sure what they mean by west, but being progressives, probably Pacific Northwest would be a red hot locale. They’ve posted their PIFs (personal information forms) online – maybe that’s what progressives call their resumes. Adam’s claim to fame is his pomomusings blog post that provoked Andy Stanley to comment on his visit to North Point about his 1st megachurch experience. I still get click-thru referrals from there to this day.
Churches with openings:
- Cambridge Community Fellowship Church in the Boston Massachusetts area – seeking a Senior Pastor for an urban multiethnic context
- West Houston Chinese Church is seeking a team-player English Pastor, that I’d mentioned earlier; so is Arlington Chinese Church and Hope EFC in San Francisco
- English ministry opportunity at the multi-site purpose-drive Bay Area Chinese Bible Church, my sources tell me
Plus, I also know of at least 2 pastors who are between jobs. But, as it is with pastoral searches, many of those are done covertly rather than in the open space of the world wild Web 2.0. Exception noted for Pastor Bruce Reyes-Chow and his campaign run as the PCUSA moderator, in a web 2.0 kind of way, even too progressive for the progressives.
Tim Keller conferences
Dwell Conference, an urban church planting conference, is slated for April 29-30, 2008, in the city of cities, New York City. This’ll be a premier training event for urban church planters with attendance limited to 350. So this’ll be a cozy time with Tim Keller AND Mark Driscoll, along with Ed Stetzer, CJ Mahaney, and Darrin Patrick. Not often do you get to see both Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller up close; the smaller attendance size will give this a more personal feel than being one in a thousand like it’d be at their home churches.
Spread the word! I’ll be there at the Dwell Conference; hope to see you there. (I’ll be extending my stay in The City to take in more of the foods, sights and sounds.) I’m still waiting for my pre-ordered copy of Keller’s new book, The Reason for God. Bumble already got his, so I got to touch one yesterday.
For a bigger venue, there’s also the New Churches National Conference in Orlando, Florida, on April 21-24, 2008. Tim Keller and Ed Stetzer will be there too, along with 2,000+ in attendance. Many other A-list speakers, pastors, and church planting organizations / resources will be there. Mark DeYmaz and George Yancey will be leading a pre-conference session on planting & developing the multiethnic church.
2 phenomenal conferences for church planting pastors, leaders, and church planting churches.
[update] Tim Keller, his church, and his new book, are featured on CBN (Christian Broadcast Network) today. See write-up, video clip, and an watch his January 13th sermon “Miserable Comforters” from Job 5:1-7; 6:1-10.