Tuesday Tome - Book Clubs Start Tonight

Two Valley Book Clubs begin tonight.  I'll be leading the Rise of Christianity book club discussions. My friend, Brad Dewing, will be leading the Becoming a True Spiritual Community book club discussions.

The Rise of Christianity
by Rodney Stark

Writing from the perspective of social science while drawing upon historical evidence and his insight into contemporary religion's appeal, Stark looks for possible explanations for how the marginal Jesus Movement of the first century became the dominant religious force in the western world within a few centuries.

"Rise of Christianity" Book Club Schedule:
    Session 1: April 30, 8:00pm -          
    Preface through Chapter 3 (p. 72)
 
    Session 2: May 14, 8:00pm - -    
    Chapters 4 through 6  (pp. 73-146)

    Session 3: May 28, 8:00pm -    
    Chapters 7 through 10 (pp. 147-216)

A limited number of copies of this book selection will be available at the church office and resource center for $11.00.  CLICK HERE to purchase at Amazon.

Becoming a True Spiritual Community
by Larry Crabb

In today's frenetic society, people spend their lives essentially disconnected from others, rushing through life content with brief visits and casual conversations. But what if one had a spiritual community of people who walked with and supported each other through life's journey? Larry Crabb explores how God can heal disconnected people and allow them to reconnect with each other and, ultimately, with Him.

"True Spiritual Community" Book Club Schedule:
    Session 1: April 30, 6:30pm -          
    Preface through Chapter 3 (p. 72)
 
    Session 2: May 14, 6:30pm - -    
    Chapters 4 through 6  (pp. 73-146)

    Session 3: May 28, 6:30pm -    
    Chapters 7 through 10 (pp. 147-216)

Monday Music - Blossoms in Madison, WI

My boys, The Cactus Blossoms, played live on WORT 89.9 Radio in Madison, Wisconsin on Wednesday of last week. They were guests on the Back to the Country program with Bill Malone.

CLICK HERE to give it a listen. Go to the 2:00:00 point and they're playing right at the top of the third hour. If that first link doesn't work for you, CLICK HERE to see the WORT archive page and look for the Back to the Country link for Wednesday, April 24.

Sunday Supplication - Everlasting Life

Almighty God, we give you thanks for the everlasting life we find in you.

Help us to recognize your son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life. Make us able to follow his steps and to walk in his ways to the glory of your name.

Lead us away from temptation. Free us from selfishness and pride. Give us the honesty and humility to recognize our need for your grace and mercy. Forgive us our sins and make us ready to forgive others.

O God, you are faithful to your promises. Help us to remember your promises and cling to the hope we have in you. Surround us with Christian friends who can encourage us and push us toward righteousness. Help each of us to be a source of encouragement and prompting for one another.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Glass Harp

Friday Family - Best Of Twin Cities 2013

The Cactus Blossoms were awarded Best Country Band in the City Pages "Best of the Twin Cities 2013" Awards. Congratulations to the whole band! And a special pat on the back for my sons, Jack and Page!

"Country" and "music" has become such an unsavory combination of late. On the other hand, the Cactus Blossoms are the result of myriad wise pairings. Start with the interweaving of brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey's voices, which are era-less, ageless, and fearless. Second, the Turf Club has such faith in teaming with the Cactus Blossoms that it has etched the whole band onto its outside wall as an elaborate mosaic and booked weekly meetings of a twangy broken-hearts club for more than a year now every Monday night. Finally, the Cactus Blossoms' delivery of standards and originals with a muscular backing band of fiddle player Mike "Razz" Russell, Liz Draper on upright bass, and pedal steel/dobro expert Randy Broughten paired with the authenticity-hungry Twin Cities is a relationship that can only, ahem, blossom.

Thursday Thinking - The Launching of New Creation

Here are some thoughts for this 5th week of Easter. N. T. Wright explains how the resurrection of Jesus is not simply a belief in an ancient miracle or belief in some distant possibility, but the launching of a new creation that has begun and is central to our Christian life today.

From N. T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope:

The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story of God's ultimate purposes. If we squeeze it to the margins, as many have done by implication, or indeed, if we leave it out altogether, as some have done quite explicitly, we don't just lose an extra feature, like buying a car that happens not to have electrically operated mirrors. We lose the central engine, which drives it and gives every other component its reason for working.

When we talk with biblical precision about the resurrection, we discover an excellent foundation for lively and creative Christian work in the present world—not, as some suppose, for an escapist or quietist piety.

A longer excerpt from this book, "Heaven Is Not Our Home," appeared in the April 2008 issue of Christianity Today. CLICK HERE TO READ IT.

Wednesday Words - More than Ready

Today
By Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

This poem originally appeared in the April 2000 issue of Poetry magazine.

Tuesday Tomes - What I'm Reading Now

Today, I give you three quotes from books I am currently reading. Two of the books, True Spiritual Community (Crabb) and The Rise of Christianity (Stark), are the selections for upcoming book clubs at Valley Christian Church. The third, The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor, is likely to be a future book club selection.

From The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor, p. 70-72

It is my experience that, for all its usefulness in many areas, the closer one gets to the nexus where the eternal and temporal intersect, the less reason operates effectively as the primary instrument of judgment. In fact, reason recedes in importance in most of the truly critical areas of the human experience, largely because there are forces at work with which reason is not adequate to deal.
- - -
It is not my intention, nor perhaps within my abilities, to delineate precisely when and how reason can and cannot be used. The view I am putting forth neither denies its importance nor advocates a floating detachment from all truth claims. On the contrary, it makes commitment possible where the false notion of reason might protest. Because I understand the inherent limitations of the reasoning process and allow it only its legitimate role in relation to faith, I can justify taking risks that carry me beyond the narrowness and illusory safety of mere reason.

From Becoming a True Spiritual Community by Larry Crabb (p. 56)

My burden is to see spiritual communities develop, where spiritual friends, and spiritual directors connect with people. I long to see communities where people feel safe enough to be broken. Where a vision of what the Spirit wants to do in people's lives sustains them, even when they are far from it. Where wisdom from God sees what the Spirit is right now doing and what is getting in His way. Where the literal life of Christ pours out of one to energize that life in another, offering His divine touch.

What I have in mind are connevcting relationships as a response to conflict, not congenial, cooperative, consoling, counseling, or conforming relationships. I've tasted this kind of community. The taste is sweet.

But we must heed Bonhoeffer's warning not to love the idea of community, but to love our brothers and sisters. And we will love each other well if we understand both our struggles, what Jesus Christ has done for us and in us, and wants yet to do on our behalf.

From The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark (p. 63)

These are the reasons that ought to have caused the first missionaries to concentrate on the Hellenized Jews. And virtually all New Testament historians agree that they did so, and were successful, but only in the beginning. These facts are agreed upon: (1) many of the converts mentioned in the New Testament can be identified as Hellenized Jews; (2) much of the New Testament asumes an audience familiar with the Septuagint (Frend 1984); (3) Christian missionaries frequently did their public teaching in the synagogues of the diaspora--and may have continued to do so far into the second century (Grant 1972); (4) archaeological evidence shows that the early Christian churches outside Palestine were concentrated in the Jewish sections of cities--as Eric Meyers put it, "on opposite sides of the street, so to speak" (1988:76; see also Pearson 1986; White 1985, 1986).

Monday Music - Opinion and Truth

Emily Dickenson came up in a conversation a couple days ago. It reminded me of this song I wrote sixteen years ago. I just can't believe it's been that long. If you're very familiar with Dickenson's poetry, you may recognize a number of quotations.


DEAR EMILY
Dear Emily,
I read your letter.
I was taken by your
Wit and sensibility.
Your curiosity
Stood tall in every honest word.
But Emily,
The world is different now.
Your words committed into hands
Of those who cannot see.
The light's been put away--
A neighbor holds the lamp
To witness your good-bye.

CHORUS
Opinion is a flitting thing,
But truth outlasts the Sun.
If then we cannot own them both,
Possess the oldest one.

Dear Emily,
I saw your wonder--
The childlike awe you held
For garden bees and butterflies.
You looked beyond the scars
To find the place where meanings are.
So Emily,
You then retreated
To a private world--
Tradition could not swallow you.
Hidden behind your door
You looked beyond the world
Believing there was more.

CHORUS
Opinion is a flitting thing,
But truth outlasts the Sun.
If then we cannot own them both,
Possess the oldest one.

© Words and Music by Dave Burkum.  The chorus lyric is a poem by Emily Dickenson.
Copyright 1997 by Dave Burkum (DBM&M, PO Box 18771, Mpls, MN 55418).

Sunday Supplication - Following the Shepherd

O God, we thank you for your Son Jesus, our good shepherd. Help us to hear his voice, and know him as he calls us by name, and to follow him wherever he leads.

Lead us away from temptation. Free us from selfishness and pride. Give us the honesty and humility to recognize our need for your grace and mercy. Forgive us our sins and make us ready to forgive others.

O God, help us to press on and to strain forward that we might know you more and more. Help us to take hold of the maturity and purpose you have in mind for us. Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Sounds of Spring

Friday Family - My Three Sons

Thinking of my boys who are all performing tonight. Jack and Page are playing at the 2013 Brooklyn Folk Fest. Tyler will be playing with Leagues at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis.

I sure wish I could be two places at the same time!

BROOKLYN FOLK FEST 
LINE UP FOR FRIDAY APRIL 19
7:00pm - Jackson Lynch 
    Blues guitar, old time fiddle and banjo.
7:45pm - Joey Arbata
    Uilleann piper - Irish bagpipes.
8:30pm - Kristin Andreassen and Friends
    Old time and original songs.
9:15pm - Cherven Traktor
    Bulgarian stringband music. 
9:15pm - The Cactus Blossoms
    Old school original Country music, all the way from Minnesota! Not to be missed.

Thursday Thinking - About Resurrection

I hope you're enjoying the third week of Easter. I would enjoy it more if the snow would go away, the sun would come out and stay, and the temperatures would rise at least into the 50s. Not only would I feel better, it would take less effort to celebrate Resurrection. And boy, could I ever use some resurrection today!

As promised last week, I'm sharing thoughts about about resurrection every Thursday until Pentecost. So here's what I've got for you this week.

From Brennan Manning in Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging --

“For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ.”

From Richard Hays in First Corinthians, pp. 277-278

Paul saw that underneath all the dismaying problems of the Corinthians lay one massive theological fallacy: they denied the resurrection of the dead.  And by doing that, they denied the importance of the world that God created.  They denied—whether they meant to or not—that these flawed bodies of ours are loved by God and will be redeemed.  And therefore—whether they meant to or not—they denied that what we do with these bodies is of ultimate significance in God’s eyes.  So they lapsed into confusion, both moral and theological.

These are sobering observations for a Christian church that all too often denies the resurrection in one way or another. . .   [W]e find forms of otherworldly pietism that dream warmly of “going to heaven” but ignore the resurrection of the body—and thereby ignore the challenge of the gospel to the world we inhabit: such pietism falls unwittingly into the heresy that Justin Martyr decried as a “godless, impious” betrayal of the faith.  It would not be difficult to document the various moral failings that follow from each of these errors.

In such a situation, Paul’s treatment of the resurrection of the dead presents the church with a compelling word that needs to be heard again and again.  It is no accident that his teachings on the cross (1:18-2:16) and resurrection (15:1-58) stand like bookends—or sentinels—at beginning and end of the body of his letter to the Corinthians.  These are the fundamental themes of the gospel story.  All our theology and practice must find its place within the world framed by these truths.

From N. T. Wright -- The Difference Resurrection Makes

Wednesday Words - Under the Snowing

Under the Snowing

Under the snowing
the leaves lie still.
Brown animals sleep
through the storm, unknowing,
behind the bank
and the frozen hill.
And just as deep
in the coated stream
the slow fish grope
through their own dark,
stagnant dream.

Who on earth would hope
for a new beginning
when the crusted snow
and the ice start thinning?
Who would ever know
that the night could stir
with warmth and wakening
coming, creeping,
for sodden root and fin and fur
and other things lonely and
cold and sleeping?

“Under the Snowing” by Luci Shaw, 
from Horizons: Exploring Creation, Zondervan, © 1992.