Simply Christian

Today we finished a sixteen week staff study of N T Wright’s Simply Christian.  It’s a amazing book and led to some great conversations.  I thought I’d mark the completion of the study but just the beginning of a conversation by posting to final paragraph which captures what it means to follow Jesus:

 Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection.  Made for joy, we settle for pleasure.  Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance.  Made for relationship, we insist on our own way.  Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment.  But new creation has already begun.  The sun has begun to rise.  Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world.  It is time, in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds, and stewards of the new day that is dawning.  That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian:  to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s world, which he has thrown open before us.

15 Books in 15 Minutes

I typically don’t respond to the facebook notes stuff – or the quizzes on which cars should be in my garage or which city I should live in (though I do find all that fascinating to read about you). But listing 15 books that will always stick with me captured my imagination – but it was really hard to do - a lot harder than I thought.

I limited myself to only one book by an author, counted multiple volume series as one, didn’t include the Bible and still ended up with 16 books on my list of 15:

Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy (Conroy’s My Losing Season really should be on the list too)
Velvet Elvis – Rob Bell
Simply Christian – NT Wright
Banner in the Sky – James Ullman (my favorite book in 4th grade)
A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson (really any Bryson book could be on the list)
The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
The Lord of the Rings (the three volumes together) - J.R. Tolkien
The Seven Lamps of Architecture – John Ruskin
The Agony and the Ecstasy – Irving Stone
Learning from Las Vegas – Robert Venturi (if I had to leave one off to get to 15 I guess it would be this one)
Blue Like Jazz – Don Miller
The Chronicles of Narnia (all seven volumes) C. S. Lewis
Same Kind of Different as Me – Ron Hall and Denver Moore (the last book that made me cry)
Run with the Horses – Eugene Peterson
Basic Christian Leadership – John Stott
Life and Holiness – Thomas Merton

Orlando Magic

OK I can’t let yesterday’s Orlando win over Boston go by without a quick post.

Kim and I were in the O-rena 20 years ago for the Magic’s opening night.  We suffered through the really lousy years every expansion team must endure.  Rejoiced with all of Central Florida for the back to back drafts of Shaq and Penny.  Still remember the pain of Nick Anderson’s two missed free throws against the Rockets in the first game of the Finals.  Became Laker haters when Shaq was “stolen.”  Struggled through the Grant Hill surgeries and the T-Mac years.

Watching Dwight Howard and company beat Boston last was a perfect ending to a great day.

And I know I’m a fan but I actually believe the Magic match up well against the Cavs.

For 20 years I’ve loved this game and the Orlando Magic.

The Magic used to have a store called the Fan-Attic (maybe they still do).  I’m reminded of a Winston Churchill quote:

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Count me a Magic fanatic!

Prediction:  Magic over the Cavs in 6

Lessons from Apple and Orange (Orange 1)

Finally, as promised, I thought I’d start a series of posts on reflections from Orange 09.  Here’s the first.

Tim Cook, COO of Apple Computers, summarizes Apple’s business philosophy this way:

We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products

We believe in the simple not the complex

We believe that we need to own and control the primary technology behind the products we make

We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us

We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allows us to innovate in a way that others cannot

We don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we are wrong and the courage to change

We only participate in markets where we can make a significant difference.

Apple is in the business of selling computers, phone and iPods but what is fascinating is how much they are also shaping culture.

I’ll have to confess the Apple cultural influence is why I am sitting in a coffee shop writing this post on my MacBook.

So here’s the thought / question:

What lessons might the church learn from Apple?

 

Ping Pong Balls

The other day I posted a twitter tweet asking the question:

What would be the required diameter of a six foot tall cylinder in order to hold 1,000 ping pong balls?

Pretty quickly a member of our Grace family responded on my facebook page (thanks Ed):

 

1.575 in = D of a ping pong ball V = 4/3 * 3.14 * r^3 4/3 * 3.14 * .7875^3 = 2.045 in^3 2.045 in^3 * 1000 balls = 2045 in^3 Spheres have a theoretical packing efficiency of 74% against themselves so 2045 in^2 74 _________ = _______ x 100 (2045 * 100) / /74 = 2763 in^3 2763 in ^ 3 = 3.14 * r^2 * 72 inches 12.22 in^2 = r^2 r = 3.50 inches Diameter of 7.0 inches But, this really breaks down, because this assumes 100% efficiency of the spheres against the cylinder walls. As the cylinder walls get smaller, the packing efficiency breaks down big time. so, realistically it would probably be around 10 inches or so. To get the best answer, you would need to figure out the minimum size of a circle that could hold 22 1.575 diameter circles.

Wow!

The response reminded me:

1. Communication is increasingly varied. The question posed on twitter was answered on facebook and is now being shared with you by email.

2. People with so many different gifts make up the family of Grace and each gift has a part to play in advancing the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom needs people who are great at:

• Teaching
• Organizing
• Singing
• Encouraging
• Welcoming

And thousand of other activities (including calculating the diameter of a cylinder to hold 1,000 ping pong balls.)

When they all come together, empowered by God, earth becomes a little more “as it is in heaven” and the Kingdom is advanced!

created for justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty

In Simply Christian (which our staff is almost finished reading together) N T Wright says that we are:

Workers for justice,

Explorers of spirituality,

Makers and menders of relationships and

Creators of beauty

What an incredible picture of who we can be and yet I find myself so often lost in the midst of a week tempted to spend my time:

Working on the mundane

Exploring mediocrity

Making people happy and managing expectations and

Creating a mess.

We were created for justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty – I don’t know why we settle for less and ignore the whispers of our true identity.

 That’s the struggle we are exploring in our current message series – Identity Theft.  Last week Brian Mann created a great video on moving from consuming to serving.

Beast of Burden

Last week I was so overwhelmed by experience/information overload at the Orange Conference that I nearly shut down blogging and twitter.  As it all begins to process I am slowly reengaging.
 
I’ve been encouraged to start writing again mostly by my friend Lynn who keeps bugging me that she is tired of reading about Timmy (see previous blog).

I’ve discovered that Lynn is not a big fan of Timmy or of Lassie (that last part troubles me – who doesn’t love Lassie).  Her childhood memories are of too many rescues from too many forest fires – to this day she gets nervous around fire and barking dogs. Ironically, she owns a Miniature Collie that looks exactly like a scaled down version of Lassie.

Anyway – she is right and it is definitely time for a new post – so she even supplied the topic.

Lynn is a counselor and shared with me the observation that sometimes we are like camels – we let people load stuff on our back.  They burden us with things like “shoulds” and values and expectations.  Lynn suggests that we get loaded down with all these things and all we can do is spit (like a camel). I’m not exactly sure what that means but she’s a counselor – people pay her money for this sort of wisdom – so I guess it’s worth repeating.

I do agree that too many of us are burdened by expectations that aren’t always realistic and aren’t always healthy. (ever since Lynn shared that thought I can’t get the Rolling Stones out of my head):

I’ll never be your beast of burden

My back is broad but it’s hurting…

I’ve walked for miles my feet are hurting….

I’ll never never never never never never never be…

So here’s the question as we begin Wednesday:

How am I letting people burden me with unrealistic expectations?

Bonus question:  How many fires did Lassie rescue Timmy from?

Lot’s of thoughts on Orange to follow in future posts but at least now I am writing again!