I just took a look at my site stats. It turns out someone recently came across this site after typing elven intentional communities into a search engine. Do those things really exist outside of Middle Earth? Perhaps this is the vocabulary that I’ve been looking for to describe what we do.

I saw The Passion last Thursday. I haven’t really blogged about it because I needed time to work out what my response actually was. For me it brought everything back to reality, down to earth. It’s made the reality of Jesus’ life that much more tangible and as a result it has meant that I can better imagine what it means to be His follower.

That’s it really, no major epiphanies – I don’t think the film is particularly controversial, and I don’t imagine it would be very accessible to individuals who don’t already know the story.

Eastside vs. Westside

Reading the reaction to both Brian McClaren and Rick Warren’s comments on The Passion got me thinking. McClaren spoke out against the hype of regarding the film as “the best evangelistic tool in 2000 years,” arguing that it is the long-term living out of followership for people to see that really demonstrates something to live for.

Warren, on the other hand, argued against discrediting The Film altogether. He describes it as “a wave” of contemporary culture which, if the Church does its job and does some explaining, can draw people into relationship with Christ.

Now much of the dissatisfaction with Warren’s article was down to emphasis: the mention that “Mel” showed it to him, and that Saddleback have invited “leaders of communities” to watch the film at a VIP screening. He spoke of the numbers (3,000) added to the Church as a result of The Film. I was saddened that people got so riled at his language, while he may not envisage Church the same way we do, I don’t think that renders his perspective invalid. I also don’t believe he is ‘missing it.’

Warren may be a CEO of Saddleback Inc., and there is certainly no way that he pastors 23,000 individuals, but we can’t discredit the work he is doing just because his church is so large that he ends up using figures to describe their effectiveness. I’m sure the number game is a trap that is easy to fall into, and it must be difficult to ensure that so many individuals get discipled and don’t just become consumers. Their mode of presentation may, at times, even sacrifice The Message for the sake of presentation, but I would encourage us to avoid seeing our way as The Way.

Do leaders of communities need people to reach out to them? You bet they do! After all aren’t we supposed to make disciples of all people? Sure, we mustn’t focus on the rich at the expense of the poor, but maybe the work Saddleback does with the rich frees other communities to work among the poor in that area!

We watched The Life of David Gale last night. It’s definately worth a watch: a tale of one man’s fall from a life of prestigious academia to transient alcoholism, and then some. Kevin Spacey is great and in this instance demonstrates his ability to act true brokenness.****

Hiccups

Yesterday morning, while I was preparing some songs for our evening gathering, I got hiccups. They were the real deep, rather severe kind that linger even after drinking a lot of water. I sat down and chilled out for a while and eventually they went.

Then Lewis came around and, sure enough when I started singing the hiccups returned (grrr). We ran through the songs, amid many a “hic,” and then went down to the YMCA to setup. I took the opportunity once everything was ready to just chill, sit down a bit, drink some water and just relax, and they subsided! I got up to lead the songs, got through King of Glory (which was the one that had got me hiccuping the last few times), got through all the other songs and even the rest of the evening with no obvious hiccup.

That evening when I returned home the dreaded hiccups returned and lasted until I fell asleep.