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Showing posts from October, 2008

Sabbath Answers

I'm in a hurry to get things done, Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun. All I really gotta do is live and die but I'm in a hurry and don't know why. --Alabama A couple years ago , I included that refrain from one of my favorite Alabama songs in a blog post. It's been on my mind lately. I've been thinking a lot about Sabbath because Sabbath has been the theme of our early service at FLUMC . Or maybe, because I've been thinking about Rest/Sabbath, I decided to make it the theme of our early service this fall. Something like that. Everybody everywhere is busy. But sometimes the pace here in Franklin Lakes, in North Jersey, in these communities near NYC, is really just over-the-top. It's go, go, go. I'll never forget the children's sermon where I was asking the kids about how their parents spent their time. "Work," came the exhausted, stressed, tired-sounding response, from little ones ages 4 and 5 and 6. As I was thinking about my early

Bishop's Convocation: David Lowes Watson

In mid-October, I attended the Bishop's Convocation in my home conference, North Central New York . Our speaker was David Lowes Watson , a retired clergy person, seminary professor, and a Wesley/Methodism scholar. I really enjoyed the event (I always enjoy time with my colleagues), and I particularly enjoyed Watson's presentation. He was funny (frequently using the words 'naughty' and 'twit' to describe people in his stories) and smart, and had all of us, I think, pondering the role of the pastor and how it has changed, and what it should be. Watson talked about the contemporary heresy: We try to isolate God in the instant present. (Think of a digital watch - it gives you only the instant time, with no sense of time before and time after.) We've "so personalized our discipleship that we've made God something that depends on us," he said. We're anthropocentric, and consumeristic. And church in a consumeristic culture is "almost lethal.&

Link Love

My apologies, again, for my continued lack of blogging-desire. In the meantime, some links to check out: from cnn: Obama's face on food stamps? - racism in the campaigns from jockeystreet: My brother reviews The Secret . from Dan Dick's GBOD blog: blasphemediocrity and a post about megachurches . from slaktivist: a really excellent post called "They Need Help" Happy reading!

Template...

So, I realize the template I'm using is now not showing up. The creator has a tutorial to fix the problem, but I'm having a hard time getting it to work. So bear with me for a bit! Update: I think I have it all fixed! Yay! Now if I could just get that hour back....

Sabbath Questions

How do you keep the/a Sabbath? How did you start your Sabbath practices? What were your Sabbath practices growing up? When/why did they change? If you had total control over your schedule and ample time, what would be your ideal way of spending Sabbath?