Well, it’s only a couple of days to Christmas 2007. Hope you are enjoying this time of the year.

Here’s a link to our annual Griffin Family Christmas Card 2007.

And just for fun!
The Dancing Griffin Elves

Today, while I was participating with my community of faith, I was captivated for a few minutes by a small young lady about 16-18 months old. Her mom and dad were setting right in front of me. They had let her down during musical worship. First, she wandered about one row toward the front, then she returned and put her hand in a cup that her mom was holding and got some cheerios. She was smiling and dancing around to the music. After her second time back to mom for a refill, she ventured about two rows away, then returned. Next, she ventured three rows away and returned. Then, she ventured into a row with some other folks and danced around, then returned. Next, she discovered there was another whole area behind her she had not yet explored. She refilled and went toward the back. The parents set calmly and watch their daughter enjoying herself with great big smiles of enjoyment on their faces. On one occasion, she got out of the sightline of the parents, her father got nervous and went to rescue her.

As I watched, I thought how wonderful it is to have a relationship with a heavenly parent who allows me to wander off, explore, and dance around a bit all the time enjoying my exploration, and then offers me a bit of refueling when I return, but when I wander too far off course, nervousness sets in, and I sense the rescuing hand of a loving parent scoop me up just before a possible catastrophe occurs.

Wow, isn’t freedom great?

I teach a course presently at Bakke Graduate University which help those pursuing a Doctor of Ministry degree to begin forming their thoughts about their dissertation. Yesterday, on Saturday evening, I attended the graduation ceremonies at Bakke held in the historic First Presbyterian Church in downtown Seattle. The graduating class this year had five graduates with a Masters of Theological Studies and twenty-three graduates with a Doctor of Ministry. Attending this service reminded me of my own graduation just a little over a year ago from George Fox University with my second Doctor of Ministry degree. My, how time files.

Donna and I missed the first part of the service because of a forty-five minute traffic jam getting into downtown Seattle, and on a Saturday evening at that. The service had one note of sadness. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Norm Maleng passed away unexpectedly the end of May. Ray Bakke, the present Chancellor and Norm Maleng grew up together in a small rural town in Northwest Washington. Ray and Norm road a bus to an from school for eleven of their twelve years in school. One thing stood out in Ray’s small eulogy. Ray, Norm, and one other boy attended a small church and their Sunday School teacher according to Ray “poured his life into those three children.” One went and served in Africa for twenty-two years, one became the Chief Prosecuting Attorney for King County, Washington for twenty-eight years, and the other spent twenty plus years pastoring and teaching in Chicago before returning to Seattle to become Chancellor of a graduate school which reaches students all around the world.

That Sunday School teacher may have never knows that the small but faithful and persistent thing he was doing would be used by God to reach more people that that one Sunday School teacher could have ever imagined. Small things count, and sometimes God often makes big things out of them.

It was fun to introduce my wife to faculty and those who work in the fabric of Bakke on a day to day basis. Well it’s 1:45 am Sunday morning. Guess I better “hit the hay!”

Rose, my pastor, made a comment on my online Bible Study called Decoding the Apocalypse in response to a question: What is a clear witness? Below was my response to her comment.

As with most things, the Enlightenment Project produced a rash of reductionism. Witness was reduced to things like the “Four Spiritual Laws” and “door-to-door” evangelism with the sole intent of putting an argument to people demonstrating that they were sinners and needed salvation so they could go to heaven when they died. If they surrendered they prayed the “sinners prayer” and got their barcode, so they could be successfully identified upon entry into eternity. Sound familiar?

Living openly, lovingly, and for others with Kingdom of God attributes such as the “fruit of the Spirit” was not prioritized as “witness.” If it was, it was more like “sissy” witness where “speech and argument” was seen as “real” witness. Of course, Paul introduced what he calls the “fruit of the Spirit” which is love, out of which come all kinds of lifestyle corrections. I believe for him, the “fruit” was a tangible demonstration of the “age to come” entering into “this present evil age.” It was the lifestyle of the future being brought into the lifestyle of the present. It was living the future now as though it was then. Living in this way surely would produce abundant conversations about why one is living differently than others in our physical communities. Telling one’s story in lifestyle would surely allow for opportunity to tell one’s story in words where one can give and honest, resounding, answer that she/he loves God. There is little or no argument that can be given for a life change. When the blind man in Scripture told his story, “I once was blind, but now I see,” having known the life of the blind man who was now a seeing man, who would argue.

Yes, to live well and to talk well we need to be empowered by the Spirit. His presence and power is not just for healing the sick and casting out demons. His presence and power are needed to help us live a Kingdom present life in the midst of an age gone amuck. When was the last time that when faced with a choice of a decision to be Kingdom people or “amuck people” we stopped and even briefly asked for the power of the Holy Spirit to decide in favor of being a Kingdom person? I better stop now, I’m “talkin’ too much here.

Brain McLaren suggests that we who live in the West may be living in an Echo Chamber where it is difficult to “listen to the voice of others.” One solution to this potential difficulty is to get out of the Echo Chamber by reading and thinking about how folks in other parts of the world think and write. The following article is a great start toward that goal.

A UNIVERSAL CORE?
by Sherman YL Kuek, OSL
Sherman is an itinerant minister and an Adjunct Lecturer in Christian Theology at Seminari Theoloji Malaysia (STM). He spends much of his time journeying with his friends in reflecting on faith, life, and culture in a profoundly theological and yet simple way. Sherman blogs on www.ShermanKuek.net.

In speaking of contextualisation, there are (rather simplistically) two trends of thought:

1) The gospel consists of a “static universal core”, a series of articulations which is time insensitive and perennially unchanging. The contextualisation project is simply about enfleshing this core with a cultural facade for the facilitation of communication and understanding. The core, essentially, does not change.

2) The gospel consists of a “dynamic universal core”, a series of articulations which is time sensitive and perennially changing with the development of our theological understanding. The contextualisation project, whilst being about the cultural expression of this “dynamic universal core”, (more…)

Rick and Toni are friends of mine from recent years. I spent three years in a Doctor of Ministry program with Rick. Recently, Toni’s cancer returned and she is in treatment. Rick keeps his friends up-to-date about Toni’s condition. The following is a recent one. After you read it, pause for a moment and pray for Rick and Toni, members of God’s family living in his story with the pressures of this present age.

Life is full of interruptions, inconveniences, unexpected scenarios, and dreaded situations. This includes everything from flat tires, stomach flu, to tax time in April.

What category does recurring breast cancer fall into?

It is definitely a major interruption, especially when it comes to Toni’s profession as a second grade school teacher . . . medical appointments, traveling to Illinois, missing time from working with her students, etc.. Furthermore, Toni has described having breast cancer as an “annoying inconvenience,” forcing you to make major changes and decisions in your life that you would otherwise never confront and attempt to live with.

Her diagnosis was not a totally unexpected scenario because Toni and I both knew that breast cancer does return in some cases. We just thought it would not happen to her.

To say this is a “dreaded situation” is an understatement. You can just imagine for yourself. But that’s just the problem!

One’s imagination has a way of conjuring up mental images and emotions that can instill despair and fear. For example, at the top of the list you find the fear of chemotherapy, sickness, physical pain, financial ruin, and death (resulting in your spouse becoming a “lonely” widow). Toni and I have discussed these multiple “imaginations” and their burglarious aim upon our peace and joy.

One thing we are learning again is that the imagination gone unchecked is poison to the mind and emotions, taking you to places you need not go or conjuring up “what ifs” that may never become reality. These mental meanderings have reminded us of what the apostle Paul wrote about concerning a form of “warfare” that takes place on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level. For more on this, see “Imaginations” and taking every thought captive to Christ in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (21st Century King James Version).

Interruption, inconvenience, unexpected, dreaded. . . all bring to mind another word: intrusion.

Recurring breast cancer is an intruder, infiltrating the body by replicating mutated cells until it seizes total control of the entire body and then shuts it down. An intruder: one with criminal intent, trespasser, interloper, invader, infiltrator, burglar, housebreaker, thief, and prowler. In other words, an intruder seeks to enter your life in ways that will change you, taking you to places you rather not go. And in this case, changing your life in destructive ways and taking you to undesirable destinations. Even chemotherapy acts like an intruder (When Toni read this post, she called chemotherapy the “intrusion infusion”).

Intrusion. If you think about it, in some respect the gospel is an intrusion. Jesus: the Intruder upon our human condition.

How so? I could wax, perhaps eloquently, about this topic ad nauseam, so I will limit it to one comment here.

Some argue that the Jesus of America is simply a cultural imagining of our own creation to fit our western and materialistic worldview and lifestyle. This Jesus exists to serve our own ends, and not the other way around. And sadly, this is the kind of Jesus that has been propagated and proclaimed in many of the churches throughout our country—a blond, blue-eyed, sugar daddy, genie-in-the-sky Jesus who exists to grant our every wish.

But I would contend that the Jesus described in the Bible is just the opposite. He is more of a counter-cultural personality than one who simply endorses the dominant culture. Jesus is the ultimate “intruder” into our personal lives. His intent is to enter our lives in ways that will change us, taking us to places we would rather not go. His intrusion leads to letting go of an old way of life that we desperately seek to control and opens us to live a new way of Life that is ultimately out of our control. This is what the Bible calls, “good news.”

Imagine that.

Rick