It is interesting to me that everybody that is alive and dead all have / had a birthday. Some who were alive were not afforded that gift. I was born on August 24, 1942 and am entering by sixty-sixth year of life. I one reflected that when my dad was sixty-six in 1958, (he was born in 1892), I thought he was really, really old. I was just a teenager. Now that I have reached that age. I realize that he was not old at all. Rather young, I would say. My how perspectives change over the years. I recently discovered that in 1456 in Mainz, Germany, volume two of the famed Gutenberg Bible was bound, completing a two-year publishing project, and making it the first full-length book to be printed using movable type. Not a bad day to share a birthday with such an accomplishment. Go figure, that a large part of my life would be given to trying to figure out was printed.

I am bless with a wonderful wife and two kids who are a joy to my life to celebrate life with on this day. Several years ago when the Seattle Mariners were playing in their record season, it looks like they are going to have another one this year on the opposite end, our family jumped on a plane to go to Baltimore, MD to watch the Mariners play. It was Cal Ripken’s last year with Baltimore. We share the same birthday.

According to answer.com, the word for today is “blue law.” This was a U.S. statute regulating work, commerce, and amusements on Sundays. The name is said to derive from a list of Sabbath regulations published (on blue paper or in blue wrappers) in New Haven, Conn., in 1781. Throughout colonial New England such laws regulated morals and conduct. Most lapsed after the American Revolution, but some, such as prohibitions against the Sunday sale of alcoholic beverages, remain on the books in some areas. I remember growing up in the South where the latter part of this law was enforced. I lived in Orange County Florida and it was call a “dry” county. There was no alcoholic beverages sold. Of course, that didn’t mean that there were no alcoholic beverages consumed. Just four doors down from where I lived was Miss Myrtle’s Liquor Shop. She did a whopping business on Saturday often staying open till midnight. At the drug store where I worked the “bums” as they were called who could not afford the real stuff would come and buy two items, the first was Sterno, a small heating canister that was largely jellied alcohol. They would squeeze the alcoholic out of the wax and put it in a coke to drink. Second, they would purchase “Bay Rum” an aftershave lotion for its alcoholic contents and also put it in coke to drink. Attempts to legislate morality have never worked, folks are pretty creative in finding ways around the law.

For all you computer folks today in 1995 was the release of Windows 95. What a difference a window makes. Right in the middle of writing this post, my friend Jimmy John Morris, the Northwest Vineyard Worship Coordinator called to “sing” Happy Birthday to me. Priceless!

I trust that today and all others are a wonderful blessing from God to be his agent in his world for the sake of it.

About a half-mile, as the crow flies, from my home is a small church on a highly traveled road on the Eastside area of Seattle, WA. I have watched the sign in front of the church for many years now. The picture to the right caught my eye in that I am preparing two online courses for Missio Dei Learning Community around the topic of Missional Church. I think the slogan may tell the tale well. Church signs were big in parts of USAmerica in times past. It most likely is still a big business. My wife showed me a picture of a newly constructed church sign that she saw on her recent trip to SoCal. That sign came into being by spending thousands of dollars and came complete with a “sign dedication service.” What I find interesting is that both of these signs belong to Assemblies of God churches. I’m not sure that the one in the pic is going to do what those who spend time putting up such slogans hope it will accomplish, but it sure gives the flavor of much of the church living in USAmerica. In my opinion, the sad thing in this attractional model is that if a driver was attracted by seeing such a sign, pull into the driveway, park the car, get out, go inside the building, there would be little attraction once inside.

First there was exegesis, a way of interpreting from the text. Then, there was eisegesis, a way of reading into the text one’s own ideas, an action that most followers of Jesus are very proficient as they read the sacred text. I have coined a new word for the process of Bible interpretation which I call fractalgesis or fractagesis. Fractalgesis is the process of starting with the largest text, i.e., in the case of Scripture, the metanarrative, and moving to the smaller narratives of Scripture.

Typically in exegesis we have been taught to start with the smallest item, usually a word. We then endeavor to learn everything that we can about that word, its part of speech, its kind of action, how it is used in the language outside of our sacred text, etc. Next, we move in outward concentric circles of context as they are often called. The next concept to investigate would be the sentence in which the word occurs. Then, the paragraph, then, the chapter, then, the book, then, the other books by the same author, then, other similar types of literature by other authors, then, the genre, then, the larger section of the Bible, i.e., in this example, if a word was found in the New Testament the last circle would be the Old Testament.

What if we started at the other end of this cycle and mixed some metaphors. What if we started with the metanarrative and the glue that holds it together, i.e., the ownership, rulership, or Kingdom of God. Then, to see the fractalness of the Kingdom Story we put it through a prism. What shines through is different hues which we might call the larger acts of the story, but within theses acts the same repeated concept of the larger original hue can be observed. Then, we send these acts through a prism and what appears are all the scenes within the acts of the story, again with the same repeated concept of the larger original hue being repeated. Then, we continue the process of sending these scenes through the prism again and what appears are smaller narratives but with the original concept still in tact. We once again send these smaller narratives through the prism and beget the characters that support the main character within the story. We would finally end up with the words of the narrative that are being spoken to tell the story but they would be impregnated with the same content as the metanarrative. What we discover at all stages is that the content finds the same shapes differently produced. The more one magnifies the fractal of the story, the more one sees the patterns of the original the same only different.

Fractalgesis then is the art of reading the metanarrative refracted though a prism to discover the meaning of the narrative at hand with the original concept imbedded into the smallest concept.
How would that change our way of thinking about and studying our sacred text?

BTW: Do you Twitter? Check out my Twitter here.

Yep, The cool Dr. Todd Hunter is back online and from the looks of him he has taken the pill. From the bowls of Boise, he has created a new ministry called Three Is Enough (TiE). He envisions TiE groups to take shape form Boise to the ends of the earth. He has entered the TiEtrix.

He states in his welcome post:

In one way TiE (Three is Enough) is the culmination of a lifetime of thinking about the intersection of The Gospel, culture, church, kingdom, spiritual formation and evangelism. In another, more humble way, it comes from the closing chapter of my upcoming book from IVP—Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others. In CBB, I try to lay out some of the practical outcomes which surround one’s understanding—or misunderstanding—of the Gospel. Much of the conceptual work for the first section of the book comes from my D.Min. dissertation which was titled: Re-hearing the Gospel: Toward Improved Practices for Evangelism and Spiritual Formation.

So go ahead at take a look. Click here and you will be on your way. Don’t forget to take your pill before you make the leap.

As a biblical thinker I must admit that I have some problems with what seems to me like a list of practices or disciplines that must be accomplished in order to be an authentic believer. A new kind of “pull yourself up by your spiritual boot straps” or “how to become more like Christ with ten easy disciplines.” This appears to me to be a new set of “boundary markers.” I am not against moving toward Christian maturity by putting into practices certain disciplines. What I think should be the focus is practices that are clearly mandated in Scripture as the priority then other “disciplines” that may be proposed. (There is no agreement on what a list of spiritual disciplines should be). We use the word “spiritual” as an adjective to specify what kind of disciplines one is speaking about. The term “spiritual” is not used in this way in the New Testament. Rather spirituality is defined in terms of the Spirit. A person is spiritual to the degree that he or she lives in and walks by the Spirit within a community of faith.

I believe that Biblical practices, those that we are admonished in Scripture to follow, will form people in a way of life. Our churches have been lax in providing such instruction for its community because our culture holds a deep-seated belief in the freely choosing, autonomous individual who out of rational self-interest forms his or her own way of life. Spiritual disciplines seem to lean heavenly on individualism in the sense of gaining some “inner” strength that makes the outward person stronger. The conduct of a Christian is not the result of simply an effort to become better. Rather, by incorporation into the Body of Christ, our individual growth takes shape. It seems that God’s intention is that Christian behavior is to be reinforced and upheld by the friendship, company, teaching, counseling, and loving criticism of other Christians (by alleloning). To try to be an individual working on becoming spiritual is not a sign of becoming truly human, but is a sign that the old life of bondage still dominates. Paul has argued in Colossians that the Colossians were free to follow Jesus. Jesus had defeated the principalities and powers to deliver freedom to his people.

In Colossians chapter 3 Paul provides a refreshing program of living for Jesus. The prohibitive list is twofold: the abuse of sex and speech. The new life has no more sexual immorality, no anger or violence. However, there is a catch, trying to stop the old lifestyle without recognizing that the old powers have been defeated only brings failure. Living the “new life” stands squarely and firmly on the work of Jesus in his life. The reality of living between the times is played out in this and other like passages.

Put to Death (3.5-6). Paul’s imagery moved from death and life to putting clothes on and off.

Put to death . . . whatever belongs to your earthly nature. The Greek tense in this command suggests a decisive action, as if Paul said, “Mortify it! Do it now! Do it resolutely!” The list of evil activities flowing from humankind’s earthly nature includes

• Sexual immorality: Sexual intercourse outside of the marriage relationship (Illustration: 1 Cor. 5.1ff).
• Impurity: The general word for immoral activity, which shuts a person off from God’s presence. The opposite lifestyle is found at Matthew 5.8
• Lust (pathos): Uncontrollable passion which leads to sexual excesses
• Evil Desires: Illicit craving
• and Greed (or insatiable desire; sexual greed), which is idolatry

Rid Yourselves (3.7-9). Though the Colossian Christians used to walk or live in these evil ways, before they came to know Christ, Paul commanded that they do so no more. Now you must rid yourselves of all such things. The word “rid” (apothesthe) means “to put off” like a suit of clothes. In its ethical use here it means “throw it off like a dirty shirt.” Repulsive habits—anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language–do not fit or suit the community of faith. They are unbecoming to followers of Jesus (cf. Eph. 4.17, 31).

• Anger (orgen) is a chronic attitude of smoldering hatred
• Rage (thymon) is an acute outburst. Thymos elsewhere is rendered “outbursts of anger” (2 Cor. 12.20), “fits of rage” (Gal. 5.20), and “rage” (Eph. 4.31).
• Malice (kakian), the deliberate intention to harm
• Slander (blaspheian), “railing or evil speaking, defamation of character”
• Filthy language (aischrologian) is shameful or abrasive speech.

Put on New Humanity (3.12-17). Because of their new lives in Christ all believers are called on to clothe themselves in virtue, letting Christ’s peace rule them. His Word should dwell in them richly, and they should do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. Again Paul called on believers to take a decisive action:

Clothe yourselves (endysasthe). We must remember when we read these passages that the “you” is plural. Paul did not have the individual in mind first and foremost, he had the community in mind. Again, it is fair to say that God’s intent is for us to be formed in his image within a community where our individuality can truely become all it was meant to become. Because they have “put on (endysamenoi) the new self” (v. 10), they should live accordingly, with appropriate attributes and attitudes. Paul listed the abuses of sex and speech and now in contrast to them, Christians—as God’s chosen people (cf. Rom. 8.33; Titus 1.1), holy (”separated to God”; cf. Col. 1.2) and dearly loved (cf. Rom. 5.8; 1 John 4.9-11, 19)—are to have several virtues. These include

• Compassion (splanchna oiktirmou). Concreate acts of mercy
• Kindness. Benevolence in action; or generosity
• Humility, A lowly attitude toward God; cf. Phil. 2.3; 1 Peter 5.5,
• Gentleness(prauteta). Meekness, a consideration for others and a willingness to waive one’s rights.,
• and Patience (makrothymian), long suffering which endures wrong and puts up with the exasperating conduct of others rather than flying into a rage or trying to get vengeance.

We don’t want to make spiritual disciplines another religion of this “present evil age” when in reality we live in the “age to come” becoming what God has created us to be as his people (community and individually) for the sake of the world.

Len Sweet has created an acrostic for vibrant Christianity. He call’s it EPIC. I use it in my book title God’s EPIC Adventure. It stands for:

• E is for Experiential
• P is for Participatory
• I is for Image-Rich
• C is for Connectivity

The “E” stands for Experiential. Folks love experience. So if you wanna have a grand experience in 2008, here are two things you can do.

First you can signup and read the Bible without Additives. This concept is a thought well timed. Originally, Scripture did not have chapters and verses and we have now come full circle with a presentation of the Bible without chapters and verses. Reading the Bible Without Additives in 100 Days uses this prsentation of Today’s New International Version to present a reading plant that so you can “experinece” the whole story of Scripture in about 100 days, reading about forty-five minutes to an hour a day.
If that is to fast for you there is also a 200 day and a 300 day version. Pick your speed and experience the story of God.

All you need to do is click on the link above and signup. It’s just that easy. All the information you need to get started is on the page you will be taken to when you click on the link above.

A second thing you might do in addition to the above is to listen to the presentation of the Bible in last year’s award winning Audio Book: The Bible Experience. Below is a click for you to listen to the Story of Creation.

Enjoy!