When we got there we got to meet our hosts Kim and Stacy who are amazing ladies.  They, and their community house, were fantastic hosts.  They were gracious and fun and really made the whole trip very enjoyable for us.  Thank you Kim and Stacy!

Friday night we heard from Tom and Christine Sine(of Mustard Seed Associates) about church/community/empire type issues.  They laid out a good foundation for the weekend and deal with broad ranging topics.  They gave some of the basics from Tom’s book The New Conspirators.  They then talked about these trying times we live in and what communities can do to help.  They moved on to talk about how the global consumer capitalist culture has taken over our imaginations and what it would look like to re-imagine a lot of different parts of life.  They finished up with a good foundation of what Shalom is(peace/wholeness from the biblical perspective) and discussed why Resurrection was so important to the early christians and why it should be important to us.

I went to a breakout session that Christine led after that about spiritual practices within communities.  She laid a good foundation for why we do group spiritual practices and some helpful practices that they have found.  We also had some sharing from all of us about practices that have been beneficial.

This is a good interlude to discuss who all was there.  I knew of a number of different communities that would be represented but I was really blown away by how amazing all the different people we met were.  In my normal life when I talk about my desire to live in community it seems strange.  The way they live at Gabriel House is abnormal in my circles of life.  But at this conference living in community was the norm and those of us who don’t(yet) live in community seemed like the minority.  It was great to hear from a lot of different people about all the different things they do with their lives.  So much time/energy is freed up by living simply and sharing that it enables them to do things that I don’t have time for.  It was inspiring.

Saturday morning we had a breakout session first before a main speaker.  I went to the session on hospitality led by Kim and Stacy.  They did a fantastic job of facilitating a conversation with everyone in the room.  It was inspiring and challenging to hear how a lot people have arranged their lives in ways to allow them to take in people in need and share their lives openly.  There was a lot of healthy discussion about boundaries and how best to serve people.

The first main session of the day we got to hear from Greg Boyd(pastor of Woodland Hills Church and author of  The Myth of a Christian Nation)about the Kingdom of God and nonviolence.  He told his story and preached to the choir a bit about how nationalism has invaded the church.  The main thrust I got from his talk was that the Kingdom of God looks like Jesus and that that(looking like Jesus) should be the indicator of if something is of the Kingdom.  He also gave a little apologetic for being affiliated with the Mennonite Church.

We then broke for lunch and then came back to hear Carol Rose(co-director of Christian Peacemaker Teams)  do a main session.  She talked about what it takes to do the type of stuff that they do with CPT.  She also had us do some roleplaying acting out a confrontation that Jesus had and doing some subtle training on how to respond to conflict.  Carol is an amazing woman and someone who I came away very impressed with and inspired by.

Our next breakout session time was next and I went to Carol’s session about taking the peacemaking of CPT and using it with your community for your communities.  We did some sharing and some active learning and it made some stuff about my lifestyle hit home.  I came away very challenged to make some lifestyle chances to enable me to be more of a peacemaker.

We then finished up with the final speaker of the conference Jin Kim(pastor of a multi-racial/multi-cultural church called Church of All Nations) .  One big thing that was mentioned in passing but never dealt with in the conference(before Jin) was issues of race and culture.  It was a conference full of progressive white people wanting to make the world a better place but race issues were an elephant in the room at times.  Jin talked about race.  In fact, he talked more frankly about race and culture issues than anyone I have ever heard.  Very challenging and very needed.

I had a really good time this weekend.  It was challenging and inspiring.  Thanks to everyone involved for making this event happen.

World crude oil production has been slowly falling and unless it turns around 2005 will go down in history as the peak year. Besides oil, issues with the US dollar, the sub-prime housing crisis and the subsequent slowing US economy have kicked off the age for many in the US already. Welcome to the Age of Less.

We also got to hear from David Fitch and Alan and Deb Hirsch plus a couple of breakout sessions(I went to JR and Todd‘s sessions). I’ll post some highlights from the teaching(and links to audio when they go up) in the near future.

We had some time to be social too. The first night a bunch of people wanted to smoke cigars so we went out to Ozio. It is quite the amazing place if you are into cigars and martini’s. I was disappointed with their beer selection and wasn’t smoking, but it was good to hang out. The next night we hit up the local Rock Bottom and enjoyed a couple good beers and good hangout time. On our afternoon break we got to hit up The Potter’s House with Clay and Leslie(longtime friends and co-pastors of Horizon Owings Mills). I have a ton of respect for the different things that The Church of The Saviour has done in DC and it was neat to see one of their churches/ministries/missions.

You will have to wait patiently for hightlights from the teachings, but I promise they are coming.

I feel like it’s a much more hopeful view of the world. It challenges the escapism of the left behind view. The implications are that the physical things of this world matter. It matters if we care about the environment. It matters if we care about our bodies. Life matters, not just life after death.

I’ve seen just how much us christians buy into the heaven thing as we’ve experienced some tragic deaths over the past few years. It’s amazing to me how many times well meaning people have thrown the line “at least they are in heaven now” or something like that at us to tell us that it’s okay that Jack or Jarrett are not here anymore. I know they are trying to comfort us and make us feel like it’s alright, but for the most part it’s very insulting. Even more insulting, and even disgusting(it turns my stomach), is the “God took them” line that some people throw out there. No, it’s not alright! No, God did not “take” them. A tumor and a mentally disturbed college student took them. It’s tragic and awful and not as God intended the world to be! It makes me want to scream! But, at the same time, I do believe that at the resurrection they will be restored to their whole selves. They are not some spirit or ghost now, they are sleeping and waiting to be restored. Not restored to some other-worldly fantasy life in the clouds, but real life. That to me is hope.

Update: It went pretty well. Nerves always are there, but I definitely felt more comfortable talking than I did last time I did this. My biggest thing is I feel like I need to slow down when I’m talking. I kept telling myself in my head to slow down… but I never really did slow down. Oh well. Here is the talk written up. It’s literally about 98% of what I actually said, I just did some slight improvs from it: Jan 13th Talk notes