Dan Kimball: Vintage Faith

Scary snake under the bed

This morning we had an interesting event happen. Claire started saying "Snake!" and sure enough there was about a foot long gopher snake in their room on the floor. I went in there and the snake then slid across the floor into our room and went under our bed. So, I had to try and find it and grab the thing and finally got it out. Even though it was a gopher snake, I still put on one of Becky's work gloves to grab it. Maybe I am wimpy with snakes.

What was really fun and fascinating was how Katie and Claire loved the snake. They wanted to touch it and get close to it. But it was only when I was there. If I backed away, they got scared of the snake, but if I was by them holding the snake (with Becky's protective work glove with floral pattern) , they were thrilled with it and had no fear of it.

I had the thought watching them, of how I can become so fearful and afraid of the "snakes" in my life, whether it is worry about things in the church, or what is happening in the future or whatever it might be. These snakes in my life can be so unnerving and cause lack of sleep and restlessness. Yet if I really focus and dwell on the fact that God is close and God is there with me - I can face the "snakes" more easily.

The key is to really remember that God is there with the snakes under my bed, and like Katie and Claire being excited to face the snake and even touch it when I was there, I need to remember God is there when I am facing fear or anxiety with my snakes. I wish it was easier sometimes to remember that and have more faith so I wouldn't lose sleep or worry sometimes. Jesus talks about having faith of a child (Matthew 18:2-4), and that is really what this is.

Emergent Last Day - Bittersweet Departing for Home

I can't wait to get home after being gone for 5 nights. This is a longer trip than usual, and I ache to see Becky and Katie and Claire again. I had the odd experience of walking down Broadway in Nashville yesterday, past all the tons of bars that a bunch of country bands were playing in. These bars have almost all glass as their storefront, so you can see in and watch the bands play. The placement of the stage in these bars are all up against the large glass window and the bands then are facing inward towards the people inside. So as you walk by on the sidewalk looking in the large window, all you see at eye-level is the band members' hineys in their Wrangler jeans wiggling to the country-western rhythms as they play.

While on Broadway, I bought little kids cowboy boots, bolo ties and bandannas for Katie and Claire. For Becky, I bought something I better not say, in case she reads this before I get home and give it to her.

Now I pack and head home. It is bittersweet, as I truly can't wait to get home. But this also is sad, as this convention is somewhere where I get to connect with extremely meaningful friends that have been used by God in major ways in my life. I love hanging out with them. Many people here are the ones who pretty much saved my sanity when I was thinking I shouldn't be in ministry anymore. Hanging out here is so invigorating and the discussions about life, theology and church keep me energized and hopeful. Late night discussions with Chris Seay as he wore this large black cowboy hat,  hanging with Alex... John R., Jay, Doug, Spencer, Lilly, Tony.... eternal thanks to Marko for putting these events on and all he has done.

I am also so glad I got to meet and hang out with so many new people, Adam, Brett, the Ikon folks from Ireland, Adele (fellow Lemon Jelly fan), Jamie, John Kohlenberger, Wendy Eason, Rachelle, Eric, Jeff Jones, Andrew, talking with Scott Rubin from Willow about the critical importance of youth ministry,...too many to even remember right now. So many wonderful people meeting in the halls, or after a workshop.These conversations keep me going and give me hope. All I know, is these times are needed. In my life....I think in all of our lives. We are all in this together. 

I better pack here, and get the heck to the van to go to the airport. If I miss the plane, I may not have as much of these warm and fuzzy feelings about this anymore.

Emergent Friday: Garbage into Prayer

I was on the way to speak at the workshop on Sacred Space and creating Prayer Stations. I saw Lilly Lewin on the way and asked her if she would help in the discussion. When I got to the room, I normally find the long table to put my laptop and other things on while I speak, but the table was totally covered in trash. A group must have eaten lunch at the table and left a pretty big pile of potato chip bags, paper plates, empty soda cans etc.

As I began the workshop on sacred space,  I made a joking challenge to Lilly. I said that I bet she can turn that pile of trash into a prayer station. I continued to speak and behind me, sure enough, Lilly began working on the trash to make it a prayer station. I peeked once and saw her working away in a whirlwind of activity like a mad scientist or genius artist at work. Somewhat in the way that Edward Scissorhands would go about creating shrub sculpture.

 

It was quite an amazing thing. She took the paper plates and made them instruction readings for prayer. She took the Goldfish crackers and made them symbolic of "being fishers of people", uneaten grapes became a look at how we are doing being refreshed or not, Pringles cans and other trash all turned into prayer stations.

It was fascinating and as I looked at what she did, it was somewhat metaphorical how God can take anything we may think as trash or useless and make it good. Even if we personally feel useless, God can make us useful and even use us to help others. He can take the trash in our lives and turn it into something beautiful.

I also had everyone there take pieces of clay and mold them into shapes or objects that portrayed a verse from the Beatitudes. We read the verses and then had those there select one and shape it into clay. It is always something to see the creativity within a group of people and how we can express it in worship and prayer. So, from a lump of clay something prayerful is made. From trash and garbage something prayerful is made.

If we as humans, can turn clay and trash into something to glorify God, God certainly can take our lives and shape them into something beautiful to glorify Him. May we be trash in His hands. May we be clay in His hands.

Pancakes and Giant Vitamins with Jay and Lilly

Had a breakfast meeting with Jay and Lilly. Lilly and I are writing a book for Youth Specialties about Sacred Space and Prayer Stations, so we went to a well known breakfast place in Nashville called "Pancake Pantry". Jay is very health conscience and pulled out a large packet of vitamins. These were not the normal size vitamins, but tremendously huge vitamins. He swallowed about 7 or 8 of these super-sized vitamins. I think they might have even weighed more than the pancakes we ate.

After in the lobby of the hotel, were sitting the Stevens Brothers. Jarrett is on staff with Axis at Willowcreek and his brother Justin leads a band called Tremolo. Justin was the lead singer for The Dime Store Prophets and has led worship for us at Graceland a couple of times (when I was doing that a few years ago). Justin is someone who is extremely talented and should be a megastar.  I hope his new band (who just got signed) will be discovered by the many out there. Justin led worship last night at one of the Emergent worship gatherings they had in a local church. He is someone I have admired from afar for many years.

Emergent Convention - Day 2 - Listening to the Professor

I went with Tony Jones to listen to him being interviewed for Stand To Reason, an apologetics web site, about his philosophical beliefs. This is what I heard (and most of this is probably misspelled)..."fundamentally situated.... epistemic fronesis.... logical positivism... modernistic philosophical schema..... the clarion call of foreign philosophy schema.....platonic fallacy....post-Bartian praxis.....hermeneutic access to reality.... reductionism loaded with power dynamics.... infallabalistic finite human language.... how can you be sure of foundationalism if you are inherently depraved.."

Tony is the professor. I am not. Even typing those words makes me dizzy.

Emergent Convention in Nashville - Day 1

I am at the Emergent Convention - National Pastors Convention in Nashville. Speaking 3 times and doing a book club thinger on The Emerging Church on Friday morning.

 

I spoke today at a Critical Concerns Course which is 5 hours today, and 3 hours tomorrow. It is a long time speaking, but it is pretty interactive so the time goes quick. We spent at least an hour talking about theology which was really important to do and also fun. I loved the fact there were Southern Baptists, American Baptists, Bible church, Presbyterians, Methodists, 7th Day Adventists, Lutherans - all committed to seeing Jesus being made known in our emerging culture. Yes, there are differences in some theological aspects, but there was such beauty in what I sensed about their hearts for the future church.

There are so many incredible workshops happening at this convention by so many people that I read their books and hear about their churches and ministries. So, I will come back with lots of things to ponder and pray about with Vintage Faith Church and will probably get lots of CD's of workshops to listen to. I am also sure it will be a week of staying up very late in discussions with people talking about lots of things about what God is doing in the church across America.

I am speaking again at 8:30 AM, so I shall try to sleep....

Midnight with the Men in Black

After the worship gathering of Vintage Faith Church tonight, I had a meeting and went out to dinner with Nick Nell and Bennett Gibson. They co-lead our Prayer Team at the church. When we got to the restaurant and took off their jackets, they both were wearing all black shirts, so it looked like these black shirts are the official uniform for the prayer team. We talked quite a bit and ended up meeting until they kicked us out of the restaurant at midnight when it was closing.

We had some good conversation about prayer and the church. We really want to see Vintage Faith Church have prayer weaved throughout all we do, so we were thinking of ways to see this happen.

Our church is very fortunate to have two men of God, like Nick and Bennett who faithfully pray and lead the prayer team. I am fortunate to have them as friends. My wife, Becky has become good friends with Nick's wife Rene too.

I had some fun taking some photos during our meeting and dinner with my little camera on my cell phone. Nick in this picture seems to be be asking readers of this blog to place their hands on his hands on the computer screen, so he can pray for you - ala Robert Tilton of the evangelical TV scandal days.

It was a nice evening, as we laughed as well as talked about prayer. We then prayed together to close the night out in the parking lot of the restaurant and then hung out even longer standing in the parking lot well after midnight. We talked about Mustangs, as I was showing them the rust holes in my Mustang that are now so big, I can slip my key into them. It was a fun time, but now it is now 1:26 AM .... and I need to get up pretty early.

The men in black kept me up late.

Oh God

I am in Los Angeles right now speaking at a one day "Emerging Church" event at Talbot seminary. It was a really fun event, with Robert Webber, Spencer Burke and several Biola and Talbot professors speaking also. Afterwards, I got to have dinner with several of the Talbot Seminary professors and discuss culture, the emerging church and lots of theology. I felt very awkward sitting there a few times, as I listened to several brilliant thinking men talk. Many times they used names of philosophers and theologians that I never heard of but just kind of sat and nodded as they talked and feeling very out of my league. But, they were really so nice and I would love to have dinners and discussion like that once a week. I wish that Christians would dialogue like this around tables and dinners and talk more about theology and Scripture, than only about what movie we saw last week.

This morning (the day after the conference) I woke up in the hotel here, and made the coffee that is in my room. It comes in little packets and on the back of package of coffee it said "Coffees to complement your passion for life".

I sat down to sip my coffee and read the paper and ponder about "what are my passions for life that this coffee can complement?". As I did, i looked at the newspaper and there was a photo of two girls in Iraq in a refugee camp fetching water in a plastic jug as they were "fleeing into the desert" from the embattled area of Qiam. The article talked about how poor the quality of life is for those still living without homes in horrible conditions.

So, i am sitting in a nice cozy hotel in south Los Angeles, and since the coffee was not that good, I was even feeling somewhat dissatisfied about the quality of the coffee as I pondered about what my passion may be. Yet, there are two young girls maybe, 7 or 9 years old being passionate desperately grabbing some water in plastic jugs and being passionate about being able survive life. They were wearing little dresses and standing on the dirt in what I imagine is in a hot desert. They are only trying to live, and here I am trying to ponder about how this coffee complements my passion, and not liking the taste.

I am praying as I type this for those two girls. Feeling overwhelming guilt, and then also helplessness. I am pretty close to Disneyland where this hotel is, where thousands of girls their age are right now laughing and going on rides, drinking Slurpee's and eating ice cream, with water misters to keep them cool while they stand in line and these two girls are in the arid desert heat of Iraq, homeless and trying to get some water to survive.

Oh God.

Bruce sings Jesus is an Only Son

Last night Becky and I went to see Bruce Springsteen at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. It was a totally solo acoustic show, just him on the stage with guitar, harmonica, piano and an organ. The theater itself was beautiful, I don't know if I have ever seen such a beautifully restored theater.

One of the songs Bruce played from his latest album was "Jesus was an only Son". Some of the lyrics were:

Jesus was an only son
As he walked up Calvary Hill
His mother Mary walking beside him
In the path where his blood spilled

In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he'd never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips

It was a fascinating experience sitting in the theater, with Bruce introducing the song and talking about Jesus and then singing the song. I was wondering what people were thinking of Jesus as Bruce talked and sang a song entirely focused on Jesus. What was going through their heads as the song was being sung? I don't get the impression Bruce has faith in Jesus, in the aspects of salvation in Jesus and His resurrection and divinity, but I still am always amazed at how Jesus is respected and Bruce wrote a beautiful song about Him.