The Hsu’s Views

I enjoyed reading this helpful article by Richard Foster on the practice of reading scripture called Lectio Divina. I like how this spiritual practice can help to temper our tendency to approach scripture with our fallible human intellect as the only/primary means of drawing benefit from the Word.  Foster describes Lectio as “a way of listening to the bible rather than a way of reading it.”

And, to tell the truth, rather than listening to the Bible as such, we are trying to listen to God whom we believe addresses us in the Bible, and where we can best learn to understand the language of God and his ways among us. In fact, it is probably safer to think of lectio divina as a way of praying rather than of reading. In my own experience, I can certainly say that when prayer is tough going I have found guidance and encouragement from paying more attention to lectio divina: it is the best way I know of deepening my ability to listen to God and to open my rather stony heart to him in prayer.

Download the four page Word Doc from the Bible Society of the UK here.

Formation

I’m invited to join AARP!?

It is interesting how one little email can instantly affect one’s perspective of self.  I don’t know how they decide these things since I am fully four years and one month away from their minimum age cutoff. I’m sure I didn’t fill out a form somewhere that may have suggested that I was beating down the doors to get into their membership.

Now I have to go and buy a fast car and maybe jump out of a plane.  I’m definitely signing up for the America’s Finest City Half Marathon.  I’m sure that will help.  Crazy.

Fun

This will be a wonderful consultation with a couple of great professors from Fuller Seminary. This is not your traditional “conference,” but an opportunity to sit with leaders from your church to exegete your own ministry context, and figure out “how to implement missional strategies in your congregation.”

Date: August 21-22
Place: Solana Beach Presbyterian Church
Cost: $75, includes meals

Schedule

Click to Register

Leadership, Missional

We….have gathered like eagles round the carcass of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 57-58.

Apprenticeship, Quotes

Spiritual formation, without regard to any specifically religious context or tradition, is the process by which the human spirit or will is given a definite “form” or character. It is a process that happens to everyone. The most despicable as well as the most admirable of persons have had a spiritual formation. Terrorists as well as saints are the outcome of spiritual formation. Their spiritual or hearts have been formed. Period.

This quote is from Renovation of the Heart (p. 19). What always strikes me about this definition is the reminder that we are being formed whether we are aware of it or not. The reality is that mostly we are not aware of it.

While many of us will not be shaped so horribly to be a terrorist, the default shaping forces of the world do not exactly line up to shape us into saints. In fact, there are so many ways that even our Western formulation of the Christian faith is shaping us that runs counter with the way of Jesus and his gospel of the Kingdom.

I’ve really enjoyed studying this book with a community of men, with a vision, intention and this book as a means to learn how to be formed into apprentices of Jesus. Two thumbs up!

Formation, Heart of a Leader

If you only listen to the first ten minutes of this mp3, will be ahead of the game.

NT Wright was in Southern California speaking at the invitation of Fuller Theological Seminary at Lake Avenue Chapel in Pasadena, California. He spoke on Feb 26, 2009 on the topic of virtue. In the first ten minutes you will hear how the miracle landing of a bird struck airliner (US Airways Flt 1549) was not a miracle, but the result of training and many years of practice that brought about an apparently impossible feat as second nature. To the unlearned, it was a miracle, to the pilot and crew… “We were just doing our job.”

Christlike virtue is not a miracle when it appears in the life of an apprentice of Jesus. Correctly understood, virtue is the result of “training” (ie: spiritual disciplines) and many years of practice such that when circumstances present itself, you will find yourself acting in “miraculous” ways that is consistent with your “training.”

Read NBC’s coverage of the water landing.

Thanks to Raffi Shahinian for the recording and posting at his blog.

NT Wright: Learning the Language of Life 1 of 2 (Lecture)

NT Wright: Learning the Language of Life 2 of 2 (Q&A)

A similar sentiment is voiced in this post of the Group News Blog (I don’t know who they are, but their comments below reflect Wright’s comments.)

Read more…

Formation, mp3

My friend Jason shared a link to a highly regarded chronicler of church growth and trends. This years report shows that for the first time, (prepare your eyebrows) both the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention are reporting a decline in membership. These two entities have reliably posted growth over the years but now join the ranks of almost all the other mainline denominations in decline.

The churches with the highest rate of membership loss include the Presbyterian Church (USA) which is down 2.79 percent.

Uncategorized

I’ve been thumbing through Lee Van Hamm’s workbook entitled, Reading the Bible Economically and thought I’d stop to share a thought. He notes we have tended to read the bible in ways that have not adequately opened our eyes to the economics of the “empire.” Despite the biblical examples of how God’s people lived according to an alternative economic that actually helped them stand apart and distinct, today the economic of God’s people is scarily indistinct from the world’s.

On page 64 of the workbook, Walter Bruggemann is cited for his useful suggestion of using the metaphor of exile to understand how to evaluate our alternativeness.

The metaphor of exile may be useful to American Christians as a way of understaind the social context of the church in American culture. The exile of the contemporary American church is that we are bombarded by definitions of reality that are fundamentally alien to the gospel, definitions of reality that come from the military-industrial-scientific empire, which may be characterized as ‘consumer capitalism.’ In a variety of ways the voice of this empire wants to reshape our values, fears, and dreams in ways that are fundamentally opposed to the voice of the gospel.

There are, of course, many American Christians who do not know this and do not believe it. It is not known or believed because they sense no abrasion between those cultural values and evangelical values. Such American Christians proceed on the assumption that our society is fundamentally Christian and that there is a ready and comfortable interface between Christianity and those cultural values. If that view be held then the exilic literature makes little sense or has no direct pertinence. Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile, p. 92-93.

Economics, Justice

Sat down to work on the dissertation and got this crazy message. Never in all my years of working in Word have I come across this one.

Fun

I’m very excited to announce our next U40 meeting on Feb 28th from 9am to Noon. We’ll be meeting at the UTC mall for a “retail exegesis excursion.” Our learning topic will be surrounding Consumerism, Capitalism, and Kingdom Economics and I’m excited to announce that Jason Coker of www.twoshirts.org will be our facilitator.

We will be learning about the relational dynamic within our economics. We will explore how giving and receiving establishes a certain kind of dynamic in our relationships with others. This relational capital can be used for good or ill. We will learn about a very tangible effort to put this kingdom economic into practice in twoshirts.org.

We’ll employ a field guide with questions to guide your observations of the mall, and of the activities people are engaged in. Then we’ll be in small groups learning from one another, reflecting.

We’ll also attempt a better job at the networking component. There are wonderful people who are doing wonderful kingdom things within our city from which we must network, learn and collaborate. Be prepared to share a little about what sorts of efforts you are involved in. We’ll also pray, worship, and celebrate communion.

Pray for the details on securing the room at the UTC mall, there are legal waivers, indemnity agreements, and other details yet to be worked out.

Where: The UTC Mall (University Town Center), in Forum Hall above the Wells Fargo Bank near Nordstrom’s and the Pedestrian Bridge.
When: Saturday, Feb 28th from 9am to Noon.
Why: To network kingdom-minded people, learn, and celebrate communion.

Who’s invited: Anyone that is desirous of learning how to align their lives with God’s kingdom agenda in the city and who believes we are better doing this together than apart.

Questions: Geoff Hsu geoff.hsu@crmleaders.org
Join our Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14215988610

Movements, Social Concern, U40