outside is better

Subverting the World's Eschatology

This morning in chapel I am preaching a sermon that in some form I have preached 3 times.  I linked to it a few months ago from chapel this summer, and I am preaching a "redux" form this morning.  Its nice to be able to work with the same idea/theme but spread it across multiple scripture texts.  This morning it is Revelation 21:1-5b.  

This clip above is my intro into the sermon, but I wanted to post just a piece regarding why it is important that the Church enter itself into the cultural eschatological landscape.  

Robert Jenson describes the problem of modernity as “having a universal story without a universal storyteller”.  When the world puts itself on a timeline, but has no shape or form to the story, we will end up making up our own stories regarding beginning and end.  If the world started by chance...then it must end by chance.  Apocalyptiscism, as presented by Hollywood, is our culture making its own timeline, reacting against the idea that humans could make everything perfect themselves.  Our pendulum has swung to the opposite side of early 20th century liberalism  When a finality is created apart from the idea of salvation and worship, we have a pretty bad fracture.

This is all part of a bigger project that I am working on that should go live in the next few weeks.  I am excited about it.

More advent resources

After spending more time reading Webber's "Ancient-Future Time", I ran across two pieces that would be handy to use in designing worship during advent.  Both of these are from the chapter on advent.

1.  From the Rorate Caeli:

We have gone astray;
in the multitude of our sings we have been made unclean.
Fallen, fallen, stricken as leaves of autumn.
The storm wind carries us away,
the tempest of our evil deeds.
You have turned us from the face of your mercy,
and our iniquity has crushed us like a potter's vessel.
O Lord our God, look upon your people in their affliction; be mindful of your promises.
Send us the lamb who will set up his dominion from the rock of the wilderness to Zion, enthroned on her mountain.
There is no other whose power can break our chains and set us free.

2.  From the Book of Common Prayer:

Merciful God, who sent your messengers, the prophets, to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

These could be used for calls to worship and benedictions.  The liturgical tradition, while confusing to some, provides some great readings that can be used congregationally without to much explanation or confusion.  I have found that using classic prayers and readings during other times, by those on the pulpit, will acclimate the congregation to the style of language, so when corporate readings are done, there is a level of familiarity.

An Annotated Advent Bibliography

This week I have started to do some planning for our Advent services at Asbury Seminary for next month.  A quick trip to the library for some resources both excited and disappointed me. While Advent has been getting press over the last few years (mainly through the great Advent Conspiracy movement), I was surprised to not see more short theological works on the holiday.  I found some interesting devotionals, and great additions in books that dealt with the Christian Year, but nothing "full-length" really jumped out.  Below are a few books that I did pull of the shelves and took a cursory look at.  If you have any additions, please leave them in the comments.

I don't want to discourage anyone from looking more into advent, my liturgical geekery just got the best of me today. 

Annotated Bibliography For Advent:

In no particular order

Bock, Emil. The Rhythm of the Christian Year : Renewing the Religious Cycle of Festivals. Floris Books, 2000.  

Bock offers a wide (but quick and accesible glance) toward the topic of the Christian Year.   His strengths are in explaining the devotional attitude for the seasons, as well as an interesting look at the development of the festivals, as well as some of the transitions from pagan to Christian Holiday.  A sense of consecration as well as deep sacredness to many things are the books strength.  It’s weakness lies in the fact that it really doesn’t say that much.  Written in the late 40’s (I couldn’t find an exact date, this is the 5th edition) it seems to be in step with the unique theological situation of Protestantism coming out of Continental Liberalism.  A good book, but for a practical and theological view of advent, it didn’t hit the mark.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, John Donne, Meister Eckhart, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Archbishop Romero, Henri J.M. Nouwen, and Philip Yancey. Watch For The Light: Readings For Advent And Christmas. Orbis Books, 2004.  

A devotional book (dated from Nov 24th to Jan 7th) it is filled with daily readings from numerous authors.  The meditations can be used in private worship, but also would serve as a great source for thoughts surrounding the holiday for teaching and preaching.


Meeks, Blair Gilmer. Expecting the Unexpected: An Advent Devotional Guide. 1st ed. Upper Room, 2006.  

Another devotional book.  Instead of offering meditations, this book prompts the reader with scripture readings (daily and weekly), directed prayer and short meditations.  A good feature of this book is the integration of the advent hymns of Charles Wesley.  This seems to be an involved devotional, but good for someone wanting to spend time this advent season in private worship and reflection.


Wright, Wendy M. The Vigil: Keeping Watch in the Season of Christ's Coming. Upper Room, 1998.  

The Vigil takes the reader through Advent and Christmas.  It deals heavily with the Old Testament witness.  I find that this resource really helps ground the prophetic theme that rests inside of advent, as well as the eschatological idea of waiting and promise.  This is a theological resource, while still remaining accessible.


Marshall, William. O Come Emmanuel: Scripture Verses for Advent Worship. Morehouse Pub., 1993.  

Dealing with the liturgical idea of Antiphon, this book draws through the “Great O’s”, some of the great advent hymns from the high church tradition.  These hymns are part of the prophetic tradition and they deal with Mary’s Magnificat.  Good resource for designing services for advent.


Webber, Robert E. Rediscovering the Christian Feasts: A Study in the Services of the Christian Year. Hendrickson Publishers, 1998.  

This contribution comes from Protestant worship giant Robert E. Webber.  This is a short book that gives glancing worksheets on the Christian Year.  It’s advent contribution is minimal, but still loaded.  The book also gives a good introduction to Christian time.  This would be a great read for anyone interested (or skeptical) about the Christian year and it’s importance.

Webber, Robert. Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year. Baker Books, 2004.  

While longer in form (and not a workbook), another Webber resource offers broader strokes regarding the Christian Year.  This is a deeper theological resource, and like everything of Webber’s I have seen, it looks great.

Like I said, this is just the fruits of my labor this afternoon, I wouldn't call this list anywhere close to exhaustive.  From previous experience, I would also welcomes Wesley's Hymns on the Nativity

What Consumes me

Fall 09
Originally uploaded by chadbrooks

Is slowly getting knocked down. Thanks for sticking around while I have been playing catch up.

Social Media and the Kingdom of God

One of the things that I have been doing since leaving Nicholasville Baptist Church is teaching seminars on Social Media.  Till now, most of those have been done in the context of business, but tonight starts a series at Asbury Seminary.  Besides the nasty cold that I have had, the last few days have been taken up with my thoughts about social media and the kingdom.

A few years ago, I blogged about this sort of thing fairly often, but of the last year or so it hasn't surfaced.  The more that I think and teach about it, I am planning on bringing the topic up around here more.  But the main thing that I am going to stress tonight is the idea of connection.  Often, we use social media tools to just broadcast the same old message in a new way.  I understand the global power of these tools, but I am all about localnomics...and I think facebook/twitter/whatevercoolnewthing can have a large bearing on how local faith communities interact with each other.

So if you are in wilmore drop by tonight (at the Wesleyan Student Center) or tomorrow at lunch in Cordelia.  For others, I will be teaching at Common Grounds in Lexington on Friday afternoon to a more business crowd.  I would love to see you at one of these events.

How do we talk about grace?

Grace seems to be one of the words that we throw around alot in Christian conversation.  How often do we really think about the theological significance of grace.  Almost all summer I used this quote (within a quote) in sermons, papers and general conversation.  It had me thinking deeper about what grace truly is.

Dons Scotus went on to teach that, even if the fall had not happened, the incarnation would have still taken place.  It was his way of saying that Jesus Christ did not come only to save us from our sins, but supremely to bring to fulfillment the Trinitarian purposes of grace in creation......

.....It is in this trinitarian way we have to see worship, as the fulfillment of God's purposes in creation and redemption, to bring us into a life of communion with himself and one another. The triune God is in the business of creating community, in such a way that we are never more truly human, never more truly persons, than when we find our true being-in-communion.

James B. Torrance Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace pg.73

How does grace enable us to truly live life? Lets stay away from the Christianese around the word,and think about the idea of fulfillment.  Grace is the realization of complete shared personhood with God, an action by a divine superior towards a subordinate (but desired) being that enables us to function within the original design of the Godhead.  Thats just fancy language for saying that grace allows us to be the people that we were designed to be (in relationship to the triune God).

It is easy to use the language for forgiveness in grace, and it definitely is part of the idea, but I think that we cheat ourselves when we allow grace to only have bearing in relation to negative human issues.  The only reason I say that is I think many people don't actually believe in some sort of limitation, but don't know how to communicate it.

Grace is what sets us apart.  Grace is what makes us beloved.  We understand God in a way that no other created being, even those of heaven that guard the throne room, has the ability to.  The core love of God (what Robert Mulholland calls cruciform love) is in saving and reconciling action.  Thats how I am trying to think about grace.

Bible and Liturgical Geekery

Yeah I confess...and most of you know it.  I am a Bible and Liturgy geek.  I will easily start talking about either topic.  One of my favorite combination of the two is using the Book of Common Prayer (or BCP).  It took me a few years to get used to how to actually use it, until I actually met some Anglicans.  The cycle of readings in the BCP won't get you through the Bible in a year, but it is nice to be reading scripture with people all over the world, and readings that have been done for ages.

The easiest way to jump in is to check out the ESV daily BCP.  You can subscribe to it in your RSS reader and have it pop up every day.  That way, when you forget what week of Ordinary Time you are on, the text is right there in front of  you.

Helps for online reviewers

molie and G2
Originally uploaded by chadbrooks

In the past, citing any form of compensation for reviewing has had some gray area involved.  I have reviewed books and Bibles that I paid for, as well as received review copies of materials.  The new CMP.ly makes citing these sort of things easier.  This post (from mashable) outlines how this service can help bloggers comply with the new FTC rules regarding being forthright about disclosing material gain that bloggers recieve from a company.

Kingdom Conference 09

Asbury Seminary holds Kingdom Conference every year.  Here is one of the promo videos from the conference.  This will be a great week.

The Living Christ go with You.

DSCN4231.JPG
Originally uploaded by chadbrooks

I was digging through an older notebook today, and I found this poem. I think I wrote it around a year ago, but I am not even sure of its origins (i usually mark an author if I find something interesting), but as far as I can tell-I wrote this around June of 2008.  This picture is from one of the prayer rooms at Asbury, from a batch that I shot before orientation in 2007.  So I guess we can call this post a re-discovery.

I vaguely remember trying to write benedictions and calls to worship during last summer, so I think this poem is from a night of working on that Project.

EDIT
In the comments, my good friend Omar (and worship design team alum) notes that he found the prayer in a Lutheran liturgy (here and here).  I thought it sounded too familiar and to good to be anything I came up with.  A note to me (and other notebookers) to always cite things, because you never know when you will come back to it years later.

The Living Christ go with you
Behind you to encourage you
Beside you to befriend you
Above you to watch over you
Within you to give you power
And before you to show you the Way....