The “Theology Committee” of the Missouri Baptist Convention have released a statement today that, in effect, separates the MBC from ever working in partnership with Acts 29 and their organization of church planters again.
And this is despite the new and shocking evidence that Mark Driscoll has become a flaming fundamentalist. Yes, that is a suit.
Nothing new this week, but here is one from about the same time last year. Love this one.
Alan Hirsch's book, The Forgotten Ways, is causing me to ask a lot of good questions of my theology, my ecclesiology & missiology. It's good, challenging stuff and I recommend you pick it up. I've been meaning to read/review this book for some time and it has been too long in coming. Over the next few weeks or so I'm going to make the effort to post a few quotes, reflections, and/or questions about the book and the issues it raises. Please feel free to interact with the ideas.
I wish I had time to do the book more justice, but Scot McKnight (for one) spent a good deal of time on the book (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). You might also want to check out Jordan Cooper's epic first half review here. I encourage you to go to these links for a good recap of the arguments of the book.
If the heart of discipleship is to become like Jesus, then it seems to me that a missional reading of this text requires that we see Jesus's strategy is to get a while lot of little versions of him infiltrating every nook and cranny of society by reproducing himself in and through his people in every place throughout the world. (p 113)
Poets.org has a nice page of essays on writing poetry and the writing life.
What advice can you get from Edgar Allen Poe or Ralph Waldo Emerson? What do rhyme, meter, metaphor, elision, and free verse mean? What is a haiku, a limerick, or a sonnet? Check these resources out.
A couple of albums have me spinning lately.
Blonde Redhead: 23
(MySpace, Reviews: Metacritic, Drowned in Sound, The Village Voice, Lost at Sea)
Wow, this is good stuff. Atmospheric, heart-wrenching, experimental indie-rockish shtuff. The title track, "23," is a great introduction to the album. Hear it on their MySpace or watch their video of "23". Some quotes...
23 is a delirious fever-dream of an album that continues to impress with each consecutive listen.
This is the next record you have to buy. Absolutely. Unequivocally.
Headlights: Kill Them With Kindness
(MySpace)
Under The Radar: "Kill Them With Kindness is an impressive debut proving that the remaining members of Absinthe Blind are not living in the past but continually experimenting into the future."
I believe Under the Radar has Kill Them With Kindness as their #15 album of 2006. A number of reviews are not quite there, but I think it's outstanding. It's happy, fun music. Tracks that stand out to me are "Your Old Street" and "Signs Point to Yes (But Outlook Not So Good)."
YouTube: "TV" Video (or "TV" Live), also "Signs Point to Yes (But Outlook Not So Good)"
The High Calling (of Our Daily Work) has a new website, which is a very nice upgrade from their old one. I write for them when asked, and think this is a helpful ministry for people who work. Here is my profile page.
A few poems to continue with National Poetry Month.
"A Confession" (via)
My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman's body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress's neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognize greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass.
Haiku from Billy Collins (first two via, third via, found in)
Mid-winter evening,
alone at a sushi bar—
just me and this eel.Awake in the dark—
so that is how rain sounds
on a magnolia.Moon in the window—
the same as it was before
there was a window.
"The Road Not Taken" (via - with audio, found in)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
On Thursday during the question and answer time with Billy Collins he gave some great insight and advice on poetry. I thought his comment on reading American poetry was worth repeating.
87% of American poetry is not worth reading.
Wow.
What a fun night. I took my two youngest boys, Daniel and Elijah, to see the Woodstock High School Blue Streaks varsity team beat the Grayslake team. It was a blast. Elijah even got to shag a foul and throw it back. That was obviously the highlight of his night. Gotta love it. Then we went to Taco Bell, an important place for male bonding through meat-like product consumption.
Here's a reason why I love the SBC: Ed Stetzer. 
Some good news from LifeWay...
Three Southern Baptist entities - LifeWay Christian Resources, the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and the International Mission Board (IMB) - have forged a collaborative research effort in which LifeWay Research will conduct special research projects on behalf of NAMB and IMB.
As part of the new initiative, Ed Stetzer, missiologist and senior director of the Center for Missional Research at NAMB, will become director of LifeWay Research, effective June 1. Stetzer also will serve as LifeWay’s missiologist in residence.
Ed Stetzer is a friend and I'm happy to see him doing some new things for the SBC and larger Christian mission in the world.
It's not everyday a world renowned poet, a former U.S. Poet
Laureate, and the author of the poem you read at your Mom's funeral comes to
your hometown. So I just had to go see Billy Collins (via poets.org, bigsnap.com, bestcigarette.us) author of "The
Lanyard," when he came to Woodstock today.
We didn't know he was coming until a few days after Mom's funeral. So I immediately contacted the Woodstock Opera House for tickets and learned they were sold out. That was disappointing. But I talked to a friend and Opera House employee about it and he called the next day with the news that some tickets opened up. We picked up two.
This morning we dropped off the two youngest at a friend/church member's house and went to see Billy Collins. He read poems for about an hour: a sonnet or two, a handful of haiku, and the rest his typical, informal-style poetry. He was funny, thoughtful, and engaging. The crowd clapped and laughed, and even gasped at insightful lines. It was brilliant, just brilliant. I can't believe anyone can think poetry is over their head if it comes from Billy Collins.
I have three of his books and wanted them signed, so I got in line and met Billy Collins. I told him I read "The Lanyard" at my Mom's funeral. The lady next to him (I don't think I've ever met her before) said something like, "Are you the guy with the Woodstock blog? I was telling Billy about what you said on your blog." How cool is that? He was very personable and showed real concern. He asked how well I got through the poem, you know, without crying. I told him I did fine. So then he signed my three books, including just above "The Lanyard" poem, and then we posed for a photo via my hot wife. He said the photo would probably end up on the blog. He was right.
I think Billy Collins has become my favorite living poet. Watch his animated poetry, buy his books, listen to his live readings, or attend a live reading. Here's a big archive of Billy reading poems. I think you may just learn to love poetry, or love it even more.
I spent some time hanging with Joe Thorn today. It was partially because he's my best friend and it's fun to catch lunch with him. But it was mostly because I wanted to go to Kiss the Sky, a nice Geneva, IL music store with a great selection, to pick up the new Eluvium album, Copia. I also picked up Bert Jansch's The Black Swan and Loney, Dear's Loney, Noir. I had to leave so many good CD's behind, stuff I've been looking for. Glad I was able to bring home a few. Photo credit to THE Joe Thorn.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch...
The Missouri Baptist Convention has toughened its alcohol policy forpeople who receive money from the organization to start new churches.
Individuals who help found new churches were already required to sign a statement agreeing to abide by the organization's policy on alcohol consumption. Some of the new language requires those who receive money from the convention to go a step further and "teach the strong Biblical warnings of the consumption of alcohol for all Christians."
[...]
Missouri Baptist Convention interim executive director, the Rev. David Tolliver, said he did not know what precipitated the need for a policy change, saying only that the new policy "reflects the position of most Missouri Baptists."
He said the Journey was not affected by the toughened policy, because its leaders simply borrowed money from the convention to buy a new church building. "This new policy has nothing to do with them," he said. "It won't affect them."
Man, this is so cool. Poets.org has a National Poetry Map so you can click on a state and find out about local poets and poetry, the state Poet laureate, literary organizations, poetry friendly bookstores, writers conferences, etc. For example, when I click on Illinois I find out that Li Young Lee is one of our local Chicago poets (already knew that) and that Kevin Stein is our Illinois Poet laureate (didn't know that).
This is a great resource for finding local stuff as well as expanding your horizons. The more I use Poets.org, follow their RSS feed, and listen to their Poetcast (podcast), the more I love this site. Get on it.
These Billy Collins action poetry videos are just fantastic. Brilliant. He is the dude who wrote "The Lanyard" and is speaking at the Opera House here in Woodstock on Thursday. My wife and I have tickets. Enjoy these wonderful short videos. (Videos not available to embed are "Men in Space," "No Time," "Today" and "The Country."
.
Some music on the radar, but not yet on the iPod...
I have a feeling Brandi Carlile's new album, The Story, will be a good one. Her debut album was fantastic (as I pointed out last year). Her song, "The Story," was free on iTunes a few weeks back. You can see her video for "The Story," though I like this live version better. Man, what a voice.
I'm entranced by the music of Eluvium. I've been back to their My Space regularly to hear it again. Beautiful. Can't find the CD's in my local stores so I may have to order them. The new one, Copia, is getting great reviews.
Some music I'm loving and will probably post on in the near future: Besnard Lakes, Blonde Redhead, Headlights, Low, Patrick Park, and The Shins.
The spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in tranquility. –William Wordsworth
The art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors. –Thomas Macaulay
What ideas feel like. –Karl Shapiro
The art that offers depth in a moment. –Molly Peacock
Memorable speech. –W.H. Auden
Perfection of form united with a significance of feeling. –T.S. Eliot
Poetry essentially is figurative language, concentrated so that its form is both expressive and evocative. --Harold Bloom in The Best Poems of the English Language
This, I believe is the ultimate direction and goal of poetry, metaphor, and symbol—to express what is inexpressible, to fuse together what still remains separate. --Robert Siegel, The Christian Imagination, 351
If you are interested in taking online poetry writing classes, you may want to look at Zarafa Tutorials. I haven't used them, but like where they are coming from. They link to Douglas Jones' interesting, short article "Men Hate Poetry."
...if you hate poetry or don't have the time or are just indifferent, consider that this might be symptomatic of some deep failure in you instead of in the poetry. And then, don't just admit to the failure and go on hanging your head. Hunt for beauty. Track it down. A passion for beauty certainly is characteristic of those great men in the past whose lives were characterized as after God's own heart. Remember David's psalms and Beowulf's celebrations, full of life and faithfulness.
I also recommend looking at the articles on poetry over at Credenda Agenda (where Jones' article is published). If you search for poetry on their site, you get many articles. Check them out.
Had no new photos and Joe Thorn was making fun of me, so I took this photo with his camera at lunch (Mmm, BW3).
Some quotes about poetry (and art) from The Christian Imagination (which happens to be a fantastic book of essays on the "practice of faith in literature and writing"). These are quotes in the book, not quotes from the book.
The poet's job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place but the kind of thing that always does take place. --Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination
The poet is not a man who asks me to look at him; he is a man who says "look at that" and points. --C.S. Lewis, The Personal Heresy
It is the function of all art to give us some perception of an order in life, by imposing an order upon it. --T.S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. --George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah
A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. --Percy B. Shelley, A Defense of Poetry
Reading poetry gives experiences there is no other way to have. It gives them quickly, suddenly, just about whenever we want. --Kenneth Koch, Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry
Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.... We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections. --Robert Frost, "Education in Poetry"
