Ecclesia National Gathering, 2010: Missional & White

For the last few days, I away at Ecclesia’s National Gathering. Ecclesia is a missional network that specializes in coming around church planters and church leaders to relevantly minister to a rapidly changing culture.

I had some great dialogue with many people while I was there and definitely left with a lot to think about and chew on because the teaching was so rich. However, like my stereotype suspected (yes, I admit I prejudged them before I knew them… guilty!) it was an overwhelming white constituency.  In fact, while I have been to many mostly white christian events, I actually think it was the whitest event I have ever been to. If you throw Blacks and Asians, (sorry, there were no latinos present) into one group it would total to about 1% of the group.

This reality is sad and unfortunate given that this new group of “missional” christians tend to see themselves as Evangelicals 2.0, who are supposedly more open minded and value diversity more than evangelicals do. While that might be in the teaching and vision, in reality, most evangelical events I have been to are closer to 5-10% minorities. I am not making that sound like that is a good number, but it is way better than 1%.

Despite everyone’s agreement through many conversations about the elephant in the room (lack of pigmentation), it didn’t seem hopefull that anything was really going to change.

What is going on?

Reading the Bible Deep AND Wide

All my bible readers out there, don’t you love it when you find a powerful passage that you can chew on for weeks?  Or how about when you find a verse that is jam packed with a bunch of goodies for you to chew on for a hot minute? We love a good passage or verse that we can dissect and dig into.  In fact, many have grown accustomed to digging real deep into passages. We can read, study, and meditate on the same passage for over months at a time, shoveling out all kinds of bible bits for us to eat.

I think the practice of digging deep into biblical text is a great thing, but it can be dangerous in and of itself.  Our culture loves to take an individual verse and chew on it, but hardly are we challenged to see how the verse fits in context with the passage, and how the passage fits in context with the biblical book, and how the biblical book fits in context with the entire biblical narrative.

May I suggest that we need to read both deep and wide. I believe we actually should read the bible not only in quality, but in quanity too. Discover and read the gospel of Luke in just one or two sittings and see what it was that Luke was trying to say about Jesus. What was the unique portrait of Jesus that Luke paints for us, and what are the specific themes of his gospel? What happens when we begin to read teh bible as a great meta-narrative, as the greatest story ever told, and then allow everything we read to fall in context with that great story.  Is the story taking place before or after the fall? Is it before or after Christ? And does it matter and change its implications for our lives?

Freestyle with me folks, has your Christian community encouraged you to read both deep and wide?

Messiah College Hosts Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Feb. 25th

Messiah College Centennial Celebrations: Keynote lecture

Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Alphonse Fletcher University
Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for
African and African American Research at Harvard University

Messiah College Humanities Symposium Lecture
“Genetics and Genealogy” • February 25, 2010, 8:00 p.m.
Brubaker Auditorium, Eisenhower Campus Center

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., will deliver the second keynote lecture of the Centennial year and the keynote address for the Messiah College Humanities Symposium. Professor Gates is editor-in-chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies, and of The Root, an online news magazine dedicated to coverage of African American news, culture, and genealogy. In 2008, Oxford University Press published the African American National Biography. Co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, it is an eight-volume set containing more than 4,000 biographical entries on both well known and obscure African Americans. He is most recently the author of In Search of Our Roots (Crown, 2009), a meditation on genetics, genealogy, and race, and a collection of expanded profiles featured on his PBS documentary series, “African American Lives.” His other recent books are America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Warner Books, 2004), and African American Lives, co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Oxford, 2004).

Immediately following the lecture, audience members are invited to attend a public book signing by Dr. Gates in the Eisenhower Campus Center.

This event is open to the public. Seating is by ticket only; no charge. Tickets available beginning January 14, 2010 through the Messiah College Ticket Office, (717) 691-6036.

Jon Stewart confronts Keith Olbermann

Had to throw this clip in cause it was funny. Jon Stewart is actually challenging Keith Olbermann for being too nasty (I know it sounds like bizarro world, right?). Enjoy.

Happy Birthday Rosa Parks!!!


On February 4th, 1913, Rosa Parks was born. She is now famously thought of as the “mother of the civil rights movement” for courageously sitting down on that city bus, so that the African American community could finally take a stand. It was her faith and resilience that gave her the strength to make that courageous move. We remember her today, and her faithful commitment to God’s principles of love, justice, and equality. Happy Birthday Rosa Parks!!!

Dr. West’s note to Obama

The brilliant Dr. West shares words of challenge and encouragement with our President.

Free MP4 Available for a Limited Time

I have a recent sermon available for the month of February that can be downloaded for free. Just click on my “free freestyles” page where you will find the link. As well, I often offer other free resources on that page as well. Enjoy.

Genesis 1:1a: Creativity

“In the beginning God created…”

How often do you think about God as creative?  Creativity is one of the very first things that are revealed about God in the Bible.  What does it mean to be created in the likeness of a creative God? Freestyle with me…

Nas – I Can

It’s time for us to invest in our young people! Too many young folk dropping out of school, too many young folk that don’t believe in their own gifts and talents, too many young folk with demoralized and beat down psyches. While I think we must continue to address the wealth disparities that exist, we need to do much work in the psychological and spiritual realm.

How do we begin to restore what was stripped from the black community in America through 400 years of inhumane slavery, jim crow laws, lynching, segregation, brutality, stereotypes, and hatred?

Michael Eric Dyson on President Obama and White Panic Part 2

What do you think about the idea of supporting the President, while also critiqueing him and keeping him accountable?  Blind and biased critique or support will never be good, especially in a democracy, right?