Patrick Oden

a review

Brian wrote a very nice review for a class he had and he graciously has let me post his thoughts here. He’s in the 9th grade:

It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit
By Patrick Oden

It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit, written by Patrick Oden, is a book pertaining to the subject of pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit. I found this novel to be quite helpful, since it confirmed many thoughts I had about how the Holy Spirit works. It breaks down the teaching into easy-to-read chapters and the teaching is, in fact, simply a conversation in a coffee shop. Within that conversation, many spiritual truths are taught. The two main characters in this book are Luke and Nate, a reporter and a pastor, respectively. Luke is a reporter for a local newspaper. Nate is the pastor of the Upper Room, a church that meets in the upper room of a coffee shop. This is the primary place in which the conversation occurs.
Luke was assigned by his editor to “visit different churches” and “s what religion is like in our neck of the woods.” (page 2) He visits many churches and synagogues in the area and finds that most of their theology is very much the same. Discouraged, he then visits and the Upper Room and his perspective on religion is changed forever.

Our conversation starts out as an interview between Luke and Nate. The two cover many topics, including leadership, community, welcoming strangers, and focusing on Jesus. During Luke and Nate’s talk, other members from the church stop by and interject their thoughts; one about creativity, another about life in the spirit. Everyone Luke encounters in the Upper Room is full of the Spirit, as evident by their insights on the matters of Spirituality.
One the interesting points that I learned from the book is that “The real evidence of the Spirit is community” (page 70) The way that the Spirit manifests itself is through the unity of the church.

While Luke and Nate are talking, a young woman enters the Upper Room. She is apparently a member of the church since Nate recognizes her immediately and introduces her to Luke. Her name is Melissa, and she is an artist. She and Luke begin talking, and they arrive on the topic of creativity, of which Melissa had some excellent insight on the issue. Melissa was convinced that creativity came from the Spirit. She believed that in order to complete the work the Spirit needs you to do; you must be willing to step out of your own traditions.

Melissa told Luke that she became disenchanted because of tradition. She disliked the repetition of church. She wasn’t herself when she was at church, and she became tired of it. She had a large falling-out with church with church and her family and she went off on her own to be an artist. When she decided to come to the Upper Room, she found that to be herself, she had to be with God.

Luke and Nate began conversing again, and as they draw to a close, Nate invited Luke and his wife to come and visit during one of their services. We can infer from the text that Luke is having marital problems; they even had a tough time showing up to church together. As they arrive, everyone Luke had met earlier that week came up and welcomed them. Everyone was friendly and cordial, making the two feel at home. The service was a life changing moment for Luke. He and his wife resolved their greed and selfishness and they became regular attendees to the Upper Room.

I originally came up to this book expecting it to be dry and unexciting because of the topic, but as I read it, I became enthused. The chapters are full of great insight to the Spiritual world, and the movement of the Holy Spirit makes the book to be appropriately deemed “A Dance.” I find the section about Community inspiring because our church, although small, has community in excess. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend It’s a Dance to anyone mature enough to understand the messages included.

One of the fun things about It’s a Dance since its release has been the absolute diversity in those who resonate with it. I love, love, love hearing what people from totally different backgrounds, ages, experiences, churches think about the book. When I wrote it I wrote out of my experiences, out of what I have seen and understood, hoping that what I wrote wasn’t just about me, or wasn’t me telling others what to think, but was in fact a telling of what a lot of us have experienced and feel deep within. If the Spirit is truly working in the ways I noted, there shouldn’t be lines drawn of who experiences these aspects and drives. Brian’s thoughts were both fun and encouraging to me.

here and there

I should probably note, especially given the consistency of posts I’ve attained here, that I have another blog, my personal blog, where I spend a lot of time and have a lot of posts relating to the topics in It’s a Dance. I’m still trying to figure how to make the best use of this site, so it might be sporadic yet here. But, wander over to Ravens if you’re so inclined to hear more of my ponderings.

An Irish Prayer

A fitting prayer for this St. Patrick’s Day:

O Holy Spirit of Love
In us, round us, above;
Holy Spirit we pray
Send, sweet Jesus, this day.

Holy Spirit to win
Body and Soul within,
To guide us that we be
From ills and illness free.

From sin and demons’ snare,
From hell and evils there,
O holy Spirit, come!
Hallow our heart, Thy Home.

Religion of the Heart

I say of the heart, because religion does not consist of right opinions or orthodoxy. While such matters are not necessarily outward things, they are not of the heart, but of the understanding. A person may be orthodox in every point, espousing right opinions and zealously defending them; he may think correctly concerning the Trinity, and every other approved doctrine taken from the Scriptures; he may agree with al of the historical creeds, and yet have no religion at all. He may be as orthodox as the devil, and still have no more religion than a pagan. He is indeed a pagan if he is a stranger to the religion of the heart.

This alone is religion as it is truly so-called. This alone is of value in the sight of God. Paul summarized religion in three particulars: righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

~John Wesley, “The Way to God”

Evangelicals on Politics

The Evangelical Manifesto that I mentioned before has been posted and I thought I might have a look at it. There’s the 20 page full version and the 5 page abridged version.

It is a big statement, though I don’t think it will make a big splash right away. Basically, as I see it, it’s more of a defining stand than a dramatic proclamation. Those who signed it represent some of the foundations of Evangelicals. However, there are many who didn’t sign it who have represented the public voice of Evangelicalism. These latter voices, and their followers, have long defined Evangelicalism in the public square. And so they likely will still try to do so. Instead of being given free reign, other Evangelicals are here now standing up and taking advantage of a shifting climate in the ranks. This isn’t going to change too much in the present, but it will set the tone for coming generations.

I’ve only looked at this briefly, but I’m going to be having a go at the longer version and maybe post some of my thoughts.

For now, here’s the shorter version if you want to have a read:

Keenly aware of this hour of history, we as a representative group of Evangelicals in America address our fellow-believers and our fellow-citizens.ii We have two purposes: to clarify the confusions that surround the term Evangelical in the United States, and explain where we stand on issues that cause consternation over Evangelicals in public life.

The global era challenges us to learn how to live with our deepest differences—especially religious differences that are ultimate and irreducible. These are not just differences between personal worldviews but between entire ways of life co-existing in the same society.

1. Our Identity
First, we reaffirm our identity. Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. (The Greek word for good news was euangelion, which translated into English as evangel.) This Evangelical principle is the heart of who we are as followers of Jesus. It is not unique to us. We assert it not to attack or to exclude, but to remind and to reaffirm, and so to rally and to reform.

Evangelicals are one of the great traditions in the Christian Church. We stand alongside Christians of other traditions in both the creedal core of faith and over many issues of public concern. Yet we also hold to Evangelical beliefs that are distinct—distinctions we affirm as matters of biblical truth, recovered by the Protestant Reformation and vital for a sure knowledge of God. We Evangelicals are defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.

As followers of Jesus Christ, Evangelicals stress a particular set of beliefs that we believe are true to the life and teachings of Jesus himself. Taken together, they make us who we are. We place our emphasis on …
1. Jesus, fully divine and fully human, as the only full and complete revelation of God and therefore the only Savior.

2. The death of Jesus on the cross, in which he took the penalty for our sins and reconciled us to God.

3. Salvation as God’s gift grasped through faith. We contribute nothing to our salvation.

4. New life in the Holy Spirit, who brings us spiritual rebirth and power to live as Jesus did, reaching out to the poor, sick, and oppressed.

5. The Bible as God’s Word written, fully trustworthy as our final guide to faith and practice.

6. The future personal return of Jesus to establish the reign of God.

7. The importance of sharing these beliefs so that others may experience God’s salvation and may walk in Jesus’ way.

Sadly, we repeatedly fail to live up to our high calling, and all too often illustrate our own doctrine of sin. The full list of our failures is no secret to God or to many who watch us. If we would share the good news of Jesus with others, we must first be shaped by that good news ourselves.iii

2. Our Place in Public Life

Second, we wish to reposition ourselves in public life. To be Evangelical is
to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace, and well-being that are at the heart of the good news of Jesus. Fundamentalism was world-denying and politically disengaged at its outset, but Evangelicals have made a distinguished contribution to politics—attested by causes such the abolition of slavery and woman’s suffrage, and by names such as John Jay, John Witherspoon, Frances Willard, and Sojourner Truth in America and William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury in England.

Today, however, enormous confusion surrounds Evangelicals in public life and we wish to clarify our stand through the following assertions:

First, we repudiate two equal and opposite errors into which many Christians have fallen. One error is to privatize faith, applying it to the personal and spiritual realm only. Such dualism falsely divorces the spiritual from the secular and causes faith to lose its integrity.

The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, Christians become the “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology. Christian beliefs become the weapons of political factions.
Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, economic system, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, or nationality. The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness.

Second, we repudiate the two extremes that define the present culture wars in the United States. On one side, we repudiate the partisans of a sacred public square, those who would continue to give one religion a preferred place in public life.

In a diverse society, it will always be unjust and unworkable to privilege one religion. We are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths. We are firmly opposed to theocracy. And we have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose beliefs and behavior on anyone. We believe in persuasion.

On the other side, we repudiate the partisans of a naked public square, those who would make all religious expression inviolably private and keep the public square inviolably secular. This position is even less just and workable because it excludes the overwhelming majority of citizens, who are still profoundly religious. Nothing is more illiberal than to invite people into the public square but insist that they be stripped of the faith that makes them who they are.

We are committed to a civil public square – a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well. Every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others.

Third, we are concerned that a generation of culture warring, reinforced by understandable reactions to religious extremism around the world, has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people. If this hardens into something like the European animosity toward religion in public life, the result would be disastrous for the American republic and would severely constrict liberty for people of all faiths. The striking intolerance shown by the new atheists is a warning sign.

We call on all citizens of goodwill and believers of all faiths and none to join us in working for a civil public square and the restoration of a tough-minded civility that is in the interests of all.
Fourth, we are concerned that globalization and the emerging global public square have no matching vision of how to live with our deepest differences on the global stage. In the Internet era, everyone can listen to what we say even when we are not speaking to everyone. Global communication magnifies the challenges of living with our deepest differences.

As the global public square emerges, we warn of two equal and opposite errors: coercive secularism and religious extremism.

We also repudiate the two other positions.

First, those who believe their way is the only way and the way for everyone, and are therefore prepared to coerce them. This position leads inevitably to conflict.

Second, those who believe that different values are relative to different cultures, and who therefore refuse to allow anyone to judge anyone else or any other culture. This position sounds tolerant at first, but it leads directly to the ills of complacency. In a world of such evils as genocide, slavery, female oppression, and assaults on the unborn, there are rights that must be defended, evils that must be resisted, and interventions into the affairs of others that are morally justified.

Fifth, we warn of the danger of a two-tier global public square. This is a model of public life which reserves the top tier for cosmopolitan secular liberals, and the lower tier for local religious believers. Such an arrangement would be patronizing as well as severely restricting religious liberty and justice.

We promote a civil public square, and we respect for the rights of all, even those with whom we disagree. Contrary to those who believe that “error has no rights,” we respect the right to be wrong. But we also insist that “the right to believe anything” does not mean that “anything anyone believes is right.” Rather, respect for conscientious differences also requires respectful debate.

We do not speak for all Evangelicals. We speak only for ourselves, yet not to ourselves. We invite all our fellow-Christians, our fellow-citizens, and people of different faiths to take note of these declarations and to respond where appropriate.

We pledge that in a world of lies, hype, and spin, we publish this declaration in words that, under God, we make our bond. People of the Good News, we desire not just to speak the Good News but to embody and be good news to our world and to our generation.
THE END

deep thought

From the “Daily Deep thought by Jack Handey”:

Whenever I need to “get away,” I just get away in my mind. I go to my imaginary spot, where the beach is perfect and the water is perfect and the weather is perfect. The only bad thing there are the flies. They’re terrible!

Signs of Life

A couple weeks ago I had the chance to preach on the topics in my book It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t recorded, as far as I know. However, this morning I sat outside and got it on video. It’s about 27 minutes long.

Not as Forgotten Ways

Alan Hirsch has a very interesting interview in Christianity Today talking about small groups and touching a bit on his book The Forgotten Ways.

Very much worth reading. This part stood out to me this morning:

I’d like to look specifically at the disciple-making element for a moment. You mentioned in the book that disciple making is a crucial, pivotal element in the process. What makes it so important?

It seems to me that if we fail to make disciples—that is, people who can become like Jesus Christ, which is a very simple definition of discipleship—if we can’t get that right, then in doesn’t matter what else we do because there will be a fundamental weakness in our ministry. The lack of disciples will always undermine any effort beyond that. But if we succeed in developing and creating an environment where people really can become more Christlike, it seems to me that the movement is on, and everything else will have a substantial basis along with it.

The problem is that we are being discipled every day by our culture, and it’s done very profoundly and very well—and I say this with a background in marketing and advertising. There are billions of dollars going into advertising, which is not just selling us products. There’s much more of a religious dynamic going on. So if we as a church or a small group don’t disciple in the way of Jesus, then the culture gets to have the primary say. And I have to say that, despite our best efforts, the culture is winning at this stage.

If I can be a little subversive here–one major, absolute barrier for real discipleship making has been, in my estimation, the significantly higher emphasis the church places on leadership development. Finding and developing leaders has become the primary task of training and pastors in today’s church world, whether in established or in avante-garde settings.

Leadership is about organization. It is about communicating, deploying, managing, inspiring, and otherwise getting people to where you think they need to be in order to do what you think they need to do.

However, leadership does not in any way mean discernment. Meaning that the greatest leaders can lead a whole mass of people into a morass. Discipleship, however, means becoming close to God, restoring the likeness of God in our lives so that we increasingly pursue the Holy Spirit in instinct. When we pursue leadership and leaders, however, we are looking at organization as the world understands it. That’s a big reason the culture is winning. Our best efforts have gone into playing its music and dancing its steps rather than letting go our demand for control and really learning how to trust the Spirit in our lives.

Leadership emphasis has undermined discipleship, even as leadership emphasis seems to be so, so potent in creating enthusiastic participants with passionate ideas. Leadership development mimics discipleship, as often it emphasizes those who are already the most dedicated to evangelism and ministry. It confuses passion for depth, and misses out on the deeper level pervasive impact that the less glitzy discipleship brings along.

Jesus, however, didn’t talk about organizational principles. He discussed the kingdom. He didn’t pick those with the most leadership potential. He chose those who were willing to be disciples.

The Spirit came upon them and led counterintuitive people to do all kinds of counterintuitive things.