Morning Street 
  Originally uploaded by Jon .

For the last couple of years I have been asking God to teach me, to guide me, to help me birth something new, something fresh, something life-giving.  Giving birth always involves pain.  Giving birth involves waiting.  Giving birth requires a baby to be in the dark.  Giving birth takes time. Giving birth brings joy, because with new birth come new eyes, new ears and a new world.

What I have been thinking about for the last couple of years, I am trying to intensively focus on for the next few days in particular.  I will be immersing myself in a cocoon of study, swimming in words of missional eccleisiology, with the hopes that God would plant some fresh seeds in my heart that would birth something new. For the purpose of being in a cocoon is not to stay there, but to come out as something different.

One book I am engaging with now is Kester Brewin's book signs of Emergence.  It is a book that contains story and poetry in a way to open up our imagination.  Imagination is one of the things needed in the church today.  Here is one poem from his book worth contemplating, and a prayer from Vaux liturgy.

THE GREAT REVERSAL
Walking with the crowds
Carried along by the pressing forward.
Each one eager to get ahead
But each one starting the same:
Born as a baby, and from then on, struggling towards
       meaning, power and influence.
Be someone
Be remembered
Make a big impression
Leave some indelible mark in your 3 score years and 10

From birth, a struggle to find eternity, to burst
      through life with such dazzling intensity, that
      everyone will remember forever.
But walking the other way, picking out a route
      against the crowds, a solitary figure passes me...
      passes all of us - all straining away innocence, to
      be someone,
And he passes us, a quiet chaos in the crowd.

Christ, eternal, omniscient, creator, beyond time,
      source of wisdom and beyond petty claims of
      influence... in very nature God, slips into reverse
      and walks back past us - away from Kingship,
      away from power, away from influence, away from
      eternity, away from wisdom... towards infancy.
Calmly stepping into the body of a tiny child.

And even as this baby grows, figuring out how to control
      the body he himself designed, he still walks the
      other way, realizing that life cannot be found in the
      struggle for permanence, but in giving it up.

This Great Reversal subverts me.  Tired of pressing
      forward, I realize I need to turn, for what I have
      been searching for has just walked past me the
      other way.   

PRAYER
Infinite God we have struggled to make our marks on this world.
We confess that this has often led to trampling on others;
rushing for seats on the train; pushing in front; me first.
Infinite God teach us about the great reversal; lead us into self-less-ness.
In this city straining towards success help us to live a different way in the simple things: courtesy, honesty, humility.

Crucified God in the bread we remember your body broken,
given up so that we might live. In eating it we commit to the way of sacrifice.
In the wine we remember your blood shed,
poured out to reverse our wrong doings. In drinking it we commit to the way of forgiveness.

Amen.

Recently I have had a chance to hang out with Alan Hirsch, and I just finished his book The Forgotten Ways. It was both refreshing and challenging to read.  I hope to blog on it soon, as well as post an interview that I did with Alan this past week.  The first book Alan wrote, he wrote with Michael Frost.  This is the first video of Michael Frost that I have seen.  There well known book is entitled The Shaping of Things to Come.  If you want to learn about the missional church, Frost is a person to listen to.  This is an encouraging video.  I remember seeing this on a blog, but I can't remember where.  I just book marked it on my YouTube favorites.

Let me know what you think about it.

  Grand Central Station 
  Originally uploaded by tangentialism

DISCOVERING OUR CALLING
We left off our series with the question of how do we discover our calling.  While I will give some specifics along the way, I think the first act we need to engage in if we want to discover our calling is by listening to our lives.  Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak shares with us some wise words on the importance of listening to our lives.  Listen in...

"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening.  I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about - quite apart from what I would like it to be about - or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.  That insight is hidden in the world vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for "voice."  Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue.  It means a calling that I hear.  Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am."

As we continue this series, I will share some specific ways you can listen to your life.  I need to let you know that the next piece in this series will probably be next week, due to the fact this week is exam week for me.  I will have some other posts this week, but continue this series next week.

I am in the process of reading a number of books to help shape a larger research paper that I am working on that deals with Missional Leadership, or the idea of shaping church polity around God's mission, instead of shaping the mission around church polity. (If you know of a good book in this area, let me know.)

In light of this, over the next few weeks you will probably see a number of literary reviews.  I guess one of the differences between a literary review and a straight up book review is that literary reviews are written to help with future research. So I am writing with the idea that this will guide me to what I want to go back and study.  There are various approaches to literary reviews, but here will be mine.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
Roxburgh, in The Sky is Falling, contends that we are living in a time of discontinuous change, and in this time of transition, liminals (traditional leaders) and emergents (new leaders) must come together to start new missional orders at local community levels and include the five equippers as well as poets, under the direction of an Abbot/Abbess.

GENERAL OVERVIEW
Roxburgh takes the first two chapters to show how liminals and emergents (often young leaders) are trying to address the same issue - missional faithfulness amidst discontinuous change - from different angles, without taking the time to listen to one another.  He then demonstrates the need to find new frameworks (conceptual maps or lenses), skills and resources for leading congregations in these times of change (what happens to us from the outside) as well as in transition (our inner responses to changes we experience).  In learning to work with discontinuous change, he suggests we understand the five phases of change: Stability, Discontinuity, Disembedding, Transition, and Reformation. The “transition” (liminality or disorienting change) phase requires adaptive leaders to engage in communitas (emergents and liminals together) in order to “reenter the primary narratives of Scripture to hear together what God may be saying” (116).  He closes with a proposal to start missional orders in local communities, where the equippers and poets work together as a team, under the guidance of an abbot/abbess.

THEMES TO REMEMBER
Roxburgh works hard to help us understand that in times of transition and discontinuous change, while we desire to revert back to our old way of doing things, (like Robinson Crusoe trying to build a boat to get back to life that was lost), we must develop new frameworks, skills and resources in order to function in a radically new place (65).  He notes that adaptive leadership must become primary in times of complex discontinuity, instead of focusing on the technical, role-performance, and management skills, which are primary in times of stability.

So what are the skills and abilities of adaptive leaders? Adaptive leaders should understand the difference between change and transition (41) and the phases of change (Chapter 5).  Additionally, adaptive leaders should be aware of the threats and opportunities in this time of transition.  And because the future is unpredictable in discontinuous change, Roxburgh says: “…leaders who want to cultivate missional communities in transition must set aside goal-setting and strategic planning as their primary model.  Leadership in this context is not about forecasting, but about the formation of networks of discourse among people.  It’s about the capacity to engage the realities of people’s lives and contexts in dialogue with Scripture” (89).  Adaptive leaders cultivate environments of communitas, where together people try to sense where God is at work. 

One of the key ideas to revisit in Roxburgh’s book is how to engage in scripture in times of liminality, (Chapter 8). He mentions that by reentering the story of scripture in communitas, we will avoid jumping into programmatic strategies and possibly hear what the Spirit of God has to say to us. Other important chapters are (Chapter 10) where he talks about transition and leadership, as well as (Chapters 11 and 12) where he reveals his proposal for the future.  The following pages have key charts reflecting primary ideas contained in the book (31,41,54,88,91,105,110,135,153,182).

  Sheaffer Legacy II 
  Originally uploaded by Blunder

"In searching for our potential we certainly need to distinguish between strategic planning and leaving a legacy.  A strategic plan is a long-term commitment to something we intend to do.  A legacy results from the facts of our behavior that remain in the minds of others, the cumulative informal record of how close we came to the person we intended to be.  For me, what you plan to do differs enormously from what you leave behind." - Max De Pree (Leading Without Power) Pg. 163

  Sun Bible! 
  Originally uploaded by denis collette

"The Bible is there to enable God's people to be equipped to do God's work in God's world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing the posses all God's truth."  - N.T. Wright  (Simply Christian Pg.184)

Over the next few weeks you will probably see a number of literary
reviews. One of the differences between a literary review and
a straight up book review is that literary reviews are written to help
with future research. So I am writing with the idea that this will
guide me to what I want to go back and study.  There are various
approaches to literary reviews, but here will be mine.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a
general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are
pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
Hirsch’s central thesis in The Forgotten Ways is that God has implanted a missional DNA (mDNA) in every church that seeks to follow Jesus in any time. This mDNA comes in the form of six simple but interrelating elements and forms a complex living structure– that, when identified and activated, creates an apostolic movement that spontaneously expands.

GENERAL OVERVIEW
Hirsch begins by sharing how his experience of founding a church planting movement in a city, working at a strategic and translocal level, as well as his study of the early church and the church in China, provided him the environment and understanding to discover what he calls the Apostolic Genius.  Throughout the rest of the book he lays out the structure of the Apostolic Genius - the six interrelating elements that make up this mDNA.  These six elements must be looked at as an interrelated system in order to experience spontaneous expansion.  Not one of these elements can be left out.  The six interrelated elements include: (1) Jesus is Lord; (2) Missional-Incarnational Impulse; (3) Apostolic Environment; (4) Disciple-Making; (5) Organic Systems; and (6) Communitas not Community.

THEMES TO REMEMBER
In this book, Alan Hirsch is calling the church in the West to totally reconsider how she is doing church.  The reason is that the non-Christian population reports a high interest in God, spirituality, Jesus, and prayer, and at the same time with regards to the church, they have a high degree of alienation. (34).  From current research in Australia and what can be intuited from Barna’s statistics in the U.S., he suggest that the current ‘market appeal’ of the contemporary church growth model in the US, might be up to 35 percent (as opposed to 12 percent in Australia) (36). In light of this research, for strategic and missional reasons, he is calling us to radically rethink our approach.

Strategically speaking, he believes “that a vast majority of evangelical church, perhaps up to 95 percent, subscribe to the contemporary growth approach” (36). This means most churches are ‘competing’ for the same slice of a shrinking pie.  It doesn’t make sense to him that this is the only arrow in our quiver.  Missionally speaking, if a vast majority of the population reports being alienated from this form of church, how can we continue to do more of the same?  I think these are very good questions to be asking in our day.

Hirsch makes a radical proposal of what he calls the apostolic genius.  He gives an informative overview of each element of the apostolic genius on pages 24 and 25, and includes a descriptive chart on page 79, which makes for a great review for those who have read the book.  The key to this apostolic genius, in Hirsch’s view, is that each of these six elements mentioned previously is necessary for this approach to be viable.  This book builds upon the previous work of The Shaping of Things to Come, yet is radically different in that he is proposing an interconnected living systems approach in this new form of church.  This book is more prescriptive than descriptive.  And as Alan says, “Suffice it to say here that in exploring these ideas I feel that I am peering into things that are very deep, things that, if recovered and applied, could have considerable ramifications for Western Christianity.  I say this as someone who is not claiming something as my own.  If anything, like all who receive a grace from God, I feel that I am the humble recipient of a revelation, an unearthing of something primal, in which I am privileged to participate.”  After my first read of this book, I can say that this is a revelation worth putting to the test.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

BIG BOY

LITTLE MAN

  underground luminaissance 
  Originally uploaded by TommyOshima

While there are many kinds of mentors we may have in life and many ways to mentor others, if you have ever had a hard time finding a mentor, you can always take advantage of historical mentors.  Historical mentors are people who we wish to emulate in some ways, who have already passed on.

In my last entry on mentoring, I shared ten of my historical mentors with you.  Here are ten more and some of what I appreciate about them.   

Some Historical Mentors
Corrie Tin Boom - her bravery in hiding Jewish people during the holocaust and her forgiving heart, being able to forgive the guard who killed her family when she meet him

Mahatma Gandhi - his willingness to follow the way of Jesus better than most of us who call ourselves Christians

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - his work in the underground church during WWII and his understanding and focus on discipleship, the cross and living at the margins of society

Soren Kierkegaard - his uncanny ability to think deeply and write life-transforming parables

Henri Nouwen - his ability to integrate spirituality with psychology, ministry and theology.  How wholeness comes through brokenness, ministry is strong through weakness and holiness comes through suffering

Karl Barth - his writing the theology for the underground church in Germany and his ability to study the history of theology and culture and develop a theology for today   

Blaise Pascal - who shares great thoughts on the hiddenness of God, reason, revelation and how it is worth "betting" on God

St. Francis of Assisi - his passionate life of simple beauty, I recently had a whole series of post about him

John Howard Yoder - his understanding of Jesus as the prince of peace

Leslie Newbigin - his opening up the mind of the west for her need to be missional and how he dialogues with other faiths in a Trinitarian kind of way

Today I wanted to share with you another literary review.  Kester's book
really moved me and caused me to think about many things more deeply.
I hope you enjoy the review.  It's worth the read.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a
general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are
pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
Brewin in signs of Emergence contends that the current demise of the church in the West is not to be blamed on the lack of personal holiness, but on old wineskins, and that the church must empower people (herself) to honestly face change and evolve, or become extinct.

GENERAL OVERVIEW
Brewin looks to Fowler’s stages of faith, urban theory, the science of emergence as well as the story of scripture to help us consider how to evolve, so that we might “become wombs of the divine, allowing God to fertilize our creativity and give birth to newness” (67).   Brewin calls for evolutionary change, not revolutionary change (43) and suggests that our first step is to stop.  Like the season of advent, we are to pause.  To rest.  To wait.  Just like a woman cannot speed up her pregnancy, the church cannot try and fix herself with a new program to make everything okay.  After waiting he suggests that the church needs to be born again, that is the church needs to rebirth into her host culture and to re-emerge from the bottom up.  He uses emergence theory to help describe the character of the emergent church, one that dances between the dangers or rigidity on the one hand and anarchy on the other.  He then calls the church to discover God in the city, to learn to be a gift exchange culture in the midst of a consumeristic culture, and reevaluate our dirt boundaries, what we consider clean and unclean. 

THEMES TO REMEMBER
I appreciate how Brewin intertwines the story of Jesus and our current post-world context in a way that frees us to imagine.  He uses the scripture, poetry, and science to call us to evolve.  By using the rebirth idea, he helps us to realize that “failure” is a natural part of evolution,  “we must be aware of our expectations.  The newness that will be born will be incomplete and immature.  It will be newness not fully formed and unable to speak.  It will be newness defenseless and unable to justify itself to its seniors.  It will be newness that is born into a culture and therefore totally and naturally immersed in the codes, the language, this history and life of that which it comes to serve.” (67,68)

Brewin reminds us that just as Sabbath was man for man, and not man for the Sabbath, structures must serve us, not us serve them (46).  Brewin also calls us to face the pain of exile and reminds us that it doesn’t matter if God abandoned us or we abandoned Him, “what is patently clear is that the church is experiencing separation, delamination, marginalization, trivialization, and exile from the world it seeks to service.  And therefore it is experiencing these things from God too, for if the church is not connected to its host culture and society, it is not where God wants it to be, and therefore not where God is” (50).  Drawing on Brueggemann’s study of Jeremiah, he reminds us that that the first step through the journey of exile is grief. Quoting Brueggemann he notes: “Indeed, he surmises that only through grief can newness become a possibility” (51).  Brewin gives a lot of rich but uncommon advice that I can appreciate.

    His thoughts on the character of Emergent systems is helpful:

    1. Emergent systems are open systems
    2. Emergent systems are adaptable systems
    3. Emergent systems are learning systems
    4. Emergent systems have distributed knowledge
    5. Emergent systems model servant leadership
    6. Emergent systems only evolve in places between anarchy and rigidity (97-117)

    The chart on page 117 is helpful, as well as chapter 6 where he calls the church to be a hub of gift exchange and chapter 7 where he calls us to redefine what is dirty and what is clean.  If you get a minute, check out Kester's blog. 

A friend of mine from Florida sent me an e-mail this past week, that I just had to post for you.  It is some words from the late Madeleine L'Engle (who passed on September 6th, 2007).  I had to post them for you, because in these words from Glimpses of Grace she talks about the meaning of kairos.  And as you read you can see why we picked Kairos as a name for our community of faith.  I always enjoy hearing someones thoughts about this rich, multifaceted word.

"This summer I sit in the rocking
chair and rock and sing with one or other of my granddaughters.  I sing
the same songs I sang all those years ago.  It feels utterly right.  Natural.
The same.  But it isn’t the same.  I may be holding a baby just
as I used to hold a baby, but chronology has done many things in the
intervening years, to the world, to our country, to my children, to me.  I
may feel, rocking a small, loving body, no older than I felt rocking that
body’s mother.  But I am older bodily; my energy span is not as long
as it used to be; at night my limbs ache with fatigue; my eyes are even older
than the rest of me.  It is going to seem very early- it is going to be very
early-when the babies wake up:  Alan, Josephine, Cynthia, and I take turns
getting up and going downstairs with them, giving them breakfast, making the
coffee.  Is it my turn again so quickly?

Chronology:
The word about measurable passage of time, although its duration varies:
how long is a toothache?  how long is standing in line at the supermarket?
how long is the tramp through the fields with dogs?  or dinner with
friends, or a sunset, or the birth of a baby?

Chronology,
the time which changes things, makes them grow older, wears them out, and
manages to dispose of them, chronologically, forever.

Thank God there is Kairos, too:  again the Greeks were
wiser than we were.  They had two words for time:  chronos and kairos.

Kairos is
not measurable.  Kairos is ontological.  In kairos we are, we are
fully in isness, not negatively, as Sarte saw the isness of the oak tree, but
fully, wholly, positively.  Kairos can sometimes enter, penetrate, break
through chronos:  the child at play, the painter at his easel, Serkin
playing the Appassionata, are in
kairos.  The saint at prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother
reaching out her arms for her newborn baby, are in kairos.  The bush, the
burning bush, is in kairos, not any burning bush, but the very particular
burning bush before which Moses removed his shoes; the bush I pass on my way to
the brook.  In kairos that part of us which is not consumed in the burning
is wholly awake.  We too often let it fall asleep, not as the baby in my arms
droops into sleepiness, but dully, bluntingly.

I
sit in the rocking chair with a baby in my arms, and I am in both kairos and
chronos.  In chronos I may be nothing more than some cybernetic salad on
the bottom left-hand corner of a check; or my social-security number; or my
passport number.  In kairos I am know by name:  Madeleine.

The
baby doesn’t know about chronos yet." - Madeleine L'Engle

  The Amazing Race 
  Originally uploaded by HaMeD!caL

There are many great bloggers who not only write excellent posts, but are avid readers of other blogs.  As readers they typically devote a post, often once a week, where they make a list of links to some of their favorite posts from other blogs that week.  This conglomeration of links goes by many names.  Scot McKnight calls this kind of post  - Weekly Meanderings, John Santic calls it - Speedlinking, Ben Myers calls it - Around the Traps, Tony calls this kind of post - This Week in Blogs, and I call it Choice Blog Entries.  Regardless of what name these posts go by, they are often filled with many great links.  So it is my hope to travel around the blogosphere  in order to give you the best of this week in blogs as often as I am able.

Random Acts of Linkage #38
Brother Maynard at Subversive Influence takes us on a huge tour around the blogosphere, from Advent posts, to interesting videos and from Piper's vs. Wrights gospel to online theological training sites.

Preaching Today Blog
The Preaching today blog posts there top ten posts from 2007, which include such things as:  When You Have to Prepare More Than One Sermon per Week, Six Disciplines for Taking your Preaching to the Next Level, Half-Brained Preaching and When Biblical Illustrations are a Bad Idea.

This Week in Blogs
Tony and setnservice  points to posts like:  The Lie of Transparency, What's Now from Donald Miller, Christianity and Judaism, and the number one killer of American Teens. 

Weekly Meanderings
Scot consistently has some great links.  In this past week of his weekly meanderings, he links to an interview with Fred Peatross and New Wineskins to book reviews and some articles about presidential candidates.

Today I wanted to share with you an older book (meaning it came out in 2003) that I hadn't had the chance to read until recently.  I can see now why so many have been talking about this book.  It is rich with missional insights and challenges.  I hope you enjoy the review. 

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a
general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are
pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
Frost and Hirsch in The Shaping of Things to Come assert that we need to “get over” the Christendom mode of doing church and move forward to the emerging missional mode if the church is to survive and thrive the West.  This will require fresh imagination and courage as well as a radical and revolutionary approach.

GENERAL OVERVIEW 
In part one, Frost and Hirsch declare that the way out of the demise of the church is not by evolution, but by revolution.  They are calling for what amounts to a second reformation.   In the remainder of the book they call us to move from the Christendom mode of doing church to an Missional mode of being the church, which they describe as:  (1) An Incarnational Ecclesiology - where the church moves from being attractional, to incarnational and contextual; (2) A Messianic Spirituality – where we move from a speculative Hellenistic approach to a more Hebraic concrete approach; and (3) An Apostolic Leadership – where we move from ordained clergy leadership, to the five-fold leadership – Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher that belongs to the whole church.

THEMES TO RE-VISIT
Hirsch and Frost first call us to an incarnational ecclesiology.  They state, “The Incarnation provides us with the missional means by which the gospel can become a genuine part of a people group without damaging the innate cultural frameworks that provide that people group with a sense of meaning and history.” (37) Incarnational ministry is identifying with people as much as possible without compromising the gospel, “having a real and abiding presence among a group of people, (39) it requires a sending impulse rather than an extractional one, (39) and “finally, incarnational mission means that people will get to experience Jesus on the inside of their culture and their lives.” (40)

They encourage church planters to move from planting attractional churches, like every other church in the West, and invite them to plant incarnational ones: “Instead, why not allow they rhythms and lifestyle patterns of the people we’re trying to reach determine the shape our communal life and worship meetings take?” (63) Practically they encourage many things including: finding people of peace (64), multiplication, not addition (65), third spaces (24), shared projects (25), and commercial enterprise. (26)

Frost and Hirsch, as thoughtful practioners, give many helpful and instructive charts throughout the book.  The following charts summarize key concepts in the book: The mode of the church in the three different eras chart (9), the attractional verses incarnational chart (41), the bounded set or centered set approach chart (50), the extraction vs. incarnational chart (72), the commands verses practices chart (80), the contextualized church chart (85), Hebert’s model for critical contextualization (90), Travis’s six types of Christ-centered communities (91,92), the missional-incarnational-messianic-apostolic mode chart (158), the socio-dynamic view of ADEPT chart (174), the leadership styles and their relationship to organizational life cycle chart (179), the organizing a revolution chart (203), and the bounded, fuzzy, centered sets and theological structure of Hirsch’s old church charts (207-209). The chapters on Imagination and the Leadership Task (Chapter 11) and Organizing a Revolution (Chapter 12) are worthy of further study.

If you have been enriched by Alan Hirsch and David Fitch, and you enjoy having some meaningful interaction with other missional leaders, then you don't want to miss this conference that is coming to Washington D.C. this coming February!

I live in Los Angeles, and I will be flying to this East Coast for this one.  Besides hearing from these thoughtful and engaging practioners, you will have an opportunity to connect with other missional leaders from around the country. 

There will be three kinds of sessions: [cs] collective sessions, [fs] focused sessions, and [gt] give and take sessions.  One of the collective sessions will be a panel discussion.

Below are some of the details as far as the schedule, and it is only one click away to find ALL the details.  It might be a nice Christmas gift for someone you know.

Early Registration: Before December 25th!
Regular Registration: After December 25th until capacity is full.

[cs] Collective Sessions by David Fitch Include:
The Practice of Church as Counter-Culture
The Practice of Preaching as Proclamation and Story
The Practice of Spiritual Formation as Community

[cs] Collective Sessions by Alan Hirsch Include:
The Practice of Re-Calibrating the 21st Century Church
The Practice of Incarnational Engagement
The Practice of Communitas

So check out the details at The Ecclesia Network Site. If you are a fellow blogger and have been encouraged and challenged by Alan or David, please link to this entry to let others know about this conference.  The price is great for an all inclusive package.  This time will enrich your soul and stimulate your missional imagination.

  american cities 
  Originally uploaded by dream awakener

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

A GHETTO CHRISTMAS
'Twas da night befo' Christmas and all in the hood,
Not a homie was stirrin cuz it was all good.
The tube socks was hung on the window sill,
And we all had smiles up on our grill.

Mookie and BeBe was snug in the crib,
In the back bedroom, cuz that's how we live.
And Moms in her do-rag and me with my nine,
Had just gotten busy cuz my girlfriend is fine.

All of a sudden a lowrider rolled by,
Bumpin' phat beats cuz the system be fly.
I bounced to the window at a quarter pas',
'Bout ready to pop a cap in somebody's .......!

I yelled to my lady, Yo peep this!
She said, Stop frontin' and just mind yo' bidness.
I said, for real doe, come check dis out.
We weren't even buggin', no worries, no doubt.

Cuz bumpin' an thumpin' from around da way,
Was Santa, eight reindeer and a sleigh.
Da beats was kickin', da ride was phat,
I said, "Yo red Dawg, you all that!"

He threw up a sign and yelled to his boyz,
"Ay yo, give it up, let's make some noise!"
To the top of the projects & across the strip mall,
We gots ta go, I got a booty call!"

He pulled up his ride on the top a da roof,
And sippin' on a 40, he busted a move.
I yelled up to Santa, "Yo ain't got no stack!"
He said, "Damn homie, deese projects is wack!

But don't worry black, cuz I gots da skillz,
I learnt back when I hadda pay da billz."
Out from his bag he pulled 3 small tings,
A credit card, a knife, and a bobby pin.

He slid down the fire exscape smoove as a cat,
And busted the window wit' a b-ball bat.
I said, "Whassup, Santa? Whydya bust my place?"
He said, "You best get on up out my face!"

His threads was all leatha, his chains was all gold,
His sneaks was Puma and they was 5 years old.
He dropped down the duffle, Clippers logo on the side.
Santa broke out da loot and my mouf popped open wide.

A wink of his eye and a shine off his gold toof,
He cabbage patched his way back onto the roof.
He jumped in his hooptie wit' rims made of chrome,
To tap that booty waitin' at home.

And all I heard as he cruised outta sight,
Was a loud and hearty.....
"WEEESST SIIIIDE!!!!!!"

  The Silent Man 
  Originally uploaded by !borghetti

"O God, help me.
The world is truly going to the dogs.
Infidelity and deceit surround me.
Every person seems to wear two faces.

And people even boast about their deeds of evil.
They assume that they can talk themselves
out of any corner.
They defy authority and live for themselves alone.

Our God will not remain silent forever.
His voice like thunder will drown out
     the foolish boasts of His unfaithful creatures.
'The maligned and the deprived
     have suffered long enough,' He will say.
'I will rise to their defense
     and grant them my protection.'
And what God promises, He will do.

Keep us, great God, from the indecision and
     vile compromises of this
     valueless generation."

Psalm 12 from Psalms Now by Leslie F. Brandt