A couple of months ago Tyler set up a free podcast for us. He’s been adding a new episode once a week, using the best of our audio recordings made at various Off The Map’s events.
So far the episodes feature Jim and Casper, Brian McLaren, Todd Hunter, Jim Wallis, Dan Kimball and Scot McKnight.
The most recent one is the Outsiders Interview in which Jim and Todd interviewed four young people (two Christians and two people who aren’t Christians) about their views on some controversial topics.
If you subscribe in itunes and write a short review of the podcast for us on our itunes page that will help us be featured on itunes.
For other ways to access the podcast online, including an RSS feed link, go to our podcast page.
09-03-2008 |
2 Comments »
I was delightfully surprised by Brian McLaren’s new book Finding Our Way Again: the return of the ancient practices.
I expected it to be a book mostly about some ancient (Christian) practices I wasn’t interested in. Because of that I wasn’t planning to read it at all until Jim (Henderson) said he thought I’d like it a couple of weeks ago.
I took a quick look on Amazon ‘search inside’ and liked what I saw enough to go out and buy the book the next day.
This book is not just about ancient practices. It’s a poetically described vision of Christianity. Christianity as a way of life, not just a system of beliefs. A way including spiritual practices which develop character and lead people into an intentional, perceptive, attentive way of living. Who then join God in helping the world and other people be all he intends it to be.
Reading these things excited me and gave me hope. Read the rest of this entry »
07-14-2008 |
33 Comments »After missing a few for various reasons, I made it to the Chicago Up/rooted meeting last night. This time it was a small group - there were six of us. It turned out I was the only person present who doesn’t go to Wicker Park Grace. I wasn’t the only atheist/almost-atheist: Nick was there too.
The topic was Brian McLaren’s event last month, Everything Must Change. (I’ve already written about that here and here) It turns out we all went to the event, although that wasn’t a requirement for attending this Up/rooted meeting.
I asked what people were doing differently since then. Nanette said she was thinking about the violence in typical framing stories of our culture. She’s struggling with why so many of them have the good people winning by using violence and being stronger than the evil side. Read the rest of this entry »
05-20-2008 |
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After attending Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change tour at the beginning of April I wrote the following article for the Wednesday Journal (the local newspaper that my dialog with Rev Lueking is in).
Small Steps in the Right Direction
In recent weeks some new questions have pervaded my thinking as I’ve gone about my everyday activities. “Could I use less water to do this? Do I really need to buy this much food-will I use it all?”
It all started when I attended Brian McLaren’s “Everything Must Change” conference in early April. For a day and a half, 300 people gathered at First United Church of Oak Park to hear Brian speak about global crises and reflect on how we can help. Many of the attendees had traveled from other Midwest states to be there.
Brian contends Christians have contributed to and perpetuate global crises partly because of wrong beliefs. He says they have put Jesus in the wrong “framing story.” That story says God authorizes rich, powerful Christians to hold onto wealth and power, ruling and controlling others for their own good. (Which looks the same as ruling and controlling others for selfish reasons, but, of course, Christians wouldn’t behave that way!) Brian believes the framing story Jesus role-modeled and intended his followers to live is one of humility, service, kindness and generosity. Read the rest of this entry »
04-23-2008 |
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I spent Friday evening and Saturday at Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change tour. (You can see other four photos I took here.)
A few months ago I decided to come when I found out the Chicago tour stop was going to be just a mile from my house. I also signed up as a volunteer.
My volunteer role turned out to be driving Jo (event manager) and Linnea (co-presenter with Brian) from the airports they arrived at to the host church. This was fun because it gave me an opportunity to meet each of them and chat with them one on one during the drive. Also because I got a cool printed purple volunteer name tag. Only volunteers had printed ones. I’m not sure Brian had a name tag at all but I think people figured out who he was. Read the rest of this entry »
04-06-2008 |
11 Comments »
I’m wondering who else is going to Deep Shift (Brian McLaren’s event to further explore/apply ideas in his latest book Everything Must Change).
The Deep Shift tour begins tomorrow in Charlotte, North Carolina. Here’s a detailed interview with Brian from The Charlotte Observer. The tour won’t be in my area until early April.
I found out late last year, to my surprise, that the “Chicago” event is going to take place only a mile from my house. I’m going to go. I’ve also offered to help.
I know Nick is attending the first Deep Shift event (in fact he’s leading a group discussion there). I’ll be interested to see what he says about it.
01-31-2008 |
8 Comments »Can a good review be bad for a book author? Apparently it can if the author is Christian and the reviewer is atheist.
Ingrid of Slice of Laodicea wrote yesterday that that an atheist (me) positively reviewing Brian’s book proves how off base his theology is. (Here’s my review of Everything Must Change.)
I wonder how far Ingrid takes this? If atheists find a Christian likeable, does that prove the Christian is a heretic? Must he/she come across as obnoxious to those who aren’t Christians in order to prove he/she is a Real Christian?
I’ve come across Christians who do pride themselves in how they give offense with their evangelizing. Off The Map of course doesn’t think this way. That’s why one of Off The Map’s goals has always been to help Christians become normal (aka less like jerks) n the eyes of people who aren’t Christians. Read the rest of this entry »
10-31-2007 |
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Note: in addition to posting these lecture notes I posted my review of Brian’s book here
Last night I heard Brian McLaren lecture on Truth-Telling in “Christian” America: Globalization, Poverty and the Environment at Dominican University. These are my notes. This talk was based on Brian’s book Everything Must Change, except the particular emphasis on telling the truth (that was because of the lecture series this was part of).
This lecture is part of our series on Truth and Consequences. Truth is critical in the Christian tradition and it does have consequences. Truth is one of the first casualties of war.
If you’re wondering why we’re combining globalization, poverty and the environment it’s because they’re intimately related just as truth and consequences are.
Religion and Christianity have been misused and helped to obscure the truth but our faith tradition offers a critical base from which to tell the truth about - and the health of the planet.
We’re pleased to present Brian McLaren, an explorer and storyteller of the Christian tradition.
10-17-2007 |
16 Comments »Last night I went to hear Brian McLaren give a lecture on Truth-Telling in “Christian” America: Globalization, Poverty and the Environment at the Siena Center at Dominican University.
I found out about this talk from an up/rooted e-mail from Mike Clawson. Mike said he couldn’t be there because the new Chicago up/rooted group was having their first meeting last night. He asked me to take good notes (my lecture notes are here). I’m very pleased a Chicago up/rooted group has formed - it will be the closest one to me and everyone who lives in the city. I hope they had a great meeting. But I really wanted to take the opportunity to hear Brian when he was speaking less than a mile from my house.
I’d never been on the campus of this university and I didn’t know anything about Dominicans. I sort of assumed they were rather a group unto themselves since I never hear about them. Until about a week ago I had no idea they had lecture series open to the public with guest speakers such as Brian McLaren. Read the rest of this entry »
10-17-2007 |
9 Comments »The day after posting this review I heard Brian give a lecture closely related to the book: here are my detailed lecture notes
When I saw Brian’s book is a call to action to do more about global crises I thought, what’s not to like? Brian doesn’t need to persuade me that people with resources should be more responsible about how they use them and more generous about how they share them. (In general - I’m not saying no people with resources are careful or generous) I already knew that.
I think a lot of people already knew that; some profess to be Christians, some do not. Brian’s book is respectfully inclusive, inviting people who aren’t Christians to come along for the ride. But really it’s a book for Christians because a primary goal of it is to legitimize Brian’s call to action. Of course the way to do that among Christians is to demonstrate that this call to action was issued by Jesus. Or even better, that the good news Jesus announced was: respond to this call to action and you will make your world a better place.
This version of the good news makes a lot more sense to many people than some of the other versions I’m familar with. I think Brian has done something incredibly helpful for Christians who can’t help caring a lot about global crises. He’s given them permission to believe Jesus cares a lot about global crises too. Which makes everything line up way better in their lives. Now they can pursue what they are passionate about without feeling guilty that maybe Jesus doesn’t want them spending so much time on such things. Also they no longer have to suppress the deeper question: why doesn’t Jesus care about these things as much as I do? Read the rest of this entry »
10-15-2007 |
47 Comments »