rev. todd

* the church should be an “incubator for discovery”

* what if we made discovery a major theme in the church?

* Primary job as disciple is to follow, but nobody likes category of “followership”

* we should lead from behind, how do we do this?

* On a side note, I was in an awesome band called “Leaders will Follow”

* Problem is that everybody is coming up with their own vision, we need to get onto Jesus’ vision

* Most modern churches are more modern than churches, we fight about preserving what is modern, not preserving what is Christian

* Paul is totally disinterested in the teachings of Jesus, the uniqueness of Jesus is how he lived, died, and rose

* People chose their mentors, Jesus chose his disciples… not follow my teachings, follow me

* Christianity is not a belief system, it is a relationship… Christians today are more Muslim than Christian

* Jesus taught in image form, not propositional form

* Jesus did 3 things
1.    preaching
2.    teaching
3.    healing

people don’t go to seminary to be a healer

* Jesus taught in signs

* Word of God is Jesus, not the bible

* Jesus didn’t come to make us a new kind of Christian, he came to make us into a new kind of human (ouch… LOL)

* Dove is a white pigeon… no species of bird named dove… Holy Spirit is a trash bird (LOL)

* Jesus has 3 years to save the world and he chooses to develop a network of relationships “witnesses”

* Language of “being like Jesus” is wrong… it is a call of despair, it can’t be done! Instead we are to let Jesus live in us, through us

* If God is Trinitarian, God is by nature relational… God creates out of God’s own nature

* Jesus rebukes Psalms with the Prophets… We have to be careful not to do all psalms and no prophets

Here is what we talked about… and some of my random thoughts… very thought provoking! I’m still processing a lot of it!

*orthodoxy is paradoxy

*are we in a time when God is more active in the world than in the church?

*we are not here to make a difference in the world, we are here to make a different world! We have settled for a puny vision!

*”initial frustration” is a cool name for a band

*we have to get better at reading the signs of what God is doing around us

*discerning is hearing… when you see something it is too late
ultrasound… sound image, first thing you see about baby
see with your ears first
medieval art shows Mary being impregnated through the ear
the ear is gateway to the soul
this is why music is so powerful

*we should have out hands in the soil, and our heads in scripture
develop our semiotic skills

*great leaders have “contextual intelligence”
def. “they know their times and they know what to do”

*God chose us for this time, now what do we do?

Here are some things I’ve been learning and thinking about these past couple of days:

* We did this really cool activity getting to know Len and him getting to know us. We used out name to identify ourselves as a brand and then we told some of our intangible assets. 65-75% of the total value of Fortune 500 companies is intangible (which is an unbelievable statistic) so we used that model. After we named these things about ourselves, we went around the room and named them about one another. It was very moving and affective, even though we had only known one another for 2 days.

* A new friend of mine went with me to a jazz club and we checked out this jam session that these guys were doing and it was amazing. We went to a punk rock show after that… I love Portland!!! This one band was called “Hostile Combover” and they weren’t that good, but come on… that is one of the best band names ever! The next band totally rocked!!! They were called “Hope is Noise” and they are from Ireland… they are really good! This is seriously the coolest city I have ever been in…