I just recieved this email from The ONE Campaign. There are some very exciting things happening!

This morning, international stars such as Bono, Bob Geldof and Dave Matthews announced “Live 8″, a series of free global concerts to take place on July 2. “Live 8″ concerts will be held simultaneously in Philadelphia, PA; London, England; Rome, Italy; Paris, France; and Berlin, Germany.

The “Live 8″ concerts are part of the ONE Countdown to the G8 Summit to urge President Bush and other leaders of the world’s 8 wealthiest nations to save millions of lives when they meet together in Scotland, July 5th to 8th.

The global concerts will feature performances by a historic line up of artists including Dave Matthews Band, U2, Jay Z, Paul McCartney, Black Eyed Peas, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey and many, many more!

his year marks 20 years since LIVE AID, the biggest charity concert ever staged. This time, the concerts will not be asking for your money, but your voice. Your voice is urgently needed to urge President Bush to Make Poverty History at the G8 summit.

Together, we will let President Bush know that the American people are counting on his leadership to make the simple, but powerful decisions necessary to save millions of lives around the world.

Sincerly, The ONE Team

The ONE Campaign

On June 13 I will be taking a monstic retreat. I am very excited about getting away for a few days to reflect so I have been reading Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis to prepare. The chapters are small and very concise. I fell in love with the chapter below. The editor of my edition titled this “Putting Up with Putting Down.”

Until God ordains otherwise, a man ought to bear patiently whatever he cannot correct in himself and in others. Consider it better thus — perhaps to try your patience and to test you, for without such patience and trial your merits are of little account. Nevertheless, under such difficulties you should pray that God will consent to help you bear them calmly.

If, after being admonished once or twice, a person does not amend, do not argue with him but commit the whole matter to God that His will and honor may be furthered in all His servants, for God knows well how to turn evil to good. Try to bear patiently with the defects and infirmities of others, whatever they may be, because you also have many a fault which others must endure.

If you cannot make yourself what you would wish to be, how can you bend others to your will? We want them to be perfect, yet we do not correct our own faults. We wish them to be severely corrected, yet we will not correct ourselves. Their great liberty displeases us, yet we would not be denied what we ask. We would have them bound by laws, yet we will allow ourselves to be restrained in nothing. Hence, it is clear how seldom we think of others as we do of ourselves.

If all were perfect, what should we have to suffer from others for God’s sake? But God has so ordained, that we may learn to bear with one another’s burdens, for there is no man without fault, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself nor wise enough. Hence we must support one another, console one another, mutually help, counsel, and advise, for the measure of every man’s virtue is best revealed in time of adversity — adversity that does not weaken a man but rather shows what he is.

2 or 3 months ago I picked up an issue of Wired because there was a great article on podcasting. For those who don’t know, podcasting, in a nut shell, is independent radio in the form of a .mp3. For me, this new social phenom could have endless possibilities. I could record my classes and post them on my site. I could record my student speakers and email their message to them and their parents. I could record meetings and archive them. Exciting possibilities. I have been messing with Audacity, a user-friendly podcasting software. Maybe by the end of next month I will add a podcasting feature here. What do you think?

It is so wonderful that our administrative team works together. The last day of our planning session was a day set aside for brainstorming. We brainstormed on the lake! Just us, the wind, and the water. This week was great! I am so excited about the coming year.

Well… at least for this week. My wife just left with her sister to visit their family up in VA. She left me and the dog home alone for the next 10 days and I just hope that I don’t burn the house down.

And so begins my third year of full time ministry. As an administration we have been meeting since Monday dreaming and planning the next year for our school. This was a good year but I am convinced that the coming school year will be great. We are planning quite a few changes and tightening up a few loose ends. It is great when you can meet with your team and have a great time growing together and learing together.

This school year is over and my second year of full-time ministry is coming to a close. This year was drastically different from the first and I am eagerly anticipating the fall. I am on a 12 month calender so even though the students will not be walking the hallways this summer I will be. The past 2 weeks have been draining on me. I am mentally and physically exhausted. I stayed up way too late last night watching “Episode III” with some of my students and graduation is tomorrow. I have also spent the last few days fighting my insomnia so until Monday I am going to lay low. I’ll resume blogging on Monday afternoon. Until then enjoy today’s question from my Simpsons daily desk calendar:

In “This Little Wiggy” (5F13), at the science museum, Ralph says he found a Moon rock where?
a) In his nose
b) Deep in the Mooniverse
c) In the cheese section of Kwik-E-Mart
d) In his jammies

The answer (of couse) is: A

I got a new cell phone yesterday. I spent most of the afternoon playing with the sounds, the pictures, the phonebook, everything. I personalized my phone my way by myself alone in my car or office.

While eating lunch today at my favorite resturant, I kept being taken out of my thoughts by cell phone rings. I thought, “Ok Micheal. It is the lunch hour. Many of these patrons are keeping in touch with their various places of buisness. Chill out. It is ok” Then I see it. The noises aren’t coming from a couple dozen cell phones. They were emanating from one nut job who was playing with his phone! A crowded resturant at the height of the lunch hour is not the place to choose between the nokia theme and the 78 other ringtones you have stored on you phone sir!!!! I was angry. This man was a grown man who had a junior high aged daughter. I noticed everyone around him cutting their eyes at him but he was oblivious.

If cell phones were a new novelty I would excuse this man’s social snafu. But guess what? Cell phones aren’t new. Put the phone down and back away slowly.

This morning I was working on tying up some loose ends before the school year ends. Our students are taking exams today and tomorrow so I am confined to my closet trying to keep quiet. While I was working on turning in some recipts, I was listening to one of my auto playlist called “Never Played.” The list contains all the songs I haven’t listened to in my iTunes library. A U2 song came on that I had never heard before. The music caught my ear (It is the beta-”Beautiful Day”) so I checked out the lyrics. Great stuff! This b-side from the Beautiful Day single is a new favorite. Enjoy.

Always

You say you come to know yourself, always
Don’t find yourself in someone else, always
And always wear a safety belt, always
Wait for me I’m running late, always
This is the moment that we share for always
Turn each song into a prayer, always
Now and forever
For always

@U2

My birthday: April 1, 1980

Another Brick in the Wall
Pink Floyd

Pretty cool.

Link

Each year we have a school wide theme. This year’s theme was “Lean On Me” (Hey, at least it wasn’t FROG: Fully Rely on God. I rescued the school from being egged or burned down by shooting that one down.) I created this mock up (below) for next year. We have had a real issue with unity. Our school is a Church of Christ affiliated institution. The ones who belong to conservative churches expect us to cater to them and those who go to progressive churches want us to favor them. Those who belong to other denominations feel (rightly?) they get mistreated or marginalized. I just want us to get along within the doors of the school. I believe that if we could just respect each other enough to care about one another Monday-Friday we could change the whole city. So, today, I floated this idea by the administration:

Army of ONE

I’m not one who loves to beat the Christian war drum. When I lead worship, I tend to shy (run) away from overtly patriotic songs and hymns like “Onward Christian Soldiers.” I just believe that UNITY is what we need at the school. Maybe that is what we will focus on next year. As long as we don’t choose DOG: Depend of God I’ll be fine.

Rudy at Urban Onramps posted a story asking his readers if they are “linkers” or “thinkers.” I think I am a linker who longs to be thinker. Whaaa!??!?!

Anyway, a few weeks ago I finished reading Brian McLaren’s The Last Word and the Word After That“. On Monday, Brian did a few guest blogging sessions at various “emergent” blogs. On JordonCooper.com here is how Brian summed up the main thrust of his book:

For those of you who haven’t read the book, here are some of the main ideas:
A. Our view of hell has a lot to say about our view of God (and vice versa).
B. For many people, hell means that God torments or tortures people consciously and forever, with no possibility of repentance and no possibility for an end to the tortures.
C. This view of God, I believe, is unworthy of the God presented to us in Jesus Christ.
D. The conventional understanding of hell developed over a long period of time. It wasn’t revealed in the Old Testament, but arose in the period between Testaments. When Jesus speaks of it, he hasn’t invented it, but rather is responding to it as a controversial idea among the Jewish people of his day.
E. The Sadducees were the conservatives who held to the older view that there was no hell or no afterlife. The Pharisees were, in a sense, the liberals who accepted the idea of hell. Many believe that the idea of hell came into Judaism from Persian religion - and that the name Pharisee may be from Farsi, or Persian.
F. Jesus does not follow either the Sadducees (who reject any idea of afterlife), nor does he follow the teaching of the Pharisees and their view of hell. Rather, he charts a bold new path and uses the language of hell (”owned” by the Pharisees) to draw attention to his own message - centered in the kingdom of God, and the character of God.
G. “The kingdom of God” does not mean heaven. Being excluded from the kingdom does not necessarily mean eternal conscious torment after death in hell either.
H. All people will face judgment. God is always both just and merciful in judgment. Being judged does not necessarily mean “being sent to hell.” Nor does being condemned. These words mean being exposed for being disobedient to God, not pleasing God, not serving God.
I. Matthew speaks the most about hell, Mark and Luke, less, and John not at all. Paul speaks often of the reality of judgment, but he doesn’t talk about hell. The New Testament is not as clear about the subject as many people believe.
K. We need to rethink the message of Jesus and the apostles in terms of the kingdom of God - which is God’s will being done on earth, and not be so preoccupied with the issue of hell.

Pretty challenging. I can’t say that I agree 100% with everything here but I can tell you that I am 100% stretched and moved. Brian does such a wonderful job asking questions. The two points that poke at my heart are A and K. I will be wrestling with this for a while and I encourage you to as well. I just wanted to post this link here for us to think about.

I was already eagerly anticipating the opening of “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” next week and now I’m even more intrigued. Apparently Steven Spielberg has been overcome. He burst into tears at the screening he was a part of last week. Spielberg should know that Jedi are supposed to keep a tight reign on their emotions but I guess he forgot. I don’t expect a unbalance in my force to cause the old water works to kick on during the movie but we shall have to see.

UPDATE: I purchased my tickets for the midnight showing last night. I’ll be going with a handful of my students. A couple of them said that they will be dressing up. Oh brother!

Link

Awesome!!! The Complete Calvin and Hobbes will be released in October.

What man is a man who does not make the world better?

The wife and I went to see Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” last night. The movie is based on the siege of Jerusalem led by Saladin against the knight Balian and his forces. Although not entirely accurate (See Holy War by Karen Anderson), the film was engaging.

Over the past few months, my heart has been dogged by the question, “What does Jesus Christ mean when he talks about ‘the Kingdom of Heaven.” I know that I am certainly not the first person to ask this question. I just don’t have an answer. I do know that I am less and less inclined to believe that He speaking eschatologically. I also believe that in the USofA, we think more about the sweet by and by and less about the here and now. It seems that everything I read, every small conversation, every news report I see has been pushing me closer and closer to this question lately. Greg posted a heartbreaking thought on “the kingdom” this week. The question is driving me at the moment. Don’t be surprised if over the course of the next few weeks if this question spills a lot of digital ink here. Just a necessary part of “Kicking at the Darkness.”