charlieDEAN’S Blog

Well, today I cleared out the few remaining things from my office at Northwoods Community Church, sent a final email to the whole staff, turned in my credit card & keys, and took a bow at the door (only Sarah got to see my bow)!

It’s been a great 4 years at Northwoods and I can truly say that I am leaving as a friend of Northwoods.

And now, the adventure begins…

I think I’ve alluded to this throughout the year, but in January I set out to read the whole Bible through in a year.  A different times in my life I’ve employed different strategies of Bible reading, and it had been some time since I did the “Bible-in-a-year” plan.  This morning I finished Zechariah & Malachi, and so, with just a few days to spare, I’m finished.  Here are some of my insights:

• I like the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan.  Each day you do 4 readings: OT, Wisdom Literature, Gospels, NT.  I like this approach because you don’t get bogged down in the prophets, for example.
• I got behind — often — and had to play some catch up.  This is less than ideal.  I’m hoping to be more disciplined this year.
• Sometimes…especially in the gospel readings, the plan moves too slow.  Covering the four gospels in a year is a little painful for someone who loves good stories.
• I guess I’m not very spiritual…Isaiah, Ezekiel & Jeremiah are TOUGH reading for me.  It takes extraordinary focus & discipline for me to keep plugging away through these books.
• As a “list person” I like being able to look at my last year’s reading all cheked off.

I’ll probably do this plan again this year…but supplement my reading with a more intensive year-long study of something…I have an idea, but I’m open to suggestions.

The manager was really just a barn.

And the shepherds probably smelled like sheep and swore a lot.

At this time of year in churches and on television and in nativity scenes across the country we are treated to a version of the Christmas story that is so sanitized and idealized.  And in doing so, I wonder if we miss the point.

I recently saw on a news piece this church in Florida, where they spend $1.3 million on their Christmas production (live animals, pyrotechnics &  professional actors & actresses) and when they interviewed the pastor, asking him what he thought Jesus might think if he attended, he said something like, “I think Jesus would applaud our efforts, but tell us that it wasn’t even close to the show that was put on that night.”

I’m pretty sure he misses the point.

My friend Brandon is a middle school pastor and they shot a video using Jr. High students, asking themselves what it might have been like.

I’m pretty sure Brandon is right on point.

The point of the Christmas story is not that God came down and there was an extraordinary birth.  The point was that it was incredibly ordinary.  Actually, it was probably low-class by 1st century standards.  He was born in a barn.  Attended to by the most unlikely midwife in all of Judea.  Witnessed by low-life, sticky shepherds.

For me.

Merry Christmas!

Tonight CBS is running a documentary called “In God’s Name,” where they looked at 12 leaders of major faiths and asked some of the biggest questions of our day. I’m sitting here watching…here are some of my impressions as I watch:

• The impetus for the film was the spiritual void felt by the filmmakers in the wake of Sept. 11. So they decided to pursue the answers to some of their questions by seeking out these various leaders.
• Interesting how many of the 12 leaders sensed a “call” on their lives in their childhood. I probably most resonated with Dr. Rowan William, Archbishop of Canterbury when he said that he doesn’t remember a moment of calling, but in a sense felt it as long as he remembered and yet it has strengthened with time.
• Maybe I’m just overly harsh towards my own tradition, and yet it’s almost comical to hear several leaders talk about getting up at 2am or 3am to pray, hours before they arouse anyone else in their household, and then the leaders who most represents my tradition and talks about getting up at 6am, reading his Bible, and then heading to the gym. Sometimes, I’m afraid that my tradition comes off as so shallow. (I really need to do a whole post on this sometime.)
• “I think for me, as for any priest or religious leader, there has to be a sense in which if I can’t be true to God in my personal and famliy relations, then I can’t do the rest of my work.” — Dr. Rowan Williams
• “There are some things in this world that are not up for the approval of public opinion. They are either right or they are wrong. We believe there is a clear path, there is a right way.  I would fight and die for my country. I would fight and die for my family — quickly, easily. But primarily I would fight and die for my faith in Jesus Christ.” — Dr. Frank Page, President, Southern Baptist Convention. Ummm…not sure that Jesus called us to fight for our faith. Die, yes. Fight? I believe he told Peter to put away his sword. I guess if I gave him the benefit of the doubt I would guess he’s speaking metaphorically, but his examples are of physical fighting. This is exactly the kind of language that causes people to distrust and dislike Baptists.
• I guess, in the end, this was kind of a “feel good” documentary — “No matter what faith one prescribes to, we’re all earnest seekers of God.” And yet, there are significant differences. And yet, sometimes, especially in my tradition all we talk about is the differences and who’s right. And yet, and yet, and yet. Complicated stuff to talk about.
• I really liked Dr. Rowan Williams. There were a couple more quotations from him that I didn’t include here that were very thought provoking.
• PS: It’s really jarring to watch something like this…and constantly get interrupted by commercials — it creates a lot of dissonance inside of me.

I don’t plan to post much over the next week or so — it’s time to be with the family, which means as little computer as possible.  However, late next week I plan to post my  3rd annual book review.  I’m thinking of adding two more end-of-year posts: “my favorite albums of the year,” and “my favorite movies of the year.”

Also, I forgot to mention that December 15 was my 3rd “blogiversary.”  Yippee.

And one last note: those of you that RSS, won’t notice, but I changed the look of my page.  No big reason…just seems lots of things are changing right now and I was looking for something a little different.  It’s a standard WordPress theme called “The Journalist.”

Okay, that’s all.  If I don’t post again before then…have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

If you don’t listen to podcast you can just ignore this, but I thought I’d give you a rundown on 3 of my favorite podcasts.

• Mars Hill Bible Church — Rob Bell — If I only have time for one, this is it!
• NPR: This American Life — Gotta tell ya, I love this program.  This American Life is hosted by Ira Glass and is an hour-long show of essays, interviews & stories around a theme.  Once in a while, I don’t like the topic, but usually I love it.
• NPR: Car Talk — I hate cars and I especially hate car repair, but I love Click & Clack!

Anyone got any more suggestions?

Tonight I should finish Anne Rice’s novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Anne Rice, in case you didn’t know is the author of books like Interview with a Vampire and The Vampire Lestadt. (Incidentally, Interview with a Vampire is the only movie where I actually walked out of theater.) But I heard a rumor a couple years ago that she had become a Christian. So when I was in the library the other day and saw this book I thought it might be interesting.

Basically it’s a novel about the childhood of Jesus, told in the first person, from 8-year old Jesus’ point of view. On a literary level, I’d give this book a C+. It’s okay. But some of the ideas are interesting. A sampling:

• In one chapter, Jesus gets sick — for an extended period of time.
• Jesus doesn’t know anything about the circumstances of his birth…and his family won’t tell him because they don’t think he’s old enough to know yet.
• It really paints a backdrop of a land in political & social turmoil.
• A strong theology of Mary, betraying strong Catholic influences.

For years there has lurked inside me a “MAC guy.”  I’ve dreamed, I’ve coveted, I’ve priced one out, I’ve fought against “the man,” and yet, until yesterday, I was stuck in the world of Microsoft.  Yesterday, at 11:07am, when the FedEx truck rolled into my driveway, everything changed!

So, this is my first post with the new Mac…yeah!

Although I worked hard on it, my beautiful wife rejected my nomination for the “Dean Family Christmas Picture.”  She chose conservative and boring….I was going for funny.  So, in a passive-aggressive maneuver, I post my work here:  (okay, she’s looking over my shoulder laughing, cuz she’s sure that you’ll all hate it as much as she does).  I think it’s awesome!

It’s so sad what happened in Colorado Springs last weekend, and yet was anyone else troubled when they read or heard that volunteers in the church pack heat?  I know someone’s going to come down on me for this, but it just struck me as so odd that a church would think that they need to arm themselves.

I guess there’s this dichotomy I see.  On one hand you have churches that seem to be all about safety…keeping bad people out, thinking, strategizing and planning for “crowd control,” and then I’m reading about The Simple Way, and they’ve chosen to forego “safety” so they can be with people — even if it means going to jail.

I would guess that Shane Claibourne would probably say that there is no “balance,” and yet I’m not so sure.  If I knew that a gunman could enter Northwoods, would I allow my children to be here?  And yet, I want my children to know, that maybe saddest of all last weekend, was that there was this person, that so hated Christians that he would kill.  Maybe that’s the greatest tragedy.

Honestly…I’m just not sure how to put this all together in my head.

Okay…I wrote this post yesterday afternoon and set it to publish in the middle of the night…and was telling some friends about it and they informed me that volunteers don’t regularly carry guns…they only did so this weekend because of a potential threat.  But still, my bigger concerns remain.