welcome to

as a guy who is involved in Christian church work, and who has had the privilege of helping get a couple of churches started, i often wrestle with church “stuff.”

recently, a good friend and i wondered out-loud, together, why we even “do” church in a large group settings the way we do in the U.S. in the earliest days of the Christian church, right after Jesus ascended to His Father, “church” was done in small groups (5-25) in homes…

so, i asked several theologically minded friends these questions:
what happens in a large group church worship setting that does not or cannot happen in a small group, house church kind of setting? why do we have the large group gatherings?

below you’ll find their insightful answers. we would all welcome any further discussion here, if you wish to join in on the conversation… especially those of you who may not consider yourself a “Christian.” your insights into this conversation would be very enlightening.

since this is a very informal setting, i have removed everyone’s names to prevent someone, somewhere from quoting them out of context. this is an electronic conversation, not a theological treatise…

begin answers:

answer 1:
1 - Possibility for greater diversity that is more representative of the larger body of Christ
2 - Worship experience can be amplified by a larger group
3 - The sense of belonging to something bigger than myself is experienced more tangibly though ultimately it is a faith/imagination issue—the body of Christ across centuries and cultures. Biblically, the illustrations would be the nation of Israel going up to Jerusalem to worship and in the epistles where the church in a specific geographic location is addressed. (Also, Jesus addressing the churches in Rev 2-3.)
4 - Traction for mission/ministry can be gained as the Spirit moves across the gathered community.
5 - I can lose myself more easily in a larger group than in a small setting.

answer 2:
The more people, the more gifts. The more gifts, the greater the diversity for options in worship, the more likely you minister well to a greater number of people in a greater number of contexts. Likely you will have more resources, which can (though doesn’t always) create greater quality (in the best sense of the term), the more checks and balances and accountability, the more insights and creativity, and so on. Of course, if the larger group turns out to be every bit as homogeneous as the smaller group, then all these opportunities may be lost.

Come on Gary and _______, you could have come up with that from your seminary education, if not just common sense, without me! (note from gary: knowing this person, i believe this was meant in jest…)

answer 3:
Gary, this is a wonderful question. My thoughts:

1. Small groups create a context for the development of friendship. This leads to my next point.

2. We need corporate worship with the body of Christ; not just our friends. Personally, I think the greatest danger of a small group only model is that it doesn’t take long for me to hang out with people I like….which can tend to be a very short list if I search my heart.

We need young people, old people, single people, married people, people with disabilities, poor people, people of a different ethnic background, and in general, people who are not on our radar screen. Trinitarian worship in which we participate in the worship of God through the Son in the power of the Spirit comes alive when we are singing, confessing, preaching, celebrating the Lords supper with people we might even consider enemies but because of Christ turn out to be a brother or sister. The likelihood of having this experience is greater the larger the group. I know this is just my opinion but experientially, it is a pretty good one.

answer 4:
Thanks very much for including me in this conversation. You ask an important question.

[answer 3]’s response is, in my opinion, right on the mark.

And I — I’m not implicating [answer 3] here — would add the following. Recognizing that “small” and “large” are relative terms (relative personally, culturally, etc.), I confess that I am suspicious of attempts to be and do church “small” only (and I am uncomfortable with attempts to be and do church “large” only). In the case of “small” alone, the danger is that we craft our beliefs and actions (not least, our corporate worship) in ways that are accountable and satisfying to primarily (or only) those “few” who choose (probably based on affinity) to come together. For both accountability and enrichment (and many would add increased impact and effectiveness) we need a catholic mindset, a catholic posture, and catholic relationships and connections.

I look forward to hearing what others have to say.

answer 5:
[answer 3] gave a very wise response.

In principle, anything that needs to happen in corporate worship can happen in a smaller group just as it can in a larger group. Numbers are not the issue, per se. In many parts of the world, many congregations are not much larger than what we call small groups. The difference, though, is that in those churches people are there only or primarily because of Jesus. That group may be the only option for them. They are not there primarily because of affinities or special agendas such as a Bible or book study, support for a particular struggle, or the need to find friends, as is so often the case for our small groups.

Paul connected ecclesiology to Christology in a way that is instructive here. The Church is a collection (apparently quite random, from a human perspective) of people who are called out from all types of backgrounds and settings, brought together in and reconciled to each other by Jesus (1 Cor. 11:17f., Eph. 2). The gospel is to be practiced and experienced corporately, which implies to me that church ought to bring us together in ways that create this opportunity.

I do not go as far as some in arguing that ethnic homogeneity in churches is sinful (in fact, I think that argument is silly and naïve). However, we should think twice about how the proliferation of choices in this culture allows us to perpetuate structures that, in turn, allow us to avoid the situations where we would have to practice the gospel corporately. Kevin makes a great point about the significance of having to take the Lord’s table with people with whom we would not want to be in a small group. I love what Marva Dawn said in “The Unnecessary Pastor.” “Sometimes I think that God puts us in community with people we can’t stand, just to give us practice in learning to love our enemies.”

answer 6:
Just one more small thought (among those of giants…)

We should remember that true worship as the gathered Christian church is a place of sacrifice, too, not just a place of blessing. In our day, it is one of the few places where we are forced to love people we did not get to choose at a time and place which are often inconvenient for us. It reminds us that it is not just about us.

answer 7:
Great discussion here. I’ll preface all of this by saying that my thoughts are for a specifically American context where it’s possible to gather in a large setting. In some places, that’s not possible….

Piggybacking off the catholicity angle…one of the marks of the church is unity around the Apostles’ teaching - a unity of both doctrine and basic Christian lifestyle. I see this modeled in Acts 2 and 4. And evidently, it was pretty difficult to maintain unity because the Apostles had to write letters urging the churches to stay united in both belief and experience - see especially Paul in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians and John in 1 John. This continued into the Patristic era and is a common theme of their writing. So unity is our goal, and unity is difficult. That is where I see the value of a larger corporate gathering. It gathers all of the believers of a particular church together and teaches them together, at the same time, with one voice, what the Christian faith is. A gifted pastor-teacher is able to leverage a teaching gift and instruct the church together from Scripture. Worship through music sings together about the faith. And our “sharing in the body of Christ” gets visibly demonstrated at the Lord’s Table. Of course, we can do teaching, singing, and Eucharist in a smaller group, but if unity to the larger body of Christ is the goal, then why not get together and do it together? Not to mention the value of a clear, gifted, authoritative teaching voice from Scripture to keep the church unified.

In all of this large vs. small discussion, what I fear most is our tendency to elevate some gifts (usually our own) above others. You’ll often find people with preaching gifts emphasizing the value of the large gathering. In reaction, people with gifts that operate better in a smaller context gravitate toward that end of the spectrum. In church planting circles, I’ve seen both extremes. I’ve seen guys with strong preaching gifts build churches that are not much deeper than a Sunday service. And I’ve seen guys with more personal, one-on-one shepherding gifts feel called to a house-church-only model (sometimes after attempting a bigger-gathering and being frustrated). But the healthiest churches I know are doing both well, gathering both large and small. In all of this, we need Jesus to give us a lot of humility to admit who we are, who we aren’t, and to embrace others’ gifts and not try to build churches exclusively around our own.

So I guess my short answer to your question about why gather large is: to better maintain and demonstrate our unity in Christ. But I would counter that by saying that the depth of Jesus’ body often gets experienced in a smaller setting, where more people have space to lead and the gifts can be applied at a more personal level.

answer 8:
So much of me wants to throw out a cynical joke…but I can’t do it given the address list. I was thinking along the lines of “We need a corporate gathering so people have a place to come and not give money. There are no free meals left in our culture, other than the dominant experience of church attendees.”

I’m so pomo

answer 9:
great discussion. thanks, gary, for getting it started.

what i would add are a few observations i’ve made of the experiences of non-believers in home church contexts. before we launched our church plant we had multiple home church-like meetings and these reflect feedback from non-christians….

first is that non-christians are almost always uncomfortable and/or unwilling to go to a ‘church’ thing in someone’s home. it is too intimate a setting for them. they need space and being in a basement with 25 other christians is overwhelming. non-christians tend to already feel judged by christians and being lock up with a bunch of them, without a socially acceptably out, is so awkward a situation for them that they avoid it like the plague.

similarly it also can be too intimidating a setting for non-christians. stick a non-christian who has very little christian background in a house with a dozen christians who are there to ‘do church’ and what do you think he/she will experience? in addition to the feeling of being in the twilight zone for a couple of hours, the non-christian feels so ‘uneducated’ and behind everyone else that it is massively discouraging to them in their spiritual quest.

the last thing has to do with the issue of credibility. non-christians are already skeptical of ‘religion’ as it is, and the prospect of doing something religious in someone’s home is a bit too sketchy for them. for a non-christian there is just not a whole lot of difference between home church and heaven’s gate. having a public meeting place indicates to non-believers that there is a measure of accountability - that this group is not a secretive cult doing weird things in the darkness of their own homes.

in sum, home church is a tough sell to non-believers…

more can be said but i hope these observations are useful to you.

answer 10 (second word from answer 5, in response to answer 9):
Agreed. An example of what [answer 9] is talking about is the experience [local church planter] had some years ago when doing the initial surveys for launching that congregation… As he interviewed people and asked them for their responses to possible names for the new church, he was surprised that they were offput by the trend toward generic church names. People told him to be upfront about who and what the church was. Put it on the table. They wanted honesty and openness. So, much to
[local church planter]’s surprise, he ended up with “[denominational name]” in the name of the
congregation. This seems consistent with [answer 9]’s point about public accountability.

answer 11:
Love the ongoing conversation. . . I am learning from the great feedback you are receiving Gary. Hey, I’ll just add a couple thoughts as well. For the first 300 years or so, the Church was nothing BUT small home gatherings. However, that doesn’t mean it was biblically mandated - I’m sure they simply wanted to fly under the radar. There is nothing evil about one and more godly about another setting. . . Just strengths and concerns for each. I anticipate that home settings actually engages everyone more effectively. There is less chance of ‘dead wood’ in a setting where everyone is known. It is intimidating and far more difficult to ‘hide/disappear’ in that setting. Large settings can provide lots of
places and opportunities to fade into the balcony. Larger settings also turn professional. . . Little “Larry” would not be able to play is lame trombone solo in a huge church that has a killer praise team. However, in a home setting, he would be encouraged and applauded no matter how many notes were missed. I’ll add one more word that seems to become more powerful as the church grows larger. . . Momentum. I have attended both home church and mega-church settings. The ethos created when I am part of thousands of other worshippers includes a powerful momentum - as sense of being part of something far greater than me or my small group of friends. Movements are often birthed in small contexts, but momentum increases as others join.

answer 12:
I was hesitant to add to everyone’s inbox until I saw the good thoughts from others and enjoyed them.

The only angle I might add - that Don, Dr. B, Dave, and others hinted at - is that the question seems to have two approaches to it, and both are necessary. If we are talking large group gatherings v. smaller group settings, it seems helpful to think in terms of ecclesiology AND “environmental exegesis” (orthodoxy and orthopraxy - just so I can sound smarter given that my former professors are in the audience). If a missionary went out today to a Brazilian village and set up rows of pews for an evangelistic service, we might rightly call it an odd blend of theology and western imperialism. When the Methodists did the same thing in Kentucky in the early 1800’s, it seemed appropriate and effective for that time. If a pastor engages interpersonal church discipline issues from the pulpit, we might call it indirect, inappropriate, and off-putting to most. If he does it in his small group with those directly involved, we call it healthy, and a redemptive movement for those who are a part of it.

So I might agree with the both/and route and not the either/or route. Regarding what happens in large v. small church settings, theologically (and historically) it seems that all of the primary biblical purposes for the church can take place in either setting. But in my orthopraxy, I would say that both environments are necessary to maintain the health and function of the other (i.e. unity, catholicity, authenticity, personal accountability, etc).

end answers… from here on out, we’ll leave any further discussion to the comments section.

i am honored to have such thoughtful friends and mentors…

so, i’m in springfield, ohio at the moment and i just spent some time in ferncliff cemetery, a beautiful park-like environment, and i took a bunch of pictures…

so, you should check out this post by a guy named hugh halter. he’s a pastor, trainer, mentor, church-planter, coach kind of guy… very good stuff:

http://hughhalter.com/?p=40

have at it.

so, the last time it was lakers v. celtics in the finals, i had just graduated from high school.

so, i figured i’d blog some thoughts as the game goes…

one quarter has gone by… we join the game at 8:39 in the second quarter…

8:30 - sam cassell is my age. and that’s old.

7:25 - they’re saying nice things about turiaf, but he looks like john travolta in that one space movie, “battlefield earth.”

6:46 - back in the day, i preferred the lakers, and these days i generally hate boston… but there’s just something about kobe that bugs me… so, i’m pulling for kevin garnett, paul pierce and ray allen to get their first ring.

6:00 - kevin garnett is just sick with it, as they say… maybe he’ll embarrass gasol to the point of shaving his scrag…

commercial break - they’re pimping “zohan” hard… very hard… i think we’ve seen enough.

5:40 - ha ha, kobe was called for a charge on sam cassell

4:40 - gasol is effective, but his game is just so ugly… so utilitarian, so plain.

3:40 - see, gasol just dunked, but it was ugly… tim duncan ugly.

commercial break - i’m betting on another zohan commercial. wait for it, wait for it… dang. i was wrong. it was only a 20 second time out.

under three minutes - full time out. now we’ll get a zohan commercial… wait for it… first, though there is a “hulk” commercial. this one looks awesome, unlike the first. dang… no zohan, again.

1:00 - i like rondo’s game… very nice.

end of first half - lakers are up by five, 51-46.

half-time commercials - “hancock” looks quite good, too. this guy on the yukon commercials is wearing on me, too.

half-time report - stuart scott is great. how can magic johnson be objective here? seriously. ooh, there’s going to be a couple of lakers v. celtics retrospectives. very nice.

more half-time commercials - the d-wade and barkley commercials are entertaining. i have a prediction… the american versions of the japanese game shows are not going to be good. melanie can’t handle the two-faced commercials. she has this thing about human body parts being distorted or displaced… she just can’t handle it… it is actually funny for me to watch her squirm at such things…

half-time retrospectives - i can appreciate bird and those dudes now, but man… back when i was a kid, i HATED boston… they were just so… WHITE. seriously…

start of the 3rd quarter - my prediction: boston’s intensity coming out will be huge. they’re going to come out strong.

11:40 - pierce strong to the hoop. i like it.

11:15 - pierce just made that kid look silly. chance for a 4 point play, yueahhhh…

10:45 - pierce owns that guy.

9:54 - gasol should take up acting… he’s really selling those low post fouls.

9:34 - is it just me or does vo—-vich (?) for the lakers look like zohan?

8:21 - i LOVE that one of the announcers just called out kobe’s defense. LOVE it…

6:49 - pierce is down… man, you hate to see that… a key player getting hurt in a big game.

back from commercial break - man, pierce is being taken to the locker room in a wheel chair… dang it.

6:19 - rondo to the rack, drawing the foul… people are going to have to step up, now that pierce is out…

5:53 - nice. allen with a three… man, that dude looks PO’d all of the time.

5:18 - pierce pops back out of the tunnel… he’s coming back in the game!!! YES!

commercial break - i HATE this “vent” commercial. seriously. “tropic thunder” could be very, very funny… what a great premise for a movie.

3:55 - sheesh. this is a physical game. holy poop.

3:40 - zohan at the line. he also looks like jason schwartzman.

3:00 - okay, i don’t like kobe, but that alley-oop dunk was sick.

1:24 - pierce for three, celtics by one… YES. and ANOTHER!!!

end of the third quarter - paul pierce is my hero.

beginning of the fourth quarter - celtics up four 77-73

11:26 - the angry looking ray allen with a nice hoop…

11:08 - ha ha, luke walton called for a foul.

9:42 - that was totally over and back, but we’ll take the bucket by cassell…

8:42 - posey for three, biggest lead of the game

okay, i’ve got to take a break to get something to drink… back at it shortly…

4:29 - back at it… celtics up by 6.

4:15 - dang, garnett has gone COLD. he needs to attack the rim.

3:43 - pierce at the line… sweet. celtics by 8… watch out for the kobe show, though…

3:20 - HUGE defensive stop by pierce on kobe… that’s good old fashioned KU coach roy basketball!!!

2:34 - allen draws a foul on zohan schwartzman guy. make these, allen, make these…

1:54 - gasol at the line… that’s too much of a close up on gasol when you have HD… seriously. that dude is ugly, just like his game…

1:32 - HUGE FOLLOW UP DUNK BY GARNETT!!!! oh my goodness. he just posterized gasol.

1:01 - garnett is fired up… that dude is intense. two big free-throws… celtics by 8.

16.6 - foul by rackmanivic (?) on allen… two free throws from sealing it… celtics by 10… biggest lead of the game. YES!!!

0:00 - celtics win!!! 98-88… pierce was HUGE. i like it.

that’s it for me…

yesterday, i walked around the columbine memorial that is just a short distance from where we are living…

6.1.08
11:02 pm mdt
6922 w2

listening to “june one” by yellow second… good stuff and timely. by the way, it is a crime against music and artistry that yellow second didn’t “make it” as a band… they were (are) so good. i love those guys. really. i actually love them. it is an honor to call them friends.

so, yesterday we moved out of the d-unit finally and at last. that place was not very nice, but it was a huge blessing to us as we finished up seminary. so, we’ve lived one more place.

and that move represents the severing of the last of our commitments here in colorado. we packed all of our stuff into a storage unit and we’re ready to move wherever the “Wild Goose” takes us.

in celtic Christianity, the wild goose was often used as a symbol for the Holy Spirit.

and this morning, being as how i had no real “thing” to do and no real “where” to be, i spent some time reading about celtic Christianity. i was reading about how the stories of these ancient saints are written and about the symbolism of numbers and animals. and that got me to thinking…

a couple of weeks ago, on the morning of the sunday that was my last at trailhead as worship pastor, i walked to the offices to get ready for church. and as i was walking, a fox came out from a bush and slowly walked across the road just a few feet in front of me. it was nearly some kind of native american spirit animal experience or something. he just looked at me as he slowly made his way across the street… then he slipped very cooly under a fence and out into a field. no hurry, no fear, no rush. just him and me walking the streets on a sunday morning.

then, this last week, as i was on my way to a meeting to talk about a job/ ministry possibility, i spotted another fox, cruising along on the property of a mormon church.

does it mean anything? the celtic saints saw a significant connection between the natural and the spiritual worlds… st. brendan was said to have conversations with a bird on one of his journeys… am i to have a conversation with a fox? is the fox a symbol for this next phase of life for us, somehow?

probably not. but it is odd.

and while we’re on the subject of animals and symbolism… this evening, just a few minutes ago, i was sitting out on the back deck of the donovan’s home, our fabulous new digs while they are away in florida for a time, and i was surfing the internet with my macbook, looking for a job. and i had another encounter with an animal.

a bird crapped on me and my laptop.

all white and black and hot and wet and disgusting… on my hand, my keyboard, my shorts, my shirt… it took me quite a while to get it all cleaned up and i am thankful it was on the very edge of my computer and that my hand protected the keyboard from worse damage… but still…

does it mean anything?

does that count as some kind of mystical animal encounter?

is that some harbinger of things to come?

i hope not.

5.23.08
11:53 pm mdt
d-unit

bits of irish-y wisdom from frederick buechner’s “brendan: a novel.”
“brendan” is a novelization of the life of st. brendan, a well-known irish monk from the 5th century. buecnher put together this novel from both facts and legends that surround this amazing character… i’m not sure of buechner’s country of origin, or of his connection with ireland, but it seems to me that he’s got that irish earthiness down pat.

i’m about half-way through this book and i’m loving it. the way buechner tells the story is rough around the edges and almost lewd, at points, but it feels real and raw and that makes it weighty…

quotes from the book:

“true faith. a simple life. a helping hand. she said those were the three things prized most in Heaven. on earth it was a fair wife, a stout ox, a swift hound. beg not, refuse not, she said. one step forward each day was the way to the Land of the Blessed. don’t eat till your stomach cries out. don’t sleep till you can’t stay awake. don’t open your mouth till it’s the truth that opens it.” (the “she” in this section is the great nun ita, who helped raise brendan)

“if you see something before your time to see it, the devil only knows what may come of it…”

“‘lofty and fair beyond telling was the angels’ music,’ he said. ‘they head me cry and they answered me. they weren’t singing to me of the mercy of God, finn. their singing was itself the mercy of God…”

“but what he’s got in here,’ erc said, taping the boy’s head between his two proud eyes, ‘and in his soul,’ he said patting the boy’s flushed cheek, ‘that’s straight from the King of Heaven, finnoag. it’s God himself planted those seeds and it’s God must have the harvest.’” (the bishop erc speaking of brendan to his father, finnloag).

“it’s a smirchy sort of business you’re at with that pig, some would say,’ she said. ‘there’s many a monkish boy either he’d beg out of it or turn green as a toad doing it. but it’s neither of those with you, i see. you could be laying the holy table for mass the way you set those cuttings out. that’s the deep truth of things too no matter or not if you know it.’
ita’s eyes disappeared entirely when she smiled.
’smirchy and holy is all one, my dear,’ she said. ‘i doubt jarlath has taught you that. monks think holiness is monkishness only. but somewheres you’ve learned the truth anyhow. you can squeeze into heaven reeking of pig blood as well as clad in the whitest fair linen in the land.’”

“brendan baptized no others on that journey but there was more than a few he softened up against the day another of the new faith should come by. they was poor folk mostly. they’d be gathering white-stalked wild garlic or nuts as might be or grazing their bony cows out on some common pasturage. he’d give them a bit to eat out of our plump sacks and tell them news of Christ like it was no older than a day. nor did he tell it with gull eyes like jarlath nor grinding it down to a fine dust like erc. he’d make them laugh instead at how Christ gulled the elders out of stoning to death the woman caught in the act of darkness. he’d drop their jaws telling them how he hailed lazurus out of his green grave and walked on water without making holes. he’d bring a mist to their eyes spinning out holy words Christ said on the hill and telling them the way he shared his last loaf with his friends the night the bullies come for him in the garden.
it was like flirting or courting the way brendan did it. he’d tease them along till they was hot for more ad then he’d skitter off saying he’d be back one day soon or another like him to tell them another tale or two if they’d mend their ways in the meantime. once in a while he’d get me to join him singing psalms back and forth though it sounded more like cows being called to be milked than monks. and so it was we made our way to cashel at last.
if i was myself God i’d use cashel for my chair.”

“he said the nub of it is the king must be whole if the people’s to be whole…”

“nor is plain truth the only truth there is either any more than what you see with your two eyes is all there is to see.”

5.21.08
12:07 am mdt
d-unit

well, i’m a seminary graduate now. crazy. it feels good, i suppose, but i don’t think it has really settled in… i feel like i’m on a long weekend.

you see, one of the things about seminary life is that there is always something one should be doing. there is an incessant nagging at the back of one’s brain… “you should be reading that book. “you probably needed to start that project a couple of days ago.” “you have to remember to check that reference on that paper.” “you ought to spend more time working on school work and less time stalking on facebook.”

and now, that nag has nothing to say, nothing really important anyway.

or does it? am i writing right now in response to that nagging voice? did that old nag pick up a new refrain, “you might think about updating your blog… it has been a while…”

stupid nag. i think i am writing in response to that nag. i’m going to hush it up and i’m going to bed with a clean conscience that there is nothing i need to be doing at the moment…

here’s what i see when i look out our living room window, right now…

4.19.08
10:10 pm mdt
d-unit

so, i have this friend, randy, who lives in chicago. he and i met a couple of years ago when another friend (zac) and i were out fishing…

zac and i had headed out for a couple of days of fishing right before i was to head into seminary. it was early october and we wanted to catch a grayling… a very cool cold water fish that neither of us had ever caught before. as we were heading up poudre canyon we were talking fishing as we always do… something along the lines of this…

zac: “i hope that one of us catches at least one grayling… i just want to see one…”
me: “yeah, i don’t even really care who catches it… i just want to see one, too.”

as we pulled up to the body of water we were to fish, we only saw one other car in the parking lot, so before we rigged up, we headed down to the water to see what we could see… and what we saw was one lone fly-fisherman who was in the process of releasing a fish, so we boogied on over and we asked him about the fishing… something along the lines of this…

zac: “hey, what was that you just caught?
lone fly-fisherman: “a grayling.”
zac: “how’s the fishing been?”
lone fly-fisherman: “that was number 119 for the day.”
me: ” are you %^&&*** me?”

quickly followed by the sound of zac and i scrambling back to the car to rig up and get fishing.

and we all caught grayling hand over fist until dark.

and that was how we met randy. at that time, he was on day number 30 something of a 50 day fishing trip all across the west, and we all three split a hotel room that night and fished together again the next day.

he’s a great guy and he’s come back out to colorado a few times to fish with us since then (and i went to the midwest to fish with him last summer) and a couple of weeks ago, he was in town again… we fished 11-mile canyon and had a blast… it was a great little study break in the middle of my last semester of school. here are some pics…

brutus rolling up the mountains…

zac hooked this big old pike in a nice trout run in 11-mile canyon… this old fish had been living high on the hog gobbling up trout for years…

randy w/ a nice rainbow

randy w/ another rainbow

me playing a rainbow…

me w/ a rainbow

randy stripping a streamer

so, a couple of posts below, i wrote a little blurb, saying: “i can’t apologize for my life. i won’t.”

and then i posted several pictures of events in our lives from the last few years that happen to include the moderate consumption of alcohol.

a question has been raised, by a friend of mine, as to what i might have meant by that post, or what my intentions may have been and so, i’ll offer an explanation… if you care to know more…

i was in an interview process with a church and at several points we discussed the consumption of alcohol.

it is a significant issue for many in that church, as they believe that pastors are held to a higher standard regarding the consumption of alcohol and that it would be wise for pastors to abstain completely from drinking. this is not entirely uncommon in many churches and ministries and they have several reasons for this stance, and some of them are very good reasons.

but, i realized that i really disagree with that stance and i have several reasons for my stance and some of them are very good reasons.

so, i was really frustrated. and as i reflected on their stance on alcohol and on my stance on alcohol, i just got to thinking about some of our relationships… deep, important, solid, good and spiritual relationships, relationships with other Christians and with some who are not Christians… and that often these relationships have been strengthened while sharing a beer or a glass of wine.

and i am convinced that there is nothing wrong with that. nothing at all.

thus the statement, “i can’t apologize for my life. and i won’t.” and the pictures…

and so, for team aronhalt, this little issue of alcohol seemed to reveal a deeper difference of opinion about how to go about doing life and how to go about being a church.

and so, i decided to remove myself from consideration for the job i was interviewing for…

that’s it. that’s what it all meant.

and the thing that really bums me out is that i have friends who don’t know much about Jesus or about the church who might read this post and think that this whole discussion is really dumb and count it as one more reason to discount Christians and Jesus and the church. and that makes me sad.

blogs. what weird things.