UPDATE: Jason Coker has pushed back on this post over on his blog here. While he ain't pithy, he's a smart one!

It's that time of year again! Make Something Day will soon be upon us. TheOOZE.com just featured my article on the subject. Here's a quote from my article, "Beat Your Apples Into... Applesauce":

"The idea of gift-giving doesn't seem to be central to Christmas any longer. Instead, it's all about buying stuff and getting stuff. But during a time when so many of us are biting our nails with anxiety over the economic recession, buying and getting adds even more stress than usual. This is problematic for the Christian. We are called to be hospitable, generous people. Yet, these ideals don't stem from economic security. They come from our story as God's people. In the book of Exodus we read the story of manna falling from heaven, providing the sustenance that everyone needed to survive in the wilderness. There was one problem: no preservatives. It didn't keep. You couldn't save it for tomorrow or the next day. God provided just enough for everyone, every day. In the New Testament, when Jesus teaches his friends to pray he draws upon this story when he tells them to ask God to give them their daily bread. The concept is that God provides enough for everyone. Not enough for some to hoard, or have more than others, but enough for all of us to have what we need... not necessarily what we want, but what we need. This concept runs all the way through Scripture."

Read the rest, offer your thoughts and help us spread the word by adding one of the MSD buttons–like the one on the right of my blog–to your site. And send in your ideas for the MSD blog too.

I posted this in the comments below, but I thought I would post it again here. This is a response to a comment question that asked what Christian reasoning existed for not eating meat:

The Christian Vegetarian Association has some good information. I am not proposing total vegetarianism, although I do applaud those that choose this. As far as "Christian reasoning" for this goes, here's a few things to consider that come to my mind:

1) We are told in Scripture that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Most Christian Americans eat WAY more meat, meat products, preservatives, etc. than their body really needs–or knows what to do with. Because of our diet, we see in the U.S. HIGH numbers of obesity, diabetes and various forms of cancer. Way more than in other parts of the world. All of those diagnoses can be attributed to diet. So, if our bodies are gifts from our Creator and temples of the Holy Spirit, shouldn't we take better care of them?

2) We serve the Creator of ALL creation, and the way we eat in America is destroying creation. Scripture shows an immense reverence (not worship) of the natural world. Why don't we? If Americans cut down down on their meat intake alone it would greatly impact environmental degradation, therefore more wholly honoring God and the gift of the natural world to us.

3) Some of Jesus last words are to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. Our eating habits in the West actually insure that people in the southern hemisphere starve... you can't accomplish Jesus' commission if they all die before you get to tell them about Jesus first! If Christians in the West would change their eating habits and by this effect the way the rest of the West eats, we could curb starvation in other parts of the world.

Bottom line, the Bible does not make it clear that we can't eat meat. Some may disagree. But with the state of the world today, I think there is certainly a Christian ethic that we should respond with that effects, for one thing, how we eat in the West.

Maybe you have some thoughts as well...

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You know, I thought of this right before I posted this, this does relate to the ongoing conversation about Church, Money and the Future as well. One of the issues many are faced with is growing financial strain. Eating less meat is cheaper. Plus, what if church planters learned how to be seed planters? Urban/Suburban farmers? Growing your own food is a heck of a lot cheaper too!

And church properties with fewer and fewer congregants on Sunday mornings might want to consider a more ecologically friendly way of reaching out to their new neighbors, instead of marketing (which has little return on investment to be honest-I know, I'm a former insider)... rip out some asphalt and invite your neighbors to start a community garden. Feed the neighbors inexpensive, healthy fruits and vegetables and you'll win their hearts as well. Just a thought.

So, it looks like we've struck a nerve here! There's a really great conversation going on here:

• Chris Marshall starts with This Hurts
• I chimed in next
• Mike addsJesus Underground
• Chris again
• then Steve chimes in
• Aaron steps in with How Then Should We Live
• Kimberly adds her thoughts on the role of Seminary and Church in this with Church Structure Breaking Down?
• Mark adds Startving Ecclesial Artists Unite!
• Alan makes sure the Roman Catholics aren't left out
• Good Ol' Boy Glenn Johnson steps in with Saved By The Second-Tier Rejects
• Steve documents the thought trail for us
• And fellow San Diegan, Dan So adds his two cents with Now You Tell Me

And that's just what has popped up so far. Plus, you've got to read the comments on each post.

A few things that stand out:

Economics: Not only can the church no longer sustain the running assumptions, leaders have to reconfigure how they're going to make ends meet any way about it. Most importantly, the economic concerns only expose the idolatry we have had with capitalism and that this has, in many ways, kept us from being about the Missio Dei. So, what has often been mistaken as being an alternative to church, or simply about models is now being crystalized in our minds as neither of those but most sincerely out of our deep love for the Body.

Justice and Liberation: Because of the bondage that we see as a result of our current economic paradigm we realize that we've got to be about setting people free. This is economic–everything from personal debt to global unjust trade agreements that empower some to enslave others, it is spiritual–read Wink, Wimber and Eckblad, it social and structural-we are realizing that many of our previous assumptions existed to empower some and make the rest listen and this has been most heinous when coming out as racist and sexist.

Lastly, I hope this is not interpreted as "throwing the baby out with the bath water" as some are bound to presume. I reiterate what I said above, since I know most of the people who have expressed their thoughts in this trail thus far, I can sincerely say that these ruminations are out of a deep love and devotion to the Body. This doesn't mean we're dumping the sacrements, discipleship and some of our deeply held theologies (you may just have to visit some of our communities to get that). It means we're digging beneath the assumptions we've had about these things for the last few decades, at least, to find the raw beauty in those things once again.

I wish I had time to write more but Brooke has left for NYC once again and I've got to get my little girl to school.

Abundant Nutrition is Brooke's new holistic health counseling practice that she has started. Her first newsletter, Seasons, was sent out today. If you're interested in being on the list to receive the bi-monthly newsletter shoot her an e-mail at thelivinghome [at] gmail [dot] com. She's also offering an introductory free one-hour consultation to anyone who is interested.

With all due respect for the wondrous ways people have invented to amuse themselves and one another on paved surfaces, I find that this exodus from the land makes me unspeakably sad. I think of the children who will never know, intuitively, that a flower is a plant's way of making love, or what silence sounds like, or that trees breathe out what we breathe in. I think of the astonished neighbor children who huddled around my husband in his tiny backyard garden, in the city where he lived years ago, clapping their hands to their mouths in pure dismay at seeing him pull carrots from the ground....

I wonder what it will mean for people to forget that food, like rain, is not a product but a process. I wonder how they will imagine the infinite when they have never seen how the stars fill a dark night sky. I wonder how I can explain why a wood-thrush song makes my chest hurt to a populace for whom wood is a construction material and thrush is a tongue disease.

- Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder, via

Brooke and I recently watched both Blood Diamond and The Constant Gardener-both movies we had not yet seen. It has left some horrible images on our minds. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not taking film for fact. But having befriended local African refugees, taking classes with African immigrants and visiting God's Golden Acre I have heard stories first hand enough times to know that movies such as these are telling a story close enough to reality.

Some thoughts as I lay here sleepless:

I hope that these films and others such as Hotel Rwanda are more than entertainment. I'm not sure I understand how it could be absorbed simply as that but as I've overheard people discuss these films I realize how inoculated we are to these things. "How sad... Did you feed the cat?"

I hope that people can begin to see how global concerns such as poverty, disease, violence and hunger are all connected. I hope we can begin to see how connected these things are not only to each other somewhere on a far away continent but also to us, as Western consumers. I don't think most of us realize how our consumptive habits are connected to the destructive realities formed for others. But it is true and my hope is that films such as these can begin to expose how complicit we all are with these forces.

I hope that for those that begin to get a glimpse of this terrible reality also realize that the kingdom is connected in much the same way. As Derrick Jensen says, "We need it all." Everything counts. Every step we take towards sustainable (aka "eternal") practices, every time we stand up against injustice, every time we welcome the stranger... it matters. For so many, it seems so daunting but every little thing matters. We need only to find that one thing we can do. We don't need to be heroes. Just people of the Way.

Here in the States it seems we are bitterly enslaved to Consumerism. So much has it blinded us that we don't even see the effect of our own bondage on others... we've replaced the good news with the good life. It's one of the prophetic things Church of the Savior in DC has done in recent years by facing this head on (Gordon Cosby refers to it as 'cultural addiction'-read his handbook, Becoming the Authentic Church). From C of S's site, Inward/Outward Rick Kidd says this:

Few of us in the radical Christian movement would deny that we live in an economic system that is rooted in consumerism and unjust distribution of resources. We might also agree that this economy results in desperation and death for many. What we may not agree on is that our own participation in this economy amounts to an addiction.

For those of us who suffer from the devastation of alcohol and drug addiction or compulsive sex and gambling behavior to compare our economic behavior to these other life damaging circumstances may seem insulting. Many of us, however, who have suffered from and live with these addictive diseases, believe that our involvement in the economy of the dominant culture is no less damaging to our lives and those of our neighbors. It's not about comparing one addiction to another; it's about acknowledging any behavior over which we are powerless and which creates destruction in our individual lives and communities.

Also, go read this article, Breaking the Consumer Habit. Might be helpful.

Now I must turn in for the night.

Hirsch linked to this video and writes:
"Consumerism claims everything and in Western contexts is all-pervasive. But here’s the problem, God also claims everything ... This clash of loyalties causes the disciple some real discomfort and so it should."

I agree. This is something the Church has really got to come to terms with. It is the reason why the voices of those such as the creators of Adbusters need to be listened to. Not necessarily agreed with all the time but at a minimum they should be "heard". For this reason, when Jordon asked for book recommendations for church planters I recommended the book Affluenza as an important read.

Other helpful material might be: Walter Wink's work on the powers. Understanding how consumerism works as a power against kingdom often times would be helpful. The Powers That Be is probably the most concise version of his thesis. Foster's The Freedom of Simplicity provides reflective tools for those looking at break the bind of consumerism.

On a similar note, a few years ago, when Ed Stetzer was writing Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age he asked some of us for input on the greatest challenges to church planters in the West. I wrote what I did below. I don't think he used it so I guess it's cool to post it here:

CONSUMERISM. What frightened me most after Sept. 11, 2001 was not what seemed inevitable reoccuring violence against our country but how our politicians and media voices addressed the nation. "Keep buying stuff. Keep being consumers," this seemed to be at the center of much of what was being said to the U.S. of A. post 9-11. It chilled me to the core to realize that this what we have become: Beings of buying. The language used in such phrases as, "I'm just not getting fed enough at this church" or "We're shopping for a new church" prove how influenced by culture our church lives are. We've bought into this ideal that presents the Church as simply a dispensor of "religious goods and services" as George Hunsberger has put it.

Three years ago, I resigned from a my position at the church my wife and I attended. I had moved from part to full time staff over a few years and from Director of Administration to Young Adults Pastor. A year or so before I resigned a small group began putting their talents together in order to develop a worship service that would accomodate those people, mostly young, with a postmodern world view. What I found is that people from all walks of life, whether young or old, are more interested in being "churched" than becomming the Church. Honestly, I had never asked them to be the Church. I was so consumed with making church cool and comfortable that I had forgotten about calling people to discipleship; to be students of Jesus. I was simply adding to our culture's appeal to compartmentalize our lives. But if the Church is God's people who actively participate in his Kingdom and not a flashy person, place or event than it can not be compartmentalized. It is all emcompassing. More often than not I fear we are consumers, not the crucified and here we find one of our biggest struggles in the North American church. Will we simply give lip service to all that Jesus taught or will we dare call people to obey all that He taught? It is in the later that the heart of the Gospel lies.

No longer unemployed by a church, I found another job and my family along with other church leaders that had left their positions started meeting weekly in a home to pray, eat together and discuss what it really meant to follow Jesus. Meeting in such and everyday place began to force us to consider how our discussions impacted our everyday lives. What if we began to take the Lord's Prayer seriously? Did we really desire to see his "Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven?" What about the greatest and second greatest commandment? Do I really love my neighbor? It wasn't the fact that we met in a home that made these questions so heavy on our hearts but the fact we had started normalizing parts of out spiritual lives, bringing it into the ordinary-ness of life that was challenging. We could no longer open our spiritual box on Sunday morning for a couple hours and then pack it back up until next week. We were either trying to live this or we weren't and meeting in such intimate settings made it easy for others to know where you were at with this.

I began to discover how "me" centered my faith was when no one showed up to those meals who could play guitar. "Well, how are we going to worship!?" I had come to a place where worship was simply an emotional outlet through creative expression. The song may have said, "It's all about You" but it was always about "us." My generation has been co-opted into a mindset that says worship is CD's and big concerts... all stuff you have to buy. I began to hear my own heart expressed in the words of friends who were nominal believers, "You're little home gathering has some cool people but the church down the street has some really good worship." Once again, a component of spiritual life had been turned into a compartment. A compartment that media companies have made millions off of. But St. Paul told us in Romans 12 that being a "living sacrifice" was our "spiritual act of worship." The Scriptures were calling me back to a more holistic approach to the Gospel. A Gospel that asked for all of me. I find that others who visit our simple faith communities find this approach to the Way refreshing. You don't find many people who are vegetarian or politically liberal one day of the week. Life choices are life consuming and only Christ is life giving. If we desire to present a whole Gospel to the culture we live in we must resist the temptation to market religious gizmos and gadgets that only lead to shallow answers to life's journey. We are not to be consumers but the crucified. Our culture likes it served with sugar, but we are salt. Westerners would prefer you dim the lights on our misgivings, but we are called to shine from the top of a hill. We define ourselves not by the half truths and realities of this world but by the complete reality found in Him. So, I end with a fitting phrase most often used by musicians critical of other artists who have gone for the money rather than the art form, "Don't sell out!"

Now that I wrote this I realize that this was more 'evans on consumerism' than hirsch. Oh well, sorry for the misnomer... he inspired me.

Yep, it's been awhile. As I almost always say when I need an excuse, 'Lots has been goin' on.' I've been on an truly incredible inner journey over the last couple of months... I think I'll come back to that later, let's just say it's been rough but good. On another note, we went out to Ohio several weeks back for the Feast of St. Patrick's. Really rich time for all of us, the whole family. The kids were loved by older kids and so much Jesus-ness was demonstrated to them by kids under 18 years of age... I don't need to tell you what that automatically says of their parents.

But speaking of their parents... those folks are my personal Justice League. My son loves the Justice League. All of the most amazing super heroes are right there, in one room, working for the good of the world together. Could it get any better? In his mind, no way, not unless some of the Marvel characters joined the party. About once a year I get to hang out with my personal Justice League: all my heroes in one room. Even when we're surrounded by defeat, tragedy they save my sorry ass every time. I love them for it.

An added benefit to the trip was Matt Casper was able to come out for the weekend as well. Matt and I got to have a dialogue in one of the main sessions, talk about his book and field some questions. If you weren't there you can listen to it here. It was fun. Brooke and I also did a workshop on sustainability and the Kingdom of God and I think that was productive (if you were there, I'd appreciate any feedback).

Speaking of Matt, dude's getting all kinds of press these days. His book is now out and you need to read this. I know he's a friend, so I'm biased but I really think Matt is a great writer and you'll get a lot out of it. A website for the book should be up soon. His band, Hell Yeah, just got a review in City Beat. You can check out the piece here. This is a photo from the last show I played with him.

Another friend of ours is getting press too! Brooke and I were flipping through the magazine GOOD and saw this ad with our friend Sebastian, creator of Califas Journal and a great film maker in it. Pick up the issue, visit CalJo's site too... there's also a short piece on the creators of Wooster Collective-which is a fabulous website.

One last thing, if you're from the Anabaptist world, you might find this interesting. I'm speaking at the Mennonite Church USA biennial convention in San Jose this summer. I'll be speaking to the Urban Leaders Network (or something like that) meeting at a pre-convention event as well. I think the best place to find info is here. Let me know if you'll be there and maybe we can grab coffee. The added benefit for me is that the family is coming along and we'll be hanging out with the Sharps and Joel and Katie after the event... Can't wait. Alright, that'll have to be it for now.