Posted by Chris on Jan 23, 2012 in
Life “In Judaism, there is a distinct activity called kavanah. It is cultivated in order to maximize the inwardness of our actions. It means to pay attention, to direct the mind and heart in order to maximize the levels of intentionality in our actions. This applies to actions/deeds as it does to the study of Scripture and to prayer but goes beyond these activities themselves to the notion of attentiveness to God Himself.
It is not primarily an awareness of being commanded by God, but an awareness of the God who commands. The focus in kavanah shifts from the deed itself to its inner meaning, the goal being to find access to the sacred in the deed itself. It is finding the essence of the task, to partake of its inspiration, to be made equal to the task of fulfilling holy command’s. Abraham Heschel says that ‘kavanah is direction to God and requires the involvement and redirection of the whole person. It is the act of bringing together the scattered forces of the self; it means the participation of heart and soul, not only of will and mind.’”
Frost and Hirsch Shaping of Things to Come (in print and digital.)
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Tags: 2012 Reading List, MAGL
Posted by Chris on Jan 3, 2012 in
Life Here’s my To Read list for 2012. It’s far from complete. What would you add?
Academic
This list will grow through the year, but here’s what I have for the spring semester of the MAGL:
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
Shaping of Things to Come, The: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost
The Meeting of the Waters: 7 Global Currents That Will Propel the Future Church by Fritz Kling
The Invisible: What the Church Can Do to Find and Serve the Least of These by Arloa Sutter
Public Faith, A: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good by Miroslav VLF
Theology & Spirituality
Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World by Richard Foster by Richard Foster
The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight
Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans
The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder
Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Life, Relationships and Vocation
Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself by Daniel H. Pink
Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question by Po Bronson
Fun
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
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Tags: books, Church, Jesus, leadership, MAGL, sci-fi, Science Fiction
Posted by Chris on Nov 28, 2011 in
Church Here’s a video put together by my friends over at 3DM. I’ve been a non-traditional seminary student for 7 years, with at least another year to go. What do you think of their argument?
Re-Imagining Theological Education | 3DM from 3DM on Vimeo.
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Tags: MAGL, seminary
Posted by Chris on Nov 25, 2011 in
God,
Life 
Isolation is a term coined by the late Fuller Professor Robert Clinton. It refers to an experience where a leader is removed from a number of things, such as their position of leadership, a sense of God’s presence, a knowledge of calling or direction. Isolation can be chosen, like taking a sabbatical or returning to seminary. It can also be forced on you, like a health problem, imprisonment or getting fired. It can last for weeks, or for years.
My major Isolation experience began when my position on a staff at a megachurch in San Antonio ended. I was out of work for over six months. I was unable to find a suitable ministry position, and eventually ended up in retail. I went from having a place of positional leadership and what seemed like a career track to being alone, with no sense of direction and very little hope.
In studying Isolation as part of the MAGL, I read something from Dr. Clinton that basically went like this:
“Don’t try to be finished with your Isolation until you’ve gotten everything out of it that God wants you to get out of it.”
This floored me, because for two years, I’ve been trying to be getting out Isolation. Unable to find direction, I tried to dive further into spiritual practices. When I felt adrift in depression, I sought to distract myself, and eventually got into counseling to “fix it.” I’ve had to learn what it is to do ministry when it’s not my job. Worst of all, my sense of failure and lack of direction left me unable to even answer the question “what do you want to do?”
But this comment about “getting everything out of Isolation” forced me to reevaluate why I was in such a hurry. If the perfect opportunity fell in my lap tomorrow, would I know what to do with it? Am I mature enough to keep from repeating the mistakes I’ve made in the past? Am I even the kind of person who should be trusted with leadership?
For the first time in almost three years, I am beginning to sense some “movement.” It may be that some new opportunities are on the horizon. But what’s the rush? Maybe I still have something to learn from Isolation.
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Tags: 7 Things I'm Thankful For, depression, God, leadership, MAGL
Posted by Chris on Nov 23, 2011 in
Life As I approached the end of my undergraduate experience, I was faced with two realities: my degree hadn’t set me up for a job, and my heart was really in “ministry.” So I moved to my school’s seminary, where I was promptly miserable. I learned a lot from my year with that school (primarily, a music degree does not prepare you to write academic papers), however I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being prepared to lead churches that only existed in the Bible Belt of the 1950s.
Then I had the opportunity to take an internship with a church in Atlanta, Georgia, and continue to take classes by making occassional pilgrimages to campus. This allowed me to do two things that I could not in when you live and breath academia: being deeply involved in the life of a local church, and deeply committed to relationships with non-Christians. Now this is sad, because I love the classroom, it’s a place where I come alive. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that none of what I was learning had any meaning if I left it relegated to an ivory tower.
So I’ve tried to integrate the seminary into my life. This has been difficult. It’s taken me years to get to the point I am at, and I am a ways from finishing. It’s also been a lonely task. That’s why I’m grateful I found the MAGL.
Fuller Seminary’s Master’s of Arts of Global Leadership has provided a practical way to continue my education in the manner that I feel is best. The program is based on doing everything in a cohort, made up of like minded practioners from around the world. Our course work covers issues like Adult Education, Globalism, Missiology and Self Understanding. All of these are viewed through the lense of helping us develop as leaders, and apply them to our local churches.
The cohort program also offers something that I was unable to find in my previous experiences, a sense of academic and missional cameraderie that my other experiences had lacked. Through the MAGL, I have been reunited with a childhood friend, met a local youth pastor, made friends with missionaries to China, heard first hand accounts of the civil unrest in Liberia and stories of life in undeveloped corners Senegal. As diverse as are cohort is, we find things to laugh and pray about everyday.
But most important, the MAGL has forced us to rethink what God’s really up to in this world. Knowing people scattered across the globe, and wrestling together with them through these issues has a way of making God bigger, and my struggles and pet issues much, much smaller.
That is very difficult. But I’m thankful for it.
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Tags: 7 Things I'm Thankful For, MAGL, seminary
