With So Much Drama in the NPC...

Well, not really. Not much drama yet at the NPC (National Pastors Conference) which I'm currently attending for class and spiritual growth and training...etc. San Diego is cool, with a spring/fall type weather right now and I'm excited to be in Snoop Dogg's home state and bring some love from the East to the West.

I've nearly been up 24 hours as I write this, and I told a few people that I'd try to share some of the in's and out's and going-on's as I hung out in San Diego and got to be with some emergent type folks for a few days, and figured I better start today posting or the week will slip by.

honestly, with the last month off of school, and having finished a few books in the month off, I feel like i've had a lot i've wanted to share, yet haven't found the words for a lot of it. maybe part of it is that i'm still figuring out what is good for me to share on the blog. maybe part of it is that i've been taking pictures of birds? part of it is that i put a lot of pressure on myself to say something significant that will contribute to "the conversation" but sometimes i have some processing to do before i say anything out loud. and part of it is that i finished a collection of essays by Wendell Berry titled Sex, Economy, Community, and Freedom: Eight Essays that was humbling, convicting and contextually appropriate for much today's issues (war in Iraq, globalization, local economy, sustainability). all i'm saying is that if you haven't read any of Wendell Berry's stuff...you should start soon.

i'll post more on Berry maybe tomorrow, since i finished that book as the last of my "i'm not in school right now and can read whatever i want list" on the plane this morning. but tonight, i'd like to stir the pot a little with a metaphor from the critical concerns course i went to today and will finish tomorrow led by Brian McLaren and Richard Twiss called "Return to the Bible". Twiss, a Native American of the Sioux people is co-leading the seminar with Brian and the first 5 hours of the course have been great thus far. they started with taking questions and surveying the group to learn about where many of the people at the seminar were coming from and then went on to first describe the need to move out of a foundational epistemological system in a more post-modernist epistemology that constructs a web of knowledge and understanding rather than a wall or foundation.

beyond all that came what i thought was a profound missiological insight and metaphor recalled by Twiss and told by many as a Mission Legend: Bring the gospel as a seed into an indigenous culture, rather than as a potted plant, so that when the gospel which was planted as a seed begins to surface it will be expressed and understood as a manifestation of the indigenous culture. I think that this is a truly beautiful and wonderful metaphor, and offers profound insight into the necessity of preserving the relationship between culture, theology, and the gospel. this is especially true in light of Twiss' heritage and story riddled and tarnished with the story of "Christians" destroying much of his community and chance for redemption of Native American practices, not to mention the need for a contextually appropriate mission amongst the people first occupying the country to its own people without being oppressed. any thoughts?