Happy Thanksgiving

I could list a lot of things I'm thankful for this year, but all those things point to one thing that I am most thankful for which is happiness. Things like family, career, health, and a simple life all lead to waking up and going to sleep happy and peaceful.

I realize many in this world do not experience happiness on a day like today. For some people it's beyond their control and they live with the hand they were dealt. For others, their choices put them in the stressful situations they face.

Regardless, I pray for both today "...your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread..."

The Feast

It was coincidence that I finished The Feast by Joshua Graves the week of Thanksgiving. It is a book that invites you to "feast" on selected passages of scripture and through personal stories helps you digest the ways living as Jesus means today. "The personal is the most powerful" and in the case of this book it was true

To read Joshua's (Josh) personal accounts of ministry in places like Detroit's Cass Park, help me not only see the problems of our own country more clearly, but it inspires me to action. The stories cause me to pause and reconsider who my neighbors are and first recognize that they are there.

I imagine this book would also make for a great group study. The chapters are simple and easy to read, and the book has a nice little study guide with questions you could use for discussion or self reflection.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am also thankful to see another book of this calibar come from someone who grew up in the same church tradition as me. That gives me hope.

Worhsip and Entertainment

Growing up in my particular church heritage, I always heard that worship shouldn't be entertaining. "Entertaining" referred to things like skits, musical performances, puppets, and more. No one ever effectively made the argument that there couldn't be entertaining components to worship. The argument was always on the basis of "it might offend the weaker brother," which was a pretty lame excuse to a teenage boy. I never had a problem with it. I welcomed entertainment.

Now that I am a little older, I realize that I don't care at all to have "entertainment" in the midst of corporate worship. It's not because I have a theological issue with it. The reason I don't like it today is because...it sucks.

Seriously, 99% of what I have ever seen, under what my legalistic friends would classify as "entertainment", is flat out corny and makes me feel really uncomfortable for those "performing". When churches can compete at the level of prime-time television and Hollywood, we can talk. Until then, churches should realize the standards of quality are measured against the movie people went to see on Saturday night before coming to church on Sunday morning.

However, in the right setting, at the right time, corny has it's place. When the expectations of the viewers are in balance with the quality they expect to receive, it works. Usually these are separate events. Christmas pageants and programs are a good example of when corny works.

However, when you throw in a dramatic reading after someone just poured their heart out to God in public prayer, the reading comes off fake and desperate for the worshipers attention. It's then difficult to transition your mind back and forth between corny and reverent.