Worshipping at the IHOP

Adrienne I dropped in at the IHOP in Atlanta tonight. Not for pancakes, but for prayer and worship. The International House of Prayer - Atlanta : houses prayer and worhsip services 24 hours a day nearly 7 days a week.

We showed up a little after 8 PM and sat down in the "prayer room" which is more like a sanctuary with about 200 seats and stage for musicians. One young woman sang and played piano while another worshipped harmoniously. The singing was sweet and melodic and the Holy Spirit was clearly present. We were two of maybe half a dozen people in the prayer room with a few others off in a side room practicing guitar. Later exploration revealed a fellowship room with video games, pool tables etc., and a kitchen. Didn't see the recording studio, but their website claims to have one.

All-in-all and annointed way to spend an evening.

Imagine if you could join with others for an hour of prayer and worship any time the Spirit moved, night or day! Think about it....well?

Are you ready to make it happen?

Two faces of Human Instinct

When the Air France jet skidded off the runway this week in Toronto, two faces of human instinct were on display.

Inside the plane, pandemonium broke loose as Survival instinct took over passengers, experts say

A primeval, and sometimes ugly, survival instinct swept over some of the desperate passengers of Air France Flight 358 when they found themselves trapped in the burning plane … It was for a time, as several passengers described it, everyone for himself or herself….Stephanie Paquin, a 17-year-old returning from a student exchange in France, said "people were just pushing. They didn't care about anyone else." After fleeing through the emergency exits, "everyone was trampling everyone."

The experts point to this as evidence of a primal instinct built into us over the eons:

"We have a bunch of primitive reflexes in which we exhibit behaviour like animals in certain situations," said Steven Taylor, a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, whose research focuses on trauma and anxiety.
… Often people will "later feel embarrassed" for their behaviour.

Yet, another instinct drove one man who was driving by the airport at the time of the crash to drive toward the crash, against the rush of other cars fleeing the seeing, scale the barbed wire fence and lend a hand becoming the The hero of Flight 358

As terrified passengers fled the burning Air France jet, Guy Ledez stood atop a muddy ravine, pulling survivors from the wreckage.

He then ran on board the burning wreckage of Flight 358 to make sure no one was left behind. The 37-year-old airport rental car manager says he didn't have time to stop and think of danger when he witnessed the crash on a routine Tuesday afternoon.

"I looked down and there's just a sea of people trying to get up," he said. "I had two babies passed to me." He and another bystander - whose name he never learned - pulled survivors to safety and then went down to help elderly passengers up the ravine.

Not knowing whether injured survivors remained on board, he said, the two men scrambled up the emergency slide at the tail of the plane. Each took an aisle and did a sweep to make sure nobody had been left behind.

All 309 passengers and crew had remarkably escaped serious harm.

The other unknown good Samaritan jumped out and landed safely. Just as Ledez headed toward an exit, he heard an explosion from the back of the plane, one that ultimately ripped the aircraft into pieces.

He jumped and ran for his life. Only then did he realise how much danger he had escaped: "That sort of woke me up," he said. "That's when the reality set in."
…

"There was no thinking involved, just, 'I gotta go help', so boom, I did it," he said.

One the tensions Christians must grapple with lies between the total depravity of man, which speaks of the capacity and even propensity towards evil inherent in all of us, and our role as image bearers of God, created as good creatures, yet now fallen. Must we strive to empty ourselves of every ounce of human will to make room for God? Or do we seek to subject to and join our will with His will to achieve His purposes? Saints have grappled with these questions for millennia with no clear answer, and the two faces of human instinct shown in Flight 358 does little but highlight the tension. Perhaps that is as it should be.

Peace.

Choosing Poverty: Jesus and the Redistribution of Capital

Paul Metler reminded me today that I hadn't blogged in over a month. Not that I haven't been reading and thinking a lot, but I haven't been writing a lot.

Anyway, here's a provocative piece to chew on....
Choosing Poverty: Jesus and the Redistribution of Capital: "Choosing Poverty
Jesus and the Redistribution of Capital
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The Original Unity of Man and Woman

I first came across this when preparing a sermon on the bride of Christ for my classwork. My friend Paul sent me some of this writings which spoke of the Hebrew for man and woman is/issa and how the woman was like but different from man. I did a search and came across this from Pope John Paul II. I had never read anything by him before and, quite frankly, I was blown away by the depth of his writing. I can see why they made him Pope.

There really isn't a "pull quote" from it that does it justice (you'll just have to read it for yourself...click on the title of the entry for the link) but the suffice it to say I find the text far more beautiful and meaningful than I did before.

It is clear, too, that the text emphasizes the equality of woman with man. This may come as a surprise to some, but the more I study the scriptures in depth, the more I realize the inadequacy of the typical evangelical approach to reading the Bible literally. So for example, without an understanding of how ancient Hebrews expressed themselves and talked about the world it is impossible to know the literal meaning of God forming Eve from Adams rib.

Grocery Store Wars | Join the Organic Rebellion

This was passed on to me by my friend Paul. Similar to the Meatrix (see my earlier post)....funnier, though maybe not as educational. However, I should have put a warning on the Meatrix post...it mayn not be suitable for young eyes (I had to stop it before it scared my young nephew). Store Wars is more paletable (sp?) for yound eys. Grocery Store Wars | Join the Organic Rebellion

Time to Forgive Debts

This whole article is worth reading, but I was particularly interested to read the following explanation of a parable that has always puzzled me, the parable of the dishonest steward in Luke. The historical context provided below makes sense of it for me...

Time to Forgive Debts: ..." the parable of the dishonest steward (Luke 16:1-39), also revolves around the peasants' status in Jesus' time. Due to the extortions of King Herod— as well as those of his son and the Roman occupant — most of the older proprietors had lost their independence. Forced to mortgage their property in order to pay their taxes, they had been driven into semi-slavery. The taxes in oil and wheat that they paid to their masters often amounted to half or more of their harvest.

The peasants' conditions in Israel were aggravated by yet another evil: the owners' absenteeism. A hierarchy of middlemen (toll-gatherers, publicans, customs officials, stewards, and managers) had the task of collecting debts. They extorted from the sharecropper arbitrary sums of money that exceeded the rent, debts, and taxes they actually owed. The poor were always in the wrong. They could rely on no one because the stewards presented falsified accounts to their masters. With the help of these accounts, they were able to accumulate what Jesus called "unrighteous mammon." It was by constantly seeking these unjust riches that the stewards lost their genuine riches, namely, the friendship of their fellow citizens.

This parable tells how a landowner discovered the dishonesty of his steward. Not only did the steward plunder the sharecroppers, he also stole from his master to whom he showed falsified records. Once his cheating had been discovered, the steward began to feel the pangs of conscience. He understood that he would never be able to reimburse the entire amount of his swindling. But he decided at least not to require of the sharecroppers exaggerated amounts they had not yet paid. He then erased the amount by which he had unjustly increased their debts. Jesus describes him calling the debtors together and reducing their debts to their correct amount: fifty measures of oil instead of a hundred, eighty measures of wheat instead of a hundred, etc.

Such a decision certainly increased the steward%u2019s insolvency. It forced him into poverty. But by acting as he did, he would acquire genuine riches, that is the thankfulness and friendship of his previous victims. Poor among the poor, man among men, he would be received as a brother in their homes. That, says Jesus, is the nature of God's kingdom. The point of the parable? Jesus says, "Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves" (Luke 16:9). That is, put the Jubilee I'm announcing into practice. By liberating others from their debts, you set yourselves free from fetters that bind, which keep you from being ready for the coming of God's kingdom of justice.

The most remarkable part of the parable is the praise for the steward's shrewdness that Jesus puts into the mouth of the landowner, who symbolizes God. In the parable of the unforgiving servant, God is the one who takes the initiative. God is the first to cancel our debt, and so he expects us to do the same. In the parable of the dishonest steward, it is man who takes the initiative. He is the first to put the Jubilee into practice by obeying the messianic call and remitting the debts of those who are debtors to God, as well as debtors to himself. Consequently, God praises this man for practicing the redistribution of wealth even before being touched by divine grace. He was able to read the signs of God's kingdom and understand that the rule of unjust riches is over."

Independence Day

I wish I had the time to write more on my feelings about this, but this quote from John Stott will have serve as a proxy for now...
Independence Day: "In The Unforbidden Fruit, John Stott says that Christians have this to add to the Declaration of Independence: "Those who pursue happiness never find it. Because joy and peace are extremely elusive, happiness is a will-o'-the-wisp, a phantom, and even if we reach out our hand to grasp it, it vanishes into thin air. God gives joy and peace not to those who pursue them but to those who pursue him, and strive to love. Joy and peace are found in loving and nowhere else."