Have we forgotten…

Ran across this on T19. Found it particularly pertinent for those of us living in a place like London. What example are we setting to those who are constantly busy and wanting to get off the train? Are we contributing to the view that Christians are only “functioning properly” when we seem to be immensely busy? Take a read…

The wired pastor
by Jason Byassee

You’ve seen them, maybe you’re one of them: pastors who must be in touch at all times. The cell phone is either in use or strapped handily onto the belt, ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice. It’s best as a Blackberry or Treo, so it can vibrate every ten minutes with news of new messages. And just in case those fail, a beeper should be handy. You can never be too wired.
I can understand why some professions would cause one to need to be accessible 100 percent of the time: firefighters, psychologists with mentally ill patients and (given recent floods in this part of the country) plumbers come to mind. But why pastors? Certainly on large church staffs it’s a venerable practice to have one of the pastors on-call at all times in case of emergency. But I worry when I see wired pastors, ubiquitous as they are at church conventions and gatherings of clergy. I fear they conflate importance with accessibility, as if being incommunicado even briefly will lead to spiritual crisis.

Interesting quote…

I have spent the last two days being sick. It is always interesting to me how when I’m sick I have to stop, even if I don’t want to. So in the past couple of days, I’ve been given the freedom to read what I want, when I want, and to think about  some of the things I’ve not had the time to think about.

One of the blogs I check on a regular basis is Internet Monk (iMonk). He’s been doing a series on the ‘evangelical liturgy.’ Though I am not specifically in agreement with some of what he says, there are points which shine forth. Today was one of those nuggets.

Read it and think about it….

“In most worship services, we need liturgy to do for us what we are lazy and unwilling to do for ourselves.”    iMonk 23/09/09

Bishop of Rochester – Michael Nazir-Ali

Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali gives a ‘farewell’ interview to the Telegraph. There is a phrase I particularly enjoyed – principled comprehensiveness. What a phrase…. It completely dismantles the critique of conservatives/orthodox/…[insert cliche here] by progressives for not being comprehensive enough.

Read the entire interview here.