Today’s PhDcomic.com - the vicious cycle - for all you students out there. I think they need to add the sick kids-waking-you-up-in-the-few-hours-you-finally-decide-to-sleep element. My advice, get good sleep (hypocrite that I am).

What’s really happening in Myanmar - a first-hand account (JT)

As they were sitting in the airport waiting to board their plane they saw the international aid arrive on big planes. Then they saw the army’s helicopters arrive, fill up with loot and fly away. They promptly came back after 30 minutes to fill up again. Others confirmed that the aid went to a government warehouse. On Myanmar TV and maybe on your own TV you have seen the military distributing aid. However, confirmed reports are that when the cameras go off, the military takes the food and medicine back and leaves. . . [and more]

Black Ethnicity: Foreign-Born in America. “All black people in America are not African Americans. . . ” Ethnicity in all its complexity serves as a reminder that race is not all that matters. She links to this great NYTimes graphic on worldwide immigration trends.

A brief the timeline of major blogging engines. (White African)

“Evangelical Manifesto” (download the pdf)? (a critique and lists of critiques)

Mark Goodacre’s series on Orality and Literacy. April DeConick responds on The Forbidden Gospels Blog, What is Orality? and Loren Rosson’s chimes in on The Busybody)

Follow the Steps of Paul tour - (with great pictures; Ferrell Jenkins; not banned in Turkey after all)

Everything on the web in April about the early church fathers - Patristics Carnival 11 (more than I could read.)

Electric Shock Therapy Interpretation (Free Association; Bailey via Kruse). These could get really funny if we thought about it.

Antidote: The foundational principle of interpretation is this: “Try to discover what the original author intends for his readers or the original speaker for his listeners.”

Should we analyze types of Christians? (Brad Wright)

. . . “depends” Types might also be useful in devising church programs or outreach.

. . . Perhaps it’s less important whether we use types than it is that we use them well.[Stay tuned]

Learning Greek - Greek Roundup

Judging a book by the scholar promoting it. (Bingo! I knew exactly who he was talking about before the comments spilled the beans. - Tilling)

1968, A Year in Crisis: Evangelical Churches Then and Now - Alumni symposium held at Wheaton College regarding the evangelical church of the past 40 years - a conversation between Nathan Hatch, Mark Noll, and John Piper (all of whom graduated from Wheaton in 1968). (Thanks: JT)

This was the Gado cartoon in Daily Nation. [Advanced Search 12 May 2008]

As most of you know by now, Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) posted a precis for each of the two sides (HTFC Precis; HFC Precis) in the debate along with all the other formal documents they had released earlier (see my earlier blog post). I liked the tone and emphasis of the “Statement on Scripture” (Appendix 2) so much that I thought it was worth quoting in full here.

The Westminster Theological Seminary biblical studies department believes the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be God’s inerrant written word to human beings, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. In the light of this affirmation, we understand ourselves to be:

• Pre-committed to receive as truth all that Scripture is found, upon careful study and reflection, actually to teach.
• Awed by the wisdom and condescension of God in giving a word that is both a product of and a witness to his redemptive activity in human history—an activity in history that culminates in the “summing up of all things in the Messiah.”
• Bound to a study of scripture that is diligent, humble, receptive, and honestly descriptive, recognizing that God has providentially given us information about the environment in which the books of the Bible originated, information that at times enables us to deepen our understanding of the scriptures.
• Convinced that the central message of the Bible is clear without knowledge of the historical and cultural background of the biblical books. In this we find ourselves in full accord with WCF I.7: “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”
• Aware that we, like all other fallen human beings, are quite capable of erroneous interpretation, of drawing invalid inferences, of imposing on Scripture constructs of our own making, or in other ways falling short of a full discovery of God’s truth.
• Grateful to God for the aid of his Spirit and the interpretive wisdom of his church though the ages.
• Confident that it is only in the light of Christ and the Gospel that the majestic coherence of the Old and New Testaments will be fully displayed.

In all this we view ourselves as upholding, for our own time and place, the affirmations outlined in the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1.

–

ADDITIONAL NOTE: The Historical and Theology (HT) precis is written after their main document, and the Biblical Studies before their 70+ page response (Hermeutics Field Committee - HFC response). While these two short documents (six and eleven pages) don’t shed much more light on the content of the debate, the HFC Precis says a lot about the process and tone - notably the the shock and disappointment at the initial turn of events in the production of the initial HTFC document. (Read it in full.) The rest of my comments died along with my old hard drive.

Occasionally in the midst of talk on internet connectivity, politics, and traffic congestion, we get reminded that globalization affects even the darkest, most depraved parts of society. Following are excerpts from last week’s Crazy Monday feature of the Standard newspaper - deadly harvest of body parts. African Albinos have special sympathy from me because they are the only people I ever see whiter than me.

. . . The notion that human body parts can be used to heal or bestow special powers has caused panic among the albino community in Tanzania.

The problem has reached such proportions that Tanzania’s President, Jakaya Kikwete, used his monthly television address to announce a crackdown on the traditional healers as well as plans to register albinos to improve their safety. “These killings are shameful and distressing to our society,” said Mr Kikwete in his Wednesday night speech to the nation. “I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich.”

Videos and films from Nigeria that tout the efficacy of witchcraft are widely to blame for the current crisis in Tanzania. . .

. . . It later emerged that the Kenyan men had been sent by a traditional healer to collect body parts of an albino, which he claimed would make them fabulously wealthy.

. . . During the qualifying preliminaries for the 2006 World Cup, it is claimed that hippos, lions, elephants and hyenas were slaughtered to make a potion for the Swaziland soccer team to give its footballers extra strength.

The whole story shows how depraved greed can become.

Last Tuesday, I folded my laptop lid (into standby) with all the e-mails written to send that day and three posts for the blog. Because it was to be a day of meetings, I was rushing to squeeze a few minutes of internet time before the first meeting; my kids did not cooperate. The girls woke up late and were dragging their heels, so Liam (2) decided to take off for school by himself. This meant I had to wait a few extra minutes for him to clear the sidewalk. He goes happily on his own, but if I am too close, he refuses to part. I watched him from the kitchen window, then waited a couple more minutes for him to walk the last few meters up the school driveway - out of window range. A few minutes later, as I rushed to the library, I met him coming back from the school gate. He had fallen and was covered with dirt, so I picked him up, dusted him off, and carried him up to his classroom while he narrated the whole experience to me.

When I finally got to the library and propped open my laptop lid; the screen went bright red. The hard drive has never been heard from since. It is dead dead - verified from several other devices. Back in January, the motherboard on my IBM Thinkpad – on loan from the school – had died. (Fortunately my newly installed hard drive worked beautifully from it’s external cage, and I lost nothing.) The two people in Nairobi who work on IBMs eventually threw in the towel, so I was left to limp along on Christi’s six-year-old Dell , which was very, very, very, very, very, slow and has about 30 mins of battery life - see my earlier post. May it RIP.

I had suspected that the Dell was breathing its last, so I had backed up my entire dissertation folder (full of hundreds of PDF articles) and all my recent work a couple of days earlier. The previous all-hard drive back ups was done about two weeks previously, so I also lost about two weeks worth of “minor” work in church and a few biblical studies articles I had downloaded - nothing major (at least not that I have discovered yet.) The big blow is the realization that my bibliographic files (Scholar’s Aid) were last backed up to the school’s network at the end of January. I had been backing up regularly, but apparently only to hard drive itself ;-(.

Christi came up with a plan C and gave up the family desktop. For the last week, I’ve been moving all my academic files onto it, and trying to sync it up with the school’s proxy server. (It hasn’t seen the light of the internet in almost three years.) I’ve had to lug it back and forth from the library to the IT office several different times to get all the bugs sorted out. It is amazing how much trouble a simple unchecked box can give you. It is still installing various updates.

I think I am mostly done with the transition now, but it means there will be no more ruminating (blogging) from home, or early morning writing. The kids will have to do without their DVD player (only affects weekends), and Christi will have to do all her photo work at my desk now. On the plus side, it is super fast in comparison to what I’ve been used to.

Brad Wright has started what looks to be an interesting series on different types of Christians. He begins . . .

Several recent studies of Christians have taken the approach of using data to create “types” of Christians, and this seems like a good issue to go into depth with, so I’ll post a several part series on it. Basically: Is it worthwhile for empirical studies of Christians to differentiate between different types of Christians.

Today I would like to review several studies that have done so.

1) The Reveal Study identifies six segments of growing in Christ, and these segments are discussed as types of people.

Exploring Christianity - “I believe in God but I’m not sure about Christ”
Growing in Christ - “I am working on getting to know Jesus”
Close to Christ - “I feel really close to Christ and depend on him daily”
Christ-Centered - “Everything that I do is a reflect of Christ”
Stalled - “I believe in Christ but I haven’t grown much lately”
Dissatisfied - “My faith is central to me, but my church is letting me down”

2) Christianity Today, via Leadership Journal, produced a study creating a five-part typology Christians. . . .

Click here to read the rest of his opening post.

Groove award winners have been announced (the most popular of the Kenyan Christian Music scene.)

Thabo Mbeki’s Bible: The Role of the Religion in the South African Public Realm after Liberation (Gerald West, SBL Forum May 1 2008).

the Bible no longer occupies the same kind of place in the public realm in South Africa. Indeed, religion in general has receded to the private sphere.

But Mbeki: “Through our National Effort they [the people of South Africa] can see the relevance to our situation of God’s blessings communicated in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.”[19]

Finders of the Lost Ark

Archaeology in search of a headline, or even archaeology that’s too eager to “prove the Bible,” is prone to sensationalism and error. It’s too much like the treasure hunting that characterized 19th-century explorers who lacked the tools of modern science and relied on observation and supposition.

. . . Better tools have led to more accurate archaeology, but also to the realization that the earlier discoveries didn’t as easily fit into the biblical framework as some had anticipated. Responding to these developments, some secular scholars have claimed that archaeology actually disproves the Bible. Thankfully, it does not.

Tim Brookins’s bibliography of The Doctrine of Inspiration - “by camp . . . full inerrancy, some sort of limited inerrancy or infallibility, paleo- or neo-orthodoxy, I’m not sure (Pelikan & NT Wright)” and his comments on Roger Olsons Postconservativism

There are a lot of positive qualities to the book. For one, he drives home the point that Scripture is about transforming lives as we encounter God in it. Probably not many evangelicals would disagree with that; his contention is that evangelicals have often viewed Scripture solely as something that conveys information, and that conversion comes through cognitive apprehension of propositions, without necessarily regarding experience as a necessary component. Yet in subordinating propositional content to experience, has he not gone too far in the other direction? In my opinion, he inadequately deals with why such a switch is permissible, . . . [Other critiques – mischaracterization of paleo-orthodox camp. ]

Ferrell Jenkins’s blog banned-in-turkey follow it fjtours.blogspot.com – great pictures.

Leading a Meeting – something they usually don’t say much about in Seminary (Thanks: Drew who adds 3 C’s: be clear, be consistent, and be creative.) My pastoral mentor always told me. In seminary they teach you a lot about the bible and theology; in the pastorate you mostly deal with (manage) people.

Handouts for Teaching Biblical Hebrew (or studying) by Naama Zahavi-Ely, College of William and Mary

• Hebrew Verb Missing Letter Guide for the Bible and other texts with vowel markings (nikud)
• Hebrew Verb Summary Tables
• Hebrew Verb Overview
• Using Cantillation Marks to Break Verses into Segments
• Who am I and what is my background as a teacher of Hebrew

I’ll add a couple in separate posts that deserve individual attention.

Michael Kruse has started a twelve-part series on Ken Bailey’s two lecture DVD Interpreting the Bible. Following are quotes from each post:

How the Bible was inspired

Bailey starts by reminding us that we each have our assumptions, examined or not, about what the Bible is and where it came from. . . Bailey suggests that our understanding of biblical inspiration can be loosely grouped in five categories:

1. Mechanical inspiration views the author as a “human tape recorder.”
2. Verbal inspiration allows that the human personality of the author is involved but God inspired the precise words.
3. Another view is that the ideas were inspired but not necessarily the precise words.
4. Some would argue for an inspiration in much the same sense a poet is inspired but at a higher level.
5. Others would so they Bible is inspired but no more so then Shakespeare or other great writers.

[Note: There are serious questions about the Jamnia theory which Bailey presents regarding the recognition of the OT canon..]

New Testament Origins

But what does it mean to say that these books have authority? Bailey writes that early in the process the Church asked, “What are the books the apostles have passed down to us?” Notice this is not the same as asking “Which books did the apostles write?” The question was one of apostolic endorsement and determining which ones have broad acceptance across the Church community. Furthermore, the driving agenda was not “What can we include?” but “What can we throw out?” Bailey suggests these were the driving questions for at least the first 250 years after Christ.

. . . The books of the New Testament have authority because they spoke to the hearts of early Christians across a broad range of communities (just as they do today.) There was no rush to create an authoritative list. Over time, the authenticity of the books made themselves known to the Christian community. Rather than imposing a list of official books in the fourth century, the fourth century can be seen as the culmination of a slow brew process.

Luke’s Origin:

Bailey’s central point of emphasis is that the Bible was not dictated by angels as illustrated on the front of ancient manuscripts. Rather, God moved through a community to create the written word that became scripture. By looking at Luke we can get an imperfect glimpse of some of the process involved.

These three posts give us some sense of the nature of the book we are dealing with when we come to the Bible. It should inform our understanding as we read scripture. But as we interpret the Bible there are any number of errors we can make. Bailey has identified seven sins of biblical interpretation. We will turn to those next.

Jesus Creed Post - and the nearly 250 comments about Calvinists .

McCall - Two Cheers for Resurgence of Calvinism (and some cautions) - 148 Comments (many of which prove McCall’s cautions) and 34 links (make that 35 now.)

Emergent’s New Christians and the Young and Restless Reformed Christianity Today

Colin Hansen:

Emergents embrace paradox, especially those that are core components of the Christian story.” The Bible affirms both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But who knows how these twin truths always correspond? I love what J. I. Packer writes in Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God: “The desire to oversimplify the Bible by cutting out the mysteries is natural to our perverse minds, and it is not surprising that even good men should fall victim to it.”

Day 2

Hansen: Can you help me understand how Emergent Christians tend to view the atoning work of Jesus? . . . How do you evade foundationalism and still affirm the inspiration and authority of Scripture?

Jones: There have been five or six major theological theories to explain the atoning work of Jesus on the cross over the last two millennia. Each of them, you might say, shines a spotlight on the cross from a different angle. Emergents want all those spotlights, figuring that the more light we can shed on the cross, the better we can understand it. One spotlight is fine. Six is better.

Day 3

Hansen:

When you have two groups that care so much about theology, you’ll always have something to talk about. E-mail conversations like this are helpful; sharing a meal together is even better. There is a tendency for all of us to write things for the Web that we would not say across a table. Nothing can substitute for the immediate give-and-take of face-to-face dialogue. I hope these interactions will continue and forestall the rush toward entrenchment in polemical blogs and books. . .

Jones:

. . . . I get the sense from the young, Reformed guys I know that they share some of the epistemic humility that we have in Emergent. They don’t speak with quite the certain tones of the older Reformed crowd. I think this humility about knowledge actually jibes perfectly with the Reformed doctrine of Total Depravity (i.e., if our intellects are depraved, how can we be so sure that we’re right about, say, depravity?). Has this humility rubbed off on the older Reformed generation at all?

[Stay tuned for the response. IMHO ;-), tone can be as critical as content; tone says something about you and what you think of people. Note, this does not mean giving up convictions.]

In a post today, Tribalism is Not the Issue, Pastor M from Nairobi makes a point I have made several times to my Kenyan and American friends:

In the US for a couple of weeks… very interesting to hear the campaign rhetoric here and compare it with our own from a few months ago. And am struck by an amazing fact… Americans are just as tribalistic as we are! . . . sounds so familiar! I was struck by how much alike we all are … day-to-day decent, ordinary people, yet deep down driven by suspicion & ethnocentricity to self-protective stereotyping; ‘us verses them’.

. . . Enron and Arthur Andersen as well as Watergate and Irangate before that helped me understand that American’s are not closer to the God-side of the corruption scale than us; with our Goldenburg, Anglo Leasing and Francis Thuo (stock brokerage firm that recently went under after underhand dealings with investor funds).

If Americans are just as tribalistic, dirty and corrupt as we are, then why aren’t they grabbing ‘machetes’ and killing their neighbors, drowning in dirt and being labeled as corrupt? I think the answer is simple. The law here works.

Pastor M then offers a few solutions for Kenya. Read the whole brief post - Tribalism is Not the Issue

On further review, Pastor M might discover that the law in the US works better for some than others (e.g. DWB - Driving While Black to name just one). America’s brief history has it’s fair share of “wild west” living, sickening oppression of people (slavery and Native Americans), and a civil war too.

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). For a long time, I’ve suspected that it had special meaning in Luke’s “restoration” schema, but I haven’t had time to research it yet. Today, Michael Barber posts on that very topic.

2 Chronicles 28 relates a story about a battle between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom overpowers those from the south and take captive the people from Judah, including two hundred thousand women and children. However, after the prophet warns the northern tribes that they have sinned in taking captive those from Judea, certain chief men from the northern tribes take pity on the prisoneers (2 Chron. 28:8-11). They stand up to those coming back from the battle, condemning their actions. What happens sounds very familiar.

2 Chron. 28:15: And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all that were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on asses, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.

It seems likely that the story of the Good Samaritan is drawing on this episode. . . . they do what the Good Samaritan does in the story in Luke’s Gospel.

Once again, it would seem, Jesus’ teaching seems to flow from Israel’s story. In fact, the story would seem to fit into Jesus’ larger program in Luke’s Gospel–the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom and specifically, his concern for Judah and Israel.

This is a line of reasoning that I will enjoy following up on. Read Barber’s whole post.

This is what I was doing between books today. A young man was trying to teach his friend how to drive his mother’s car on campus today (without permission) and flipped this car all the way over on its top. Both “boys” were unhurt, but greatly embarrassed; it could have been much worse. This all happened about 30 yards/meters from my library desk and our apartment front door. We had to flip the car back over to get it out of the way. This is the half-way mark. (I couldn’t bring myself to leave the action to get my camera, so I’m happy Samy got these with his cell phone.)

Just your average day at the library. So what have you been up to?

All of biblical studies on the web in April (Biblical Studies Carnival 29) has been brilliantly highlighted by the the very king of biblical blogdom (Jim West).

He begins:

The Biblical Studies Blogging World has expanded from a dozen or so blogs just a few years ago to literally hundreds and has become more a Universe than simply a small planet. ‘Carnival’ doesn’t really convey the extensive activity of biblio/biblica-bloggers during the month of April; and ‘circus’ just seems a bit too derogatory- so someone wiser and brighter than I will have to come up with an appropriate term which expands “Carnival” to something more accurate.

And ends: “[n.b.- from time to time in the preceding you may have sniffed just a whiff of sarcasm. If so, good nose! If not, well there's no help for you. A Carnival is supposed to be full of fun. So, humorless soul, begone with ya to read Oprah's website]“

It’s all way more than any of us has time for, but I’ll pick out a couple just for fun.

Stephen Cook talks a little bit about those bizarre chapter and verse divisions in the Bible. What was Stephanus thinking? That’s why, personally, I like the Zurich Bible of 1531. Just Chapters. No verses. And if I could get by with it, I’d abandon those chapter divisions too. If only there were some other way of getting around in the Bible without them…

There is t there is no solution to the synoptic problem (April DeConick.) Jim counters with the solution.

Chris Spinks asks a very good question when he asks, what should a New Testament Introduction course introduce the students to?

It has been my experience that NT surveys spend an inordinate amount of time discussing authorship, dates, and the like. . . . I’m more inclined to emphasize the books’ narrative/argumentative arcs, the important themes and topics, and the inter-relationship of these things among the various NT voices.

Tyler Watson responds: give Revelation enough time. This book needs to be taken back from the Left Behind interpretations. Show how this book when properly understood affects how we live now. I know many pastors who don’t want to step into the minefield created by strange interpretations of Revelation — I have this temptation myself — so as a student I found it extremely helpful and inspiring to walk through it in a way that respected its historical context.

Finally, Michael Pahl let’s all the PhD holders in on a little secret, and Mike Bird has a little advice to PhD students of his own (something about Greco-Roman something or other). Meanwhile, Tim Brookins too has something to say to PhD wannabes.

- - -

Here’s a couple more I was interested in this week.

New NT Manuscripts researched in Albania (CT)

Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes (A review of Bailey by Kruse)

Bailey’s thesis is that Arabic culture, at least in rural villages, has not changed radically over the past 2,000 years. Furthermore, Arabic is a sister language to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his contemporaries. Therefore, by examining how Arabic Christians have interpreted scripture over the millennia, both in terms of language and in terms of assumptions about cultural norms, we might find a lens through which to view the scriptures that more closely approximates the culture of Jesus day than our Western lenses. Bailey maintains that the witness of Arabic Christianity (separating from the Western church in the fifth century) has been all but ignored in Western Christianity.

Jesus was a metaphorical theologian. That is, his primary method of creating meaning was trough metaphor, simile, parable and dramatic action rather than through logic and reasoning. He created meaning like a dramatis and a poet rather than like a philosopher. (279)

20 enjoyable books from Chris Tilling.

From last month, but still interesting:

How Jesus Died: A Physician’s Point of View (Wichita March 15)

Larry Hurtado - That Curious Idea of Resurrection on Slate.com (March 20)

In a tribute to Philip Yancey (The Healing Pen - CT), Tim Stafford writes:

The strength of fundamentalism is its forcefulness and purity. Fundamentalists know what they think, and they are fierce in promoting it. They can usually tell you what you think, too; they are often better at defining and critiquing others’ positions than they are at listening to how others understand themselves.

What seems to stick with ex-fundamentalists is a sense of principle, a willingness to fight for the truth, yet also a strong reaction to the rigid all-knowingness of the fundamentalist mindset. At least that is what I see in Philip: a powerful sense of honesty and idealism, and a great wariness about making judgments. At Wheaton, Philip worked to reconstruct his world, trying to strip it clean of fundamentalist accretions while preserving (and discovering) genuine, honest faith.

I can relate.

A teacher sacrifices his life for a student in a terrible New Zealand tragedy – see also here. (Thanks: BJ.)

“In the most traumatic moment of his life, in fact the last moment of his life, he’s still doing and saying exactly what he was doing and saying the previous Saturday and the previous week.”

Our prayers are with the grieving families.

The African Origins of our faith: Review by Scot McKnight - Part 1, Part 2 (see comments too)

Why Africa’s poverty is only artificial: Africa’s creative economy (Business Daily).

Techpreneurs in Kenya, A PDF document by Business Daily that discusses some of the brilliant young entrepreneurs and their ideas in Kenya. Here’s the PDF for download (Thanks: White African)

“Why Africa May Never Produce a Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or Facebook” [Not-for-a while might be better than "never". ] An interesting article that discusses the challenge that young college-level entrepreneurs face in Africa. (Thanks again: White African)

Wisdom of Joe on US Tax Rebates.

Situation A: To stimulate the economy, the U.S Government asks everyone to take $1,200 out of their pocket and spend it on consumer goods.

Situation B: To stimulate the economy, the U.S Government takes $1,200 out of everyone’s pockets, gives it back to them, and then asks them to spend it on consumer goods.

Me: I filed, but we didn’t owe any any taxes this year (naturally). Still, today a letter from the Department of Treasury showed up in my mailbox here in Nairobi, “Economic Stimulus Payment Notice.” My neighbors and I will be eating someone else’s pocket money.

A rootless MK checks out his vanishing roots.

Nominees for the 2008 Groove Awards [Kenya] have been announced. I recognize 25 of the names. (I started to say two until I read the names more closely.) Tthere are 22 categories of six names each. Six of the names I recognized were nominees for the “Peace Award” alone. But hey, I’m improving; I do know who DJ Moz and Njugush are. ;-). If you played me a clip some of the music along with these names I’d recognize a more. The Kenyan Christian Music scene is where it’s at – “the bomb” as my younger sister used to say.

Every Meal is a Sacrifice (Washington Post 28 April 2008.)

Even before he took a butcher knife to the she-goat’s throat, Likbir Ould Mohamed Mahmoud knew it would only make things worse. The goat was a living bounty in this parched city on the Sahara’s edge, providing the sweet milk that filled his family’s stomachs at breakfast time. But as soaring food prices worldwide have hit the poorest nations of Africa the hardest, he has been forced to join many of his neighbors in slaughtering or selling off one of their only sources of wealth — their livestock.

PS - I’m too sick about Zimbabwe to even think about it.

From the most recent issue of Leadership, Ministry Team Diagnostics: How to avoid the 5 most common dysfunctions of a ministry team (by Nancy Ortberg). [I've seen these almost everywhere I've been, and thought this is a healthy reminder for all of us.]

1. Distrust

Trust forms the foundation for everything else that happens on a team. Interestingly, though, I think ministry teams assume trust rather than work on building trust. Stop for a minute and think: can you name five things you have intentionally done in the last month to build trust on your team? . . .

2. Fear of Conflict

Of all the organizations we work with, churches tend to be the worst at engaging in conflict in an open and honest way.  Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that Jesus was a Mr. Rogers character who just walked around with beautifully permed hair, blessing everyone. One look at the Gospels will tell you that Jesus was a walking defining moment. His call for transformation was often imbedded in rather terse and direct language. . .

. . . Avoiding conflict almost guarantees that we will fail to build relationally deep teams, and that we will be unable to make the best decisions for the organization. When teams don’t engage in healthy, passionate, unfiltered debate around the most important issues, they inject more politics into the organization and make mediocre decisions that will deliver mediocre results. . .

. . .conflict is basically energy, and when it is not dealt with directly, it goes somewhere else. Unaired conflict goes into the parking lot or behind closed doors. It becomes “malicious compliance” and results in artificial harmony, not deep community. Conflict isn’t pleasant, but it’s your necessary friend. Do not avoid it; insist on it.

[The key here is healthy conflict built on trust.]

3. Inability to Make a Commitment

Ever left a meeting wondering what, if anything, was actually decided? Ever lead one of those meetings? Healthy teams know when it is time to make a commitment, and they do it. There are no perfect decisions, but there are good and great ones. At the end of an appropriate amount of debate, there comes a time to decide and to plant the flag. . .

4. Avoidance of Accountability

5. Inattention to results

As leaders in the church, we understand that results are not completely in our hands. We are not ultimately responsible for everything. However that is very different from saying that it is okay to rationalize the fact that the ministry is not moving forward because of our poor or misguided efforts.

Great leaders perform autopsies on poor results. They are constant learners and listen to God, as best they can, and relentlessly pursue doing things better and more effectively. They are passionate about results, because results affect people. Sometimes results are people.

. . . What could we have done differently? What did we learn from this, for future decisions? Has this ministry been allowed to go past its prime, and is there, perhaps, a new and better way? These are the questions of a team that build great ministries that deeply impact people for Christ.

Read the whole article here.

The “Millennials” (actually from last Nov – CBS – but I just saw it [Thanks: Michael Kruse]

80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995 . . . raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds.

. . . how to deal with this generation that only takes “yes” for an answer.

It’s Mr. Rogers fault – Many more funny excerpts below:

The workplace has become a psychological battlefield and the millennials have the upper hand, because they are tech savvy, with every gadget imaginable almost becoming an extension of their bodies. They multitask, talk, walk, listen and type, and text. And their priorities are simple: they come first. . . .

“Some of them are the greatest generation. They’re more hardworking. They have these tools to get things done,” she explains. “They are enormously clever and resourceful. Some of the others are absolutely incorrigible. It’s their way or the highway. The rest of us are old, redundant, should be retired. How dare we come in, anyone over 30. Not only can’t be trusted, can’t be counted upon to be, sort of, coherent.” Salzman says today’s manager must be half shrink and half diplomat. . . .

“You do have to speak to them a little bit like a therapist on television might speak to a patient,” Salzman says, laughing. “You can’t be harsh. You cannot tell them you’re disappointed in them. You can’t really ask them to live and breathe the company. Because they’re living and breathing themselves and that keeps them very busy.”

. . . Basic training, like how to eat with a knife and fork, or indeed how to work. Today, fewer and fewer middle class kids hold summer jobs because mowing lawns does not get you into Harvard. “They have climbed Mount Everest. They’ve been down to Machu Picchu to help excavate it. But they’ve never punched a time clock. They have no idea what it’s like to actually be in an office at nine o’clock, with people handing them work. And oh, by the way, possibly asking them to stay late in the evening, or their weekends,” Crane says.

. . . “We’re not going to settle . . . And we have options. That we can keep hopping jobs. No longer is it bad to have four jobs on your resume in a year. . . And we’re going to keep adapting and switching and trying new things until we figure out what it is.”

And figuring it out takes time. Sociologists tell us most Americans believe adulthood begins at 26 or older and that having witnessed so many sacrifices by their parents to achieve middle class security has had a huge impact. Family and friends are the new priorities, while blind careerism is beginning to fade.

. . .”Where does this fantasy about ‘I’m going to find the dream job’ . . . “I think we were told when we were little, ‘You can be anything you want.’ And then they went on and on . . . “Big lie, right?” Safer asks. “Big goals are great. Selling a fantasy that everything’s going to be perfect and peachy is not,” Dorsey says.

. . . the expectation that they will automatically win, and they’ll always be rewarded, even for just showing up . . .

Who’s at fault? Mister Rogers. He was telling his preschoolers, ‘You’re special. You’re special.’ And he meant well. But we, as parents, ran with it. And we said, ‘You, Junior, are special, and you’re special and you’re special and you’re special.’ And for doing what? We didn’t really explain that,” Zaslow says.

. . . they actually think of themselves like merchandise on eBay. ‘If you don’t want me, Mr. Employer, I’ll go sell myself down the street. I’ll probably get more money. I’ll definitely get a better experience. And by the way, they’ll adore me. You only like me,’” Salzman says.

. . . the “guru of thank you,” believes that the teeniest rewards pay big dividends, regardless of age. And boss-abuse gets even bigger dividends.

. . . there is an almost evangelical fervor about this work philosophy — no stick, all carrots. And believe it or not, all this prodding, praising, peddling, cajoling and psychobabble is worth $50 billion a year in business. Ain’t America great?. . .

Where else you find free back rubs for the deserving worker bee. What’s wrong with a happy workplace and taking your time to grow up?. . .

For all the complaining, Dorsey and Healy believe their generation will transform the office into a much more efficient, flexible and yes, nicer place to be. But until then, a message to bosses everywhere: just don’t forget the praise.

“We want to hear it and truly we’d love for our parents to know. There’s nothing better than Mom getting that letter saying, ‘You know, Ryan did a great job. Yeah, I just wanted to let you know you raised a fantastic son,’” Dorsey says. “Send it to grandma, too,” Healy adds, laughing.

I’m not a “millennial,” but just about everyone I know is all for positive encouragement and . . .

Read the whole article about the “Millennials”

In Todays Washington Post - naptime:

Some new studies make dramatic claims for it. Taken in the workplace, naps can increase productivity and reduce “general crabbiness,” according to a just-concluded 25-year survey of the practice in industrial countries. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel showed daytime nappers doing better at retaining a newly mastered skill — bringing a thumb and forefinger together in a certain sequence — than a control group whose members slept only at night.

Experiments conducted by Matthew A. Tucker of Harvard Medical School suggest that a 45-minute nap can enhance the ability to perform tasks relying upon memory. And Dimitrios Trichopoulos, also at Harvard, has found that among a sample of 23,000 adult Greeks, habitual nappers were 30 percent less likely to die of heart disease.

There is even anecdotal evidence that napping can enhance creativity, including a charming confession made by Salvador Dali. To prime the pump for his surrealist paintings (the melting watch, the human leg with a built-in chest of drawers, etc.), the Catalan-born artist used to take — and abort — a nap after lunch. He would sit down with his arms extending beyond the chair’s arms. In one hand he would grasp a key between thumb and forefinger. After he fell asleep, his fingers would relax, the key would fall to the floor, the clatter would wake him up, and he would harvest the wild associations common to the first few minutes of sleep.

I’m a believer. A ten minute power nap can put me into a refreshing “time warp.”

In a post last week, I highlighted some practical ways to begin addressing ethnocentrism that we have worked on together here. Here are some personal and organizational questions to help us get started. (I/we)

[Maybe some of these work for denominational and theological fights too.]

Self-Analysis

• Am I being honest about how I feel and my own biases? Have I admitted and confessed them?
• Am I willing to truly repent and make concrete changes in behavior and thinking?
• Am I pretending to be neutral or that I don’t have any problems? (We all have them)
• What are my own prejudices?
• Who are my friends? Who do I usually talk to?
• How do I talk about other groups?
• Do I use stereotypes or code words?
• How do I respond when my friends talk about other groups?
• What do my children learn from me?
• Does my lifestyle promote justice?
• Am I proactively breaking down barriers?

Organizational Analysis

• Is there diversity in leadership? In hiring?
• Do our structures encourage diversity?
• Are other ethnic identities encouraged and affirmed?
• How are funds and resources distributed?
• Is ethnic and economic justice taught?
• Are we modeling the family of God?

In relationship to churches, Mark DeYmaz gives Seven Core Commitments of a Multi-ethnic Church: (Mosaix Global Network)

1. Embrace dependence: determine to trust God to provide financially and spiritually.
2. Take intentional steps: make changes to attract people outside the majority demographic.
3. Empower diverse leadership: multi-ethnic churches require multi-ethnic staff.
4. Develop cross-cultural relationships: work through awkwardness to develop true friendships.
5. Pursue cross-cultural competence: learn to be sensitive to cultural differences.
6. Promote a spirit of inclusion: commit to being comfortable being uncomfortable.
7. Mobilize for impact: take steps to minister to the greater community and make disciples.

Thanks: Brandon O’Brien Leadership Off the Agenda – [Accessed 22 April 2008]