Wandering Elder

Does Church size matter?   Of course it does.   It becomes the way in which we define ourselves, and it is – for good of for ill – the way in which we measure successful ministry.   Whether or not church size should matter is a different question. As a sign I once saw read, “Not everything that matters can be counted, and not everything that can be counted matters.” The issue has to do with quantity and quantification.   Size is the demonstration of the success or failure of a particular church or church program.   Think about it this way:   when someone asks a pastor, “How did church go today?” the initial answer usually has something to do with attendance.   “Well, we had about [x number] at the second service.”   Then the pastor will usually make some kind of qualifying remark.   “That was up from last year,” or “It was raining pretty bad this morning, so some people didn’t get out.”   Both statements are designed to defle...

As the gopher wood bandwagon is being built for the movie “Noah,” I thought I might take a few minutes to offer a few observations about this mostly well-known story from the book of Genesis.   The first observation is that the character of Noah has more lines in the movie trailer than he does in the actual Biblical text.     Not that that’s a problem, but it is something to keep in mind.   Of course, Noah in the movie “The Bible” (1966 – and played by John Huston) also had a few more lines, though not as many as are likely in the upcoming movie version.   And there was the John Voigt “Noah’s Ark” movie in 1999 that had Noah’s Ark come under attack by pirates .     Anyway… Whenever a Biblical story gets adapted into a movie (for good or for ill), inevitably it will garner some discussion from church-goers.   Usually the discussion centers around authenticity, but sometimes it pushes us to deeper theological questions.   Mel Gibs...

"Oh no.  It just got worse." These were my thoughts as I sat waiting for my car to be "checked out."  I was sitting in the "waiting room" with the television going in one corner and a loud young woman on a cell phone in another.  There were two other people in the room as well - I will get to them in a minute.  Then in walked a woman and a young child.  The child was carrying some kind of portable DVD player with a program blaring away.  Of course, the child was paying little attention to the DVD and went straight to banging away at the Lego table.  And I do mean banging away. While I do love music, movies, and sound, I find myself often inundated with noise .  From the young child to the television, there was noise .  But there was also a different kind of noise in the room that was a strange and awkward silence from the other two individuals in the room who were refusing eye contact with anyone else. Drone, drone, drone.  Even t...

Some weeks back, when I wrote the first post, I mentioned the fact that we are, in the end, all we have.   There is a reverence and sanctity to life, even if you do not profess a particular religious belief.   Human life is, so far as we know at this point in our existence, a unique event.   It may be that there is more life out there, but even so, our chances of finding it are small – especially given our propensity and seeming desire to kill ourselves here on this planet. Should it never be found, though, we must come to terms with the fragility and wonder that is life.   Our planet, our resources, our relationships are all we have.   As Silver Surfer asked of the human race in the animated series, “Could it be that they have no means to leave this planet?”   Our isolation means we have to be dependent upon one another.   And it also means that life is to be venerated.      The musician Sting wrote a song entitled “Fragile”. ...

I recently watched the first episode of the program "How the Universe Works."  I found it to be moderately okay.  The Nova series "The Fabric of the Cosmos" is far more instructive, in my opinion. But, if you do watch the first episode of "How the Universe Works" which is focused on the Big Bang Theory (not the television show, either), you will probably come to deal with two facts. 1.  The people who designed the show only had one graphic to demonstrate the concept of the initial explosion of the universe.  You will see the same big blue explosion over and over and over and over and over.  It gets so bad that you forget to listen to the narration because you are too busy thinking, "Don't they have any other video effects to use?" 2.  You might have a slight sense of disquiet resting with you by the end of the program. It is the second aspect that I would address. Even if you haven't seen the show, the theory of the Big Bang seems ...

I would like to take a departure from my usual writings. ...come to think of it, I don't know that I have "usual" at this point in my blog. Anyway, I wanted to do a music review. It has to do with the most recent entry from the band Yes (remember them from the 80's?), entitled Fly From Here .  Though it came out in 2011, I thought I might offer something of a retro-review. If you have kept up with their career over the years, you will be aware of the fact that the roster for this band is huge.  With the exception of Chris Squire, the bass player, there is no one who has appeared on every album, and that catalogue is extensive, going back to their first record, simply entitled Yes in 1969.  In 1980, the longtime front man, Jon Anderson, left the band.  Pushing forward, the remaining members added to their mix Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes.  The album the created, Drama was one of those that I found quite enjoyable musically.  Squire's bass playing e...

A friend of mine and I were speaking in general terms about the authority of the pastor within the context of the local church.  As I wrote in my post a few weeks ago, sometimes the authority of the church subverts itself, as in the case of stigmatics, by proclaiming them to be persons with a special revelation, but then have to backpedal when or if that revelation runs counter to the accepted and orthodox traditions. On the other hand, as my friend and I were saying, the Protestant church itself is struggling with the issue of pastoral authority.  Not because we have stigmatics running around proclaiming against us, but because we have congregations in which the pastor is not viewed as the theological authority.  Let me explain how that happens. In many cases, the authority of the pastor is only granted so long as the pastor preaches or teaches that which is already accepted as 'true.'  In other words, the pastor has authority if what they say matches with wh...