Ecclesial longings

Steve McSwan, wants to let us in on an amazing secret: you can know God.  The problem is it shouldn’t be much of a secret and many who think they know how (including the author at one point in his life even as a Baptist pastor) and can know God don’t know what Enoch knew.  Enoch is that character [...]

Milton Brasher-Cunningham’s book Keeping the Feast: Metaphors for the Meal is a feast packed into a small book.  It is a book to savor, and to return to again and again.  A mixture of prose, poems, and recipes creates a delightful read, and a sense of sitting around Milton’s table or sitting with him in his kitchen [...]

I begin this review with a confession. I’ve never read The Shack.  I remember when it rose in popularity, but I didn’t read it.  I didn’t read it because, I must confess, I have a deep bias against popular spirituality and the books and the book industry around said spirituality.  The Shack Revisited: There Is [...]

I’ve gathered From my Twitter feed the role of beauty and cathedrals was addressed at Emergence Christianity – A National Convention( #EC13 #BigTickle) .  This Luther quote was thrown out there as an answer to the problem (though it is only a problem for a certain mindset admittedly dominant among Protestants):  ”The people need beauty as well [...]

Things are dovetailing in my mind today.  I have started reading Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, with two others, one a friend and one a new acquaintance.  We are taking our time so we are now through his discussion of proclamation and its relation to the Word of God and to dogmatics. As we discussed this portion [...]

This past Sunday our closing hymn at Reconciler’s service, was “Your Kingdom Come, O Father”, the final verse reads “The desert, as you promised,  Shall blossom far and near; and through earth’s mist and shadows the sun ‘mild rays appear.  For that blest day we wait, Lord, when doubt and darkness gone, we witness earth’s redemption , and summer morn shall dawn.”  That [...]

Recently the Christian Century interviewed David Holinger, about his work in American intellectual history specifically his thoughts on “Ecumenical Protestants”.  “Ecumenical Protestant” is his prefered term from what is sometimes called, the Mainline, liberal, or Modernist.  Thanks to the Anglobaptist I was part of a Facebook conversation around the meaning of Holinger’s account of the success of [...]

Kate Setzer Kamphausen’s  fashion Show “The Circus is Eternal” Friday night (March 2) at Nocturna was a great time.  Kate’s garments looked amazing on each of the models (who weren’t professional models, but various people for the goth scene).   The preparation was a little halting as neither Kate nor I had produced a fashion show before.  Things [...]

Part 1 is found here Do praise bands have to be loud and the center of a worship service?  If the band simply, with no frills, leads singing in a congregation does it cease to be a praise band? I am puzzled that  James Smith’s  critique (“encouragement to think about the what of worship”) was taken as [...]

Over at Fors Clavigera, James K. A. Smith‘s “Open Letter to Praise Bands” has caused a bit of a stir I think.  At least it has among the group of  Evangelical Covenant worship leader, worship pastors, and pastors (who like me plan worship each Sunday).   The stir relates to another conversation that has been [...]

This sermon was preached at Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler’s service for Ecumenical Sunday in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  It is a sermon about the church. Jonah 3:1-5, 10 • Psalm 62:5-12 • 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 • Mark 1:14-20 There is a tone of urgency in all the Scriptures we have just [...]

Most of the articles in Catpult Magazine Church isssue, VOL. 10, NUM. 21 :: 2011.11.25 — 2011.12.08, looked at church from the perspective of those who have journeyed and wandered through the American Protestant world.  With the exception of Kirstin’s Editorial and Eric Kuiper’s article, each article came at church from perspective journeyed through various [...]

In The Ear of the Other, Derrida begins with the passage from Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra where Zarathustra tells of meeting a man who was all ear, attached to a tiny stalk of a human, who was said to be a genius.  This parable of Nietzsche’s and Derrida’s treatment of it came to mind as I read [...]

The most recent  issue of Catapult Magazine explores  Church, through 5 articles and Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma’s editorial.  The articles look at the struggles of church from perspectives of both clergy and the laity.  Since a main purpose of Priestly Goth is the exploration of ecclesiology and the nature and reality of church, I wish to [...]

The Feast of all Saints is the Anglobaptist’s  anniversary of his ordination.  This All Saints He reflected on that day and the sermon preached at his ordination.  I was there and heard Trevor Bechtel preach. At the time we were still in the last stages of starting Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler, a month after his [...]

What is being explored here in Ecclesial Longings? What is the ecclesia, the church?  In part this whole project is seeking an answer to that question.   As I have said elsewhere in part this question is raised by two competing claims to be the Church, by the church centered in Rome and the churches [...]

Came accross the vedeo bellow from Carl Medearis  the other day thanks to Mike Morrell(I hadn’t heard of him before, and except for this video I’m completely unfamiliar with his theology, Mike I think said he’s an “evangelical”). I find the video fascinating for two reason: 1) That he conceives of an ability to follow Jesus without [...]

From an Evangelical Covenant perspective, as I understand it, defining the Church as a fellowship of believers  stems from our experience of the Pietist revivals in the Lutheran State Church of Sweden.  Before the Pietist revivals the experience was  that Lutheran Church was coextensive withe the people of the Nation State of Sweden.  Every Swede simply was baptized as [...]

It has been a little over a week since,Thanks to Emerging Pensees, I came across this guest post by “Brandon Morgan”*, over at  Roger E. Olson’s blog.  Tony Jones had his reply, and then reflects on the labels evangelical liberal and progressive. And Austin Roberts at Imago*futura calls it  an identity crisis, and then gives an  account [...]

Recently when the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC)  has  denominational gatherings we have been using as themes phrases from our doctrinal commitments we call “Affirmations.”  The affirmation taken as the theme around the Annual Meeting was  ”the Church as fellowship of believers.”  This is basically it for our ecclesiological affirmations.   I have felt since seminary [...]

(Edited on 7/6/2011-LEK) The impetus for revamping my web presence through Priestly Goth, was realizing that I wanted to blog about my thinking and my questions about the Una Sancta, the Church.  I see Ecclesial Longings as  a space where I can expand upon questions I was asking in seminary in two papers: one exploring the effect [...]