Kruse Kronicle

Dell gives the go-ahead for Linux

BBC: Dell gives the go-ahead for Linux

Computer giant Dell will start to sell PCs preinstalled with open source Linux operating systems, the firm has said.

The second largest computer maker in the world said it had chosen to offer Linux in response to customer demand.

Earlier this year, 100,000 people took part in a Dell survey. More than 70% of respondents said they would use Linux.

Dell has not released details of which versions of Linux it will use or which computers it will run on, but promised an update in the coming weeks.

"Dell has heard you," said a statement on the firm's website. "Our first step in this effort is offering Linux preinstalled on select desktop and notebook systems."

Currently the company only offers Microsoft Windows on its computers, but sells servers running Linux. ...

Nate, this one is especially for you! :)

The Other Six Days: C8 - The Church and Mission

The Other Six Days

Part Three - For the Life of the World: Chapter 8 -  Mission - A People Sent by God

The Church and Mission

The threefold nature of what Stevens calls the “Human Vocation” includes communion, community-building, and co-creativity. This vocation was corrupted by human rebellion but God promises to restore all three aspects. Our Christian vocation is to be actively participating in the realization of the promise God has given. Here is a chart Stevens uses to summarize this (199):

FULLFILLING THE HUMAN VOCATION
The Human Vocation	The Promise	The Christian Vocation
Communion	The presence of God	Belonging to God
Community-building	The people	Being God’s people
Co-creativity	The land	Doing God’s work

In The Mission of God Christopher Wright uses a simple diagram involving two triangles of differing sizes. He labels each point of the larger triangle like this:

Top = God
Bottom Left = Humanity
Bottom Right = Earth

The smaller triangle is inside the larger triangle and touches it at the top point labeled “God.” It is labeled like this:

Top = God
Bottom Left = Israel
Bottom Right = Land

The idea is that God is expanding the smaller triangle to encompass the entire larger triangle. “Israel” comes to include all of humanity. “The land” comes to include all the earth. A central means for accomplishing this is the Church being sent into the world by the triune God. Jesus said “as the Father has sent me I am sending you.” We go into the world and live out the Christian vocation as described above.

Stevens describes the scope of God’s mission as:

• First, God’s mission includes the individual person calling for the conversion of heart and mind on the basis of the good news announced and embodied in Jesus Christ.
• Second, God’s mission is directed to the whole of society, to structures of common life, bringing righteousness, justice, the empowerment of the poor and the liberation of the oppressed.
• Third, God’s mission is directed to thought-forms and cultures that shape the way people think and act.
• Fourth, God’s mission is concerned with the whole of creation, to conservation, sustainable development and the renewal of the earth. (202)

We noted yesterday that “Mission is what God is doing in the world through the church, and even without the church, to bring his creation to its consummation: unity and fullness [in] Jesus Christ.” Here is one of Steven’s more radical observations about mission in the world.

The church’s mission then is to find out what God is doing in the world, celebrate it and embrace his mission. The church has the character of an ‘intermezzo’ between God and the world, and is an illustration (in word and deed) of God’s involvement in the world. (205)

God communicates to the Church AND to the world. The Church is to be God’s image at work in the world but God is at work in the world apart from the Church. Part of what the church does is help the world see what God is doing already in the world.

The church’s mission is not to ‘bring in’ the church, or even to extend it. The Church’s mission is to ‘bring in’ the Kingdom. In this way the people of God participates in, embodies and serves what God is accomplishing by creation, salvation, sanctification and consummation. But the church does not circumscribe God’s work. The church is God’s primary agency in fulfilling his sending. But it also recognizes and welcomes the irruption of the Kingdom of God everywhere. (206)

Stevens wraps up this section observing that “The church does not have a mission; it is mission.” He laments the fact that the church is still largely divided between the clergy (missionary specialist) and laity (supporter of missions). The reality is that the ordinary believer becomes a “missionary” at baptism.

On Monday we will finish Chapter 8, looking briefly at equipping for mission. Before we go there, what do you think about how Stevens has framed mission? I have doubt his take will be controversial for many.

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China's great game in Asia

The Economist: China's great game in Asia

Why are there so few takers outside China for its self-proclaimed doctrine of “peaceful rise”?

LIKE the emergence of Germany in the 19th century and of America in the 20th, China's rapid rise to superpower status generates as much fear as admiration. The fears are most acute in its own neighbourhood. Yet from an historical perspective, one of the more remarkable developments of recent years may be China's submission to the tiny threads of international constraint, especially in its own region. It belongs to the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum, whose members span the Pacific. The East Asia Summit and the regional forum of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) tie it closer to its Asian neighbours. The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation links it with Russia and Central Asia.

More than this, it has shown active good-neighbourliness. A generation ago, China disputed most of its borders. Almost all have been settled, with the notable exceptions of those with Japan at sea and India in the Himalayas. Even in the case of the huge claims China and India have on each other's territory, China has acquiesced in seemingly never-ending talks allowing relations to improve in other areas. It no longer routinely provokes its southern neighbours by flexing naval muscles around the sand-and-coral specks in the South China Sea where six countries' claims overlap. It has begun to “consult”, after a fashion, the lower riparian states affected when it dams its rivers, such as the Mekong and the Salween. ...

Troubling March Madness byproduct: a boom in 'bracketology'

Christian Science Monitor: Troubling March Madness byproduct: a boom in 'bracketology'

The mix of math, basketball stats, and guts is raising concerns among addiction counselors, sociologists, and the NCAA itself.

ATLANTA - It started with a $5 pool as the Midwestern high schooler filled out a bracket of teams he predicted would climb to the Valhalla of college basketball: the Final Four.

His run ended before he graduated from college last May, when he had to pay the mafia $25,000 to lay off his family and himself. What happened? Given the prospect of easy money, his own smarts, and plenty of time to watch sports on TV, he'd become the dorm bookmaker, carrying $100,000 a month in bets, encroaching on established local rackets.

It's an extreme tale, but a cautionary one as the growing mania around "bracketology" – the mix of math, stats, and guts used to bet on which teams make it to the championship round – is raising concern among addiction counselors, sociologists, and the NCAA itself.

At the same time, bracketology has moved out of sports bars and cubicle mazes and into university math labs. There, Pythagorean theorems are leveraged against Joakim Noah's stats and the dynastic influence of Patrick Ewing Jr. on the Georgetown squad to draw math-wary students into problems that matter to them.

"[Bracketology] cuts as deep sociologically as anything I can come up with," says Tim Otteman, a researcher at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, a perch from where he gathered the real-life story about the college bookie who ran afoul of the mob. "It's almost a runaway train that can't be stopped." ...

The Other Six Days: C8 - God's Sending Mission

The Other Six Days

Part Three - For the Life of the World: Chapter 8 -  Mission - A People Sent by God

God's Sending Mission

“Mission is what God is doing in the world through the church, and even without the church, to bring his creation to its consummation: unity and fullness [in] Jesus Christ. (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:15-20)” (193)

“Mission is thereby seen as a movement from God to the world in respect to creation, care, redemption and consummation. It is all that he is doing in his ‘sentness’ in the world. Not only does the Father send the Son, and the Father and Son send the Spirit, but the Father, Son and Spirit send the church into the world. Mission is the sending of God from first to last.” (194)

“So God is not only the One sent but is the content of the sending ‘for in every Person of the deity God works in His entirety.’… He is Sender, Sent, and Sending.”  (194)

These concepts lay the groundwork for Stevens understanding of the many aspects of God’s sending mission. There is the sending of Adam and Eve into the world to full the earth and bless it. There is the sending of Abraham through whom all the nations of the world will be blessed. There is the sending of Jesus into the world to be God incarnate and bring all earthly powers under his Lordship. There is the sending of the Spirit by the Father and the Son to be the true impulse for mission, sending the church into the world. Even as the Son is sent, so does he send the apostles into the world to establish his Church. Quoting G. F. Vicedom, Stevens writes:

‘The apostles have the duty and assignment to establish the church and thereby they become the foundation of the building upon which all other work was to be based (1 Cor. 3:9ff.) …This gives their work and proclamation the character of revelation. Such a claim cannot be made by the bishops.’ Elders and bishops are watchmen, not the foundation of the house. (196)

Then there is the sending of the church by the triune God.

Stevens sums up his thoughts on the mission of God this way:

To sum up, theologically mission is not a human activity undertaken out obligation to the great commission, or even simple gratitude. It is God’s own mission in which we have been included. It is what God is doing to bless all the nations through the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Sprit. Mission work itself is not motivated by the need of the world but by the sending God who calls and empowers. It is for this mission and in this mission that the whole people of God gains an apostolic (sent-out) status. Together the laos of God is the creation of God’s sending and the means of his further sending. (197-198)

Next we will take a look at sending in the OT and NT, and we will examine what it means to be God’s sent people, but I will stop with this much. There is a real richness here that is worth reflecting on. Mission is about so much more than personal piety, observance of rituals, or political action. It is about being sent into the world by God and imaging the content of what is being sent by God, both individually and corporately. Powerful stuff!

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Christianity’s growth is reshaping China

Presbyterian News Service: Christianity’s growth is reshaping China

LONDON — Increasing interest in Christianity among Chinese intellectuals is transforming the country’s religious landscape, says Edmond Tang, an academic and consultant on China for British and Irish churches.   

“Today it is an open secret that Christian fellowships, a new kind of ‘house church,’ run by Chinese professors and students, are active in most Chinese universities,” said Tang in comments marking the relaunch of the China Study Journal, a publication analyzing religious policy in China.   

More than 30 academic faculties and research centers in China are now dedicated to the study of a “once maligned religion,” whereas a few years ago there were only three, Tang noted at a March 26 media conference in London. He said he was optimistic about the
prospects for faith in China. 
 
Chinese government figures put the number of Protestants at 16 million and Roman Catholics at five million, although it is likely that there are actually three times that number of Christians, said Tang, who heads the Center for East Asian Christianity at the University of Birmingham. ...

Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn

NASA: Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn

Pasadena, Calif. -- An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission. [Click on photo to see it in motion.]

NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged the feature over two decades ago. The fact that it has appeared in Cassini images indicates that it is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures. The spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image. ...

I'll have to admit, a hexagon on Saturn is pretty cool. However, I am waiting for them to go to the moon and find this:

(Update: Okay. Some of you have a serious deficit in your SciFi cultural education and don't get the second picture. It is the monolith from Space Odyssey 2001 that indicates a higher intelligent life form is behind our human existence. My, my. What are they teaching in schools these days?)

The Other Six Days: C7 - King

The Other Six Days

Part Three - For the Life of the World: Chapter 7 -  King

The third of the three offices fulfilled by Christ and exercised through his body the Church is the office of king.

The idea of being a royal priesthood comes from the Old Testament:

Ex 19:5-6

5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." NIV

Here we have the idea of “treasured possession,” which is very close to the idea in the New Testament of kleros (clergy); God’s portion or inheritance. The idea is repeated by Peter in the New Testament:

1 Peter 2:9

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. NIV

Again we have the notion of special people, the whole people of God, set apart to be a “royal priesthood” or “kingdom of priests.”

We also look to Hebrews:

Heb 5:7-10

8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. NIV

Melchizedek was the priest-king that Abraham encountered in Genesis 14. Christ is the priest-king with whom we are joined as his body.

The Kingdom of God is not a realm or territory. It is the rule of God as King. It is in the hearts and minds of those who have become a part of God’s New Creation. The church is not the Kingdom of God but represents the King of all creation to creation. I love the way Stevens distinguishes that it is not the purpose of the church to ‘bring in’ the church but rather to ‘bring in’ the Kingdom of God.

The first and most significant place we exercise our kingly authority is over our own passions and desires, to live in accord with the rule of God. Kings think ahead and try to discern what is best for there domain. They use their power to bring about that which is good for their domain. We do this in even the most mundane duties of life, bringing the values and concerns of God to bear on the work we do in the world.

To summarize the three offices at the end of the chapter, Stevens writes:

What do prophets do? Their work is discerning, communicating, exposing, seeing that justice is done, revealing outcomes – the very thing God’s people can do in corporations and homes. What do priests do? Their work is bridge building, mediating, expressing meaning, evoking faith, blessing, bringing grace – again what the whole of God’s people is able to do in the world. What do kings do? King work is ruling, organizing, planning, providing, nurturing, integrating, settling arguments, solving problems, co-ordinating, expediting, consummating – again ways that God’s people serve in so-called secular occupations, in church and in the home. (189)

I really like this chapter. I like the idea of Christ living out his threefold offices through his body the church. When I see service to God in this threefold way it becomes clear that everything we do can truly be ministry.

How about you? Does seeing ministry in this way have any particular meaning for you?

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Gutenberg offers 'In Your Home' Support

I found this surfing Neil Craigan's site today. This is just too funny. Just goes to show you that the more technology changes the more the problems stay the same.

Gonna Fly Now

I started running again a few weeks ago. Mostly I need to shed some pounds and get in better shape. I am up to 2 miles, five days a week. However, today was one of those days where I really had to push myself. Even my ipod shuffle of songs was not getting it done. At about 1.75 miles I was thinking "Maybe I should just walk it home." At just that moment, my ipod started playing "Gonna Fly Now" from the soundtrack of the original Rocky movie; the song playing when Rocky ascends the steps in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum and jogs in place, arms triumphantly raised in the air.

Suddenly I had my second wind. I raced through the last quarter mile to the block my house is on. I ascended the neighbors steps to their front door two at a time. I pranced there on their porch with arms raised in celebration. I only came to my senses as the cops were handcuffing me for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Okay. So maybe I'm embellishing a little. But ain't it something what a song can do at a strategic moment.

Multitasking Will Make Your Brain Explode

Yahoo! Tech: Multitasking Will Make Your Brain Explode

I live for multitasking. I would get nothing done without it. I watch TV while I'm writing, read a story in another window, keep a magazine propped to one side, and answer emails/the phone/the doorbell on the side. And according to a new study this is all going to lead to my ruin.

The New York Times reports on a new study that basically says multitasking actually makes you less efficient than if you concentrated on one thing at a time. I'm not entirely sure that's what it says, though. I was talking on the phone while reading the article. (Kidding!) ...

The Other Six Days: C7 - Priest

The Other Six Days

Part Three - For the Life of the World: Chapter 7 -  Priest

There are three senses in which we carry out priestly acts as the priesthood of believers.

“First there is the priestly ministry of access to God through worship and intercession.” Because we all have direct access to the Father, we can confess our sins to each other and receive absolution. We can intercede with God on behalf of fellow Christians and on behalf of the world. We can bless God with worship and we can bless the world with the presence of God.

“Second there is priestly ministry through service in the world.” We can help the helpless and include the outsider. We can ask strategic questions about problems that face the world and work for solutions. We can call people to a better vision for the world.

“Third there is priestly ministry of daily life.” Romans 12:1-2 talks about offering ourselves as a daily sacrifice. Everyday acts of work and service are sacred acts when done out of reverence for God and in response to God’s call. “Ordinary life is infused with God’s presence and can be given back to God as ‘spiritual worship’ (Rom. 12:1)”

Stevens emphasizes that our “priestliness” (my word) derives from our connection to the high priesthood of Jesus and we all participate in that priestly ministry; not just a few as representatives in some vicarious way. As you can gather from the three paragraphs above he also emphasizes that we fulfill our priestly function both in the gathered community life of the church and in the dispersed life of the community.

All this said, Stevens is concerned about an overly individualistic view of priesthood:

Not so obvious is how Protestants have lost the corporate priesthood completely in the granular individualism that has paralyzed Western culture, so making each individual Christian his or her own priest, a do-it-yourself priesthood. In comes Protestant churches the priesthood of all believers has degenerated into one vote per person as a way of finding God’s will for a congregation, or allowing every male (!) to have a turn in the pulpit. (176)

Stevens believes there needs to be a balance between “extreme individualism” and “oppressive coporateness” in how we conceive of this priestly function. We are individually priests but we are also corporately priest to the world, incarnating the priestly work of Christ in the world.

I really like what Stevens has to say about this balance. Too often the priesthood of all believers is used as a rationale for Christian individualism instead of seeing it as an extension of Christ’s work and the community we are gathered with.

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Kiva in the New York Times

New York Times: Web-Based Microfinancing

The idea of microfinancing — small-scale loans to the entrepreneurial-minded poor — reached the front page this fall when the Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize. But now the San Francisco-based nonprofit Kiva.org may have taken the idea a step further: with just a few clicks of the mouse, most everyone can become a microfinancier. At Kiva.org, a schoolteacher in Kansas can partner with an expert seamstress in countries like Kenya, Mexico and Ecuador to jump-start a tailor shop....

When I was in Grad School at Eastern Univ. twenty years ago, two of my classmates (Brian and Joan Lennon ) had a vision for doing essentially what Kiva does (linking individuals to developing world microenterprises) but that was pre-internet. The logistics proved to be too impractical. I was always captivated by this vision. I began looking around early last year to see if anyone had pursued this idea. Then I found Kiva which had emerged four months earlier.

Recently, surfing Jessica Flannery’s site (Kiva co-founder with her husband Matt), I found this comment:

“I basically talked to anybody that would give me the time of day over the next year, and found a wonderful mentor and friend and encourager in Brian Lennon, the head of Village Enterprise Fund.”

Small world.

Kiva does well, with help from friends

InsideBayArea.com: Kiva does well, with help from friends

IF YOU HAVEN'T yet heard of Kiva.org, a San Francisco nonprofit that at just 18 months old is already the leading online microcredit site, you're about to. Its friends in Silicon Valley will make sure of that.

Here's how Kiva — which means "unity" in Swahili — works: Lenders visit Kiva's Web site to find entrepreneurs from developing countries looking for a small loan. Kiva posts the entrepreneurs' funding needs and pictures online with the help of 38 local microfinance institutions around the world.

Anyone willing to lend as little as $25 — perhaps to Peter Muchiri, a furniture maker in Kenya who needs carpentry materials, or Roza Boguckaya of Tajikistan, who wants to expand her bakery — does so through the site, where they can also track the entrepreneur's progress as they repay their loans, typically over a one-year period.

To date, nearly 40,000 people have used Kiva to lend money to 5,000 borrowers in transactions totaling $3.3 million. No one has defaulted on their loan just yet, though 10 percent are falling behind on their payment schedules.

It's a remarkably simple system that highlights the power of online communities. Yet just as remarkable is how adeptly Kiva has harnessed the collectivepower of the Silicon Valley tech community. ...

"Calvin and Sewage" Richard Mouw

Mouw's Musings: Calvin and Sewage

I  have been putting the finishing touches on the Kuyper Lecture that I will be giving at Princeton Seminary this week. In the end, a good part of the editing process has meant cutting out some things in order to stay within the time limit for delivering the lecture. One of the sections I had to cut back on a bit had to do with offering examples of the ways in which Kuyper’s theology of culture has provided practical guidance to “ordinary” Christians in their daily pursuits of their callings. I have never, for example, come across anyone who has testified that Karl Barth’s theology was a real help to them in understanding how to serve the Lord in the insurance business, or in teaching English literature, or in selling cars. But I can offer dozens of examples of that kind of testimony with reference to Kuyper’s thought....

As much a I respect the witness of my anabaptist friends, Mouw highlights in this post the main reason why I am not an anabaptist.

The Other Six Days: C7 - Prophet

The Other Six Days

Part Three - For the Life of the World: Chapter 7 -  Prophet

The Church is prophet, priest and king to the world. Today we look at being prophetic.

Prophet

I wrote in the last post that:

Prophets told forth the future and told forth God’s purposes in specific contexts so as to bring people to repentance and faith. They kept the people’s past with God before the people and ministered hope about the future.

Just as there is a priesthood of believers, so is there a prophethood of believers. Pentecost was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:28) that all God’s people would begin to prophecy. We have God's Word to instruct us. Prophecy is not a personal attribute or innate ability – it is a gift of the Spirit and the empowering presence of God. Through the work of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in each believer’s life, there is no longer a need for “a prophet” to be God’s intermediary. Each member of the body of Christ is capable of prophetic utterances and witness. The role of leaders is to equip and educate individual believers in the Word so that they may be able to preach and equip others as well. Unfortunately, what we have is an inversion of the New Testament vision. Quoting missiologist Roland Allen, Stevens writes:

“It would be better to teach a few men to call upon the name of the Lord for themselves than to fill a church with people who have given up idolatry, slavishly and unintelligently, and have acquired a habit of thinking that it is the duty of converts to sit and be taught to hear prayers read for them in the church by a paid mission agent.” Who could have designed a system, as surely happened, by which people can hear two sermons a Sunday for the whole of their lives and not be able to open up the Bible to others publicly? (171)

Stevens suggests that an authentic prophethood of believers would have the following traits:

First, every believer is called and equipped by God to bear witness to the gospel and to bring God’s Word to the world. A person does not need the ‘gift’ of preaching to be a witness.

Second, the prophethood of all believers means that each Christian should be ready to bring God’s Word ‘in season’ (when prepared and expected) and ‘out of season’ (when the opportunity comes unexpectedly and inconveniently, 2 Tim. 4:2)

Finally, the primary equipment of believers for the ministry of prophecy is continuous inundation with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18) …The Holy Spirit is not given to the gifted, confident and ambitious but to the poverty stricken. (172)

Finally, Stevens says the Church is not just a collection of individual preacher/prophets. Corporately the Church lives out a prophetic function. By alleviation of suffering, promoting justice, and exhibiting godly stewardship, we speak forth God’s truth into the world as a corporate entity. While we each engage in prophetic work we are not prophets in the Old Testament sense of being individuals set apart from the rest of the body for a unique task. Our prophecy flows out our interconnectedness to Christ, the prophet, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

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The politics of pay

The Economist: The politics of pay

The rewards of America's company bosses face yet more scrutiny and attack.

NOW there is nowhere for the bosses of corporate America to hide their bulging pay packets. In spite of years of defensive lobbying, they are having to reveal all under new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules that have just begun to take effect. This burst of sunlight could not have come at a worse time for them. It coincides with a shift in the control of Congress to the Democrats and the start of the presidential election campaign, in which “overpaid” chief executives will make an easy target.

Although barely one-tenth of the 2,000 biggest American companies have yet reported under the new rules, the tally of negative headlines is already mounting. “There are already plenty of examples of firms reporting chief-executive pay packages of millions of dollars more than expected,” says Paul Hodgson of the Corporate Library, a research firm. He reckons that the firms that have already reported are a representative sample likely to provide a good indication of the overall trend. Top of the heap so far is Ken Lewis, boss of Bank of America, with total pay in 2006 valued at $114.4m.

.....

In a study of 100 firms that have reported, Mr Hodgson found that the perks given to chief executives, though relatively small, were much higher than those reported last year under the old, less exacting, disclosure rules. On average, the amounts reported in 2006 under the heading “other annual compensation” in 2006 were $192,000—131% higher than in the corresponding category in 2005. One reason for this jump was that the new rules require the disclosure of all perks worth $10,000 or more, whereas the old rules allowed firms to keep quiet about anything worth less than $50,000.

Not bound by anything

The Economist: Not bound by anything

Now that books are being digitised, how will people read?

IN SECRET locations and using secret methods, human beings are scanning lots and lots of books for Google, the world's largest web-search company. That humans are involved is beyond doubt (fingers are visible in the corners of many pages on books.google.com) although this is uncharacteristic of Google, which has a fetish for purist technology.

Google will not divulge exact numbers, but Daniel Clancy, the project's lead engineer, gives enough guidance for an educated guess: Google's contract with one university library, Berkeley's, stipulates that it must digitise 3,000 books a day. The minimum for the other 12 universities involved may be lower, but the rate for participating publishers is higher. So a conservative estimate has Google digitising at least 10m books a year. The total number of titles in existence is estimated to be about 65m.

Google's is not the only project of its kind. The Internet Archive, for instance, is a non-profit organisation founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle, a San Francisco idealist who wants to re-create a modern Library of Alexandria containing all public-domain texts and videos. Amazon has been scanning books, as have Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google's biggest rivals in web-search, and individual libraries around the world. Eager not to be left out, publishers are also doing the same. But Google's effort, in scale and ambition, is off the charts.

As books go digital, new questions, both philosophical and commercial, arise. How, physically, will people read books in future? Will technology “unbind” books, as it has unbundled other media, such as music albums? Will reading habits change as a result? What happens when books are interlinked? And what is a book anyway?....

Sports Highlights Reimagined

Sociology professor Beau Weston had a great post yesterday at his blog called Boys Play Sports to Win, Girls Play for Fun: Boys Date for Fun, Girls Date to Win.

This is an insight that comes from teaching the sociobiology of mate selection (through David Buss) and gender differences in communication (through Deborah Tannen) at the same time. Of course there are many individual exceptions. What is interesting to me is the symmetry of the broad trend. ….

When it comes to dating, boys tend to see each date as an end in itself, a fun thing to do with a girl you enjoy. They can play an endless series of dates without asking themselves "where is this relationship going?" They date for fun. Girls, and especially women, often ask themselves "could I marry this guy?" on the first date. They reassess, endlessly, with their girlfriends, at each subsequent step in the relationship. If they can't see the relationship ever leading to marriage, they are likely to end it and move on. They date to win.

Well today I was at Brad Wright’s site, another sociology professor, who had a link to some YouTube videos of failed marriage proposals. Man oh man! Some of these are brutal. It kind of reminds of a moment like…like…like when this happened to Bill Buckner ...

So then it occurred to me that if women are inclined to see dating as something you do to win, then wouldn’t video of the marriage proposal be like the home run in the bottom of the ninth, the half court shot with clock running out, or the hail Mary pass into the end zone? Staying with the football theme here…

Ohhh! Incomplete pass.

Fumble.

TOUCHDOWN!!! (Complete with victory lap.)

I don’t know. ESPN could take on a whole different look.

The Other Six Days: C7 - Three Roles, One Body

The Other Six Days

Part Three - For the Life of the World: Chapter 7 -  Prophets, Priests, and Kings

Today we begin the third and final part of the book. Part I dwelt on “A People Without ‘Laity and Clergy.’ Part II reflected on being “Summoned and Equipped by God.” In the last three chapters we will examine what it means to be the Church “For the Life of the World.” In case you haven’t noticed, the headings for each part can be linked together into a sentence that forms the basic thesis of Stevens’ book:

“A people without ‘Laity and Clergy,’ summoned and equipped by God for the life of the world.”

With chapter 7, we now turn more directly to the mission of the Church.

Three Roles, One Body.

As we examine the Old Testament we find three functions for which there was a divine anointing. Priest, Prophet and King:

• Priests – Maintained the sanctuary and sacrificial system, guarded and taught the scriptures, acted as judge in matters of ritual uncleanness, and discerned God’s will.
• Prophets - Told forth the future and told forth God’s purposes in specific contexts so as to bring people to repentance and faith. They kept the people’s past with God before the people and ministered hope about the future. They were the faith barometers, as Stevens puts it.
• Kings – Anointed representatives of God to bring order, justice and peace to the nation.

Through his life, death, and resurrection, Christ has taken all three of these roles unto himself. He is the threefold officeholder (munus triplex) of priest, prophet, and king. He exercises these offices through his body the church of which he is the life-giving, animating head. Within the Roman Catholic tradition there has been a tendency to see specific individuals called to a particular office like priest. Stevens makes the case that it is the body of Christ collectively that occupies these offices and not specific individuals. None of us alone are priests, prophets or kings, yet we offer priestly, prophetic and kingly service to the world.

We will briefly look at each office over the next three posts.

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God At Work

Fox News: God At Work by Lauren Green (HT: Presbyweb)

"Is God a concept for you, or a living reality?”

Not long ago, I heard this question posed by Dr. Tim Keller, during a sermon at the Redeemer Presbyterian Church, here in New York City. Now, that probing question is present whenever I cover religion stories.

Dr. Keller’s point is if God is a concept for you, then he’s more like a self-help book or a friend you ask to listen to your wonders and woes. But if God is a living reality, then that transforms you. It changes you and colors every aspect of your life.

Hence, my inspiration for this week’s blog — God At Work.

If you were watching last Sunday’s Studio B hour with Trace Gallagher, you may have caught the piece I did on a book called “God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement,” by David W. Miller. It’s a fascinating book and a fascinating subject. The book talks about a growing grassroots movement of regular folks that don’t want to separate their spiritual selves from their secular, everyday work selves. So, they might take part in a group Bible study or a Torah class … or take time out just to pray and reflect on how their job provides an opportunity for a deeper Faith. ...

Stand up for your rights

The Economist: Stand up for your rights

...Yet Amnesty no longer makes the splash it used to in the rich world (see article). This is not for want of speaking out. The organisation is as vocal as it ever was. But some years ago it decided to follow intellectual fashion and dilute a traditional focus on political rights by mixing in a new category of what people now call social and economic rights.

Rights being good things, you might suppose that the more of them you campaign for the better. Why not add pressing social and economic concerns to stuffy old political rights such as free speech, free elections and due process of law? What use is a vote if you are starving? Are not access to jobs, housing, health care and food basic rights too? No: few rights are truly universal, and letting them multiply weakens them.

Food, jobs and housing are certainly necessities. But no useful purpose is served by calling them “rights”. When a government locks someone up without a fair trial, the victim, perpetrator and remedy are pretty clear. This clarity seldom applies to social and economic “rights”. It is hard enough to determine whether such a right has been infringed, let alone who should provide a remedy, or how. Who should be educated in which subjects for how long at what cost in taxpayers' money is a political question best settled at the ballot box. So is how much to spend on what kind of health care. And no economic system known to man guarantees a proper job for everyone all the time: even the Soviet Union's much-boasted full employment was based on the principle “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”.

It is hardly an accident that the countries keenest to use the language of social and economic rights tend to be those that show least respect for rights of the traditional sort....

The Other Six Days: C6 - Call and Ordination

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 6 - Ministry - Transcending Clericalism

Call and Ordination

This final section of Chapter 6 teaches heresy ( at least it would be thought so in many Presbyterian circles *grin*). Stevens argues that there is no “secondary,” “special,” “inner” or “secret” call to “the ministry,” or ecclesial leadership. It is a heresy I happen to agree with.

Stevens quotes the Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx:

…that the modern situation in which a community might not be able t celebrate the eucharist because not priest is present is theologically inconceivable in the early church; the community chooses a president for itself and has hands laid on him so that they can also be a community that celebrates the eucharist … In that case the vitality of the community in terms of the gospel is the deciding factor, not the availability of a body of priestly manpower, crammed full of education in one place or another. (151)

At the transition to second millennium we begin to see the priesthood as something truly and essentially different from the laos of God.

Calvin and Luther struggled with these issues. Calvin posited that there was an “inner” or “secret” call. Always concerned with church order, Calvin was concerned to distinguish between legitimate ministers and those who had merely talked themselves into pursing ministry. However, Luther allowed that the call can come from the church. The community selects individuals to serve on behalf of others.

Stevens shows that the typical “call” to ministry in the New Testament was by one of the apostles calling someone into a position of leadership, or by the community selecting leaders from among themselves. Some ask “What about Paul’s road to Damascus experience?” We must remember that this was Paul’s conversion experience. Yes, he was called into ministry but we are all called to ministry at baptism. Paul was called directly by Christ to fulfill a certain role, as were the other apostles. But there is nothing that suggests that this is the normative way that church leadership happens.

Back in chapter 4, Stevens wrote about four types of call relating to our vocation: effectual, providential, charismatic and heart. For church leadership, Stevens suggests there is a fifth call: ecclesiastical call. While this does not preclude a special existential call, Stevens suggests that the normative call is the body of believers discerning the persons suitability for church leadership based on gifting and character. Stevens writes that:

By and large we have missed the main thrust of the New Testament and reverted to a pre-Christian view of clergy and laity: a general call to the people and a special call to a few. (155)

So what about ordination? (Hold on to your seats Presbyterians.)

Theologically and practically, commissioning to such leadership is important since, as we have seen, a Christian servant working in the church needs an ecclesial ‘call’. …But there is nothing in the Bible like a hierarchical patter of ordination, ordination for life, or ordination as a sacrament that conveys grace, ordination for life, or ordination as a sacrament that conveys grace, ordination that leaves an indelible mark on the ordained and gives the priest the exclusive right to celebrate the eucharist. There is also nothing like ordination as practiced by Protestants which gives exclusive right of the ordained, especially those of the Calvinist tradition, to preach the Word and minister the sacraments (Institutes, IV.3.8) (156-157)

In defense of Presbyterians (and it is a weak one), the relegation of the preaching and sacraments to a minister is not so much theological as practical. With a high value on order, it is believed that the proper preaching of the Word and administration of the sacraments well best ensure handled this way. In practice, I suspect a great many Presbyterians see the pastor as a special class of Christian distinct from the laos of God. The line is very murky between pastors as a special caste and pastors as one of the community.

Stevens suggests that the way forward requires us to ask four questions:

First, what is ministry? It is putting ourselves at the disposal of God for God’s purposes in the church and world. Ministry is from God, to God and of God.

Second, who are the ministers? The whole people of God as community is God’s true ministerium in both its gathered life (ekklesia) and dispersed life (diaspora).

Third, how is ministry undertaken? What form does it take? It is in both word and deed, both overtly and covertly, to persons and to organizations, both directly and indirectly.

Fourth, where is ministry undertaken? Service from God and for God takes place in both the church and the world. (157-158)

Stevens closes Chapter 6, the final chapter of Part II, with this quote from Thomas Gillespie, past president of Princeton Seminary (and fellow General Assembly Council member.)  Concerning what must happen for recovery of the ministry of the whole people of God, Gillespie writes:

It will be realized only if the ‘nonclergy’ are willing to move up, if the ‘clergy’ are willing to move over, and if all God’s people are willing to move out. For the ministry of the community is rendered first and foremost in the world and for the world. It is performed in the daily lives of its people, in their participation and involvement in the structures of a complex society, in their sacrificial obedience in ‘worldly affairs,’ in their mission to reclaim the world for the God who claims the world in love. (158)

Amen!

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Rapid Victories Against Extreme Poverty

Scientific American: Rapid Victories Against Extreme Poverty Jeffrey Sachs

Around one billion people live in extreme poverty, suffering from economic deprivation so severe that they must struggle daily for survival. Extreme poverty is sometimes defined as living on under $1 a day, but more accurately it is the lack of reliable access to basic needs, including adequate food, basic health services, safe drinking water and connectivity with the wider world (via roads, power and telecommunications).

Recent orthodoxy holds that extreme poverty results from corruption, mismanagement and weak institutions. A corollary is that institutional improvements take considerable time, so the escape from extreme poverty is likely to take decades. Without denying the benefit of stronger institutions, I suggest that excessive focus on institutional reforms has gotten the policy sequencing more wrong than right. Often, more direct aid can dramatically reduce extreme poverty in just a few years.

The proximate cause of extreme poverty is that the poor lack basic tools to achieve adequate productivity. "Tools" should be interpreted broadly to include not only machinery and software for production but also agricultural inputs, clinics, medicines, schools and safe water. Even in poor countries with weak institutions, aid from rich countries can help the poor gain access to the needed tools in a very short time. The result can be a dramatic surge of productivity that raises household incomes and initiates self-sustaining economic growth. ...

I sympathize with what Sachs writes here but I am not as optimistic as he is. An economy is more like a organism than a machine. You don't just plop in the right technology and infrastructure, and ....presto! ... a healthy growing economy emerges (although clearly adequate infrastructure and technology is a needed for economic growth.) I would invite Dr. Sachs to learn from a certain (I believe) well intentioned US president who believed you could enter a Middle Eastern country, remove oppressive obstacles, crank up some democratic institutions, drop in some technology and ... presto ... a prosperous democracy. He may still get there, but let us not forget the "software" of human values and habits that are essential to making all the technology and other aid working on a sustainable basis. Those don't change so quickly.

Global boom in coal power – and emissions

Christian Science Monitor: Global boom in coal power – and emissions

A Monitor analysis shows the potential for an extra 1.2 billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere per year.

Forget the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Disregard rising public concern over global warming. Ignore the Kyoto Protocol.

The world certainly is – at least when it comes to building new electric-power plants. In the past five years, it has been on a coal-fired binge, bringing new generators online at a rate of better than two per week. That has added some 1 billion tons of new carbon-dioxide emissions that humans pump into the atmosphere each year. Coal-fired power now accounts for nearly a third of human-generated global CO2 emissions.

So what does the future hold? An acceleration of the buildup, according to a Monitor analysis of power-industry data. Despite Kyoto limits on greenhouse gases, the analysis shows that nations will add enough coal-fired capacity in the next five years to create an extra 1.2 billion tons of CO2 per year.

Those accelerating the buildup are not the usual suspects...

Update: According to the 2007 World Almanac, the total CO2 emissions for the top 15 nations 27 billion tons in 2004. This article predicts a rise of 1.2 billion. That is a rise of a little more than 4% over the amount from the top 15 nations. Since the remaining nations contribute at least a few more billion, the percentage increase is much smaller. It is still an increase but it puts things in perspective.

The Other Six Days: C6 - Leadership in the Bible

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 6 - Ministry - Transcending Clericalism

Leadership in the Bible

"While the New Testament has no place for clergy as a separate category of believer, the Scripture has many references to leaders within God’s laos." (145) Stevens notes that “leadership” is described in several ways in the New Testament:

• Proistemi – “The one who goes before.” (Rom. 12:28) He notes it is a verb not a noun.
• Kybernesis – “Administrators.” (1 Corinthians 12:28)
• Episkopoi – “Overseers” (Philippians 1:1, Acts 20:28, 1 Timothy 3:1) Stevens remarks that this is “a term for minor responsibility” without elaborating.
• Diakonos – “Servant” (1 Timothy 3:8) Position of lower status.
• Presbyteroi – “Elders, or older wiser people” (Titus 1:5)
• Poimenes – “Pastors or shepherds.” (Ephesians 4:11)

Stevens then makes this critical observation:

Conspicuously missing from the list of leadership words is ‘priest’ (hiereus), a word which until the end of the second century was reserved for Christ and the whole believing community. (146)

The dilemma for the church is the need for both charisma and institutionalization. Ministry without charisma becomes dead and wooden institutionalism focused on power and institutional preservation. Charisma without institution is ever in danger of spilling over into fanaticism and subjectivity.

Some believe they see an evolving distinction between official leaders and charismatic service in the New Testament in response to these pressures. However, Stevens, referring to Gordon Fee, shows that the growing distinction was not between official and charismatic leaders but between itinerate and resident leaders. The local leadership configuration varied from location to location but with always had a plurality of leaders. There was no uniform system of government with official offices and titles. What we do see, is a uniform effort to devise leadership strategies that best equipped the whole laos of God in their many contexts to be ministers in the world! “Rather than having the church assist them to do the work of ministry, leaders are assistants to the rest of the body to empower them for their service in church and world.” (149)

And that brings us to a very large elephant in the room. Is there a special call to professional ministry? Stay tuned for that discussion but what do you think about Steven’s assessment of leadership so far?

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Church Bloopers

Ben Witherington had this video linked at his site. I love the cat at the end. Melissa and I attended an inner city church for a few years in a 100 year building that housed two cats, Felix and Tabitha. They helped keep the mice away. The would sometimes come hang out in the sanctuary during worship. My wife and I, being cat lovers, were frequently visited by Felix. They pretty much kept to themselves unless invited. I can remember a couple of times when a cat strolled down the aisle or walked behind the pastor as he was preaching. I can imagine what happens in the video.

Bob has a light!

Some of you will recall that last November I did a post called Bob Needs a Light about Bob (bull on building) the Hereford bull who used to stand atop a ninety pylon at the The American Hereford Association HQ in Kansas City, MO. Sadly, he was removed from his perch in the late 1990s when the building was sold to HNTB Architects. But like a phoenix from the ashes, he mounted a new pylon just across the ravine from his old location on KC's west bluff. Here is a picture I took of Bob back in November.

The problem was that when Bob was at his old location he was all lighted up but when I saw him last fall he had not lights. However, just a few weeks, I was driving south on the west side of the loop at night and, lo and behold, there was Bob, all lighted up. So tonight I finally got around to snapping a shot.

It is not the best shot but you get the general idea.

Kansas City can rest easier now that Bob is majestically keeping watch over the city once again. All seems right with the world. My blog post was no doubt the contributing factor in bringing this about. Anyway, the important thing is that Bob now has a light.

Hey!....It's important!

The Essential Difference Between Economic Systems

Can you identify the essential difference between economic systems? I am just finishing up R. Paul Stevens’ Doing God’s Business. At the beginning of Chapter 3 he has a wonderful excerpt from Richard Higginson’s Questions of Business Life (pages 25-26) on economic systems.

Feudalism

You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Fascism

You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Communism

You have two cows. You must take care of them but the government takes all the milk.

Capitalism

You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

Enron Capitalism

You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then create a debt equity swap with an associated general offer so that you can get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred through an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The Enron annual report says the company owns eights cows, with and option on one more.

Economics and bovine humor. It doesn't get any better than this!

The Other Six Days: C6 - Trinitarian Ministry

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 6 - Ministry - Transcending Clericalism

Trinitarian Ministry

Ministry is Trinitarian in nature. In the third section of Chapter 6, Stevens reflects on the Trinitarian nature of ministry.

There is ministry in God; God is ministry.

Ministry is not a mere human activity. There is mutual service rendered within God the Trinity. “Ministry is of God not merely for God.” It “…is relational, characterized by love. It is both unitive and creative, as well as redemptive and curative.” (141)

God’s ministry is invested in the whole people of God.

We are made one in Christ (John 17). Stevens writes:

We may carefully speak of the laos of God not so much as a Christocratic community, as Kraemer does, but a ‘Christodiakonic’ community (if I may be allowed to coin a word). It is the people of God through whom God continues to serve through Christ in the power and presence of the Spirit. It is both kenotic (self-emptying) and ek-static (taking one outside of self). It is ministry by God, for God and to God. Such a ministry under the New Covenant makes the whole people of God the true ministerium. (142)

(That is a mouthful but it is very rich.)

Ministry is characterized in love.

Ministry for the people of God is not a delegated activity but derived, participatory and perichoretic. Ministry is God continuing his own loving service in and through his own people ‘incorporating our servant-existence in Himself and incarnating among us the self-giving of God in sheer love and compassion to mankind.’ (quote portion is T. F. Torrance) (143)

Ministry seeks the blessing of creation through incarnation.

The nature of mission is not found in the Church’s addressing the world but in it being full in com-passion with it. (Quoting John Zizioulas) (144)

Ministry is eschatological.

The church ministers not only in the ‘now’ of the Spirit but in the ‘not-yet’ of the full coming of the Kingdom. It looks for, lives for, longs for and serves in view of the full irruption of the Kingdom at the second coming of Jesus. As such its goal is not only souls saved for eternity but the renewal of all creation under the headship of Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:19-20). (144)

I think that is enough to dwell on for one post.

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"Faith and Economics" Michael Cook

For those of you who live in the Kansas City area I was just informed of the following event tomorrow night at William Jewell College. I expect to be there.

Journeys of Mind & Faith features Dr. Michael Cook
Contact: Rob Eisele, 816-415-7574
March 5, 2007

Dr. Michael Cook, Boatwright Professor of Economics in the Department of Business Administration, Economics and Computer Science at William Jewell College, will present a free lecture entitled “Faith and Economics” in William Jewell’s “Journeys of Mind and Faith” series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 20, in Room 222 in the Yates-Gill College Union on the campus in Liberty, Mo. The public is invited to attend, and no tickets or reservations are required

Dr. Cook received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. He joined the William Jewell faculty in 1978.

The “Journeys of Mind and Faith” series addresses the tension often inherent in addressing questions of faith and of intellect.

“As a Christian liberal arts college, William Jewell has at its disposal the uncommonly conjoined resources of intellectual inquiry and faith,” says series coordinator Dr. Milton Horne. “This series takes advantage of those resources to present to the community the stories of individuals whose Christian and intellectual journeys, while not yet complete, have been rewarding and worthwhile.”

Poll shows strong Euroscepticism

BBC: Poll shows strong Euroscepticism

In the run-up to the EU's 50th birthday a Financial Times poll has found that 44% of Europeans think life has got worse since their country joined.

The FT/Harris online poll surveyed 6,772 adults in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. US citizens were also asked questions about the EU.

Just 22% of the Europeans questioned thought their country should pull out of the 27-nation bloc, however.

UK respondents were the most negative about the EU draft constitution. ...

The Other Six Days: C6 - Ministry in the Bible

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 6 - Ministry - Transcending Clericalism

Ministry in the Bible

What is ministry? As we look around the Church today, Stevens suggest that there are five criteria that usually come into play.

• Place – Work in the church rather than the marketplace and home.
• Function – Done on behalf of the whole, such as priestly ministration.
• Need – Meeting ‘spiritual’ needs rather than secular needs such as preparing a meal for a family.
• Title – Reverend.
• Designation – (Suggested by Roman Catholic scholar Yves Congar) with over reference to Christ, so that service is rendered to others in the name of Christ and because of Christ. (132)

Is this an accurate way of viewing ministry?

Stevens invites us to return to what scripture has to say about ministry. At this point he writes what I consider to be one of the most important insights given in the book.

The Bible addresses this massive confusion with a liberating perspective: ministry is defined by Who is served (the interior form) rather than the shape and location of the deeds done (the exterior form). Ministry is service to God and on behalf of God in the church and the world. Ministers are people who put themselves at the disposal of God for the benefit of others and God’s world. (133)

Stevens examines the language of the Hebrew Adad and Sarat. Abad means “to work or to make” and in later in books in the Old Testament it comes to mean worship - service directed towards, things people or God. Genesis 2 gives us the image of humanity working/worshiping in a sanctuary-garden. Sarat means “Personal service rendered to an important personage, such as a ruler (Gen. 39:4), and the ministry of worship on the part of those who stand in a special relationship to God, such as priests (Ex. 28:35)." (135) Both reveal important aspects about the relationship between work and ministry.

I also appreciated what Stevens writes about the concept of “the servant of the Lord.”

This concept of the servant of the Lord is racially different from the contemporary view of ministry which boils down to being servants of people or the church for God’s sake rather than serving God for the benefit of people and God’s world. The difference is subtle and sublime. The essence of ministry/service is being put at the disposal of God. The need is not the call to service. The call comes from God – from the most comprehensive service of Adam and Eve in Eden to the work of an evangelist. (136)

Stevens diagrams God’s work toward creating servants upon the earth after the fall. He starts with the nation of Israel. That funnels down to a remnant. That funnels down to the messiah, Jesus Christ. From there it widens to the whole laos (people) of God. When the people did not respond to God’s call to be his servants on the earth, God became his own servant and became a new Adam, the first in a new humanity.

Stevens writes:

New Testament apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers are not the culmination of their Old Testament counterparts. That is the fatal equation that leads to exclusively male pastors and priests in the church. Jesus himself fulfills all Old Testament leadership and service. And in Christ the people as a whole become servant of the Lord. Baptism is the universal ordination of people into the universal ministry of the people of God: ‘we are baptized by one Spirit into one body … Now the body is not made up of one part but of many’ (1 Cor. 12:13-14). Leaders are merely people who serve other servants in a particular way. (138)

Finally, Stevens reflects on the Greek term diakonia. It is the word we translate “service” or “ministry.” It is work done in the employ of another. All of the people of God do service or ministry. We are all called to diakonia. Stevens writes:

So it is significant that many of the Greek words available to distinguish an official ministry from ordinary diakonia were not used by the inspired New Testament authors: telos (office), time (task, emphasizing the dignity), arche (mageistry) and leitourgia (publilc service or priestly cultic service). With the exception of telos, when these words are found in the New Testament they refer to Jewish priests, Moses, to pagan civil officers and sometimes to Jesus, but not to church leaders. When Paul does use a priestly word, as he does in Romans 15:16, it is the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel, not ministering at the altar, a priestly ministry that all believers share. (140)

There is much more to cover from this chapter but we will quit here for today. I believe that what Stevens has written in this chapter goes right to the heart of our dysfunctional confusion about the nature of the church and how we see our daily lives connected the larger things of God. What do you think? Am I hyperbolizing?

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"Global warming is not a crisis" Intelligence2 Debate

On Wednesday of this week Intelligence Squared had a debate about global warming. The debate topic was "Global warming is not a crisis." Six experts, three in favor and three opposed, debated the issues before a live audience. You can read a transcript of the debate by clicking here. It should eventually be in podcast form at this site.

Prior to the debate the audience was polled on whether they agreed with the statement, "Global warming is not a crisis." The result was:

• Agree = 30%
• Disagree = 57%
• Unsure 13%

After the debate was over:

• Agree 46%
• Disagree 42%
• Unsure 12%

(Maybe this explains why Al Gore still refuses to debate his documentary. )

The debate was moderated by Brian Lehrer and the participants were:

SPEAKERS FOR THE MOTION:

Michael Crichton is a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of "ER."  Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College,  received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.  He has been a visiting instructor at Cambridge University and MIT.  Crichton's 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios.

Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT since 1983, previously held professorships at Harvard, where he received his A.B., S.M. and Ph.D., and the University of Chicago.  He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the recipient of various awards.  He is the author or co-author of three books and over 200 papers.  His current research is on climate sensitivity, atmospheric convection and the general circulation of the atmosphere.

Philip Stott is an Emeritus Professor and biogeographer from the University of London, UK. Although a scientist, for the past ten years he has also employed modern techniques of deconstruction to grand environmental narratives, like “global warming.”  Stott was editor of the internationally-important Journal of Biogeography for 18 years. He broadcasts widely on TV and radio, and writes regularly on environmental issues for The Times of London , among other publications.

SPEAKERS AGAINST THE MOTION:

Brenda Ekwurzel works on the national climate program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).  Prior to joining UCS, she was on the faculty of the University of Arizona.  Doctorate research was at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and post-doctoral research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. His publications include studies of past, present and potential future climates. Scientific American cited him as a top 50 Research Leader in 2004, and he has worked on education and outreach with the American Museum of Natural History, the College de France and the New York Academy of Sciences, among others. He is a contributing editor at RealClimate.org.

Richard C. J. Somerville is Distinguished Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.  He is a theoretical meteorologist and an expert on computer simulations of the atmosphere.  Among many honors, Somerville is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Meteorological Society.  He has received awards for both his research and his popular book, The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change.

There is some good debate with lively retorts. I liked Crichton's Einstein anecdote. The Nazis had lined up 200 scientists to say Einstein was wrong on a scientific matter. Someone asked how does it feel to have 200 scientist against you. He responded that it only takes one to prove me wrong.

There was also some rather strange moments, like when Somerville claimed that the NAS study on gw science said that there has been no significant change in global temperature for the past 1,300 years. The report says that temperature data for prior to the 1600s was too sketchy for making definitive conclusions for earlier eras but that there was a 2 to 1 chance that something like the Medieval warm period happened as has been previously suspected.

Anyway, I hope to listen to the event when it is podcast.

Evangelical Environmentalism’s Moral Imperative

Acton Commentary (Jordan Bailor): Evangelical Environmentalism’s Moral Imperative

I have a post in my head that addresses the evangelical controversy over envrionmentalism but I have been to busy to write it. With this post, Bailor gets at many of the issues I have been reflecting on as well. Maybe I'll get that post out of my hand and into a post soon but I liked what Bailor had to say.

In these and many other ways, the opposition to evangelical activism on climate change has been conflated with the larger issue of environmental stewardship. But of course Christian responsibility for the environment, termed “creation care” by Cizik, is much broader than the question of global warming. While it may be an effective rhetorical strategy to assert that your opponents do not “care” for creation, such claims obscure rather than clarify the real crux of the debate.

In its exposition of the commandment against bearing false witness, the Heidelberg Catechism, an important confessional document for Reformed Christianity, observes that the commandment obliges the Christian to “love the truth, speak it candidly, and openly acknowledge it.” It also says that Christians are “to guard and advance” the good names of our neighbors. The attribution of false motives to opponents of climate change activism runs the risk of violating these significant moral imperatives.

.......

For instance, progressive Christian activist Tony Campolo has the integrity to admit that the claims of conservative Christians that government does not bear the primary responsibility to care for the poor are not due to a lack of care about poverty. Instead, notes Campolo, “The Religious Right, by conviction, is convinced that helping the poor is something that should be done individually or by the church.” There is a shared commitment to viewing poverty as a moral issue, but disagreement at the level of policy and prudence about the best ways to address the problem.

In the same way, Christian care for the environment is indeed a moral issue, and one that will only demand greater attention as technological advances and scientific abilities increase. Both the evangelical opponents of and proponents for government action on climate change bear a responsibility to be open and honest about their points of consensus and disagreement.

For conservative evangelicals who oppose political action to address climate change, this means making it explicit and clear that the broader question of the moral imperative of environmental stewardship is a non-negotiable point of Christian belief. Dobson and others do warrant a measure of blame for the ill-chosen wording of their letter. By only explicitly mentioning pro-life issues, marriage, and sexuality as “great moral issues of our time,” the signatories opened themselves up to a great deal of legitimate criticism. Jim Wallis, a prominent progressive evangelical activist, was quick to point out that war, poverty, and environmental issues are also important moral concerns.

For those who are global warming political advocates, such as Cizik and Wallis, this moral imperative means acknowledging the commitment of their opponents to “care” of the creation, even amidst the sometimes pointed disagreements over the means and institutions responsible for that care. With this shared commitment perhaps the dialogue on climate change might advance beyond vilification and demagoguery.

Microfinance: Time to take the credit

The Economist: Microfinance: Time to take the credit

Aid donors have shown microfinance can work. They should now leave their successes behind.

SUCCESS has many fathers. No wonder, then, that paternity suits are flying in microfinance—lending small amounts to help the poor pull themselves out of poverty. Thanks first to charities and, later, international financial institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank, microfinance has been shown to work (see article). Now philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, are using their own charities to pour money into the field. So, increasingly, is the for-profit sector, including “socially responsible” investors and capitalists more interested in the bottom line than the poverty line.

Microfinance is a promising way to get credit to parts of the economy that are starved of capital. So it is a pity that all these lenders are competing to support the same, small group of microfinance institutions that cater to the most creditworthy borrowers. It would be better for the poor if the IFIs and donors left the best credit risks to profit-seeking lenders and concentrated instead on those still stuck outside the system. ...

Reflecting on the State of the Church

I am taking a break from my Other Six Days posts to offer something I think is interesting to reflect on. I want to place two quotes side by side .

On Monday I linked a post by Eugene Cho about pastoral health in which he gave the following statistics:

• 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
• 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
• 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
• 75% report they’ve had significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
• 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
• 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
• Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs/week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
• 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.

Then I came across this quote again from several years ago by William Diehl, a corporate executive who has now written considerably on work and spirituality:

“…In the almost thirty of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. My church has never once offered to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed any kind of support in what I was doing. There has never been and enquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career. In short, I must conclude that my church doesn’t have the least interest whether or how I minister in my daily work.”  (William E. Diehl. Christianity and Real Life. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976. v.-vi. Diehl was an executive at Bethlehem Steel.)

Any connections between these two?

China's great leap forward on property

Christian Science Monitor: China's great leap forward on property

After 14 years of debate, China is due to pass a property-rights law next Friday.

"People's living standards have improved in general, and they urgently require effective protection of their own lawful property accumulated through hard work," argued Mr. Wang as he presented the Property Law to the NPC. Such protection, he added, is "the general aspiration and urgent demand of the people."

By casting the law in this light Wang was seeking to counter criticism from opponents that it benefits only China's super-rich by legalizing the dubious deals through which many of them got their start in business – buying state property at rock-bottom prices.

Pressured by that sort of argument, the legislation's drafters introduced several amendments "of tremendous practical significance," Wang insisted, to "strengthen protection of socialist public property" and defend it from questionable privatization.

But the law is clearly not limited to the houses and cars that Chinese city-dwellers regard as necessities, in the same light as their parents once viewed wristwatches, bicycles, and sewing machines. Protection of private property extends to the "means of production" – a recognition of reality in a country where private enterprise now accounts for nearly two-thirds of GDP.

It does not, however, extend to agricultural land, which remains collectively owned by peasant villages and not immune to seizures by developers, which have provoked thousands of sometimes violent protests in recent years. ...

His energy bill is $0.00

Christian Science Monitor: His energy bill is $0.00

A New Jersey civil engineer powers his home with solar panels and hydrogen tanks. Can it work in the mainstream?

EAST AMWELL, N.J. - Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days.

Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates.

It sounds promising, even utopian: homemade, storable energy that doesn't contribute to global warming. But does Strizki's method – converting electricity generated from renewable sources into hydrogen – make sense for widespread adoption?

According to some renewable-energy experts, the answer is "no," at least not anytime soon. The system is too expensive, they say, and the process of creating hydrogen from clean sources is itself laced with inefficiency – the numbers just don't add up.

Strizki's response: "Nothing is as wildly expensive as destroying the whole planet." ....

PCUSA Stewardship Resources (Sort of)

I came across a link to these vids at Quotidian Grace. It ain't SNL but it works. Check it out.

Week 1

Week 2 (Part 1)

Week 2 (Part 2)

Week 3

The Other Six Days: C5 - The Good of Work

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 5 - Doing the Lord's Work

The Good of Work

Stevens closes chapter five pointing to the intrinsic value of work. Most of us are readily aware of the extrinsic value of work; it creates wealth for us and allows us to sustain our lives. But work is good in itself. It has intrinsic value. Work is one of the primary ways we exhibit the image of God.

Work is good for the world. From the first chapter of Genesis we see that God made humanity for the world to work it and make it more bountiful and beautiful. Work is good for the neighbor. By combining our work with the work of countless others we mutually enrich each others lives. Our gospel work brings hope, restoration, meaning and peace to those separated from God. Work is also good for us. Our work plays a central role in our sanctification. Stevens presents a wonderful quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.

Work plunges men into the world of things. The Christian steps out of the world of brotherly encounter into the world of impersonal things, the ‘it’; and this new encounter frees him [or her] for objectivity; for the ‘it’-world is only an instrument in the hand of God for the purification of Christians from all self-centeredness and self-seeking. The work of the world can be done only where a person forgets himself [or herself], where he loses himself in a cause, in reality, the task, the ‘it’. In work the Christian learns to allow himself to be limited by the task, and thus for him the work becomes a remedy against the indolence and sloth of the flesh. The passions of the flesh die in the world of things. But this can happen only where the Christian breaks through the ‘it’ to the ‘Thou’, which is God, who bids him work and makes that work a means of liberation from himself. (125)

Go back and read that paragraph a couple more times. When we come to see our work in this way, work ceases to be something compartmentalized from our “spiritual” life and becomes the focal point of our spiritual formation.

Have you experienced the work you do as spiritual formation?

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103 Users (Presbymergent)

The Presbymergent website administrator writes:

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Presbymergent now has 103 users - people who have signed up for the site and many of them are contributing content and participating in the conversations that occur on this website!

Very cool!

The Great Global Warming Swindle

Last week Channel 4 in the UK aired a great documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle. (HT: Ebenezer) It is creating quite a buzz. You can read a review of it at the Calgary Sun. The documentary does a great job of explaining the science in lay terms. It runs about 1 hour and fifteen minutes. If you want to be well informed about what scientists not alarmed about climate think, it is well worth your time. Either click on the link above or click on the video below to watch the program.

Made for Mutuality

Jesus Creed (Scot McKnight) Made for Mutuality

After teaching Genesis 1–3, I’m persuaded that this narrative of the primal pair teaches that God made them for mutuality. I see no indicators of hierarchy — whether in creation order or in the so-called “curse” after the fall. I present today seven theses of mutuality.

First, ...

The Other Six Days: C5 - Trinitarian View of Work

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 5 - Doing the Lord's Work

Trinitarian View of Work

So what is God’s work? Stevens lists more than thirty adjectives from the Bible that describe God at work. He identifies four themes:

Creator – forms, fabricates, maintains and finishes.
Lover – does relational work, bringing dignity, health and meaning.
Savior – does redemptive work, mending, uniting and saving.
Leader – does community-building work and brings things to consummation.

Based on these observations Stevens writes:

Every legitimate human occupation (paid or unpaid) is some dimension of God’s own work: making, designing, doing chores, beautifying, organizing, helping, bringing dignity, and leading. (119)

But beyond this, Stevens offers what I think is one of his most powerful insights; a Trinitarian view of work. Just as there are three persons of the Trinity who are different and yet thoroughly interrelated, so are there three types of interrelated work. We can generally identify each type of work with each person of the Trinity. (Clearly all members of the Trinity being one do all three types of work, yet we can identify certain kinds of work with the individual members.)

First, there is Father work called stewardship. This includes activity like working the earth and taking care of it. It involves community-building work like forming families, businesses and other human structures.

Second, there is Son work called Kingdom ministry. Succinctly, it is the furtherance of the gospel and God’s kingdom purposes in the world. Clearly a few believers like the apostles put aside typical occupations to have “the privilege of being supported by others,” as Stevens puts it. “Where such support is not forthcoming the believer is clearly ‘called’ to support themselves with ordinary work!” (120) Stewardship and Kingdom ministry are not alternatives to each other or things that we do in separate compartments of our lives. They are integrated and inseparable aspects of a Trinitarian call. But there is a third integral part to work.

Third, there is Spirit work called giftedness and empowerment. Stevens notes that Luther tried to address the elevation of the vita contemplativa over the vita activa by secularizing all calls. Drawing on the work of Miroslav Volf, Stevens makes that case that instead, all aspects of human work are sacred because our work is done as images of God in response to God. The Spirit gives gifts not only for ecclesial purposes but to do all aspects of human work.

I love his summary paragraph for this section:

What is the work of God? God’s work includes fabricating work, maintaining work, love work, restorative work, gospel work and leading work. Who does God’s work? All the people of God (the laos) and, without their knowing it, most not-yet-believers. Where is God’s work done? In the church and world including the physical creation, the home, society and community, politics, culture, education and finance realms, all the ‘worlds’ which we are making and mending. Why should we work? The Bible’s answer is that God invites us to have communion with him as co-workers while God brings the world to its consummation in the new heaven and new earth. Human work is a duty and a godlike activity. (123)

This Trinitarian view of work is one of the most important things I have learned from Stevens' work. It give’s us the ability to see different aspects of work without the destructive compartmentalization that is so ubiquitous within our culture and sadly within the Church.

Have you thought about work in this way before? How does Stevens’ take strike you?

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From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype

New York Times: From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

.......

Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

.......

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. “Climate change is a real and serious problem” that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. “The cacophony of screaming,” he added, “does not help.”

So too, a report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr. Gore’s portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, the report said, current highs appeared unrivaled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

.......

“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

Why is Neil Craigan is Off to the Races?

Neil Craigan of Broken Bonds/Loosed Chains fame and fortune (and PCUSA pastor) is about to run his first marathon. Why? Check out the video segment about his adventure on the local NBC affiliate. Very cool Neil!

It's Off to Louisville for GAC

As this article is being posted I am on an airplane headed for Louisville, Kentucky. The General Assembly Council (GAC) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is meeting from Wednesday through Friday. I have to arrive a day early to serve detention. (Actually it is the personnel committee meeting, and I suspect it is like detention for them to have to put up with me for an extra day.)

Last April the GAC voted to do a major reorganization, reduce the budget and eliminate about 25% of the paid positions. It appears that nearly a year later we have completed much of this disruptive transition and have hired most of the people for key leadership positions. It is time now to complete the work we agreed to a year ago and really make the Mission Work Plan, with its focus on objective outcomes, a reality.

I have some posts I have written in advance that I will post this week but as you can imagine I might have limited time to respond to comments. I will do my best. I may write some about the GAC events although I know many of my readers are not PCUSA and I have noticed that my blog hits nosedive when I focus too much on these issues. Most of what is newsworthy gets reported in news outlets and while I might be able to tell you additional things, in many cases I would have to kill you afterwards (although I would do so in a Christ-like manner.)

I really enjoy the people I get to work with at these GAC meetings but I must tell you that having not grown up Presbyterian I don’t have the nostalgia that frequently comes up in conversations. I am also of a temperament that strongly identifies with Mark Twain’s admonition that, “No committee should ever have more than three people …. preferably with two of them always absent.” I do my best.

Anyway, please keep us all in your prayers.

The Other Six Days: C5 - Work in the Bible

The Other Six Days

Part Two - Summoned and Equipped by God: Chapter 5 - Doing the Lord's Work

Work in the Bible

Stevens gives a cursory overview of the idea of “work” from scripture. He catalogs a number of metaphors that describe God as a worker including builder/architect, teacher, composer and performer, metalworker, garment maker and dresser, potter, farmer, shepherd, tentmaker and camper. He highlights the fact that, according to Genesis 2:15,  “…the world was not made for human beings; human beings were made for the world.” (113). The nature of work has been corrupted because of human rebellion, but the vocation human beings being created for work and created for the world is still exists.

Stevens says that based on his read of scripture, “There is not deprecation of manual labor in the Bible, no exalting of ‘creative work’ over manual labour.” (115) The Wisdom literature points to the futility in finding ultimate satisfaction through work but it does value work that is that is done with the context of a relationship with God. Where we begin to the devaluation of labor is with writers in the intertestamental period like Ben Sira who had become heavily influenced by Greek values.

In the gospels, Jesus is portrayed as a carpenter or an artisan worker. While there is little said directly in relation to work Stevens suggests that “work,” that which we do in our daily lives, becomes transformed into to work for the kingdom of God as we accept Jesus Christ and Lord. Paul builds on this theme as well. How we conduct ourselves in the transactions of daily living and work today have an impact on others and on eternal matters.

Finally, Stevens points out that not only will we receive our reward in heaven but we will also receive more work. We were made for communion, community and co-creativity. In the New Creation, all of these will be fully restored.

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Pastoral Health

Beauty and Depravity (Eugene Cho): Pastoral Health

Cho gives some disturbing facts about about pastors in this post:

• 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
• 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
• 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
• 75% report they’ve had significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
• 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
• 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
• Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs/week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
• 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.

Seems to me it is time to rethink what it means to be a pastor.