Postmodern Renaissance Culture Revolutionary

The family went and watched Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix yesterday. Now before I get scathing reprimands for a.)taking my children to see that very grown up movie and b.)exposing my children to witchcraft, understand that I never said I was trying to qualify for parent of the year. My boys have watched every Harry Potter film so far. They get the basic story of good (Harry and friends) vs. evil (Voldemort and cronies). They can handle the heavy story lines and serious plot even if they don't understand every angle. As to the second point, the magic of Harry Potter offers great teachable moments. Christians would do well to study magic as a sociological feature a little more. It would help clear up some very poor theology that's out on the landscape. Magic is manipulating a power greater than yourself to accomplish your own ends. It is not about wands and spells. It is about selfish desire and the means we go to make desire reality. And I believe that there are some Chr...

Before I was an Okie I lived in Wichita, Kansas. We moved when I was about 10. We had lived in Wichita for about 7 years. I still remember some things, but most of it is a blank. Lisa and I took a romantic reconnecting weekend away to, of all places, Wichita. A lot of it had to do with connecting with an internet friend as well as nostalgia. Let me first say that we stayed at a fantastic bed and breakfast. The College Hill Bed and Breakfast is nestled away in central Wichita. You can get anywhere relatively quickly from there. The house itself has been beautifully remodeled and offers three rooms as of now. We stayed in the Tropical Room. It is a warm and cozy room with a separate bath and huge closet. It is decorated in African stylized animal prints with greens and browns. The bathroom has a tropical feel with palm fronds and a rain shower shower head. The breakfasts that were prepared for us were fresh and very tasty. Even through I'm not a fruit nut, there was enough to fill us...

If there is one thing about summer that I really enjoy it is the summer movies. At no other time in the year do you have such a choice of over the top action movies. And this year is filled with movies. So far the family has been to the movies more since the first of May than we have been all year long. Spiderman 3, Pirates 3, Ratatouille, Meet the Robinsons, and I know I missed something else. But the last one requires some relfection. When the trailers were being shown, I knew I would have to go see Transformers. I was a huge Transformers fan back in the '80's. I had the comic books and toys. I watched the cartoon on t.v. I still think it was an awesome show. So when the movie came out, I knew I would have to see it. I got Nick totally into seeing it. He had the opening date on his calender. So it was going to be a fun thing to share. We got to the theater at about 3:00 to see the 3:10 show. Sold out. And the line for the 3:45 show was already out the front door of the theate...

Last week I was at camp. Not just any camp. JEM is a camp designed for Junior High School (rising 6th through 8th graders) who are or can be leaders in their home church. It is by recommendation only. It is designed around intentional leadership training at age appropriate levels. The name stands for Junior-high Effective Ministry camp. I am on the design team and have been involved with it for 7 of its 8 years. This year was our largest camp. We commissioned 77 students to send them back into their home churches and communities to put into practice what they have learned. One of the most powerful things that the youth learned was personality type. We have used the same personality profile system for many years. It is one the design team is very familiar with. It is from the True Colors Program. It separates personality into 4 categories that are grouped in Colors (Blue, Orange, Green, Gold). Try this personality quiz to see what your color is: Color Personality Quiz I am predominant...

Everyone knows that politics are not just for government. There are politics involved in everything. Even little league baseball. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the church is just as political. If it does surprise you, let me invite you to click on one of your other favorite websites now. I realize that Conference politics is more complicated than the simplified, hardcore Liberal/Conservative division. I know pastors who fall into the nebulous Moderate category. Then you have apolitical types who move along the spectrum depending on the issue or current life circumstance. So it is not as easy as this side or this group against that group. What I have come to realize is that church politics, maybe more than any other manifestation of politics, relies on the perspective of the one observing others. We use words like liberal, conservative, progressive, and traditional. The shortcoming of these qualities is that they are adjectives and not nouns. They cannot stand by themselves u...

Resolution 4 wanted the Conference to endorse the creation of a bipartisan task force by the Oklahoma State Legislature to explore and create a plan to provide health insurance for every person in Oklahoma. Opinion We live in a time when people cannot get basic medical care due to the costs. Insurance is available but not to all people. And some insurance doesn't really provide for the care that people truly need. There is a critical need for some type of plan so that people can get the health care then need. But the State Legislature is probably not where that should come from. This resolution was wanting a "citizen" task force. Can we honestly believe that our party-based, political machine can produce a group of people whose sole agenda is creating a health care plan devoid of any political muckery. Or can there be a program that is amenable to private health care systems without being a government funded social medical system. Social medicine is not going to provide t...

I've been a little tardy about this last update. Two reasons: I was busy and I didn't know how I felt about Thursday. The entire family went down Thursday. Which means we were late getting to Conference. Thursday was the "big day" so to speak. Most of the resolutions that were hot topic were scheduled for the day as well as finishing up the voting process. I'll deal with the resolutions first. The first resolution sparked a little bit of discussion. It was a resolution calling on the UM's in Oklahoma to, in essence, boycott any sporting event that use Native American names or mascots. There was no distinction given to professional or local school teams. This was asking for a general boycott of any team that used Native American names or mascots. Opinion I am not against changing team names to remove reference to Native American heritage. I believe that some enduring images of the injustice done to Native Americans are still too fresh to simply say that it is h...

Today was much slower. We had a number of delegate ballots and some more technical difficulty. In the process of getting everyone to input the right numbers and getting the machines calibrated to their users, the clergy managed to elect the 10 General Conference delegates that we are allowed plus 4 or 5 Jurisdictional Conference delegates. The laity lacked one when we concluded business today. Tomorrow the clergy will elect the rest of the Jurisdictional delegates as well as 5 alternates. The laity may be there until Saturday. By the way, for those of you who don't know, Jurisdictional Conference is the intermediate level of structure between the Annual Conference and the General Conference. It is made up of a number of Annual Conferences. Oklahoma is in the South Central Jurisdiction. The most critical function of Jurisdictional Conference (not to say that their work isn't important) is the election and appointment of bishops. Each Annual Conference is led by a bishop. Togethe...

This morning I was listening to KFAQ on my way to Oklahoma City. Gwen Freeman, the morning host, gave a brief comment about an upcoming story. She said, "...we're going to be talking about a woman who has served as a minister at St. John's United Methodist Church for five years. She's been reappointed to the position as a man." That was all that was said. I didn't hear the story in the hour that I listened. So I was wondering about it all day. I spoke with one of my pastor friends to see if he knew anything about it and he knew nothing. So here are the facts that may have been presented at another time and I missed. St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore has been served by Ann Gordon for five years. This past year, Gordon received medical treatments to change gender and changed her name to Drew Phoenix. The bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference reappointed Phoenix to St. John's. That decision is being called into question by conservati...

For some reason many believe to be strange, I chose to commute to Annual Conference this year. That's 260 miles round trip for each of the 4 business days. So my keister is dragging. I got to AC right as the morning devotion was beginning. This year we have a special musical group sharing music with us. A group from Africa University is singing at some of the worship services. Our first ballot yesterday was declared invalid. Basically because of human error and technical malfunction the votes for yesterday were null and void. So this morning we took the first official ballot. Just to give you a clue of what we are working with, there are 1,950 voting members at this Annual Conference. This was the first day for reports from the different ministry organizations that are a part of the conference. On today's schedule there were three of the most moving reports at any Annual Conference: VIM (Volunteers in Mission), CJAMM (Criminal Justice and Mercy Ministries), and Circle of Care. ...

I am going to try and keep everyone informed of the doings at Annual Conference this week. Annual Conference (for those playing along at home who don't know) is three things: 1. - It is the official name of a group of United Methodist Churches within a given geographical area. For Oklahoma, all of Oklahoma is the Oklahoma Annual Conference. 2. - It is the official rule making body for that region. So the Oklahoma Annual Conference makes the rules for the Oklahoma Annual Conference. 3. - It is the annual gathering of clergy (preacher types) and laity (real people types) where we decide on how we will conduct business within the Oklahoma Annual Conference for the coming year. Clear as mud, I know. But this week is Annual Conference. Our tradition is to begin on Memorial Day weekend. In the past we began work on Sunday. Recently we have only had a worship service on Sunday night and registration on Sunday afternoon. That means Monday is the first official work day. We begin Annual Con...

The news is now reporting that pop culture icon Paris Hilton will have her outrageously long and inappropriate (can we add cruel and unusual) sentence of 45 days for probation violation reduced by half. And get this. It is being reduced for good behavior. Rant point #1 - Where was the good behavior when she was stopped for alcohol related reckless driving? She decided to get blitzed and get behind the wheel of a car. She was not capable of making good judgment. Rant point #2 - Where was the good behavior when she violated probation by getting behind the wheel of a vehicle while having a suspended license? Obviously Miss Hilton does not understand that when the government who issues a driver's license suspends that license you don't get to change it. She was not capable of making good judgment in this instance either. Rant point #3 - Why, oh why, would she listen to her PRESS agent's advice on her legal situation? Might it not have been a better idea to call her lawyer (on h...