Cwillz Spills

About a month ago I finished reading this book, and have been waiting for a few spare minutes to review it.  I heard about this book from Andy Rowell‘s blog and was immediately interested.  Andy and his wife were visiting professors while I was a student at Taylor University (they are both alumni as well), and his recommendations have some weight with me.

Apart from having a general interest in doing/being theology in context, I was also drawn to this book because the author is another Taylor alum.  The references he makes to his college experiences are very accessible to me.  We shared some professors, which is cool.

The book itself is very well written and easy to follow, each chapter is worth the time it takes to read.  The practical study tools and guides are beneficial and right on, which is a helpful to those who might want to go further in their study of the Bible/the Christian tradition and are quickly overwhelmed by the voices and resources available.  I wish that this book would have replaced my required reading of “How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth” by Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart (although this is a very helpful book).

Greatly appreciated also is the careful attention that Cyzewski draws to minority voices within our family of believers. This is a much needed call for us to learn to listen, make room for, and respectfully engage the minds and lives of fellow Christian across the globe and those approaching God from a background different from our own.

The home run in this book for me is Ed’s explanation of that thing we call postmodernism.  I struggled to understand what was happening the first time the term was introduced to me.  I have posted before about wheteher or not I think it really matters, and I wrote a section about it in a Philosophy of Ministry about this time last year.  As I was writing that paper, I did my homework on what postmodernism is and how the church relates to it.  I read the best I could find, including: Oden, Dockery, Scott Smith, Long, Dunn, McKnight, Knight, McLaren, Mohler.  I wish I had had the chapter from Ed’s book.

Not only does he make the terms modern and postmodern accessible, but he peaceful gives us a way to talk about where we fit into the game and the roles we should be playing.  I really felt like someone was finally giving me a map and suggesting a direction and not just standing at a destination and calling me towards that one.  This is the book I can give my dad and say, “This is what I mean by postmodern.”

I recommend it.

May the Lord’s Will be done,

CWillZ

This is one of those words I have read time and time again and pretended to know what it meant.  Malleable.  I looked it up about a week ago and have been thinking about it since.

Malleable means “able to be hammered or pressed permanently out of shape without breaking or cracking.”

In January I sat around a table with other Christian Ed seniors from Taylor.  Somehow the conversation turned to motivation and how “God got a hold of us”.  Our professor highlighted the extremes (paraphrase):  “For some people it like God just whispers in their ear, for others it is like God knocks them flat on their face.”  When he said the last part, I involuntarily agreed aloud and my contemporaries noticed laughingly.

God is a good father and knows what we need much better than we do.  At just the right time, He will move in our lives in innumerable ways.  I hear God in whispers, but God also gets a hold of me driving me to my knees and face. Sometimes — sometimes often–it is like God needs to pound us out to shape us like a metalworker beautifies his art or makes a tool for a specific job.  I often imagine my close friends watching what God is doing with/to/in/through me and cringing like parents who have to let their children go into surgery.

Malleable.  Able to be pounded on without breaking or cracking.  Sometimes I wonder just how hard and how long God needs to pound.  I think that the next blow will break me.

“Just trust me,” He says.  He works and works.  It hurts.  The work is all his.  It’s like getting a root canal.  When he is done, its often sore for a while, but its better. Again, its what you need/ed.  When the hammer falls, it is our option to surrender and ask that His will be done.  In surrender, we love and trust that His pounding is making us into what he wants and needs.  His pounding will not break or crack us if we surrender to Him.

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

On May 18th, I was handed a diploma holder and a towel as I walked across the stage during commencement from Taylor University. The towel is a reminder from the alumni association to follow Christ in serving others in humility (John 13).

The thing about the towel is that it’s value is somehow connected to its use.  A towel is used for drying, and a rag is used for cleaning.  If your life is like a a towel or a rag, you will occasionally get wet and you will get filthy — but that is part of being useful.

Revelation’s warning to the church of Laodeica is: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” This passage is said to refer to usefulness by implying that hot and cold water are moving.  Hot and cold water have their purposes, but stagnant, lukewarm water quickly becomes useless and nonpotable.

Part of our purpose is to actively and usefully clean up the world we live in.  But how does water make itself hot or cold?? How does a towel get used for the good?  How does a rag become a used and filthily fulfilled rag?

To be used by God, we have to allow him to take us, use us, and to humbly be his:

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.

Repent, sit and be God’s, read this chapter.  Take on life to its fullest.

Be hot, be cold, keep moving, be useful.  Be filthy and used from cleaning up a world in need.

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

I have been ‘doing’ the Book of James recently for my quiet times. Parts of this little book are frighteningly surprising to me. Get this: I can remember teaching from James at least 4 times during high school and possibly my first year of college.  I should know what it says.

I didn’t spend much time studying James as a part of my courses at Taylor (I can only remember one time, and that was really about the controversy involving Martin Luther and sola fide).  When I started to spend time in it recently I really wasn’t expecting to find (that much) new content.  wrong.

That words of the book have not changed (in fact the notes I took in the margins during high school are still in my Bible). So why does it seem so….new?

Never before did I truly consider myself rich and when I read the Bible. I thought that this term referred to people like Oprah, Donald Trump, or Bill Gates.  FACT: If you have means of reading this post, you are probably rich too.

Isn’t it crazy how I am have read those 5 chapters probably 100+ times and have still missed so much of what it actually says?

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

I wrote my senior paper on it. It was alot of work. I haven’t read it since, and neither has anyone else, so I published it:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgrh9s8b_47cv2gvphf

Tell your friends

Everything they said about us came true. At Taylor we Christian Educational Ministry majors caught a fair amount of friendly joking about our lives being all about asking people how they feel, the appropriate answer to 60% of questions being “Jesus”, and the like. We took it in stride and returning the favor and calling business majors “the man” or thinking that they just loved money.

As I said, everything they said came true. During our time in Jamaica we worked for and with New Hope Moravian Church in Montego Bay. At the end of the week the youth from the church had us come over for some games, singing, dancing, and time together. At the end of the night we all held hands and prayed. As were praying we sang “Kum Bay Ya”, which is a normal thing for the Jamaicans. It was for real, and great.

Yesterday I was teaching Sunday School and for the first time asked a question that’s appropriate answer was “Jesus”. It’s happening.

I made a fun playlist in light of graduation. Rules: had to be my music, no repeated artists.

1) “My Chains are Gone” by Chris Tomlin. I wouldn’t resist the opportunity to laugh on the way home.

2) “Don’t Come Around Here No More” by Tom Petty & the HBs. This is Taylor‘s song to me.

3) “Exodus” by Bob M and the Ws. Love me some Reggae. This was my nap CD freshman year, and the I am looking forward to the movement of Jah people.

4) “Fortunate Son” by CCR. Unlike The Dude, I still have my Creedence Tapes. Oh the Red Wide and Blue– I ain’t no senator’s sawzall.

5) “Gone” by Montgomery Gentry. Whats in a name?

6) “Graduate” by Third Eye Blind. Because 6th grade wanted its song back.

7) “If You’re Going Through Hell” By Rodney Atkins. This is for all those worn out juniors who will walk this lonesome valley next year.

“Into the Dark” by the Juliana Theory. For all of us who are unsure of the next steps.

9)”Me and Paul”by Willie Nelson. Its a song about learning from life, friends, and the cities of the nation.

10) “Run Like Hell” por Pink Floyd. 2 reasons: 1) the anti-school/social control theme of The Wall and 2) I left the first disc of the album in a middle-school classroom. Mrs. Boone if you read this, please send it to me.

11) “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper. Any man named Alice who can make it in the rock world deserves some respect. Also, this list would be 67.923% incomplete without it.

12) “Self Americans” by Dogwood. Lots of talent going unheard from this band. See previous post for rationale.

I feel ripped off. By this Saturday at noon I will be a college graduate. It has taken four years for me to realize what that means. It means that I am more educated than 98% of the world. It means that I have enough debt to keep me and my future family in the the same system. It means that I am bound by privilege.

Here at Taylor I have been given a very good, Christ-centered education. My practicum for a degree in Christian Educational Ministries took me to Juarez, Mexico where I facilitated high school mission trips in basically a squatter colony. There I learned what it looked like to not have enough resources to feed your baby properly, and to watch across a fence as another bank building goes up, waving Old Glory. As those people shared Christ and many gifts with me, I felt like I learned much more about the reality of God during my first few weeks there then I did as I was writing research papers at length for my Bible or Christian Ed classes.

My frustration is not against Taylor, but that I feel trapped. It takes a lot of effort to break myself of consuming, wasting, entitlement, and just plain ignorance. Oversimplified but not nearly as expressive as it is within me it is this that I am frustrated at: It cost me over $100,000 to realize that I don’t want this kind of life– and I have to retain my privileged place in society just to pay (a good portion) of it back.

I hope that I can find someone who can show me what it truly means to become like Christ.

Recently I have been experiencing a good amount of ennui (French for blaaaahhhh).  The winter has stretched on longer than it should, and with Carol away I have felt it colder than normal.