I am very excited about this Sunday for a few reasons. The first is a friend of mine is working at a Baptist Church very close to All Nations and is going to be out of town. He asked me to preach for them. It should be a fun time. They are a sweet group of old people from what I understand. I miss being at a church where Seniors are represented.

Also I am very excited about our evening service this week. We are still on our Relationship Series called, The Relationship You Have Always Wanted. This week we are talking about fighting. So I made a movie of slides which I set to the song Beautiful Scandalous Night of sculptures created from weapon exchange programs from around the world. This is where people bring in guns and artist make works of beauty out of them. This really captures the theme of Isaiah 2:4. If you are interested in seeing the most beautiful of the pictures check out the Christian Aid website.

It is also nice to preach on texts I am excited about. Conflict and Freedom. I am preaching form Ephesians 5 "Speak the truth in love." at the ANPC service, while I am focusing on Galatians 5:1 "It is for freedom that Christ set us free..." both of these are very exciting truths of what it means to live the Christian life.

Here I am at the PCA General Assembly. Once a year most of the pastors and ruling elders from the PCA gather together. This year we are in Atlanta, or how it is known in our family Hot-Lanta. It has been a great trip so far. We took the redeye from Oakland, so we got in very tired. Took MARTA (the Bart of Atlanta) from the airport to the hotel when Aidyn announced that she had to go to the bathroom really bad. Karin and I took a chance, and finally stumbled into a Starbucks at 7AM on our way to the hotel, grab a coffee and let Aidyn do her business. We stumbled to the hotel, who graciously let us check in, then went and got some breakfast. Of course now that I am back in the South I have already eaten grits at two meals!!

After sleeping for a few hours, we got up and headed down to registration. For someone who does not consider themselves very connected I ran into a few guys who I knew which is always nice, and according to some the highlight of GA. Then we made our way to MidTown. Midtown Atlanta is one of those neighborhoods that make West Coasters feel at home in the South. With it's huge gay community, Outwrite Gay and Lesbian bookstore, and great shops and restaurants Karin, Aidyn and I relaxed. After having a smoothie we went to the park on Piedmont Ave. By the way why is it that you always find Piedmont Ave in nice parts of town? There is a Piedmont Ave near our house, it's great, there is a city surrounded by Oakland called Piedmont. You never find Piedmont in the ghetto? The park was huge, with beautiful views of Hot-lanta's skyline, with a great play area for Aidyn and a pool that the girls will probably be back at.

Then we made our way to one of our favorite places...funny to say that we have a favorite restaurant in Atlanta...but we do. The Flying Buscuit. Our friends Eliott and Kacey introduced it too us, gourmet comfort food. Karin had the turkey meatloaf and I had shrimp and grits, while Aidyn had the stup (a mix between stew and soup). It was so good, more food than we should have eaten, at least Karin had the self control to save some and bring it back to our room.

It was about 8pm after we walked back to our hotel. Now that is only 5pm for us west coasters and I had told Aidyn I would try to get her into the pool at the hotel where our conference is at. The Hyatt in downtown Atlanta. Karin was very suspect of my ability to get us in after I had called Lewis and didn't get an answer on his cell phone. He and Cornelia are staying there and could easily get us in. So we took off, the girls in their swimming suits, and me praying that we can get them in. We walk into the lobby of the hotel, which is hillarious mind you. There are so many middle aged white people in golf shirts and kaki pants I don't know what to do. Then I catch Hunter Brewer's eye. Hunter Brewer went to seminary with me, and yes that is his real name, he is from Alabama and I think it is clear what his family likes to do. Hunter was the class president of my class at RTS, I think. Anyway we chit chat, and then I ask Hunter to get me into the pool, being the great guy that he is he walks us down and lets us in. Mission Accomplished, our day in Hot-lanta could not have gone much better. I end the night looking like super husband and dad.

I met with a guy this morning who is looking to start a church similar to one he was involved with in Seattle. It has an emphasis on contemplative prayer and justice issues. He brought me what the group in Seattle is using as guidelines, values, or callings in order to be a part of this community.
The questions that I have are...1. Shouldn't membership be based not solely on sitting through a class or doctrinal agreement, but also upon practice? 2. Wouldn't practice be not only a requirement but also what it means to be a member? 3. Isn't consistant evaluation upon if you are keeping up your end of the bargan the opposite of what we commonly ask when it comes to our relationship with Church? (usually we ask is the church doing that the promise)
There are many other questions involved and I would love to hear comment or feedback. I am listing the spiritual practices of the group below. Note that Covenant Circles are small group time similar to our community groups, even though their church is only ten regular attenders. Second, their community specifically is open to homeless, so a six month commitment is an eternity for anyone especially if you are living on the street.
Copied from their document:
"The Covenant Circles help us become more like Jesus by holding us to the following spiritual practices:
*I will set aside time for prayer everyday, beginning with 20 minutes a day and moving toward an hour each day.
*I will seek to practice non-violence and forgiveness in all my relationships.
*I will make it a priority to show up weekly for my covenant circle where I will allow myself to be deeply known and loved and will seek to know and love others deeply.
*I will seek to discover the specific way I am called to "stand with the suffering" in the world and will help those in my circle discover their specific call to "stand with the suffering".
*I will go on a retreat once per year with ___________ Community to spend larger block of time in silent prayer.
*I will share some of my time and resources with those in need beginning with a specfic amount of time and money (tithe)
*I will not quit the community out of anger or frustration, but will work through differences. I will leave when I am called to grow somewhere else.

I commmit these spiritual practices for the next six months. I realize that only with God's help will I be able to follow through on these commitments and that these commitments are about "practice" and progress, not perfection."

An inconvient truth. What a great title. For a culture that is suspicious of truth, we sure get the point of it being inconvient. This morning I was reading about Peter and Cornelius. The story where the sheet comes down from heaven with all the unclean animals on it and God tells Peter to eat. After this happens a few time (and Peter doesn't eat, just proclaims his holiness), Cornelius the gentile sends for Peter. What cracks me up is Peter's first conversation with Cornelius is all about how Peter can hang out with a dirty pig like him. It is as if I was called to go to a African American Barber Shop and Oakland and tell all the guys in it how it is okay for me to hang out with them because God said it was alright for me to hang out with black people. And what blows my mind is Cornelius is not offended, shocked, or anything. Note, the Holy Ghost is able to reconcile race relations.

Another part of this story that should cause most of us some trouble is when Cornelius recounts his encounter with God (or some shining figure) and he says, "Cornelius your prayer has been heard and you alms have been remembered before God." It doesn't say tithe. Who knows what Cornelius was giving his money to or how much. Here are the prayers and good works of a pagan being called righteous by God. We are working so hard on getting our theology correct, or making sure we are doing Christ Centered preaching, that what about prayer and good works?

Lastly the other part of the story that caught my attention was Peter saying, "Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins." Peters invitation or charge to Cornelius is not merely that he know Christ, but that he enter this world of the prophets. That Cornelius would engage the foundation on which the entire New Testament stands. This surprises me considering I would expect Cornelius might say, "The who?" Yet who is it that shows up just after the words of Peter? The Holy Ghost, doing the work.

Went to visit a member of our church today that is at a VA Hospital in Menlo Park, about 45 minutes away from Oakland. Paul is a Vietnam Vet who used to live in a group home right near our church in Oakland. He was known in the community because he would walk up and down Grand Ave. the street that our church is on, all day. Paul was very popular in our church because he would always have great hats.

Seeing Paul today was great. He is now in the hospital because he would quit taking his medicine at the home and end up going off for days and weeks. He looked the best I had seen him in a long time. Very dark from being out in the sun daily. He has put on some weight and grown a goatee, so he looks pretty slick. Thankfully Paul didn't tell me, as he does sometimes, "hey you look fat." My usual response to him is, "you look old, and I can lose weight." But none of that today. He talked about the nurse who wants him to marry her 19 year old daughter, how he goes to church each Sunday, and how most of his friends are in wheelchairs in the hospital until they die.

The point, the moral of the story, I don't know. Paul is my friend, went to my church. I can't understand everything he says, and at moments I think he is out of his mind. Like so much of my life I showed up, and that is just it.

Today I took my daughter Aidyn to a park. This is a brand new park in Piedmont. I like to refer to it as the perfect park in Piedmont. It really has to be one of the most beautiful children's parks in the world. Which if you know Piedmont is not surprise, since it is home mostly to the people in the top 1% of national income including such famous people as Bill Romanowski.

As I am sitting there pretending to read Karl Barth's Dogmatics, I say pretending because I can barely understand any of it, a guy asks me why I would be reading that. Come to find out he is a pastor in San Francisco. The more I have these kinds of connections the more encouraged I am that God has not forgotten about the Bay Area. Though it often leads me to ask what God would have as my part in the mix.