This Sunday is the final one before Lent and is known as Transfiguration Sunday, when the church remembers Jesus’ mystical light-infused encounter with Elijah and Moses on top of the mountain… Last week I had a lunch conversation with two Episcopal minister friends.  One of them said he’d been thinking about how the church can be pretty good at the What but can sometimes lose focus on the Why of its existence.  We worship, teach, care, and serve – the What.  But what is our Why?  He noted that one of the things he thinks has set Apple apart as a company is that they get the Why.  Rather than emphasize the What of their product, they draw people in through its beauty, sleek simplicity, and the kind of lifestyle it enables its users to have.  He loves Apple, and they speak to the technological Why. For some Christians and

These last couple weeks I’ve been flipping through Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, a booklet written in 1995, composed of 24 brief articles and commentary, including God, Jesus Christ, Scripture, Baptism, The Lord’s Supper, etc.   This Sunday I will start teaching the youth catechism class and plan to use this as a basis of discussion. I, and probably most people familiar it, have a complex relationship with this document.  There are parts that are beautiful and inspiring.  “Human beings have been made for relationship with God, to live in peace with each other, and to take care of the rest of creation.  We believe human beings were created good, in the image of God.” Article 6: The Creation and Calling of Human Beings.  “The same Spirit that empowered Jesus also empowers us to love enemies, to forgive rather than seek revenge, to practice right relationships, to rely on

Last Friday and Saturday our family headed down to Cincinnati for the biennial Mennonite Arts Weekend.  It was of course special to see friends from our seven years of living and pastoring in the city.  And it is always special to be a part of that weekend gathering which welcomes Mennonite artists from around the continent to share their work. The weekend started in the early 90’s as an outgrowth of a conversation in which people lamented the lack of support and space for expression given artists in the Mennonite church.  Music has always been in its own category of acceptance, but our rather iconoclastic tradition hasn’t honored a whole lot of other art forms.  Many creatives have had to leave the church, or live at its fringes, to do their work.  For the last 20 years Mennonite Arts Weekend in Cincinnati has been a venue that brings the margins into the center and celebrate Mennonite

This week I’ve started reading The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – a New Perspective on Christ and His Message by Cynthia Bourgeault.  It was a book recommended last week at AMBS Pastor’s Week.  I’m always a bit skeptical when books claim to have a “new perspective” on Christ given the fact that this is a conversation that’s been going on for two thousand years.  After reading the first third of the book it appears that the author is both working on a recovery of a very old perspective on Jesus, as well as some new insights into the meaning of his life.  What’s old, even older than Jesus, is the Wisdom traditions of human cultures.  Wisdom is concerned both with how we see and how we live – how we come into a fullness of life.  In this perspective, Jesus’ favorite phrase, “The Kingdom of Heaven” (or “The

Greetings from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana.  It’s ccccold with lots of snow on the ground, but a surprising number of people have shown up for this year’s Pastor’s Week. There’s been a lot of change here even since I graduated in 2006.  Aside from some new and upgraded buildings, and a new President, Sara Wenger Shenk, there is a whole generational turnover happening on faculty.  The baby boomers are retiring and the gen Xers are coming into leadership.  There are some really strong new professors here, and five of them are the featured speakers this week.  The theme this year “Help me see Jesus!  Help me see, Jesus.”    Yesterday in the morning Andy Brubacher Kaethler, Professor of Christian Formation and Culture, spoke about our need to read our culture.  There is a script, a narrative, behind assumptions and actions, and we are all living out some kind