Tall Monastic Guy

Winter Park Men's Weekend

Here are some pics from the Adullam men's weekend in Winter Park. We had 15 fellas of varied  ages and backgrounds, great weather, good and deep conversation, and some much needed sacred space for silence and reflection.

 

 

new life

Some recent pics... The two of JP show how he's starting to come into it, cooing and laughing a bit. He gets his vaccine shots today. We're dreading that a little.
On another note...
The baptism pics are of our friend's Alisha and Matt. I, along with Alisha had the awesome privelage of dipping Matt yesterday. It was a beautiful day at Chatfield Reservoir with the Adullam community. We baptized 7 total, 4 adults and 3 kids.

the explosive power of trust

Once in a while I’ll wake up from a bad dream that leaves my tail between my legs and I realize that the dream was so troubling because it would hit me at some of my deepest insecurities. As I begin to become more attentive to the details of these dreams, I realize that they often deal directly or indirectly with past failures and embarrassments. And I’m learning that often the unconscious response to those dreams is to not trust myself and who God is making of me.
I’m believing that one of the primary ways the devil takes the western church out at the knees is to get God’s people to not trust themselves as well as to not trust the brothers and sisters in their community. The bad guy uses much of our culture to help out with this. Bad politicians and government officials have given us reason to not put our trust in our country. For many, broken marriages or hurtful relationships have created distrust in the opposite sex. People have been given many reasons to have a growing distrust in religious institutions, which often leads to a general distrust in the presence and/or goodness in the one true God.

A New World Is Yet to Come

A New World Is Yet to Come
by Henri Nouwen

You are Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in, so long as you emphasize the need of conversion both for yourself and for the world, so long as you in no way let yourself become established in the situation of the world, so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come. You are Christian only when you believe you have a role to play in the realization of the new kingdom, and when you urge everyone you meet with holy unrest to make haste so that the promise might soon be fulfilled. So long as you live as a Christian you keep looking for a new order, a new structure, a new life.

Just another Adullam gathering...

Sequence to the morning...

Wake up and change a poopy diaper... (First time I've began my Sunday like that!)

...Fix myself and Angie something for breakfast

...briefly look over sermon notes

Sacreligion

What is a healthy level of sacreligion?

I believe Jesus was the ultimate sacreligious person of faith. Healing people on the Sabbath, keeping the wedding party going by making several casks of fine merlot, having dinner with Zacceus, letting a prostitute wash his feet with perfume, or advocating for another so she wouldn’t get stoned by the pious. The gospels are full of “you’ve heard it said, but I say…” ... sacreligious kind of ideas to the orthodoxy police who cared more about the law than loving their neighbor.

log on

This is an "old timer" photo that my friend, Dan, took this past Saturday. Several Adullam dudes, spent the day peeling logs for a friend's log cabin in the hills. Very manly activity.

essentials...

carne asada & Wii...

and in light of these pics... I thought this was an interesting blog by Eugene Cho.

Adullam guys weekend

“I’ve never been on a church retreat like that. Thanks for taking the risk of not over-programming it."

I spent this last weekend on retreat just outside Winter Park with about 14 fellas associated with the Adullam network. We did the same thing last year at the same location and both weekends turned out great times of relational and spiritual connection and simply good play time. This year I was looking forward to my friend, Dave, coming to share some good spiritual reflections on Saturday and when he called me Friday morning to say he was sick and wouldn’t be able to make the weekend, I played it cool but freaked out a bit on the inside. I mean how in the wide world of sports could the Spirit possibly be present and move if one of us doesn’t have some great God talk prepared and if most of our time is spent simply hanging out smoking, drinking man drink and eating man food, and throwing frisbees?

a sacred atmosphere

Adullam has been in its new location in the old church in Platt Park neighborhood for three weeks now and we like it. Other than the inconvienience of the constricting pews, the sacred aesthetics of the sanctuary point one upward much more than the community center did. While I agree with Matt that it’s not about buildings, there is something significant about the design and creativity that goes in to the spaces we gather in. It’s not all about architecture, candles, art, and music, but I'm learning that those “things” can make a profound impact on how we experience worship.

This past Easter weekend, my primary responsibility was to design and guide our Good Friday Stations of the Cross silent prayer time. I find it amazing how an old sanctuary lit only by candle light with some soft Benedictine chant playing can almost naturally lead people into a posture of prayer and reflective depth. I’ll post some pics here to give you an idea of how the room was set up. While a good bar or coffee shop can be considered sacred space, I suppose we can’t discount what the folks like the Reformers were trying to do in the 19th and 20th centuries or any of the genuine attempts at designing sacred space throughout the centuries.