the bowden family blog

Powerful video from amnesty international. Touches on one of my core convictions. You and I are powerful. Our voice and what we choose as worthy to speak about matters. Where we spend our money matters. As to what we spend our time and energy on matters. We are extremely powerful. Wake up.

thanks alex

have you ever wondered what other people pray? Very interesting site. Very diverse. But very honest. Be warned, not for children though.

Mankind in search of the God who is and has always been in search of mankind.

as spiritual leaders in this age,
we cannot predict the future but we
can disrupt the regularity of the
common-apathetic mindset, to engage, subvert
provoke people into creating the future

Jesus did not predict the future,
he focused on people, subverted assumptions, and engaged the present

from alan hirsh’s class ‘reactivating the western church’ @ fuller

two visuals from a long lecture here

here is a project i just finished last week for school.  i traveled around los angeles by bus, foot, and bike to explore how the ways in which we spend our money reveal the deepest parts of our souls, both good, bad, and rather not mentioned.  I’m thinking about continuing this project in other citys i visit as well, and maybe even when i visit back home.

enjoy!

so last night on a sweet evening stroll with my bride, we wondered down to Barnes and Noble where I was struck by the latest cover of Wired magazine boldly proclaiming / proposing “the end of religion?”.  Being an avid reader of wired mag and www, I was suprised by the seemingly overt opposition to religion that was quite out of the ordinary for the publication.  As I skimmed the cover article, I was hit by confusion, empathy, and anger all at the same time.

then I remembered a rss feed I got this week from the resurgence noting steven colbert’s interview of a sceintist attempting to disprove the rationality of believing in God.  the scientist turned out to be one of the leading voices in this push, and also mentioned in the article.  enough of me talking, check out the video, and leave a comment of what you think!

*note: for some reason the new issue is nowhere on wired.com , but hopefully will be soon. (10/21)

at mosaic church we’re working through “life’s toughest questions”, and this past sunday erwin did an amazing job opening up the scriptures and presenting the biblical view of sexuality (heterosexuality, homosexuality, and everything in between). if your human and know other humans who have questions about God’s understanding of these issues, i highly suggest checking out the video podcast from last sunday. you can get directions here, and i think the podcast will be up tuesday or so. any comments and disscusion after viewing are more than welcome.

well I work during the day and Jonathan works at night.
Work has been good. I think I finally started to get into a groove… Jonathan came with me yesterday and it was so good to have company for the drive and for lunch.

So last night Rob Bell came to Fuller. It was called “A Conversation with Rob” It was my first time to see him in person. I really think God is communicating truth in a fresh way through him.

I guess I am pretty slow to praise well known Christians. I did like the nooma videos, and I love his way of teaching from his mp3s online… but I didn’t know about him… the person.

We were PACKED into this small auditorium that holds about 100 people. There were people along all the walls, sitting in the isles, people in the foyer, and people who had to be turned away due to fire codes… of course we arrived an hour and a half early and are able to snag ourselves a chair. While we waited, Jonathan thought it would be fun to do the wave…. I thought that the whole seating thing was so tense that someone may slip in my seat if I attempted the wave. So after a time of waiting and growing anticipation, I thought.. what will we do… will the lights go down, we stand and scream as he enters with the spotlight.. haha

So he finally walks in … Im looking around and my brain registers that face that I have seem before. So he’s a little aukward… he begins his talk with jokes but quickly moves into old testiment history. A little over my head, but we are at a seminary. he uses cards to explain each time period he is talking about… (helps me out) He tells about Egypt and how they cried and were led out … about Siani and how God spoke giving the people a mission.. then about jeruselam and how slowly it became another Egypt. Babylon took over and burned the temple… so the people were again completely opressed… The people began to recognize what had gone wrong, why this whole mission and identity that they were told about on Siani was not working out. they then again, as they did in egypt, began to cry out for another chance to do it better..

Now the thing that he hung on was the whole building of the temple for personal gain… using resources to better you and lesson someone else…

Then application would be what resources we use up compared to the number of americans there are to the number of people in the world. I am not Rob, so my summary is not as mind blowing…

After this there was time for Q&A .. jonathan asked a ?… I was proud and very nervous… but he was smart as usual.

well Im feeling sleepy… I will write my profound revelations on this Rob thing tomorrow!

nite nite

during the last day of the class i had the sweet privilege of taking part in last week at fuller (living the (biblical) text in a postmodern context), one of the exercises really rocked my brain. i was asked to reflect on a certain aspect of the biblical text, and it’s interaction with my life in each of the last 12 months. now this might not seem to be anything special to you, and i’ll admit that in years past it would not have been that extra ordinary to me either, but this year was quite different.

in my past, you normally could ask to think back over a given year and their would not be too many dramatic changes. But as i thought back over the last 12 months of my life, my life has been anything but constant. Last July I was very newly married, living in the great land of north Louisiana, searching for my first post college real deal job. A month later my brave and trusting beauty and I headed to Texas to join the staff of ‘the Bridge fellowship‘ in Sugar Land as the associate student minister.

as the new year started, God allowed us the chance to step into a greater role at the Bridge as the interim student minister, and as I thought about how the text interacted with my life last week, I couldn’t help but remember the emotions, changes, and the truths that were a result of this opportunity back in january. as i stepped into this position, i was excited for the chance to have an even greater influence in touching student’s lives, and I must admit that I wasn’t too overwhelmed by the office, administrative, and planning work (much contrary to my laid back, easy going ways) that were now solely my responsibility.

but as the weeks rolled by, a different kind of responsibility seemed to weigh on me. I think the only person I’ve shared the following with is Brittany, so if you are actually reading all of this, thanks, and welcome to my thought world! So as I picked up more responsibilities in the student ministry and dug in deeper and more frequently in my study of the bible, Brittany and I also had the chance to minister to and converse with students in varied places in their Journey to God. My eyes were opened to the average student’s lack of understanding with the bible (not to mention my own deficiency) and it’s character’s, themes, and message. one of the greatest reasons that serving at the Bridge fellowship was a great opportunity was because of the unique way that God is using this local church body to reach a great number of previously unchurched families, who have little or no experience with Jesus, the Bible, church, or God. but as I served there as the student minister, I also found that this sweet characteristic of the Bridge also made my task a little more difficult.

as family’s came faith at the Bridge, many of the student’s were just now beginning to hear and/or wrestle with the Bible in the crazy time known as adolescents. As if the hormones, pimples, and opposite sex weren’t enough, now they had ‘youth pastor’ trying to teach them about this ancient-yet now faith, called the bible full of burning bush’s, ‘the law’, lots of blood, olive trees, and the savior of the world, all somehow fitting together? Do you see the challenge I saw? This was a much different situation than my own personal story. I had grown up in church all of my life. I knew the stories, I knew the flannel-graphs. I knew what was suppose to make sense, or what i was suppose to nod and agree with. I could somewhat speak and understand the lingo; but not these students.

and so I was faced with questions much like the questions toiled over last week in the living the text.. class: how do we teach (not limited to the pulpit on sunday am), discuss, and live out God’s eternal truth in a largely post-christian, biblically illiterate, post modern, globalized world?

coming fresh from my experience at the Bridge, I was excited to take part in the class last week, largely with more questions than knowledge or expertise to offer. i was not disappointed. although the one week intensive format was a bit much (5 days of class at 7 days an hour), every other part of the experience was greatly beneficial from my co-educatees with their varied background, experiences, and life stages, the many exercises we practiced (like the one at the beginning), to the talented educator steve taylor (www.emergentkiwi.org.nz)(great even with the accent, ha).

looking back on the limited time we had to complete a full course (5 days, whoa), I am stunned by the breadth and depth of topics we touched on. coming into the class, I had a fear that the focus of the week would be solely on preaching, and while I could definitely use much work and growth in this area, I was highly pleased that this was only one aspect of living the text. to focus on this aspect would have been missing the boat.

this course developed in me a greater appreciation for the power and importance of the text in both my personal walk with God, and also in my ministry to a local church. yes, it would be much easier and head ache free to minister to a world that is fluent in the stories of God at work, but that is not where we find ourselves. I must honestly seek to know the world I live in, not the world i think or wish I live in.

stories will be told, songs will be sung. what will they tell of?