I wasn\u2019t invited to the National Pastors Convention in order to meet with old friends or even to meet new ones. Nope, Zondervan asked me to speak and I was involved in not a little speaking \u2026 Monday evening and Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon. Some thoughts \u2026 I wasn\u2019t invited to the National Pastors Convention in order to meet with old friends or even to meet new ones. Nope, Zondervan asked me to speak and I was involved in not a little speaking \u2026 Monday evening and Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon. Some thoughts \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1740],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastoring-and-preaching"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe Monday evening and Tuesday morning events were \u201chot button\u201d topics discussed in a panel format by four of us: Phyllis Tickle, Tony Jones, Andy Crouch and McKnight. What hot button topics? Our views of Scripture, our views on political involvement, our views of homosexuality and our views on world religions. Hot enough? Indeed.
\nOn Scripture, I was asked to lead us off with a brief survey of issues and how we approach Scripture, which gave me the opportunity to use some stuff from Blue Parakeet. I think some of us approach Scripture \u201cin spite\u201d of tradition, some \u201cthrough\u201d Tradition, and some \u201cwith\u201d Tradition. (Intentional upper and lower case.) We had a good discussion, but there wasn\u2019t all that much difference between us. On politics, after we excused Ms. Tickle because \u2014 as is well known \u2014 she has a heart condition (she claims to be over 70 but she has the energy of a fifty year old and the wit of all wits), Tony got us going with his defense of realism. I suffered the heat of Andy and Tony wailing away on this Anabaptist perspective \u2014 Tony used the term \u201cutopian\u201d a few times. (Don\u2019t feel sorry for me; I\u2019m exaggerating.) On homosexuality, we all advocated pastoral and ecclesial sensitivity; Andy Crouch gave a splendid introduction that involved his reading a piece he wrote for CT. And on world religions we didn\u2019t seem to find any wedges of disagreement \u2026 over all, a good set of sessions.
\nTuesday afternoon I got to share the stage with Phyllis on prayer; I gave a brief on the biblical reasons and history of set prayers at set times (using my Praying with the Church<\/em>). Then we all sat back and listened to Phyllis do what she is known for: resurrecting fixed hour prayer in the USA for so many of us. Not only does Phyllis practice fixed hour prayer and not only does she know the history of it all, she\u2019s a magnificent speaker. Kris envied me getting to be with Phyllis.
\nWednesday afternoon was my highlight \u2014 other than meeting up with friends: getting to bring out some of the new stuff from Blue Parakeet. I gave a fuller version of what I did at the session Monday night on the Three Approaches to the Bible and then I went through \u201cshortcuts\u201d and weaved in and out of some stories and some biblical texts that are right there in front of us and we have somehow discerned \u201cnot to do\u201d them. That\u2019s the burden of Blue Parakeet: how do we discern what to do and what not to do. Unfortunately, my flight was backed up against the session and I had to skee-daddle as soon as it was over.
\nDid I mention the weather? I got home about 11:30pm to 15 degrees and well over two feet of snow in the backyard.
\nOnce again \u2026 as I was speaking I saw many names on name tags that I recognized who\u2019ve jotted down comments on this blog. What a great blog community we have!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"