Finally, a Mennonite!

Santosh and Sophia - Mennonites.

I had my credentialling  interview with the Mennonite Brethren denomination today. Felicia, the chairman of our church's leadership board and I sat before a council of 8 pastors and denominational leaders. We were peppered with a variety of doctrinal and personal questions.

The interview lasted an hour and a half, and the questions were varied in their scope from my views on divorce and remarriage to how I would help a church escape the idol of consumerism. I was pretty drained after.

After the questioning, they confer with the chairman from our church for a few minutes, while Felicia and I sweat it out in another room. After about 10 minutes, they all came out and affirmed that I am credited and licensed with the denomination.

A lot of people have asked what this actually means. Being accredited with a denomination, is akin to passing the bar exam or being admitted into the royal college of physicians - it is basically being recognized by a professional academy of your peers. It also gives you a little bit of accountability. 

So, that's it - I am a Mennonite. goodbye Christian and Missionary Alliance and goodbye Baptists. It feels good to be tied in with a denomination like this - next year I will be ordained, so then I will be Rev. Ninan!

In other news, I am still juggling a variety of potential explosives, which I guess is par for the course for a pastor.

24's Post-Modern Confessional

2 weeks since my last post. The lapse testifies to the sort of craziness brewing in my life. Dead-lines, and people to meet.

Last week was the season finale of 24, which is normally one of my favorite shows, but found this years season to be rather dull.

There was an interesting scene in the finale, which I believe is a good reflection of the state of religion in the west. Jack Bauer is laying in a hospital bed dying. He is told that he has a visitor. The visitor turns out to be a Muslim cleric, who had helped Jack find some bad guys in a previous episode.

The cleric is quite nice and sensitive. Bauer becomes emotional and the scene transforms into a bed-side confessional. Bauer talks about all the bad he has done. Finally, the scene concludes with the cleric saying theses words, Let us both forgive ourselves for all the wrongs we have done,

Brilliant! Here we have a non-believer (as far as we can tell, there has never been any allusions to Bauer having any kind of religious faith), "confessing" to a Muslim cleric. And the cleric implores that THEY each forgive themselves. 

In this post-modern confessional, human beings forgive themselves, in order to die in peace. I though this was a fascinating commentary on the state of belief in America today. The classic forgiveness of sins recited by a priest is now replaced with an anthropocentric general confession, that apparently we can all do ourselves.

I'm really not sure what it means to "forgive ourselves". This speaks as if there is some sort of bifurcation in the human person, where one part can do wrong, and another part has the power to forgive. Maybe there is some truth to that. I guess forgiving oneself really means being at peace with oneself, after examining our erroneous behavior, words or thoughts. But, I don't  believe we can have peace within ourselves if we do not have peace with others, and ultimately peace with God.

I hope that when I find myself near the end of my life, I will have someone beside me who can assure me that I am forgiven, and that I have also made peace with others that I have had conflict with. i sense that will give me much more peace, than simply forgiving myself.

Wine and Fruit

Beauty.

I am enjoying a bowl of Fruit Loops with a glass of Chilean Chardonnay, cuz that's just the way I roll.

Been enjoying the weather lately: tennis, hiking, etc.

I am nearing the end of our series through Exodus. I think I started preaching on Exodus in September - so we have been studying it as a community for almost 9 months. Still unsure on what series we will do next.

After the Regent Pastors Conference, I am thinking I should do a series on the life of Christ. Summer is always tricky for a church - you have a lot of people away, and attendance is pretty sketchy. I myself will most likely not be preaching for at least 4 sundays between June and August.

I am taking a 2 week study break in July, where I will chart out all my sermons from September - May of the coming year. And then in August, we are taking 2 weeks vacation to Alberta - my family will be in Banff celebrating my parents' 40th anniversary. 

The Pastors Conference was really good - Earl Palmer and Fleming Rutledge were the plenary speakers. I have heard Palmer a lot - he is fantastic. I had never heard of Rutledge before - I thought she was sort of just ok - good content, but delivery was about average. There were quite a few old Baptist and Regent friends that were fun to see.

The big take away is that our preaching needs to be centered on Christ. Sounds simple enough, but it is easy to get distracted in our preaching.

River of Love

There's a river of love that runs through all time
But there's a river of grief that floods through our lives
It starts when a heart is broken into
By the thief of belief in anything that's true
But there's a river of love that runs through all time

There's a river of love that runs through all time
But there's a river of tears that flows through our eyes
We fight through the night for freedom as it fades
Into a jail where we fail everytime we make a break
But there's a river of love that runs through all time

I had to run before I knew how to crawl
The first step was hard
But I have had trouble with them all
But now the night grows darker
And the day grows dim
Cause I know I never will see you again
And I almost made you happy

There's a river of love that runs through all time
But there's a river of fire that burns with no light
The flame is the pain of dreams gone up in smoke
From the lies we deny and breathe until we choke
There's a river of love that runs through all time

-T-Bone Burnett

Top Dylan Albums

Here are the top 10 according to Rolling Stone readers (followed by my commentary)

1. Highway 61 Revisited - Lauded for several reasons: marked Dylan's full transition from folk to rock. Like A Rolling stone becomes one of the greatest songs of all time.

2. Blood on the Tracks  - one of my favorite albums of all time by any artist. This album and The Joshua Tree are albums that I can listen to straight through form beginning to end. Dylan's post divorce ruminations are startling in their honesty.

3. Blonde on Blonde - Not a huge fan of this album, although it is part of the trilogy of Bringing it home and Highway 61.

4. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan - One of my fave albums - pure folk. Contains Mr. Tambourine Man. His second studio album, and the songs are way more polished than his first album.

5. Bringing It All Back Home - Probably my favorite Dylan album. Great lyrics - hard rains a'gonna fall is some of the best poetry ever written.

6. Love & Theft - Part of the second great trilogy in Dylan's career. This album seems like further exploration from the Time out of Mind sessions.

7. Desire - I don't know this album at all. Contains the song Hurricane, about the boxer.

8. Modern Times - Love this album. Cutting lyrics for the twilight of the Bush administration.

9. Time Out of Mind - This album made me a Bob Dylan fan. I don't know how I got a hold of it. I think I read an interview w. Elvis Costello - there was a picture of him holding this album to the camera, saying it was one of the greatest thing he has ever heard. The album opens with the line "I'm walking through streets that are dead", which sets the mood for what follows. I was in the front row when Dylan played Saskatoon on this tour. Will never forget the way he looked straight at me during one of the last songs.

10. Oh Mercy - Don't like this album very much either. Curious it was on the list.

Other albums I like by Mr. zimmerman:

Another Side of Bob Dylan

The Times They Are A'Changin'

John wesley Harding

Basement Tapes

Slow Train Coming - This should have really been on the list.