The return of prodigal son

The Return of Prodigal Son, Rembrandt

At the end of Soul Survivor, I've got with history of Henry Nouwen, again, I read about his history when he saw the paint above about the prodigal son and reflected about it a lot, it touched him so deeply that when he went to St. Petesburg he got to see personally the paint, and got even more touched, this originated a book about Prodigal Son and changed his life a lot.
Different of the times I read about Nowen's experience, this time I have decided to looked after this painting, and here it is...
I think it is very interesting how God works and brings His insights by wonderful ways. We just need to be open to His relationship and open to the ways He will touch us.
The paint is very interesting, isn't? The prodigal son on his knees, the father touching his beloving child and the older brother at the dark, I think because of my huge churching background, I see myself very close to older brother. I will look to this book and learn more.
I liked also to discover other paintings by Rembrandt, he also selected many other biblical themes, it worths to see his Web Museum

Inspirational for this weekend

Found in Sivin Kit's Garden

It is easy to die for Christ.
It is hard to live for him.

Dying takes only an hour or two,
but to live for Christ
means to die daily.
Only during the few years of this life
are we given the privilege of serving
each other and Christ…
We shall have heaven forever,
but only a short time for service here,
and therefore we must not waste the opportunity.

Sadhu Sundar Singh
(1889-1929)

No excuses!

Olympics themes and lessons are on top until the end of this week!
Monday we felt a great deception in gimnastics, we were never close to get to the finals, but there surge a girl, Diane dos Santos, which started to get high grades in other competitions, mainly in floor exercise. All media started to focus on her as a great hope of medal (which we never got so far in all gimnastics).
When she exercised many people stopped to see her at TV, but she got two great mistakes, (she stepped away of the line) and her grade were not as high as expected.
When we have this kind of deception it is usual to circulate lots of jokes (mainly because the girl is poor and is an african brazilian) and lots of excuses (it could be her knee, or the organization, or the pressure, etc).
To my great surprise, she assumed her fault and did not blame anything, a great show of maturity.
I hope this might be a great lesson to many here that do not assume their falts and always have anything to blame. I can't stand excuses, I hope to have Jesus Christ more listened :"be your yes, yes and your no, no" it would be better to stand ourselves if we assume our mistakes and not cover them by our excuses, and see one to other as we are: failable, mistakable and eager to better.

This is what I call virtual evangelism

I found in e-vangelism that Andrew Careaga disposed a introdution of his work evangelism 2.0. I could not read all document yet, but from the pages I could read, I liked very much, Internet is really a great field to be reached and wisely worked, I told wisely, this because it is easy to see evangelism without any wisdom in internet.
I thought very interesting Careaga's story about when he entered virtual environment of "The Sims" and could develop some spiritual conversation, very virtual but very true as long as when you think that behind every Sims there is a person that has a spiritual background and a searching for God.

Power or Service?

This week our president kid with the Costa Rica's president telling that he went to Gabon to learn how to be mantained in power 34 years and be re-elected. Bad kid for a man too close to Hugo Chavez (president of Venezuela)
In a newspaper I saw a very nice letter to our president:

"Mr. president, you were not elected to be in power, but to lead and govern a great Nation"

I don't like our president, I know he has a great history, but his party once looked like very ethic, now, as long as they are doing as bad as other people acted in government they look now hypocrit.
With this kid, we can learn other lesson: why are you leading, to have power or to serve?

Olympic Friday 5

With all these sport overload, I though in posting a Olympic Friday 5 which deals with our personal assessment, answer the questions below at comments or in your blog (indicate it in your comments)

1)If you could, wich sport would you play in these olympics?
Biking or thriatlon
2)Overall, in what thing do you think yourself faster ?
Get ready to go out
3)Overall, in what thing do you think yourself stronger?
Be under pressure
4)Overall, in what thing do you think yourself more resistant?
Keep friendships even when they do not return enough
5)Overall, in what thing do you think yourself skilled?
Make surprises

Emerging Church - yes, there are cons!

I've found a link in Knightopia to a Jason Clark post about pros and cons founded in emerging church movement (Love/hate the emerging church).
Most of pros come from freedom and simplicity of doing church, it seems that the cons come from the fanatic people that started thinking that this is THE way of doing church and annoy others that are sincere too but not as "post-modern", other annoying think come from the mind that everything worth, we in Brazil call that "zona", i.e. a great mess.
I think this is a very need and important assessment to be done right now in order to not change a way of doing church for another kind of legalism.

Knightopia

I was found by a member of Warehouse 242, Steve Knight, this was the first kind of emerging church case I found and I have been visiting that site a lot, I was used to listen good messages from Sunday services, Steve also posts a very nice blog: Knightopia, by his blog I have discovered that services are back to be disposed at MP3, good news.

Obfuscation 2 - The answer

Wow! At the beggining I was thinking that my lying capability was very weak, but with other answers I could think I was not as bad!
The answer is number #2, yes, it appears that is not so possible to wait that much at a sunny day, the problem is that in Brazil you should never leave your car unlocked, our car robbering rate is very high!
Regarding #1, my friend is a very polited guy, when he started dating, he asked to her fathers to comply the date, that is why at the end he asked to talk with everybody.
#3 was a very difficult situation, I was seated at drivers seat, the pastor was at my side and the girl at backseat, I could not leave the car and I though I could not stop talking to go home.
That's it, I think I have a good tolerance for these kind of situations, I wished I could have this level of patience for whole life, for problems of life we have to wait for much more time, that is the thing God has been giving me as long as I have to face some hard situations.
Thank you very much all the answers, hope you all had fun!

Olympics now!

Reuters
Olympics is ever a great time to me, unfortunately I was at work at Open Ceremony, but I have record and saw everything at night. Now it is the time to see everything through 4 channels I have disposed in my cabo.
We in Brazil have some gold medals hope: Man and Woman volleyball, Man and Woman Beach Volleyball, one medal at Sailing.
We have also good podium chances at Gimnastics, Athletism, Judo and Woman Basketball. I saw a Medals table to be inserted at blogs, but it shows just first 10 positions, we usually don't get enough medals to reach that position, yet.

Obfuscation 2 - Waiting times

Well, as told before, today is the day of Obfuscation 2, you will find below three stories, 1 of them is false, try to find the one and answer at comments, I will tell you about waiting times of my life in an era without celular phone:

#1 - I was with a friend at his girlfriend house, after a large time talking privetly, he and his date called the family for a serious talk, I knew they would break up (I believe they were together 3 to 4 years), I offered to get out the familiar conversation and wait outside, it was 11:30 PM, it was an old apartment building, and I went down to the dark lobby, there I was just me and the security guard, I seated at cold stairs, the lobby was far from a cosy, so it was dark, silent, cold and getting colder as the time was getting late, I wait there for an hour, two and close to 2:00 AM, there came a broken hearted friend to go home, we went through the city at 40 Km/h. It was a long, long night.

#2 - It was saturday, I and a friend would go to the movie, but first he would get a quick visit at his office to see if everything were all right with his report, I decided to wait at his car and not get to the work of parking, closing etc... It was a very hot afternoon and I remember to see that hot weather warming, see most of the radio stations and wonder what happen to his report, unfortunatelly, I could not get out the car or park it, because he taked the keys, from 2:30 PM, I waited until 5:00 with much excuses and a plan to go home by bus because he should stay at the office to work on his report.

#3 - I was participating of a working group and we met in the West zone of my city, at the end of the meeting I offered a ride for two people that lived closed to my house at North Zone (one of them were a pastor), first I take a girl to her house, when we get there, the pastor asked if she was really feeling well, unfortunatelly this was not the case, so they started talking and he started counseling, and there was getting two important hours of crying, praying and we got home. I would be all right if I were not dating that night, I told Heloiza I would get her at 6:30 PM, I got there at 9:00 PM with angry moods to calm.

I am not as good to lie, Monday I will post the answer. Leave here yours...

Kingdom, heaven and hell

I am glad to complete the reading of "The Divine Conspiracy", from Dallas Willard. I learned a lot, I thought this book a great and necessary study about the Sermon of the Mount.
I am also glad to realize how reachable is the words of Jesus, but the greater grasp we have to fulfill the kingdom within us, the greater is the responsability of us to take his word seriously of ignore him by our own risk.
Latelly I have been expose to this idea of Kingdom of God, which starts now in our lives and the idea of heaven that is our Earth renewed. The pastor of the church I have been going have talked very much about that.
I have also been exposed to a idea of hell that could be the same place of heaven but the idea of peace and the presence of God could be hell to the people that do not adore him. Sincerily I am not comfortable with that. Now I have to take my own study about our future, heaven and hell, but this idea of hell is different in my mind when I remember "Rich and Lazarus", Jesus taken apart the people are not his and the lake of fire of Revelation. Sometimes I think that this kind of hell does not fear enough, though people does not have to accept Jesus running away from hell. I have grown up waiting for a kind of future and it is not easy to see that change by this way, I have learned also that the worst thing of hell could be the absence of God and no way of repenting, I am not comfortable but I am not closed about this idea.
If you have something to help me about that I will thank you very much.

Tuesday 3

Rick provided a very dreamy Tuesday 3 to answer, here the questions and answers:
1) Three things you wish you'd done when you were younger.
- Became a Triathlete
- Visit my penpals from Europe
- Became a better friend for my friends out of the church

2) Three things you wish you could be doing today.
- Visit some friends
- Play with my doughter
- Enjoy a coffee with a cake in my mother house

3) Three things you wish you can do as you get older.
- Own a small business (like a cafe)
- Live near to the beach
- Write a book

A very good way to start

I found Axis is dedicating 40 days to refocuse their spiritual direction. I am glad to know that this kind of work is not forgeting the foundamentals.
Usually, when we have the purpose to be more countemporary in things we do at church, we got to be so pragmatic about how to do those things that the way we do things became priority. Those moments are a great step defining that priority belongs to God. It creates an environment to think about yourself, about if what was done were fine, what should be better, what were flash, what were spirit. The best way to start, like so others we see at the Bible.
Today I read about silence and solitude, I need so much this! Those are things so need in the rush of our life that I think that just in those moments when we can really reflect about our life, we can really regret, receive from God the wisdom we need day by day, and go to the right direction.

Like an Emerging Church class

I have found via E-vangelism.com a a very nice link to a Billy Graham Center about The Gospel in a Post-Christian Culture, I am not used to a abundant Emergent Church material like that, it seems it worth a lot to take a good review in those documents. I will start from who I know , Brian Mc Laren (The Strategy we pursue) and Rick Richardson (The perceptions we face), other themes looks very interesting. I like also the cases: Seekers small group, Axis, Overcomers Outreach and The Shalom.
Again, I am not used to this kind of academic material, I think most of the seminaries here are far from this kind of discussion. For me it seems the best Emerging church course I can have so far.

A new blog game!

Since we lost Friday 5 it was difficult to have funnier posts, I discover a blog game via Rick Stiwell blog that will be run on August 13 . The game is Obfuscation 2
On August 13 I will post 3 stories (one or two of them are false), came this day and try do discover by your comments which one are false, on Monday (16) I will post the results.
Hope to see you here on Autust 13!

She prayed for twelve...

Yesterday I read a very nice article from "The Ooze" written by Lisa Bledsoe called God's Dozen. It drew me my attention because of the details of a planting church in North Carolina (Catalystic Church). I liked the kinds of details listed by her and all things that concerned her that moment and later, I think planting church is a task full of risk but a very challenge one.
I think these kind of risks are risks worth to be taken, the risk of constructing a contemporary liturgy, invites and praises to God. She was really able to think out of the box and I think she did it very well, not everyone is able to do it as well, you need a great level of research and to know how to mantain teologically aceptable as well.
This is the kind of movement I miss a lot here in Brazil, unfortunatelly it is rare to see a church planting like this, and when you see one, it is just an extension of the established one. Few leaders dare to risk to create a community with a different kind of communication and approach. The task to plant this kind of community is so harder given the usually hard task to plant one, we have also our conservative culture obstacle.
As I see and collect lots of experiences outside and in Internet, I pray that God give me opportunity, wisdom and the twelve needed to dare too here in São Paulo.
Few moments ago I saw this article is a little old (January), but I'm glad to see by their website the church is going well.