Next Meeting August 28

Mark your calendar for our next cohort meeting, Thursday, August 28 at 7:00 P.M. at It's a Grind, 4152 W. Spring Creek Pkwy in Plano. Casey and J.D. will lead a discussion of liberation theology. Hope you can join us.

July Meeting Recap

Our July meeting was a time to catch up with each other. Casey reported that the Church Basement Roadshow was a lot of fun and a good review of the 3 authors’ latest books. Susan has been reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What. Ron read, but did not recommend, Roots and Wings. Joseph has been reading Wallis’ The Great Awakening. Clay is still reading the Voice. Larry and Casey talked about unChristian by Kinnaman. Casey has been reading Witness: Voices from the Holocaust by Greene and Kumar.

We wrapped up our meeting with a brief discussion of liberation theology and decided to continue that conversation at our August meeting on the 28th. Hope you can join us.

Next meeting - July 31, 2008

Our next meeting will be July 31st at 7:00 PM at It's a Grind, 4152 W. Spring Creek Pkwy in Plano. That's just west of Coit Road on Spring Creek Pkwy.

Kasey and/or J.D. will get the conversation started by discussing how history is always written by the victors and what liberation theology can teach us, and Casey will give us a report on the Church Basement Roadshow. This promises to be a great discussion. Hope to see you there.

Planting a garden as a revolutionary act

In sort of a hybrid between our earlier post about the themes of the movie WALL-E and our discussion in June about community gardens, you might want to read Rod Dreher's "Felling Subversive?" article in the Dallas Morning News on Sunday, July 13. If you look in the print edition, it is on page 4P. Here is the link for the on-line version.

Church Basement Roadshow

Danielle Shroyer asked that we help spread the word:

The Roadshow will be in FORT WORTH on Wednesday, July 16th at:
First Presbyterian Church
1000 Penn St
Fort Worth, TX 76102
(817) 335-1231‎


The Roadshow will be in DALLAS on Friday, July 18th at:
Trinity Presbyterian Church
901 N. Zang Blvd
Dallas, TX
*please note that the sign at the church will not say Trinity Presbyterian, but we will have posters outside to let you know you are at the right place!

Both evenings begin at 7:30pm and the cost is $10 at the door. If you are on Facebook, you can RSVP to either of these events there. And please do pass this along to your friends!

June Meeting Recap

We had a record high attendance of 13! Not bad for our third meeting. J.D., Phillip, Alan & Rachel, and Steve & Susan came for the first time. Kasey got the conversation going by talking about her growing interest (okay, pun intended) in community gardening. From there we touched on the ethics of working with neighborhood associations (is it better to ask forgiveness or permission?), various sources of free gardening advice and stuff, the impact of high energy costs on our neighborhoods, how to minister to neighbors who are on the brink of losing their homes (Phillip said that about 18% are already there locally), and how emerging churches and non-emerging churches are equipped to deal with the changes we are seeing in our culture.

If I left out a theme, please post a comment to add it to the list.

Steve suggested some websites related to community gardening:
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ - urban homesteading
http://www.freecycle.org/ - source of free stuff
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites.html - source of low cost or free stuff

Terry mentioned that his church has a ministry providing free furniture to families in need. Contact Terry at terryc_11855@verizon.net if you have furniture to donate, if you know of any sources of free furniture, or if you know of any families in need. There is always a demand for children’s furniture.

If you want to stay in touch with Alan & Rachel Howell after they return to Montepuez, Mozambique in mid-July, their blog is http://howellsinmoz.blogspot.com/, their email is Africahowells@yahoo.com and their team web is http://www.makuateam.org/

If you are interested in learning more about David Hawkins’ Power vs. Force, email Joseph at whitner@sbcglobal.net Also, Joseph is going to work up a PowerPoint presentation about his model of integrative spirituality. E-mail Joseph for more information.

Next time: Kasey and/or J.D. will get the conversation started by discussing how history is always written by the victors and what liberation theology can teach us. J. D. suggests these readings on liberation theology:
-The Powers trilogy of Walter Wink
-The Co-liberation thought of Brian McLaren in Everything Must Change
-Miguel de la Torre Reading the Bible from the Margins and Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins
-A series by Fortress Press called A People's History of Christianity
-Christ and Empire by Joerg Rieger
-Jesus and Empire and The Message of the Kingdom by Richard Horsley
-Also, James Cone, Desmond Tutu, Leonardo and Clovis Boff, Oscar Romero, and Gustavo Gutierrez.

It should be a great conversation. See you July 31st.

WALL-E‘s Biblical Themes

After watching WALL-E with my daughter’s family on Friday, we agreed that several of the plot lines had ties back to the Bible. (WARNING – possible plot spoilers ahead….)

First, there are ties to the Genesis account of the flood: Mankind is saved by escaping a flood (of garbage) on a large (space) ship. Those on the ship send out a (robotic) dove, which brings back evidence of earth’s renewed plant life, initiating the process of re-populating the earth.

Then there is the obviously feminine character (robot) E.V.E., whose determination to follow “the directive” falters only once, happily with fewer consequences than in the Genesis account. And mankind, who has been lulled into over-consumption by all the technology provided by the “Buy-N-Large” corporation, is gently-but-prophetically interrupted back to reality, and back into action, by WALL-E.

Perhaps I’ve been influenced by the thirteen chapters of Wright’s Surprised by Hope I have finished so far, but I also saw elements of Revelation 21’s new earth in the film’s closing scene and the images of rebuilding that appeared with the final credits.

So, did we see everything? Did we read too much into it? Go see the movie yourself and let me know what you think.