Jim Pace not only is a clone of Scott Van Pelt from ESPN but he's also a pastor and lead navigator at [nlcf] in Blacksburg, VA and author of Should We Fire God? to be released April 8, 2010
If you are in the NRV come out to [nlcf] as we continue our series on Identity Theft! Today we start reclaiming it! 5 days ago
As promised, the second Identity Theft post to walk us through the process of truly choosing to walk in covenant with God. It is the best deal we could ever be offered. If you are in the New River Valley area this weekend (and aren’t a member of another church 
) you won’t want to miss this week as we look at how we can specifically overcome common obstacles that we can encounter as we try to walk closer with God. If you would like to listen in to the series so far, have at it!
First of all, just to be clear, the ! was for the new site. While I am excited about my posting, not sure I would give it a !.
I haven’t been posting as much over the past month as things have been insane at [nlcf]. I do have several that are close to ready to go, and now that my schedule has died down, they will be coming soon. Everything from how I learned that I don’t ever have to attend another rave, to discussions of some of the most difficult topics that Christians face in our culture today. Impressive, eh?
Probably not.
Well, at any rate, if you were at any of our three gatherings on Sunday I said I would post a couple of times to help continue the discussion about how we reclaim an identity that has been stolen. If this makes no sense to you, my suggestion is that you take a look here, once you are on board, take a look here. And if that really piques your curiosity, the first talk in the series is here. (We are a bit behind on posting the talks as we are shifting servers and that can mean that our blah blah blah… all the computers that connect to the internet need to change where they are pointing blah blah… so that our site won’t crash… blah. All that to say, please be patient with us as we shift our servers.
If none of that really interests you, then you might want to just look at this video of a kitten being cute.
A have a good friend that I respect a great deal. His name is JR Briggs and he is lead pastor and cultural cultivator of The Renew Community, in Lansdale Pennsylvania.
Over the past several weeks I have had more and more people ask me my thoughts on the proposed mosque that would be built two blocks away from ground zero. Opinions have been strong on both sides of this issue and as I was praying and reflecting on it, I ran across JR’s post. I liked it so much I even stole his image. So…
JR, take it away…
Thoughts?
Jim
So, it is upon us. For those of us who are connected to non-quarter colleges and universities, the beginning of Fall Semester is here!
For me, being in Blacksburg Va and co-pastoring a church that works to empower both local residents and college students to see more clearly the picture God is trying to show them; fall is an exciting time. Just this morning I was walking into my office and heard the Marching Virginians drum corps practicing. You could here the reverberating drum beats all over town! That is one of my favorite indicators that fall kick-off is about to commence.
As is our custom, this past week our campus staff team met for the entire day to plan, pray, reflect, dream a bit and discuss our mission for the year. I always look forward to that time to hear what God is saying to those I serve with, and to see how they reflect on what I sense God is saying to me. One section of that day is where we discussed the events that we undertake in those first two or three weeks. Overall [nlcf] isn’t a church that puts on a ton of events. In fact, we typically try to pull back our meetings to as few as possible so that people can we out living the gospel and not just meeting to talk about it.
But the first couple of weeks is different. What we have seen over the years is that the majority of the literally thousands of people who will be arriving at Tech (many for the first time) are helped by having certain events available to them. So, we have our list.
During that time, I was asked a question by one of our newer staff people, Sarah. She asked how an introvert was expected to navigate the numerous events that we host, almost all of which are built around meeting new people and trying to help them feel at home and get involved in whatever groups they prefer. IE NOT optimized for introverts.
I thought it was a great question and as I have reflected on it, I have a few thoughts. So, I will list our events that we are hosting, the goal of the event, and how different personality types might manage those times. Away we go… (more…)
So… If you are a master of context clues, you have probably gathered that I do have an ipad.
(pause)
(pause)
(pause)
I have learned to provide that extra long pause so that anyone that hears that I have an ipad can make whatever joke they feel they would like to make about the fact that I have an ipad. They are inevitable. So, now I just give time to let them happen.
Which leads to this equally inevitable posting about why I have one. So, without further ado…
Why Jim Pace Has An Ipad
First and foremost, (Tracy) my wife bought it for me. She set aside money, and for Father’s Day, she wanted to get me something very special. She nailed it. The past five or six months prior to Father’s Day had been incredibly intense, and Tracy said she just wanted to do something really nice for me. So, when we recieved some unexpected money, she put it some aside and we got it with that.
She will tell you that I almost hyperventilated when she first told me that was what she was doing. Mostly because of the cost. She will also tell you that I initially said no, but I was told it wasn’t up to me, and so that was that.
Second, yes, I am an apple fan.
Yes, I like that their products look cool, but I know something about myself. It applies to apple products and couch material patterns.
I get used to anything after about two weeks. Truly. Anything.
While I like the look of Apple products, what I like most about them is that they work. So, I am a committed Apple guy, but only after trying an HP, two Dells, and a Viao and having them all crash repeatedly on me. Now,I have an Apple laptop that has made it longer than any other one I have ever had. It has been stolen and then mailed back to me. Dropped by an unknown dropper, leaving a big dent in the back, but it kept on ticking. But, now its age is starting to show and it really isn’t working very well. So, I need to replace it, and the ipad (with the exception of two things) does what I need a computer to do. With only those two things left, I only use my laptop sparingly and I suspect I will get more time out of it.
Third, and this one is the kicker… I do use my ipad when I am teaching, but NEVER when I am on my Segway, I’m too afriad it will fall off and break. If that makes no sense, take a look here…
I have been a wandering teacher for as long as I have been teaching. I go up around the stage, up the aisles sometimes… wherever I can. One of my questions whenever I guest speak is “How far can I go?” The lighting team at one of our venues has a wide setting just for me.
One of the hardest parts about moving is that I have preferred for years to carry my notes with me. Not a big notebook, but a small piece of paper. I also like to make changes right up to the time I get up to speak, so I would often have arrows and lines, things scratched out and things added in… What made that especially hard was that when I would wander up the aisles, it would get dark. So I would be reading my chicken scratched, marked up outline in the dark. Not easy to do.
So, I could either wander and try to close the gap of space in some of the big rooms I speak in and have a hard time reading what I had written, or I could stay up front in the light.
Heh… until now.
Now, I can arrange my notes, on the fly, underline, make bold, whatever I need, right up until the start of my teaching. I love that! It is easy to carry and is very simple to use in that environment. It has a light so I can read it… ahhh… perfection.
The only thought I have ever given using it in public is that I am going to get razzed for it.
Ready for another? Fourth, I cannot count how many times I have been running around the room looking for my notes, asking people if they have seen that little piece of paper, asking from the front when I walk up if people can look around… I have even had to give talks without my notes on at least five separate occasions. Not lying. Five.
Let me just say that I will not lose the ipad. Won’t happen. And if it does, then I just about guarantee you that Tracy will kill me. Doubt me? Those of you who know her say she won’t? Just ask Seth how mad she gets when he can’t find his soccer shin guards. I’m just saying, if I happen to disappear unexpectedly after losing the ipad, or my brakes freakishly don’t work…. Check her minivan for a pair of pliers…
Fifth… Here is the last reason. For me, one of the toughest things I do is manage my time so that I can live a life of balance. Beyond my other talk preparation times during the week, on the Sundays I teach, I get up at 4.15am to do my final prayer, reflection and preparation. So, anything that lets me save a few minutes of time, that helps me avoid recopying notes that I will just mark up again, is great in my book.
So, I use it, I like it, and will continue to use it. Unless someone will volunteer to get up at 4.30 on the Sundays I teach to re-write my notes for me and follow me around with a flashlight.
Take that… you haters…
We are coming to another transition point.
Leadership Training participants and leaders are finishing up their time.
Internships and Co-ops are in their final weeks.
Students that have been home are planning their returns to campus.
New students have been through orientation and are now starting to get their stuff packed.
Grads are starting to feel the reality that they won’t be returning this time.
Those of us in the New River Valley are seeing people start to pour into the area, stores are getting busier, school supply list emails are going out and houses and apartments are changing hands as some leave and some arrive.
It has even dropped into the low eighties in the evenings a couple of times!
And this is the last Diaspora post for the summer.
As I reflect back on the summer and what God has spoken to me about, I keep coming back to his sovereinty. The fact that he is God and is ultimately in charge. He is the one that has most earned the right to guide my thinking, my soul. He is the one that is most in love with me and has the most fulfilling use of my short time here on earth in his mind.
He is the one that challenged me early in the summer to consider who is really blessed as compared to who I can feel is blessed.
He is the one that challenged me to really look at how much I actually take Jesus’ command seriously. Am I willing to be sent into the world as Jesus went, or am I just going to busy myself with the business of putting on a weekly church gathering?
He is the one that challenged me to really consider where my faith stops and my fear takes over. To consider what my definition of success and failure are.
And all through it, he has just been with me. There have been some amazing moments where I clearly felt his presence.
It has been a great summer and I have so enjoyed walking through it together with you all.
Peace, Jim
I am a fan of something that is loosely referred to as an “orthogonal
approach” applied to intensely debated social and religious issues.
So I was excited when I saw that Adam Frank, an astrophysicist from
the University of Rochester invoked it in a discussion of the ongoing
debate between science and religion. And while Frank, who would
consider himself a “strident atheist” and myself, a convinced follower
of Jesus, have a number of key points of disagreement, I liked the
overall trajectory of his article.
At least at first. His take was that we need to try to not fall into
the same “us versus them” pattern that can so often derail the
discussion. That by thinking “orthogonally” we can put a right angle
in the discussion and come up with something that is entirely new.
Then I ran across what I run across almost without fail in discussions
with those who would consider themselves commited scientists and
atheists. The issue that comes out and is seemingly not even noticed
is the baseline belief that those with religious belief are more
against the discussion than those without religious belief. That the
religious, with my experience being obviously as a follower of Jesus,
have behaved more poorly in the discussion than our counterparts. Essentially, this is more of the same thing. Pointing the finger across the aisle. (more…)
Ten years ago, Anne Rice said that Christ was her Messiah. The news shocked much of the world (at least the literary
world.)
This is because Anne Rice was the best selling author of The Vampire Chronicles among many other titles. With so much of her writing leaning towards the darker corners of our existence, hearing that she accepted the light of Christ was surprising to say the least. To date she has sold over 100 million books. As a new author myself, that’s quite a feat.
Here is an extended quote from Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God.
Anne Rice was one person who was startled to discover how weak the case for a merely human “historical Jesus” really is. Rice became famous as the author of Interview with the Vampire and other works… Raised a Catholic, she lost her faith at a secular college, married an atheist, and became wealthy writing novels about Lestat, who is both a vampire and a rock star…
Why did she do it? In the afterword to her new novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, she explained that she had begun doing extensive research about the historical Jesus by reading the work of Jesus scholars at the most respected academic institutions. Their main thesis was that the Biblical documents we have aren’t historically reliable. She was amazed at how weak their arguments were.
Some books were no more than assumptions piled on assumptions… Conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all… The whole case for the non-divine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified… that whole picture which had floated around the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years — that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I’d ever read.
On Wednesday, she let the Facebook world know that she is calling it quits. She has had enough. Let me let her say it her way.
As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
Clearly this is not something she did quickly, it seems she has made a reflected decision and has acted based upon it. She provides some clarification here.
For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
On her fanpage, she quotes several scripture from Matthew, John and 1 Corinthians and then her most recent posting (as of my posting) is this…
My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.
What do you think about what she is saying and how she is saying it? Would love to get your thoughts!
I have to admit that I have been surprised by how much I have enjoyed reading Amos for the past couple of months.
One of the greatest parts of being able to regularly teach the scriptures is that I take a few months (usually) before I teach on a book or a topic to try to immerse myself in it. I was once challenged to never teach on scripture that I hadn’t read fifty times, the idea being that the more you dive into the scriptrues the more you can grab what was going on. The Holy Spirit seems to really draw me into interactions that have really blessed me; and hopefully those that hear me!
I have been excited about us teaching on Amos for well over a year now, volunteered to teach the three weeks we will be dealing with it, and even am leaving our staff retreat early to get back August 8th to finish the series up. But my excitement has been due to the sense that God wanted us to talk about it, not about the book itself.
Amos is the third of the minor prophets. A section of short accounts of seasons in Isreal and Judah’s history when God is saying Enough! The minor prophets writings are full of God’s judgement, unpleasant verses, and involve a tough task of understanding what was going on then that led God to say what he did and how that connects with our experience today and what he is intending us to take from it. It is not a very highly read book, tucked into the back of the Old Testament and full of tough stuff.
Honestly, it isn’t easy.
But I have been surprised.
As I have read Amos more times than I can count in various translations, relfected on how specific writers and the church has looked it over the centuries and spent a great deal of time asking God what he would want to say to us… I have started to see something that I had missed. A great deal of love and hope. An incredible example of how God blends the fact that he is fully in charge of everything he has created and that we as humanity seem to have genuine freedom in the choices me make within that creation.
In light of that, this week’s challenge is fairly straightforward.
Read Amos a couple of times. You need to read it a couple of times to get through the initial feelings you will have when you do read it. The language is strong, God is upset. That is clear. If you would like some of the context of why, you can listen to my talk from last Sunday.
As you are reading, ask God to help you look past how you feel about what he is saying, so that you can start to get to how he feels about what he is saying. Then pose the question, am I doing what the Israelites were doing?
Pray that God will give you a heart that is more tender to both your weaknesses, but also to the love that God so clearly feels for you. Remember, in God’s eyes, if you have accepted Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and call to follow him, you are part of the family of Israel. Keep that in mind as you read.
Finally, share what you are seeing with someone else. I would love if you would share it here so we can all be encouraged, but the most important point is that you share.
Last thing, if the website is a bit tough to get around, give us some grace, a totally new and revamped one is coming in the next couple of weeks! Long overdue!
Peace, Jim
So, I am supposed to be working on my next book proposal. And I have been, but I seem to be unable to make more than two or three
sentences stream together in a way that doesn’t really suck.
In honor of accomplishing very little, I would like to send along something I was shown by our very own Mike Snow. You should be Facebook friends with him if you aren’t. Just saying.
You have to read this, I laugh every time I do and then cry a bit when I realize five more minutes is gone and…
The image is from the committedsardine.com website (I know nothing about the rest of it, this is the only post I have read) AND also happens to very much reflect my feelings. Albeit in feminine form.
Anyway, enjoi!
Jim
“In a time such as ours we face a great dilemma. On the one hand it seems we and the world need God all the more, and on the other, that the God we need might not be up to the task. Jim Pace provides a thoughtful and honest look at the tension that so many of the people that I know (including myself) often face. Steeped in his own story of doubt, disbelief, and tragedy this book is a refreshing look at this apparent impasse.”
—
