Barnabas File

While attending the Ancient Future Community Group Life Conference at Willow Creek, I had the opportunity to participate in a spiritual tradition that is both ancient and present (and hopefully will be future). Amy and Judge Reinhold led a breakout session on contemplative prayer, actually a presentation and demonstration of lectio divina or "sacred reading" of scripture that incorporates periods of silence to listen to what God might be saying to us through a text. This was not a new practice for me, but the testimony provided by this couple of the impact it had made on their small group (at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles) and their own lives was inspiring. The Bible has actually become the agenda of their small group. The simple truth of their presentation is that reading and meditating on the Bible can make a difference in people's lives. Many of us come from a tradition that says it values Scripture but that actually tends to ignore it. Episcopalians ...

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to hear a presentation by a couple who do mission work in a very challenging part of the world. There are perhaps a 100 believers in the people group with whom they work and no indigenous churches. They were very candid in saying that they did not have any "warm fuzzy" success stories to share, but they provided some great insights into the strategy they are using to reach people and plant churches in a difficult environment. Although they are working to develop relationships with people through a specific platform that will give entree into the society, their goal is developing house churches that are indigenous, organic, and reproducible. There was a good time of discussion in response to the question "What might not be reproducible?" in a church located in a non-western, resource poor area. We talked about how a perceived need for credentialed clergy, printed literature, and buildings could hamper church growth in thei...

I have always been interested in the way that organizations function. There is a new organizational phenomenon among us, one that I hesitate even to call an "organization." This is the decentralized structure exemplified by Napster, Wikipedia, or even the Internet itself. Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have written a book entitled The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations that gives a very informal but insightful introduction to this type of structure. The key to this book is understanding the difference between a starfish and a spider. A spider has a head. If you cut it off, the spider dies. If you cut off a leg, it’s gone; it doesn’t grow back. A starfish does not have a head. If you cut off a leg, it will grow another one. If you cut it in half, you will have two starfish. A spider is a centralized system. A starfish is a decentralized system. In spider companies, power and knowledge are concentrated at the top. In starfish...

As I listened to a profile of General David H. Petraeus on NPR today, I was reminded again of how much I respect the men and women who were the military uniform of our country. I supposed this goes back to 1952 when Dwight Eisenhower ran for president on the Republican ticket and my parents, lifelong Democrats, voted for him. They felt that Eisenhower, as the supreme military commander in Europe during WW II, was a hero, a man of integrity who had proven himself in the service of his country. I have a great of respect for men like Colin Powell, Wes Clark, John McCain, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, and others who have held command and then continued to serve their country in other ways. I respect and honor the men and women who serve in our armed forces today. They have various motivations for their decisions to become part of the military, but they all place their lives on the line on behalf of other Americans. They endure hardship so that the rest of us can avoid it. I have worn the un...