last night erin & i headed down to west end, along with quite a few hundred cross cultural types to hear from n.t. wright, the bishop of durham. he's on a book tour for "surprised by hope" which i am to read sometime this year. i was stoked to hear of his coming and by the turnout last night, quite a few others were as well. it was a nice evening out catching up with many friends. even erin had fun meeting up with the various friendships through blogging. being at the methodist church it was nice to see some metho-types in the audience as well. after-wards we went out for drinks at the broadway brewhouse, with the joneses for a new draft beer to town. the new beer, boulevard brew, out of kansas city. it is quite good, though it probably won't take over from my early 20's drink of choice back in nj.
back to last night. i am still processing. i don't know if i have knowledge and language command to navigate what i heard in teaching and not making it sound like some purgatory realm. one thing erin & i liked was nt's distinction that we are not building the kingdom but building for the kingdom. his analogy was a rock sculpture shape a rock, and that is what they do, but it is the architect who puts into its place where the true beauty shows.
many friends have already started to throw down their thoughts. so i give you a round-up of those conversations
- jared wilson - a long write up, but worth the time (i wanted to meet jared, but with the amount of folks random meeting just wasn't in the cards)
- thomas mckenzie - if you can impress thomas, then you have done something
- cameron conant - reflection from one of the more self-reflective people i know
- phil wilson - who has a mix of emotions, as his grandmother passed away last night as well
- fellow um'er gary - he found the article quote that nt used in highlighting the 'western' misunderstanding of heaven, brilliant
- sally chambers - in her poetic self
- pete wilson - via jared wilson
- matthew paul turner
- george stull
- stephen : rebelling
- the tennessean forums topic on this
another fun thing. i received an email from a older gentleman asking my response to his comments on the tennessean article i was quoted in. for the record, my church is "first" united methodist, not "faith" united methodist. common mistake.. not really, but oh well.
some of my conversations in the being interviewed were that. 1. this isn't such a hard concept to grasp as we have always had a teaching of holiness movement and means of grace that is intended to be kingdom building 2. it isn't so hard to imagine methodist's interested in anglican folks as we are only 300 years removed from those anglican traditions of church. not to mention, we are a revival movement from that church body, so any revival in that church is probably something we are going to be interested in. but as with any of my "news" spots, my one liners are lame or total bs.
i do take down some audio of the bishop's talk. the sound system was not in fine form. john, who was operating the system and a old family friend told me after-wards someone came in and messed it all up after he had it perfect. he was so mad. so the audio isn't the best volume quality, but if you can plug into some speakers you can hear just fine.
- N.T. Wright - Surprised By Hope Talk (around 50 mins, in m4a format, play in itunes, 25mgs)
- N.T. Wright - Surprised By Hope Talk (around 50 mins, in mp3 format, 60mgs)
- N.T. Wright - Surprised By Hope Q&A (around 25 mins, in m4a format, play in itunes, 12mgs)
- N.T. Wright - Surprised By Hope Q&A (around 25 mins, in mp3 format, 28mgs)
