The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Edison didn't want to light a lamp. He wanted to light a city.

We don't want to resuscitate a Sunday School curriculum. We want to resuscitate a church.

It's Only One Song... One Stolen Song

Would you steal $7,290 from a starving musician? Most people would not.

But according to "Arthmetic Piracy" (exercise on p. 4 of You Shall Not Steal in our "Head to the Heart"  confirmation curriculum) that's how much it cost the artist when your kid pirates one song. The average pirated song is "shared" and reburned on 1,458 disks.

This is found in a formula called Geometric Progression. (See Wikipedia)

Info thanks to your buddy Art Stees

Herb's favorite and shortest poem, of which I could tell he was very proud by the chuckle in his voice and the twinkle in his eye:



Love is a pig.

Herb Brokering is Dead; Herb Brokering is Alive

He could hear God in the hum of an electrical junction box.

He could see and sing God in a little rock.

He cried on the Berlin Wall when it went up. He danced on the wall when it came down.

He talked us into sticking our noses up against to the pine trees outside Wartburg Castle and licking - yes licking - the walls of the Luther's office.

He had Deke  - a sophomore in our group - take his shirt off and lay on the cold stone floor of the Erfurt Cloister to imagine how Luther felt when he stripped down and took his vows.

He sent Ute, our communist youth guide, away to purchase river boat tickets and, the moment she left, broke the bread and wine and blue jean gifts out, gathered a crowd and celebrated Holy Communion in the center of Alexander Platz in East Berlin.

He talked the blind organist, Herr Fogel (Mr. Bird) into a late night concert for our group in Bach's church on Bach's organ 25 feet above Bach's buried bones at St. Thomas Kirke, Leipzig.

He sat alone and sad and worn in the airport in New Orleans after a national youth gathering where he told me he felt "pushed to the side and thrown away... as if I had nothing left to offer."

Damn those ingrates. Bless those ingrates.

He fumed over a cup of coffee at Perkins in Bloomington - our annual gathering spot - over how frustratingly difficult it was to get anything published by his church publishing house.

Damn those idiots. Bless those idiots.

The closest thing to an Old Testament prophet walking the earth died November 7.

My friend. My mentor. My example. My, my, my....

Little rock, little rock

Where have you been?

Little rock, little rock

What have you seen?

When the earth was hot and new

Where you you, rock, where were you

Little rock, little rock

Where have you been?

Come to Central Lutheran at 2 on the 21st and celebrate Herb.

Herb Brokering is dead.

Herb Brokering is alive.

I doubt I'll ever meet another quite like him.

PS - I'll post Herb's voice and a dozen recorded prayer journey poems he wrote for me, one a week, from now until they run out. Then I'll have to start writing some myself again.

One Molecular Biologist and the Bible

I happened to learn more about the author of yesterday's post after reading  "Brain Rules" by John Medina at the Phillie airport last week. The author is a molecular biologist who has a lot to say about brains, learning, sleep, exercise and all the points I've been teaching on my 79 cities. He's also into rebuilding models for early childhood education.

His stuff clarifies how the brain works best, and his advise applies both to rethinking education and to rethinking the way businesses operate to get maximum productivity out of workers.

The Harvard Business Review says: "Few people are better qualified to help managers sift through all the hype than John."

I found out John happens to teach at Seattle Pacific and the U of Wash, so since I'm there this week - on my last of the 79 city tour -  I contacted his office to see if he had time for a chat.

After doing a little research, I found out he's also a rather marvelous Christian teacher, Bible scholar, apologist and CS Lewis scholar. His staff sent me a link to a series of lectures he did recently at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle.

http://www.upc.org/audio/Midweek_Classes/trustthebooks/mwc20061108.mp3

I woke early this morning and listened to it as my devotions, and it's pretty marvelous. When it's time to resurrect and write the "Why God?" series we started a few years ago, John would be a great supplemental thinker.

If you don't have time to listen to the whole talk - it's an hour - here's my notes:

Rich


November 8, 2006
"Why One Scientist Decided to Trust the Old and New Testaments"
Taught by John Medina

Let's suppose you are not a materialist. Let's suppose you are instead a deist. Someone who makes room for an all-powerful God. If you believe there is an all powerful God... then the miracles of the Bible are child's play compared to someone who could create the entire universe in a single word. The miracles are child's play to an all-powerful God.

If you do not believe in a God powerful enough to do this, then it's all nonsense.

It all depends on your frame of reference. Your presuppositions. What you bring to the table before you ask the questions about whether something did or did not happen."

When I read CS Lewis's book on miracles, I ran into two quotes that made my heart race:

"Every event which might be claimed as a miracle is, as a last resort, something presented to our senses."

"What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we settle the philosophical question: Is there an all-powerful Creator or isn't there."

It the legal world - testimonial and experiential evidence are both admitted.

Science doesn't like testimonial data, although testimony can quickly lead to truth.

Top 4 Objections to the Bible's Claims by those who come to the table believing there is no God:

1. Rule of Counter-Intuitivity: "The miracles are counter intuitive"
2. The Rule of Nonsense: "These miracles are nonsense!"
3. The Miracles are Arbitrary: "Why does God intervene for some, but not for others?"
4. The Rule of Inconsistency: "The rules are contrary to the rules of science"

These are also (rightly) the Top 4 Objections to the Science of Quantum Mechanics

1. These data counter-intuitive (take a look at some of the claims of QM!)
2. These data nonsense (QM often doesn't make sense or fall in line with what we think we know)
3. These data arbitrary (sometimes the "rules" go one way, sometimes another)
4. These data inconsistent (ditto)

The issue in science AND religion is always first the perspective that you bring to the table. QM and the miracles of the Bible are both counter-intuitive, nonsense, arbitrary and inconsistent if you only allow for the "facts" and can't allow for anything to be true outside of what we think we know.

THE I-Triple EEE-JOURNAL OF QUANTUM MECHANICS IS WEIRDER THAN THE BIBLE

Four Instances from Molecular Biology where the "facts" just don't add up

1. The Atom -
No doubt the atom is a weird place to be. Lots of space around it. Electrons exist in what is called a probabilistic cloud around the nucleus. Electrons can exist at various heights around a nucleus and can move into and out of certain orbits. When you try to get an electron to move from one orbit to the next, this is where you encounter a weird thing. You never really see an electron move from one level to the other. The reason you can't see them move, is because they do not move. The Electrons disappear from the top orbit and reappear in the lower orbit without actually transitioning to another space. The electron disappears from the outside of the house and reappear on the inside. Where do they go? That's the wrong question. They don't go anywhere. Quantum leap. The electron disappears from the top orbital and reappears in the bottom orbital. It's an attempt to account for the counter-intuition - it doesn't make sense.

2. Super-Position
Being two places at once. Max Reiger, German composer of 100 years ago. Nemesis wrote bad things: "Dear Dr. Lewis, I am sitting in the smallest room in the house and your review is before me. Soon it will be behind me."
Beam-splitter - once the real world of disappearing and reappearing electrons is accepted, they tried to make the electron go through hoops. One of these obstacle courses is called a beam splitter - two path. Could an indivisible particle like an electron gain entrance to the beam splitter and, if it does, which path would it take? Path A, Path B. Indivisible particle. To this day there is no explanation - it is impossible. The indivisible particle choose both paths and goes down both of them at the same time! The only way you could explain that, is to believe an indivisible particle can be in two distinct places at the exact same time. Also done with a barilium atom - much larger than an electron. In celebration of the fact that we do not know what's going on, we call it super-position. The particle is literally physically in two places at the same time. This is non-sense.

3. Arbitrary
If small things can do that, can larger things do that? Are there rules for small things, that aren't true for large things? If an electron can be in two places, why can't you?

4. Entanglement
Let us begin with the thought that you can't go past the speed of light. When information is entangled. If you have a quarter and a penny and give someone the quarter, you must still have the penny. I could go way over here and it will still be true. it doesn't matter the distance, because things are entangled. By knowing that one box has a penny and a quarter, they are linked. If you use atoms, not coins, you can take an atom that spins in a clockwise direction and the other goes counter-clockwise. If you spin Atom A clockwise, Atom B will be counter-clockwise if they are entangled. When you ask them what direction they are spinning and put the two atoms together they are entangled. As you go out further, you should take longer and longer for them to delay in their communication. Separate them by light years, and they still react just the same. Nicholas Geisen's team separated particles by light years, they ignore the distance and at 10M x the speed of light and still react instantly.

Change the properties of one in a tangled pair and they still operate the same way. In the strange published name of the event is called by today's scientists by the name -" SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE".

The score-card for science being "just the facts" has been turned at a head. Quantum mechanics violates many of the known and established laws of science. Yet, it's still called a science?

As scientists we are facing data that are just nonsense. What is the real quibble?

Likes Garrison Keillor - Likes jokes about Lutheran minister driving from MN to CT. State trooper sees empty bottle of wine. Just water, officer. Then why do I smell wine? Good lord, he's done it again!

The real quibble is the source of credibility - the reliable of testimonial evidence depends on the creditability of the witness.

So, why does John Medina think the Bible is a reliable witness? (He's got 25 reasons. Here's a few:

Reasons I Give Credibility to the Witness

1. The Bible took place in explicitly described in breathtaking prediction and white-hot argument. The Bible is very predictive of events and cultures that have been confirmed over time. In the records of antiquity, not a single record of the Hittites was found. In 1876 a series of monuments were found in Turkey, the ancient capital of Hittites. Sargon I was severly questioned. 1843 a tremendous royal palace of Sargon, king of Assyeria, was found. The House of David. Until 1994 no archiological representation existed outside the Bible. Documentary once said David was merely a symbol. 1994 basalt stellah, a king from the house of David. Non-biblical reference.

2. Not only is there scholarship, there is deep argument - not agreement. Consider laboratory of Don Johanson, university of washington, discovered Lucy. Relics of human remains. "In our years of collaboration... Don did personal and verbal assaults. The Bible so robustly describes events that an entire field of Bible study exists.... They argue because there is something to argue about.

3. Errors in the accounts. John corrects the Gospels. The accounts are primarily testimonial. If two people come up with identical things, they can be thrown out. No two people who witness the events describe the events in the exact same way. Gigi - "Ah yes, I remember it well."  The descripancy in the details is a sign that the event was actually real.

4. Flaw comes in the description of the heroes - biblical heros are often deeply flawed and sometimes becomes the enemy. In other cultures, they never mention the failures. The habit of antiquity is to gloss over all failures. Autobiography of Kim Jung Il: "At the time of his birth there were flashes of lightening and thunder. As the age of 4 he smeared a map of Japan with black ink. By a touch of Kim Jun Il's hand, the sea turns into dry land and a valley into paradise.

Yet, the heroes in the Bible aren't white-washed. They're real - flaws and all.

King David - "A heart after God... is a murderer and adulterer."
Paul - Thorn in flesh that he can't get rid of
Elijah- kills kids with she bear
Rahab - prostitute
Ruth - sleeps with an old guy
Peter - big mouth, makes claims "I'll never deny you" then deserts Jesus

5. How the Bible treat's time: Keillor- "God?" "Yes" "What is a million years to you?" "As one second." "What's a million dollars?" "As a penny" "Can I have a penny." "Sure... just a second."

Time is the entity that keeps everything from happening all at once. We appear to be stuck in the here and now. God isn't. IF you take away the concept of time... then the Bible - and the God of the Bible - appears to be one giant, impossibly cohesive, amazing story that God had planned from the beginning.   There are multiple authors stretched over hundred of years and yet  the message is still completely clear. Isaiah's scrolls (dead sea verified) show Jesus. David's Psalms 2 and 22 - show Jesus. It's eery, as if the whole thing was designed by one author to make a beautiful, cohesive point.

John Medin'a favorite "out of time" story is Jesus praying for Jerusalem: The account almost reads as if we are eaves-dropping on something Jesus said. It's almost as if he's talking and summing up all of time, saying something not meant for the human ears or those around him" "Jerusalem.... how I have longed to hug you.... gather you... but you would not let me."

He's not talking about his own time here. He's talking about a relationship with that city that stretched into antiquity. It's a timeless statement of love and longing and repeated disappointment." Then he says, "Now no stone will be left unturned until you say "blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord...."

That's not any human (caught in time) talking.

The Bible is a whole. A timeless whole. A reliable testamony. And it shows me a God who is everything I could hope for.

He (Jesus) still died for me. He still loves me.

Amazing.

Brain Rules

Just bought my next favorite brain book, Brain Rules, by John Medina. Aside from putting treadmills in every classroom (to juice up the brain fertilizer as you learn) and aside from getting a good night's sleep (so the brain can relive the important info of the day thousands of times), this molecular biologist says something I've been teaching for 15 years:

"The single greatest predictor of academic success that exists is the emotional stability of the home. If you want to get your kid into Harvard, go home and love your spouse!"

The website has some cool video. Worth your time and attention.

But run in place as you watch it for maximum effect.

Then sleep on it.

Reinventing Worship for a Post-Television Generation

Well, I've got Carmichael, CA, and Tacoma left on the Maniacal Melheimian Mystery Tour - and then the 79 cities and 2009 tour is history.

I'll do a complete recap of what I learned on the road, but here's a sneak peak:

The hottest hot button I hit this year on the road was the concept of re-imagining worship for a post-television generation with our brain-based learning on arts-based platforms. I.E....

Bible Song AS worship.

The reasons this seemed to resonate with people on the tour this year:

• Most Christian education directors get NO time in worship.
• Most Senior Pastors spend NO time in Children's Ministry.
• Most families are doing NO intentional Christian education in the home.
• And most Worship Leaders KNOW that the so-called "contemporary age-segregated let-me-put-on-a-show-for-you" worship service isn't impressing the baby boomers, isn't drawing the baby-busters, and isn't engaging the hearts and minds of the post-television generation.

Basically, I'd like to launch a national conversation about reinvisioning worship (Old English weorthscipe, from weorth worthy, worth + -scipe -ship) as an activist, constructivist, engaging community vehicle that brings worth to God by unveiling the key Bible theme for the week on Sunday with a blurring of worship and education where parents and kids stay TOGETHER, followed by sending the theme home to households committed to "every night in every home" FAITH 5 faith encounters seven nights a week. What we must create is an worship/education blur where instead of trying to put on a show for the post-television generation in worship, and instead of sending kids and parents into separate rooms for education, families (and adopted grandparents, singles, etc.) come together an hour-and-a-quarter  GIFT (Generations In Faith Together) event that looks something like this:

    1.  Open with the theme/song/verse/story for the week unveiled in an energetic, fun, engaging encounter with the text where the brain meets the body meets the environment (20 - 25 minutes), then
    2.  Break into small group to model the FAITH 5 every week (5 - 10 minutes of modeling and connecting this week's text with their highs and lows), then
    3.  Engage in the creation/interpretation of the key theme through the arts (15 - 20 minutes)
    4.  Celebrate the week's new theme through a "show and share and tell and prayer" closing - with sacraments and the prayers of the people coming directly from each group's "highs and lows" (15 - 20 minutes), then
    5. Send the theme home seven nights that week  - now that they have a frame of reference... Er... Frame of reverance -  to form the core of the FAITH 5 nightly encounter with the text (the theme verse) and the context (their highs and lows). Explain that Sunday is just the time to get the new "play" for the week. Now that you know it, go and live it!

This, of course, means the preacher isn't going to be the only preacher and interpretor of the text on Sunday morning. The preacher is going to have to be willing to share the spotlight with a whole church full or people engaging with and interpreting the text. The IHS (one hour service) is going to have to shift from a spectator sport attempting a quickie religious fix into the kick-off of a week of the Bible theme followed by a week-long engagement with the text and context (the peoples' highs and lows).

SIDEBAR: What preacher in his or her right mind wouldn't want the majority of the households engaging with and applying Sunday's text to their lives seven nights a week? What worship leader in his or her right mind wouldn't want the majority of households singing and signing the text from Sunday seven nights a week? What Christian education director in his or her right mind wouldn't want to send Sunday's theme home for 5 - 10 minutes a night - every night? What Christian education board in their right mind wouldn't want a highly motivated teaching team engaging in faith incubation every night of the week in caring, intimate, loving settings? A GREAT teacher to student ratio? And faith encounters at the most effective time for Christian education - the five minutes each night before the brain goes into Maximum Meaning Mode on a good night's sleep.

Now that's Christian education. That's worship. That's family ministry as families DOING ministry rather than families doing programs! That's faith incubation.

I've got two days off in Tacoma next week and have started putting the RCL texts and Bible Song texts together on a spreadsheet to see how they meld/mix.

I'll post it when I'm done, then let's look at some dates in the cold, dead winter to gather some movers-and-shakers-and-systems-breakers in Florida or Puerto Rico to think this through.

Maybe we could kick off a post-Lenten experiment with a dozen churches ready to blur the lines between Worship and Education... and finally create the worship to education to home link that will replace Sunday School forever.

Kill the drop-off Sunday School before it kills the church.

Down Time

I just spent the last hour stuck in the freight elevator on the top floor of our new building.

I highly recommend it.

Down time.

Quiet.

Solitude.

Prayer for survival.

Very devotional.

An Interesting Post

Here's an interesting post from my friend Sherwin Schwartzrock on what the church is missing these days:

I'm convinced that the real crisis in the church today is this: the church is hanging onto law while trying to teach grace. Grace is the new wine and it cannot be held in the old wine skin of law. And as long as the church preaches law and doesn't fully embrace the audacity of grace and love, the church will not have any power to transform lives.

The Origins of FINK: A Brief History

I've often been asked for the short story on how and why FINK started. Long story. Here's my short answer:

1. I had a mom who played classical music all day, read scripture daily, read stories daily, said our prayers with us every night and sang us to sleep
2. I had a dad who knocked on doors to build a mission church and still had time to tell me stories every night
3. I was always a bored kid - maybe ADHD or dyslexic without knowing it – and had to go to “special class” for reading, but always liked to draw stories and would narrate my stories for my mom to write down before I could personally write a word
4.  I loved God, but hated sitting listening to people lecture me in church (ie, I was a boy)
5. As a young person I loved Bible camp (I ended up working at one for 5 summers and met my beautiful wife Arlyce there 35 years ago... not a bad connection)
6. When I became a parish pastor, I always wondered why camp worked and confirmation class didn’t
7. I tried to get church to be more like camp (small groups, music, games, skits, servanthood... And a counselor who loves kids... But isn’t gone at the end of the summer)
8. Two suicides of two boys I’d known from 6th – 12th grade in my first youth group changed me from trying to do camp at church alone to experimenting with building a cohesive team of youth workers who loved God, liked kids, and were willing to incubate
9. Replacing a youth pastor who committed suicide at a large church changed me from running parentless programs to trying to do parent-engaged processes
10. Having two children of my own (after 5 years of infertility at the Mayo Clinic) made me want to be a good dad AND THE faith mentors for my own children
11. Writing an article called "Conformation (sic!) is Dead" in 1993 launched me out on a one year, 75 city sabbatical to talk about better educational systems (I'm still on my sabbatical) My mantra then: "We don't need a better workbook. We need a better way."
12. Having 275 churches immediately decide to scrap their confirmation programs and ask how, when and what to teach got me scrambling to figure that out
13. Getting criticized as “confirmation lite” by the seminaries of the church sent me into process systems thinking and brain-based systems designs on an arts-based platform
14. Going personally $250K into debt for the ministry (on credit cards with a double mortgage on the house) made me read a few business books, too
15. And, as I wind up my last It’s our 15th year anniversary at FINK with a 79 city tour in the next two weeks, one more thing has become apparent: Call this the...
    
    Brief History of FINK's FUTURE:
    
    We’ve spend the bulk of the last 15 years trying to change from a “classroom” to a “community” model of learning. From left-brain lecture to whole-brain relationships. From opening the workbook to opening the kid. From filling in the blanks in workbooks to filling in the blanks in lives. We’ll spend the next 15 years trying to bring the church home. Less program. More process. Less parentless-professional ministry. More parent-engaged priesthood.
    
    Every night. Every home.