Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth

I found this graphic in an N.T. Wright book:

Nicely done. Would make a great tattoo. ;-)

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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This was an excellent response to my post entitled “Does God Hate Haiti?” by my friend Darryl Smith:

The appropriate response is indeed one of lament.

God has been and always will be in Haiti in a MUCH BIGGER WAY than what you would see in any church in Canada or the USA. Why? Because of the suffering and poverty.

Travel to any developing country where they don’t have all the “luxuries” we have and you will see churches that are truly alive because they don’t have all the STUFF.

They sometimes have enough to get by, coupled with a FAITH that is deeper and more real than any big brained theologian could ever hope to realize. Haiti has a poverty rate of over 80%. Satanism and witchcraft are common BUT the Church of Jesus Christ is there too – if you followed CNN during the first few days after the quake, you would have seen hordes of believers marching through the streets singing praises to God.

The local Church in Haiti is an instrument in the hands of God and Compassion International is a small part of what God is doing to assist them. A map of the country that shows the churches who have partnered with Compassion is a beautiful sight to see. 230 churches with an army of thousands who volunteer are a very real and tangible proof of God’s love for the people of Haiti. This ministry began in 1968 and now there are over 65,000 children who benefit from what selfless people strive to do every day – break the bonds of poverty, put an end to the suffering and bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to a broken nation. It all began with one man who had a God-given passion to make a difference.

Jesus was unable to perform any miracles in the towns where the people didn’t have any faith so he just passed on through. Most of the people in Haiti have few possessions but they have a faith that puts us to shame. Jesus feels right at home there – miracles are a regular occurrence.

Even God’s chosen people lived in slavery in Egypt for hundreds of years and God judged that nation in order to set them free. Many hope and pray that this disaster will be a tipping point to bring about justice and mercy in a nation that has suffered at the hands of a corrupt government for far too long. The church is rising to the occasion!

Bravo Darryl!

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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This is part of a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8 |Part 9

Oh how many times I have felt this – and I am always dumb to its intended purpose. God does not withdraw his presence, but our sense of his presence. In these times, we will to believe that he is still there and we act upon his promises and commands. This act of will, of belief, is counted to us as righteousness just as it was for Abraham.

And this he does for his own glory, so that we do not become like children of privilege who know that they are fortunate only in theory. In reality, children of privilege are never in need and are never asked to live with their own faults.

But God is the type of father who allows us to make foolish decisions in order to have us learn, in practice, what it means to trust him. He allows us these adventures in error in order to remind us that what good is found in us has only Him as its source.

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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In Mark 5 we read of a man with an unclean spirit. He had been living among the tombs; he was uncontrollably violent; he spent his days crying out and cutting himself with stones.

When Jesus arrives near these tombs, the man runs out and falls down before him. Jesus, wasting no time, commands the demons to come out of the man. For some reason, Jesus then honors the request of the demons to be sent out of the man into a nearby herd of pigs. Upon possession, the pigs rush down a steep bank into the sea and drown.

Let’s set aside for the moment an interesting discussion we could have about human and animal demon possession and look at the reactions of the people effected by Jesus’ actions in the story.

The herdsmen, now suddenly unemployed, flee the scene and start telling people – in other words, the story goes viral, and of course the usual ambulance chasers and journalists and presumably the pig’s owners, rush to the scene. There they see a trail of hoof prints down a steep bank and in the water below the carcasses of some 2000 pigs. Not a pretty sight.

Returning from this gruesome sight, they find the man who was previously possessed by a demon sitting calmly, now clothed and in his right mind. For some reason this causes them to be afraid and they beg Jesus to leave the area.

Why?

Jesus had just healed a man; he had freed him from derangement. This man went from living in tombs, spending his days crying out and cutting himself, and responding with uncontrollable violence to calm, composed, and clothed.  You would think these facts  would be a cause for rejoicing. But no.

To replace a herd of 2000 pigs, at today’s prices, would cost a farmer upwards of $500,000. You can see why Jesus is suddenly seen as a threat. How could he show such careless disregard for half a million dollars worth of someone else’s assets just for the sake of saving one lunatic?!? Obviously the pigs’ owner is going to have some questions, like “Who’s going to pay for that?”

Ultimately, by begging Jesus to leave, the people of that region were telling him that they valued pigs over people. Jesus of course doesn’t see it this way, but he honors their request. Freedom from bondage is not your thing? Ok, I’ll take it elsewhere…

In Jesus vision of economy, in the Kingdom Economy, humans are valued over dollars. So is freedom.

This reminds me of a situation I was involved with a few weeks ago. I met and became a friend of a young man who is a cocaine addict about a year ago. It’s been a long, tough year for him. His mother has prayed for him and begged him to enter Teen Challenge and recently, after a bad user experience, he finally called and set up a screening interview for himself.

It costs $100 just be interviewed for admittance and another $1000 if you are accepted into the program. This is partly because Teen Challenge accepts no government funding in order to remain a Jesus-based solution to drug and alcohol addiction.

So I gladly took $100 of our church’s money and paid for the interview for my young friend. Of course, even if he does get into the program there’s no guarantee he’ll stay or that he’ll be cured of his addiction. Nonetheless, it was a hopeful development and I was happy to pay for it.

At one of our staff meetings that week we talked about this situation.

We dreamed of a world where dollars equaled cures and all agreed that if throwing money at serious problems always worked, we’d spend our days raising money instead of doing the heavy but rewarding work of helping addicts and others in bondage. Of course, this isn’t exactly the way it works.

Even so, there are ways in which a financial sacrifice can make a crucial difference in the life of someone in bondage. That sacrifice might look like an emptier bank account, but it might also look like working a few less hours each week so that you can help free someone in bondage.

The question is: Given the choice in cases where the mental and spiritual health of one individual could be restored, would we choose that restoration at a personal financial cost or would we rather choose to live at a reasonable distance from the deranged man living in a nearby graveyard?

We choose the latter all the time. Just substitute the word “graveyard” with “psychiatric hospital” or “hostel” or “alley” and you’ll see what I mean.

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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Thank you TheResurgence.com for publishing this list of books by C. S. Lewis. Lewis has long been a cornerstone author for me. :

Fiction

• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy Book One)
• Perelandra (Space Trilogy Book Two)
• That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book Three)
• The Dark Tower and Other Stories
• Boxen: Childhood Chronicles Before Narnia with W.H. Lewis.
• The Screwtape Letters: How a Senior Devil Instructs a Junior Devil in the Art of Temptation
• Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
• Pilgrim’s Regress
• The Great Divorce

Poetry

• Narrative Poems
• Poems
• Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics

Non-fiction

Theology

• The Abolition of Man
• The Four Loves
• God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
• A Grief Observed
• Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
• Mere Christianity
• Miracles
• The Problem of Pain
• Reflections on the Psalms
• The Weight of Glory
• What Christians Believe

Scholarly

• The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition
• The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
• An Experiment in Criticism
• On Stories, and Other Essays on Literature
• The Personal Heresy with E.M.W. Tillyard
• A Preface To Paradise Lost
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
• Studies in Words

Personal

• Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
• All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis, 1922-1927
• Letters to an American Lady
• The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy
• Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis (Box Set)

Anthologies

• The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics
• A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from his Classic Works
• C.S. Lewis: Readings for Meditation and Reflection
• The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis
• Christian Reflections
• Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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What kind of men?!?!?! Shat terd men!

If this organization wants to do a presentation at your church make sure you add an extra bathroom…

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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This is how we feel about hockey:

We were at my parents’ for this with my sister and her kids, all 11 of us jumping and screaming and cheering. The greatest moment in Canadian hockey history!

(HT: Chris Vacher)

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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Tags: Hockey

I’m looking forward to attending and live blogging the 2010 Epiphaneia Conference in Toronto on April 10th. Like every other conference I attend, I expect to find plenty to agree and disagree with.

The theme of the conference this year The Evolving Church: Kingdom Economy. I did a guest post on the conference blog today.

If you want to know more about the conference read this and watch the commercial below.

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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This is part of a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8

Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, points out the difference between Eastern and Christian meditation: one seeks to empty the mind, the other is an attempts to fill it. Meditation for the purpose of detachment is good, he says, since indeed there are things to which we are attached, or which have attached themselves to us, from which we need to be separated. But this is not enough – we must go on to attachment, and attachment to the right things.

Four Types of Meditation

1. Meditation on Scripture (meditatio Scripturarum)

“The meditation of scripture is the central reference point by which all other forms of meditation are kept in perspective.”

2. Recollection or “Centering Down”

Something helpful I learned from reading Madeleine L’engle is that if you take words apart they often reveal their meaning to you. Recollection is one of those words. “Re-“ indicates that that something was done, then undone, and needs to be done again. For example, to “re-pair” indicates that a “pair”, once together, has been separated, and now needs to be reunited. To “re-collect” then means to collect, to gather, to take things that were once together but are now scattered about and bring them back to a central place.

Applying this to the sphere of the human mind and spirit, I ask you this: has anyone ever described you as “scatter-brained”? As you may suspect, God did not actually create us to be so pulled in many directions – to be dis-tracted, that is, “pulled apart”. This type of meditation allows the many fragments of our minds to be re-ordered, put back in place as a working, unified entity.

3. Meditation Upon Creation

Since Paul says in Romans 1:19-20 that God can be seen clearly in the works of his creation, there should be no objection to meditating upon this revelation on the grounds that it is pantheism or the deification of “Mother Earth.” Like any good thing, it can be perverted and become sinful, but that is no reason to avoid it. This type of meditation causes us to look at things we take for granted and marvel at God’s creative abilities and the vastness of his imagination.

4. Meditation On Events In Order to Perceive Their Significance

“True godliness,” Foster quotes William Penn as saying, “does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.” We need to meditate upon the events of our time in order to seek to perceive their significance. In this way we seek to be like the men of Issachar who “had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” (1 Chronicles 12:32)

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room and say that some of you reading this are very uncomfortable with these ideas. Just the word “meditation” itself has raised the ire of a few of you. This should not be so. Some 58 times, the Bible uses one of the two Hebrew words that convey the idea of meditation.

In Donald Whitney’s book on spiritual disciplines (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life) the word “meditation” is avoided as a chapter title, although there are 17 pages devoted to the subject. Whitney explains that, “because meditation is so prominent in many spiritually counterfeit groups and movements, some Christians are uncomfortable with the whole subject and suspicious of those who engage in it.” But we must remember, he says, “meditation is both commanded by God and modeled by the godly in scripture.”

Whitney’s guidelines for Christian meditation are as follows:

1. Select an appropriate passage
2. Repeat it in different ways
3. Rewrite it in your own words
4. Look for applications of the text
5. Pray through the text
6. Don’t rush – take time!

Now go and meditate. It’s good for you.

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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Developing other leaders and mentoring them is a core component of pastoring. Matt Perman (Desiring God | What’s Best Next) makes some excellent observations on the difference between “what I’m good at” and “what my strengths are” and the difference between skills and talents:

1. “What I’m Good At” vs. “What My Strengths Are”
People should make sure not to confuse “what I’m good at” with “what my strengths are.” Your strengths are what make you feel strong. If something is a strength, you are also good at it. But you can be good at something that you hate doing. That is not a strength, and shouldn’t receive your focus.

2. Know What You Enjoy
This shows more specifically what role the individual has to play in discerning his or her calling—for nobody but the individual knows what he or she really enjoys. The community is critical in identifying “misyearnings”—things you enjoy but are bad at. That then needs to be integrated with something that only the individual can asses—your own awareness of what you find most energizing.

3. Lack of Skill vs. Lack of Talent
It’s worth noting that lack of skill can often be confused for lack of talent. The community of advisers needs to keep this in mind. Talent can be defined as the innate ability that allows you to do something well. This is a basic feature of one’s personality and isn’t chosen. Skills, on the other hand, can be learned. If you have talent but lack skills, you might not be very good yet. So people might encourage you to go in another direction, but in reality you could get the skills and, combined with your talents, become very effective.

4. Talent, Skill, and Knowledge
Strength in something comes from talent, skill, and knowledge. The key to developing a strength is to add knowledge and skill where you have talent. Your talent multiplies the effect of those skills and knowledge, resulting in a much greater effect than adding them in areas where you lack talent.

Point #2 is very important, especially this part: “The community is critical in identifying ‘misyearnings’—things you enjoy but are bad at.” There is no easy way to do this. People get hurt and sometimes leave. In order to avoid this, leaders sometimes allow people to keep doing something everyone knows they’re bad at for the sake of not hurting their feelings.

Point #3 is another tricky one to manage. We often cut the line too early on people who have undeveloped talent, but it is important to allow them to development in an environment that will ensure that this development will continue. Allowing them to lead in the wrong setting too early in their development can damage their confidence and can form a strong perception in those they are leading that they are incapable and/or inept.

(HT: JT)

Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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