Vox populi | cheering us on

… encourage someone today

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henever I step out of my office at the College for Officer Training in Winnipeg, Canada, a strange thing happens. My principal, Major Sandra Rice, comes barreling out of her office with pom poms and starts cheering, “Rick, Rick, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can. Goooooo Rick!” In all my years in a lot of different places, I’ve never worked for anyone who offers more encouragement and cheers her team on as much as Major Rice. For example, as I write I am drinking a cup of coffee she brought to work for me today. I love Sandra Rice.

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Vox populi | The invisible man

… open our eyes

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hen I was 10 years old I used to love superheroes, and I always thought it would be cool to have superpowers like the superheroes.  Now, I’m not talking about being a good swimmer like Aquaman or having cool toys like Batman, (although if the superhero thing didn’t work out for Aquaman, he could always fall back on marine biology).  No, I’m talking about having full-fledged superpowers, and there were two in particular I wanted.  I wished I could fly and be invisible.

I’m talking separately of course, not like Wonder Woman’s jet.  In testing my flying abilities, I’m the kid who jumped off the garage roof with a garbage bag clutched in my palms, and thankfully I didn’t break my leg.  I quit after the third try.  Invisibility is another issue, you can’t practice that, but I would sit and think about all of the things I could do if I was invisible, and not the kind of invisible where you have to take off your clothes, but the Star Trek kind, with the cloaking device.  Being that kind of invisible would be totally cool.

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Vox populi | evangelism

… storm the car with red-hot shots

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’m in the middle of a history paper on The Salvation Army’s arrival in Winnipeg, Canada.  Currently I’m taking a break, to write a blog posting for theRubicon, but also to give some of my thoughts some airtime as I’m seeing a trend in the efforts of early Salvationists that still is an issue in our day.

Lieut. Tierney writes about the scene in the rail station in 1887.  The train carrying reinforcements for the work in Winnipeg is late and the Lt. and Captain break into a meeting on the train platform.  They sing, testify and preach, but are saddened no converts are secured.  Tierney reflects how the world hustles and bustles and does not have time for Jesus.

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Vox populi | founders (pc version)

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olitical correctness, as it is, even finds its way into Salvation Army history.  I’ll offer my take on this with the non-pc translation in (brackets).  My life-partner (formerly: my wife) would find this most egregious (trans: kick me in the rear…hahahah…not really, she wouldn’t pay it any attention (trans: give a rip), but it gives me a funny line).

However, here’s where I’m going on this… In our desire to apply political correctness to every aspect of our life there has risen a debate, and I do mean “risen” because it requires invoking the spirit of the co-founder (formerly founder of The Salvation Army, William Booth). There seems to be concern in calling William Booth the “Founder” of TSA because it ignores the role Catherine Booth (formerly: Mrs. Booth, or in the dark ages, ‘his wife’) as a cofounder of TSA. At CFOT [ed: College for Officer Training, Canada & Bermuda Territory] we have stained glass panels in our foyer, which say WB “Founder” and CB “The Army Mother”. So far they have not entered into the PC debate (trans: whining).

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Vox populi | emergent nerves

… turn it over to the young

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’m seeing a wave of dialogue with young people in the Canada and Bermuda Territory in relation to future leadership, training in discipleship, and what is needed to move forward. There are focus groups, conferences, and questionnaires asking for the input of young adults.

Here’s the rub… I don’t get to speak into this because I’m 43. I am officially old, but isn’t it possible I have something to say about this stuff? I know about emergent village, and PoMo (hahaha, that probably just showed my age), but seriously, what wisdom, knowledge or experience do the 20-somethings have in relation to direction for future leadership development? From my perspective I find that most are willing to complain and criticize, but not willing to engage in the process of change. Sounding old again, huh? So, I’m faced with my own questions linked to the motivation behind these movements. Or perhaps I ask these questions from the perspective of being part of a system.

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Vox populi | urban legends

Are sermons Christianity’s urban legends?

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oof hearted petting farm is a real business in Prince Edward Island [ed: an eastern Canadian province].  It probably aptly describes the activities at the petting farm to a tee, but marketing being what it is I may be reluctant to visit the gastronomical destination based only on its name.  The name was made famous, however, by an unknown race horse who unexpectedly won his race.  The announcer, in excitement and disbelief, yelled “Wow!  Hoof-Hearted in the winner’s circle!”, and thus a legend is born, possibly an Urban Legend at that.

Urban Legends are those stories, which get told around the water cooler or get sent via email to everyone in your address book.  “Beware people who flash their high beams at you” was a famous Urban Legend.  As the story goes the person who had this happen to them was later targeted by a gang, and was run off the road etc, etc.  More famous than that is the brand of Urban Legend that tugs at the heartstrings for a little girl dying of some awful disease who needs your help.  The story, at some point in history, may have been true, but at this point in time has been retold in the first or second person so often that the reliability of its content becomes questionable.

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Vox populi | Jesus died in the snow

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ust over a week ago, two sisters aged 3 and 1, froze to death on the Yellow Quill [Indian] Reservation in Saskatchewan [a western Canadian province] when their father took them out into the -50 degree celsius weather, and became disoriented and separated from them.  They didn’t stand a chance.  He was intoxicated.  The unimaginable does not require our imagination any longer.  Words seem hollow and the options for a faith response aren’t very satisfying.

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Vox populi | end of words

Does the sermon still have power?

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ean Francois Lyotard claims any knowledge that does not mutate and adapt to the available technology in order to be bought and sold as information, cannot survive (from The End of Words – Richard Lischer). If this is true then we all might as well put down our pens or close our laptops, and admit defeat for Sunday morning. The sermon as we know it has been put to death, as it no longer lives “for there will be no such thing as communicating for the sake of the sheer goodness of the thing communicated, which is the very genius and freedom of the pulpit” (Richard Lischer).

Is it possible in a postmodern world that words have ceased to have meaning? Walter Brueggemann suggests the narrative scripts of the church have ceased to have meaning, as the church has become decentralized in society and culture. In the wake of world wars, and atrocities such as Auschwitz, Rwanda and Bosnia, the rhetoric of preaching is falling on the deaf ears of cynics. “Trust in Jesus, and all will be well” becomes a beating rod rather than its intended comfort and hope. Lischer asks, “in an age where people are presented with millions of pieces of information everyday, why would they trust the information presented by the gospel?”

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Vox populi | deconstruction rants

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he problem with The Salvation Army…” and so the line goes with a never-ending cavalcade of suggestions of every perceived problem with our _____________. See, I’m not even sure what to call us for fear of eliciting a whole raft of comments from the vox populi. In my humble estimation, according to rumblings from the floor, we could scrap all levels of bureaucracy, and either turn or keep steering this ship in the right direction by putting a bunch of front-line Salvationists in a room to solve all of our issues. Then again, the direction would depend on who was in the room.

What was ever wrong with just having a mission and following that mission. I get so tired of all the belly-aching about what we need to do and where we need to go. Look where it gets us. We chased the Hybels’ Seeker Sensitive model, and came up to a dead-end. Even Hybels left the ship with sails at half-mast.

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Ragamuffin: Paul in Corinth

… and you in your city

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fter recently studying Acts 18:1-19:41, I found some great comments by John Stott on urban ministry from his book The Message Of Acts:

“‘Urbanization’, says Professor Harvey Cox in The Secular City, ‘constitutes a massive change in the way men live together’, as they have moved from tribe to town to technopolis. The urban experience includes a cluster of things like communications and mobility, the disintegration of traditional religion, impersonality and anonymity, human planning, control and bureaucracy. And in the decayed inner cities of our time we would have to add economic neglect, racial disadvantage, unemployment, poor housing and education, crime, violence, family breakdown, and tensions between the police and the community.”

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