conversation on worship #3

Calvary continued its ongoing conversation on the nature of worship per se and worship at Calvary this past Sunday. Dr. Terry York once again led us. Below are my notes.

Worship Conversation #3, Calvary, 3/27/11, Dr. Terry York.

Style & Application

Baptists have not talked about worship style for long, though it may seem much longer. City wide revivals (Sunday & Graham) got folks to ask why Sunday was not like Mon – Thurs. Also, in civil rights era new ideas arose. Sun night services were a response to these tendencies.

Worship is more than musical style. Preaching style, how scripture is read, congregational participation all impacts worship. When talking about changing styles, are we just talking about changing music?

Some worship styles don’t want silence. Adding more silence can scare people more than changing music. Radio and TV put in soundtracks; later churches did too. They call this seamless worship.

Worship style is not goal or tool, it is discovery: our voice, identity, personality. Worship can’t drive global or evangelical or missional endeavors; worship comes out of who we are. We must develop discerning ear to see what God is telling us through the congregation. God articulates through our worship.

God speaks in ways other than through the pulpit. No church has ever said no new songs; some churches say not those new songs.

York had us engage in group discussion: two theses: worship is not just music; worship is not a tool/goal.

Application

When do we decide to change things? How do we change? When do we know when it’s over? Answer these on front end. Not all worship problems are solved at 11:00am on Sunday and not all discussions on worship are discussions on worship.

Is our current worship style who we are? Getting close counts. Why do we do what we do? What development of our voice can there be? Is there more work to be done? Is transformation taking place? Hard part is how to measure that. York says we only know when we see it.

Keep making in-flight adjustments. Don’t create problems to have something to fix.

Work in application needs to further development of church voice. How to gauge that?

Communication from leadership as to why/application matters.

pole dancing for Jesus

Posted without comment:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/hallelujah-christians-pole-dance-jesus-texas/story?id=13194891

truett faculty fight club

I am sworn to secrecy as to my source for this but in the interest of knowing our fellow parishioners better, I must recommend the following link. It will take a few minutes to load so be patient, but it is well worth the wait.

http://edge.baylor.edu/media/128879/128879_ipod.m4v

evans for sat

March 12, 2011, Saturday in Shanghai

Dear Friends and Family,

This is our last full day in Shanghai. At one point in the week when we were a little stressed we were wishing that we had planned to come home right after Steve finished teaching. Today we’re glad we had the chance to catch our breath and play tourist for a day.

We left the hotel about 10:00 and got a cab down to the “Bund,” the area of buildings built in the late 19^th and early 20^th century by foreign investors in China. The Bund borders the waterway that makes possible the fact that this is a deep harbor port, though not really on the sea. It has an extensive promenade that afford perfect viewing of the port activity. Across the waterway one can see exotically shaped buildings, several skyscrapers which were new since we were here in 2006. We went to this area to nail down a restaurant for dinner. It was also to this area that we came on Wednesday night to “M” on the Bund, a restaurant that we had been to when we were here in 2006 that boasts one of the best views of the waterway and the best service in town. It met all of our expectations. But we wanted to do something else, so we were relying on our Frommer’s guide and it also didn’t disappoint. We found a 7^th floor restaurant in a nearby building overlooking the waterway for brunch. We have had a taste for real breakfast food all week and we were able to get some eggs benedict there that were fabulous. In the same building is the restaurant that is purported to be the best in Shanghai. We went in to see the menu and realized that it would be about $100 per person. A little steep. But at the same time we found that their bar area hosted an “early bird” dinner special for about $35 for 3 courses. The view wasn’t quite as spectacular, but with the same chef and one third the money, we decided to make a reservation.

Then we started walking. We walked over territory that we thought we had treaded before, headed for the People’s Park. As we got closer the density of humanity increased. It’s just hard to describe the press of people on the sidewalks. Getting to the People’s Park was a great relief because there were many less people there. We had walked over a mile so we sat down and made a plan for the rest of the day. The first choice was to go to the Shanghai museum. It’s free and said to be one of the best 3 museums in China. The best part as far as we were concerned was that they had a good bit of information about each of the exhibits posted in English. It is a four floor building that has four exhibit rooms on each floor. The center has a spectacular stairway with gilded wrought iron work lining the stairs. Fortunately there were escalators as well. We decided to see just the fourth floor where there were exhibits of furniture from the Ming and Qing dynasties along with a history of currency that included the fascinating exhibit of money that was used on the ancient Silk Road.

It was a lovely day, about 65 degrees, and we wanted to be outside, so we headed to the French Concession, an area of very interesting old buildings that are mixed with new that has become an “in” spot for restaurants and shopping. Curiously, in amongst the old buildings is the place where the Communist party had its first meeting in the 1920’s. There’s a museum there that we had visited before that extols all of the virtues of the Communist takeover that sits alongside these new glitzy shopping areas of huge capitalist expansion. On our way there we walked through one park that was the chosen spot for two different brides to be photographed. Their dresses were something else—very princess like and totally white, which is interesting since the traditional Chinese wedding dress is red. We sat down in one of the many open air cafes to have mid afternoon coffee and watch the world go by. There were lots more (ok, not a lot, but more) westerners there than in the area around Fudan University where we have been all week.

We then decided to try and find an area of art studios and restaurants that were described as the Shanghai equivalent of New York’s Soho district. It took some doing, but we managed to get there and enjoy it with about 2,000 other Chinese tourists. On the way back we took in Fu Xing Park which had a ton of really cool stuff for little kids. At one point there was a little pond on which there were huge balloon type conveyances that had a hollowed out center. Little children, and I mean little ones, were inside of these bubbles and propelled themselves over the water by running inside the bubble. Ok. That may not be very precise, but they kids were having a ball. Further on there were amusement kinds of rides and at the north part of the park there was an oval on which a little older kids were roller blading. Oh, yes, and on the other side there was a great group of older couples doing a waltz to recorded music. Lots of fun for a Saturday afternoon.

So everything thus far had gone very smoothly, and we thought it was time to get back to the Bund for dinner. We were very far from the Bund then, so we thought a taxi was in order. Oh my goodness. This was the moment of terror for the day. First of all getting a taxi was a problem. Everyone else had the idea at the same time. When we finally found one we gave the driver the address in Chinese characters which we had used before. He started out in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. We waited for several blocks thinking he knew a quicker way over more traveled streets to go, but after five minutes and going in the absolutely opposite direction of the way we knew we should be going, we both just yelled and Steve pointed to the left. We then gave him the note with the Chinese characters again, and he seemed to get it, though we couldn’t be sure. With no Chinese at all, we were at the total mercy of the driver, and he could have taken us to outer Mongolia. But once he knew that we knew we were going wrong, he seemed to get back on course. Still, I was very relieved to get out of that taxi where we knew we should be.

Dinner was exquisite. Steve had the set menu of three courses—pea soup, red snapper and chocolate cake for dessert. I order the snapper but with an asparagus salad to start. We had a lovely view of the waterway and lingered for more than 2 hours over dinner. We had a similar taxi experience on the way home with the driver going in the opposite direction of the way we were supposed to go as we started out, but once again, once we protested he seemed to get it right. I’m glad we just have one more taxi ride and that’s to the airport. You’d think that they could get that right.

So we’ve done some packing and are relaxing now. Tomorrow our host will come and take us to lunch before we go to the airport. We’ve been upgraded to business class on the way home and we are ever so grateful for that. We should be able to sleep some and arrive in Chicago Sunday night without too much trouble! Right now we are also grateful that our travel does not take us through Japan. We are finally seeing images of what happened there on Chinese TV.

We’ll be on our way home shortly. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this. We are looking forward to home and are very thankful for your prayers.

Love, jan

evans latest update

March 11, 2011, Friday from Shanghai

Dear Ones,

This day dawned with possibility. Fortunately for me, it was all on Steve’s shoulders. I slept wonderfully Thursday night. Steve slept fitfully, imagining scenarios and answering hypothetical questions. We had our now well planned out breakfast of Cheerios, yoghurt, orange juice and coffee, gotten from a combination of stores that are open before 8:00. We were ready to go to the university by 9:00.

In significant contrast to my supposed lectured yesterday, there was a line up of folks waiting for the room to open up for Steve’s lecture on Kierkegaard’s critique of modern philosophy. By the time we were all assembled there were about 15 students and 2 faculty members there. I have never seen Steve better. He was passionate and clear. He managed to articulate the essence of the gospel while describing Kierkegaard’s view of epistemology and ethics. The questions were from many different angles. I also have never seen the breadth and depth of Steve’s philosophical knowledge displayed. (Ok, I’m a little OTT in my estimation of things, but, hey, I am his wife!) He showed his understanding in service of the truth he was conveying. I was so proud of him!

We were hosted for lunch at another of these Chinese restaurants where the biggest challenge is ordering your meal. It’s one thing if the host just takes it into his or her hands, it’s another if you are invited to make a judgment about all those different possibilities pictured in living color in the menu. This time our host was a woman, and I was more comfortable being forceful in my wants. We had a nice combination of beef and shrimp dishes with a soup that was very tasty. The chicken we had as an appetizer could have been kept in the kitchen. It was more bone than meat to eat. But never mind. We had a delightful garden to look at and very lovely company with our faculty host.,

The big event of the day, however, was Steve’s culminating seminar on the basis for morality. He had worked all week to represent various views, but today was the day to give the group his view that the ground of morality is God—and divine commands. He had such a diverse group to talk to. He had questions from the atheists about how this could possibly work for someone who didn’t believe in God to a young woman who was clearly a seeker who wanted to know how he responded to Romans 1. In all it was a perfect venue to speak the truth in grace, and he and I are most grateful for the chance to be in this place at this time. Only God knows what fruit will come of this labor.

So tonight we were in the mood to celebrate and do something special for dinner. We invested in the cab ride to get to an Italian restaurant in the French concession that had been recommended in our guidebook. When you get into a cab with just an address (written in Chinese characters for assurance) you do take your life into your hands. But all went well, and we arrived at the restaurant with little delay and so enjoyed our leisurely dinner.

Tomorrow we get to be totally tourists. Thanks so much for reading through all of this. We continue to be grateful for your prayers.

Love, jan

proof

While I prefer the traditional proofs for God's existence (cosmological, ontological and teleological), the piece at the link below makes for interesting reading.

The rub with the proofs is that they may suggest a god, but they cannot detail who that God is.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-adam-jacobs/a-reasonable-argument-for_b_831185.html

evans update #4

Thursday, March 10, 2011 Shanghai

Dear Family and Friends,

I woke up many times in the night, but the one at 4:00 am had me worrying a lot about my lecture today. Would I be able to answer questions adequately? Was my talk too religious? I was beginning to wish that they had never arranged the lecture, but I kept assuring myself that God was in control and would be with me.

So we got up and got showers before we went out to the KFC for our egg/burger breakfast. The best part of KFC is watching the crowd outside dance. The men are older than the women. One comes dressed to the 9’s in red blazer, vest and tie. Another is so old that he and his partner just hold hands and just shuffle their feet. I love it. This group is distinct from the tai chi group down the mall.

I worked on my paper, marking smooth transitions until 9:30. Then I demanded that we leave, even though it only takes 10 minutes to get to the university and we knew exactly where we were going. We arrived very early. No one arrived before 9:58. Xiang Huang was the philosophy faculty member assigned to chair the session and take us to lunch. The door to the room was not open so he managed to find the secretary to make that happen. It was a gorgeous room with an oval mahogany table and more rectangular tables on the edges for an overflow crowd. There was no need. By 10:15 it was clear that no one was coming to my lecture. I was disappointed, for sure. I had worked like mad on the translations of the quotes and then at the last minute adding a 3 page introduction to Unamuno who was probably unknown to the audience. It was my chance to learn a lesson in humility and be gracious. Our chair, Xiang, was very chagrined that no one came. He was very interested in the talk, even though he is a philosopher of science and technology, because he lived and worked in Mexico for 16 years and had read Unamuno under the mentorship of Mexican friends who nonetheless had little patience for Unamuno’s religiosity, having imbued Ortega y Gasset’s attitude toward Unamuno entirely. We chatted for more than a half hour and then determined that it was a losing cause. We agreed to meet for lunch at noon.

Xiang plied us with a hundred questions at lunch. I had given him my paper and a copy of my book. We first talked about Kierkegaard and Unamuno—more specifically Kierkegaard and San Manuel Bueno, mártir, which he had read a long time ago. We talked about everything from Spanish history in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century to evolution, evolutionary ethics and Jorge Luis Borges. He is incredibly well read for a philosopher of science! He told me that he regretted the fact that no one came to my lecture but he knew the chair of the Spanish literature department at Beijing University and he would be contacting him on my behalf. He was sure that they would want me to lecture there. Lunch was the usual Chinese affair of multiple dishes, from fish to veggies and pork. Most were edible (the tiny fish was only bones, no flesh) but we were given grace to use a knife and fork instead of chopsticks.

We found out later that there were at least a couple of Steve’s present students who had wanted to come to my lecture but whose schedules prohibited it. I’m going to believe that the lack of attendance was just poor scheduling and the fact that no one is interested in Spanish anything here. I was tempted to think in conspiratorial terms about the fact that I had sent my paper ahead of time to our host and I had worried that he would find the themes too religious for Chinese tastes. I will never know, but he said that he had just been overly busy the day before and had not even opened the email that had my text.

Steve will speak at the same time tomorrow morning. He has worked very hard to develop a brand new paper for this audience, which he sent to be duplicated this afternoon. We’ll see if he has anyone to listen. Our host assures him that there will be much more interest in Kierkegaard and in Unamuno.

This afternoon I took some time to go shopping while Steve taught. I’m amazed at the prices of things--$75 for a basic blouse, $150 for a simple skirt. It seems to us that there are so many people that have menial jobs that can’t pay much. Who buys this stuff? I also spent some time looking for a place for us to have supper. We could have tried to get another taxi out of the university area, but that’s relatively expensive and time consuming, so I was determined to find a restaurant where we could eat something other than Chinese in pleasant surroundings. I found a restaurant called the Bullfighter Steak House that had beef tenderloin or lamb chops for 98 RMB, about $17. The beef was ok, but not HEB good. The lamb was tasty but full of a lot of gristle. The saving grace was that it wasn’t expensive and we could walk there.

So now we wait to see if folks will show up for Steve’s extra lecture tomorrow. After his afternoon seminar he will be completely done and we will look for a nice restaurant in which to celebrate. WE hadn’t decided entirely what we will do with Saturday. We’re both wishing that we had planned to go home, but we can’t change the reservations now, so we need to enjoy.

Thanks for your prayers on our behalf. They certainly were with me this morning as we dealt with an awkward situation.

Love, Jan

evans update #3

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 Shanghai

Dear Ones,

We had hoped to get away from the university area this morning and do some sight seeing, but we both felt we needed to accomplish some significant tasks before we could go and play. Steve had been writing the outlines for his lectures on Thursday and Friday in his head all night. He’s been preparing a hand out for each class that has the basic outlines of what he will say. I needed to work on my lecture which I will give tomorrow. We had gotten a request from our host for the full papers to be copied ahead of time for the students and those in attendance. I had an electronic copy of mine but Steve didn’t of his. We did have to think for a moment if what our host wanted was just to see what we were going to say to make sure it was politically correct.

In any case, after a breakfast in our room with the good Cheerios from Walmart and oj from the local equivalent of 7-11, we were ready to work. At about 11 we went out for our first and maybe only run of our time here. Last evening, when we were struggling with the crowds, I couldn’t imagine trying to run here. We did find a track, so this morning we made a bee-line for the track and it was quite pleasant since no almost no one was there.

We ventured into the food court again for lunch and found a bakery that had savory sandwiches and good pastries. That was all we needed. Steve taught his class which has proved to be wonderful and challenging. The students are bold with their questions, and they have a good time going around the issues.

We determined that we would get out of the area for dinner. It was a little bit of a leap since last night we were overcome with the huge hordes of people who didn’t move very quickly f or anything. But we made a reservation for 8 at a restaurant we had visited before in 2006. It has spectacular views over the river and is in the formerly colonial area. The lights are dazzling and we had a table that could take in the buildings as well as the activity on the river. It wasn’t cheap, but it was exactly what we needed at this juncture in our trip. I’m so grateful.

Tomorrow at 10 I lecture. I will appreciate all your prayers for the day ahead. I have no idea how many people may show up. My session is scheduled for 1.5 hours. I have about 45 minutes of material, so that should work out find.

I hope you are well. We miss you all!

Love, Jan

evans update #2

Tuesday, March 8

Dear Ones,

We started the day with the brilliant idea of going to Walmart to buy breakfast stuff. Cereal isn’t a part of the Chinese world, evidently, because they had just two different kinds sitting on the shelf and fortunately, one of them was Cheerios. We spent some time trying to figure out which of the milks was skim (we never did). Oh, and then it was time to find plastic spoons. Hah! If the culture doesn’t use spoons normally (they use chopsticks, of course) why would they have plastic ones? We scoured the paper plates/paper cups aisle to no avail. Finally I pointed to the plastic paddle/spoon that was included in the yoghurt that we were going to buy and asked a clerk where we could find such in the store. She understood my gestures and waved me over to the other side where there were, in fact, the plastic sort of scoops that they use for soups and also real stainless steel knives, forks and spoons. We decided to get the real deal and spent a dollar on two spoons.

Having made our purchases at Walmart we went back to the Paris Baguette to get coffee and a pastry. Both of those were superb but expensive—and we think the personnel there just really don’t like foreigners because they have been brusque and inhospitable to us, though, in truth, they were that way with everyone. Warm, personal attention is not part of the Chinese employee’s outlook. He/she is there to do a job and that’s it.

We enjoyed our purchased breakfast to the max, but it wasn’t long until sleep overtook us again. We were awakened at about 10 by the phone. Tongdong Bai, our host from Fudan U, was calling asking if we wouldn’t like to go to lunch with him. Of course! He explained that we could go to a “proper” restaurant, but he wanted us to have the local color experience in a food court. Food court? We didn’t know what he was referring to since we have seen lots of food on the streets and didn’t know if that was what he had in mind or a shopping center food court.

We needn’t have worried. . .or maybe we should have. It was a shopping center food court, but oh my, it was totally Chinese. There was a place at which you could place an order and then it was just the survival of the fittest for a table. We were instructed to hover over the tables and descend upon a table whenever it looked like it was near to being vacated. Our host ordered food at the concession where we would be entitled to park at one of the tables. He explained that the really wonderful food was from another place, but at least we had a space we could call our own. To say that we wouldn’t have attempted all this by ourselves is to say the obvious. So we watched while the most aggressive Chinese got a spot to sit at this particular venue. It wasn’t pretty. But our guide was as good as the rest and within 10 minutes we had a place to sit down. We waited another 10 for food to come and another 10 for our main host to arrive. He had wanted us to have the authentic Shanghai dumpling that is fried. We will attest to the fact that it was absolutely delicious and well worth the wait, the best food we’ve had since we came to Shanghai. It’s hard to describe the overwhelming population here.

After Steve’s class we determined that we would go out and walk for at least 45 minutes. It was rush hour and just crossing streets was a matter of taking life into your own hands. Even though there are lights and “zebra” crossings, Shanghai drivers are really oblivious or disrespectful to pedestrians, so one needs to be constantly vigilant. There is a tendency of drivers to lay on the horn at the slightest provocation. Thus, all of rush hour is a cacophony of car horns.

Since we had eaten considerably at lunch we were not in a mood to go downtown and get a high end meal tonight. After we took our walk we went to the local Pizza Hut. Oh my goodness. There were so many people, and people who do not know how to wait for their turn. There was a line outside the building and a line inside, but plenty of people who were willing to disregard any line and barge ahead on their own. We took one look at the situation and said that we would “take out.” I’m so glad we did. We waited 30 min for the pizza as it was, and we would have waited that for a table. I know you must think, “How could they go all that way and eat Pizza Hut pizza? Well, you just have to understand the press of the people and the craziness of the situation. We were incredibly grateful to be back in our little sanctuary of our hotel room after running the risk of losing our lives crossing streets in rush hour traffic.

We are hoping to get to some of the historic areas tomorrow morning. Steve is ahead on his preparation for his class so we should be able to do that. He’s working very hard, and the students are responding well.

Sleep well! Until tomorrow.

Love, Jan

Evans update from China #1

Monday, March 7, 2011 Shanghai

Dear Friends and Family,

The day started well. We awoke feeling rested and ready for adventure. Had to be answers to prayer. We both felt better than we normally do going to Europe. We were out looking for breakfast before 7:00, which meant that the only thing that was open was the KFC. It was fine. After Steve got a handout prepared for his class we actually slept a little more, but that was probably good. We got our exercise duds on, but really just went walking. We have an extensive shopping area near us, of which we’ve just scratched the surface. It includes a Walmart, believe it or not, and we made a stop there to get some plastic glasses and napkins. Napkins are in short supply in this country. You just about have to ask for them in restaurants. (The shopping area also includes KFC, Burger King, McDonalds (but only their ice cream) Pizza Hut and Starbucks.) We decided to go for a long walk toward the university.

The university was founded in 1905 by Jesuit priests, but that fact is pretty much etched out of any public history of the institution. It’s clear that the buildings on campus that are attractive are either from before the cultural revolution or from the last 5 years. After showers it was lunch time and we had a delightful repast at a place called the Paris Baguette.

The graduate student who met us at the airport came to get us at about 2:30 in anticipation of the 3:20 class start. Steve’s class is taking place in a lovely room with an oval shaped table. The building is brand new and boasts marble everywhere—much different than the worn buildings of Beijing U that we were at in 2006. I had just wanted to find out where he was to be so I left about 5 minutes before his class. He had about 12 when the hour was to begin but added another 10 in the next 10 minutes. It’s a very interesting group with one person who is 10 years out of her degree and is an editor of a major journal for the university and who had read 3 of Steve’s books. There are several who have studied in the States. Steve says that some of the students really wanted to hear him lecture on Kierkegaard, but this is a course in ethics, which will include SK but will not be exclusively about him. Steve couldn’t deal exclusively about SK because of the constraints of the grant from Templeton that brought him here. The seminar had to be about ethics or science and religion. Steve will lecture on Friday at a special time about SK. I will lecture on Thursday.

When Steve got back to the room it was clear that we had no one to host us for dinner. This is very different from our first visit here. We were taken care of so well then. This time we seem to be entirely on our own. I asked Steve what the difference was. Before the lectures were arranged by an evangelical in Hong Kong who knows Christians in the universities here. He contacted his friends, who set up the lectures in 2006 and who treated us so well. This time the arrangements are all made through “channels” that are strictly secular.

So we were game to find dinner on our own. What a hoot! We did not do very well. The restaurants around us are all just local places that are not accustomed to having tourists who speak only English. It didn’t matter at the Paris Baguette where we went for lunch because it was largely a self serve place. Tonight we went to a bustling, huge restaurant for which we had to wait about 15 minutes. They had a pictured menu with a little English, so we thought we could order ok. Wrong. The only thing that was edible was the veggie dish we ordered. The pork was dry and leathery. The lamb dish had parts of the lamb that we never eat. The rice that we ordered turned out to be greasy rice noodles! We just laughed all the way through. Everyone around us was having such a good time and enjoying themselves. I’m sure we didn’t go hungry, but we were wishing that we had had a host who could help us order better. Tomorrow night we will go to a more western restaurant and pay more than twice what we did tonight but the food should be a little more familiar.

Ok. I’m fading fast. I hope you have all had a good day. We so appreciate your prayers!

Love, Jan

May 21

An interesting article on yet another end-of-the-world prediction using biblical numerology:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-06/living/judgment.day.caravan_1_rvs-dish-world-ends?_s=PM:LIVING