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Revival Camp Day 6 Yes, my friends, we are now totally in Revival Camp. It's been an amazing week, really, in both challenging and yet good ways. These past two days have been something-- with teaching from Lou Engle and George Otis. Engle is a complete fireball-- a revolutionary-- dangerous. He's the guy who called a group of students to 24-7 prayer in Washington, D.C. on the Supreme Court Steps. One of the kids had a dream of someone with tape over their mouth with the word "Life" written on the tape. Engle had the group all duct-tape their mouths shut with red tape and write "LIFE" on the tape. It's now one of the more famous images in Supreme Court protester history. Only Engle says they aren't protesting. "We're appealing to a Higher Court." How about that? It puts Luke 18:1-8 with the widow and the judge in context doesn't it. Where prayer meets justice.
George Otis, a researcher by trade, has been all over the globe studying this phenomenon called revival and awakening. His findings are simply extraordinary. Far from just another "storm chaser," Otis is to revival and transformation what a meteorologist is to the weather. If you've seen any of the "Transformations" documentaries you know what I am talking about. What I appreciate about both Engle and Otis is that they seem to strike the right approach between human responsiveness and Divine intervention.
It's really something to be on this unbelievable campus which was clearly founded as a Revival Camp and which today is a bastion of secular humanism. What's fascinating is the way this group of 70 are somewhat back here in the original intent of the place. We are quite literally camped out in a classroom in the building adjacent to one of the earliest Chapels built on the campus. Talk about mustard seeds. . . . . . . . widows. . . . . . . . . children at play. . . . . . . . It's happening. So we'll see what becomes of it.
I am receiving tremendous encouragement as a result of being here, though I miss my family terribly.
Read more about Engle here
Read more about Otis here
More on the rest of this later. posted by John David Walt | at 6/26/2006 05:05:00 PM | 2 comments
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Revival(ism) We want
handles,
dash boards and control panels
formulas, plans, means and methodologies
How did they do it?
How will we?
If. . . . . . Then
conditions met. . . . . . .
promise fulfilled
technological levers
of revival
produce
worshippers of
folded hands
instead of
enraptured intoxication with
ONE
moved by
LOVE
alone.
Labels: poetry
posted by John David Walt | at 6/25/2006 03:19:00 PM | 1 comments
Friday, June 23, 2006
Revival Conference Day #3
Surprisingly, today I was invited to be part of a panel at this Institute on Campus Revival and Awakening. Pretty interesting, given that the panelists and presenters here have largely bought into reformed theology. Anyhow, as you might imagine, in a conference like this the ironic inquiries center around what responsibility people have in revival and what responsibility God has. You see the dilemma. The reformed thinkers, who clearly come down on the "revival is the sovereign act of a sovereign God" side, seem to be lauding the need for prayer and repentance and so forth as a condition for revival. This has the effect of shaping a what I call a "revival technology." (i.e. prayer as a lever to move God)
Interestingly, it is the more Wesleyan-Arminian oriented Christians (like myself) who are articulating a more cogent understanding of Divine Sovereignty. Our understanding of chief character of God's Sovereignty isn't wrathful power (i.e. see Jonathan Edwards famous sermon-- Sinners in the hands of an Angry God.). Our vision of Divine Sovereignty looks more like Holy Love. Try this: If our vision of Sovereignty is primarily "power" oriented, we tend to speak in terms of the "power of prayer." Prayer becomes the wielding of power under the guise of humility-- i.e. bowing down. It's the power-less invoking the powerful via the power of prayer. make sense? prayer easily becomes a form-- a format-- a formula which we seek after in the pursuit of getting God to do something.
Here's my take: God is not so much moved by prayer as God is moved by love. Not human love primarily, but Divine Love acting by faith in the human community. (that doesn't make it in-human-- it's actually God's intervention that restores us to true humanity-- which is the capacity to give ourselves for the sake of others). Stay with me. It's now the power of Love instead of the power of prayer. And what is real prayer but a laboring in love on behalf of others-- intercession. This is to imitate God-- to intervene or intercede. So revival is Love moving Love. It's breaking free from the shackles of religious duty and into the active responsiveness to the Love of God. You see, it's the Love of God released into the human community that becomes the kind of prayer that makes way for the Love of God to become manifest in the world. In this way we are responsive to the Love of God without being responsible for the Love of God. I hope I'm not committing some kind of heresy here on the blog--- but I'm thinking aloud as I write. This is why my blog was originally titled "rough draft."
My working definition of revival: the tipping point of Divine Love in the Christian community. Awakening is the outpouring of this Love in the unbelieving World in a way inviting and compelling response.
I'm going to release a new poem tomorrow which tries to come at this from yet another angle. posted by John David Walt | at 6/23/2006 04:37:00 PM | 4 comments
Thursday, June 22, 2006
FARMStrong on Location
This week we are at Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut at the Institute for Campus Revival and Awakening. I'm here with Mark Benjamin, who will soon be leaving Wilmore for his new job at George Fox University. We ran into my old friend, Creighton Alexander, a Campus Pastor at the University of Campus, who is also participating in this gathering. Yale is one of the key campuses awakened in the Second Great Awakening in America in the early part of the 19th century. Jonathan Edwards worked on this campus and in this area. This morning we will hear from a Jonathan Edwards scholar. The campus is unbelievable in its architecture and sense of history. More on that later. We'll start with this brick, which are embedded in a number of the buildings.
Please pray for us here and for Tiffani and the kids back in Wilmore. It's quite an extensive conference lasting 7 days with a really packed schedule. More to come. posted by John David Walt | at 6/22/2006 07:49:00 AM | 3 comments
Sunday, June 18, 2006
A Reading from St. Cyprian's Treatise on the Lord's Prayer This is a great thought on the nature of what praying "in the secret place" means.
Let our speech and our petition be kept under discipline when we pray, and let us preserve quietness and modesty – for, remember, we are standing in God’s sight. We must please God’s eyes both with the movements of our body and with the way we use our voices. For just as a shameless man will be noisy with his cries, so it it fitting for the modest to pray in a moderate way. Furthermore, the Lord has taught us to pray in secret, in hidden and remote places, in our own bed-chambers – and this is most suitable for faith, since it shows us that God is everywhere and hears and sees everything, and in the fulness of his majesty is present even in hidden and secret places, as it is written I am a God close at hand and not a God far off. If a man hides himself in secret places, will I not see him? Do I not fill the whole of heaven and earth?, and, again, The eyes of God are everywhere, they see good and evil alike.
When we meet together with the brethren in one place, and celebrate divine sacrifices with God’s priest, we should remember our modesty and discipline, not to broadcast our prayers at the tops of our voices, nor to throw before God, with undisciplined long-windedness, a petition that would be better made with more modesty: for after all God does not listen to the voice but to the heart, and he who sees our thoughts should not be pestered by our voices, as the Lord proves when he says: Why do you think evil in your hearts? – or again, All the churches shall know that it is I who test your motives and your thoughts.
In the first book of the Kings, Hannah, who is a type of the Church, observes that she prays to God not with loud petitions but silently and modestly within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke with hidden prayer but with manifest faith. She spoke not with her voice but with her heart, because she knew that that is how God hears, and she received what she sought because she asked for it with belief. The divine Scripture asserts this when it says: She spoke in her heart, and her lips moved, and her voice was not audible; and God listened to her. And we read in the Psalms: Speak in your hearts and in your beds, and be pierced. Again, the Holy Spirit teaches the same things through Jeremiah, saying: But it is in the heart that you should be worshipped, O Lord.
Beloved brethren, let the worshipper not forget how the publican prayed with the Pharisee in the temple – not with his eyes boldly raised up to heaven, nor with hands held up in pride; but beating his breast and confessing the sins within, he implored the help of the divine mercy. While the Pharisee was pleased with himself, it was the publican who deserved to be sanctified, since he placed his hope of salvation not in his confidence of innocence – since no-one is innocent – but he prayed, humbly confessing his sins, and he who pardons the humble heard his prayer. posted by John David Walt | at 6/18/2006 08:38:00 AM | 4 comments
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Fleeting Radiance (or light beholds Light)
Sunset window
watches days
like minutes
turn years
as
dust
incandescently
glistens from
wooden planks
fossilizing
the future
on the floor.
In writing this poem and trying to discern its meaning I wrote this comment and then the poem that follows. See if it makes sense to you.
"Poets do not control by words, rather, they unleash through them. Whether fury or beauty be unleashed, she knows not at the outset. The poet feels only the passion within words to have intercourse-- one with another. What comes of that takes a lifetime to assess."
poetry
like Revelation
releases meaning
wrapped mysterious
multivalence
crafting intricate worlds
by intimate words
faithing sight.
perhaps the most puzzling thing about poems is we simply don't have time for them, to probe their depth, to ponder their rhythms. in this way, poems are mainly impractical--like people-- aren't they?
Labels: poetry
posted by John David Walt | at 6/14/2006 03:22:00 PM | 7 comments
Best definition of worship I've seen. . . . . Worship is the
GIFT
of participating
through the
SPIRIT
in the incarnate
SONS
communion with the
FATHER.
This is from James Torrence, a reformed English scholar who has written a good book on worship and the Trinity. posted by John David Walt | at 6/14/2006 10:30:00 AM | 7 comments
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Practicing Pentecost About this time every year I read through the Acts of the Apostles. Today I read about Stephen in The Message Translation. Stephen, one of the seven, (who clearly rival the Twelve in significance as the Story unfolds) is given this bio: "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit."
Next we get this, "Stephen, brimming with God's grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them."
Next an unlikely alliance of Jewish leaders conspire against him but the text says, "But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke." Then this: "As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn't take their eyes off him--his face was like the face of an angel!"
"Then the Chief Priest said, 'What do you have to say for yourself?'"
The amazing thing about Stephen's reply is that he had nothing to say for himself. He simply recounted their own story to them, starting with Abraham and going through Moses. Interestingly enough, he never seems to speak of Jesus and yet you get the sense that his entire story-telling is clearly pointing to Jesus. Next they began to mob him.
And this, "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed--he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at this side. He said, 'Oh! I see heaven wide open and the Son of Man standing at God's side!'"
He only had eyes for God. . . .. . . . .
I think this passage and others we see in the Acts of the Apostles interprets for us the meaning of Paul's encouragement in Ephesians 6-- "Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. . . . . . ." posted by John David Walt | at 6/13/2006 11:03:00 AM | 3 comments
Sunday, June 11, 2006
In Celebration of Trinity Sunday The Trinity
O Community of Trinity
Three in One yet One in Three
Father, Son and Spirit
Unify
O Community of Trinity
Holy indwelling infinity
Father, Son and Spirit
Come and Dwell
O Community of Trinity
Composer of all reality
Father, Son and Spirit
Create anew
O Community of Trinity
Friendship enfolding humanity
Father, Son and Spirit
Breathe your breath
O Community of Trinity
True Love the World intends to be
Father, Son and Spirit
Come and Dance
O Community of Trinity
Longing the Cosmos to be free
Father, Son and Spirit
Liberate
O Community of Trinity
Story of all Doxology
Father, Son and Spirit
Glory Be
O Community of Trinity
God who is and was and is to be
Father, Son and Spirit
Reign in me
O Community of Trinity
Creator of Serendepity
Father, Son and Spirit
Mystery
John David Walt, Jr.
Trinity Sunday, 2004
Labels: poetry
posted by John David Walt | at 6/11/2006 08:57:00 AM | 3 comments
Friday, June 09, 2006
Stunning Interview My friend, Omar Alrikabi, whose often painful and frequently insightful blog can be seen here sent me a link today about the response of the father of Nicholas Berg to the death of al-Zarquawi, the man who murdered his son. It's a pretty stunning interview worth both reading and contemplating. You can SEE IT HERE You will understand why it impacted Omar so deeply given his deep and conflicted blood-ties to both Iraq and Texas. posted by John David Walt | at 6/09/2006 10:56:00 AM | 1 comments
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
What is your Theological Worldview My friend, Michael Lawson, posted on hisBlog, Cathedral Days a short theological type test which I found to be quite accurate. It will take you about ten minutes. . . . 50 questions or so. Let me know how you scored.
Take the test here posted by John David Walt | at 6/07/2006 10:28:00 AM | 12 comments
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Sabbatical Success As some of you are aware, I began a 10 week sabbatical on June 1. I am working on several projects which include
1. To reestablish deep ties with my wife and children.
2. The establishment of the plan for a seminary for worship leaders.
3. The establishment of a plan for a Healing Academy practicum-like experience on our Kentucky Campus.
4. To compose into words the vision and theology of worship the Lord has been revealing to me these past six years.
5. To collect 40 of what I consider to be my best poems for a collection entitled "40" in celebration of my 40th year of life.
As I was praying a few weeks ago in preparation for this time, the following words pictures came into my mind and heart as ways of focusing my prayers.
--Unforced rhythms of grace
--Table set before me (in the presence of my enemies)
--Springs of Living Water
--Transfigured Words on Tablets
--Mercy Dancing
So as the Spirit leads, please join me in these prayers, remembering with me the words of Jesus when he said, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you may ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." (John 15)
And thank you. posted by John David Walt | at 6/06/2006 11:21:00 AM | 8 comments
Introduction to Poetry I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
This is one from Billy Collins' first official published collection of poems, "The Apple that Astonished Paris." Collins was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001-2003. He's really got some good stuff. This particular poem harkens me back to Professor Keating's page-ripping-out-rant against academic evaluation of poetry in the movie, Dead Poet's Society. If interested you can read the transcript of that stirring dialogue in the essay linked on the right hand side of the page called "Why Poetry?" posted by John David Walt | at 6/06/2006 11:12:00 AM | 1 comments
Monday, June 05, 2006
Where does Poetry come from? Poetry emerges as the hidden fruit of suffering, the subterranean joy of experience attended to. The poet possesses the twin capacities of seeing sound and hearing sight. Whether one writes poems in order to become a poet or because she is a poet I know not. In the final analysis, poets are probably not made but born. . . . . twice born. . . . . or once born and once begotten. Poets are begotten by the singular audacious claim, "I am a Poet!
"
Photo: Two Sundays ago, on Ascension Sunday, I ventured into a high school youth group meeting (the woodlands united methodist church) where the youth pastor actually taught on the Ascension of Jesus. It was fantastic. He used a felt-board in his presentation which is shown here. posted by John David Walt | at 6/05/2006 04:30:00 PM | 0 comments
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Pentecost Fire breathed heaven at the speed of Light
Declaring day, destroying night
Dark struck back with apple’s snake bite
Now swords of fire to guard Eden’s delight
Fire breathed Heaven cut covenant right
While Abram dreamed of Egypt’s blight
As unconsumed a bush burned bright
Became Firey guide faith’s pillar of sight
Fire breathed Heaven shew Gideon’s might
Clay pots trumpeting, torch wielding fright
Fire on mountain won Elijah’s fight
Chariot aflame gave Heavenly flight
Fire breathed Heaven signed inbreaking Light
King chasing star pursued like a kite
In swaddling clothes his mother wrapped tight
Blazing Son of God Satan’s kryptonite
Fire breathed Heaven on torches of spite
Dark’s final blow, death’s cruciform smite
Candle snuffed out in sepulcher’s plight
Light of World swallowed by tomb’s appetite
Fire breathed Heaven said Angel in white
Jesus is Risen! A new record height
High Court decision reverses snake’s bite
History’s future demands a re-write
Fire breathed Heaven Disciples contrite
Amid falling flames of power and might
Unlearned men suddenly erudite
Religious scholars forever uptight
John David Walt, Jr.
Pentecost 2004
Labels: poetry
posted by John David Walt | at 6/04/2006 09:21:00 AM | 6 comments
Friday, June 02, 2006
Conversion (a working title) Anger
like a wooden bucket
must be sent
down
down
down
into the
deep
deep
deep
well of
LOVE
which is
water
journeying up until parched no more.
I wrote this one the other morning while in Houston. We're back by the way.
Labels: poetry
posted by John David Walt | at 6/02/2006 05:25:00 PM | 6 comments
Thursday, June 01, 2006
THE would be dialogical discussion presuppositions
preprogram
preconditions
for
precognition
prescribing
lenses
telling me
what to see
when I read my B.I.B.L.E.
therby controlling my destiny
BUT
Then there's that song. . . . . .
MYSTERY
quietly singing that
LOVE
must
simply
BE
FREE
with invisible ink
to write
the unutterable
only discernable
in unapproachable LIGHT
like REVELATION
in the darkest night
unmending the tethers of
control's appetite
birthing flight.
Labels: poetry
posted by John David Walt | at 6/01/2006 01:15:00 AM | 6 comments
Today...