Knowtown...

the ramblings of an ecclesial dreamer

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"We must not be afraid to dream the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality."
Vaclav Havel

Ecclesial Dreamer

My name is James Mills.

I am married to Janell and
we have three kids--Jarod, Matthew and Teryn. We live in Parker, Colorado.
In addition to this blog you can find out more about my ecclesial dream at Knowtown or Missio Dei.

If you would like to add your thoughts to a rambling,
click the "Talk Back" link at the end of each post.
If you would like to talk IM (MSN) me or send me an email at: jmills@knowtown.com

..::Favorite BLOGS::..
Andrew Hamilton
Andrew Jones
Doug Pagitt
Dry Bones Dance
Emergent Group Blog *NEW*
Dwight Scull
Fluid Faith
Jason Clark
Jason Smith
Karen Ward
Katy Raymond
Maggi Dawn
Michelle Bainbridge
Rudy Carrasco
Scott Holden
Scott Raymond
Tony Rodasta

..::LINKS::..
My Personal World Clock
Ekklesia Project
Emergent
The Holy Observer
The New Pantagruel
The Vine
Reconstruction
Observing Differently
Open Source Theology

..::Previous Ramblings::..

A table in the wilderness… The conversation Dwight and I had a week ago about Andrew Jones got me reading some of his articles and his blog. It was through his blog that I heard about the Stuarts. This family--Bruce, Sarah, Chelsea, Daniel, Matthew and Beau -- is friends of Andrew Jones and they are on a pilgrimage across the United States from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic. As I read their story I immediately felt a connection. I want to meet these people. I want to break bread with them and share our ecclesial dreams together. I contacted them to offer a place for them in Colorado should their travels take them this way. I have committed to praying for them in this adventure. I heard from them that they were having trouble with their RV which was too be the ark that takes them across the continent. Now I discover that they are in need of serious financial resources ($2000) to repair the vehicle or find another mode of transportation. At this point my heart breaks. I want to help these people. I really do. But do to a mixture of poor decisions on my part, a bad economy and unexpected expenses I have found myself in a wilderness of my own. The more I thought about this I became upset with myself. I have beat myself up over the poor choices that I have made that prevent me from being able to contribute to the Stuart’s needs. While I was stewing about this the name the Stuarts use to tell their story, a table in the wilderness, began to convict me in a different way. I do not know why they chose that word picture but I have no doubt that they are trusting God to meet them at their table in their wilderness. I get so prideful sometimes. I reach small places where I think that I should have the ability to meet other’s needs and to make a difference in other people’s lives. Then there is the dangerous thinking that I am the one who has (or should have) something to give and forget that I am as needy as everyone else. In many ways, the reality of the wilderness that the Stuarts are in right now is much worse than mine and in spite of that they are giving to me. They are giving me a word picture that points beyond our desires to help fellow travelers and to the infinitely abundant riches of a God who has both the ability and the desire to set a table for us in the wilderness. I am still brainstorming and trying to figure out a way for us to help. I reaffirm my commitment to pray for them in the journey. I will continue to hope that their travels bring them through Colorado so that we can share in this experience with them. But now I am adding the desire to learn from them the many ways that I have made our God too small. Pleas join me in praying for this family’s pilgrimage and follow their progress by clicking on the link to their blog in the listings on the left. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/26/2003 11:08:00 AM	Thursday, June 26, 2003
Strange Days… This past week or so has been full of mixed emotions for me. Things vocational have been a wild rollercoaster of a ride. My community of faith situation is progressing but still in a delicate situation. Relationships with new friends are developing in exciting new ways. The stress of all of these things, both good and bad, is beginning to weigh on me heavily. My body is telling me that I need more sleep and I am trying to pack way too much into the time I am awake. I feel very much in need of a Sabbath rest. I am becoming aware of this sense that something is being born out of all this chaos and it has not yet taken shape. I find myself both anxious and mildly optimistic. While reflecting on the past week I was reminded of a line I read in a biography I read about John Owen along the lines of, “God has a strange way of preparing his shepherds.” I would like to think that all of this internal and external turmoil is a path of preparation to becoming a better shepherd but I wonder if I have the maturity to drain it of all its meaning and get what I am supposed to out of it. I’ll keep you posted. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/25/2003 04:02:00 PM	Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Homecomings and Birthday thoughts… Much to the dismay of McDonalds and Dominos Pizza, Janell returned from her week long trip to the orphanage on Saturday afternoon. The kids were still alive and well and the house was not in total disorder so all in all I think we survived for the week with out mom. Now that mom is back home we can shift out of survival mode and actually begin to thrive again. Starting to get back to our normal routine over the weekend was hard in its own way. Janell and I stayed up way too late both Saturday and Sunday and now I am paying for it. I am very tired. We still have a lot of catching up to do. But truth be told, there is more to me being tired than just lack of sleep. Today is my 35th birthday. I know that is relatively young but right now I feel like I am 135. I normally do not take birthdays very seriously. To me it is a day like any other day. But this year is a little different. With all of the change and turmoil in my life I feel the need to take pause and be reflective on my 35 years. I truly have so much to be thankful for. I am becoming aware that I have a bad habit of going through life like I am on a conveyor belt. I seldom take time to really appreciate the good gifts from a great God. So on this, my 35th birthday here is a short list of some of the things I am thankful for, all of which I see as gifts from God: * Janell, Jarod, Matthew and Teryn. You guys are the best * My brother, Cliff, and my sisters, Margaret and Marlene (my twin) * My Parents (without whom these past 35 years would never have happened) * My friends, old and new: Tony and Al, Tim, Gary, Mark, Scott and Emily, Dwight and Rebecca, Curtis, Tre, Jason and Emily, Jason C (from across the pond)… this list could go on all day… * Crossroads Community Church * My health * My job * My Ecclesial dream… God, you have been good to me and I am truly grateful. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/23/2003 09:35:00 AM	Monday, June 23, 2003
House Church article and new blogs My friend Dwight Scull and I have been ecclesial dreaming a lot lately. We were talking about "house churches" and what that could look like. He brought up Andrew Jones who has some interesting insights into this. I am making a link to his blog so I can keep up with his thoughts. I read his article, "My gripes about the house church movement", which totally resonates with my ecclesial dream. This is one sharp thinker! Speaking of new Blogs I am making links to two other blogs that I found through Tim Keel's Blog. I linked to these blogs and could not leave them. These two are amazing writers and once you start reading their posts you can't stop. To me they illustrate what blogging is all about. And even more amazing is the fact that this is a mother and son combination!! The first one is Katy Raymond's blog. Her son, Scott Raymond's blog shows that he was fortunate enough to inherit his mom's writing ability. If you like to read good writing you will love these blogs. New links for all three blogs can be found in the list on the left. That's all for now. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/19/2003 09:58:00 PM	Thursday, June 19, 2003
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure… While wandering through the halls at work today I discovered a used book sale going on. Hardback books for a dollar and paperback books for 50 cents. I am currently in two books right now with two more on the way from Amazon. Not to mention the next Harry Potter is out this weekend. The last thing I need is another book. But I have an unwritten rule that you cannot go past a used book sale and I decided it couldn’t hurt to look. So I browse through the cheesy romance novels and the various outdated business books certain that there will be nothing good here. But then I spied an interesting title: The Serpent Was Wiser: A New Look At Genesis 1-11, by Richard S Hanson. I have been looking for books on the creation narrative for about two months anyway. I picked it up and read the back cover… “Neither a commentary nor an introduction to genesis 1-11. Rather it attempts to reclaim this significant part of the Bible for the ‘person who likes to read for insight and entertainment and for the preacher who would like to preach on the ancient motifs and stories.’ Richard S. Hanson is an Old testament scholar who displays a joyful sense of humor and a deep human understanding of his material and his readers. His fresh, imaginative engagement with the text lets the mind roam through the creation stories and the accounts of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Tower of Babel, leading the reader to see things he never knew were there. Ancient tales from Mesopotamian culture and creative, poetic translations of the Bible set the stories into perspective. Finally, Hanson recaptures the mood and importance of the Genesis accounts to spur readers to new observations of their own.” For 50 cents I had to at least give it a try. I read the first two chapters at lunch and they are wonderfully written. The “poetic translations of the Bible” are great. It was refreshing to read these stories in a genre that they were intended for. So far this book has been worth every penny (all fifty of them). I guess it is true that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/19/2003 02:23:00 PM
Emotional day... My daughter and youngest child graduated from kindergarten today. She looked so beautiful and happy as she came marching into the room with all of her little classmates. I was watching the whole thing through the viewfinder of the camcorder in an attempt to capture the moment for my wife who is still in Mexico working at the orphanage. I wish there was a way to capture the moment on somethin other than video. I was so proud of her but inside I was a mess. The human being is not designed to experience the extreme range of emotions of such a moment at the same time. Happiness and sadness were coexisting and the tension was tough to bear. Then tonight our church worship band was practicing. While we were playing Third Day's "Take My Life" My friend broke down. Her daughter has just moved to Oregon and is going through a rough time. So as my friend was hurting for her daughter I thought about my own daughter. It is hard knowing that we are only stewards of our children. We can not protect them from life or give them everything they want. We can only love them and experience the wide range of emotions they bring. I remember experiencing this range of emotions corporately one time and it was very hard. It was the day of the high school shootings at Columbine high school. My niece was in that school and I was at a nearby elementary school waiting to hear if she was ok. I was in a large room with other parents who were waiting to hear about their children. You could cut the tension in that room witha knife. The later the day went on the worse it got. Then a man in the room saw his daughter through the door and halfway down a hall. He burst into tears and tried to get out of the crowded room while his daughter, who saw him at about the same time was making her way through the hallway. The met at the doorway and wept as they embraced. You could feel the happiness and the joy of father and daughter as they held each other and sobbed. At the height of their joy you could also feel the despair of everyone else in the room deepen. I remember thinking that the extremes of emotions was making me uncomfortable but that it did not make the infinite God uncomfortable. I remember thinking that God could share in the extreme joy of the father and daughter and meet the others in the depths of their despair. What a great God this is! posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/18/2003 10:29:00 PM	Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Moms... I don't know why it takes Janell leaving for a while to make me appreciate moms. I like to think I am getting better at this single parenting gig each time she goes away but it is still a lot of work. I am amazed at how easy Janell makes it look. Of course Janell is not the only mom I am thinking about. Both of our mom's are helping me make sure the kids are taken well care of this week. My mom was here to greet the kids when they came home from school today and she will be here again tomorrow. Later this week Janell's mom will take over. Since I could not get out of work, Janell would not have been able to make this trip if our moms would not have stepped in. I think I speak for the kids when I say, "I appreciate moms!" posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/16/2003 08:51:00 PM	Monday, June 16, 2003
Who's your daddy? My 6 year old daughter has me wrapped around her finger. Mom was leaving town early on Saturday morning so late on Friday night she helped the kids remember that Sunday was going to be Father’s day. When Sunday rolled around Teryn actually remembered. She came bounding down the stairs and says, “Happy Father’s Day!” She is a planner and has a good memory just like her mother. Now I don’t usually even care about sappy holidays like Father’s Day but I have to admit that hearing her say that without being reminded was really cool. But I still am not going to let her date until she’s 30! posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/16/2003 12:36:00 PM
The House of Love for Children... It has been a busy couple of weeks. I normally look forward to the weekends as a time to catch up on some rest and relaxation but this weekend there is no relief in sight. Janell left early this morning for Casa De Amor Para Ninos, an orphanage in Los Palomas, Mexico. She took a bunch of the students from our church there for their second mission trip to this orphanage. They will be there for a week fixing some bunk beds, playing and ministering to the children and hopefully getting out into the community of Los Palomas. At any rate, it leaves me home with the kids for a week. I was joking around with Janell that by the time she came home our kids would be in worse shape than the orphans in Mexico. I am sure by weeks end I will have our kids dirty, malnurished and exhausted from lack of sleep. We will have empty Mcdonald's bags and Pizza boxes all over the house. I don't know if I should be praying for Janell and her group or for my own children who are left in my care for a week without Janell?? One thing is certain, we are already anxious for mom to get home. It is going to be a long week. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/14/2003 09:14:00 AM	Saturday, June 14, 2003
Steamboat Springs, weddings and lost sleep... My family spent the last two days in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It was beautiful. We were there for the wedding of a good friend. We stayed in some nice cabins next to the Elk River. The wedding was on Friday night and it went very well. Saturday we went to Steamboat Lake and did some fishing. We caught several very nice trout. LAter that night I drove up the road that follows the Elk River towards its headwaters in the Mt. Zirkle Wilderness area. The river was flowing pretty good. There is still snow on the peaks and I saw a bunch of deer and a couple elk. I took the road all the way to the end and had some flashbacks. Many years ago my brother and I were up there at that very same trail head. We had hiked in to the wilderness area under a full moon. I sat at the trail head thinking about my brother, enjoying the scenery and trying to fight off the nagging thoughts about church that were lurking beneath the surface. I drove back to the cabins in the dark, got ready for bed and had a terrible nights sleep. I could not stop thinking about church and my role in it. It feels like it is going to be a long summer. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/08/2003 05:51:00 PM	Sunday, June 08, 2003
The ecclesial dissident imperative... Over the past several months I have become more convinced than ever that the church is in need of revolution. I grow more committed each day to the ecclesial dream. But I struggle with what role I should play in that. Sometimes I feel like following my dream will cause more harm than good in my current community of faith. But I also feel that if I do not follow this dream I am not following Christ because Christ is calling me to follow this dream. It is becoming an imperative. The church needs to change and it requires revolutionary leaders. I came across this quote from my new favorite author, Vaclav Havel: “Pressured by the conventions, stereotypes, and models of behavior that commonly dominate politics today, are we to give up on the imperatives that guided us in the past and thus alter our selves? Or should we try—under the pressure of those imperatives—to change politics? As you certainly will have guessed, I lean toward the second alternative. Naturally, the dissidents’ dramatic cry from the dark depths of totalitarian conditions is indeed a somewhat different genre of human endeavor from, for example, the complex negotiation of an international agreement. Many forms of work, habit, and style simply cannot be brought from dissident activity into practical politics, and to try to do so would not only make no sense, but might even cause a great deal of harm. I’m not talking now of genres and forms, however; I’m talking about essence and substance, and even though I run the risk of providing my opponents with yet another argument for the claim that I am an incorrigible dreamer, I must say that the attempt to breathe something of the dissident experience into practical politics ought to be made. More than that, I think it is our responsibility. We went through certain experiences, we came to certain conclusions, and this, I think, enjoins us to evaluate their meaning and to enrich politics with it. Perhaps it is risky, and perhaps it won’t succeed. But why should those who, in their own time, triumphed precisely because they were not afraid of risk and failure, fear them now? …I repeat again that this is easy enough to say but difficult to do. To follow this path demands infinite tenacity, infinite patience, much ingenuity, iron nerves, great dedication, and, last but not least, great courage. I am in no way claiming to know how to walk this path myself. Nevertheless, I feel that, in today’s dramatic, confused, and generally endangered world, that is precisely the path we must take.” For me, Havel’s thoughts on politics translate very easily into the church. I particularly like this last paragraph. As I begin to understand in a new way how hard it is to be an ecclesial dreamer these words encourage me to not give up just because it is not easy. The gate is narrow and the way is hard but this is precisely the path we must take. posted by Ecclesial Dreamer @ 6/02/2003 04:23:00 PM	Monday, June 02, 2003