2007 March — wadehodges.com

2007 Workshop Reflections

We’re finished with another workshop.

We had a great time of worship at Garnett this morning.

I really enjoyed hearing Bruce Marchiano tell his story on Thursday night. He had some great facial expressions and sound effects.

On Friday night, Randy Harris and Jerry Taylor demonstrated once again why they’re two of the best preachers in Churches of Christ today.

For my money, the best of all was on Saturday night. Jeff Walling and Terry Rush hit the cover off the ball. They were great together. (I really do love tag-team preaching experiences.) They played off of each other well and they both brought key insights out of the story of Jesus being anointed by the sinful woman in Luke 7. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard either one of them do better. It was the perfect ending to a powerful workshop.

Every year at this time I’m amazed at what God does through the workshop and I’m humbled to be a very small part of it.

Technorati Tags: tulsa workshop

March 25, 2007 By Wade 4 Comments

2007 Tulsa Workshop

Filed Under: Tulsa Workshop

The Tulsa Workshop is only a few days away. Terry Rush and the folks at the Memorial Drive Church of Christ have put together a great program. I’m honored to be a part of it. I’ll be teaching a couple of classes, one on Thursday and one on Saturday.

Usually Memorial and Garnett alternate years overseeing the coordination of the workshop. Next year, Memorial is taking it again so that we can focus on some initiatives at Garnett that need our full attention. Memorial will take the workshop again in their regularly scheduled year, so we won’t be back on the clock until 2010.

The workshop has been a blessing to so many over the years. I can say that the workshop is one of the reasons I became a preacher. There are many others who can tell a similar story.

I hope to see you there.

March 20, 2007 By Wade 9 Comments

Movies and Books

Filed Under: Books, Movies

I’ve seen a couple of good movies in the last week: “Zodiac” and “Amazing Grace.” Two very different movies but both are well made and worth watching. A theme common to both movies is obsession and the toll it takes on those committed to a cause.

Our staff is reading Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William Webb. We’ve just gotten started, but I can already tell it’s going to spawn some great discussions.

Another book I highly recommend is The Burning Word: A Christian Encounter with Jewish Midrash by Judith Kunst. I think most Christians take the Bible too seriously. So seriously in fact that we suffocate it. We come to the text already knowing what it says and how we’re supposed to respond. Maybe this is actually a sign that for all our seriousness about the Bible, we’re not willing unleash it and let it be the heart-cutting, bone-melting Word of God. This book shows Christians how to read the Bible with a spirit of creativity and playfulness. Approaching it in such a way gives Scripture room to breathe and opens us up to surprising discoveries, which might actually break through our pious religiosity and shake us up a bit. Kunst argues–and I agree with her–that Scripture is written in such a way to encourage such playful creativity.

I’ve received a couple of nasty emails blaming me for a newfound sweet-tarts jelly bean addiction. I told you they were good.

March 9, 2007 By Wade 7 Comments

New Podcast: Episode One

Filed Under: Podcasts

I’m starting up a new podcast here at this blog. I’ll be posting talks that I give at other events, conversations that I have with interesting people, and thoughts that might be better heard than read. The weekly teachings I do at Garnett will continue to be found at the Garnett Podcast.

Eventually, this podcast will be available at itunes, but first I want to make sure I’ve got it working properly. If you want to go ahead and subscribe, here is the feed. Here’s the itunes subscription link.

The first episode is a talk I gave at the Tulsa Workshop last year. It’s entitled The Emerging Church of Christ: Both/And.

March 7, 2007 By Wade 1 Comment

Lent Busters

Filed Under: Random

Sweet-Tarts jelly beans are the best jelly beans ever. You can only find them around Easter and–as it seems to be the case here in Tulsa–at Walgreens.

The last two seasons of Lent I’ve tried to give up sugar. Both times these little beans of sweet jelly coated with a tart outer shell have shipwrecked my good intentions and caused me to question whether I’m really cut out to be a Lent practicing Christian.

Guilt-induced aside coming. . .

Isn’t Lent a Catholic tradition anyway? What is a jelly bean loving protestant like myself doing dipping into this ancient practice in the first place? (If you’ve been led to believe that Church of Christers aren’t really protestants, then you’ve been seriously misled. Can you think of any other group who has “protested” more than the Church of Christ?) But I digress.

Yesterday, on the way to an after-church get together, I had to stop at a Walgreens to pick up some plastic bowls. I just “happened” to walk down the Easter candy aisle and they were, in all their colorful Lent-busting glory.

I’m glad I chose to give up bread this year.

One of the best lines about Lent I’ve come across comes from a Catholic mother after her daughter told her that she was enjoying Lent. The mother said, “Honey, if you’re enjoying Lent, you’re not doing it right.”

Technorati Tags: lent, jelly beans, idolatry

March 5, 2007 By Wade 16 Comments