Ecumenical Pub opens

Another Pub while Protestant Pub is in hiatus

http://ecumenicalpub.blogspot.com/

Crucified God, etc

I’m a big fan of Bonhoeffer and his theology of costly discipleship of following Jesus and being engaged in the world and it’s suffering(a la Theology of the cross). That is why I love Douglas John Hall, Gerhard Forde, and Jurgen Moltmann especially the Crucified God. I believe God is with us in our sufferings and God suffers with us.

This is my next read:

God’s love is active in the world and it is unconditional!

Ecumenical Pub

My Calvinist, Reformed Baptist and other friends from Protestant Pub have closed down again. I was the lone Lutheran.

Sofyst-Adam is hopefully opening another Pub. Do I need to start an Ecumenical Pub here?

God is active at the Texas Honky Tonk

My wife is a wonderful blues singer. When she sings “Stormy Monday” I get the chills and I see that she has touched not only my soul but everyone at the Texas Honky Tonk.

The folks who hang out at the Texas Honky Tonk are lonely and are there for somebody to relate to. They are not rich and don’t look like celebrities or the people you would want to hang out with but God loves them and Jesus is in the midst of them. Jesus, the wino and friend of sinners. (Matt 11:19)

She started singing

Sunday I go to church, hmm ,
That’s when I get down on my knees and pray

I said Lord have mercy,
Oh Lord, Lord, Lord have mercy on me
Yeah Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord have mercy on me

The music was over and they welcomed us just as we are. The way a Church should be.

Schools out until January

A month and one more semester and I will have my MDIV!!!

A time for rejoicing and a time to reflect back of the journey I’ve taken with my fellow seminarians. Here’s a prayer from Thomas Merton that means alot to me:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”

Thanks be to God!