doxy or praxy?

So once a week we have a church history class where lately we have been surveying creeds.

I read this tonight from The Shaping of Things to Come:
"What is more interesting is that none of the creeds get to talk at all on right living, the very topic the Bible itself cannot seem to talk enough about. In its Hellenistic bent, doctrine shifted from right acting to right thinking. This has been referred to as the distinction between orthopraxy and orthodoxy. Orthopraxy is a system that believes that right living provides the context for us to embrace right thinking...The reverse is called orthodoxy. It assumes that if we change a person's thinking, we will change the way he or she lives. But there is too much evidence to the contrary. Many great theologians have "thought" rightly about Christian teaching, but their lives have not necessarily mirrored their beliefs."

New Photos!

Our good friend Brandy Cunningham is a professional photographer (www.brandycunninghamphotography.com) who does portraits, weddings, babies you name it. She just snapped some pics quickly of us when she and some friends were over for dinner last month. Here's some of what she shot. Enjoy!...actually i'm having trouble loading them. So I'll get them on here later!
Thanks Brandy!

Friends

So Michael Jackson is a disturbed human being but he penned some great lyrics,

"I'm gonna make a change, uh, for once in my life. It's gonna feel real good. It's gonna make a difference. Gonna make it right....I'm starting with the man in mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways."

I've made lots of changes in my life and the most recent has been to withdraw from Seminary at Anderson which I haven't commented on yet here. But here goes.

What did I want out of Seminary?
I wanted a season set aside to dig deep into the great history of this story we are a part of (church history). I wanted to wrestle with questions of who God is, Why he made me, and What that means for our world. I wanted a season to dig into the bible and discover afresh what it has to say. I wanted to do all this among a group of deep spirited friends in the context of life and service and relationships.

What did I get?
I got all the resources I could handle informing me of new ideas, questions, and answers in the form of books. I was learning much as I sat in my chair at home and read. What was completely lacking was a sense of connection and relationship with the professors and students that I desperately wanted in order to really wrestle with the content and apply it to life in real time. How can we accurately discern the things of God in a vacuum? That's what I felt was happening. Now mind you I'm not bashing seminary but I was not in a place to interact with anyone accept during class time as I lived and worked in Muncie.

What I did?
I found what I was looking for in an internship at Muncie Alliance Church. From 8-12 M-F we wrestle with the contents of the Bible, the Mission of God, the changing Culture, Church History, and so much more. We serve together at the Muncie Mission and clean the facilities here at MAC together. We eat lunch together every day and we worship together and live in community (many in the same house together). There are 12 of us. We teach eachother, challenge eachother and all in the context of real life, in real time. Wasn't that how the disciples learned?

How It's going.
I love it. "It feels real good". I've made deep friends and feel like I've got family up in Muncie now.

Shalom,