I know I have been off the radar for a while, and will be some more, as I move my family from FL to IN, but I wanted to throw this on here, as we migrate towards to new conversations.

Perhaps y0u have heard of the Holiness Manifesto:
A collection of Wesleyan and holiness movement theologians have published a Holiness Manifesto. Excellent reading. There is also an interview with it's chairperson, Kevin Mannoia

The Holiness Manifesto says that "holy people are not legalistic or judgmental. They do not pursue an exclusive private state of being better than others. Holiness is not flawlessness but the fulfillment of God's intention for us." Can you unpack that for us?
That is our effort to acknowledge the "valley moments" in our own histories. We recognize, for example, that in the mid-20th century a lot of what we did was based out of a legalism that was behaviorally oriented and in many cases became judgmental.

And we're trying to say that we all recognize that pitfall. We reject that, and we want to capture the spirit of this message afresh.

The document says that holiness is not "an exclusive private state of being" and frames holiness as neighbor love. It uses "covenant" language. There's a more communal understanding of holiness in this statement, that holiness is not just about us as individuals but about individuals belonging to a covenant people.

We're trying to say that we have also fallen prey to the idea of a privatized faith, that you are holy internally and that it has no external responsibility to community and to culture. We recognize that we cannot be holy in our hearts without an overflow of action and engagement with other people and with culture. The important thing here is that holiness begins with God. It does not begin with the church, it does not begin with a person, it does not begin with the Bible. It begins with God.

One characteristic of God is holiness, and at the root of that is his love for humanity. Out of that abundant love then, his otherness, which is essentially his holiness, finds expression in reaching and engaging with humanity for redemptive and reconciling purposes.

So if we pursue becoming Christ-like, which is the essence of holiness, then we will not only be transformed into his holy character, but that love will flow through us and compel us to engage and to transform culture. You can't have individual holiness without social holiness. It's impossible.

Our CHOG Participants were: Greg Dixon, Ron Duncan, Barry Callen, David Winn, and David Shrout.

Wow so we've been doing this for a year. I missed the actual birthday, but I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention. If you've notice we've started to grow up a little. New look. Site feed, with syndication icons right there. Andy had a great idea for guest bloggers. So look for that this year.

So my hope is that all of us are closer to culture than we were last year. [That we're not as deep into Christian sub-culture.] That we are doing more now than we were a year ago to affect the world/culture that we live our lives in. That we are more like misionaries to our towns and cities than chaplians called to say prayer once a year to the Lions Club meeting. In being different in those ways I hope you have more dust on you from your rabbi Jesus. [Dust by Nooma] So here we go. Another year. I wonder what we'll discover in the U.P. this year, eh?

thanks to Lloyd on ChOGBlog I came accross this article. I haven't been fishing much lately for things to discuss at places like the ooze, so this is quite a find.

In this article Alan Hartung brings out things I've thought for a while. Some of it is hard to hear, but he's right. [Ya I had classes in Hartung Hall too!]

I am still plugging along at Emerging Churches by Bolger and Gibbs. Andy, how is it coming for you? We should probaly disscuss as we go don't ya think? That way things are fresh.