I have placed all of my posts from November and December 2005 where I posted entire sections of the booklet Becoming the Authentic Church, into WordPress “pages”, which are available in the WordPress system for “non-blog” type posts, which can be hierarchically arranged, which makes this format an ideal way of keeping such “reference” type pages up front, so that they do not “slide down” in the reverse chronological ordering of blog posts. For now, I have styled the background of the “Page Template” pages to be the cream colored background of the booklet cover, to indicate that these are not MY writings, but are of the Kayla McClurg/Gordon Cosby authored booklet.
As readers here may be able to tell, I have yet to find the kind of authenticity (or even serious efforts) to embody the kind of intentional intensity of community I believe required to withstand the pressures of the culture that their people of God MUST have in order to keep from being subsumed by it. I, least of all, am not able to stand up to this pressure without this kind of people.
I want to find out how, in the WordPress schema (or in a particular template schema, that I can limit certain templated changes to certain “Pages” in the WordPress database. In other words, all the pages whose Parent page is Becoming the Authentic Church. I spent a great deal of time last night copying all the Authentic Church posts from back then to these pages so that I can renew my efforts to bring them to the fore of my blogging again, since none of it has really “gone away” or become less important to me. The only reason I have been “bloggedly-silent” at any one stretch is that I have been so frustrated and at times quite depressed that it seems so nearly impossible to break through from this culture to the “other culture”; that “alternative” culture where the Kingdom of God is consciously welcomed and sought.
Amen to that, Eric.
Even that problem is one I seem to need some underlying sense of commitment to this thing…..I can see my way to sticking with it if I had that sense that others will not give up on me even as I won’t on them……but then again, I am having trouble with the first half. If we can recognize the fact that we all have “injuries” from the battering and the isolation and the myriad of ways we’ve been told by the culture “You’re no good”, then that would make the hassle of dealing with each other a part of the commitment, much as marriage requires to stick with it sometimes. But this prior commitment is what’s missing.
I agree that is but half the work . We do need to anticipate BOTH of those aspects of the work. I would be much more hopeful about getting half way in, but having the invitation to take the rough journey would be preferrable to staying on my solitary raft.
Dale
As readers here may be able to tell, I have yet to find the kind of authenticity (or even serious efforts) to embody the kind of intentional intensity of community I believe required to withstand the pressures of the culture that their people of God MUST have in order to keep from being subsumed by it. I, least of all, am not able to stand up to this pressure without this kind of people.
The more days that go by, the more I’m convinced this is only half the work. After that we still have to deal with each other — our neuroses, idiosyncrasies, personalities, character (flaws), etc., which can be every bit as challenging as just trying to get over the rest of this cultural still which also still continues to bombard. Lord help us.
Peace,
Eric
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