When the debate started, McLaren started off by saying that the Emergent movement was not a movement at all, but instead a conversation. He then went on to say that he was not a Leader or Spokesman, but instead a man that is only a partaker in the conversation. I am honestly surprised that anyone would even believe that he is just a humble conversationalist. Let’s just take a look at how the dictionary defines a leader, so that I might make my case.

Leader

1.
a person or thing that leads.

2.
a guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement, or political group.

Ok, so keeping that in mind, I want to note that McLaren is an accomplished writer. He has wrote a multitude of books, that I’m going to show here.

Finding Our Way Again

Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope

The Voice of Luke

The Voice of Acts: The Dust Off Their Feet

The Secret Message of Jesus

A Generous Orthodoxy

The Last Word and the Word After That.

A New Kind of Christian

The Story We Find Ourselves In

Church in Emerging Culture; Five Perspectives

Adventures in Missing the Point

A is For Abductive

More Ready Than You Realize

Finding Faith: A Search For What Makes Sense

A Search for What is Real: Finding Faith

Finding Faith

-All of these titles were taken from BrianMclaren.net

So if you count all of those titles, there is a total of 16. Now I don’t have a problem with someone writing a bunch of books. What I do have a problem is when someone writes books on how Everything Must Change and Finding faith and yet claims that he is not leading anyone. The definition talks about a guiding or directing hand as a leader. The fact is that, despite how much McLaren denies it, he is not only advocating a way of thought he is leading and guiding them.

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The truth is though, that I wouldn’t have any problem accepting him as a leader. There was something I noticed, however, while watching him that I could just not dismiss. Throughout his whole argument, I heard absolutely no use of scripture to back up the points he was trying to make. Let me show you a picture of why this is such a big deal.

2 Timothy 3:16

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness

If he isn’t using the Lord’s scripture to make his points, then I am afraid that this man isn’t following God’s leadership, and instead following his own path. Christ asks that you are to follow him and his leadership. If you aren’t under the lords leadership and following his path, it will lead to destruction.

Matthew 4:19-20

¹⁹And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” ²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

Matthew 7:13-14

¹³“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. ¹⁴“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Whenever the Israelites forsook God and decided to follow their own path, they would be pillaged and plundered because of it.  This was illustrated in the cycle of harlotry in Judges.

Judges 2:16-22

¹⁶Then the LORD raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. ¹⁷Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do as their fathers. ¹⁸When the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. ¹⁹But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways. ²⁰So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not listened to My voice, ²¹I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, ²²in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk in it as their fathers did, or not.”

If McLaren,his fellow Emergent Conversationalists, and whoever chooses to follow their leadership continue down this path, of not following the Lord and his leadership, it will only lead to destruction. I don’t want that to happen, and I can only pray that God opens McLaren’s eyes to the problems of his philosophy and that he will repent, so that he won’t lead anymore people down this path.

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The Brothers stand Defiantly in a previously German occupied city

 I bring all of this to light because of how apparent the similarities between us at NEOXenos and the Band of Brothers have become.

Our Company of Strangers is so diversified, much like the band of brothers. We have our fighters and soldiers on the front lines, who take the brunt of our persecution. If a soldier gets hit in the ass with a bullet, we have wonderful medics (encouragers), who will step in and patch up the wounds so that the soldier will get back to the fight. We have some of the best Leaders, from the Generals of our elders, to our Sergeants of our cell groups. We have some wonderful administrators who can look at who needs what supplies. What would a company be without the Special forces, who go deep into enemy territory and establish a small foothold.

The greatest part of this persecution, is how it affects our relationships. We have been standing up together, coming together as a fellowship and growing our relationships with those who are stuck in the foxholes next to us. This happens in the battlefield, and so it also happens with us.

The biggest difference is our leader, who we all must answer to in the end. The Generals answer to the President or the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The problem with these leaders are, they don’t have that much influence over the general flow of the battle. They don’t know (that much) of what the enemy is about to do.

Our leader is so much better than that. Our leader not only has an extremely large influence over the tide of the battle, but he knows ahead of time what the enemy is planning and prepares us for it. What blows me away to this day is the fact that we were about to get called a cult, and go through all of this persecution, and only a few months earlier God blessed us with a cult expert salvation. God is still blessing us to this day, with the way that the Akron Beacon Journal article has turned out for us.

Such an exciting group, even at a Financial Summit, there are still all sorts of smiles

Well I think I will leave this blog with this scripture:

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

-2 Timothy 2:3 (NASB)

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Well that didn’t last long and I ended up relying on my own efforts again. God has been working on breaking me down in this area and it has been great, because I know how much my own effort will fail me and trusting in God will show me great results, and actual improvement in my life.

Recently several things have been happening that I know for a fact that the only way to overcome them is to trust in God. The first is the realization that in a couple of weeks I will be entering the University of Akron Battleground. Yes, a battleground. Secondly I’m going to definatley need a new job once school starts. I keep running numbers and coming up with me having to work about thirty to thirty-five hours in order to move out into the ministry house.

In a battleground, there is no room for a soldier to mis-trust his commander. It is the same for God’s battlefield, except the ramifications for not trusting in God could go into eternity. The difference between a worldly Leader and God is obvious, God won’t fail, and he is never wrong.

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I guess I will start with the separation. About three weeks ago, Becky and I broke up. The whole thing shook me up pretty bad. It had happened just before our word prayer meeting. I sat there, through the meeting, holding back tears, while we prayed. After it was over, I left without telling anyone what had happened, and went home. I changed my facebook status and started watching some tv. A couple hours later I get a call from B, asking what had happened (because he saw my facebook status had changed). I told him that we broke up and I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. He invited me to come over to the McCallums to go watch a movie and hang out.

I decided to go, and got there about 7:45ish. When I got there, Keith, Jeff, B, and Kyle were all there hanging out. Keith had asked what had happened, and I started to tell him, tears welling up in my eyes. I had kept so much from all of them (my closest friends), about some stuff that had been going on between Becky and I, leading up to the break-up. They all comforted me, and really helped me out a lot.

Well The next day, I got up and went to work. I worked for my five hour shift, trying not to really think about it, and just get through the day. When I finally got home, I checked my E-mail, and found a message from Keith. He said that he basically wanted to get together with Becky and I to talk about what had happened. I called him, and we got it all set up and went over to his house. Keith brought up some good discernment of basically what had happened between us. Through this I realized, once again, just how many problems I had. What had happened was I was relying on Becky for my emotional outlet (because being a phleg I tend to not be that emotional) and this was causing her to feel smothered. Also, Keith noted that we were spending a large amount of time together, and this was probably increasing the smother feeling. My resistance to open up with my friends about the events preceding the break were due to the fact that I am a notorious judger and I was afraid of being judged, and this hindered my ability to be open. Becky and I walked out of Keith’s house, having all those mishaps worked out, and decided to continue our relationship again. I was so happy
with our reconciliation and I was just praising God to have such a great friend as Keith, to help me out. It was a great experience.

Well that was pretty crazy (and long) but I thought I’d share that life moment with everyone.

Graduation is drawing ever closer. Classes are all done and the ceremony is on June 9th. A lot of people have been asking me if I felt any different, or if I’m excited. The thing is though, I don’t really feel that different at all. I’m not sure if it has something to do with the fact that I already have a year of college under my bely, or never really saw graduating high school as that big of an accomplishment. After all, I’m about to go right back to school for another four or so years to get yet another degree. It seems like very few people don’t go on to college any more, and the four more years of education has become a norm. So then, the question I have is, why does everyone make High School Graduation such a big deal?

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Well my Dad retired from Chrysler last year, so right now he has a part-time job with Joe’s auto, working nights. It’s really cool because that means his afternoons are free. That’s awesome because my dad and I have been able to go out to lunch. We’ve been able to get to talk and get to know each other, which we were never able to do while he was working at Chrysler for 40+ hours a week.

Getting to know my Dad has been a really cool experience, because I’ve found him to be a very interesting person and very cool to talk to. Some time earlier this year I shared the gospel with him, and have been praying ever since to get more opportunities to share with him some more, so this is an answer to my prayers. Now what I really need to start doing is praying for boldness to share the gospel (of course going back to the whole phleg emotion of fear). I’m really excited that the Lord has given me the opportunity, because my dad really needs the lord, and to win him, would mean great things for the rest of my family.

Well, I am completely done with classes for the semester and I only have one exam on Tuesday. As the end of school comes ever closer, it means the beginning of more work. I’ll have to start putting in forty hours a week, so that i can start a nice savings for when we get a ministry house.

Oh, and for those of you haven’t heard, we decided to wait one semester to move out and get a ministry house. Various obstacles came up, like an unexpected raise in the rent of our house that we wanted, and the fact that we really had no other houses. It seemed as if the lord was telling us it wasn’t time for us yet, otherwise he would have obviously destroyed these obstacles. It kind of sucks, but in the end, it will help adjust those who aren’t used to a college load be prepared for balancing school, work, and most importantly ministry. I was blessed enough to already have this opportunity through post-secondary, so my main use of this extra semester will be to pad my savings a bit more.

I found out that I am going to be interviewed for a scholarship in a couple weeks. It was one which I had mad credentials. I just need to keep praying that the interview doesn’t get completely messed up, and I’ll have some extra college money.

Well, I’ve been contemplating writing a multi-part story as a part of my blog, releasing one entry per week, along with my normal entry. I’m still thinking about a good story line though, so it could take a bit, I have a slow thinking process.

This is J.A.D.

J….A….D…..

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At the beginning of this adventure, I was scared shit less. Even though I have been looking forward to this ever since I found out about Ministry Houses after I became a Christian. It just was so different than what I was used to, and a ton more responsibility. It’s interesting because I was reading Katey Downs’s blog about phleg’s and how their dominating emotion is fear. At first I didn’t think that was right, I was all like, “Fear? Me? Ya Right! I’m big, bad Justin!”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was actually fairly accurate. Heh, even now I’m still a bit nervous. A lot of my fear has been killed by me realizing that if I rely on myself for all of this new responsibility, I’ll end up dying of stress by the end of the year, but I should rely on God for all of this, because it is in his will, and he wants to help us. This reminds me of this verse from Luke 12:24-25

“Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds! And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? ”

This is a really good verse, especially for fearful, worrying phlegs like me. I especially like how he ends that verse. It’s verses like these that I need to focus on when I’m feeling fearful.

Instead of fear, now I’ve been feeling excitement. I’ve been really excited for this Ministry House, because I know it will not only make it, but flourish with God and his help. I’ve been realizing that I need to quit being so fearful and step out in faith in God.

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I’ve renamed my blog “The Pong Game That Is My Brain” for an analogy I thought up about a month ago. I’ve been having trouble focusing lately and so I thought up this analogy to describe it. The Idea was that my brain is like a game of Pong that is circular and with many Pong paddles. Each paddle represents a new idea and when the ball bounces on it, it that’s where my brain shifts toward. That’s why sometimes if you talk to me, it seems like I just completely switched to a new topic without a transition.

I want to write on a good topic next time, so I’ll be thinking of some, but suggestions are always helpful if anyone has any. I don’t really know what people usually blog about so I’m gonna be pretty lost. Well, I’ve got major work to do, I’ll post back by Saturday I hope.

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Listen

A law of life is something that people live by. Some laws are good and some laws are bad. These laws are usually based on common sense or past experiences. The strongest laws are ones that combine both. I have a law that is strong like this which I use everyday. The law states that I must swallow my pride and listen to what people are telling me even if I don’t agree.

I made this law based on the two ways life laws are made. I thought this law to have a lot of common sense for multiple reasons. Through various experiences I realized that I might actually be wrong about things I had been previously so sure about. As hard as it was I had to let go of my pride and actually listen for once. Once I let go of my pride and started to listen I came upon some wisdom that I hold close to my heart even until this day.

I started talking to my friend about God. I was positive that there wasn’t such a thing. I wouldn’t listen to my friend about all these facts he was giving me. It was a decision that I was still very unsure about, and frankly didn’t want to talk about. I was always trying to rule out the possibility of a “Creator” or “God” and my pride was getting in the way of me learning the truth about God’s existence. We would talk about it and he would try to convince me yet I would not listen. One day I decided that instead of not listening I would pay attention and take my friend’s points into consideration.

I had gotten to thinking about what I believed to be true, about how this world came into existence. It was so abnormal yet the way I thought was based on pure chance and frankly dumb luck. I had previously believed that existence had just appeared in some primordial soup; however I realized that the odds of that actually happening were astronomical.

The world I had created in my mind suddenly stopped moving. The world of “logic and science only” was turned on its head. I would think to myself, “It just can’t be that simple…” and I was wrong once again. It was that simple.

It was as if God had been telling me all along “Justin you idiot, stop trying to rule me out that’s impossible instead take me into consideration.” I swallowed my pride and that night accepted God’s existence to be true. This was one of the most important decisions I’ve come to and ever since then my life has just continued to get better and better, and all I had to do was swallow my pride.

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My name is Justin Alain Duchaine for those of you who don’t know me. For those of you wondering, the answer is yes. I finally decided to get myself a Blog. I don’t know why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Well Blogging community this is my greeting to you, so feel free to respond, ask me questions, and give me things to write about. That’s one great way I can keep coming to this and remembering to update it.

Sincerely,

J.A.Duche

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