Scott Freeman

One year ago today, I began broadcasting my thoughts into the cyber ether. Since then I have posted 199 entries and received 741 comments. I consistently blog about 4 times a week and have had no prolonged spells of not posting.
Readers were hard to come by in the early months but just this week I passed 30,000 hits. I am humbled that you come by to read my ramblings and “free thoughts.”
I hope that you have enjoyed my writings and look forward to sharing with you in the coming months and years. I began this blog as a fun hobby and have instead found an outlet for me to wrestle with my thoughts and beliefs.
One thought, I get about 200+ hits per day and only a handful of comments. In honor of my one year, will you do me a favor? If you read this, just leave me a comment letting me know. Just today, then you can go back to lurking.
Now, I’m off to find some blogiversary cake.

Another day, another fantastic album.
On September 12, 2003 the world mourned the loss of one of it’s greatest poets.
Roseanne Cash mourned the loss of her father.
Black Cadillac deals with loss, anger, hurt, despair and hope. It is a seminal album from an often overlooked artist.
I said yesterday that Derek Webb’s new one will probably make my 2006 list. This one will definitely join that one.

Charles Colson has an outstanding article on Christians and Roe V. Wade. The conservative Christian world needs a whole lot more of this sentiment.

I’ve received some criticism for my decision to see “Brokeback Mountain.” I went seeking understanding and to confront my own hatreds. I just can’t allow hate in my heart anymore. I’ve encountered many people in my 17+ years of ministry for whom homosexuality is more than just a black and white issue. They have wrestled with it personally, seen families break apart, and felt their own dark night of the soul. I have never failed to respond in love to those who have come to me with this struggle. But I have often failed to show it to others. Brian McLaren has an insightful and powerful article in the latest Leadership that states exactly what I feel. Allow me to share a brief quote if you don’t want to read the whole article:

“I hesitate in answering “the homosexual question”
not because I’m a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but
because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there
is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we
must also be ? pastoral. That means understanding the question
beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that
motivates the question.

“We pastors want to frame our answer around that
need; we want to fit in with the Holy Spirit’s work in that person’s
life at that particular moment. To put it biblically, we want to be
sure our answers are “seasoned with salt” and appropriate to “the need
of the moment” (Col. 4; Eph. 4).

“Most of the emerging leaders I know share my agony
over this question. We fear that the whole issue has been manipulated
far more than we realize by political parties seeking to shave
percentage points off their opponent’s constituency. We see whatever we
say get sucked into a vortex of politicized culture-wars rhetoric-and
we’re pastors, evangelists, church-planters, and disciple-makers, not political culture warriors. Those who bring us honest questions are people we are trying to care for in Christ’s name, not cultural enemies we’re trying to vanquish.”

Great music for the heart. Great reading for the mind.

…January is Poverty in America Awareness Month.

Here are some things you can do to become more aware:

• Take the Poverty Quiz. It may surprise you. (Thanks to Larry James for this link)
• Then watch this haunting Video about poverty in America.
• Then listen to Derek Webb’s stunning new album, Mockingbird. I guarantee it will make my best of 2006 list. I’ll be hard pressed to find a better album this year than this one. Read these two quotes from his website about the album:

I love Derek Webb’s CD, Mockingbird – everything about it. The
lyrics, content, song structures – the instrumentation (those horns are
amazing), chording (some juicy stuff there!), mix, and musicianship.
It’s rich and tasteful from beginning to end. A lot of us have been
waiting for a “someday” and “someone” – when a committed Christian
musician would start to lead in the areas of social justice and peace
and break ranks with the domesticated muzak that so often passes for
“Christian music.” Derek is exactly the kind of artist we’ve been
waiting for. -Brian McLaren, author/activist (anewkindofchristian.com)

“In
general, I hate Christian rock music. But now I have heard the songs of
Derek Webb. Webb’s songs are free of the pietistic sentimentality that
usually characterizes popular Christian music. His music, like the
Gospel, is at once hard, edgy, and beautiful.”-Stanley Hauerwas,
author, educator, Duke Divinity School

Penetrating lyrics such as this dominate the record:
“peace by way of war is like purity by way of fornication
it’s like telling someone murder is wrong
and then showing them by way of execution”

“when justice is bought and sold just like weapons of war
the ones who always pay are the poorest of the poor”
From My Enemies Are Men Like Me

Do yourself a favor take the quiz, watch the video and listen to the music.

poverty is so hard to see
when it’s only on your tv and twenty miles across town
where we’re all living so good
that we moved out of Jesus’ neighborhood
where he’s hungry and not feeling so good
from going through our trash
he says, more than just your cash and coin
i want your time, i want your voice
i want the things you just can’t give me
–Derek Webb