Virginia Lectures

I will be teaching Saturday and Sunday (Mar 2-3) in Herndon, Virginia at the Frying Pan Park Visitors Center.  This event is sponsored by Living Hope Christian Fellowship.  If you are interested in joining us contact Bonnie Fairchild at bbfairchild@hotmail.com.

Don't forget Paul Young, John MacMurray and I will be doing a webinar on Facebook at 8:30pm CST on Thursday Feb. 28.  This will be a 90 minute live, open audio session from Sundance, Utah.  We will take questions from folks listening on Facebook. For more details go to the opentableconference Facebook page.

Open Table Conferences

To speak the name of Jesus Christ biblically, and in the tradition of the early Church, is to say ‘Father’s eternal Son incarnate,’ and it is to say ‘Holy Spirit anointed One,’ and it is to say ‘Lord, Creator and Sustainer of all things’; and thus the very name of Jesus says, ‘The Triune God, the human race, and all creation are not separated but together in relationship.’  Jesus is himself the relationship.  In him, in his own life and being and experience the Father, the Holy Spirit, humanity, and all creation are together. 

This New Testament and early Church vision of Jesus Christ as the center of all things is today being recovered around the world.  The dawning of this ancient Christological light is giving us profound hope and freedom, and it is calling us all to rethink everything we thought we knew about God, about creation, about humanity, the earth, the future.  This call to rethinking does not mean that we have been dead wrong about everything we have ever thought.  It does mean that we hold nothing back, that we bring every thought to Jesus Christ and let him encourage or redirect us, inspire, lead, and inform us, and correct and rebuke us.  Our prayer is simple, “Jesus, we want only your light. Show us where we are wrong.  Judge us.  We hold nothing back from you.  We want to see with your eyes, hear with your ears, know with your heart, and love with your love.  We want no darkness in us at all.” 

To be sure, this is a scary place, or perhaps I should say this is an uncomfortable way of being.  It is easier to prefer the ‘comfort’ of knowing that you and your system are right, or that you and your group have it nailed down, and thus safely, and ‘righteously’ remove yourself from the harrowing light of Jesus—for now. It has been my joy over the last two decades to meet many of you who have had enough of the false security of systems, sub-cultures, and the fleeting comfort of biblically, air-tight theologies, and are finding the disturbing light of Jesus to be the most liberating reality on earth. 

One of our brothers is John MacMurray from Oregon.  Some years ago he dreamed of having an extended conversation, not simply a conference with lectures on trinitarian themes, but lectures and time, time together, time to hear, to learn, to process, to pray and to play, time to get know one another.  So he founded what is called ‘The Northwest School of Theology’ (SOT).  His idea was to bring teachers and hungry folks together for a week, in a beautiful setting, with great food and wine, and plenty of time to teach, and to talk and to play.  I love this format.  I not only get to teach, I also get to hang around for the conversations, for the meals, the late night sessions, the golf, the walks, the laughter, and for the tears.  This is not a fly in, teach, fly out set up.  The problem is that SOT is limited to only twenty people at a time.  So John has been dreaming again, and has organized three gatherings for 2013 called The Open Table Conferences (www.opentableconference.com), all in stunningly beautiful settings as with SOT, but with a much broader and larger group in mind. 

Paul Young and I will both be ‘teaching,’ at all three of these conferences.  Together, we will be sharing aspects of the Trinitarian vision and something of our own stories, with a view to stimulating a long, long conversation. Imagine having time to talk openly, with like-minded friends from around the country and the world, about what the recovery of the gospel of the Triune God means for our lives, for our humanity, for our relationships, for every aspect of theology, for social issues, for international relationships, for the environment, for church, politics, our future.  The topics are endless.  This is the idea of the Open Table Conference. It is to be a gathering of family with time to think, time to talk, time to have our imaginations explode with insight, time to wonder, to cry, to pray, to simply be, and be together, all in a surrounding of sheer beauty and grace.

I can’t wait.

Here are the places and dates for this year.

Antelope, Oregon - June 7-9

Asheville, North Carolina- Aug 30 - Sept 2

Maui, Hawaii - Dec 6-10

Meantime—believe it or not—Paul, John and I will be having a webinar on Facebook at 8:30pm CST on Thursday Feb. 28 .  This will be a 90 minute live, open audio session from Sundance, Utah.  We will take questions from folks listening on Facebook. For more details go to the opentableconference Facebook page.

The Pause

“If I find my position, my consciousness, that of one from home, nay, that of one in some sort of prison; if I find that I can neither rule the world in which I love nor my own thoughts or desires; that I cannot quiet my passions, order my likings, determine my ends, will my growth, forget when I would, or recall what I forget; that I cannot love where I would, or hate where I would; that I am no king over myself; that I cannot supply my own needs, do not even always know which of my seeming needs are to be supplied, and which treated as impostors; if, in a word, my own being is everyway too much for me; if I can neither understand it, be satisfied with it, nor better it—may it not well give me pause—the pause that ends in prayer?”

—George MacDonald, “The Word of Jesus on Prayer,” Unspoken Sermons.

Crossroads360 Interview

Here is the interview with Crossroads360 in Toronto

I hope this link works.  If not got to crossroads360.com and do search for Baxter.  Who knows we might find him yet.

Every blessing

Listening?

I am just back from a long weekend with Paul Young in Toronto.  I can’t begin to report on all the different venues and wonderful conversations, but I can say that in each and every situation we had a large time.  What struck me most was the hunger and openness of people from all ages and from a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.  Things have dramatically changed in the last twenty years, and the fundamental change has been in openness to discuss and to wrestle with the reality and the meaning of the Trinity.  The Holy Spirit has been leading people around the world to the awareness of the fact that we are all deeply, personally, and profoundly connected.  We simply have not had a vision of Jesus, and certainly not of his Father and of the Holy Spirit, to help us understand or to process this connectedness. 

I have no interest in lapsing into the old 19^th century liberalism, which posited the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, without any reference to Jesus Christ at all, as our point of unity.  As you know, I believe that Jesus has gathered the entire human race together in himself, taken us down in death, given us life in his resurrection, and lifted us up into the life of the blessed Trinity in his ascension.  The basis of our unity as people, as nations, and, dare I say, as denominations is Jesus himself.  In Jesus, because of his identity and humble incarnation, and because of his submission to us in our darkness, we can say and shout that the human race is bound together forever.

Along with the book signing events, conferences and conversations, Paul and I both had the opportunity to be interviewed by 100 Huntly Street and by Crossroads 360.  The entire morning was fascinating as the 100 Huntly Street folks are serious, devout believers.  We wrestled together, on and off camera.  Everyone loved every minute of the discussion.  And that was just it; the freedom to be myself, to say what I honestly believe, and the heart to be heard, even if rebutted, was wonderfully striking.  I will not speak for 100 Huntly Street and say that they all agree with me, or with Paul, but I will say that we were given a real hearing, a listening, a careful hearing.  And I walked away thinking ‘what would it be like if we could actually listen to one another as believers?’

Of course my mind kicked into overdrive as to why we don’t listen, really listen to one another.  And that is the question.  Don’t hide behind the ‘we.’  Let’s cut to the chase.  Ask it out loud.  Why do I not listen? 

I have only been married for 30 years, so I am a long way from being an expert on relationships and marriage, but I would say that my own consistent, blundering mistake is, and has been, that I have not listened to my wife—really, actually, personally listened.  I may not like it, but the question staring me in the face is simple, ‘why not?’  That is a good question, a good question for life, for relationships.  'Wh do I not listen?'  Listening assumes that you don’t know—but want to.

Toronto Events

I will be in Toronto, Canada Jan 10-14 with Paul Young.  Here is a list of the public events.  Happy New Year to all.

Jan 10

7:00-8:00 Baxter Book Signing with Paul Young

Faith Family Books & Gifts, 45 Milner Ave., Unit 102, Toronto, Canada

Jan 11

7:30-9:30 Baxter and Paul Teaching

Chartwell Baptist Church-Clarkson Village, 1880 Lakeshore Road

Jan 12

9:30-12:00 Baxter and Paul Teaching

Glen Abbey Golf Course, Oakville

1:00-2:00 Baxter and Paul Book Signing

Good Books, 588 Kerr Street, Oakville

3:00-4:00 Baxter and Paul Book Signing

Ontario Christian Books

125 Queen Street South, Mississauga

Theology on Tap

                                                                    Friday, Nov. 2, 7:30
                                                                       Vancouver, B.C.