Assemble Your Crew

I know TJP has been on a brief hiatus as we celebrate the birth of Manoah... who is the most amazing little creature. But I think it is time to start contemplating a time for all of us to get together and have a face to face dialogue of what TJP will look like and what some next steps are going to be. Let's start throwing some times out to meet within the next month or so. We can meet over at the Paschall Mechanical office in the conference room as a possible site. I know that Saturday's and Sunday afternoons work well for me, but I am flexible let me know what your schedules look like.

Some Kindred Spirits

I was doing what I love to do this evening and I found a few groups that are doing some of the stuff we are contemplating. I definitely think we have a lot to learn from these groups and it would be awesome to establish some sort of dialogue with them. Check them out:

Brewing Culture

Gideon Strauss

There's another one I want to run down but it's on my work computer, I'll add it later...

Edit: Here's that other Site:

Culture.ish

Liberty, Justice, and Reconciliation

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." If the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and its effects is the sun of the gospel of the kingdom, then the radiance of the glory of the gospel is good works. Enter our key words of liberty, justice, and reconciliation. If this is the center of our function we must seek to do works that promote liberty, justice, and reconciliation. The issue... "is this the best way to accomplish our function?" This is what I will say on this matter... I am not sure. I am not convinced that whatever we do will be the most effecient means to divert funds to works of liberty, justice, and reconciliation. Here is what I am convinced of, that we are doing something. Instead of wasting our lives, we are talking about, thinking deeply about "what can we do to fulfill our calling as believers?" I am convinced that we are a fellowship of burning hearts who care deeply about the message that has saved us and given us life. I am convinced that, despite our unbelievable capacity to be complete and total fools, God desires His Spirit to energize our bodies to accomplish His will here "on earth as it is in heaven." And with that in mind I am less concerned about what is "best" or "most effecient," because I am nearly convinced that it is not. I do not at all want to demean thinking about efficiency, because efficiency is a very important issue. But here is what I am excited about and what I believe excites all of us... That we are doing something. Doing something in faith is far better than doing nothing. With this being said I wonder what everyone's thoughts are, considering who we are (our gifts, talents, and passions), what then can we do that is consistent with who we are as a "fellowship of burning hearts." What kinds of works can we do that are consistent with our hearts and that can be "exercised in proportion to our faith (Romans 12:3)." I think here is where we might discover what is "best" or "most effecient" because we can do it with passion and joy, believing in what we are doing. And we all know we do things best and most efficiently when we believe in them, are convinced of their intrinsic goodness, and are passionate about how it is accomplished. These are my thoughts, what about you....

Form Follows Function

I definitely can't take credit for the axiom of "form follows function". In fact, the concept was reiterated when my wife and I were attending the pastor's class at North Coast Church. Larry Osbourne (head pastor at NCC) explained to those of us who wanted to find out more about North Coast why North Coast looks the way it does. He broke it down simply, explaining that the reason why North Coast places such and emphasis on multiple worship venues and small groups (forms) is to create disciples in a healthy church environment (function). All of the forms that NCC has taken on follows that simple function.

How TJP looks should simply follow its function or its purpose. For example the purpose of the Starship Enterprise is "to boldly go where no man has gone before." It can accomplish this purpose beautifully with a spaceship (form) and disastrously with a race car (form). I like the idea of a Zine and I think it is valid. But I need to see what function it's going to serve. We haven't quite come to a defined purpose which is fine, but it think it is important before we go off and say we're starting a Zine or anything of the sort. When we ask "what is the Jubilee project?" We should be able to say, "TJP is ____________." We need to get to that point, and then decide if a Zine is an efficient means to accomplish our purpose.

Here's a quick example:

Shaun has a website - Ruler of Nations.
Q: What is the Ruler of Nations function?
A: The Ruler of Nations function is to afflicts the comfortable.
Q: What is the Ruler of Nations form?
A: The Ruler of Nations form is a website of collected writings that challenge prevailing thought, expose stupidity, and scrutinize reality in ways that can make the reader uncomfortable with their current way of thinking.
For example: I could think that I am really grown-up and mature now and that my single buddies are a bunch of lawless wild bandits, but Shaun has pointed out in his "drunken memoirs" that I was a wild, lawless bandit not very long ago. This might be uncomfortable for me to admit, but it serves a good purpose of remembering that even though some circumstances in my life have forced me to grow-up, I have a sordid past that requires me to remember how merciful God is and that I have no place for arrogance. Shaun's form - a website accomplished his function - afflicting the comfortable (in this case me) very efficiently. The outcome of afflicting the comfortable had a marvelous effect in helping to reinforce my need for humility (check out the relation between afflict and humble in Hebrew, they're the same word), so kudos to Shaun for doing what he does well.

Sam had alluded to the TJP in an earlier post as "an idea centered around liberty, justice, and reconciliation as functions of the Kingdom." Let's play with this idea as it pertains to form and function for a little while:

Q: What is The Jubilee Project's function?
A: The Jubilee Project promotes liberty, justice, and reconciliation as integral components of the Kingdom of God.
Q: What is The Jubilee Project's form? (Lets throw out a few examples here valid & absurd)
A1: TJP makes Christian T-Shirts
A2: TJP is a board that diverts funds to ministries that exemplify the promotion of liberty, justice, and reconciliation in the Kingdom
A3: TJP is an e-Zine that publishes content (aesthetic and written) that addresses issues of justice, liberty, and reconciliation within the Kingdom.
A4: TJP is a group of friends who are committed to carrying out the purpose of TJP through the normal course of their lives.
A5: TJP is a church
A6: TJP produces & promotes music that embodies our purpose
A7: TJP sits around drinking beer and criticizing the Church and Christians for all their downfalls and resolves to do nothing meaningful about it
A8: TJP is a winery
A9: TJP designs really cool stickers to meet the high demand of the SoCal driver that promotes our purposes
A10: TJP is surfboard manufacturer


There are certainly lots of good and bad forms to carry out TJP's function. In the function I stated above I don't intend to communicate that it should definitely be our function, it was stated for the sake of the illustration. With that said, does a Zine fit within the gist of what TJP is? I think so, but let's be sure before we dive headlong into this without contemplating the purpose and being able to articulate it clearly. So I propose a two step inquiry -

1) What is the purpose/function of The Jubilee Project?

2) What form should the Jubilee Project take?

Lets nail down 1 and then we can sufficiently answer 2.


By all means feel free to disagree with anything I have posted, I think it is important that we don't all just nod our heads in approval if there are any reservations or issues that surface during this initial dialogue.

The Zine?

Okay, so I really like the idea of a Zine. Its relatively easy to market, and could possibly be a simple way of generating momentum and revenue. But in our internet world having it be something that people actually would visit and care to read anything on it must have some 'hook.' You can have great content but who cares? There must be something about it that gets into peoples heads, causes them to come back. Or else we'll have a really cool, incredibly intelligent, and articulate website that nobody freaking cares about. But having it be something people care about and not comprimise our principles is also another thing to ponder. But here's some ideas about what it could be like, and what I would hate for it to become. It could be something that is a place for people to get info about what's going on in the kingdom here in our area and what also is going on around the globe. It could be somewhere where (a la Justin) reviews, commentaries, thoughts, miscellanies, editorials are published. But it could also be a place where people check out the culture scene (music, art, philosophy, nature, etc...) It could be a place where bands could get their names out, dates when they play, etc... I don't know these are just some ideas. I don't want it to turn into some myspace thing, I don't want it to feel like c28, (Shaun here's where you'd come in because you have a great crap detector). It literally could be something like The Reader or something but our own online version. Also check out Books and Culture the Christianity Today publication, it has some good stuff. Mostly I guess I just don't want it to be lame. But I don't know what the hook would be. All these might work but why would people want to come? Here's some stuff to ponder, and maybe we can start making some steps toward Jed's proposition of converting knowledge into output.

Converting Knowledge Into Output

This is the body of a letter I wrote to Dad a few years back (2003 I think) that had to do with some fundamental issues for our family business to contemplate as we were in a period of trying to figure out what we should be. Unfortunately things didn't quite happen the way Dad or I had envisioned for a variety of different reasons, as is prone to happen in this world, but I think there was definitely some value in this communication as we begin to contemplate what the Jubilee Project might be:

Creation Theology, Wisdom, Redemption and the Formation of a Corporation

From the very beginning man’s high purpose and dignity is made clear – he is made in the very image of God, and endowed with a God-like role in the created realm. Man was to be a highly functional being, entrusted with a God-ordained representative kingship over the earth and its wealth (Gen. 1:28). God’s own rule was extended and carried out on earth through the rule he had given to man. The creative nature of God was then placed in man, a God-given creative impetus to make, build, and harness the resources of this world to bring it under man’s careful dominion, and ultimately to hand that dominion over to his Maker. The glory of man’s role was carried out through a harmonious relationship to the Creator.

Man’s ability to carry out his role was dependent on an abundant and crucial resource: knowledge. Knowledge was the fuel that enabled him to carry out his office with competence. The watershed issue in the creation drama was not if man would acquire knowledge, but how he would acquire it. He was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…God forbade it upon penalty of death. What must be noted is that there is significant textual evidence in Genesis 1-4 to indicate that this knowledge of good and evil is not to be taken in moral categories (although it’s consumption had moral implications on an eternal scale), rather on functional and cosmological scales. God harnessed His knowledge of good (function) and evil (chaos) to create and order the world from a chaotic state to a functional and harmonious state. So, essentially the created order was a manifestation of His divine wisdom (Prov. 8:22-31). This knowledge is what man needed to carry out his role as steward, he had to acquire it. He could acquire it in one of two ways, in harmonious proximity to his Lord, or through rebellious consumption of the fruit. Man could gain knowledge through revering the Lord and honoring his ultimate Kingship (Prov. 1:7), or he could steal this knowledge and become a king unto himself without acknowledging God’s supreme Lordship (Gen. 2:17).

The fall centered on how man would know, and then extend his rule. He acquired the cosmological wisdom he needed through rebellion and at great cost. In his knowledge there would be progress…great progress, but also futility and ultimately death. The kingdom of man and the Kingdom of God were thereafter sundered and at odds. Man was both wise and cursed; all his creative efforts would succeed only through great strife. This was not as it should be, man was to create in a fashion that God did in Genesis 1, competently, beautifully, and without struggle. However, in addition to condemning man to death for his sin, God in his mercy cursed the earth and its resources rather than let man exist upon it comfortably as a usurper and a rebel. Man from his knowledge made the implements of civilization as early as Genesis 4 when Cain’s sons became the fathers of human shelter, animal husbandry, music, and tools. However, even as civilization developed it did so with violence and discontent. The creative impetus in man became a liability that drove him from God into vanity, ambition and uninhibited pride (Gen 6:5-6). Man indeed could do anything he purposed to do (Gen. 11:6); he built a Tower to the Stars as a way to establish his dominion (or name in the Babel Narrative). But again God, who would not have a rival to His Kingdom or His Name, thwarted men upon the plains of Shinar by confusing and scattering them. These issues are fundamental concerns at the heart of what scholars would classify as Creation and Wisdom Theology in the discipline of biblical theology. I am inclined to take this a step further and assert that these issues are a powerful current in the flow of Redemptive History and are fundamental concerns of the Biblical metanarrative (the underlying story of the Bible).

From the fall God has been on a redemptive mission to recover His wayward stewards, to bring them back into a harmonious relationship with Him, and to restore them to His everlasting Kingdom. He has withheld nothing in this pursuit, even His own life He has surrendered to recover His beloved rebels. However, He will not surrender His glory, and He will not surrender His rule. There is but one everlasting Kingdom in His Cosmos, which is most certainly not the kingdom of men. He exerts His kingship through His Anointed King, and will utterly destroy the kings of the earth with a rod of iron and the word of His mouth (Ps. 2:8-9, Rev. 19:15). Their dominions, and their knowledge, their work will perish as His Kingdom endures in this age and all the ages to come.

What strikes me is that in my studies, the principles of business are simple, and stem from one fundamental issue: Who is in charge? The answer determines which kingdom we labor in, how we acquire knowledge and then execute it. Many of the books I have read wrestle with the question of endurance and greatness. It is bound in the heart of man to build lasting institutions, great institutions; we obsess and labor to that end so that in the end our knowledge and our efforts were not squandered. However, through the fall our aspirations were distorted, turned away from God and toward ourselves, so that all our labor in the end furthers our own interests and not His. Thus, the kingdom of man still wars against God, seeking its own greatness, longing to endure without Him.

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras state in their seminal work, Built to Last, that their book is fundamentally “about building something that is worthy of lasting – about building a company of such intrinsic excellence that the world would loose something important if that organization ceased to exist.” They speak accurately of values, vision, adaptability, and dedication as the keys to endurance and back their findings with hard data. It is probably in their concept of vision that the cosmological knowledge of Genesis is most organically related in our contemporary setting. From vision, or perception will flow the critical organization and harnessing of human, material, and capital resources toward the end of enduring greatness. It is with the modern sense of corporate vision that these companies can navigate through and utilize the cosmic principles of good (function) and evil (chaos) to create the companies that they envision – ones of lasting greatness. Sadly, even with the most accurate, compelling, and inspiring visions of these companies they cannot escape their blindness. Even if these companies were to endure to the end of the age, they wouldn’t even be an afterthought in eternity, precisely because they start with a finite and corruptible vision, and then harness finite and corrupt resources that can by their very nature never escape their finitude. The knowledge and vision of men will pass, their capital, material, and human resources will pass…none of it will last. No man will endure meaningfully in eternity unless he has been made anew in Christ. As the grass of the field we will fade and our world will fade with us.

So maybe the main issue is not only building something worthy of lasting, but also building something that is sure to last. It is so easy to become intoxicated with vision, to seek an understanding of what our business is and where it is going and then furiously go on pursuing what we are convinced our destiny is. Vision without a wholesale acknowledgment of God is one of Hell’s most potent lies and the harbinger of doom for the kingdom of men. We are simply to acknowledge and submit to God (Prov. 3: 5-6), to be wise with the resources he has given us, and allow his vision to guide us…he will make our paths straight. There is but one thing in this world that will last – the Kingdom of God, and His resources will not fade or be forgotten, and it is above all things worthy of lasting.

It seems clear to me that the opportunity in front of us is immense and compelling. We have the opportunity, in part at least to operate in a redeemed fashion as stewards of God’s resources, investing what he has given us to further and advance His Kingdom. This can be done through example by business practices that honor Him, all the way to investing our capital returns into the work of the saints around the world, and I am sure much more. What we seem most reliant on is a vision from God of where he wants this business to go, and what sort of business we are supposed to be. I don’t think that a vision, if it is God-honoring is a concoction of ambition, delusion, and pride, but rather a divinely motivated direction, in which we would be compelled to walk. As he grants you that vision, clarifies and refines that vision, I believe our efforts will be to the end of His glory, and will have a lasting impact on His Kingdom.

Edit: I guess I forgot to get to the point and ask the question... I believe that our efforts will be sourced in some sort of knowledge - we've got to know something of what the Jubilee Project is and how we are going to go about carrying out its purpose before we can actually do something with it. Knowledge has to be effective and functional for it to be of any value, hypothetical knowledge and and endless preoccupation with theories and possibilities gets nothing done, no matter how much fun it can be to talk about over a couple of beers. So the bottom line is how are we going to convert what we know into results?