Posts Tagged ‘Christian’
Why Brian McLaren is like my Palm Pilot.
An insightful, subtle piece of satire about the lure of false teachers and why those teachings will eventually fall by the wayside.
Hitchens vs. Wilson Debate
There is a documentary of Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson debating the existence of God coming out later this month – when exactly and by what mean, I don’t know. Hitchens is an esteemed journalist and writer who wrote the book, “God is not Great”. And Wilson is a pastor and renowned Christian author.
One of the stops on their debating tour was Westminster Theological Seminary and they have been kind enough to post the debate, in it’s entirety, on Youtube. So I’ve taken the time to post the videos of the debate in order here. Enjoy.
Silent Witness
I’m reading an amazing book by Eugene Peterson entitled, “The Contemplative Pastor”. I would suggest that anyone even thinking about going into pastoral ministry read this book. It’s quite thought-provoking and profound. Here’s a bit that I appreciated about evangelism (page 79).
The witness points, mute, so as not to interfere with the sound of silence … [Witness] is an important biblical word in frequent contemporary use. It is a modest word saying what is there, honestly testifying to exactly what we see, what we hear. But when we enlist in a cause, it is almost impossible to do it right: we embellish, we fill in the blanks, we varnish the dull passages, we gild the lily just a little to hold the attention of our auditors … important things are at stake – God, salvation – and we want so much to involve outsiders in these awesome realities that we leave the humble ground of witness and use our words to influence and motivate, to advertise and publicize. Then we are no longer witnesses, but lawyers arguing the case, not always with scrupulous attention to detail. After all, life and death issues are before the jury.
Another quote along the lines of quietness and silence is a quote that I have on my Facebook page which is attributed to A.W. Tozer:
Man has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity, and bluster make a man dear to God
Ray Boltz and His Closet
Ray Boltz, a Christian music artist who has written some of the most iconic songs about the Christian faith, recently told the world that he is gay (shortly after seperating from his wife).
Now a lot of people are thinking of disregarding his entire career because they think his entire career is an act of hypocricy, I think this is a mistake (both disregarding his career and his ‘hypocricy’).
Signs of an Evil Culture
There was a time in my Christian journey when I would get down on my self for not being distinct from the world. I didn’t think that I was that different – other than a few things here and there. Then, I got a job in the secular workforce and learned very quickly that I was completely different, not just on surface level, but at a worldview level.
Lately however, it seems it’s very easy to see that I, as a Christian am very different, and I am convinced more now than ever that the current North American culture is completely and utterly evil.
Small Group Myths
There is a good article on small group myths that I think hits the nail on the head on why small groups don’t really work. At the beginning however he gives some reasons why small groups in North America are easier said than done:
1. We have few role models, at least in our own culture.
2. The literature on the subject has promoted the idea without offering practical methods.
3. The American concept of home privacy causes such ministries to develop more slowly here than in some countries.
The Wounded Healer: Loneliness
I found ‘The Wounded Healer’ particularly insightful. It took me longer than I expected to get through as the pages are weighed down with content heavy enough to support a book 3 times its size. One thing is for sure, Henri J. M. Nouwen did not mince words!
At the end of his book he speaks of the loneliness of a minister, he says:
But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon-a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding.
Later he continues,
We get an idea of the kind of help a minister may offer. A minister is not doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared. When someone comes with his loneliness to the minister, he can only expect that his loneliness will be understood and felt, so that he no longer has to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of his basic human condition.
Not from the Cookie Cutter
I’m in a predicament.
Even though I’ve blogged for several years on different sites here and there, I actually don’t have any friends who blog regularly. Some of my friends blog intermittently, some think it’s geeky, some probably don’t know what a blog is.
It’s a predicament because I like blogging as a team. I had tried it before (with a friend who rarely blogs) and when it was active and we were bouncing ideas and concepts off each other through blogging it created an interesting scenario.
Church: Accountability & Leadership
I talked about leaders being accountable for the people they disciple before just as the Mike Guglielmucci story was breaking and so as time has past and the leaders have been given there time to speak it’s become clear that what is happening with Mike is the same thing that continues to happen in Christendom, leaders are not being accountable for what their disciples say and do.
Read the rest of this entry »
Church: Community of Believers
Community has gotten a bad wrap in the last 30 years. It was all the rave in the hippie movement, YWAM picked it up and has been using it dogmatically since. Then Jonestown happened and community has never really been looked at the same.
On a side note, PBS did a fantastic documentary on Jonestown which I would encourage anyone to watch!
Our society doesn’t really allow for community to be done in the Jonestown sense, or (unless you’re a deliberate mission organization) in the YWAM sense either. But still, there is something that is supposed to be communal about the church. I’m not saying that we should all sell our properties and move at a discrete location together but I think that the church is on the other end of the fence, we’re too private.
Read the rest of this entry »
