Practical Spirituality series How do you minister to the 18 to 30+ age group? Problems and answers. “Get real” is the phrase I would use to describe new generations’ attitude toward spirituality and the church. It’s also the phrase I would use to describe many people’s attitude since around 1900 when the church attendance and membership started to decline as a percentage of the population. Our pastor’s sermon this morning talked about the letter to the church in Sardis, which... Read more
Practical spirituality series. We love to throw contemptuous words at each other, branding others as being disapproved of or unacceptable. Soon a word becomes a symbol of everything we hate and everything we hate gets lumped in. We hate everything not like us. We like black and white and easy thinking, so shades of difference become something to hate. Yet we are predominantly similar despite minor differences. Argh! Only two categories exist for being and behavior. Behavior that represents a... Read more
Practical Spirituality series I studied economics independently and through MIT. Semiotics gives us an idea of how we use this symbol in our mind. We equate the value of everything with money. Money is the absolute. All things boil down to money. “But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of... Read more
Practical Spirituality series “Does anyone really know what time it is?” asks the existential song by Chicago. “The song stresses the importance of taking time to appreciate the small pleasures in life instead of rushing from one place to another against the clock.” Been there, done that. Thought I would never get derailed. Having time to pursue my passions to help others is a wonderful gift. “So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who... Read more
Practical Spirituality Series The US Supreme Court will review a law banning homeless individuals from just about any public areas, imposing fines and jail time. Here is where you can make an important difference. This problem has two sides. On one side is the homeless, who often, through no fault of their own, have no place to stay. This includes women and children. (Statistics later in this article.) On the other side is the in-your-face problem created by lack of... Read more
Practical Spirituality series Two awe-inspiring people are Helen Keller and Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin is one of my favorite actors. In silent film, he communicated through his expressiveness. The immense painful experiences in his early life apparently gave him the ability to create lovable and expressive characters like the Hobo and The Tramp. Helen Keller was both deaf and blind at 19 months. Very patient people worked with her so that eventually she could communicate and talk to large groups of... Read more
Practical Spirituality series This article contains references to sex and may not be welcome to all readers. Use discretion. Researchers at Osaka University in Japan announced they’ve created mouse pups from the DNA of two dads, and not only did these pups survive to adulthood, they became parents themselves. No female mouse required. The bad news: We already have enough mice and we’re trying to get rid of them. And we don’t want to get rid of women. “Ruben, Ruben,... Read more
Practical Spirituality series We love to categorize things. Creating neural nodes that represent categories is how our brain works. To understand our world, we make categories and put things into them. We love the simplified categories, such as good versus evil. Things are one thing or another. Shades of gray are difficult to deal with. Without a category to shove things into, we have to think. Thinking! Yikes! “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name... Read more
Practical Spirituality series It’s not always clear in the New Testament who the apostles were speaking to. It takes some study to decipher which group. They understood Jews would remain Jews if they wanted to. The apostles gave non-Jews a different standard of conduct. The laws of Judaism applied to Jews only. They exempted non-Jews from that expectation. The apostles of Jesus debated this question of who the Law applied to until they finally decided that they would not give... Read more
Practical Spirituality series While writing a course for New Adults on how to create change, I expanded on an idea that the prophets and Jesus brought change, but we don’t currently explore this. We understand God is always the same, and people are always the same. We’re satisfied with the status quo. Yet neither God nor man always behave the same. God changes things. People change and we create change. In Isaiah 43: 16-21, the Prophet speaks of God... Read more
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