But is it really possible? Sometimes I wonder… Steve Garber, in his book, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior (p. 173) wrote, “Those who keep on pursuing the vision of a coherent life—one that meaningfully connects the disparate strands of one’s existence—are people who have made the choice to live their lives out among folk who share their vision of the good life. “On the other hand, those who seek a self apart from social content and social context,... Read more
Counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke was on Fareed Zakaria’s “GPS” show on CNN. Clarke said something very important and profound (the interview starts at 14:27). “We are going to have one of these attacks succeed. And I think that what we have to start talking about now, as a nation, is what our reaction is going to do. Because the last time, 9/11 happened and we panicked. I panicked, everyone did. We overreacted, and in many ways, the things that we did were counterproductive. Other things... Read more
“The American way has often been to treat enemies as not worthy of understanding. We take the easy route far too often, simply deciding to fight rather than to understand, to hate rather than to love.” [divider_line] Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed posted my review of How to Train Your Dragon. I thought it was a fun movie and insightful on many levels. Here is the review: Friday Night at the Movies: How to Train Your Dragon by Bob Robinson In a thoroughly... Read more
Try going through your Facebook timeline without finding a post from one of your “friends” picking a fight over some contentious political issue. See if you can get through an hour of watching the Sunday morning talks shows, any of the prime time cable news shows, or a radio talk show without somebody saying something disparaging about their political opposition. If you haven’t already figured out how to mark as “spam” those emails from people you know that just send... Read more
What do you think of Jamie Smith’s thoughts on the apostle Paul and his relationship with Caesar? [image source_type=”attachment_id” source_value=”2224″ align=”right” width=”120″ autoHeight=”true”] “(We can) understand why the apostles were subjected to torture and imprisonment by the powers-that-be: they were ambassadors of a rival king, acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar precisely because they had pledged allegiance to another king (Acts 17:7). The gospel that Paul preached was politically subversive… “The gospel that Paul preached was not a message about some private, interior... Read more
Here’s a video from Fuller Theological Seminary in which Reggie McNeal explains the exciting change going on in the North American church toward a missional model. A Conversation with Reggie McNeal from Fuller Theological Seminary on Vimeo. When I read his book, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, I found myself nodding a lot in affirmation. There are three “Missional Shifts” of the “Missional Renaissance”: The missional shift from an internal to an external focus The missional shift from... Read more
In this video, Tom Nelson explains that, as a pastor, he struggled to connect Sunday life with week day work. He says that his recent book Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work came out of his own inadequacy. The book is available from (re)integrate partner, Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Tom says, [image source_type=”attachment_id” source_value=”2197″ title=”Work Matters by Tom Nelson” align=”right” width=”190″ autoHeight=”true”] “This book has come out of my own inadequacy, and that’s part of the health of... Read more
In this video, Andy Crouch says, “Our posture is our learned but unconscious default position, our natural stance. It is the position our body assumes when we aren’t paying attention, the basic attitude we carry through life. Appropriate gestures toward particular cultural goods have become, over time, part of the posture Christians unconsciously adopt toward every cultural situation and setting.” These necessary gestures that become various postures are: Condemning Culture Critiquing Culture Copying Culture, and Consuming Culture. What Crouch suggests is that we use these as “gestures” at appropriate times,... Read more
The purpose of a church’s children’s ministry should be to partner with parents to encourage children to place their faith in Jesus Christ and to instill in these children a Christian worldview. This philosophy has a number of components; let me break it down: “To partner with parents” The main task is to train and encourage parents to personally live according to a Christian worldview and then to offer practical ways that they can impress this lifestyle of faith onto their children. The... Read more
In today’s American culture, in order to give our kids what we feel they need, we send our kids to specialized trainers all the time. Our kids have piano teachers, math tutors, basketball coaches, dance instructors, and the list goes on and on. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with our children specializing in a particular skill by being trained by someone with expertise in that field. There’s no way that I can be an expert in everything! (Not even close!) However,... Read more
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