12.15.2006
Announcement!
I'm now officially an Alumnus of the University of Kentucky. Hoorah! Hopefully that BS in Communications will pay off. On to Asbury officially now. Keep the transition in your prayers, please! Until next time...
11.29.2006
Weekly Plugs
Books, Videos, Resources, Websites... things I've run across that are really cool. These are my plugs.
1) Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students (J. Budziszewski)
[From Amazon.com]
Dear Professor Theophilus... Go ahead, ask.
A professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, Dr. J. Budziszewski (aka Professor Theophilus) answers your piercing, real life questions—the same urgent questions he receives from students on campus or through his regular column on the webzine, boundless.org. Resolve the questions central to your identity and worldview. Ask Me Anything will help you achieve personal insight about controversial topics and defend your point of view to a skeptical world.
2) The Lamb and the Fuhrer: Great Conversations (Ravi Zacharias)
[From Amazon.com]
Destruction and Evil Meet Life and Peace Adolf Hitler spilled the blood of millions for his own sake. Jesus Christ shed his own blood for the sake of millions. Hitler set himself up as a god and the masses succumbed. Jesus Christ was God in the form of lowly man. Hitler created a living hell for the masses. Jesus endured hell to save the masses. Hitler's name is synonymous with power, evil, and genocide. Jesus' name with love, peace, and life. Put the two in a room together and you won't believe your ears. The third compelling book in Ravi Zacharias' Great Conversations series addresses fundamental issues of life and death, the evil of violence in light of the value of human life, and other tough issues in modern society.
3) NOOMA (Rob Bell)
We can get anything we want, from anywhere in the world, whenever we want it. That's how it is and that's how we want it to be. Still, our lives aren't any different than other generations before us. Our time is.
We want spiritual direction, but it has to be real for us and available when we need it. We want a new format for getting Christian perspectives.
NOOMA is the new format.
It's short films with communicators that really speak to us. Compact, portable, and concise. Each NOOMA touches onissues that we care about, that we want to talk about,
and it comes in a way that fits our world. It's a format that's there for us when we need it, as we need it, how we need it.
That's it for now... more next week.
1) Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students (J. Budziszewski)
[From Amazon.com]
Dear Professor Theophilus... Go ahead, ask.
A professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, Dr. J. Budziszewski (aka Professor Theophilus) answers your piercing, real life questions—the same urgent questions he receives from students on campus or through his regular column on the webzine, boundless.org. Resolve the questions central to your identity and worldview. Ask Me Anything will help you achieve personal insight about controversial topics and defend your point of view to a skeptical world.
2) The Lamb and the Fuhrer: Great Conversations (Ravi Zacharias)
[From Amazon.com]
Destruction and Evil Meet Life and Peace Adolf Hitler spilled the blood of millions for his own sake. Jesus Christ shed his own blood for the sake of millions. Hitler set himself up as a god and the masses succumbed. Jesus Christ was God in the form of lowly man. Hitler created a living hell for the masses. Jesus endured hell to save the masses. Hitler's name is synonymous with power, evil, and genocide. Jesus' name with love, peace, and life. Put the two in a room together and you won't believe your ears. The third compelling book in Ravi Zacharias' Great Conversations series addresses fundamental issues of life and death, the evil of violence in light of the value of human life, and other tough issues in modern society.
3) NOOMA (Rob Bell)
We can get anything we want, from anywhere in the world, whenever we want it. That's how it is and that's how we want it to be. Still, our lives aren't any different than other generations before us. Our time is.
We want spiritual direction, but it has to be real for us and available when we need it. We want a new format for getting Christian perspectives.
NOOMA is the new format.
It's short films with communicators that really speak to us. Compact, portable, and concise. Each NOOMA touches onissues that we care about, that we want to talk about,
and it comes in a way that fits our world. It's a format that's there for us when we need it, as we need it, how we need it.
That's it for now... more next week.
11.28.2006
Rambling thoughts for the day...
I'm terrible at blogging, I think. Most of my posts, well all really, are sporadic and disconnected from the last. There is no real order, no priority, mostly no point. Its just something I do if I happen to think about it. For the most part, I go about my daily life, to class, to work, to dinner, to bed, and I don't ever think about blogging. It's not that I don't enjoy it. It's not that I feel like I have something to say. Simply, it just slips my mind. One of those things that I just don't get around to.
Even as I write this "confession", I sense a parallel. Replace "blogging" with "prayer", and the truth remains. My real confession is my lack of real conversation, not with the internet, not with anyone who may read this, but with my Father. Prayer is one of those things I tend to sweep under the rug. And with absence, it becomes easier and easier to forget. That is not to say that forgetting it is not my fault, of course it is. But I imagine it similar to conversation with an old friend who has moved away. Certainly God has not moved, that's not my point at all. Rather, its me who has created the distance, left His presence. And just like that friend I fail to call daily, then weekly, then only on holidays, then not at all, I talk with my Father if not daily, then not weekly, then when I need something, then nearly not at all.
In absence, I miss that friend. I can't know what he thinks, how he feels, how he needs me to be there if we don't talk. When I think of him and the friendship we built, I mourn the loss. I wonder what it would take to bring it back, if in fact we could ever return to where we were. I wonder if he has moved on and pushed my memory back as well.
In absence from God's presence, my questions are the same. I feel an emptiness, a loneliness, a disconnect. The questions are the same. I mourn the lost conversation, my failings, and I wonder if He has forgotten me as well. I feel a bit prodigal. But then as quickly as I ask, He answers. The answer is "no, I'm still here". Should this make me feel better? Probably. But I don't. Instead I realize that my Father has feelings, too. I've been hurting as I push Him from my mind. How much more does He hurt as I remain at the front of His?
Even as I write this "confession", I sense a parallel. Replace "blogging" with "prayer", and the truth remains. My real confession is my lack of real conversation, not with the internet, not with anyone who may read this, but with my Father. Prayer is one of those things I tend to sweep under the rug. And with absence, it becomes easier and easier to forget. That is not to say that forgetting it is not my fault, of course it is. But I imagine it similar to conversation with an old friend who has moved away. Certainly God has not moved, that's not my point at all. Rather, its me who has created the distance, left His presence. And just like that friend I fail to call daily, then weekly, then only on holidays, then not at all, I talk with my Father if not daily, then not weekly, then when I need something, then nearly not at all.
In absence, I miss that friend. I can't know what he thinks, how he feels, how he needs me to be there if we don't talk. When I think of him and the friendship we built, I mourn the loss. I wonder what it would take to bring it back, if in fact we could ever return to where we were. I wonder if he has moved on and pushed my memory back as well.
In absence from God's presence, my questions are the same. I feel an emptiness, a loneliness, a disconnect. The questions are the same. I mourn the lost conversation, my failings, and I wonder if He has forgotten me as well. I feel a bit prodigal. But then as quickly as I ask, He answers. The answer is "no, I'm still here". Should this make me feel better? Probably. But I don't. Instead I realize that my Father has feelings, too. I've been hurting as I push Him from my mind. How much more does He hurt as I remain at the front of His?
6.27.2006
Barbarian?
This past Sunday, I concluded a sermon series at FOCUS that was based on Erwin McManus's "The Barbarian Way". (An excellent read, I might add.) Anyway, if you're not familiar with the book, you will probably ask the same question that so many asked about the series before it began: "Why 'Barbarian'?" And so, here's my answer: First, it's the word that the author of the book used, so that made it a good choice. But paraphrased and expanded in my own words, "barbarian", perhaps more than any other word, serves as an appropriate synonym for "Christ-like".
Think about the Biblical characters that lived, walked and conversed with God everyday. Moses, Noah, Abraham. Later John the Baptist (the one Jesus Himself declared the greatest of all men), Paul, pick any Apostle. Remember the key word for understanding Biblical (or really any) concept - context. Put these guys in proper historical context and they just didn't fit. Noah built an ark but he had never seen rain. Moses led an entire nation of people around a desert for 40 years. Abraham put his very son on an altar because the Lord told him to do it.
Flash forward to the New Testament. Here we meet perhaps one of the most barbaric characters, and also "the greatest of all men born of woman", to ever influence Christianity. Enter John the Baptist. This guy was wierd. He word camel hair and a leather belt, ate bugs and washed them down with honey. But that didn't make him a barbarian. By definition, John was a barbarian because he didn't fit into society. He was an outcast. He didn't conform.
Conformity is killing the Church's kingdom impact. We are so interested in fitting in, with not ruffling feathers, with not stepping on toes, that we are willing to sacrifice the advancement of the Kingdom of God to maintain the status quo. Barbarism might be a strong term; too strong, many would argue. But we have to do what it takes -- whatever it takes -- to break the bars on the religious prison we've built around ourselves. We have to break out into the world around us, living as barbarians among men. Erwin McManus got it right with this one. The church of today must once again return to its barbarian roots, overthrowing and rejecting a society that chooses conformity and comfort over the Message of Christ.
Think about the Biblical characters that lived, walked and conversed with God everyday. Moses, Noah, Abraham. Later John the Baptist (the one Jesus Himself declared the greatest of all men), Paul, pick any Apostle. Remember the key word for understanding Biblical (or really any) concept - context. Put these guys in proper historical context and they just didn't fit. Noah built an ark but he had never seen rain. Moses led an entire nation of people around a desert for 40 years. Abraham put his very son on an altar because the Lord told him to do it.
Flash forward to the New Testament. Here we meet perhaps one of the most barbaric characters, and also "the greatest of all men born of woman", to ever influence Christianity. Enter John the Baptist. This guy was wierd. He word camel hair and a leather belt, ate bugs and washed them down with honey. But that didn't make him a barbarian. By definition, John was a barbarian because he didn't fit into society. He was an outcast. He didn't conform.
Conformity is killing the Church's kingdom impact. We are so interested in fitting in, with not ruffling feathers, with not stepping on toes, that we are willing to sacrifice the advancement of the Kingdom of God to maintain the status quo. Barbarism might be a strong term; too strong, many would argue. But we have to do what it takes -- whatever it takes -- to break the bars on the religious prison we've built around ourselves. We have to break out into the world around us, living as barbarians among men. Erwin McManus got it right with this one. The church of today must once again return to its barbarian roots, overthrowing and rejecting a society that chooses conformity and comfort over the Message of Christ.
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