Tag Archives: faith

Apr 25 2013

this went thru my mind

 

Affliction, faith, loss, pain, & suffering: There Really Is A Reason – 12 Benefits Of Afflictions

“God doesn’t afflict us or allow us to be afflicted for no reason. … in God’s plan, afflictions have great benefit to us, as painful as they are at times.  If we keep these benefits in mind when we suffer, they can help us endure joyfully.”

Archaeology: Roads of Arabia Exhibition: Update

“Here is the schedule for upcoming shows of the exhibition … The Museum of Fine Arts – Houston, TX – December 22, 2013 – March 9, 2014.”

Busyness & leadership: Busy is Killing Leadership

“If you’re not careful busyness will quietly take over your life without you even being aware of it.”

Children & Uganda: Launching Reunite Uganda in the US! [essential reading; the work of one of MoSt Church's own: Darby Priest]

“Help us get Ugandan children out of orphanages and back to their families.”

Church, fear, ministry & the work of God: Francis Chan: Are You ‘Protecting’ Your Church from a Movement of God?  [10 min. video clip; required viewing]

“… it blew my mind that an older man would come alongside of me and believe in me.”

Church & intergenerational ministry: Congregations as Families of Faith: Beyond Age-Level Ministries

“…  research has continued to show that intergenerational relationships are like glue that makes faith sticky for young people. Age-level ministries are still important to create a community of peers for children, youth, and adults to belong to. But if we hope to make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world, then we must develop intergenerational ministries that model the faith for our children and youth, and support our families as they seek to follow Christ. The research tells us that we need to be doing church differently.”

Communication, culture, demographics, social media, & society: Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown

“You think you know social? How about who uses it? Well, you might not know it as well as you would have guessed. A new study from the Pew Research Center and Docstoc shed some light on just who uses social and on what platforms. Some of the findings seem in line with what you would probably guess, but others were surprising.”

Distribution of wealth: A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93%

“During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.”

Employment, faith, jobs, & work: Why Tim Keller Wants You to Stay in That Job You Hate

“‘I hate my job. It’s not just like I don’t have a lot of power—I really can’t stand what I have to do every day.’ How would you pastor someone in that situation?”

Expectations & introverts: 7 False Assumptions Made About Introverts by Ron Edmonson

“There are a lot of false assumptions made when someone is introverted. Here are 7 false assumptions made of me as an introvert …”

Church finances, collection, contribution, electronic giving, & offering: What the Decline in Check Writing Will Mean for Your Church

“If we do not change our process for collecting the offering we will see our offerings decline. The reason is simple. The harder we make it for people to give the less likely they will give.”

Ego, Facebook, photography, pride, & vanity: Snap Judgments: Our Societal Obsession With Taking Pictures [required reading]

“Each day, we upload more than 5.2 million photos to Instragram and 100 million to Facebook, with no signs of slowing down our snapping and sharing. … In a sense, this is totally natural. Photographs speak to the age-old custom of physically marking spaces and moments in thanksgiving and remembrance. … The danger of using photos as markers is that images appeal to our vanity. We become quickly obsessed with accumulating experiences, capturing them in photos, and publicly displaying our photos as trophies. If we aren’t careful, our Facebook pages and blogs can become trophy cases of our own accomplishments: Me, on a church mission trip, lumped in with a group of smiling ethnic children.”

Grace: God at Work: Common Grace by Jonathan Storment [required reading]

“The bad guy in the Christian story isn’t someone, it’s the broken reality that Jesus calls sin. And because of common grace we can see God working through people outside of our tribe, our immediate community, or our faith. We can see the image of God in everyone.”

Hope, immigration, mercy, North Korea, pain, & suffering: Hyeonseo Lee: My Escape from North Korea [12 min. video clip; required viewing]

“… one day, in 1995, my Mom brought home a letter from a coworker’s sister. It read, ‘When you read this, all five family members will not exist in this world, because we haven’t eaten in the past two weeks. We are lying on the floor together, and our bodies are so week, we are ready to die.’”

Ministry, relationships, & time management: How Does a Pastor Interact With Those Who Seek to Monopolize His Time on Sunday?

“It is one of the great dilemmas every Sunday for the pastor.  Who do I speak with and for how long?  Most pastors stand at a doorway after the morning service to greet those who are leaving.  Others stay down front inviting folks to come and speak with the pastor to ask questions about the sermon.  It is a constant juggling match that most pastors feel they fail at most of the time. What adds to the madness is the person who aggressively hunts the pastor down after the service and feels entitled to his undivided attention for a long time.”

Worship: Your Worship Service is B-O-R-I-N-G!

“There’s a reason your church isn’t more creative. … most churches are boring because of The Olive Garden Problem.”

Americanism, culture, & politics: A Political Rant Born From a Deeper Theological Conviction than “Americanism”

“I’ve seen several posts on social media advocating a picture as a “way forward” in terms of political policy. It looks like this … What I want to do is interact with these ideas as a Christian who takes Scripture seriously and who is more committed to the kingdom of God than to a specific country/government. I intend to provide a ‘play by play’ through each of the statements …”

 

Apr 22 2013

this went thru my mind

 

Boston, suffering, & tragedy: MIT Chaplain on the Boston Tragedy: Making Sense of Nonsense

“Robert Randolph, longtime minister for the Brookline Church of Christ in the heart of Boston and chaplain for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote a guest piece for the Huffington Post during that city’s lockdown Friday. Among his insights …”

Busyness: Is Busy-ness a Drug? by Donald Miller

“Busy is both my drug and my defense. By that I mean that I use busy-ness to make me feel numb and safe, the way you use a drug, and I use busy-ness as a way of explaining all the things I dropped, didn’t do well, couldn’t pull together, as a defense. And I;m telling you this because I want to stop.”

Church communication: Your Congregation Stinks at Communicating: Why I’m Right About This by Mark Love [required reading]

“I seldom find a congregation that has planned, dependable, and open opportunities for feedback. This does not mean that leaders don’t get feedback. They do. But because there are few systematic attempts to listen to the congregation, that feedback tends to be negative. I am not a fan of congregational business meetings. Nor am I a fan of congregational “open mic” nights where the shrill voices tend to dominate. I am a fan of regular congregational conversations that are planned in such a way so that everyone shares (typically at small table) around a determined topic in an attempt to get a sense of the room.”

Disconnect & technology: What Happens When You Really Disconnect by Tony Schwartz [required reading]

“… I became increasingly aware that the relentless diet of information I ordinarily consume leaves me feeling the same way I do after eating a couple of slices of pizza or a hot dog and French fries — poorly nourished and still hungry.”

Doubt, faith, & grief: When Grief Kills Your Faith: Some Practical Advice [required reading]

“Goodness is sucked away in grief; and many of us base our faith off the presumed goodness of God.  When that goodness is sucked into the darkness of grief, the foundation of God’s goodness begins to shake; our faith trembles and sometimes it shatters. Faithquake.”

Fear:  What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

“Every time we answer the question, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” we come into contact with important information about ourselves. We can look beneath our answers to find our deepest truths. We can also confront our fears, and assess whether they are worth heeding, or if we should charge ahead right through the fear.”

Prayer: Ten Simple Strategies for Prayer by Chuck Lawless

“…  build your prayer life one step at a time. Here are some simple strategies for increasing your prayer …”

Apr 20 2013

LIFE group guide: the twisted text

 

NOTE: Following is a copy of the discussion guide that will be used in MoSt Church’s LIFE groups tomorrow night (April 21). This guide will enable your follow-up in our LIFE groups of my sermon tomorrow morning from the letter of Jude, with emphasis on vs. 3. This sermon’s title is The Twisted Text and it is the next to the last sermon in the I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means series. Look under the category title “LIFE group guides” and you’ll find an archive of previous discussion guides. All Scripture texts reproduced below, unless otherwise noted,  are from the CEB.

Aim

To examine familiar Scripture closely, so as to correct common misunderstandings.

Word

Dear friends, I wanted very much to write to you concerning the salvation we share. Instead, I must write to urge you to fight for the faith delivered once and for all to God’s holy people. Godless people have slipped in among you. They turn the grace of our God into unrestrained immorality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. … these dreamers in the same way pollute themselves, reject authority, and slander the angels. … these people slander whatever they don’t understand. … These people who join your love feasts are dangerous. They feast with you without reverence. They care only for themselves. … These are faultfinding grumblers, living according to their own desires. They speak arrogant words and they show partiality to people when they want a favor in return. … These people create divisions. Since they don’t have the Spirit, they are worldly. … But you, dear friends: build each other up on the foundation of your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep each other in the love of God, wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will give you eternal life. Have mercy on those who doubt. Save some by snatching them from the fire. Fearing God, have mercy on some, hating even the clothing contaminated by their sinful urges. (Jude 3-4,8,10,12,16,19-23)

Open

Icebreaker questions are meant to help us all start talking. Choose one of the following to discuss as a group.

1. Did you ever get into a fight at school or on the playground? Tell us about it.

2. How do you tend to act around others when you’re frustrated (whether or not the source of your frustration has to do with them)?

Dig

These questions are meant to help us grapple with the Scripture related to this morning’s sermon. Choose some.

1. From the text above, profile the specific actions of the “godless people” who had “slipped in among” the Christians to whom Jude was writing (vs. 4).

2. Working strictly from the text above, make a complete list of the behaviors Jude urges Christians to be about (i.e. – what it means to “fight for the faith”).

3. Contrast the two lists you just made in # 1 and # 2.

4. Instead of writing “concerning the salvation we share” (vs. 3a), Jude had to radically alter the content and tone of his letter. How and what do you suppose he might have wrote about if he had stuck to his original plan? What makes you think so?

Reflect

These questions facilitate our sharing what we sense God’s Spirit is doing with us thru his word. Choose some.

1. In what contexts have you typically seen or heard vs. 3 used among Christians?

2. How could a group of Christians ever get to such a point that they tolerated, or even condoned, such wickedness in their midst as these Christians were doing?

3. Differentiate (a) contending for the faith and (b) being contentious with those of faith.

4. What happens to Christ’s name when the world sees believers fighting each other?

5. Practically speaking, how can the church simultaneously be “a hospital for sinners” and not put up with the bad behavior such as Jude wrote about?

6. How can small group life help foster the practice of the behaviors listed in vs. 20-23?

Apr 6 2013

this went thru my mind (on violence)

 

V-for-violenceChild abuse: When the Abuser is Your Parent

“Karly, however, our guest blogger suffered at the hands of her own father. Such is the case for many children whose parents abuse them, or allow them to be abused, creating forever a complicated relationship. Toss into that mix the expectation that an abused child is thus ‘obligated’ by their own theological leanings or social mores to  forgive their abusers and life grows even more hair-pulling complex.”

Faith, music, peace, violence & weapons: Imagine There’s No Weapons by Ben Witherington

“Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the U.S.A. since John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980. … Here’s a little lyrical tribute I’ve written to John [Lennon], to be sung to the tune of his classic hit— Imagine.”

Fear, Jesus, Mark’s Gospel, retribution & vengeance: Easter Shouldn’t Be Good News [essential reading]

“Why is there fear on Easter Sunday? The oldest gospel we have, the gospel of Mark, ends in the most curious of ways … Why is there fear on Easter Sunday? … Easter is not Good News for the guilty. It is not Good News to find out that your victim is alive. We know what’s coming. We’ve seen the Hollywood movies where the victim comes back from the dead to seek revenge. So if Jesus is alive, if the victim has come back, we had better hide in fear. Judgment day is coming. That is how we expect the story to go. As did, it seems, those who first encountered or heard about the resurrection. And we can understand why they jumped to this conclusion. Every story we know works this way. The victim comes back, kills the bad guys and the moral calculus of the Cosmos is balanced again. This is the Hollywood Ending.”

Film & violence: The Ends of Violence: The Conclusions of Clint Eastwood [a very interesting (and surprising to you?) 18 min. video; too bad it doesn't include Gran Torino]

“Unforgiven gave me a chance to to sum up what I think violence does to the human soul. … In A Perfect World … violence wipes out the possibility of forgiveness, because it wipes out the possibility of meaning.”

Gun violence & race: Juan Williams: Race and the Gun Debate

“One thing you don’t hear much about in the discussions of guns: race. That is an astonishing omission, because race ought to be an inescapable part of the debate. Gun-related violence and murders are concentrated among blacks and Latinos in big cities. Murders with guns are the No. 1 cause of death for African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34. But talking about race in the context of guns would also mean taking on a subject that can’t be addressed by passing a law: the family-breakdown issues that lead too many minority children to find social status and power in guns. … The statistics are staggering. In 2009, for example, the Centers for Disease Control reported that 54% of all murders committed, overwhelmingly with guns, are murders of black people. Black people are about 13% of the population. The Justice Department reports that between 1980 and 2008, “blacks were six times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and seven times more likely than whites to commit homicide.”

War: Experts Defuse Unexploded WWII Bomb in Central Berlin

“It happens more often than you might think: Streets cordoned off and bomb disposal experts called in to deal with unexploded bombs that were dropped on Germany nearly 70 years ago.”