Need to Read this Every Day
“Power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, ‘Do you love me?’ We ask, ‘Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?’” — Henri J.M. Nouwen, “In the Name of Jesus”
Intro to Triperspectivalism
Here’s a great overview of triperspectivalism, by David Fairchild.
What is Obscenity?
Here’s a great post about the importance of story in defining what’s obscene. A couple quotes:
When faith communities exaggerate their goodness, they produce obscenity. This is why Joe Bob Briggs once defined contemporary Christian music as “bad songs written about God by white people.”
Only sexuality in a story best defining reality reframes sex outside a story as obscenity.
Changing Perceptions Through Service
Here’s an article about some people trying trying to change the way others view them. The church could learn a lot here.
Truth in a doubting world
True Christianity involves full hearts, full heads, and vibrant imaginations lived in a community in which love is exhibited as faith and hope are celebrated.
See the rest of Denis Haack’s post here.
Ira Glass on Storytelling
2 Building Blocks for telling good stories:
- 1) Anecdote: a series of events, one leading to the next. Create suspense. Raises questions.
- Moment of Reflection. At some point, someone has to say “here’s why I’m telling you this.”
A good story moves between the two: a little bit of story, and then a little reflection, and then a little more story.
Two ways to kill a story:
- A boring series of events, leading to a really insightful moment of reflection.
- A story that just kills, but not knowing what to do with it.
More here.
Soul Pancake?
Recently I came across soulpancake.com, which is apparently a project from Rain Wilson (AKA, Dwight Shrute).
Now, that video was pretty dang awesome. There are few things I want to do more than de-lamify talking about God. But then I was looking at youtube and found these:
Is it just me, or is talking about religion with Oprah the very definition of lame?
Which is kinda the way soulpancake.com looks too. The idea of the site really excites me: a place for people to talk creatively about life’s big questions. And yet, this is how the FAQ answers the question, What are life’s big questions?: “Life’s Big Questions are some of those big topics that everyone wonders about, but no one really talks about—you know, the ones that gnaw at our innards. We’re hoping you can answer them because clearly, we don’t have a clue.”
Is it just me, or is that kinda lame? There’s tons of potential, and I desperately want to see something like this kind of conversation succeed. But saying that ultimately there are no right answers is basically just lame. Agree? Disagree?
Something to Think About…
“The best defense of any doctrine is the creative exposition of it.”
One on Ones
Matt Perman summarizes some principles for running weekly meetings with people who report to you. The principles could surely be adapted for anyone you meet with regularly.
The Gospel and Sex
I was recently reminded of a sermon by David Fairchild of Kaleo Church on gospel centered sex. This is probably the best explanation of the Bible’s view of sex that I’ve seen. A lot of times Christians basically reduce it to: if you’re not married, don’t have sex; if you are, we don’t want to talk about it. We’re left with some rules to follow, without much idea why.
In this sermon, David does a great job of explaining what the Bible teaches about sex, and the reasons why it says what it says. Additionally, he places the whole discussion in the context of the church’s place in the world. The sermon begins with these words:
The purpose of the Christian Church is not to function as a chaplaincy for those who are barely hanging on to their faith. It is not intended to act as a safe-house where we gather to clean off the filth from the world around us.
The Christian community is not to be seen primarily as a support group where we receive inspiration and affirmation for living our individual lives. Though the community may provide all these personal blessings and more, the Christian community is intended to reflect a new way of being human to this world. We are to be an alternate city within San Diego, where we are demonstrating what a truly human society looks like. We are more than a support group for individuals, rather we as individuals are to gather together into a community and put on display what a society looks like when it is transformed by the Gospel. Simply, we are a counter-culture.
Read or listen to the whole thing to get a good summary of the prominent views on sex in the world, and a great explanation of sex as it can really be.
