Ideas written by others, shared to make you think… Tim
No, Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason
It’s exhausting enough to endure the dark hours here and not lose our religion, without the addition of a Maker who also makes us bleed. Instead, I prefer to understand God as One who bleeds along with us; Who sits with us in our agony and weeps, not causing us our distress but providing a steady, holy presence in it. This still leaves me with the nagging question of why this God can’t or won’t always remove these burdens from me, but it does allow me to better see the open opportunity provided in tragedy.
Leave China, Study in America, Find Jesus
While no definitive statistics can be found on the number of Christian converts from mainland China, those immersed in campus spiritual life say it is significant, and growing. Gregory Jao, national director of campus engagement for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a nationwide evangelical ministry, estimated that his organization serves between 1,600 and 1,800 overseas Chinese out of a total of about 5,000 international students under its tent. Valerie Althouse, who served as a chaplain at NYU for about nine years, said that Chinese have been the majority of those involved in the school’s spiritual programming.
Exegetical Fallacies: The Word Study Fallacy
Study of the words alone will not present us with a consistent interpretation or theology. This is one of the misleading aspects of theological dictionaries/wordbooks. One learns far more about obedience/disobedience or sacrifice and sin from the full statement of a passage like 1 Sam 15:22–23 than he will from word studies of key terms like “sacrifice,” “obey,” or “sin” in the text.
Fear, Trust, and Missionary Kids
I trust a God who did NOT prioritize the physical safety of his child. Instead he willingly lead him to death for a greater cause. I do not want my kids to die. We make them wear long sleeve shirts and bug spray to avoid mosquito bites. They are pretty much always within our sight and they have been trained to look out for one another and alert their parents if they see danger. I do not treat the physical safety of my children casually. But I believe (and I am raising my children to believe) that there are more important things than their lives. And for me to believe that, and for them to believe that, we must trust God. Trust him when he says our affliction is light and momentary. Trust him when he says that all things will work together for our good. Trust him when he says his Gospel is worth more than our life. Trust him when he says that we ought to love him more than we love our children.
One-to-one Bible reading evangelism
As I think back over the times I’ve met up with women to read the Bible and help them check out Jesus, I feel like I’ve blundered my way through. However, I’m clinging to the promise that God uses weak people to make his gospel even more glorious, and that he also grows us in doing his good works.
#TBH: The Next 20 Years Will Be Crucial to the Church’s Survival
I’m not saying that the Baby Boomers weren’t looking for this, but Millennials are particularly focused on restoration in these four ways:
- A radical commitment to community: To not look at those in which they live and dwell as a potential pool of members to help our church but as people we are called to minister to.
- The ability to go deep in Bible study: These young Christians affirm that the Bible is a powerful book designed to change people. If that is not being represented in the teaching and preaching of a church they will not stay.
- The churches revenue directed outwardly: Millennials want to see their money, their sacrifice at work. They don’t care about getting bigger buildings, more ministers, and new gadgets. They want to see their money actually helping people.
- Demonstrate transparency, humility, and integrity: Millennials recognize the lack of responses on Sunday morning. More importantly they recognize the lack of response by their leaders.
13 Essential Rules for Staying Safe on the Internet
Internet safety is also about securing yourself from cybercriminals, snoops, creeps, and assorted other denizens of the Net’s dark side. Follow these 13 rules and you should be able to surf in safety.
U.S. Army Develops Pizza That Can Last For Three Years
The biggest challenge, according to Oleksyk, was in figuring out how to stop bacteria from growing on the pizza dough and sauce, which needs water for taste, but is also a breeding ground for mold. The solution came in the form of a method known as Hurdle technology which, according to Tech Insider, creates “‘barriers’ that stop bacteria from forming on the pizza over the years.” The end result is a pizza that has a shelf life of three years, which Oleksyk described as tasting like, “day after pizza’ or the kind you’d find in a school cafeteria.”