Shifting the center of worship from sermon to table
We’d have to practice communion differently to make visible the new social realities of the gospel embodied among the eschatological people of God (church). In fact, I very seriously doubt that we would have come up with the idea of passing plates down rows in the first place if the social aspects of the table of the Lord were our starting place. I am struck every time I attend a service where I am invited to get up and go to table. The visual impression made by a diverse people being welcomed around one table is striking. Often I have thought, what but the reconciling work of God could have brought these people together?
Electing to Follow Jesus: Claiming Our Baggage
When I taught at the Nashville university, I was one of only two “Lipscomb-ites.” To understand what a Lipscomb-ite is and why it matters, you have to know that the namesake of the university, David Lipscomb, lived in the mid-1800s. His life and views were deeply impacted by the Civil War. Seeing Christians kill each other over any issue or injustice was deeply disturbing to him. He had this view that Christians should be deeply invested in the Kingdom of God and let the kingdoms of this world take care of themselves. For Lipscomb, this meant not involving himself in politics, but he went one step further.
David Lipscomb did not vote.
I understand, for many Americans who have lived and died for the right to vote, for the cause of freedom, this is the worst kind of ignorance and ingratitude. But you have to understand the place Lipscomb is coming from. He’s looking at the world not as a statesman or even a citizen of a nation state but as a citizen of the Kingdom of God. What counted for Lipscomb was how to be a good citizen of the Kingdom Christ lived and died for. What does it mean to act (vote) in the way Jesus would call us to?
17 things that change forever when you live abroad
Although deep down, you know you don’t miss a place, but a strange and magical conjunction of the right place, the right moment and the right people. That year when you traveled, when you shared your life with special ones, when you were so happy. There’s a tiny bit of who you were scattered among all the places you’ve lived in, but sometimes going back to that place is not enough to stop missing it.
We live in a world that celebrates the discarding of babies. So when a miscarrying women grieves the loss of her unborn child, it magnifies the value of life. When the world is celebrating new ways to undo the traditional family, grieving over your parents’ divorce shouts the value of marriage. When the celebration of personal autonomy shoves the responsibility of caring for the next generation aside, stepping into the grief of foster care screams that children matter.
Failure to find a sexual partner is now a DISABILITY says World Health Organisation
Under the new rules, heterosexual single men and women and gay men and women who want to have children will now be given the same priority as a couple seeking IVF because of medical fertility problems.
A More Accurate World Map Wins Prestigious Japanese Design Award
Unlike the Mercator projection, the 1569 mapping technique that you’d probably recognize from the world maps you saw in school, the continents on the AuthaGraph aren’t lined up straight across—they’re angled in a way that provides a more accurate representation of the distances between them. “AuthaGraph faithfully represents all oceans [and] continents, including the neglected Antarctica,” according to the Good Design Awards, and provides “an advanced precise perspective of our planet.” No longer does Africa look the same size as North America, or Antarctica look like one of the biggest continents (it’s smaller than everything but Europe and Australia).