A Political Rant Born From a Deeper Theological Conviction than “Americanism”
I’m not opposed to people having the freedom to express these ideas as their opinions on political policies. I am thankful that people can do that. 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 on this little ditty of an image.
The Complementarian Woman: Permitted or Pursued?
How sweet a thing when a woman of apparent ministry gifting elicits from male leadership not “Oh, no,” but “At last!” God help complementarians if we spend our energies fastidiously chalking the boundaries of a racecourse we never urge or equip our women to run. I have to think that egalitarians would grow quieter in their critiques if we could point to more women within our ranks who convincingly demonstrate equal, complementary value in our churches.
The Golden Rule and Our Muslim Neighbors
And remember that regardless of what any Muslim says or does, as Christians, we are to do what Jesus says and does.
Informative Report on Muslim Conversions
Missiologists and conversion theorists know that various people groups — the Messianic Jewish conversion experience is not a soterian gospel conversion experience — have various conversion experiences. This means it is important to drill down to the gospel and let the gospel speak into different contexts. When the gospel is reduced to the soterian gospel it can speak only to one kind of experience.
But I have often wondered about the pattern of Muslim conversion, and here’s a sketch of that pattern by Georges Houssney
Take a moment to look over these statements. If you see that you are telling yourself these lies, then learn to see them for what they are and try to think differently. Tell yourself that they are not true and try rewording them as truths. Take number 3 for an example. Tell yourself, “My spouse will only know what I need and be able to help fulfill that need when I communicate that need.”
We are plagued with the same problem. We often do not smell the stench of our pride. While we quickly spot the stench on someone else, we are often oblivious to the pride in our own lives, noticing it “maybe once a month or so.”
Our young people and self-fulfilling prophecies
We have reacted so strongly to this fear that I am not surprised our young people want to leave. We are incredibly condescending to our young people. Do we really think they are so shallow that casual dress and rock bands with a really young preacher will keep them? They should be insulted.
And many of them are. I believe they leave because they want authenticity. We give them what we wanted as young people. Nothing sadder than a bunch of old church leaders trying to decide what young people want.
If I had one more phone conversation, I would have talked a little longer. In fact, I thought about giving her a call, but decided on tomorrow because I would have more time on the way home from cutting grass at the church building. After tonight, I wish I would have called.
Eight New Things We’ve Learned About Music
Why is it that music can affect us in such profound ways? “Because it does” seems like a pretty good answer to me, but scientists aren’t that easy. They’ve been wrestling with this for a long time, yet it was not that long ago that two researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre, came up with an explanation, at least a physiological one.