Golf is a game for every age and for every season of life. It can be enjoyed by people at all skill levels and socio-economic status. However, it can be a fairly expensive habit. Especially if you buy into the big promotional hype of products endorsed by Tiger Woods and others. (I paid $35 for my driver at WalMart.) Dude!
But golf is a game of tools. There’s a standing joke in my family that a man can do anything if he has the right tool. No golfer in his right mind goes out onto the course without an array of clubs in his bag. Each club serves a purpose and has a specific application depending on where your ball is lying. Club selection is critical.
We are beginning a new conversation regarding the doctrine of atonement. Atonement tries to answer the question, “What is the nature of Jesus’ saving work?” However, most of us have engaged the atonement question with only one club in our bag—that of “penal substitution.” (Jesus took my punishment.) Let’s begin to explore others.
Wireless technologies have made advance ments exponentially even in the last decade. GPS navigation systems, cell phones, internet, computer networks. And the future will be even more amazing.
All of us are acquainted with the term WiFi. It is a “brand” label created by a huge advertising firm known as Interbrand. It is not an abbreviation for anything. But we recognize its power and influence in the marketplace.
I’ve been thinking about a metaphor to update the one Jesus used when he said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” – John 15:5
As I pondered the services I purchase from Cox in my own home, I wondered if there was a parallel in changing the claim of Jesus to “I am the Modem; you are the wireless router.”
If that doesn’t pose a sacrilege to you, ponder its possibilities. What if our incarnational approach could be called WiFi Jesus?
Life is filled with Paradox. All of our lives we have heard our parents and teachers recite proverbs, many of which are contradictory. Here’s one example. It is said, “You can’t teach and old dog new tricks.” But just as often we have also heard, “It’s never too late to learn.”
So which is it?
Following Jesus also holds paradox after paradox. In fact the very essence of God is that He is One God expressed in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the Trinity. The teachings of Jesus are filled with paradox. How are we supposed to know what to do?
Join the conversation as we try to sort out the truth and the beauty of dancing with paradox. How can we embrace the mystery?
What are some other conflicting proverbs that you have learned?
Which makes you more uncomfortable, having all the answers or not having all the answers?
In a pluralistic, multicultural society like the one in which we live, there are many stories that are unique to each of us. Those stories help define who we are and how we look at the world. Some call them worldviews, others call them narratives.
In 1995, social critic and educator Neil Postman wrote a book called The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. His first chapter, “The Necessity of Gods” describes the need we have for a common mythology or a metanarrative in the public discourse in order to create a public through public education which has a common purpose.
As we look at Postman’s assertion, “[T]he idea of public education depends absolutely on the existence of shared narratives and the exclusion of narratives that lead to alienation and divisiveness,” we must also look at ourselves.
Let us ask: Has the Church contributed positively to the shared narrative in public education, or have we contributed to the alienation and divisiveness?
Who or what were the gods of your high school?
What has the “Church” contributed to the shared narrative of public education?
How can we contribute in a positive way to the common story in America?
The old legend that Bumble Bees shouldn’t be able to fly is not true. Just because they look too big and their wings are so small, doesn’t mean they are defying nature.
However, gravity itself apparently does defy the natural law. It seems that we can’t identify enough mass in the universe to account for the gravity that so obviously exists. So, at this very moment, scientists (astrophysicists) are looking for matter we cannot see, to account for the other 80% of the mass that mathematically has to exist. Accordingly, they call this missing stuff Dark Matter.
Weird.
Being a follower of Jesus asks us to defy nature—human nature. We’re all born self-centered, and most of us never get over it. Join the conversation as we discover that defying gravity just might be the confirmation of our faith.
Did you ever dream you could fly? Tell us about it.
Prayer is a much maligned, badly misunderstood discipline of the follower of Jesus. There are as many interpretations on prayer as there are noses. And some of them are pretty funny…
One thing is obvious from scripture. God can handle our most scathingly honest, heartfelt cry to him. He already knows what we’re thinking anyway.
Join the dialogue and let’s put some perspective on prayer. Does prayer change things? Or does prayer just change me?
Today also features the Nooma video by Rob Bell: “Open.”
Lend your experience and knowledge to the conversation.
Tell us about a prayer you’ve had answered.
How are we taking part in the ongoing creation of the world?
Can you say that you trust God to do what is best for you? Explain.
Those of us who have grown up in the church have been programmed that this world is not our final home. We’ve been taught that heaven is our eventual destination. What if we were wrong?
In my informal survey this week, everyone I talked to about this agreed that ultimately heaven comes to earth. But we don’t talk that way, think that way, or act that way.
What if Belinda Carlisle was right? Ooh, Heaven is a place on earth! (“Now the dwelling place of God is with men…” Revelation 21)
Join the conversation, add your voice and your knowledge to the discussion, as we explore the thought that life after life will come to earth.
If you had another life to live, what would you do differently this time?
If God created earth for his own dwelling place, would you treat it any differently?
Because of its long-standing place in civilized society as a staple food, bread has become the iconic symbol of the basic needs of life and living. It is the personification of provision and sustenance.
A person who earns the money in a household is called the “breadwinner.” Such a person is charged with “putting bread on the table.” The words “bread” or “dough” are used as euphemisms for money.
As an element of Holy Communion, the bread represents the body of Jesus which was broken for each of us. As we celebrate Communion, in addition to celebrating the sacrifice of Jesus, we also acknowledge our dependence on God for sustenance.
Join the conversation as we discuss the Sacraments of the Church.
What does the smell of bread baking make you think of?
What do you think of when you participate in Communion?
Before modern Chemistry and the Periodic Table of Elements the ancients believed that everything in creation was made up of the Four Classic Elements: Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire.
It is interesting that the Holy Scriptures represent God the Holy Spirit as three of these: Water, Wind, and Fire. The fourth classic element, Earth, is reserved for man. We are made from dust—from dust we came and to dust we shall return.
Jesus commanded that his followers (made from dust) be baptized (immersed) in water. This identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is an outward manifestation of an inward transformation.
As a side note, it is interesting to realize that dust immersed in water becomes clay. Perhaps the obedient act of baptism is the beginning of our transformation into his likeness as we become clay in his hands.
sorry to interrupt our regularly-scheduled Continuing Conversation posts, but I’m taking the liberty as self-described blog admin to throw out a few random things that are colliding around in my head this morning.
I’ve been doing a lot of emerging blog reading lately, and I came across this post by David Fitch about The Courage to Be Protestant - a book in which David Wells argues that emerging and mega-church-marketing are similar in that both contextualize or “water-down” the gospel to fit culture. a quote from Fitch:
Wells sees the answer to the current lacks in evangelicalism as a return to Classic Protestantism. I see most of the inherent lacks of evangelicalism as seeded in the very structure of Classical Protestantism. Evangelicalism, as I see it, is the outworking of the inherent contradictions latent in the Protestant reformation that allowed for the individualizing, interiorizing, privatizing of the Christian gospel that we have today.
I’m with Fitch on this, even more-so because I have lately been exploring a lot of Catholic theology and teaching, and have so far found it very attuned to my own spiritual (re-)discoveries. Read the rest of this entry »
Aug 20, 2008
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