Have a look here.

What do you think?

Labels: god, pray, Spiritual Thought Of The Day, stewardship

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington is taking questions (see the video below) that he'll use as topics for 9 sermons and a book, beginning in January, 2008.

You can go to askanything.marshillchurch.org to view, submit, and vote on questions.

I asked the following questions (there's a really short length limit, so I didn't get to word them exactly the way I wanted):

What are your thoughts about the level of criticism between believers, and particularly church leaders? What's the balance between a desire for Truth and a bad picture of Jesus we paint to the world?

What do you think about the term 'christian'? Do you think that it has become too stigmatized, and if so, is it worth redeeming or should we change our language?

Labels: introspective, perspective, poll, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

Do you get it?

'Cause I got ticked for about 2 seconds and then I started laughing at myself :0)

Labels: musings, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

There's a great discussion going on over at the 'Shlog' about worship.

People are basically arguing about the question, "What is worship?"

This video from Sermon Spice takes a good stab at it:

Labels: god, music, perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day, worship

I was bored and looking around on facebook just now, a I read this in someone's profile:

I've been a Christian for 9 years. Went to church for about 8 of those years and then realized that God was calling us to something different - something out of the box. We have a small home group that meets at our house now and I don't think we will ever attend an actual modern day church again - Love Jesus just don't love what church has become.

I know this person. I know that she loves Jesus. I don't want to judge her heart or her motives. I just want to ask the question in the title of this post.

What do you think?

Labels: god, perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day, worship

This weekend at church, I taught about how we are free to serve Jesus because we don't have to.


...yeah, just take a second and think about that. My texts were Galatians 5 and 1 Peter 2.


I got on a social justice soap-box for just a minute.

According to Compassion International, 19 billion dollars a year could provide for the basic needs of all the poorest children in the world. To put that figure in perspective, this is about half of what Americans spend on dieting programs every year.

I told folks at the church about various opportunities to invest eternally, and this morning I began a list on the website.

What do you think should be on the list?

Labels: missions, perspective, poll, Spiritual Thought Of The Day, stewardship, worship

I was just listening to Driscoll teaching on rest and sabath.

Here are some highlights:

"Religious people freak out, because religious people want to do the work of the Holy Spirit and the conscience...
We don't like religious people because they're not any fun at all.... Religious people are the kind of people who, if you gave them a sucker, they would flip it around and stick the stick in their ear. That's just the kind of people they are. They do everything wrong..."

Labels: god, musings, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

I saw this at RagamuffinSoul and I just couldn't help myself :0)

Labels: musings, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

I've been listening to Mark Driscoll a fair bit lately. (I highly recommend that you subscribe to the podcast)

Today I was listening to a teaching about scripture -- where it comes from, how to approach it, etc.

Here's a rough quote:

I listened to several hours of 'christian' radio last week. I don' t do that very often because then I say things that I have to repent of.

He made me chuckle because I understand where he's coming from.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

Labels: god, music, musings, poll, Spiritual Thought Of The Day, worship

Interesting conversation here. I don't know much about yoga, but I think I agree with both of them... which pretty much means I don't know :0)

What do you think?

Labels: Spiritual Thought Of The Day

*Let me begin by clarifying that by putting quotes around ‘Palagian heresy’, I’m not saying it isn’t heresy, and by referencing Erwin, I’m not affirming that everything he teaches and believes is good and true. Follow me through this series of posts, and if you have concerns at the end, I most definitely want to know.

It’s as if life and reality are becoming a little clearer every day... I’m becoming more alive. And I’m trying to figure out whether I like this process.
About three weeks ago, Steph and I were at one of our favorite high-end restaurants, Chic-fil-a, and we saw this woman walking through the parking lot, who was obviously homeless. This isn’t a shocking site in Durham or Raleigh, but it’s actually pretty rare in Henderson, which is where we were visiting my folks. We decided to chase her down and buy her lunch in the hopes that we could talk to her a little bit -- learn from her, pray for her, and hopefully even share the Gospel with her.

I’ll spare you the long version of the story, mostly because I never read long posts and I don’t expect you to either... but the short version is that this woman was OUT THERE. She told us that her name is ‘walking song’. She is a spirit collector. She sees these spirits sitting on people’s heads. They go from person to person, and some people have more than one. She collects them. She believed in Jesus, but said that there are many Jesus’. The one in the Bible is different than the one who will come back some day. And there’s another Jesus still who is alive in the world today.

Now, depending on who you are, you read this encounter differently. My belief might surprise you: I believe she’s right, in a way... not about the different Jesus and stuff, but I believe that when she says ‘spirit’, she means ‘demon’, and that she is possessed by many of them, and sees them active in the world.



If you were to paint this hypothetical situation for me, and ask me what I would do, I would probably say, with sincerity, that I would preach the Truth to this woman. I would pray over her and cast the demons out of her. I would bring her to Jesus to be healed and delivered.
But you know what: I was there, and more than anything, I just wanted to give her a hug. I wanted to cry. And -- brace yourself, here it comes -- I think that’s because I’m just a little more like Jesus than I used to be.

Labels: god, introspective, perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

*I usually don't have time to write anything very meaningful, and I want to force myself to, because I think it's a really healthy exercise, so this is part one of what I think will probably be a lengthy series of posts. The title is 'so far', because with every day I live, I see things just a little differently, and this is what I see, so far. I would LOVE to hear your feedback/thoughts! *end disclaimer

I’m not sure what my goal is writing this right now. It seems like I haven’t had time to even think insightfully in a long time, and I think that somehow, writing makes it easier.
...well, I suppose that’s not true. I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I think I just don’t have time to think all the way through anything. In fact, I’ve been wrestling with this suspicion that if I did think through this stuff to the logical end, my life would probably get turbulent... again

I’m happy to report that I feel very alive these days, also very human. I’m less happy to report the ‘human’ part. It’s a very bittersweet thing, being human. Lately I’ve been reading and hearing about this ‘Palagian heresy’. In short, there’s this dude from history who didn’t like Augustin’s prayer, “Lord, command what You will, but grant what You command.” He said that’s it’s an absurd prayer, because God puts in all of us the innate ability to accomplish anything that God commands from us. And he even goes a step further and says that that means that we all have some good in us. And that’s where the ‘heresy’ comes from. Many people today -even followers of Jesus - believe that humans, deep down, are good, or at least we have some good. I actually wrote an editorial in the NC State newspaper about this when I was in college. The Bible is clear that there is no good in us. None whatsoever.
But that’s all kind of a rabbit trail. My point in diverging is that as I get a little older, and hopefully just a little bit wiser, I’m learning that theology doesn’t meet reality as simply as we would like it to. I most truly believe that there is no good in any of us. And yet, to steal the imagery from Erwin McMannus, I have these cravings inside of me that honestly feel like there is some good in them. And I see them in other people too.
To be continued...

Labels: god, introspective, musings, perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day, stewardship, worship

This guy (I seriously don't know who this is, just a link of a link of a link) has a really interesting, creative post called "Excuse me while I single-handedly neutralize al-quaeda".

See if you can figure out what he's hinting at:

http://branthansen.typepad.com/letters_from_kamp_krusty/2007/08/excuse-me-while.html

Labels: god, introspective, perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

Here's a story from Forbes that adds a little perspective on where our hope lies, and gives me yet another reason that I'm so thankful to have been born and raised in America.

Zhang Shuhong ran a toy company in China that sells in America under the name Fisher-Price. Thousands of their toys had to be recalled recently because of huge amounts of lead found in the paint on the toys. The pressure and humiliation that this created for him led him to suicide.

Read the story, and as you do, ask yourself the questions:

Where did his hope lie?

Where does mine?

Labels: god, introspective, news, perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

I read this quote on the 'Thinklings' blog this morning:

"Real Christians are marked by sincerity—the whole truth about themselves and the whole truth about God. Real Christians stand before people the way they stand before God—transparent and vulnerable. Anything less is a dressed-up Gospel."

- John Fischer

Labels: perspective, Spiritual Thought Of The Day

This reminds me of one time when I was at 'Big Break' with Campus Crusade in Panama City Beach.
We went in teams to witness to tipsy college students on the beach every day (which was actually a great experience). One day I got paired with this freshman who was still pretty innocent with regard to sharing his faith. At the end of the day I noticed, for the first time, that his hat said, "I'm not arrogant, I'm just smarter than you."

Labels: Spiritual Thought Of The Day