I’ve been emailing with a friend concerning politics and this question came up:
“I have never understood why some people want the government to provide services that the Church is supposed to be doing. For example, isn’t is our job as Christians to take care of the poor?”
(below is part of my response)
“Here’s a story related to your question about Christians taking care of the poor.
When I lived in Nashville, I had opportunities to be involved with the homeless in the city. I did that primarily three different ways.
1) I …

When I entered middle school my family moved to a house in Madison Wisconsin. It was our house, our walls, inside and out, and with that it began to take shape and look like our family. Somewhere early on, my mom painted some dancing, flowy stick figures of us on the garage door. The house is a purple color (my mom’s favorite) and the stick figures, a deeper purple, adorned the garage door.
I remember being quite embarrassed of this display of art when ever a new person would come …

I went to a community meeting yesterday and got to hear the crime update from the Inspector Michael Martin who is the commander of the fourth precinct where I live. He comes to the Hawthorne Huddle every month and updates the community on the safety and crimes in the area, allowing himself to be accountable for what is and isn’t happening. Yesterday, he shared a interesting bit of news.
Currently in 2008, North Minneapolis has the lowest Crime Rate in Minneapolis (According to Part 1 crime stats, which are all the …

Since I haven’t written any real blog posts in a week, it’ll take me a little bit to get back into the groove of things. With that said, I figure I could ramble about a few political thoughts. Don’t worry nothing inflammatory or profound here. Just random.
I’d really like to find a Christian who considers themselves a republican to dialog with. I realized when I started learning about politics (which wasn’t till about freshman year of college, and even then I didn’t know R from D, Left from Right or …

This is mostly a personal update. The weather has finally been beautifully nice up here, but the kiddo and I have been sick the whole time so we haven’t gone outside to enjoy it. Today, hopefully, we finally will. The sickness is mostly to blame for the lack of substantive postings, as well as some fun games of Scrabulous.
But, the real news is this. My friends, Daniel and Amanda, community members from Nashville, are going to be on the Oprah show today. So, find your TV mid-afternoon and enjoy. …

Alright folks, the Giving Spree is on it’s way. Here’s the basic idea: Take your rebate check that you receive in May and do follow the purpose of spending it to stimulate the economy, but do it in a unique way, give it to meet the needs of others! Here’s some ideas:

If your a teacher, or care about students, books and supplies for kids that need it.
If you care about the environment purchase CFL light bulbs and give them away to people.
or Purchase fair trade cloth bags and give them …

So, if you’ve checked the news lately you’ve heard about this $168 Billion dollar ‘Economic Stimulus’ package that is supposed to help revive the economy. I’m not an economics expert by any means, so I’m not really interested in discussing those details just yet. Basically, the plan will in effect mean that I’m going to get a nice fat check from the government in May, a gift with the express purpose of ’stimulating’ the economy. And here is my dilemma.
My family operates on a budget. We’ve looked at our finances, …

Barack Obama’s Speech at Dr. King’s Church (34:00)

(ht. Keane)