Tag Archives: faith

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No Easter outrage?

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It’s over a week since the Easter holiday, so I feel safe venturing some critiques about it. My friend Bryan pointed out that there hasn’t been much outrage around Easter about the bunny and eggs.
During Christmas there was so much outrage at the idea of calling the evergreens people where buying “Holiday Trees.” When my mom was growing up they had a Hanukkah Bush. My family had decorations for Christmas and Hanukkah (as well as a strange assortment of other family ornaments). Mindy and I have not had a tree in our living room since we’ve been married, and yet I don’t think we missed out on anything essential concerning the birth of Jesus. Celebrating the birth of Jesus is a good thing, but his birth is not what is central or pinnacle to the Christian faith; it’s his resurrection.
I wonder then, where is the outrage at Jesus’ resurrection being taken over by a giant bunny that hands kids pastel eggs full of candy? If you ask me, that’s what people should be upset about. I think it’s probably because nobody’s trying to trump the word “Easter.” Maybe they’d be bothered if someone decleared it the Buddha Bunny? Or what about just “The Bunny” leaving “Easter” out all together?

My point in saying all that is not to incite outrage over the Easter bunny or to start a boycott of pastel eggs. I think I’m just bothered by the lack of consistency and focus on such unimportant things. Let other’s call the evergreens what they want, maybe you should be ditching the Easter bunny altogether. Probably we should be spending a little more time trying to explain why some old guy dying and then rising from the dead is so important to our children. Believe me, you’ll have your work cut out for you.

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Excuses, Excuses, Excuses.

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(You know when you write “excuses” three times it starts to look funny)

I write to give you three very good excuses as to why you have been left bored this week with mostly postings of research info and not much of my own personal thoughts this week.

  1. I recently switched positions at my work, but that has meant doing my old job and my new one both during this week (and likely next week). It’s caused some very long days, but I’ve enjoyed them a lot. My mind hasn’t been able to wander to other things so I haven’t had much to write about, nor the energy to do so.
  2. As I’ve mentioned, Soulforce’s visit to Wheaton College is coming up next weekend. I’ve been posting alumni stories as I’ve gathered them and posted them at Overflowmag.com. It’s been a very exciting project and it’s gotten a LOT of traffic, and hopefully some more will come before the events next weekend.
  3. This one is obvious:
    mindy

I hope you can understand. I’ll post some more this week if there is time. I might just start posting some old writings I’ve dug up recently. We’ll see.

Blog

Why don’t we do what the song says?

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So this is my rant about music at church (aka “Worship Music”):

Why don’t we do what the song says? You go into most churches today and they are singing the cool and popular worship songs. And you and everyone around you is belting out the words to the song. “I’m falling on my knees…” and as they sing the words, what happens? Well most of the churches I’ve been to everyone stays standing or sitting or whatever they where doing. It would seem to me that if I were to walk up to you and say “I’m falling on my knees” and didn’t actually do it, you might be suspect of the next few things I said (and if you know the words of the song you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about).
I just don’t understand how we can all be okay with singing these songs that have us voicing actions we are taking.

But when the world has seen the light, They will dance with joy, Like we’re dancing now

And we stand around looking like a bunch of dorks.

I lift my hands up…
I bow down…

There’s a long list and I won’t go into them now, but it’s always been a point of struggle for me.

An then there is the other side of it. Even though I’m the one that has a problem with this and it bothers me and all, I very rarely actually follow through myself. Mostly I think I worry about getting looked at with all sorts of judgements, “look at him trying to act better then everyone; more religious; pious.” So I often opt for not singing that particular song, or line in the song, or halfway, top secretly raising my hand or bending my knees, etc. And this needs to be changed also.

In high school with my youth group I would point it out; these days I don’t. That’s the tough part, how do we encourage change in this? Should the folks playing the insturments up front be in charge of encouraging people to “do” what they “say”? They are the “leaders” after all.
I just picture someone visiting most churches today and hearing them sing “I could sing of your love forever” and hearing these words

But when the world has seen the light, They will dance with joy, Like we’re dancing now

And walking out the door to search for joy elsewhere.

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I want to write a book

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One of my goals since High School was that I wanted to write a book before I finished college. I think I saw the popularity of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and thought, “I can write something like that” (not content, but quality).
My College Diploma came in the mail last summer officially calling an end to my college days and permanently marking that goal is “Incomplete.” If sulked in the defeat enough, and now it’s time for me to get up and try again. I want to write a book.
I think the longest papers I’ve ever written were 13 pages each (one in high school, one in college). The idea of writing something that qualifies as a “book” is intimidating to me. At the same time, blogging has helped me to see that it is very possible. My guess is if I just took everything that I have currently written on this blog it would make a decent sized book. If I can learn how to remain focused and have a clear goal in mind I think I can accomplish this.

A few things I would ask:

  1. Please give me a lot of feedback on my writing, I appreciate people’s thoughts and encouragement.
  2. If you have any advice or guides on how to go about this I’d love to hear it.
  3. I’m wondering if self-publishing or finding a publisher is the way to go, any ideas?
Blog

John Francis, Planet Walker (geezmagazine)

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Reading a brief timeline of Francis’ journey in Geez Magazine was quite an experience for me.
Most will write him off as a fanatic. Here is the first entry:

January 17, 1971 Two oil tankers collide beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. 840,000 gallons of crude spill into the Pacific Ocean.
Several months later In response, John Francis shuns oil. Starts walking everywhere, including 25 miles to meet friends for a movie in San Rafael.

Like I said I think a number of people would write that off as being extreme or a little over the edge, but I think he seems to be a man of his convicitions. Why do I come to this decision? I’m always struck when people do something that is certainly not in their own self interest. John Francis
I am an extremely selfish person. Very rarely do I do things that are not in my own self interest and for my own convenience. I’m making progress, but I am nowhere near living the selfless life that Christ calls us to.
Francis heard about a problem in the world (oil) and he decided that he need to respond. It is rare that I hear about a problem and respond to it, unless I have personal motivation to do so.

May we all become more like Francis in that way.

(more on Francis)

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Conscientious Objector

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I’ve been checking out Voxtropolis recently (a blogging community of sorts), and had the amazing privilege of running across the blog and recent story of Jake.

For most of the past five years, Malloy, an MU graduate, was a cook stationed in Washington, Mo. But, in July, when he learned his unit would begin training for probable deployment to Iraq, Malloy suffered a crisis of conscience. Unable to reconcile Christ’s teachings with the use of lethal force, Malloy filed a claim with the Army, asking that he be classified as a conscientious objector.
(via. Columbia Missourian)

Jake story is amazing to me. Very rarely do we allow our convictions to challenge us to do something outside of the realm of what is normally acceptable. I am often guilty of being convicted of things, but not willing to follow through on them because they are not socially acceptable. I fear that if I was in his shoes I would find myself justifying my current position and disregarding the clear convictions of my heart.

Here is some of what Jake wrote in
his claim as a conscientious objector:

I am in doubt as to the rightness of taking a human life primarily because of the nature of our loving God. He is patient with us, not wanting any to perish (2 Peter 3:9); I believe those having the Spirit of Christ should be likewise patient. Further, we see that God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather desires them to repent and be saved (Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11). We also are fallen and evil (Romans 3:23), and as such should not think our sins any less heinous than the most vile of offenders (James 2:10-11). In fact, while we were enemies of God ourselves, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). This is the foundation of Christianity. We do not take life, but give life, just as Christ gave his as an expression of his love for us (1 John 4:10) and as an example to us (Ephesians 5:1-2). While we were enemies of God, we also were inclined toward every evil practice. Our hope must be to bring an end to evil by filling souls with the love of Christ. Weapons of death cannot solve this problem. When we kill an individual, we add fuel to the fire of hatred within that person’s family. The God of love and the sacrifice of His Son is the hope for peace among nations and in our very lives. Knowing God has redeemed me from death, I could not put another to death for any wrong (John 8:7, Matthew 18:21-35).

A week ago Jake learned his claim was denied.*

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Overflowmag to cover Soulforce at Wheaton

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WheatonOverflowmag.com is a website/publication I helped start my senior year at Wheaton College. It has since been fairly vacant and has not received much attention. Recently though I have noticed a need by some Wheaton Alumni to make their voices heard at Wheaton. Soulforce’s Equality Ride is coming to Wheaton College on April 20-21. It looks to be a very engaging event for the current students there. Overflowmag will hopefully play a role in making that happen.

For the next few weeks the pages of Overflow Mag will be dedicated to sharing the stories of Wheaton Alumni. There is and has been much debate and disagreement over theological stances as it relates to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. This site is not going to attempt to sway you in either direction as it relates to your Biblical and Theological stance. You might hear some points from both sides of the issue.

The stories that will be shared are here so that you can hear from people who have been hurt and mistreated by the Wheaton community and by the Church. As a Christian you are called to love. As a community the issues surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people is far more complicated then whether the Community Covenant* says that it is a sin or not.

I will try and post a reference on here when stories begin to be posted, but I would appreciate you taking the time to subscribe to the overflowmag blog so that you’ll know about any updates that are happening there.

*Also to current students and recent Alum. If any of you who read this have strong feelings about the issues being discussed, or better yet, personal experience, particularly related to the Wheaton community, then I would love to be able to share it. Send your stories by email to me, or if your interested we could set up an interview that I could record the audio of and place on the website for download.

Money & Stewardship

Cost of Living: dictated by values, not income.

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Financial Lesson #3: Live by your values, not your income.

I’m a little worried about moving on with so little feedback on my last finances post, but we’ll proceed anyways.
I think one of the BIGGEST steps we can make to healthy finances and Christ-like stewardship is to begin to live by our Values, rather then our Income. To make this conversation meaningful let me direct it to three different audiences:

Mr. College Student:
You are the one group I need to clarify something with: Most of you college students do not have an income. What does that mean? It means for a lot of you, you are going into debt to get yourself an education. Most folks would say that is a good thing, and some would say it’s not really debt, it’s an investment. I think I would agree with them, education is something I certainly value and I’m sure you do to, so this is a wise decision.
What does this also mean? It means you are going out to eat on the weekends, and bowling and buying concert tickets on money you don’t have. Going into debt on entertainment, does that align with your values?

Ms. Recent College Grad with the entry level job:
Congrats, you finally have your own income and are paying your own bills. It’s time to make some of those important decisions. There’s a good chance your still in debt for your school loans so some of what I said to the college students still applies. What that means is that you need to decided if it is more wise stewardship to pay off your student loans, or buy those fancy couches on lay-away.
I bet I know what most of you are choosing: your going to pay off the student loans, who needs fancy couches anyways? Especially you college students who had any exposure to global issues like poverty. To you folks it seems silly to buy a big screen TV for your living room when most folks in the world can’t put food on the table for their kids. That is your values speaking.

Mr. and Mrs. Nice job and In the money:
Hopefully your idealistic college days values are still in your mind. You have stepped into the world where the “American Dream” is possible and most would say necessary. You’ve got a better paying job and you darn well want to show it. You’ve been eyeing that BMW SUV and have kept your eyes open for a bigger home. And as far as everyone thinks there is nothing wrong with that: Higher Income = Higher Cost of Living. And suddenly your values are out the door. gone.

To clarify again I’ll leave you with a word picture and somewhat of a paraphrase of Luke 3:11*. Say your at home. A blizzard has just begun outside and you and your brother have to make the trek to school. You get to the closet first and see before you two coats. It’s quite cold outside so you take both the coats, leaving your brother with none. Is that what Christ called us to?
Now another word picture. You recently received a commission from your church to be a full-time missionary in your town. You don’t need to quit your job or anything, but rather just continue living and spend your time sharing the gospel with others. Here’s the neat thing: your church gives you a million dollar annual living stipend to support you. What does your home, car, lifestyle, etc. look like?