When I was in seminary, a friend of mine asked a question about the Bible that changed my life. I’m not much for trivia, but this question struck home: “What does Paul explicitly say that he teaches ‘everywhere in every church’?”
Paul taught a number of things “everywhere in every church”: Jesus as the Son of David, the atoning death of Jesus on a cross, his resurrection and enthronement as Lord, justification by faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the unity of the family of God across racial and social lines, the law of love, future judgment at the feet of Jesus. Paul taught these things with enough consistency that we can safely say he never failed to communicate them to his congregations.
Yet none of these things is the correct answer. Since my seminary days I’ve asked this question of many students and colleagues, but I’ve never gotten the correct answer from an evangelical. -continued here
Now we see how extraordinarily stupid (so that there can still be a remnant of something extraordinary ) it is to defend Christianity, how little knowledge of human nature it manifests, how it connives even if unconsciously, with offense by making Christianity out to be some poor, miserable thing that in the end has to be rescued by a champion. Therefore, it is certain and true that the first one to come up with the idea of defending Christianity in Christendom is de facto a Judas No. 2: he, too, betrays with a kiss, except that his treason is the treason of stupidity. To defend something is always to disparage it....He who defends it has never believed it-Sickness unto Death, link
When I saw in my RSS feed that both Katy Lee Ann H and Rob Bell were recommending Golden Youth..--
(Brian) Who are Golden Youth's biggest inspirations?(Stephanie) SIGUR ROS! We love that band! They put their hearts and souls into everything they write and it really shows through their music. We also listen to Florence and the Machine, Coldplay, Stars, M83, plus many, many more!
(Brian) I ask almost everybody this question; it's because it always gets a cool answer. Would you call your band Christian or Christians-in-a-band? Why?(Stephanie) Christians in a band for sure! We wanted to write music that we could play in a church or in a bar, music that everyone could listen to and want to share with their friends! I hope that people will be able to see a difference in our actions and see Christ through us in that way! -link
The problem with much Christian worship in the contemporary world, Catholic and Protestant alike, is not that it is too entertaining but that it is not entertaining enough. Worship characterized by upbeat rock music, stand-up comedy, beautiful people taking center stage, and a certain amount of Hallmark Channel sentimentality neglects one classic form of entertainment: It neglects tragedy.-continued
One of the great injustices a reader can do to the parables of Jesus is not to be offended by them...Thomas Purifoy, head of Compass Cinema, is doing his part to bring back the peculiarity, and in some cases the offensiveness, of the parables of Jesus. Modern Parables (Series 1) is six short films, each of which retells a parable of Jesus in a modern setting and in so doing awakens us to realities we may have missed.In Samaritan (for example), an old man who has been robbed and beaten is ignored by a deacon and then by a pastor, and for the same reasons that you or I might look past a grizzled, glassy-eyed old man lying in a pile of trash on a city street. The person who finally comes to the old man’s aid is a Middle Eastern taxi driver who reads Arabic-language newspapers and smokes cigarettes. I know the parable well enough to side automatically with the Samaritan and view the scribes and priests as villains to be booed and hissed. The film reminds me that I have more in common with the story’s villains than with its hero.
..Prodigal Sons depicts a young man blowing his half of the family fortune in riotous living in New York City. In the final scene, it is easy to see why the bitter older brother is so bitter. And in his bitterness it is obvious this parable is about two rebellious sons, not one.
...Through the month of June, Compass Cinema is making the six films of the first Modern Parables series available on the Modern Parables Facebook page. Samaritanand Hidden Treasure are already available. The other four (Prodigal Sons, plus films based on the parables of the importunate widow and the sower) will be trickling onto the Facebook page as the month progresses. ,,,
Compass Cinema is making these movies available this month because they are in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a a second series of Modern Parables, beginning with the parable of the workers. If you like what you see and are in a position to help, here’s the link to the project’s Kickstarter page. LINK
It is amazing how often (even/especially from sources that should know better) the word "Armenian" is used when folks mean "Arminian."
Link:
....and yet, week after week, they get up on the stage and give it their best shot. They smile, they dress up (or dress down – depends on the church), and they tell us that they have all the answers.
Why? Why is there this mismatch between “ordinary human” and “know-it-all pastor”? Because that's what the system turns them into. When the venue is set up as a performance hall, the guy (or girl) on the stage is expected to perform for the audience. Hannah Montana’s fans don’t want to know that she’s behind in her homework, or having a fight with her best friend – they want to see her dance and hear her sing. When the church members sit passively in rows, they expect the guy they hired to spend his week studying the Scriptures and listening to the Spirit, and to package it neatly for Sunday morning and present it in a challenging-but-enjoyable format.
How do I know all this? Because I’m the pastor’s wife. For 6 years, we drove to church each Sunday, psyching ourselves into performance mode despite whatever stresses and morning-time mishaps were on our mind. It wasn’t until we moved out of established church ministry and started gathering as equals in an interactive, participatory community, that we could relax and lay aside the act, and start being ourselves.
Meeting in rows sets one person up to be a role model, to have all the answers and to take responsibility for the spiritual growth and well-being of the whole community. Meeting in a circle puts everybody on an equal footing, allows us to admit we don’t have all the answers, and to share the burdens of the whole community as we grow together. Changing the layout doesn’t just reduce the pressure on the pastor – it also empowers the rest of us to discover our voice, discover our gifts, and minister to one another as Jesus told us to. LINK
