Christian outrage publicity

I groaned upon reading a friend's recent Facebook update promising a review of the latest scandal-courting pop-fiction rewrite of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. In our pop-cultural world, getting noticed is by far the most difficult feat. Any author who monitors his or her Amazon sales rankings can attest as much. Blogs and tweets and vanity presses—which once were supposed to empower the talented but voiceless—have instead created a cacophony from which scarcely any influential voices emerge.

One easy way for an author to break out is to offend Christians—easier, apparently, than writing something beautiful or profound. Literary merit cannot explain the meteoric rise of mediocrities like Dan Brown. Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King) called Brown's novels "the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese," and each of The Da Vinci Code's predecessors sold fewer than 10,000 copies.

....

Another thought experiment: Imagine if a journalist called a Christian leader to ask about Brown's latest Rome-based conspiracy theory, and the leader said, "That's a pretty tame theory. The Bible's own conspiracy theory is much wilder. It says that God is plotting to overthrow every worldly power and establish his own rule once and for all. And the entire Christian church is in on it." The magnitude of God's plan hardly needs exaggeration: This is the God who, when it came time to pick teams, chose an old man, then a tiny nation, then the youngest son of Jesse, and ultimately the life of a commoner from Bethlehem—and with this roster undertook vanquishing the mightiest empires of the world.

 Christian B Hays,  Christianity Today

He also refers to how a video game company cashed in on Christian outrage by hiring people to pretend to be a Christian protest group when launching their latest game!!!  Here's the link.

Stark: missionising Hinduism

Of particular interest is the additional claim that, because Hindus realise that all religions and Gods are one, Hinduism is not a missionising religion.  Ironically, this claim is made most often by people who are in the act of missionising on behalf of Hinduism, as in: "You should embrace my faith because it is so much wiser and more tolerant than that narrow and disgusting creed of yours."

...As the Danish religious historian Johannes Aagaard put it:

The nature of Hinduism is normally described in connection with the liberal reformers...Therefore the nationalist and revivalist line is turned down and the expansion and mission of Hinduism is not seen.  The result is a complete caricature of Hinduism and its nature and mission...for which the scholars are to be made responsible...It is not a minor mistake.

...The very idea that Yahweh, Jehovah, and Allah are alternative names for Brahman is anathema even to most Hindu intellectuals, let alone the rank and file.  Were it otherwise, how would one explain the chronic and brutal violence against non-Hindus that has gone on so long in India, especially since the British left, and the need to partition the subcontinent into Hindu and Muslim nations?

...But the definitive proof that Hinduism is a missionising faith is to be found in the presence of literally hundreds of Hindu mission organisations and centers in Europe and North America - many of which frankly include the word "mission" in their names.

One True God, pp106-109

Cottrell: brilliant para on casualties of change

With any real change in an organisation there will be some who are left behind and some who feel they have lost out.  Anticipating who these people will be and offering them care before the change takes place is not only the best way of honouring their disagreement, but also of preventing them from derailing the change.  In many organisations, and especially the Church, change is held back because a few people hold the leadership to ransom.  Or else real change is never even considered out of fear of this backlash.

Hit the Ground Kneeling, p58

(and I like the phrase:  'honouring their disagreement')

Cottrell: big vision

Spur yourself on with a ridiculously large vision of how things could be: one that is beyond human imagining...

Of course there will be a sense in which such a vision always remains beyond us.  But let us not settle for a small vision, one that fails to inspire or terrify...

Leaders are the guardians of this vision.

Hit the Ground Kneeling, p50&52

Determination, again...

A while ago I wrote a post on determination.  I think this has to go with it...

Fernando: vocational fulfillment

As a leader, I am the bond-servant (doulos) of the people I lead (2 Cor. 4:5). This means that my schedule is shaped more by their needs than by mine.

Vocational fulfillment in the kingdom of God has a distinct character, different from vocational fulfillment in society. Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" (John 4:34, ESV, used throughout). If we are doing God's will, we are happy and fulfilled. But for Jesus, and for us, doing God's will includes the Cross. The Cross must be an essential element in our definition of vocational fulfillment.

I try to tell these students that their frustration could be the means to developing penetrating insight. I explain that people like John Calvin and Martin Luther had a dizzying variety of responsibilities, so that they could only use their gifts in the fog of fatigue. Yet the fruits of their labor as leaders and writers still bless the church.

CT

Problems in perspective

I write this shortly after returning from a week of teaching pastors in the deep south of Sri Lanka. These pastors' experience shows that when people pioneer in unreached areas, they usually wait 10 to 15 years before seeing significant fruit and reduced hostility. In the early years, they are assaulted and accused falsely; stones are thrown onto their roofs; their children are given a hard time in school; and they see few genuine conversions. Many pioneers give up after a few years. But those who persevere bear much eternal fruit. I am humbled and ashamed of the way I complain about problems that are minute compared to theirs.

Ajith Fernando, CT

No one makes it alone

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell tells the strange story of Christopher Langan, a genius with a staggering IQ of 195. (For some perspective, Einstein's IQ was 150). During high school, Langan could ace any foreign language test by skimming the textbook 2-3 minutes before the exam. He got a perfect score on his SAT, even though at one point he fell asleep. But Langan failed to use his exceptional gifts and ended up working on a horse farm in rural Missouri.

According to Gladwell, Langan never had a community to help him capitalize on his gifts.

Gladwell summarizes the story of Langan in one sentence: "[Langan] had to make his way alone, and no one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone."

PreachingToday

Atlanta in a die

When couples choose in-vitro fertilization to create embryos to help build their families, the unused embryos are frozen for future attempts at pregnancy. Most couples are unprepared for what to do with remaining embryos once their family is complete. There are over 500,000 embryos currently frozen in storage at American clinics.

Although together these embryos occupy a space the size of a 12mm cube—the size of a board game die—they represent the population of a city the size of Atlanta. Size is subject to perspective. We all look mighty small from the moon. But to God, we are wondrously made and valuable at every stage of development.

CT

Marketing

Oh, things have gotten a lot better, but there is a long, long way to go. How I see it, too many churches try too hard to be relevant with all kinds of crazy gimmicks. In my opinion, people are looking for truth, honesty… real things. I feel that the gospel is often sold short because of some odd marketing schemes or being ‘the coolest church.’ It seems forced to me and not authentic. I think the main thing is to be true to who you are as the body of Christ and do all things with excellence. If you can’t do something well, find someone to do it better.

• Be honest about who your are as a church and what your mission is.
• Use design as a tool to help communicate the church’s vision and personality in a sincere way.
• Figure out a visual tone/style that is also appropriate to the project.
• Always do your best work with excellence, whatever it is that you are doing.
• Always strive to grow in passion, professionally and spiritually.

Michael Cina (top designer)

After the event - helping in trauma

There is a natural tendency to be fearful about talking to people who have been through trauma. For me, it was so encouraging to receive a card or have someone tell me they were praying for me. Those things are helpful. Even today, when someone says, "I still miss Fred," that is huge to me. Those moments are God ordained.

Every time someone has come up to me, emotionally present and honest, it has been helpful. Don't worry about saying the wrong thing or trying to make me feel better. You can't.

There is no such thing as making me feel better, and there is no way you could make it worse, so just be present and honest.

When people don't open up to me, then I don't get the chance to open up to them, and it perpetuates the separation, the distance.

Cindy Winters, wife of Pastor Fred Winters who was killed in a random shooting one Sunday morning.  Leadership

Cottrell - just one line

The leader has to model what the organisation must become.

Hit the Ground Kneeling, p49

Identity in pomo world

Who are we, really? To answer that, we need to ask whether the true self is a given that we discover or something that we progressively form. The two great competitors vying for our allegiance in sexuality—evolutionary naturalism and postmodern identity formation—have their answers.

Naturalism is all discovery—we are merely what we are—and what we discover is that we aren't much and that we don't matter much. No wonder so many struggle with despair.

Postmodern identity formation is all progressive formation—our selves are what we make them through the raw assertion of unbounded human will. Many believe our sexuality, in the words of Turner, "in some way defines the inner depths of the self" and is thus fundamental to the very "powers and abilities [which] the self is to discover, develop, and exercise in the course of daily life." It then follows that "denial of one's 'sexuality' is akin to denial of 'oneself' and so also one's basic 'identity.' "

The Christian vision of personhood takes us in a profoundly different direction: the true self is both discovered and formed.

CT

Stark: Missionaries & Imperialism

Finally, something must be said about efforts to depict Christian missionaries as servants of colonial capitalism.  This is a very old refrain.  In his play Man of Destiny (1897), George Bernard Shaw had Napoleon say that when an Englishman "wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the Gospel."  Of course, not only was Shaw a dedicated atheist and socialist, he also worked hard at "offending" the conventional public, much as did Mark Twain (1901), who made similar charges about ties to imperialism in several nasty essays about missionaries.  Anyone who believes the notion of missionaries of Western imperialism has probably never met missionaries or read an informed account of missions (eg Neil, 1986), and has certainly not read any sampling of the letters, diaries or autobiographies of missionaries.  Four themes dominate these materials.  Love of God.  Loneliness for family and friends.  The satisfactions of forming attachments to those to whom they have been sent, and the resentment the missionary feels toward all Westerners or local rulers who exploit or impose on the people  It was not at all unusual for missionaries to become deeply involved in bitter conflicts with commercial and colonial leaders in support of the local populations (Hiney, 2000).

Rodney Stark, One True God, p104-5

CSL: theology for devotion

For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.

CS Lewis, quoted Piper When I Don't Desire God, p127

Piper: centrality of the Word

God can and does show himself in other ways, especially through the works of believers (MT.5:16; 1PT2:12; 1COR.12:7).  But none of them reveals God with the clarity and fullness of the Bible.  All of them orbit around the sun of God's written Word.  And if the central gravitational power of the sun is denied, all the planets fly into confusion.
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We need the Word of God not only to see God in the Word, but to see him rightly everywhere else.

John Piper, When I Don't Desire God, p.96

The gift of anxiety

But isn't there something we can give God that won't belittle Him to the status of beneficiary?  Yes.  Our anxieties.  It's a command: "Castall your anxieties on Him" (1Pet.5:7 RSV).  God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency.

John Piper, Brothers We Are Not Professionals, p41

Crisis Growth

The "growth" that comes in a crisis will stop when the crisis stops—unless it leads us to make lasting changes...

But eventually crisis fades, and spiritual urgency fades along with it. We need to help people learn how to make changes that will outlast the crisis.

It's as if in normal life we step onto a treadmill and begin running after something—money, security, or success—when adversity knocks us off. Suffering enables us to see the folly of chasing after temporal gods, and when people suffer, they often resolve to not return to their old way of life when things normalize. But you have a finite window of time to make changes, otherwise you drift back to old patterns.

Soren Kierkegaard wrote that "affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice … but the voice of eternity deep in the soul it cannot drown."

If you have courage to make changes in your life, something can happen in your soul. The Spirit will bring the courage if you keep asking while the experience of adversity is fresh. Ultimately, adversity can produce hope because of a reality much larger than you and me.

John Ortberg, Leadership.

Gospel Peace

During the genocide in Rwanda, 90 percent of the people claimed to be Christians. We don't want to see that happen again. We did some work in Uganda a few years ago between two tribes, both of which profess to be Christian. It was a situation very similar to Rwanda. After Idi Amin left Uganda, his armories were unguarded, and 14-year-old kids got AK-47s, and 50,000-100,000 people were killed in cattle raids.

A missionary seeing this bloodshed contacted her church in Portland, Oregon, for help. A team trained through our Peacemaker resources went to Uganda and trained 20 pastors from the two tribes. They went on to train warriors, women, and elders. Eventually the two tribes called for a reconciliation meeting in the valley between them, which had been abandoned as a war zone. Some 2,500 people walked 15 miles from both directions to participate.

The gospel was preached and a revival occurred with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The people decided not only to make peace but to live together. They have now planted 60 villages of peace in that war-torn valley, 11,000 people have relocated, and truckloads of weapons have been taken away.

When visitors to the area asked, "What happened? How did you do this?" a woman who had been a catalyst for the reconciliation kept saying, "It's the gospel of Jesus Christ."

So whether the conflict is between a husband and wife or two warring tribes, the peacemaking principles remain the same. And church leaders committed to peacemaking will see it spill over into other areas.

Leadership