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Just came back from a two week + vacation to the UK. Fantastic. Pictures and quotes to come I’m sure.
Verse of the Day:
“Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good.”
~Titus 1:15-16
Pictures of the Day:
This is amazing! “146 days of love” an 8th grader who is quite the photographer took a picture everyday for 146 days about love 146.
146 days of love
Lyrics of the Day:
“Blind these eyes who never tried
To lose temptation
I’m so scared, where’s the hesitation?
You so easily proved that You could save a man
I am that man
It’s better off this way
To be deaf, dumb and lame
Than to be the way I am, I am
It’s better off this way
Than be groping for the flame
Than to be the way I am, I am
Still this tongue for I am hung
By this wicked notion
Tame the beast, release
The noose I’ve woven
O, wasted tears dripping from my tongue
Well I’m hung, hung.”
~ “The Way I’m Am” by Jennifer Knapp – I am SOO excited to see this “Jennifer Knapp if finally planning a comeback”
currently reading to “Special Relationship” by Robyn Sisman
Verse of the Day:
“The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations
and thwarts all their schemes.
But the Lord’s plans stand firm forever;
his intentions can never be shaken. ”
~Ps 33:10-11
Video of the Day:
New Love: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Quote of the Day:
“The two greatest commandments Jesus gave were to love God and love people. Knowing and believing in Jesus is the greatest Love story of all time. And love comes from being free. It comes from the heart. Loving Jesus should not be a chore or should feel like something you HAVE to do. It should flow freely from within a person; have its own rhythm, its own melody, its own unique sounds. You can’t force somebody to make music. You can simply make yours and let those around you listen, inspiring them to do the same :)”
~ Part of a commentary written by my wiser-than-her-years cousin after reading the end of Blue Like Jazz (pg 239) by Donald Miller. We all could learn a lot if we lived like that huh? Thanks Boogie. MTWCS
currently reading to “Julie & Julia” by Julie Powell –reading the book before I see the movie (The way it should be done)
Verse of the Day:
“We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. ”
~Titus 2:12-14
Quote of the Day:
“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”
~Calvin & Hobbs
Lyrics of the Day:
“You don’t know me,
But i, don’t even know myself
We can’t pretend that i’m someone else
Try to surrender, i try to understand
I can’t remember who i am
The evil things that i’ve done.
Wash away, in the warmth of your sun
The broken man that you see,
Is not me, just a shadow where i used to be”
~ “Evil Things” by Marc Broussard
currently reading July 09’s “Food & Wine” -Best New Chefs – one of my favorites every year.
Verse of the Day:
“like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them on its pinions. ”
~Deut 32:11
Photo of the Day:
Happy Mother’s Day-I love you!
Mom & I
Lyrics of the Day:
“Your a revolution!
I wanna be
REVOLUTIONARY!”
~ “Revolutionary Love” by David Crowder Band
currently reading to “Little Alters Everywhere” by Rebecca Wells
Verse of the Day:
“No, I will not break my covenant;
I will not take back a single word I said.
35 I have sworn an oath to David,
and in my holiness I cannot lie:”
~Ps 89:34-35
Video of the Day:
One of the best messages I have heard in a LONG LONG time. Sooo challenging, so what this world needs! Well worth the time spent.
Flatirons Community Church: Waste Management – Wasted Talent
Lyrics of the Day:
“She said she didn’t believe
It could happen to me
I guess we’re all one phone call from our knees
We’re gonna get there soon
If every building falls
And all the stars fade
We’ll still be singing this song
The one they can’t take away
I’m gonna get there soon
She’s gonna be there too
Cryin’ in her room
Prayin’ oh, Lord come through
We’re gonna get there soon”
~ “Closer To Love” by Mat Kearney
currently reading to the May Issue of Gourmet Magazine
Photo of the Day:
Jackson Photography
Quote of the Day:
“Wine is bottled poetry.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson
Lyrics of the Day:
“My father had skin like leather
hands like steel
from a lifetime spent in the cottonfields
though hed come home tired and dirty
almost everynight
he found the strength to smile at me and hold my mama tight
while that old transister radio would play the opry out in the hall
id sit and watch their shadows glide across the wall
and theyd dance to a dixie lullaby
picture of love beneath the southern sky
oh my what a beautiful life
just like a dixie lullaby”
~ “Dixie Lullaby” by Pat Green
currently listening to “19” by Adele
Verse of the Day:
“If you brag, brag of this and this only: That you understand and know me. I’m GOD, and I act in loyal love. I do what’s right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. These are my trademarks.”
Jer. 9:24
Poem of the Day:
“WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”
~ “Birches” by Robert Frost
Lyric of the Day:
“If it takes my whole life
I won’t break, I won’t bend
It’ll all be worth it
Worth it in the end
‘Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
When the stars have all gone out
You’ll still be burning so bright
Cast me gently into morning
For the night has been unkind
Take me to a place so holy
That I can wash this from my mind
The memory of choosing not to fight”
~ Sarah McLachlan, “Answer”
STILL currently reading to “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte
Today it’s simple
read this article by Jonathan Merritt for Relevant Magazine.
The smell of hops and corned beef clung to the air. Green, red and blue Christmas lights blinked faithfully along the cracking wooden beams that spanned the ceiling. On the wall hung propellers, dimly lit lanterns, and an oddly placed oil painting of Robert E. Lee. A mysterious paper airplane whizzed through the air and slid to a stop on the sticky bar, which probably contributed to the sanitation score that was displayed all too publicly. The floor creaked. The bartenders hurried. The Christians drank?
Walking into a bar across the street from NC State University to attend a church-sanctioned outreach event didn’t even feel real to me. It was eerie and unsettling. I thought organized Christianity and a sticky, stinky, crowded beer joint were mutually exclusive. It was mixing the unmixables. Oil and water. Donald and Rosie. I kept waiting for a camera crew from Punk’d to bust in and have a good laugh with everyone.
This may not sound that extreme to you, but I grew up in the bible belt where children have to change the lyrics to “99 Bottles of Beer.” For me, this was beyond unconventional. Yet, as strange as I may have felt, mixing ministry with alcohol is losing its taboo as many progressive and emergent leaders are rethinking the place of drinking in both personal life and ministry.
I first ran across this sort of thing while surfing the websites of churches in the Acts 29 Network, a community headed up by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church. At the time, I admit it seemed like a fringe movement, something that I would never personally encounter. But, nearly two years later, after moving from Atlanta to Raleigh, I sat and watched a segment on NBC’s Today show called “Beer and Bibles: New Churches Lure Young Members” that described a St. Louis congregation doing outreach in a local pub. Without looking hard, I found other churches with similar methodologies in almost every state with ties to various denominations and even Roman Catholicism. My interest was piqued, and I decided to see firsthand what this was all about.
I didn’t have to look far to find “Theology on Tap,” hosted by Raleigh’s Vintage 21 church. On the second Tuesday of every month, leaders invite friends and members of the community to come to Mitch’s Tavern for discussions about life and spirituality, with hopes of opening up individuals to the Gospel. Lead Pastor, Tyler Jones, says that the event is “an entry point for someone who would never go to church otherwise to sit down in a non-threatening environment like a pub and have a conversation about God.”
There was plenty of conversation, and much of it was surprisingly frank. The list of suggested topics included the connection between the mouth and the heart, the nature of God’s revelation and the effectiveness of prayer. “Our generation is spiritually-inclined; they love deep content,” says Jones. “So we don’t give them watered-down spirituality.” Looking around the room, I saw a mixture of what Vintage calls God-doubters and God-seekers engaging with Christ-followers over a pint of their favorite brew. The rules are simple: “Have a good time and drink responsibly.”
Jones admits feedback has been mixed, and I didn’t have to look hard to find an assortment of opinions. Heather, a Theology on Tap regular, believes that by being more open in this way, the Church seems more approachable to outsiders. “People sometimes feel they can’t come to church with their questions,” she says. “Those questions are welcome here.” Her friends agree, noting that they have had the opportunity to plant seeds, build relationships and invite friends who would otherwise not come to church, all the while challenging people’s preconceptions about Christianity.
But I also spoke with Drew, a former Vintage member who left the congregation over a year ago. He questions the wisdom of hosting events literally on the campus of a major University where drinking is “almost encouraged.” While he had positive things to say about the leadership, he admitted their ministry approach left him and his wife feeling confused. “They love the poor, they preach the word, but at times they overemphasize their preferences at the expense of their message,” he says.
Drew is not the only one who sees alcohol as a wisdom issue. Dr. Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, is head of a vibrant school only a few miles from Mitch’s Tavern. He is an evangelical who is opposed to alcohol consumption and the mingling of drinking with ministry: “Do I call it sin? No. Do I think it is unwise? Yes.”
By making unwise decisions, he thinks some might be crossing a line to being like the world. “Do I need to smoke to reach the smoker?” Akin asks. “I don’t think you have to do this to be an effective witness.” The seminary President seems less concerned with the what and more concerned with the why. As he sees it, to make this type of leap in ministry is to do so unnecessarily.
Tyler and his leaders understand this concern, and are quick to note that they also network, plant churches, disciple people and encourage authentic worship. He points to the 900,000 lost people in his community and remarks, “We need the largest cast-net we can find.” For Vintage 21, the net being cast is merely one component in their effort to evangelize in a way that discourages legalism. They believe this approach is not radical because it is what Jesus himself did. Jones says, “If you study Jesus’ missionality and seek to mirror him, you will be led to do events like Theology on Tap. The counter-question is ‘Jesus did this. Why don’t you?’”
They note passage upon passage where Jesus went into the culture in places comparable to a modern-day bar to minister. He dined with sinners; He drank with sinners (see Luke 7). Since we live in a post-Christian world where people are not always familiar with and may be hostile to our message, they believe we must also travel into the culture even if it ruffles some religious feathers. For this reason, Jones describes his church as “Biblically conservative, but culturally liberal.”
Modern believers like the sound of that. They want a fresh and personal faith that speaks their language. As a result, there is now a tendency to question traditional ideology. Perhaps it is just the sour taste that the artifact of fundamentalist separatism left in their mouths; they certainly aren’t cultural separatists. So, the rethinking of traditional ministry tenets makes movements like this emblematic of the larger emerging mindset. Even among bastions of conservatism, we are beginning to see re-evaluation. Many well-known pastors, who in the past preached drinking as abominable sin, have now softened their stance and discourage it as unwise.
Progressives are quick to point out that this is not a recent phenomenon and feel they gain strength from the stance seen in church history. The Vintage 21 church website calls their event, “a return to the days of Martin Luther.” But it was Mark Driscoll who effectively threw down the historical gauntlet on the issue in his book Radical Reformission (Zondervan) in a chapter titled, “The Sin of Light Beer.” In it, Driscoll points out that many church fathers from Saint Gall to John Calvin were quite progressive on the issue and openly drank. But opponents point out that distillation is a modern phenomenon and with the horrendous destruction the alcohol industry causes in our social context, to compare it with church fathers is to compare apples and oranges.
Driscoll counters that a proper response is to redeem it for God’s intended purpose. “Everything and anything can and will be used wrongly for sin,” he says. “Simply because something is used sinfully does not mean it should be abandoned.” He says this applies to all of life including the internet, food, and God’s word¬–not just alcohol. It is this social-redemption that progressive leaders are implementing into their ministerial philosophies, hoping that others will follow.
But will they? Are these modes a whiff of shifting thought or a sophomoric fad soon to be outgrown? Will they prove to be a depiction of tomorrow’s faith or nothing more than yesterday’s news?
I am reminded of a story told about Albert Einstein who was giving a Physics exam. After the exam was handed out a student said, “Professor Einstein. The questions on this year’s exam are the same questions from last year’s exam!” To which Einstein replied, “That is ok. The answers this year are different.” Indeed, we have found ourselves in perpetual change.
Though we have been asked the same basic questions (How can we worship effectively; reach the lost; gain a sense of Christian community?), from time to time we give different answers. In recent church history, earth-toned paisley ties fell off the necks of pastors and were replaced by mock turtlenecks and open-collared shirts of every color in the rainbow. Hymnals and organs mysteriously disappeared, perhaps auctioned off to pay for screens on which to project flashy sermon notes and melodic praise-song lyrics. “Sunday school” morphed into “small groups,” exposition began to sound more like conversation, and 3-day revivals went the way of the dinosaur.
The last 20-years of Christian ministry has seen incredible change, each year producing a brand of pop-Christianity seemingly distinct from the year before it. One cannot help but wonder what will be next. What is the next change, the next shift, the next ingredient in 21st-century ministry?
Driscoll and Jones believe this is just the beginning of what will prove to be a significant shift of thought on alcohol. Others like Akin fail to see the frothy future envisioned by emergent leaders. He bluntly predicts, “Within a decade, this movement will decline.” Like all predictions, only time will tell.
In the meantime, both sides agree that unity can be maintained even if there is disagreement over methodology. Our prayer should be that of Jesus: “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21, TNIV). Let those who disagree do so in love.
“Rethinking Drinking” by Jonathan Merritt
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/pc_article.php?id=7625
Verse of the Day:
“From the dazzle of Zion,
God blazes into view.
Our God makes his entrance,
he’s not shy in his coming.
Starbursts of fireworks precede him.”
~ Ps. 50:2-3
Quote of the Day:
“The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.”
~ Pascal
Lyrics of the Day:
“I’ve tried more of me
and I’ve come up dry
trading You for things
things that go away
My happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
My happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
I have found the answer is
to love You and be loved by you alone
alright! alright! alright!
You crucify me and the world to me
and I will only boast in You
alright! alright! alright!”
~ “The Answer” Shane & Shane
currently reading to “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan
Verse of the Day:
“When I left the womb you cradled me;
since the moment of birth you’ve been my God.”
~Ps 22:10
Quote of the Day:
“Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you are to become who you will be.”
~Carrie, SATC
Lyrics of the Day:
“If I had the chance, love
I would not hesitate
To tell you all the things I’d never said before
Don’t tell me it’s too late
‘Cause I’ve relied on my illusions
To keep me warm at night
And I’ve denied in my capacity to love
But I am willing to give up this fight
I’ve been up all night drinking
To drown my sorrows down
But nothing seems to help me since you went away
I’m so tired of this town
Where every tongue is wagging
Where every back is turned
They’re telling secrets that should never be revealed
There’s nothing to be gained from this but disaster
Here’s a good one
Did you hear about my friend
He’s embarrassed to be seen now
‘Cause we all know his sins
If I had the chance, love
I would not hesitate
To tell you all the things I’d never said before
Don’t tell me it’s too late
‘Cause I’ve relied on my illusions
To keep me warm at night
And I’ve denied in my capacity to love
But I am willing to give up this fight
Oh I am willing to give up this fight”
~ Sarah McLachlan, “Dirty Little Secrets”
currently reading “The Great Modern Poets” (edited) by Michael Schmidt
