Jesus came in the quiet, in the still and the small, and I opened my arms and said, I’m here I’m here I’m here. Take me, take my soul, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Help Thou my unbelief, but I believe.
Theology of the Kitchen Table: Fragments @ A Deeper Story
I need to say all of these important things by first showing this other, this person, this cosmos sitting across from me that they have been seen, that they have been loved, that even in our disagreement, they have been heard.
There’s something about the Eucharist in this.
Something about how at that Table, we are even in the presence of our enemies.
In which it’s not much fun being The Project @ Sarah Bessey
One after another, their big projects, their church plants, their ministry launches, they all failed. And quickly. In less time than it takes to travel once around the sun, these charismatic preachers went home to the Bible belt, and their parting shot? It was our fault. “You Canadians” are a hard-hearted people. (Now, I think they meant that we weren’t as loud or communicative as they would like, they prefer a big show of emotion and we weren’t very good at that kind of thing, you see. We didn’t respond according to the textbook.)
I wonder now if it’s not so much “Reaching Canada For Christ” as wanting us to adopt their version of church and culture and success. They wanted us to worship like them, to lead like them, to process like them, to think like them. They truly believed that their way was the Biblical and Best way. Bless them, it must have been hard and confusing work in a different culture.
Why Al Mohler doesn’t get Rachel Held Evans @ Mercy Not Sacrifice
When I look at how Jesus interacted with the Pharisees and what Paul had to say about his theological opponents, it sure doesn’t look like they were constrained by the pseudo-morality of the privileged that we call politeness. They called a spade a spade often quite rudely out of solidarity with the people who had been damaged by the bad theology of their opponents. Now I do agree that there is mockery that is just mockery, but there is also a legitimate role for teaching that follows Jesus’ model of “You have heard it said… but I tell you…” in order to let the rapidly expanding crowd of the ex-churched and never-churched know that the Pharisaic hypocrisy that made them leave the church or never consider it is not the only Christianity that’s out there.
There are so many smart kids growing up today who have gifts that God wants to use in His kingdom even though they would never be able to live in Pleasantville or believe that a guy named Jonah really spent 3 days without oxygen not being dissolved by the stomach acid of a whale (as if 2 Timothy 3:16 prohibits God from breathing out legends that are useful for teaching and equipping disciples). Rather than ridicule their “sophistication” and name it as spiritual pride, it is worth stepping out on the treacherous tight-rope of speaking the postmodern world’s language without getting sucked down into its nihilism. Not everyone has this mission field, but Rachel does.
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