Anti-Drifting Practices

We spent time in our Life Group discussing spiritual disciplines.
There’s some push back on this. Seems we equate the idea of practices with spiritual gymnastics. But, like anything else, we must seek our own level, here.
Reality is that everyone in the group practices a spiritual discipline whether or not they recognize their practice as a [...]

Individualism in the Christian Faith

This subject came up for discussion in our Life Group this evening.
It was especially relevant for me because I’ve been reading The Free Church and the Early Church, a collection of essays edited by D. H. Williams. In the second essay, D. Jeffrey Bingham critiques the idea of individualism in today’s American Evangelical churches.
Bingham defines [...]

Prayer For December 23 to December 29, 2007

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19:
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock!
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might,
and come to save us!

Restore us, O God;
let your face shine,
that we may be saved.

O LORD God of hosts,
how long will you be angry with your [...]

Let Us Now Go…And See

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. Luke 2:15

I’ve heard this story so many times and continually [...]

Teaching Through Struggles

I’ve been thinking about teaching life lessons through your own struggles of the heart or spirit.
There are two schools of thought here:

You wear these struggles openly and in public.
Or you hide them behind a front of some sort. This doesn’t always involve the practice of deception. I can think of times when something like this [...]

Prayer for the Week: 12/9/2007 to 12/15/2007

On why he sometimes used what he called "ready-made" prayers:
"First, it keeps me in touch with ’sound doctrine.’ Left to oneself, one could easily slide from the ‘faith once given’ into a phantom called ‘my religion.’
"Secondly, it reminds me ‘what things I ought to ask…’
"Finally, they provide an element of the ceremonial."C. S. LewisLetters to [...]

Prayer This Week: December 2 to December 9, 2007

Psalm 43:
Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation;
O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let [...]

Prayer for this Week: November 25 to December 1, 2007

From Celtic Daily Prayer:
Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit,eternal, ever-blessed, gracious God:
to me, the least of saints, to me allowthat I may keep a door in Paradise,that I may keep even the smallest door,the furthest door, the darkest, coldest door,the door that is least used, the stiffest door,if so it be but in Your house, [...]

Is There A Difference?

I’ve been thinking about this question since Monday: What’s the difference between society and culture?
Maybe this is because I’m intellectually lazy but the terms seem interchangeable. (I know. I know. One word comes from the academic discipline of sociology and the other from the academic discipline of anthropology. What I’m referring to is a more–what [...]

About Praying in Prose

My friend, Raoul, recently played for me a song he had written.
The song was called “Praying in Prose.”
Although the song had a good beat and was easy to dance to, I had to give it a much lower rating than it deserved, mainly because of the lyrics.
The lyrics were a spoof of the prayers of [...]

Longing

Today’s quote is a prayer from St. Anselm:
My heart’s voice is to Thee,
my Lord and eternal King, Christ Jesus.
The work of Thy hand
dares to address Thee with loving boldness,
for it yearns after Thy beauty
and longs to hear Thy voice.
O Thou,
my heart’s desired One,
how long must I bear Thy absence;
how long must I sigh after Thee,
and [...]

Story as a Tool

I was asked this question:
Why are you spending so much time developing the idea that what we learn from the Bible is encapsulated within story. Why is story such a powerful communications tool?
Here is an encapsulated version of my answer:
I’m not sure yet. We can spend an enormous amount of time to design a research [...]

About the Plan

"Life is not something outside of God’s plan." (Dallas Willard)
Note to self: Life is not an interruption. It is the thing you’re here for. What do you expect? How can you say you’ve lived when all you do is complain about living? “This is too hard.” Or  “That was unsatisfying.”  Or  “This other thing over [...]

Weird Guidance

Just how weird is God?
It’s not that I’m trying to be disrespectful, but every time I think about what we call "divine guidance", I can’t help but conclude that God does exactly what we wouldn’t expect. He does something we would consider weird, strange, out-of-the-ordinary, maybe distasteful, disturbing, boring, dull, without flair, without fanfare, without [...]

Death to Life Dialogues 3: Think Bigger

The skeptic shifted in his seat. “‘Let us make man in our image,’” he said. “It sounds like there was more than one ‘god’. This isn’t how I remember the telling of the story.”
“You’re getting ahead of things,” said the old man. “You might know a bit of the story or think you know a [...]

Death to Life Dialogues 2: Beginning the Story

The skeptic settled down and sat next to the old man, who took from his jacket pocket a pouch of tobacco and a pipe. The old man leaned over and gently tapped the pipe, then opening the pouch, slowly filled it with tobacco, pressing it into the bowl with his thumb. He tamped the tobacco [...]

Death to Life Dialogues: Speaking of Death

There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest
James Taylor
Shed A Little Light
“The stench of death hangs over us from birth to grave,” said the old man.
“And [...]

Still More About Self-Doubt

Thinking yet again about self-doubt:
I think we’ve been fed a line of bull about the so-called benefits of positive thinking. We’re led to believe that doubting ourselves is one especially heinous sin–a mortal sin maybe–and that we should at all costs avoid committing that kind of sin. Pride is a venial sin. Avarice is a [...]

Re-Thinking Self-Doubt

My friend Raoul said:
Self-doubt is not only common– it’s also not fatal. Self-doubt does not necessarily disqualify you from participation in the telling of the story. In fact, if you leave the telling of the story to the professional religionists, you’ve abdicated your position and have forfeited what is the chief joy of the Christian [...]

Doing to Participate

I’m pulling this conversation out of comments and placing it on the main page today. Feel free to join in, even if you can’t quite figure out just what it is we’re discussing. I admit, I have some trouble with this myself.
The original post and comment chain was posted on May 18 and after and [...]