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In the last b’journal entry I mentioned “black box”. The term “black box” has several meanings but one definition is a “closed system with little understanding of what happens inside”. You feed something into these systems and something comes back out. You don’t know how it works, it just does it. Our economic system has [...]
I recently read this post on another blog about mixed martial arts groups forming at church. And as usual people some people have an (albeit mild) problem with this. Generally you can state the problem as this: “oh sure, that’s a gathering…but it’s not a Christian gathering”. It bothers me to see this constant distinction [...]
“Lights please…” All of the gifts we wanted as kids (and grown up kids) all had the same type of promise. “If I have this, then things will be better than they are now.” And for the most part it was true. To varying degrees the presents delivered on their promise. But it was temporary. [...]
I saw a blog post a couple months ago about money and happiness that has kind of stayed with me. We all have a constant undercurrent of things we’re processing and thinking of, and I believe this is God workin’ on us. This summer it has definitely been this. Without getting bogged down in details, [...]
In science there are a ton of theories and concepts surrounding “chaos” and “disorder”. It’s closely related to a concept called “entropy”. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. It is good to look at the amount of chaos and order in our lives. You don’t want too much or too little of [...]
Here’s a great post from Albert Mohler. It’s encouraging to see this kind of thing from a leader of Southern Baptists. In particular, here is the best part: Twitter has changed my prayer life. More than any development in years, Twitter helps me to know what is going on in the lives of many friends [...]
Some posts out there in the blog world about Twittering in church: Should We Use Twitter During Church? John Piper’s take. An article from Christianity today. To me, this is pretty simple. Twittering is sometimes like talking, and sometimes like taking notes. You can tell if twittering is appropriate if it’s appropriate in any of [...]
In church today the teaching was about Baptism and Communion, and a good deal of the sermon spoke about differences in experience and why our church believes what it believes. I got to thinking about what I have learned in the last year or so as we left our home church to see what’s “out [...]
(heh, if you read that…it sounds like “moron facebook”.) More interesting stuff from Anne regarding Facebook, Twitter, and in the general online experience. I like Anne’s site because we both seem to have spent alot of time thinking through entirely different things about the same subject. She is processing what these online communities mean and [...]
Here’s a great example of the Fundamentalist’s fundamental error: that of adding cultural tradition to the canon..then freakin’ out with Biblical authority about everyone who doesn’t do things their way. Check out this article on the “Gospel of Accomodation”. This is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. Look at the examples that David [...]
Acts 17:32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, We will hear you again about this. 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with [...]
(note the importance of the comma in this title) While I’m in a 2 year geeky reading slump, I used to read quite a bit of geeky softcover sci-fi. One of these books (by one of my favorite authors) dealt with artificial intelligence, and how to teach a computer to be ‘human’. The premise was [...]
I’m kind of a student of pop music. I examine melody lines and chord progressions of popular songs like a scientist would study grasshoppers on Easter Island. Assuming the grasshopper busted out in happy Whoa-Whoa’s and Nah Nahs, and gave people a happy feeling. That said, compared with some of my friends (Jacob?) I’m a [...]
Alot of times people ask me “you know that thing you blogged about but didn’t really get too specific? Well…were you talking about XYZ?” The answer is usually no. I don’t find too many specific things to generalize about. However, I often see the same patterns across my family life, my job life, my church [...]
An argument against more modern styles of Christian music is often that “the world loves this kind of music so it HAS to be wrong”. Even today, you hear these kind of things about music in church. “The worlds music has invaded the church!!!”, “Our church service sounds like a bar!”, “Drums came from worldly [...]
For some reason I’ve heard the word Revival come up in several contexts lately. As a Baptist, revival has alot of images. In particular, I see a large tent with a guest speaker, microphone with feedback, and the phrases “get right” and maybe “gonna burn” said. And lots of quartet music. But even minus the [...]
To me, one of the most powerful passages in the Bible is Genesis 1:26,27 Genesis 1:26. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all [...]
A dangerous strategy for an organization is one that results vibrant short and/or midterm success, but is doomed to long term failure. This situation has brought down countries, governments, companies, churches, families, and even people. The problem is that nearly all successful strategies are like this. They will eventually all give way and need replacing. [...]
Many churches today have “Family Life Centers”, “Christian Life Buildings”, and “Recreational Outreach Centers”. When I was growing up, we just called it “the gym”. The more fundamentalist among us are often highly critical of these facilities. They are called un-godly marketing, destructive to fellowship, an attempt to be “worldly”, and all sorts of craziness. [...]
So it would appear that Christians are switching denominations and in some cases dropping out altogether. Certainly it is un-remarkable that people do not believe. From the beginning of time, groups of people have chosen not to follow God. The real question is, if people are leaving…was Christ ever there to begin with? Can a [...]
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