christians

Brad Pitt

Why You Should Listen to Brad Pitt on Christianity

In a recent Q & A for his upcoming film, The Tree of Life, Brad Pitt said:

“I grew up with Christianity, and I remember questioning greatly some things that didn’t work for me, [and] some things did…I grew up being told that God’s gonna take care of everything and it doesn’t always work out that way, and when it doesn’t work out that way, then it’s God’s will. I got my issues man, don’t even get me started…I got my issues… Many people find religion to be something inspiring. . . . I myself find it very stifling as an individual.”

Clearly, this preaching/teaching that Brad Pitt received was way off base. If his perception of Christianity is about “God’s gonna take care of everything” then his church, parents, and pastor failed him. Has anyone listened to his issues? Or, have people just preach “at” him?

Is this why Christianity is failing people? Is the wrong message being communicated? Does no one want to listen? No one wants to listen to other people’s struggles?

If Brad Pitt has issues with this type of Christianity, then I do too.

Uncategorized

Egypt: Blessed Are The Peacemakers

As I write this post, I’m watching the people of Egypt celebrating the end of nearly 30 years of autocratic rule of their country. President Mubarak resigned and left the country. People are setting off fireworks, waving flags, cheering, and singing in the streets of Cairo.

Despite brief isolated incidents of violence, there were no wide spread incidents of violence by protesters in 18 days. Though over 300 people were killed by anti-protesters, it took the peaceful protests of passionate and patient people to topple an unjust government.

We have seen Tunisia and Egypt change. Two countries in the Middle Eastern world champion a revolution. In Cairo, men, women, and children camped out for more than two weeks to protest. Christians and Muslims protected one another through this revolution. Continue Reading…

Halloween, new

7 Reasons why a Christian can celebrate (and remake) Halloween

Can there be a Christian Halloween? Can a Christian celebrate Halloween, which honors ghouls, demons, ghosts, and everything that goes bump in the night dangerous or even evil?

Somewhere, in the halls of history, Halloween or All Hallows Eve, got hijacked. What started as a day to prepare for All Saints’ Day (November 1st), Halloween became a spooky, evil, and candy filled observance. The term “Halloween” from its beginnings, had nothing to do with any pagan or evil beliefs. The Christian festival All Hallows Eve morphed into our current term Hallowe’en.

The key in understanding of the origins of the term Halloween comes from the sense of what is “hallowed” or “holy”. In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray, “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name…” In the fourth century, John Chrysostom tells us that the Eastern church celebrated a festival in honor of all saints who died. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Christians celebrated “All Saints’ Day” formally.

How did Halloween become associated with evil spirits? When we look at history we discover:

More than a thousand years ago Christians confronted pagan rites appeasing the lord of death and evil spirits… the druids, in what is now Britain and France, observed the end of summer with sacrifices to the gods. It was the beginning of the Celtic year, and they believed Samhain, the lord of death, sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves. The waning of the sun and the approach of dark winter made the evil spirits rejoice and play nasty tricks.

If the Christian observance of Halloween began with a religious focus, how can we reclaim and celebrate Halloween from its current feared status? Here are 7 ways Christians can take back Halloween:

Bible

How to Throw Away a Bible

How do you throw away a Bible? After some saints of my church decided to clear out our Sunday School storage area (who wants to do that job?), an unusual question was posed. “What do we do with damaged Bibles?” I was not quite sure how to answer the question. I figured we could donate the Bibles to the Salvation Army or another religious non-profit.

After the damaged Bibles sat in a box outside of my office for a week, another church member asked about the Bibles. I told her that we were going to donate the Holy books. She picked up one of the Bibles and pages started fall out. “We are going to donate these? How do we through away a Bible?” The look on her face told me that these Bibles were not worthy to give to anyone and she was right. How can you tell others about Christ when the end of the book of Luke is missing?

How do you throw away a Bible? That question just seems wrong. I believe the proper question is, “How do you properly dispose of damaged Bibles?” You cannot just burn them. I think. That just evokes images of Nazi Germany and book burning. A nutty pastor recently created a controversial event, “Burn a Koran Day.” Not the route we want to go here folks.

After some research, I discovered the answer to the question, “How do you properly dispose of damaged Bibles? The answer is:

Jesus

What Would Jesus Wear?

Hmmm... I think I'll wear my "Jesus is my homeboy" shirt today.

Many of us have heard of WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) but how about WWJW (What Would Jesus Wear?) Check out this actual toy , on the right, that is sold in stores. I first thought this was a joke, but then I saw that you can buy this doll action figure for about $15. Based on this action figure, Jesus would wear just about anything. Including a 80’s boom box stereo (look close in the back ground) I’m glad to see a cross is there. I think.

Some may see this as sacrilegious, but I think it is a point of reference for commentary in our culture. No longer is Jesus off limits from commercialization. Sure “Christian” businesses make money of Jesus related digs, but now we see secular businesses making money off Jesus’ likeness. Trademark infringement anyone?

The likeness of Jesus and his apparel may not seem critically important to the average person. Christ spoke a few times about clothing, but never clear on what to wear. There are references to sharing clothing and being watchful of the Pharisees wearing their religious clothing in order to be seen.

Should we be concerned with what we wear?

Evangelism

Why No One Likes Evangelism

Over the years, I have encountered many Christians who do not feel comfortable with evangelism. Loosely, evangelism is the process in which Christians seek to convert or share the Gospel of Christ to others. When you say the word “evangelism” at a church meeting, thoughts of door knocking, Bible tracks, and street preaching come to mind.

Guy Kent at the Good Preacher/Homiletical Hot Tub blog, posted a funny telling of a Charlie Brown cartoon:

A Charlie Brown cartoon once had Lucy proclaiming to Charlie Brown, “I would make a good evangelist.”

Charlie Brown responds, “And why do you think that?”

“Well, I convinced the boy who sits behind me in school that my religion is better than his religion.”

Now Charlie Brown is intrigued. “How did you do that?”

Lucy tells him, “I hit him over the head with my lunch box!”

The “hit’em over the head” approach is often seen as the worst example of evangelism. These days, post modernity has made us shy about sharing our faith. Anyone who holds to an absolute truth is a nut or is too rigid. Isn’t there a better way?

sacrament

Sacrament or Ordinance? (Part 1)

Recently, Karen Bullock, professor Christian heritage and director of the Ph.D. program at the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute, commented on Baptists celebrating their 400 year anniversary by saying, “…several theologians across the past half century have advocated that Baptists reconsider both the terms and meaning of sacramental acts…Some of this thinking re-engages the sacramental notions of churchly acts and ordinances…”

Over the past few years, I have been actively involved in reading confessions and writings of early Baptists who saw a theological strengthening in the acts of baptism and communion. Normally, to contemporary Baptists, the word “ordinance” is used over “sacrament.” This was done to avoid the Catholic understanding of “sacrament” and to avoid any hint of works related faith. However, over the next few weeks and months, I will present scholarly and lay research on the case for strengthening sacramental language among Baptists.

Indeed, the word sacrament was used among Baptists in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, “ordinance” stuck in favor of Zwingli’s view of baptism and communion. Even modern British Baptists use the word “sacrament” when they speak of baptism and communion.

I found this little bit of encouraging research that opted to spiritually understand what happens at communion. The 1689 London Confession of Baptist Faith, states:

Evangelism

Post Christian Europe: Not Dead

This past Sunday, we had the wonderful opportunity to have Pieter and Nora Kalkman visit us and share about their ministry in Europe. They spoke about their work in eastern Europe and their challenges in “post Christian” Europe. Nora and Pieter are based in Prague, Czech Republic where they serve through International Ministries as liaison and volunteer coordinators with the European Baptist Federation (EBF). They match the skills and interests of short term mission volunteers from the United States and Puerto Rico with the needs of more than 50 Baptist unions that are part of the EBF.

Some interesting information they shared:

There are only 2.4% Bible believing Christians in Europe, making this is a priority mission field.
Georgian Baptist pastors wear similar liturgical vestments that Orthodox priests wear because of the historical Eastern Orthodox presence in that region.
In some countries, only 3% of the population go to any type of “church.”
There are a variety of needs to do mission work. Week trips, short term, and long term ministry opportunities can be found here.

So if there only 2.4% “Bible believing Christians” living in Europe, we have to ask the question: Is Christianity dead in Europe?

outreach

In Front of the Church

Video blog thoughts…

Pentecost 3C

trinity

Once Upon A Time…

…there was a woman who set out to discover the meaning of life. First, she read everything she could get her hands on–history, philosophy, psychology, religion. While she became a very smart person, nothing she read gave her the answer she was looking for. She found other smart people and asked them about the meaning of life, but while their discussions were long and lively, no two of them agreed on the same thing and still she had no answer.

Finally, she put all her belongings in storage and set off in search of the meaning of life. She went to South America. She went to India. Everywhere she went, people told her they did not know the meaning of life, but they had heard of a man who did, only they were not sure where he lived. She asked about him in every country on earth until finally, deep in the Himalayas, someone told her how to reach his house–a tiny little hut perched on the side of a mountain just below the tree line.

She climbed and climbed to reach his front door. When she finally got there, with knuckles so cold they hardly worked, she knocked.

Churches

Small Churches Are The Next Big Thing

Brandon J. O’Brien at Christianity Today’s Out of Ur blog, has a really interesting thought about the future of small churches. The perception is that small churches are dying and are even the reason why Christianity is waning. However, O’Brien pulls from a number of sources to explain why the small church might be the next big movement:

In a conversation last week about the virtues of small churches, a pastor friend of mine, Chuck Warnock, quoted a passage from John Zogby’s 2008 book The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House). Zogby prophesies that “The church of the future will be a bungalow on Main Street, not a megastructure in a sea of parking spaces. It’s intimacy of experience that people long for, not production values.”

On the face of it, I couldn’t be more pleased with that prediction. I’ve pastored two small congregations and am now a member and deacon in another, where my wife serves on staff. My experience with these churches has led me to believe that small congregations are uniquely positioned to carry the gospel into the world in the 21st century. Few things would make me happier than if the “next big thing” in Christian ministry conversations was the small church.

Interesting take. Certainly, the Emergent Movement has taught us that small churches can do big things and reach people previously thought to be “unreachable.” Also, “house churches” have been known to start mega churches because of their simplicity and small community.

O’Brien also says there is a danger involved with small churches:

faith

Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

For some reason recently, while typing my Friday posts, I have a song in my head. Two weeks ago, I blogged about Bruce Springsteen. Today, I thinking about Jimmy Buffett and a great song he wrote in 1977 that still gets radio play and is a popular song at his concerts: “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”

Over the years, I have learned a lot from Buffett’s music concerning life, success, disappointment, happiness, and hard times. During the moments where I am too serious or too uptight, I often return to Buffett’s music when I need a change of perspective. “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is the perfect song during those moments of change or difficulty in life. When changes pop up in our lives it is often at unexpected times.

The chorus from “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is particularly helpful: Continue Reading…

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