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Flotsam and jetsam (2/22)

February 22, 2012 in Flotsam and jetsam with 2 Comments

worst tip ever

Good Reads

  • Always Mardi Gras and Never Easter: A cross-shaped Christianity might leave behind those seeking a civil religious cover for their wild Bacchus worship or their rigid Stoic legalism. But it might prompt a world gorged on riotous living to seek the more permanent things instead.
  • Religion for Everyone: The decline of religion in the West has brought a decline in community spirit. Could the secular world draw useful lessons from religious life? Alain de Botton offers new ways to find shared meaning.
  • Love Your (Theological) Enemies: I find it hard enough to love the people I agree with. So how can I love someone on the other side, especially when the things that divide us are theological principles that really matter?
  • An Open Letter to Praise Bands: It seems to me that you are often simply co-opted into a practice without being encouraged to reflect on its rationale, its “reason why.” In other words, it seems to me that you are often recruited to “lead worship” without much opportunity to pause and reflect on the nature of “worship” and what it would mean to “lead.”

Flotsam and jetsam (2/20)

February 20, 2012 in Flotsam and jetsam with 0 Comments

Good Reads

  • The Forgotten Influence of Martin Luther: At the time of his death he left a world turned upside down. There were lifetimes of work left to be done, but Luther would have to leave it to be finished by those who would follow after him and carry on what he had started. Today, 466 years after that stroke, the voice of Luther still rings through the church.
  • When Should a Leader Leave?: I would never pretend to know the will of God for leaders. Indeed I am reticent even to suggest these reasons lest someone grasp one or more and leave his or her position of leadership prematurely. Nevertheless I interviewed dozens of leaders I respect. One of the simple questions I asked them was: How did you know it was time to leave your previous position of leadership?
  • Miracles in the Bible and Today: Most stunning to me on a personal level were sincere eyewitness claims from people that I or my wife have long known and trusted, including everything from cures of blindness to restoration from apparent death.
  • The True Story of the First Crusade (NYT): That story, and the papal authority it underlined, shaped the next 500 years of European history. Even today, the idea at the center of the crusades, that religion has long been at the heart of the East-West divide, drives foreign policy from Washington to Islamabad. But the real story is much more complicated, and much more earthly, than most people recognize.

A Prayer for Sunday (Martin Luther)

February 19, 2012 in Church History, Prayers with 0 Comments

Martin Luther at Worms

In honor of the fact that yesterday marked the anniversary of Martin Luther’s death (February 18, 1546), today’s prayer comes from him.

Look, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it.

I am weak in the faith; strengthen me.

I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor.

I do not have a strong and firm faith. At times I doubt and am unable to trust You completely. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in You.

I have insured all my treasure in Your name.

I am poor; You are rich and You did come to be merciful to the poor.

I am a sinner; You are upright.

With me there is an abundance of sin; with You a fullness of righteousness.

Therefore I will remain with You, from whom I can receive but to whom I may not give. Amen.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Prayers, ed. Herbert Brokering (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1994), no. 91, 67-8.

Saturday Morning Fun…The Top 100 First World Problems

February 18, 2012 in Humor with 0 Comments

Flotsam and jetsam (2/17)

February 17, 2012 in Flotsam and jetsam with 2 Comments

Picky professor is picky.

Good Reads

  • The Jeremy Lin Problem (NYT): We’ve become accustomed to the faith-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim.
  • The Pastor as Counselor: During eras when church life has been vibrantly responsive to Scripture, pastorshave counseled well and wisely. They haveunderstood that their pastoral calling includesa significant ‘counseling’ component. The faithproclaimed and practiced in congregational lifealso finds a natural home in conversational life.Pastor, you are a counselor.
  • 3 Ways Smart Leaders Prepare for the Unknown: If we could predict the twists and turns in life, we’d never be confronted with the unknown. But things like cancer, death, or a sudden job loss are often beyond our control—they thrust us into an unknown world with little or no warning.

8 Common Misconceptions about Animals (that I’ve heard in sermons)

February 16, 2012 in Humor, Ministry with 2 Comments

The frog in boiling water. We’ve all heard it in sermons and read it in books. It’s a great analogy. Unfortunately, it’s only true in one very specific (and unusual) set of circumstances. Check out this excellent little video for the truth about the frog in boiling water, the ostrich with its head in the sand, and other misconceptions we have of the animal world.

I won’t say that I’ve heard all of these in sermons. Only most of them. So I thought this would be worth passing along.

How to Avoid Postgrad Burnout

February 15, 2012 in Th.M. Program with 1 Comment

Every journey begins with the first step. But too many journeys end before the last one. Tragic.

I once knew someone who completed all but the last two classes of his bachelor’s degree. Two classes. The finish line not only in sight, but within reach. And he faltered.

That is the unfortunate reality for many postgrad students as well. According to a recent article in Inside HigherEd, as many as 37% of doctoral students never receive their degree. Somewhere between the first and last steps, they falter. Tragic.

I’ve recently written a couple of posts on the difficulties of the academic job market. (See How Bad Is the Job Market for PhDs? and More Bad News on the Ph.D. Job Market.) But I know that many will pursue postgrad programs anyway. And, to be honest, I can’t blame them. That’s precisely what I did. I knew the risks. And I took the blue pill anyway.

Continue Reading…

Flotsam and jetsam (2/15)

February 15, 2012 in Flotsam and jetsam with 0 Comments

Good Reads

  • A Lost Generation?: Fewer young women are practicing their faith: How the church can woo them back.
  • A Love Note to the Workaholic: Many of us have spent the majority of our adult lives in jobs that train us to outrun and outsmart the experience that underpins love and connection – vulnerability.
  • From the Pulpit and in the Pew, the Knicks’ Lin Is a Welcome Inspiration (NYT): The children of Asian immigrants, like Lin, account for a sizable part of the explosion of theologically conservative churches — catering largely to young, college-educated professionals — in New York City. Many attend what might be labeled second-generation Asian-American churches that have spun off from congregations with worship services in Chinese or Korean.
  •  The Faithfulness Fallacy: In logic an ad hominem attack is when you criticize a person rather than their idea. What I find fascinating in both of the above cases is that the defence being used is actually ad hominem. In other words, rather than defending the actions or ideas of the person which have drawn the scrutiny, the defenders of these individuals have resorted to speaking about the men themselves. But who the men are and what they have done in the past was never the issue.

Jesus Is So Lucky to Have Us

February 14, 2012 in Church History, Humor with 4 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post this one for a while now. It’s a nice corollary to my Charting Church History from a Baptist Perspective. And it’s just funny. (Of course, it’s funny in that awkward people-actually-think-that-way kind of funny. But still.)

Flotsam and jetsam (2/13)

February 13, 2012 in Flotsam and jetsam with 0 Comments

Good Reads

  • My Thoughts after Writing ‘Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus’: All in all these past few weeks have been a quick lesson and reminder of where my identity is. Is my identity in my failures? Nope. Is it in my successes? Nope. Is it in how many views I get on YouTube? Definitely not. My identity is in the Cross of Jesus, and His resurrection. I’ve had to anchor myself in that truth every morning, because the voices of the world are incredibly powerful.
  • What does it mean to “Act like Men” – 1 Cor. 16:13?: Personally, I do not see anything in the biblical context or the usage of the word that requires a male orientation….But whatever it nuances may be, it is certainly a call for a mature courage, and that is always a good word.
  • M.I.A. Shouldn’t Have Apologized (New Yorker): television viewers were submitted to ad after ad that likened women—negatively—to sofas, cars, and candy. Mr. Winter didn’t have anything to say about that, so I’d like to raise both of my middle fingers to him and anyone who thinks profanity is somehow more harmful to our children than images of violence and misogyny.
  • Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor (NYT): Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.
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