Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
what I'm reading
I got a Barnes & Noble Nook. So I've been downloading a lot of classics for free - Dostoyevsky, Darwin, Muir. Maybe I'll even read Pride and Prejudice if I get bored. The only book I've bought so far was Rob Bell's Love Wins for $10.99.
I use Facebook's Visual Bookshelf app to keep track of past, present, and possible reads. My lifelong goal is to eventually read 1,000 books. I've got 252 so far (if my memory serves me right - I added a bunch of titles from my sustained middle school reading-spree). In 2009, I read 66 books and 14,700 pages and worked through a lot of good titles. I doubt I'll ever hit that yearly number again until I retire, so it will probably take me a few decades to hit the mil. But whenever I want to go on a book buying spree, I pull out my "want to read" list and go crazy.
Anyway, I wanted to list some of the recent titles that in some way touch religion/spirituality (Sawyer House Clergy). Sorry, I don't have time for reviews:
*Orthodoxy (Chesterton)
*Love Wins (Rob Bell)
*Desire of Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus (Thomas Cahill, recommended in an older Rob Bell book)
*The Preservationist (David Maine) great fictional take on the Flood story
*The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (Soong-chan Rah)
*Living Mission: The Vision and Voices of New Friars (various)
*A Spirituality of the Road (David Bosch) on missions
*A New Kind of Christianity (Brian McLaren)
*Pilgrimage of a Soul (Phileena Heuertz) by our co-executive director
*God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (John F. Haught)
*Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical's Inside View of White Christianity (Edward Gilbreath)
*The Myth of a Christian Nation (Greg Boyd)
*The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture (Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove)
I use Facebook's Visual Bookshelf app to keep track of past, present, and possible reads. My lifelong goal is to eventually read 1,000 books. I've got 252 so far (if my memory serves me right - I added a bunch of titles from my sustained middle school reading-spree). In 2009, I read 66 books and 14,700 pages and worked through a lot of good titles. I doubt I'll ever hit that yearly number again until I retire, so it will probably take me a few decades to hit the mil. But whenever I want to go on a book buying spree, I pull out my "want to read" list and go crazy.
Anyway, I wanted to list some of the recent titles that in some way touch religion/spirituality (Sawyer House Clergy). Sorry, I don't have time for reviews:
*Orthodoxy (Chesterton)
*Love Wins (Rob Bell)
*Desire of Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus (Thomas Cahill, recommended in an older Rob Bell book)
*The Preservationist (David Maine) great fictional take on the Flood story
*The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (Soong-chan Rah)
*Living Mission: The Vision and Voices of New Friars (various)
*A Spirituality of the Road (David Bosch) on missions
*A New Kind of Christianity (Brian McLaren)
*Pilgrimage of a Soul (Phileena Heuertz) by our co-executive director
*God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (John F. Haught)
*Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical's Inside View of White Christianity (Edward Gilbreath)
*The Myth of a Christian Nation (Greg Boyd)
*The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture (Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove)
Monday, March 7, 2011
Are you living a great story with your life? from Donald Miller on Vimeo.
http://www.amazon.com/Million-Miles-Thousand-Years-Learned/dp/1400202981/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1276717752&sr=1-1
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Free Media
I think I posted this last year but WorshipHouseMedia is offering some free stuff between now and Christmas. Today's offering is a little weak (would have been great in 1997) but in the past they've given away some very quality stuff.
Check it out here: Worship House 12 Days of Christmas
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
"The New Ecumenicism" by Chris Heuertz
Thought you all might enjoy this article by the Int' Exec. Director of my organization, Word Made Flesh.
It's called "The New Ecumenicism". Here's a teaser:
It's called "The New Ecumenicism". Here's a teaser:
I was raised Catholic, but when I was around 10 or 11 years old, my parents joined a Protestant church.
As a child, the only noticeable difference was that mass had been shorted but required much more physical participation. The standing, sitting, standing, kneeling was disruptive to my attempts to sleep through church, while the Protestant services were notably longer, allowing for fairly undisturbed sleep...
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
10 Commandments of Scripture Interpretation
Had to share this from the Out of Ur blog... especially since I don't think I've ever posted (well, this isn't original content either, but...) and there has been a drought on this blog since June. Enjoy!
This is a particular temptation among evangelicals who hold a very high view of Scripture. We forget that our highest calling is not to have a relationship with the Bible but with Jesus Christ about whom the Bible testifies. (John 5:39)
II. You shall honor the Scriptures as sufficient.
We have a common temptation to get “behind the text” or discover what “really happened.” While archeology and other disciplines are incredibly important, we must not forget that what God has given in the Scriptures is enough for life and faith.
III. You shall remember the metanarrative and keep it wholly.
In my experience more Christians can recap the meta-narrative of the Star Wars saga than can recap the biblical meta-narrative. It’s not enough to know the stories and events in the Bible. We must know how they fit together to tell a single story.
IV. You shall honor the Church as the recipient and the guardian of the Scriptures.
The books and letters in the Bible, with a few exceptions, were not written to individuals but to communities of believers. We must be careful not to read everything through the lenses of Western individualism. And we are wise to listen to how Christians in ages past have understood the teachings of Scripture.
V. You shall not neglect the context.
Proof texting (finding verses to make your point), isolating (removing a text from its surrounding material), and synchronizing (taking different gospel accounts of the same event and smashing them together) are all ways of abusing the text and landing on bad interpretations.
VI. You shall not ask questions the text does not want to answer.
Almost every nasty debate about Scripture results from forcing answers from the text it never intended to answer. Debates about creation in Genesis 1 and 2 fall into this category as do most other scientific issues. Avoid a “morbid interest in controversial questions” (1 Tim 6:4).
VII. You shall embrace both the form and content of Scripture as inspired by God.
When teaching the Bible we often retain the content or message but give little attention to the genre or style of the text. We lose something when we teach narrative as didactic truth, or when we ignore the poetic structure and beauty of a Psalm. And there’s a reason God said “You shall not murder” rather than “You will love life.” Do we see that?
VIII. You shall study Scripture for wisdom and not merely knowledge, and never for pride.
I’m really impressed that you’ve memorized 400 verses and took first prize in your Bible Quiz league. Now quit being such a jerk. (1 Cor. 8:1)
IX. You shall exegete your culture and not merely the Scriptures.
The goal is not merely to understand what the Bible said to those who lived centuries ago, but hear it anew today. Proper teaching requires that we bring the Word of God into our world and help people feel the gravity and beauty of it for their lives and context.
X. You shall remember that the simplest interpretation is usually, but not always, correct.
There is no Bible Code! And if you have to do all kinds of contortions with Scripture to get it to fit into your theological framework, you’re probably guilty of something bad. Paradoxes abound in Scripture. If your theology doesn’t allow for that kind of ambiguity and mystery I suggest you try Deism.
Skye Jethani is senior editor of Leadership Journal, Out of Ur, and Catalyst Leadership. He is the author of The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, and he blogs regularly at The Huffington Post and SkyeJethani.com.
Skye Jethani's simple guidelines for engaging the Bible and avoiding unhelpful controversy.
I. You shall not make for yourself an idol out of Scripture. This is a particular temptation among evangelicals who hold a very high view of Scripture. We forget that our highest calling is not to have a relationship with the Bible but with Jesus Christ about whom the Bible testifies. (John 5:39)
II. You shall honor the Scriptures as sufficient.
We have a common temptation to get “behind the text” or discover what “really happened.” While archeology and other disciplines are incredibly important, we must not forget that what God has given in the Scriptures is enough for life and faith.
III. You shall remember the metanarrative and keep it wholly.
In my experience more Christians can recap the meta-narrative of the Star Wars saga than can recap the biblical meta-narrative. It’s not enough to know the stories and events in the Bible. We must know how they fit together to tell a single story.
IV. You shall honor the Church as the recipient and the guardian of the Scriptures.
The books and letters in the Bible, with a few exceptions, were not written to individuals but to communities of believers. We must be careful not to read everything through the lenses of Western individualism. And we are wise to listen to how Christians in ages past have understood the teachings of Scripture.
V. You shall not neglect the context.
Proof texting (finding verses to make your point), isolating (removing a text from its surrounding material), and synchronizing (taking different gospel accounts of the same event and smashing them together) are all ways of abusing the text and landing on bad interpretations.
VI. You shall not ask questions the text does not want to answer.
Almost every nasty debate about Scripture results from forcing answers from the text it never intended to answer. Debates about creation in Genesis 1 and 2 fall into this category as do most other scientific issues. Avoid a “morbid interest in controversial questions” (1 Tim 6:4).
VII. You shall embrace both the form and content of Scripture as inspired by God.
When teaching the Bible we often retain the content or message but give little attention to the genre or style of the text. We lose something when we teach narrative as didactic truth, or when we ignore the poetic structure and beauty of a Psalm. And there’s a reason God said “You shall not murder” rather than “You will love life.” Do we see that?
VIII. You shall study Scripture for wisdom and not merely knowledge, and never for pride.
I’m really impressed that you’ve memorized 400 verses and took first prize in your Bible Quiz league. Now quit being such a jerk. (1 Cor. 8:1)
IX. You shall exegete your culture and not merely the Scriptures.
The goal is not merely to understand what the Bible said to those who lived centuries ago, but hear it anew today. Proper teaching requires that we bring the Word of God into our world and help people feel the gravity and beauty of it for their lives and context.
X. You shall remember that the simplest interpretation is usually, but not always, correct.
There is no Bible Code! And if you have to do all kinds of contortions with Scripture to get it to fit into your theological framework, you’re probably guilty of something bad. Paradoxes abound in Scripture. If your theology doesn’t allow for that kind of ambiguity and mystery I suggest you try Deism.
Skye Jethani is senior editor of Leadership Journal, Out of Ur, and Catalyst Leadership. He is the author of The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, and he blogs regularly at The Huffington Post and SkyeJethani.com.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Need some help...
I'm looking for a book or something that is a situation based discussion starter for students. Such as, "If you had a friend sleeping with his girlfriend what would you tell him." Obviously a more expanded situation and story would be great.
Anybody know of any situation based discussion starter resources???
Anybody know of any situation based discussion starter resources???
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