A dear member and elder of my church is nearing the end of his life. Frankly, there has been far too much premature death/dying and severe sickness in my circles. In times like this, I find 1 Peter a good book to review. Peter tells it like it is. He reminds us of our hope but doesn’t [...]
Entries from October 2006
October 31, 2006
Missional Church Leadership
Spent last Friday and Saturday participating in a conference discussing the future of the church and how her leadership must change (Sponsored by CityNet, a church planting/revitalization ministry serving Philadelphia). Eddie Gibbs (Fuller) and Dean Trulear (Howard) provided the keynotes. What made this conference different is that it wasn’t merely talking heads. We spent a [...]
October 31, 2006
How spam fulfills the curse of Genesis 3
The curse delivered in Genesis 3 is that childbearing will be painful, husbands will dominate their wives, and that the land will produce briars, impeding our ability to work productively. Spam is my briarpatch. Despite filters, I still get daily spam in by inbox. Just today someone sent me a wonderful piece of literature (several [...]
October 30, 2006
Science Monday: Counselor self-efficacy and client satisfaction
Each Monday I am going to try to discuss interesting research that relates to counseling process and interventions. In the latest Journal of Counseling Psychology (53:4), a group of U of Maryland researchers looked at how novice counselors felt about their capacities to counsel. The assumption is that counselors who possess adequate sense of capacity [...]
October 30, 2006
The reasonableness of sin: Why what I do isn’t so bad
Ever notice how our sins are a reasonable response to our situation? We attack/defend with hurtful words because someone offended and slandered us. We overeat because we are lonely. We punish our kids because they make us crazy. We give the cold shoulder because someone didn’t keep their promise. We cheat on our taxes because [...]
October 27, 2006
Gandalf on living in a fallen world
Here’s an amazing piece of dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo (from the movie, LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring) about Gollum’s presence with them in the Mines of Moria. To me, it illustrates several things: our love/hate relationship with sin and self; our inability to rid ourselves of sinful desire; God’s pity and reclaiming us (notice [...]
October 26, 2006
Protecting Desire 5: Using the means of grace given you
The Scriptures provide rich means to protect us from our cravings and ourselves. God in his lavish love for us has given many means of escape. Grace-oriented people who cherish the awesome power of God to transform lives sometimes forget the daily gifts God gives to protect us from our old selves. We’d rather have [...]
October 25, 2006
Of protecting the faith and killing blue birds
Got the latest print issue of Christianity Today. In it was a essay by Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Seminary. He recounts a story where then pastor of Tenth Pres (Philadelphia) Barnhouse was shooting grackles that were messing with his beloved bluebirds. With him was defender of the faith, Al Martin. After shooting a grackle [...]
October 25, 2006
Protecting Desire 4: Desires gone awry
Evil Desires and the Process of Becoming Dead
Assuming that I need not convince you of the existence of evil desires, I want to explore how God provides the way of escape from our temptations and tests (1 Cor. 10:13). In order to do so, I think it best for us to look first at how [...]
October 24, 2006
Protecting Desire 3: Additional positive images from the Bible
Desire in its Best Forms
God is a Jealous, desiring God. How does one describe the unseen, all-knowing, omnipotent, ever-present God? Words and human experience can never do Him justice. And yet, God uses words to teach us about himself. He is just, benevolent, holy, and sovereign. These descriptions evoke images of power, of needing nothing. [...]
