A Quote About Christianity

"Christianity is a faith for all people, but it is not a faith for all notions and ideas." - @MattWalshBlog

Book Review: COFFEE WITH JESUS

Like many readers, I first became acquainted with David Wilkie's "Coffee with Jesus" via a Facebook post that someone had forwarded. I don't remember which strip it exactly was at the time, but I liked how succinct and pithy it was. When I had heard that the comics of "Coffee with Jesus" had been compiled into book form, I had to get a copy.

The book COFFEE WITH JESUS is a collection of most of the "Coffee with Jesus" strips that have been published to date so far. I'm not sure if it contains all of the strips, but it seems to have most of the strips that can currently be found on the Radio Free Babylon website. There also seems to be a few strips in the book that haven't been published on the Internet, yet. The strips in the book are separated into seven thematic chapters. Each of these chapters has a short introduction. In addition, at the end of the first six chapters there is a short character biography about one of the re-occurring characters in the strip: Kevin, Carl, Ann, Lisa, Joe, and Satan. The book also has a well written introduction from the author about how the strip came to be and how it has slowly evolved since its inception. At the end of the book, there are some discussion questions; COFFEE WITH JESUS would actually make a pretty decent, albeit unusual Bible study.

The artwork is quite simple and that's part of the charm of the strip. There are no ongoing story lines and although there are reoccurring characters, you don't have to be familiar with any of them to understand the strip. If you do read all of the strips, you can see some slow character development with the characters. Some might find Jesus' comments in the strip to be a bit too snarky or satirical. Personally, I think that (for the most part) they hit close to the truth about our lives and help shed some much needed light into the darkness or shatter some illusions and idols that we all have. If nothing else, it really makes me think what Jesus would say to me if I was to meet with him on a weekly basis and share a cup of coffee.

Would You Like Some Wine With That Cheese?

A couple months ago I read the below article. I found it fascinating. I think it does a great job of articulating not only what the major problem with youth ministry is, but what the major problem facing Christianity in America is: a complete lack of authenticity.


http://ethikapolitika.org/2013/06/07/would-you-like-some-wine-with-that-cheese/

"SMS (Shine)" - by David Crowder

Send me a sign
A hint, a whisper
Throw me a line
'Cause I am listening
Come break the quiet
Breathe your awakening
Bring me to life
'Cause I am fading

(surround me)
The rush of angels' wings

Shine your light so I can see you
Pull me up I need to be near you
Hold me I need to feel love
Can you overcome this heart that's overcome

You sent a sign
A hint, a whisper
Human divine
Heaven is listening
Death laid love quiet
Yet in the night a stirring

(all around )
The rush of angels

Shine your light so I can see you
Pull me up I need to be near you
Hold me I need to feel love
Can you overcome this heart that's overcome

Oh the wonder of
The greatest love
Come for us
Oh the wonder of
The greatest love
Has come

Shine your light so all can see it
Lift it up cause the whole world needs it
Love's come down what joy to hear it
He has overcome
He has overcome

Remembering Mary Kay

On Thursday, September 27, 2012, Mary Kay Meeker passed away. I worked with Mary Kay for nine summers. Below is something I wrote the day after her passing, but didn't get around posting it until now.
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The first time I came to Camp Timber-lee was in the summer of 1999. That was also the first time I met Mary Kay Meeker. I had arrived at staff training late and most of the rest of the summer staff was out and about on a scavenger hunt. My village leader took me to the village that I would be staying in for the week and I got settled in. Later that night, Mary Kay picked me up in her golf cart and took me to where the rest of the summer staff was playing some night game. I don’t remember too much about the conversation except that when I mentioned my college friend who had told me about Timber-lee, Mary Kay said, “Ah, yes, I know him. He’s one of the good ones.”

That first summer, I didn’t have a whole lot of interaction with Mary Kay. Back in those days, if you were a first time summer staffer, Mary Kay seemed intimidating, sitting atop a hill in her golf cart surveying the comings and goings. Occasionally she would stop me and ask me how my week was going, but beyond that, I didn’t have much personal interaction with her. I do remember an incident during the last week of camp that summer. I had a camper who had to leave early or something and it ended up with me getting a personal ride with Mary Kay in her golf cart. I don’t remember the whole conversation, but it was more personal than the one I had not long after my arrival at the beginning of summer. She asked about my future plans, she asked me what was my most memorable part of the summer, she asked me what was the biggest challenge I faced that summer, she asked what I thought about my experience, etc. Then she said, “I hope you come back, Tom. You’re one of the good ones.”

I did come back to Timber-lee the next summer (and the next and the next until I worked there for nine summers). It was that second summer that I really got to know Mary Kay. That summer, the summer of 2000, was the most difficult and challenging summer of my life. I had a lot of difficult cabins that summer, including one that ended up being my most difficult (and memorable) ever. It was halfway through the summer, during the week of Independence Day. I had a cabin that consisted of four inner city kids from Milwaukee, three kids from the wealthy suburbs of northern Illinois, and one kid from the suburbs and middle class of western Chicagoland. There was major culture class from the get go, but there was also some major spiritual warfare, particularly with one camper. While waiting in line for supper that night he told me point blank, “I hate you.” Things worsened from there. By the middle of the week, the almost unthinkable happened to this camper, (who I’ll call Johnny): he was going to be sent home.

We went to his room to pick up his belongings. Then we went to the main office to speak with Mary Kay. She hadn’t yet called to have him picked up and was going to have him do that, but first she wanted to have a chat. It was during this meeting that Mary Kay came to be one of the women I have most respected and admired in the world. She started talking with Johnny and after asking about four or five questions, he was crying. She knew exactly the right questions to ask to get him to open up and all the barriers came tumbling down. She knew children so well. She gave offered Johnny the opportunity to stay at camp, but only if I was willing to continue to be his counselor. I agreed. I wish I could say that Johnny stayed at camp for the rest of the week and things improved dramatically. Things improved, but only temporarily and on Friday afternoon, less than 18 hours before the end of the camp week, Johnny was sent home.

Even though I had known Mary Kay before then, it really wasn’t until that week that I got to know her. During that week I was made fully aware of all the things that went on behind the scenes that many summer staff people have no idea about. More importantly, I got to know Mary Kay much better and from that point on she no longer seemed to be the intimidating figure sitting in the golf cart atop the hill and was instead not only my supervisor, but my friend.

I know that Mary Kay touched the lives of countless others. More importantly, the light for Jesus that glowed forth from her spirit was brighter than any Olympic torch or city upon a hill. Physically she is no longer with us and she has gone to claim her reward from the Master. Those of us who knew her, will carry the memories of her with us throughout our lives. Well done, good and faithful servant. I look forward to the time we meet again.

Flannery O'Connor and the Christian Artist

I am a Christian Artist. This is something I have had to struggle with for most of my life (since I realized in the first grade that I had a knack for acting and wanted to be a movie star). The World doesn't treat Christians very well and ostracizes them. Meanwhile, unless an Artist is creating "Christian" art, the Church tends to shun and ostracize the Christian Artist.

Since a freshmen in college when I first read one of her short stories, I have been a fan of Flannery O'Connor. I wish she would have lived longer so she could have written more. Recently I came across an essay O'Connor wrote entitled "Catholic Novelists and Their Readers." Below are just a few excerpts worthy of sharing. You can read the whole essay here.
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"Every day we see people who are busy distorting their talents in order to enhance their popularity or to make money that they could do without. We can safely say that this, if done consciously, is reprehensible. But even oftener, I think, we see people distorting their talents in the name of God for reasons that they think are good—to reform or to teach or to lead people to the Church. And it is much less easy to say that this is reprehensible. None of us is able to judge such people themselves, but we must, for the sake of truth, judge the products they make. We must say whether this or that novel truthfully portrays the aspect of reality that it sets out to portray. The novelist who deliberately misuses his talent for some good purpose may be committing no sin, but he is certainly committing a grave inconsistency, for he is trying to reflect God with what amounts to a practical untruth....

"Whatever the novelist sees in the way of truth must first take on the form of his art and must become embodied in the concrete and human. If you shy away from sense experience, you will not be able to read fiction; but you will not be able to apprehend anything else in this world either, because every mystery that reaches the human mind, except in the final stages of contemplative prayer, does so by way of the senses. Christ didn't redeem us by a direct intellectual act, but became incarnate in human form, and he speaks to us now through the mediation of a visible Church. All this may seem a long way from the subject of fiction, but it is not, for the main concern of the fiction writer is with mystery as it is incarnated in human life.

"The novelist is required to open his eyes on the world around him and look. If what he sees is not highly edifying, he is still required to look. Then he is required to reproduce, with words, what he sees. Now this is the first point at which the novelist who is a Catholic may feel some friction between what he is supposed to do as a novelist and what he is supposed to do as a Catholic, for what he sees at all times is fallen man perverted by false philosophies. Is he to reproduce this? Or is he to change what he sees and make it, instead of what it is, what in the light of faith he thinks it ought to be? Is he, as Baron von Hugel has said, supposed to "tidy up reality?"
Just how can the novelist be true to time and eternity both, to what he sees and what he believes, to the relative and the absolute? And how can he do all this and be true at the same time to the art of the novel, which demands the illusion of life?...

"There is no reason why fixed dogma should fix anything that the writer sees in the world. On the contrary, dogma is an instrument for penetrating reality. Christian dogma is about the only thing left in the world that surely guards and respects mystery. The fiction writer is an observer, first, last, and always, but he cannot be an adequate observer unless he is free from uncertainty about what he sees. Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. The Catholic fiction writer is entirely free to observe. He feels no call to take on the duties of God or to create a new universe. He feels perfectly free to look at the one we already have and to show exactly what he sees. He feels no need to apologize for the ways of God to man or to avoid looking at the ways of man to God. For him, to "tidy up reality" is certainly to succumb to the sin of pride. Open and free observation is founded on our ultimate faith that the universe is meaningful, as the Church teaches....

 "This is no superficial problem for the conscientious novelist, and those who have felt it have felt it with agony. But I think that to force this kind of total responsibility on the novelist is to burden him with the business that belongs only to God. I think the solution to this particular problem leads us straight back where we started from—the subject of the standards of art and the nature of fiction itself. The fact is that if the writer's attention is on producing a work of art, a work that is good in itself, he is going to take great pains to control every excess, everything that does not contribute to this central meaning and design. He cannot indulge in sentimentality, in propagandizing, or in pornography and create a work of art, for all these things are excesses. They call attention to themselves and distract from the work as a whole....

"The fiction writer has to make a whole world believable by making every part and aspect of it believable. There are many Catholic readers who open a novel and, discovering the presence of an arm or a leg, piously close the book. We are always demanding that the writer be less explicit in regard to natural matters or the concrete particulars of sin. The writer has an obligation here, but I believe it can be met by adhering to the demands of his art, and if we criticize on this score, we must criticize by the standards of art. Many Catholic readers are overconscious of what they consider to be obscenity in modern fiction for the very simple reason that in reading a book, they have nothing else to look for. They are not equipped to find anything else. They are totally unconscious of the design, the tone, the intention, the meaning, or even the truth of what they have in hand. They don't see the book in a perspective that would reduce every part of it to its proper place in the whole....

Visionaries Vs. Revolutionaries

A couple months ago, Jack Hager reposted this from Kevin DeYoung. With Easter tomorrow, it just seems right to re-post again, now.
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"It's sexy among young people - my generation - to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church.

Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It's immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marraige, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary knows it's the institution of marriage that preserves the romance.

Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries..."

A Port-a-potty in the Middle of the Interstate

Two-and-a-half years-ago, I directed a production of TWELVE ANGRY MEN. I had a great cast and it was truly one of the finest shows I have ever seen performed. On the opening night of the production, the night of my directorial debut, my father died unexpectedly. The night that was to be my greatest theatrical achievement (at the time) was forever tainted by tragedy. I’ve thought back to that night many times because it sums up the way I’m tempted to perceive much of what happens in my life: when something good happens, that goodness is stolen by the arrival of something bad. Take a couple of weeks ago.

Two Mondays ago was not a good day. We’ve had a relatively mild winter this year, but that Monday we had a major winter storm come through. In the midst of driving home from a cancelled meeting, my car began acting up. Automobiles have been the bane of my family’s existence. If we go more than six months without some sort of mechanical automobile calamity, it’s a miracle. When the car was looked over, at first it didn’t appear there was nothing serious. However, when the initial repairs didn’t fix the problem, further investigation revealed there was a hole in the transmission. Next to a motor, the transmission is the most expensive part of a car. This was not good news, but I took things in stride as best I could.

Around the same time this happened, I received notice that I got an audition for a pretty prestigious professional theatrical production in St. Louis. For an actor who doesn’t have an agent, who doesn’t actually live in St. Louis, and who (beyond a commercial and some industrial work) hasn’t had any paid work, this was huge. My Mom let me use her car so I could attend this audition. The audition went well. I was asked back for the callbacks and during those I got to read for a specific part a couple of times. I know that the chances of landing a role are slim, but I felt invigorated by the process and at end of the day I left very happy and joyful.

While driving home from the audition, I found myself behind a large semi-truck. I was going to pass the semi when he turned into the passing lane and there, in the middle of the Interstate, was a port-a-potty. I was faced with an imminent threat of a head-on collision with a port-a-potty, so I swerved over and ran over a pile of lumber that had apparently fallen from the same truck as the port-a-potty. Later that night as I was driving home, my Mom’s car died in the middle of the Interstate. I thought back to the port-a-potty incident and believed the lumber was the cause for this. I ended up having to be towed and what began as a day I had been looking forward to, turned into a very long night.

We found out a few days later that the port-a-potty incident had nothing to do with the car dying. However, the car did have some sort of freakish damage to the engine (“we have no explanation of what caused this and have never seen anything quite like it”) and the entire engine had to be replaced. For two days, my mother and I were completely without any transportation. For some that might not seem like a big deal, but when you live in a rural area where there is no such thing as public transportation and you need a vehicle to get back and forth to work, this can pose a problem.

Some very kind people at the church I work at let me borrow their extra vehicle for the week and some other church people are helping me pay for the repairs. God is providing.

So, other than helping me clear my head by writing this out and sharing, what does this all mean?

Well, I’m an Eagle Scout and the Boy Scout motto is “Be Prepared”. In Scouts, you’re taught to plan and prepare and to be ready for whatever might lie ahead. However, there are times that no matter how much you plan and prepare, life will throw something at you completely unexpected and standard operating procedures just won’t apply and won’t work. What happens when you’re driving down the Interstate of Life and out of nowhere a port-a-potty appears? What do you do? How do you handle it?

Personally, I’ve discovered and am discovering it is in those moments where God can really reach out and speak to us. I’m not saying it’s easy, because it’s not. You feel like you’ve been doing all the right things and have been following the right path and all of a sudden you’re world starts falling apart. You feel like you’re being punished for some sin and abandoned to struggle on your own. Yet, though, that’s what you feel like, that’s really not what’s happening. It is in these moments of our greatest weaknesses and vulnerabilities that God reveals himself in powerful and nearly unimaginable ways. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been forced to be dependent upon others. In our self-reliant society, this is difficult to do. Personally, I find it’s much easier to give than to receive. However, the past couple of weeks I’ve been forced to receive. People who I barely know have poured out love. Through their actions, I have seen God at work and that is a truly remarkable thing.

Life is hard. Bad things happen to good people and we don’t always know why. Yet, despite this, God has not abandoned the world. Jesus is here and he walks among us in the hands, feet, tongues, tools, and talents of his followers. I’m sure there will be more things like a port-a-potty in the middle of the Interstate that happen to me. Despite all that has happened, I can’t say for sure how I will respond or act when an event like that happens again. However, I do know that I will be just a little bit more at peace and just a tad less worrisome because of what I’ve been through so far.

Jesus Isn't Against Religion

There's a new video that's spreading around the Internet like wildfire on a hot summer day during a drought in the Plains. The video was posted on January 10, 2012 and as of today, January 15, 2012, it already has 11,000,000 views on Youtube. The creator/author of the poem is a young man named Jefferson Bethke. You can watch the video below.

There are a lot of good things that the author says in this poem. However, there are some things that just aren't true that could lead some astray. The intent and motive of Bethke is pure. That's not questionable. However, there are issues in the poem that need and should be addressed, not because, as Kevin DeYoung points out, "this video will launch a worldwide revolution. I want to spend some time on this because Bethke perfectly captures the mood, and in my mind the confusion, of a lot of earnest, young Christians."

DeYoung has already parsed this poem far more clearly than I could. You can read his entire assessment here. But here are a few key points:


"More important is Bethke’s opening line: “Jesus came to abolish religion.” That’s the whole point of the poem. The argument—and most poems are arguing for something—rests on the sharp distinction between religion on one side and Jesus on the other. Whether this argument is fair depends on your definition of religion. Bethke sees religion as a man made attempt to earn God’s favor. Religion equals self-righteousness, moral preening, and hypocrisy. Religion is all law and no gospel. If that’s religion, then Jesus is certainly against it.

"But that’s not what religion is. We can say that’s what is has become for some people or what we understand it to be. But words still matter and we shouldn’t just define them however we want. “Jesus hates religion” communicates something that “Jesus hates self-righteousness” doesn’t. To say that Jesus hates pride and hypocrisy is old news. To say he hates religion—now, that has a kick to it. People hear “religion” and think of rules, rituals, dogma, pastors, priests, institutions. People love Oprah and the Shack and “spiritual, not religious” bumper stickers because the mood of our country is one that wants God without the strictures that come with traditional Christianity. We love the Jesus that hates religion.

"The only problem is, he didn’t. Jesus was a Jew. He went to services at the synagogue. He observed Jewish holy days. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17). He founded the church (Matt. 16:18). He established church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20). He instituted a ritual meal (Matt. 26:26-28). He told his disciples to baptize people and to teach others to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). He insisted that people believe in him and believe certain things about him (John 3:16-18; 8:24). If religion is characterized by doctrine, commands, rituals, and structure, then Jesus is not your go-to guy for hating religion. This was the central point behind the book Ted Kluck and I wrote a few years ago....

"...Christians need to stop perpetuating the myth that we’ve basically been huge failures in the world. That may win us an audience with non-Christians, but it’s not true. We are sinners like everyone else, so our record is mixed. We’ve been stupid and selfish over the years. But we’ve also been the salt of the earth. The evangelical awakening in England in the eighteenth century is widely credited for preventing the sort of bloodbath that swept over France in the “enlightened” French Revolution. Christians (and conservatives in general) give more to charitable causes than their secular counterparts. Christians run countless shelters, pregnancy centers, rescue missions, and food pantries. Christians operate orphanages, staff clinics, dig wells, raise crops, teach children, and fight AIDS around the globe. While we can always do more and may be blind to the needs around us at times, there is no group of people on the planet that do more for the poor than Christians. If you know of a church with a dozen escalators and no money and no heart for the hurting, then blast that church. But we have to stop the self-flagellation and the slander that says Christians do nothing for the poor.

"Thanks for reminding us about Jesus. But try to be more careful when talking about religion. After all, there is one religion whose aim is to worship, serve, know, proclaim, believe, obey, and organize around this Jesus. And without all those verbs, there’s not much Jesus left."

Wooden Heart

A friend of mine introduced me to this video. It's an amazing video. The words are a bit difficult to understand at times, so I've listed them below the video. I hope anyone who sees this will be as touched by it as I am. Take this wooden heart of mine, Lord Jesus, and make it alive.



"Wooden Heart" by Listener

We're all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
And since that first breath... we'll need grace that we've never given
I've been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
And it's not only when these eyes are closed
These lies are ropes that i tie down in my stomach
But they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
And my dreams are sails that i point towards my true north
Stretched thin over my rib bones and pray that it gets better
But it won't won't at least i don't believe it will...
So i've built a wooden heart inside this iron ship
To sail these blood red seas and find your coasts.
Don't let these waves wash away your hopes
This war-ship is sinking and i still believe in anchors
Pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart i still believe in saviors
But i know that we are all made out of shipwrecks every single board
Washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
So come on and let's wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember


I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
But we're making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
We all have the same holes in our hearts...
Everything falls apart at the exact same time
That it all comes together perfectly for the next step
But my fear is this prison... that i keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow it's quiet and it's hidden


And my hopes are weapons that i'm still learning how to use right
But they're heavy and i'm awkward...always running out of fight
So i've carved a wooden heart put it in this sinking ship
Hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
Because i am made out of shipwrecks every twisted beam
Lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea
So come on let's wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together just some tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember



My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin rock me to sea
If we hold on tight we'll hold each other together
And not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
All these machines will rust i promise but we'll still be electric
Shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine my fingers in your veins connected
Our bones grown together inside
Our hands entwined your fingers in my veins braided
Our spines grown stronger in time
Because our church is made out of shipwrecks
From every hull these rocks have claimed
But we pick ourselves up and try and grow better through the change
So come on ya'll and let's wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together were just tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember

A Response to Rob Bell

Rob Bell is a pastor. He founded a church in Michigan called Mars Hill Bible Church. He became a celebrity in Christian culture with a series of teaching videos he produced called the "NOOMA" series and writing a book entitled Velvet Elvis. I've only seen a few of the NOOMA videos. They are well produced teaching tools that are engaging, informative, and sometimes challenging (unfortunately many people haven't seen any of these videos because they are overpriced-$10 for a 10-14 minute video is kind of steep and there are 24 videos in the whole set). I was first introduced to Bell at a Bible study where we watched one of the NOOMA videos. Later, a friend I worked with at camp recommended I read Velvet Elvis and I did. The book had some interesting points, but it wasn't as powerful as I thought it would be. Anyway, Bell's star has continued to rise in the ghetto of Christian culture, but that's all changed in the past couple of months with the release of Bell's latest book, Love Wins. In this book, Bell admits that he's a universalist (there is no Hell and everyone goes to Heaven) and, therefore, a heretic. Bell reaches a massive audience and Love Wins is causing lots and lots and lots of controversy. Below is a video that I recently came across (thanks to Justin Taylor) that is a great response to Bell's recent claims that illustrates the fallacy in his new claims. It's intelligent, engaging, and hilarious. Enjoy.

Robbed Hell - C.A.S.T. Pearls Presents from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Rob Bell Grilled In Interview

I used to like Rob Bell. However, in the past few years he's written and said things that have really made me question if he's really the "evangelistic Christian" he has proclaimed to be. His new book, Love Wins provides strong evidence that Bell isn't the person he has proclaimed to be. I can't say with certain, but it seems that Bell has become addicted to the small celebrity he has obtained in the past few years and addiction has now tainted the things he writes and preaches. Until recently, Bell was unaccustomed to being questioned about the things he preaches and writes. About two weeks ago, he appeared on MSNBC and was grilled by Martin Bashir. It's the first time I've ever seen Bell squirm. What do you think?

My Life: Passion 2010

I've been meaning to post this for awhile, but I just kept forgetting about it.

Amen.

The 3 Most Disturbing Words on TV

Mike Cosper wrote a very interesting essay about a week ago about the kind of messages that tv sends and how certain tv shows (not the ones you probably think) can subtly affect one's beliefs and values. Cosper writes:

"Good art tells the truth, and sometimes the truth is ugly. Sometimes people who suffer don’t receive a reward. Sometimes the truth involves sinful people doing sinful things, and in telling a story (even a redemptive story) it’s necessary to talk about that darkness. Sometimes what appears to be good for the heart and the family is actually an idol in disguise. At all points in the spectrum, individual tolerance for media should be constrained by a Scripture-soaked and gospel-informed conscience and by the input and feedback of our community in the church."

Read the whole essay here.

Thanks to Justin Taylor for pointing this essay out.

Faith

"Faith is embracing the uncertainties of life."
--pp. 89, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson

On the Unknown

"To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation." --Oswald Chambers

Tears of the Saints

When I was a senior in college, I wrestled with God. It wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last. Throughout my collegiate days I had been involved heavily in ministry groups. I went on three different mission trips, twice to Mexico and once to Chicago. I usually did at least one or two service projects a week. I collected food for the homeless and food pantries. I helped out at the city rescue mission. For three years, I spent several months preparing for a two hour program for inmates at the county jail.

Since I was about five years old I had wanted to act and be in movies. That had always been my dream. That was still my dream in college and still remains today. However, during my senior year in college I felt that I wanted to be a foreign missionary. I seemed suited for the work. I knew that the life wouldn't be easy, but because of my skills, talents, and personality I knew I would adapt to it and would adapt well. But, deep in my heart of hearts I knew God didn't want me to do that. I begged with him. I pleaded with him. I had an application to teach with an organization in China for two years that was filled out, but I hadn't sent in the mail. I don't know why, but the message I kept getting over and over was: "No. I want you here, Tom. Not there." It didn't make any sense to me and even now at times it still doesn't make sense. So, I never sent that application out and, as of yet, I've never become a full time foreign missionary. Instead, I've remained in the states and have ministered to the people around me in the best ways that I can.

I mention this because a little over a year ago someone sent me a link to the following video.

I cried when I watched it for the first time. It brought back a flood of memories and feelings from my own life. I had meant to post it right away, but then my dad died unexpectedly. I had never forgotten about the video and now seems as good a time as any. Hopefully, when you watch it, it will spur you into some action of your own. I know personally that not all of us are called to be foreign ambassadors for Christ. However, some of us are and we just need that extra little nudge.

Why Porn Shops Don't Have Windows

Thanks to Justin Taylor for this. The following is taken from a message from John Piper entitled "Do You See the Glory of God in the Sun?"
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Do you know why there are no windows on adult bookstores? Or do you know why there are no windows on certain kinds of nightclubs in the city?

I suppose your answer would be, “Well, because they don’t want people looking in and getting a free sight.”

That’s not the only reason.

You know why? Because they don’t want people looking out at the sky.

You know why? The sky is the enemy of lust.

And I just ask you—you think back on your struggles. The sky is a great power against lust.

Pure, lovely, wholesome, beautiful, powerful, large-hearted things cannot abide the soul of a sexual fantasy at the same time.

I remember as I struggled with these things in my teenaged years and in my college years —I knew how I could fight most effectively in those days. And I’ve developed other strategies over the years that have proved very effective. And one way of fighting was simply to get out of the dark places, get out of the lonely rooms, get out of the boxed-in places, get out of the places where it’s just small me and my mind and what I can do with it, and get out where I am just surrounded by color and beauty and bigness and loveliness.

And I know that when I used to sit in my front yard at 122 Bradley Boulevard with a notepad in my hand a pen and trying to write a poem—at that moment my heart and my body were light years away from the sexual fantasizing I was tempted by again and again in the late-night, quiet, secluded, in-house moments.

There’s something about bigness, there’s something about beauty, that helps battle against the puny, small, cruddy use of the mind to fantasize about sexual things.

And then turn it around: it works this way too. We know from experience that if we give way to sexual fantasies and yield to lusts and dwelling on unwholesome things, our capacities for seeing the sky are cut in half. And then cut in half again. And then cut in half again—until you’re just a little worm on the ground as your language and your mind is nothing but smut. It can happen to anybody!

And so I just commend to you: don’t let that happen. Battle lust—among all the other weapons that you’re given in Scripture—battle it with the upward glance of the magnificent blue and the thunder and the lightning and the sunrises and the sunsets and the glory of God. And say to yourself, “If I give way in this hour to that kind of thinking, I won’t enjoy this, I won’t have a large heart, I won’t have a capacious mind, I won’t be a noble person—I’ll just be an old gutter person.” Preach to yourself like that! And then give yourself over to the ministry of the sky. And let it help you free from lust.