How To: Humanize A Worship Space
To the question: “Have you ever intentionally transformed a physical space for worship?” .. the answer is yes … 🙂
Personal Tribute to Bruce Manning Metzger
John Piper’s Point number 5 was especially helpful since I heard advice to pemulate Metger’s practice by one of his former students: “5. He quoted a Chinese proverb: “The faintest ink is more lasting than the strongest memory.” Accordingly, he said in his Memoir (Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, p.229) that he made notes of noteworthy sayings on 3 by 5 cards as he read throughout his life. There are over 20,000 of these which were left to the archives at Princeton. One of them from R. W. Sockman says, “Time is the deposit each one has in the bank of God, and no one knows the balance.” (Until the note falls due.)”
Ten propositions on theodicy
Strange food for thought when most people are not thinking about this during Chinese new year!
Evangelical? Obama’s faith too complex for simple label (HT: Andy Rowell)
I wonder how many people increasingly resonate with these sentences: “… for many of us, faith is complicated, messy, a work in progress.
And, if we’re honest about it, the standard labels just don’t fit.”
God’s Already Decided – Why Pray?
The combination of humor and hidden research made communicated in simple language made me giggle and think at the same time. Alwyn has a way of doing that!
Things We Have Come to Accept in Youth Ministry (HT: Marko)
Once upon a time I was a youth pastor.
Dudley Woodberry and Dialogue with Islam
“… meaningful dialogue does not require that the participants relinquish a witness concerning their faith. Nor does it mean we can’t disagree about how they understand their history and faith. But it does require that we listen and learn what they really think. “
Saying Something Theological
Let’s hear what a president who’s also a Calvinist has to say … “I am no universalist. I believe that refusing to put your faith in Jesus is something that imperils your soul for all eternity. There is no salvation apart from Christ. But how Jesus gets a hold of people and how he brings them into his heavenly Kingdom is surrounded–for me at least–by a lot of mystery. I’m glad the verdict on who is in and who is out is not up to me, but to the Spirit who is described by the Westminster Confession as the One who “who worketh when and where, and how he pleaseth.””
A Christian Celebration of Chinese New Year (HT: Bob Kee)
While I think “contextualization” is more than giving new and fresh Christian meanings to existing practices, I do applaud attempts like this one. I see them as baby steps. I used it as a sermon opener today. Interesting reactions.