Ostrich Defense!

I don’t watch TV.   I make a point of not listening to the news.  I tend to get my news from my twitterfeed and facebook and even then I RARELY get much info on the tragic events going on around the world.

I do this because I hate seeing people in pain.  Maybe it’s a tender heart, maybe it’s compassion but I personally hurt when I watch the news.

“Tonight a massive earthquake rocked the Indian Ocean and unleashed a tsunami on Bangladesh-”

“…a vicious double homicide in a suburban home.”

“…outrage over suicide bombings…”

“…as the death toll continues to rise…”

“…unprovoked attack on civilians…”

“…twelve year old girl found raped and murdered…”

Forget Discipling

BSG Modeled after Jesus and the Disciples

Whoa! What?

You read it right, I’m saying that discipling is something that we need to forget about, at least in the short term.  I know Jesus says that we need to go and make disciples of all the nations, that we are to spread the gospel to all Jerusalem, Judea, and to the ends of the earth (which always struck me as kind of weird, I mean He’s God, he created the world so He knew about the whole globe thing…).  I understand that the pattern of teacher and student is one of discipleship and it is a pattern that Jesus gave us for developing one another and building one another up in Christ.  I understand that this is the pattern we have followed for 2,000 odd years and it is a good tradition and a good pattern.

But to be perfectly honest, I’m not convinced it’s working.

Statement of Faith

Cards on the table.  I’ve been saying that for a while now, but here it is flat out.  Here’s what I believe and what I feel is important aside from what I’ve written as my core values in my ideology.

I agree and adhere to the Vineyard Statement of Faith (you know since the Tapestry where I attend is a vineyard church) although I might disagree with where the importance lies.  But that’s divisive.  It’s what I believe and I’ll stick to it, and I’m really sorry if you aren’t happy with what you see there, but that’s who I am.  But like I said it can be divisive and I want to emphasize two things specifically that are listed on the statement of faith, but that are perhaps not where I would list them. 

Grace as a Corporate Value

This is a post from my old blog www.dcunderground.org.  It’s kind of longish and was originally written as an open letter to the business people I knew.  While on writing hiatus, I’ll be migrating some of my personal favorites to this site.

Grace, from what I know, is a peculiarity of Christian ideology that is so deeply imbedded and vital to the Christian world view that one cannot enter a church without hearing the word.  Graham Cooke goes so for as to state that Grace is so important that God will place people in your life to irritate, annoy, and otherwise make your life difficult so that you may develop a character of graciousness.

#ICSEX – Dinner Conversation

This is part of a blogging series that the Idea Camp with help from Dan King put together leading up to their conference in Las Vegas.  I’ve written about all the subjects so far and each topic has a link to a list of the other blogs in the series.  On my blog, all posts for this topic are marked with the hastag #ICSEX.

I heard a report today that children WANT to sit down at the dinner table and have dinner with the entire family present.  This ranges from 8 year olds up to 17 year olds.  I think this is wonderful.  For the longest time all we were hearing about was how the television has replaced dinner conversation and how the internet was corrupting children away from their parents, and it’s nice to hear some good news about the next generation for a change.  But I’ve always wondered what constitutes dinner conversation in a Christian household.  In case you weren’t sure I didn’t grow up in that setting and I decided to talk to some of the kids I work with and see what they had to say and what they said actually bothered me.