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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Month: January 2012

Being Church in Our Culture

George 0 Comments

This post is from September 2006. My experience in the 5 years since then have affirmed the relevance and truthfulness of Keller’s words.

Here are a few of quotes from Tim Keller’s Being Church in Our Culture:

Religion says “I obey therefore God accepts me”.
Gospel says “I am accepted by God therefore I obey”.
On the surface religion and gospel look similar but the lives and communities derived from them are radically different.

If we cannot show the difference between religion and gospel then non-Christian people will think we are asking them to just be good. Non-Christians need to see Christians who so inhabit their city, inhabit their neighborhood, inhabit their professions so that by looking at the Christians they will have a picture of what they would look like as Christians.

As Christians in the culture, paradoxically, we are both radically different and radically the same.

Teaching provided by seminaries, churches, bible classes teaches us how to be church leaders not cultural leaders. We operate in a church leader grid. The progression of our training leads us through a hierarchy of leadership. The result is that we pull people out of their jobs into the church so they have less and less cultural impact. Our objective should be to teach people how to be more excellent and distinctive in cultural leadership.

Thank God it is Monday

George 0 Comments

Thank God it’s Monday. OK, so I am retired and it is easy for me to say since I don’t have to go to work. But, I must tell you I adopted that prayer long before I retired. At some point, I realized that “Thank God it’s Friday” reflected an attitude toward work and the week and to life that I did not share. Of course weekends have their special opportunities but it is during the week that life is lived and experienced at its best and worst. Living for Friday betrays a more general attitude about our life that says we believe the best of life is somewhere ahead of us. We are pulled through life by a carrot on the end of the stick. It is an “I can’t wait until…” philosophy. I can’t wait until… school’s out for summer … I get my driver’s license … I get married, have a family … start my career … retire … get to heaven (die?). I have come to realize how much that I was missing by wishing for the future rather than experiencing the present. That probably accounts for some of my lack of memory that I have written about. I attribute some of the “I can’t wait until…” philosophy, at least for Christians, to a truncated view of salvation. If we only view salvation as going to heaven when we die, our view of life will be skewed. Somewhere along the line I began to understand that salvation is not just about “pie in the sky”, it is present and real. We enjoy the reality of salvation here and now. Salvation is living under the reign of God here on earth as well as in eternity. That has profound implications for how I live and especially I how I view Monday.

Posted Oct 2006

Clarity

George 0 Comments

There are few occasions when you have clarity. You are able to get a glimpse of reality. Shaken out of your peaceful slumber of denial or perhaps wishful thinking, you find reality is not very pleasant. It is like a glaring light that vanquishes all the shadows and reveals your flaws. The disappointment is deep and the pain is acute. The natural reaction is to reshape the experience and cast shadows of ration and reason across the landscape. As Jack Nicholson would tell us: “You can’t handle the truth.” Those occasions can become a crucible in which the dross of our lives is brought to the surface and presents the opportunity to remove impurities and bring integrity to our lives. What is it that enables us to remove the dross? Why not just seek the coolness of the shadows and enjoy the peaceful respite from reality and wait for His return?

Posted August 2006