Articles
EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED: The Challenge of Being Perennial People
ArticlesYesterday I got a letter from a university professor in Uganda, wondering whether I thought students today were different than those of a generation ago—in particular, whether the cynicism of Beavis and Butthead had been replaced with the hope of Obama. It is a very good question. As I responded, I thought of the strangeness of the question being asked by someone teaching in Africa, realizing one more time that the pop and political icons of America are the air we all breathe in the “hot, flat and crowded” globalizing world of the twenty-first century.
Full of Beans
Articles | AshworthI recently learned I have high cholesterol, which comes as a shock to my youngest-child-always-surprised-at-aging self. In response to the news, I've stepped up my walking program. I even walk the treadmill at the YMCA when the temperature dips down—something I'm loathe to do, since I'd rather be outside moving from one place to another, enjoying the scenery. The treadmill became tolerable only after I realized I could read a book and walk at the same time!
Let It Flow Out
Articles | RobertsBishop N. T. Wright is arguably one of the most important theologians writing today. He's published everything from weighty theological tomes like Christian Origins and the Question of God, to accessible commentaries like Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, to inspirational books like Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope. When N. T. Wright agreed to lead an intimate retreat at Laity Lodge, we took the opportunity to ask him about honoring God in everyday life and work.
Your Work Matters to God!
Articles | StewartDo you sometimes wonder if your work has any real meaning to God? In light of eternity, is my job really seen as significant in God's view? Is it merely to provide a conduit of evangelism? Is it just something for me to do in order to pay the bills that are due each month? Do you sometimes feel you live a double life - church on Sunday, but back to work life on Monday? Could it be possible that our spiritual life, our faith, can have something to do with the making of money?
Your Heart Is a Political Force
Articles | NaugleDecember 13, 1999, Republican debate in Des Moines, then-Texas governor and presidential hopeful George W. Bush was asked, as were the others in the exchange, who was his favourite political philosopher. Which political thinker did he identify with the most, and why?
As the third candidate to respond to this query, Bush stated forthrightly: "Christ, because he changed my heart." When the moderator asked for more, Bush added, "When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the saviour, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that's what happened to me."
LOOKING BEHIND THE FABRIC
Articles | Engaging | GarberYears ago now, I began to wonder why it was some students I had loved kept at the vocation of their faith, and others did not. Never a theoretical idea, these were people that had become part of my heart. We had walked together, read together, prayed together, laughed together.
And then, inch by slow inch, they began to walk away, disconnecting what they said mattered most from the way they made decisions about both the present and the future—and over time they became different people.
The “Now, This…” Culture: Daily News and the Death of Wisdom
Articles | CarterConfess that you rarely read blogs, listen to talk radio or watch reality television, and most people will make no general assumptions about your intelligence. But admit that you never watch television news, rarely listen to radio news broadcasts and only read newspapers on Sundays (and then only the comics page), and the reaction will be markedly different. You will automatically be pegged as a being ill-informed, out-of-touch, and possibly even anti-intellectual.
But what is it about daily news that is worthy of such veneration?
“Thy Kingdom Come” through Hands of the Healers
Articles | HaleySeveral times a day, the Medevac helicopters fly hurriedly over the house in Washington, DC where we used to live. We lived in the flight path between the Children’s Hospital complex and points to the southwest. Depending on the direction of the helicopter’s flight, either it is flying to someone in distress, or it is carrying the most precious thing, a human being, back to the hospital for healing. And if the one in that helicopter is being rushed back to the hospital for care, what kind of care will he or she receive? What kind of doctor will they meet? Will they receive excellent medical care, and that is all? Or will they get that plus the gracious and powerful touch of doctors and nurses who know that their hands somehow are the hands of God to bring healing to a broken world and broken bodies?
Is it a Map or a Compass?
Articles | BaldaWe came across some challenging ideas from The Three Tasks of Leadership: Worldly Wisdom for Pastoral Leaders, edited by Eric Jacobsen. The book is built around one of Max De Pree's well-known statements:
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant and a debtor.
As the highly successful CEO of the Herman Miller Company, author of excellent leadership books, and longtime board chair at Fuller Seminary, his legacy is firmly fixed. His life and work have touched many, and his results have been lasting—perhaps because he has had a core purpose, a sense of direction for his life journey.
How Much is Too Much?, or Wrestling with the Place of Culture in Devotional Life
Articles | Umhau“I was born in a house with the television always on,” sing David Byrne and the Talking Heads in their song Love for Sale. What could be truer than that for most of us? Yet even with the television blaring (and sometimes because of the television blaring), we manage to hear God’s voice in the culture…because He’s everywhere, and not only in a monastery.
We know that, but we also feel a certain tension. Christians live in a gap between “Be still and know that I am God” and Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.” I for one often feel the pinch, wondering how to mind the gap.
