SCC on GMA

I couldn't not post this. I have a feeling I will write more on this later, but I at least had to put this up for the 2 of you that read this blog more faithfully than I write it.



For those of you that read this on Facebook, use this URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh2VFkF7NLo&feature=related

While I'm On a Roll

I have recently found that Lark News is a good place for Christian news. Take this article on the new video game called Altar Egos: Rumble in the Pew, the latest church staff craze.

Here's a quote from the article:


"I like ripping up the hymnals. I don't know why," says one executive pastor who asked not to be identified.

Matches often get ugly as virtual staff meetings and Sunday services go badly wrong, with people hurling folding chairs and offering plates at each other, and yelling Bible-inspired insults ("I'm gonna lay you waste, snake." Whack!)."


So go and check out LarkNews, you'll thank me for it. However, if you don't thank me I'm gonna lay you waste, snake!

Stuff Christians Like

So it has been a while since I've done the whole "I-thought-this-was-funny-so-you-should-too" blog but it's mostly because those times have been filled with less-than-bloggable-but-still-funny LOLcats, LOLdogs ,and even the occasional LOLgraph. (Did you notice how I still posted links in the same breath that I was saying why I wasn't going to?)

You all know I love a good sarcastic ribbing. Or a good satirical shake-up. Even as I type this I am thinking that there are far too many hyphens in this post. All that aside, I have stumbled upon a great site.

Basically a rip-off of the not-as-funny stuff white people like, a guy has made a great humor site called Stuff Christians Like. Here is an excerpt (one that I continually guffawed at while reading).

#154. Breaking up after a retreat.

Next to unpacking, dumping your boyfriend or girlfriend is our favorite thing to do after a church retreat. We can't help it. The retreat speaker always tells us on Saturday night, "If there's anything you need to lay down before the cross tonight, to give up to God, come down and do it. Don't wait, this is your chance." And you are the first thing we think of. So we decide with our retreat friends that we are going to do it. This relationship is over. And then on Sunday afternoon when we get back, we call you and have the following conversation:

Girl:
"The retreat was good, it gave me a lot to think about."

Guy:
"Really? Like what?"

Girl:
"Well, I think you and I have grown apart."

Guy:
"You've been gone for 44 hours and were 119 miles away, what do you mean?"

Girl:
"God just really laid it on my heart that I should focus on him and not this relationship."

Guy:
"God told you to dump me?"

And so forth. The moral of this story is that if your girlfriend or boyfriend is going on a retreat, you better go too. Unless it's an all girl's retreat. And mission trips are even worse. Your girlfriend is going to start seeing Mark, that awkward but kind of cute guy, in a whole new light during that mission trip. It's a light called, "Look at Mark feed hungry children in Africa while my boyfriend plays Xbox back in Ohio."

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Unlike many things that I link to, this one actually has quite a bit of spiritual "impact," if you will. Most of the time it's all laughs but every-so-often there's a post that will hit you (or smack you) in a good direction.

So, check out some of the stuff Christians like. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

For You Single Christians Out There

Yeah... this should do it.



Wish I woulda' had one.


Taken from this sermon


(p.s. mandy pointed out that you can still play footsies... foiled again!)

On Being Purple In the Church

I usually don’t care enough to be political.

I usually watch the news and keep to myself.

I usually either get angry or disgusted or just thick skinned.

Something this week happened that made me smile. Something gave me some brand of hope. But then this hope was dashed by something that unfortunately is all too common and expected.

No one will argue (I hope) that Christians are supposed to leave this world better than they came into it. We all have our different ways of going about it but hopefully somehow we reach out to other people’s lives and inspire some sort of hope.

Problem is, we are human.

We like to think that we are a positive influence on our surroundings but time after time our actions are actually detrimental to others. Now you may think I am speaking in obscurities and over-generalized terms, but I challenge you to think of a time where either you have been hurt by a Christian who instead of helping you just gave you the lecture about how you needed to straighten up and fly right. Or worse even, when have you as a Christian failed to reach out and instead hurt another. I speak in this general sense because I don’t want you to think specifically. Although I am bringing up a specific topic, I challenge you to apply this to yourself. I ask you to look past what you see wrong in others and internally search. To ask if there is any wicked way in our heart.

In the past few days a popular pastor has been criticized and put on the defensive by some fellow Christians who do not think he is acting as pastor should. Rick Warren, the author of the ever-popular Purpose-Driven Life, has come under fire by conservative (Christian) special-interest groups because one of the 60 people he invited to speak may not necessarily be cohesive in more conservative beliefs about difficult issues.

Pastor Warren invited the democratic senator Barack Obama to speak at a recent Global Summit on AIDS and the Church at the Saddleback Mega-church in Lake Forest, California. Many groups and conservative leaders have criticized Warren because of Obama’s views on abortion. Obama is a self-proclaimed pro-choicer and many evangelical leaders have a hard time swallowing that and an even tougher time with the fact that Warren would have the audacity to have him speak from a pulpit.

Please bear in mind that I am very opposed to politicizing any pulpit message and passing it off as some sort of pseudo-gospel, and to do so is not scriptural whatsoever and in my mind undermines and soils the gospel of Christ. Here is the difference in this situation: What Warren is trying to do is not become some sort of flaky teacher more concerned with patting you on the back than exhorting you to a change of life. Instead he is being bold and using the influence and power he has been blessed with to reach out to others. He is giving his church (and other Christians) the rare opportunity to go beyond our church-lives and actually do something to help the rest of humanity. All over the world, AIDS is a serious epidemic that countless lives are lost every day to. We have a duty to show Christian love to the people who suffer and the ones who help the suffering. We are called to be a light to the world that points to Christ by our actions, not our politics. If we are ever going to make a difference we need to stop thinking in red and blue and start thinking in terms of humanity.

Rick Warren, by the way, is not being timid about his beliefs in this. He has been very outspoken about his clear-cut opposition to Obama’s stance on these other issues and it is this opposition that makes this situation so meaningful. It shows that we can relate to others in a way that is deeper than asking leading questions in hope that eventually we can tell someone about the gospel. Instead, we are automatically able to show them the gospel and hope that is Christ by simply living our lives. It is this clenching of our faith and values in one hand, and the reaching out desperately with the other that causes change in the lives of others. It is grasping out for the drowning hand of another in any way we can while holding just as tightly to the only thing that keeps us afloat with our other hand. We do not need to sell out our beliefs just to be relevant to the rest of the world and our culture.

Which is more beneficial, inviting a sinner to church, or condemning the one who invites them? The body of Christ is made up of sinners, idolaters, slanderers, drunkards, and fools who have instead of being pulled under by our own selfishness, have been broken and restored by a God who reaches beyond politics, beyond borders, and beyond our own foolishness to bring us back to a peace with Him. I hope and pray that you and I can be the person who reaches out. One who goes beyond our safe buildings and Christian friends, and actually touches the heart of another with God’s hope.

An Open Letter to A Friend - Lessons in Honesty

So I think previously I have stated that I want to be a bit more honest and forward with my writing. I suppose this is a way of confronting myself with myself and dealing with things that I like or that I don't really care for. I have just begun corresponding with a good friend who is not a Christian about Christianity in general. In this letter I respond to my friend who is feeling a bit irked at a Christian arguing about something yet not really have followed their own advice I would surmise. I have decided to publish this letter because I think it bears repeating to more than just a closed audience of two. Take heed that names have been changed to protect the innocent and that I really pull no punches. Feel free to comment if you like but I really don't care if you do or not. This is more for me anyway. Sorry 'bout that

-In Him

Chris

____________________________

Well, to begin. I understand where you are coming from. I am well aware of the fact that the group that I happen to cast my lot with has a tendency to be a bit judgmental / hypocritical / overbearing / overzealous / crazy / ...well you get the general idea. I am also well aware that when a Christian decides to argue with a non-Christian, usually things like humility, empathy, and sanity to say the least tend to fly out the window. Instead they will tense up and going into full-defense mode. Somehow I think it's cause we start thinking we are arguing God's argument and that if we lose, we somehow failed some great mission. The problem is, the idea of someone trying to argue for God would be like an ant trying to explain the finer points of my day to day actions. We as humans are selfish and fallible even when we are trying to be spiritual.

In your friend's defense, the biblical point of view does say in many places (if you really want I can get the verses but for now it's early am) that sex before marriage is a bad thing. Although, in my personal opinion, this is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. I mean that "fornication" (pre-marital sex as it is commonly called) is just another "sin." Not to take away from it's importance, but it would seem to me that in many cases, an act that God would ask us not to do is not because He is trying to ruin our fun, but is rather trying to protect us regardless of what it is. (murder, stealing, copyright infringement) It is more like a parent telling their child to not run in the parking lot. What I mean by that is that He knew that one day some tweaker in Butt-City would one day have sex with a fellow tweaker, get pregnant, go on welfare, and then begin the long process of raising the next president of cell-block A. All the while not caring at all how their own actions effect others let alone their own offspring.

Now obviously you know my history and know for a fact that a) I have definitely done the Do and b) this is not the only transgression ever to have graced the pages of the Ho-Ho history book. So I am probably not the best role-model in this particular discussion. What I can tell you is that while I was gallivanting about with said women, my once healthy relationship with God soon wore away. The problem there that while this was fun and almost free-feeling, I soon discovered that it wasn't. eventually the excitement wore away and I realized exactly what I was doing and risking and there I was, without anything whatsoever i could call positive and meaningful in my life. One mistake away from being the proud father to your local dealer. My actions were getting in the way of who I was being called to be.

Now of course I would like to say this was a turning point in my short life but it wasn't. I am one of those slow learners that needs to be hit on the head over and over again before i realize someone is even talking to me. So began the arduous process of becoming who I am today. Now, granted, that's not much and there is PLENTY of room for improvement but I can also say I am happy (just, not content) with who I am.

You happen to be asking me to correspond at the same time that I am sort of going through one of those epiphany moments that happens so infrequently in ones life. So forgive me if I get to be a bit airy in my dialog. I am trying to formulate words where there really weren't words before.

As far as your friend goes, no they should not be persecuting you in such a manner. Honestly though, I think when I was a "young Christian" I may have done the same. We as a faith seem to be a bit out of touch with the rest of the world and humanity for that matter. Instead of being followers of Christ we have turned into His salesmen. The problem is that half the time, we act like we don't even believe in the product we are selling. Instead of loving the world we try to separate ourselves from it all the while trying to act like we're "just like you" and can listen to cool bands and buy stupid crap just as well if not better. (see my blog about the stupid pajamas)

I often wonder how the world would view us if instead of acting like idiots with an agenda/product, we just genuinely cared and loved people regardless of who they were or what political party they belonged to. Maybe we wouldn't look so insane to everyone.

I think I have gotten a bit off topic but I think it's OK for now. I think this was stuff I needed to get off my chest to someone who wasn't in my church bubble but would still listen with an open mind. What I am trying to say I suppose is that I am sorry. Sorry for misrepresenting who Christ is. Sorry for George Bush and his so-called faith. Sorry for big-haired preachers telling you to send us your money so they could buy another jet. Sorry for the Crusades, sorry for horny and perverted priests, sorry for friends who turn their nose up to you because they think they are better than you. Sorry for it all.

What a way to start huh?

Hope this helps.

-Chris