I fully believe that religion/faith must be lvied through discipline, not just studied. Thats just a random thought.
We have a new church and it is great! We get to help out with a homeless health day and we’re going to get into a small group soon. And they promote personal devotions and on your own growth and prayer…its so important for us to have that encouragement.
I am thinking about taking my career in a global health law direction. Its different than sex trafficking, but I could still do work with that if given the chance. I am working at the CDC this semester in the tech transfer office and am taking a seminar on the role of patents in developing countries having access to medicine.
Megs starts Friday. Its nice to be back in the swing of things.
I get to do the audio visual work for the public interest committee conference here. The keynote is speaker is Jimmy Carter, I’m very excited about getting to help out with it, especially since its all propelled by our student group.
So…thats it for a small update. Almost done with Acts and Spirit of the Disciplines. Megs and I are reading 1 Corinthians now.
Filed under: Ministry, Scripture, Spiritual Disciplines | Tags: books, christianity, God, Life, poverty, Scripture, spiritual life, spirituality, theology, wealth
I finally got to this chapter in “Spirit of the Disciplines” while in the plane on my way back to Georgia from Detroit. After an interview at a fancy law firm it was even more impressive.
His opinion goes against what IV promoted through John Wesley (the idea that dying with zero money in your wallet is honorable). He reasons that the real sin is improper “use” of wealth, not just “having” wealth. He says that actually, it is good for Christians, who do know how to use it in a way honoring to the purposes of God, to have wealth. He does, however, hold frugality with the “use” of wealth to be a spiritual discipline for Christians. I liked this perspective.
He thens deals with Jesus’ sayings of “Blessed are the Poor” and “Woe to the rich.” He picks this apart, saying that experience tells us that not every poor person is blessed and not every wealthy person is unblessed, but rather Jesus, as he often did, is saying something completely opposite to the conventional thinking (which said the rich got God’s blessings). In a way, Jesus is saying, God does not hold to any of the type of rules that humans set up, but does what He wants. It goes hand in hand with my thought that He gives the Holy Spirit in a way that advances His purposes not just according to formulastic rules.
So that is the thought, its ok to have wealth, and actually it is a great thing for strong Christians to control wealth in a way that advances the Kingdom of God and brings the peace God wants.
Filed under: Ministry | Tags: christianity, death, God, grief, news, religion
This guy is a well-spoken real-deal Christian dealing with tough stuff: (interview with Larry King about the death of his 5-year old daughter-killed accidently by his 15 year old son): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u8T3dL8KYo
And Larry King was touched in a real way: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/08/08/lkl.about.thurs.cnn
I think he was an amazing person to address this type of grief in front of America because he is so articulate about how God helped him deal with it. The whole family is therapeutic to watch. Their trust–and how they are holding up, God is there in tough times. Discussion with people like this helps me with the still healing grief of my friend I tragically lost.
Filed under: Everyday Life | Tags: Life, law school, competition, jobs, law school OCI, stress, school, interviews
OCI-On Campus Interviews. I show up with a leather folder full of resumes and references and a handful of interviews with firms I thought sounded like good places to work. When I arrived the law school was in full stress out drama competition mode. The first person I ran into just got back from interviews in New York, has over 20 interviews this week, then flies back to NY for call-back interviews, and then heads of to California for interviews there. Wow.
Immediately my heart started to fall into the endless competition way of thinking. I think I’m one of the few people with good grades like mine who has taken so few interviews. I think some people are anxious that they will never get a job, some people are just working hard to take advantage of every opportunity, but a few people seem like soul-less career advancement machines–like its the only thing they care about. Scary.
I’m trusting God has a plan and if I keep clipping along and being discerning, He will fullfil His plan for me.
Filed under: Everyday Life, Scripture | Tags: blog, christianity, God, Life, religion
I am in Atlanta. Everything is going well, I have some interviews and they are going pretty smoothly. The family comes down Friday to move in (I’m sleeping on a floor…yeehaw). I did get one interview in Michigan next week and they are flying me up for it (its four hours long–lunch included).
So I’m still in Acts. I read the sermon in Acts 17 today. Amazing! everytime I read it!! I like the part where he uses their poetry and when he says God is near to us and set our lives so we would reach out and perhaps find him…they must have been so much like our postmodern culture.
This part is a bit confusing in Acts 18:
9One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” 11So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.
12While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him into court. 13“This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.”
14Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. 15But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” 16So he had them ejected from the court. 17Then they all turned on Sosthenes the synagogue ruler and beat him in front of the court. But Gallio showed no concern whatever.
So he gets the promise from God, but then is still beaten? I guess God was just saying that he wouldn’t die…or that he should keep preaching for the time, since he did have a year and a half of peace, but it seems like “beat him” would constitute as attacking and harming. Any thoughts?
Filed under: Ministry | Tags: Life, christianity, religion, church, God, race, society, racial
My church back home a few years ago hired a black pastor,and the congregation is still almost entirely white. It highlighted for me the whole host of issues that come from trying to be a multi-racial church. Even in undergraduate the black and white Christians normally were seperated. InterVarsity pushed strongly for diversity, but some people just thought we should focus on witness/bible study/community/everything else. I did do a study at a training camp focused on diversity which mixed me with people of asian and black descent and we talked specifically about race and religion. I came away with more questions, it was very important to heal past wounds and help each other get past ignorance, prejudice, anger, lack of understanding, but it also took A LOT of effort (sometimes away from other important things). So, how much effort should churches put towards acheiving racial diversity within our services?
Today this CNN article addressed some of the facets of this intriguing issue: “Segregated Sundays“
The article really does point out that striving for a diverse church creates all sorts of problems (especially when teens start dating), all of which would seem to distract from the purpose spreading the Gospel. But then–the last paragraph of the CNN article talks about two people, a black and white man, who became good friends in a diverse church despite having grew up in families that hated the other race. The one man’s words about seeing the other primarily as a brother in Christ seem to ring with the unity and peace that resounds from the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth…
No answers here…just more questions.
Filed under: Movies | Tags: Entertainment, film, Life, movie reviews, Movies
We saw Vantage Point this weekend…twice (at two different people’s houses). But it was ok because its a good movie. Definitely action adventure, it is about the attempted assination of the president and the first part of the movie follows the assination from five different viewpoints. This was a little repetitive, but more like a puzzle that you wanted to solve. I thought Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker gave great performances. The ending seemed slightly simplistic and a dumb way to rap up a complex movie, but then the second time I realized that the movie was trying to make a point.
The point was that the media never tells you the whole story. The reporter in the beginning says it and then at the end they show a reporter saying that it was a lone gunman. At first I thought it would have been better it they left out the message and just made it an action adventure…but later I decided I liked it the way they did it. Especially when overly depressing movies are such a big hit, I liked the message-laden happy ending.
Filed under: Scripture | Tags: bible, Christian, christianity, devotions, faith, God, religion, theology
Here’s some more thoughts from my continued readings in Acts:
I think its awesome in Acts 9 that the apostles are indeed doing greater miracles than Jesus (near the end of the chapter). Saul’s conversion is awesome too.
Also in the end of Acts 9 and beginning of Acts 10, we see two people honored for their gifts to the poor. Highlighting to me the important of charity to the poor. Cornelius’ gifts actually go up to God justlike his prayers. See 10:4.
Then it is cool how simple Peter’s message to Cornelius’ household is. Basically, God sent Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit and he performed many miracles and was crucified, now he has risen and is the one who judges the living and the dead and if you believe in him you recieve foregivenness of sins. So simple and so beautiful.
Also, this is of course an important passage for those of us Non-Jewish type. I saw a video of Andy Stanley while up at Evangel a few weeks ago and he mentioned quickly, but did not fully dive into, his belief that the Isrealites were always meant to attract other nations and people to the God of Isreal, but that the Isrealites often corrupted that purpose. I think this is a cool thought, but wonder how it is reconciled with some of the Isrealite battle triumphs over other nations. I guess those nations probably had heard of Isreal, but chosen not to investigate their God…but here when Peter comes to his realization that God accepts the Gentiles, it seems like he thinks it isn’t a sudden change of policy. See 10:34-35 (”I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right”). So perhaps in choosing Isreal it was God’s plan all along that people from other nations would choose the Isrealite God an join the nation of Isreal…
Filed under: Politics | Tags: art, cartoon, drawing, fun, Life, mccain, news, obama, Politics, presidential race, USA
This ball-point-pen while-at-work doodle is about how we as Americans act like we are really playing attention to who we pick for president by paying attention to superficial things, but don’t really care how he would handle real important issues like addressing the Iranian President’s super-anti-American charge to the non-aligned movement (which is a collection of around 118 countries which are mostly anti-american).
"Captivated"
Click on the picture to see it better.
