Categories: changing mindsets, Tags: changing mindsets, Distorted images of God, faith
Part 1 here.
Part 2 here.
Part 3 here.
I’m probably going to wrap this series up within the next couple of weeks, because I think we’re probably getting the idea behind it–which is that we all have some measure of distortion in our mental pictures of God, which often gives us the wrong idea about Him. But before we wrap it up, I want to tackle at least one more of the common ways we distort the image of God. I call this one “God the Sugar-Daddy.”
Need I continue?
Categories: changing mindsets, Tags: Distorted images of God, food for thought
Continuing my ramblings on the different ways our mental picture of God gets distorted, I’d like to focus on another common distortion–one that I call “God the Indifferent Creator.”
People commonly form this image of God in their minds for a variety of reasons, but in my experience one of the main catalysts for it is prayer that seems to go unanswered. When someone earnestly prays for something to happen, and God seems to fall silent or does not answer the prayer the way we think He ought to, we get disappointed. When this happens repeatedly, we can get jaded, and may start believing that He is largely indifferent to our needs or desires. I know one person who claims a belief in God, but seriously questions the purpose of prayer. He figures, if God is going to do, or not do, whatever He pleases, anyhow, what’s the point of asking Him for anything?
Categories: changing mindsets, Tags: Distorted images of God, food for thought
This post begins a series of (what I hope to be several) posts about the ways we often envision or characterize God in our minds, and how they frequently differ from how He describes Himself. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a series like this, and I’m obviously not blogging as often as I have in the past, so please be patient. (I even reserve the right to deter from this thread if I feel inclined to blog about something else along the way.)
Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, religion, Tags: changing mindsets, religion
Maybe I’ve blogged about this in one of the many earlier posts, but since I’m thinking about it this morning, I’ll just launch out and talk about it anyway.
When I was pastoring a house church in Tulsa, there was one pastor in town whom I knew briefly and tried to be friends with–but the truth was, we totally butted heads, from the first day we met. We were at someone’s house for a dinner party, and while chatting within the group, I related a story of how I’d recently seen one guy “witnessing” to another outside a Tulsa restaurant. The person doing the “witnessing” was quite literally thumping a Bible, talking very vehemently to the other guy with pointing fingers and everything. I said nothing at the time, but at the dinner party I mentioned how I wished I could have gone to the victim (’cause that’s what he looked like) to apologize on behalf of my brother for improperly representing Christ to him.
Categories: changing mindsets, love, missional, Tags: agenda, changing mindsets, church, food for thought, love, mission of Christ
Okay, so here’s the first post….
Aaaand the second one….
I closed out the previous post with a question: How can each of us make the transition into what I call “agenda-free” mission? Once we recognize how much unnecessary (and often damaging) baggage we have attached to mission by our institutional thinking, how do we change our thinking to participate in the mission of Christ in a more organic way, without worrying about what we might have to gain from it?
Categories: changing mindsets, church, food for thought
In my previous post, I revisited the story of the man who kept ordering chocolate shakes at a fast food joint, and kept receiving vanilla ones. When he complained to the teenage cashier at the counter, all the teenager could say was, “I pushed the chocolate button.” I used this story to talk about ways that the church is doing a similar thing with our “tried-and-true” methods. Although many of them aren’t working anymore, instead of finding new methods that do work, we keep splashing new coats of paint on our broken machines, trying to make them attractive and “relevant” again.
Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, Meanderings (look it up), moments of truth
Categories: changing mindsets, church, moments of truth
A few days ago, I received an email from someone checking out some of my older blog posts, and I felt our email conversation might benefit others. I am a few years down the road on my journey from when I started processing all this stuff, but as I wrote this brother back, I almost felt like it was a synopsis of the last couple of years of blogging. With his permission, I’m reposting the conversation, withholding the name for privacy’s sake.
Categories: changing mindsets, church, community, food for thought
So read parts one and two to catch up…
With my changing views on community, I think what I’m about to share here is the most significant factor–because it really demonstrates what can happen when we let community happen instead of make it happen. (And this is just what our journey looks like–not an inference as to what yours should look like.)
Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, Rantings
Kathy over at Carnival in My Head just got back from Africa with her family, and posted a preliminary report about her trip on her blog. One of the most profound moments she described was when she said her missions team was the first American team ever to actually stay at the orphanage they were visiting–that most teams sleep at a nice hotel an hour away. One of the teachers at the orphanage expressed gratefulness at this, saying, “people come to help, but they don’t really want to be with us and live our life with us.”
Ouch. In so many ways.