Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)
Ever watch those courtroom dramas on TV or the movies? Or follow real-life courtroom cases?
When the prosecution has a key witness that could seriously damage the case for the accused, or if some small-town joe sues the big corporation for some injustice that was done…the defense attorneys have a favorite strategy: dig for dirt. Look for any damning information about the witness, anything that makes him/her look bad, or dishonest, or whatever, and bring it out in court.
Categories: food for thought, random stuff
For those of you waiting with baited breath to see how our special house church Thanksgiving worship time went today…
…it went good. 🙂
We are normally pretty relaxed and laid back in our approach. So today we did a liturgy. 🙂
Using a mixture of singing, corporate Scripture reading, prayer, and sharing thoughts with one another, we covered a variety of steps concering giving thanks, including:
Categories: food for thought, Meanderings (look it up), Rantings
Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought
Feeling a bit better today…thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes. 🙂
The comments generated from my earlier post on False Spiritual Benchmarks were good, and they have prompted some more thoughts on my part–now that my thinking is less muddled, that is. 🙂
I’ve gotten to pondering why we create these benchmarks in the first place. Why and how did we resort to measuring our spiritual health by how much we pray, or fast, or read the Bible, or any other specific activities we classify as spiritual? Again, not saying we shouldn’t do those things, but where did we get the idea that these practices are what make us more spiritual, “better” Christians, and so on?
Categories: food for thought
My blogger friend Heidi shared about her deconstruction process on her blog. Here’s some of what she shared:
“I’m not more spiritually healthy though. I’ve taken a definite hiatus from spiritual things. I can tell I’ve lost some ground because I haven’t been disciplined in my Bible reading and worship, although I still talk to God all the time.”
This struck a real chord with me, not because I’m trying to single her out, but because I know exactly what she is feeling.
Categories: food for thought
Categories: food for thought
There is a belief sometimes taught within Judaism that “sin” is basically misdirected passion.
In other words, passion itself is neither good nor evil–passion is simply strong desire, strong feeling. What makes it good or evil is how it is directed.
A good example of this is the human sex drive. When it is directed in God’s prescribed manner (marriage) it is good and holy; when released in other contexts, however, it is sin. But the sexual impulse itself is not sin; without it, none of us would be here. The sin (or lack thereof) is in how it is directed.
Categories: food for thought, My Story
Pastoring people has been an interesting journey for me. Not only have I learned some things about people in general–I’ve learned a lot about myself, including some stuff that was very hard to look at.
For a good part of my earlier years as a pastor, I felt personally responsible to fix people who were broken. I thought it was my job, and I thought I’d be failing as a pastor somehow if I didn’t. In my sincere efforts to fix people, I’d stick my nose into places where it didn’t belong, speak the “truth” to people when they were not ready to hear it–or my perception of the “truth”–and all sorts of other things like that, justifying my actions by saying it was my job. In fact, one of my favorite things to say in these moments was, “I wouldn’t be doing a good job as a pastor if I didn’t say this to you.”
Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, music
(You might want to read these two posts first, if you’re just joining us, so you have a grid for this one.)
In my last post, I shared how in a conversation with my family about our creative gifts, we realized that we had been trying to fit our gifts into a traditional ministry paradigm, instead of letting those gifts BE the ministry. I shared what an “a-ha” moment this was for me.
When a truth like that confronts you, it creates a paradigm shift. In other words, when you build a whole mindset around some assumed beliefs or facts, and a new truth is entered into the picture, you have to re-think your assumptions to accommodate that truth.
Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, Meanderings (look it up)
Sometimes “a-ha” moments can be enlightening and inspiring, like I described a couple of days ago when I said that the seeds of the creative community I have longed for exists in my own family.
But sometimes “a-ha” moments can be a little devastating, too. When you realize how long you’ve gone on with a mindset that constricts your dreams rather than releases them–that can be a little devastating, even while it inspires.