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An Online Community for Disenfranchised Believers

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Categories: church, community, link love

This morning, my blogger friend Glenn, a former institutional church pastor, just launched a new site you should check out.

Communitas Collective describes itself as “a place for the rest of us.” It’s a social online community site specifically designed for people who are leaving (or have left) institutional forms of church and are trying to navigate their relationship with Christ without that map. Since that idea comprises quite a lot of what I talk about here…I guess it makes sense that I would be excited about this.

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On How We Christians Got So Messed Up with Our Esckhatol…with Our End-Times Stuff

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Categories: Meanderings (look it up), theological questions

This post ties in with one I posted three days ago…

So I’m continuing to ponder this whole thing about Christians and the interpretation of end-time prophecy in the Bible, and how I’ve sort of relaxed about trying to know the “right” interpretation (since there are obviously so many to choose from).

I grew up on pre-tribulation rapture theology, but to some extent I’ve heard pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, kingdom now (i.e., no rapture at all), and just about everything in-between. (Thankfully, I wasn’t there for the one that went, “Hey, let’s just all go right now. Just drink this punch.”)

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Eskatology…I Mean, Eschotallogie…Eschagolity…Oh, Never Mind

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Categories: food for thought, theological questions

I have to admit that eschotolligy the study of the end of time has never been a popular topic with me, nor am I the person you want teaching about it on Sunday. I have no charts, no graphs, no timelines…and I wouldn’t trust them if I did.

I’m sure some of my aversion goes back to when I was a kid. I was raised on pre-tribulation rapture theology, coupled with my own brand of self-imposed legalism, because I had a tormenting sense of conscience…which meant I spent much of my “tween” years fearful of missing the rapture by some sin I might commit that might disqualify me moments before it happened. (I’m sure watching those cheesy “Thief in the Night” films they were showing in church in those days didn’t help much. Those movies scared me snotless.)

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Goings-On

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Categories: random stuff, Wild One

Just a brief update for anyone who’s interested in why I haven’t posted any profundities in the past couple of days…

This weekend, The Wild One has been invited to show five photographs in a local show with a few other photographers. It just so happens that she is ready to officially launch into business as a photographer, and wants to coordinate that around the show opening. So we have been frantically working this week to finish up her website and get it up and running, getting paperwork filled out, etc., so she can provide that information at the art show and hopefully get some dates on the calendar. Among other things, she will be offering photo shoots for human portraits and pet portraits, and also offering some fine art photos for sale online. I’ll put a link here when the site is up. But that’s most of what we’ve been up to the past few days.

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One Hand Tied Behind Our Back

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Categories: food for thought, healing wounds, Meanderings (look it up)

Studying the humanities in college (the study of man’s achievements in art, literature, architecture, science, etc.) was a pretty awesome experience for me. There are some folks, especially in religious circles, who look at the advancements we’ve made as a race and see nothing but our pride and rebellion. And I admit that factor exists. But when I look at all we’ve been able to create over the centuries, all we’ve been able to discover, to figure out…all the beauty, inspiration, engineering feats, and the like…I can’t help but see the truth that man was created in the image of God. We create, because we are made in the image of a Creator. And when we create, I think it is a reflection of God’s glory, even though sometimes we turn it to glorify ourselves. It is still the image-of-God factor inside us that enables us to achieve. And that goes for women as well as men.

So in the light of some of the recent discussions we’ve had on this blog…I invite you to ponder something with me:

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Punk’d by the Fates

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Categories: Things I Should Probably Not Be Telling You, What the heck was THAT?

A (not so) funny thing happened to me when I was delivering flowers on Wednesday.

Actually, two things, one right after another. And both were my fault–kind of.

I pulled up to a house in the country to deliver some flowers. I parked in the driveway.

I got out of the van, and closed the door.
I opened the side door, pulled out the flower arrangement, and closed the side door.
I walked up to the porch of the house.
As I knocked on the door, I heard a loud, thundering CRASH!
I looked to see where the crash came from…and there was the van, up against the garage.
It had traveled, unmanned, approximately 20 feet, and crashed into the garage door.

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Lose the Bathwater, Keep the Baby

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Categories: changing mindsets, food for thought, theological questions

Two things you should know about me:

  1. I’m a student of human nature.
  2. I have a tendency to see patterns.

These two things combined can get me in a lot of trouble sometimes, because sometimes they lead me to do the math when it would be better to let things ride and not draw conclusions. But at other times they help me have some insight, to make sense of things going on around me, and to know what, if anything, I can do about them.

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The Cost of Freedom

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Categories: holidays

Americans…

When you’re skiing today out on the lake…
When you’re barbecuing in the backyard…
When you’re relaxing by the pool with a mint julep…

…remember, for a moment, that it cost someone something very dear for you to do these things in freedom, and without fear.

Freedom isn’t free. Remember today those who have paid the ultimate price.

P.S. Those who remember what freedom cost…will not take it for granted, nor easily give it up.
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