Ark or Lighthouse...

That was a title of a Discipleship Training lesson back when I was probably in junior high. I can't really remember much of the details of the lesson, but it was a question about what the church should be. I think it was a neat thing to question, and something I think about a lot these days even though I am not involved in any way in our church leadership. I think the essence of the debate, provided by great theologians of the past I'm sure, was whether the church should be an ark of sorts, keeping Christians safe from the floods of the world, (maybe (hopefully) inviting others inside to escape the floods), or more like a lighthouse, standing tall and shining a light out into the world for weary lost travelers to find their way. As with most issues worthy of any debate, a balance of both sides is probably best. 

However, whatever brought this to mind again quite a while ago when I jotted a thought down to explore this again, also let me think of a third option. Really, rather than ark or lighthouse, I'm not sure we shouldn't as churches be more like Coast Guard cutters out on the stormy seas, actively searching amongst the torrential rains and waves, for those souls struggling. I'm just wondering if both the ark and lighthouse approach might be a bit too passive for our Jesus who said to us 'Go'. 

Taking Sides...

Does anyone else think it's a little problematic that in almost any Bible story we Christians read, we almost always identify with the 'good guys'. I'm not saying this isn't my first reaction also, but it's just a little arrogant don't you think? 

I unfortunately feel like these days many churches are too much like the Pharisees whether we'd admit it or not. And the way I read it, they were not the good guys, even though they were the established 'religious' 'church' people of the day. 

I just think sometimes we should be careful to put ourselves on every side of each story we read. We'll learn more, and perhaps react differently. 

Blogging Struggles...

I haven't been too good at blogging much lately. I am trying to better, but as someone who works all day in front of a computer, is trying to lose a little weight (or at least not gain any), keep up with my family, etc... it's not something I get to as much as I'd like. All that to say, in order to do a little better, I may try writing a few posts all at once in the times I do get around to it. I'll stagger them with the post scheduling option, so they all won't necessarily come at once. Just wanted to let you know in the interest of full disclosure. 

Along those lines, if there's anything any of my like 4 regular readers would like to see, I'm open to suggestions. Maybe I'll throw up a poll, but feel free to comment if there's a topic, theme, idea, more pictures or anything else you'd like to see. 

A few thoughts from I Samuel

The first thought I wanted to throw out was from I Samuel 7:4. In this story, Samuel has just encouraged Israel to get rid of their foreign gods. What struck me when we read this a few weeks ago was their response. It just struck me that in the NIV at least, it says they 'put away' their idols. The HCSB says they removed them. They didn't destroy them, just put them away. It's almost like they stashed them in a closet for later. Unfortunately, I think too often we (I) do that with our (my) idols also. Because I've heard more of their story, I know that those same idols just keep creeping back into their lives. I hope I can learn to destroy mine and keep them out in the future. 

The second thought is something I think I touched on somewhat a while back in a different sort of post. However, in this election season, I thought it timely to contemplate more. If you think government, in particular the president, whoever he may be, is going to 'fix' anything, or turn this nation around, you may want to read what God has to say about a king for Israel in I Samuel 8:11-18. I guess my quick point is that you may not be getting what you think you will. God wants to be our one and only ruler. Only he can provide what we really need. 

Today on the radio...

there was a strange discussion going on. Apparently prior to my tuning in, there had been a breast cancer survivor on, and the station was promoting the local race for the cure. However, by the time I tuned in, someone had e-mailed the station railing it for supporting this. Apparently there may be some ties or money in the past has gone to Planned Parenthood, so the e-mailer questioned how could the radio hosts claim to be pro-life (Christian radio station), and still support these efforts. Now if that's true, it's unfortunate on some levels, but at the same time, I say what could possibly be more pro-life in the most general sense than fighting breast cancer which affects and kills many women... Why attack this effort like this? It just seemed strange to me.

The destructiveness of the clothes dryer...

Hey, I warned you things were going to be random around here. However, I am proposing it has done tons to erode our culture. Here's why - Before the clothes dryer, there was no hiding the existence of laundry. It was hung out on a line to dry where all the neighbors could see. Sure, you hung things a certain way to be as modest as possible, with undies usually between rows of shirts, pants, towels, etc. Still though, people could tell when you were cleaning up.
However, since the clothes dryer's rise to prominence, everyone now hides the laundry, pretending it doesn't exist. That is, pretending that there was never anything in need of cleaning up to begin with. As long as people can't see there was something once dirty in our lives (even if it's now clean), we pretend there really never was.

I'm just glad this laundry hiding phenomenon hasn't spread to any other areas of our lives yet...Can you imagine the destructiveness if we as Christians started hiding our laundry (our struggles and dirt), pretending everything was always great, when everyone knows it's really not? The world saw us in those dirty clothes, so we're not going to fool them.

Russia v. Georgia

This issue seems to have mostly disappeared from the headlines these days, but I did find it interesting for a few reasons. First, Russia didn't seem to give a flip what anyone else thought, which has to be a bit scary. They may not be what they once were, but they still I'm sure have more than enough to whip tiny Georgia and many many of its friends. (Perhaps even worse than Georgia in football last week. They had black eyes to match their uniforms before that was over.) I digress. It also helped remind me again that though Russia seems to be mentioned in the end times discussion in the Bible, the U.S. really doesn't seem to be.

However, the truly striking thing about it to me was how everything is presented to us. If I understood anything about what little I read on the issue, it seems to me like the two territories in question, really didn't want to be Georgian. They identify more with Russia. However, the U.S. and so many others say we must protect democracy in Georgia, but doing this, we're essentially forcing two groups who don't want to be a part of a country to remain there. How 'democratic' is that really? Anyway... Does that confuse anyone else?