Good Friday

Two videos that gave me chills this morning…

Winter Christian

This post from Richard Beck makes a lot of sense to me.  I definitely resonate with the Winter Christian idea (I’m sure anyone who knows me well will be stunned by that one).  Here’s a small quote that also might explain a few things for Tara & I as we consider faith in our own ways.  In my opinion it’s also a place where most the churches I’ve attended struggle as well, something to consider.

The most powerful impact I’ve seen when I’ve shared this model is from the married couples where one person is Summer and the other is Winter. Before they married they knew each other to be people of faith (i.e., high communion). But little did they know how different they would be on the complaint dimension (i.e., Summer vs. Winter). Each person tended to think there was something “wrong” with the other. She thought his complaint was a sign of unfaith (Recall the polar model?). He thought her lack of complaint was a sign of naiveté. But after hearing the model the couple comes to the realization that he is Winter and she is Summer and each are legitimate ways with God. In fact, each needs the other. No one is wrong. Both are right. So they can transition from trying to change each other to trying to learn from each other.

The Broken Wheel Gets the Grease

From Rick Warren on Twitter: @RickWarren: It’s the broken wagon wheel that squeaks.Complaining & criticizing just publicizes our brokenness & immaturity to others.

Richard Beck/Introverts in the Church

An interesting post on introverts in the church by Richard Beck.  I’ve really been enjoying his blog lately.

The Future of Evangelicals: A Conversation with Pastor Rick Warren

This is a very long but very interesting transcript of Rick Warren talking with a bunch of journalists in Washington.  I found it here.

I get the impression from some of my friends that they don’t like Rick Warren because… well…. how can you be rich and famous, american, white etc.  and a good Christian?  Or maybe they don’t like him/read anything of his cause his books actually sell, I don’t know.

I’ve always liked him – sometimes he’s a little tooooo quotable and pithy for me, but he just makes sense on so many issues – and from all appearances, he really gets things done, and with the right spirit.  As you can see from this article – he works very hard to stay away from emphasizing the typical hot-button issues – and continually steers things back to some very basic things – love, generosity and compassion being some of them. I can agree with that.

Highlights from this article for me include his discussion on fundamentalism (anyone of any belief system who stops listening), his(Saddleback’s) organization which is attempting to  bring back some “civility” to America, and his words on generosity, and what he has done with the millions of dollars he has made from his books (a hint – he gives almost all of it away).

charity:water

Just watched this cool video about charity: water.

I found it at Catalyst Voices, which has a link to this very interesting NYtimes article about the founder of Charity:Water Scott Harrison.

Stuff Christians Like and Resisting the Vampires

Just yesterday I ran across this very funny blog - he’s poking fun at Christians, so watch out.  Here’s a clip from this morning’s post…

I’m even prouder of Christianity for not jumping on the vampire, werewolf, zombie band wagon right now….  We’re thinking about it, I can feel it coming in the air tonight like Phil Collins. Across the country pastors are tempted to do Twilight sermon series. Around the world, Christian authors are thinking about the parallels of the everlasting life of a vampire and the true everlasting life of a Christian. Christian film producers are feeling the siren’s call of Final Cut screenplay software. “Just write a Christian version of Twilight, just write a Christian version of Twilight.”

Hold strong! Unless you’re a youth minister, resist the urge to work teenager romance vampire references into your sermons. Fight the good fight! We can do this. We can resist this trend.

p.s.

If we’ve already lost, if there is already a Christian version of Twilight that I don’t know about because I’m wicked out of touch, please don’t tell me. Let me have this moment please. Let me have this moment.

Hockey Night in Canada Memories

Today after church I had the privilege of standing around with my Dad & Ellie K as they reminisced a bit about their memories of hockey night in Canada.  I wish I had a recorder actually – as I often do as I listen to these type of stories, but here’s a few highlights I remember.  I hope they don’t mind me publishing for the world to see!  If either one of them reads this – I beg their forgiveness for my grammar and writing skills, I’m sure there will be a few places they could make improvements, since they are hockey fans but also long time grammar/spelling/writing critics!

Ellie (and Eloise just happened to be there and toss in a few words which was great) was talking about gathering around the radio with his family when he was young – the radio was run by two “B” batteries and one “A” (I think that was it) – I forget what voltage he said.  It took a while for it to warm up.  The battery would run out every few weeks (again – I think it was weeks not months but not sure) so he and his brother Bordy would carry it into town to get it charged.  For the few weeks when it was getting charged there was no radio and no listening to Hockey!  The batteries would also run out in the spring usually, and new ones were not bought until the fall.  I’m not sure if that coincided with the hockey season, farmwork, or some other factor.

Imperial Oil was the sponsor for Hockey Night in Canada, and sold “3 Star” gasoline. Ellie figures this is where the Three Stars of the game came from (wikipedia says the same thing).  It sounded like the Three Stars were a lot bigger deal in years gone by than they are today.

Another significant fact was that the first period (and for a while the first and second) was broadcast from Toronto.  This was likely similar to the “TV blackouts” of today, or maybe because Imperial Oil only wanted to sponsor one period!

The broadcast was always from Toronto, the Leafs against one of the other five teams.  I did ask Ellie why he (and therefore many of his descendants) chose Toronto to cheer for.  It sounded like it was a bit because they were the default team, and the one they always heard about, and there was also a local connection as a number of Leaf players at the time came from SK.  One neat story from our family that my Grandma told once was that each of the boys, Grandpa and Grandma all picked a favorite team from the Original Six.  Grandma was always a Leafs fan, my Dad cheered for Detroit, Uncle Glen for the Bruins, Uncle John for the Canadiens – and I can’t remember who Grandpa and Uncle Dave chose.

One last thing – the hotstove started with a bunch of guys sitting around a hot stove discussing the league – and I got the impression they were a little more respected than the Hotstove of today.

Great stories – seems like the more history I hear from men or women like this, the more gaps in my story are filled in….  anyone else want to add some pieces to the puzzle?

God Snack

Elijah on the way to church this morning:

“Dad I don’t need snack at church – I’ll have God Snack instead” (Him & I have been sharing communion together lately)

Stop “working on your relationship with God”

“I need to spend more time working on my relationship with God.”

I responded, “Why would you want to do that?”

Startled she says, “What do you mean?”

“Well, why would you want to spend any time at all on working on your relationship with God?”

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”

“Let me answer by asking you a question. Can you think of anyone, right now, to whom you need to apologize? Anyone you’ve wronged?”

She thinks and answers, “Yes.”

“Well, why don’t you give them a call today and ask for their forgiveness. That might be a better use of your time than working on your relationship with God.”

 

Christians don’t wake up every morning thinking about how to become a more decent human being. Instead, they wake up trying to “work on their relationship with God” which very often has nothing to do with treating people better. How could such a confusion have occurred? How did we end up going so wrong? I’m sure there are lots of answers, but at the end of the day we need to face up to our collective failure. I’m not saying we need to do anything dramatic. A baby step would do to start. Waking up trying to be a little more kind, more generous, more interruptible, more forgiving, more humble, more civil, more tolerant. Do these things and prayer and worship will come alongside to support us.

I truly want people to spend time working on their relationship with God. I just want them to do it by taking the time to care about the person standing right in front of them.

Excerpts from an article by Richard Beck - good thoughts I think.

Found the link at Mike Cope’s blog.