Tag Archive - jesus

Our Identity in Social Media/Technology Engagement

July 6, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 1 Comment

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[image by LollyKnit]

Identity in Christ
One of the most crucial passages of scripture in the Bible in regards to our identity is Mark 1:9-14:

“9, And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10, And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: 11, And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 12, And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness. 13, And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him. 14, Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.”

Several things stick out in this passage, and Henri Nouwen writes about this topic quite frequently in many of his writings. But most crucial for us is that we see Jesus’ identity being affirmed for who he is, and not because of what he does. Before we know much of anything of Jesus’ early life, and before he goes on to do his ministry, we see that his Father loves him and is well pleased with him. It’s because Jesus’ identity is rooted in his relationship with his Father, he is then able to be in the wilderness and then go out and preach the gospel.

It is only when our relationship is rooted in our relationship in Jesus Christ, then can we go out into the world and do what God has called us to do. The problem is that for most of us, our identity is rooted in what we do, not in who we are. So it shouldn’t be a surprise then when we go out into the world and feel lost if we continually have our identity in other things.

I have been thinking about this topic quite a bit, because what I have come to realize is that a lot of what I do is based on what I do, not on who I am. I start to wonder about why I blog, Twitter, write, etc. Where is my identity truly located? Is it in Jesus Christ, or in the identities that I have developed, and that are affirmed by others based on the things I do? And I’m certainly not the first to be asking questions about our use of social media, identity, etc. (here and here to start).

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Emerging Into Our Identity

March 5, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 9 Comments

windingroadEmerging Adulthood
I have always seemed to work with a lot of people in the midst of that life transition from college to young adult, or to what is often referred to as emerging adulthood.  So because of the extension of adolescence, and the pushing of adulthood and it’s responsibilities to later years (late 20′s to early and mid-30′s) people often find themselves wrestling with questions that have often been resolved, or at least grappled with in early developmental stages.

In my work as a college admission recruiter, college pastor and marriage and family therapist, I often work with people who come to me with questions that they can’t quite formulate themselves, but that touch at the core of who they are, and are very existential in nature in many ways.

They are questions of identity, or “Who am I”, “What am I to do”, “What do I believe.”

Fundamental Questions
Over the last 6 months my supervisor has helped me formulate some questions that touch at the heart of clients that I work with that are going through this life transition.

So I often tell my client that they are asking 3 very basic, very fundamental questions:

  1. Who am I?
  2. What am I to do with myself?
  3. How am I to be loved?

Questions that we have been asking for thousands of years, and in reality, each of the questions are components of one another, and sometimes one must be answered for the other to be answered as well.

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Mysogynistic and Violent Christianity?

July 2, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 13 Comments

My friend Wess has a great post on the recent issue of the satire magazine, Wittenberg Door. The magazine takes a look at Mark Driscoll and what are his….well, let’s let Wess state it since he puts it much more eloquently.

Most of you know about Mark Driscoll, he’s a mainstream pastor from Seattle with a church of about 6,000 people. He’s also infamous to many for being rather misogynistic, and focused on an overtly-testosterone reading of the Scriptures…..

Wess goes on to say,

After you read that, then read Halden’s post called, “Who Can Driscoll Worship?” where he looks at Driscoll through the eyes of astute theological criticism. This caught my attention partially because of a recent workshop I went to outlining the growing trend in masculine-focused spiritualities: promise keepers, John Elderidge, and the most recent (and most extreme) GodMen, a guys only church where the power-team, meets GI Joe, meets Sunday morning worship. You can see a promo video here. It’s interesting because in a way, it’s not at all surprising that there is an increase in a violence-oriented ministry, given the violence-saturated culture (movies, music, video games) we live in as Americans, but this certainly doesn’t make it okay. What are your thoughts?

Here’s a quote from the article (satire magazine people, remember that):

“Numbers aren’t important, but we’ve grown 81.7% a year since our launch date and I still can’t get the guys to step up and be warriors,” said Kinston. “We want to love our city and we can’t do that with a bunch of pansies who would rather play video games than go to a monster truck rally or tattoo their faces like Mike Tyson.

I’m so glad Wess has written this post. I, as well as many others have been concerned for a long time at the growing trend in men’s Christian movements that seems to equate male Christianity with violence or roughness. We all like the movies Gladiator and Braveheart, and I know Jesus was not just meek, but also a tough person. But they are movies. And his toughness seems to lay in the fact that he gave away his life, and suffered at the hands of men and women who betrayed him…eventually leading to his death on a cross. Not because he fought back with fists and weapons. I just don’t know how we can read the Sermon on the Mount (just to take one examples of Jesus’ teachings), and walk away with any notion that our maleness as a Christian needs to be draped in violence, fighting, fists, and male stereotypes.

True male Christianity (if there is such a gender stereotype) lay in our ability to lay down our lives for others. Jesus says in John 15:12-14:

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.

Or in Mark 12:28-34 when he talks about the two greatest commandments:

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[b] 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c]There is no commandment greater than these.”

I know men and women are different. I know men and women express their spiritual lives often very different than one another. I know little boys often pick up sticks on the ground to use as weapons (without any teaching), and girls sometimes move towards dolls, etc. I know the stereotypes, and I know that we are wired differently as well.

But just because we are made different, doesn’t mean that we need to go on and practice a violent, distorted view of Christianity in our lives. Were Christians killed in the arena? Yes. Is it a violent world? Yes. But living as Christians in this world requires a toughness greater than what you see in the UFC…it requires a toughness to love our enemies, lay down our weapons, and ultimately to lay down our lives. That is what Jesus did, and if we are followers of him, then we don’t need to be men who try and do it differently.

I thought that Brent had a great post Chopping Off Heads and Crying on Shoulders a while back.

Believe it or not I think Mark Driscoll has some good things to say on many issues, but I think they are often clouded because of the rhetoric coming from him in regards to this issue.

What do you think?

When the poor are always with us…

April 4, 2008 in Uncategorized with 5 Comments

The poor you wil always have with you (some provisional thoughts)

Peter Rollins is so articulate and right on target here:

There is an intriguing verse in which Jesus is recorded as having said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7). Upon first looking at this one could ask, “is Jesus being portrayed here as complacent and pessimistic, as saying that no matter what we do we can never abolish poverty”? The verse would initially seem to play into the hands of those who would claim that the world is in terminal decline and can only be redeemed at the end of history. At the very least it would seem to hold a negative view concerning the possibility of ever distributing the wealth of the few among the many.

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