Wow! You leave town, cell phone and internet coverage for the weekend, and so many things happen. Actually, I’m glad I was out of those coverages, but there are some great and interesting articles from other bloggers. I definitely recommend you check these out, as they survey a wide variety of topics. And these are definitely articles that you have opinions on…or would like to give your opinions on.
Here are some quick hits of what you will find….
Great weekend at College Briefing. 58 years and kicking strong. All this began with Henrietta Mears. Amazing woman, who was an early mentor of Billy Graham and Bill Bright.
It was an all-around good weekend from the speakers to the seminars, to time with friends. I was especially touched by Something Like Silas, who led us in worship. They are amazing, and I was blessed by their words, their music, and their gifts.
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Tony Campolo in the article Katrina: Not God’s Wrath–or His Will takes issue with our understanding of how we interpret tragedy. And he takes more issue with our understanding of how we understand God’s omnipotence. This will definitely ruffle some feathers. I found this linked over at Mike DeVries blog, which to me is one of the best blogs out there, and one that I return to time and time again.
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Ryan Bolger has an excellent post on “Teaching Mission Strategy”. I would love to have him for a professor. This is a great post. This gives me hope that others, like Ryan, are looking outside of the business and corporate models in developing mission strategies. I saw Ryan up at College Briefing over the weekend, in which he gave an excellent seminar on emerging churches, summarizing his many years of research which you can read in his new book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. My students, as well as many others, were very challenged by his seminar. Thanks Ryan.
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My college buddy and friend, Brent Thomas, definitely didn’t agree with what I said (to say the least) about Hurrican Katrina in relation to God’s sovereignty, as well as my comments on John Piper. You can read his thoughts over at Colossians Three Sixteen. This is definitely a case of friends not agreeing theologically…not even close…and probably never ever coming to an agreeable center or position. I actually, and probably, would have been worried if Brent and I had agreed on this issue. Because I would have ended up in his theological camp, of which I do not want to be a part of. And Brent probably would have worried as well, since it’s obvious he does not probably want to be in my theological camp. But on another note. Brent, I look forward to sitting down over a cup of coffee with you someday and talking about our differences, and how we can do our best, as brothers in Christ, to live out the gospel message.
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In what is becoming a very interesting conversation, I found over at Andrew Jones’ blog, some thoughts on the issue of what is being called “Grace Grinders. Jones quotes Scott McKnight saying,
There is a kind of writing, preaching, and talking about grace that instead of offering grace and extolling the goodness of God, seems to use grace as the backhand of God that is used to grind humans into the ground as it talks about grace. I’m having a hard time being gracious about this.
This is Scott McKnight’s post on Grace Grinding. Here is a sample:
These people can’t talk about grace without emphasizing that we are wretches;
they can’t read Yancey’s What’s So Amazing…? without saying it isn’t the whole story;
they can’t preach obedience without saying this isn’t works;
they can’t talk about grace without talking about all those who are on their way to hell;
they can’t preach love without showing holiness is behind it all;
they can’t talk about grace without reminding us that it is all for God’s glory and that God didn’t have to do this and that we ought to consider ourselves lucky;
This conversation is growing large over at JOLLYBLOGGER.
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Will Samson has a great post on his time at the Greenbelt Festival, specifically a seminar where Richard Rohr spoke. Here is a sample:
Developing what he termed a “two-container” theory of life, Fr. Rohr suggested that there are two stages for all of us, particularly in the Western context. The first is where we learn to be certain of things. We learn that 2 + 2 = 4 and that gravity will hold things in place. The second container is one that many of us never enter. This is the Way of the Cross; a way that is not certain and definitely defies logic. Laying down ones life for ones friend, advancing through service – these are all counter-intuitive steps, and some of us never even begin to enter this part of our life.
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Smart Christian is continuing to post excellent articles, and this question that he cites from Christianity Today, seems to be a growing one. The question:
Would a Protestant form of monasticism help liberate evangelicalism from its cultural captivity?
Christianity Today explores this growing issue in the article Remonking the Church. The first paragraph:
John R.W. Stott, the elder statesman of British evangelicalism, has stated recently that if he were young and beginning his Christian discipleship over, he would establish a kind of evangelical monastic order. Joining it would be men vowed to celibacy, poverty, and peaceableness.
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My friend Brian Colmery has a link to an interesting article over at Relevant Magazine, called, A New Kind of Hipster. Hipster Christianity. Interesting subject, especially living in Los Angeles.
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Churches Embrace New Urbanism as Antidote to Isolation. An interesting article on something you don’t read about everyday in Christianity. Something that needs to be explored more.
