Sep 16th, 2007 Posted in Theology | no comment »
Recently we had a retreat to kick off a 34-week bible study for men, and part of the retreat was to hear the testimony of each man joining the study. There were several common threads woven through most of the men’s experiences of conversion and faith, but the one that I’d like to highlight here is the common occurrence of a “crisis of faith” starting near the end of our teenage years and extending – sometimes – into our late 20′s or early 30′s. That is, young men of this age tended to know God existed, but didn’t walk with Him (show a life set apart) and they ceased – for a time – to search further for Him. Read the rest of this entry »
Sep 14th, 2007 Posted in Technology, Theology | no comment »
If we agree that theology (the study of God) takes place best in community with believers, then we should build community and live in it. In today’s world, that’s not just people in our local church, but those that take their faith in Jesus Christ all over the world.
After accepting the above, let us chart the methods whereby we build community (and study theology) along two dimensions, time and space. This gives us a simple little Boston Matrix that has time (same and different) on the vertical axis and space (same and different) on the horizontal.
Investigating each, we see that same time / same place is met by face-to-face Bible study, different time / same place is met by a library or similar physical repository of sermons and knowledge, and different time / different place is met by blogs, discussion boards, and email. Read the rest of this entry »
Sep 13th, 2007 Posted in Tetra | no comment »
I thought I might share a visual concept I’ve been working on that – I hope – will help us view our personal world in relation to our connection to God. Basically, I assert that – without God – that we cannot have real perspective on issues in this life. That is, issues in life, with family, or with our job might grow to the point at which we cannot see anything else. If we have a relationship with God, we are able to view things – at least in part – from His perspective, and this gives us a view of the world we couldn’t hope to get as clearly without Him. Read the rest of this entry »
Sep 13th, 2007 Posted in Men's Ministry, Random | no comment »
Forgive me as I know in advance that this post – by its very length – will defend itself against the remote possibility that it will be read.
I had an incredibly interesting experience at Bible Study this morning and would like to share. If you feel led to comment, I’d be overjoyed to hear your thoughts!
Background:
Our Men’s Ministry holds several Bible studies and two of those are on Thursday morning. I have been leading the one that meets “every” Thursday at 6am. These are most often book-of-the-bible studies, but the current study is a topical study currently covering “theology proper”, the study of God. We are in a section about the “less communicable” attributes of God (He is eternal, independent, etc). We have 3-6 men each Thursday morning that are regular attenders. We are an EV Free church that is incredibly biblically focused (edification) and Spirit-led (without being “charismatic”). Read the rest of this entry »
Sep 11th, 2007 Posted in Random | one comment »
Well, I’ve resisted it this long, and I suppose that’s laudable in some strange parallel universe. This will be a running journal of those thoughts that I choose to share with others, and sadly for you – the reader – I choose to share a lot. If you will read and comment on my posts, this can become far less about me and more about our discussion of a topic (a far better use of our time in my opinion).
Ron
