Window or Mirror?

Folks, when I decided to attend the CareNet annual conference in Louisville, KY this year, I thought that I would learn a lot about what a Board Member at a Crisis Pregnancy Center should do. I thought I may – perhaps – even intersect with people of faith and encounter reflections of our Lord here and there, but I certainly would learn how to do more things for the Kingdom here on earth. What I didn’t know God had in store were deep lessons about what He wants me to be for Him. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »