Chris

A couple days ago I was chilling outside of the local police department (just because I needed a place to sit while I waited for a friend) and a white guy walks out muttering under his breath (but loud enough for me to hear) "I just can't take it anymore, I can't stop, I can't take it anymore." I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I asked him what the problem was. "I can't stop."
"What can't you stop?"
"Heroin."
I talked with him for the next five minutes encouraging him to seek Christ and gave him my number. I also mentioned the church I've been going to, and he seemed really interested, because I told him that it's the kind of church that accepts people whoever they are--homeless, gay, yuppie, black, white, latino, whoever. I hope he calls me, and I'm praying that God will give him enough realization of his need that he will seek more help.

New paradigm on evangelism

I was reading in Christianity Today from the July 08 edition, and read an article about a way of sharing Jesus with people called the "Big Story." The Four Spiritual Laws are replaced by four circles, with the following four captions. The first circle starts in the top left side of the page, the second one the top right side, etc.
Circle 1. Designed for Good
Circle 2. Damaged by evil
Circle 3. Restored for better
Circle 4. Sent together to heal

I like the emphasis that James Choung puts on the kingdom of God in his presentation of the gospel in these four circles. It's not just about me and Jesus--it's about joining in the work of the kingdom! A point that James makes in the article is that in explaining the diagram to people, many try to jump from circle 2 to circle 4, but it is impossible without the intervention of Jesus through the cross in circle 3.

"The idolatry of money means that the moral worth of a person is judged in terms of the amount of money possessed or controlled. The acquisition and accumulation of money in itself is considered evidence of virtue. It does not so much matter how money is acquired--by work or invention, through inheritance or marriage, by luck or theft--the main thing is to get some. The corollary of this doctrine, of course, is that those without money are morally inferior--weak, or indolent, or otherwise less worthy as human beings. Where money is an idol, to be poor is a sin.
This is an obscene idea of justification, directly in contradiction with the Bible. In the gospel none are saved by any works of their own, least of all by the mere acquisition of money. In fact, the New Testament is redundant in citing the possession of riches as an impediment to salvation when money is regarded idolatrously. At the same time, the notion of justification by acquisition of money is empirically absurd, for it oversimplifies the relationship of the prosperous and the poor and overlooks the dependence of the rich upon the poor for their wealth. In this world human beings live at each other's expense, and the affluence of the few is proximately related to, and supported by, the poverty of the many.
This interdependence of rich and poor is something Americans are tempted to overlook, since so many Americans are in fact prosperous, but it is true today as it was in earlier times: the vast multitudes of people on the face of the earth are consigned to poverty for their whole lives, without any serious prospect whatever of changing their conditions. Their hardships in great measure make possible the comfort of those who are not poor; their poverty maintains the luxury of others; their deprivation purchases the abundance most Americans take for granted."
Pg. 245-246 "A Keeper of the Word," by Kellerman

Seminaries

"The seminaries have generally been so covetous of academic recognition and so anxious for locus within the ethos and hierarchy of the university that they have not noticed how alien and hostile those premises are to the peculiar vocation of a seminary. thus the seminaries succumb to disseminating ideological renditions of the faith that demean the vitality of the biblical witness by engaging in endless classifications and comparisons of ideas. All this eschews commitment and precludes a confessional study of theology...the appropriate location of the seminary is within the church, the Body of Christ, and not within the university. The seminary's manner in the preparation and qualification of those to be ordained should exemplify the church rather than imitate the university...In short, the enthrallment of the seminary within the ideology of the university sponsors a professionalization of the ordained ministry that aborts the edification of the people of the church and that contradicts the servant character of the clergy's vocation."
pgs. 257-258, "A Keeper of the Word" by Kellerman

Are American churches viable political threats?

"...The churches in America are more innocuous...there is an elaborate American comity by which political domination of the churches is sanctioned by the status of church property holdings. Thus, tax exemption for the churches inhibits a critical political witness by the churches. Thus, a presidential assurance of aid to church-related schools can in sure the silence of the ecclesiastical hierarchy on certain public issues. In short, the dependence of the American churches upon property renders the churches so utterly vulnerable to political manipulation as to obviate a more direct ecclesiastical interference."
pg. 271 "A Keeper of the Word" by Kellerman