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From Hermeneutics on the Decline of the Seeker Church

What does co-dependence look like within a church? Avoiding sections of Scripture out of fear that certain power pockets will be offended. Believing that repeat attendance depends primarily upon the staff’s seamless execution of Sunday morning–rather than the manifest presence of God. Eliminating doleful songs from the worship repertoire because they might contradict the through line that “following Jesus is all gain.”

Jesus was neither a co-dependent nor a businessman. He unashamedly loved those on the margins and revealed himself to all who were searching. He seemed quite indifferent about whether or not he disappointed the power brokers. Additionally, Jesus understood that the irreducible gospel message—that we are all sinners in need of being saved—was, and always will be, offensive. No brilliant marketing campaign could ever repackage it.

Link

Poor McGrady never caught a break. Not one. And once his back started betraying him, that was that. Garnett has that rollicking ’04 Timberwolves run, then everything that happened in Boston. Iverson has the 2001 Finals. C-Webb has those fantastic Sacramento teams. Ray Allen has the 2001 Bucks, then everything in Boston, then The Shot. Kobe and Duncan have nine rings and 12 Finals appearances between them. Dirk has the 2007 MVP and the 2011 title. Nash has two MVPs and the ridiculously entertaining Seven Seconds or Less era. Jason Kidd has two straight Finals. Pierce has the 2002 playoff run and the 2008 Finals MVP. Even Vince has that one unforgettable playoff duel with Iverson.

Tracy McGrady? He’s the guy who never made it to the second round. And yet, just two weeks ago, Kobe Bryant told Jimmy Kimmel in front of 5,000 people that McGrady was his toughest opponent ever. Not LeBron, not Wade, not Pierce, not Durant. T-Mac. Was that a passive-aggressive dig at LeBron? Did Kobe really mean it? After McGrady retired this week, I couldn’t resist texting Kobe to ask him. Was it true? Was T-Mac really the most talented player Kobe ever played against?

Wednesday my uncle and aunt were driving through on a long vacation road trip. After dinner and before they left for their hotel room in Modesto I thought I’d show them the church building. When I got to the church building there was a small stone and a business card on the fence at church.

You never know what will happen at Living Stones so I picked it up and quickly gave my Uncle and Aunt the tour. I also shared the rock with them and the Bible verse on the rock. My Uncle shared with me a time when he was visiting my former church in Grand Rapids where he saw a woman crying after the service. God told him to share Scripture with her and he shared this same verse with her.

In any case now that I’m back from a little trip I got a chance to check out the rock a bit and the business card. It is from a woman with a powerful story she shares here on YouTube. Here is her blog address. 

BBC

My guess is that this becomes something of a competition in the news media to see how large a credible group they can document, kind of like quints or the octomom. “The next frontier”

From First thigns

And here we can see why the American church is as it is.

From Jesus Creed

Recently we found that a belief in free will is positively correlated with a host of positive attributes (including: self-control, life satisfaction, subjective happiness, mindfulness, and ambition) and negatively correlated with several less desirable traits (such as neuroticism and mind-wandering). Of course, we must be cautious in drawing causal inferences from correlational studies. Nevertheless, these findings are consistent with the view, more directly implicated by the experimental studies reviewed earlier, that a belief in free will affords some positive benefits….

Sarah Bessey “In Which I Beg Barbie’s Pardon”

From the blog Fly Softly My Love