Posts Tagged religion
Becoming a Whole Christian
I want to be a Whole Christian.
I want to love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength, and be part of a worshipping community with others who do.
I want to love my brothers and sisters the way Christ loves me,
my neighbor as myself,
and my enemies.
Especially my enemies. For I have discovered that I only see the log in my own eye after I find grace for the speck in someone else’s.
Christianity has been practically defined by our divisions and labels since at least Acts 6, if not Mark 9. I myself have enjoyed many such labels over the years. Protestant. Fundamentalist. Conservative. Evangelical. Reformed. Orthodox. Charismatic. Postmodern. Missional.
I continue to honor and cherish those traditions, even as I critique them. But I no longer want to be defined by them. Especially since they are largely defined by what (and who) they are not.
I want to embrace all of Christianity. Not just the Catholics, liberals, and traditionalists who disagree with me on doctrine and practice. But everybody and everything that has been part of Christian tradition — the good, the bad, and the ugly. The heretics and the persecutors. Torquemada and televangelists. Crusaders and Conquistadors. Pedophile priests and southern slaveholders.
I don’t agree with them. I have serious doubts about whether I’ll see some of them in heaven. But I am content to let Jesus sort the wheat from the tares at the end of the age.
Because all of them are my people. Their sins are my sins. Their failures are my failures.
For only by embracing their failure can I hope to transcend it; instead of repeat it.
“Who is God and What Does He Want?” Preschool Theology, Book I
Posted by Dr. Ernie in Leadership on May 31, 2012
My goal for this summer is to turn my 36-week Bible study “Growing Church Leaders” into a three-volume series of picture books for my preschoolers. Here’s my first cut at text for the first one, “Think Biblically”, written one tweet at a time:
- God is the One who made everything. He made you for a special purpose. He wants everyone to know how He loves them.
- God is three persons: a Father who sends us, Jesus the Son who rescues us, and a Spirit who helps us.
- God wants us to love Him and other people as much as we love ourself. Sin is when we disobey God’s good purpose for us.
- Sin makes it hard for us to know, want or do what is right. Jesus came to earth, died, and rose again to destroy sin.
- Following Jesus means believing He loves us more than we love ourself, which means obeying Him will make us the most happy.
- God gives us parents, the Bible, church and His Spirit to show us how to love people and be happy His way.
- Jesus went to heaven, but will come back to create and rule a new heaven & earth for all who want to live His way.
- Until Jesus returns, our job is to show how wonderful it is to live and love the way God wants.
Knight Club: How to Ride a Dragon
Posted by Dr. Ernie in Knight Club on March 17, 2012
Yesterday I gave my son Rohan (age 3 and 5/6ths) a set of colored dragons and attempted to explain my four-dimensional system for emotional maturity. He grasped the basic idea quite quickly, though I had to modify some of the terms (e.g., “Obedience” instead of “Humility”).
| Dragon | Spurs | Reins |
|---|---|---|
| Fear | Safety | Bravery |
| Anger | Caring | Thoughtfulness |
| Desire | Hope | Patience |
| Pride | Honor | Obedience |
What’s interesting about this list is that the “Spurs” column is more maternal/feminine, while the “Reins” are more paternal/masculine.
Knight Club: Moral Authority and the Fourth Dragon
Posted by Dr. Ernie in Knight Club on March 15, 2012
One of the ways I tackle “wicked problems” is by exploring different possible answers in order to help clarify the essential question. My posts on flying and mastering the dragons of manhood have been useful in helping me recognize that the two main questions Knight Club is trying to answer are:
- What does it mean to be a man?
- What can we do to help our sons become those kind of men?
I believe the most critical aspect of authentic manhood is “moral authority,” where people trust you will do the right thing.
Knight Club: The Vicious Virtues
Posted by Dr. Ernie in Knight Club on March 1, 2012
I often feel I owe my success more to my “vices” than to my “virtues.”
What is a virtue? What is a vice?
- Impatience
- Anger
- Rebelliousness
- Restlessness
- Infatuation
- Daydreaming
- Desire
- Goofing Off
- Subversive Activity
- Laziness
- Quitting
- Boredom
- Fighting
- Delusions of Grandeur
Society — especially school, but the church is arguably worse — tells us these are crimes to be stamped out.
They’re half-right. I call them the vicious virtues. When misdirected, they can easily destroy both self and society.
But if you can master them — and through them master yourself — you can fix the world.
How do we create an alternative form of learning that embraces creative chaos and harnesses the vicious virtues, rather than fighting them?
Twelve Steps to Arrow-Proof Your Ministry
Posted by Dr. Ernie in Leadership on May 28, 2008
Apologies for the pretentious title, but I wanted to challenge myself to identify and reorganize the lessons we covered in last year’s leadership class into a coherent prescription for facing down “Ministry Killers”. The idea is that each of these “steps” would be a single “life lesson”, but that together they provide the “full armor of God.“
What do you think? Did I miss anything important?