Three lessons your children can learn if you’re a freelancer.
The Pope is encouraging all priests to utilize web 2.0 for the glory of God.
My friend and local A29 pastor, Brent Thomas, is getting some much deserved attention on his posts regarding the growing rift between some reformed folks and the missional camp. First he was retweeted by Matt Chandler, and now Ed Stetzer is talking about him and his blog posts.
An interesting post over at Out of Ur in a series on Heaven and Hell. Here, New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, talks about hell.
One poignant quip in the comments section:
“It’s a shame that Jesus didn’t have N.T. Wright around 2000 years ago to help Him express what He really meant about hell.
Then Jesus wouldn’t have had to grope around and use figures of speech like weeping and gnashing of teeth, unquenchable fire, torment in flame, broad and narrow ways, judgement and the like when apparently He really meant to talk about people declining to be part of God’s new creation.”
I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert on the intricacies of the doctrines of heaven and hell, but I have a hard time reconciling Wright’s (seemingly) watered down version of hell with my own readings of the scriptures.
What do you think: Is this because of my culturally western-stained mind (as Wright would claim), or because Wright’s account bypass the scriptures for a more philosophical explanation?
A few years ago the concept of personal branding would have seemed silly. Sure there were people who could get away with it–the Donald Trumps and Bill Gates of the world. But that was only because they had worked hard to build a business in a traditional way that gained them notoriety.
Nowadays it seems like everyone is talking about personal brands–and everyone is trying to build one.
As a recent article by Tom Peters in Fast Company puts it:
You’re branded, branded, branded, branded.
It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work.
Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.
It’s that simple — and that hard. And that inescapable.
Peters is probably right. But as pastors and Christians, the concept of personal branding brings up some prickly problems. Here’s just one question I’ve thought of lately:
Would Paul have participated in self-branding? Did Jesus self-brand?
I’ll argue the answer is unequivocally no. Both continually pointed to God the Father and sought to give him glory. Paul, after all, wrote this to the Corinthians:
1And I, when I came to you, brothers,a did not come proclaiming to you the testimonyb of God with lofty speech or wisdom.2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (I Corinthians 2:1-5).
The biblical admonition is to find your identity in Jesus and to count yourself as nothing. I’m guilty of falling into the trap of the personal brand (after all, my blog is named after me…). Are you? How do we reconcile the world’s continue pressure to self-brand with the Bible’s teachings? Or do we at all?
“Proud missiologists are not so good at listening; they’re almost never ready to learn from others, especially from those without the necessary credentials.” An important read from IX Marks.
Joe Thorn lays down a good quote from John Piper’s latest book and gives some more suggestions for reading on the topic of pain and God’s sovereignty.
All five of my loyal readers have probably noticed that it’s been a little quiet around here lately. I assure you there’s a good reason!
May I introduce to you the newest member of the Johnson family: Dylan Thomas.
Dylan was born Friday, January 15th at 12:33 p.m. He was 8lbs 4.6oz, 21.5 inches long, and perfectly healthy.
My wife now officially bears the title of toughest person I know. She did natural childbirth and pushed this new life out in 10 minutes. It was incredible to see so much pain and joy within moments of each other. I never thought anything could be more profound than the birth of my first son, Liam. But this one was beyond amazing.
We’re so thankful to God and to all our friends for your prayers and support.
I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Not sure how much I’ll be blogging over the next few months as we’ve been blessed with both this amazing new addition to our family and things are really picking up with work. In the last month I’ve landed a book project, two new potential clients, and a large project with a very reputable agency here in town. Additionally, we’re gearing up for the launch of our new website at Praxis and the official roll out of The City. All of this has come at a just the right time, proving God is one who provides.
One of these days I’ll stop being one of so little faith.
Josh Harris writes a pithy post on the wrong reasons we often have for loving the church. It’s worth the read, and worth reflecting on even more.
Don’t love the church because of what it does for you. Because sooner or later it won’t do enough.
Don’t love the church because of a leader. Because human leaders are fallible and will let you down.
Don’t love the church because of a program or a building or activities because all those things get old.
Don’t love the church because of a certain group of friends because friendships change and people move.
These seem simple and obvious, but I’m willing to bet we rarely give thought to them. I hear of people leaving churches all the time, and usually it’s because they’ve put their hope in one of those four things instead of fully in Jesus.
“Nobody ever stood at the base of the Rocky Mountains and turned to their friend and was like, ‘Remember in high school when I could bench press 285 lbs? That was great. I really was powerful back then.’ I mean, the entire universe is built around communicating to you that you’re tiny and you’re fragile and you control nothing.”
I’ve been reading the Bible chronologically this year. Right now I’m in the middle of Job.
The book is mystifying and frankly hard to comprehend having grown up with Western conceptions of justice. In the book, Job, who is called “blameless and upright” by God is caused to suffer much pain and heartache. His wealth is destroyed, his children are killed, and his health is taken from him by God, who says to Satan, the instigator of this tragedy, “[Job] still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”
Throughout the book, Job searches for answers for the tragedies that befall him. He longs to plead his case to God. Job clings to his righteousness. During his suffering, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to comfort him, but end up rebuking him.
Their logic goes like this: God only afflicts the wicked. You are afflicted. Therefore you must be wicked. » Read the rest of this entry «
A few years ago the concept of personal branding would have seemed silly. Sure there were people who could get away with it–the Donald Trumps and Bill Gates of the world. But that was only because they had worked hard to build a business in a traditional way that gained them notoriety.
I’ve been reading the Bible chronologically this year. Right now I’m in the middle of Job.