:A Christian Blog

This post is filled with questions in my head surrounding talk about the new Supreme Court Justice nominee, Harriet Miers. Everyone wants to know how she will vote on this issue or that issue. James Dobson has even graciously assured us that Harriet Miers is a good candidate for the Supreme Court. Which in turn, has got him in some hot water with everyone else. That fallout caused Dobson to come back to the issue today and say this. Whew! Anyone else seeing more focus on the Supreme Court than the family here?

Question: Why don’t Christians start concentrating less on making abortion illegal and more on encouraging mothers to keep their babies so that even if it’s legal, they won’t want to do it? This all comes back to outreach in the church. The majority of mothers (I dare say all) don’t want to abort their babies, but they don’t feel like they can support them. If less basketball courts were built, and more permanent shelters for the poor were built, maybe more of them would keep their babies knowing they are going to be taken care of.

Am I wrong to think that all of this attention given to Harriet Miers by James Dobson and others is just missing the point? Have we become so small of an influence on society that we think we need the help of a law to prevent/discourage people from doing something we feel is wrong? Maybe we should lobby for judges that would require everyone to go to church, prevent them from smoking, and ban alcohol. Is that the best way to spread the gospel in the 21st century?

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In case your wondering, yes, I will wrap up talking about this subject soon. This is probably my last post about it specifically. Here are some links I’ve found from around the internet on views about Catalyst 2005. Some I really agree with, and some only partly, but if you read them, it at least looks as though everyone was at the same conference and in sync for the most part with their opinions of it.

Church Marketing Sucks

Tony Morgan’s Blog (in depth posts about Catalyst also)

live… from new orleans

Bob Franquiz (seperate posts for different Catalyst speakers also)

I’m sure there are more, but that’s what I could find from the past few days of looking through the Christian blogs that popped up. It’s good to see that everyone had a good time, and I hope it’s even bigger and better next year.

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Just thought I would point out that Rick Warren has made Fortune’s Top 25 People We Envy Most. A suprising list to make for a Christian I know, but even more suprising is their write-up about Rick.

From the article:
“The most influential evangelical since Billy Graham preaches in Hawaiian shirts and sandals. As if that weren’t enough: Warren gives away 90% of his income. And he’ll never wake up wondering if his job has meaning.”

God is giving a lot of responsibility to Mr. Warren, and from what I’ve seen, he’s using it in some of the best ways possible. Congratulations and keep up the good fight.

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Imagine a person that has spent his life in the jungle. He somehow knows how to read, but the only book he has ever read is the Bible. This person would believe that a follower of the almighty God is without limits. That is what I see in Erwin McManus. Someone who hasn’t been domesticated to American Christianity. Someone who doesn’t see limits to Christianity.

The Barbarian Way tries to convey some of that thinking to the Christian who has been domesticated to think that going to church most Sundays out of the year is what being a Christian is all about. In the book, he tries to “unleash the untamed faith within” with many examples in the Bible of barbarian Christians. He challenges you to stop acting civilized when spreading the word of God, and start acting barbaric (The book tells more about exactly what that means). One of the Bible contexts in the book that really hit it home for me was this one.

20And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”

21But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone,

22saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

23And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

24″For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.

25″For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?

26″For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

27″But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

I’ll end with this tough question. How many Christians do you know (including yourself) that deny themselves, take up the cross daily, and follow Jesus?

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“Vintage Catalyst” was one of the best conferences that I’ve been to. All the speakers were right on target, as far as I’m concerned, on how to move forward with today’s church. There was even a special appearance by Rick Warren to proclaim that we need a second reformation in the church to move in a new direction which I would sum up as “Others, not self”. I ended up buying a book by almost every speaker at the conference after hearing their views on the role of the church and it’s leaders in today’s world. A lot of it was inline with some of the things I’ve been talking about. Outward, not inward, is the way that Jesus taught and that if you walked in any church today, your more likely to hear a sermon on “stress” than the needs of the poor in your community. I’m still taking in all the information that I’ve heard and have drastically stepped up my reading time this week to formulate some ideas in my own head about how to get this accomplished in my community. I would recommend that everyone that has a position or plans to take a position in Christian leadership attend Catalyst 2006 next year. I’m sure a lot of the blogs over the next couple of weeks will deal with the same subjects that Catalyst talked about.

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The blog will be void of posts this week. I’m attending a leadership conference called Catalyst. I have never attended this event, but those who have highly recommend it. Here’s a little more about it from the web site.

Catalyst’s Purpose:

To provide relevant solutions through training and resources which connect and develop next generation leaders.

I hope to return with new ways to motivate myself, as well as, other Christians to spread the gospel of Christ. I’m going to try to keep up with all the great Christian blogs that I read everyday through the hotel wireless internet, so keep posting away!

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