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calling

What is calling exactly? You read biblical stories of Noah and Moses and think they had a clear calling from God. They had a specific duty, for a specific group of people, at a specific time.

What does calling really mean. Is there only 1 job, in 1 specific geographical location, serving in 1 specific way. Or do we go to the other end of the spectrum; serve God where you are, and you are fulfilling his calling. I must admit the first one scares me. What if I get it wrong, does that make me disobedient? I was reading an article in Sojourners magazine last week titled All’s Quiet on the God Front by Rose Marie Berger where she shares about people living out God’s calling in silence. Here is a quote…

Mother Teresa, in her diaries released last year, also writes about God’s silence—more particularly God’s absence. In a letter to her archbishop, Teresa begs, “Please pray especially for me that I may not spoil [Jesus’] work and that Our Lord may show Himself—for there is such a terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead.” This great emptiness started when she began her ministry with the destitute and dying in Calcutta.

I have this vision of God having coffee (fair-trade of course) with mother Teresa. She was the very hand and feet of God, and she did not feel his presence. It causes me to think… are we looking for too many answers? Are we standing in the middle of our own Calcutta asking “God what is my calling?” Does God really care when we serve him as long as we are sincerely giving all we have for him, and serving those that truly need to see God?

new voices

We need new voices in the Christian community.  Have you ever been to a Christian book section and paid special attention to demographic breakdown of the authors?  Have you been to a Christian conference and noticed how all the speakers have some strong similarities?  We need new voices to emerge.  We need voices that do not just come from a white male perspective.  We need to look for the voices, and give them a platform to tell their story.  The white men need to show leadership by stepping aside, listening, and learning.

relevance

Over the past few years churches and the Christian community have spent a lot of time, money, and effort to make the church relevant. We have better music, cool videos, and better speakers. We dress more casual, pastors have tattoos, and the line between Christ and culture has been blurred.

I started reading Jesus for President recently (I will but up a review soon) and it made me think about relevance and culture. Jesus did not come to be culturally relevant, he was counter culture. Which makes me think….what are we doing? Who are we following?

New page

Hi all. Sorry about the delay, but we are moving to a new webpage. I wanted to find a simple content management page, so we are going with this for now. I will add all the other content to this page soon.