Blog, page 4

Wisdom from Hidden Christmas by Tim Keller:

Here’s the challenge, though: We need Christians everywhere. That includes centers of power, where people of influence, talent, wealth, and beauty reside. But everything about Christmas teaches us not to have our heads turned by such people, not to be prejudiced in their favor. Christians must also live among them and love them and serve them as neighbors. There are temptations for those who do this. They must do so with no need or desire to get into the “inner ring” of coolness and power. [Because of the extraordinary circumstances of the Incarnation,] Christmas means that race, pedigree, wealth, and status do not ultimately matter. It means not being prejudiced against the poor — and not being biased against or for the well off. We must not be snobs or snobs about snobs.¹

Andrew Wilson for Christianity Today on how Old Testament stories point to Christ:

When, in Genesis 41, Joseph is finally vindicated, he emerges from the pit with a new face and new clothes (41:14). So does Jesus. Joseph’s appearance is immediately hailed as good news for the nation: Pharaoh says, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the spirit of God?” (41:37). It is the same with Jesus. Joseph is exalted to the right hand of the highest authority (like Jesus), with emissaries sent before him (like us), crying out to all who can hear, “Bow the knee!” (41:43). The result is blessing for the world in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, as we find in Jesus. The world comes hungry to Joseph and finds that he is the only one who can provide food that satisfies. In a far greater and more lasting way, we discover the same thing in Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Good read for the Advent season.

Directing one’s attention to the miracle of Christ’s birth at anytime, let alone during the busy-year-end-crazy-fest, requires intentionality. That’s probably why traditional Christian calendars have long included the period of Advent: a few weeks set aside to emphasize the incarnation of God in the birth of Christ.

While most of us don’t celebrate the traditional feasts and other practices associated with the liturgical calendar, a simple way to practice Advent is to get a bird’s eye view of the whole story arc of the Bible and how it points to Jesus. There are lots of volumes to help you to dothis, including the excellent children’s book, The Jesus Storybook Bible.

Read aloud together

The Jesus Storybook Bible is a great way for kids and grownups to anticipate the arrival of Christ’s birth. By reading together each night beginning December 1st, you can start with Chapter 1, and end with the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve.

Of course, capturing the overarching Christian story is not just for kids. Take the opportunity to go deeper by reading (perhaps with a spouse, roommate, or friend) the corresponding scripture passage for each of the storybook’s chapters:

1. Psalm 19 and Hebrews 1
2. Genesis 1-2
3. Genesis 3
4. Genesis 6-8
5. Genesis 11
6. Genesis 12 (cf. Genesis 13-21)
7. Genesis 22
8. Genesis 29-30
9. Genesis 37 and 42-45 (cf. Genesis 38-41; 46)
10. Exodus 12:1-28 (cf. 3-13)
11. Exodus 14-15
12. Exodus 16-17
13. Joshua 3 and 6
14. 1 Samuel 16
15. 1 Samuel 17
16. Psalm 23 (cf. Psalm 51 and 2 Samuel 7)
17. 2 Kings 5
18. Isaiah 9:1-7 (cf. Isaiah 11, 40, 50, 53, 55, 60)
19. Daniel 6
20. Jonah 1-4 and Hebrews 1:1-2
21. Ezra 7 (cf. Nehemiah 8-10 and Malachi 1, 3-4)
22. Luke 1-2
23. Luke 2 (again!)
24. Matthew 2

Spend time intentionally

Spend time with the people closest to you on purpose. For example, in our house, we have a loose calendar¹ of special activities to do almost every day of December. The point isn’t doing more, but to signal the season by doing differently.

Instead of turning on the Wii on the weekend, we can take a walk to enjoy neighborhood lights. It’s this intentional difference of activity that can help to shake us out of our cultural sleepwalking and — in conjunction with the purposeful Bible reading above — can help us to turn our minds to the utter miracle of God made human. When our kids ask, “Why are we taking treats to the neighbors?” we can say, “Giving and receiving gifts reminds us of the greatest gift.” When we eat treats ourselves (which we most certainly will), we can teach, “you think hot chocolate and cookies are great? God with us is vastly better than anything else.”

Advent reminds us that the best is yet to come.

Andy Crouch in his review of Gordon Smith’s Institutional Intelligence for Cardus:

This [fading Christian cultural backdrop] could be good news for Christian institutions—calling us away from the temptation of self-serving religious isolation into meaningful partnership with our neighbours who do not share our faith. But in an environment where Christianity is no longer taken for granted as the cultural background, the leader whose institutional intelligence is mostly directed inward toward their own members and staff, or upward toward their board and donors, may be missing the most important institutional dimension of all. We have to embrace the outward work of sustaining partnerships for the common good in an increasingly incomprehending, suspicious, and polarized world.

Overview of lament poetry in the Bible from The Bible Project’s¹ video on Lamentations:

A form of protest, a way to process emotion, and a place to voice confusion — all to restore a sacred dignity to human suffering.

Excellent summary of biblical songs of lament, and an even better practice for the hurting and distressed.

Rachael Starke writing on “sexual assault: a problem that crosses centuries” for Fathom:

Allard sees humanity, especially as influenced by culture, as “unsafe.” But the Christian worldview disagrees—the problem with Allard’s diagnosis is not that it’s too dark, but that it’s not dark enough. We are, all of us, far worse than merely “unsafe.” We are capable of sheer evil. But just as Christians believe the human problem is far greater, we believe just as strongly that an answer for our problem exists, one with power to not just make safe, but to make us truly good.

Few characters in the Old Testament exemplify this hope better than Boaz.

–1 Timothy 2:2

Here’s another example of academic inquiry and debate being threatened on college campuses. But this time with a faint hope: here come the freshmen.

Chris Bodenner in the The Atlantic:

Another student from India, Jagannath, responded to the canceled lecture by organizing a freshman-only meeting on the quad. “For us to rise out of this culture of private concerns, hatred, and fear, we need to find a way to think, speak, and act together,” he wrote in a mass email. Jagannath told me that upperclassmen warned him he was “very crazy” to hold a public meeting, but it was a huge success; about 150 freshmen showed up and, by all accounts, their debate over [Humanities] 110 was civil and constructive. In the absence of Facebook and protest signs, the freshmen were taking back their class.

With faculty, administrations, and upperclassmen largely paralyzed by identity politics, perhaps it’s the college freshmen who will help to right the higher-ed ship.

Note too that it’s not placards and Facebook posts that are helping to counter the toxicity at Reed; it’s courageous in-person dialogue.

A minister blogs his experience of visiting a traditional church and an “atheist church” on the same Sunday:

Both were attended by a crowd of fashionable-looking young adults, mainly in their twenties and thirties. Although the sizes of the venues differed — HTB was bigger — both were nearly full. The form of the gathering was also very comparable. Both had a variety of notices and announcements, a collection taken during the ‘service’, tea and coffee for those attending, and ‘welcome’ information was available for newcomers. However, the parallels went deeper, too.

Judy Wu Dominick for Christianity Today:

[We] admitted our tendency to recognize other people’s tribalism but less often our own. Consequently, we realized that we accuse our ideological opponents of dehumanizing vitriol while feeling perfectly justified in dehumanizing and abusing them. We also acknowledged our tendency to equate people with their ideas. This reductionism prevents us from learning the human stories behind the ideas—and when we don’t apply effort to learning those stories, we fail to become instruments of healing, justice, and reconciliation.

Emma Green on Radio Atlantic:¹

I think that the urban/rural divide is the single most overlooked fracture in American religion, and particularly in the American church. With religious minorities… the enclaves are urban, concentrated populations where everybody in those communities is religious. But I think in Christianity, because it’s so huge and spread out, there are radically different orientations for those people who are in cities, and those people who are in suburbs, and more rural country.

More in the full podcast, including conversation about “how everyone, ‘religious’ or not, wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something transcendent.”

James Vincent for The Verge:

Amazon’s drone delivery program stopped being a joke a while ago, but the company still has to overcome serious challenges to make the technology actually work. One of these is getting drones near enough to large populations so they’re more efficient than regular road delivery. Amazon has an idea for that though: Huge. Drone. Beehives.

The article goes on to question whether this is possible because of the risks of noise, congestion, and crashes. (Seems like we’ve lived with that stuff with cars for a long time now.)

Liz Gumbinner on teaching kids about email:

When I finally broke down and got my daughter an email account (all my friends have one! actually does work sometimes) we had the long, requisite discussions about safety, etiquette, and responsibility. But wow, it turns out there’s so much more than that. Especially because most of her friends seem to have been given accounts without any tips or tutorials at all. No judgments there; it’s just that I think email seems so everyday to all of us, and some of the protocol is now so intuitive, it hasn’t even crossed most parents’ minds.

Super practical. Remember when your parents taught you ______? The right way to use email has to be taught too.

Elly Fishman for Chicago Mag:

If Sullivan High School had a motto, it would be “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Its immigrant population now numbers close to 300 — 45 percent of the school’s 641 students — and many are refugees new to this country. This academic year alone, the Rogers Park school has welcomed a staggering 89 refugees — nearly three times as many as last year and far more than at any other high school in the city. The recent surge, fueled in part by an influx of Syrians, has turned the school into a global melting pot, with 38 countries and more than 35 languages represented.

Much more in the full piece including infographics, photography, video, and what it means to educate kids like the girl who “says she misses the smell of jasmine in her native Syria but not the sound of bombs.”

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra profiles “the life and times of Redeemer Presbyterian Church” for TGC:

The spiritual scene wasn’t much better: Less than 1 percent of those in center city Manhattan self-identified as evangelicals. Without a lot more connections, experience, and money, you’ll have a really hard time, New York insiders told them. Odds are you won’t last five years.

But Keller’s plant has lasted nearly six times that long. When he preaches his last sermon on June 25, Redeemer will be 28 years old. Over nearly three decades, attendance has soared from around 50 to more than 5,000. The congregation expanded into two, then three locations. They ministered to thousands through Hope for New York, re-imagined employment through the Center for Faith and Work, and launched a church-planting hub now called City to City.

Through it all, Redeemer proved the impossible: You can grow an evangelical church in the middle of one of the most post-Christian, least Bible-minded cities in the United States.

Over the past 15 or so years, perhaps no single church (Redeemer) or person (Keller) have been as influential in educating the Western church at large about the importance of and strategy for urban church planting.