By Marc Engelhardt –
I know that eventually I’ll be labeled the “sex guy” if I keep making these posts, but there is too much good stuff that is discussed in our Christ in Common classes to not share the recaps. So, here is another recap that illustrates how we use Foundation, Worldview, and Practice for discipleship in our context. These recaps build off the previous ones, so check out my previous posts if you are lost.
By Cindy Koch –
With teenagers in the house, there’s one thing I’m pretty sure about: I don’t know everything that they are getting away with. Now, I think I know most things (I hope). But myself, being a pretty sneaky high-school girl in years gone by, I can recognize the stories that don’t add up just right. And I can remember the excuses I used to side-step around the rules under the roof. And I could go on and on about the scenarios I’ve dreamed up in my head, the terrible ways they could possibly betray my trust.
By Marc Engelhardt –
In the first few Christ in Common recaps, I wrote about the awesome bonding, oneness-making result of sex, as well as our culture’s embrace of the separation of sex from marriage. Using all of that as a background, we now start to discuss how to engage and live in a culture that views having sex as a right.
By Joel A. Hess –
This past week I had the pleasure of talking to a young lady at a bar about Jesus. She wanted to talk about President Trump. She said she was studying the heartland, the Midwest, to find out how in the world we all could vote for him. Yes, she blatantly assumed that everyone in the Midwest voted for Trump. All the while, she sat in a bar in St. Louis, a city that likely did not unanimously vote for Trump, like most cities. She also assumed that all conservative Christians voted for him as well. She didn’t even ask if everyone sitting there voted for him. She just assumed. Of course, how many Midwesterners assume that all the residents of coasts voted for Hillary? There is a lot of assuming out there. You know what they say—assume makes a donkey out of you and me. This country is full of them, and I’m the worst. Lord have mercy.
By Marc Engelhardt –
(This post continues the recaps from Christ in Common, which is a discipleship discussion that takes place in my context. Christ in Common is a good example of how we purposefully approach the discipleship triad of Foundation, Worldview, and Practice. Remember, as recaps, these posts hit highlights of what the group discussed in person, so they are short and may seem to make some jumps occasionally. If you pull out the Word and study the Foundation mentioned, you should be able to fill most gaps.)
By Bob Hiller –
Have you ever been to funeral where people got up and spoke negatively about the deceased? Almost never. When friends and family gather to mourn the loss of those they love, they always speak well of the person. As you leave most funerals, you’d almost think that there is no such thing as sin in the world. The wages of sin is death, we’re told, so it is a true mystery to everyone present why this pillar of morality, joy, and laughter is about to be laid six feet under!
By Marc Engelhardt –
In this post I’ll share one of the ways we do Foundation, Worldview, and Practice in my context. It comes from a class we teach called Christ in Common, which is a double entendre. The class exists because those involved have been brought into God’s family through Christ; he is the common thread among us. The class is also focused on digging into what it means to have Christ be the influential voice in the everyday things we face. I write these recaps for people who want to reference what was covered. The class itself is very community driven, meaning that many voices are shared and heard, and it isn’t just me lecturing. Since they are brief recaps, they don’t get into all the details of everything that was said, but they should give you an idea of the overall content and approach.
By Hillary Asbury – This month’s illustration is based on Hebrews 4: 12-16. For the word of God is […]
By Joel A. Hess –
A couple of weeks ago I attended a very sad funeral. It was for a boy who took his own life, as teenage boys sometimes violently and impulsively do when they think they are backed into a corner. The room was packed with kids, family, friends. They all knew he died. They all knew how he died. It was on everyone’s mind. Suicide does that. It forces everyone to stare blankly into the abyss. Though kids laughed and nervously carried on, no one can deny that there was, as they say, a huge elephant in the room. This was not just a sad death, but the saddest kind and the most difficult to comprehend: suicide.
By Cindy Koch –
There are already too many holidays on our calendar that are a challenge to the Gospel and the pure Word of God. Some holidays are widely scoffed at by Christian communities, like Halloween. When I lived in the Bible Belt, trick or treating would be canceled if it ever fell on a Sunday. Some holidays are in the middle of a church and state type battle, like Christmas and Easter. Do you really celebrate the “reason for the season” and say “Merry Christmas,” or do you trade in your crosses for Easter bunnies? Then there are the holidays that surprise you, where our church and culture just might be celebrating the same thing. For example, that special Thursday in November that everyone takes a day to give thanks for every good thing they have been given. And while we all just love having a Monday off the normal routine (and any reason to barbeque and drink beer), this Labor Day should also inspire a little careful thought.
By Paul Koch –
When we are quiet, when we give ourselves moments without distraction or entertainment, when we allow silence to occupy our space, we begin to think about our lives, about our world and our place in it. We begin to realize that there is something wrong, something misplaced or broken about our existence. Maybe for you it begins when you realize how bad your joints ache or how difficult it is to do things that once seemed to do with ease. Or perhaps, in your contemplation you struggle with inner demons, with things no one else can see, with depression and anxiety. Some days are a dark and confusing battle where hope seems to be in short supply, and you can’t seem to get a hold of the reason why. Then again, maybe your quiet moments are consumed with thoughts of guilt and shame. You think of friendships that you’ve lost, of loves that have grown cold. When we enter the quiet we often find that we quickly seek the distractions, the diversion from what is broken within ourselves.
By Tim Winterstein –
If Hitchcock remade Fight Club, it would probably look a lot like The Machinist (2004). If you haven’t seen it, but you’ve seen Fight Club, then I probably gave away the major plot twist. But even if you know the major twist, this is a devastating film about the destructive power of buried guilt. I had seen The Machinist before, but I honestly didn’t remember much except that he works in a machine shop and is struggling with something. I probably watched it on a VHS rented from a Blockbuster (RIP) in Washougal, Washington during a summer when I worked the night shift at a Safeway and then in a hot, dusty, stifling concrete plant in Portland. Not much else to do during my first summer not returning home from college.
By Bob Hiller –
“We don’t do the wave at baseball games.” So said the guy sitting behind me at the Angels game last weekend to his son.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what you do when you’re bored. But there’s no reason to be bored. There is a baseball game going on. We’re here to watch the game.”
By Paul Koch –
The past month has been one that I will not soon forget. My wife and I successfully hiked from Yosemite National Park to the top of Mount Whitney. All in all, our journey together in the mountains covered 245.7 miles over 24 days. We traversed everything from dense and beautiful forests to exposed and sometimes frightening mountain peaks. We hiked in the sun, the rain, and more than once in hail. We would eat our lunches beside lazy streams in the midst of meadows and set up camp in places of stunning beauty. We spent all our time together. We talked and encouraged one another along the way. We ate every meal together, set up camp and broke down camp together. We would talk about the trail, about what the next day would hold for us, how much elevation we would gain or how brutal the downhill grind would be. We talked about our life together, our children and our faith.
By Tim Winterstein –
“I felt that I must scream or die!—and now—again!—hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!—
‘Villains!’ I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!’”
By Bob Hiller –
This past weekend, SoCal Harvest church hosted their annual Harvest Crusade in Southern California. For those of you who don’t know, the Harvest Crusade is a massive Evangelical outreach event led by Pastor Greg Laurie. His church rents out a baseball stadium for three days, gets big-name Christian rock bands to play concerts, and packs the house with thousands upon thousands of people. Pastor Laurie preaches the Gospel and, as is the standard at such events, has an altar call at the end. In college, some buddies of mine and I attended it to observe and critique as all self-righteous pre-seminary students are wont to do. We were amazed to hear Laurie preach the Law and the Gospel. Folks were pointed to Jesus! Yes, I know, altar calls are a big problem. Yet, for all the issues I have with these “crusade” type events, I have to say, we heard Jesus preached. And for that, I think we can thank God.
By Joel A. Hess –
Cover-up, cover-up, cover-up! It seems that every week a new scandal in the Church is revealed. A couple of weeks ago, Willow Creek revealed the creepy behaviors of its leader. Sadly, this past week no one was shocked to be told of a massive cover-up of pedophile priests.
By Joel Hess – “One mornin’ Tim was feelin’ full, His head was heavy which made him shake; […]
By Cindy Koch – Day 21. Out in the wilderness. Even though I wrote this weeks ago, before […]
By Bob Hiller –
Remember that song by Garth Brooks where he sang, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers?” Yeah, unfortunately, so do I. It’s this sappy romantic song about how Garth and his wife went back to his hometown and ran across his boyhood crush, the one he had prayed and prayed for God to let him marry. After seeing her he looks at his wife and is just so thankful that God ignored his prayers for the crush so he could marry his wife. God didn’t answer Garth’s prayer. He had a better plan in mind.
