According to GAMAAN, the number of Christians in Iran is “without doubt in the order of magnitude of several hundreds of thousands and growing beyond a million.”
— Read on www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/september/iran-christian-conversions-gamaan-religion-survey.html
Uncategorized
Jerry Falwell Jr., Becki Falwell, and Me. . . – Walt Mueller
Culture, UncategorizedOf course, the Falwell’s have been caught in the act of doing some horrible, immoral, and flat-out sinful things. For choosing to walk those paths they are clearly responsible and accountable. But their actions should also have fall-out in our lives too. . . serving us as clear reminders and deterrents. For the reality is that we, like them, are broken human beings. And lest we think that we are above, beyond, or immune to doing the same. . . well. . . that would be a grave error in judgement. The well-worn cliche. . . “there but for the grace of God go I” . . . is more than appropriate here.
Life is short. Follow Jesus.
— Read on cpyu.org/2020/08/25/jerry-falwell-jr-becki-falwell-and-me/
Books to Build your Faith
UncategorizedThis is a helpful list of books to help build your faith.
The books in this list are ones that, at various times, have shaped and directed my faith. Each of them depicts something of what it means to believe or to struggle with belief. They either tell of a void in belief or of a Big God worth believing in, and…
— Read on barnabaspiper.com/2020/08/books-to-build-your-faith.html
Blindness and Boredom
UncategorizedIf you’re blind and can’t see or if you’re spiritually bored and can’t get “un-bored,” what should you do?
The answer is simple: Absolutely nothing. And above all, for God’s sake, don’t do anything religious…because that sometimes makes it worse.
— Read on www.keylife.org/articles/blindness-and-boredom
Anthony Fauci’s Boss on Why Things Could Be Much Better Soon
Culture, UncategorizedBoy, that’s a big one. What is our future? I don’t want to see a future where this science-versus-faith conflict leads to a winner and a loser. If science wins and faith loses, we end up with a purely technological society that has lost its moorings and foundation for morality. I think that could be a very harsh and potentially violent outcome. But I don’t want to see a society either where the argument that science is not to be trusted because it doesn’t agree with somebody’s interpretation of a Bible verse wins out. That forces us back into a circumstance where many of the gifts that God has given us through intellectual curiosity and the tools of science have to be put away.
So I want to see a society that flourishes by bringing these worldviews together by being careful about which worldview is most likely to give you the truth, depending on the question you’re asking.
— Read on nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/anthony-faucis-boss-on-why-things-could-be-much-better-soon.html
Sharing the Gospel in a Post-Christian World
UncategorizedThe Challenge of University Evangelism
UncategorizedOther roots of the current climate lie in trends in popular culture and technology, as detailed by Jonathan Haidt and some others. Perhaps the most obvious and pervasive influence is the internet. Today’s undergraduate students are the first to have spent their entire adolescence on social media, and there has been much analysis about its effects on them. Studies have shown that social media make relationships controllable but also (and therefore) much “thinner” and more superficial.
Also, by comparison, social media make face-to-face encounters feel much more threatening. For example—how do you just “block” a critic who is physically standing in front of you? You can’t. That’s why aggrieved parties have their interchanges online, where they can simply hit the “off” button to end it. Before hitting the “off” button, however, internet communication makes possible the kind of cutting insults and dehumanizing declarations that few feel able to make to someone’s face.
When a Father Wound Defines You – Scott Sauls
Uncategorized“You are my beloved son, and with you I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
Approval patch no longer necessary. Ceaseless striving for approval no longer required. No more fear of mediocrity or of your legacy being forgotten. Because now, Jacob, I am giving you a new name. From now on, you will be named Israel, which means “He wrestles with God.”
When you’ve wrestled with God and prevailed with a blessing, it has a way of breaking the spell of insecurity and fear. It has a way of making you less needy for approval and applause, and therefore more poised to love and to serve.
Which is precisely what the people of Jesus were made to do.
Statistics You Have Heard That Are Not True
Uncategorized“I’ve heard most of these in church or seen them in the pages of Christian publications. You may have heard a few of them, too:
Church members get divorced at the same rate as anyone else.
The church in the U.S. is dying.
Most Christian young people are shacking up and having sex.
Half of ministers want to quit their jobs.
Youth groups are driving teenagers out of the church in droves.
A third of divorces in America are caused by Facebook.”
You Are Always Preaching to Yourself
UncategorizedYou are constantly preaching to yourself some kind of gospel. You preach to yourself an anti-gospel of your own righteousness, power, and wisdom, or you preach to yourself the true gospel of deep spiritual need and sufficient grace. You preach to yourself an anti-gospel of aloneness and inability, or you preach to yourself the true gospel of the presence, provisions, and power of an ever-present Christ.
– Paul David Trip in Dangerous Calling
