this is a work in process :: thoughts expressed are current personal opinions and are not necessarily final statements :: i reserve the right to disagree with myself and/or change my mind at any time :: it is a reflection on spiritual growth / formation :: and a little bit of just about everything else thrown in
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I hope you’ve met at least one Kingdom person in your life. They are surrendered people. You sense that life is OK at their core. They have given control to Another and are at peace. A Kingdom person lives for what matters, for life in its deepest sense. There’s a kind of gentle absolutism about their life-style, a kind of calm freedom. Kingdom people feel like grounded yet spacious people. Whatever they are after, they already seem to be enjoying it - and seeing it in unlikely places. Kingdom people make you want to be like them…. Kingdom people are anchored by their awareness of God’s love deep within.
People are preoccupied with other things. They’re fine people. They’re good-hearted people. They mean well. But they’re just cut off from ever realizing their potential by the rat race, or whatever kind of race people are puttin’ on now. The cares of the world, the distractions of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, these things just choke them out and prevent them from ever maturing.
By and large, I think, Christians are good people. They’re nice, middle class, suburban people. They’re well-educated; they mean well. They don’t hate Jesus. In fact, they love him, if he’ll stay in his place. And they don’t mean him any harm. It’s just that they are so busy. They’ve got to go here; they’ve got to go there. They’re busy with their houses; they’re busy with their automobiles; they’re busy with their business. They just don’t have time to think and they don’t have time to get on the ball. So, they’re choked out.
Clarence Jordan, Cotton Patch Parables of Liberation
"Live, with Bono and Edge, at a charity concert that was happening at a church in London last night (they showed up unannounced and played a few songs)"
"The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self.” Henri Nouwen
"I think the most valuable thing any leader can do is morph the outlook of the congregation toward the exhiliration of risk and outlandish possibilities of God" Ron Martoia - "Morph"
Dark for Darfur has a calculator for the electricity costs for outdoor christmas light displays. They are encouraging us to consider doing without these displays, and instead donating corresponding dollar savings to address the insanity in Darfur.
Buy Nothing Day is encouraging us to undertake a 24 hour buying moratorium on November 23 in the United States (the infamous Day after Thanksgiving/busiest shopping day of the year) and on November 24 internationally.
A little exercise from public radio called consumer consequences. It’s a sort of a game you play where you enter various data about yourself, like how much you drive your car, how many miles per gallon it gets, how much you fly every year, how much food you eat, of which types, how much garbage you throw out every week, how much you use public transport, how much your electric bill is on average, and so forth. Then it gives you an estimate of how many earths we’d need if everyone were consuming at the same level as you.
this is not a nice video clip to watch. waiting for the guards is the first of a series of 3 films by amnesty international. click the link above for more details or to download a copy of the clip.
my cuppa coffee colour matching cup... it would be so much simpler if everyone drank their coffee black and their tea clear - the way God intended.
Bedazzled has an old black and white video of the Beatles sitting on a plank laid across two sawhorses, lip syncing to Help! The umbrella doesn't do a good job of catching the fake snow. Link
optical illusions and other visual phenomena: link
grace is emphasized. grace is trusted. grace is displayed. grace is taught. grace is evident. grace is changing lives. grace is the point.
I am thankful for a church where ... regardless of where you are on your spiritual journey you can connect. regardless of your baggage you are welcome. regardless of what you are wearing you can come. regardless of your race, social standing, income, and preferences - you are invited. regardless of what you did the night, week, or month before, you will be accepted.
I am thankful for a church ... that cares about its community. that wants to engage the hearts and minds of those who attend it. that is externally focused. that cares about kids. that wants to help you connect to others.
I am thankful for a church that is... real. relevant. exciting. focused. simple.
I am thankful for a church where... the gospel is preached. God is glorified. Jesus is worshiped. those away from God are loved to God. Christ-followers are challenged. volunteers want to serve. transformation happens. skeptics are welcomed.
The word exegesis literally means a critical interpretation and is commonly applied to the study of literature. As readers of the Bible, we exegete the text with a view to discerning its truth for our lives. In this exercise you’re invited to undertake an exegesis—a critical interpretation—of your neighbourhood. Through careful, sensitive and critical observation, your task is to discern the truth of God’s presence where you live. Quite simply, it’s about reading your neighbourhood as one of the primary texts of daily life—one through which God speaks.
Then there's a list of 20 questions to ask as you walk around.
It was some 20 years ago that U2 released the Joshua Tree album... my copy was on cassette... that's how long ago it was. was… hey, it was 20 years ago, but it was also one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Like many others I’m sure, I was glad to see that
The album has been remastered and is to be re-released on November 20th in 4 different formats:
CD format: remastered album on CD
Deluxe format: remastered album on CD, bonus CD with b-sides and rarities from The Joshua Tree sessions, and a 36-page booklet
Box set edition: remastered album on CD, bonus CD with b-sides and rarities from The Joshua Tree sessions, bonus DVD with a concert from the Joshua Tree Tour and other videos, and a 56-page hardback book
Double vinyl edition: remastered album on two gramophone records, and a 16-page booklet
The re-release includes previously unreleased tracks that were written for but not included on the original Joshua Tree album release. One of these, "Wave of Sorrow" is now circulating at iLike.com/u2. Wave of Sorrow was written out of Bono’s experience in Ethiopia with World Vision. The video is below, with Bono continually interrupting to explain the lyrics, which draw on several biblical allusions, including Solomon and the Beatitudes, and links them with extreme poverty.
Heat haze rising On hell's own hill You wake up this morning It took an act of will You walk through the night To get here today To bring your children To give them away
Oh... oh this cruel sun Is daylight never done Cruelty just begun To make a shadow of everyone
And if the rain came And if the rain came now
Souls bent over without a breeze Blankets on burning trees I'm sick without disease Nobility on it's knees
And if the rain came And if the rain came now Would it wash us all away On a wave of sorrow Away On a wave of sorrow
Where now the holy cities? Where are the ancient holy scrolls? Where now Emperor Menelek? And the Queen of Sheba's gold
You my bride, you wear her crown And on your finger precious stones Has every good thing now been sold
Son, a shepherd boy, now king What wisdom can you bring? What lyric would you sing? Where is the music of the Seraphim?
And if the rain came And if the rain came now Would it wash us all away On a wave of sorrow Away A wave of sorrow
Blessed are the meek who scratch in the dirt For they shall inherit what's left of the earth Blessed are the kings who've left their thrones They are buried in this valley of dry bones
Blessed all of you with an empty heart For you got nothing from which you cannot part Blessed is the ego It's all we got this hour
Blessed is the voice that speaks truth to power Blessed is the sex worker who sold her body tonight She used what she got To save her children's life
Blessed are you, the deaf who cannot hear a scream Blessed are the stupid who can dream Blessed are the tin canned cardboard slums Blessed is the spirit that overcomes
--
And then he writes:
I'm heading back to a place - the so-called "third world" - that I've come to see as the "real world", and my spirit needs it desperately. I've only been home for a few months and see now that my sense of urgency has slackened, my spirit has become greedy for the cheap trinkets our culture has on offer. I often feel and suspect that I need these people more than they need me; as though there's a trade going on that fills their stomach but heals my spirit. I can't help but think I return with the deeper blessing.
Here are a series of links that I've come across in the last day:
internet monk points to this sermon by John Piper. Some of his stats are out of date - check out more recent ones at www.leadnet.org, but he rightly points out that "church planting and concern for the poor... are issues ...that those who follow Jesus should not ignore".
Bill Kinnon points to the good measure project. Or as Bill says with tongue firmly in cheek "you could just keep giving to your church to help it build a bigger facility. God knows we all need bigger facilities."
Here are three quotes from Dan Horwedel, taken from the book, Historic Creeds, by Kenneth Boa:
(18) "It is much better to desire God without being able to think clearly of Him, than to have marvelous thoughts about Him without desiring to enter into union with His will...." Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation.
(24) "It is easier to define ourselves by what we accomplish than by our new identity in Christ. For some, the Christian life consists more of fellowship, service to those in need, witnessing, and worship than of becoming intimate with Jesus. This leads to the problem of ministry without the manifest presence of God."
(24) "God is an intensely personal and relational Being, and it is an insult for us to treat Him as though He were a power or a principle. Some of us find it easier to be comfortable with abstract principles and ideas than with people and intimacy. As we have seen, good things like the Bible, theology, ministry, and church can become substitutes for loving Him. As a countermeasure, it is good to ask God for the grace of increased passion for His Son so that, by the power of the Spirit, we will come to love Him as the Father loves Him."
“Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally, but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.”
Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity. It is the fruit of unanswered questions. But questions cannot go unanswered unless they first be asked. And there is a far worse anxiety, a far worse insecurity, which comes from being afraid to ask the right questions–because they might turn out to have no answer. One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.
words and rice Here's a way to increase your word power [attention scrabble lovers] and help feed the poor: free rice. It's linked to poverty.com. Thanks to Zachary for the link.
Replace soldiers’ weapons with paintball guns; Create a national gas-barbecue registry; and replace the Defence Department with a Ministry of Laughter.
Like the old Rhinos, the party has no clear political ideology except for two deep beliefs: something’s seriously wrong with the state of modern politics, and Canadian public discourse could use a lot more fun.
"We are a Marxist-Lennonist party - based on the philosophy of Groucho Marx and John Lennon,” said party president Francois Gourd.
Beneath the thick veneer of gags, the party raises a serious point: people are so disenchanted with politics that almost 40 per cent of Canadians no longer bother voting in federal elections.
This is too freaking kewl. A tesseract--that is to say--a hypercube. It's the four dimenensional analog of a cube. That is, it is to a cube what a cube is to a square. And this is a 3 dimensional projection (it's shadow) being rotated. It's hard to get your head around becase we not only have the fact that we're trying to imagine the 3 dimensional shadow of a four dimensional object, but we also have the fact that we are attempting to portray that 3 dimensional shadow on your two dimensional computer screen. Someday, I suppose, assuming we find fixes for peak oil and global warming, among other things (peak water?!!?) maybe we'll have holo-monitors for our computers. But not yet. 8-cell-simple.gif
We have entered the season of unbridled materialism. I heard about Reverend Billy a little while ago. Reverend Billy, is the stage name of Bill Talen who leads The Church of Stop Shopping an activist performance group based in New York City. Now he has a movie opening on November 21st, just in time for Buy Nothing Day on Novemeber 23rd.
You'll also want to check out Advent Conspiracy which is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion, not consumption.
Tom Kelley's The Ten Faces of Innovation is an interesting read. The subtitle is: "Ideo's strategies for beating the devil's advocate and driving creativity throughout your organization." That sure sounds useful for church leaders to read - although where "church people" get the idea that it is OK to play the devil's advocate is beyond me (my reading of scripture says we resist him!) In a similar vein, why do some people think they have to play the part of the "loyal opposition"? Again, that is very destructive. Now, I know, that devil's advocates and members of the loyal opposition will say they are just trying to sharpen the churches thinking - which is good - but I believe their methods are totally wrong.
Much of the material in the book comes out of the work of ideo (founded by Tom's brother, David). Tom unpacks the following ten faces, describing some of the ways they look. If you lead, I'd say the book is worth a read.
The Learning Personas Individuals and organizations need to constantly gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and grow, so the first three personas are learning roles. These personas are driven by the idea that no matter how successful a company currently is, no one can afford to be complacent. The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and today's great idea may be tomorrow's anachronism. The learning roles help keep your team from becoming too internally focused and remind the organization not to be so smug about what you know. People who adopt the learning roles are humble enough to question their own worldview, and in doing so, they remain open to new insights every day.
1. The Anthropologist brings new learning and insights into the organization by observing human behavior and developing a deep understanding of how people interact physically and emotionally with products, services, and spaces. When an Ideo human-factors person camps out in a hospital room for 48 hours with an elderly patient undergoing surgery, she is living the life of the anthropologist and helping to develop new health-care services.
2. The Experimenter prototypes new ideas continuously, learning by a process of enlightened trial and error. The Experimenter takes calculated risks to achieve success through a state of "experimentation as implementation." When BMW bypassed all its traditional advertising channels and created theater-quality short films for bmwfilms.com, no one knew whether the experiment would succeed. Its runaway success underscores the rewards that flow to Experimenters.
3. The Cross-Pollinator explores other industries and cultures, then translates those findings and revelations to fit the unique needs of your enterprise. An open-minded Japanese businesswoman was taken with the generic beer she found in a U.S. supermarket. She brought the idea home, and it eventually became the "no brand" Mujirushi Ryohin chain, a 300-store, billion-dollar retail empire. That's the leverage of a Cross-Pollinator.
The Organizing Personas The next three personas are organizing roles, played by individuals who are savvy about the often counterintuitive process of how organizations move ideas forward. At Ideo, we used to believe that the ideas should speak for themselves. Now we understand what the Hurdler, the Collaborator, and the Director have known all along: that even the best ideas must continuously compete for time, attention, and resources. Those who adopt these organizing roles don't dismiss the process of budget and resource allocation as "politics" or "red tape." They recognize it as a complex game of chess, and they play to win.
4. The Hurdler knows that the path to innovation is strewn with obstacles and develops a knack for overcoming or outsmarting those roadblocks. When the 3M worker who invented masking tape decades ago had his idea initially rejected, he refused to give up. Staying within his $100 authorization limit, he signed a series of $99 purchase orders to pay for critical equipment needed to produce the first batch. His perseverance paid off, and 3M has reaped billions of dollars in cumulative profits because an energetic Hurdler was willing to bend the rules.
5. The Collaborator helps bring eclectic groups together, and often leads from the middle of the pack to create new combinations and multidisciplinary solutions. Not long ago, Kraft Foods and Safeway sat down to figure out how to knock down the traditional walls between supplier and retailer. One strategy--a way to streamline the transfer of goods from one to the other--didn't just save labor and carrying costs. The increased efficiency sent sales of Capri Sun juice drinks, for example, soaring by 167% during one promotion.
6. The Director not only gathers together a talented cast and crew but also helps to spark their creative talents. When a creative Mattel executive assembles an ad hoc team of designers and project leaders, sequesters them for 12 weeks, and ends up with a new $100 million girls'-toy platform in three months, she is a role model for Directors everywhere.
The Building Personas The four remaining personas are building roles that apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen. When people adopt the building personas, they stamp their mark on your organization. People in these roles are highly visible, so you'll often find them right at the heart of the action.
7. The Experience Architect designs compelling experiences that go beyond mere functionality to connect at a deeper level with customers' latent or expressed needs. When Cold Stone Creamery turns the preparation of a frozen dessert into a fun, dramatic performance, it is designing a successful new customer experience. The premium prices and marketing buzz that follow are rewards associated with playing the role of the Experience Architect.
8. The Set Designer creates a stage on which innovation team members can do their best work, transforming physical environments into powerful tools to influence behavior and attitude. Companies such as Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic recognize that the right office environments can help nourish and sustain a creative culture. When the Cleveland Indians discovered a renewed winning ability in a brand-new stadium, they demonstrated the value of the Set Designer. Organizations that tap into the power of the Set Designer sometimes discover remarkable performance improvements that make all the space changes worthwhile.
9. The Caregiver builds on the metaphor of a health-care professional to deliver customer care in a manner that goes beyond mere service. Good Caregivers anticipate customer needs and are ready to look after them. When you see a service that's really in demand, there's usually a Caregiver at the heart of it. Best Cellars, a retailer that takes the mystery and snobbery out of wine and makes it simple and fun, is demonstrating the Caregiver role--while earning a solid profit at the same time.
10. The Storyteller builds both internal morale and external awareness through compelling narra-tives that communicate a fundamental human value or reinforce a specific cultural trait. Companies from Dell to Starbucks have lots of corporate legends that support their brands and build camaraderie within their teams. Medtronic, celebrated for its product innovation and consistently high growth, reinforces its culture with straight-from-the-heart storytelling - patients' firsthand narratives of how the products changed or even saved their lives.
australia Habs-Dyer Equal Area projection. You have to love this Australian Map.
flight patterns Designer Aaron Koblin composited a day's worth of FAA data to make some pretty fascinating (and deeply beautiful) animations. There are more here. via npr
lee valley One of the things I miss about not being close to London is Lee Valley. I received a catalog from them the other day. Here's a couple of little things I have used / given.
This 1" dia. flat steel bagel is really a very versatile pocket screwdriver. It replaces dimes, quarters and table knives,What makes it so effective is the range of edge thickness (from 0.030" to 0.090") created by a ramp formed on one side. They make a great stocking stuffer.
The 2nd item for today is the tin of book darts. They are perfect for use as non-slipping bookmarks that can even be positioned to point to a specific line. Unobtrusive and indefinitely reusable, they eliminate the need for bent corners, paper clips, underlining, highlighting, sticky papers.
tesla coil Not just any old tesla coils, but ones that play the Marion Bros theme (with no speakers involved).
Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils playing Mario Bros theme song at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon sponsored by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI. The music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved. The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software.
Our primary aim in life is to love and glorify God, participating in the expansion of His Kingdom in relevant ways in the time alloted to us. As communities of the King, churches should model what the Kingdom looks like when God has His way with a group of people. via rick ianniello
George Eldon Ladd:
We live in the presence of the future. via rick ianniello
Brian McLaren:
More and more of us are realizing something our best theologians have been saying for quite a while: Jesus' message is not actually about escaping this troubled world for heaven's blissful shores, as is popularly assumed, but instead is about God's will being done on this troubled earth as it is in heaven. via team pyro
team pyro doesn't like Brian McLaren. I have to admit, they tick me off, and I just want to blast them. I know that's not a good thing to do, but... I resist (most of the time) Then I read this quote on Adrian Warnock's blog:
It is easy, when attempting to be discerning, to neatly categorize people into two camps: safe and unsafe or good and bad. We then implicitly trust the people in the good camp and entirely reject anything said by those in the bad camp. To do so, though, is to ignore the common grace God gives whereby even those whose views are far different from our own can still be wise and can still speak the truth. While we need to read their words with care and discernment, we can and often should still read their words. We need to rest in the security of the Spirit’s guiding and protecting ministry in our hearts rather than in sheltering ourselves from views that do not always accord with our own. (Tim Challies in The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment
The problem of belief in God has never been solely to convince the conscious mind. if it were, He would need only to raise up forensic debaters or brilliant apologists rather than pastors and churches who nurture. "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Rom. 10:10, KJV, emphasis added). It seems to me that too often we have all mistranslated the passage: "For with the mind man comes to believe and confesses with his mouth." It is easy to confuse deep, heartfelt conviction with mere intellectual assent and to think salvation is thereby accomplished.
John Loren and Paula Sandford, Transforming the Inner Man, p. 25
a church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling.... [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, live by improvisation and experiment.
I guarantee there isn't a homeless person in Portland who couldn't tell you the gospel verbatim. They've had to listen to it three times a day to get a sandwich. They've heard about Christ, but they haven't seen Christ. Who will sit next to them while they panhandle, who will enter their world? I've had friends doing that for 15 years. That is seeing the gospel.
Rick McKinley, pastor of the Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon. Taken from "Dei Laborers", Leadership Journal, Fall 2007
My review of his book This Beautiful Mess will be coming up shortly.
into the wild is based on the 1996 book of the same name by Jon Krakauer.
It’s film that does not have a Hollywood ending. It’s gritty. It’s painful. It’s real.
Critics have made much of that fact that the real Chris McCandless is not the Chris McCandless that is portrayed in the film… so… it’s not a bio-pic. It’s a story based on the life of a real person. And like many stories, it is that framework which is used to tell a story. In this case, Krakauer uses McCandless to portray the extreme example of every young man who turns his back on today’s society and goes into the wilderness to find himself. Here’s a young man who withdraws from society, because society is messed up. He grew up in a wealthy, suburban, successful dysfunctional family who wanted him to follow in their footsteps.
Fed up with society and how people treat each other, McCandless seeks freedom in isolation, believing that only by losing everything can he find himself. The journey takes McCandless, who leaves behind his name and dubs himself Alexander Supertramp, from Georgia to the deserts of Arizona by road. He paddles down the Colorado River all the way to Mexico. He hitchhikes and hops trains from California to the grain fields of South Dakota. Each step takes him closer to his final destination, where he boards his “magic bus” in the Alaskan wilderness.
As we journey into the wild, part of us soars with Chris on his great adventure. It's also interesting how many of the people he meets on the journey call on his not to reject his family, even as he experiences true family as they extend grace and hospitality toward him. They are as gripped by his story as he is theirs.
Just before heading to Alaska, Chris meets an elderly leather maker. Ron Franz. This frail man, who has lived alone since the death of his family many years before, is challenged to live and enjoy life by the young traveler. Franz, in turn, blesses Chris with the wisdom and love that Chris had sought so long from his own family. Franz, tells him: “when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines on you.” You can almost see the weight of the world lifted off Chris’ shoulders at this revelation.
Near the end of the film there are two statements that are significant. One of the last things he scrawls in his notebook is
Happiness only real when shared.
The other thing is a board on which he writes a final messge talking where he mentions the significance of naming things. At the bottom of the board he signs his real name. He is no longer Alexander Supertramp. He is
After my last post, I started looking at some other Bill Bailey YouTube videos. Here's a couple on vegetarians... [disclaimer: my brother & his family are vegans, my son's girlfriend is a vegetarian]
Here's a couple of great lines:
I'm a postmodern vegetarian. I only eat meat ironically....
It's true. Hitler was a vegetarian. Just goes to show, vegetarianism, is not always a good thing. It can, in some extreme cases, lead to genocide.
In case you forgot... tonight is the night to turn your clocks back. I hadn't synced my pda for a couple days last week... so I was greeted with an incorrect time last Sunday AM.
You shouldn't need one of these... since you get an hour's extra sleep. But here are the top 10 annoying alarm clocks. If you have trouble getting up, one of these might fit the bill.
What Teachers Make, or Objection Overruled, or If things don't work out, you can always go to law school
By Taylor Mali www.taylormali.com
He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about teachers:
That those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his and resist the urge to remind the other dinner guests that it's also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite conversation.
"I mean, you're a teacher, Taylor" "Be honest. What do you make?"
And I wish he hadn't done that (asked me to be honest) because, you see, I have a policy about honesty and ass-kicking: which is, if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor and I can make an A- feel like a slap in the face. How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.
You wanna know what I make?
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence. No, you can not work in groups. No, you can not ask a question (so put your hand down) Why won't I let you go to the bathroom? Because you're bored and you don't really have to go, do you?
You wanna know what I make?
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home at around dinner time: "Hi, This is Mr. Mali, I hope I haven't called at a bad time, I just wanted to talk to you about something your son did today. he said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?" And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are and who they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them write, write, write. And then I make them read. I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful over and over again until they will never misspell either one of those words again. I make them show all their work in math. And then hide it on their final drafts in English. I make them realize that if you got this (brains) then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you give them this (the finger).
Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true: I make a difference! What about you?
In case you hadn't realized, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you're talking about? Or believe strongly in what you're saying? Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences? Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?
Declarative sentences - so-called because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true as opposed to other things which were, like, not - have been infected by a totally hip and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know? Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this; this is just like the word on the street, you know? It's like what I've heard? I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay? I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?
What has happened to our conviction? Where are the limbs out on which we once walked? Have they been, like, chopped down with the rest of the rain forest? Or do we have, like, nothing to say? Has society become so, like, totally . . . I mean absolutely . . . You know? That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . . whatever!
And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness is just a clever sort of . . . thing to disguise the fact that we've become the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along since . . . you know, a long, long time ago!
I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you, I challenge you: To speak with conviction. To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it. Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. You have to speak with it, too.
One of my favourite worship artists Ruth Fazal was leading. She is a gifted composer, instrumentalist, worship leader.
Heidi Baker, who along with her husband Rolland, have ministered in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world since 1995.
The government offered Iris Ministries a horribly delapidated and neglected "orphanage," and with no promised support such a project they simply said, "Yes, we'll take it!" They began with eighty children, but their hearts were broken for the lost and abandoned children still on the streets of Maputo. After many years of brutal civil war, thousands left orphaned, displaced and abandoned. The Mozambican and foreign staff of Iris Ministries began to pick up and take in these lost children. God poured down his love and provided food day by day. They grew to 320 children. They planted a church in the community and began to see hundreds turn their hearts to the Lord.
The former communist directors of the government orphanage were furious ever since the Bakers took over, since their extreme corruption and thievery had been stopped. Scheming together with an equally corrupt faction of the government, they concocted accusations and issued a legal decree to Iris Ministries forbidding prayer and worship, Christian singing, etc., and all forms of "unapproved" food and clothes distribution and medical assistance. If they and their children did not obey these new rules, they all had forty-eight hours to leave. Heidi was also told that there was a contract out on her life, and that she was not allowed back on the property. Overwhelmed and exhausted by the fight, they had to evacuate to their office in the city.
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