Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

Help China – one shirt at a time

Love this!

A graphic designer named Steve has partnered with World Vision to sell 50,000 t-shirts and raise $1,000,000 to help China.

On Monday, May 19, one week after the China Earthquake, reports surfaced estimating that 50,000 lives would be lost in this tragedy—our vision is hope. One by one, fifty thousand hand drawn tally marks create the “x” on your shirt, each one representing a life that has passed, and connecting it with a life that has committed to help rebuild. Your shirt is a symbol how one person, multiplied 50,000 times, can do something amazing.

Love it! “Be the difference you wish to see in the world!”

Love your neighbor – even if they’re halfway around the world.

HT: Churchrelevance.com

Doom and gloom for SBC?

Outgoing SBC President Frank Page suggests that the Southern Baptist Convention should make some changes or the denomination will see a drastic reduction in numbers.

From the MondayMorningInsight:

“If we don’t start paying attention to the realities … by the year 2030, we will be proud to have 20,000 rather than 44,000 Southern Baptist churches.” That’s a quote from outgoing Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page recently. According to a report in the Tennessean.com, Page believes the 16.2 million-member convention faces the same challenges that bedeviled other Protestant denominations — lower birthrates, aging demographics and a culture increasingly hostile to Christianity. In response, churches tend to circle the wagons and hang on for dear life.

“You’ve got massive numbers,” he said, “maybe not a majority but massive numbers of evangelical churches out there, yes, Southern Baptists also, who are small groups of older white people holding on till they die.”

Page says more outreach is needed in the SBC. He further suggests that the convention must embrace diversity if it hopes to survive. It must be more welcoming to ethnic groups and younger generations.

From Tennessean.com:

One of Page’s major tasks as president has been to change the public image of the convention. Too many people perceive Southern Baptists as mean-spirited, angry conservatives, he said. That image, he believes, is based on political talking heads and Republican culture warriors, and not on the actions of ordinary Southern Baptists.

He’s particularly angered at the actions of Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based congregation known for spewing hatred toward homosexuals and for protesting at military funerals.

“People have said, ‘Does it bother you that they are called Baptist?’ ” he said. “I say, it bothers me even more that they are called a church. Remove the Baptist from the issue or the argument. To call yourself a church should hold you to a very high calling and high standard that they do not live to.” …

While Page teaches that homosexual behavior is sinful, he also focuses on other sexual sins. If a couple comes to the church and is living together, the church insists the couple gets married before they can become members. And the church has gay people who attend, but are not members as well. Page says the church is not going to turn anyone away.

“We have people that are living together, we have homosexuals who come here, and who are not joining, because they are loved and cared for and they hear the Gospel,” he said. “We say you are welcome here. Do we have some requirements for membership? Yes. We are not going to back off those. But if you don’t meet those or don’t want to meet those, we are still going to love you.”

That kind of attitude exists in many Southern Baptist congregations, Page says, and that gives him hope for the future of the convention.

He describes himself as cautiously optimistic, believing that most Baptists would rather love their neighbors than bash them with the Bible.

(side note: The Nick & Josh podcast have a great interview with Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church. Listen to Pt 1 & Pt 2)

Today’s random list

a. We fertilized the yard Friday evening. I say we – I mean Laurie. 🙂
b. Mowed, edged and watered the lawn yesterday.
c. Dwight Kurt Schrute is the featured Office character for June on my wall calendar.
d. “Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, ‘would an idiot do that?’ And if they would, I do not do that thing.” – Dwight K Schrute
e. Pagan Christianity? is a real eye opening book.
f. Did you know, realize that tithing is never mentioned or commanded in the New Testament?
g. You never find first-century Christians tithing.
h. In truth (according to Frank Viola and George Barna), biblical tithing (Lev. 27:30-33, Num. 18:21-31, Deut. 14:22-27, Deut. 14:28-29, Deut. 26:12-13) was commanded to Israel and was actually 23.3 percent – not 10 percent.
i. First-century Christians simply gave what they could in order to benefit the poor, the fatherless, the widows, the sick, the prisoners and strangers.
j. “Discovered” a new word Saturday morning at breakfast :: heritickle adv. pronounced: hair-i-tick-al meaning: 1. an idea that goes against traditional doctrine or beliefs but sounds so good to the ears and soul. example: “Brian preached a heritickle sermon yesterday morning.” 2. a doctrinal idea or theology that makes you laugh out loud. note: spelling may very from person to person, but the primary definition and pronunciation remains the same. variations include: haritickle, harry-tickle and hiaritiacle.
k. It’s really humid out today and at 8:17 a.m. I already have the sleeves rolled up on my shirt. Do I really need to be wearing long sleeved shirts to work?
l. I’m planning to attend Theology Live tonight – wondering if anyone will join me.

simply living simply pt.2

Well I promised I’d try and share some of the things Laurie and I are currently doing to live simply.

I’m not sharing this list because I want to brag about what we do, or because we’ve got it all figured out and we do it right all the time. I’m just sharing this list because they’re some things that we’ve found that work for us (as in – “Hey! We can do this!”). Laurie may have some additions to this list (I hope she does).

Invest in others – Laurie and I are both involved in several groups where community and relationships are built. We are both part of a community group that meets each Tuesday night in the home of friends and we share life and God. Laurie also now meets weekly with several friends on Thursday night to just spend time building those relationships and I’m involved in a Bible study/discussion for men on Wednesday morning (the men’s What-a-Study) and typically meet with one or two other guys at different times during the week.

Recycle – we’re not doing near enough yet (in my opinion) but we’re doing a lot more than we used to. We recycle our aluminum cans, plastic and glass thanks to city recycling program. We should probably add cardboard and paper to the mix – but we haven’t taken the time to store and deliver paper products to a recycling site (mental note: add that to the goal list).

Utilizing public transportation – I’m a big fan of public transportation, especially good systems like DART. Granted, the old joke remains, “The thing I hate about public transportation is the public.” Sure there are days when folks can annoy you and get on your last nerve – but we save a great deal of money on gas and parking each month with my monthly DART pass. On top of that, it gives me an opportunity to actually be in fellowship with others rather than tuning the world out as I climb in my truck all by myself.

Using CFLs – We’ve switched all but just a few lights in our house to new CFL or LED bulbs. We need to find some good CFLs that look good above our bathroom mirrors, but otherwise I think all of our lights have been changed to money saving CFLs.

Utilize an automatic thermostat – This is one of those ways we’re easily putting technology to use to try and save money and automate our air conditioning/heating needs. We also utilize ceiling fans in our main rooms of use (including a brand new one I installed in our office today). While this may be too warm for some folks, we keep our thermostat at 78° F while we’re home and at 85° F during the day. We just discussed the possibility of lowering that day time temperature to 80 or 82 so our AC doesn’t run as long in the evening to cool the house off again. We haven’t found any substantial evidence as to which is best for efficiency, cost and wear and tear on our AC. While our winter bill was a bit higher, we’ve had 2 months of spring/summer electric bills of $70 or less!

We’ve discussed other areas we can improve on or start doing including:

  • starting a garden
  • starting a compost pile
  • recycling paper
  • eating more organic foods
  • eating out much less
  • having friends over for dinner on a more regular basis

Well there’s you a starting point. Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions?

Be sure and check out Shaun Groves’ latest post to see some of his goals as well.