Category: faith

More on: Searching for God Knows What

More from Don Miller:

“Let’s say I was an alien and I had to go back to my home planet and explain to some head-of-the-aliens guy what people on this planet were like… the thing that defines human personalities is that they are constantly comparing themselves to one another.”…

“I kept thinking about this that night and I got out of bed and wrote my thoughts down on a piece of paper, you know, as if I were an alien. I put it down in a fancy alien voice:

Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste. Nevertheless, this is the driving influence behind every human’s social development, their emotional health and sense of joy, and, sadly, their greatest tragedies. It is as though something that helped them function and live well has gone missing, and they are pining for that missing thing in all sorts of odd methods, none of which are working. The greater tragedy is that very few people understand they have the disease. This seems strange as well as well because it is obvious. To be sure, it is killing them, and yet sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem.”

New blog on church technology

Digital.leadnet.org has a new blog on church technology.
I believe the site “opened” today.
One of the first posts on the blog discusses the ways txt messaging from cell phones is changing relationships and possibly the church.

Over dinner one night, I’m talking with Dave Browning, who pastors Christ the King Community Church. He described the difference in technology use in Africa, where getting internet access is rather challenging, but everyone has a cell phone. So we explored how he might use text messaging as a means to communicate and equip his multi-site church leaders in Africa from where he is in Burlington, Washington. (I’ll tell you more about a back door way to do this in a future post.)
Then over a breakfast conversation, I’m talking with 2 parents who are amazed at what their teenage children are doing with txting. One parent described how some txters are so proficient with their cell phone keypad entry that they can txt underneath the desk in class. Yes, a hi-tech way for passing notes in class. One other parent confessed that she was not a txter, and she gets pleas for help with errands from her son, but because she doesn’t know how to read txt msgs on her cell phone, one of her sons sends a text message to another son in another state, who then in turn calls Mom to relay the message by a cell phone call!

It will be interesting to see where this blog with a number of tech-savy contributors heads.
And speaking of txt messaging, how has it changed your relationships or church?

‘Bone of my bones – flesh of my flesh’

Interesting thoughts/questions I wondered about while reading Genesis 1-3 this morning…

Gen 1:26-28 says God created man and woman, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” — on the 6th day of creation. Yet it isn’t until Gen. 2 that scriptures actually tells us about the creation of Eve. I wonder how/why that is? Does that signify the seven days took a lot longer than a literal seven days? Maybe 100 years for each day or 1000 years for each day?

If you read Gen. 2:15-24 it would appear that things happened in this order…

Adam was created. God told him not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.

God realized Adam was alone. (v. 18)

God told him to get to work. Adam set out to name all the animals (probably not a short-term task). “So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” (v. 20)

I bet as Don Miller suggests, in his book, “Searching for God Knows What” it could have easily taken 30-40 maybe even 100 years to name all the animals on the earth. I wonder if he named all the fish in the sea too? Did they all swim up next to the shoreline so he could name them?

Adam stays busy working “But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” (v. 20)

Seems like God realized Adam’s needs long before he did. I wonder when it hit Adam that he was lonely and needed human companionship.

I wonder if God was sitting there just waiting for that moment to arrive. Then He leans over and says to the angels gathered around watching things on earth in great joy – “Ha. See I told you Gabriel and Michael — I knew he’d realize his basic need in life is for companionship and relationship. He just had to get out and see the world a bit.”

Miller says that he bets Eve felt really loved.

Adam had longed for a companion. He didn’t even know what that would mean but when he saw Eve he said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

I bet Eve felt treasured because Adam had never lusted after another woman. Never abused another woman.

Never mistreated another woman and he was craving her presence even before she was created.

She was exactly what he was looking for.

Reminds me of our search for Christ. Before meeting Christ, we don’t know we’re even looking for Him. But we search and search and carry on with our work until suddenly we realize there’s something missing. We’re missing out on something bigger than us. Then once we find Him — we realize He’s exactly what our soul needed.

Anyways — just some thoughts — additions/comments/clarifications?

Got to brag on my life

Laurie put together a video for encounter’s two year anniversary this morning.
Unfortunately she was working in the nursery and didn’t get to see it played on the “encounter jumbotron.”
But she did a great job picking out photos that really highlighted the message we were looking for.
The band played the song, “And Now my Lifesong Sings” and we displayed the words over the bottom 1/4 of the video with MediaShout, similar to what we do with most other songs.

Here’s the video with Casting Crown’s recording of the song:

The study of Scripture

Don Miller writes in his book, “Searching for God Knows What” about the Benedictine monks, who stayed up late and studied the bible by candlelight.
He wonders what it would be like to sit up late and study the Bible without being tainted by lists and charts and formulas that cause you to look for ideas infer notions that may or may not be in the text, all the while ignoring the poetry, the blood and pain of the narrative and the depth of emotion with which God communicates His truth.
“I think there would be something quite beautiful about reading the Bible this way, to be honest – late at night, feeling through the words, sorting through the grit and beauty.”
He quotes author Kathleen Norris from her book, “The Cloister Walk,” and what she has to say about the monks:

Although their access to scholarly tools was primitive compared to what is available in our day, their method of biblical interpretation was in some ways more sophisticated and certainly more psychologically astute, in that they were better able to fathom the complex, integrative and transfomative qualities of revelation. Their approach was far less narcissistic than our own tends to be, in that their goal while reading scripture was to see Christ in every verse, and not a mirror image of themselves.”

May that be my prayer in the reading and studying of scripture. May I seek to see Christ in scripture and not myself. and may Christ make me more like Him through the process.