Sycamore

Here’s part 3 of the video series we used to introduce our small groups at Shoreline.  Part 4 will be posted in a few days. Hope you enjoy!

Want to see more Shoreline Videos? Check out our page at Vimeo.

Here’s part 2 of the video series we used to introduce our small groups at Shoreline. Parts 3 and 4 will be posted over the next couple weeks. Hope you enjoy!

Want to see more Shoreline Videos? Check out our page at Vimeo.

My wife, and now Matt Kleinhans, have taken to giving me tiny calendars with a different church sign for every day of the week.  Some of them are corny, some of them are heretical, and every once in a while you find some encouragement.  Each week I’ll grab something special from one of those categories and share it with you.  Occasionally, I’ll make some comments.

This, from Monday, April 20:

Ask us about our pray-as-you-go plan.

Stay tuned for more.  You know you want more.

Here’s part 1 of the video series we used to introduce our small groups at Shoreline.  I’ll be posting the rest over the next couple weeks.  Hope you enjoy!

Tim Challies, who as far as I know is the first blogger ever, has a really, really good post up today on our difficulties with enjoying God through a quiet time, and the guilt that crops up when we skip time with God.  After the last few messages on grace, and how the gospel is more about what’s been done for you than what you need to do, this is great timing for me:

Quiet time becomes tyrannical when you understand it as a performance. Bridges provides a pearl of wisdom. “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” Whether you are having a good day or a bad day, the basis of your relationship with is not your performance, for even your best efforts are but filthy rags. Instead, your relationship is based on grace. Grace does not just save you and then leave you alone. No, grace saves you and then sustains you and equips you and motivates you. You are saved by grace and you then live by grace. Whether in the midst of a good day or bad, God does not base His relationship with you on performance, but on whether or not you are trusting in His Son.

There’s a lot more in there about how most Christians are shocked to learn that there’s no commandment in the Bible about having a half hour devotional every day, and how quiet times get a lot better when they stop being about performing for God.  I highly suggest you read it through.

Thru-you is a guy or company that takes unrelated youtube video’s, cuts them into pieces, and does this:

Great idea with a great result.  (HT: Tony Steward)

I’ve been getting married and traveling for almost the entire last month, and in that time the blog has been all but lifeless.  That’s for several reasons - one, I was getting married and was therefore really, really busy; two, I was getting married and therefore had more important things to focus on than blogging; three, I was getting married and was therefore really, extremely busy.

I’m back now, and real life has started again, so consistent blogging will resume in the future…I think.  Lately, I’ve started to wonder if the combination of personal writing and public exposure that is unique to blogging (and now facebook, twitter, etc.) is really a good thing after all.  I kind of miss the days when, if I opened up my computer and started writing, it was either for a class or for myself.  In both situations, very few people would read what I wrote down, and I could focus on actually dealing with my thoughts without the nagging distraction of someone reading it online.

Many great Christians in history, like theologian Jonathan Edwards, or missionary Hudson Taylor, wrote down their thoughts, their stories, things they’d learned, or things they wish they knew in their journals.  Those journals are one of the ways we know so much about them.  Those journals were published after they died.  And I think there’s a lesson in that.

The art of journaling, something I’ve never been very good at, allowed these men to wrestle with life without worrying about an audience.  Good, pure introspection would happen without any ulterior motives - namely, the desire for people to think you’re cool - getting in the way.  Writing down your thoughts without intending to make them public accomplishes a couple of important things: (a) it puts the priority on the thoughts themselves, not on how they’ll be received; and (b) it reinforces the fact that most of the stuff you think is either wrong or not worth someone else’s time.   Whether you’re writing about personal examination, stories about your day, thoughts about God, thoughts about culture, or stories about your dog, they will be more pure when they’re not for public consumption.  You won’t be worrying about how you sound, because there won’t be anyone to hear it.  You won’t constantly be editing in your head.  All you’ll have to worry about is the quality of your thinking.  Or, in those emotional moments, the honesty of what you’re putting forth.  When no one is going to read it later, it doesn’t have to be good.  Which frees you up to actually learn something instead of try to twist every experience into something to teach your readers.  The beauty of journaling was that it encouraged growth in perspective over the long haul, so when you had something to say that was worth listening to it was borne from serious consideration, not a flurry of “inspiration” and the click of a publish button.  Blogging has a hard time with that, so keeping a lot of things written down privately seems like a good idea.  And as an added bonus, you won’t come off as self-indulgent by putting your stream(s) of consciousness in a place where everyone can see them.  (Though it seems like self-indulgence is “in” these days.)

When I die, if someone compiles my blog entries, will they find the poignant and constantly growing thoughts of an honest Christian?  Or will they find a bunch of self-centered, superficial stories and “lessons” that never seemed to grow roots?  Putting a lot of thoughts on the internet leaves little room for the kind of growth I feel like I need, and it’s scary when I realize that I’m one of the most private people I know (think about all the facebook notes, or status updates, or drawn out emails to multiple addresses there are out there…)

Read this now.