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LIGHTING MATCHES IN A LIGHT BULB WORLD
by Spencer Burke

When Jesus invited his followers to be “the light of the world,” what do you think went through the minds of the disciples? It only would have been natural for them to think in terms of the resources available in their day – spark, wood, oil, flame, and fire. But how much has changed since the first century? Even more radically, how much has changed in the last 150 years?

If Jesus were to pose the same invitation today, would we think in terms of matches or alternating current? Wood or filament? Oxygen or vacuum? Therein lies the tension.

We—the Church—have the job of being truth in an ever-changing world. Yet the reality is often that the church has over romanticized matches, wood, and oxygen.

The invitation of Jesus is not to remain captive to things that held true in the past, but to transcend, to evolve, to discover new ways of embodying the things that held true in the past. I find it fascinating that when we mapped the human genome, it was called genius. When we explored the mechanics of quantum physics, it was a step forward. When we democratized communication through the Internet, we called it revolutionary. Yet when we dream of a socially networked church, without walls or the one-hour event, it is perceived as the destructive to the Church.
(italics added by me)
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Currently Reading

Haven’t updated this in a while , so here goes:

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Os Guinness

From the Publisher
The Call continues to stand as a classic, reflective work on life's purpose. Best-selling author Os Guinness goes beyond our surface understanding of God's call and addresses the fact that God has a specific calling for our individual lives.
Why am I here? What is God's call in my life? How do I fit God's call with my own individuality? How should God's calling affect my career, my plans for the future, my concepts of success? Guinness now helps the reader discover answers to these questions, and more, through a corresponding workbook - perfect for individual or group study.
According to Guinness, "No idea short of God's call can ground and fulfill the truest human desire for purpose and fulfillment." With tens of thousands of readers to date, The Call is for all who desire a purposeful, intentional life of faith.


The Importance of Being Foolish
Brennan Manning

From the Publisher
In the eyes of the world, Jesus was a fool. He did not abide by the rules of his day; the people he associated with were shunned by society; his Sermon on the Mount reads likea primer on being left behind, stepped on, and ignored. In order for us to truly be the people Jesus wants us to be, we too must learn to become "foolish."
Becoming a Christian is not a magical enterprise by which we are automatically transformed into better people. We must train to become who God intends us to be. In The Importance of Being Foolish, bestselling Christian author Brennan Manning teaches us how to think like Jesus. By reorienting our lives according to the gospel we may appear to be fools in the eyes of the world, but Manning reveals that this is exactly what Jesus wants.
In a powerful exploration of the mind of Christ, Manning reveals how our obsession with security, pleasure, and power prevents us from living rich and meaningful lives. Our endless struggle to acquire money, good feelings, and prestige yields a rich harvest of worry, frustration, and resentment. Manning explores what Christ's mind was truly focused on: finding the Father, compassion for others, a heart of forgiveness, and the work of the kingdom.

The Way of the Wild Heart
John Eldredge

From the Publisher
I can fix it. I don't need directions. I can figure this out on my own. These thoughts that erupt from a man's bravado, from his deep urge to be real man. Yet underneath this, there is a louder voice countering, You can't. You're not capable. You're weak. Many men-possibly all men-face two looming questions at some point in their life. What does it mean to be a man, and am I one?
The Way of the Wild Heart reaches out to "unfinished men" trying to understand and live their role as men and fathers. Exploring six biblically based stages, John Eldredge initiates men into a new understanding and ownership of their manhood and equips them to effectively lead their sons to manhood.


Divine Nobodies Shedding Religion to Find God (and the Unlikely People Who Help You)
Jim Palmer

From the Publisher
Don Miller meets Anne Lamott meets Brian McLaren in this tale of how God is most deeply connected to the world in the most unexpected ways through the least likely people. Jim Palmer, founder of a small, innovative emerging church, shares his compelling journey to authentic faith as it is intersected by the oddest of characters. Each chapter gives the reader permission and freedom to let go of "Christianity" as religion in order to embrace Christ.

P.T. Barnum would be proud

Fake drug, fake illness -- and people believe it!
A media exhibit featuring a campaign for a fake drug to treat a fictitious illness is causing a stir because some people think the illness is real.
Australian artist Justine Cooper created the marketing campaign for a non-existent drug called Havidol for Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD), which she also invented.
But the multi-media exhibit at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York, which includes a Web site, mock television and print advertisements and billboards is so convincing people think it is authentic.
"People have walked into the gallery and thought it was real," Mahmood said in an interview.
"They didn't get the fact that this was a parody or satire."
But Mahmood said it really took off over the Internet. In the first few days after the Web site (www.havidol.com) went up, it had 5,000 hits. The last time he checked it had reached a quarter of a million.
"The thing that amazes me is that it has been folded into real Web sites for panic and anxiety disorder. It's been folded into a Web site for depression. It's been folded into hundreds of art blogs," he added.
The parody is in response to the tactics used by the drug industry to sell their wares to the public. Consumer advertising for prescription medications, which are a staple of television advertising in the United States, was legalised in the country in 1997.
Cooper said she intended the exhibit to be subtle.
"The drug ads themselves are sometimes so comedic. I couldn't be outrageously spoofy so I really wanted it to be a more subtle kind of parody that draws you in, makes you want this thing and then makes you wonder why you want it and maybe where you can get it," she added.
Mahmood said that in addition to generating interest among the artsy crowd, doctors and medical students have been asking about the exhibit.
"I think people identify with the condition," he said.

Fri Feb 16, 11:56 AM ET NEW YORK (Reuters)

The Password

On your feet now—applaud GOD!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
Know this: GOD is God, and God, GOD.
He made us; we didn't make him.
We're his people, his well-tended sheep.
Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
For GOD is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
Psalm 100 MSG

Many families even close friends have special “code-words” that have special meaning just for them due to common experiences. We have several in our family; one is “just say thanks for the cookie”.

Both of my children have taken Suzuki style piano since they were three. Though their mother is a Suzuki piano teacher, we selected, for Amy and Andrew, a teacher allowing Dottie to be a "piano-mom”. This decision meant frequent travel to Miami from “the rock” or our home on the island of Key Largo. Once the children began school this became our practice every other Saturday.
Early one Saturday, a classmate of Andrew’s, joined our family for the trip to the lesson before a day of activities on the mainland. Since two lessons would last more than an hour, I went to do some errands. After a quick stop at the computer store, I bought half-dozen large cookies from a shop in the mall and returned to the piano studio.
After getting into the car the cookies seemed only to be properly appreciated by the children. As Amy, Andrew and Alan all expressed gratitude for a cookie, Dottie uncharacteristically was grumbling and griping. Perhaps she thought it was to early in the day for cookies. The yammering and disapproval brought quiet and a sense of gloom into the car.
Without looking at her and seemingly to no one in particular I softly said, “Just say thanks for the cookie.” The randomness and foolishness of the comment broke the mood and we all had a good laugh. For the remainder of the day we all looked for opportunities to say, “Just say thanks for the cookie,” to each other.
And now seven years later, “Just say thanks for the cookie,” is the code-word that we use to occasionally reset and attitude. Having the opportunity to both be a classroom instructor and coach to both Alan and Andrew we have created many bewildered looks from classmates, opponents and even officials by saying, “Just say thanks for the cookie.”

Entering into the presence of God is the same, you start with the password: Thank you.

"To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us --
and He has given us everything.
Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace,
for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder
and to praise of the goodness of God.
For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience.
And that is what makes all the difference."

From Thoughts In Solitude by Thomas Merton

Joy is not Happiness

The other night a discussion lead to the above statement, and now this morning I read some additional thoughts on the subject in a little book by Henry Nouwen.


Nouwen toward the end of his essay spoke of gravitating toward the light which drives darkness away. He said:

“Hope is more real than despair
Faith more real than distrust and
Love more real than fear.”

Being able to recognize the spiritual reality from the shadow of darkness is not sentimentalism but truth.
Nouwen went on to describe a friend whose joy was contagious.
“The more I am with him, the more I catch glimpses of the sun shinning through the clouds.”
Knowing that there is a sun behind the clouds however is not sufficient in itself when darkness surrounds and colors all other aspects with its suffocating twilight.
Continuing the description of his friend Nouwen goes on to say that “while his friend always spoke of the sun I (Nouwen) keep speaking about the clouds, until one day I realized that it was the sun that allowed me to see the clouds.”

May we become messengers of hope, speaking of the sun while walking under the dark skies.

“His master answered and said to him,
‘Well done…enter into the joy of your master.’”
Matthew 25:15

Coram deo

a sound,
no, a voice.
hesitant,
there is no voice for me.

a voice calling,
yes, I hear,
and my heart responds,
betraying my feet.

behind the sound,
beyond the voice,
wait, be silent.
His eye

for me,
toward me,
light flows out, not in.
capturing me;

ah,
behind the eye,
adjusting to the light,
His face.

for me,
toward me,
capturing me;
grace in a smile.

the sound of beating,
behind His face, His heart.
the voice first heard
His love is complete.

"Unclear On The Concept"

An FBI website meant to teach children not to give out personal information while at a website violates child online safety laws by asking children to give out personal information.

The site invites child readers to take part in a Common Knowledge Foundation quiz on how to become an FBI agent which requires that the child first enter personal information; their home telephone number and address. Worse, Common Knowledge Foundation never obtained the law-required clearance to be asking these questions of children.

But on the bright side, children come away with a clear understanding of how government operates.

The Register (UK) 23-Oct-06 Click here for original story