Our freedom allows us to make choices that determine our purity and our innocence. So, freedom always includes responsibility, and purity can be regained. It is innocence that is untried.
In the cases were guilt may plague us, we may seek healing in the spiritual discipline of life confession, and then find it our acceptance of love and forgiveness. This happens best in Community, with the support of siblings in Christ.
This is also an act of worship.
Please share you thoughts on this, or a related theme.
Or you may tackle one of the following. Thanks.
• What have been your influencers with regards to purity?
• How has the media impacted your view of purity?
• What is the biggest struggle regarding your faith and your purity?
The Spiritual Formation Discovery (event) is presented by Imago Christi an international and cross-cultural spiritual formation ministry of Church Resource Ministries (CRM). Imago Christi develops spiritual formation resources and coaches Christian leaders around the world.
A lot of people claim to have friendly churches. But we have to ask, “Friendly…compared to what?”
Most would avoid saying, “our church is unfriendly.”
Yet, friendliness is distinctly different from hospitality.
• A friendly church might–by policy or administration–greet newcomers
• A friendly church may staff a church information center
• A friendly church might include a greeting time within the order of the worship.
But, this is surface-level hospitality.
Friendliness involves a, “Hello, how are you?” But, hospitality waits for the real answer, and offers an invitation to break bread together… Really, to do life together.
• After church, are folks staying afterwards to visit, or do they rush off to their kids’ soccer matches, NFL games, or other obligations?
• Are spiritual siblings, sort of, shooed out so the Sexton can lock up the building?
• Can congregants make and share a meal at church, a snack, or put on a pot of coffee, without the deacons getting nervous about clean up and carpet stains?
• Does the building, and the programs and schedules therein eclipse the human beings for whom the church exists?
Shouldn’t church feel (be) comfortable–like an inviting hearth and home? Should it not have the kitchen and the living room vibe, where people feel a bit saddened to leave, at the end, because they have enjoyed a time with people who love them. A place where people don’t look at their watch, but instead comment on the pity it is that time went so quickly. A. hospitable. place.
What is the culture of your church?
If you could change something, what would it be?
What does hospitality look and behave like, [to you]?
After you read these 7 considerations (from Scot’s post), will you please comment here?
1. Theodicy: how does God deal with evil if it, in effect, exists for ever in a hell-state? Does evil not continue to exist, even in spite of the statement in Revelation 21:1-4 that death and suffering will be no more? So, the issue here is squaring God’s goodness with eternal evil.
2. Eternal hopelessness: a traditional hell does not permit any hope after death for anyone, including those who have never heard. Is there a law that says God’s grace can only be active in the temporal sphere — that is, during our physical lifetime?
3. Eternal evil: does not the traditional view entail the view that God never really does purge his world of evil?
4. Justice vs. Love: the issue here is an old one. If God is love, how does justice fit in with that love. Is God ambivalent or split? An image of God that emerges for many is a cruel father who guides people to think of eternal punishment as an act of love.
5. Eternal divine violence: assumptions are that punishment is an act of violence and eternal punishment would mean God is eternally violent. She connects this view of God with acts of violence in history. She thinks God’s violence contradicts God’s love.
6. Retributive justice: again, a major issue is that God’s justice in the Bible — in Christ — is restorative but hell is a belief in a retributive justice that never becomes restorative.
7. Eternal punishment for temporal sin: how can it be just to punish a human being, who sinned temporally — that is over a life time (and no more), for an eternity for that temporal sin?
Rachel Evans is calling for a response to Marck Driscoll’s recent bullying of effeminate men, here: But I have to mention….doesn’t this sound a lot like an episode of GLEE?
Does this gay bully look like Mark Driscoll?“macho man: Mark Driscoll” Wait! Is that a flattering blouse?
Mark Driscoll is gay? Don’t kill the messenger…I didn’t come up with this.
You can find a pretty solid case HERE, compiled from his friend Don Miller, who–years ago–coined him, “the cussing pastor” in his best-selling book Blue Like Jazz. (When I say “case”…I mean Donald seems to refer to Driscoll, with some detail, right along with [other] male leaders associated with…well, gay scandals. Maybe it’s a connect-the-dots thing.)
Another person to recently point out Mark’s hyper (and perhaps suspicious) masculinity, is Brett McCracken, within the pages of his new book Hipster Christianity, (pages 103-105.)
“There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” –Mark Driscoll [4]
(There’s a common theme of guy-on-guy fights/violence with Driscoll. You may remember he showed, the hot and sweaty brawl movie “Fight Club” as an official church event. Hum.)
Is Mark Driscoll’s Jesus Tough and Buff?
Mark, if you’re reading this, you can stop over-doing it to throw us off track. Don and I both realize you’ve painted yourself into a corner, Mark. The gig is up, dude.
(A bit like gay twins?) Driscoll and Gay WWF wrestler “Giant Gonzales” (Both picts are just so creepy. Sorry about that.)
Nevertheless. IF Driscoll was gay, we would love him anyway. Right, everyone? Right?
There’s a punchline in here somewhere. Can you spot it?
Is Mark Driscoll too overtly macho, and (like recent pastors caught in self-created sexual hypocrisy -Eddie Long and Ted Haggard), too anti-gay to be straight? (This is where you start to realize how silly the whole topic is.)
Disclaimer:
Am I joking about Driscoll? Sure. Of course. I’m a humorist. (I’m upfront about that here at the blog.) And despite loads of circumstantial evidence, and the writing stylings of Don Miller, Mark’s certain proclivity could remain a mystery, much like Theodicy, or atonement theories. This is all probably just a loooong series of coincidences. No biggie. If Mark is gay, or tempted with homosexual thoughts or feelings, I’m sure we could trust that he’d just open up and tell us–straight out. Or, maybe, like his marriage book, he’ll hold out on telling us that he’s had some trouble until he writes a book on the topic. I”m honestly NOT worried about it. The point is, neither should any of us be!
