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(Yesterday on the blog: Shall I Bare My Arms?)
Who is Welcome Here?
Jen Pollock Michel: “For those of us who grew up in a pew, we can hardly appreciate the difficulty of walking into a church either for the first time or for the first time in fifty years. Church is a place of so much shared—and implicit—consensus. We share a common vocabulary. We share a familiar understanding of what’s happening during the service. We move in time as if to the beat of some invisible drum. No wonder it’s daunting for people to join us: they feel clumsily out of step. I think the question remains for those of us who would call ourselves ‘believers’: what does it look like to welcome a ‘stranger’ among us? How do we make our churches places to safely explore the Christian faith?”
The Ministry of Spiritual Grandparenting
I quite enjoyed this article on spiritual grandparenting.
On Men, Shame, and Brotherhood
“The shame of masculinity in the current context cannot adequately be understood apart from some grasp of the ways in which various increasingly onerous and often contradictory or impossible demands close in upon many men today. Unable to satisfy such demands, the male self can slowly move beyond guilt for unfulfilled yet reasonable duties to a sense of shame in its inherent worthlessness, dysfunctionality, inadequacy, or impotence. In such situations, men can stop believing that they are people of inherent worth and dignity who may have done some things wrong to believing that some dimension of their very existence is wrong or worthless.”
This Simple Solution to Smartphone Addiction is Now Used in Over 600 U.S. Schools
I like this! “At San Lorenzo High School in California, which this school year began requiring students to Yondr (yes, it’s a verb) their phones from the beginning of first period until the end of the last, the difference has been stark. Grades have gone up, and discipline problems have plummeted, said principal Allison Silvestri. Referrals for defiance and disrespect are down 82 percent, she said, adding that before Yondr, most of them stemmed from arguments between students and teachers over phone use in class.”
Welcome to the Post-Text Future
While it’s clear we are in a time of transition,people have been calling for the death of the written word since forever. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Communion Does Them Good
“My dad tells the story about a church he attended where the vicar would ensure the choir boys were given communion because ‘it does them good.’ Shortly after taking communion, the boys would troop out of the service, kicking each other, swearing etc. The communion did not seem to have done them much good at all.”
Salvation in the Slums: A Family Legacy
“We need people who recognize that real evangelism isn’t merely social care and social concern but is the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Indeed.
Flashback: An Unexpected Blessing of Parenting
Ultimately, the great joy of parenting is to come to love and enjoy your children not only for what they are (your children) but for who they are (your friends).
Nobody can produce new evidence of your depravity that will make God change his mind. God justified you with his eyes open. —J.I. Packer