Rick Warren’s Final Frontier — CT Interview {Re-blogged}

I don’t generally quote Mr. Warren, but after reading this insightful interview, I was encouraged by what I read.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that I agree with him 100%, but please take the wisdom he shares in this context, and be encouraged, strengthened, challenged, and pushed to pray for those who are launching out into similar areas of ministry.

 

Cultural Christianity is dying. Genuine Christianity is not. The number of cultural Christians is going down because they never really were Christian in the first place. They don’t have to pretend by going to church anymore.

 

This is the final frontier. Twice Revelation says that around the throne in heaven will be people from every language, every nation, and every tribe. I take this literally. Yet there are still 3,400 unengaged tribes because they’re very small. None of them have more than 100,000 people.

 

Working with moderate Muslims. This is the whole idea of the Peace Plan: Promoting reconciliation [means] to find a man of peace. I have found men of peace who do not at all hold to what I believe about Scripture and certainly aren’t Christians, but we can work together.

I still point to Rwanda. I’ve never found a country where 19 years ago they were hacking each other up and now they’re living side by side without barbed wire. They figured out something about how to get people who literally killed each other’s families to live next to each other. The reconciliation model is important.

 

You can read the full interview here.

Hungry for Change

From now until midnight March 31st, the entirety of Hungry For Change, can be viewed on their website.  Please take time to watch this important film, and share it with your family and friends!  It is powerful and transformative.

C. Everett Koop (1916-2013)

C Everett Koop passed away Monday. He coauthored the book “Whatever Happened to The Human Race?” with Francis Schaeffer, back in the day.  And served as the US Surgeon General, during the Reagan administration.  He was a remarkable man, who faithfully served not only his God, but also his fellow man, as an outworking of his biblical worldview.

You can read a bit about his life here.

I don’t wait anymore {Re-blogged}

 

When I was 16, I got a purity ring.
And when I was 25, I took it off.
I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it — it wasn’t a statement or an emotional thing. I just slipped it off my finger that day and, before tucking it away in a box, ran my finger around the words on the familiar gold band.
“True Love Waits.” Waits.
What’s it “waiting” for, anyway?

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Thus begins a thought provoking article by a thoughtful young woman, who has, as I have, experienced the whole “waiting for prince charming to come” mindset, and rejected the notion that single young women, should wait.

What about using our single years to cultivate a deeper relationship with Jesus?   What about serving others in our communities, in Christ’s name?  What about gaining a better understanding of God’s word?  What about pursuing the gifts God has given us?

Our lives, as single women, should not be wrapped up in waiting for the perfect man.  Because, honestly, he may never come.  Our time should instead, be used to revel in the fact that if we are in Christ, we already have the perfect One in our lives.  We need to learn to rest in His presence.  Learn to treasure His love, His favor, His esteem.

I am done waiting.  Because I have found the One whom my soul loves… Jesus!

“My beloved is mine, and I am his.”  Song of Songs 2:16

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I hope that you’ll take a few minutes to read her article, and see her heart.

The Drop Box

In December 2009, a Korean pastor named Lee Jong-rak built a wooden “drop box” on the outer wall of his home. But the box wasn’t intended for clothing, food, or school supplies, it was meant to collect unwanted babies.

When “the drop box” “or “baby box” was constructed a few years ago, it flew completely under the radar of Korean government officials. However, as more and more children arrive in this box every week, the nation is starting to take notice.

Lee knows that his little wooden box isn’t the best solution, but his plight points to a much larger issue of abandonment, both in Korea, and across the globe.

As a simple man, with little education and no public notoriety, Lee was voiceless, much like the children he has sworn to protect.

Soon, the whole world will know his story.

Find out more about this award-winning documentary, and how its story changed the director Brian Ivie’s life.

Get ready to be Lance Armstrong’s God {Re-blogged}

Editor’s note: I apologize for the two misspellings in this post, and the incorrect video linked below.  Everything should be in order now. Thanks for the likes!

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Over the next two nights, the world will watch as Lance Armstrong enters the celebrity confessional booth organized under the auspices of culture’s great high priestess. He will confess his sins, cry his tears, and cower in remorse at Oprah’s feet, seeking mercy from the Mother of Morality.…

His plight reveals just how fragile and fickle an identity truly is. When one of the greatest heroes in the world turns into a villain virtually overnight, each of us should take the opportunity to consider who we really are.

Mark Driscoll’s insightful, humbling reminder to the rest of us, should cause us to have compassion on Mr. Armstrong, and others who have “fallen” in the public eye.  If you want to read the article in its entirety, click here.

Grace

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves… the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship….

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sough again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock…

It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer {The Cost of Discipleship}