Tag Archives: culture

Do they know what we are referencing?

10 Nov

Read this article from Seth Godin.  Seth’s basic premise is that, as a communicator, you are not going be able to assume that everyone has seen everything.  Yesterday when I spoke, I used a Seinfeld clip, and as we were watching it, I realized that not everyone has seen Seinfeld.  With all of the choices that are available to people today, it’s very easy for someone to miss a cultural reference.  I used a scene that didn’t really require any back story though, so it was ok.

But this article got me thinking along another route.  Not everyone has read the Bible.  When we teach the Bible we can’t assume that we are in a “christian” nation.  The church, the Bible, our faith have all become just one more cultural option in our society.  So as we communicate the Bible’s teachings we need to be very clear about what we are talking about, who the main players are.  We can’t assume that People know that Timothy and Paul were great friends.  We can’t assume that people understand that Jesus came after Moses.  We need to work to be very clear and know that there is a possibility that over half our crowd have no idea what we are talking about.

As someone who likes to teach the Bible that’s exciting news to me.  Because if over half the crowd on a Sunday morning has no idea what Philemon is about, then I get to teach them.  And I get to see their faces light up with a small piece of Scripture makes sense to them.  And I love that.

Reading YEAH!!! Writing about Reading BOOO!!!

5 Sep

I am totally digging my pre-session reading for the two courses that I am taking this fall.  One is the meaning of Christian Community (it’s about the church) and the other is Theology and Contemporary Media (culture).  These are two of my favorite subjects to talk about, read about, think about.  But I’ve been procrastinating on my writing assignments.  The reading is great, the application is hard.  

Sounds like life, huh?

Lord Save Us

4 Jun

I’ve seen this book, I didn’t know that there was a documentary in the works too.  Very interesting.  This trailer is a little long but I think it’s worth checking out.

Let me tell you about Tuesday

7 Feb

I know it’s already two days ago but some times I just need a little time to process and think and stuff.

Tuesday I was really expecting to do a lot of work-work during the day, it didn’t work out that way for me but I did get a lot of great wisdom thrown at me.  It was great.

I started out going to staff meeting and remembering that we were going to have a guest with us, I totally forgot about that, but it was all good.  Dan Serdahl from Newlife Kitsap came over and shared a little bit of his journey and the Newlife’s Journey.

The first thing that I need to say about Dan is that he is someone who is 100% present when he is talking to you.  He really cared about who was talking, and he remembered details about each person.

I’m just going to bullet point my notes from what he said, they’re a little disjointed but I there is some definite gold in there.

  • We tend to hide behind other people’s leadership instead of following Jesus and where he is leading us
  • The tension points are where the a-ha moments in the gospel happen
  • Blessed are you when you are at the end of your rope because that’s when Jesus shows up and says surprise
  • Newlife stumbled into being a safe place. Now they are in the tension place between grace and truth
  • Lower the bar of acceptance
  • When someone says yes to Jesus the bar becomes higher because we expect people to give their lives away
  • Jesus lives in the culture and we are called to the culture (not sub-culture – not the same as being culturally relevant that’s different somehow)
  • Missional theology is living in the culture
  • Pray for relationships first

So those are a few notes.  It was a great time, super encouraging.

Then I met with my youth ministry prof from Northwest University and he challenged me to think a little differently about ministry, and how we are doing things.  All in all tuesday was a very great day.

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