I came across this story about a prayer ministry in the US having some prominent Christian leaders gather around gas pumps and praying for lower gas prices. I’m not making this up!!!! And the saddest part for me is that I wasn’t surprised. I am not going to say anything about whether we should or shouldn’t pray for things like lower gas prices; that would take too long to explore. Instead, I want to talk about what it says about the nature and even health of the church in North America. What I find so troubling about this story, is that is a great example of the often sheer self-centeredness of our prayers. Why, with so much turmoil in the world (War on Terror, genocide in Darfur, the mistreatment of women around our globe, domestic and international poverty, etc), would we spend so much time praying for twenty cents off a litre of gas rather than pray for domestic and international peace and justice. Maybe it tells us something about our human nature, or at least about our North American Christian priorities? Maybe it’s even a symptom of a greater disease?
Diversity
I was reminded today at a combined evangelical church service, that our local church was a part of, that the body of Christ is so diverse. Often times I think I get use to worshipping with people much like myself and in many ways get caught up in the comfort or normalcy of doing things a certain way. It is good to gather together with others of different denominations, worship styles, theological bents, etc. It is good to see different expressions of worship, the music done a certain way, the sermon preached and scripture applied a particular way, etc. It isn’t that I would adopt all those things or that I even agree with them, but I think in many ways there is an important discipline of tolerance being practiced. I need to be reminded that my way of seeing and doing things isn’t the only way, or perhaps not even the right way. For these reasons, along with others, I think those times are good experiences for the body of Christ and in many ways necessary for its growth and health.
Don’t Hassel the Hoff
I saw this and it is truly hilarious…
Internship
This summer I am fulfilling my Internship requirements for my Master’s Degree. Basically it means I will be doing my current job/ministry while reflecting and being evaluated on it. Although it seems like a pain, it is a hoop I have to jump through. I just hope that the jump will be as positive as possible and not just for jumping sake.
So…in under a month I will be officially/technically an intern again (weird but true).
90 day reading plan
So I have a plan…Since I am not taking classes this fall (due to several factors including my trip to Bolivia), my thought was to catch up on some reading that I have been meaning to do over the last year and just spend sometime nurturing my pastoral/personal soul. In thinking about that, I had an idea and I wanted to see if anyone else was up to doing the following with me…
In that fall I was thinking about reading the Bible and 30 other books (on various topics of interest) in 90 days. As part of that I would commit to blogging approximately every three days about the books I’ve read. In short, it would be a journey into areas of interest that I hope will challenge, stimulate and energize me. I have done a ton of reading over the last two years for school and want to take the opportunity to read the stack of books I have on my “too read” list. Although I have several books I plan on getting to over those 90 days, does anyone have any suggestions?