Uganda. East Africa. Jesus. Family. Coffee.
Uganda
Joined January 2024
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Smooth Via retweeted
My main take away from the past 3 weeks with a broken ankle is how very kind people are. Don’t be weighed down by the cynicism of headlines and online ugliness. When we give kindness, and receive it in our turn, we are stepping into what we were made for. It’s a strong antidote.
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Evangelical Christianity in the United States is often characterized by a deep desire to have “Christianity” pervade our culture but not have Christ permeate our being.
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Our current, algorithm driven discourse makes it tougher to pastor people.
I find myself in meetings with people who don’t read books & are being informed SOLELY by content generated for clicks.
And I’m running low on winsome ways to say “that’s stupid. libraries are free.”
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2,000 years after it was first asked, the question, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) is one of the simplest ways to assess the degree to which we take the teachings of Jesus seriously.
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When I was young I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -- Abraham Heschel
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Thank God for the pastors he sends us. Some minister to us for years, some for decades.
Some leave our congregations for another. Others retire or die while in office.
But, dear Lord, let us never forget why they are there: they are the Spirit’s mouth, the proclaimers of his word.
The church is not about them, their personalities, their charisma, their wisdom or scholarship. Their anonymity or fame means zilch.
They are fellow mortals, fellow sinners, co-priests with all the baptized. One day mortality will overtake them. Others will take their place.
But the word they preach, it abides forever.
Smooth Via retweeted
Sober-minded,
self-controlled,
respectable,
not violent but gentle,
not quarrelsome.
Note how many elder qualifications focus on what some—even Christans—have called weak.
It isn't so. Pursue these whether you aspire to eldership or not.
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Driven by far right conspiracy theories and fearing a migrant “invasion” , 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius drove to
El Paso, Texas and murdered 23 people in a Walmart 8/3/2019. The shooting was the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.
Lies have consequences.
Smooth Via retweeted
In 1995, there were 500 Christians in Iran. In 2024, there are over 1,000,000 Christians in Iran. The Iranian Christians are sharing their faith. Personal evangelism has always been Jesus' plan A to reach the world. – at Yeonsu-gu, Republic of Korea
Smooth Via retweeted
Theology 101: “If the Gospel required the potentates of this world for its planting and preservation, God would not have committed it to fishermen.” (Luther)
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I really wish Christians in America would worry a lot less about our nation being Christian and a lot more about our actions being Christlike.
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In Matthew 8, a man kneels before Jesus and asks to be made clean. He has a skin disease, traditionally translated as leprosy, which renders him ritually unclean.
What happens next is extraordinary.
Jesus does cleanse the man, but only after touching him. According to purity laws, religious practices, and social standards, Jesus should have cleansed him first and then, and only then, touched him.
But he didn’t.
He first made contact. He first physically expressed solidarity with the unclean. He first reached out and expressed intimate love, concern, and mercy while the man was still defiled. Then, by his word, he cleansed him.
Here we see exemplified Jesus’s ongoing mission in the church. He’s ready and willing to touch skin to skin with the unclean. He’s still living out the ramifications of his incarnation.
The Word becomes flesh and slums among us.
He doesn’t remain safely ensconced within a walled castle of moral superiority. He goes outside the camp, outside the holy zone of suburban sanctification, into the haunts of unholiness. In other words, he goes to where we live with our shame, our stained lives, our feelings of always existing in a world where nothing is as it should be.
He becomes the priest par excellence, who searches out lepers and kisses their scabs.
That’s the most amazing part of Jesus: that he, being the Holy of Holies, takes that Holy of Holies out to us. He’s the walking, talking, touching, healing tabernacle of God who, everywhere he goes, is un-breaking, un-dirtying, un-shaming us.
He presents us to the Father no longer as pariahs, garbage, or damaged goods but as kings and queens for whom the angels throw a parade.
Smooth Via retweeted
Joanna... I'm guessing most have probably not heard an Easter sermon that mentioned her. But there she is in the middle of the action in Luke 24.
A. They told all these things to the eleven
B. And to the others
C. It was Mary Magdalene
D. Joanna
C. Mary, Mother of James
B. The others with them
A. Told this to the Apostles
So who was Joanna? The wife of Chuza, the Steward (Manager) of Herod's household - Luke 8:3. Luke describes her as part of a group of women "who had been cured of evil spirits" by Jesus and were following him (8:2). Joanna and Mary followed Jesus to the cross and then to the tomb.
Perhaps Joanna was Luke's primary witness to the resurrection, and that's why Luke has her at the center of his account. Whatever the reason, this woman, like Anna in the Temple, proclaimed Jesus. The prophetess Anna announced his arrival, & the witness Joanna announced his resurrection. I thank God for their testimony.
We believe because the Spirit uses the witness of the Apostles in the Scriptures to bring us alive in Christ. But the apostles first heard the great rumor of hope from these faithful sisters, whose words they dismissed as "nonsense" (24:11). Thank God they "kept telling" the story (24:9)!
Grace brought Joanna from being an afflicted woman married to a man of high rank in a kingdom of dark murderous power to being a follower of the true Bridegroom whose Kingdom of Light will never end. She couldn't stop telling the story. Neither should we.
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If Jesus saved a seat for Judas at the table, and washed his feet, the invitation for Christ-followers is—by the grace of God—to come the table with fellow Christians we disagree with.
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This is why men shouldn't be in leadership. They are too emotional and prone to mood swings.
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Over 1,500 years ago, this church was hewn into a vertical cliff face 650 feet above ground - and it's still in use today.
A thread of churches in astonishing places... 🧵
Smooth Via retweeted
In my role as a pastor, I’m not trying to get everyone to agree on everything so much as I’m attempting to create environments where our disagreements don’t automatically become cause for disunity.
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Here is a stunning admission from a now leading spokesman from the Al Mohler wing of the SBC, that the goal of the SBC they envision will consist of only “cultural conservatives”.
Most Black Baptist without hesitation, or reservation embrace theological conservatism(inerrancy/five fundamentals of the faith), but we reject political conservatism that denounces affirmative action, DEI, not providing a safety net for the poor, rejection of Obama Care, compassionate immigration laws, reasonable gun control laws(background & mental health checks, AR 15s purchases beyond law enforcement). It’s the political, so called “cultural conservatism” that we reject, not theological conservatism, that we’ve always embraced, even when “cultural conservatism” would not let us enroll in SBC seminaries.
This admission here by Wolfe, is quite revealing and disturbing. It documents Al Mohler’s assertion & advocacy that the stewardship and discipleship of “the vote” requires/demands voting for Trump and the Republicans. That is syncretism, idolatry, cultural conservatism. It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. One can be a born again, Bible believing, & maturing disciple, without embracing “cultural conservatism,” which is not the gospel. Until the SBC gets that straight, division is inevitable.
Wolfe’s line of thinking was rejected at the Jerusalem Council(Acts 15), and it should be rejected today. Christianity brings a Kingdom culture as the dominant culture that includes everybody…not a “cultural conservatism” culture that’s largely appealing and inclusive of White southerner culture.
The SBC should be about The Great Commission, not about The Great Cultural Conservatism Movement. It’s Kingdom Culture that we’re called to, not Southern culture conservatism. – at Watertown, MA
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