Time Waster #2 (Kind Of)

Time Waster #2 (Kind Of) - Red Photos

One of the Journey's core values is beauty. As a literature, quasi-artsy guy, I love that we give beauty a place at the big boy's table (normally reserved for such husky guys as Truth, Mission, and Worship). Beauty calls to something in us and calls something out of us that simply cannot be contained by the rational - it is experiential...

So, that brings me to this Time Waster. The picture above will take you to a photo contest on Wired.com that was all about the color red. There are some incredible shots there - like the one above. Taking a few minutes to just appreciate the beauty captured in these photos, at least for me, is refreshing and worth a few minutes of sacrificed productivity.

Comments

The Gospel, Faith, and Asking Jesus into Your Heart

Kelly, our wonderful Trailhead Kids leader, sent me a link to a great blog over at Sojourn Church. It is titled " 9 Reasons not to Ask Jesus into your Heart ." You should read it because it is clear, succinct, and right. I am not a fan of asking Jesus into your heart. I am not a fan of committing your life to Christ or making him Lord of your life or asking Jesus to be your friend, either. Strange thing for a pastor to say, right? Wrong. After I became a believer and started working in a Christian high school, I came to see just how short those kinds of sayings fall from leading people to the real gospel. As a new believer (and a lover of all things English), I loved my job, most of the things about my school, and, of course, my students. One of the key frustrations I had, though, was that so many of my students claimed to follow Jesus but so few of them seemed to know him or love him. So, about two months into the school year, I de...

Masturbation, Onanism, and Injustice

The Real Sin of Onan I was a teenage new believer the first time I heard someone talk about the “sin of Onan.” The message was clear—and honestly, kind of terrifying: don’t masturbate. God killed a guy for it once. That story, told in Genesis 38, got repeated in various youth group talks and church settings. Onan became shorthand for what not to do with your body when you’re alone. His name was a warning: “Don’t be like Onan.” Touch yourself like that and God might just touch you to kill you. But when I actually read the passage, I found that it doesn’t say what I was told it says. An Old Reading That Misses the Point It’s true that for centuries—especially in medieval Roman Catholic tradition—this passage was interpreted as a condemnation of any “spilling of seed.” The act of ejaculation outside the context of procreation, whether through withdrawal or masturbation, was viewed as inherently sinful. That interpretation shaped a lot of what was passed down in purity cu...

Sanctified Diversity: Learning how to Keep in Step with the Gospel

Last Sunday (March 26, 2017), I preached a message at Trailhead Church in Edwardsville, IL , called Sanctified Diversity, looking at Paul's rebuke of Peter for not "keeping in step with the truth of the gospel." The clear implication of this passage is that it's not enough to only know the truth as a follower of Jesus. You must also lean in and learn to live out its implications in the difficult spaces of life. There are few areas that our culture needs us to lean in with gospel grace, humility, and empathy more than in the area of racial and cultural diversity. It's just not optional. We can be orthodox in our words and heretics with our lives, undermining the integrity of the message of the gospel because we are not walking in its power. To be true to the gospel, we need to do more than just believe its truths. We need to walk out their applications in our lives. My sermon was called Sanctified Diversity . You can follow that link to listen to it on Tr...

Glorious Mud

Search This Blog