Author: Fred Shope

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Weekend Wanderings

This has been a momentous week. Egypt has seen it’s leader for the past 30 years leave. Hopefully democracy will win out in the days ahead. My junior varsity girls wrapped up the season on Friday and finished with a record of 10 wins and 8 losses. It was one of the most enjoyable seasons in quite a while. It’s also been a stressful week. There’s a lot of stuff going on right now and it’s not an easy time.

But, enough about that. Here is the good stuff:
Is Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life? This is a question that begs an answer.
Larry Shallenberger used to miss the point of fruit.
Seth Barnes finds unexpected grace in India.
This is pretty doggone amazing.
Tim Hill writes about the right instrument, right song.
A classic from iMonk.
Dr. Terry Dorsett has a series on lessons learned during his trip to the Holy Land. The first post is here.
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Foundations

Today was Professional Career Day at school. This morning the sixth grade had an assembly where they heard a speaker talk about preparing now for their future careers. He spoke about foundations, how everything they did now laid a foundation for what they wanted to do. If they didn’t lay a good foundation now, they would never be what they wanted to be.

Jesus said that we must build our house on a solid foundation. He said that unless we listened to his teachings and followed them, the house that we build will fall flat when trouble comes. I think this is applicable to the church as well as to our individual lives.
There have been many foundations on which churches have been built over the centuries. Some have been built on the authority of a man or council of men. Some have been built on this creed or that confession. Others have claimed that they were built on Scripture alone. Some have even been established on the foundation of a political leader’s ideas of church and state. Today, some churches are built on a foundation of building a large organization. Others are built on a certain idea of what’s going to happen in the end. There are churches erected on the foundation of doing things differently from the way they’ve always been done. Others are established on building community, or helping other people.
Not all of these things are bad or useless. Some of them are very good. People are brought to faith and Christians are built up by many of these things. The problem comes when we make anything other than Jesus Christ the foundation. When anything else is the base of the house we are building, there will be strong areas to be sure. There will also be areas that will be terribly weak, with holes and other defects. It is those weak areas that will cause the house to eventually come crumbling down.
Like our lives, our churches must be built on Jesus Christ and his teachings. He is the head of the church, and we are his body. He is the sole reason the church exists. He is everything. Let us make sure that our lives and our communities of faith, regardless of what we call them, are built on the only foundation guaranteed to be strong and sure – Jesus.
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World Vision Wednesday

One in five people worldwide live on less than $1.25 a day. 500 people could potentially benefit from microfinance, but only 3 percent of that need is being met. To find out more about microfinance and learn how you can help, read this.

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Weekend Wanderings

A lot has been going on this week. There’s been protests in the streets in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and a number of other countries in the Middle East/North Africa. Evidently the Italians want to get in on the action. I heard today that there are protests demanding the resignation of the Italian president. I wonder who’s next.

Basketball season is winding down. We have one week left in the regular season, and then the state playoffs begin. It’s almost time for the spring sports season, although with the rain we’ve been having, the teams may be spending a lot of time indoors.

Here is the good stuff:

Cupcake Countenance.
The evangelical myth of transformation.
Good question.

Jake Belder on getting work right.
Rachel Held Evans on women speakers at conferences (HT: Scot McKnight).
Scot McKnight on seeking God in Haiti.

The American altar call.
Don’t screw things up by thinking too long.
The non-critique that refuses to die.

Dan Allen on the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Is Alan Knox a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Keith Giles on remembering the poor.

Censored faith.

I hope you have a great week.

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Community and Church Discipline

Church discipline is a subject that is seen in many different ways by different people and different churches. We are given general guidance in Matthew 18 and in Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church. Over the centuries, it has been misused by those in authority and been ignored by others.

While I have always believed that the concept of church discipline is Biblical, the way that concept is carried out has always been a bit fuzzy. In some churches, a person can be subject to discipline for things like not attending every time the doors are open, or going to movies. Some churches don’t hold their members accountable at all. Other churches carry out discipline only to see those folks go across town to another church. There have even been cases where those who have been disciplined have sued the church.

In the last year or so, I have gained an appreciation for what church discipline was in the early church, and for what it can be today. In the institutional church, things are structured in a way that prevents people from really getting to know one another and forming a real community. Even the small group is usually conducted in a way that keeps folks from knowing and being known. This not only allows folks to put on a good front and hide what’s going on, it also prevents people from being able to speak into the lives of others because that close relationship isn’t there.

In a simple church, such as St. Thomas, one of the most important things is community, a sense of family. The gatherings are for the purpose of building one another up, and transparency is not only encouraged but worked for. The goal is to be open and honest with each other, and allow others to speak into our lives. It can be a messy process, but it is also vital to spiritual formation. In the time we have been meeting together, I have grown in my relationship with the Father, and closer to my brothers and sisters. They have become my family along with my physical family. If I ever did something that would cause me to be removed from the fellowship of this grace filled group, it would break my heart. I can see how Paul’s instruction to remove the sinner from fellowship could be so devastating and how it would cause the person to repent.

Maybe church discipline would be effective if more congregations really were communities of faith and not just organizations.

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Weekend Wanderings

It’s been an interesting week. It seems that the Middle East and parts of Africa are about ready to explode. It remains to be seen how all this is going to shake out, and hopefully the U.S. government will come down on the right side of freedom in that region. My own week was a bit frustrating. I’m learning that I can’t fix the kids that I work with, that the only thing I can do is love them and leave the rest in God’s hands. That’s hard for me to do, because I want to see results. I guess that’s where trust comes in. 🙂

So anyway, here are the links for the week:

We don’t agree, but….
The song we were made to sing.
Resisting your own little world.
Our intimate God.
When it doesn’t make sense.

Chaplain Mike says, “All are welcome.”
Someone has way too much time on their hands.
Ronnie McBrayer on monkeys, church, and cold showers.
Here are some beautiful and sad pictures (HT: Scot McKnight).
Scot McKnight starts a series titled, “Is God Ever Surprised?” Part 1.

Caricatures.
How to avoid conviction Part 1.
Health care in Sweden.
Jesus pronounces God’s blessings.
The New Testament is plural.

Tim Hill learned something from the Beatles.
Alan Knox’s dogs don’t know who they are.
Jonathan Brink on big love.
Alan Knox on gathering and dispersal.

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Gluttony

One night a couple of years ago we went to Ci-Ci’s for dinner and I realized that one of America’s biggest sins is gluttony. In the traditional sense of overeating yes (I admit I was rather stuffed when we left), but also in the larger sense of over consuming and wasting. As we were eating, Jan pointed out the amount of crusts and entire pieces of pizza that were left on plates. People go into a place like Ci-Ci’s and see the tremendous amount of food displayed before them. So they load up their plate and begin to eat. Since this is an all-you-can-eat buffet, they go back for a second plate. Then, if they don’t go back for a third plate of regular pizza, they have a few pieces of dessert pizza. The problem is many of those people find that they can’t eat all they have taken. So they leave it. They leave it to be thrown away and wasted.

Then I thought about our culture. Gas prices keep going up, and how many really change their driving habits. There are many examples of wastefulness in our society. Most of you could come up with a few.

My question is: What does this say about our culture? More importantly, what does this say about those of us who claim to belong to Jesus? Are we doing what we can to conserve and not waste the things God has given us? These things include gas, food, natural resources, time, talents, relationships. Christians should be the best environmentalists. Not in a worship Mother Earth, man is a virus type of way, but in a way that recognizes that this world was created by God for us to wisely and compassionately use for the Kingdom. God didn’t give man the right to abuse creation. We are stewards and are to take care of the gift we have.

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Weekend Wanderings

Last week saw normal weather make another appearance here in the sunny South. It was nice to be able to spend some time outside. This weekend has been a busy one, with a ball game on Friday, and two games yesterday. Today we celebrated Josh‘s 28th birthday. I don’t know how he can be that old.

Here’s a bit of the good stuff:
Dan Edelen is talking sense.
Donald Miller wonders how wise is honesty.

Pam Hogeweide has written a poem.
Jeff Dunn writes about surrendering to His teeth.
Interesting story (HT: iMonk).
John Armstrong wants Sarah Palin to stop.
This ad was not accepted for the Superbowl. That’s a good thing.
Ronnie McBrayer says we should walk in the light.
Jonathan Brink on exceptions.
Scot McKnight asks, Will you?”
Alan Knox has a good series on edification. The introduction is here.
This is pretty cool.
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World Vision Wednesday

On January 9, Southern Sudan help a referendum on breaking away from the northern section and becoming an independent nation. While there is a great deal of potential good that can come from independence, there is also a chance that armed conflict could increase as a result of the vote. There are also many challenges that a new nation would have to face. For more, read this.