In America, the mainstream culture views work largely in terms of money, benefits, and status. It defines work as a job instead of a vocation, making our work a commodity that is easily replaceable and meaningless. Instead, vocation roots work in mission, calling, and purpose. Vocation allows us to find our true identity in the lifelong pursuit of our calling.
Faith is trust in something that you don’t have immediate evidence for. It’s a virtue of traces, of the smell of rain before the clouds even appear. It is the working feet of the Christian journey, the inside-out rally cap of the bottom of the ninth of life, the down-to-earth grit, not the five minute grit everyone is selling in self-help books, but the real one that looks out from your best friend’s eyes in that moment when you have to choose and you choose together. We have relegated faith to the outskirts of our conversation because we are blind to the many different ways, times, and places that its strength bursts forth.
How long has it been since you’ve heard a sermon from your pastor on Noah, the ark, and the flood? It seems the only place I hear about Noah’s journey is when my children bring home from Sunday School crafts depicting the ark full of animals, two by two.
There are a couple of reasons that motivated me to select this article from the Atlantic. First, it is one of the conversations in culture right now because of the movie, and second, Mr. Rogers was quite counter-cultural (in good ways.) He often manifested a kind of extreme but confident type of kindness. It was a kindness that shaped a beautiful life.
Today we celebrate the birth of our Savior. As you gather with family, friends, or even if you find yourself on your own this Christmas, take heart and be filled with great joy, a joy that is big enough for all of mankind. The joy that comes from knowing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is unlike any other joy and is a greater gift than anything under your tree.
This third and final post by Michael Allen seeks to explore how the heavenly-minded are more likely to find their way beyond the fragmentation of life and provide the greater societal good as well. To embrace Christ is to let go of ourselves. If we want to enjoy more peace here on earth, then we need to be grounded in heaven.
We need to acknowledge that our rightful emphasis on whole-life discipleship can easily be manipulated – by marketers without and our sinful inclinations within – as a justification for caring about the things that we would have cared about irrespective of Jesus. Given the relatively well-resourced and prosperous condition of most who embrace Kuyperianism in the last century, we ought to be keenly aware that it can be twisted to cover over our inordinate love for earthly goods. If even the secular is a good to be received with thanks from God, how much more shall we long for the better hope of the sacred kingdom of God?
What might a mature hope look like, one that has been strengthened by Kuyperian emphases but that doesn’t reduce itself to those interventionist elements? What would wholeness look like in terms of our eschatology and its corresponding lifestyle or ethic? In this post and the next two, I’ll seek to explain a more holistic vision that centers itself upon the heavenly presence of God.
This week’s blog post is featuring one of our own, Harold Armstrong, who in the past couple of years has really upped his value add in his job and to the company, Nemour’s Children’s Hospital (Orlando.) This is no small feat especially given how unwieldy large hospitals can be. From his Gotham Fellowship (a nine-month, faith and work intensive study program offered by The Collaborative) experience and the program’s challenge to create a cultural renewal project that would directly impact his profession, Harold began putting his decades of experience to work while at the same time considering it through redemptive lenses. The result has significant transformational possibilities.
As the Supreme Court reconvenes this week, it will take up several key court cases that deal with gender. While many of these questions have been with us for quite some time, technological advances and our cultural progression has brought these issues to the forefront for all of society to consider.
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