Panic! Perhaps you’re feeling it. The countdown is on. Holidays are quickly approaching. Family and friends are coming! There might be decorating to finish, food to prepare, tables to set, plus dusting and dog fur to vacuum. If you’re hosting at your house this year, you’re likely feeling some pressure. If a gaggle of family is invading, you’re likely thinking, “How will I get it all done?”
While our American tradition of observing Thanksgiving is not a holy holiday, it is an opportune time to pause and be thankful. A heart filled with gratitude makes all the difference. It soothes the soul when loneliness or hurt or depression rule the day. A spirit of thankfulness promotes humility and joy and selflessness, while at the same time consuming the sin that misshapes our hearts. All of these move us closer to holiness and into greater communion with our Heavenly Father.
We are in for a treat today. Dave Strunk, senior pastor—Church of the Redeemer in Blount County Tennessee—graciously agreed to share a couple of his poems with us. I can already sense the eye-rolling that may be going on by some of you, but please keep reading. If poetry is not your thing, that is okay, but it does not mean there is not value in dabbling in it occasionally. Poems have a way of looking at life that sometimes is missed. This genre has a way of speaking to the heart, which is one of the reasons the Psalms are such favorites.
One of the most devastating realities of our day is the pervasive tribalism that seemingly has no boundaries. It is everywhere and while it maybe easy to make excuses for the secular culture, the church has no excuse.
It is October and while some are excited for the changing colors of leaves, there are hordes of baseball fans that are cheering their teams on in hopes of winning a pennant. Even the casual baseball observer pays a little more attention to the reporting of scores and may even turn on their television mid afternoon to catch a playoff game. I used to work with a guy who always left his office door open until the tenth month of the year read on the calendar. As September ended, his office door would close so the cracking of bats and the roar of the crowds would not draw attention to his obsession with baseball. (For the record he was kidding no one.)
Is it a stretch to place so much emphasis on ensuring the integration of art and faith? Is it out of the question to say the whole Church must have a cursory understanding of art to understand the Incarnation of Jesus Christ? The subject of art and faith is an uncommon theme in the Church. How often do you hear sermon references to art in the Bible, or how believers ought to consider thinking about the arts?
We live in a me centric world and Christians are influenced by this as well and so we tend to catalogue our lives as “my money” and “my business.” And as long as I give some of it away, I am good. We have for too long worked off the premise that business and Christianity are not to be mixed much like the separation of church and state.
When was the last time you thought about how your investments were impacting others? Or for that matter, when was the last time you thought about your investing as being an amazing gift? If your internal answers are not what you would like them to be, you are not alone. Our humanity and culture sometimes blind us from the truths sitting right in front of us. How does this impact our decisions if we lived with these truths in mind?
For the past several years, The Collaborative has been observing a screen sabbatical during the month of July for its blog posts and social media. This is just one of the ways we are striving to be intentional about marrying our message to our actions. How do we do it?
As we are constantly trying to emphasize the integration of faith and work, we want to do so at multiple levels—theological, philosophical, economical and practical. The things we discuss here are not only about us thinking rightly, but more importantly it’s about doing rightly. Otherwise, this is all just an academic exercise.
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