escapingbabylon.com

So Grits just sent out a Myspace bulletin advertising their new store. Grits is a Christian rap group that hails from Tennessee. Anyway, I was checking out their page and noticed the following t-shirt (more…)

I had my second First Year small group tonight. The attendance shot up from one student to seven students, which I believe makes it officially the largest small group I’ve ever led. I also think it went pretty well. I’m not a very socratic teacher, even though I try. But I think the study went in the right directions, and we covered pretty much everything I had on my list to cover. Hamline’s an interesting place, and although it is pretty much only my second week there, I’m really liking it.

Some more money is coming in through fundraising, one was sort of unexpected, so I’m praising God for the faithfulness of donors that I really haven’t even met personally. It’s interesting, and sort of expected. So far most of my regular donors have been people who show evidence of being dedicated  to the mission of reaching college students for Christ, not necessarily the people who know me and my dedication to ministry. It’s just another reminder that this thing is about God and about the students, and not about me. My goal is to hit 10% of my regular monthly support by the end of the month, based on people who I’ve spoken with and who’ve committed to helping. Being on campus helps me with that support-raising effort because it helps me connect (and thus convey the connection between) the support and the vision of seeing students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed and world-changers developed through the power of God.

When you look at a school menu and are shocked, shocked I say, when you notice that it doesn’t have a vegetarian option.

From an IM conversation between Renée and I. But see Renée’s comments on the last post

Renée says:
i was at a church meeting on sat
Renée says:
so i saw first hand, once more
Renée says:
the impulse to organize, put systems in place
Renée says:
it;s a habit that’s not all bad. It can have good results, such as consistency
Richard Daley says:
yeah
Richard Daley says:
and some needs are systemic, and thus need to be addressed through systematically
Renée says:
but not all?
Richard Daley says:
I don’t know
Richard Daley says:
hmm…
Richard Daley says:
it’s a good question
Richard Daley says:
I mean, each individual sin occurence has its root in the system of sin that runs through the world
Richard Daley says:
and though each opportunity to sin is an individual decision, we are able to make the right ones through the grace of God, the solution to the systemic sin problem
Richard Daley says:
I guess it’s the question of what to systematize
Richard Daley says:
analogically speaking, it’s like getting wind energy
Richard Daley says:
you can try to systemitize (or however you spell that) where the wind blows
Richard Daley says:
but that’s not going to work
Richard Daley says:
it’s better to systemitize how best to place the turbines to take advantage of the wind, and how to transport the energy most efficiently
Renée says:
tell them that

Thoughts?

Looking at my schedule, I’m probably going to miss my church’s revival services again this year.

The reason I think that this may be my subconscious is that culturally/theologically (and honestly, probably a lot more of the former than the latter) I have problems with the idea of a revival as an event. In my mind, you study, pray, fast, and otherwise petition God and hope that God sends a revival. The idea of scheduling a revival strikes me as inverting the relationship between us and God.

However, this may just be due to my idea of what a revival is. The problem is that in general, people tend to view things that are culturally different as bad, and I am not immune to this aspect of human nature.

So, here’s my question.

• For someone who has done this before (preferably in a baptist church, but that’s not a requirement), how would you describe a revival practically, spiritually, and theologically?

[rating:3.5/5]

This has been a hard movie to find, but luckily it opened in the theater not to far away from me, and so a friend and I went to see the late showing.

Without giving too much away, The Illusionist is the story of childhood sweethearts, one a duchess and the other the son of a cabinet maker. She is prevented from being with him by her parents, and he leaves to pursue his growing interest in illusion. They meet several years later in Vienna, he is a famous illusionist, and she is almost-bethrothed to the sinister Crown Prince of Austria. Murder, intrigue and manipulation ensue.

The setup is a simple but effective one, and is dressed up with some interesting storytelling techniques. Mild spoilers may follow (more…)

Bert church sign ever. It says Dear God my eyes hurt

I’m leading my first small group at Hamline tonight. It starts at 7:30 central time, I would appreciate it if at some point today you can say a prayer on our behalf.

The aftermath of 9/11/01 was a very uncertain time for an international student. The international students sent emails out warning us to be careful when venturing off campus, because there have been attacks on foreigners and foreign-looking people in the twin cities. I remember my friend Asif, of Bangladeshi descent not leaving campus for 3 months after the incident. Macalester isn’t a very big campus. I remember being shocked along with the rest of the campus when a muslim student received hate mail, and then later on hearing rumors of muslim students’ mailboxes being full to overflowing of the same at a University just down the street. I remember my mother being worried about my travel even though I don’t look even slightly middle eastern.
I used to listen to KDWB in the morning, because they had an energetic morning show. Soon after Bin Laden took credit, and the Afghanistan war went on, they started a ongoing series of gags featuring a character called “Taliban Dan” who was a racist caricature along the lines of the Japanese and German villians of wartime comics. I stopped listening to KDWB, I still don’t listen to them.

I remember in the aftermath, that it was the first and only time since I’ve been in the states that an American flag carried an implicit threat, and patriotism was something to be feared.

The entire day the campus was in sort of a fog. People weren’t sure of what happened or what it meant for us. It was thought by some to be a terrorist attack, but nobody was claiming credit. We heard conflicting stories about a plane crashing into the white house/pentagon/outside of Washington. And nobody was really sure if classes were cancelled or not. It seems to be a silly thing to be thinking about at the time, but it was what was going through our heads.

I remember later that evening (or maybe the day after) in the dorm lounge, a group of students were gathered and were having an impassioned argument over the event. But I can’t remember exactly what the argument was about. Macalester is a school full of very politically aware and internationally-minded students all over the world all well informed and all opinionated. The conversation degenerated until someone, I don’t think it was me, thought up the idea of passing the plate, and whoever had the plate could speak. I remember ending up as a pseudo-moderator to the discussion. Somehow we figured out how to stop shouting at each other and listen to each other. The fact that we could do that moved all who were present. We hung the plate up on the wall of the lounge with a piece of paper commemorating the event.