This year, the focus of my morning devotional readings have been on diving through the Gospels. After my previous year of focusing on the Torah/Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy, but continuing on into the histories), this year has been rich to see afresh Jesus Christ, the God-Man that all of history points to, as the fulfillment of the Law and the final answer to the big questions of life, which I'm excited to see being asked in curious ways within our culture (even if some of the answers they are arriving at aren't on target) Who is God? How can I know and be in harmony with Him? These, if you think about it, are questions that we are all asking in one way, shape, or another... even if we don't use that language. We know in our hearts that there is a divine being that is over the universe that created everything, we are not in harmony with Him, and yet our hearts deep desire and yearning is to be in harmony with Him, yet we don't know how... and so we gro...
I picked up this book early this year as I was getting involved in Student Ministry at my church in Atlanta - and a lot of conversations among us leaders revolved around the impact of cell phone usage with our students... and quite honestly with us. I expected to be a little convicted, because I am engaged on social media, but not to the extent that I was. Tony Reinke (look him up - this is a smart dude) is a writer at Desiring God and John Piper put together the forward. Uniqely - Reinke combines a theological rigor with the normal statistical "phones are screwing us up" research out there, and uniquely in my mind delivers the "so what" when it comes to the most important thing in our lives, namely our connection with Jesus Christ. He doesn't approach this topic as one outside of social media, but as one who is a digital native that understands the benefits of technology and the dangers that our "glowing rectangles" that demand our attention ha...
I've had this on the brain for a while... I need a mental candy break though. For myself, or for any of my friends who are members of one of the NorthPoint Ministries campuses (that means Buckhead, Browns Bridge... you know who you are), there are (admit it) signs that you've been going to this church for way too long. And now, like any person that needs to get out of their denial, I'm going to point out a few :-) Top Ten Signs You've Been at NorthPoint for Quite Some Time 1.) You commonly use any of the following words in your daily conversation: Margin Life-giving Give, Save, Spend Environment CG Big Idea Virtue Bottom Line Safe 2.) Something that Andy Stanley said in a sermon inevitably makes it into your Bible study discussion. 3.) You don't see anything wrong with wearing the same T-shirt every Sunday for 30 Sundays in a row (a shout out to all of us UpStreeters!), and in case you haven't washed "this year's" shirt, you have...
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Gooden times indeed.
Downfall is an excellent movie:
http://www.amazon.com/Downfall-Bruno-Ganz/dp/B0009RCPUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1233034654&sr=1-1