The Ethnic Section at Bi-Lo Constitutes the Same Percentage of the Store as the Ethnic Section at Publix—and Kroger, and Safeway, and Giant…
Andy Crouch’s Culture-Making reminds us that we are all culturally located, whether we realize it or not: In many American supermarkets you can still find an “ethnic food” aisle—as if only some kinds of food participate in a particular cultural tradition. Nonsense—all food is “ethnic.” (p. 41) Crouch’s book has offered many similar insights in its first 100 pages, though I'll withhold further analysis until I can read the whole thing.
Please Comment
Serious comments only, please. I want to ask you to think and think hard about what Jonathan Edwards is saying in the following excerpt. If my experience (and, I recently found out, that of Tim Keller) is any guide, you're going to have a hard time understanding him because he's using a psychological paradigm you've never considered. You may have never even thought that you had a psychological paradigm. But I have been thinking increasingly that Edwards is shaped by the Bible in this area—and...
An iPod that Touched My Heart
I upgraded to the new iPod Touch 3.0 software. $10 well spent. Here's why: Copy and Paste. I've been needing it for all sorts of things, from sermon notes to quick e-mails to friends sharing a little web content. It works intuitively well, like all Apple GUI features. Spotlight. A needed improvement, and so easy to access. Search Mail. A much-needed improvement. I love my iPod Touch as an e-mail device. Notes Syncing. A little annoying that I have to use Apple Mail in OS X (a great program,...
Terrorism and Evangelism
Here's another little helpful and challenging quote I read in Total Church. At present the military and economic might of Western nations is struggling to counter the threat of international terrorism. It is proving difficult to defeat an enemy made up of local cells working toward a common vision with high autonomy but shared values (p. 109) The parallel should be obvious. The problem with the Christian church is that it doesn't exactly have shared values. May God by His grace and for His...
“You Are Now Entering the Mission Field”
I found this little excerpt from Total Church to be a challenging source of wisdom. May God help me to apply these insights. I'm not sure I have good answers to all these questions. We sometimes ask people to imagine they are part of a church-planting team in a cross-cultural situation in some other part of the world: What criteria would you use to decide where to live? How would you approach secular employment? What standard of living would you expect as pioneer missionaries? What would you...