Satur-deja Vu

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Disaster relief leads to salvation. Let’s start off with some good news, that ought to be a welcome change of pace. Natural disasters often bring destruction of property and sometimes loss of life but they present opportunities for the church to step up and act like God’s children. Disaster relief is a real world application of putting others’ needs before our own and doing things for the least of these, expecting nothing in return. Click here to read the Christian Index story shown above.

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iMonk Radio Podcast #152

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Intro: Michael announces “Jesus Shaped Spirituality” for fall 2010. Amy Welborn going into semi-retirement. Lots of chatter about church buildings.

2nd half: The hard truth in the Gospel/Law debate is that the Gospel alone can do it. You don’t need to learn the Law, receive the Gospel, then go back to keeping the Law.

Satur-deja Vu, Appendix A

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There’s always another thing or two I meant to say. So rather than wait until next Saturday and forget again, here they are.

Dug Days premiered on Disney+ September 1, only a few days after the passing of Ed Asner. The five episode series of shorts is one of the last projects Asner worked on. With a smaller crew, owing partly to Covid, it took Pixar about 11 months to produce the 40 minutes or so animation. All five episodes are currently streaming on Disney+. I hope it goes without say they are delightful.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Happy Eggs are happy! Happy Monday was published and links had been shared on Facebook and Twitter. It was a little later than I usually have breakfast and as a I dropped two eggs in the pan I noticed this face smiling back at me. Obviously I ran to get my phone and take a pic. First the eggs were happy. Then the eggs were scrambled with shredded cheese. Then the eggs were a sandwich. The old saying is true: You are what you eat so then I was happy!

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iMonk Radio Podcast #151

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Information delivery paradigm. I believe this is the article Michael is responding to. Here is the link.

Why We Love the Church. Do we leave room for the church to be wrong?

Big topic: The influence we have on people over time. The church must be a community of believers doing kingdom work.

Satur-deja Vu

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Live long and prosper. September 8th was the 55th anniversary of the series premiere of Star Trek. The original series was cancelled by NBC after only three seasons but Gene Roddenberry, the Great Bird of the Galaxy, would eventually get a motion picture and another series on television. Today there are multiples franchises of films and I think we’re up to nine series if you count everything. But it all started this week 55 years ago in 1966 with what Roddenberry described as “Wagon Train to the stars.”

This is the week for anniversaries and we’ve got a bunch of them.

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Pastor’s Notes: Leadership

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I came across a question about leadership this week in a Facebook group. What does good leadership look like? Several options were suggested ranging from control to chaos. It was a Christian group so I assume that Christian leadership was the topic. My response went something like this.

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iMonk Radio Podcast #150

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Criticism of Love is an Orientation by Andrew Marin. He has not blogged since 2016 but this is the stuff Michael is talking about. (There is a Facebook page which has also been quiet since 2016.)

Suffering, how we respond to it, and you don’t have to like it.

Gospel vs. law; can we be critical of pastors?

Discipleship that grows out of the gospel is the big topic for the program. Excellent discussion of Jesus’s disciples before and after the death, burial and resurrection.