This past week I was in the mountains when I decided to go fishing. Having baited my hook, I tossed the line into the lake and was immediately rewarded with a good size brim. I debated whether to run to the house to document this feat with my camera, but decided that there will be plenty more opportunities to capture on film all the fish I was going to catch over the week because clearly the fish were biting and I must have been an expert having caught a fish with one cast.
Unfortunately, the remainder of the week, I spent many more hours at the water's edge, camera in hand, trying to catch a fish. It was to no avail. My early success had made it seem easy and therefore left me frustrated when I could not duplicate the same results.
Success can have that effect on us.
It can drive and motivate us to work harder, but it can also leave us feeling empty when we fail to create the same, if not better, results. We desire to be successful people. Whether it's a successful parent, or a successful student, or a successful businessperson. We want success in relationships, in sporting events, in every aspect of our life-including faith. We want our prayers to be answered; we guilt ourselves if we have not had a successful quiet time in months; we get irritated if worship did not successfully draw us into God's presence. And we have this notion that being a follower of Christ automatically makes life easier, blessed and successful.
Unfortunately, God's promise is not that we will succeed. Rather his promise is that no matter where we go-no matter how bad we fail-God will be right there beside us. He no longer judges us based on our merit, but out of his faithful love.
Lamentations 3:22-23 "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
In Christ,
Wes Barry
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Webkins Subliminal Messages?
My 7 year old nephew visited this weekend, and wanted to show me Webkins. I have never seen nor heard of this craze, but supposedly it is the hot new toy.
After I helped him log-in, it required a security verification. And below is the undoctored photo of the security phrase we had to type in.
Should I not be as bothered by that as I am?
After I helped him log-in, it required a security verification. And below is the undoctored photo of the security phrase we had to type in.
Should I not be as bothered by that as I am?
Friday, July 11, 2008
Why do Christians suck at reality TV?
After last nights Last Comic Standing,
I was wondering why Christians also seem to be the first to be booted off of Reality TV shows.
A few years ago Survivor had a Charlotte Christian radio host on, who made it only to the third/forth episode. And last night "God's Pottery" was the first comic eliminated from LCS. Not to mention that guy from the Real World with the Cowboy hat.
And I too would have voted them off, if I were stranded on a "deserted" island, I am not sure I could withstand being with an over the top Christian. And while I found God's Pottery set was decent- the "I love Jesus refrain" seemed to fall into an altar-call response to help them feel justified about their ministry.
Obviously, these shows are looking for over the top personalities that will play into an audiences' preconceived notion of how annoying a Christian radio host and "Christian folk comedic duo" would be.
At the same time the manipulative game-show quality of reality TV probably makes succeeding at the game near impossible. And the idea most of these Christian actors probably have is that Reality TV would be a good "witnessing tool"--until the edit room reworks the tape to show them as mindless boobs.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Cult of Davidism
This is a facisnating idea that I am trying to engage and work through, so these thoughts are more for my future reflection and consideration.
From Dr. Miller's book "Listen Up, God Talking!" he makes an interesting argument that David's kingship was a determental endeavor for Israel. It resulted in a consoladated and centralized power (geographically: Jerusalem, and personally: a King).
He said that the early Biblical understanding of the "city" was a negative perception. Cain, the first murderer, was sent to wander but his first action was to build a city.
When God relented to Israel's cry to be like the rest of the nations, He did not bless the kingship but rather gave them what they asked for. The end result, two generations later there was a bloody civil war, a scattered nation.
The struggle I have with this interpretation of David is that it forces us to reconsider the understanding of Christ as the "Son of David." To which, Jim argued that Christ never responds to the people's title. Nor does the linage in Matthew connect Christ to David (rather Joseph) thereby showing the descrepency of Christ as the King of Kings then the heir to David's throne.
I find this interesting because it brings to light the practical problem of ministry being based around particular personalities. A centralization of ministry under one charasmatic individual is dangerous in that it creates a cult of personality.
Beyond Jim's book, I find a similar reading of Kingship in Bruggerman's Prophetic Imagination. And some other book about Christ's decentralization of religion (perhaps Rob Bell, that would be funny bed fellows!).
Also, Jim noted that along with the rise of kingship (Saul, David, and Solomon) came the rise of the prophet. A voice that sought to decentralize.
From Dr. Miller's book "Listen Up, God Talking!" he makes an interesting argument that David's kingship was a determental endeavor for Israel. It resulted in a consoladated and centralized power (geographically: Jerusalem, and personally: a King).
He said that the early Biblical understanding of the "city" was a negative perception. Cain, the first murderer, was sent to wander but his first action was to build a city.
When God relented to Israel's cry to be like the rest of the nations, He did not bless the kingship but rather gave them what they asked for. The end result, two generations later there was a bloody civil war, a scattered nation.
The struggle I have with this interpretation of David is that it forces us to reconsider the understanding of Christ as the "Son of David." To which, Jim argued that Christ never responds to the people's title. Nor does the linage in Matthew connect Christ to David (rather Joseph) thereby showing the descrepency of Christ as the King of Kings then the heir to David's throne.
I find this interesting because it brings to light the practical problem of ministry being based around particular personalities. A centralization of ministry under one charasmatic individual is dangerous in that it creates a cult of personality.
Beyond Jim's book, I find a similar reading of Kingship in Bruggerman's Prophetic Imagination. And some other book about Christ's decentralization of religion (perhaps Rob Bell, that would be funny bed fellows!).
Also, Jim noted that along with the rise of kingship (Saul, David, and Solomon) came the rise of the prophet. A voice that sought to decentralize.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Devotion: Una Siesta
I had the privilege of spending a week in Mexico with 49 youth and adults from First Presbyterian. We spent the week moving rock. Not small pebbles, but 30 to 50lb limestone rocks. It was impressive, exhausting and tedious labor. But graciously at 1 p.m. we stopped working and took a siesta each day.
Right now, I am missing my siesta.
Also, that whole week I was without a cell phone, the internet and even a watch. I was totally unaware of the official time. There was something freeing about that experience. There was something good knowing that I would not be interrupted by a cell phone call or a blinking message light.
In our American culture we have become so efficient that we have wired every aspect of our lives. Our houses are filled with WiFi, bluetooths allow us to chatter while driving, earbuds blast Bono while we walk down the streets.
We have become so efficient and productive that we have allowed work to penetrate into our down time. Commutes home are spent wrapping up the work week. Saturdays are just "quick pops into the office." We have lost the art of the siesta.
Or in Biblical terms, the Sabbath.
Even God rested.
Taking a Sabbath is actually a powerful theological proclamation because it declares that our work is not what keeps the universe running. The world will not come to a tumbling halt merely because we were not accessible for a few hours or a full day via our blackberry.
What prevents us from unplugging from our work?
How can we practically implement a theology of Sabbath into our work day, week and year?
In Christ,
Wes Barry
wbarry@firstpres-charlotte.org
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
"God is Love"
Over the past couple of weeks, I have had a few interesting encounters that I have caused me to wrestle with our reductionistic approach to the phrase, "God is Love." We have reduced God to our culture's misunderstanding of love. Our culture perceives love to be inclusion, acceptance, and unconditional love. As a result, our litmus test for godliness is this form of self-affirming love.
About two weeks ago at Untapped Theology (formerly known as Theology on Tap), three young adults sat down to talk with us. It was clear that they were interested in steering the conversation towards sexual ethics in order to pigeonhole the preacher. That way they could decide whether or not to actively engage in further discussion. From their perspective if the church was not inclusive of all (it was broader conversation than the homosexuality issue) then it was not valid to their faith perspective.
As a result, I realized that for young adults, the ability for many to actively engage in faith conversations will come only if it can reinforce their a priori belief that "God is all-inclusive-love" that affirms their self-understanding.
However, I spoke with our seasoned associate today who started to describe "God is love," not from our cultural perspective, but from the Hebraic idea of hesed.
Hesed is singular devotion, covenantal love that at times does not feel good. Being exiled for 400 years, being left in the wilderness, being sent by a crucified Lord into hostile territory is not an all-inclusive-love, rather it is a love that transforms, refines, hurts at times, devistates but does not destroy.
This is the challenge our denomination is facing, we want to be all things to all people so that everyone feels warm and uplifted. Like the contemporary worship experience, we are falling into emotive gnositicism (if causes an emotional response it must be god). But in doing so we are not proclaiming that "God is Hesed-love."
About two weeks ago at Untapped Theology (formerly known as Theology on Tap), three young adults sat down to talk with us. It was clear that they were interested in steering the conversation towards sexual ethics in order to pigeonhole the preacher. That way they could decide whether or not to actively engage in further discussion. From their perspective if the church was not inclusive of all (it was broader conversation than the homosexuality issue) then it was not valid to their faith perspective.
As a result, I realized that for young adults, the ability for many to actively engage in faith conversations will come only if it can reinforce their a priori belief that "God is all-inclusive-love" that affirms their self-understanding.
However, I spoke with our seasoned associate today who started to describe "God is love," not from our cultural perspective, but from the Hebraic idea of hesed.
Hesed is singular devotion, covenantal love that at times does not feel good. Being exiled for 400 years, being left in the wilderness, being sent by a crucified Lord into hostile territory is not an all-inclusive-love, rather it is a love that transforms, refines, hurts at times, devistates but does not destroy.
This is the challenge our denomination is facing, we want to be all things to all people so that everyone feels warm and uplifted. Like the contemporary worship experience, we are falling into emotive gnositicism (if causes an emotional response it must be god). But in doing so we are not proclaiming that "God is Hesed-love."
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