Posts Tagged faith
Talk About God
I made this flyer for a bible study in one of the dorms on campus. I just wanted to emphasize (clearly) how all it is talking about God.
I attempted to lead a study in this particular dorm for a few years, and it was a bit difficult to say the least, particularly with the college-aged demographic. I’d go to dorms and talk to students and share my beliefs and try and explain to them where I was coming from. Some would agree with me, some would politely disagree (some not so polite, but I can respect that), and there was another crowd who would smile and nod just long enough for me to leave so they could move on with their lives.
And it was really hard for me.
It’s just really hard because I just know some of these people think I’m silly and that I’m stuck in a fairy tale and out of touch with reality and that ultimately my God is those same things.
My faith and my God are nothing like this.
Don’t you wonder why the world works the way it does? How in the world does it make any sense that we live on an Earth that is so strategically placed that given a few degrees of changed tilt or distance from the sun that we’d be screwed? How absolutely incredible is the sky when you look up at it? We call the sky endless but think it’s silly to suggest a God that’s bigger than us? And we consider ourselves gods?
Sit back and think about where we are right now. Take a moment to look at your hands and feet and how everything works flawlessly. Think about how you were born… your parents and their parents and theirs and theirs and theirs; it all had to work out in such a perfect order for you to come to be. How in the world could we deny that? How foolish are we to think that we have any say in the matter? We’ll follow scientific laws until we’re red in the face, yet attribute our entire existence to immeasurable chance instead of something bigger than us?
These are the kinds of things that I wish people were talking about. It just all doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, so how can you not consider a God who doesn’t “make sense” to the world. We are so incredibly blinded by the day to day that we lose sight incredibly fast.
Please take a second today, regardless of your “beliefs” to take a step outside of yourself and see how absolutely ridiculous this “life” thing is.
Googling the Gospel
Posted by phil in God, Technology on October 28th, 2009
so i’ve decided, as i’m sure like a million other people out there have, that the internet is a beautiful tool that we have to share the gospel with other people. i mean what an impact we can have on the world in mass quantities by simply putting information out there and allow those who are searching to find it. we are literally entering into their homes and lives daily but i’d have to say we as christians are dropping the ball a bit.
there are so many legit christian sites out there, i know it. so many beautiful church websites, God centered social networks, whatever; all in beautiful web 2.0 or retro-texture glory, but i think we are missing out on a key demographic when we create things: those searching to find God.
here is the issue, a basic web search for “who is God” retrieves over 100 million responses and i’ve yet to find a page that i’d ever actually spend more than a few seconds on, because the majority of them look more 1992 than 2009. we have people searching for God and from what i’ve seen and heard, not finding what they’re looking for in a format they are used to. we need to work on making God and his gospel more visible. you see, it’s not about making the message “relevant”, because we all know how important it is to keep the gospel holy (even when it’s truths aren’t always so popular in our world)… it’s about using the mediums we have in a relevant way to portray God’s grace. you wouldn’t try to show someone a new band on a cassette tape, so let’s rethink how we do this.
now i must concede that there are a few organizations trying to make it happen. i went to orlando to visit the campus crusade headquarters last february and heard a bit about global media outreach, which is basically a ministry of campus crusade focused on internet evangelism. someone accepts christ through that ministry every nine seconds. wow! that is exciting, especially when its followed up. so things are being done, but there is still so much untapped potential.
think about the average person. they sit on their computers checking facebook/espn/email/twitter and…REPEAT. what if one day they stumbled upon a page that clearly explained christ in a way they were familiar with. how might this change their life? how can we (through God, most importantly) change people’s lives?
one of the leaders on my campus here asked me to help them to use the internet as a tool, and i currently find myself stumped for resources. does anyone have any ideas as to a site that someone searching for a relationship with God could go to?
to begin
Here I am sitting on my flight from amsterdam to Geneva, Switzerland. Yikes! Let me give you a little vision. There is an old guy next to me on his ipod touch, and i’m pretty sure he is reading a book on it. I didn’t know people did that so mad props to him, but he is also a rule breaker (he had his ipod out during the entire take off). let’s see.. the pilot of this plane is a pretty intense driver i’d say. somewhat equivalent to a super aggressive driver on the road.. not necessarily bad, she just peeled out of that airport like a rodent being chased by a cat.
let me back up a bit. let’s talk about my first flight from minneapolis to amsterdam. first of all, i had the opportunity of sitting by this sweet guy from arizona. he writes children’s books for a living, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who likes children. he told me about how one time he sat next to a guy on a plane for eight hours who drank eight beers and never went to the bathroom. i challenged him to beat that record, but he only managed to have two. secondly, flying out at 9 pm is really weird. we were basically chasing daylight (sounds like an awful band name) so it got light out like two or three hours after we left. so, to simulate night the staff had everyone close their shades and turned off the lights. this would have been a brilliant plan except for their were all these clowns on my plane. not literally clowns, but people who decided they needed to check to make sure it was actually light out. so they would open their shades and then a FLOOD of light would enter the cabin. oh and there was this dutch guy that had a lot to say and was very loud. i think he was dutch anyways. but it was pretty much good fun, i think i caught like three hours of sleep intermixed in there.
and yeah, so i am definitely in europe right now. how crazy is that? my first impression of europe was that it was very european. definitely saw some giant wind mills in the ocean on the way in, which was kind of intriguing. i have a kind of a love hate relationship with windmills. i also saw some like.. water avenue things (like venice) from above. pretty EPIC. not really a lot to go on yet.
the language thing is funny. i’ve already felt awkward, even at the extremely english friendly amsterdam airport. you see, everyone here speaks languages i have 0 comprehension of.. like french, german, italian, and dutch. i know like, three words it’s great. so if anyone asks me anything it’s just total confusion/blank face. i think the people at the airport make a judgment to decide if you speak their language or not based on looks and talk accordingly.. so maybe i should look more american. i could wear some american flag pants or something. bald eagle hat?
the whole time different thing hasn’t seemed to phase me yet. as i write this it’s like 3:30 PM and back home its 8:30 am. It vaguely feels like it’s supposed to be the afternoon. I attribute this to one of two things
1) dis-functional internal clock: my body forgot about those seven hours that we never experienced together.
2) the grande white mocha i acquired at the starbucks in amsterdam.
probably primarily the second one.
anyways down to business. i’m so excited for what i’m going to experience here. it’s suchhh a blessing to be able to serve the lord and do EXACTLY what i feel like he has called me to do. coding and designing for the kingdom! i hope to grow a ton this summer in my faith. it’s definitely going to be a stretching experience. i feel like i barely know what i am getting myself into; i don’t know a single person within like a thousand miles, i have vague ideas of exactly how my time will be spent, and i’m just overall oblivious to what’s going down. for me, this is HUGE. i’m definitely laid back, but i also like to know what’s going on, so this is a monster step of faith. it’s going to take relying on the lord daily in order to get anything done, and not be totally freaked out.
so, it’s funny writing this now, because i know i will look back in a matter of months at my naievity and laugh. i will be changed, i will grow a ton, and in hindsight it will all be so put together and cohesive and beautiful according to his plan for my life. as my friend hil duff says, “i can’t wait.”
phil
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