Rev. Steve's Cougar Blog

Discipleship Class 2007 - Assignment #6

2007-03-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well, everybody, I hope you all had a great Spring break. I wanted to start of this week with a new assignment, so Here it is:

I want you to go out and ask 5 people (at least 2 that you know are not
Christians) these two questions:

1) What is faith? Define it.

2) How does faith play a part in your life?

After you have gotten your 5 answers I want you to formulate what you
believe faith to be & how you might share your answer with others.

Discipleship Class 2007 - Assignment #5

2007-02-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

1) One of the quotes from Last weeks class came from Dietrict Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship:

"This call to Christ initiates the most intimate allegiance imaginable. An
allegiance that openly supersedes all other relationships."

Share with me what you think this means for yor life. How do you see yourself living it out & where do you see yourself lacking?

Discipleship Class 2007 - Assignment #4

2007-02-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well, last week we ended our section called, Called to the Kingdom of God & began our section called, Called to Christ. So, here are this weeks questions:

How are the two sections tied together, both scripturally & theologically(hint: you might have to go back to the first lecture on the Kingdom of God)?
What does it mean for you to be called to both the Kingdom of God & to the person of Jesus Christ, as well?

There you go, have fun!

Discipleship Class 2007 - Assignment #3

2007-02-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Class,

This week I thought I would ask a couple of questions that ask you to take what we have talked about in class & think about how it applies to your life, so here goes.

This week we finished talking about the 8 OT attributes/anticipations of the Coming Kingdom of God, One of the was that, "The day of the Lord would be a time of Peace." ----How have you experienced the Peace of the Kingdom in your own life, be as specific as possible.
We also talked about the fact that with the coming of Jesus, the kingdom of God has entered the world. We are now citizens of the Kingdom. So, XA should reflect the kingdom, right? So, how do you see the Kingdom of God in XA?

There you go, have fun.

Discipleship Class 2007 -- Assignment#2

2007-01-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Discipleship Class,

Here are this weeks questions for thoughtful response:

On Thursday we talked about the 2 underlying themes relating to the Kingdom of God, which are:

1)The Sovereignty of God
&
2) The Problem/Mystery of Evil

A. Explain what the two terms mean.

B. Talk about how you would answer this pre-Christians objection:

"How can you believe in a God who would allow so much evil happen in the world? You Christians talk about a God of love, where is this God of love in Africa, as thousands die of HIV/AIDS every day?"

Thanks for your thoughtful responses!!

2007-01-11T16:11:00.000-08:00

Discipleship Class 2007 - Assignment #1

2007-01-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Discipleship Class,

Welcome to Discipleship: The Basic Chiristian Calling. I am really excited to have you all in the class, & I look forward to some lively discussion. I hope you all look forward to be challenced in your faith. Each week I will post a new assignment for you to respond to regarding the last weeks material. please take some time to think it through & answer thoughtfully.

Here is your First Assignment:
A) Define for me what you think a Christian is and how you become one.

B) Ask a minimum of 5 people - Whom you don't know (preferably
pre-Christians) These two questions:

1) Would you please define for me what you understand a Christian to be.

2) Could you please tell me your understanding of how one becomes a Christian.

A Church Like Ours?

2005-01-03T16:58:00.000-08:00

"The real issue in the Christian community was that it was conditional. You were loved, but if you had questions, questions about whether the Bible was true or whether America was a good country or whether last week's sermon was good, you were not so loved. You were loved in word, but there was, without question, a social commodity that was being withheld from you until you shaped up. By towing the party line you earned social dollars; by being yourself you did not. If you wanted to be valued, you became a clone."
-- Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz, pg.214

Is this what we want in the body of Christ? A place where, if you are different or struggling with an issue or theological point of view, you are not accepted or feel like you are on the outside looking in? Is that what Christ intended the church to be like? I don't think so. I hope that we can begin to live our lives with a different perspective.

Now I am not saying that we should just let people live in their sin or propogate and unbiblical view or lifestyle, Jesus did say, "Go and sin no more." But, we should realize that all that we believe and live is not always the "Biblical" one. There needs to be a humility about the way we treat one another, as well as the realization that we are all on the road together and while our viewpoint may be correct, God may have not revealed it to our fellow pilgims yet.

Blue Like Jazz

2004-12-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Blue Like Jazz, by Don Miller, it is my newest favoite book. I highly recomend it. It is one of those "relevant Christianity" books that looks at Christian spirituality for a "non-religious" point of view. As I have been reading the book I have been challenged and provked to think about my faith in new ways. I ahve also been concerned about the what I will call "the 20 something attitude" which thinks that they are pioneering a new type of faith, when really they are rehashing ancient thoughts on faith that seem to need to be remembered every 20 years or so because they are radical enough that we easily let them syphone off out of our consciencenesses. There really is "nothing new under the sun," as good ol' Soloman used to say.

Recently, though I have been really challenged by two chapters, one is called: Alone - 50 years in space, and the other is called: Community - Living with freaks . Alone deals with our tendency, since Adam & Eve to isolate ourselves. He says that the desire to be alone is akin to mental illness. God did not create us to be alone. Hence his statement in Genesis 2:18, "It is not good for the man to be alone."

The chapter on community goes on to talk about hos good it is for us to be living in community. You know that what a family is? It is a community. Small basic community. Just like God is a being in community, our families reflect that aspect of God's nature. But, what about the single person. They need community as well. That is where community houses & of course the church come in to play. We can learn to be in community and not isolate ourselves.

I have noticed a tendency among students, at least at WSU, to slowly over there time here to isolate themselves and live alone. i don't think that is healthy. I encourage people to read the chapters in Blue Like Jazz on Aloneness and Community and make some comments to me.

Rev. Steve's Cougar Blog

2004-12-03T10:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I was just thinking about what it means to be relevant as a follower of Jesus in our world today. Can we truly be "relevant?" Is that just a catch word for being "of the world?" or is is a way of saying that my desire is to make Jesus known to a lost world in a way that they can understand? I'm sure that it can mean both, but what I want it to mean is the latter. Obviously the gospel is relevant, human beings have not changed that much over the last 2000 years. But, our way of defining truth has. We have invented more ways of denying God's existence and our need for him, but we have not outgrown our actual need.

To be relevant means that we need to speak their language, not change the content of the message. When I was in Haiti last summer, it was difficult to share my faith with Haitians, because I didn't speak Creole, not because the concepts were difficult to understand. When I had an interpreter it was much easier. But, even when I did have an interpreter I was at time culturally ignorant. So relevance is more than just understanding language it is understnding how people percieve the world around them.>