Transform Indiana and CCDA Hook Up For Lunch Nov. 20
Pastor Aaron Shelby interviewed on IndyChristian.TV
Come join us for a lunch meeting at Brookside Community Church on Indy's Near-Eastside, as Transform Indiana networkers connect with CCDA'rs from around the city. Christian Community Development Association affiliates are returning from the recent CCDA Convention in Miami. The lunch meeting will focus on what's to be learned from it, and how can we work together during 2009 to transform lives & communities.
Light refreshments will be served as the meeting commences at 12:00pm.
For years, Liz Ferris saw her personalized license plate -- BE GODS -- as a quiet declaration of faith, a shorthand message urging people to "belong to God."
But now the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles says there's no place for God on personalized plates.
The BMV, meanwhile, has issued 2 million plates that proclaim "In God We Trust." On Monday, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of those plates.
The BMV, which approved Ferris' license plate eight or nine years ago, now is rejecting her message, saying that it violates a new policy that bars any reference to religion or a deity on personalized plates, a policy she says violates her First Amendment rights. The problem only surfaced after she let her plate lapse, and when she tried to reclaim the phrase, the BMV turned her down.
The eastern Indiana woman filed a lawsuit this week against the BMV to fix what she sees as a mixed message.
[IndyChristian Ed. Note... Excellent catch by Kurt Luidhardt, re Melanie Phillips first-hand account of a recent and very significant debate featuring noted atheist Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion", and Oxford professor John Lennox, author of "God's Undertaker - Has Science Buried God?"...]
"On October 21st I attended the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at Oxford's Natural History Museum. This was the second public encounter between the two men, but it turned out to be very different from the first."
"He said:
A serious case could be made for a deistic God.
This was surely remarkable. Here was the arch-apostle of atheism, whose whole case is based on the assertion that believing in a creator of the universe is no different from believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden, saying that a serious case can be made for the idea that the universe was brought into being by some kind of purposeful force. A creator."
Before Jim Jones led more than 900 people to their deaths in a cult massacre 30 years ago today, he was just a young Indianapolis pastor who preached a Gospel that appealed to people such as Gene and June Cordell.
The Eastside Indianapolis couple, who broke with Jones long before he left Indiana, remember him initially as a man who was true to the Bible, fed the hungry and appeared to heal the sick. But as Jones evolved, the man they knew as "Jimmy" began to offer glimpses of the dangerous cult leader he would become: a man with a temper and a messiah complex.
How Internet Innovations Are Changing The Way We Do Church
[IndyChristian Ed. Note... The following article comes via a publication primarily serving mainline congregations. As a result, it may well represent sentiments of those surfing the backside of the wave, so to speak. But that's a significant audience all of us hope to include in our neighborhood churches... yes? So it's an interesting and well-written article, perhaps measuring the middle-point of the Innovation Adoption Curve. Enjoy. (ht: DJChuang, Leadership Network]
by Andrea Useem
It’s no longer news that the Internet has ushered in a digital revolution, reshaping everything from the business landscape to social relationships to personal habits. Our world today is profoundly new. And in these transformations, nothing is sacred. Just as newspapers find themselves spiraling downward and corporations scramble to find an authentic online presence, so religious congregations are seriously impacted by the expansion of digital life. Yes, congregations have a unique purpose and mission, existing for divine purposes that can’t be quantified or confined, but in the human realm, in the material world where the congregation plants its feet on the ground, change is sprouting up through the floorboards. These developments are challenging congregations to consider what it means to be a geographically rooted, brick-and-mortar congregation in a world of virtual cathedrals and online prayer groups, where intimate spiritual connection is possible at any time of day or night.
To make sense of how technology and church intersect, it’s important to understand how the newest iterations of the Internet...
Continuing the Ten Topics series I'm teaching this fall, tomorrow night I'm delivering a message titled, Facebook: Technology and Relationships. This message explores technology's impact on how we do relationships and how followers of Jesus ought to engage technology.
Because of its extreme popularity (especially where I live), I'm focusing the discussion on Facebook.
In preparation for tomorrow night, earlier this week I took a tour of Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, a 15 minute drive from my front door. My friend/fellow church member/Facebook employee showed me around 3 of Facebook's buildings in downtown Palo Alto. They run a slick operation...
IndyChristian Comment... This could be an awesome study for YOUR church or small group... including many great points for consideration and discussion.
Ironically... we only knew of this great article & study (along with others Justin has posted at his site) because of our social-network of connections... including Matt Brown (Good Brownie)... and social tools... ie, RSS & Google Reader... which we also use to collaboratively SHARE with you in our sidebar 'Listening Around Indy'. Notice you can also subscribe to that aggregated feed, if interested. Click the orange RSS-button below that section in our sidebar.
[Btw, if you'd like YOUR blog to be considered for inclusion into our 'Listening Around Indy' aggregator... friend me in Facebook and drop me a line.]
Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
November Book Review: Kathleen Norris's ACEDIA AND ME.
“Why are we so depressed?”
A Review of Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and A Writer’s Life. by Kathleen Norris.
By Chris Smith.
Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and A Writer’s Life. Kathleen Norris. Hardcover. Riverhead Books. 2008.
I have long harbored an intuition that the desert fathers and mothers have provided humanity with some of the keenest insights into the depths of the human conidion. Kathleen Norris in her newest book Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and a Writer’s Life, demonstrates a similar intuition, as she probes the little-known temptation acedia, which – although its usage has all but ceased in the English language – is alive and well in our consumer culture. What is acedia? Well, considering that Norris devotes a 40+ page appendix to laying out definitions and illustrations from historic and literary sources, one could say that acedia is hard to nail down. In brief, acedia comes from Greek roots that denote a lack of caring and could be described as a sapping of energy, motivation and focus that often leads to a restlessness culminating in “a hatred for the place, a hatred for [one’s] very life [and] a hatred for manual labor” (xv) – to use the words of the fourth century monk Evagrius. The desert monks found that acedia often set in during the heat of the mid-day hours, which also led some to refer to it as “the noon-day demon.”
Norris uses her own life, and particularly the story of her marriage to the late poet David Dwyer, as a framework to explore the multi-faceted temptations of acedia in the present age. Thus, her writing style follows in the pattern established in her previous autobiographical works including Dakota and The Cloister Walk. Her crystalline prose penetrates to the heart of the reader and her frequent illustrations from history (in this case, especially those from the monastic tradition) and literature draw the reader into a grand conversation about temptation, sin, desire, grace and hope – i.e., the fundamental elements of human nature. One of the key themes of this book is an exploration of the dynamics of the relationship between acedia and depression. From the definition given above, on can easily see the parallels, but Norris warns us early in the book that “It is an easy temptation to equate acedia and depression” (20). Thus, although frequently returning to her explorations of how the two interact, she is clear to draw the distinction between the spiritual experience (acedia) and the medical condition (depression). And therefore, she recognizes that sometimes one needs to treat the medical symptoms with therapy and/or pharmaceuticals in addition to addressing acedia with the three traditional monastic non-negotiables: community, stability and prayer. Norris’s wisdom here should be taken to heart: let us first recognize and address the temptation of acedia by being rooted in community, stability and prayer. If then, the symptoms of depression are still unbearable, then let us explore medical therapies. How often do we jump to the pursuit of the latter, when we are unwilling to work through the real or perceived challenges of the former!
What are you reading these days? I'd love to feature your review of a recent book here next month! Email the review to me by December 1: e n g l e w o o d r e v i e w [ a.t ] g m a i l [ d.o.t] c o m
Per a recent email from a trusted ministry friend...
"Our ministry is working with a family of seven who have a handicapped child. They are in need of a washing machine and electric clothes dryer. The set that had broke down and are beyond repair. They were renting a set from a appliance rental company that charged outrageous fees which they were unable to continue paying.
If you have a working washer and dryer that you would like to give away please contact us."
*******
[IndyChristian note... If you can help, just send me an email we can pass along.]
Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.
[IndyChristian Ed. Note... This post is excerpted from Bishop T. Garrott Benjamin's article in the Indianapolis Recorder. Whether you agree or disagree, we hope it can at least start to help everyone understand how active Christ-followers (from BOTH political camps) feel about the recent election... and our future together...]
Can you help a brother out? My answer is, “yes, I can because I believe God, who promises us we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” No more playing the race card. It was canceled Nov. 4, 2008. Racism is not dead as I am still getting race hate mail, but using it as an excuse is no longer valid. No more excuses. No more whining. Now anything is possible. The sky is the limit."
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
Those of you who have been to the Unleavened Bread Cafe (fondly called the 'UBcafe') know that we have a time-honored tradition of taking pictures 'at the banner'. We now have over 1,500 photos online. Fact is... we were Facebook before Facebook was Facebook! And pancakes too!
Point is, it's a great way to show hospitality and get to know each other better. After all... pancakes notwithstanding... getting to know people different than yourself is one of the bonuses of the cafe ministry. [Join our Facebook group?]
So what IS new this week?
click to visit the photo-stream
Hint: No, it's not Sister Elease's god-daughter Alesha. *smile* She's not new -- she worked at the cafe a long time ago before moving to Atlanta (and returned recently to visit her dad, LaVaughn).
Ok, so click to the photo-stream, with the most recent photos on top as always. And see if you can figure out what's new this week at the cafe... Leave your guesses as a comment. Pancakes to the winner!
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you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from
his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,
then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one
in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but
in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not
only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus..." (Philippians
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I have long harbored an intuition that the desert fathers and mothers have provided humanity with some of the keenest insights into the depths of the human conidion. Kathleen Norris in her newest book Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and a Writer’s Life, demonstrates a similar intuition, as she probes the little-known temptation acedia, which – although its usage has all but ceased in the English language – is alive and well in our consumer culture. What is acedia? Well, considering that Norris devotes a 40+ page appendix to laying out definitions and illustrations from historic and literary sources, one could say that acedia is hard to nail down. In brief, acedia comes from Greek roots that denote a lack of caring and could be described as a sapping of energy, motivation and focus that often leads to a restlessness culminating in “a hatred for the place, a hatred for [one’s] very life [and] a hatred for manual labor” (xv) – to use the words of the fourth century monk Evagrius. The desert monks found that acedia often set in during the heat of the mid-day hours, which also led some to refer to it as “the noon-day demon.”
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