Religion
Seek and ye shall find
Do you know what time it is? That’s right: it’s time for the 2009 Christmas card! While previous cards have been familiar to those who eat or who use prescription medicine, this year’s card should be familiar to those who use a certain popular search engine.
Front:
Inside:
This prompts me to give the always-mischievous population of the internet an assignment: make the search engine suggest the full text as the completion of the search term Luke 2:15-16. That would make my day. Actually, it might even make my week.
It’s in the cards
The 2009 Christmas card is in the works and will be posted shortly. In the meantime, let’s revisit the last two years. Remember last year’s prescription card?
How about the nutrition card of 2007?
If you’re thinking, “Hey! I wish I could get my hands on those,” then I have good news: you can! Both the nutrition and prescription cards are available for purchase (with the family- and year-specific text removed, of course). Order today! Or tomorrow! Or, you know, sometime before Christmas.
We wish you a nutritious Christmas
Just so you know: if you are on the elder Strongs’ Christmas card list and would like to wait to see this year’s card until it arrives in the mail, don’t read this post.
—–
Every year for the last few years, as a part of their longstanding tradition of distinctive homemade Christmas cards, I’ve put together a Christmas card for my parents. My previous cards have been hand-drawn creations, but don’t let that pleasant wording fool you; my talents do not lie in the venue of handmade artwork, so the cards have been potentially worthwhile concepts hindered by marginal execution.
This year, thanks both to my greatly increased comfort with digital design (previous comfort level: effectively nonexistent) and to a card concept that deserved more than my subpar artistic skills, I fled the handmade realm and put together the card in Photoshop. (My Photoshop ability is still minimal, but it far outpaces my real-world artistic ability.) The digital design means not only that the card looks better, but also that I can easily post it here.
So, without further ado, here is the 2007 Stronghold Christmas card.
Front:
Inside:
Back:
The Jackson 200
On Monday morning, a group from Immanuel Bible Church — my parents’ church — traveled to Jackson to take a tour of the New Tribes Bible Institute. Thanks to my self-unemployment and a dearth of sports events due to Chelsea schools’ spring break, I was able to join the group for the tour.
As a part of the New Tribes mission organization, NTBI’s purpose is to equip believers for missions by providing a concentrated but thorough Bible education. After two years at NTBI, many students go on to further training for mission fields all over the world.
The student population of NTBI ranges from young singles to married couples with young children; that diversity of stages of life is a benefit to the entire range of students as they interact. And there is plenty of interaction; the school is contained in one building, so the 200 or so students live under the same roof.
NTBI is housed in an old Jackson public middle school building that New Tribes was able to acquire from the city. Since the school building was built back when the city likely was a bit more prosperous — NTBI has inhabited the building for a number of years — it is a good-sized building, and it is well-suited for the school.
Thanks to my photo work, I spend a fair amount of time in and around public school buildings, and it has been my experience that for whatever reasons, many public school buildings do not age extraordinarily well; it seems that when public school buildings are old, they tend to be a bit like Michigan’s Crisler Arena — functional but slightly dingy and not entirely pleasant. So, between my mental image of typical older school buildings and the general somewhat run-down condition of Jackson, I was curious to see the interior of the NTBI facility.
As we took our tour, I was impressed by the clean, bright, pleasant building; the NTBI staff has done an excellent job of maintaining the school. It didn’t feel like an old dingy school building; it felt like a place that is very much alive. Unsurprisingly, the NTBI-owned houses around the school building were equally well-maintained.
More importantly, the building was representative of its occupants; the school exists for the glory of God, and that spirit — or Spirit — was apparent. Throughout our visit, the staff and the students were a credit to NTBI; everyone we met was pleasant and welcoming.
As part of our tour, we were able to attend both a chapel service and a hermeneutics class. The chapel speaker spoke of finishing strong and not taking shortcuts or giving only a minimum effort; the hermeneutics professor gave an introduction to the interpretation of the Bible. Both were thoroughly worthwhile.
After the hermeneutics class, our time at the school concluded with lunch in the school’s cafeteria; instead of standard cafeteria fare, we were pleased to discover that they serve actual food at NTBI. (Monday’s lunch was baked ziti, if you were curious.) While we ate, we had a very pleasant conversation with one of the students, a senior named Amanda.
For me, the tour of NTBI was encouraging; this world can be a dark place, so it meant a great deal to see the light of God reflected in the staff and the students.
—–
On a different note, the high school sports photographer in me was interested to see what athletic facilities they’d kept from the old middle school; I get to see plenty of venues, both old and new, but I most enjoy seeing old local venues — facilities with history. And while the swimming pool seemed well-maintained, it was the old gym that caught my eye.
Because it was an old middle school, the gym was fairly small; I didn’t measure the floor, but it was clearly not large enough to hold a modern regulation high school basketball court (note the proximity of the center circle and the free throw line). But that didn’t matter to me; I was too interested in the three-tier construction of the gym.
The first level was the gym floor; the second was spectator seating; the third was a running track, complete with banked turns. Elevated tracks have become a common feature in high school gyms in recent years, including Chelsea’s and Dexter’s new gyms, but I didn’t realize the idea went so far back.
Oh my Lloyd
Ronald Bellamy’s Underachieving All-Stars is an eloquent blog focused on Michigan football. It is not the typical litany of game analyses and recruiting rumors; it is, primarily, the innermost emotions and thoughts of a passionate fan.
Yesterday — appropriately, a Sunday — he posted an intriguing entry pondering the religion of sports. I don’t know that he and I share beliefs, but his comments are thought-provoking and thus worth reading.
I had never taken much time to consider something like this before. Too many communion wafers, too much Sunday school, too many prayers, maybe. But something happened after the Title Game that made me wonder. The game had been over for a few hours, and someone on an Ohio State fan forum had written, “please god, let Ginn and Gonzalez come back.†That is precisely the way it was written – the names of the two players appropriately capitalized, while the man who he pleaded with was irreverently lumped together with other gods, gods as if by profession, whose duty it is to right the wrongs in our sacred pastime. In this case, in the case of college football, it was Ginn and Gonzalez who were divine; the anonymous god was simply the man handing out rosary beads from a kiosk.
Details, details
What happened to the devil?
Long, long ago, Lucifer encountered his supernatural teenage years and decided that God was totally uncool. He rebelled, and God expelled him from heaven. Since that time, he has been making every effort to thwart God’s purposes.
These efforts were famously examined in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, a book of letters from an older, wiser demon to a younger demon; in the book, the older, wiser demon counsels the younger demon in the most effective methods to prevent humans from devoting themselves to God.
Unfortunately, in many Christian circles, it seems the devil receives minimal credit for his work. The common dynamic now tends to be human actions and their effects on human interaction with God, with little attention paid to the devil’s tireless efforts to prevent such interaction. The devil, it seems, is popularly viewed as a supernatural Ralph Nader to the two-party system of God and man: a bit of a pest, but no major threat.
This is a problem for us but a boon for the devil; we are told, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” but it’s hard to resist the devil without first fully acknowledging his power in this world.
Now might be a good time to start.
Happy Winter Festive Occasion For All People!
Windmill Point Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, Florida, canceled its Christmas pageant. Why? Because it could be associated with Christmas.
The pageant itself, A Penguin Christmas, had no religious themes, overt or subtle; its subject matter featured characters such as Santa Claus, Rudolph, elves and, obviously, penguins. However, a district spokeswoman said many people associate those symbols with Christmas.
That, along with the pageant’s use of the word, was enough for the school to cancel the play on the grounds that its mention of the holiday may be offensive.
But take comfort: though both Halloween and Thanksgiving could be offensive, they are still safe to mention in school.
—
Highlights from the Palm Beach Post’s article:
“‘Any reference to a religious holiday has the potential to offend anyone who is not part of that particular persuasion.’”
“‘I feel like I have the principal that canceled Christmas.’”
“Windmill Point parent Heather Cowart, mom to third-grader Logan, said she was upset last year when Logan’s teacher demanded he not bring Santa cupcakes, candy canes or other Christmas-themed treats to a ‘holiday party.’ Even donations of canned goods to the needy had to be wrapped in newspaper, not traditional wrapping paper, Cowart said.”
“Last year Logan got in trouble for saying “Christmas” in class. Is that a bad word now?’”
“‘Everywhere in Florida, and probably the whole country, there is a heightened awareness to not be offensive to anyone,’ Karst said.”
The past is now, vol. 1
The first of a likely brief series of selected highlights from the old mindreader:
04 December (2005)
Sports News: Jesus Inducted Into NHL Hall of Fame, and
I Have Something Important to Tell You, But I’ll Just Write It on the Wall
On Thanksgiving, I was in the Lone Star Steakhouse in Battle Creek. After the meal, I made my way into the bathroom (obviously, the men’s room). And, remarkably, I found humor in the bathroom — and it wasn’t bathroom humor!
On the wall, someone had written a serious message: “Jesus saves.” But a hockey fan, believing that Jesus must be a goalie, had supplemented that message with a simple, direct conclusion:
“And Gretzky scores on the rebound!”
I walked out of the bathroom laughing at the quick wit of that hockey fan.
Though the Gretzky quip was very humorous, it illustrates a major problem with impersonal evangelism. The message of the gospel — summarized as the pithy “Jesus saves” — is worth communicating to everyone around us, but the message loses something important when it is not communicated personally. Not only does it become very dry and detached, lacking the necessary genuine human component (Jesus saves, and I know because He saved me); it also becomes much more open to mockery, as shown in the restaurant bathroom. Anyone else who reads that particular message on the wall is far more likely to be struck by the humor than to be struck by the truth; in that sense, whatever good intentions the original writer may have had were lost in the humor of the second writer.
Of course, in the restaurant, there also was the issue of defacing property. It seems contradictory to proclaim the truth of salvation through Christ through a blatant display of disrespect for others’ property.
My point, I think, is simply this: be careful with impersonal methods of evangelization.
Off-Broadway Baptist
Harvester Christian Church, a large church in the St. Louis area, has a busy drama ministry. However, their website’s drama ministry page is a bit confusing to me:
“The Creative Arts Production Ministry His Mercy produces three full stage productions a year, including a Christmas Eve production. These plays are full length, original, musical productions geared to sharing the gospel and the Word of God in a non-threatening manner. They provide the perfect opportunity to invite friends, family and co-workers to our church for a fun evening, and to begin to plant the seeds for the Lords kingdom. All are welcome!
“The Fall of 2006 we will be presenting the musical ‘You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.’ This show will be done in a dessert theater format.”
I am confused because the first paragraph says their productions are geared to sharing the gospel, while the second says they are presenting “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” I am having trouble reconciling those two statements. Specifically, I am not certain how “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” shares the gospel. It is a wonderful production, but I am not sure how it fulfills their goal of “productions geared to sharing the gospel and the Word of God.”
Please, don’t get me wrong: “You’re a Good Man” is a fun musical, and I am not upset that they are willing to use such a production. I just hope they don’t try so hard to repackage it as a gospel presentation that they drain the charm out of the musical. This would be better if it were simply a theatrical presentation, and not a church production. In fact, there ought to be more quality non-church productions by Christians … but that’s another topic altogether. Simply put, this is a good idea with mismatched wrapping.
Besides, were it to be a Biblically accurate production for the church, they would have to change the title. It would not be “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”; it would be “You’re a Fallen Man in need of Jesus, Charlie Brown.”
(Of course, it does not help that in the spring of 2007 they will be presenting a “Christian rewrite” of Pinocchio. I have already expressed my position on Christian rewrites, so I think it’s clear I won’t be going out of my way to see that production.)
Recent Posts
@sgtwolverine on Twitter
- Northwestern vs Vanderbilt: the Fighting Smartypants Bowl. Northwestern gets the Smartypants bragging rights this time. 2 days ago
- Brock Mealer's walk was the single most powerful moment I've seen in Michigan Stadium. To all who played a part in that triumph: you rock. 2 days ago
- Got to meet @OfficialBraylon at tonight's Chelsea football game. The Beard is as good as advertised! 3 days ago
- Both Chelsea freshmen and JV football lost to Monroe. It's up to the varsity to defend the Bulldogs' honor now. 4 days ago
- Read this. NOW. http://j.mp/agPFz9 4 days ago
- More updates...
If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad
During a recent church service I attended, there was a distracting incongruity in the service’s conclusion. The pastor preached a thoughtful sermon on grace, after which the congregation observed communion. To that point, the elements of the service had evoked a solemn, contemplative spirit in the room — a spirit that was deepened by the first song following communion: Grace Greater Than Our Sin.
Had the service ended after that hymn, the lingering impact would have been powerful; unfortunately, the service concluded not with the quieter notes of Grace Greater Than Our Sin, but with the upbeat energy of Days of Elijah.
The congregation seemed happy to enjoy the final song; however, I was thoroughly distracted by the abrupt transition from the quieter spirit of the service to the fast-paced cheerfulness of the final song. After I had been drawn into deep spiritual contemplation, I was undiplomatically pulled right back out of that contemplation by a mismatched song; the dischordant upbeat conclusion served not to encourage me, but to disrupt me.
In this instance, the issue was not the song itself, but its misplacement. While Days of Elijah is a wonderful song, it was a major departure from the spirit the service had evoked on that Sunday; it was a contrast, not a complement. But that is a symptom of something more important.
The larger problem revealed by such song misplacement seems to be an unsettling trend among a number of modern Christian churches: forced joyfulness. Sadly, it is common for churches to habitually end services on a musically upbeat note, no matter whether the rest of the service is upbeat or solemn. There seems to be a belief — though in practice it may no longer even be conscious for many — that worship is best concluded on a cheerful note so that worshippers might go forth with joy.
At best, this is an artificial pursuit of an unnecessary goal; at worst, it is an attempt to make services more appealing by making the lingering conclusion a comfortable cheerfulness rather than a potentially uncomfortable contemplation. While the former may sometimes be forgivably well-intentioned and correctable, the latter is inexcusably consumer-oriented — and that is a dangerous focus for a church.
Worship services need not be a journey to an emotion; they should be open roads, not linear scripts. Some worship services will be joyful and upbeat, and concluding such services with upbeat songs is natural; other worship services will be solemn and contemplative, and those services should be concluded in a manner that allows and even compels worshipers to carry that spirit out the door.