Baseball. It is happening! There will be a five-week season, running on Tuesday nights at 7pm from June 13 to July 11, with a wrap-up tournament on Saturday, July 15. If you're interested, stay tuned for more details: we'll be passing sign-up sheets around at Convergence in the next few weeks.
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R-E-S-P-E-C-T. A couple of weeks ago we were praying for a man in Afghanistan who was on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity. Since the Middle East seems to be a prayer theme lately, I thought an update might be in order. The last reports of Abdul Rahman’s story say that he is starting a new life in Italy after his trial collapsed. If he was found guilty, he would have faced the death penalty.A few of the stories around this case involved interviews with Christians in predominately Muslim nations. Their dominate concern was always respect. One declared that while he hasn’t chosen Islam as a religion, his decision is not political.
Maybe [definitely] we can learn something here.
As North Americans, we have the tendency to take an oppositional position against anything that is "different" from our "normal". The thing about respect is: you don’t have to agree on everything. And you can’t fake it. People feel it. In the end, how are we going to communicate Jesus to anyone if no one will have anything to do with us? Maybe the whole concept of “in the world and not of it” was for our own personal use, something to be lived instead of declared. While I believe there is a place to take a stand, there is also the necessity of building relationships with people before you can impact them. The only way we can live side-by-side with differing religions and worldviews is to communicate basic respect, instead of employing an “us vs. them” perspective.
So, all this to say: life is messy. While I’m pretty sure God doesn’t see in grey, we sure do. The only conclusion we can come to in all situations is love anyways.
So, all this to say: life is messy. While I’m pretty sure God doesn’t see in grey, we sure do. The only conclusion we can come to in all situations is love anyways.
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posted by white girl at
10:45 AM
4 Comments:
cool - i think we need to relax about other religions - becasue you put any of them up against Jesus Christ - they pale. God can even use another hollow religion to move people to the real Christ.
the three wise men of Luke - they were pagan - and they were still drawn to christ - might be reading into that one but you might get the idea. as long as we aren't liberal like mclaren's view on it - cool.
By
Anonymous, at 10:56 PM
I think that it must be nice living in a country where everyone is free to believe what they want to believe.
Sometimes we forget how lucky we really are. We shouldn't be so critical about what other people believe, that's why God gave everyone the freedom to believe.
On a different note I'm very glad baseball is happening this year I look forward to helping our team this year. GOOO TEAM!
By
Anonymous, at 1:31 AM
"as long as we aren't liberal like mclaren"??
Errr...I really like Brian McLaren.
Liberal does not equal evil.
-Jamie
By
Anonymous, at 8:56 AM
I like cheeze... and baseball! I think we can all agree on that. Just don't be too liberal with the cheeze cause it's come back to haunt you.
By
Anonymous, at 12:22 AM
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