Common Grounds Online

"Conduits for the Spirit" by Todd Bragg

These times is crazy!!!  I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but I feel like so many things in my life are up in the air.  As a musician, I am familiar with this feeling more than most perhaps, but I have talked to many recently that seem to be sharing the same sensation in their lives.  What do I spend my time and energy working towards as my career continually evolves?  How can I be the husband/father that I need to be when it seems spending more time together is the only way?  Only, there's no more time!  How do I cultivate and nurture the friendships that I have when it seems more and more difficult to spend quality time together.  Should I go ahead and just pull my hair out since its thinning anyway?  Its 10:30 pm and I haven't gotten anything done that I needed to get done, yet I haven't stopped!

David Brooks Compares V-J Day Footage to Our Contemporary Narcissism

Excellent article by David Brooks of the New York Times. High Five Nation.

Excerpt:

And there was something else. When you look from today back to 1945, you are looking into a different cultural epoch, across a sort of narcissism line. Humility, the sense that nobody is that different from anybody else, was a large part of the culture then.

But that humility came under attack in the ensuing decades. Self-effacement became identified with conformity and self-repression. A different ethos came to the fore, which the sociologists call “expressive individualism.” Instead of being humble before God and history, moral salvation could be found through intimate contact with oneself and by exposing the beauty, the power and the divinity within.

Everything that starts out as a cultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine. Before long, self-exposure and self-love became ways to win shares in the competition for attention. Muhammad Ali would tell all cameras that he was the greatest of all time. Norman Mailer wrote a book called “Advertisements for Myself.”

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A question: who among us doesn't see prominent segments of the Church involved in this? Not rallying the Church to resist self-promotion, but engaging in it, indeed at times leading the self-promotion. Always rationalized..."just trying to reach more people for Jesus." 

I confess there's a part of me that wants to press the point. However, what are the implications of the three sentences in the previous paragraph? Does this mean no blogs with a connection to a book, like this one? Or if such a blog like CGO can legitimately exist, does it mean no endorsements for the book, as I have placed on the left sidebar?  Do descriptions of Contributors constitute self-promotion?

I leap to David Brooks' point, and find it easy to tar and feather 'the other,' but the mere existence of this blog and its features suggest how accommodated I and we (the Contributors) are to self-promotion. What price humility?

Tom Nelson Speaking at DTS Chapel on Christians and Depression

What interested me when I first heard about Tom Nelson's depression was what I knew of him via his famous "Tommy Nelson boys". (There may be an official title for the 12 or so young men he disciples each year, but I don't know it.  Among Texas evangelicals they are known as Tommy Nelson boys.)

Anyway, from encountering a couple of these guys and also a couple of girls who dated other Tommy Nelson boys, I knew a bit about the man himself. Among other things, I knew he was impatient and hard regarding the subject of depression. So when I first heard he had stepped down from the Denton Bible pulpit because of depression, I noted the irony. I wondered how hard it must have been for him to accept or even recognize. I thought of this as God laying him low that He might raise Nelson up for a new aspect of ministry.

And so He has. Watch and hear Nelson repudiate his old stance towards depression. The compassion and love he has for any and all sufferers of depression is beautiful to see. The Lord has been using this broken man to encourage and heal countless people. The man who once greeted depression with a verse and interrogation about the sin in one's life has now become depressed people's advocate and guide. 

Corey Widmer Co-Pastors East End Fellowship in East Richmond

Corey Widmer, one of the original Contributors to CGO and still an occasional Contributor, is co-pastoring the new East End Fellowship in Richmond, VA.

I'm not sure why the Houston Examiner would write a story about the East End Fellowship of Richmond, but regardless, the story is a good one. See what Corey and friends are doing as they dig in more deeply into the Church Hill area of Richmond. The story focuses on the other co-pastor, Donald Coleman.

Catherine Larson Interviews Donald Miller re: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Catherine Larson, who published the splendid As We Forgive earlier this year, works at BreakPoint (Chuck Colson), and is a Contributor for us here at Common Grounds Online. For Breakpoint this week she interviewed Donald Miller regarding his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.

Donald Miller is fairly well known for his Blue Like Jazz book that has sold a million copies and is being made into a movie.

This is what interviews could be and should be. Read Larson's interview with Miller (here).

Excerpts:

CL: One of the parts of your book I liked best was when you talk about character development. Can you explain what character transformation has to do with living a good story?

DM: Well most stories—maybe I should say many stories—are about the arc of the character. You know Dickens’ A Christmas Carol would be the best example. You see Scrooge at the beginning and he’s a bitter old man, and by the end he’s a generous person who’s been changed by conflict, by encountering what’s at the heart of who he is. And that’s by design. That’s something that God has designed. It’s the way that He changes us. We are people who are constantly changing, and that’s by design. We’re becoming something different all the time and hopefully we’re becoming something better.

Even before the Fall of man, you see the elements of story. You see Adam being lonely, not being complete....Adam walks with God, knows God intimately, has not sinned and yet is lacking. God knows what he’s lacking because he created Adam to lack and he needed a woman, so instead of giving Adam a woman, God tells Adam to name the animals, which probably took many, many years.....

Well, that’s God’s design and it’s His design before the Fall of man and not after the Fall of man. So story exists before the Fall. Now conflict really got hijacked after the Fall. It’s very different than it was because there are all sorts of other painful realities that we deal with because of the Fall of man, but God intended to change our character from the beginning. And so that’s one of the reasons in Scripture it talks about, “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith is producing perseverance.” That conflict is by design, it’s something that God wants and we’re supposed to engage it with a positive attitude because it changes our character. It changes who we are.

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Again, read the whole interview between Catherine Larson and Donald Miller.

MATT KLEBERG- HEAVY METAL'S NOT SO BAD

I can’t really say that heavy metal is my favorite genre of music, although I did enjoy a brief Metallica kick in high school and I do rely on DragonForce to keep me awake during late night painting sessions. That said, I want to describe a recent, and unexpectedly AWESOME heavy metal experience.

 The other night my musician friend Mitch, from Philadelphia, drove down to Charlottesville for a last minute gig at a local bar/music venue. Mitch plays bass in the heavy metal trio Haley, named after the lead singer/growler. Their album cover shows the leather-clad, eye-linered, tattooed band members posed together wearing purposefully blank expressions. The track list on the back reads as follows: 1)Burning Witches 2)Blacked Out 3)Hallowed 4)Devour 5)Stop This Ride 6)Pain is Love 7)Leeches 8)Apathy 9)Broken Guitars 10)Drown Me. My favorite is the CD design, which boasts an x-ray hand giving the middle finger.

Linc Ashby, An Upset of Monumental Proportions

I'm sure by now that the CG community knows me to be a huge sports guy.  Well, this past Friday night, an incredible thing happened - the Buford Wolves were defeated by the Lovett Lions.  Believe it or not, this was their first loss to a region opponent since 2000.  Read the story here.  And if you wouldn't mind taking an extra few seconds go here and vote for us (the Lovett Lions) as the Fox 5 team of the week.  I figure with the number of CG readers out there, if you all vote, it'll definitely push us to the top.  Now, I can only hope that Glenn is okay with me doing this!

Harvard Law Professor Bill Stuntz Interview About Cancer

Bill Stuntz was a law professor at UVa for many years before taking a job at Harvard Law. He is also a thoughtful and committed believer. Jeff Barneson, on InterVarsity staff at Harvard, interviews Stuntz and asks him about his cancer diagnosis.

Dr. Bill Stuntz from twentyonehundred productions on Vimeo.

Catherine Larson, Review of Treasured by Leigh McLeroy

My mom has a wooden box—scarcely bigger than a jewelry box—which belonged to my grandmother. More than any other possession I can think of, I hope that one day that box will be passed along to me. In it are the neatly folded handwritten letters written over four brightly burning decades of my grandparents’ marriage.

 

My grandparents married in 1929, only weeks before the great crash that would change everything. Grandpa worked in heavy construction—building cross-state barge canals and roads with heavy machinery like the enormous drag-line that he was using the day it tipped and he was trapped below the waters of Florida’s Crystal River. That was just a few short months before they would have celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary and years before I was born. Several decades later, my grandmother would follow him into the arms of their Savior after a battle with Alzheimer’s which ravaged her mind from the time I can remember her.

 

In that box mom keeps are letters about the ordinary days of my grandparents’ lives, passed between life-long sweethearts, laced with tender words. But still they are a treasure to me: a snapshot into the hearts and minds of two people I only wish I had known.

 

If you wondered what Leigh McLeroy’s book Treasured is all about, it’s like this. It’s a  window to the heart of God through the things that He might have kept in His own treasured wooden box. They are glimpses of His character that He has passed on to us through the Scriptures. The fresh olive sprig which the dove carried to Noah, the dry waterskin which sustained the cast-out Hagar, the well-sharpened knife Abraham raised above his son Isaac—these are just a few of the treasures McLeroy examines.

Fighting a Gold Jaguar by Judy Nelson

  After five years mentoring some young girls (now young women, even young mothers) and reflecting on a recent message by Tim Keller, I’ve been thinking a lot about poverty and finances and inequities of being born where and to whom you’re born. I often think that as a single woman I would be ridiculed in a large part of the world; I would be forced to marry someone I didn’t love for the sake of my family name. In Mormonism, I would be unable to reach the highest heaven without my husband calling out my secret temple name. And yet, by God’s grace, I am an American, born into a hard-working decent family who gave me every opportunity to succeed. And I am a daughter of God, whose grace covers me.

And I go to a white-collar church. My girls come with me most Sundays; sometimes four girls and two babies. Last week, two girls and one baby. The girls are almost the only Blacks at our church. And probably the only ones living in poverty. The girls are a big hit at church; everyone wants to “pass the peace” with them and ooh and ahhh over the babies. This both bothers and encourages me. Bothers because of my own issues (I would like to have a baby, Lord, and I’ve lived an upright life. I'm no single teenager; I deserve a baby. Can we say entitlement, Judy? It’s ugly, I know.) And it encourages me because the girls feel loved and special, and they like coming back to church each week. Plus, they think Jeff, our pastor, is cute. He is. And we get lunch afterwards, which they also like.

I’m confident we have a dozen or so millionaires in our pews. Our parking lot is lined with Lexuses (Lexi?), SUVs and one golden Jaguar. It’s the one golden Jaguar that I obsessed about during my last Sunday afternoon nap. It’s all I could think about: How can a Christian justify driving a car of such ostentation. Gold! Jaguar! Please! Even if it is a small dent in your income, what it says is so over the top!

Jesus had no place to rest his head, and yours is on a “Suedecloth premium leather headliner” in a Jaguar. A gold Jaguar! (When I told my friend about this, she asked if I would be less offended if it weren’t gold. And I said I think I would.)

I began to think about how and what I was going to say to this unsuspecting member of my church. I was going to ask him if he knew that almost half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day; 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. Did that matter to him when he was cruising around in his Jaguar, his gold Jaguar?

I really had a good case going on in my head to convict this fellow of his neglect of the 25,000 children who die in poverty each day. I really had a case for ostracizing his ostentation. I was pretty worked up, there “napping” in my bed—in my big bed, with nice sheets, in my safe home that has a garage, a security system and a full refrigerator.

God’s Spirit moved me from confrontation with Mr. Jaguar to confrontation with myself: Am I loving my girls well? Effectively? What of all the mistakes I’ve made over the years? Indeed, they think I’m rich. And why wouldn’t they compared to their home, their daily wondering about food, their tricky doctors appointments and limited opportunities. I realized that I was feeling very alone in my ministry to my friends, especially after my car had been “stolen” by one of them, and I couldn’t get it back for three days and even then, it was smoky and disgustingly dirty. My kindness had been abused.

I felt very alone in trying to reason why my 15-year-old would lie to me about her sex life when the evidence proved quite productive (a second pregnancy already. I wept). I felt alone in wondering how I would fit them all in my now smoked-filled car when I already broke the law by not using two car seats so everyone can fit on a trip to the pool. I felt alone in figuring out my own finances for the future, figuring in two new babies (another sister, who is married, is also pregnant again but no one is working). Sitting in a wealthy church pointing fingers felt better than facing my aloneness in this struggle with alleviating poverty and fighting the alienation of the Fall (you can see my notes on Keller’s talk about alienation and the original message that helped fan this flame).

It was a good lesson for me. When I feel alone in these battles, I tend to blame others, comparing and judging their outsides with my insides. Mr. Jaguar could be giving 98% of his income to fight poverty; I have no idea. He could be using it as his own “fig leaf” to cover his insecurity about his status. But I’m glad God brought me from judgment to compassion—for Mr. Jaguar (if it is his cover for “success”), for myself as I do my best with God’s help, for my friends’ and in the inequality to which they were born. Judgment to compassion, that’s my prayer.