Better Body Building

And yet, as writer and women's Bible study teacher Jen Wilkin observes, we would not all look the same way even if we all fulfilled our New Year's resolutions to eat well and exercise regularly. So why do we grade ourselves and one another so harshly? Why do we convince our sons they need the perfect Justin Bieber haircut and talk to them about women in such a way that we unwittingly dictate what a wife needs to look like? 

Earlier this week Wilkin wrote a tremendously helpful article aimed especially at Christian women to encourage them to "banish body-talk to the same list of off-limits topics as salaries, name-dropping, and colonoscopies." In the latest edition of Going Deeper with TGC, Wilkin talks with Mark Mellinger and me about why women should stop telling their friends they look skinny and start complimenting them about godly attitudes and behavior. Wilkin even responded to my unexpected question about plastic surgery. So go easy on her for an impromptu response on one of the most personally explosive issues of our day.   Continue at Jen Wilkin

The Power of Negative Thinking

In 1952, a New York pastor named Norman Vincent Peale penned a book that has influenced generations that followed, called, “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Many of his thoughts and ideas were picked up by Robert Schuller, who repackaged them as “Possibility Thinking,” and built a religious empire from them.

These ideas, once seen as counter to the gospel, have now become mainstream, even in evangelical, supposedly Bible-believing Christianity. Christianity has been completely redefined, deemphasizing sin and lostness and separation from God and replacing it with a man-centered, self-reliant, relentlessly positive message – grace without the fall, redemption without the need for forgiveness.

In the Peale/Schuller world, our problem is low self-esteem and a lack of confidence in our own abilities to do great things for God. The solution is for us to think positive, believe in ourselves, dream big dreams and believe that God will help us reach our dreams. Man’s chief end is no longer to give glory to God, but God’s chief end is to bring happiness to us.

My concern is that over time this concept has gained ground and begun to establish itself as settled doctrine. Too many are replacing the hard, cold facts of the true gospel with the cotton candy of self-esteem and “you can do it” motivational approaches. A popular radio network bills itself as “positive and encouraging.”  Continue at Dave Miller

Hey Teen, get Ready for the Real World

There used to be a time when teenagers didn’t exist.

Children went from boyhood to manhood with no teenhood dividing the two.

If you are over sixty years old, you may remember the days when there were no teenagers.

If you are between forty and sixty perhaps your parents or grandparents told you what life was like when teenagers did not exist.

My grandmother most certainly told me.

She was perplexed and saddened when I became part of this new and growing demographic called teenagers.

She was not sad because she missed out on something special. She was sad because I was missing out on something special. She was gathering the eggs and milking the cows before school and then went into the fields after she came home from school and worked until dark.

She did not know there were teen years until I came along. We were on the cutting edge of this new demographic. We had movies and video games. We also invented rock and roll. Pot, now called weed, was soon to follow and fornication (premarital sex) was the right-of-passage that validated manhood.

Most teenagers are unaware how they became a self-absorbed demographic.^[1] They are not familiar with their short-lived heritage. Most of them believe how they live is how things have always been and should be.

Teen, if this is how you think, then I’ve got some bad news for you. Your life was never meant to be the way I’ve described. If it is, then get ready. You’re in for the challenge of a lifetime. If you haven’t discerned this by now, be prepared. Shortly after your high school graduation, you will be introduced to what you should have been introduced to years earlier.^[2]

Last week I wrote the first part of this series, which I titled What to do after your parents blow it – 1.0. This week I want to finish that article, hopefully giving a biblical perspective on how the new teen demo should see and respond to life.

In both articles I’m interacting with Charles J. Sykes, and his rules for life. Based on how Sykes wrote his rules, it appears he did not have Christ or the Bible in mind. So I’m going to take what he said and tweak it a bit to fit a Biblio-centric framework–though what he said is tweetable.

I hope my interaction will provide a modicum of biblical wisdom and motivation for teenagers. Here are his first five rules, which I covered in the aforementioned article:   Continue at Rick Thomas

Rude: Where are our Manners?

I'm always being shocked. No one signals, people don't say hello back when you pass them in the park, people walk three abreast on the sidewalk and don't move for anyone. Who says excuse me or sorry or thank you anymore? -Valerie Pringle

Rude: Where are our Manners? is a one-hour documentary exploring our ideas of modern civility, or lack thereof. 

Valerie Pringle walks with civility expert, Benet Davetian, on a P.E.I. street. 

 

People's perception of our world is that we've become increasingly uncivil - kids are out of control, people talk on their cellphones everywhere and the f-word is a standard greeting. 

But hasn't every generation since time began worried that their world was becoming less tolerant and less civil? And isn't change sometimes for the better? Not too long ago a woman wearing pants could be seen as uncivil, and for that matter so was an African American person using a public water fountain.

Valerie Pringle interviews Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners. Read more of the interview online.

Rude: Where are our Manners? will take a journey through the past and into our present while asking difficult questions - are we more uncivil, where did we go wrong, did we go wrong, and is it possible to change? 

Our guide will be Valerie Pringle, she wants answers to why our world seems so rude. She tracks down the experts in her quest for a 21st century guide to manners.  Watch the full episode at CBC Doc Zone

A Great God and Our Worst Moments

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with author and speaker Nancy Guthrie and discuss the subject matter of suffering. Nancy and her husband, David, lost two children to Zellweger Syndrome – a genetic disorder where the body does not produce peroxizones which aid in metabolism on the cellular level. Infants diagnosed with Zellweger usually live only six to eight months. Both Hope and Gabriel were born with the rare genetic disorder. The family’s journey through the experience is captured in Nancy’s book Holding On to Hope. God has used the Guthrie’s experience to minister to countless numbers of individuals and couples who’ve lost children. You can read more about their ministry here. I asked Nancy to help us understand what those suffering are going through and what we should expect to see as we minister to them. Her answer, which will be posted soon on the ReNew Conference website, echoed the perspective of the Psalmist in Psalm Seventy Three. Basically, our initial responses in the midst of pain are our worst. The Psalmist takes us through a play-by-play of his worst moments. It unfolds like a you’re not crazy session for the suffering.   Keep Reading...