All posts in Q

Renewing a City :: Wayne Gordon

by Tim Schraeder on 05/01/2010 in Q with No comments

Wayne Gordon | Founding Pastor, Lawndale Community Church
For nearly 35 years of ministry “Coach,” as he is affectionately known, has played a key role in numerous community development initiatives in North Lawndale. Along with his wife and local high school students, he founded Lawndale Community Church and went on to become one of the founders of the Lawndale Christian Health Center, a healthcare ministry that sees over 150,000 patients per year. Gordon helped formulate the Christian Community Development Association and holds a major goal to develop a new generation of leaders from North Lawndale. Over 200 young people have graduated from college with more than half returning to live and work in the community. For more than 30 years of his life he has exemplified breaking down all racial barriers to pave the way for God’s truth in the lives of all that he encounters.

  • There are nameless, faceless people we call statistics
  • This year alone, we’ve already had more young people murdered than people in our military killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
  • There is no public outcry, no national weeping for their deaths.
  • American poverty is different than poverty in other places of the world.
  • Our poverty is a poverty of violence.
  • Wayne and his family intentionally moved into the volatile and dangerous neighborhood of Lawndale to reach people for Christ.
  • The Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) has a value of “relocation” – a conscious choice people make to live in the neighborhood.
  • The movie The Blind Side was a story that inspired and challenged many but wasn’t accurate picture of what the church is called to do.
  • It’s not about pulling people out of the neighborhood, but living out your faith in the neighborhood.
  • Be a listener.
  • Most of the time we go to help the poor we go as people in charge, we don’t go to listen.
  • We’re so busy talking about how to solve the problems of the poor without actually being with the poor!
  • Develop a deep relationship with someone in poverty.
  • Be a learner.
  • They will teach you more than you can ever teach them.
  • Be people that have longevity.
  • Stay for awhile.
  • If you’re not going to get involved in a relationship for at least 15 years, don’t do it.
  • Little sidebars of short-term assistance, donations, etc do more harm than good.
  • Christ in YOU is the hope of glory.

Bonhoeffer :: Eric Metaxas

by Tim Schraeder on 04/30/2010 in Q with No comments
  • Eric only had 9 minutes to present on Bonhoffer, so he suggested you watch his entire presentation:
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a modern church father.
  • His book Life Together is the definitive text on Christian community
  • The Cost of Discipleship is another classic of the church
  • Bonhoeffer spoke about religionless Christianity.
  • Religionless Christianity  is what the Gospel means.
  • Adam & Eve tried to fool God and cover themselves with fig leaves… that’s religion.
  • What we need is the blood of Jesus to cover us… that’s the Gospel.
  • God is not fooled by our sophisticated fig leaves.
  • Mere religion without Jesus is not going to lead anybody to overcome evil, social injustice or the horrors of a broken world.
  • Jesus can.
  • At his place in history, he was confronted with a level of evil that none of us have experienced, Nazi Germany.
  • It forced him to see the dead churchianity around him.
  • Jesus is the only thing that can stand against sheer evil.
  • Faith is not about rules, it’s about a Person.
  • We cannot be Christians by following rules.
  • Rules are important, but if you think you can get to God or earn your way to heaven by doing things, you can’t.
  • According to the faith handed down by us, we need something much bigger than a set of rules, we need a person… God
  • We need to look to people to inspire us to show us how to live faith.
  • We need to understand what it means to be Christian in the world.
  • Bonhoeffer lived a life of such obedience to God.
  • Knowing good theology won’t cut it.
  • Our life is our theology.
  • God want us to integrate everything.
  • We can’t fool God.
  • We need to look at life where we see the Gospel overcome the evil of our day.
  • He’s a church father for a postmodern age.
  • Read more by checking our Eric’s book, Bonhoeffer.

The Third Post :: Skye Jethani

by Tim Schraeder on 04/30/2010 in Q with No comments
  • Phyllis Tickle highlighted the fact that it’s possible for the entire global church to be one in prayer through the fixed hour of prayer.
  • With advances in technology, we have the capacity as the church to do more than pray together.
  • We have the capacity to be on mission together through advances in media and technology.
  • TheThirdPost will rally the church to see the world through the Gospel.
  • We see the world through news aggregators [Druge Report, Huffington Post, FOX News, CNN]
  • The news aggregators are polarizing… right or left.
  • What if there is a third way of operating?
  • The Third Post offers another lens to see from sources around the world.
  • The Third Post will not be right or left but help people see world issues through the lens of Gospel.
  • We need to reimagine the world we see.
  • Jesus said you have eyes but you do not see.
  • The Third Post will be a rallying point for global church leaders to gather together and discuss.
  • It will give you resources to engage….Bible Studies, ebooks, direct connection to ministry.
  • The Third Post is in the process of gathering resources, contributors, and content and will launch in October at the Lausanne Gathering in Cape Town.
  • We live in a remarkable time, for the first time we can be one not just in Christ, but in vision, imagination and mission to this world.
  • Learn more by visiting TheThirdPost.com.

Engaging the Gay Community :: Andrew Marin

by Tim Schraeder on 04/30/2010 in Q with 8 Comments

Andrew Marin | The Marin Foundation
Andrew Marin is the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation (www.themarinfoundation.org) a non-profit that seeks to build bridges between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and religious communities. Andrew has appeared on various national radio and TV programs, and his sermon Homophobia and Bridging from within the Evangelical Church—given on Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration of President Barack Obama—is archived in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He is the author of the award winning book Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community, blogs daily at www.loveisanorientation.com and lives in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago with his wife.

Andrew opened in complete silence for the first 45 seconds of a 3-minute presentation. He then said the following:

I stand silent to give dignity to a moment many Christians take for granted.

There are only a few sacred moments in one’s life—one of them is when you know in your heart that you’ve been set apart to dare to be remarkable by doing nothing other than believing in a just and powerful God.

The last great Roman satirical poet, Juvenal, commented about power by saying:

“But who is to guard the guards themselves?”

I am standing in a room with 600 gatekeepers to our faith. 600 influencers. 600 people that stand amongst and above the rest.

Maybe you don’t feel as such in your own mind.

But the Christian hierarchy proves different.

Jesus said that: “wisdom will be proven right by her actions.”

Well, our actions have only proven that ‘wisdom’ must be an elite group of predominantly white upper class individuals who care about their “Christian brands.”

I don’t care about your Christian brand, and neither does the Lord.

God says to Isaiah:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder.

The wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”

You all are the best; you are all the brightest that our faith has. And yet where are your hearts with the gay community?

How have your tangible actions proven the Lord’s wisdom right?

Is the culture war it too political? Too divisive? Too scary? Too unknown to stop us from changing our medium of engagement with gays and lesbians.

In his famous speech apologizing to America after his sex scandal, Bill Clinton said:

“This has gone on too long, cost too much and hurt too many innocent people.”

Friends, I plead with you today that you stop being a gatekeeper and start acting like Jesus.

Much love.

[ via LoveisAnOrientation.com ]

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