Christianity 5 - RodneyOlsen.net

Book Give Away

October 23, 2008

I’ve got four books to give away to readers of RodneyOlsen.net. They’re all in brand new condition and have never been read.

So you have a great idea for a business…: Now what? by Justin Herald. So, you’ve got a great idea for a business, and you’ve plucked up the courage to take the plunge. But unless you prepare yourself properly for the journey you’re about to embark on your great idea may lead to some unpleasant surprises.

On the Side of the Angels by John Smith. Rev Dr John Smith is the founding Director of Concern Australia and the founding President of God’s Squad Christian Motorcycle Club of 34 years. An elder of the radical discipleship movement, he is a defender of the poor, an ethics consultant to corporate Australia, a prominent social commentator and a blues lover.

Alien Intrusion by Gary Bates. Are there really alien civilizations in our vast universe? In Alien Intrusion, Gary Bates gives a thorough treatment of this fascinating subject. What is behind the numerous sightings from around the world? Does the U.S. Government have evidence of alien craft? Can we hope to mkae contact in our lifetime?

Waking the Dead by John Eldridge. Eldredge, who helped to redefine the Christian men’s movement with Wild at Heart, broadens his scope to offer this more general spirituality title on being “fully alive.” Such a state of total animation is achieved only when Christians can integrate all four “streams” of their lives: discipleship, counseling, healing and warfare.

If you want one of the books all you need to do is leave a comment below this post telling me which book you’d prefer. If you’re the first to ask for that particular book it’s yours.

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Christian Carnival 247

October 22, 2008

by Rodney Olsen

4 Comments

The carnival is back in town and we’ve had another great response this week. It’s always wonderful to see some first timers joining the carnival as well as some of the regulars at their thought provoking best.

The weekly Christian Carnival is an opportunity for Christian blog writers to share their best posts from the previous week. The topic of the post doesn’t necessarily have to focus on Christianity but it must reflect a Christian worldview, and the writer must be Christian to qualify.

As always it’s a real honour to be able to present such a diverse range of great posts.

Please take the time to read through each post … it’s worth it. You might also like to link to this week’s carnival so that your blog readers can enjoy the variety of styles and thought.

FMF sent in the first submission this week asking Do You Really Want to Change Your Financial Future? posted at Free Money Finance.

Kathryn says work can be a joy and a ministry. All you need to do is find your God given passion and the follow it. Read more of Kathryn’s thoughts in Find Your Passion posted at Living the Proverbs 31 Life.

The current global financial crisis has prompted Peter to write Words of Hope In Turbulent Times: Don’t Be Afraid posted at Bible Money Matters.

ChristianPF is also searching for what the Bible has to say about the financial crisis with Encouraging Bible Verses for the Financial Crisis over at Christian Personal Finance.

Lynn Fowler presents Christian Spiritual Warfare » Not Just a Talisman at her blog Christian Spiritual Warfare.

Alex Huggett took part in Blog Action Day and brings us his insights in Blog Action Day – Compassion and Poverty at his excellent blog Alex Rants.

Being a cat lover I immediately identified with Heath Countryman’s contribution, Black Cat Ministry, posted at Esprit d’escalier. Whether you love cats or not, you’ll gain valuable insights from this one.

Diane R is getting tired of the New Christian Tolerance Police and wonders if you are too. Find out what she means by reading The New Christian Tolerance Police posted at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet.

Danny, the Success Professor, encourages you to Simplify Your Budget. Great advice in difficult times.

Tiffany presents So Right, You’re Wrong as she delves into the discovery that being right isn’t nearly as important as being humble and teachable over at her blog Fathom Deep: Sounding the Depths of God.

Mark from A Sower’s Heart looks at putting your hand to the plow in his post Plowing Along.

Brian Russell of the Real Meal blog has written Moving Through the Maze: Reflection on Bible Translations. His essay explores the differences between modern English translations of the Bible. It also reflects on the pros and cons of the various approaches to Bible translation.

Mark at Pseudo-Polymath provides a starting point for political ethics from Genesis to modern political ideas of rights and limiting governmental authority in the post Ethics and the State.

Ken’s post Literalism and the Ascension discusses what it means, and whether it is legitimate, to take the Bible’s miraculous stories “literally” over at C Orthodoxy.

You can investigate how people’s ideas about sacrifice differ from those of the ancient world and a bit about the impact of this for teaching a passage such as Hebrews 7-9 at Henry’s Participatory Bible Study Blog with the post Sacrifice Then and Now.

Jeremy has written a criticism of an argument from Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus in Ehrman on John 1:18 posted at Parableman.

Rey from the Bible Archive shares what he describes as his likely heretical vision for the western Protestant church in The Once and Future Church.

Raffi Shahinian’s contribution is the post Top 10 Things I Learned from N.T. Wright, Bart Ehrman and The Problem of Evil posted at parables of a prodigal world.

And that’s it for this edition of the Christian Carnival. I hope you’re already thinking about your posts for the next edition which is being hosted at Fish and Cans.

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Do we need a Christian Twitter?

September 22, 2008

by Rodney Olsen

3 Comments

I spotted an interesting article on TechCrunch a few days ago.

In the post Gospelr: Twitter For Christians, Don Reisinger wrote about a brand new service specifically for Christians. Gospelr is microblogging for Christians and can even be set up to send posts to Twitter.

It’s got some interesting features that make life easier for users such as the colour coding. A normal post to Gospelr is shaded brown. Replies made to you are shaded green, while imported messages from services like Twitter are colored in blue.

I’ll admit that I headed on over to the site and signed up to check things out. It was a very busy site a few days ago as many people started signing on but it seems to have slowed down now. I guess it’ll need to reach a certain critical mass for it to be worthwhile.

I suppose the question remains, why do we need a service like this specifically for Christians? If extra functionality is added to allow it to display my tweets from Twitter I reckon I’ll get a bit more use out of it but I’m always cautious of anything that creates a Christian subculture.

While I fully understand the desire and even the need for like minded people to gather together, I wonder if there is good cause to duplicate services that could already achieve that purpose.

Ryan left the following comment at the TechCrunch article:

Couldn’t this have been done by setting your Twitter account to private, and only following people who align with your beliefs? Just sayin’…

He wasn’t alone in questioning the need for Gospelr. Buddy commented:

keeping the christian subculture alive! thankfully, because Jesus really would prefer us not to associate with sinners.

i’m headed over to my favorite christian restaraunt to eat some christian pancakes and read my christian paper, then i’m going to go to my christian job and open my christian computer and communicate with my christian friends and cohorts.

please stop making this stuff. just use twitter or the ten million other tools like this if you want to communicate “share thoughts, ideas, words of encouragement, prayer requests, daily scripture readings, and oh so much more.”

christian t-shirts are a bad idea. christian bumper stickers are a bad idea. christian twitters are a bad idea.

Dave said:

brings an interesting new meaning to the expression, “preaching to the converted”

Joe commented:

My question for gospelr is what prevents us from sharing thoughts, lifting others in prayer, announce causes that need help, encouragement on twitter in the first place.

You know when I think Jesus will return? When the entire Christian subculture dies a horrific death.

Jesus did not call us to huddle amongst ourselves and exclude all others. Light much? Salt much? Get into the world. Love them. Serve them. If necessary, you die for them.

While I admit that some of the posts I’ve seen on Gospelr would suggest they were made by people hopelessly out of touch with the wider world, I think there are still plenty of people using the service who have every intention of staying connected to the society around them.

So if we’re going to jump in and use a service like Gospelr, how should we use it? As a way of ‘shutting out the world’? I hope not. How about a way of connecting with others who share our faith and combining to reach out to the world? That would be my hope. I appreciate any opportunity to have my faith sharpened by others and being able to connect with other Christians through Gospelr might be a very good thing.

If you haven’t tried Gospelr, give it a go. Let me know what you think.

Do you think we need to duplicate services like Twitter and others or should we simply use the original and be salt and light? What do you see as the benefits or the disadvantages of such services.

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Abuse, adultery and desertion

September 3, 2008

by Rodney Olsen

5 Comments

What kind of God would insist on a woman staying in a relationship with an abusive husband? Some Christians believe that divorce is totally unacceptable under any circumstance but is that really the case?

There are very few people who enter marriage with anything but the best of intentions and a strong desire to make a life long committment, but for those wanting to stay within God’s plan, what happens when people find themselves in a destructive relationship?

Under what circumstances does the Bible permit divorce?

Does the Bible allow for a divorced Christian to remarry?

Divorce and remarriage remains a hot topic in Christian circles with a wide variety of opinions on the subject.

Barbara Roberts has written a book titled Not Under Bondage – Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion. I recently spoke to her about her book and her journey to recovery.

You can hear what she has to say by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/SUN090308_1450.mp3]

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Replacing our families with faith

August 19, 2008

by Rodney Olsen

12 Comments

I had an interesting email from a reader a few days ago. He said that he no longer considers himself a Christian because he doesn’t agree with living “some of the ways we should live as Christians”.

He says doesn’t feel bad or guilty about it, in fact he feels happy that he’s doing what makes him feel happy and what makes his family happy and secure.

He made a very interesting point.

I feel that so many Christians are so wrapped up in God, church, activities for the church, giving money to the poor, helping people in the church that they lose sight of their own brothers and sisters. It seems to me that Christians are too busy with all this Christian stuff that they forget about spending time with their own family (Mum or Dad, brothers or sisters and extended family).

While he didn’t want his name mentioned, he wanted me to throw this one out for some comment.

What’s your experience?

Have you encountered this kind of attitude in Christians? Have you found yourself so wrapped up in church stuff and ministry and everything that goes along with it that those closest to you have missed out?

Here’s part of what I emailed back in reply.

I’ve seen this kind of attitude far too often in far too many Christians. People get so taken up with what they see as their ‘Christian duty’ that they lose sight of what I consider to be their greatest ‘ministry’ and calling – their family.

This kind of attitude is especially prevalent in those working in full time ministry such as pastors. I made a decision when I started working in a Christian workplace that I would ensure that my family would remain a priority. I also make a point of not getting so wrapped up in ‘church activities’ that I don’t get to spend time with those who aren’t what we might call religious. A lot of the time I prefer the time I spend with those outside the church.

My relationship with God, through Jesus, is supremely important to me but all the extra stuff that people try to add onto Christianity isn’t.

The writer of the email is smart enough to know that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all.

Maybe this doesn’t apply to all people, but it makes me feel unhappy with my own biological family. I have tried to talk to them about this in previous years and some change was there, but not enough to build a better relationship. Do I have to go back to God to have a better relationship with a member of my own family? Is this going to change anything? I don’t think it will.

What do you think?

So what are your thoughts? Are many Christians neglecting their families because they’re too busy doing what they think God wants them to do? Would God really want us to neglect family relationships? Are you able to maintain the balance between faith and family?

I think a lot of the answer could be found in the difference between what we ‘think‘ God requires of us and what he actually does require.

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Tag - Christianity