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Letter to Myself at 15
Read more: Letter to Myself at 15Dear Bryan, You’re probably at the piano, writing songs about things you know nothing about, like love and loss. Or doing vocal warm-ups so you can audition for that blasted show choir. (Don’t bother. You won’t make it until your senior year, and when you do, you’ll become a bigger nerd than you already are.)…
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Church Mission and Two-Kingdoms or Whatever Happened to Evangelism?
Read more: Church Mission and Two-Kingdoms or Whatever Happened to Evangelism?During April 2009, Presbyterian pastor Tullian Tchividjian released a book entitled Unfashionable. The book was met with strong acclaim from a number of prominent Christians including J.I. Packer, Don Carson, Ravi Zacharias and surprisingly, Michael Horton. Perhaps the books greatest endorsement came from the pen of Tim Keller who wrote the book’s forward. Yet somewhere…
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How Many Kingdoms? Contributions from the NT
Read more: How Many Kingdoms? Contributions from the NTWe have all heard the mantra by now. Week after week, in pulpit after pulpit, Christians are being called to renew the world that they live in. Called to “renew” or “redeem” everything from governmental structures to the very way we play sports. Leaving aside the fact that this call is often times very confusing…
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Joy to the World…But what IS this Joy?
Read more: Joy to the World…But what IS this Joy?What does Christmas joy look like? And if so, how do we obtain it? This month, I’ve noticed that a lot of my Christmas reflections have sought to explore the emotional and spiritual dissonance that the soul can fall prey to during Christmastide. Personally, I do believe that nostalgia is not all evil, and that…
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No Room In the Inn?
Read more: No Room In the Inn?Everyone knows how the Christmas story goes. As Stanley Hudson vehemently asserted in the most recent episode of The Office (8.10 Christmas Wishes) regarding the sensitivity to celebrate everything but Christmas during the Holidays: I want Christmas! Just give me plain-baby-Jesus-lying-in-a-manger Christmas! When our culture boils down the Christmas event it looks like this: baby…
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Time Travel & The First Christmas
Read more: Time Travel & The First ChristmasToday (Dec 13) I am flying home after my first term at St Andrews. It feels like time has sped up ever since I arrived. An hour seems a bit shorter than I remembered in the States. Whole weeks have felt like insignificant blocks of time that pass by all too quickly. Why does time…
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Would I teach MY kids about Santa?
Read more: Would I teach MY kids about Santa?For the reading audience, this comes as part three of a themed week focus on the tension between celebrating Christmas, as specifically Santa, alongside the advent of the Messiah. For those of you who have not read John’s misnomer[1] article titled “Why I Wouldn’t Teach my Kids About Santa” posted earlier this week, I would recommend…
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Apologetics: To What End?
Read more: Apologetics: To What End?Last week I talked about advertising and evangelism. As a related issue, I also want to discuss the way in which Christians do Apologetics. How far can Apologetics take us? Do we assume that someone can be argued into the Kingdom? Is the goal of Apologetics merely to convince? Is being convinced the same as…
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God with Us
Read more: God with Us…A manger was His Throne. From “Rise and Shine” by Andrew Peterson The aforementioned lyric from Andrew Peterson serves as a great illustration of the paradox that is “God with us.” Stop and think about that for a minute: God with us. Not God for us, or God near us; God with us! If that…
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An Exercise in Thanksgiving
Read more: An Exercise in ThanksgivingDon’t worry, this exercise won’t involve an hour sweating on the stair-master… Today, many of us in North America[1] prepare for the annual traditions associated with plump and tender turkey, cranberries and gravies of countless varieties, and yammy, applely, and pumpkin side dishes with enough to cover a table with enough calories to power the…