Christopher's Meanderings

Being content is a full time enterprise. Seriously, if I don't work at being content, then I start to get distracted by temptations on every side. A few (mostly) silly examples: Toys - Is there a new Star Wars Lego set out? Cool, let's go look at it at Soren (and try to convince mommy we should buy it)! Games - That new board game takes 5 hours to play and some of the instructions are in Latin? I can't wait to buy it and play it one time before putting in the closet forever! Activities - I have been doing this same activity for 2 months now? I really need to start something new! How about Zoomba! Food - I've eaten beans twice this month? I need to eat the newest food craze now! This week I talked to my students about being grateful. Thanksgiving provokes us to think about thankfulness, contentedness, and gratefulness. As I studied for the lesson I encountered a familiar problem. The text showed me I needed to make a change in my own life. Prepar...

This is my old set up from my guitar pedal board. I'm a youth minister, but I have also been a participating worship leader in some respect for the last 15 years.  The worship wars have been going on for some time now.  I am probably not the only person annoyed by them.  The presidential election provoked my thinking about a lot of things, and worship happened to be one of those things. Christians on every side of every issue were ranting and raving about their side last Tuesday- whether it was winning or losing. Here is one example of someone I assume is a Christian doing that in a public way.  I want to set the baseline here and then get to the stuff I want to share. First of all, I think both our politics and our worship have serious implications for the rest of our lives. I voted on Tuesday. I am not telling anyone (including my wife) how I voted for any issue, but I did vote.  I did so because I truly believe our politics have serious real world co...

Life rarely presents what we expected. I am reminded of this daily in the lives of my two young sons. As they grow and learn each day unfolds uniquely. I try to develop routines with them, but no two days are ever the same. This change, or at least their reactions to change, means I have to be ready for anything. I often fail. Usually, my attitude just doesn't keep up with what those two throw at me. Sometimes they are having a rough day and I have a bad attitude. The next day when they're ready to move on and have a good day, my bad attitude sticks around. I'm good at controlling it around them. However, the bad attitude seeps out when I'm around my wife or other adults.(I'm sorry if your one of those people I've treated unfairly). The problem with all of this happens to be my expectations. Is it that my expectations are unrealistic? Possibly. Or maybe they are too imposing on other people (such as the boys)? That might be true too. Maybe I just have too m...

[Reposted from my youth ministry blog-  http://www.cflm.org/index.php/youth-ministry/blog ] The above picture is assembled from NASA, you can find more great stuff here . I am always intrigued when I meet someone who denies something which I have already accepted as true.  In one way or another, it usually ends up being quite interesting. The main reason it interests me is because I end up learning a lot about people and how they come to form their beliefs.  The moon landings form a prominent example of a class of beliefs people fail to believe in.  I remember first encountering this disbelief when I was in high school. The person who happened to disavow that Neil Armstrong and anyone else landed on the moon happened to be one of our group leaders. Quietly, I was astounded.  The reasons for not believing in the moon landing were elaborate and founded on what sounded like scientific reasoning.  However, after doing a little investigating at ...

My second son was born earlier this week.  Like most people who have babies, I started thinking about the future as I stared at him.   I also had the opportunity to read more this week, and I finished a book started earlier in the month. In  Descartes' Bones  we learn how rationalist philosopher Rene Descartes' remains traveled through Europe and the centuries.  Descartes is most famously known for the Latin phrase  cogito, ergo sum   by which he reduced certain knowledge to, 'Some being of which I am part, is thinking right now.'  Since he began the rationalist journey in his Discourse on Method, Descartes has been dandy and devil to both religious and naturalistic thinkers.  In his own lifetime, he was seen as both a heretic and devout Catholic, often at the same time.  Author Russell Shorto   crafted a fine book with a strong thesis.  He claims to show how Descarte founded modernity by attempting to stay on th...

Although I finished this book earlier last week, I wanted to sit with my thoughts a while before writing this review.   Learning from My Father: Lessons on Life and Faith  is a reflection on a life formed from a relationship with a Christian father.  Specifically, David Lawther Johnson's father served Presbyterian churches as a minister for most of his life.   The lessons learned in the book are nothing startling. However, it contains a number of almost proverbial quotes with which I resonated.  Here's one from the chapter on being a good witness: "Just because many people fail to discuss faith in a credible or welcome way with others doesn't mean we get a pass from doing it (140)." This quote speaks to the point of witness in the Christian life, demands an answer, and sets up good discussion.   The problem arises from what follows the quote. The author makes it clear he does not really share his faith consistently.  Thankfully, the author pai...

This is a short review of American Evangelical Protestantism and European Immigrants, 1800-1924  by William J. Phalen.  American Evangelicals often forget, or don't even know, just how many of their current practices started. For example, the association of evangelicalism with the Republican Party seems like something natural for many Americans.   However, there were historical and sociological reasons for such associations that often escaped religious reasons.   In this text, we get a glimpse of quite a few historical associations.   Phalen uses primary documents from both sides to make his points, and there is much to be learned here. Speeches, sermons, and articles used by evangelicals get to speak for themselves.   Much time is spent specifically on the plight of Irish American immigrants and the struggles they faced as they came to the United States.  German and Chinese immigrants also get some attention, but the focus is definitely on the ...