Without hesitating, he replied, “That’s not nice to say about God. The 10 Commandments say so.”

The woman sheepishly apologized, then turned and walked away.

I was, I’m ashamed to admit, embarrassed that my son had corrected an adult. My first thought was that he was being sassy and had over-stepped his boundary. We are trying to teach our kids to respect adults, especially teachers.

My reaction, I think, is part of a bigger cultural acceptance to OMG. It’ everywhere: on commercials, texts, Facebook, and even on the side of buses. We’ve become deaf to the real offense that it is.

Except Caleb is not deaf to it. He is offended and actually shocked that someone would take the Lord’s name in vain. We live in a world where what’s acceptable is to be accepting.

OMG should be deeply offending. As Christians it should give us pause and even, if you’re like my son, the courage to stand up and say that it’s just plain wrong. But really, I think, it’s even bigger than just three letters. I think it’s finding the courage to stand up for your beliefs. Are you living out loud? Are you willing to stand up for your faith?

Anyway, here’s a picture of the sign in front of the hockey loving church.

As you can see, the sign reads, “Only Jesus saves more than Niemi” (who is the goalie for the Blackhawks).

We were torn on whether this is awesome or awful.  What do you think?

I trip over a curb, a friend turns and asks if I need help, and I respond:  “No, I’m good!”

This is ironic, of course, it’s only when I really stumble that it even occurs to me to announce my self-sufficiency to those around me.

Actually, the expression “I’m good” probably means something quite the opposite. It probably means something like “Even though I’m having trouble, I’d still rather handle things on my own.”

I think it would make sense to a lot of people in the bible.  Think of Nicodemus, discreetly finding Christ at night.  He’s uneasy, so he seeks Jesus’ word on becoming acceptable in God’s eyes.  Jesus’ answer: be born again.  Nicodemus considers surrendering a lifetime of religious celebrity; that’s too much to ask.   “No…I’m good,” he tells the Messiah, as he slinks back into his night.

The Rich Young Ruler was a little more candid.   “What must I do to be good,” he asks.   Jesus tells him to give away all his riches.  In a flash he re-adjusts his standards:  “No—I’m good.”

It’d be nice to pretend that God will endorse us as we are:  not perfect, but not bad.   But that involves somehow lowering the bar of God’s standards until we can easily clear it.  We have re-phrase “be perfect as your Father in Heaven in perfect” until it sounds like “try to be pretty good.”

Contrast this with the Philippian jailer, as found in Acts 16.  He’s in trouble.  An earthquake has gutted his stronghold and now his inmates are free to become out-mates. He already hears his death sentence:  his life for theirs. This is not good.  In his panic he turns to Paul and Silas:  “what must I do to be saved?”

Now I find this question a bit curious.  Where I grew up the word “saved” was usually used in a pretty narrow sense involving personal sins and altar calls.  So why—in the middle of what’s probably the worst crisis of his life—is this jailer is calling a quick time-out to discuss Paul and Silas’ theory of the atonement?   What was he saying?

Well, I pretty sure what he wasn’t saying:  “I’m good”.

Something happens when we suddenly discover our complete inability to make things “good”.  That may come in a jailer’s crisis, an adolescent discovery or maybe in mid-life changes, but it always involves a surrender of everything to the One who can actually make things better.

Announcing “I’m good” is probably forgivable when I stumble a little.  It’s just a figure of speech.  But a day is coming when those words will take on a lot more meaning.  On that Day every single stumble I’ve ever made—including the big ones—will be tallied for a final reckoning.  I wonder if I’ll cringe as I realize how long that list really is.   But as everyone’s attention turns to my list, someone will hold up nail-scarred hands reassuringly.

“It’s OK”, he’ll declare.   “He’s good.”

What about you?   When was the last time you tried to hide behind your words when someone really could have helped you?  When was the last time you looked really bad in front of God?  What did it take for you to be good with that?

(Ron Vanderwell is the pastor of The Gathering, a church plant meeting in a movie theater in Sacramento, CA.  He has one wife, 3 sons, 2 dogs and an aging VW Beetle. He writes the blog www.bettersinner.blogspot.com and can be followed on Twitter at @ronvwell.)

I have to admit as the big screen started to roll down from the rafters after some live worship music, I thought I wasn’t going to like this video sermon thing.  And in the beginning, it was a little distracting despite the fact that my pastor was shot in a way that made it look like he was right up there, walking around on stage.

As the sermon went on, I realized I sort of forgot about the fact that I was watching video.  I found myself interacting with the questions he’d ask and laughing at his jokes.  I didn’t mind it.

But there were plenty of people who didn’t like it, I heard stories of people walking out of the service and yelling at other church leaders about how our church was going downhill fast.  It’s a sad, but expected response in any church.  Some people will resist any kind of change.  Others aren’t comfortable when a church is growing and reaching out to more people.

Since Sunday, I’ve been pondering how this sort of video technology will change worship.  In this case, it’s something I’m willing to support as a church goer knowing that it’s letting my church extend its reach to more people.  That is the calling of the church.  But I wonder if video casting sermons is a gateway to bigger issues.

I read an article on Church Crunch pondering what a video on demand world means for the future of worship.  What does on demand worship look like?  Plenty of churches have entered the live streaming realm creating online campuses.  Others make all of their past sermons available 24/7.   A few, like LifeChurch.tv, schedule live online worship lots of times throughout the week.

But what’s the next step?  Would video technology let churches offer services throughout the week reaching more people who can’t make it to traditional church service times?  Does it dilute the need to actually attend a service at church – if you watch it on a screen in the building, why not do it from home?  Will it truly be a way to expand ministry or will it just end up being a fad?  Will the want for corporate worship with live people, even if the sermon is on video, keep people coming through church doors?  Or will people find going to church online at the same time as hundreds of other people just as good?

What do you think?

“Austin Farrer—a priest and theologian who, along with his wife, Katherine, was a close friend of Lewis’s and Tolkien’s wrote of how he feared situations when he, rather than Lewis, would be expected to stand up for the faith: “I went in fear and trembling, certain to be caught out in debate and to let down the side. But there Lewis would be, snuffing the imminent battle and saying ‘Aha!’ at the sound of the trumpet. My anxieties rolled away. Whatever ineptitude I might commit, he would maintain the cause; and nobody could put Lewis down.” (pg. 228)

Something in me is deeply attracted to this. The Internet proves that I am not alone.

I like to debate on the Internet but it seldom looks this glorious. It usually looks more like this college humor piece. For this reason a lot of people avoid debates and find them pointless or even offensive. I disagree. Jesus debated regularly and it cost him his life. I think debate was part of His mission.

A lot of very kind and good people have real questions about hell. How can a loving God allow it? I think the nature of debates bears witness to the necessity of hell and the fact that it is in fact God’s love that makes it necessary.

On the rare occasion a debate is very clean and very clear, the loser has a choice to make. If the loser is honest, humble and secure he or she may publicly concede. In most cases, however, the loser retreats to nurse their wounds and fantasizes about re-entering the ring to seek domination and vindication. Poor losers of debates are dangerous people. Their desire to get even and to do harm or violence to their adversary reveals a relationship between their core identity and the point they were trying to make. In this way the experience of losing a debate can very easily reveal a hidden idolatry. One’s position on something or even just being seen by one’s peers as being right for its own sake has become an essential aspect of their existence for which they must contend at all cost. (For a nice treatment of this notion of idolatry check out Tim Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods”.) There can be no middle ground or half-way situation. All becomes ultimate.

Many imagine that God is just so large and full of love that hell would be inconsistent with His character. The existence of hell does not reveal a deficit of love at God’s core, quite the opposite. The existence of hell reveals the decibel level of that love against which no hold-out can remain. It is in fact God’s beauty, love, kindness, power, and generosity that creates this holiness against which no debater idolatry can sustain. Hell is the only safe harbor from this God.

Before the face of this God we must either concede completely, giving ourselves over to perfect honesty, humility and security, or we would be crushed, unable to flee the forum His wisdom and beauty being the kind of weighty torment no being our size could bear. Hell is the final refuge. Why are pictures of Hell so grim? Imagine the community of the debating vanquished. Perhaps Internet debates gives us a window into what might look like.

Those who fled the debating Jesus relished his mockery upon a cross. The empty tomb, however, was the first sign that nobody would put him down and Hell would be the best one could do if you refused to worship Him.

This is a video put together by Central Christian Church.  I really like it when a church can take something as simple as a worship song we’ve sung for years and turn it into something new and impactful.

Your thoughts?

Anyway…I came across this video featuring Chad Hedrick. He’s a USA speed skater who won the bronze in the 1000m race in Vancouver (to add to his gold, silver and bronze from Torino in 2006).

In the video, he talks about his faith as an athlete and how it can be perceived by others.  He says:

I have guys from the media talking to me all the time and I tell them I want to have a great time, make special memories with my family, and if I go there and give 100 percent and it’s not enough, I know God has a path for me, and that‘s the path that I’m going to follow. They interpret that as: I’m soft, I’ve lost my competitive edge, I’m not very confident. But they really don’t understand; and I’m hoping throughout the Olympics and Vancouver that they see that I am still very competitive, and that you can be a Christian and still be a competitive person.

How about you?  Can it be tough to balance being a Christian and being competitive?  Does knowing if an athlete is Christian change to way you root for them in an event?

(This video came from the website Beyond the Ultimate which has a list of Christian Olympians and features their stories.)

Leading up to this year’s Super Bowl, there was some controversy about a pro-life ad from Focus on the Family.  The commercial featured Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow and his mom Pam, who  talked about her decision not to have an abortion (without actually saying the word abortion).   Pro-choice groups criticized CBS for accepting the ad, which was the first “political” ad the network ever approved for the big game.

So what did you think?  Was the ad effective?  Did it live up to the hype?

(Reminder: Quick Thought comments should be short.  Maybe a few sentences but no more than 100 words or so.)

While we complain about God’s providence we experience, we can fairly easily embrace notions of natural evolution as being somehow good. While we’re uncomfortable with God’s governance over our personal or communal narratives we’re more comfortable imagining his evolutionary management of the development of life on planet earth. Despite liking to think of ourselves as being animal friendly, giving to the ASPCA or choosing eggs from free range chickens over those raised in cages, we’re surprisingly non-judgmental towards evolution for the wholesale massacre of the majority of living species that have ever called this planet home. Somehow I can’t let God off the hook for not stopping a painful episode in my life but I can easily give him a pass for the enormous historical destructions wrought by asteroid strikes or volcanic eruptions. What does this say about the biases expressed in my evaluation of God’s rulership?

Tim Stafford has a personal blog and lately he’s been doing a wonderful summary of some of John Polkinghorne’s work. Polkinghorne is one of those rare figures who is an expert in both Christian theology and physics. I find his thoughts engaging and stimulating. Stafford quotes Polkinghorne as asking why couldn’t God choose to create life through “the shuffling explorations of possibility, which we choose to call ‘chance.’“ [Beyond Science, 77]. This is a really good question and when I think about it I notice that this is exactly the kind of process we see in Biblical stories. In the Bible God works his way through history through events that look risky, direction-less and purposeless like we find in nature, even using creatures as willful, senseless and unpredictable as ourselves. Yet somehow through the writings of this library of texts drawn together over centuries, a thread emerges that speaks of purpose, redemption, joy and glory. Sometimes the path seems so haphazard and strained that we throw up our hands imagining we’re reading purpose into the texts, at other times it seems crystal clear and miraculous.

One of my children has been playing a computer game called “Uncharted 2”. In it an adventurer/thief navigates an exotic and dangerous world searching for lost treasure from Marco Polo. I’m amazed at the skill of the programmers in this game. At any moment the player seems to be able to express complete freedom, exploring, running, climbing, fighting, yet as you play the game you realize that the developers have you progressing along a well thought through path towards a very specific destination. Your freedom appears unlimited yet because the game designers have mastery over this universe they are very subtly leading and guiding along the way. As I watch the game unfold I begin to imagine how God works through seeming chaos, chance and human agency while also moving towards purpose and fulfillment.

The reason the recovery community asserts that expectations are preconceived resentments is because they want us to recognize our self-serving biases which are in fact self-defeating. If this is true of our expectation based judgments towards each other, how much more is it true of our evaluation of God’s rulership. When I see order and beauty coming out of seeming chaos in nature, when I see glory and joy coming out of seeming lostness in Biblical stories, when I see how even human world sub-creators can engineer this into computer games, it helps me believe that God’s providence may also be true and good in the chaos and confusion of my own unfolding story.

Last week, I watched every episode of Conan O’Brien’s The Tonight Show, all of David Letterman’s monologues, two full episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and various viral bits from other shows. But the thing is: I never watch late night talk shows except for bits I find online. So why did I watch? Why was I drawn into all the drama of the NBC late night debacle?

I’ve been trying to answer that for myself.  I read an entry on NPR’s Monkey See blog where writer Linda Holmes put the matter well: “These are late-night shows that most people don’t watch; it’s the difference between two relatively similar hosts doing relatively similar things, neither of whom has been setting the world on fire lately, so … who cares?”

Great question. Reading through the possible draws that Holmes identified (we all relate to inner-office tensions, we love a common villain, etc.), I found that none of them really seemed to be what truly resonated with me. And it took me until this morning to put my finger on why I cared. Without being too dramatic, I think it boiled down to my innate desire for justice. Someone was being wronged, an underdog was fighting for his life, and I wanted the wrongs righted. I wanted to see “good” prevail. Could this red-haired David take on the Goliath network oppressing him?

Of course, there are greater injustices in the world (and in our neighborhoods). However, this was a pursuit for justice, a quest for fair judgment that was safe and far less uncomfortable than watching news footage from Haiti or fighting modern slavery. Just like why I love underdog sports movies and action movies, I want justice done, I want the little guy to win and I long for justice—but self-tellingly in a safe, tidy way.

How about you? Did you get sucked into NBC’s late-night skirmish? If so, what drew you in?