ministry can be a such a wild thing. it’s like being a mesquito in a nudist colony, there’s so much to do you just don’t know where to start.

A tribute to testosterone mixed with Waffle House:

“I did a bad thing, Mike”
“Poke her in the brain”
“Did he look like that guy?”

“The idea of turning your music into a tool for evangelism is missing the point. Music is the language of the spirit anyway. Its first function is praise to creation.” - Bono, U2

I was reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning again and ran across this section that relates to my previous blog entry:

    Perhaps the real dichotomy in the Christian community today is not between conservatives and liberals or creationists and evolutionists but between the awake and the asleep. The Christian ragamuffin acknowledges with MacBeth: “Life is but a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.” Just as a smart man knows he is stupid, so the awake Christian knows he/she is a ragamuffin.
    Although truth is not always humility, humility is always truth: the blunt acknowledge that I owe my life, being, and salvation to Another. This fundamental act lies at the core of our response to grace.
    The beauty of the ragamuffin gospel lies in the insight it offers into Jesus: the essential tenderness of His heart, His way of looking at the world, His mode of relating to you and me. “If you really want to understand a man, don’t just listen to what he says, watch what he does.” 

In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning discusses a childlike faith and states:

“If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and reilgions. We don’t find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don’t cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God’s truch cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. Of course, the open mind does not accept everything indiscriminately - Marxism and capitalism, Christianity and athiesm, love and lust, Moet Chandon and vinegar. It does not absorb all propositions equally like a sponge; nor is it as soft. But the open mind realizes that reality, truth, and Jesus Christ are incredibly openended.”

I constantly strive for a both-and mentality, but our Western thought processes are so strong. As an american, i was raised thinking either-or, and it is a difficult thing to get over.