Articulating your story...

We really had a great service Sunday morning (as well as a great worship night on Monday night), and a highlight for me both Sunday morning and on Monday night was the open sharing that happened about the ways God has been at work in our lives. It reminded me of how powerful each of our stories is, and how God has called us (as Jeff reminded us in the sermon) to be ready to share those stories with the right people at the right time. So for this week's blog question, I'll simply pose one of the same questions we asked in worship Sunday morning:

Describe a time when the reality of Jesus broke into your life.

It would be great if a few or several of us could practice this discipline of "articulate witness" and post those stories here (by clicking on the "comments" link below this post), and be encouraged by how God has worked in our lives.

Giving vs. Saving

After hearing a call in yesterday's service to live a life marked by generosity in giving, what do you think of the concept of saving? It seems that saving for the future and for retirement is a necessary and wise financial strategy - but at what point does it cross over into a lack of trust in God's provision? I don't think many would argue for either extreme (saving everything and not giving, or giving everything and not saving), but how do you negotiate this tension?

Chastity and entertainment...

Yesterday's service, with its focus on the discipline of chastity, was a passionate call for us to live pure lives, not just in refraining from sexual actions that are outside of the good boundaries God created for sex, but also by guarding the "gates" of our souls by being careful about the images we let in. Jeff argued that those images we let in can turn into ideas, and ideas turn into values, and values turn into actions.

As a part of that argument, Jeff suggested that Christians in our culture have probably become too tolerant of the images that we'll allow ourselves to see in mainstream media (movies, tv, etc.). Thoughtful and dedicated Christ-followers have differing viewpoints on what's appropriate viewing for the person trying to "make a covenant with their eyes." What do you think? Does Paul's statement, "'Everything is permissible for me' - but not everything is beneficial" have any bearing here? Does the overall moral sense of a movie make any difference? What do you think a non-legalistic yet vigilantly pure entertainment ethic looks like?

Post your comments below, and check back for what others are saying.