Saturday, October 17, 2015

Talk Amongst Yourselves--What is the Gospel?

Just a quick recap on the idea behind my "Talk Amongst Yourselves" posts.  These are posts that are intended to stir conversation and interaction within and among those within my sphere of interaction WITH EACH OTHER primarily.  I will jump into the fray as well, but my hope is that I will only come into the discussion once it has gotten well under way.  I am deliberately seeking to slowly cultivate a community of people who build each other up not just with encouraging words but also by graciously speaking their minds with integrity and clarity and in love.  This may cause us to disagree to some degree, but the church was NOT meant to exist as an echo chamber without any REAL and SUBSTANTIVE discussion in which we challenge and are challenged by each other. 

There is one difference this time in how I am going about trying to accomplish this.  I will post this question on my facebook page also where comments added to the discussion automatically makes those tagged and commenting aware of others new comments.  I will eventually copy and paste these comments made by various people on the comments section of this blog for longer term reference.  I am hoping this will encourage greater interaction.  I encourage you to make your comments on the facebook post if possible. 

Again....Rule #1 Please speak your mind without the use of profanity or vulgarity, and do so with respect.  

              Rule #2 I am the one who determines whether rule #1 has been followed.


What is the gospel?
 
I am looking for a two to three sentence response for how you would summarize the gospel.
We'll go from there...

Thanks again! 
:)

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Unique Voices--Eric Metaxas

Eric Metaxas is an author and radio show host.  He also established a series of events called "Socrates in the City" that he began 15 years ago.  He has been the key note speaker at the Presidential Prayer breakfast in 2012.  He is a gifted writer of biographies.  The two perhaps most well known are Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Early in his career, he had a strong connection to Chuck Colson and his ministry called Break Point. 

He is an insightful and intelligent voice about our faith.  I think if I had to try to pinpoint the reason that I have chosen to provide Eric Metaxas to you as the next in line of "Unique Voices", it would be that, although he has great passion for Christ, his greater contribution to us lies in providing a platform for the many, many voices out there that he is increasingly becoming aware of long before they make it to the attention of the majority of the masses such as myself.  He serves as a bridge bringing people to the forefront that can speak concisely and insightfully to specific angles and issues such as religious persecution, Christians in the scientific community, homosexuality, archaeology, public policy and its relation to Christians and their relation to it, and on and on.  I have chosen him as my next unique voice because he is a window into learning about many of the people I will be referring to in the future as "unique".  I highly recommend the two biographies I mentioned above.  I also recommend you check out the other ways to gain access to this amazing gateway that I will give links to below.

  http://www.socratesinthecity.com/

http://www.metaxastalk.com/podcasts/

Future voices will include such names as Rosaria Butterfield, Os Guiness, Ard Louis, Stephen Meyer, Jennifer Roback Morse, Mosab Hassan Yousef, and others.....interestingly you will most likely see their names also listed on one or both of the two web sites above.  Feel free to familiarize yourself with them ahead of time.