“God’s original purpose is not our salvation or the evangelization of others; it is that we glorify God by reflecting God’s image through expression of the spiritual, intelligent, creative, moral and relational capacities uniquely imprinted on humans.  This creation mandate has never been rescinded.”  –Dick Staub, The Culturally Savvy Christian

More WF Lifestyle thinking…

Consumerist Compassion

“To get one of those beautiful bags, pair of earrings or bracelets made by women and children rescued out of human trafficking, you have to actually go and spend a week making them. Go and give that recently rescued sex slave a day off and you make the conflict-free jewelry that day. Go and be with her, hear her story, make her dinner, watch her children for one day. Then you would really have a story! “Merry Christmas, Mom. I worked for four days with former sex slaves to make your necklace. Enjoy!” Priceless.”

“I would like to think that when I pronounce the benediction at the end of our services, I am sending dangerous people back into their natural habitats to wreak havoc on the enemy.” –Mark Batterson, Neue Quarterly, Issue 01

More WF Lifestyle thinking…

Is 26 the New 18?

Will the new healthcare reform redefine adulthood for youth ministry?

“More important, he (Cardinal John O’Connor) truly lived the old line‘Hate the sin, love the sinner.’ You can’t fully appreciate that line until you saw someone like the Cardinal, who really lived that life. Whatever his position on gay rights, he was more than active in New York’s AIDS hospices. He dedicated a major facility at one of the archdiocese’s hospitals to caring for AIDS patients, and he would visit, unannounced, to care for patients, washing them, changing their bedpans.

He attended to thousands of patients over the years. In our book, I wrote that the difference between me and the Cardinal was that he was in the business of saving souls, while I was in the business of saving lives. On rereading the book recently, I had to apologize for that one line. He saved more lives than I ever could have.”  –Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, Newsweek, May 15, 2000

More WF thinking…

Do Programs Help or Hinder?

“We can organize more and more ministries—worship experiences, Bible classes, small-group fellowships, support groups, outreach opportunities, missison encounter—and yet, for all this, we still struggle with the most basic goal: fostering spiritual growth.”

“How does it make you feel to consider that aspiring artists are looking to you and your bandmates as mentors of sorts?” His answer was, “mentors… hmmm…I always go back to 6th grade when I think about my heroes. I grew up with surf posters hanging on my walls: Curren, Slater, Occy. I watched them on TV, read about them in surfer mags, and breathed them in–every turn,every logo, every smile. Have they impacted the way I live my life today? A little, but they’re mostly just a piece of the past. But there is another type of mentor–one that stays with you. I’d like to be this type. You see, I’ve never had a picture of C.S. Lewis or my ninth grade history teacher or my dad hung up on my wall, but these men have had a significant impact on the way I live today.”   –Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, CCMMagazine.com

More WF Lifestyle Thinking…

Shaun White, Glee and The Rise of the Anti-Cool

“Never live for those exceptional moments–they are surprises.  God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them.  We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life–our work is our standard.” –Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

More WF Lifestyle Thinking…

Florida Church Sponsors Pubic School

“At Christmas, the school provided First Baptist with a list of parents who said they wouldn’t mind being visited by church members.”