Confessions of a Seminarian

The Value of Risk in a Risk-Averse Culture

When I was in high school, my Dad encouraged me to pursue a career in financial planning.  I really did like the idea of helping people get out of debt, invest wisely, and build wealth.  But the career I really wanted was in law enforcement.  While my Dad wanted me safely behind a desk from 8-5, I wanted the freedom of keeping the peace in a roaming patrol car at all hours of the night.

I’ve learned over the last several years that I’m a bit of a closet adrenaline junky, and thrive in stressful or risk-inherent environments.  But I’ve also learned that this is not necessarily the norm for our culture.
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The “Country Club” Church Is Crap.

Say that ten times fast…

Danielle recently made a comment concerning a post comparing Jack Bauer of the TV Series 24 with Jesus Christ:

And I think there’s a comparison to the church in there. Because although the suspense is pretty cool (as in what will happen here on earth, as well as after we die), it is the human parts of the story that compel people to keep reading/listening/feeling/believing perhaps. And the church has been nothing if not revolutionary in history. Jesus’ story is a prime example.

It instantly reminded me of a couple quotes that generally make me want to pick up sword and shield to charge headlong into this cosmic revolution.  This is an axe I gring almost continually.  Having not grown up in the church, paradigm for what church should be is not as convoluted by tradition and/or fundamentalism.  I am perhaps more able to read how the church is portrayed in scripture without the baggage of moralistic rules and cultural taboos.  Of course, I do have other things that cloud my judgment, and there are people who have grown up in the church and are able to see through much of that.  But this is something that is particularly close to my heart because of my experiences.

For your reading pleasure, here are two of my favorite quotes Read more »

emergent laughs

I’ve heard that one of the ways one can gauge the strength of Christianity is how well Christians are able to poke good fun at themselves.  So it is with great joy that I present to you this gem of a find.

I submit this satirical article here, from Lark News.  It’s hilarious, and awfully indicative of some of what I hear in seminary.  Let’s face it, the Christian sub-culture can be pretty silly sometimes, but it’s pleasing that we can afford to laugh about it in good fun.

Enjoy!

Lost in Translation Part 1

I have come to have a renewed appreciation for the “glass ceiling” that limits relationships in the blogosphere. Yes, we can exchange ideas, beliefs, and opinions with many to spare, yet it is a different story when we cannot be so personally invested in relationship. Because of the limits to personal interaction, there is a limit to shared experience as well. And while we exchange “ideas,” we do so in a sterile environment, bereft of the richness and depth of experience each of us has to offer.

A friend of mine was recently talking about how she was able to put 8 years of learning French to use at work. Her employer often deals with another company in Canada. While they normally have an English option, they received an email that was entirely in French, so her co-workers called her over. She sat down and started reading the email, some of it out loud. She explained that for some reason, this company couldn’t respond at this time, they weren’t there anymore, etc. She was excited that she could understand what they were writing and hadn’t lost many of her hard-earned skills.

Towards the bottom she realized that it was an automatic “out of office reply” sent by the system. Read more »