Month: August 2012

Organized? Religion

Some good thoughts from Dan Kimball on “organized” religion (more specifically churches):

“What makes the difference between healthy and destructive organization is what you are organizing for. When the church organizes around the biblical mission that Jesus gave his followers to share his good news of hope and forgiveness with people and lovingly encourage them in their desire to know Jesus, this leads to healthy organization…There’s too much need in the world not to be part of the organized church.“

Something New

My good friend John Knights, also known as Cuban John, has started an interesting new project. It’s called the Notorious Sinner Podcast and he is recording his conversations about faith, questions, Jesus, etc and sharing them with the world. I’ve had the privilege of being included in a couple of the conversations and they are very fun.

Check out John’s blog here and subscribe to the podcast here.

Review: Why Holiness Matters

This month I will highlight a couple of books by friends and acquaintances. Up first is Tyler Braun‘s Why Holiness Matters. I first came across Tyler when I read this post and discovered we have some overlap in our stories. Here’s my review of his first book.

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Peel back the layers and you will find that one of he greatest fissures in modern Christian thinking lies between authenticity and rule keeping. Most people won’t lead with either of these labels, but they are there.

I work with college students and we have both types of students: those who just want the rules, just want a checklist, and those who use the quest for authenticity as a trump card, justification for poor decisions.

There is a third way, though, and this way is the subject of Tyler Braun’s strong effort: “Why Holiness Matters.” Braun argues that while most in the millennial generation will resonate with authenticity thinking, there is something better that Jesus offers: holiness.

Braun does his best work by taking this old idea and making it new and fresh for his contemporaries (although there’s plenty here for non-millennials as well).

I appreciated Braun’s relational approach to the conversation: holiness is not new (or better) behaviors, nor is it something we simply feel (or drift) our way into. Rather holiness begins with new affections. Our relationship, love of, and connection to a holy God leads to holiness.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on community and mission. Braun does well to emphasize that holiness is a communal process and draws us into community, it’s not a solo pursuit. But, holiness doesn’t lead us to lock the doors and keep the bad people out. We are compelled back into the world to love and serve our neighbors.

A solid effort, and a book I will likely use with students this year.

Sometimes we don’t need new words, we just need new definitions and conversations about good, old words.

Game Change

I wrote yesterday that Game Change is possibly my favorite read of the summer. Whatever your political views, the 2008 presidential election cycle was high drama and full of compelling stories. The authors focus on four campaigns (Obama, Clinton, Edwards, McCain), providing all kinds of interesting background.

There are, undoubtedly, numerous reasons why Obama won. But as I was reading two aspects of Obama’s campaign stood out to me again and again:

  1. The Obamans (as the authors refer to the campaign) had a motto: no-drama-obama. They knew stuff would come up, they new their opponents would hit them hard, but throughout the whole thing Obama was about at straight-line as you can be. Very few ups and downs, very few emotional outbursts, and a lot of methodical, rational decision-making. Clinton on the other hand: wildly emotional, a roller coaster of highs and lows. McCain: wanted as little information provided to him as possible (Obama on the other hand puts baseball nerds to shame with the amount of information he processes)…as a result McCain was all over the place, following his gut instincts to the bitter end. Edwards, well, you can only imagine the drama there.
  2. The other fascinating thing to me was this: Clinton, Edwards, and McCain all had one person on their team who was highly competent and extremely dysfunctional. Extremely. (You could argue that Hillary had two of these people in her camp if you include her husband). Each of these people caused fissures on their team that proved, in the end, to be fatal. Obama had some personalities on his team too. But, the Obamans got caught up in the historical nature of the campaign (you might say they remained focused on the mission) and that kept some of the personality and ego issues to a minimum.

Fascinating stuff and a lot of implications for leaders: keep things steady and focused and choose your team well!

Summer Reading, Part II

  1. On Some Faraway Beach The Life and Times of Brian Eno: A little too fanboyish to be a great biography, but still an interesting read about one of the most influential music producers of the last 40 years (Bowie, Taking Heads, U2, Coldplay)
  2. A Hologram For The King: Eggers’ attempt to tell a story of the financial crisis…some parts hit and some miss. Where he hits Eggers continues to be one of my favorite writers, but where he misses it just feels like he’s trying way too hard.
  3. Game Change: Absolutely fascinating…my favorite read this summer…more on this one tomorrow.
  4. Why Holiness Matters: Also more on this one soon…check out Tyler’s blog
  5. Bob Dylan in America: Historians’s take on different eras of Dylan’s work…interesting connection to other artists like Aaron Copland.