Youth with a Vision

There is an article posted at Christianity Today’s website by Mark Moring that has exciting news about a trend among todays teenagers. Here are a couple of choice quotes, but read the whole article here:

Youth with a Vision | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

 

According to a 2005 study by the Corporation for National and Community Service, an estimated 15.5 million U.S. teens—55 percent—participate in volunteer activities. The teen volunteering rate is nearly twice the adult rate of 29 percent. Youth volunteer more than 1.3 billion hours of community service each year.

 

Judith Nichols, an expert on generational giving, has compared four generations, those born between World Wars I and II up through today’s youth. She concludes that the oldest and the youngest living generations are much more civic-minded than the two generations in between. But while the older generation mostly focused on America, young people today show concern for the entire world.

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Rowing back to God in SOBRIETYLAND

 

madmargaret over at SOBRIETYLAND has a post about a time of journeying back to church and her observations are poignant…

 

Almost ten years ago, I decided to go back to church full time. You might say I re-Catholicized myself. I needed the strength and hope—the message of Mother Church—to soothe my life wounds. I’ve always said, nobody goes back to church unless they need to, and at that time, I desperately needed it.
The familiar Gothic […]

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Nonviolence Begets Nonviolence

God’s Politics blog has a post by Barry Clemson that I hope you will read…

Nonviolence Begets Nonviolence

by Barry Clemson 01-08-2009

(read more) God’s Politics: A Blog by Jim Wallis & Friends

The dynamics of “violence begets violence” are simple and probably understood by everyone who has ever been in a fight. Unfortunately, the dynamics of “nonviolence begets nonviolence” are not as simple and are not widely understood.  Jesus told us to love our enemies and, when struck, to turn the other cheek. Most people and all nations consider these admonitions to apply only to saints or God. Even the institutional church, with its “just war” doctrine and its cheerleading for particular wars, does not take Jesus’ words seriously in this respect. If we understood the dynamics of “nonviolence begets nonviolence,” we might see what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek.

The USSR sent 300,000 troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968 to stop a process of  democratization. A protracted struggle of nonviolent resistance ensued with the labor unions eventually spearheading the opposition to the invasion. Large numbers of the initial invasion troops had to be replaced within four days because they became so sympathetic to the Czech nonviolent resisters. Such a rapid loss of previously reliable troops is a very high price for an invader.

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How do you read the Bible?

Mike Cope at his great blog  PreacherMike  points out this thoughtful Brueggemann quote …

The central concerns of the Bible are not flat certitudes . . . but assurances that are characterized by risk and open mystery. The quality of certitude offered by the Bible is never that of a correct answer but rather of a trusted memory, a dynamic image, a restless journey, a faithful voice. Such assurances leave us restless and tentative in the relation, and always needing to decide afresh. Rather than closing out things in a settled resolution, they tend to open things out, always in fresh and deep question and urgent invitation. The central thrust of the Bible, then, is to raise new questions, to press exploration of new dimensions of fidelity, new spheres for trust. Such questions serve as invitations to bolder, richer faithfulness. Such questions also serve as critics exposing our easy resolution, our faithless posturing, and our self-deception. If the Bible is only a settled answer, it will not reach us seriously. But it is also an open question that presses and urges and invites. For that reason the faithful community is never fully comfortable with the Bible and never has finally exhausted its gifts or honored its claims.

from the book:

THE BIBLE MAKES SENSE

Walter Brueggemann

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