intersections

Social Security?

One of the big questions people are asking about the proposed Social Security reform is whether it is either "social" or "secure." Entering the fray from a religious perspective is pastor Ian Wrisley from Colorado. I heard this piece yesterday on NPR's "All Things Considered." Pastor Wrisley comments that Social Security was born in an era when we were at least more concerned about mutual responsiblity than we are today. Today all we are concerned about are individual rights. Almost completely left out of this conversation is the Christian notion of responsiblity for the poor. Gone are the days when Americans considered themselves citizens of a society. Now we are nothing more than consumers of the governments goods and services. My vote is decided only upon what will expand my rights.

Click here to listen to the 3 minute 14 second commentary - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4507684

Struggling with Lent

For the past four years I have been in fellowship with approximately 5-7 churches in my community. We meet monthly for lunch and laughter. Other than that, we plan a few joint worship services and seek ways to serve our community together. It has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life. One of the annual worship series we put together is a Wednesday night Lenten Worship Series. Each Wednesday night during Lent one church hosts the service and a different pastor preaches. for the past three years our church has been only tangentially involved. This year we've been asked to host one of the services. This year we are doing a series of teaching segments related to Lent and our church has been asked to explain the practice of footwashing. This actually goes back to a Thanksgiving Eve service we hosted for the community in 2001, but that's another story. So anyway, I've been struggling with Lent. About four years ago I recovered from my childhood the practices of Advent. It has added such a rich blessing to my Christian experience leading up to Christmas. It give my wife and I the resources to teach our children what is truly valuable about Christmas. But I have no memory to recover related to Lent. Adventism, in general does such a poor job with Easter that, frankly, I struggle with Easter as well. So every year I go a bit deeper and I am being discipled by the men and women who ministry with my in my community

Trepidatious Beginning

It's seems appropriate to start my blogging career with a confession. This scares me. Why is it that I feel I need to be erudite and witty. Perhaps because I've read so many other blogs that are...well, erudite and witty. How easy to forget that many of the blogs I've read are nothing more than banal ramblings. Then again, who wants their blog to be know as banal and rambling! So, with fear and trepidation I launch into the unknown. I've also noticed that my blog is pretty ugly compared so some I've seen.