becoming

I love Feinberg’s humor!

7 Ways to Guarantee A Miserable Life & 7 Ways to Guarantee A Happier Life

Life throws us a mix of good days and bad days. At times we wake up and feel as though we can conquer the universe and ride a comet as a detour. And you know those days when you want to be in a bad mood? When you don’t want to try to get out of it? Here are a couple hints to tip the scales one way or another.

7 Ways to Guarantee a Miserable Life:

1. Stick your hand underneath every restaurant table, even if it’s not yours. Two points if gum sticks to your fingernails.
2. Cut off as many people as possible on the highway.
3. Forget your sibling’s/spouse’s/mother-in-law’s birthday on purpose. Grab a birthday card to give the next day, but make sure the card is for a high school graduation.
4. Write down each mistake your spouse or significant other makes; the more ridiculous or far-fetched the nuance is, such as preferring oats over cereal, the better.
5. Speed up in between stoplights so you have to slam on your brakes as they turn red.
6. Budget? What budget? Go to skymall.com and buy items you think are useless and outrageous. The more expensive and fantastic the object, the better. Life size King Tut bookcase, I’m looking at you…
7. Say yes to everything for a week. Including all organizations asking for volunteers, providing baked goods for every church event, working overtime for free, and throwing eight-course dinner parties each weekend evening; bring your calendar to ensure you are sufficiently overbooked. Tire yourself out until you are grouchy and irritable to your heart’s content.

7 Ways to Guarantee a Happier Life:

1. Order your meal out of order, just to mix it up.
2. Let in two merging cars on your way to the grocery store.
3. Surprise a loved one with a special surprise for no reason. Pick a flower or write a quick sticky note and hide it in their lunch. Add sparkly stickers for extra points.
4. Instead of looking for the right person to marry, become the right person to marry.
5. Be a sloth for a day. Take an extra long time brushing your teeth, take four minutes to walk down the hallway, drive in the right lane the entire way to work, and eat lunch in over an hour (if you can).
6. Before purchasing an item over seven dollars, wait seven days to see if you still want it.
7. Say no once this week in an effort to maintain a balanced lifestyle.

What things to you do to guarantee a happier life?

[HT: margaretfeinberg.com]

I couldn’t agree more with Bergler’s diagnostic. My hope is that his remedies will live up to that.

Interview with Thomas Bergler on his book The Juvenilization of American Christianity.

[link: EerdWord]

Blanket statements about all evangelicals mix the Democratic Tony Campolos with the far right Jerry Falwells. Given evangelicalism’s diverse history and its undefined future, it is both inaccurate and unhelpful to stereotype all “evangelicals” as the religious right. It was especially this public linking of evangelicals with the political right, by Jerry Falwell and other public figures, that initially consolidated the religious right. Today, stereotyping evangelicalism as a whole only fortifies the influence of the political right on a movement that has a much more varied history. Democrats should therefore applaud President Obama and others working to transcend these traditional political barriers.

Read the whole thing here.

全心推介林榮洪博士的華人神學討論！

二十世紀華人神學風雲

地點：麥恆中華基督教長老會，2250 Denison Street, Markham ON

簡介：以銅為鏡、以史為鑑。從歷史和神學角度探討華人教會百年滄桑歷史，共同尋找教會未來出路。

講員：林榮洪博士，先後畢業於香港大學、美國三一神學院、美國普林斯頓神學院（哲學博士），主修歷史神學。曾任香港中國神學研究院講師，現任多倫多天道神學院教授，並牧養教會。

日期：5月 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 日

時間：逢星期四晚8:00 ~ 9:00

地點：麥恆中華基督教長老會，2250 Denison Street, Markham ON

查詢：905-946-1725, 416-466-4303

費用：免費

One of the best articles I have read about Jobs:

In fact, Jobs had just about every detail wrong. The Open Corporation was a dismal failure in practice. Its hallmark was that employee salaries were not kept secret; there was even an attempt to impose uniform compensation. It didn’t work, of course; all kinds of side deals were cut to satiate key employees…More concretely, Jobs had the whole business plan wrong. It would be two years before NeXT delivered anything to customers. When the NeXTcube computer finally did arrive, it proved too expensive to ever command a serious market. Ultimately, Jobs was forced to admit that the undeniably beautiful machine he and his engineering team concocted was a flop.

Yet how can these 11 years in the wilderness turned into the most pivotal period of his life? I don’t see a single magic that does the trick. There is no “key factor” — Family, friends, colleagues, circumstances, success, failures and self-reflections — all played their major roles in those 11 years. He learned from them. He embraced his Wilderness Year and make the best out of it.

Next time, try not to just think of Jobs the Icon, think of Jobs the Man.

[link: Fast Company]

On Christmas day, we join with millions around the world in celebrating the incredible world-changing Emmanuel. God With Us. The Maranatha (O Lord Come) prayer has been answered, is being answered today and will one day be answered in full.

All Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning,

O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Wish you all a wonderful Christmas season and a most blessed New Year of 2012!

MAINTENANCE OR MISSION?
Weekly Message from Bishop Will Willimon 10.23.2006

From http://www.crossmarks.com – an article by Harold Percy, “Good News People.” I very much liked its contrast between “maintenance” and “mission” as well as its stress on “effectiveness” being a mutually shared matter between pastor and congregation. The only thing I would add is that “effectiveness” is not only a matter of the faithfulness of pastor and congregation but also of God’s Holy Spirit working through us and our shared ministries!

1. In measuring the effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, “How many pastoral visits are being made? The mission congregation asks, “How many disciples are being made?”

2. When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, “If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won’t do it.” The mission congregation says, “If this will help us reach someone on the outside, we will take the risk and do it.”

3. When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, “How will this affect me?” The majority of members in the mission congregation ask, “Will this increase our ability to reach those outside?”

4. When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our past.” The mission congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our future.”

5. The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, “I’d like to introduce you to some of our members.” In the mission congregation the members say, “We’d like to introduce you to our pastor.”

6. When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern , the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, “How can I meet this need?” The pastor in the mission congregation asks, “How can this need be met?”

7. The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds). The mission congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress, and is willing to pay the price. It understands that it cannot take everyone with it. This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done.

8. The leadership style in the maintenance congregation is primarily managerial, where leaders try to keep everything in order and running smoothly. The leadership style in a mission congregation is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map in order to bring the vision into reality.

9. The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees. The mission congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick. It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel.

10. When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, “How many Lutherans live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?” The mission congregation asks, “How many unchurched people live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?”

11. The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, “How can we get these people to support our congregation?” The mission congregation asks, “How can the Church support these people?”

12. The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation. The mission congregation thinks about how to reach the world.

[link: John Mark Ministries]

「我就沒有與屬血氣的人商量，也沒有上耶路撒冷去見那些比我先作使徒的，惟獨往亞拉伯去，後又回到大馬色。」（加1:16b-17）

保羅到亞拉伯作甚麼？

留意當保羅在加拉太書4:25 再提「阿拉伯」時，保羅所指的是當地的「西乃山」。如此是否保羅踏著昔日先知以利亞的腳蹤，進「何烈山」（=「西乃山」）重組對這嶄新差遣使命的了解？(比較 王上 19.1-18)。

保羅與以利亞確實有許多相似的地方。在羅 11:1-6保羅也曾將自己的工作和以利亞作比較。如以利亞相似，保羅也是為神「大發熱心」（比較 王上19:10, 14），他昔日殘害教會，有如以利亞殺死眾多巴力先知。這和保羅在加1:14-15 對自己過去的描述相當接近。

另外，在回程時，保羅亦提到他回「大馬色」。這點和以利亞一樣接受上主的任務相同（王上 19:15）。

用以利亞作類比了解遇到復活主前的保羅/掃羅，你會對他加深了怎樣的了解？

〔延伸閱讀：N.T. Wright, PAUL, ARABIA, AND ELIJAH (GALATIANS 1:17)〕