5 Top Blog Posts for January
So, over the last month I’ve been attempting to organise my blogging a lot more, focusing on investing time in the topics I want to research and learn more of and trying to be more methodical and more consistent with my writing.
I’d like to invite you to read over some of the popular posts you missed, and feel free to comment or discuss anything you find interesting. Here are some of the posts over the last month which have proved most popular with you guys:
5. Faith & Consumerism amongst Young Adults
This month I announced the subject of my dissertation which is an exploration of how living in a consumerist culture affects how young adults perceive faith and church:
One of the key elements to my dissertation will be to explore possible responses to consumerism – whether the church should accept and learn to function well in a consumerist culture (Contextualisation) or create and encourage an alternative culture (a kind of counter-cultural response). Or whether a mixture of the two approaches is needed, or better yet: another, third way…
You can read through the whole post here – and feel free to comment!
4. Mission and Learning
My brief exploration of the connection between engaging in mission and learning last year was an interesting and popular topic, so this year I’ve begun to explore that connection further. This first post was an attempt to apply the experiential learning cycle to communities and individuals engaging in mission:
This simple cycle is a really simple, interesting way to understand the whole of human consciousness as we encounter new things, reflect and reach a new understanding, and then act differently based on that new understanding.
It was whilst was looking at different models for understanding mission, that I began to see the similarity between steps in the mission models and steps in the reflective cycle…
This led me to suggest that missional engagement could be sketched out as a variation of the reflective cycle…
3. Haiti: The Church’s Finest Hour
Obviously the earthquake in Haiti was a major piece of news this month, and more than that was an event which called for both a real emotive and practical response from the Church around the world. From amidst the ruins and brokenness, however, already stories of hope have begun to emerge as the people of Haiti begin to support each other:
Haiti’s local churches are rising to the challenge in their quake-ravaged communities – feeding and providing shelter for thousands of the most vulnerable survivors.
By the weekend, four local churches partnering with World Relief will be feeding 9,500 people hot meals – rice and beans for lunch and porridge for dinner – every day…
Please continue to support the people of Haiti in prayer, and by contributing to aid agencies working there.
2. Building the Igloo
At the beginning of the month, we made an igloo in the snow, and I posted some photos and thoughts on our engagement with local young people during the igloo-construction process. In particular making some observations on responding to challenging behaviour and creativity:
In our igloo mission we found something crazy enough that it caught the attention of a fair group of young people. At first it was mainly to ask why we were bothering to make something so huge. But then once they really began to see the igloo take shape, a large group began to get involved really constructively in helping us build it, rolling snow balls and helping to smooth down the walls.
They also really began to take ownership of it, and all packed in to the igloo to enjoy it once it was finished…
1. Does everyone get to go to heaven?
I discussed some of my thoughts on Scot McKnight’s exploration of the book The Evangelical Universalist and on Universalism in general from a theological perspective:
The US religious landscape survey in 2008 announced that 57% of evangelical Christians believe that “many religions – not just their own – can lead to eternal life.” and whilst those figures have been contested by evangelical groups, it shows a startling number of people who hold a view very different from the mainstream “policy” of the Evangelical movement as a whole…
If that gets your interest, then have a read of the full post.
