Session Notes

The New Yorker

But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception. This could be because evangelicals are also among the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the message that they are looking for sex. It could also be because many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease. More provocatively, Regnerus found that only half of sexually active teen-agers who say that they seek guidance from God or the Scriptures when making a tough decision report using contraception every time. By contrast, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult consistently use protection.

The gulf between sexual belief and sexual behavior becomes apparent, too, when you look at the outcomes of abstinence-pledge movements. Nationwide, according to a 2001 estimate, some two and a half million people have taken a pledge to remain celibate until marriage. Usually, they do so under the auspices of movements such as True Love Waits or the Silver Ring Thing. Sometimes, they make their vows at big rallies featuring Christian pop stars and laser light shows, or at purity balls, where girls in frothy dresses exchange rings with their fathers, who vow to help them remain virgins until the day they marry. More than half of those who take such pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse.

The stats just keep rolling in — Evangelical shame and Catholic guilt once again just doesn’t seem capable of arresting the misplaced human teen’s longing for love. Whatever shall we do???

Perhaps that might be a reason to offer it to them some other way — like maybe just being fathers and mothers to the fatherless and motherless???

Or, we could just launch another purity ball instead…

LiveNHim:

“You don’t need to have a kind of ‘in your face’ grace approach exclaiming your freedom to those who ‘just don’t quite get it’. Now, there may be a time where you do need to take a stand on God’s grace and freedom in the church, but I’m talking everyday life here. The general rule of thumb when it comes to personal relationships with those who do not understand God’s incredible gift of grace for living is simply more ‘grace’. What does that look like? We’re to act ‘in love’, even to the point of refraining from a freedom we think is perfectly fine to protect our relationship with other believers. It’s a humble, accepting and encouraging approach to those who might differ with us. Limiting your freedom on behalf of another is not a compromise of grace but more a sacrifice of love. Allow Christ to love through you…at times, it will be a sacrifice.”

This is a great article on extending grace when we differ about our beliefs.

LiveNHim:

“God gave us an incredible gift in the human body and brain. Every action, thought, desire is recorded on the human hard drive of the brain. The ‘old self’ or nature is dead (that’s what happens when you get crucified…you don’t typically recover) and you have been raised up a brand new self or nature. Those old desires, habits and behaviors have been recorded and can and will resurface…that broad term ‘flesh’ or old ways of thinking and behaving will set its desire against the Spirit but the truth is, you are ‘dead’ to that stuff! There is no real power to make you act or think in the ‘old way’, in fact, quite the opposite. You have the omnipotent power and Life of Christ in you to think and live a brand new life. “

I agree with the majority of the article I see “choice” as openness to it. Believing is not works. I pray He gives us all His understanding of it.

reportonbusiness.com

It’s the beginning of the end for Windows Vista.

Today, Microsoft Corp. kicks off its marathon pitch about life after Vista, and even though the next evolution of Windows won’t be ready until 2010, at the earliest, the company doesn’t think it’s too soon to start prepping for a bug-free launch.

Otherwise, despite the fact that Windows’s toughest challengers – Linux and Apple Inc. – remain bit players in the operating system game, Microsoft risks suffering in the arena of public perception, again.

The world’s largest software company will speak publicly for the first time today about what’s in store for the next evolution of Windows, dubbed Windows 7, at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

Ok, let me just say what so many are thinking: “Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God!!!!”

Enough said…

mdolla.

Here’s a new [prayer] machine [that] can be found on the streets of Orlando.

I just don’t know why but it kinda reminded me of something…

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:5-6)

We still just don’t get it…

Understanding the Inspirational Personality Type : Lifetime Guarantee Ministries:

“Personality Traits Ambitious Charger Confident/Determined Intuitive Persuasive Spontaneous Adaptable Responsible Flesh Type & Traits (Over-bearing) Pushy/Ready-Fire-Aim Domineering/Intimidating Egotistical Restless Insensitive Undisciplined Over-bearing Can’t say no”

This is a fascinating personality chart. We are to encourage the personality/spirit and ignore the flesh traits. This is because sin does not come into play anymore, beyond the fact it just brought death in the first place. May it be so.

What is of paramount importance is the content of what truth is:

“With my wisdom firmly placed in Him, I can enjoy fellowship with others who are in Him and who may understand some truth differently than I do. I can desire to know the ‘what’s’ and the ‘why’s’, but be at rest. I can also live perfectly at peace with my lack of knowing. I no longer expect of myself or others to understand all about ‘truths’. Jesus, who I am ‘in’, understands it all. This is what abiding is about. My life does not independently contain all that it needs to live. The truth is in Someone else- Jesus.”

This is an excellent brief article on searching for truth, but also being at rest not knowing until it is revealed to us. May it be so for us.

globeandmail.com.

“There are millions of people around this world praying to their god – whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah – that his [McCain's] opponent wins. … And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens.” – Arnold Conrad, pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church, delivering the invocation at a John McCain rally in Davenport, Iowa, last Saturday.

You know, some articles nearly say it all — the once strong and vibrant God of Evangelicalism clearly is now barely surviving, on life support and down to His last best strategy — saving the world (or at least his own branding rights) through a trigger happy fighter pilot and an even more trigger happy moose hunter. (And, apparently, He might not even be capable of pulling that one off given that the public has finally figured out the moose hunter is also more then just a bit of a dimwit…)

Back in their day, the Roman Catholic response to Protestant heretics was to burn them at the stake. Surly some of the technology involved was documented or there is at least some expert in the Catholic Church who could be freed up to lend us a hand for a few days… This has now become an emergency — somehow we’ve gotta cleanse the Evangelical gene pool before this order of ignorance reproduces…

Abiding:

” second reason we do not understand abiding is that our humanness does not want to. The heart of abiding is dependence. Dependence is the mortal enemy of self (our flesh). Our flesh screams out against dependence. We like the idea of improving ourselves ‘for’ God. We are drawn to ways that increase our strength, wisdom and abilities ‘for’ Him. This is why we can not relate to Paul when he says, ‘Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Cor. 12:10) We long for love, acceptance, value and identity; but we want it the old fashioned way- we want to earn it and deserve it. You can not understand the concept of abiding (let alone live in it) until you are willing to recognize that living the Christian life is not about you getting better or working harder. As Christ said, ‘you must deny yourself’. You living the Christian life, in fact, is impossible. You must be convinced that only Jesus within you can live the Christian life.”

This is an excellent article on resting in our completeness because of Jesus rising from the cross. We can be at peace. May it/this, His wisdom be so for us.

Libertarian Party of Canada:

“There are many generous Canadians who give to charities they are most concerned about, even now with high taxes. Think of the possibilities for giving in a society with extremely low taxation. People are concerned about providing for their own families and living responsibly and they need to be free to make their own decisions with their money. Most people in our daily lives are good most of the time – otherwise society wouldn’t function – we trust people enough as equals. However, the more power we give to others, the more skewed things become. As Lord Acton said, Power corrupts.”

Although I do not agree with everything this party stands for in Canada, it does seems to promote the freedom Christ died to give us.

Philosophy of Ministry:

“he Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.’ It is interesting to me that when referring to his life before Christ, Paul said, ‘as to the Law found blameless’. In describing his life as a believer, he said, ‘For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do but I practice the very evil that I do now wish.’ “

It offers a good compilation of the verses of the real reason for the law.