Surviving Theology – Head vs. Heart
Did it change you?
The more we learn about God, the more we (should) change. Some of us go to an extreme intellectual end and forget about the relational aspect of Christianity. Others of us go to the extreme relational aspect and completely ignore our intellect. I am not here to argue for a middle ground, but something different altogether.
Just give me Jesus.
Instead of trying to convince you to become more intellectual, or to become more relational, I am going to convince you to learn more about Jesus. Some of us can do this really well with out brains. We can learn theology with the best of them. I sit in this category to a point. Hence the reason I am earning my “fake” masters (really need a better name for that…). On the flip side, I am not as bright as some of my friends. You will notice the lack here is in my heart. It is very hard to get the information to move from my head to my heart. This is silly because I know Jesus wants a relationship with His followers. How many of us examine our close friends and family by reading textbooks about them? Not many.
On the other end, we have people who make the relationship all heart and no head. This can be just as bad. If we think about any relationship we are in, how often do we make bad heart decisions? We get angry because a family member or friend does not act in our best interest. This hurts our heart and we lash out. We have to remember, our hearts are wicked and imperfect. While the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside us, we still have the continual battle with our flesh. Don’t believe me? go to a Pentecostal church. Ask some basic theological question and see what weird things come out. Call them out on some of their practices which are not found anywhere in Scripture. Most likely you will receive an emotion-based response.
***The Disclaimer Strikes Again***
I know, I pointed out a flaw in the more charismatic camps. This will prompt emails and negative comments. Many of you will forget how I pointed out the flaws in the intellectual camp just one paragraph earlier. Bring ‘em on so I can delete them. After you vent, feel free to re-read the second paragraph. Quit getting all emotional on me.
***End The Disclaimer***
We have to know Jesus to the best of His ability.
To many of us, He will give us an intellectual gift. He will help us know Him through books and lectures. He will make concepts real to us others just cannot grasp. We will care about things deeply that others do not. To others, He will melt our hearts with His supreme love to a point where we weep during every prayer. Our hearts will be so close to Him that we feel His presence during even the most mundane activities. We should be stretching ourselves in order to grow in our relationship. This means head people should pray more, worship with music and quiet times. Try and glorify God through the arts, etc. For the heart people, pick up a good book by a dead guy (I think heart people would LOVE Francis Schaeffer and John Frame. Well, Schaeffer is dead, but Frame is still with us).
In turn, we should also continue to go with our strengths. Head people, keep studying (but do not forget applying what you learned!). Heart people, Keep pressing in. Continue to learn about God through your activities and prayer. Continue to be lead by the Spirit (and remember to learn how the Spirit operates, it is not some grand secret, it’s in the Bible).
God made us all unique.
He has called some of us to learn about Him systematically, and others experientially. But we are all one Body, and all the parts are equally useful and equally loved.
-Don-
A BIG THANKS, and Stuff
State of the Website Address
Yesterday I got a donation that pushed me right to the amount I needed to pay for another year of hosting for this site. It was really cool of all of you to help out this goofy, little website. I appreciate it and really look forward to writing this next year. Speaking of the next year, what is going on?
Sweeping changes…sort of.
Look and Feel
I hope to get a redesign together shortly. I have another web development project (for my dentist) I want to finish up. After I am finished with it, I hope to start on my site. By late winter or early spring I hope to be finished. Truth be told, every redesign seems to come because of someone forcing my hand (my old web host deleting my site, hackers, etc. I wish I was kidding). This time I want to “do it right.” I hope to keep a simple design that is highly readable and easy to manage.
I have thought about advertising on this site and after the need for donations this year, I am going to do it. I will be setting up a book store (through Amazon Associates) as well as selling a couple of spaces. I will be coming up with an advertising policy soon and will make it public. My main goal is to keep the ads as unobtrusive and as relevant as possible. I don’t want to have ads just for the sake of ads. I want them to be helpful as well as generate income.
Free stuff
I have two e-books I will be making available this year. The first is a basic Bible study guide, which has been sitting in a state of “almost finished” for too long now. The second is a collection guest posts I had before Christmas about how to help new Christians grow. Kind of a beginners guide to discipleship. I will be adding a couple chapters on my own.
I also hope to have some drawings and offer prizes (furnished by publishers) to help my readers out. That and, who doesn’t like free stuff?
More reviews of GOOD books
I have a relationship with a certain publisher who gives me free books. Some of the books have come from agents as gifts, and others have come through a blogger program. Needless to say, most of the books have been pretty bad. I feel they consume too much of my reading time and I am tired of devoting my brain to useless books.
Multi-media
I love to write. I say it all the time, but I really do. I do feel I “sell myself short” though. During high school and college I used to do a lot with photography. It is a time consuming hobby, and an expensive one. But I would like to add more of my personal photos to this site. I may even use video…
Why will I keep doing this?
I hope I can write in a way to help others learn more about the Gospel. As someone who is planting a church, I also hope my trials and follies help others to be successful planters. Until God tells me otherwise, I hope to blog (and use Twitter, I love Twitter).
I also want to give exposure to more bloggers. I have a great group of friends (check the side bar) and I hope to make more. I think it is good for those who are blogging about the Gospel to be given proper exposure.
I Still plan on being stubborn
Don’t worry. That won’t change.
There you have it.
I know, exciting, huh? Sometimes it helps just throwing this out in the public forum. Holds me accountable.
Looking forward to this year.
-Don-
Zany, I Tell You
Looking forward to spring. Weird for me, I know.
I was going to write about false doctrine as I continued my series. However, life is CRAZY! OK, not that bad, but still pretty zany. I went back to work this week, sort of. The first day back was normal, the next day we had a 2 hour delay. Then we had a snow day. Then another 2 hour delay. My snow day was anything but relaxing as I had a sick little kid who was throwing up all over the place. And I mean all over the place. I cleaned rugs, couches, clothes, pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, my clothes… On top of that, I was working on some pretty sloppy code for a website which was frustrating.
Yuck.
This morning I woke up to a flat tire, so I was late for work. On my way to work I discovered the electrical systems on my car hates the cold. This does not surprise me as my wife hates the cold and the car used to be hers before the Great Car Accident of 2009. First, the radio started to die (if you smack the side of the dash where the radio is, it comes back to life). Shortly after, I had to honk the horn. Instead of the strong GM horn I had grown accustom to, I heard what sounded like a moaning elephant.
And on all this, I just got some more sad news.
Man, I just received an email that an old friend has cancer and pneumonia. Now all the rest I have written seems pretty trivial. If you guys could, please pray for my friend, his daughters and his grand kids. He is a great guy who kind of took in the younger guys from the neighborhood. We used to watch Walker Texas Ranger, Wrestling, while eating dinner with him. Man. It has been a rough season, huh?
-Don-
Oh Yea, Christmas.
Not how I thought December would go.
We are in the season known as Advent. It is a time when we look forward to the coming of our savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. My wife was the first to explain Advent to me. When we were first married I did not really know there was a season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Growing up and even attending church for awhile, you would think I had heard of it…but then again, I attended a pretty weird church during my formative years.
I was hoping to immerse myself in Advent this year.
As with many other things, I became distracted. Church planting stuff, work stuff, Twitter stuff (doh!), more work stuff, finishing up car accident stuff, and who knows what other stuff. My email inbox reminds me daily Christmas is on its way. Amazon.com and Buy.com are quick to send me “gift ideas” and Kohls appears to be having a “one time only” sale every couple of days. With free shipping. It feels like Christmas (and Advent) is on the back burner for now.
I think of the things I wanted to do for Christmas this year, and I have not really gotten on those. I wanted to hang lights on our house (hey, at least we got the tree up), drink hot cocoa and watch Mickey’s Christmas Carol (and Charlie Brown’s Christmas).
I want snow, too.
We are all so busy.
We have been so busy at work that we have not planned our office Christmas lunch. Our office party was planned late so only a couple of people will be attending (and I am not one of them). I was hoping to read Dicken’s A Christmas Carol and one of my wife’s Advent books, but I have failed to slow down (as I often do).
Don’t fall into my trap.
This is the first Christmas where my boys are really cognizant of what is going on. They get the whole “tree thing” and more importantly know we are celebrating the birth of the incarnate God who would go to the cross to save us from our sins and defeat death.
This is a time where we can build family traditions and demonstrate the love of our God as it was demonstrated to us. I am going to give you a little advice. Get off the internet (seriously, aren’t you tired of hearing about Tiger Woods yet?), put on some Christmas music (I recommend making a list at Grooveshark) bake some friggen cookies, make some hot chocolate, make a fire (only if you have a fireplace. Hey, this is the Internet, I have to warn some readers), and read the account of Christ’s birth in Luke.
-Don-
