FCP4

-Only one more class before I get to go home ;). Oh snowball fights on the quad. Ya know its not fair to hide behind people we don't know Bree!

Chapter 13 in "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller...religion is something that is very important to me. I love how this guy is so practical. Its just awesome. He goes on to talk about Christian spirituality and religion and how a lot of people use Christianity to gain something for there own belief system.

"The tough thing about Christian spirituality is, you have to mean things. You can't just go through the motions or act religious for the wrong reasons....It is the trick of Satan to get us to perform religious actions without meaning them, After all, if we are going thorough religious motions to get people to think of us as religious, praise us, and all that, we are receiving our false redemption from a bunch of people who are going to be dead in fifty years. This is a shabby replacement for an eternal God."

Yup-that sucked to read--ha.

Seriously tho its been interesting to learn about the start of Christianity and the stuff that has formed it in this class I am taking. Its so funny that we have the same issues hundreds of years later as the early church. I'm not even going to get into it here because I barley get it to begin with.

I like how at the end of the chapter Donald Miller states that he isn't against religion/churches because thats where the people of Christ are, but it is also where the people are that hurt the faith and have a formula religion are.

Overall I think the point of the chapter was to pointing towards loving Christ and Loving others are the important things within the church and the religion and thats what we need to remember.

Cella's

~One of the logos I made for church. Not the one they chose but definitely my favorite.~

This week has been pretty nuts. I am so thankful for racquetball and awesome friends. Really keeps the stress levels down!

Yeah so Christian books are expensive. See I have just been borrowing the books that I have been reading (thanks). Holy Cow I had to buy a book for a bible study. It was like $25 with tax. Are you kidding me. And the new Yellowcard CD was cheeper that the new POD on iTunes. Hurray for commercialism.

I had to post last night on my myspace (www.myspace.com/reeltoreel) because for some reason this wasn't working.

The chapter I read tonight was called Morality, Why I'm Better than you. I have to admit while it sounded really really good I'm not so sure about Donald Millers theology especially with his comments on Paul and grace. Stinken Houghton, I used to just believe everything and that would be nice.

He basically just talks about Christian "Morality" and how it is really screwed up compared to what Jesus would have represented. One thing that I thought was really poignant was his argument about homosexuality and abortion. This seems to becoming a main issue of faith/condemnation. Incidentally we are all sinners and we should possibly not cast our stones because our lives are pretty screwed up too. Sometimes we forget the importance of Grace in the Christian faith.

One thing that also struck me was the idea of morality and why we do it when we no longer believe that morality is the saving factor in our faith. I had a nod your head moment. Honestly sometimes I'm just like why the crap should I be moral if there is grace. Why not just go out and have a fun time or get the answers for the homework of the unprotected network drive. He says what about morality for Gods sake. It just brought me back to the idea of how hypocrisy runs rampant throughout the church and in some aspects of my life and how devastating that can be to Jesus himself and ministry.

play by the rules

Yeah today pretty much stunk. Still working it out tho, may get better after the weekend.

Walker beat me in racquetball 17-15 and 15-13. So there, I guess I didn't let him win he actually isn't that bad and proves superior to me while still claiming that he is not a jock and that racquetball is an un-sport. Good times.

Today I watched a basketball game, liked it, and even cheered. My roommate/Bree are slowly breaking me down. Now if only they could make me play better.

Donald Millers Chapter 10 was really good. I have to admit I was really tired while reading it but it posed some interesting/relevant questions about Christ's place in today's religion. Really good stuff. He talked about how in a bible class he talked about salvation but left out Jesus and no one noticed. Often times I think I'm like that. I forget how important relationship, especially with Christ, is to faith. I tend to go through all the motions feeling unsatisfied.

"To a culture that believes they "go to heaven" based on whether or not they are morally pure, or that they understand some theological ideas, or that they are very spiritual, Jesus is completely unnecessary. At best, He is an afterthought, a technicality by which we become morally pure, or a subject of which we know or a founding father of our woo-woo spirituality." -Donald Miller

yup

I am extrodinarly tired.

This weekend was great. Had some good times hanging with Sam, Rachel and Keynote. Sat. watched Garden State for like the millionth time with Walker and Ashley. Yeah, and I definitely need a rematch in racquetball. Beginners luck Walker, and I let you win. Koin was really good to. Yeah 97dB w/o getting yelled at. Its all about how you mix it.

So yeah Garden State. If you haven't seen it watch it. If you have seen it and don't like it. Well thats your problem.

Started back up with "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller. This chapter was really cool because it went through the characteristics of Jesus.

-He believed all people were equal
-He was Ugly
-He liked to be with people
-He had no fear of intimacy
-He was patient
-He was kind
-He was God
-He is I AM

One thing that he pointed out that I thought was really significant is the types of people that early christianity/jesus attracted. He attracted the week, poor, ugly, non-morally upright etc. The people that hated him were the upstanding people that had a name to keep up. Its really interesting to see how that has changed today. Often the people attracted to Christianity today are the middle class normal people and the people that are repelled by it are the very people Jesus loved.

I'm trying to work through that myself. The whole being a Christian w/o being a hypocrite. Going back to what Jesus really thought was important.

"The greatest single cause of atheism in this world today is Christians. Those who acknowledge things with there lips and walk out the door to get on to there unbelieving lifestyles. That is what and unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."