Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Lessons from "House"

Emily and I love to watch "House" together on Tuesday nights. If you haven't seen the show it is an incredibly intriguing show in which a Dr. House tries to figure out what is wrong with the patients with extremely rare diseases, all while being an absolute jerk (secretly I like him). One thing that is interesting about the show is that at times there are very serious themes or thought provoking statements that leave me chewing on deeply spiritual thoughts. Tonight was no different as Dr. House made a comment that had intense spiritual implications.

I don't have the exact line but it went something like this: "We do not try and eliminate misery we just try to minimize it." Is this what we are called to as Christians? Am I simply here to minimize misery or is there something more grand, something life changing, something unmiserable that I was put on this earth for? I think House is misguided in his view of misery.

As Christians in a secular world we have been called to cultural transformation. To eliminate the misery with the incredible power of the gospel. To not only change our lives but to change the world we are living in by making everything we do for the glory of Christ (Col 3:23). Doing homework is not only for a good grade but it is for God's glory. Running cross country ceases to be just a hobby and becomes a highly spiritual, sacred event. Who we date and what that looks like has serious kingdom ramifications. Our lives are more than just a journey to avoid misery, but instead they are narratives of Christ's overwhelming grace and the elimination of misery only happens through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

So is our job to just minimize misery? Absolutely not let's eliminate misery and change the world!

For more reading on this concept check out this post by Matt Adair.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Well...here goes nothing!

Word on the street is that if you are going to be a hip youth guy these days you must have a blog. So, in an attempt to be wicked awesome I am joining the world o' bloggin. All this comes with the caveat that I am really not that good of a writer and my grammer will at times be absolutley atroucious. I have no problem with changing verb tenses in mid sentence, really no issue with passive voice, and I don't think I could identify the object or indirect object in this sentence, but what the heck...

This blog exists for the purpose of speaking to how Christ works in our lives and culture to bring glory to himself. If you are a student involved in the Westminster youth group (or just a really cool person) and want to add something to the blog please email me so that I can post it up for all to see. I want this to be both posts from me as well as students that want to share what the Lord is doing in their lives. Even if you are struggling we can all learn from what you are going through and how the Lord is speaking in the midst of tough times. So...Giddy Up!