Issue #1
Welcome to the first official issue of “Sharing My Learning.” Hope it’s helpful to you. You can choose how deep you want to dive. Links are in purple.
What I’m Thinking About: The Nature of Stories
As mentioned in the first post, I will use part of this newsletter to provide supplementary materials for our current sermon series or ministry year. So, without further adieu:
I recently had a conversation with someone about the nature of stories, and it reminded me that I had a great conversation about stories with the Learning Hour participants on Sept. 24.
In order to convey the essence of that conversation to a wider audience, I captured it in two videos, one shorter (7 minutes) and one longer (14 minutes). Take your pick:
The Nature of Story — shorter version
The Nature of Story — longer version
What I’m Reading: about Israel-Hamas
When it comes to what is currently happening in the Middle East, I want to recommend three things:
First, as was covered in our Sunday service on Oct. 29, I recommend Psalm 46. Most people are familiar with Psalm 46:10 (“Be still and know that I am God”), but they rarely know the context. The first nine verses lay out the scenario—both nature and the nations are all riled up. In the face of such things, we too can get riled up. When we get riled up, we engage in unhealthy behaviors. The Psalm calls us to re-center ourselves on God. While everything around us is shaking, we are called to be still and know that God is God. Take some time to be still.
Second, I deeply appreciate the pastoral statement made by Rich Villodas, pastor of New Life Fellowship in Queens, NY. You can read it on Instagram without having an IG account — click here, and then click through the 10 photos.
Third, if you want to take a really deep dive, make sure you get educated about Christian Zionism, what it is and why it is a distortion of the Bible. The Reformed scholar John Hubers published a 21-page paper about it in 2003 (see here), and in 2004, the Reformed Church in America adopted a recommendation declaring that “the ideology of Christian Zionism and the extreme form of dispensationalism that undergirds it to be a distortion of the biblical message.” And noting further,
“From a Reformed perspective, Christian Zionism and dispensationalism are not only faulty readings of Scripture, they have proven to be great hindrances to a just peace and stability in the Middle East. The Reformed Church in America has consistently called for a “two-state” solution in Israel/Palestine—strongly recognizing the right of Israel to exist and to have security, as well as strongly affirming the Palestinian desire for a secure and independent homeland of their own.”
What I’m Listening To
I’m a podcast guy. I listen to a lot of podcasts. For various reasons, I would not recommend all of them to others. Nonetheless, I will use this newsletter to share some of things I’m listening to. They won’t always be “recommendations.” I’m just sharing what I’m learning and what I find fascinating.
First, an interview with Skye Jethani about the nature of Heaven — find it here (37 min). Jethani is the author the “What if Jesus was Serious?” series of books (here). His latest is What if Jesus was Serious about Heaven? I cannot recommend the book because I have not read it, but I can say that I found the conversation between Jethani and Kaitlyn Schiess to be fascinating. I often find myself trying to communicate some version of this: “I’m not sure your view of heaven is biblical.” Jethani seems to have the same experience.
Second, I like about 50% of what Steve Cuss does on the Managing Leadership Anxiety podcast. Recently, I like what he did with Jimmy Carnes: four episodes on the four dynamics than infect every relationship: assumptions, reactivity, stuck patterns, and attempted solutions.
And lastly, for a lot of fun, I commend Malcolm Gladwell’s interview of the prolific music producer Rick Rubin, who just wrote a book — The Creative Act: a Way of Being. You can find the interview on YouTube or via podcast.
SDG
Drew -
Thanks for all those links.
I found the podcast about heaven interesting, both in new insights and some that I didn't connect with. The latter was the speaker's concern (~ 15 minutes in) that church leaders tended to teach and think that their work was most important, and in heaven we would "all be like them" (I paraphrase). I don't think that was an underlying assumption of the messages I've received over the years/decades from the pastors, teachers, writers, etc. that I learned under. On the other hand, new light was shed for me, on the discussion on John 14, and Jesus "going to prepare a place for you" being about His reconciling us to the Father eternally via His death on the cross, not so much building homes (although I continue to hope that heaven/the new earth will be a great place to be). Certainly the key is that "God will be there with His people".
Also the discussion on II Peter 3, and the meaning of the "fire next time".
Re the Steve Cuss podcast, I scrolled down from Ep 183 (Four dynamics) to a Cuss essay on "Managing...Chronic Anxiety", and found that quite interesting.
The internet certainly has much useful content. Thanks for pointing us to some of it.
Fred H.