Thought for the Day

Jesus said,

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  (Matthew 6:25-34)

UPDATE 25: A Psalm 13 kind of day

Well, despite our good feelings about things, I was passed over for the job I interviewed for on Tuesday.  I got a letter in the mail yesterday afternoon to inform me.  Yesterday was kind of rough emotionally for Tracy and I; in spite of ourselves, our hopes were up a little on this one.

So… back to the drawing board (again).  We KNOW God has a plan in all this, but it’s hard to see that great big forest with all these trees in our faces.

One of the texts I shared on Sunday was Psalm 13; this is one of my prayers today:

Psalm 13

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

 1 How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
       How long will you hide your face from me?

 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
       and every day have sorrow in my heart?
       How long will my enemy triumph over me?

 3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
       Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

 4 my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
       and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

 5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
       my heart rejoices in your salvation.

 6 I will sing to the LORD,
       for he has been good to me.

Yahweh gives and Yahweh takes away; blessed be the Name of Yahweh!

Check out the new and improved WORSHIPFAN!!

Attention all you, Blogsters!  If you have ever read or liked (or even if you haven’t) my wife’s blog over at www.worshipfan.wordpress.com, please check out her brand new site (which replaces the old one) at simply www.worshipfan.net.

That’s right, you heard it here first–  click HERE and enjoy!!

Thought For The Day

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said:

If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:31-32

Survey Says??

Hear about this one?  USA Today reported Tuesday (click here for full article) on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.  So what does the Survey say?  What’s the landscape look like?

In a word, CHANGE.  As many in Christendom (and others who pay attention to such things) have been saying for awhile now, the church and religion in America has been in a major shuffle and shift.  What was easily recognizable and definable 10-15 years ago, or certainly even before that, is in a state of deep flux.  Consider some stats from the article:

• 44% say they’re no longer tied to the religious or secular upbringing of their childhood.
• 12.1% say their religious identity is “nothing in particular,” outranking every denomination and tradition except Catholics (23.9%) and all groups of Baptists (17.2%).
• 51.3% call themselves Protestant, but roughly one-third of this group were “unable or unwilling” to describe their denomination.
• 46% of foreign-born U.S. adults are Catholics, compared with only 21% of native-born adults. Latinos are now 45% of all U.S. Catholics ages 18-29.
• There are as many self-proclaimed pagans (0.3%) as there are Disciples of Christ, Orthodox Jews or Greek Orthodox.
• Nearly 20% of all men and 13% of all women are unaffiliated. So are 25% of adults under age 30.
• The major Christian denominations are losing numbers fast. Only non-denominational churches showed growth outpacing losses.

Ok, sometimes these kinds of surveys aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, but the Pew Forum has a pretty reputable voice, and I think the Church should be paying attention to some of the results (not that the results are that shocking).  Immigration, the recent “rise” of atheism in the public eye, the aging of traditional denominations, and the coming of age of a new generation (many of whom are not “affiliating” with a church or religion) should give us pause for thought.  Are we (the Church) adapting to the way the culture is flowing so that we can actually communicate and live out the story of God in the world?  Or are we clinging to the way we have done things in the past as the tide rises and changes around us?

The article concludes like this:

Will the USA’s dominantly Protestant cultural landscape soon be overwhelmed by these changes? “No, not so fast!” says church historian Diana Butler Bass, a senior fellow at the Cathedral College of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

“The Protestant worldview is deep in our political and literary cultures. There’s a Protestant ethos of individual conscience that will stick around a while longer, even if people aren’t strongly identified with a particular faith,” she says.

Still, she says, “these new voices mean you can’t do business as usual. There has to be an entire rethinking of how to do religion and what it means to be Christian in this new cultural context.”

I am aware that I have asked more question than I have answered; that was on purpose.  I believe we must all engage in that “rethinking of how to do religion and what it means to be Christian” so that we continue to love God, love our neighbor, and make disciples in this exciting, changing world that God loves.

See the Pew Forum’s full survey results by clicking here.