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Showing posts from August, 2012

The Purity Principle

Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you." (Joshua 3:5) In Christian circles, it became popular to talk about the "Chronos" and the "Kairos" time.  The first being the Greek word that describes linear time while the latter Greek word was used in the New Testament to describe a season or event that was to occur.  Too often, this "Kairos" concept was used by Christian Charlatans and prosperity teachers to tell you that your Kairos (your time or season) of prosperity was upon you and you simply needed to give them money to unleash the bountiful blessings of God.    However, I truly believe that God does have seasons of exceptional revelation for his people.  The great awakenings in American history were Kairos moments when God revealed himself to his people in ways that not only changed them individually, but changed entire societies.  Interestingly, Charles Finney, the 19th c

The Abounding Evil

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, Isaiah 64:6 Recently, I have been thinking about the nature of evil.  That malicious entity that is hard to define but identified quickly when experienced.  It is a destructive and dehumanizing force that is revealed in the actions, attitudes, and activities of people everywhere. This past week, I returned from Rwanda where I was immersed in a culture that had experienced some of the most heinous evil (genocide of 2 million people) I could ever imagine.  The idea that rational people could indiscriminately hack and bludgeon their neighbors, including children and infants is an unimaginable evil.  Its is numbing in its intensity and devastating in its scope. When I returned, I was greeted with the news that a former Youth Pastor at the church I pastor, was recently arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a minor.  Although I did not

Ingredients for Genocide

"Many churches during the genocide became places of death instead of places of life" Bishop Samuel Kayinamera, Free Methodist Church of Rwanda Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.  I Corinthians 10:6-7 I recently spent two weeks in the beautiful country of Rwanda.  Its hills, lakes and people make it a visually stunning place to witness and a loving place to experience..  It is a small, densely populated land locked nation in Central-Eastern Africa that has an agricultural basis of life that is often resource challenged.  Subsistence living is the way of life for the vast majority of Rwanda's people. Beneath the smiles, the tremendous hospitality, exuberant worship, and the sense of national hope, lies the horrific wound of genocide 18 years ago.  In this festering action from April through July of 1994, nearly 2 million of the 8 million inhabitants of Rwanda were systematically killed, tortured,