Viral Faith

  There are six things that the LORD hates,  seven things detestable to him:  snobbish eyes,  a lying tongue,  hands that spill innocent blood,  a heart set on wicked plans,  feet that run quickly to evil,  a false witness who breathes lies,  and one who causes conflicts  among relatives. (Proverbs 6:16-19 CEB) Culture has become the buzzword in leadership circles for the past 30 years. Leadership Guru Peter Drucker is quoted as saying, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." What he meant was that an organization's culture (the assumed, spoken, and unspoken roles, responsibilities, and relationships within an organization) is a better indicator of its success than a particular strategy or methodology.   Culture, according to Mosaics Church Pastor Harry Li is the assumed understanding of "how things get done".  The culture of an organization or a society is shaped by what is celebrated and prioritized.  For instance, a...

    Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers (Proverbs 21:15 NLT) The LORD spoke to me, taking hold of me and warning me not to walk in the way of this people:  Don’t call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy. Don’t fear what they fear, and don’t be terrified.  It is the LORD of heavenly forces whom you should hold sacred, whom you should fear, and whom you should hold in awe. (Is 8:11-13 CEB)   "Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions." (Mt 7:20 NLT) I was recently speaking with a leader in the denomination that I am part, and the leader, who I greatly respect, shared his ongoing concern and shock at the continued justification of violent and brutal behavior by Christian leaders.  He was correctly identifying the disconnect between civil religion, or nominal Christianity (those who identify as Christian but deny, deprioritize, and diminish the life, teachings, death and resu...

" Maybe the deepest tragedy of the Rwandan genocide is that Christianity didn't seem to make any difference" "It's too easy for Christianity to have no consequence in our world."  ~Emmanuel Katongole and Jonathan Hartgrove-Wilson in Mirror to the Church When the foundations are being destroyed,cwhat can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3 I have been reflecting on the dynamic between God and evil.  Specifically, the extension of God into this world: The Church and the manifestation of evil called suffering.  The question that continually comes into my mind in multiple different varieties is "Does the Authentic Church have redemptive influence on the world and its evil?".  Or sometimes I ask "just how much light is required to dispel darkness?" I have struggled with these thoughts for many years as I thought about the Civil rights movement of the United States and although it had a wide variety of self-identified Christians as its adh...