Kind or Nice?

by The RevNo Comments
Sunday night at our gathering we were spending time in Ephesians 4. During our conversation it struck me again how important it is for us to understand the difference between being “kind” and being “nice.” Verse 32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Paul doesn’t command us to be “nice.” He commands us to be “kind.” This distinction is very important for our relationships. This command to be kind ties back to verse 15, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” Kindness differs with niceness by the inclusion of truth. Kindness can be hard and can potentially cause pain. I asked the congregation what they thought was the difference between being nice and being kind. My son said this, “If your friend’s hair is messed up, the nice thing is to say, ‘Your hair is fine.’ But, the kind...
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The Day Is Coming!

by The RevNo Comments
Many people love Christmas. There’s a radio station in Detroit that has been playing Christmas tunes 24/7 for a few weeks. Christmas is nostalgic and beautiful. It tells the story of God the Son being born in humility to save the world. Christmas is great. But I love Advent! There is something special about the building excitement and anticipation of the season. The Christian new year begins with the first Sunday of Advent, not with Christmas. This communicates something intriguing about our faith. Advent plunges us into the already/not yet of our faith. Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, it is represented by the “Prophecy” candle. We read the following Scripture, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land....
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Tension

by The RevNo Comments
The Christian life is one of great tensions. Grace and truth. Mercy and justice. We live in the tension of these great ideas and concepts. Many of our theological debates center on which side is to have priority. In Ephesians 4:17–32 we see that this tension goes beyond belief. The very actions of the Christ follower is a life in tension. In this section Paul admonishes believers to “put off” their old selves and “put on” the new self. What is fascinating is that the new self is in some ways the old held in tension. Verses 26 and 27 say this, Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. (Ephesians 4:26–27 ESV) We often think of anger as being inherently sinful. How can anger be OK? Aren’t we supposed to be nice? You can’t really be both can you? This tension of “be angry and do not sin” is...
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Quiet in a LOUD World

by The RevNo Comments
If you’re like me, silence is uncomfortable. Sometimes it is almost unbearable. When I studied in college I needed noise, so the TV was always on. When I was in grad school, I needed noise, so I studied at the coffee shop. Now that I’m a pastor, I feel like I need the quiet. But I really struggle with knowing how to be quiet and embrace silence. These words from Eugene Peterson really struck me this morning, //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js How do you experience quiet? ...
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historical-nonfiction:

by The RevNo Comments
historical-nonfiction: Most of us are aware that sports, while supposedly an honorable contest of skills, is often anything but. WWE, for example, is a well-orchestrated show. And they’re just the most obvious about it. Well fixing matches is nothing new. The very first known bribery contract was found in a papyrus dated from the year 267 CE, which was salvaged from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1905. The transcription has been recently deciphered, and as expected the content is quite licentious. The papyrus details the ‘arrangement’ between two young wrestlers Nicantinous and Demetrius for a grand bout that was to take place in the city of Antinoopolis along the Nile bank. According to the evidence, Demetrius openly agrees to lose the match for a handy bribe of 3,800 drachmas (which was oddly close to the price for buying a donkey)! Man, I feel like this needs to be an ESPN 30 for 30! ...
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Believe Us When We Say We’re Hurting

by The RevNo Comments
twloha: “The stigma surrounding mental health boils down to one thing: that if pain can’t be measured or seen, it doesn’t exist. People believe that illnesses that cannot be detected with medical equipment can do no harm. But that one dangerous concept has a variety of stealthy disguises. ‘Smile! Others have it worse.’ ‘Your life is great!’ ‘But you always seem so happy.’ ‘If you ignore it, it will go away.’ Sentences filled with salt for our wounds.” - Sammy Nickalls, “Believe Us When We Say We’re Hurting” ...
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Where’s Your Heart?

by The RevNo Comments
A good friend asked me this question the other day. It might be the most important question that we can ask ourselves. With the Antioch Movement we are starting something called Huddles. These are high invitation and high challenge discipleship groups of 3–5 individuals or couples. We are looking to delve into kairos moments (kairos moments are those moments where we experience God breaking in..) in our lives to discover what the Father is inviting us into. How is he challenging us? In what ways is he calling us to step out in faith? So really the question is, “where’s my heart?” We keep asking and asking because as we wrestle with this question we find that we have kairos moments all over the place and miss them, usually. It is amazing what happens when you begin to try and see them. They are everywhere!*Where’s my heart?* I am looking at my heart these days through a triangle matrix of up, in,...
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In The Beginning

by The RevNo Comments
In The Beginning…I have been thinking about this post for a few days. How do you begin a 28 day blogging experiment? You begin at the beginning and the beginning is… Why?A friend, Todd Waller, has said that anything worth doing must begin with the an answer to the question, “Why?”I have been blogging for years. However, it has been marked by fits and starts. The concept of continuity and consistency has been largely lost on my blogging experience. Some weeks or months see a good number of blog posts. Then all of a sudden everything dries up. There are no words and there are no posts. So, this blog experiment is an act of discipline for me. Writing every single day, even if it’s not very good, it doesn’t matter. I am going to discipline myself to put something out: Every. Single. Day.The second reason is that I am intrigued by the Google+ platform. I have been reading some articles...
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What is a Human Being?

by The RevNo Comments
doubtontap: A commenter here at the blog said that, “A human being is a poorly organized mistake that couldn’t be destroyed because matter can’t be destroyed.” Is that all we are? Is to be a human simply to be a living mistake that can’t be destroyed? Isn’t there more to being a human being than this? That’s what we explored Tuesday night at The Corner Brewery. Read More ...
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It’s Me, Not You

by The RevNo Comments
I told Amy last night that I was taking a break from Facebook. I will drop links and such onto my account because there are things that are linked to Facebook but, I won’t really be there. I love Facebook Messenger and the ability it provides to communicate easily with people who I can’t text. I really dig our neighborhood Facebook group, so I will check in on those. But, the app is off my phone and tablet. I removed the quick link from Chrome. A friend asked why? It’s me. Not you. One of the things I noticed happening in me this weekend was how quickly annoyed I became whenever I bounced into Facebook. I reflected a lot during the day on Sunday about this (I vacuumed the house so I could just check out to think and pray) and I realized that the problem is my own heart. Ever since launching the Antioch Movement there have been these moments when we experience these...
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