Ramblings of a Young Mom: Christianity

Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Understanding How Culture Views Christians

My Sunday School class has begun to look at different issues in our culture today in an attempt to understand them in a more indepth way. We are taking controversial issues like homosexuality, abortion, seven day creationism vs. science, treatment of women, etc. and attempting to answer 4 questions:

1) What does our culture say about this issue?
2) What do non-Christians think that the "Christian" position is on the issue? Are Christians viewed in a positive or negative light because of it?
3) What do I think about the issue?
4) What does the Bible actually say?

The best part about this endeavor is that we are posting the topics on this blog and asking for both Christians and non-Christians to be VERY OPEN AND HONEST with their reactions to these questions. This week we are talking about tolerance. If you have a few moments, please check it out here and leave us a comment. We really want to know what YOU think and believe, it can even be very negative towards our way of thinking.

Hopefully this goes without saying, but just in case, here goes: Please don't start a fight with other commenters. Respect the fact that we humans all have different opinions and beliefs.

Scott Boyd

Abraham Piper is encouraging his blogreaders to write on their own blogs why we appreciate our pastors. So here goes my attempt.

Pastor Scott has many great qualities, but the thing I appreciate the most about him is this:

He is who he is.

Sounds a bit zany, but the fact that he is himself is a big deal to me. Many pastors aren't. They feel the need to put on their church face, pretend their lives are perfect, say all the right things, point fingers but never admit to their own sinful nature. That gets old. People like realness. (Can I hear an amen?)

In talking to a friend who is a former pastor of a non-denominational church, I discovered that Southern Baptists have a reputation for regarding their pastors as pope-like figures--people to respect out of fear and to address in a very formal way. That's not Scott. Not in any way. In fact, if you know Scott for any length of time, you will probably joke around with him a lot. And if you decide to play basketball with Scott, expect the trash-talking to commence.

There is much more to be said about this, but I will end here for the sake of brevity. What do you appreciate about your pastor?