Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 79

New Happy Rant: Southern Politeness, ESV Only, and Women Protesting

In this episode of the Happy Rant Podcast Ted, Barnabas, and Ronnie rant about  this, that, and the other thing as usual.

Southern Politeness and passive aggressiveness
A new movement – #ImWithUs
Altrogge’s new podcast . . . again
Is ESV the new KJV only?
Women’s protesting – good, bad, or otherwise?

Big thanks to Missional Wear for coming through in the clutch with amazing great for us too (after we recorded, thus the jokes). Get your Missional Wear Happy Rant gear HERE.

As usual we are immensely grateful to Resonate Recordings for doing all our mastering and editing. They make three audio hacks listenable. If you are looking for podcasting services head to ResonateRecordings.com and see what they offer.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #124

How to Succeed as an Internet Entrepreneur

Do you want to make money from expertise you don’t have? Do you want to create a product with little value and sell it for a lot? Do you want easy money? Well, the interwebs provides just such an opportunity. Simply follow these easy steps to riches and ease and and an utterly seemed conscience.

Decide you are a success despite a lack of any real success
Declare yourself a success publicly.
Use hashtags liberally.
Quote people who are actually successful.
“Borrow” some of their quotes and reword them as your own.
Post carefully edited (or stock) images of your work environment featuring coffee, moleskins, and good lighting.
Hashtag more.
Offer to help aspiring successes with their wild dreams and big visions.
Create instructions tell others how they too can be a success.
Simply tweak the same instructions given by numerous hucksters who preceded you.
Declare an exorbitant dollar value for your instructions.
Sell them for an amount less than half of the declared value.
Make money off suckers.
When sales slow do not be discouraged.
Declare yourself a success again.
Remember that the internet provides an endless supply of suckers.
Change format of instructions (print to pdf to video to live video and so forth) and sell them again.
Remember the internet has a six second memory and no accountability.
Repeat ad nauseum.
Boom. Success.

Beauty and Truth in Light and Darkness

If I say “beauty” what do you think of? Some will attach it to a person or a place. Some will think of art and others nature. Some will feel a feeling, more vague than physical or tactile. All will think or feel a thing that they want to experience again and every example will be good because beauty is good. It is a reflection of something, an echo. Beauty resonates and emanates with something of God else it isn’t beautiful.

Recently I saw La La Land and Manchester by the Sea in the same weekend; both were beautiful. (I’ll try not to reveal too much from the stories, but in case I stumble let this serve as a properly indicated spoiler alert.) The first was a movie built on hopes and dreams and aspirations and love. The second was built on hopelessness, shattered dreams, and love lost. La La Land was a bright movie where even the sad parts felt hopeful. Manchester by the Sea was dreary and dark where even the light moments felt heavy.

But both were beautiful for their artfulness and truthfulness. To be fair, though, nothing can be truly artful without also being truthful. As films, and I am no film critic or expert, they were masterfully done in their respective genres. They knew what they were and they did it well. The performances were tremendous across the board. The writing was brilliant. Both movies had magnificent scores that carried the viewer to precisely the right place at the right time to feel the right thing. But the real beauty was in the truth they displayed – the truth of hope and pain.

La La Land spoke to the dreamers and lovers and artists and those with aspirations. Manchester by the Sea spoke to those who have lost dreams and loves and all their aspirations. The former depicted chasing and building and climbing and the latter depicted coping and piecing life together, beginning by sweeping up the mess. The first lifted the viewer with possibilities and the second sat with him in a painful reality. The first promised and the second was not yet a place to offer much promise. In their own tones and circumstances both said, “You can make it.” And both were true.

Christians love the term “redemptive” so much that it might be closing on “gospel” (and all it’s various conjugations) as a term used so often for so many things it ceases to have real clear meaning. But I will use it anyhow because I don’t think we’ve yet arrived at that point.

Honesty is redemptive. Hope is redemptive. And both movies were honest and hopeful. They spoke to what is, what is required, and what could be. They depicted the pain of the process, and, in La La Land’s case, the incomplete-yet-still-satisfying fulfillment upon arrival at a destination. Manchester by the Sea showed little of destination and much of simply putting one foot in front of the other as we head out of devastation toward something better.

C.S. Lewis wrote about the feeling, the ache, that we have for something more and the sense that were are not made for this world and how that indicates were made for something better and somewhere else. These films tap into that, both the sense of emptiness and the hope for fulfillment. They elicit the sense of desire for something else or elsewhere, the need to be something else and go somewhere else. And in this way they are true, and truth is redemptive. And redemptive is beautiful

I wonder how to conclude this reflection on truth and beauty in film. The church boy in me thinks maybe I should offer a caveat of some kind about the content of the films, but no. You’re an adult and quite capable to react to that as your proclivities and sensitivities advise. Neither will I offer a blanket recommendation of these films because movies, like books and people, are as good as the circumstances in which we intersect with them. If we catch them – or they us – on the wrong day we get a bad impression.

So I conclude with this: I found beauty and truth in these films, beauty and truth as I have described as well as the simple beauty and truth of laughter and enjoyment and sadness and reflection. I found hope in multiple varieties, and I needed it. I found truth in the pain and pursuits of those on screen, and it encouraged me. I found a deep understanding of the world in which we live and echoes of the one we will one day inhabit.

New Happy Rant: Babylon Bee, Satire, and Playoff Football

In this episode of The Happy Rant podcast Ted, Barnabas, and Ronnie discuss the following:

Is the Babylon Bee ripping off our jokes?
How do we feel about satire in general?
Is Satire good for the Church and Christianity?
Playoff football observations and picks (once Ronnie heads out)

We have a new sponsor this week – Watch: Wide-Awake Faith in a World Fast Asleep by Rick James (no, not that Rick James). To be asleep is to be oblivious to being oblivious. And for the follower of Jesus, it’s just as dangerous?because the Christian who is “asleep” is spiritually unreceptive. In this thoughtful, engaging, challenging book, Rick James dives deep into the New Testament’s teachings on spiritual wakefulness, calling Christ-followers to defy the darkness and remain awake as they await Christ’s return.

Thanks to our sponsor, Logos 7, newly released in late 2016. If you are a pastor, teacher, or student check out this Bible Study resource software.

As usual we are immensely grateful to Resonate Recordings for doing all our mastering and editing. They make three audio hacks listenable. If you are looking for podcasting services head to ResonateRecordings.com and see what they offer.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #123

When a Marriage Dies

Eleven and a half years- that’s how long it lasted. Eleven and half years of marriage and then gone. It ended in death, though nobody died. Just the marriage. I say just, but it is a death as much as any person. When she told me she was finished it was like a knock at the door from the police chaplain – utter shock, not real, numbness, anger, fear. Lots of fear. Or was it grief? C.S. Lewis wrote about how grief felt so much like fear, so maybe it was that.

By the time it ended and the signed order from the judge came through it wasn’t shock any more. It was the final breath of one dying from a wasting disease, a rattling soft whiff that passed with so little fanfare it felt almost illegal given the celebration that started its life and the effort that had gone into keeping it alive. It’s strange how a marriage begins with a party attended by everyone you love (and a few you’re obliged to invite) and ends with naught but a signed document passed from judge to clerk to postman.

The grief was softer too, though no less strong. It was not a raucous, raging thing but rather the constant ache of something missing. I’ve read of soldiers having had limbs amputated yet still being able to feel the limb that is gone. They feel pain where there is no appendage to hurt. This is that pain, or is it grief? It’s hard to tell, and maybe it is both.

2016 was a year of losses celebrities, heroes, icons, and American hope and decency all seemed to pass away. For me it was the year I lost my marriage. Actually that’s not true. It was the year the loss of my marriage was completed. It had been dying for a long time despite every effort to resuscitate and recuperate it. It just did not want to live any longer because, unlike kidneys, one cannot make up for the loss of the other and do the work of two.

I write. I write to process and to share. I write because I communicate better and more deeply this way than any other way and because it is the taproot of my emotions and beliefs. This means to write well I must be honest, to put forth words that reflect what is real in me, my heart, my life, my faith. Honesty doesn’t mean utter transparency – life can (should) still be private. It should be shared with real people in real moments of real life, not just in print. But the best writing, the kind that means anything, is honest writing.

It must not pose as something it is not or come from a place that does not exist. It ought not give the reader an impression things are one way when they are quite another. And if writing must not do these things it means the writer must not, since without the latter there is no former. So I write this now, reader, so you will know the place from which I write. It is not a confession. It is not a memoir or an exposé. Neither is it an argument for or against anything. It is simply a writer revealing his context a bit so that his readers, if they care, can know from whom they hear.

MY PLACE

While these last years have been ferociously difficult for me they have been the proving ground for God to me. Never have I been lower and never has He been closer or greater. I do not say this in a Bible-band aid way. No band-aid has stopped the bleeding yet – yet. But God has given me life as I bleed – through His word and His people. I feel as if I am dying daily and yet I am as alive in faith as I have ever been. The tattoo adorning my right forearm – I believe, help my unbelief – has been inked on my heart as well.

And strangely I believe more in marriage now than I ever have. I believe it is worth fighting for and investing in. I belief it is worth pain and tears and patience and forgiveness and then doing all of that again and again. I believe it is a gift, a gift that God gives and gives and gives each day. It only ends when one or both stop accepting the gift any longer. I see marriage as a miracle, designed by God and utterly dependent on Him.

And I believe life is lived offline, with people who are in my life – friends and loved ones and counselors. There are those who write stories of their ups and downs and life’s ebbs and flows – relational trials, work crises, personal struggles – and it works for them and their readers. I am not one nor will I ever be. My life is still private and my own, not to hide anything but for my own sanity and health (and yours too). But from life writing flows, so life must, in some manner and to some extent, be shared. So I share.

WHY WRITE THIS?

I question my own motives in writing this. Is it sordid? Is it to gain sympathy? Is it to avoid criticism or worse, to benefit from the publicity criticism brings? Lord, I hope not.

I want to be forthright and honest. People feel deceived when they sense a thing is hidden or when it is confirmed it was. I want to be able to write freely without feeling as if a portion, a defining portion, of my life must be concealed for no reason other than privacy. I want to be able to write about faith and life in all the ways I have before without tap dancing around the land mines of marriage and love and pain. So I write this to diffuse the explosives, or maybe explode them in a controlled environment.

My hope is that readers will trust me as much or more after reading this. Or maybe they are disappointed or offended; if so I understand. I do not offer an explanation or any details – those are for those close and invested to know. But I offer this piece as a show of respect, for the relationship (if that is the word) I have with readers through the written word and the common pursuit of truth. I want to be trusted and not just trusted – trustworthy.

And I write this for reality, to reflect what is in the world where we live. Life is brutal and hurts so much there are not words. Yet we live it. I write in the midst of it. We read looking for something because of it. And God is good in the midst of it and hope shines through the darkness of it. These do not make pain dissipate nor do they take us away from it. We still live this life, and write it. So we must plod ahead, in hope, together.

Happy Rant #121 – TGC, Rousey, Proposed Cage Matches, and Books We Didn’t Finish

In an unusually tired and disinterested episode Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas rant half heartedly about the following:

TGCs response to women’s MMA and Ronda Rousey
RHE’s twitter fight with TGC about women’s MMA
Proposed cage matches between TGC and various Twitter opponents
Books we started but did not finish

Thanks to our sponsor, Logos 7, newly released in late 2016. If you are a pastor, teacher, or student check out this Bible Study resource software.

As usual we are immensely grateful to Resonate Recordings for doing all our mastering and editing. They make three audio hacks listenable. If you are looking for podcasting services head to ResonateRecordings.com and see what they offer.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #121

12 Ways to Be a Curious Person

Curiosity doesn’t have a recipe. It’s not like baking cookies. If it was, it wouldn’t be very curious, would it? Curiosity differs for everyone. Some people are finders and connectors. Some people are miners who go deep on a single subject and drill to great depths. Both need the other and benefit from their respective differences. For some people, curiosity is highly relational; for some it’s actionable, and for some it’s conceptual. Again, each is good and according to the gifts and propensities God has given them. The list that follows seeks to offer practical steps for curiosity of any cut, color, or kind.

1) BE INTERESTED

If you believe the world is uninteresting it will be for you. And you will miss everything amazing going on around you. You will miss all the amazing people and ideas and natural occurrences and creation. To be interested is a decision because our natural inclination is to shrink life to something manageable whereas being interested expands life dramatically. We must assume that God did not make a boring world. To assume He did would be to dishonor Him. And if He didn’t make a boring world who are we to live as it is not worth our attention. Make the decision to tune in.

2) BE HUMBLE

Do not assume anyone or anything has nothing to offer you. If God made it then it has value, and if it is a person then he or she bears God’s imprint the same as you. It is arrogance to treat anyone or anything as valueless and uninteresting. If then, all created things have value and hold interest we should ask questions, and only humble people are free to do this. Asking questions is an admission of ignorance and a tacit statement of need. Pride abhors this stance. Proud people are embarrassed to ask questions and to look vulnerable. Pride kills curiosity quicker than anything. So foster humility by constantly looking at the expanse of God, his creation, and all you don’t yet know about it.

3) LOOK

Looking is not the same as seeing. Seeing develops with time, like an infant learning to track a parent’s finger then see a face then see the room. Looking is the intentional exercise of doing just that – viewing the world, glancing about, seeing what there is to see. It is a habit of trying to see . . . something. You know it is there – whatever it is – because you know God made a complex, fascinating world and it never fails to offer something about which to be curious. Before you can notice you must be looking, so make a habit of it. Look at the people around you, the weather, the architecture of your city, the topography of your county, something. Try to notice something you’ve missed day in and day out on your commute to work or in your neighborhood. Until you begin looking and noticing things of little significance you’ll never be develop the ability to see more significant things.

4) LISTEN

Listening is looking with your ears. It is tuning in to the voices and the sound track and sound effects of your world. Every day you hear thousands of words and noises. You hear phrases that are funny, but you don’t notice them. You hear accents but you can’t place them or imitate them. You hear sirens but don’t know they’re from a fire engine or a police car. A snippet of information or an inspirational quote rolls right out of that podcast and past you because you tuned out. The old guy at the table next to you at the diner has the funniest figures of speech, but none that come to mind right now. A co-worker told a really funny story, like so funny your ribs hurt from laughing, about . . . something. Every morning you walk to your car and miss the song the dove is singing or the breeze is playing. You need develop the habit of listening the same way you develop the habit of looking. Too much is happening around you not to notice and tune in.

5) RECORD

We have terrible memories. How many times have you told yourself “I’ll take care of that when I get home form work” only to forget that you had anything to take care of, let alone what it was? How often do you walk into a room to do something, but what was it again? All the looking and listening will accomplish nothing at all unless we take note of it, or should I say take notes of it. Write down your observations. Use your phone or a notebook or a napkin or something. I use Evernote on my phone and computer or Apple’s Notes app. They are my preference because they’re easy and they sync between devices. In Bird by Bird Anne Lamott writes about always taking note cards with her to jot down things that catch her ear or eye – a scene, a phrase, a sound. Regardless of your method or the implements you use, just take notes.

6) ASK

Questions are the currency of curiosity. But unlike other currency there is no withdrawal limit and they multiply themselves. Spend liberally. Do not be embarrassed to ask; remember that asking someone an honest question shows respect to their expertise and their personal story. Asking someone a question honors them, so ask away. Ask individuals so you can hear their perspectives. Ask experts so you can hear the details and depth. Ask resources (books, Google, documentaries, etc.) to get facts. Ask yourself to see if you really understand and where your blind spots are. In any situation come with a few questions prepared.

7) GO AND EXPLORE

It takes a conscientious decision to step outside our lane, to get out of the wheel rut our life rolls down. But curiosity demands it. Otherwise our discoveries will be limited to our daily life and be relegated to mere ideas because we can do nothing about them. Exploring might mean crossing the street or it might mean crossing the Ocean. What it must mean is stretching ourselves and likely getting uncomfortable. Some people will travel the world, but many people simply need to discover other neighborhoods in their own city. Going means saying yes to new opportunities – a job or position, a short term mission trip, white water rafting, a new Vietnamese restaurant, deep sea fishing, playing tennis for the first time.

8) TRY THINGS

Trying is like exploring but can be done much closer to home. It is less about geography and more about experiences. Try a new recipe for dinner every week or two, maybe something Indian or Vietnamese or otherwise outside your normal palate. Try conversing with neighbors you’ve waved to but never engaged. Try listening to a new band or reading a new genre of books. Try a new hobby. Commit to it; don’t just test it out once. Try until you learn or have an experience to record.

9) READ

Books are a universe unto themselves. They transport readers to different times and places, to worlds that exist only in an imagination, to the life of another person altogether, to concepts and ideas. Books are information and stories and inspiration and instruction. I am preaching to the choir here since you, dear reader, are a reader. But I simply do not understand people who do not read (or listen if reading is a particular hardship). To not read is it to the mind as not eating is to the body. Try to read a few minutes a day, maybe ten or fifteen. You will find that you consume far more pages and books than you imagined possible. Don’t worry about people who write “The top fifty books I read last year” blog posts. Just compete with yourself, to improve, to absorb, to consume.

10) WHAT ELSE?

This is the one of the most important question of a curious mind. Always ask “What else is there?” It is the mental equivalent of continuing to look and listen and explore and try. It keeps the door open for further discovery. And it acknowledges that God’s creations – human or otherwise – are always more complex and amazing than we initially see. Asking “What else?” allows us to find connections between people or ideas that we might have otherwise missed. It drives us deeper. “What else?” keeps curiosity moving.

11) CONCENTRIC CIRCLES

Curiosity as a concept is overwhelming because it can point any direction and start seemingly anywhere. If someone is trying to develop curious habits the best place to do so is close to home. The best thing to do is to apply the previous habits in your own life, relationships, home, and family and then work outward. You will find two significant benefits from this pattern. First is that it is more manageable and fits inside the life you already lead. You don’t have to dramatically change everything. The second major benefit is that it will bring growth and vibrancy to your world. You cannot change the other side of the world by becoming curious about it, but you can change the world of your family and friends and co-workers.

12) ALWAYS RETURN TO SCRIPTURE

Curiosity is about God and for God. It is an expression of worship and it honors Him by exploring the depths and breadth of His creation and nature. If we are to do something that honors God then we must know Him and scripture is where He reveals Himself, where He tells what we need to know for a right and vibrant relationship with Him. For this reason scripture is where our curiosity should be directed first and most consistently, not as a book or a text or a resource but as a revelation of our Creator. We should apply every step – look, listen, record, ask, explore, try, and read – to it with rigor and constancy. Without scripture all our other curiosity is at great risk of pursuing falsehood. Scripture is our plumb line, our compass. Every discovery we make can be stacked up against it, so we must, must, return to it time and again.

As I said at the beginning, this is not a recipe for Curiosity. These are elements of curiosity, ingredients which can be mixed in various quantities with two exceptions: we must always be humble and we must always rely on Scripture. Other than those two mix and match and sequence and build.

If you would like to explore further and take a short (FREE) evaluation of your own curiosity visit CuriousChristianBook.com.

Life is Not Lived Online

I live my life online. So do you, probably. We share everything – every event and crisis and first day of school and pretty plate of food and new place we visit. We are compelled to comment on everything, or at least to like it so the poster knows we are engaged. We share intimate family moments and difficult personal ones. We are authentic in the least vulnerable way possible. The online way.

Because life is not lived online. In fact, online is not a place or a thing. It is real but is an alternate reality. No matter how “real” we seek to be online it is never really life. Because life is lived here and now with people in places thinking thoughts and saying words and doping actions. That is life.

Life is not actually a public affair. It is not for the consumption of others. Yet we seek to shove our lives into the public alternate reality of social media for all to see. We are confused. The term “friend” no longer means friend. We calculate the significance of our moments by likes never considering if we liked the moment. We take the vulnerable moments of grief, pain, struggle, anger, and confusion – moments to be tended with as much care as an infant in the NICU – and expose them to the elements of that other universe, the online one.

We make public what is lived privately and likely ought to stay that way. We feel dishonest or inauthentic for keeping our lives to ourselves. “Lives are meant to be shared,” we think.

No. Lives are meant to be lived to the fullest extent we know how.

The more we take our lives online the more we lose to a reality that is not ours. It is a sacrifice, a giving of ourselves to others who care little for us and are merely consumers. We become prisoners of comparison, constantly comparing our moments to others’ rather than simply appreciating them. We are bound by a weird sense of obligation to engage and respond to others’ moments or thoughts in just the right manner so that we are seen in the tight light – to express our sorrow at their grief or to like their photo quickly after it is posted. We strive for a persona, a “real” persona in an environment that is not reality. We are not being false (at least not most of us) and neither is social media fake – it simply lacks the multi-dimensional richness of life.

Life is lived in conversation and in private. It is the interactions between people in places about ideas or challenges. It is pain that cannot be solved online and pleasure that social media lacks the facets to reflect. It is physical and emotionally complex to the point of confusion. It is spiritually profound beyond words. The Internet cannot hold real life. Instagram cannot capture it. Facebook cannot explain it or argue it into submission. And 140 characters is hardly a glimpse of it. We live life her and now and there tomorrow. Nowhere else.

What is the value of social media, then? Of the dim reflection of reality the online universe reflects? The value is in what it brings to real life. Anything outside that is nothingness and fake. But it does bring value, and how!

Social media creates connections between people – real people – to meet and engage in a context that is real. It allows real people, real friends, to keep up with some of the basic happenings of each other’s lives (not the deep happenings – those are offline engagements) and reminds us of whom we might have forgotten about for too long. It is a means for discovering ideas and discovering who is saying what about what ideas, and those ideas and influencers are things that we can take with us into life. It provides humor and entertainment which might provide a necessary escape from life or may improve our spirits in it.

Any way that the online universe enhances real life is a good thing. Any way that it robs us of life or robs life of us is a detriment. Because life is not lived online. Life is lived here and now. And there tomorrow.

NEW HAPPY RANT: Pastor’s Kids & Christmas and “Seriously, 2016?”

In the first episode of what promises (we hope) to be a better year than last Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas discuss the following:

Trips to Israel
Jon Acuff’s Tweet about Pastors’ Kids leaving the faith because of too many Christmas services
2016 and people’s overwrought reactions to it
Various and sundry other wanderings

Thanks to our sponsor, Logos 7, newly released in late 2016. If you are a pastor, teacher, or student check out this Bible Study resource software.

As usual we are immensely grateful to Resonate Recordings for doing all our mastering and editing. They make three audio hacks listenable. If you are looking for podcasting services head to ResonateRecordings.com and see what they offer.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #120

NEW HAPPY RANT: The Top 10 Things of 2016

This is our final podcast of 2016, so we will end it the way every savvy blogger or online platform builder ends their year – with a top 10 list designed to impress you, the listener, with our impressive observations and accomplishments.

OR we will list things we kind of enjoyed.

Enjoy.

As always, this episode is brought to you by Resonate Recordings. Mark and Jake do a phenomenal job with a whole range of audio services and have saved our bacon more than once (like this week). Check them out at ResonateRecordings.com.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #119