Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 97
February 1, 2016
New Happy Rant: Why Comedies Don’t Win Oscars, Advice for our Younger Selves, and Churches Using Business Principles
In this newest episode of the Happy Rant, Ted, Ronnie, and I wrangle some absolutely pressing topics – things that keep people up at night. We bring clarity. We bring wisdom. We bring snark. Here they are:
Comedies are often the most memorable movies. People love them. So why don’t they ever win Oscars?
If we could go back in time and talk to our 20-year-old selves what advice would we give? And would we even listen to that advice?
Churches are not businesses, so how should they use business principles? Or should they at all?
We have a new sponsor this week too – Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are by Leonce Crump (Waterbrook/Multnomah, February 2016). Renovate is a fantastic book for any church planter, missionary, or believer seeking to see his or her neighborhood transformed by the gospel. Crump, the founding pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta, draws on his own experience and a wealth of biblical principles to show how developing a deep love for one’s neighborhood is just the thing God often uses to change hearts and ‘hoods. Renovate releases on February 16, and you should definitely preorder it now.
Big thank you to Resonate Recordings, the fine folks who make us sound listenable. If you are looking for great people to help your church put out recorded sermon audio or help you with a podcast they’re your people. T
Feel free to hit us up on Twitter at @HappyRantPod or on Facebook or via email at HappyRantPodcast@Gmail.com with any topic suggestions or feedback. We love hearing from listeners!
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 #73
January 28, 2016
Stop Working for The Weekend
Friday’s coming. I can’t wait. I’m just working for the weekend right now. It’s almost here.
Some weeks are like that – we’re so tired or worn down that we’re thinking about the next Friday during Monday’s commute to the office. If it’s only the occasional week it’s normal. If it’s a few weeks in a row we’re due for a vacation. But if working for the weekend is the norm we’ve gotten things twisted.
We don’t work to rest and play; we rest and play to work. That’s how God made us. We are designed to work, and because of that design we should find great satisfaction in the activity of working. We may not love our particular jobs sometimes, but we should always love work.
God gave us the Sabbath and labor unions earned us a second day off. That rest is a gift, just like work. Even as we were created to work we were created to need rest, to take breaks, to trust that God will provide even if we don’t earn for a bit. But this rest is not the end; it is the means. It’s the means to recharge our mental and physical batteries so that we can find satisfaction in work and work well. If we make rest the aim we’ve turned God’s design upside down.
If this is the position you find yourself in, do these three things.
1) Examine your heart.
Working for the weekend is lazy and likely idolatrous. It means that your personal comfort is foremost in your. It means that your heart is not engaged in your work and, in fact, has completely missed the point of work as a gift. To work for the weekend means that you are working for the wrong reasons and not even finding those – for money, for personal or emotional fulfillment, to create or polish your image and identity. But work should be done “as unto the Lord” or “for the Lord.” We don’t work for the weekend; we work for the creator. When we lose sight of Him we begin to work for ourselves, and when that inevitably disappoints all we are left with is the hope of a decent couple days off.
2) Examine your gifts.
God made you with a special set of skills. Not Liam Neeson special, but special nonetheless. He made you unique and with unique passions. Once you have committed your heart to work as unto the Lord then taking stock of those gifts is essential. What are you good at? What do you love to do? If those do not align with your current job in some way you are only going to experience vocational friction. This doesn’t mean they need to line all the way, or even most of the way. But you will be much more likely be able to work with satisfaction, in a God-honoring way f you can find some meaningful way to out the gifts he’s given you to use in your job.
3) Examine your job.
Meaningful work looks different for different people because of the uniqueness with which God designed us. For some meaningful work might be selling bonds or financial services, for others it is preaching, for many it is parenting, for others creating art, and for others it’s manual work and craftsmanship. None of these is more meaningful than the others; the question is whether the worker finds the meaning in it? And that has a lot to do with whether he or she is exercising God-given gifts and passions. Meaningful work means that you see a purpose in it and you see your place in it. It is the right position with the enough right opportunities. Sometimes this is a temporary thing – meaningful for a few months. Other times it might be a career to settle into for decades. The question is are you able to do your job as unto the Lord, using the abilities He has given you to represent Him well?
If the answer to that is yes, even if it is difficult – and thanks to Adam it always is – then you won’t work for the weekend. You’ll work for God and be thankful for the weekend.
January 27, 2016
No Self-Made Stars
Would Tom Brady be Tom Brady without coach Bill Belichick? Would he be the greatest quarterback of a generation, or maybe ever, and have won four Super Bowls? Not likely. Of course, Belichick would not be heading a dynasty in New England if he and Brady hadn’t teamed up either.
The same is true for every great team in history. Michael Jordan needed Scottie Pippen in Chicago, and they both needed coach Phil Jackson. That New York Yankees dynasty of the late ’90s and early aughts was far more than Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich is just another good NBA coach without Tim Duncan falling in his lap in 1997, and Duncan might have been Karl Malone without Pop. Tiger Woods was taught golf as a toddler. Venus and Serena Williams’ parents moved them out of Compton so they could get elite coaching.
There are no self-made superstars, only talented people given unique opportunities and running with them. Yet we most often credit the individual’s effort for success.
. . .
It’s simpler to formulate a success recipe that says hard work equals big gains. It’s neater to assume that the most talented will rise to the top. It gives us a basic structure for climbing the ladder, knowing the next steps, and finding our ceiling. We like a tidy merit-based system that says people earn all they have.
No doubt it takes talent and sweat to rise to the top, but it’s foolish and disingenuous to assume that those at the top got there by themselves and those who didn’t lack work ethic or ability. What gets people to the top is talent, hard work, and opportunities—the kind of opportunities only God can orchestrate. If you are honest about your life, every success you ever had came from an opportunity you didn’t create. You may have pursued it. You may have looked for it. But God provided it just like He provided the talent and ability to do something with it.
The measure of success is what you do with the opportunities you’re given—stewardship. To some much will be given, and they ought to do great things. Others will toil just as hard and be given little, but both can be equally great stewards.
. . .
Read the full post HERE.
January 25, 2016
New Happy Rant: Books that Need to Be Movies, Helicopter Parents, and Charity Businesses
In this episode you’ll notice something new. That intro, so hot right now. Thanks to Ronnie J. Martin for finally officially moving us into the current eras of happy ranting. We also rant about a few other, more significant things.
What books would be awesome if they were made into movies? And which ones might be . . . not awesome?
What effect is all this helicopter parenting having on kids? Will they be productive members of society? Will they be any earthly good?
What’s the deal with charities functioning as business? Or is it businesses using charity to market? Why can’t charities just be charities?
ig thank you to Resonate Recordings, the fine folks who make us sound listenable. If you are looking for great people to help your church put out recorded sermon audio or help you with a podcast they’re your people. T
Feel free to hit us up on Twitter at @HappyRantPod or on Facebook with any topic suggestions or feedback. We love hearing from listeners!
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 #72
January 22, 2016
The Realest Authenticity
Authenticity is one of the greatest values of our day. And I don’t just mean a cultural value, though it is that. Cultural values are often lies based on the worship of self or some other false god. But authenticity is an actual value. In a world of false fronts and internet perceptions and lack of close relationships it is like finding treasure to find people who are truly themselves, hide nothing, and do not deceive.
Even as I write that, though, I realize the vagueness of it. After all, what is authenticity? Is it being open, being honest, and being vulnerable? Yes. Is it leaving no thought unspoken, revealing too much too son, and dumping your crap on others? No.
The truest authenticity, the best authenticity is humble. Authenticity without humility is a lie.
We cannot be authentic without being humble because otherwise we are presenting a false version of ourselves. We are putting ourselves forth as something better than reality, revealing those aspects of ourselves that might make people think better of us. This doesn’t mean we only say good things – that would be far too obvious a lie. It means we say the less glamorous things in just such a way as to garner sympathy or gain trust without actually risking hurt or exposing pain.
If we lack humility our “authenticity” is based in a misunderstanding of who we are, so what we authentically project to the world is not real. We end up deceiving people by accident as they believe us to be something we are not and we do not know we are not. Or we manipulate them on purpose in order to get them to trust what we are not.
Authenticity without humility is a burden to others. It does not serve them. It does not soothe them. It takes from them, holds them to a false standard, sets them up for a fall. It demands things of others instead of asking self-effacingly for the help we need. In the end people are in relationship with a false you, and when that falls apart the wreckage affects all involved.
Most significantly, lack of humility means that your “authenticity” makes you the hero of your story. We are so steeped in story, so enamored with broken, vulnerable heroes, that we position ourselves as such. We show weakness to highlight strength, and often we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Our authenticity is a carefully situated uniform to make us look great.
Only humility allows God to be the hero of our story and lets us reveal those things about ourselves that we would otherwise veil. Only humility helps us see when the right time to share hard truths is and when it’s best to wait lest we harm or burden another. Only humility helps us set ego aside and share our needs with others. Only humility does not spin a truth or look for the perfect, desirable reaction. In each of these actions we are revealing our true selves – the self in need of God’s grace, not the hero. Without humility thee is no authenticity and without that there is no place for others to see God working.
January 21, 2016
Owning Your Failures
Sometimes a thing happens that you anticipate, that you’ve seen happen many times before, but it still surprises you. For me that thing happened Sunday in the Minnesota Vikings–Seattle Seahawks NFC wild-card playoff game when Vikings’ kicker Blair Walsh shanked a game-winning 27-yard field goal with just seconds left. I’m accustomed to football heartbreak—I’m a Vikings fan after all. I saw Gary Anderson’s miss in the 1998 NFC championship game and Brett Favre’s interception in the 2009 NFC championship game. This heartbreak isn’t new, but goodness, it stings every time.
Just moments after bellowing “NO!” at the TV and then sinking back onto my couch it dawned on me that someone else was stung much worse than I was: Blair Walsh, who just blew the game, the season. He had a chance to win it and he failed. Then many fans turned on him with hateful, vile social media posts. How awful must he feel?
The way Walsh handled his failure is a lesson for us all. He was crushed. He felt the full weight of letting his team and its beleaguered fan base down. He felt the pain more pointedly than anyone else in that stadium or watching on TV from five states away. We know this because he admitted it publicly.
. . .
He did not shy away from critique or questions. He didn’t hide or give a “no comment.” He respected the job reporters had to do and the desire of the fans to hear from him. Walsh committed to improving and to come back better next season. He knew his response would not change things, but it was exactly the right way to handle critics and squelch their ire.
From one perspective we ought to expect such a response from someone who made a mistake. None of Walsh’s actions were exceptional in themselves, but they were remarkable because of their rarity. He showed humility and empathy to the fans’ pain and frustration and faced their criticism. It’s so rare to see a public figure frankly apologize and admit his failure, so much so that Walsh’s unexceptional actions were actually quite exceptional.
. . .
Do we have the humility and self-awareness to respond like Blair Walsh did? Can we apologize without caveats, own our failure, and commit to improvement? Painful as it is, no other response so satisfies the conscience or diminishes conflict.
Read the full article HERE.
January 20, 2016
Just Living Your Life Isn’t Enough
Most of us just live our lives. We live by routine and stay in our lane. Our lives carve tracks that we follow day after day, month after month. And for most people that kind of steady consistency is the ideal. Anything outside of that track is an interruption, a nuisance, or even a crisis.
We make decisions based on this narrow track. What do I need to live my life better? What will help me be a better employee, parent, student, or spouse? What will simplify and enhance my life? These are our filters. And we ignore all that doesn’t fit through the filter. It’s not that those other things are necessarily bad. It’s that they don’t matter. At least to us.
The result is that we shrink our lives. We shrink them to our own needs (or perceived needs) and preferences and schedules and commitments. We shrink the margins of our life to leave room for a little relaxation, a little personal betterment, a little Netflix. We seek to know what we must and little more. We ask those questions that progress us down our track and few others.
J.R.R. Tolkien, in his classic story, The Hobbit, describes a race of beings who sound strikingly like us in the Western world. They live simple lives and love their food and drink. They are suspicious of the outside world, even fearful, but are fascinated by tales of it. In short they desire simple lives with the right amount of pleasure and the occasional tale of what happens “out there” across the borders of the Shire, their home.
We are real life hobbits, seeking peaceful lives centered on daily needs, basic comforts, a little gossip and some good parties. We want to handle our business, do our work, and be compensated fairly for it. But we really want the outside world to stay outside. Don’t invade our Shire. And don’t expect me to go on any adventures or quests into the great unknown, and especially not with anybody strikingly different than I. I get the adventure I need from watching reality TV, nature documentaries, and listening to missionaries talk about the other side of the world. If I get really adventurous I can go find a video on YouTube of someone doing parkour on the Eiffel Tower or something.
But then our carefully directed and graded track intersects and merges with another, that of someone whose experiences wildly diverges from our own. A wizard, as it were, knocks on our door or a pile of dwarves devours everything in our pantry and sings a tale of a dragon. Now our shrunken life isn’t enough to make sense of their life. We’ve heard rumor of such people and such experiences, but they were much more palatable online. We don’t understand and we don’t understand how to understand. We don’t know what questions to ask or what resources to use. We have suppressed and excluded curiosity for so long that we no long have any idea where to find it or how to use it. We are stuck.
Conflict happens. Friction happens. Empathy is nowhere to be found because empathy requires walking a mole in their shoes but we don’t know where to walk or even how. We are inert, lost, frustrated and confused.
This is an excerpt from the book I am currently writing, The Curious Christian (working title) that is due to be released in early 2017.
January 18, 2016
New Happy Rant: An Epic Game of “Would You Rather”
Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas take on listener-submitted “would you rather questions such as the following:
Would you rather talk predestination with a college undergrad or a Kindergartener?
Would you rather only be able to wear 90’s Christian t-shirts or have to sport a man bun?
Would you rather have sat courtside to see Michael Jordan or have been in the front row for Michael Jackson?
These are just a sampling, so tune in for the full, tense, agonizing, nail-biting discussion.
Big thank you to Resonate Recordings, the fine folks who make us sound listenable. If you are looking for great people to help your church put out recorded sermon audio or help you with a podcast they’re your people. T
Feel free to hit us up on Twitter at @HappyRantPod or on Facebook with any topic suggestions or feedback. We love hearing from listeners!
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 #71
January 14, 2016
What “Seventy times Seven” Means
Forgiveness is hard. To willingly and willfully give up your claim on another person because of a wrong done by them is trying.
One of the most famous and most quoted passages on forgiveness is Matthew 18:21 & 22 where Peter asks if he must forgive someone who sins against him even as much as seven times and Jesus gives the famous response: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
The obvious and correct interpretation of this passage is that there must be immense forgiveness for wrongs committed against us, many times more than our human nature is comfortable with. We are to be rich in grace toward those who wrong us over and over again and thus forgive them over and over again for their various offenses. For, if we have been forgiven thousands of times over for our wrong doings by Christ, how can we not also forgive others?
But there is a second interpretation, complimentary to the first, which I think is also true and equally as important. And that is this: we are to forgive the wrong doer seventy times seven for the same single sin against us.
When someone hurts us deeply it is not as simple as to forgive them and be done with it. It’s not that simple because the hurt runs deep and keeps hurting days, months, years after the initial offense. It’s not that easy because certain words, places, circumstances, or conversations remind us of the hurt over and over again. And it’s not that simple because we’re sinners. When we forgive, it is eroded by our own heart’s bitterness and undermined by our own self-righteousness. It is forgotten in fits of self-pity or anger. Our forgiveness is not a finished or eternal offering.
So we must forgive that single person for that single hurt not just once, or seven times, but seventy times seven. Every time we face those certain words, places, circumstances, or conversations that bring the hurt back we must choose to forgive again.
This kind of forgiveness is, in my experience, the hardest to do, and that’s because the kinds of offenses that require it are the most hurtful. It’s one thing to forgive a brash, loud-mouthed co-worker over and over again because they manage to be offensive with every other sentence. It’s another thing entirely to forgive, daily, the spouse or parent or friend who has undermined your credibility or betrayed your trust. But it is good.
Seventy times seven means far more – but never less – than forgive each time you are wronged. It means forgive offenses to completion even if that means a daily, or even hourly, decision to let the debt go.
January 12, 2016
7 Reasons Sports Matter So Much to So Many
Last week the baseball hall of fame announced their 2016 inductees, the NCAA Football championship game is fast approaching, and the NFL playoffs begin. Combine that with the NBA and NHL seasons and college basketball hitting mid-season stride and sports is near to peak excitement. Stories and debates and social media buzz abounds; it’s hog heaven for sports media and fans.
With the fervor at such a pitch I couldn’t help but wonder why. Why do sports matter so much to so many? Why do these games and these votes for entrance into a museum raise such ire and passion and zeal? Here are seven reasons people are so invested.
1) The Thrill
Sports are sheer, unadulterated fun. They provide moments of tension and excitement with regularity and intensity like no other entertainment or activity.
2) Identity
When tens of thousands of fans walk into a stadium or arena wearing the same colors they are part of something bigger than themselves. For some this is just a cool experience, but for others it’s much more than that.
3) Filling a Void
To some fans that experience of being part of something fills a hole in their lives. For others the whole thing is a needed distraction from some hardship or pain in their lives, an uplifting few moments between real life’s difficulties.
4) Wonder
A roar goes up from the crowd. “Wow!” exclaims a fan at his TV. These are the reactions sports elicit because of the stupendous feats on the field of play. We love the feeling of being amazed, and sports delivers it.
5) Community
Fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, friends and neighbors, even strangers– sports bring them together at the local park, in living rooms, at arenas, and in back yards. Friendships are formed that last decades for some, and for others it’s the catalyst needed to start a real conversation with a new neighbor.
6) Vicarious Living
In our minds we are young, lithe, in our athletic prime. In reality we stand on the sideline of our daughter’s soccer game with an achy left knee and holler instructions and encouragement and find joy in her efforts and accomplishments. We can still feel the thrill and the disappointment in her experiences, and we love it. And we miss it.
7) Nostalgia
The smell of fresh mown grass, the crack of the bat, the whack of pads, the swish of the net, and the crisp fall air of a Saturday at the park bring us back. Back where? To a thousand of our favorite memories with family or friends, to our triumphs and travails.
No doubt you see yourself in one or more of these. I certainly do, and that reminds me that sports offer the potential for great happiness but also idolatry. We find joy in them but they can also occupy too significant a place in our lives. We love them, and that is good, for they are a good gift. But as we see ourselves in these seven reasons we must be conscientious that our excitement doesn’t become worship and our fervor remains benign. It is wonderful to indentify with others, to connect, to enjoy, to be wowed, and to remember – but not if we begin to find identity on those or turn to them as a primary source of happiness.
