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August 12 - December 15, 2019
Good conversations demand active listening, mental and emotional engagement, openness to the possibility that we’re wrong, and empathy to see the situation from the other person’s point of view.
it can make it more difficult to see other people for who they really are.
Who will replace them as trustworthy guides for living?
“Even if there is no official prayer in schools, I am there praying every day.”
For good faith Christians, work is an expression of worship.
Christianity’s rootedness in past events and future hope seems, to many, out of step with the now orientation of the hyperlinked life.
If Christians are to be agents of good faith, we’ve got to overcome the real or perceived barriers to talking with people who don’t already agree with us. We need to become experts at engaging in difficult conversations.
The conversational health of our society is in bad shape.
and how to love others whose beliefs are different.
the new moral code, summed up in six guiding principles. To find yourself, look within yourself. People should not criticize someone else’s life choices.6 To be fulfilled in life, pursue the things you desire most. Enjoying yourself is the highest goal of life. People can believe whatever they want as long as those beliefs don’t affect society. Any kind of sexual expression between two consenting adults is fine.
To find yourself, discover the truth outside yourself, in Jesus. Loving others does not always mean staying silent. Joy is found not in pursuing our own desires but in giving of ourselves to bless others. The highest goal of life is giving glory to God. God gives people the freedom to believe whatever they want, but those beliefs always affect society. God designed boundaries for sex and sexuality in order for humans to flourish.
Even if it feels uncomfortable at first, we have an obligation, in good faith, to speak as a counterculture to the spirit of the age.
Beyond using our voices, we need to do the hard work of being countercultural in our own lives and churches. Only when we are consistent will our lives stir outsiders to rethink their own moral compass.
good is for the benefit of others.
It’s not about raising our voices to drown out dissenters or making laws to make everyone behave nicely. It’s not about plastering Jesus’s name across billboards and T-shirts or creating a “Christian” alternative to every secular product or service.
Being countercultural means bringing good faith—a vision for what is orderly and right, abundant and generous, beautiful and flourishing with life and relationships—to the broader culture. This vision is not just an individual pursuit; it is best expressed in communities of faith where believers love and care for one another well and then invite others in to experience the same grace.
being countercultural doesn’t mean condemning but offering a better way,
Before we can run around doing good, we must acknowledge our need to be healed and restored.
Good faith Christians engage culture by asking what is wrong, what is confused, what is right, and what is missing.
In order to gain trust and credibility with those who are skeptical, and to demonstrate our love for them, good faith Christians need to learn how to listen well. Good conversations don’t begin with proclamations but rather by meeting people right where they are.
Good faith Christians make space for people who disagree.
Good faith doesn’t mean memorizing a script but cultivating a quiet dependence on the God of the universe to meet you in the difficult conversations he brings your way.
We are called by Jesus to love, not to tolerate. We are called to go far beyond the cultural standard. Our Lord commands us to love our neighbor, even when we vehemently disagree with them. And not only our neighbor. We must also love our enemy.
Solving these problems is up to good faith Christians, starting with how we engage our neighbors with whom we disagree.
Relationships lead to the painful death of self-focused pursuit.
The biggest losers are those we should cherish most: our wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters.
Human beings are body, mind, and soul. Emphasizing only one aspect dehumanizes.
How we address matters of sex and sexuality must embody love + believe + live. We need to love others well and see them as made in the image of God, even when they screw up and let us down.
The church, as the bride of Christ, will finally be united with him in the new creation, and each of us will experience the fulfillment and completion we long for in our relationships. But we’ll do so in union with our Lord, not in marriage with each other.
essential of gospel living. Hospitality.
hospitality.
it’s a clear biblical priority, even mentioned as a spiritual gift
One way to practice hospitality is to express interest in others.
try asking more questions than you are asked in your conversations.
Difficult conversations can be a little less imposing if we make it our goal to really get to know the other person.
Hospitality is good faith in action. In a culture that emphasizes fast meals, online friendship, and casual hookups, hospitality is a truly countercultural experience.
Good faith Christians must push back against a culture that views life as disposable.
We must focus not only on protecting life prior to birth but also on nurturing children after they are born.
When we take death into our own hands, we reveal our lack of trust in God.
Good faith does not prioritize relationship with God over and against relationships with one another. It reveals relationship with God in relationships with others.
Our African American brothers and sisters testify that there are critical ongoing problems with racial inequality in this country, but too many of us do not hear.
There may be fewer true racists in post–Civil Rights America, but that doesn’t mean racism is dead and gone. Instead, it has a new face: implicit racial bias.
