Building Bridges
Building Bridges, Issue 8, July 30, 2019
“Your checkbook reveals all that you really believe about stewardship . . . . A person who has been a Christian for even a short while can fake prayer, Bible study, evangelism, attending church, but he can't fake what his checkbook reveals.” Ron Blue, Master Your Money I recently read a book titled Don’t Say $#%&cX in Church by Bo Chancey. It begins with this sentence: “Let’s talk about money and God. More directly . . . let’s talk about your money and your God.” We are generally okay with having conversations about money or conversations about God, but conversations about our money and our God are off-limits because it becomes very personal and specific. Trust me, I get it – the majority of mail, spam messages, and telephone calls we receive are trying to manipulate us to do something, buy something, or donate something. Vacationclubs, timeshare deals, mortgage refinancing, police/fire supporters, and hosts of other people and causes try to convince us to give to their cause or...
Building Bridges, Issue 7, June 14, 2019
"Love has no exception clause. When we choose to follow God, we give up our rights to be unforgiving, to treat people poorly, or to be discriminatory." Caleb Kaltenbach The month of June is recognized as Pride month. There are Pride events held nationwide in cities large and small. Pride festivals and parades are conducted mostly as a celebration of the progress the LGBTQ community has made in recent years. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) represents a force of more than 3 million members and supporters nationwide, comprising the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer civil rights organization. The vision of the HRC “is a world where LGBTQ people are ensured of their basic equal rights, and can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community” (https://www.hrc.org/pride). The first graduate class I took was one dealing with ethical issues. It is no surprise that there is a swell of controversy surrounding those issues. The professor stated that...
Building Bridges Issue 6
“The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up." Henri Nouwen Society.org “The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up. Making it to the top, entering the limelight, breaking the record – that’s what draws attention, gets us on the front page of the newspaper, and offers us the rewards of money and fame.” (Henri Nouwen Society.org) Our culture does not value downward mobility, but rather upward mobility. We love to hear stories of success, and in many ways, our culture judges people by their successes or failures. We promote education, not so much for the knowledge and wisdom to impact our lives for good, but for the ability to be successful (i.e. to increase our pay or quality of life). The homes we live in and cars we drive speak to our success or failure in society. We even judge or evaluate the success of our church or minister by the number of attendees, the offering, or the building. As president of a...
Building Bridges Issue 5
Mother Teresa: "The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” On January 6, 2019, The Week had a feature article titled “An Epidemic of Loneliness.” In that publication the study noted that nearly half of all Americans feel lonely. They cited a study of 20,000 people by the health insurance company Cigna, where 47 percent of respondents reported often feeling alone or left out. Thirteen percent said there were zero people who knew them well. The article is quick to point out that this epidemic is not limited to the United States. In England, 41 percent of Britons say that a pet or television is their main source of company. The country has established a cabinet level position to combat the growing problem of loneliness. Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy once said, "During my years caring for patients, the most common pathology I saw was not heart disease or diabetes, it was loneliness." What are the effects of loneliness? An interesting study...
Building Bridges Issue 4
James E. Faust: "Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving.” "With Candle and Lanthorn, when the Sun shin'd I sought Honest Men, but none could I find." (Diogenes of Sinope) The prophet Jeremiah, like the cynical philosopher Diogenes, sought to find honest and trustworthy people in Jerusalem. God told Jeremiah, "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city” (Jeremiah 1:5). In a world of fake news via social media, accusations of biased journalists and pundits, the normal misinformation of political advertisements, and the need for websites like “Snopes” or “Fact Check” is enough to make us all become cynics. Sometimes stories are fabricated to gain political power or to slander another’s reputation, even if there is no evidence. One only has to look at the accusations hurled at the...