I said to our staff yesterday morning, when we were talking about reputations of the church, etc., to pray that we as a staff would daily be stunned by grace in our lives. Because if we aren't amazed by grace towards us, we will be a finger-pointing church mainly.
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We should be amazed that God has treated us so generously. Laboring to see that means we must know our sin and know the cross well.
So without giving too much away, what would you say is the basic story arc?
Miller: It's a movie about coming out of the closet regarding who you are as a person. The character happens to be a Christian and is very ashamed of that, but he's able to come out of the closet by the end of it. It's really a film more about a human being than it is about Christianity. Christianity is really just the thing that this human being is dealing with.
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Do you feel like you're making a movie with universal appeal, or one that will be targeted primarily to a Christian audience?
Miller: We want it to have a universal appeal, but honestly I think it will be mostly Christians who go to see it. People bought cases of the book to hand to people who weren't Christians and many people have come to know Christ through reading the book, and I think the movie is very similar. It's the sort of film I could bring my friend who's not a Christian to, not to introduce them to the gospel or to Jesus, but to introduce them to me. This is my life, this is my struggle and this is how I feel. I think the movie will be kind of a relational tool for Christians to help them be understood in an American culture. And to me that's a very powerful tool. Many people come to know Christ through their relationships with believers, and this is a tool that enhances and deepens those relationships.
John Newton, the famed Reformed hymn writer, was one day called to visit a family that had suffered the loss of all that they had due to a devastating fire. Newton found the pious mistress of the house and he saluted her with the statement, "I give you joy, madam!" Surprised and offended, the woman replied, "What! Joy that all my property has been consumed?" "Oh no," Newton answered, "but joy that you have so much property that fire cannot touch." This allusion to her real treasure checked the woman's grief, and she wiped away her tears. She, as a Christian, knew what Newton said was true.
What is your heart most taken with? What is your chief desire? Do you love something more than Christ? I fear that many of us miss the spires of the heavenly city because we are so busy building our earthly mansions. May we not be like the King of France, who when asked about an eclipse that had occurred, that he said, "I have so much business in the earth that I take little notice of the things of heaven." Rather, may God give us eyes to see the things of heaven, and loosen our grip on this world.
Jonathan Leeman posts on a schema of seven counterfeit gospels, as cited in How People Change by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp.
1. Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”
2. Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”
3. Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”
4. Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”
5. Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”
6. Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs."
7. “Social-ism.” “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”
...since loneliness/hardship comes from the hand of God, it is a gift. And so, am I going to accept the gift? That is, will I accept these circumstances as the will of God for now and thank Him for it? Am I, by God’s grace, willing to die to self and walk the way of the cross like our Savior?
Perhaps one of the most intriguing ideas is that we offer our suffering back to God. What does this mean? Well, when Paul says in Romans 12:1 that we are to present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice, he means everything we have is to be offered to God. We may be walking through the valley of the shadow of death and presently have little else to offer but our loneliness and pain. So be it. “What I lay on the altar of consecration is nothing more and nothing less than what I have at this moment, whatever I find in my life now of work and prayer, joys and sufferings…To make that gift an offering may be the most costly thing one can do, for it means the laying down of a cherished dream of what one wanted to be, and the acceptance of what one did not want to be.” Let us offer it up nonetheless. “Let our offering be free, humble, unconditional, given in the full confidence that His transforming energy can fit it into the working of His purposes.”
"A certain level of noise people consider to be exciting or good energy," says Tim Zagat, the guide's founder. "Once it gets so loud you can't hear yourself chew, it's over the top."
The cause of the clatter is just about everywhere a diner glances these days. In a restaurant's hard floors. On its naked tables. At the high ceilings. In other words, the blame for all the noise comes from the clean, slick and modern look favored by so many restaurant operators and their customers . . .
When last semester I taught Wendy Shalit's "A Return to Modesty," in a class at Boston University called "Spirituality & Sexuality in American Youth Culture," I assumed that my mostly left-leaning students would reject her arguments about the terrible effects that the hook-up culture has on young women and the positive effects of traditional religion and morality on young women's well-being. Instead, my students ate up her critique and were fascinated by her descriptions of modesty as a virtue, especially within the context of faith. One student said that she felt empowered to stop tolerating vulgar remarks about sex made by peers in her presence.
The class was equally attracted to some evangelical dating manuals, like "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris and "Real Sex" by Lauren Winner, that I asked them to read. They seemed shocked that somewhere in America there are entire communities of people their age who really do "save themselves" until marriage, who engage in old-fashioned dating with flowers and dinner and maybe a kiss goodnight. They reacted as if these authors describe a wonderful fantasy land. "It would be easier just to have sex with someone than ask them out on a real date," one student said, half-seriously.
