Conversations of Faith at Common Ground

First, a shout out to Randy Alcorn for this article.

This is a profound, honest observation from a self-described atheist. In short, the writer, Matthew Parris, offers some insightful thoughts about how Christ is the Answer to deal with human suffering in places like Africa.  I think a great deal can be learned about how the Gospel can be shared by simply being a Christ-follower.

The work being done in Africa by Christians is, as a good friend describes it, the Gospel that is social, and not a social gospel.

Also noteworthy is Parris’ irenic spirit.  He’s not a militant atheist (imho, an unfortunate stereotype), but seems to be a person looking for honest conversation with intellectual rigor.  I’m sure he’s got an engaging story for why he became an atheist — if anyone knows it, i’d like to hear about it.

The comments in response to Parris’ column are worth checking out, too.

“What would be your dream job?”  If you could have a job doing what you enjoy or desire most, what would it be?

This one go so much attention the web site crashed — paid to live on a beautiful tropical island.

What makes the job so enticing?  What would be your ideal job and why?

Scot McKnight, a seminary prof, made this observation:

One site had a question about the “dream job” for the pastors and not one of them put down pastoring or preaching and discipling … one had building furniture. Nothing wrong with building furniture, that’s for sure, but … if your dream job isn’t pastoring … well, it should be.

Without getting to the implication and merits of this comment, it seems many folks have a dream job in mind.  What keeps us from getting this job?  It may be viable limitations (4′11″ and 120# can be career-limiting in the NBA or NFL), but what else?

Here’s a different take on the question — what if our dream job is doing what we’re uniquely made for?

What has God called you to and how are you doing at it?

“Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”

Here’s an example of “preaching the Gospel” without words.

“How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?”

you can remove the words on the video screen by “removing the annotations” (go to the triangle on the toolbar — 2 spots right of volume control and toggle it on the drop-’up’ menu)

(shout out to Art Rogers for pointing out this video)