New Babies

My buddy Josh just had his first baby--a girl, Cadence Joy.
He thinks about the world in good ways, loves God, follows Jesus with passion and will be a great dad.

Photos for the interested are here.

Christianity in 90 minutes (plus Q&A)

Through an unexpected series of events, I am teaching a class on the Christianity for a county organization. They maintain an institute on LifeLong Learning for people 50 and older and this particular series is on World Religions.

By divine providence or luck of the draw [I'll decide after the class is over :-)], I am the guy to put out the claims of Christianity.
And I have 90 minutes to do it.

So my mind has been twirling around the idea. What do I say in 90 minutes that encapsulates Christianity? For so many, Christianity is a religion of pejoratives--in other words, a way to "beat the man down," not "lift the man up."

In the technical sense, Christianity is a religion. Religion: From the the Latin--"to reconnect ligaments;. To put things back together." Christianity is, then, all about religion. Rejoining people to God, to each other, to themselves, to creation itself.

But in the popular sense, Christianity is anything but a religion. Religion is humanity's attempts to make things right, to rejoin with God, each other, ourselves, the creation. Do this, say that, stand this way, hold your hands like that. And something gets lost in all that.

Christianity is about Christ. "Christian" was itself a term of derision for the first followers of Jesus--as in, "Oh, they think they are little Christs." And it's stuck ever since.

So I'll be working through this--hoping I do it well so people get a glimpse into the wonder and beauty and goodness that Jesus came to bring into the world. I'll let you know how it goes...