In the Shadow of the Moon

Heidi and I just finished watching an amazing Ron Howard documentary called "In the Shadow of the Moon," which tells the story of the men who flew the six Apollo moon missions between 1969 and 1972.

I was surprised to learn just how fragile these missions were. President Kennedy's call for America to land a man on the moon by the end of the 60's was not merely something he said when NASA was all ready to go; it was a huge, visionary leap into the unknown realms of science and technology -- and America's best and brightest answered that call.

These men, in the face of extreme pressure and relative uncertainty, flew their missions flawlessly. Their experiences punctuated a very tense chapter in American history (Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination, rising racial tensions, and the Vietnam War) with a feeling of patriotism and accomplishment that has not been rivaled since.

Hearing these remarkable astronauts tell the story of their training and missions is inspiring.

What an amazing generation of men.

Parenting Tips - Week 1

As a new father, its important for me to read books and articles that help me to become the best dad I can be for my son. I want to learn from the wisdom of those who have traveled the road of fatherhood before me, and I want to impart that wisdom to others.

Fortunately, I have found some foundational tips for new parents and I am able to present them to the world without requiring any reading for those who wish to learn (lets face it, new parents don't typically have the energy to burn through a book without falling asleep between chapters anyway).

This week's topic:

Nutrition and Your Baby: Feeding Tips for New Parents

09.06.09

This is Tough to Watch

That Sounds Too Starbucksy

Long post, but it's an important issue:

A popular trend in modern American churches is to buck religious traditions in an effort to open new doors for people to hear the gospel. While I can certainly understand and agree with that end goal, I occasionally grow uneasy with the lengths that some churches go in the effort to distance themselves from religious practices of the past. The effort to remove "churchy" language from church is one that keeps me going back and forth.

One of the greatest historical examples of challenging religious tradition and churchy language is when Reformer John Wycliffe pushed to have the traditional Latin translation of the Bible translated into the "common tongue" of English. Wycliffe's reason for the language change was because "it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ’s sentence."^[1] Before that time, the Roman Catholic Church demanded that all religious instruction and observances be carried out in Latin, which was considered the language worthy of the majesty of God. Unfortunately, only the wealthy and well-educated of the 14th century were able to read or understand Latin; the common people were left in the dark.

Nowadays, some churches work very hard to keep religious language on the same level with the modern culture, many by trying to remove any language that sounds churchy. Though I am all for making the gospel accessible to all people, I sometimes wonder if these churches are washing away some of the most important characteristics that distinguish Christianity from popular culture.

One of our pastors, Paul Wilson, made a comment a few weeks ago that made me rethink the wisdom of removing religious language from our daily conversations. We think that asking people to operate within the realms of our culture is somehow a barrier to them being able to connect with Christ. Paul pointed out that, if you look at the Starbucks Coffee chain, their language and environment unapologetically requires that you assimilate into their unique culture.

They call their drink sizes tall, grande, and venti. You can come in and order a medium [insert drink here] and they'll kindly respond by saying, "OK, that's a grande [insert drink here]?" They do not apologize that they have their own language at Starbucks -- in fact that's a characteristic that helps them stand out from other coffee shops. Their thousands of customers create a rather solid confirmation that using language unfamiliar to the average person does not turn most people away. In fact, most customers eventually begin to learn the Starbucks lingo and make it a part of their vocabulary.

What if, instead of filtering every word of our church language through the lens of pop lingo, we retained some mystery to our vastly unique culture and asked others to take part in learning it for themselves? Would that make Christianity more or less appealing?

I'm not sure I know the answer to that. What do you think?

^[1] Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999)