Life’s too short and important to surround yourself with emotional vampires, complainers, and spectators.

As much as it’s up to you, surround yourself with as many of the following people as possible:

1. Idealists

A friend of mine alluded to my ‘critical spirit’ regarding one of my blog posts. I get that a lot—along with monikers like pessimist, cynic, etc.

The truth is: I am a dyed-in-the-wool idealist. I am driven by my conviction that, with the right kinds of dialog and challenge, we can be so much more effective.

We need to be surrounded by people who eschew the status quo and look at the big picture. My life has been greatly improved by people who question whether the church is being driven by principles or pragmatism.

Believe it or not, it’s blind, melancholic optimism that drives the idealistic prophet. If they were cynical or pessimistic, they wouldn’t bother. We need them. They help us see the things we’ve become blind to.

2. Doers

It’s so easy for us to assume that, because we’re talking about spiritual things, we’re doing them. We’re often not. James warns us of this folly:

“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”—James 1:22

We desperately need to avoid the delusion that orthodoxy (right belief) is more important than orthopraxy (right action). If your theology isn’t blossoming into activity, it’s worthless—however right it may be.

Surround yourself with people who are moving and shaking things up. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, is more inspirational than belief getting its hands dirty.

3. Givers

Nothing’s more godlike than being a giver. Isn’t that the whole point of John 3:16? God loved the world, so he gave . . .

Some would say selfishness is innate—part of our total depravity. We are at once both greedy and altruistic. And the characteristic we feed devours the attribute we starve.

Find unselfish people and follow them. Emulate them.

4. Dreamers

“My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results . . . but it is the effort that’s heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.”― George R. R. Martin

I love dreamers. As an idealist, I tend to see the things that are broken and desperately wish they were fixed. The weight of the world’s brokenness can get awfully heavy. Dreamers look beyond all that and see an infinite number of  majestic possibilities. I spent a good deal of the summer with a dreamer and I loved it, and envied him.

The unbridled optimism and expectation of the dreamer is contagious. If you don’t have someone who is able to coax goodness you never knew existed out of places you never thought to look, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Word of warning: dreamers often look like simpletons—it’s easy to miss them.

5. Lovers

I love the way the NIV translates the second half of Galatians 5:6:

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

I don’t know of a more challenging or beautiful sentiment. Left to my own devices, I’m not much of a lover. I can be a pretty exacting critic of others. I need the unsullied influence of people who can love others despite their foibles and faults.

I can promise you this: regular and unchecked proximity to hard-hearted people will make you callous. And nothing is so sweetly convicting as being with people who treat others well, speak of people in kind and generous ways, and generally attribute value to them.

You can’t completely avoid poisonous people, but you can make a concerted effort to create a community out of the best individuals. The trick to becoming the person you wish you were is to seek out those attributes in others.

As I write this, my government’s been out of commission for 13 days. Locked in an epic standoff, the two polarized parties running Washington would rather run us into the rocks than find a middle ground.

One only need visit Twitter, Facebook, or even their local church to see that the poisonous polarization in Washington is being played out regularly in every American city. Somehow we’ve come to a place where every political, theological, or ideological discussion becomes a zero-sum game—I can’t win unless you lose.

It doesn’t have to be that way!

While it’s important to have convictions, they don’t have to be held in a way that undermines public dialog and civility.

Here are some tips to help you hold tight to your principles without being an insufferable jerk.

1. Value people over opinions

Do people matter to you? Which people? If you can only be courteous to people who agree with you, they might not be the problem.

My Facebook news feed is often a sickening cavalcade of demeaning commentaries and memes.  Instead of interesting and helpful dialog about where people differ, we resort to demonizing those we disagree with.

Believe it or not, mature people can hold strong opinions without devaluing those who disagree.

2. Don’t generalize and stereotype

One of the interesting things about humans is their ability to pick and choose ideas from life’s ideological buffet. Not every Democrat is pro-choice, and not every Republican supports the death penalty. I don’t know many people who tow the complete party line when it comes to political or theological principles.

People are complex, and you miss a lot when you write them off based on generalizations.

3. Be willing to be wrong

When you add up all of your political, sociological, and theological opinions, how right do you think you are? 50%? 75% 85%?

Even if you’re arrogant enough to believe you’re 90% right about everything, which 10% is wrong? I would hope that, if you could answer that question, you’d stop believing it.

The truth is: we don’t know where we’re wrong. This fact alone should transform our dialog.

There are many people who disagree with you who are both smarter and more educated than you are. This doesn’t need to change your opinion (smart people can be wrong, too.), but it should give you pause.

Between you and me, I don’t trust anyone who has all the same convictions at 50 that they had at 25.

4. Don’t engage in scorn as entertainment

There’s a whole cottage industry of radio, media, and pastoral celebrities who regularly and cynically employ derision as part of their strategy.

Along with their philosophies, the millions who listen and follow these talking heads adopt their destructive method of dehumanizing others.

If the person informing you is mean, it’s best to get your information somewhere else.

5. Look for common ground

It’s more fun to discover where you and someone else agree than it is to find fault with every opinion. You should try it.

Nothing gets more tiresome than dealing with someone who is always weighing every interaction for orthodoxy and (what they consider) an acceptable opinion.

I believe that you can find common ground with anyone. And the more you focus on the positives, the more you can build a relationship that makes your other opinions influential, too.

Seriously, give it a try.

6. Give people the benefit of the doubt

I read a pro-Calvinist blog a while back that summed up their anti-Arminian argument with, “We just value the Bible more than they do.”

This scarecrow argument is ridiculous, but you see it everywhere. There’s nothing dumber than distorting, exaggerating or misrepresenting someone’s position in order to discount it outright.

Take people at face value, and assume they have the same good intentions that you do.

Someone needs to turn this country’s venomous dialog around. It’s not going to happen from the top down—we need to take responsibility for it. What do you say? Want to start engaging in meaningful dialog for a change?

For over a billion users, Facebook’s become an extremely important tool for connecting with others, while offering a previously unknown window into their lives.

What could it mean to succeed at Facebook? All a successful Facebook user should be able to do is:

• Be themselves
• Allow others to be themselves, too

Let’s be honest, for the Christian, it’s also important to communicate to our “friends” their intrinsic value without being annoying.

Here are 7 tips to help you succeed at Facebook:

1. Respect boundaries

There are those in the church who are afraid to be transparent. “If these people really knew me,” they think, “they’d judge and shame me.”

We assure them that we’d never do that . . . until we see them say or do something on Facebook we disapprove of—then we prove them right.

No one’s got it all together (not even you). You’re going to see people making comments or being tagged in images that are going to surprise you. I promise.

But here’s the thing, people are inviting us into their lives. Do you realize what an honor that is? Respect your boundaries and know when you need to mind your own business.

2. Go to the source

Occasionally someone will say or post something so questionable it’s hard to ignore. You’re really going to want to say something. If that’s the case, I would tell you to see tip #1.

I can’t say this with enough urgency, if you feel like you can’t mind your own business, then go to the source. Don’t bypass the poster and go to some authority figure or mutual friend and spread drama. That’s gossip and it’s ridiculous and destructive.

I’ve heard plenty of tales about people going to pastors, bosses, and parents and creating turmoil out of things that they assumed, took out of context, or misinterpreted. Don’t do it.

And if when you go to the source to get clarity about something bothering you, assume you’re mistaken. Don’t be careless with your relationships; they’re too important.

But seriously, as a spiritual discipline, try minding your own business or . . .

3. Don’t be afraid of hiding people

If someone is doing something on Facebook that’s annoying you and you’re struggling to love them as they are, hide them. Just turn their updates off in your feed. It beats the drama, and it’s reversible—unlike saying or doing something you can’t take back.

4. Be wise with your religious updates

You want to influence people? Let them get to know you and see your weaknesses and vulnerabilities. You want to annoy them? Post religious stuff constantly.

Be wise about what you share. When it comes to devotional content in a public forum, a little goes a long way. Be intentional and strategic.

I have a lot of Facebook friends who are not “believers” and I definitely don’t shy away from sharing my faith. And many of those individuals are my biggest proponents and advocates. Why? Because I respect them.

And whatever you do, please, please, please stop resharing those updates that guilt trip people into following suit. You know the ones:

“66% of you won’t post this, but remember what the Bible says, ‘Deny me in front of your friends and I shall deny you in front of my father.’ God saw you read this so you better re-post it.”

Heck, it makes me want to unfriend you.

5. Stop sharing hoaxes

People got bent out of shape when I suggested in an earlier post that it was often my Christian friends that seemed to believe and repost hoaxes in my news feed. I stand by the statement.

No reason to belabor the point, you can always read my original blog post here: 4 Reasons Christians Need to Quit Sharing Hoaxes.

6. Lighten up

This happens to me all the time. I’ll post something intended to be silly and someone will inevitably suck all of the funny out of the room with a hyper-serious response.

Dear Lord, lighten up. The world’s not going to fall apart if you don’t fix someone’s theology, moralize, sermonize, or admonish.

There’s plenty of opportunities to spread your wisdom around Facebook, but influence is all about timing. Too many people’s Facebook comments are more about coulda than shoulda.

7. Quit arguing

Do you know what’s more annoying than posting updates with the clear intention of starting a debate? Coming into my update and start arguing in the comments—especially when it’s with one of my friends you haven’t met.

Most of us at one time or another have had to private message a friend to apologize for our other argumentative friend who won’t let an issue die.

I have yet to meet anyone who said, “Man, that epic argument in the comment section of your status update really convinced me I was wrong.”

There’s a point when an interesting discussion is going south, know when to gracefully bow out.

Facebook needs people who exhibit a little more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
What suggestions do you have for Christians to exhibit more of these qualities on Facebook? Leave me a comment with your suggestions.

Earlier this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) sat down with Jan Markell, radio host of Understanding the Times, and discussed President Barack Obama’s September decision to support vetted Syrian rebels, who she calls terrorists, with equipment and training. In this discussion she said,

“This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the end times Scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history.

“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, ‘Maranatha Come Lord Jesus’, His day is at hand. And so when we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; that these days would be as the days of Noah. We are seeing that in our time. Yes it gives us fear in some respects because we want the retirement that our parents enjoyed. Well they will, if they know Jesus Christ.”

When I heard this, I sighed. What is with the fundamentalist obsession with the end times? Check out these recent statistics:

•  67% of evangelicals believe natural disasters are signs the end is near (vs. mainline Protestants 34%, Catholics 31%)
•  77% of evangelicals believe we’re living in the end times (vs. mainline Protestants 54%, practicing Catholics 45%)

The constant amending of end times timelines with every new middle eastern news story is unhealthy, ridiculous, and replaces the Gospel’s good news with obsession, apprehension, and fear.

Here are 3 reasons I take apocalyptic teachings with a grain of salt:

1. There is more than one interpretation of biblical eschatology

Believe it or not, neither Left Behind or The Late Great Planet Earth represent the final word in eschatology. Orthodox Christianity is woven from a rich tapestry of teaching on Daniel, Revelation, and other end-times literature in the Bible—and it’s not all one-world governments and raptures.

The honest truth is that, while the Pre-Tribulation influence in social and political circles grew in the last 30 years, it has not been the interpretation of choice historically or in a majority of mainline seminaries.

2. Interpretation is constantly being rewritten to accommodate current events

The weakness of so many end-times teachings is the constant scrambling to repackage and reinvent the message. As the Cold War came to an end, many teachers had to scrap their complicated scenarios and attach new significance to Scriptural imagery—and the consumers of these teachings pretend like these faulty predictions never happened.

Looking back over my lifetime, I can remember so many little events that were suppose to be significant—and weren’t:

• Iran Hostage Crises (1977)
• The Cold War (approx. 1947–1991)
• U.S. Bombs Libya (1986)
• Black Monday (1987)
• Gulf War (1990)
• Collapse of the Soviet Union (1991)
• Y2K (2000)

If you were privy to the Christian teaching surrounding Y2K, you know how it helped manufacture fear and anxiety surrounding a non-event. Consumers of these teachings poured hard-earned money and energy into preparing for something that never happened (sometimes buying merchandise sold by people teaching this eschatological nonsense). If there’s anything about this issue that actually makes me angry, it’s the fact that these teachers pocketed their royalties and moved on to new books. No one seems to be holding these teachers responsible for their teaching.

Don’t get me started on the number of people who have been accused of being the Anti-Christ.

3. Every generation thinks they’re living in the end times

It’s true. Look at this Wikipedia list of apocalyptic predictions; these predictions are not particular to Christians.

I think it’s important to note that standing on the street corner yelling, “THE END IS NEAR” is not an exclusively Christian message. We need to be thoughtful about the way we discuss eschatology, otherwise in the eyes of the world, we’re lumped in with with the Sun Myung Moons and Heaven’s Gate Cults of the world.

To focus on the sensational, speculative aspects of biblical prophecy undermines the message that is uniquely Christian—hope.

I’m sure many will disagree with me, but if your message encourages more anxiety than hope, you’re doing it wrong.

All Scripture is important and prophecy plays an integral part in the biblical canon. In fact, it’s too important to communicate with speculation and sensationalism.

I’d love to hear about your experience with prophetic teaching in the church? Disagree with me? Tell me about it.

There’s something about Jesus’ sheep and the goats parable that I find harrowing. It captivates me like none of his other teachings—and haunts me.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”—Jesus, Matthew 25: 31–46

Here are a few reflections on the portions of this parable that jump out to me:

1. Godliness is responsive

This is really the no-brainer interpretation of this passage, but it’s important to point it out. Being ready to respond to the needs of others is incredibly valuable.

2. Godliness is proactive

I am tempted to see the hungry, thirsty, naked, and sick as those who I need to respond to—but only if I see them. But after a while, the needy in the periphery of my life just fade into a dull tableau. I convince myself that I’d respond if they cross my path, but I become desensitized to them. That’s why “I was in prison and you came to visit” is the game changing part of this parable.

Visiting those in prison is the one facet of this parable you can’t misinterpret. Spending time with someone doing time is a proactive activity. You don’t accidentally stumble upon someone in prison. You have to pro-actively seek them out.

The prisoners inclusion here activates the rest of these activities (feeding the hungry, looking after the sick, etc.). Now the poor, sick, and hungry are elevated from potential, random opportunities for giving to actual responsibilities for us to ardently seek out.

3. Godliness is not judgment

Another way that the prisoner angle changes this parable is that it releases me from choosing who deserves to be served. Without it, I might be tempted to help those who I feel are hungry and thirsty through no fault of their own. I don’t get that luxury with the prisoners. The likelihood that the captive deserves his/her plight is pretty high. But it doesn’t matter.

And if it doesn’t matter for the prisoner, I can’t imagine that it matters for the poor or the sick. I am completely free from trying to figure out if someone deserves my help. I just get to serve them. And by serving them, I serve the Lord.

4. Godliness is resolution

It’s important to notice that neither the sheep nor the goats knew what they did (or didn’t do) to deserve Christ’s commendation or condemnation. The sheep didn’t do good for the purpose of praise. They didn’t do it because they felt obligated. They did it because they were resolved to do it.

Many of the goats, on the other hand, probably had the best of intentions—they just lacked resolve.

Jesus doesn’t micromanage his kingdom. He isn’t standing over us directing our every movement, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t paying close attention. We spend a lot of time agonizing over what God’s will is for our lives. Honestly, I think we all have a good idea where to start.

5. Godliness is service

Imagine walking home after listening to Jesus give this parable. What would your impression be? I hate to say it, but let’s be honest, you’d think that your eternity depended entirely on what you did or did not do.

The faith/works pendulum has swung so far in the faith direction that we don’t let Jesus words have the impact that he intends. We’ve emphasized right belief to the extent that, even when you talk seriously about New Testament teachings like this one, Christians warn you not to fall for that “social gospel.”

The New Testament plainly teaches that those who have the faith to follow Christ will (should) be transformed into the kinds of people who give of themselves selflessly. True, living faith transforms how we look at our time and our finances. The only way that this becomes a faith/works questions is when we ask ourselves, “Is my faith an assent to an ideology or is it a life-giving, perspective-changing plunge into a new kind of living?”

Here’s the $1,000,000 question: If Jesus was completely serious about wanting his people to serve the marginalized and the societal cast-offs, how else could he make it more clear?

Fear and uncertainty are completely normal. Universally speaking, success comes when you push pass your reservations, take a risk, and run headlong into the unknown.

Here are five things Christians fear which might be prohibiting their freedom and effectiveness:

Shame

There have been times when shame has been valuable in my life. Believe it or not, I’m not proud of everything I do (nor should I be). Shame’s humiliation has, at times, been a great benefit to me. Most of the time, though, it hasn’t been a blessing.

Shame can be a tool used by others to keep us in line. And because we fear the alienation that comes with being shamed, we don’t always act when we should. We’re often afraid to speak out, disagree, and not tow the party line because we fear the disapproval and alienation of our tribe.

As a rule, the majority isn’t always in the right.

True community isn’t built on being entirely homogeneous. Don’t be afraid to disagree, to challenge, or to be different. In the end, if you’re not accepted for your unique perspective, you might be in the wrong place anyway.

Foolishness

No one wants to look stupid. But let’s face it, Christianity pretty much guarantees that at times, you will. No, I am not disparaging my faith—it’s God’s intention.

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”—Paul (1 Corinthians 1:28–31)

If Christianity was all about the most intelligent arguments, we Christians could all sit around and pat ourselves on the back for being smart enough to figure it out. Luckily for us, it’s not.

A God who’d save people by allowing them to kill him is foolish, and there’s a glorious salvation in that absurdity. You don’t have to have to win debates to express the beauty of the cross; you just have to get over your fear of people thinking you’re an idiot.

From the simplest to the most well-informed people, God’s kingdom is available to all. This is good news! If its accessibility is contingent on my looking a little silly, it seems like a fair trade.

Ambiguity

Sometimes the most powerful words you can say are, “I don’t know.” But man, Christians seem to be so scared of uncertainty.

Scripture doesn’t intend or pretend to answer all of the universe’s questions. In fact, if you’re honest, it introduces questions you didn’t think to ask. Half of our problem is the need to create an air-tight theology that rids the world of its mysteries. I’m convinced that a lot the dogmatism that we bicker and fight about is not only factually incorrect, it’s unnecessary.

Just relax. Sometimes it’s more comforting to admit you don’t have the answers and use that as a basis for hope and trust.  It sure beats constantly needing to defend an intellectual citadel you’ve built to imprison your doubts.

Opposition

No one likes to feel embattled, but we will. And when we are, we need to respond with kindness, grace, and love.

Because we fear being an opposed minority, we often wrongheadedly seek power. If people are going to be at odds with us, it’s probably best that we have the ability “lord over” them, right!? We continually seek this control despite the fact that, historically speaking, an empowered Christianity has often been a terrible Christianity.

I honestly cannot find a shred of New Testament teaching that sees Christianity as a force that thrives with power. Everything beautiful about Christianity lies in its opposition to the world’s values.

• Where the world lusts for power, the church embraces service.
• Where the world values the strong, the church gives deference to the weak.
• Where the world bows to the rich, the church values the poor.

Jesus promised opposition to those who were serious about following him. This means that if you’re on the receiving end of hostility based on your closeness to Christ, you’re in the exact right place—and Christ is glorified in how you respond.

Pain

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but pain is coming for us all. As sure as you draw breath, things are going to happen that you didn’t expect or desire. The sooner you come to grips with that truth and quit avoiding it, the sooner you can get on with living passionately.

We spend a lot of time avoiding pain’s inevitability, both in our own life and in the lives of others. We miss out on a lot of what makes life incredible.

While I don’t embrace a theology that makes God the author of the bad things we experience, I do believe that he excels in turning our defeats, sorrows, and disappointments into amazing victories and opportunities to display his glory.

We don’t just miss out by avoiding our own pain, we miss out when we avoid the pain of those around us. Sometimes it’s scarier to enter into the terror of someone else’s experience because we don’t know what to do, and it reminds us of our own vulnerability.

Truly trusting God means that we, of all people, should be running toward the uncertain, precarious areas of life. We should be the most courageous, audacious, and resolute people on the planet.

What things do you think Christians fear that they shouldn’t? Leave me a comment!

A study Bible can be helpful when you can’t cart around a lot of secondary study material, but they do have their weaknesses.

Here are some suggestions for taking advantage of their strengths.

1. Not all study Bibles are created equal

Sometimes when publishers have a bestseller on their hands, they’ll pull out all the stops to repackage that content in as many ways as possible. One way they’ll attempt to do that is spin it into a study Bible. This is often a hackneyed attempt to siphon another $40 out of their fanbase. Don’t fall for it. The Prayer of Jabez Devotional Bible probably won’t help you expand your territory.

They’ll also take advantage of study Bibles for niche markets. Be wary of those, too. Trust me—no one needs the Denture Wearers Devotional Bible or the Long-Haul Truck Driver’s Study Bible.

2. Study notes aren’t Scripture

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in a small-group where real interesting, powerful discussion is going on, and then someone kills the conversation by quoting their study notes like they’re a definitive answer to the topic at hand.

Your study notes are not Scripture—they’re commentary. Some of them are correct, some of them are not, and some fall somewhere in-between, so take them with a grain of salt.

3. Read from a text-only Bible

Hearing from the Holy Spirit is a huge casualty of becoming study-Bible reliant. If you can’t read your study Bible without constantly looking down for the notes’ interpretation, it’s probably wise to get a text-only Bible for some of your devotional reading.

4. Be aware of theological bias

If you’re reading the Reformed Study Bible, it should be obvious that the notes will have some theological bias. But if you’re reading any Bible featuring one person’s commentary, you’re augmenting your Bible reading with their bias, too. That’s completely okay as long as you’re aware of it.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Bibles with a number of theologically-varied contributors (like the New International Study Bible), will often offer no information on some of the trickier passages. The strong, contrary positions sometimes cancel each other out and they don’t say anything—sometimes that’s no better than the bias.

5. Let the Holy Spirit inform you on application

The Life Application Study Bible is one of the most popular study Bibles of all time. It has some really great material in it, but you need to remember: powerful, life-changing Scripture reading happens when the Holy Spirit takes the truth of the Word and speaks to you personally about its application. Devotional reading is more than study; it’s about allowing room for the Holy Spirit to touch on particular areas for your development. Sometimes these areas don’t apply to everyone—they’re specific to you. Leave room for the Spirit to do this work.

I stood in the sanctuary talking to a law-enforcement friend about a recent bust he’d made. “Man,” he said laughing, “it took about three of us to subdue this guy. He had what we call ‘retard strength.’”

He must have noticed me looking awkwardly at my feet because he quickly said, “I’m over 40—I don’t have to be politically correct.”

You often hear the term “politically correct” spoken by the churched through clenched teeth. It’s a boogeyman that, too many, represents a huge loss of liberty, as if saying something off-color or insensitive strikes a blow against “the man.”

But I didn’t feel uncomfortable because my friend was being politically incorrect; I felt uncomfortable because he was being insensitive—and mean.

If you knew me, you’d know that I’m the last person to be lecturing anyone about appropriate jokes. My humor offends people so regularly, I have to spend a lot of time lubricating my relationships with apologies.

But there are jokes I’m tired of Christians being comfortable hearing, telling, and laughing at. In fact, there are jokes I am tired of hearing fall lazily out of my own mouth.

1. Race

Sometimes I feel like we’re a little uptight about racial issues. But I had a Japanese friend tell me, “that’s because you’re a middle-aged white guy.”

“I know that when you say humorous things about my culture, you don’t intend to be racist,” he said, “but as the minority, I go from interaction to interaction where I’m reminded, by one stupid comment after another, that I’m different. To you it’s a couple funny comments, but you don’t see the fact that I hear this crap all day long. It’s a constant reminder that I don’t fit in. It’s exhausting.”

He’s right.  I don’t think about it, and I should. My beliefs should be informing the way I think about and treat people. They should be inclusive.

For God’s sake, if Jesus taught first-century Judaism anything, it was that racial stereotypes have no kingdom value. (Lk. 10:25–37)

2. Gender

I make pseudo-sexist jokes too often. I don’t do it because I believe women should be barefoot and pregnant; I do it to parody what I see as obviously outdated ideas about gender.

But I’ve been thinking about this one a lot lately and I’m changing my views.

Sexism hasn’t stopped being a issue. The church still bickers about what women should and shouldn’t be able to do.

If I’m perpetuating archaic gender ideas (even in jest), maybe my actual views don’t matter. The only difference between me telling a sexist joke and an actual sexist telling a sexist joke is that I (and a maybe a few people who know me well) know I am kidding. That’s probably not a big enough difference.

What do I lose by not relying on gender stereotypes for humor? Lazy jokes that are only funny because terrible people truly believe them.

3. Disabilities

I have a confession. I occasionally drop the “R” word as an adjective—sometimes even as a pejorative noun.

Despite the fact that I have a little brother who’s extremely developmentally disabled, I still describe ridiculous things as “retarded.” I don’t mean to do it. I’ve just been conditioned to see it as acceptable. If you hear me say describe anyone or anything as “retarded,” you have my permission to slap me.

That’s the issue with a most of these things. We let culture condition us to be accepting and even cavalier with ideas that should be abhorrent. To think that it’s okay to draw a verbal correlation between things that annoy me and people with Down’s Syndrome is one of them.

This is only the beginning of jokes about disabilities that I hear Christians make . . . jokes that I’ve made.

Jesus ushered in a new kingdom by waging war on a broken and sick creation. He did this by making the healing a priority. It probably wouldn’t hurt if we valued the disabled enough to stop thinking that disabilities are funny.

4. Homosexuality

If dummies like me aren’t calling things “retarded,” they’re calling things “gay.” It’s another disparaged minority we invoke to communicate our displeasure.

But more than just misusing the word “gay,” guys use homosexuality as a joke between each other. A favorite go-to joke among us guys is to challenge each other’s masculinity and imply that our buddies are gay. Sadly, the humor lies in the implication that there’s something wrong with gay people.

A gay friend once told me that when he was younger, this kind of teasing between guys constantly made him feel like it was never safe to confide in men. From his perspective, the way guys teased each other about being gay told him that there was something wrong with him. This was a quiet sort of terrorism inflicted by well-meaning guys who just didn’t think about the implications of their humor.

Caring for the Other

The common denominator between these topics is that they represent some form of “other.” One thing that followers of Christ should have in common is their desire to protect and advocate for minorities, the weak, or anyone society deems as less than important.

Humor often comes at someone’s expense. I probably won’t stop making dumb jokes, but hopefully, I’ll stop being willing to get the kind of cheap laughs that Christ probably finds embarrassing—if not infuriating.

After all, you can tell a lot about a person by what they’re willing to laugh at.

Agree? Disagree? Did I miss a topic? Let me know about it in the comments.

“Remorse is the poison of life.”―Charlotte Brontë

When someone tells me their life goal is to live with no regrets, I tend to smile and nod politely. “Good luck,” I think, “I sincerely hope you succeed.” Truth is, I don’t know anyone who has.

The older I get, the more I recognize that no one gets out of this life without desperately wishing that some things could have happened differently. There are situations you can repair, and there are things you desperately wish you could change—but can’t.

Maybe you regret:

• An action:You ruined your marriage with an affair, lost years to an addiction, or perhaps you destroyed an incredible job because of embezzlement. Sometimes we end up paying a cost for our behavior that’s much higher than we anticipated.
• An accident: At times, terrible things are outside of our control. Whether it was a pedestrian you accidentally hit with your car, or a hunting accident, it only takes a moment to change everything.
• An omission: Sometimes we experience the worst remorse from opportunities we let pass. It’s that love we should have professed, or that person we wish we’d invested in more before we lost them. Nothing haunts like the words “if only.”

There are areas in my life where, after years, I’m still paralyzed by acute loss and pain (and sometimes shame). Here is part one in a series on dealing with regret:

Appropriate transparency

Obviously, you own your mistake—that’s why it troubles you so much. But sometimes we deal with that disgrace by hiding our shame. Either we fear the judgment of others, or we don’t want others to see how harshly we judge ourselves. But what’s hidden has a tendency to putrefy. You do yourself no favors by quietly carrying your humiliation deep inside.

Those involved

First, you need to be open with the people involved. This can be horribly painful, but it’s like setting a broken bone. The accident or sin that you’re carrying has likely affected others, and they deserve your honesty and openness.

You need to be wise about this. The other parties involved may not be ready to involve you in their healing. This is more about your willingness to be open than it is about your need to unload your burden. Sometimes sharing with the parties involved will do more harm than good. Be discerning about the hows and whys, but be open when the time’s appropriate.

Those you can trust

You also need trustworthy confidants who will help you carry and understand your remorse. At times we all need cheerleaders. It’s important that you have an intimate community who knows who you truly are. Nothing can help release you from the prison of anxiety like committed people who know the worst about you and love you anyway.

A caveat about openness

Your story is yours, and you need to be wise about how you share it. Carrying your shame in silence can cause damage, but so can over sharing. Don’t use your story as currency for attention or sympathy. It will backfire.

That said, an important part of having a wound is using your brokenness as  a salve for others. It is entirely fitting to draw upon and share your story in relating and ministering to others around you. In fact, true ministry will always originate from that broken place.

Forgiveness

This is so cliche, but that doesn’t negate its validity. It takes a lot of forgiveness to get through the worst situations. Obviously, you need to get to a place where you can forgive someone who’s wronged you, but it’s also important learn to forgive yourself. There comes a time when you need to accept that beating yourself up isn’t changing anything but your ability to draw meaning from today.

But there are others you need to forgive:

• You need to forgive those who will never forgive you. It’s easy for people to find the momentum they need to move forward when they’re driven by hatred. It’s not ideal for them, but that’s outside of your control. You need to forgive them for your benefit—even if they’re never able to reciprocate.
• You need to forgive those who won’t forget. The things you regret generally come out of situations that are emotional powder kegs. Sometimes you’ll have someone lashes out just to hurt you. It’s hard, but you need to forgive them to.
• You need to forgive God. When life-changing, soul-crippling tragedy strikes, it’s hard not to blame God. If he’d only intervened. . . If he’d only stopped you, prepared you, or helped you, this never would have happened. You need to forgive God. Not because he’s at fault, but because you need to release him from the responsibility tied to your tragedy.

Forgiveness is never a one-time affair. Whether it’s you or others who need to be released from your prison of bitterness, you’re going to have to forgive often and aggressively. Those captives will need you to liberate them often. Make sure you do.

We’ll talk more about remorse in a future post. In the meantime, do you have some tips that have helped you, let me know in the comments.

We all have a natural aptitude or ability that’s completely unique to us. It may be a capacity for languages, an affinity for mathematics, a flair for persuasive communication, or you may have a knack for sports or music.

Whether you’re familiar with your talents or you’re still discovering them, we each have our own strengths. Sadly, talent is not a promise for success. The world is full of uniquely abled, amazing individuals who never capitalized on their potential.

Here are a 3 ways your genius may be sabotaging your achievement.

1. Talent offers awards without effort

After a child discovers they have a natural gift, it doesn’t take long for them to start exploiting it.  Of course they do—who wouldn’t? Everyone wants positive reinforcement and to be recognized for their strengths.

Maybe you have a particularly strong memory, and you begin to look for opportunities to show it off. Maybe you sit in the corner with your guitar at parties and show off your natural musical abilities. Either way, you thrive on the words of approval you get from those around you. And that’s how your talent begins to screw with you . . .

Ability will only take you so far. Without development and effort, what you’re able to accomplish by natural aptitude alone will eventually plateau. By that time though, your talent will already have you addicted to getting praise without having to do anything.

Which leads you to . . .

2. Talent will make you lazy

Imagine you’re a piano prodigy. You were born with perfect pitch and pick up chord progressions with ease. You’ll spend hours working out your favorite songs because you enjoy it. And as I said earlier, you feed on the attention you get for what comes naturally.

You will eventually run into musical pieces that will require work to play, and it’ll annoy you more than it should because you’re not use to having to invest the effort. Anyone else knows what it’s like to work for every musical achievement—but not you.

Playing more difficult pieces requires a certain amount of muscle memory born from repetitive activity. To improve, you’ll have to do boring things like play scales, improve your sight reading, and learn more complicated chord inversions and substitutions. Without a great amount of self-discipline, you probably will neglect the areas that require effort and focus on the parts that come easier.

Meanwhile, there’s a kid across town without any of your talent who’s getting better than you as we speak because she’s doing the work.

3. Talent will not prepare you for competition

Talented kids, particularly ones with creative or physical talents, spend a lot of time daydreaming about getting discovered and making it big. But let’s be honest, there are a lot of star high-school quarterbacks reliving their glory years while they grow old in their home town.

It’s one thing to be the best in your little community at something, but it’s another to thing to compete with other talented, skilled, and prepared individuals for the limited opportunities that exist to turn those talents into a vocation.

By the time you’re old enough to parlay your abilities into an actual livelihood, talent’s already done its best to undermine your self discipline and honest assessment of your skill level. It’s already convinced you that success is inevitable. It can be a real eye opener to realize how unprepared you are to take over the world.

Your talent will definitely give you a boost when it comes to helping you acquire a specific skill set, but it will not give you drive. And here’s the sad truth:

The driven will excel over the talented almost every time. 

Competing in the real world for that writing position, that first-chair post in a professional orchestra, or first-string quarterback position will pit you against other people who want it as badly as you do. And they may be less talented, but if they have greater drive to acquire skills, beat out the competition, and achieve, you don’t stand a chance.

As the culturally influential playwright Noël Coward once said, “Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts is: Do you have staying power?”

Well, do you?

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”—Omar Khayyám

Some things in life just can’t be undone. They can’t be fixed. They can’t be resolved.

Many of us struggle every day under the crippling weight of regrets that can’t be spiritualized away or ignored.

In a previous post I discussed areas, whether by accident or poor intention, we’ve created a mess we can’t fix. Years pass and these unresolved tensions and regrets continue to haunt us.

God may take our tragic mistakes and work them out for good, but what do we do in the meantime? And even after time has created scar tissue around those sensitive areas, how do we deal with the moments we realize it may never feel entirely healed?

If you haven’t read part one, take a moment to do so before reading these other suggestions for dealing with remorse:

Learn what you can

I know. I know. We’re told to learn from our tragedies so often that it’s a clichè. I get it.

But if people typically learned valuable lessons from their experiences, the world would be a more delightful place. The truth is . . . they usually don’t.

While I don’t subscribe to the idea that God tosses terrible things into our lives to teach us lessons, I think the lessons are intrinsically there. We just need to learn to ask the right questions.

• What does my behavior reveal about me?
• How would I respond if I was who I want to be?
• What need was I trying to fill with my actions?
• How can I avoid responding in fear or anger?
• Where is Jesus in this situation?
• What do I need to do now?

Much of the time, the things we need to learn aren’t about the situation per se, they’re about what the situation reveals.

You cannot learn these lessons through osmosis. Learning from experience is hard, proactive work.

Yesterday isn’t tomorrow’s final word

We spend a lot of time judging others for their behavior and ourselves for our intentions. We need to be honest—we are what we do. We can’t afford to allow ourselves the luxury of pretending we’re one thing when we’re obviously another. And our behavior is the best indicator of who we are.

But . . .

What you did yesterday doesn’t have to define who you are tomorrow. This is the wonder and miracle of grace.

That’s important to remember because remorse is going to try and convince you otherwise. The accuser (through the machinations of your own conscience) will try to convince you that you’ll always be who you were at your worst moment.

It’s also important to remember because some people will define you by your most shameful moments, too. There’s nothing you can do about it except pray for their best and move forward. But you can’t let yourself get mired in their opinion.

Remorse, a form of shame, was never intended to be experienced. Now that it’s been introduced into this world, we need to use it to our advantage and allow it to drive us to Christ—the one who can guarantee that tomorrow isn’t defined by today.

Pastor Mark dropped what seemed like an entire ream of paper in my lap. “We’re excited that you’re interested in joining the church,” he said, “I just need you to read through and agree with our statement of faith.”

I had led worship at a charismatic church (Foursquare) for 5 years before moving to central Indiana, and had fallen in love with a Baptist church plant in my new town. It didn’t take too long for Mark to agree that my family fit and even suggested fast-tracking my transition into an associate pastor position.

But the wind was taken out of my sails pretty quickly as I looked through their statement of faith. The church’s cessationist stance was an important part of the document, and my convictions wouldn’t allow me to agree that the charismatic gifts had ceased. I was conflicted, but didn’t think that was an acceptable reason to break fellowship.

After a long night of discussion, we decided that this issue was not a sufficient reason to pass on my membership. “But,” Pastor Mark warned me, “I don’t want you to ever teach on 1 Corinthians, and if anyone ever asks your opinion about the Holy Spirit, I would like you to direct them to me.”

My job ended up moving my family within the year, but I could tell that, had I stayed, it wasn’t going to work out. It’s just hard to feel connected to your community when you feel you can’t be completely open.

A culture of silence?

That was almost 20 years ago. Since then, my beliefs have evolved in a number of areas, and I find that I’m still not completely transparent with those around me. I may not be explicitly told what I’m allowed to share anymore, but there are areas I fear openness would lead to feeling ostracized.

While I was a church-planting pastor 10 years ago, I had many discussion with ministers from various backgrounds who confided in me that, if their congregations knew how they felt about certain social issues, theological ideas, or dogmatic principles, they’d be fired.

And the more I talk to the people in our churches, the more I fear this anxiety isn’t limited to clergy. So many people are afraid that, if anyone found out how they really felt, they’d be rejected or would suffer attempts to be fixed.

Christian pluralistic ignorance

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a German political scientist, introduced the concept of the Spiral of Silence in 1974. This theory suggested that fear of isolation will cause people to remain silent when they feel their views are in the minority.

More troubling is her suggestion that, even if the majority agree, they will individually support a contrary position if they feel they’re in the minority. This phenomenon of holding the majority viewpoint while incorrectly believing you’re in the minority is called pluralistic ignorance. And I suspect it’s rampant in the church.

Our areas of doubt and dissonance may not be the same, but I think the fact that they exist for so many of us puts us in the majority—and yet we struggle in silence.

The rebuke of public opinion

I was sitting with some colleagues recently when blogger Rachel Held Evans’ name came up. The conversation became pointed, dismissive, and, among a couple of them, even mean. I sat there listening quietly and feeling frustration and burning shame.

Unbeknownst to them, their censure of Rachel was received by me as judgement for areas where I agree with her. In that brief conversation, I was being instructed about the acceptable majority opinion. And whether it was intentional or not, I inferred from that conversation what I was safe to share.

The huge problem with the Spiral of Silence is that the more an individual feels their opinion held by the majority more likely they are to voice it. This means that, whether right or wrong, one viewpoint will drown out (often quite unintentionally) the opposing view.

There’s a disastrous problem in the church when the “common opinion” is allowed to silence a contrary opinion. A stupid belief is a stupid belief even if the majority hold it, so it’s not just the minority who need to be willing to entertain opposing ideas.

There shouldn’t be fear of censure or shaming for those who struggle with contradictory ideas or opinions.

Maybe they’re wrong, but there’s no way for them to work through these important issues if they feel forced into silence. Maybe they’re right, and there’s no way for our perspectives to change if we’re not willing to give them a voice. But maybe we’ll never agree and it’s important to learn that fellowship can be built on something more profound than acquiescence to a wooden orthodoxy.

Do you ever feel like you keep your ideas or opinions to yourself because you feel you’re in the minority? Leave me a comment. Let’s talk about it.

P.S. Thanks Frannie for turning me onto Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann.

Jesse Washington lynch mob

I don’t think many would argue that we live in perfect times. There are many social and political ills that need to be fixed—so many injustices that need to be made right.

On the other hand, I refuse to believe that there was a magic era where things were so much better.

We tend to fear the future, resent the present, and romanticize the past. But the truth is that every generation is subject to unique challenges and perspectives that bring out their best and worst collective characteristics.

When you’re tempted to pine for some better, holier bygone era, consider these facts:

1. Many historians place the number of children born or conceived out of wedlock in the 1700′s at approximately one out of three. (1)
2. In many states in the 1800′s, the age of consent for young girls was nine or ten. In Delaware, the legal age at which a girl could consent to sexual relations was seven. This means there was no way to criminally prosecute men who had sex with girls of this age. (2)
3. Christian historian Marvin Olasky asserts that, “There were roughly 160,000 abortions in 1860 in a non-slave population of 27 million. (The numbers among slaves are unknown.) This was almost the equivalent of our current figure of 1.6 million abortions in a population of close to 250 million.” (3)
4. Due to poverty issues in the early seventeenth century, the rise of gang activity in New York was through the roof. As an anxiety-ridden populace sought solace in religious revivals, they also blamed other groups for the America’s troubles: Catholics, foreigners, bankers, etc. This tension erupted often. In 1834 there were 16 urban riots—this number jumped to 37 in 1835. (4)
5. In 1916 Jesse Washington, a teenage African American field hand, was convicted of rape in Waco, TX (there are a number of questions about the fairness of this trial.). He was drug from the court room, tortured, and burned alive. A professional photographer snapped pictures of this lynching and sold the photos as postcards in Waco. There were thousands (including children) present the Jesse’s death. These kinds of lynchings continued with varying frequency through the 50′s.

America doesn’t have a golden age, and that’s good news. It means that we don’t have to struggle to recreate some imaginary and pre-existing era, we can embrace today and make an even better tomorrow.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be willing to question the wisdom of the past as we struggle with some of the today’s questions.

(1) The Whole Truth Behind the Dream 50′s Stephanie Coontz
(2) The Campaign to Raise the Age of Consent
(3) Victorian Secret Marvin Olasky
(4) The Way We Weren’t Cecelia Goodnow

I like to think of myself as a sensible and sensitive person. If I visit your church and it turns me off, I’ll politely sit through the service. I’m not going to make a scene by standing up and walking out—with one exception. I’m walking the moment you start yelling from the pulpit.

I’m not talking about occasional bouts of passion. I’m addressing the aggressive, screaming that you can find behind many American pulpits. I know there’s some historic precedent for the preaching of “fiery” sermons. But here are a couple reasons I don’t have the patience to sit through a shouting pastor.

1. Shouting complicates authority issues

There are already unsettling questions about clerical authority. When you’re instructing a passive audience in an aggressively forceful manner, you’re communicating much more than whatever point you’re trying to make. Think about it. Who else in our lives shouts at us to make a point? A parent at the end of their rope? A terrible boss?

With a perceived power imbalance, shouting communicates domination. On any given Sunday, a minister never knows the complete history of people listening to him. If you were raised in a household full of aggression and yelling, having an authority figure screaming at you for 20 minutes creates an incredible amount of anxiety.

2. Shouting confuses people about God’s disposition toward them

Many people sit in churches around the world assuming the minister’s speaking on God’s behalf. Even though we need to regularly communicate that this isn’t the case, pastors still need to understand that people listen with this mindset.

How we’re communicating is just as important as what we’re communicating.

The “prophet” mindset that encourages some church leaders to shout at congregants about their sin and God’s unhappiness may encourage attendance, it might even get people to feign obedience, but it will drive many of their hearts into hiding and away from God.

3. Shouting increases aggression toward outsiders

Much of the time, shouting from the pulpit is aimed at all of those sinners “out there.” Not too long ago I sat through a shouted sermon about sinners which included pejorative terms like “homos” and “retards.” I didn’t have the luxury of walking out, so I sat there clinching my teeth and struggling with tears.

It’s bad enough that we sit in church and feed this “us vs. them” mentality, but when we do so with that level of aggression, it sets the tone for how people interact with those with whom they disagree. There’s no reason we should, whether intentionally or not, encourage hostility toward anyone.

4. Shouting isn’t a substitute for persuasive instruction

Aristotle laid out the three important parts of rhetoric:

1. Ethos: The value of the speaker’s credibility
2. Pathos: The appeal to the listener’s emotions
3. Logos: The logical structure of an argument

Church is one of the few places where speakers regularly neglect the other modes of persuasion to focus on passion. It makes sense, it’s easy to appeal to emotions, especially when you’re talking about something so incredibly important to people.

In the end, it’s a waste. There are a lot of people who go to church regularly who are trained to only think and communicate about their faith with intense emotionalism. If you’re going to teach, do so. It’s lazy and ultimately counter intuitive to settle for getting people worked up.

It’s funny. Where else can you get by as a speaker just focusing on intense passion? As my friend Rich says, “Let’s see them try and pull that crap at Toastmasters.”

I hope I get to visit your church someday. Just know—the minute you start yelling at me, I’m gone.

It’s happening a lot lately. Young evangelical guys writing Facebook updates saying things like, “Date night with my smoking hot wife,” or pastors who can’t mention their wives without mentioning their looks and attractiveness.

Every time I see it, I get annoyed but I wasn’t sure why. So I reached out on Twitter to see if I was the only one who felt that way.

What are your thoughts when evangelical guys talk about their smoking hot wives?—
Jayson Bradley (@jaysondbradley) January 04, 2014

I was amazed at how many responses I received. Here are some a few that really moved me.

@jaysondbradley A horrid trend. As a teen, every youth speaker said this about his wife & I wondered what chance I had for marriage.—
Nicole Morgan (@unlikelymosaic) January 04, 2014

@jaysondbradley It's a pet peeve of mine b/c as an intelligent "non hot" female in seminary it made me feel less than and at a deficit.—
Esther Joy (@tweetsbymoi) January 04, 2014

@jaysondbradley It hurts when speaker during chapel goes on & on about the hotness of their wife but doesn't affirm gifted women in audience—
Esther Joy (@tweetsbymoi) January 04, 2014

I honestly hadn’t thought about this aspect. Women, who culture has already made self conscious about their looks and body image made more anxious in their place of worship.

We gather together to worship. It’s the one place where we should be focused on the things we have in common. It’s wrong to allow ourselves to be divided by the qualities that culture places so much value in, whether it’s our tax brackets or our how we look.

I know the argument would be that she’s your wife and you’re doing nothing wrong by glorying in her beauty. That may be true—it’s also prudent to have a retirement plan, but there’s never any reason to share how much is in your 401k from the pulpit.

The truth is what you’re trying to communicate and what is being heard isn’t always the same. Constant comments about your wife’s appearance can make some women wonder if they’re ever going to be good enough or pretty enough to find a mate. It tells them, “When it comes to relationships, the things valued by Christian men are no different than the things valued by any men.”

@jaysondbradley unnecessary, uncomfortable for the wife to be pointed out as sexually attractive before the whole church, & harmful to women—
Eli Rhée (@eli_ray) January 04, 2014

Another consideration that needs to be made is how a publicly objectified wife must feel. Are her looks the most important thing in your relationship? I have read many Christian marriage books that would say so—that place the onus on wives to stay attractive to keep their potentially wayward husbands in line.

When your spouse’s attraction is always communicated in terms of physical attractiveness, how does every new grey hair, wrinkle, or extra pound feel? What about the potential of an accident that might alter her appearance?

@jaysondbradley I wonder why he's not talking about her smokin' hot character, or smokin' hot intellect.—
Elizabeth Culhane (@e_culhane) January 04, 2014

What does the constant focus on mommy’s looks communicate to a daughter about her own value?

Compliments and Christian Self-Aggrandizement

My feelings are that this phenomenon has nothing to do with our wives at all. We know what’s valued by others in the church and having a blemish-free, beautiful family increases how “godly” we look.

The need to publicly declare "look how much I love and desire my wife" is usually more about extolling his virtues than hers.—
Jayson Bradley (@jaysondbradley) January 04, 2014

I always feel like males who constantly need to tell everyone how much they desire their wives are looking for something else. It tells other men that they should be jealous of their incredible relationship and says to women, “Look at how much I adore my wife—aren’t I a great catch?”

@jaysondbradley Knowing and stating the difference between "My wife is hot!" & "I'm blessed to be married to a wonderful woman." is key.—
Mitchell Roush (@MitchRoush) January 04, 2014

We all want you to have a good relationship! Tell her every day that she’s beautiful (without neglecting other wonderful characteristics), but don’t tell us. All you need to do to convince us how you feel is shown to us in how you treat her.

“God is not just saving individuals and preparing them for heaven; rather, he is creating a people among whom he can live and who in their life together will reproduce God’s life and character.”—Gordon Fee

Social media has become a natural and important part of many lives. A recent survey says that 79% of smartphone users are on their phones within 15 minutes of waking up. For those 18–24, the number rises to 89%.

The question for Christians isn’t about whether these tools are good or bad, it’s about whether these tools are contributing to, or detracting from, our spiritual formation.

If we’re intentional about the way we approach social media, it can be more than a tool for communicating—it can be a divinely used device to make us more like Christ. Here are a couple ways to use social media as a spiritual discipline:

1. Prayer

Set aside some time occasionally and pray through your Facebook or Twitter feeds.

Social media is often an invitation into some of of your friends’ struggles and challenges. As you scan through your feed, it’s perfect opportunity to remind yourself to be, be first of all, a vehicle of grace.

Don’t comment—not even to let them know you’re praying for them. There’s value in learning care for the needs of others without drawing attention to it.

2. Peacemaking

First of all, you’re not going to agree with everything your friends say. In fact, some of it will offend you—but that cuts both ways. I guarantee that not everyone agrees with you either. This is a great opportunity to learn to be a peacemaker.

The first part of peacemaking is learning to stay unruffled. It’s too easy to allow yourself to get worked up. How can Christians expect to deal with personal attacks with humility and patience if they can’t even see something they disagree with without getting upset?

Become a student of your personal responses. We naturally assume when we start to get upset that someone else is responsible for our reaction. They’re not; we are.

As you scroll through your feeds, put enough space between stimulus and response to scrutinize what you react to. Then stop.

It’s totally appropriate to take part in online dialogue, but don’t be contentious. Be assured that your online interaction is conditioning how you see and respond to people in other areas of your life. You need to be intentional to ensure it’s building a better you.

3. Humility

If you’re thoughtful, hardworking, and interesting, you can build a strong online platform in the midst of all the noise. But it doesn’t come without a dark side.

There’s a lot of shameless self promotion involved in the online game—and it can be a trap. God knows, it’s a battle that I’ve not always done a good job fighting.

But that’s not the only kind of self promotion you find online. We’re all guilty of creating an online persona that’s dishonest by degrees. We want others to think we have a better family than we do. We want to appear more successful, altruistic, intelligent, and funnier than we actually are.

If I’m creating an online image that encourages others to see me as more together and successful than I actually am, everyone suffers. I need to be brutally honest with myself about my motives behind how I communicate things about myself. I say brutally honest because the first person I fool with my updates is myself.

4. Abstinence

One spiritually formative thing we can do is to occasionally disengage from social media. A strong argument can be made that we’re missing more with our constant media engagement than we’d miss by disengaging.

If I’m honest, I’m checking various media channels almost constantly. And this lack of self control is inevitably seeping into other areas of my life.

It’s important to establish some impulse control, and one way to do that is to establish principles for my media engagement. Being serious about spiritual formation means I realize my habits touch deeper areas within me than they appear to.

What are some ways you use social media as a spiritual formation tool? Leave me a comment.

We tend to forget how much spin goes on in Hollywood and Washington. Both communities are awash in public relations specialists and image consultants who work hard to form public perception about their clients.

When a senator’s poll numbers start getting shaky, these professionals jump into action. Whether they’re leaking a couple pics from the 10-minute charity photo-op or pulling together a confessional press conference complete with a supportive and stoic wife, popular opinion is shaped by these illusionists.

Fire your image consultant

The truth is, we’re all our own image consultants and so much of our behavior is about self promotion, spin, and damage control. We’re constantly looking for ways to amplify our success, diminish our failures, and encourage others to think the best of us.

What if maintaining our glittering image is not only unnecessary, but detrimental? The New Testament doesn’t just talk about the bad we need to avoid—we’re regularly warned of the dangers and temptations inherent in the good we do.

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus warns against pointing out our virtues. From giving to the poor to practicing spiritual disciplines, we’re encouraged toward secrecy.

Keeping the right secrets

The danger of collective set of community values lies in how easy it is to manipulate them to our advantage. And you’d better believe this is alive and well in Christianity.

We want to be loved and we want people to think highly of us. For Christians it’s often as easy as:

• Flaunting our biblical knowledge
• Highlighting our selflessness
• Drawing attention to our perfect families
• Spotlighting our hatred of sin
• And hiding our brokenness

It doesn’t take too long before we learn the supreme art of misdirection, and cover our depravity under piles of distracting false Christian idealism.

3 Steps to healthy, God-honoring transparency

Keep your best secrets

Paul warns the church in Philippi to do nothing from empty conceit. It’s good advice. We need to be honest about our motives in who, when, and how we share our victories. Our need to be seen in the best possible light can be our undoing.

Trumpeting the good we do can disengage it from its original motivation. Perhaps, inspired by our desire to please God, we strike up a relationship with a homeless shelter but can’t resist the opportunity to post about it on Facebook. Jesus says that the “Likes” and “attaboys” you receive by doing so become your reward. Be careful!

Leave it to God to decide who finds out about your benevolence—do good for goodness’ sake.

Practice confession

There’s humility to be found in being honest about our darkness. Living duplicitously saps us of our vitality and is ultimately exhausting. Find trustworthy spiritual friends you can tell the truth to.

James encourages us to practice confession because of its healing qualities. It’s true, bringing to light those things we’d rather hide is good practice. It releases us from feeling that we need to spin the truth to make us look better than we are, and helps encourage us toward self discipline.

Stop defending yourself

If learning to do good without telling others about it is about keeping the right secrets, then learning not to rush to your own defense is secret keeping 2.0.

Much of our reputation is illusory. We’re neither as saintly or demonic as our reputation might suggest. Our desire to ensure the opinions of those around us are always positive opens us up to danger.

Doctors of the church, following Christ’s example, placed a high premium on trusting God to defend us. Our job was to follow him and serve others. If, our reputation was at risk in doing so, it was because we need to allow God opportunity to move—or because he wanted to remove from us the snare of placing too much stock in the shifting and contrary opinions of others.

• If you do wrong, be open to correcting it and making restitution.
• If someone attributes undeserved goodness to you, correct them.
• If someone undeservedly discredits you, allow room for God to defend you.

In an era of social media, fighting pride and elevating humility can be difficult—but it’s worth it. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

I took up blogging because I love to write, and like many, I’d do it without an audience. The internet is strewn with blogs I’ve launched for awhile and let run aground.

This blog’s growing influence has allowed me the luxury of getting to know some other fantastic writers—and familiarize myself with many of the Christian blogosphere’s benefits—and blemishes.

At their best, blogs are a forum for anyone to inform, encourage, and engage others. My favorite blogs challenge me to look at myself, my theology, and others in a whole new light.

But I’ve noticed some less than stellar trends in the Christian blogging community, too. Here are the couple that come to mind:

1. Unproductive indignation

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely abuses that should be called out—sometimes by name. Abuses of authority, theology, and practice should not be ignored or treated with kid gloves.

But as your platform grows, so does your responsibility to be a peacemaker. I often agree with many blogging personalities and then watch their insight get turned into animosity as it’s picked up by their followers. What’s initially intended as a discussion about issues can quickly turn into the demonizing of individuals. Soon the issues get lost in focused, personalized rage.

I have watched Twitter discussions between bloggers devolve into Gangs-of-New-York-style battles as their followers dive in. It gets messy. It gets mean. It becomes a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.

It’s not an easy issue. Like I said, sometimes individuals should be called out. Sometimes specific examples need to be named. Heck, Paul called out people by name in many of his epistles. But, in the end, we’re agents of reconciliation and have a responsibility to ensure we’re not diminishing anyone’s value, even if we’re standing against some aspect of their influence.

Please remember, you are never dealing with caricatures—you are dealing with people. People with long, often tragic, stories. People who are often more sensitive than you know.

2. Content “borrowing”

In January of 2013, I published a post called 3 Phrases Christians Should Quit Relying On. It was my first viral post, and it was pretty exciting. But one thing I wasn’t prepared for was the number of posts my friends discovered that were overt copies. Some borrowed the idea, while others honed in and elaborated on one aspect. I had one blogger use two-thirds of the post’s outline as their own. Guess how many of them credited their post’s inspiration? If you guessed zero, you’re right.

One person who did it right was Micah Murray of Redemption Pictures. Even though he thought I was full of crap in his Things Christians Should Stop Saying, he took the time to link to my post and give me credit. Yeah, you’re right . . . that one time I got partial inspirational credit was from someone who disagreed with me. *sigh*

(If you get a chance read the comments to his blog, do it. It was my first introduction to Micah and I’m happy we’re friends. It’s a pretty funny exchange.)

Since then, I have been a lot more aware of this kind of “borrowing” happening. I’ll see a blog go viral and then start seeing new versions of the post cropping up. They’re not plagiarized, per se, they might be completely rewritten, but the inspiration (and sometimes even the title) is so familiar, it might as well be.

Blogs are monsters always demanding to be fed, and coming up with new content to feed them can be difficult. And while it’s impossible to always be entirely original, you need to be careful. Once you start getting the reputation as someone who plays fast and loose with other people’s content, it’s hard to shake.

Give the credit that’s due

There’s an amazing blogging community out there. Giving credit and linking back to blogs that inspire you baptizes you into that community. Whenever I see a blogger do this I think, “What a class act.” I never think less of them because their idea evolved from something they read.

3.  Setting yourself up as a role model

A blog can be a great way to share your personal stories and the lessons you’ve learned, but it can quickly become dangerous. People naturally trust you and will give you the benefit of the doubt. It becomes easy to set yourself up as an example of holiness, marital happiness, parental wisdom, or other Christian virtues.

But let’s be honest—no one vets bloggers. And any schmo can set up a blog and wax eloquently about Christianity in a way that sets them up as a hero of faith. Be wary of taking advantage of your reader’s trust. And be doubly wary about setting yourself up as a glittering image.

Sure, Paul tells the Corinthians to follow his example—but he had a relationship with them. They’d spent time with him, they’d seen him under duress, and they learned to trust him. As bloggers, we need to be careful not to create idealized examples of our life for others to exemplify. It might help grow your platform, but it creates an illusory, romanticized ideal that will eventually frustrate your readers.

Image by Timothy Faust

“Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall”—Longfellow

Tragedy’s coming. And chances are:

• You don’t know when.
• You don’t know what form it will take.
• You won’t be able to prevent it.
• You won’t be prepared for it.

When the storm comes, it’s going to take all of your resources to weather it. One of the bigger questions is whether you will have the right friends for the job—and will you be the right friend when they need you?

Words will fail you

Whether it is a death, a lost job, a divorce, or any number of other calamities, it’s amazing some of the “comforting” things people will say . I recently asked this question on Twitter:

What's the worst thing someone has said to you in an effort to comfort you through a tragedy?—
Jayson Bradley (@jaysondbradley) January 28, 2014

You probably won’t find many of the responses surprising.

@jaysondbradley It's all part of God's plan, God needed another angel, it's God's timing.—
Kathryn Witzel (@KWitzel) January 28, 2014

@jaysondbradley You ought to be over it by now. You need therapy.—
Barbara Blackburn (@BabWryter) January 28, 2014

@jaysondbradley everything happens for a reason.—
lyndacrain (@LyndaCrain) January 28, 2014

@jaysondbradley "I know it's hard but it's good." They were aiming for Romans 8:28 type of thing but I still wanted to punch them.—
Liz Renee (@ContraryWoman) January 28, 2014

@jaysondbradley "I admire you so much; you're so strong!" – In the midst, I'd rather be weak and happy than strong and in pain.—
Jennifer Tatum (@LexicalJen) January 28, 2014

@jaysondbradley Right after my brother committed suicide…a "friend" said "I know how you feel, my boyfriend just dumped me."—
Sarah Retro Decker (@LoveOnLaughOn) January 29, 2014

Why words don’t work

If we’re honest, we’ll admit that dealing with someone else’s trauma is difficult and awkward. We’re confronted with our desire to help ease their pain—and our complete inability to do so. In dealing with that deficit, we resort to trying to find the right words to massage the pain away. It almost always fails.

Even if what you say is completely right, it likely won’t help. There’s nothing rational about grief. It’s an overwhelming, and all-encompassing emptiness, anxiety, and panic that comes over you in waves. Sometimes those waves last for days, and sometimes they last for moments. But when you’re in their grasp, those waves of grief are all that exist and it’s impossible to imagine life without them.

Those waves don’t relent when confronted with truth. Occasionally, the words you use will hurt more than help. In fact, I know a lots of people who, years later, can’t remember the grief, but still carry the scars of words spoken to them when they were in the thick of it.

Presence is your true gift

Part of our problem is that we’re pretty isolated from even our closest relationships. We don’t have the time it takes to really help someone through their pain. There isn’t any magic bullet to get people to pull out of their grief. The only thing you can do is be there with them.

Being present is the easiest thing in the world—and the hardest.

In the book of Job, we see a man stricken with the loss of his children, property, and health. His friends come and sit quietly and mourn with him for seven days. It isn’t until they start talking and offering their own personal opinions and theodocies that things start unraveling.

There comes a time when the most well-intentioned person is going to want to hurry the grieving process along. But that’s just not how it works. Being there for someone means listening to irrational, sometimes caustic, diatribes. It means patiently enduring their anger and hurt at God and anyone they feel has failed them. It means weeping with them and providing a safe place for them to get the poison out.

After a while, it’s going to be tiring, inconvenient, and difficult—do it anyway. After all, 98% of crises care is just showing up.

Image by Timothy Faust

Image by amboo who?

Researchers tell us that the more we’re exposed to perfect bodies in the media, the more we’re dissatisfied with our own.

That dissatisfaction goes for any area where we’re regularly and confronted with the idea that everyone else is more successful, richer, smarter, or better than we are.

It would be one thing if the celebrity images that wreaked havoc on our self images were real, but they’re not. They’re airbrushed and photoshopped—the flaws are hidden and the strengths are accented. We let illusion dictate reality.

The church’s airbrush

I fear that the church does the same thing. It’s not that we establish a physical standard that’s unachievable. No. With the best of intentions, we set up a standard of perfection across the board:

• You need to have a bulletproof marriage
• You need to be incredible parents
• You need to be ideal children
• Your devotional life needs to be in order
• And on, and on it goes . . .

We’ve been Fireproofed, Growing Kids God’s Way, and Focus on the Family’d to death. We’re on a treadmill that never ends and is perpetually disheartening.

Why it doesn’t work

We have more tools than ever to help us attain this high Christian standard, but I don’t think anyone would argue that it’s really working. Here are a couple reasons why I think this Stepford Christianity is killing us:

1. It capitalizes on our sincere desire to be good Christians

We want to be to be good. We want to please God. And these expectations goad us into a never-ending cycle of DVD classes and Christian self-help books. The Christian life is reduced to constant resolution and disappointment.

“Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,” is reduced to “Come on—try harder. You’re almost there. You’re doing alright in your marriage, but your failing with your kids.”

Learning to be connected to the vine (a more holistic picture of spiritual growth and maturity, and one that is as varied as we are) is turned into a shame-based striving.

2. It diminishes our transparency

We might not be able to have it all together, but we can pretend that we do. We don’t do it because we’re liars—we do it because:

• We don’t want to feel like we don’t fit in
• We’re afraid we’re not going to be accepted when you see how messed up we are
• We think we can fake it until we make it

An important aspect of spiritual growth is just accepting where we are and striving to get closer to Jesus. Christianity’s not about being dissatisfied with ourselves and striving to become something else. Sadly, it can easily become that.

If I’m afraid that you’re going to shun me when you know who I really am, I’ll do anything I can to hide it from you—and myself.

3. It doesn’t take Scripture into account

I love Scripture’s painfully awkward humanity.

We Christians often act like the Bible’s made up entirely of gospels and epistles. But truthfully the Bible’s awash in screwed up people doing terrible things, and God directing the outcome of these horrible missteps into something that glorifies him.

God’s used some shady, immoral individuals, and he didn’t wait until they were fixed. In fact, for many of them, God’s willingness to use them in spite of their worst was part of the spiritual formation that shaped them.

We’re often so focused on being good Christians that we neglect to just be available.

4. It makes us focus on the wrong criteria

As we discussed earlier, when we elevate the perfect Christian behavior across the spectrum of our roles, we encourage pretense. When we establish criteria that allows people to pretend they’re good Christians, we have no idea who is, and who is not, really spiritual.

Because of that, we miss out on people who are truly close to Christ but refuse to play the game. They don’t look spiritual and they don’t act spiritual (at least in the way that we’re encouraged to judge those things), yet they have spiritual potency to extend to us.

Before you freak out . . .

I am not saying that we don’t try or that it doesn’t matter how we parent, marry, or any of those things. The issue is one of balance.

We need to start with a message of acceptance—and not deficit. Christ in us is our hope of glory, not the striving to live up to whatever Christian ideals we are currently promoting.

I imagine that when Christ gets a hold of us, we’re going to have as many versions of healthy spirituality as there are people.

Image by amboo who?