NextGenKent

I had a life-transforming experience when I was about 19. A MEGA-shift that was so simple I am still moved by it 25 years later. It happened when I bought my first NIV translation of the Bible. All of my life I was exposed to the hearing and reading of the KJV of the Bible. I am not bashing it. But that is all I knew--one verse after another in tabbed formation. I memorized it, studied it for Bible quizzing competition, knew some passages frontwards and backwards. But something happened deep within me when I read the Bible for the first time in paragraphed form. I can still feel the newness of the distractions (those little super-scripted numbers which represented the verse I was on while reading) caused me and how I had to search through words and even sentences to catch up with others while reading to find where we were together so I could keep up. That learning curve is behind me now. But the impact the Word of God has had on my life since is ever in front of me. I was re...

“Faith trajectories are often set in early adolescence.” In their recent book, StickyFaith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids (Zondervan, 2011), Drs. Powell & Clark layout why kids’ faith isn’t sticking. Their research indicates that somewhere between “40 to 50 percent of kids who graduate from a church or youth group will fail to stick with their faith in college.” Even more perplexing is “only 20% of college students who leave the faith planned to do so during high school. The remaining 80% intended to stick with their faith but didn’t.” Powell and Clark ask a very important question: “Why go through any changes in your life--seasonal transitions--with faith in the backseat?” Why indeed. As adults, do we really want to invest our whole lives of faith—at home, in the church and community and the world, in front of our children only to see them squander that investment at such a crucial time in their lives? But what can we do to give kids a suitable, rea...

A reaction to Ruby K. Payne's, A Framework for Understanding Poverty. The author speaks from her experience and for many others including myself. Having worked with those who are in poverty I resonated with much of what Ruby Payne states in this book. She gave verbal expressions to many things I have come across in my own observations. And I would agree with what the subtitle touts, “A must-read for educators, employers, policymakers, and service providers.” The “Could You Survive?” test really catches your interest and helps you identify where you come from as well as the ‘hidden rules’ other segments of society (poverty, middle class, and wealth) come from. I found her quote, “Most of the students that I have talked to in poverty do not believe they are poor, even when they are on welfare. Most of the wealthy adults I have talked to do not believe they are wealthy; they will usually cite someone who has more than they do” very intriguing (p45). Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4:4,...

Reaction to: Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, 2009. This book really preaches. It is one of those books that doesn’t just tell you how to do it—it is doing it while it is telling you how! If we look at our computer screens and refocus we can actually see our own reflection on the screen (or the outline of our reflection)—this reminds us of who we are and that we are not our computers (and our computers are not us). This “magic eye” methodology—the training of the eye to see what is there but normally overlooked—is how we need to approach the technological advances of today as well as how we live our lives as the Church in the world. We must walk the line however fine it may be between observing the 2nd Commandment of not making for ourselves graven images and using images to convey a message. The methods we chose speak a message themselves as Marshall McLuhan was quoted, “the medium is the message” (25). Even the television screen is a part of th...

William D. Romanowski, Eyes Wide Open: Looking For God In Pop Culture (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press) 2009. Remarking about the kind of faith informed engagement with popular art and culture, Romanowski states that, “Our aim should be to preserve the best features, improve the weakest parts, and eliminate the worst traits of popular art” (23). This is really what the entire book sets out to show us how to do—practically, emotionally, spiritually, but most of all with great discernment. This really is a very good book! At each turn with the author’s setting up of his point-illustration-principle-vision layout, many times I found myself guessing correctly which movie he was going to be citing next. I found this statement on paradigm shifts needing to happen very interesting: “The change is signified by a remaking of cultural perceptions and the introduction of new questions and standards for acceptable solutions” (p35). With the fast pace of technological advancements and media’s barra...

A reaction to Nancy Pearcey's book, Saving Leonardo: A Call To Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning, 2010. The author finishes this book with an inspiring assertion: “We are called to revolt against false idols and the power they exert over the minds and hearts. Christians should be on the front lines fighting to liberate society from its captivity to secular worldviews” (p278). This comes after a quote from Francis Schaeffer, “One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary”--against the status quo. Pearcey argues the way to do this is through the artists (as prophets) in the church, who like Bach, could inspire a spiritual revival and spark a global revolution. I am unsure this author’s methodology in this book would achieve that level of inspiration. This book needed to be written. There is so much good information laid out in fair historical patterns. The ...

A reaction to John Van Sloten's, The Day Metallica Came To Church: Searching For The Everywhere God in Everything ,  2010. This book caused me to rethink some of my foundational theologies, specifically Creation and the Fall. If God created us in His image and declared His creation as ‘very good’, what consequences did the sin of Adam and Eve have upon us? How deep does it go? I have some very strong thinking patterns that hold everything as either good or bad, God’s or Satan’s, black or white. This either/or (dualistic?) outlook doesn’t leave room for the mysterious. But what if all of these things were meant to lead me to something more? What if I always stopped short because I was led to believe that when I came to a certain point I had arrived—mission complete--stop here and move on to another subject? And what if that wasn't true? I was challenged by the thought of how God speaks to us outside of the Bible. I have believed that God speaks to me through many things (...