Cwillz Spills » blogs

“Do Hard Things”: Fear and Following in book Vegas

Chris Williams — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:06:47 +0000

Do Hard Things

Jackpot! I have been reading the book “Do Hard Things” by Alex & Brett Harris. A couple of my students read it, and have started a small group and several other projects as a result. I needed to catch up with them. A couple of things:

First, this book is very encouraging and inspirational. It is a call to discipleship from teens to teens. Personally I have benefited from it as well.

Second, a potent quotable:

Letting fear control your actions is a statement of distrust in the goodness of God. If we allow fear to paralyze us, we’ll look back at our life with remorse for all the times we could have and should have–but did not.(77-78)

Good stuff. I love it so far. I especially like the variety of ways that Alex and Brett challenge their readers to be excellent and diligent. They cover the bases of the personal, familial, societal, relational, spiritual and intellectual.

Thanks, Alex and Brett. Keep it up!

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

Tagged: alex harris, blogs, book, book reviews, brett harris, discipleship, do hard things, youth ministry

How Kingdom People Do Politics

Chris Williams — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:42:49 +0000

Heaven help us!!– its almost time to pick a president.

A friend recently posted on the politics of Jesus. It was so good that I want to respond. Earlier this year I posted about how humbling ourselves to the will of God is the way that Jesus would vote. A few more thoughts:

Jesus’ purpose did not fit the political structures. A major part of Jesus’ ministry was that people tried to push him into being the political Messiah of Israel. They expected to be re-established as a nation and out of Rome’s hand. Judas may have thought he was advancing the Kingdom by forcing Jesus into the political system. Oops!

Didn’t Judas know that Jesus had a different purpose for being on the earth? He could have had all of the Kingdoms in the world during His lifetime, but he turned it down in obedience to the Father.

OK, so Jesus was not a politician. Is the Kingdom he brought/declared/taught/will bring a political Kingdom? How do those of us who are a part this Kingdom do this politics thing?

There have been times of intense emphasis on different principles from the Kingdom that have missed the mark of the purposes of God, both to the left and to the right. I firmly believe that Kingdom people are to be involved in politics, but only as an expression of their allegiance to the will of God. A good example of this is the life of Daniel.

Righteous and Justice, both personal and social are all part of the Good News for the Kingdom. Living them out will result in a more correct world. We will do well to search the scriptures for God’s heart. We get to cast one vote. The questions we should be asking are: who is God? If God wrote laws what would He be concerned about? What is righteousness/justice?

Once we take a long look at that, we can choose the people who will represent that heart the best.

Sinus Nastiness

Chris Williams — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:28:43 +0000

Thats why I have not posted. Sorry, its gross.

Vuelve ud. tomorrow

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

MOVING

Chris Williams — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

I will be moving the blog the cwillz.wordpress.com.

Update the reader.

See you there.

May the Lord’s will be done,
CWillZ

Circle Circle Square Square

Chris Williams — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:52:00 +0000

We had a great speaker last weekend and I’d like to share:

Eric and Danielle Timm have a ministry called No One Underground. At Springhill’s fall teen retreat last weekend, Eric spoke with authority, humor, candor, and great love. He also painted two pieces of art that went along with his message. Danielle did a dramatic reading of some of her word art, which was also powerful, truthful and exacting.

The first painting he did for us was called “Issues” and is a picture that shows the God-shaped hole in every person, and three shapes (a circle, a square, and a triangle) in the background. The shapes cannot fill the hole correctly. We learned how to let go of these shapes, trust in the Lord and to get rid of the things we use to push God out of our hearts.

http://ericsamueltimm.com/Paintings.html

Check out No One Underground Ministries
Check out Eric’s Artist Page
Check out No One Underground on YouTube

Thank you so much Eric and Danielle!! My students and I will have the reminder of how important it is to guard our hearts every time we see your painting in our youth room.

May the Lord’s will be done,
CWillZ

Test Run: ScribeFire

Chris Williams — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:04:00 +0000

Testing Mozilla’s ScribeFire.

Don’t Read This

Chris Williams — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:53:00 +0000

Sorry, in advance. Constipation of thoughts recently.

My task this week is to write a section of my Philosophy of Ministry paper that explains the Ultimate Purpose. I know God, so I guess I can presume that there is a purpose.

I have heard Ultimate Purpose expressed in a variety of ways, and have written a similar paper previously. Instead of simply ripping that idea off, I decided to poke around the thought world to see what the Tradition had to offer. Brian McLaren‘s mentions the Eastern Orthodox view that that Christ’s coming to earth was a way of allowing creation to join in the perfect dance of the trinity.

I googled “Ultimate Purpose Trinity”. It didn’t take long until I was bored of reading the debates between wether or not to call Jesus a “person”, “expression” or “distinctinve/indistinctive essence”. I found a blog post that link to another, and another that had a cool name.

I read about how the author was shutting down the blog. I also read some of the posts, mostly because some people are getting hurt. The blog is re-opened and looks about the same. My thought is: with things like this on the site, how do you expect people not to respond in a way that hurts someone, even if they are brothers in the faith?

Switch gears to the laundry room in Morris Hall last night. My dear friend Christian Leman and I were about an hour into a discussion about what the Gospel means. One of my guys from the floor comes down to hear the end of me ranting about about how debates in theology can be divisive, and how they can become “essential” rather than “important”.

Christian left while his clothes were in the dryer, and the other friend said to me, “I really didn’t expect to hear you say something like that.”

A little aback I said “What do you mean?”

He said, “I just think of you as kind of person who likes to think about all that stuff”

It strikes me that I would be the person that is perceived to place thought above love.

You are burning to know what I think is essential.

LOVE GOD, LOVE ALL PEOPLE.