June 7, 2006

A gadget

Every once in awhile something comes along that is so brilliant you can’t believe it hasn’t been done before. Behold the faucet that indicates the temperature of the water using LCD lights. Very sexy.

 

 

A blog

Some of the churches that are involved in Love Winnipeg are dipping their toes into the blogosphere and posting their experiences on the Love Winnipeg blog. I especially like the little graphic my pastor put up to encourage another pastor to try out blogging…. and how Love Winnipeg showed up in Nepal.

 

 

Why I’m reading ‘Mega Shift’…

I have a philosophy in reading where I will throw books into my reading mix that I know in advance are from the fringes of what I might consider or agree with. I do this to keep myself balanced… or unbalanced… and keep myself exposed to perspectives and views outside the range of my current views or favourite authors so as to avoid tunnel vision. I recommend this practice… if you’re able to read with an open mind.

 

 

‘Mega Shift’ is from a very charismatic viewpoint. It’s a great read. The author is quite humourous and self-deprecating alongside equal doses of the typical charismatic language and bravado. Mega Shift essentially examines the explosive growth of Christians and churches in non-western countries and usually through charismatic or pentecostal minstries… and the corresponding increase in occurances of documented miracles… particularly resurrections from the dead. Whatever negative emotional reaction you had to that last sentence… there must have been at least a little sense of intrigue buried somewhere in there.

One gem:

“…at the rate we’re growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more christians than people by the autumn of 2032.”

Apart from reading it to expand my horizon, it’s estimated that by 2010, the ratio of non-western evangelicals to western evangelicals will be 7 to 1. So I read both with curiosity as well as with a realization that it might perhaps be helpful (and maybe even non-optional) to find out how the most predominant form of doing church on the planet will look like. We can only insulate ourselves for so long, fellow westerners. There’s a whole non-western church out there that we don’t usually hear about…

where a 30-year-old peasant farmer in China with a cell phone oversees 30,000 full-time church planters …

where christians in Cambodia grew from 200 to 400,000 in 14 years…

where 2 sisters in China who became believers were embarrassed and ashamed to admit they only started 29 churches in 2 years - the largest of which has 5,000 members…

so you might want to read up on what’s coming down the pike…like it or not.

Has anybody else read this? What did you think?

nooc