Restoring Rapport

Created by Community for Community: “And so the beautiful truth is that since we were created by a community, we were created for community. If we are made in God’s image and God is a community, then that means we are rejecting our humanness when we live isolated and alone. That’s fundamental to what it means to be human. That is intimacy.” (It's Not What You Think: Why Christianity Is So Much More Than Going to Heaven When You Die, Bethke). We were created by Community for Community. It's what William Paul Young would refer to as "the Truth of our Being." When it comes right down to it, we, as humans, are innately designed with an inescapable need for community and relationship because we are made in the image of a God who is a Relationship. God is a great dance of relational exchange occurring between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ( http://wmpaulyoung.com/god-is-a-dance/ ). The concept of the Triune God is widely enough adopted that few Christians would a...

I was standing in the Ohio University Southern Office at the start of the 2019-2020 Spring Semester. In order to jump through one of the three million hoops required to enter Teacher Candidacy, I had to get a background check. As I stood waiting for the attendant to put my name through the system, I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between three students I'd never met. I listened. Their conversation revolved around the question of marriage and whether or not each of them were considering matrimony in the future. By the end of the (rather short) conversation, each of them had arrived at the same conclusion: marriage wasn't for them. Since this is an issue I'd written about in the past, I decided to seize the opportunity to participate in a spontaneous survey from the sidelines. I silently listened to the reasoning of each. The general consensus between the three was that marriage was a form of  bondage  or  limitation . After all, wouldn't it be muc...

I was at work the other day running food to customers. I had just delivered a lady's meal to her car door and we exchanged the usual pleasantries between friendly customer and hard worker. I was about to return to my post and deliver more food when she said something rather shocking to me: "Don't work too hard." I'd heard the phrase many times before, and, for some reason, it always stands out to me. I mean, that's not something that really makes sense in today's business model. After all, according to the consumerist mentality of today, the baseline concern of a customer is to get their purchase in the most efficient, speedy way possible. This is reinforced by the baseline concern of a business: making money, hopefully through customer satisfaction. This means hard work for the employees. And even beyond the business world into the spiritual world, hard work is very strongly encouraged. It's commonplace to endorse hard work by saying, "Do e...

Look! There goes a young woman in a field of green, dancing and leaping through lilac and nettle alike, she glides across this plateau of life. Observe her stride—her lion-like leap. Behold the speed of her step and the lift in her spring. See there! An orange flower dances deep in her soul, framed by an iris of breathtaking hue. A radiant smile beams from her face and the cool morning breath billows from her warm lungs—see her run! Notice her passionate gate; strong legs flung forth, one after another, in pulchritudinous splendor and glorious purpose.   What is her quarry? There! Look! A flash of white light; a beautiful stag, every bit the size of his pursuer’s soul! He takes the hill in a stride and the mountain in two—a splash of shimmering silver across his evergreen path. He leads the woman in a sprint of goodness toward a place of purpose: her Tree of Given Life. The woman follows the stag to her Tree, rejuvenated with every step taken closer to its bark. She ...

Male Sexual Oversimplification and Misunderstanding: Often, according to common thought, men are perceived as very animalistic creatures who separate emotion from physicality when it comes to sex. It's really become quite a strong stereotype--"Men don't care about bonding and emotional connection with their spouse, they just want to satisfy their physical passions." While I'm not discounting the male sex-drive, I am definitely in strong opposition to the idea that emotions play no role in a man when it comes to sexuality. To be frank, when we summarize a man's sexual desire as 100% physical, we're not only displaying a lack of understanding concerning a man's nature, but we're also nurturing and reinforcing negative male stereotypes AND behavior. To use the words of Jonathan Daugherty, "If we reduce a man simply to his sexuality or his sexual urges, we're really missing a whole lot of what there is in a man" (JWJ #233). Namely, ...

Today, I'd like to submit to you the controversial idea that the primary value of work is not the work in and of itself. The mindset you have towards the purpose of a work is really what determines the value of the work. In other words, the value of work is determined by the spirit you are partnering with in your labor. Far too often today, we determine the value of work based on, not only its genre or title, but also the passion with which it is carried out. We determine the worth of a given work in our lives based on the excellence we strive for in doing it. We say things like, "Any job is a God-job if you give it your all!" and, "All work is valuable if you're giving it your best!" and, "A job well-done is time well-spent!"  While striving for excellence in your work can build your own personal character and grow your own personal success, that's not the primary factor which makes work valuable. Achievement is not the ultimate purpose...

"Probably the most unexplainable reality in all of the universe is how can you have everything and simply want something else that you've been told not to get. That's madness. You've got billions of dollars and you sell your soul for a quarter that you see on the ground." -Dr. Dan Allender (Professor of Counseling Psychology) Humanity has the remarkable ability to adopt counterfeits of the true desires and goodness we were intended for. Sometimes the counterfeits are blatant mockeries of beauty and other times they aren't counterfeits at all--they're good things which distract us from better things. And while good things are indisputably to be sought, they are not designed to stand in the place of better things. Good things are intended to be pursued  in addition to better things; not in the place of them. However, we occasionally, unknown to ourselves, attempt to replace better things with either good things, or blatant counterfeits. I o...

In today's society, the bashing of technology and social media have become a commonplace rant for many people. The cons of Facebook, Instagram, Alexa, Amazon, and Apple dominate the  tête-à-tête  of the table within many homes and social settings. This largely springs from the fact that there are  indisputable   correlations  between interactive screens and social dysfunction. However, today, I submit to you the idea that smart phones and social media are not the problem, but rather the symptom of the root issue. The truth is that the overuse of smart phones and social media are not the cause of social dysfunction, but are rather one of the countless ways through which social dysfunction manifests itself.  Many people today seem to be making the false assumption that, if smart phones and social media are strictly regulated and restrained, social dysfunction will be solved and the value of face-to-face interaction will begin to flourish. In other words, we...