Monthly Archives: August 2011
U.S. drinking preferences
| August 23, 2011 | Posted by matt under Uncategorized |
I saw this Gallup poll this week about the alcohol preferences of American drinkers. Of note is that wine is now almost caught up with beer (35% to 36%), and liquor is up 2% over last year. If you look at the breakdown, you will see that wine is heavily favored by women and older people. As the population is aging, I expect wine to continue to get more popular. However, for drinkers aged 18-34, beer dropped from 51% to 39% in just one year. That’s a huge drop, but looking at the more detailed breakdown of men vs. women tells me they must have had more women in their sample than last year.
One thing that really cracked me up:
Additionally, 2% of young adults this year volunteered that they most often drink cordials, up from less than 1% in 2010 and in most prior years.
Really, cordials? Who drinks cordials? What is wrong with you young adults!
Book Review: In the Name of Jesus
| August 6, 2011 | Posted by matt under books, reviews |
In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen is a short book on Christian leadership, directed primarily at the clergy but applicable to all Christians in leadership. Nouwen looks at the three temptations of Jesus before he began his ministry and generalizes them into temptations that leaders face today. He then uses the challenge that Jesus gave to Peter after the resurrection to show how a leader should behave, and offers a spiritual discipline to help deal with each temptation.
This is a short book, only 107 pages with a study guide, prologue, epilogue, large print, and some pages taken up only by a woodcutting and a quote, so it is a very quick read. It reminds me a bit of the structure of The Return of the Prodigal Son. It’s interesting how much Bible teaching uses three points for comparison.
Nouwen is well known for his move from the academic world as a professor at Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame to living and working with mentally handicapped individuals in the Daybreak community near Toronto at the end of his career. It was there that he learned the lessons of leadership that he covers in this book, and he gives some excellent examples from his own life and ministry for why leaders need to adopt the disciplines he suggests.
The first temptation faced by Jesus (as seen in Matthew 4) was to turn stones into bread after 40 days of fasting. Nouwen sees this as the temptation to be relevant. The leader wants to do things that will make people take notice and will help them to not feel marginalized. Christian leaders can feel inadequate and be tempted to behave like other ‘professionals’ such as doctors or therapists, providing people with solutions to their problems. Nouwen uses the interaction between Jesus and Peter in John 21 to give an alternative to being relevant. Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me?’. If the leader truly loves Jesus, questions of relevancy don’t matter, but they will do what Jesus asks since they will know his heart. The discipline that Nouwen says will promote this is contemplative prayer.
The second temptation of Jesus was to throw himself from the temple to be saved by angels. Nouwen describes this as the temptation to be popular. From his own life, he describes the difference between being a popular and well respected teacher to living in a community with handicapped individuals where his individualism and credentials were challenged. Jesus tells Peter to ‘Feed my sheep’, which is ministry in community. Instead of striving for popularity, Nouwen is saying leaders should be in their communities, serving mutually and being known by those they serve. The discipline that enforces this is confession and forgiveness. Leaders often don’t have an outlet for confession, and Nouwen argues that they need to seek this out within their community.
The third temptation of Jesus was to seize power over the world. The temptation to be powerful is a strong one and leaders often seek to build an empire instead of loving and serving others and giving up control. The challenge that Jesus gave Peter was that someday, ‘someone would take you and lead you where you do not want to go’. This was pointing out that Peter would serve the Lord by giving up control, and in his life he lived this out by dying in a way that glorified God. Nouwen suggests the discipline of theological reflection, or thinking of things how Jesus would think of them, to counteract this temptation. This is a hard discipline, but one that will allow the leader to give up control and seek to serve others.
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