Friday, August 7, 2015

Very, Very (Very) Exciting News!

Since I started blogging, everything I've read has said that WordPress is better.

And...then Blogger updated or something and is now more annoying than before. So I decided it was a good time to switch.

And now comes the excitingness: a few minutes ago I pushed the publish button on my very first WordPress post on my shiny new WordPress blog!

True and Pure: trueandpure.wordpress.com (and it is yet another indication that it is time to leave Blogger that I cannot get this to work as a link.)

So head over there! Read the About pages and my first post, leave me a comment, and then subscribe so you can get the new posts ASAP!

I'm super excited and hope you are too!!

Monday, August 3, 2015

Quick Update

Hi all!

Just a quick update since I most likely will not get any posts up this week. I am running a second week of ballet camp for tiny kiddos so I'm very tired in the afternoons...

And I'm working on a very exciting new blog *ahem* project that will be revealed soon! I'm doing some major updating and stuff to make my blogging better than ever before. So get excited!!

In the meantime, feel free to browse around the archives and read some old posts! (You can even comment on posts from last November if you want...I check!)

See you soon!

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Book Club: Generation Rising (Do Hard Things, chapter 10)

A quick blog update: Apologies for not posting this week. I was running a summer camp for little children and had zero energy to do blog posts. Regular posting will resume ASAP. Also, in the last Getting to Know Me, I said I couldn't think of a real-life role model. I thought of one the next day: William Wilberforce.

Anyway, now on to today's post...

We've examined the five kinds of hard things you can start doing right now, most of them coming into play in our everyday life. 

But what about the big things, the world-changing things?  

That's what this chapter is about. 

Building a Counterculture
"This chapter is about that response: exchanging our 'normal', comfortable world for a bigger and very real world that rarely shows up in most of our homes. This chapter is about zooming out from a focus on personal rebelution (the Five Kinds of Hard things) to look at the Rebelution as a movement: a counterculture of like-minded young people whose efforts God can bless and who together can make history." (pages 169-170)

What could happen when rebelutionaries work together to overcome problems? What could happen when we stop assuming that "someone else will take care of the brokenness in the world.." (page 170)? What could happen when a group of passionate young people find what God is calling them to do? 

Salt and Light
We are called to be salt. When Jesus talks about salt in the Bible, he's talking about something that was used as a preservative. 

"When Jesus tells us we are 'the salt of the earth', He's saying we have been placed here to preserve it until he returns: to fight against the decay of sin, to combat sickness and suffering, and to oppose corruption and injustice." (page 172)

We are also called to be light. We are called to bring truth into the secular world and reveal God to all people.

"Where secular methods and philosophies hold sway in fields of business, education, the arts, or any other area of society and culture, we are called to bring biblical philosophies and methods founded on that 'total Truth': that's what it means to be light." (page 173)

It isn't true that to "live for Jesus" you have to go into the ministry or be a missionary. The world needs Christians in every aspect of work and daily life.

"A thriving Christian counterculture will fight poverty, heal disease, and expose corruption even as we earnestly fight against the sin and spiritual darkness at the root of all suffering. A generation of rebelutionaries will write books, direct films...run for office, and make scientific and medical discoveries. We will strive to bring the truth of God's Word and the gospel to bear on every area of life we touch." (page 175) 

The Three Pillars of the Rebelution
The next part of the book discusses the three things that will make us successful rebelutionaries. "Only when all three work together can we build an effective and sustainable counterculture." (page 176)

The three pillars are these:

  1. Character (being passionate about sharing the gospel and growing more like Christ);
  2. Competence (caring about skill, strategy, and creativity);
  3. and Collaboration (working with a community of like-minded people). 
"The honest truth is that to balance your life on these three pillars requires constant work and consistent attention. And the good news is that the surefire way to build character and competence is to do hard things. Furthermore, the best way to attract people to come alongside you is to tackle a hard thing that is too big to accomplish alone." (pages 178-179) 

A Holy Ambition
The book describes holy ambition as passion for something under the lordship of Jesus Christ. So what is yours? What large-scale thing do you feel God calling you to do?

"Think of your holy ambition as a world-sized passion placed under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Open your heart to His world in all its broken beauty, praying that He will show you how you could be salt and light in the middle of it. He will." (page 182)

Are you ready to change the world?

What do you think? Did you like this chapter? Is it inspiring to you? What big things has God given you a passion for?