By Corban Addison Klug

On the east end of Île de la Cité in the heart of what is arguably the most beautiful city in the world lies one of the most famous Gothic landmarks of Old Europe—the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. With its grand and intricately wrought flying buttresses, lofty bell towers, vaulted spires, and petaled rose windows, the cathedral is a monument to premodern architectural ingenuity and to the ascendant faith of its progenitors. Surrounding the cathedral in every direction are the bustling twenty-first century accoutrements of France’s cosmopolitan capital—boulevards, hotels, residential apartment buildings, museums and cafés; yet standing at the cathedral’s midsection along the quiet banks of a divided Seine, it is easy enough to imagine a scene from eight hundred years ago, when the last generation of builders gathered together with the resonant excitement of children to worship the God of their fathers and to celebrate the cathedral’s long-awaited completion.

Three weeks ago, on the first Sunday in August, my wife and I walked from our small hotel in Paris’ Opera District across to the Left Bank of the Seine and down to Île de la Cité to attend an evening chamber choir service at the cathedral. Although by upbringing we are Protestant, by choice we are among those who bless God for the revolution of Spirit-inspired ecumenism that slowly but surely is eroding the walls that men, beset by pride and fear, have erected to divide the Church. We made the Cathedral Notre Dame our destination that evening because, even on vacation, we wished to honor God and keep the Sabbath. That the cathedral is a Catholic house of worship did not give us pause. Nor did the fact that many modern Catholics would, if they discovered our Protestant heritage, exclude us from their fellowship as a result of our “heresy.” In deciding to worship at the Cathedral Notre Dame, we meant both to acknowledge that the Spirit of God is still alive in the Catholic Church and to contribute in our small way to the ultimate harmony of souls swept up in the ageless and cosmic work of redemption being accomplished in history by Jesus Christ.

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The above comic is just an illustration of a question I have been thinking lately while putting this blog together. Are we, as a society, loosing the art of oral persuasion? I have come to ask the question more and more as I have closer contact with people from all different walks of life, in all different countries. I am astounded at the amount of personification a simple telephone conversation can convey.

I know someone reading this is going to say that it is unfair to judge a person just by the way that they talk. But is it really? We all have heard that the first impression is the worst one to have to change. Linguistics is an art form, and it is one art form I am afraid we are loosing. I have a few reasons to think why:

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Our wonderful free market economy brings with it an unhealthy insatiability. We need only to look at the lessons from those who have “made it” to bring us up short.

Dr. Avner Offer, professor of economic history at Oxford University has spent the last 20 years studying quality of life questions and has recently written a book called The Challenge of Affluence. In his book, Offer tracks the downside of wealth. Rather than bringing contentment, it seems to foster false expectations, stress, and anxiety. The drive to achieve financial goals creates permanently raised expectations, so that the wealthy forget how to enjoy the simpler things in life. They become acclimated to the “wow factor” with the closed deal or the newest acquisition. Gorging on the fruit of success, many of us forget to savour the taste. Our lives are lived in a vortex of goals and maximum achievement where anxiety and impatience rule.

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A title like this might raise expectations about receiving advice on preparing a gourmet meal. Sorry, but you have the wrong author and this is the wrong venue for that.

Actually, we are addressing the value of the simple, but long forgotten, ritual of family dinners. Do you remember how it was with “Father Knows Best” and “Leave it to Beaver”? I personally have fond memories of family meals as one of five siblings on our small family farm. The main obstacle to the family meal was when Daylight Savings Time rolled around and we could spend another hour of daylight in the field. What has happened to the idyllic family gathered around the evening meal in the twenty first century? In a word- busyness! Most of you reading this have mixed feelings about this daily discipline. Many of you relish memories of your childhood where Mom, Dad, and the kids gathered around the table at the end of the day and everyone had their opportunity to talk about their particular stories. On the other hand, as overwhelmingly busy parents now, you are balancing after-school activities, work, church meetings, and a myriad of other commitments that make it so difficult to pull off this important family meeting time consistently. The tyranny of the urgent rules and these “life molding” important events suffer at the hands of the urgent events which cry out louder, but offer much less in the way of growing godly, communicative kids and reinforcing the family unit.

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I confess that I am addicted to blogging. I know some would see it as anti-social, others see it as a fad, but I hope it is hear to stay. I enjoy blogs just like this one which help me broaden my horizons and get in touch with people who I might not otherwise get to know.

I have been spending a great deal of time on blogs of people who are confessing Christians. The subjects are varied, the topics are interesting, and the ensuing conversations are great. But I have seen a recent rise in the usage of language that is less than glorifying to God. It was subtle at first, then a little more, and a little more. All of a sudden it is all over the place.

As Christians we are called to a higher standard. We must answer the calling of our faith. In the book of Philippians the Apostle Paul states “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Php 3:14 av) Part of answering the higher calling of our faith is not living conformed to the standards of this world. We must conform to the standard of God. Again we are implored by the Apostle Paul “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Ro 12:2 av)

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The question I have been pondering lately is, "How do truth and love relate?" This led me to the famous passage on "love," I Corinthians 13.

At first glance, it's difficult to see how love and truth relate in this passage. "Love is patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." (I. Cor. 13:4-5.) Doesn't this tell us to ingore the truth sometimes for the sake of love? I can think of many wrongs that have been done to me over the years, often by friends and family, some of which continue to have lasting consequences. In a few cases, the perpetrator has never acknowledged the harm he or she did. The "truth" is that there is, in a sense, a "record" of these wrongs written into my life, whether I like it or not. Anyone who has lived more than a few years in this broken world could say the same.

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As the New Year begins to come around again I have embarked on the painful introspection and self assessment that comes with setting a New Years Resolution. The following 10 character traits of a knight (1) pose some character traits that are worth a little introspection and contemplation. If one of these traits does not leave a person feeling at least a tinge of inadequacy, they probably need to spend a little more time defrosting their heart by the fire. Any time you read the word knight, insert your name instead. It will make it a little more real.

1. Prowess: To seek excellence in all endeavors expected of a knight, martial and otherwise, seeking strength to be used in the service of justice, rather than in personal aggrandizement.

2. Justice: Seek always the path of right, unencumbered by bias or personal interest. If the right you see rings true with others, and you seek it out without bending to the temptation for expediency, then you will earn renown beyond measure.

3. Loyalty: Be known for unwavering commitment to the people and ideals you choose to live by. There are many places where compromise is expected; loyalty is not amongst them.

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Over at Think Christian Andy posted about how the online gaming community might become a new mission field as Christians start to form their own guilds and clans within these communities. I agree that online communities are becoming very prevalent and almost as important to some people as real-life communities, but I would hate to see Christian sub-groups form and start to divide "us" from "them."

I am the the leader for a guild in the game Guild Wars called the Valiant Knights. Unfortunately most of the Christian guilds in this game are not very good and are generally laughed at by the rest of the Guild Wars community. It seems to me that the more effective ministry route is to join a guild that contains unsaved members and build relationships with them there. We don't need to create more separate sub-groups of Christians -- we need to infiltrate the unsaved communities.

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In the attempt to make a statement about the relationship we have to God through Jesus, Protestants went too far in eliminating a formal opportunity for confession to occur within the community of the church. As the pendulum was swinging as a result of the Protestant Reformation, it went too far in eliminating the confessional from our churches and leaving the confessing of sin to a private and personal segment of our faith. I am convinced that the Catholic faith has held onto a very important practice that we, as Protestants, could learn from.

As we confess our sin one-to-another we realize the fallenness that we share with one another and the common nature of humanity. We are also able to exhort and encourage one another as we remind one another of God's call to repentance and His forgiveness that is freely offered by grace.

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Ancient Metaphor and Present Truth

In a voice infused with hope, the servant inquires: "Watchman, what is left of the night?" To which the wise watchman replies, "Morning is coming but also the night. If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again." This exchange is a slight adaptation of a prophecy pronounced by the seer Isaiah over an Ishmaelite land nearly three thousand years ago. Its metaphor, of course, is rooted in the ancient past—in a city with walls fortified against unseen enemies lurking beyond distant hills—yet the truth and stirring urgency of its warning resonates today in a plenitude of contexts. In this essay I mean to apply it, with trembling hands and a penitent heart, to that principal human relationship from which all other relationships in terra firma are derived—the relationship between husband and wife.

I have been married for two years and three months, no great swath of time upon which to reflect but long enough, at least in the rich continuum of a contemplative life, to achieve some perspective upon the nature of matrimony. By way of the exigencies of living and the more orderly operation of observation and conversation, I have formed the view that the fundamental struggles and embattlements of all marriages are, in the most general sense, alike in kind. By that I mean not to suggest that all relationships, irrespective of the color wheel of individual distinctives, display the same strengths and weaknesses. Such would be a foolhardy and readily refutable position. Rather I mean that, despite the extraordinary diversity of personalities, histories, and behavioral propensities that men and women thread into the tapestry of their marriages, the basic challenges all couples face in maintaining and developing the unified, marital life are deeply and unmistakably similar. This is because the world that forms the context for our stories, again despite stark physical variances, exhibits a profound level of spiritual uniformity. In the same way that all mountain climbers, from novice to expert, confront an identical kind of resistance in scaling a peak—the ubiquitous force of gravity—all married couples labor toward the goal of a vivid, faithful love in the universal shadow of sin. Moreover, all marriages suffer from the tyrannical designs of a common Enemy. Thus the call of God upon all women is identical: "Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord (Eph. 5:22)." Just so the call upon men: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph. 5:25a)."

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Ever wonder how Christianity spread so rapidly in the first century?

No internet. No mass media. No blogs. Very little written material. Was it the preaching of the apostles? Was it signs and wonders? Was it the house-church movement? Was it just a one-time special movement of the Holy Spirit?

We kicked that question around in our small group Sunday night.

Roland Allen, in his book The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, writes

"Seventy years after the foundation of the very first Gentile Christian church in Syrian Antioch, Pliny wrote in the strongest terms about the spread of Christianity throughout remote Bithynia, a spread which in his view already threatened the stability of other cults throughout the province. Seventy years later still, the Paschal Controversy reveals the existence of a Christian federation of churches, stretching from Lyons to Edessa, with its headquarters situated in Rome. Seventy years later again, the emperor Decius declared that he would sooner have a rival emperor in Rome than a Christian bishop. And ere another seventy years had passed the cross was sewn upon the Roman colors."

With break neck speed, Christianity spread across the ancient world.

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I recently finished reading Donald Miller’s honest and refreshing book of essays, Blue Like Jazz. In it Miller explores a number of challenges facing those who truly desire to walk like Jesus did, within and outside of the traditions of American Christianity. I was particularly challenged by one chapter, entitled “Love: How to Really Love Other People.” Miller tells the story of one specific person in his church who he struggled to love. He was repulsed by this guy, and found it difficult to love him, let alone like him. Miller was forced to confront his own lack of love, and realized a significant change in his behavior towards this man. He writes, “I replaced economic metaphor, in my mind, with something different, a free gift metaphor or a magnet metaphor. That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on, lavishly. I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson.”

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It was "city-county." The big swim meet. The meet we worked toward all year. Every swim team in the county competed. Our team was in second place leading into the meet. The points for this final meet are tripled. Could we catch our rivals?

My kids prepared hard. Two practices a day in the final week. Would they swim personal bests? Would they win lots of points? Would they get ribbons and medals like they did last year. Then came the meet.

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When I was a preteen, the True Love Waits movement was just being born. I was among the first of a generation of girls given Chastity Rings (or Promise Rings, as others called them) on a special date with my dad on my thirteenth birthday. And I stayed true to that promise, handing that ten-year-old ring over to my husband while on our honeymoon over four years ago. Most of my girlfriends in high school and college also were given rings (or made similar promises), and have been found faithful.

And as encouraging as that may seem, I now have reason to think that we need to go a bit deeper than telling people to “wait.” You see, some of my friends still aren’t married. In fact, they aren’t even dating a prospective husband or wife. The discouragement they feel stems from a couple causes. It seems to be a combination of finding themselves surrounded by so-called Christians who aren’t waiting, and a feeling that the world is having a pretty good time not waiting.

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Today marks one week since I’ve returned from a ten day trip to the Amazon. A group of young adults from my church headed south to Brazil to provide medical care, play with kids, and share Christ. I’ve quickly re-acclimated to Dallas life- enjoying my bed, instead of a hammock, and solid ground as opposed to a rocking river boat. But even as I get back tot business as usual, the images, smells, and sounds are still very much a part of me.

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More energy has been spent on this one thing than on building the Panama Canal, constructing the Great Pyramids, or creating the Interstate Highway system. More energy!

More tears have been shed on this one item than on the depredations of poverty, the destruction wrought by great storms, or a thousand afternoon soap opera tragedies. More tears!

More anxiety has been generated by this one issue than by being afraid of the dark, more than by getting scared that you might run out of money before you run out of month, more even than by being afraid of what she will say the first time you ask her out on a date. More anxiety!

I am talking about one central issue: DO THEY LIKE ME? Do they like me? Down deep, I suspect every one of us is more bothered by that one thing than anything else. Does the crowd I run with really like me? Or do they just say things in order not to hurt my feelings? Oh, I know I have some friends, but are they real friends? What do they say when my back is turned? What do they think when they think of me? Oh, I want everybody to like me!

Isn’t that right? Isn’t that pretty much what we are all worried about?

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Broken window theory is a social theory first articulated by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in the March 1982 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

James Emery White summarizes broken window theory in his book Serious Times, on page 158.

They (Kelling and Wilson) argued that crime is the inevitable result of disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and a sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. The idea is that crime is contagious. It can start with a broken window and spread to an entire community. This means that what matters are the little things; what becomes critical are small stands against the spread of crime -- which is exactly how New York City addressed the problem. The war was waged on broken windows and graffiti, focusing on the subways. The cleanup took from 1984 to 1990. It soon spread to the entire city. Seemingly inconsequential enforcements of relatively minor infractions, such as turnstile-jumping on the subways, the "squeegee men" at intersections, public drunkenness and littering, were targets. To the surprise of all, crime began to fall in the city.

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A few years ago in March, 20 college students, including myself, went on a mission trip to the great city of Philadelphia. I knew roughly about 5 of these students before going on the trip, and slowly got to know them more as the week progressed. Each day we were split up into three different teams: one team went to serve food to the homeless, one team prayer walked around the area for the people in that community, and the last team did what’s called intercessory prayer, meaning we prayed for our other team members.

We were asked each day to pray and ask God what team He would like us to join. The first day, I prayed and felt pulled in two different directions, at least that was what I thought at the time. I didn’t know what intercessory prayer was, in my mind all I heard was interceding and I thought this meant to go out and talk to people. So, when I prayed, I felt pulled towards praying and also interceding. I finally chose interceding because I like to talk to people. It wasn’t until everyone was leaving and only four people, including myself, remained that I understood what intercessory prayer really meant. Well, the two hour long prayer journey went underway, and I could not for the slightest bit concentrate on praying for that long, because I had never done that before. Needless to say, I was glad when the praying was over!

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Because I am a fairly new parent, I subscribe to a huge stack of parenting magazines. Some are secular, and serve primarily as a resource for craft ideas and birthday cake decorating tips. Others are published by Christian organizations, and I look to them to challenge my thinking about parenting. Or, at least I hope they do.

Sadly, I was greatly disappointed by a Christian publication I received this past week. One article in particular described babies and very young children “growing up in the lap of luxury,” and the phenomenon where luxury has become common in our country. The article’s final paragraph touched on the idea of “premiere experiences [that] are still an exclusive option for parents with deep pockets.” These are explained to be situations in which, for instance, a 3-year-old may be taken to a spa for “My First Manicure” or “My First Facial.” I was amazed, since I had never heard of such a thing, but what got me was the author’s final question to her audience: “Are these experiences appropriate for young children?”

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I usually wait until December to recap the past year. However, in the midst of the summer Texas heat, the theme rang loud and clear: this was to be the year marked with difficult conversations. Within the last few months, I have willingly and unwillingly participated in over a dozen difficult conversations with co-workers, roommates, family members, friends, pastors, and complete strangers.

What is a difficult conversation? In my book, a difficult conversation usually involves my stomach churning, a fearful look on my face, and some disjointed words sputtering out of my mouth. Really, it all boils down to some good ‘ole confrontation. (This is all rather ironic if you consider that I work in politics, Texas politics at that!) It’s telling the people around me what I think instead of bottling it up inside, not allowing it to fester and grow until I explode. It’s sharing with my roommate that I like the kitchen neat when friends come over. It’s putting parameters on how much time I spend working on a co-worker’s project when I should really be finishing mine.

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