LeadershipConneXtions

Creation Festival and unChristian

About ten days ago, my son was at the Creation Festival at Agape Farm in Pennsylvania (along with about 80,000 other Christians).  It was their 30th anniversary for having these festivals. From time to time I wold listen to WJTL, the contemporary, Christian radio station based in Lancaster, PA as they broadcast speakers and bands during the five day event. At the same time, I was reading unChristian by Kinnaman!

By the way, you can check out Creation by going to http://www.creationfest.com/ne/

It was a very interesting juxtaposition!

Okay, I am going out on a limb just a bit (quite a bit... the limb is starting to break...) but the speakers I heard were just terrible in their triteness and superficiality. I mean some of it was just inane babble with lots of Christian buzz words.

And the world of contemporary Christian music just starts to sound so boring and bland! It hit me that Creation Festival represents the way of faith that so many critics are saying is 1/2 inch deep and culturally irrelevant to the max. And yet this is what we hold up as a highpoint for young people.

The Creation Festival represents what Kinnaman is saying is wrong with contemporary Christianity. It's message and music is part of the problem and not the solution.

If Kinnaman (and so many other emergent writers) are right, it will be the very same young people who attend these festivals who later walk away from the faith.

How do we think through these issues as leaders?

Okay, the limb broke and I need a hand to help me up... anyone... please...

Brian Rice

Personal Rant About Economics and Out of Control Spending

SPENDING... DEBT... $$$$$$... OUT OF CONTROL CONSUMERISM...

Okay, this post and topic IS NOT AN AREA OF SPECIALITY for me.

So, this is just a brief observation with a bit of a rant and rave.

I have a friend who is a very good accountant and business manager and I joke with him about "mystical accounting procedures." By that, I mean that, to my uneducated and unenlightened eyes, accountants and financial people make wonderful and magical things happen with figures! Wave the wand/pencil, move the numbers and presto, shazam!

Smoke and mirrors. The man behind the curtain.  Slight of hand.

(I recently read an article about widespread financial mismanagement and fudging of figures to put off bad news that would alarm investors by adjusting figures and anticipating making things up in later quarters.)

We have been living WAY BEYOND OUR MEANS for a long time.

Our nation is in massive debt. Many states are in debt. Companies are in the red. Do I need to say anything about the average American family being in debt?  The dollar - what a joke on the world market (and a bad joke at that).

We spend much more than we earn. We live way beyond our means.

And we think this won't come back to bite us?

We may be in the midst of a WAKE-UP CALL about our finances and spending. I find myself wondering if there is a CORRECTIVE coming our way. Maybe we are in it. Maybe we'll find more mystical ways to avoid the financial reckoning we have been putting off.

I think it is wise, sound stewardship to start spending within our means (which probably means we have to do some radical NOT SPENDING FOR A SEASON), do whatever you need to in cutting back, living more simply, and GET OUT OF DEBT.

I have a cartoon that YOU MUST SEE. But it was a gif file and would not post on to the site. So I put it in a PDF.  Download WhatBill.pdf  It captures our unrestrained spending mentality very powerfully.

Okay, that's my rant and rave.

Brian Rice

Oh yes . . . and I do think leaders ought to think very carefully about these matters, both for our families and our organizations. What you want and what you actually need and what you can afford are often VERY FAR APART. If you can't afford it, then don't want it and in many cases (but not all) you don't need it.