Learning From Failure

This week I would like to call an audible. From time to time you see situations arise that make you believe that God wants you to shift your focus. This week, on more than one occasion, I have spoken to different people about how to navigate failure. It has come up so often that I think the Lord wants to help all of us think about how to work through this important issue. 

If you take enough risks you will face failure eventually and will need to know how to navigate through it.

Check out this week’s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPbcpWAfjOw

As you prepare for this Thursday, think about some of these questions:
 
1. What is a failure you have faced and how did you face it?
2. How did you feel about the failure?
3. How did you work through it?

Values: Being Culturally Relevant

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. Acts 17:22–23 (NIV)

For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. Titus 1:10–16 (NIV)

Many of the "Creatives" in our ministry are going to love this week’s blog! We are talking about being culturally relevant in our worship/arts ministry. Many times we think that being culturally relevant is a new idea for modern churches and it’s not. 

From the early origins of the church they have used non-Biblical art and ideas to connect with the culture.

Watch this week’s video blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnIB0nFnPM8 and don't just read the passages above, but google the concept and see the controversy around the idea that churches face in this area.

As you prepare for this Thursday, think about some of these questions:

1. How do you stay culturally aware without becoming culturally corrupted?
2. How do you define the line for when you should use a cultural component and when you don’t?
3. What is one thing we can do as a ministry to be more relevant to our culture?