A Generous People

Christians ought to be known as the most generous people on the face of this earth--the most generous people with our time, our talents, and our money. Why? Because more than anyone else, Christians are to understand that we're owners of nothing and stewards of everything.

-Tullian Tchividjian

The Inaugeration

From Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian

All of Jesus's words and deeds demonstrated that God's reign had invaded
this fallen world to make all things new. A new day had dawned. When Jesus cast
out demons, he did so to show God's power over evil. When he healed the sick and
raised the dead, he showed that with the arrival of God's kingdom came
redemption and cleansing, healing and forgiveness. New life was given; health
was restored. In the imagery of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, the grip of an unending
winter was finally broken. The inauguration of God's kingdom through Jesus began
the great reversal--repealing the curse of sin and death, ensuring that God had
begun the process of renewing all things.

The Practical Atheist

From Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian

To be a wordly person is, in fact, to be a "practical" or "functional" atheist. It's someone who, despite all he professes, lives and makes daily decisions as if God doesn't exist. A practical atheist is a person who comes to conclusions about money, business, worship, entertainment, ministry, education, or whatever else without the directing influence of God and his revealed truth (the Bible). Instead, for him, cultural assumptions and societal trends serve as the directing influences for how he thinks, feels, lives.

Are you a practical atheist?

Are You Too Fashionable?

From Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian

10. You can look around at church and notice that everybody is basically the same age as you are, and they look and dress pretty much like you do.

9. You think it's very uncool to sing a worship song that was "in" five years ago, much less sing a hymn from another century.

8. It's been a long time since you disagreed with anything said by Oprah.

7. You've attended a "leadership" conference where you learned more about organization and props (structural renovation) than proclamation and prayer (spiritual reformation).

6. Your goal in spending time with non-Christians is to demonstrate that you're really no different than they are, and to prove this you curse like a sailor, drink like a fish, and smoke like a chimney.

5. You've concluded that everything new is better than anything old or that everything old is better than anything new.

4. You think that the way Jesus lived is more important than what he said, that his deeds are more important than his doctrine.

3. You believe that the best way to change our culture is to elect a certain kind of politician.

2. The church you've chosen is defined more by its reaction to "boring traditional" churches than by its response to a needy world.

1. The one verse you most wish wasn't in the Bible is John 14:6, where Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." That's way to close-minded!