This week I had the opportunity to present a Webinar with English UK. I focused on three main areas: developing materials outside the teacher’s room, building rapport with students through distance learning, and keeping up staff morale during this period of self-isolation.
You can watch the webinar HERE!
On Saturday I had the privilege of attending an IATEFL PronSIG conference in Glasgow.
The name of the conference was “The Road to Pron-tegration” and its focus was on teaching and practicing pronunciation; which, to be honest is something that as a teacher I have always shied away from. I suppose the reason for that is two-fold. First, It was never something I learned in school; ever! When I learned Ancient Greek and Hebrew at University it was never mentioned. When I had learned Spanish, Ukrainian, Mandarin and Polish I never used it. So how was I supposed to teach with something I have never used myself and had always learned other languages without? The second reason I’ve been reluctant to use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) in my lessons is because as the product of both British and American culture and not being distinctly either one, I always feel like I’m not the best authority on modeling which sound is which. And while I am a native speaker, the sounds I use in my pronunciations are often a mix of British or American depending on what I’m talking about or how much thought I put into how I’m saying it.
So my goal for this conference was to challenge myself to change that and to force myself to stop running away from something simply because it was something with which I was unfamiliar.
The sessions were really a mixed bag. Some were styled as presentations, some were workshops and some felt more like lectures. Each had their own merit and I was able to take something from each. However I felt the real learning took place outside the sessions in the discussions and interactions with some the other educators in attendance.
One of the presenters with whom I spoke the most was Marianne Jordan. She and I share a similarly “blurry” background when it comes to being able to answer the question: “Where are you from?”. The work she is doing with the IPA and the app she is developing was really inspiring and I couldn’t leave the conference without picking up a copy of her book “Phonetics for Learners of English Pronunciation“.
The Opening Plenary speaker in the morning, Robin Walker, gave an excellent presentation on the basics of teaching pronunciation and given his years of experience he was able to break down the key elements very well and gave us so many ideas and suggestions for ways of implementing pronunciation activities in the classroom.
The frustrating thing for me was the repeated feeling that there was so much that could have been said and discussed if only there was more time! I feel like this could have easily been a two-day conference and still not have delved as deep into all the facets of English language pronunciation and methods of implementing instruction in pronunciation techniques in the classroom.
While I can’t say that I know everything I need to know about pronunciation, (far from it!) I can say that I no longer have an excuse for not using it in the classroom. So watch this space as I experiment with ways of improving my instruction on pronunciation in my lessons.
Do you have any tips or methods you use in your EFL/ESL classroom? Do you find yourself in the same place I was before the conference? Leave a comment and let me know!
So over the past few months I have been experimenting with the use of mind mapping as a teaching tool.
I know many teachers who use it as a warm-up activity or even as a production task. But I’ve been curious wether it’s possible to create an entire lesson out of a mind map created by students. I’m developing a CPD training course that would help teachers to decrease their planning time and to increase student engagement and productivity by simply using mind mapping in the classroom.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, mind mapping involves taking a general topic or idea and then breaking it down into logical parts or sections that can be then broken down even further.
For example, here is a mind map I created with a class a few months ago on the topic of Social Issues.
Please ignore any spelling mistakes and reserve judgement on evaluating the validity of whether or not you believe these to be (or not be) social issues. My point is that this massive mind map was created by students, without any pre-teaching or scaffolding. After creating the mind map, I split students into groups and each group chose a topic they wanted to research and present. From there, for large portion of the lesson time, groups of students worked independently to research their topic and create short presentations. The final portion of the lesson was dedicated to each group giving a short presentation about their topic and fielding questions from the rest of the class. Now of course, one reason that it worked quite well in this instance was because they were already C1 level and higher and were able to talk quite fluently about this topic without much difficulty. For lower level students, more support would definitely be needed.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Last week, the unit topic for my B1 students was “Telling Stories” and considering that some of the other teachers and I are gearing up for Nanowrimo next month, it seemed like a good a time as any to get students thinking about the topic. So I decided to create a “Character Mind Map” that would build scaffolding that would allow my students to create their own character profiles.
Creating the mind map took almost 40 minutes but we finally ended up with this masterpiece:
It was a long process and I could tell the students were tiring of it towards the end. But what it allowed them to do was to have in front of them all the information they needed to create their own characters. By the end of the lesson these B1 students, who up till now had not been very thrilled with the idea of creating their own novel, were having a fantastic time telling me all about their characters. By structuring the lesson with this mind map, I was able to equip the students with everything they would need to succeed in producing character for their stories.
I have a lot more work and research to go as I work on developing my own training course for teachers to use mind mapping for their own topics and lessons. But I had to share this beautiful intersection of using mind mapping to present Nanowrimo to lower-intermediate students. For me at least, it felt like a break through.
If you have used mind mapping in your classroom or have any thoughts, I would love to hear from you in the comments!
This week I was scheduled to conduct a Lecture for all the EFL students. I decided to give a lecture on LGBTQ+ History. It seemed like a great idea as I was planning it, but when the day came to give my first of 4 lectures I started to have doubts.
Would this be an appropriate lecture topic? Would the students have negative reactions or act out? Maybe students would complain or walk out? And honestly, was I even the best person to be giving the lecture? For over 2 weeks I had been planning and preparing this lecture; what if it all went wrong and I had made a big mistake?
When I started preparing the lecture weeks beforehand, I sat down and tried to think about how to present, in 80 minutes, an adequate history of LGBTQ+ history. I decided to break the presentation down to 6 main points. I started with Stonewall because while there have been people attracted to member of the same sex throughout history, it really wasn’t until stonewall that those people began to identify as one community and to stand up for their rights and push back against decades and even centuries of violence and persecution. From Stonewall I moved to the HIV/AIDS crisis that shook the gay community to its core and changed it forever. I felt it was important to highlight how damaging the AIDS virus was to the gay community not only mortally but also socially. From there I moved to discuss straight allies and advocates who stepped up during the 80’s and 90’s to stand up for the gay community and to be a voice for those that most of the World didn’t want to listen to. From highlighting some of the many straight allies the gay community has had over the years I moved to a section I titled simply “legitimacy”. Here I highlighted the long journey that the World has taken to fully recognize the indelible human rights that all queer people should have. I covered as briefly as I could the steps of progress that mainly the UK and the US have taken over the last 40 years towards LGBTQ equality. It’s a road that is still being travelled and suffers from more steps backward than there should be, but we’re moving forward nonetheless. From there I discussed LGBTQ visibility and highlighted the many famous people and celebrities who have come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer over the past 30 years. Through the strength and courage of these people the World can see that we are all people; the gay community is not a “them” or “those people” but instead, “us”. And it’s because of the courage of those celebrities that many children and young people around the World won’t have to go to bed as I once did thinking that they are alone and there is something wrong with them. Finally, I brought it all down to what we all want: Equality; not to be treated different because of our race, color of our skin, gender, religion or sexual orientation. I explained that it’s a long road but it’s a goal that will only be achieved if each of them do what they can to ensure that the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning people in their lives feel safe, loved and accepted to be who they are.
A week before I was due to give the lecture I had found an amazing activity on the LGBT Resource Center page of the University of Southern California’s website called “Coming Out Stars”. As soon as I read the activity I knew that’s how I wanted to open my lecture. But when the time came, I started to think that for the straight students attending my lecture, they might think it’s stupid or pointless and for any LGBT students in my lecture, it might be triggering. Something told me it was the right thing to do and I just needed to take a leap of faith and trust that it would be alright.
It was amazing.
By the time I had finished my forth and final lecture I had presented LGBT+ History with around 400 students from all over the World. Throughout the week students came up to me in the halls and after my lessons to thank me for the lecture and they really enjoyed hearing about it. Instead of opening up the room for questions after my lecture I decided to give each student a notecard on which they could write down a question and hand it to me after the lecture. I received notes of questions and encouragement after each talk. Perhaps my favorite is one card that has no name, no information but only the words “Thank You”.
It was an amazing experience and I wanted to share it with all of you. If you would like an outline of my talk or would like to view my powerpoint presentation, you can contact me here:
They call it “Coming out of the closet”.
The moment that nearly every queer person faces at some point in their lives. The moment when they stop pretending, stop lying, stop hiding and step out with truth into who they really are. Usually it starts with just one person: a close friend, sibling or even a family matter. Before long it becomes easier to be honest and authentic with everyone. But there’s almost always a moment when the person inside, the gay man, the lesbian, the bisexual or the transgender person steps into the light to be seen and known.
The first person I ever told is still one of my closest friends. But it was only 5 years ago (On midnight of January 1st 2014) that I told my parents that I am gay. Five years may seem like a long time, but it is not nearly long enough to reverse over 30 years of hopes and expectations for a wife, and children and a “traditional life”. So while I’ve have a lifetime to come to terms with who I am and to find strength and confidence in who God made me to be, I know that it also takes those closest to us a long time to reach that point. And so my parents have only had 5 years to transition from expecting their son to settle down with a wife and start having children, to their son being gay and wanting to spend his life with another man. And so, imagine my surprise that when I told them, almost exactly 5 years to the day that my partner and I are planning to move to the U.K. and we are considering marriage, they responded with, happiness; joy… acceptance.
Their exact words were: “Our love for you and soon both (of you) outweighs any difficulties encountered. We love you so much. You are our only son!! We care about your happiness and welfare.”
It was a beautiful moment for me. One that I haven’t felt since many years ago when I first built up the courage to tell some of my closest friends my “deepest, darkest secret”. But what I remember from those times is a feeling of overwhelming grace. The need for acceptance is a universal trait. In some way or another, we are all looking for it, needing it, craving it. But for the queer individual, whether gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, that acceptance all comes down to a moment, the seconds after uttering the words are the most tense and nerve-wracking I have ever felt. It’s in that moment a queer person discovers the reality of their relationship. For some, revealing their sexual orientation to friends and loved ones has meant disappointment, rejection even repulsion. Far too many have lost their homes and families when being truthful about who they are cost them the safety and security of a place to call “home”. For others, including me, it has meant that the relationship with close friends is suddenly ‘not as close’; Being honest sometimes means losing the trust of people who they had thought would always be there for them. Of course, this should never be the case. No one should have to fear that by being themselves they will lose friendships or be kicked out of their homes. But sadly, it happens. And as long as people remain flawed humans, then our relationships will also be flawed.
So in that moment, in the seconds after admitting our “deepest, darkest secret”, when we find acceptance, when there is nothing but love and acceptance, it’s the sweetest moment of relief and joy. Because when someone sees us, for who we really are, no pretense, no illusions and nothing withheld and they accept us and love us regardless, to me, that’s true grace. For me, it’s a glimpse of Heaven on Earth: unconditional love, grace that wraps arms around us in tears and laughter warms the soul and calls us to what we were made for. The moment 5 years ago when after I had just “came out” to my parents, they hugged me, told me that they loved me and are still proud of me, and the text message from them this week that told me they are excited to welcome my partner into the family and celebrate our union together, these are the moments that we live for.
There is a seed of Grace hidden within every moment of raw, honest truth we choose to live out. The responsibility on all of us is to take those moments when we are faced to accept or reject the person in front of us, is to allow that seed to grow. Choose love over condemnation. Take the path of acceptance and away from rejection. Because when we do, we become that little piece of Heaven on Earth to someone who needs it.
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything.
As a matter of fact, I haven’t posted anything since the U.S. Election.
And no, it’s not because I needed a safe space to cry or feel feelings.
I’ve been grieving, yes. But not about the election.
What saddens me is as I read the news from country to country the common thread that I see occurring is division– a slow, polarizing of peoples, races, ideas and countries that are splitting once unified groups of people into “us” and “them”; or, “We who are right” and “The others who are wrong”.
This isn’t new news. People have been reporting on it, writing about it and blogging their opinion on it for years. And it’s because I feel that everyone is talking about it that it’s hard for me to sit here and blog about my two cents.
I’ll be honest, the thing I struggle with most and the reason that kept me from creating this blog for so long is the thought that somewhere, anywhere, there are lots of other people saying the same thing that I want to say and they are saying it better than I ever could. So, why should I bother? It’s a feeling of being an inadequate, ineffective voice that is simply creating noise that no one really cares about that I think has kept me back from doing so many things in my life. I had this post nearly finished back in November. I had quotes and references, stories and examples. But the more I read from other people the more I became discouraged with the mediocrity of what I had written.
So I gave up.
Then towards the end of December a friend of Luis who lives in the States came to visit us for about a week and a half. I was a little nervous about his visit because, from everything Luis had told me, he was very conservative in his views and beliefs and I felt there was a very good chance that we would have extremely different viewpoints about a lot of issues.
On the outset, I was right.
In a lot of ways, Luis’ friend and I couldn’t have been more different. And for me, those were the first things that caught my attention. For one example, it was probably the second night of his visit he mentioned that he voted for Trump and for a lot of people I know, that would have been the end of the conversation right there.
And yet, in-between and under the things that divided us, there were many things that unified us. We both were born in the United States and were US citizens. We were both white men in our 30’s. We both spoke English as our native language. We had both traveled to several countries and found that our ideas about life and the World had changed as a result of our travels. And, perhaps most importantly, we both confessed a faith and utter dependance on Christ as revealed in Scripture as the basis for our spiritual beliefs.
What I began to find over the days of his visit and the numerous conversations we had till one in the morning (or later) was that each time we discovered something that divided us, we, both of us, had a choice; either to focus on those polarizing ideas and beliefs or instead, to take the time to understand the how and the why behind those ideas and beliefs. And it was in those ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ that I found commonality.
In this experience I learned firsthand that if we allow labels and lines to define our relationships with people (gay – straight, Republican – democrat, pro-life – pro-choice, Christian – Muslim, black – white, the list goes on and on and on…) then all that we’ll be left with is a small bubble of people that fit into all the same labels and lines that we do. And everyone else, the “others”… well, it’s a lot easier to dehumanize the “others” because they aren’t you. They aren’t right, they’re wrong. They aren’t a help, they’re a threat. And when the “other” is a threat to “us” then “doing away with them” suddenly seems like the right, the safe, the moral thing to do; instead of the tragedy of destroying a living, breathing soul created in the image of God that it really is.
So I’m thankful for those who don’t think like me and act like me. The world doesn’t need more people like me. The world needs more people who are willing to look at someone across the divide of politics, religion, race, economics, nationality, faith, and orientation and find the commonality; to see themselves in another’s eyes.
May you look beyond what divides us to what unifies us.
May you continually hope that what unifies us will bring understanding.
May you live in the peace that understanding will bring love.
May you love in a way that closes the divide until the “other” is “us”.
From Luis and me and our cat Barry who is not very happy to be wearing a Christmas sweater, we hope this time of year is filled with, love, joy, peace and kindness!
Blessings to you and your loved ones wherever you may be!
Shortly after coming to Shanghai in 2014 I was missing the community I left behind in the US. The church of believers I regularly fellowshipped and worshiped with had been wonderful, but after I left, I only heard from maybe 2 or 3 people; and hardly on any kind of regular basis.
I was lonely.
I began feeling the need for a community. I began longing after a group of people with whom I could open up to, trust and who would encourage me to continue to seek after God.
About 2 years ago, I wrote this in my journal:
I’ve spent the better part of the evening looking up Churches in Shanghai. The longer I search, the more I keep asking myself if I’m crazy. My experience with [churches] hasn’t always been the best. I don’t function well in “community”.
But that’s not a quality. It’s a weakness.
Living in community requires humility and other-centered living; two of the many things that I lack. I know that churches nor the people who frequent them are perfect. Which is why I so often go in with my guard up.
Walls high.
No one gets in.
I don’t get hurt.
But staying isolated doesn’t protect me. It (only) keeps my pride and independence intact. With my defenses in place, I don’t have to care for anyone else. I don’t have to be vulnerable; don’t have to place others at the center of my life… instead of myself.
…
Can I change my thinking when encountering a new church?
Can I walk in, walls down and arms open?
Can I go to encounter God, seek nourishment and find a way to help others?
I. Need. To. Try!
(October 19th, 2014)
It would be several more months before I could get the courage to pick a church and go.
In early 2015 I began attending Shanghai Community Fellowship.
It was amazing!
I got connected with a fellowship group that met every week. I felt like I had friends and a kind of “family” in a place where I had been feeling so alone. And the best thing for me was the opportunity to be challenged and grow spiritually.
Over the summer of 2015, I did some traveling and took a CELTA course in Prague. While I was there, the city was also hosting its annual gay pride parade. And, having only been to 2 and both of them only in the US, I decided to go and see what it was like. While I was at the parade, I posted a picture (top of this post) and a status about it on WeChat (a popular social media app in China). One of the girls in the church community group who I had become really good friends with “liked” my picture and, while I thought it was interesting, I didn’t give it that much thought. I had never “come out”or said anything about my sexuality to the Church. I wasn’t “hiding”, but I didn’t see any reason to say anything as the topic had never come up.
When I got back to Shanghai, I met up and had lunch with one of the guys from the Church fellowship group, the husband of the girl who liked my photo who had also become a really close friend over the past year. During our lunch he asked if he could share his “story” with me.
He told me that he identifies as gay. But believes that same sex relationships are not in God’s plan for humanity. His wife identifies as a lesbian. They decided to get married and do ministry in China. Which is absolutely fine. I completely respect other people’s beliefs and their desire to pursue the life they want to live in good conscience before God.
He asked me about my story, so I told him. If you’d like to read the condensed version of my story, you can find it here. He seemed quite troubled when I told him that I believe that God who designed humans, our sexual natures and our desire for love cares most deeply about our love and care for others over the anatomical way in which we express that love and with whom we share it. I explained that I believe it is possible for two people of the same sex who are followers of Christ, to worship together in Spirit and Truth and be vessels of love and compassion ministering to those in need and the community while lovingly committing themselves to each other as mutual helpmates and partners with a desire to edify, encourage and support one another for the rest of their lives. Now, the actual discussion lasted for several hours over two separate days and was more complex than what I could put in this blog post. I’m aware that not everyone agrees with me, in fact, in most Christian circles I am probably on the fringes. I am humble enough to admit that I may be wrong. I am small and finite and God is great and beyond my comprehension, so I can only live as His Spirit guides me. For now, at this time in my life, this is how I reconcile my faith and my life.
He did not agree.
Through eyes filled with crocodile tears he told me that he could not allow me to continue coming to the fellowship group. He explained that he saw me as a false prophet, a divisive, unrepentant backslider who would be a moral and spiritual danger to the group. He emphasized over and over how much he loved me like a brother and that he was so broken hearted about having to do this. And I think on some level he believed that. But in that moment it was hard to feel the “kiss on the cheek” when there was a “knife in my side”. We parted. I respected his wishes (command) and never went back to the Church. No one from the group has spoken to me since.
That was over a year ago.
And while the hurt, anger, betrayal and heartbreak I felt has subsided, I feel scared because now I feel the Spirit leading me back to find a community to worship with. There are only so many times I can sit and read alone, or watch/listen to a sermon podcast alone. I feel like a limb that’s been severed and is slowly draining of life.
A part of me wants to walk away and never open myself up to a painful experience like that again. But I know I can’t. If my faith is real, if what I believe has any affect on my life at all, it needs to flourish within a community who also seeks after the same things.
In the journal entry I quoted earlier, I had also written a response to a quote by Frank Schaeffer I had read at the time:
“(Jesus) criticized everything religious around him yet still participated in the traditional, liturgical, formal worship of his day even though it was led by hypocrites he denounced” -Frank Schaeffer
In scripture I’ve read a million times about Jesus being in the synagogue on the Sabbath. But never did I picture him being led in liturgy and worship by the very religious leaders whom HE KNEW would crucify him!
(October 19th 2014)
As I said before, of course, no religious institution is perfect. I would never expect it to be. And I know that many of you reading this post have felt the exact same sting of hurt and rejection from people who profess Christ and yet seem more keen to do the crucifying. InterVarsity has been in the news recently as they are causing a similar kind of rejection, pain and heartache to people on a massive, nationwide scale. And sadly, they aren’t the only ones. But the purpose of my post is not an angry rant against the Church, Christians or the use of personal beliefs to reject, exclude and condemn others.
As I look around, read, and talk to other LGBTQ people, I hear their pain, their heartache to belong, to be in community, to worship God with their partners in the fellowship of other believers. I hear the anger and the sadness of people who have been beaten down and rejected by those who are supposed to be their brothers and sisters in the faith and who many times are their own family! People are DYING! Both spiritually and literally because of the actions of people who claim to follow Christ.
But my faith is not in the religious people. My faith is in the One the religious people crucified.
I have to believe that the same Spirit that is calling me to worship and fellowship in Church & community is calling the community & Church to reach out and embrace the stranger at their gates. And while it’s difficult, and while the road may be painful on both sides, it’s what I’m called to do. My only choice is to open my heart and continue to love as much as He loves me. To move towards acceptance and reconciliation. To show Grace from under the shadows of the Church doors.
It’s all I can do.
Thank you for reading!
So this is a post I have been putting off writing because, to be honest, I don’t want to write it. It would be easier to ignore what I’m seeing, ignore what’s been bothering me and just say: well, it’s someone else’s problem, someone else can speak out about it. And that would be easy, since I am in China and didn’t register to vote as an absentee ballot. But for better or worse, I’m going to say it.
My issue is with so many people in the US who are extremely vocal politically because of their faith.
Now, lets be clear at the very beginning. I am not saying that voting is right or wrong. I’m not arguing for or against democracy.
I am saying that Christians cannot and should not vote based on their religious beliefs.
Now, chances are, most people have checked out and stopped reading after that previous sentence. Because in the US most American Christians have interwoven their faith and their national identity into one solid, inseparable core belief. So a critic on one is viewed as an attack on everything held sacred.
The problem is, this is essentially an AMERICAN PHENOMENON! I have lived in quite a few countries and in NONE of them does there exist this idea that a person’s religious beliefs should determine the political condition of the nation; that’s including the UK which has a Church of England that was created by Henry the VIII and which Queen Elizabeth is still head of. Even in that case, the majority of British people I know would not vote for a political candidate based one whether or not he or she is a Christian, or which church the candidate goes to, or if their rights as a christian will change if this candidate or the other wins an election. My point is, in most countries, the population votes based on economic and political reasons. Whereas in America there always seems to be a surge of religious rhetoric that becomes intermingled into political language.
Honestly, not only do I see this as wrong, but I see it as damaging to the role of the Church in society.
A great article posted on got answers.org says:
The church’s unique, God-given purpose does not lie in political activism. Nowhere in Scripture do we have the directive to spend our energy, our time, or our money in governmental affairs. Our mission lies not in changing the nation through political reform, but in changing hearts through the Word of God. When believers think the growth and influence of Christ can somehow be allied with government policy, they corrupt the mission of the church. Our Christian mandate is to spread the gospel of Christ and to preach against the sins of our time. Only as the hearts of individuals in a culture are changed by Christ will the culture begin to reflect that change.
First, from a Biblical standpoint, lets start by saying that the Bible speaks absolutely nothing about the democratic process or a bipartisan voting system. And while it can be made to say many, many things that we want it to say, we find over and over in scripture that God has the final say in who becomes the leader of a nation. The prophet Daniel says that God “changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings”. And Jesus himself told Pilate that he would not have the authority to rule had God not given it to him. And in Romans we are told that we should be “subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God“.
It’s a hard thing for many Christians to accept that God has chosen and placed each President in the White House. Especially if it isn’t the person they voted for. Have Christians really come to a place where they believe that THEY have the power of God? The power to set up kings and take down kings? Just because the United States has democratic political structure can we say that God is no longer in charge of who is elected? Have Christians decided that they have usurped that power from God?
Second, from a social standpoint, the US is a unique country because of the beliefs of the men who founded and have governed the country over the years. Now, I can’t (and won’t) speak to their personal beliefs as to whether or not they were all followers of Christ but the language used in political documents over the history of the US have intentionally created a national identity wrapped in a Christian belief system… or perhaps, a christian belief system wrapped in a national identity.
But my point is that Christ teaches that Christians have ONE identity. ONE Savior. ONE hope. ONE kingdom! ONE King!
My heart has been breaking as I’ve been seeing that the most vicious attacks and horrible things being said about both candidates and the supporters of one candidate or the other have been coming from people who call themselves Christian.
There are so many people who are skeptical of the Church and who have trouble coming to understand a Christ who is represented by Christians so filled with hate, prejudice, pride and mean spirits.
Are Christians helping the World to see Christ by posting political slams against the candidate they hate?
Christians argue that their “rights” are at stake. That if one candidate or the other becomes president that Christian liberties will be taken away and the moral fibre of the country will be eroded away to nothing. Christian’s are “fighting back”. Fighting for their rights. Fighting for their freedoms…
But dear christians, many horrible, tragic things are happening to Christians around the world, including the country I’m living in. Christians are being beaten, tortured and killed yet still through it all they pray, not for the persecution to stop, but that others would come to see Christ through their suffering. In an article about the persecution of the Church here in China, Emily Fuentes said:
“Christianity is growing fastest where the persecution is the most severe. The persecutors are intrigued by why people would continue to support this belief. There is kind of the appeal of something that is taboo.”
And of course, there’s fear. We fear change, fear getting taxed too much, fear inflation, fear war, terrorism, poverty… the list goes on and on…
But of all people, Christians should be the ones who have the least to fear. Scripture tells us over and over not to be afraid and not to fear. We are told that our lives are in Christ and in Him do all things live and move and have their being. Now, I understand, fear is natural. An uncertain future is a scary thing. I have no idea where I’ll be living or even what country I’ll be in a year from now. I don’t even know if I’ll be alive. When it comes to the future we have NO guarantees! None! Voting for one candidate over another will not guarantee you anything! Tomorrow is not promised to any of us. So why should we put our faith in a human candidate to give us a future we may never see? And can can anyone who calls themselves a follower of Christ, in good conscious destroy relationships, use angry words to humiliate and tear others down out of fear?
So Christian, if you have economic reasons for voting for a candidate, then vote based on your economic sensibilities, if you disagree with a candidate’s statement about his treatment of women or his attitude against racial minorities then vote for the other one. If you disagree with the policies and reforms of one candidate, then vote for the other.
But please, don’t bring the name of Christ into this political battle. Don’t step into that booth claiming that you are voting for the candidate that Jesus would vote for. Don’t attack a supporter of a different candidate using your beliefs as a weapon. Don’t claim that your faith in Christ compels you to put your faith in a political candidate.
In his book, Jesus For President (which I highly recommend), Shane Claiborne said:
When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God.
Apparently today is National Coming Out Day. So I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of my best and most painful coming out experiences.
For me personally, coming out or, being open and honest with people about my sexual orientation has always been a humbling, spiritual experience. It forces me to place my trust and identity in the hands of someone else. There’s a chance they may reject me and abandon me. Or, just maybe they value our relationship and the see past that thing that they don’t understand and respond with love and acceptance. For me, each time that the latter happens its a reflection of the love and acceptance I have in Christ. It’s like when you’re a kid and you spend what seems like forever working on a picture and you want to get it just right. But then you finish and it’s not what you wanted at all. You’ve ruined it. It looks stupid and you want to just throw it away. But then mom comes and looks at it and she looks past the mistakes and the ugly lines and she praises it, affirms it and, to your surprise, she hangs it on the fridge. Why? You think. It’s not perfect. It’s not what I wanted it to be. But mothers know that at our most fragile moments, those are the times we need love and acceptance the most. We see God doing the same over and over in scripture. As Christ met people he always seemed (not by any accident) to meet people at their very point of despair, or desperation. It was then He could show his love to them and build them up. Continue reading ““Coming Out” or, in other words… “Stepping into Authentic Life””
theforeignguy.com