Rethinking Faith

Excerpt from My New Book: Soul Paths & Möbius Turns

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 21:40:00 -0500

The Evil Urge

“The Evil Urge speaks to us secretly. For it wants to become good by driving us to overcome it, and to make it good. And that is its secret request to each of us it is trying to seduce: ‘Let us leave this disgraceful state and take up the service of the Creator, so that I too may go and mount with you rung by rung, although I seem to oppose, to disturb, and hinder you.'”
—Rabbi Yehiel Mikhal of Zlotchov
(In Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim)

Recognize that each time you yield to temptation and give the Urge what it appears to demand, you have actually failed to truly satisfy its secret yearning—to be good!

At the same time you’ve condemned it, along with yourself, to missing Yahweh’s purpose in creating you both.

Isn’t being human an amazing ride?

Excerpted by permission from: Soul Paths & Möbius Turns, By David R Leigh

Out of the wreckage of rebellion and sin comes poetry and prose describing the prodigal journey the author took through spiritual darkness and emotional heartbreaks. The result is “a fragmented fossil record in poetry and prose” providing glimpses of what it was like to search for love, identity, and a life of integrity, meaning, and authenticity, only to be surprised by the God he first ran from.

Get your copy here!

"The Ringleader’s Jewel" - Romans 1:1-17

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 19:23:07 -0500

Part I of a new sermon series in Romans with Pastor Dave Leigh

Join us!
at 11 a.m. Sundays at
Armenian Evangelical Church
905 W Golf Road, Mount Prospect, IL

Questions for Christian Singles Groups

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 17:53:00 -0500

Recently I found myself single again. Technically, I’ve been single for 13 years. But for more than half of the latter part of that time I was in a long-term relationship I’d hoped would result in marriage. It did not. And while it’s been almost a year and a half now since the one I’ve considered the love of my life told me it was over, it has not been so easy to move on emotionally. As if it wasn’t hard enough to lose such a person, all of the relationships tethered to her and me as a couple have also changed dramatically, especially since I now live an hour away from a community I was also in love with.

So, what to do? Facing a new life alone, I have encountered God’s mercies and goodness amidst serious trials and challenges. Almost immediately I went through other personal crises, alone. I live in an amazing furnished townhouse that God has provided—but in it I spend my days alone. My children and my grandchildren live far away and I miss them. I go out. I work. I live in a town that is buzzing with life. But I go about with the awareness that wherever I find myself I am alone. If I manage to be in a group, I’m in it alone. Each night, on the way back to the lovely, furnished, but empty townhouse that God has provided, I have no one to talk with about a group I just visited or an experience I’ve just had—no one to relive the laughs of an evening, no one to ask about questions I may have had about something that was said or happened.

It gets lonely. So I try to make new friends. I try to meet people just to be part of the human community. I call family and friends who live in other towns or states in order to maintain those connections that are so dear to me and near my heart, despite the distance in miles. I even tried online dating. But I’m not really ready to be dating. I’m not looking for a romantic relationship right now. I long for friendship. I enjoy female companionship; it does my heart good. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready or able to become romantically linked or into anything exclusive. I’m not looking for sex. I’m not looking for a “girlfriend.” I just need to be with people I can feel close to.

When I’m at church or in mixed groups at church, I feel keenly that my singleness affects how others relate to me, especially those who are couple- or family-oriented. And I guess I’ve become used to the admixture of being included but not feeling like I fully belong when I’m in those groups. But that brings me to us: Christian singles groups.

All of this is a long way, I realize, to get to my questions for you today. But here goes:

Do we realize that many, if not most, of those who first come to us are hurting? I realize some come with questionable agendas. And I realize that sometimes it’s we who are already established in the group who are still hurting. But does it change anything in your thinking about the new people who arrive? Or are we just sizing them up as possible mates or friends?
What can we do differently in order to assess the needs of those who come to us? I realize we would like everyone who comes to be healthy and there for the right reasons. (What are those, by the way?) Perhaps we feel it’s not our job to help each other heal; that people should go to divorce recovery or other similar support groups for that. But not everyone does that. And not everyone heals the same way. Yet, if the larger church is inept (as so many are) at integrating singles and meeting their needs, what can we do to be more of a healing place for each other? If the broader church has such a hard time being a community of redemption (and again, so many don’t even have a clue how to do this in practice), what is our edge on this matter? How can we “be the church” to each other in the ways God intends church to be?
I will be frank (in case you thought I haven’t been frank enough yet). When I go to singles groups and their activities, I often find the guys focused on the women, and the women very cautious about the newcomer. I certainly get why that would be. But I am also wondering: How many newcomers get discouraged because they feel no more welcome among the singles than they did in the mixed groups of their “family church”? Are there ways we can change this? What have you found?
What should we do about those people who come that we “don’t like”? I have been in groups where I say something, and people ignore me or talk over me. I come away feeling unwelcome as a result. I have felt the “vibe” from some people who for whatever reason don’t want me in their clique. Does this ever happen in your group? What’s the solution? And more importantly, why does this happen?

If you’ve read this far, thank you. You may be upset by what I’ve said (I hope not). You may be relieved to hear someone else say what you’ve been thinking. Or you may want to attack me for what you perceive to be my own insecurities or issues. All that is fine. I may be my own problem and I readily take responsibility for that. But how many more are there who feel the way I’ve described above? And if people like this exist, then isn't it to the advantage of Christian singles communities to have a way to turn this problem into a wonderful opportunity for growth and ministry?

I would like to hear your experiences and your ideas.

- Dave Leigh

"The holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him."

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:44:03 -0500

“The holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.”

- C. S. Lewis (via breanna-lynn)

How little we’ve progressed! Listen to this poem recited...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 13:38:56 -0600

How little we’ve progressed! Listen to this poem recited by Larry Norman in the late 1960s, called “First Day In Church.”

My sermon last Sunday: “Uncommon Community” based on...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:35:00 -0600

My sermon last Sunday: “Uncommon Community” based on Acts 4:32-5:11, was given at the Armenian Evangelical Church in Mount Prospect, Illinois. (About 32 minutes.)

essie23: From the book with beautiful excerpts, “Look Through...

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 09:33:51 -0600

essie23:

From the book with beautiful excerpts, “Look Through God-Colored Glasses by John Ortberg” :)

israelfacts: Palestinian children return to school for the...

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 09:29:06 -0600

israelfacts:

Palestinian children return to school for the first time since Israel’s latest attack on Gaza but not all students made it back. Sarah Al-Dalou had to be excused from class as she — along with 9 other members of her family and 2 neighbors [graphic] — were killed by an Israeli airstrike when F-16 fighter jets reduced their house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza to rubble.

A sign now occupies her seat instead, calling her a ‘martyr’. She is one of over 30 children killed by the Israeli Army during their week-long assault on the blockaded coastal enclave, with 161 Palestinians dead in total.

(Photo source: @mohammednazmi)

Bottom photo: Palestinian children return to school in January 2009 after Israel’s massacre in Gaza, named ‘Operation Cast Lead’, when over 300 children were killed by the Israeli Army, and 1,400 Palestinians in all.

Signs replaced the once-occupied seats at al-Fakhura School in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza; names of victims written under the word in red: ‘Martyr’, 24 January, 2009.

(Photo credit: Anja Niedringhaus / AP)

"What’s currently called the new anti-Semitism actually incorporates three main components: (1)..."

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:27:16 -0600

“What’s currently called the new anti-Semitism actually incorporates three main components: (1) exaggeration and fabrication, (2) mislabelling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy, (3) the unjustified yet predictable spillover from criticism of Israel to Jews generally.”

- Norman Finkelstein (son of Jewish Holocaust survivors), Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (via israelfacts)

Rabbis Call for the End the Unconditional Military Aid to Israel

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:27:00 -0500

Rabbis Call for the End the Unconditional Military Aid to Israel:

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Rabbi Brant Rosen

The undersigned members of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council stand with our American Christian colleagues in their recent call to “make U.S. military aid to Israel contingent upon its government’s “compliance with applicable US laws and policies.”

We are as troubled as our Christian colleagues by the human rights violations Israel commits against Palestinian civilians, many of which involve the misuse of US-supplied weapons. It is altogether appropriate – and in fact essential – for Congress to ensure that Israel is not in violation of any US laws or policies that regulate the use of US supplied weapons….

(Click the headline to continue reading.)

"What manner of man is the prophet? A student of philosophy who turns from the discourses of the..."

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:47:00 -0500

“What manner of man is the prophet? A student of philosophy who turns from the discourses of the great metaphysicians to the orations of the prophets may feel as if he were going from the realm of the sublime to an area of trivialities. Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place. Instead of showing us a way through the elegant mansions of the mind, the prophets take us to the slums. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum. They make much ado about paltry things, lavishing excessive language upon trifling subjects. What if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich? So what if some old women found pleasure and edification in worshiping ‘the Queen of Heaven’? Why such immoderate excitement? Why such intense indignation?
The things that horrified the prophets are even now daily occurrences all over the world. There is no society to which [their] words would not apply.“”

- Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, p. 3

Called & Chosen: Paradoxic Being (Poem)

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 00:02:00 -0500

I have a divine calling.
That does not make me divine.

I am a man who struggles
with his own humanity,
Freed from sin yet daily a sinner;
a slave sent to help other slaves
escape that which entangles me;
a leper sent to cleanse lepers;
blind man gifted with sight
but pointing the way where there’s yet to be light.

Hungry, I offer my flesh as food
in imitation of he whose body broke for me;
I pour out my blood, a libation
to worship him whose blood flows over me.

In this world we are ever sinners as saints,
for Yahweh calls that which is not
as though it were, and so
into being what it is not.
A garden just sown; seeds in dirt—
To trample is to destroy a harvest
that is yet to be, though called as though it were.

If you are looking for perfection in me as a minister,
you will not find it—and for good cause:
I am no more than you ever can be.
And so my life message must be clear:
By grace alone we stand, by grace alone we serve.
For grace is all he wants to demonstrate
in we who sinned—hoping to be like him!

Fallen (Poem)

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 18:01:19 -0500

“Devils, and devils only, never rise once they have fallen.”
—Macedonius (Quoted by John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent)

And so, Yahweh, my Creator,
You have designed me to rise.
Though devils pull at my flesh
Seeking to drag my soul with them
Into the irretrievable abyss,
I will burrow deeper into the cleft of my Rock,
That my soul may soar upward in you!

Let my flesh and all this world about me
Tumble like debris into the darkness below me;
I am hidden in your cleft!
I will glide upward toward your light!
Rising like a beach ball
From the ocean depths.

Thank you, Jesus, for your rising
And being for me my ladder
Of divine ascent!
That I might be patterned after you
In all I am and all I do.

Empty Fall (Poem)

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 15:42:46 -0500

The leaves are turning now
without you.
Autumn is almost gone.

My heart is turning now
each day without you.
Coming slowly to accept
that you are gone.

Autumn will return,
as will Spring.
But will I ever see you again,
my love?
Will I ever hold you
in my arms?

Perhaps when winter comes
and storms have passed.

I will keep the fire burning.

Rethinking existentialism

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 15:58:35 -0500

Rethinking existentialism

Photo

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:20:35 -0500

"If the church is identified with the Establishment in the minds of young people, in the minds of..."

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 21:52:33 -0500

“If the church is identified with the Establishment in the minds of young people, in the minds of those who will come forth to be men and women in the next 20 years, I believe the church is finished.”

- Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the 20th Century (1970), p. 82.

"Does having two flags in your church mean that Christianity and the American Establishment are..."

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 21:43:51 -0500

“Does having two flags in your church mean that Christianity and the American Establishment are equal? If it does, you are really in trouble. These are not two loyalties. The State is also under the norm of the Word of God.”

- Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the 20th Century (1970), p. 82.

I needed to hear this:

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 20:22:35 -0500

I needed to hear this::

therevster:

The Christian life was never meant to be void of problems. Yes things will happen that we cannot control. But the difference between the world and the Christian is that our joy should be founded in a consistent Christ. Examine yourself. When something happens in life that doesn’t go your way do…

"Bad theology is built on lack of experience"

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 02:21:42 -0500

“Bad theology is built on lack of experience”

- Bill Johnson (via therevster)