Down Time
Okay, after the class I mentioned in the last text post, I have had some down time this past week. I took vacation days last Thursday and Friday, and have not done much since turning in my final assignment a week ago Thursday night. Down time included playing Gears of War with my nephew one night (later probably than a geezer like me should be up). If you don't know what Gears of War is, this might give you an idea (this is the area of the game we are at) WARNING: The following video is violent, gory, and contains bad language; it's also a bit long:
We played through on casual difficulty shortly after the game came out, and are now (slowly) making our way through on insane difficulty. I don't know if we'll be able to beat Raam (the final "boss") or not as I'm a significant liability for my nephew.
During the down time I did, however, finish this book (which was borrowed from the aforementioned nephew):
An interesting read. As the editor (Robert Webber) notes in the conclusion, only Driscoll writes in language that is easily decipherable as theology to most reformed or evangelical Christians. I'm not sure that I would encourage everyone to pick this up. It is a little different than a lot of the 4 or 5 views books I've read. There really doesn't seem to be as much interaction in the responses. It's somewhat encouraging that the discussion seems to be civil, but it is almost too civil. Just about everyone (with the exception of Driscoll) does not engage enough to know where they stand.
Which brings me to a message from the Resurgence Podcast titled The Studious Saint from the Reformission 2004 conference that I listened to this week. The speaker is Chris Seay, about whom I have heard mixed things. But I was encouraged by this message. There is a call to stand on our convictions. Worth a listen, I think, even if you don't agree with everything that is said.
We need to learn to discuss our differences without people getting upset. I did a poor job of that this week. One "discussion" turned into an argument and my only goal was to win. The answer is not what I think most of the contributors to Listening would say, which is that we should all just get along. Instead I think we must learn to discuss our differences, particularly who hold to the essentials of the faith, fairly narrowly defined, without going "Gears" on one another.
We played through on casual difficulty shortly after the game came out, and are now (slowly) making our way through on insane difficulty. I don't know if we'll be able to beat Raam (the final "boss") or not as I'm a significant liability for my nephew.
During the down time I did, however, finish this book (which was borrowed from the aforementioned nephew):
An interesting read. As the editor (Robert Webber) notes in the conclusion, only Driscoll writes in language that is easily decipherable as theology to most reformed or evangelical Christians. I'm not sure that I would encourage everyone to pick this up. It is a little different than a lot of the 4 or 5 views books I've read. There really doesn't seem to be as much interaction in the responses. It's somewhat encouraging that the discussion seems to be civil, but it is almost too civil. Just about everyone (with the exception of Driscoll) does not engage enough to know where they stand.
Which brings me to a message from the Resurgence Podcast titled The Studious Saint from the Reformission 2004 conference that I listened to this week. The speaker is Chris Seay, about whom I have heard mixed things. But I was encouraged by this message. There is a call to stand on our convictions. Worth a listen, I think, even if you don't agree with everything that is said.
We need to learn to discuss our differences without people getting upset. I did a poor job of that this week. One "discussion" turned into an argument and my only goal was to win. The answer is not what I think most of the contributors to Listening would say, which is that we should all just get along. Instead I think we must learn to discuss our differences, particularly who hold to the essentials of the faith, fairly narrowly defined, without going "Gears" on one another.
posted by Taliesin at 9:07 PM
3 Comments:
you guys are awesome for playing that video together. i appreciate it a lot! :)
That game looks like fun. I cannot play vid games man..cause if I do....I will be doing it for a long, long time. I enjoy those shoot'em up games..especially the reconnaiscence sp? ones....like snipers on missions to recover a cache and rescure hostages.
I also read that book and came to similar conclusions. I believe it has a good primer effect to people who want to hear the nuances of current theological dialogue. There is lots of ambiguity in it and also lots of very good missional contribution...I specifically enjoyed John Burkes and Dan Kimballs contributions....on incarnational ministry.
Driscoll's stuff I am very familiar with and found nothing new there. I found his responses to have valid points....I too wish the people could have had a more probing discussion.
Thanks Danae.
I have had problems as well with allowing them to consume too much time. Generally the shooters like this aren't as bad for me because they aren't as long. My problems are RPGs (like Knights of the Old Republic) where you can easily spend 50 hours or more to complete the game, or, like back in 2001, playing "competitively" online. I could play Gears online, but if I got started, I probably wouldn't have a life.
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