parables of a prodigal world

Grace and Peace, Raffi

New weekly series here at Parables. Maybe. The human brain is a gift from God. Failure to use it, therefore, is a sin. Here are this week's most egregious sinners... Use your gifts, people! Grace and Peace, Raffi

OK, since you guys all sucked pretty hard at my last contest , I thought I'd come up with one that someone actually has a chance of winning. So everyone's probably heard about the "There's Probably No God" bus slogan campaign in London by now. The other day, I ran across this fun little site where you can generate your own bus slogan. You see where this is going... Yep. That simple. Create your own religious bus slogan. Best one wins the book of her/his choice (under $20, please) from Amazon . One entry per person. Deadline is midnight Tuesday, February 24th. OK, here's the thing. The website for the slogan generator recommends that you upload the image somewhere else ( Flickr , Picasa , etc.) since, although it's possible to link to the created images directly, they will be compressed to a smaller file size and will vanish after 24 hours. So it's up to you. You should probably upload the picture and send me the link, since it might otherwise disappe...

Emerging Church. Missional Community. Post-Evangelicals. Whatever we're calling ourselves nowadays... "...so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." We got the second part. Are we losing sight of the first? That darn Jesus of Nazareth. He always seems to have these grandiose, impossible to live up to, both/and expectations of us. Wise as serpents and innocent as doves? I mean, c'mon! I know plenty of people who are wise as serpents. So do you. Plenty more (well, maybe not "plenty") who are innocent as doves. But both?! That's tough. Which is why people, groups, communities tend to fall into one or the other end of the serpent/dove polarity. It's too hard. So which end have we Missionals fallen into? OK, stop scouring for the one or two exceptions. We're a bunch of friggin' doves. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Or maybe... Doves are pretty. But serpents make you stop and take notice. Stopping to take notice of something pr...