Popular culture has, on average, grown more complex and intellectually challenging over the past thirty years. Where most commentators assume a race to the bottom and a dumbing down–“an increasingly infantilzed society,” in George Will’s words–I see a progressive story: mass culture growing more sophisticated, demanding more cognitive engagement with each passing year. Think of it as a kind of positive brainwashing: the popular media steadily, but almost imperceptibly, making our minds sharper…

~ Steven Johnson, Everything Bad Is Good For You

What’s your take on Pop Culture? Is it making us smarter by demanding more cognitive engagement with each passing year or reducing intellectual engagment through its instantly gratifying media?

The word [missional] is hot in Christian circles. But what does it mean? Kevin Cawley draws our attention to a recent article in Leadership. Consider this brief explanation taken another article:

Missional is a Shift in Thinking

In the era of “movements,” missional is often looked upon as just another phase or program. But we error when we do so for missional is more than just another movement, it is a full expression of who the ekklesia of Christ is and what it is called to be and do. At its core, missional is a shift in thinking. This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, “Breaking the Missional Code” (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this: Making this shift can be difficult for many (particularly Evangelical Americans), but to fully appreciate what the missional church is, we must look outside of our traditional understanding of how we do church and realign ourselves with the biblical narrative. So, as you consider the following “description,” don’t attempt to understand it within your traditional framework, shift your thinking From programs to processes From demographics to discernment From models to missions From attractional to incarnational From uniformity to diversity From professional to passionate From seating to sending From decisions to disciples From additional to exponential From monuments to movements

Dan at Eucatastrophe recently posted this question.  I too have a $30 gift card, which is like $100 to a churchplanter! Tell me what books should I buy? Pick from these categories:

Fiction, Theology, Cultural Criticism, Philosophy, Biblical Studies/Theology, History

An estimated 27 million people in the world today are in slavery. They are sold into sexual slavery or forced labor from sub-Saharan Africa to suburban America, from big-city brothels to small-town sweatshops. Every day, men, women, and children looking for work and a better life are tricked, coerced, or forced into slavery.

If this is news to you, don’t be surprised. This is a silent horror. No one is paying any attention.

William Wilberforce once said, “If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.” Only this kind of good “fanaticism” can bring today’s version of the slave trade to an end. (Taken from Chuck Colson’s breakpoint)

Act by visiting and contributing to these sites/ministries:

Mother Jones

Project Rescue

International Justice Mission

Project Lantern

Justice for Children International