Decided I needed to seperate my personal blog from leadwithtweets, therefore:
http://leadwithtweets.tumblr.com/
Today's post is already up - about Matthew 6. Sort of. ;-)
Now this blog will probably be abandoned again for a while, though I'm thinking I may start a photo blog on Tumblr because it IS insanely easy to use. Blogger is nearly dead anyway.
-Sarah
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Salty
These daily blog posts aren't going to be anything long or special. Just a few quick thoughts on a verse or a set of verses. It's up to you to read the rest of the chapter.
What to read: Matthew 5
Highlighted in this post: Matthew 5:13
Salt. It's in pretty much everything. Excellent for preservation and seasoning. Commonly found on the table of nearly every American family, right next to the pepper. For some reason, it's in the recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I haven't the faintest idea why.
The point is, it's common. Easy and fairly cheap to buy.
It also made Liverpool England's largest sea port due to Liverpool's proximity to the Cheshire salt mines, exporting much of the world's salt in the 19th century. Venice fought and won a war with Genoa over salt. Poland had a large kingdom in the 16th century because of its salt mines, but Germany brought in sea salt (considered superior to rock salt,) eventually destroying Poland's trade. The Roman empire gave their soldiers salarium, special money for buying salt to preserve their food (as opposed to the common belief that they were actually paid with salt.)
(Wikipedia rocks.)
Point is, salt wasn't always as common or cheap as it is now. In fact, it was downright expensive. People treasured it - it meant they could make their food last through hot summers and cold winters, ensuring survival. For salt to go bad would have been a stunning blow.
Matthew 5:13
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
At the time Jesus said this, salt was valuable. People would have seen the meaning of the metaphor. As salt, we can't afford to lose our saltiness. That saltiness is Jesus Himself. Without Him, we aren't worth anything. We aren't valuable, and we can't DO anything meaningful.
Sounds a little harsh maybe, but it's a fact.
How salty are you?
What to read: Matthew 5
Highlighted in this post: Matthew 5:13
Salt. It's in pretty much everything. Excellent for preservation and seasoning. Commonly found on the table of nearly every American family, right next to the pepper. For some reason, it's in the recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I haven't the faintest idea why.
The point is, it's common. Easy and fairly cheap to buy.
It also made Liverpool England's largest sea port due to Liverpool's proximity to the Cheshire salt mines, exporting much of the world's salt in the 19th century. Venice fought and won a war with Genoa over salt. Poland had a large kingdom in the 16th century because of its salt mines, but Germany brought in sea salt (considered superior to rock salt,) eventually destroying Poland's trade. The Roman empire gave their soldiers salarium, special money for buying salt to preserve their food (as opposed to the common belief that they were actually paid with salt.)
(Wikipedia rocks.)
Point is, salt wasn't always as common or cheap as it is now. In fact, it was downright expensive. People treasured it - it meant they could make their food last through hot summers and cold winters, ensuring survival. For salt to go bad would have been a stunning blow.
Matthew 5:13
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
At the time Jesus said this, salt was valuable. People would have seen the meaning of the metaphor. As salt, we can't afford to lose our saltiness. That saltiness is Jesus Himself. Without Him, we aren't worth anything. We aren't valuable, and we can't DO anything meaningful.
Sounds a little harsh maybe, but it's a fact.
How salty are you?
Read this. Yes, you. I need your help.
About a month ago I figured out that there's something wrong with leadwithtweets. Mainly because it really doesn't require anyone to do anything, and that's not really the point. Leaders are supposed to do things. But leadwithtweets has just become a collection of inspirational thoughts/quotes/verses that I post every day.
So I'm changing things around a bit, and I need your help.
I have lots of ideas for what I want to do with leadwithtweets. I could make them all fit together and make sense fairly easily. Or I could swallow a little pride and ask for some help, which is what I'm doing. It's astonishingly easy, too, since I'm normally the type to try to get everything perfect on my own.
leadwithtweets is about leading the followers you already have. One thing I've figured out over the past couple of months is that you can't figure out how to lead - really lead - without following Christ's example first. So I want to base the new 'format' for leadwithtweets on 1 Cor. 11:1. "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." I want this to become our motto; what we say to others both in words and actions.
But um...why? And how?
(Quick thanks to Sunny and Liberty for letting me bug them with these questions.)
Why should we as Christians follow Christ's example so closely that someone else can follow us? Why not just tell them to follow Christ Himself? What does it mean to follow Christ in the first place? How do we figure out how to follow Christ? How can it be done in an organized way that several types of teens can all understand and do? Say a group of teens wanted to make a difference starting with Twitter. How do they ultimately get others to join them? How do they make sure they're always following Christ's example well enough to set an example for others? How do they LEAD? How to they make people discontent with doing nothing? How do they call others to loving & following Jesus as much as they do? How do they convince people that following Christ is worth it? How do they convince people that leading 9 people is better than following everyone else in the world? How do they make it something worth getting involved in?
This would be a good place to end this post. Let you answer the questions now. But I don't want you to. Not yet.
Part of following Christ means studying and (the tricky part) applying His word. So I'm going to spend the week following Christ before I try to figure out how to lead others. I'm asking you to do the same.
Matthew 6:33
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
I've probably read Matthew 5, 6, and 7 about 4 times in the last week. It's Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. He covers pretty much everything that His followers need to do. It's good stuff. It's HARD stuff. Loving your enemies, not calling people names, not trying to get revenge, being persecuted in His name, etc. That's just chapter 5. Yep. It’s tough.
So that's the thing we're going to focus on: reading and applying it in normal everyday life. We'll start with Matthew 5 today - move on to 6 and 7, then maybe jump back to 5 or go ahead to 8. We'll see. I'll blog about the chapter we're on every day (if you have a blog, you can, too - or even just post something on Facebook or Twitter about it.) until Friday. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are open for you to answer the questions I asked above and send me your ideas. More on how to do that on Friday. For now, we’ll just follow Christ. At the end of the week, we’ll figure out how to tell others to follow us.
So I'm changing things around a bit, and I need your help.
I have lots of ideas for what I want to do with leadwithtweets. I could make them all fit together and make sense fairly easily. Or I could swallow a little pride and ask for some help, which is what I'm doing. It's astonishingly easy, too, since I'm normally the type to try to get everything perfect on my own.
leadwithtweets is about leading the followers you already have. One thing I've figured out over the past couple of months is that you can't figure out how to lead - really lead - without following Christ's example first. So I want to base the new 'format' for leadwithtweets on 1 Cor. 11:1. "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." I want this to become our motto; what we say to others both in words and actions.
But um...why? And how?
(Quick thanks to Sunny and Liberty for letting me bug them with these questions.)
Why should we as Christians follow Christ's example so closely that someone else can follow us? Why not just tell them to follow Christ Himself? What does it mean to follow Christ in the first place? How do we figure out how to follow Christ? How can it be done in an organized way that several types of teens can all understand and do? Say a group of teens wanted to make a difference starting with Twitter. How do they ultimately get others to join them? How do they make sure they're always following Christ's example well enough to set an example for others? How do they LEAD? How to they make people discontent with doing nothing? How do they call others to loving & following Jesus as much as they do? How do they convince people that following Christ is worth it? How do they convince people that leading 9 people is better than following everyone else in the world? How do they make it something worth getting involved in?
This would be a good place to end this post. Let you answer the questions now. But I don't want you to. Not yet.
Part of following Christ means studying and (the tricky part) applying His word. So I'm going to spend the week following Christ before I try to figure out how to lead others. I'm asking you to do the same.
Matthew 6:33
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
I've probably read Matthew 5, 6, and 7 about 4 times in the last week. It's Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. He covers pretty much everything that His followers need to do. It's good stuff. It's HARD stuff. Loving your enemies, not calling people names, not trying to get revenge, being persecuted in His name, etc. That's just chapter 5. Yep. It’s tough.
So that's the thing we're going to focus on: reading and applying it in normal everyday life. We'll start with Matthew 5 today - move on to 6 and 7, then maybe jump back to 5 or go ahead to 8. We'll see. I'll blog about the chapter we're on every day (if you have a blog, you can, too - or even just post something on Facebook or Twitter about it.) until Friday. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are open for you to answer the questions I asked above and send me your ideas. More on how to do that on Friday. For now, we’ll just follow Christ. At the end of the week, we’ll figure out how to tell others to follow us.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
A note.
I really, really really fail at blogging. I know I've established this before, but I thought I'd point it out again.
1) A belated Happy New Year to you all!
2) Worshipping Jesus at Onething with over 25,000 other people was the best way to end 2010 and the best way to start 2011.
3) I'm planning on writing a VDT review to end all other VDT reviews to make up for the fact that I forgot about my anticipation blog posts. Eventually. Maybe when the DVD comes out so I can dissect it and include screencaps.
4) I have not forgotten about leadwithtweets, I simply have lots of exciting stuff planned for this year and it's taking longer to put together than I thought it would. It should be ready by this time next week. I'm stoked about it though, and I'm ready to get other people involved.
5) I feel like I should have 5 things, because 5 is a nice round number, but those are the only 4 things I can think about. Sorry people.
1) A belated Happy New Year to you all!
2) Worshipping Jesus at Onething with over 25,000 other people was the best way to end 2010 and the best way to start 2011.
3) I'm planning on writing a VDT review to end all other VDT reviews to make up for the fact that I forgot about my anticipation blog posts. Eventually. Maybe when the DVD comes out so I can dissect it and include screencaps.
4) I have not forgotten about leadwithtweets, I simply have lots of exciting stuff planned for this year and it's taking longer to put together than I thought it would. It should be ready by this time next week. I'm stoked about it though, and I'm ready to get other people involved.
5) I feel like I should have 5 things, because 5 is a nice round number, but those are the only 4 things I can think about. Sorry people.
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