Category: Spiritual Growth

In case you haven’t been checking it out, the national Chi Alpha website has been rockin’ lately. If you want to get a feeling for what they’re doing, check out their video blogs (the most recent one is a video blog of love, but I think the one on postmodern cookie evangelism is a better intro).

Unfortunately, there’s no index to them all. You can sort of see one at http://chialpha.com/video_blogs, but it’s really just a directory listing. *sigh*

Update: there is an index to the Chi Alpha video blogs!

As I promised in last night’s message Booze, The Bible, & Bad Theology, here are some resources outlining what the Bible says about fermented beverages.

* First, a list of every passage in the Bible that discusses alcohol.
* Daniel Whitfield has a good essay Alcohol and the Bible–well worth reading.
* Daniel Wallace wrote The Bible and Alcohol, an extremely helpful article from a very solid scholar.
* The Christian Counterculture project has an insightful collection of articles in their What Would Jesus Drink? collection.

There is diversity within the Christian camp on this issue, and a simple google search will find arguments from all corners. The ones I listed above are the ones I find most credible.

UPDATE: I just ran across a fascinating article at Christianity Today that gives a solid historical overview — Amassed Media: The Drink Debate.

The messages from College Winter Retreat are online now in Windows Media format.

I would have put them in MP3 format, but every time I tried to convert the file sizes swelled by an order of magnitude and I couldn’t figure out how to change it.

If you want to give it a go, feel free.

The National Chi Alpha office has just released another video blog.

Check it out!

Going to study abroad? God Abroad is a great resource–it will help you find a Christian community overseas!
Continue reading “Spiritual Help When Studying Abroad”

I just ran across an interesting article I thought most college students would find interesting: Hugh Hefner’s Hollow Victory (originally appeared in the defunct re:generation quarterly, now hosted on ChristianityToday.com).

It’s a very insightful critique of the mainstream porn industry in America. Well worth reading.

A fellow Chi Alphan (Lynette, if you must know) asked me to recommend some online explanations of Christianity that she could forward to a friend who is interested.

There are a ton out there, but here are some that I really like:

Power to Change is probably my favorite. It eschews over-the-top flash animation and focuses on the stories of changed lives.

The next three are all variants on a theme–make the gospel look cool through use of snazzy flash and soundtrack. They are actually quite cool. To each their own:
1) Got Life?: a play on the “Got Milk?” campaign.
2) Wuzup God?: a youthy variant of the billboards asking questions. It’s not quite as clear as I would like it to be, but it’s still nice.
3) The Kristo: very cool, but it annoys me that I can’t skip the intro to get to the interactive part nor can I pause it (if something cool comes on tv or I get a phone call then the inability to pause becomes a real drag).

Faith Cards: this is an e‑vangelistic twist on the widespread electronic birthday and holiday cards out there. I almost never open them myself, but some people love them. If that describes your friend (which it almost certainly does if this is a friend who forwards you cute stories), they might appreciate getting one of these.

If you have one that you really like, post it in a comment. If I like it too, I’ll update the post and include it in the main text!

I just ran across a handy article called The Top Ten College Temptations. It’s not stuff you’ve never heard before, but it’s a good summary of simple truth.

I just ran across a statement of faith written by Mike Yaconelli (who recently died) for his company, Youth Specialties.

I highly recommend What Do You Really Believe?

While I was preparing for this week’s message I came across this paragraph which I don’t think is going to make it in (doesn’t fit the flow), but it was so good that I feel compelled to share it with you:

Dorothy Sayers in her book Unpopular Opinions wrote:

Setting aside the scandal caused by His Messianic claims and His reputation as a political firebrand, only two accusations of personal depravity seem to have been brought against Jesus of Nazareth. First, that He was a Sabbath-breaker. Secondly, that He was “a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” — or (to draw aside the veil of Elizabethan English that makes it sound so much more respectable) that He ate too heartily, drank too freely, and kept very disreputable company, including grafters of the lowest type and ladies who were no better than they should be. For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian Churches have laboured, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the Communion-table, founded Total Abstinence Societies in the name of Him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatre-going. They have transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and, feeling that the original commandment “Thou shalt not work” was rather half-hearted, have added to it the new commandment, “Thou shalt not play.”

So there.

Now that I look at it again it may make it in after all… come and find out!

By the way, this week we’re continuing our “Jesus Is Asking You…” series of messages with the pivotal question Who Do You Say That I Am?