Don't Imitate - Lead

Recently, some "Christian" reality shows have hit the airways on various cable TV channels. While the message is positive, and at first glance relevant and integrated to the culture around them, ("punk" Christian skaters sharing Christ by all means necessary, or an inside look at a Christian rock festival) a closer look revels nothing more than a cheep knock-off of a lousy medium, not so reality TV.



One of the skaters said it best, "We don't not use all of these platforms and avenues that make up society (to share the gospel)" Key word: use. It's not creative, it's not original, it's predictable, old and tired.

As Christians we should be leading in the creative arts. Our God is a creative God, and he calls us to create, not copy old worn out story lines. In contrast the Christian community spends much of its time trying to catch up with the culture, and ends up arriving late and looking stupid. We are that guy at the party trying way too hard to look cool.

I love audio book downloads from my library

So I recently discovered that I can download audio books from my local library's web site, and guess what, I like it a lot!

For quite a while now, whenever I go on a trip I try and bring an audio book or two. This last time, I decided to look into whether there were downloads available and if they could be transferred to my mp3 player. They were, and I did.

I like to learn, I don't like to physically read. With audio books you can do simple multitasking while enjoying the latest non-fiction or an ancient classic. Plus it's fast, they don't stop the way you or I tend to do when we are actually reading.

Look at this list I have listened to in just the past few weeks. There is no way I could read all these books, but via audio downloads...

• War and Peace - by Tolstoy (just started)
  
• Hearing God's Voice - by Blackaby
• Beyond Band of Brothers – The War Memoirs of Major Winters. – by Winters
• The Problem of Pain – by C.S. Lewis
• God's Politics - Why the right gets it wrong and the left doesn't get it. - by Wallis
• Conspiracy of Fools - The rise and fall of Enron - by Eichenwald
• Three Cups of Tea – One mans mission to start schools in Afghanistan. – by Mortenson
• Legacy of Ashes - The history of the CIA - by Weiner
• Dispatches from the Edge - A Memoir - by Anderson Cooper

(Someone should really pay me for this post, a blatant advertisement.)