All posts in Culture

Check. Check. Check.

by Adam Lehman on October 12, 2010 in Blogs, Culture with No comments

Loving the God at Play blog. Dude is about 19 levels beyond me.

Right now, the ARTfwd team is using ManyMoon to manage projects, but I’m really intrigued by Teambox.

If you’re an artist and you want to an application to buy and sell digital art (video, image, audio), I’d look long and hard at the Pulley App.

Looking to raise funds for a mission trip? Want a simple website to direct givers to? Missionify does it. I might make a page just to see if people will sponsor me buying chipotle for teenagers…..

Love seeing the inventions and innovations on the Shapeways website.

Job Does Not Equal Identity

by Adam Lehman on September 28, 2010 in Culture, Leadership with 1 Comment

If I was most honest with you, I’d say I’ve been wired by God to be a pastor. Right now I’m a youth pastor, but I’m also a pastor to our small group. I’m a pastor to several parents of teenagers. It’s just the default way I seem to interact with the world.

Shepherd. Leader. Pastor. Guide. Coach.

These aren’t labels that have been tagged to me by society, but ever since I was in high school, I’ve felt and worn these.

Well, today I carry that identity into a new job. Today I start working part-time as a loader for UPS.

Will I shrink back from my identity? Will I reject my wiring?  Just because my paycheck isn’t coming fully from a church, does that make me any less a pastor?

I don’t think so.

Catching the Creep

by Adam Lehman on September 27, 2010 in Art, Culture with No comments

Glancing around the landscape of your life, I’d bet you’ll find something: creep.

Several years ago, Twitter & Facebook promised to be fun places to connect. But now we look around and they’ve crept into so much of our life.

Remember when you were in college and promised yourselves that you’d never pick a career simply because of the paycheck. Years later, you look back and notice that your career has devoured so so so much of you life. That job you took just to pay the bills for a season was a creep. It crept in and swallowed tons of your life.

Text messages creep and interupt your work. Addicting websites creep into your life. The success of video games is solely reliant on creep: buy me for fun, but grow addicted. Cigarettes, alcohol, mountain dew, coffee & pornography are built on creep.

Start with just one. Just for the fun of it. No big deal. No porn addict starts off saying, “I hope someday I’m so reliant on the instant gratification of erotica that I’m incapable of properly functioning in real-life relations.” But alas, creep happens and it gobbles a person up.

The Work of Rest

by Adam Lehman on September 14, 2010 in Culture with No comments

I’ve done very poorly lately at honoring the sabbath. Something about my hope and desire to do awesome work gets in the way of my desire to rest….

I have to work at the sabbath. Maybe in a previous society, this would have been easier. But today – in an age of constant connection – it feels odd to unplug.

For things that we wish to grow in, we must continually strive and drive our minds forward instead of being distracted. This is the new challenge for this age.

God & Money

by Adam Lehman on August 26, 2010 in Culture, Faith with 2 Comments

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” ~Jesus~

Jesus didn’t say it was hard for a person to chase after both money and God, he said “YOU CANNOT.”

Jesus didn’t say that it was really simple for financially sound individuals to understand His kingdom. Actually, Jesus taught that it is easier for a donkey to go through the eye of a needle.

So when you wake up in the morning to head to work, quesiton what you’re serving. Wrestle with the reality you live in. Sit in the tension that, though you may treasure Christ dearly, you CANNOT serve both him and the mighty dollar.

Help keep sweatshops open!

by Adam Lehman on August 12, 2010 in Culture with 2 Comments

In our worst, we use poor countries to make our clothes because it’ll save us a few dollars (or make our company a lot of money). In our worst, we leverage ourselves to get for ourselves. We make partnerships with the intent of screwing the partner. We marry someone to use their love for ourselves. That is humanity at its worst.

And I think that no one is at their worst on purpose. Their seems to be very little – though some – intentional actions in this direction. Instead, we find many not even realizing their own selfishness (though it’s incredibly obvious to us). I’ve had friends who didn’t understand that they were being remarkably selfish in relationships. But me, selfish? Surely not….

And there we come to the root of the problem. Myself. I am the problem in the world. It may be easier to point to you, or a president, or a criminal. But no, it must be me. It must be me who can love more. It must be me who sees my sins as what they are. It is because I purchase cheap, comfortable nike sandals that sweatshops exist.

I’d never stand up in a mall food court and rally others to help keep sweatshops open, but I do it (and you do to) in a silent, thoughtless way. Every time I purchase sweatshopped clothing, I help keep sweatshops open.

(here’s a list of the 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame)

(and here’s a list of companies where you can purchase “sweatshop-free” clothing)

Why did God do that? I don’t know, ask…

by Adam Lehman on June 23, 2010 in Culture, Faith with 13 Comments

Lately, my wife and I were discussing a current event and we started saying.

“maybe God was trying to help us move on? or maybe God was testing our resolve to stay? or maybe we are being punished for missing our tithe 4 months ago? or maybe God is blessing us?”

At any given situation, you can have a discussion about what God might be up to. Every positive or negative moment can turn into a discussion about the intentions of God. People do this with every election, every natural disaster & even the recent US world cup win.

Here’s a quick way to short-cut the discussion: ask.

For any given situation, I could set up a list of 193 objective might have for the circumstance (I used to only be able to write up a list of 87, but then I went to a Christian college…).

You go to the doctor with sniffles. The doctor could probably list off 10 different reasons your nose is running. That’s not helpful, useful, or meaningful. If the doctor can tell you the 1 REAL reason, then you’re golden.

So just ask God what he’s doing. Historically, God has seemed to enjoy conversing with us.

An object of ridicule among all people

by Adam Lehman on June 20, 2010 in Church, Culture, Faith with 1 Comment

Reading through 1st Kings, I came across a passage where God is explaining what will happen to His people if they turn from Him, disobey His commands & worship things other than Him. Read this and see if it sounds familiar:

“Israel will be become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples.”

That is what happens when we leave God out of our churches & Christ out of our Christianity. It happened to ancient Israel and it seems to me that it still happens every day

secret to success online = treating online relationships like real ones

by Adam Lehman on June 19, 2010 in Culture, Media with 1 Comment

Sometimes a company or church or youth group will start using social media.

Sometimes they don’t know why, but they know everyone else does.

Here’s a tip: treat your new followers or friends or email subscribers or blog readers the same way you would a quest in your newly opened retail store. Any relationship is a 2-way street & if you hope to GET you’d better be ready to GIVE or the relationship isn’t going to last.

Example:
Tigertree is a terrific shop in downtown Columbus with some pretty cool offerings. The Tigertree twitter account is very active & engaging. They don’t just post links to their shops. They don’t just tweet about themselves. They engage. I’m a big fan of their stuff, because they made the first step.

Now you know too much about me.

by Adam Lehman on June 17, 2010 in Culture with No comments

I’m working through a 12 week training with CalledToYouthMinistry.com. This week, I had to take a bunch of personality tests. Thought I’d share em:

I’m 88% a Millennial. (Even thought I’m 100% part of the Millennial generation). Take the quiz from Pew Research.

I’m an ENFP according the to Jung Typology Test. You can take the personality test at HumanMetrics.

I’m 53% sanguine, 18% melancholy, 15% phlegmatic & 15%Choleric according to this temperament test.

Take some of these tests and post your results in the comments. It’ll be interesting, I swear…

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