Author: Paul Burkhart

Sex & Crazy People

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

I’m currently at the beach all this week for work. I’m having to help some clients learn the real-world skills of socialization, vacationing, and relaxation (yes, seriously–my job is awesome).

I’ve been working in the direct care and counseling of individuals with mild to severe mental illness for just over two years now. I’ve encountered many different presentations of many different mental illnesses and disabilities, but I’m beginning to notice some common themes.

One of the main (obvious) effects of mental illness and disability is that they prevent the person (or at least hinder them) from conforming to the normal standards of behavior and acculturation most of the rest of us go through more or less successfully. In other words, mental health issues are very good windows into the heart and nature of humanity apart from the “limitations” and “controls” our culture and our upbringing place on us.

So as I have looked into these bits and pieces of our truest, most unfiltered humanity, what have I seen? Sex. Lots and lots of sex. Continue reading →

Prayer & the Christian Life [a teaching I did at liberti church] {AUDIO}

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Last week, I posted the manuscript and audio from a teaching I did on the Bible from a series of seminars/discussions my church has been doing called “Summer Conversations“. This week I wanted to post the other teaching I did. This one was on the idea of Prayer. This was a really amazing thing to prepare for and the night went really well. Also, unlike last week, the audio turned out really clear.

Audio | download
Notes| download: pdf, Word, Kindle, ebook read: Google Docs, Scribd
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a simply beautiful prayer…

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I saw this tacked onto the bulletin board of the psychiatrist at my previous employer. She is one of the best mentor I’ve ever had, and this is one of the most honest, simple,  and beautiful prayers I’ve ever read. I feel it captures my relationship with my Creator more perfectly and more simply than most anything I’ve read (except maybe for this). May this encourage all you weary travelers out there:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.

from Thomas Merton’s “Thoughts in Solitude”

The Nature & Narrative of the Bible [a teaching I did at liberti church] {AUDIO}

/ Paul Burkhart / 21 Comments

This summer, my church has been doing a series of seminars/discussions called “Summer Conversations“. I was asked to teach at two of them. I am providing the manuscript and audio from the first night here. The second one I’ll post next week. This first “seminar” was on The Nature & Narrative of Scripture. The night went really well. The audio, on the other hand, did not. This recording is really tough to listen to. Fortunately, for this particular talk, I wrote everything out in manuscript form and stuck pretty closely to it (especially Part 1). So, feel free to download/preview these in whatever way/format is most convenient for you and may they enhance your understanding of our God and how He has revealed himself.

[Also check out the other talk I gave at liberti on Prayer and the Christian Life (much better audio)]

Audio | download
Manuscript | download: pdf, Word, Kindle, ebook read: Google Docs, Scribd
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Weekly Must-Reads {08.11.11} | reasonable Christianity edition (in honor of John Stott)

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This week, I wanted to focus on extremely “reasonable” expressions and discussion surrounding Christianity: it’s heroes, it’s application, and how to live it out. This is in honor of a great man we lost recently. A couple of weeks ago, John Stott, a great and fairly unassuming hero of the Church, died. He is very much responsible for the shaping of a Christianity that is both just and intelligent. Even though he did not preach nor speak regularly, and mostly wrote academic books, it is he that laid the theological foundation that has only now finally trickled down to the masses of young and “restless” Christians today–whether we know his name or not. It is the shoulder of this giant of the faith upon which we all now stand. Let us not forget that. I have provided some links to that end.

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John Stott Has Died | Christianity Today

This is Stott’s obituary in Christianity Today. Read up on his life and read some of the homages linked to in this article. He was an amazing man.

Evangelicals Without Blowhards | NYTimes.com Opinion

This is by Bill Kristof, a weekly contributor to the blogs at NYT. He is not a Christian, and yet he devotes this article in honor of John Stott–his work, his influence, and the presence of millions of Evangelicals that are continuing his work today by caring about justice in this world.

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the most depressing political comment I’ve seen recently

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

This is a comment I encountered recently during the whole debt ceiling debacle and the Oslo attacks. The commenter was responding to recent articles by David Brooks (a conservative, though more of a “classical” variety than “neocon”) and Canadian conservative blogger David Frum, both of which argued that “liberals” and “progressives” have legitimate reasons for thinking the way they do, however misguided or idealistic they may seem. These articles were (wisely, I think) pointing out what is being pointed out more and more nowadays–those that disagree with us are not our moral enemies. But unfortunately, many–especially many Tea Party folks–have turned politics into an almost religious crusade to bring about some absolute “moral” transformation that cannot be done in step-wise or considerate fashion while working with those that disagree with us. It must be total; it must be complete; it must be now; and damned be anyone that thinks otherwise. And one more point before we go on: as far as political theory goes, I’m probably a little closer to the ideas of a Tea Partier than a Progressive, so this has nothing to do with what this commenter thinks politically, but rather what they think of those that disagree with them on (of all things) politics.

Below are relevant excerpts and links to the articles in question, followed by the comment. Please discuss.
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I’ve got a new job in Philadelphia

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

In May 2009, I decided to drop out of seminary (for many reasons). Then employment drama ensued. I got a job, couldn’t start the job, then got a part-time position at the company, and then was finally able to move into the full-time spot I was originally hired for.

And it’s been wonderful. Over the past year and half, I was able to love my caseload of people and take them from broken and with nothing to on the path towards healing and recovery. I actually got to see change and growth up close–and it changed me.

But, it’s time to move on. As I’ve been praying for for a while, I recently got offered a job that is walking distance from my house. I finally get to realize my desire to not only live and spend my money in the city, but also to earn my money and serve the residents there as well.
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My Ex-Girlfriend, the Blog: a story of relationship, loss, & finding again

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

[All links in this post open in new tabs. You’ve been warned.] 

We know the story well. You start a relationship and it’s exciting at first: it’s new, it’s unfamiliar, and each day seems to hold a new discovery or a new inspiration. There’s a dynamic sense of interaction and give-and-take that inspires you to share more and more of yourself with this person. You learn more about yourself. You learn more about them with whom you are sharing this stuff. Your thinking sharpens and you spend much of the day musing about what you might tell them and when you might interact with them once more, wondering about how you might phrase something or to what detail to speak of a certain thought, feeling, or sentiment you had.

When days go by without interaction: you ache; they ache.

But then it happens. These interactions begin to feel a little more like a duty than a delight. You feel the weight of expectation and it begins to stifle the feelings you once had. Those days that go by without interaction feel more like reprieves than punishments. You feel the strings of your own heart beginning to unwind from the ball of yarn that is there’s.
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Interpreting & Applying Proverbs (thoughts on Proverbs 10:12)

/ Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

Proverbs is always such a weird book to try and apply to your life. The theme of the book is what? Wisdom. Is it teaching wisdom to give people a bunch of cookie cutter situations and tell them how to act? No.

In Proverbs 26:4-5, we see two Proverbs back-to-back that say opposite things. One says “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself”. The very next verse says “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes”.

Long story short, all of the book of Proverbs flows from Chapter 1, which talks about the fear of the lord being the beginning of wisdom. Those two contradictory proverbs show us that the book is not meant to be a cut-and-paste sort of thing. It’s not the case that a fool could simply read it, start acting like the “wise man” found throughout Proverbs and suddenly be wise (how would he apply those two verses above?).

Wisdom comes not from doing the things the wise man does, but by being the kind of wise man who fears the Lord and can discern what response to use in a given situation at the right time.
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Weekly Must-Reads {06.20.11} | a New York Times Op-Ed miscellany

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This week, as I compiled my favorite reads for the week, I realized nearly all of them were from the New York Times. I found these on different days, at different times, and had no idea that I kept bookmarking the same site over and over again. But still, all of them are very different and I encourage you to peruse, read, ponder, and post your thoughts!

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Instead of Student Loans, Investing in Futures | NYTimes.com

Ever since the financial crisis hit, I’ve been so intrigued by other economic models for getting things done. This article follows one idea when it comes to funding higher education. And it really seems to work. I also love that this particular idea was not dreamt up by nor financed by the government.

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sexuality & the church’s obsessions (a quote)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

Another sobering finding is that while high-octane rhetoric has been devoted to the issue of same-sex marriage, an issue relevant to only a small faction of the U.S. population (the CDC reports about 2-3%, some figures are as low as 1.7%), huge shifts have taken place on attitudes toward sex before marriage—what the Bible calls fornication: “The best evidence is that the fraction of all Americans believing that premarital sex was ‘not wrong’ doubled from 24% to 47% in the four years between 1969 and 1973 and then drifted upward through the 1970s to 62% in 1982.” Today attitudes toward sexuality are the best indicator of church attendance. It appears that many in the church have taken their eye off a far more pervasive problem among a far larger number of Americans.

from this Cardus book review on Robert Putnan and David Campbell’s book American Grace: How Religion Dvides and Unites Us

Yeah, Church Community Sucks.

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Church plants are weird creatures. In the beginning, most everyone is new and has to do the awkward dance of forming relationships while at the same time trying to see a fledgling church survive. It takes a unique person to really be a part of a church plant, that’s for sure. You mostly have to be self-motivated and spiritually self-sustaining, because the usual church structures that motivate, support and counsel just aren’t there in the early days of a church.

Over time, during these early days, your relationships slowly develop. They are usually borne out from the fiery flames of awkwardness and uncertainty, and having to force yourself into social situations you would not normally put on yourself, but this difficulty forges these relationships deeply. You get to know one another very deeply very quickly and love each other through it. This creates a very deep bond, however unspoken it may be.
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science and the evolution of the science of evolution

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Over at Scot McKnight’s blog, Jesus Creed, the resident scientist-who’s-a-Christian (I hate that I can’t just write “Christian Scientist”), RJS (I have no idea what his full name is, and I couldn’t find it), recently posted a brief post about the ongoing dilemma of a fossil called Tiktaalik rosea, the dating of which and the evolutionary place in which it exists is still in flux. After recounting some of the changing conclusions about this fossil, RJS asks:

Is this kind of give and take an evidence for weakness in the evolutionary hypothesis?

Is it unexpected waffling or the expected progress of scientific discovery and the refinement of understanding?

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a profound insight on cities & those that love them

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But cities were not simply condemned because they were big or ill tuned for the industrial expansion that had seized them. What was wonderful and exciting about them–the spontaneity, the togetherness of community, the creativity that comes from getting along and not getting along, the endless characters populating the streets, the chaos–never found a natural place in the American soul. The frontier spirit that was so intrinsic to the psyche of the country, the creed of individualism and ruggedness and privacy, of staking out your own piece of land and building your own house, hardly lent itself to the culture and spirit of the city.

— Buzz Bissinger, A Prayer for the City
(see the other books I’m reading here)

Ruminations on Rhythm & Life

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

Do you have any rituals? Last week, I wrote about about how I would love to find a steady “rhythm” to my daily existence. Do any of you have that? Is it realistic to desire that? My roommate Tim gets up most every morning at around the same time, makes a french press of coffee and sits out our kitchen table and reads his giant red-leather ESV Study Bible. I love that. It’s weird whenever I come downstairs and he’s had to go to work early or something and isn’t doing that.

Me? A couple of days ago, I actually got to bed sort of early (for me) at around 11:15. I set my alarm for 7am, knowing I had to walk out the door by 8am. I figured I could take a shower and have some time to just relax and maybe pray or read my own Bible in the morning (for the first time in God knows how long).
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