cup a joe

I've added some names to my blogroll for the first time in quite a while. This is a very interesting list of writers. One thing that you may notice as you go through it is that not all of these writers agree with one another. Many of them do not necessarily agree with me either. So why do I read these? Because it helps me to better understand what I believe. I enjoy reading other perspectives because they force me to rethink what I believe, to better define and sometimes to study why I feel the way I do. Sometimes, they even force me to change my mind.

One the issues that I have with many pastors today is that they do not read anything from outside of their circle of influence. They seem to be afraid that if they read something that is theologically different from where they are, they might get contaminated or something (God forbid, they may start babbling in tongues or something like that). The more you limit your reading, the more limiting your views are and the more you tend to think you have all the answers. Conversations tend to begin with an "us vs. them" mentality....that is never healthy in the body of Christ.

So go ahead, click on some of these links. Some of them are scholarly, some of them are babble, and some of them are just plain silly. Some are colleagues, some are family, some are friends and some I wish were friends. So read along with me and try to keep an open mind. Know that you may get offended every now and then and know what you believe. You may end up being better for it.