brandonandkatie.com

Stuff I’m Learning: Ministers and Social Security

I have been absolutely amazed at all there is to learn about ministers, missionaries, and taxes. I feel like every day I learn (or re-learn) something new. It is amazing how hard it can be to do this work with integrity, as so much of this stuff is just begging to be swept under the rug and labeled “Not So Important.”

One such matter that has really surprised me is the subject of ministers opting out of Social Security. Ministers are one of a very select few who can easily say they don’t want to participate in Social Security. The simple reasoning behind it is that if you feel like being a part of Social Security goes against what you believe, and you work as a minister (a job entirely based on your faith), you may opt-out.

We Won’t Be Seeing “Dinner For Schmucks” Either

I am just getting so tired of it, you know? From the very first trailer we saw for it months ago, Steve Carell’s new comedy Dinner For Schmucks looked absolutely hilarious. It truly looked like a genuine comedy, funny because it’s funny and not funny because it’s full of shocking, revolting sexual humor. And because nothing in the trailers seemed to indicate it being filthy (as they typically do), Katie and I had been making plans to go see the movie on opening day.

However, as we do for all our movies now, we checked Plugged In Online (read more about the site here) before we headed off. Turns out, it is just like almost every other comedy coming out today: full of sexual vulgarity. No I don’t mean a few innuendos, I mean saturated with exaggerated sexual humor designed to make you laugh because of how uncomfortable you are, simultaneously introducing images and situations to your mind that you never would have had up there otherwise.

So as for me and my house, we will not allow ourselves to put this movie into our minds, a place where dialogue, images and situations can be recorded for a lifetime.

Check out the Plugged In review for the movie here.

A Christian’s Response To Copyright

What does the word “copyright” mean to you? If you’re like most people, you probably just don’t think about it anymore. Because of personal computers and the internet, copyright infringement has become so widespread that it almost feels normal. It almost feels, well, legal.

New ESV Bible App (and some other thoughts)

For those of you who are fans of the English Standard Version of the Bible, and for those of you who are iPhone or iPod touch users, I just found out that there is a free ESV app that has been released by Crossway (click here for iTunes download).

My 3×10 Experiment

For the past week I have been trying a little spiritual experiment. I don’t know about you, but I get pretty overwhelmed with wanting to pray more, wanting to read my Bible more, and wanting to read other spiritual books more. More often than not it seems like I have to choose one, and then I feel a little incomplete without the others. (And, unfortunately, sometimes I don’t even choose one!) So at the beginning of last week I came up with an idea to try and help manage my daily desire for something more.

Tell Me What You Think About This

The Bible class Katie and I were visiting on Sunday was doing a study through the book of Proverbs and we were going through the many verses on fools and their folly. Every time I read through Proverbs, there are always these little gold nuggets that stand out to me as though I’ve never read them before. And on Sunday that gold nugget was this verse: A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion (Proverbs 18:2).

My Thanksgiving Day Prayer

I was reading Proverbs this morning and came across a few verses that really challenged me, and even though it makes me uncomfortable, this is my Thanksgiving prayer.

Church Planting or Disciple Making?

Several weeks ago I told Katie that I was growing kind of uncomfortable with the term “church planting.” I told her it seems to put all the focus on creating a church (an often location-based institution), and nowhere in scripture are we told to go and make churches. Instead, the church is a natural outflow of what our actual call is: making disciples. Recently we spent eight hours with the Missions Resource Network talking about this very concept, and now more than ever I feel like we have missed the boat when we put all our focus on planting churches.

Being Picky

Mission work is a tough business to be in. And what I mean by that is, the business of mission work is a monster. It is often very difficult to find people and churches willing to support you enough to even get by. That happens so often, in fact, that when a support opportunity makes itself available, we missionaries are all too willing to jump at that opportunity without much question. I think that can sometimes be dangerous.