Heads up: last week of the “2011″ series…

Posted by on Nov 30, 2011 | Comments Off

This series has been one of the most challenging and rewarding things I’ve done since I started preaching.  What we’ve seen in our church body these last four weeks is a deep, gnawing need to develop the ability to see the world through God’s eyes – to see people, events, and things how He sees them so that we can react as He does with His heart.

This last week of the series is no different as we look back at the death of (arguably) the man that changed the way the normal American experiences the world more than any other person of this generation: Steve Jobs.  Before you balk at that statement, consider the following…

  • Personal computers were considered an impossible invention because of cost… until Steve Jobs chose to defy conventional wisdom and build the Apple II, the personal computer that almost every American over the age of 25 first experienced.
  • The development of a tiny little thing called “the world wide web” was made possible by Steve Job’s built technology at his second startup company, NeXT.
  • “Pixar” was a Steve Jobs brainchild, the company that pioneered an entire (and wildly successful) genre of computer animated movies like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, and Up.
  • Nearly half of you who read this blog post will read it on an iPhone, IPod touch, or Mac computer.  Jobs’ inventions at Apple have earned him the label of “this generation’s Thomas Edison”.
But more than all that – Steve Jobs became somewhat of a luminary to this generation.  His Stanford Commencement Address about the nature of life and entrepreneurship gets quoted (often unknowingly) in everyday conversation.  This week we’ll look back at the death of a man who did remarkable and indelible good to the world, but who was open in his rejection of a Christian worldview. In my experience, Christians seem to often do two things with people like this: inappropriately demonize them or unnecessarily Christianize them.  Christians seem to often wonder, “Do I need to discredit or downplay the good this person did for the world?” OR they’ll wonder, “Did the fact that this person did so much good reveal that they were secretly Christian?”
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For everyone who has ever wondered, “As a Christian, what kind of influence can a non-Christian, who is ‘darkened in his understanding’ according to The Bible, have on my life and thinking?” this week is for you. The 2011 series is going out with a bang…

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