eBROUSSARD

my favorite heretic

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Eddie Broussard

What is your image of Jesus? A friendly bearded guy carrying a lamb on his back? A happy story teller that wandered the countryside? A trouble maker?

My favorite heretic…

JESUS the CHRIST

Jesus lived as a Jew and a Rabbi for most of his life representing and practicing the accepted beliefs of his time and his religion. Up until he began His ministry…the new covenant.

From that point forward Jesus did not get along very well with the religious leaders, who ultimately had Him put to death.

Luke 13:10 (the message)

10 He was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath.11 There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years.12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!”13 He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.14 The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.”15 But Jesus shot back, “You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it.16 So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”

Matt 23:23 (the message)

23 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.24 Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?25 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony.

Jesus was clearly a heretic in his day and time…

What I know about the American middle class church…we too would consider Jesus a complete heretic!

Who is your favorite heretic?

Posted in Christ | Tagged heretic, Jesus | 1 Comment

How Big is Your World?

Posted on September 16, 2010 by Eddie Broussard

: ©iStockphoto.com/Warchi

I grew up in a wonderful little town in the panhandle of Texas (population 2000). It was the world for me. I could ride my bike across town to my friend’s houses and I played every sport in school (so we could field a team)…not much happened in town without everybody knowing. That all changed after my freshman year of high school when we moved to a city where my new high school had 2000 kids! I spent a year making my parents pay for the move all the while desperately planning the return to my comfortable world.

I made the return trip to west Texas by going to college in Lubbock at Texas Tech University. I was excited but still very much apprehensive about moving to such a big city. After graduating, I married and moved to the METROPLEX of Dallas/Fort Worth to take a job in banking. I still remember the joy of being newly married and getting an incredible job, but there were still large clouds of anxiety given the new world I was moving into.

None of those changes compared to the monumental change I have been going through for about a year and a half now…my move into the world of Social Media.

The size, and more importantly, the impact that Social Media is having (and will continue having) on my life already surpasses all of the physical moves I have made up to this point. That’s without having to send out a single “change of address”…much less loading and unloading the moving van. As with the other moves, it has not been without tremendous fear and doubt. Questions like…

Am I giving up my privacy?
Why would anyone else care what I think?
Is this all a waste of time?

…have haunted me for about a year. You see, I am a Baby Boomer. Not many of my peers have jumped over to the other side of this new world with both feet. Why would they? For forty-something years…their window to the rest of the world was delivered to their front yard rolled up with a rubber band while they slept; it’s very hard to let that go. It’s extremely hard to grasp how close you are to the rest of the world…inside of your house!

Social Media has taught me some things that I saw in other places but didn’t fully grasp…things like:

The true value of people’s stories
The incredible power of sharing information
The ability to meet the needs of others on the other side of the world… with only a click
The fragile art of connecting to others

Though at times, my moves have been a scary and sometimes lonely trek, as with all of the other moves I have made in my life (with the exception of the first), I have never wanted to go back!

The crazy thing is that this giant Social Media movement is the very thing that has allowed me to reconnect to all the people and places that I used to know…

Have you ever moved? Was it scary?

Posted in Social | Tagged community, dialog, news, social, world | 3 Comments

Amish Peace

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Eddie Broussard

<So…I took the summer off from blogging. It’s been a relaxing 2.5 months. We have had some great family time and if the weather would cool off…everything else for FALL would drop into place. If you have been here before, thanks for coming back. If you are new…welcome…stay as long as you like.>

: ©iStockphoto.com/StephanieFrey

In early October of 2006 there was a horrific shooting at a one room Amish school house in Nickel Mines Pennsylvania…killing 5 and wounding 5 more young girls. I think most of us probably remember that event. What I have never been able to purge from my mind is the reaction of the Amish families that were directly involved and the Amish community as a whole.

You see, more than half of those that attended the killers funeral were Amish. And as the money and gifts poured in from all over…the Amish included the killer’s widow and her children in the distribution of the gifts. How do they forgive like that?

So when I ran across this book, Amish Peace, at the first of the summer…it made the top of my reading list.

What a wonderful book and what unique people. The book explores how the Amish view time, money, community, forgiveness and the sovereignity of God. The author, Suzanne Woods Fisher, spent days with them in order to learn their stories so she could share them with us. The attraction that I now have for the Amish lifestyle is summed up in one word…simplicity.

Why is it so hard to live a simple life?

The Amish personify simple living! Here are a few notes on why/how from the book:

to only live with the things that they really use…and to treasure them.
Amish farms have no more than 80 tillable acres…on purpose.
each church district is kept to roughly 20 to 30 families…on purpose.
their houses and barns are spartan -like; spacious and uncluttered.
simple dress and grooming…so not to promote pride or status.
possessions are guided by function and practicality…not by the latest style or trend.
money is to help others.
not less choice…but they choose less.

I encourage you to grab the book…the stories read kind of as a devotional. I am not quite ready to become Amish, but I would love to begin living out some of the Amish ways.

The book is full of Amish proverbs and this one grabbed me…“Live simple, so others may simply live”

Share your experience with the Amish in the comment section below or get the book and let me know what you think.

Posted in Book Notes | Tagged children, Family, forgivness, humility | 4 Comments

Ride:Well Bike Tour

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Eddie Broussard

So have you ever thought…I would love to ride my bike across the country? Literally from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean on a bicycle. Well, that’s what a team of brave people started doing three days ago. It’s called the Ride:Well Bike Tour and they left the Califorinia coast yesterday and will be riding across this great country for the next 8 weeks.

Thanks for wondering why…It would have to be for a pretty serious reason…and it is.

They are raising awareness and money for Blood:Water Mission. Blood:Water Mission is a grassroots organization that empowers communities to work together against the HIV/AIDS and water crisis. It’s core purpose is to build community through creative social action. They are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded by the members of the multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning band, Jars of Clay, to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.

Blood:Water Mission exists to promote clean blood and clean water efforts in Africa, tangibly reducing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic while addressing the underlying issues of poverty, injustice and oppression. Blood:Water Mission is building clean water wells, supporting medical facilities, and focusing on community and worldview transformation, both here in America and in Africa. If you would like to know more, check them out here.

For me…this is an intersection of a passion (giving to those in need of clean water and freedom from AIDS) and something I have begun to gain an appreciation for (road biking). I have signed up to help and want to invite you to help too. You can join us in the cause, pray for and track the team, and/or donate. Go to HERE and click the donation page. Select me from the “local cyclist” drop-down list and make your donation. Then lets support and track the team as they make their way across the country this summer.

Thanks…be blessed by blessing others.