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Waiting for Superman: A Critical Rethink

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 22nd, 2011|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Education|

Yesterday, I wrote a rather laudatory review of the 2010 documentary film, Waiting for Superman. Today I want to give you my second look at the film. Why?

Shortly after seeing this worthwhile film I wrote the review that you read yesterday. Then I spoke in South Holland, Illinois, to the mayor, the city council and the community leaders network. This was a dinner gathering on March 5, the evening before I flew to Rome for my nine-day pilgrimage that I will write about tomorrow. My topic that evening was on how faith and freedom work best in the civic sphere.

Before dinner I met a very articulate educator who had spent 36 years in the Chicago public schools, both as a teacher and an administrator. This gracious, highly educated, very thoughtful Christian woman gave me considerable pause about my zeal for this film when I asked her, with a very honest desire to get feedback, “Have you seen Waiting for Superman? If so, what do you think is wrong with it?” Her answer, given in less than five minutes, challenged several of my arguments. […]

Waiting for Superman: A Must See Video

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 21st, 2011|Categories: America and Americanism, Culture, Education|

Whether you realize it or not our public education system is seriously broken. Some will admit it but very few, teachers or politicians, are ready to do much about it. Myths about the real problem abound but the recently released DVD Waiting for Superman is the first thing that I have seen or read that makes a compelling, factual and emotional appeal about what can and should be done to change our schools. At the end of viewing this documentary I was angry, hopeful and had tears in my eyes. (I really mean this, I was all three at once!) This film simply blew me away. I intend to order a copy so all my friends can borrow it. I have been forced to act on this film’s message with a growing commitment to justice and mercy.

Many experts have said, for a long time, that public schools were never designed to prepare students for college, merely to join the work force and become […]

Letting Go of Our Illusions

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 20th, 2011|Categories: Discipleship, Leadership, Personal, Spirituality|

The knowledge of your own soul will compel you to move in a direction that is almost the exact opposite of American consumerism. Consumerism will not make you a whole person. Only subtraction will truly make you whole again. This is part of what Jesus meant when he urged us to take up the cross and follow him. You must learn to let go of all pretence, expose your false self to God and your closest friends and spiritual advisers and then seek the kind of understanding that breaks open your heart to God. If you take your personal self too seriously you will never get to this point in life. It is right to be sober and serious, in the right contexts, but genuinely unhealthy to be serious about the wrong things. You should take God very seriously but your opinions and insights are not all that important. Neither are mine if you wondered.

Richard Rohr, the contemplative Catholic teacher and writer, says, “In a certain sense we are on the utterly wrong track. We are climbing while Jesus is descending, and I think in that […]

Leadership: The Work of Ordinary Human Beings

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 19th, 2011|Categories: Leadership|

My edition of Webster’s New World Collegiate Dictionary says a leader is “a person that directs, commands or guides,” And leadership is defined as “the position or guidance of a leader, the ability to lead or the leaders of a group.” My Webster’s New World Thesaurus says synonyms for leader include words such as: guide, precede, steer, pilot, direct, show the way, shepherd. The last one is particularly apropos for pastors and church leaders. Leadership has less synonyms but the following were found: authority, control, administration, effectiveness, primacy, supremacy, skillfulness and capacity.

Several years ago a Barna Study revealed that when asked to choose from a list of their gifts 92% of our pastors did not pick “leader” as one of their gifts. This number astounds me. How anyone could be called to the ministry, to shepherd Christ’s flock, and not believe they were gifted to lead is beyond my wildest dreams of explanation. It reveals a crisis in the church. Most of our pastors do not feel called or qualified to lead.

To complicate matters I routinely examine seminary curricula and talk about this when I am […]

A National Conversation on Revival

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 18th, 2011|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Renewal|

I am pleased to be a part of an upcoming meeting on spiritual awakening to be held in Chicago on June 7-8. This gathering is hosted by the National Revival Network, a group I have been a part of from its origin over ten years ago. This meeting is designed for leaders with a serious and thoughtful interest in true revival. Note that there are speakers at this event but this is a conversation. The size of the crowd will not be large thus each of us will be given an opportunity to contribute. This is not a typical conference event at all. I believe a few readers of this blog should attend. You decide and interact with me at your convenience.

The Church Alive to the Glory of Christ

Moody Church, Chicago – June 7-8, 2011

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These […]

The Church and the World of Business

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 17th, 2011|Categories: Culture, Leadership, Lordship of Christ, Wealth|

I have personally engaged in a number of attempts to connect the field of business with the redemptive mission of Christ. The typical evangelical approach to applying one’s faith to vocational activity is admittedly facile. It primarily emphasizes personal piety and evangelism within the workplace rather than a genuinely kingdom centered perspective regarding divine calling, or vocation. This approach is utterly inadequate in transforming culture or in effectively bearing witness to the in-breaking of God’s reign in Christ.

What is needed is for men and women in the world of business to see their activity as a redemptive instrument in service of the kingdom. This is scarcely heard of in modern evangelicalism, much less encouraged. In fact, most churches and pastors have little or no idea how to actually do this in practice. Business leaders seem to threaten many pastors if the truth is known. This is why I find serious business leaders checking out on the local church again and again. They are not giving up on […]

Praying for a New Pentecost in Rome

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 16th, 2011|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Renewal, Roman Catholicism|

Bridge building is the one metaphor of true ecumenism that has stood out in my experience over the years. Having recently returned from Rome I call tell you that the “Eternal City” is a place of many bridges. Everywhere you walk there are bridges connecting this place and that, crossing the Tiber here and there and uniting people and churches.

Catholic Deacon Nathaniel Bacon, who convened the meeting I just returned from in Rome, wrote a few years ago:

In the modern age of instantaneous social networking, however,
this role can be obscured, and at times appear obsolete. Nonetheless, those people whose lives connect us to others in deep ways offer us an invaluable gift—they open us to the presence of the Holy Spirit in one another. The entire ecumenical enterprise might be summed up as one of bridge-building.

Ecumenism presents the Christian with a myriad of frustrations and large disappointments. I know this personally as so many of […]

God Is God and Reveals Himself to Those Who Desire Him

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 15th, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology|

Recently I preached on the prophet Jeremiah. In reading through The Bible in 90 Days my assignment on February 27 was to preach from the whole of this book. Actually, we read the last third of Isaiah and all of Jeremiah that week so I told the congregation that if I simply read my text it would likely take five hours. So in twenty-five to thirty minutes I tried to give a big picture view of things. It was a challenge!

I began by giving an overview. I said you cannot understand a book like Jeremiah unless you know that God is Yahweh (Exodus 3;14). The word means, “I Am Who I Am.” The ten commandments make it clear that the name of God, and his character, are essential to divine revelation and worship. God will not share his place with tribal gods and national divinities who are represented by the moon, the stars, the sun, animals, fearful objects, etc. Baal, a god who often proved difficult to […]

C. S. Lewis: An Inspiration for My Blogs

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 14th, 2011|Categories: Apologetics, Personal|

Several months ago a reader of these blogs wrote me a gracious email encouraging me in my work and mission. He added that he had recently read C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity once again and as a result of this reading he had realized that the posture Lewis was teaching from was one that he rarely saw these days among Christians. He further noted that as he read Lewis he realized the numerous times he acknowledged that his own explanation might be inadequate, thus his argument might not help everyone who read his work. Lewis openly stated that people should not be bothered by either of these problems because it is the reality of the thing that he wrote about that really mattered much more than the clarity of human understanding.

My friend suggests, rightly I believe, that C. S. Lewis always seemed willing to do what many people seem unable to handle psychologically.

Admit his personal limitations.
Humbly put forth his best explanations and understandings in an attempt […]

My Relationship with Acton Institute

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 13th, 2011|Categories: Acton Institute, Culture, Economy/Economics, Ethics|

About seven or eight years ago I came across a poster about a small conference on freedom and virtue. This unique event attracted young leaders from many backgrounds and professions. Most were still graduate students. There were thirty students in the group and four teachers. I was allowed to sit on the edge of the circle and observe. I felt like I had wandered in from the cold. As I listened to Catholic and Protestant scholars explain the freedom of markets and governments, all rooted in virtue, I felt as if I was drinking from a fountain that I had been searching for over the course of my whole life. I was frankly tired of political partisanship as a way to change culture. I wanted to connect with people who saw a better way to make a real difference in society without overtly linking their vision and efforts to raw party politics. I also wanted a different paradigm for understanding principles of economic freedom that was not rooted in the modern ideas of socialism, capitalism, etc. (Capitalism is not the same thing as economic freedom and […]