The City Church in Seattle launched a campaign last September called “Jesus Is ___,” which ran in tandem with a seven-part sermon series of the same name. The goal was to prompt people to think about who Jesus is to them. One of the campaign’s main components was a website, jesus-is.org, which is still up and running, inviting visitors to “fill in the blank.” Continue reading
Mark Ryden, The Piano Player, 2010. Oil on canvas.
Insert Jesus into an oeuvre that regularly features wide-eyed fairytale femmes, Abraham Lincoln, and raw meat, and you’ve got yourself a Mark Ryden painting. This guy’s work, kooky to the utmost, is exhibited worldwide and sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars (his collectors include Stephen King, Ringo Starr, and formerly Michael Jackson). His art belongs to what is (affectionately, not disparagingly) called the Lowbrow movement, or Pop Surrealism. Continue reading
Why doesn’t Jesus have any sugar?
Found at jesusneedsnewpr.net.
Hebrews 4:12 describes the Bible as sharper than any two-edged sword, in that it pierces the heart with its raw truthfulness, exposing our insides. If we were to transpose this verse into a modern idiom, “dagger” might be the more appropriate metaphor.
The Dagger Project is a San Diego-based ministry that was founded by Jim Houliston in 2007 to reach those people who are the most unlikely to ever read the Bible or step foot inside a church. Houliston and his team of volunteers spray-paint pocket-sized New Testaments with stenciled designs and distribute them in bars, tattoo parlors, skate shops, beaches, alleyways, and public schools. All of the designs are inspired by New Testament verses and have a distinctly contemporary appeal.
Jesus knows you as an individual—so well, in fact, that he knows how many hairs are on your head (Matthew 10:30).
This Dagger illustrates Jesus crying for his lost firstborn, the Jewish nation. Matthew 23:37: "O Jerusalem ... how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."
The above recording is an a cappella performance of the African American spiritual “Give Me Jesus” given by the Apex High School chorus in 2009. The soloists are Madison Nees, Bethany McGehee, and Emily Gardenhire.
This is one of my favorite Jesus songs of all time. The sentiment is pure, the notes and lyrics simple. It’s stripped of all the noise and flair that spoil a lot of other contemporary worship music, in my opinion. The prayer shows a certain yearning and assertiveness: don’t give me accolades or worldly security or success; don’t give me pleasures that satisfy only temporarily; give me you. Actually, the song is more a confession than a prayer, a confession before those who insist on clinging to what is temporal: “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” (Do what you will, but as for me, I’m sticking with Jesus!) Continue reading
So, I’m starting up a new series called “Tee Time,” in which I will feature every Tuesday a Jesus T-shirt of some kind. Some of the shirts are ridiculous, some are quite clever, some are irreverent, and some just make me want to hang down my head in embarrassment on behalf of Christians everywhere.
Tee Time will showcase the good, the bad, and the ugly of today’s Jesus-tee market. Most of the shirts need no commentary—I post them only for your own amusement. But some, like today’s, I can’t help but comment on. Continue reading
Photo by Charles Buchanan (The Associated Press)
Jesus is watching over Kinston, N.C., natives say, by way of some cruciform Trumpet Vines. The Word-made-plant gained nationwide attention two weeks ago when it was spotted on a utility pole 90 minutes east of Raleigh. Some people see it as a warning sign, some as a sign of hope. But most people, like me, probably just get a little chuckle out of it.
And if you think that this is something only Bible-Belted papers deem newsworthy, think again. The original story came through the AP wire and was picked up by the New York Times, The Washington Post, and MSNBC, among other prestigious media outlets.
Thanks, Dad, for sending me the article!
… try on these jeans. 
Jesus Jeans, an Italian-based brand whose ad campaign shocked both church and state in the 1970s, is being relaunched in December after an almost-twenty-year hiatus.
The ad to the right is one of the originals, created by Emanuele Pirella and Oliviero Toscani. The copy reads “He who loves me follows me.” (Other ads in the original campaign read “Thou shalt not have any other jeans but me.”)
Ads aside, the brand name alone was controversial enough to be deemed “morally offensive to the public” by the Patent Office of the UK, which refused to register it back in 2003. (Germany, Switzerland, China, Hungary, and Ireland did the same.) Continue reading
Randy Hofman is a sculptor … of beach sand. His subject is not the commonplace castle, though; instead, he creates elaborate Bible-based scenes, and has been doing so for the last 30+ years. His studio/gallery is the beach in front of the Plim Plaza Hotel just off of Ocean City, Maryland’s boardwalk at Second Street. It was at that spot in 1974 that Hofman made a personal commitment to follow Jesus.
Hofman, now 59, sculpts every day from April to October. Youth from Son’Spot, a local church ministry, excavate the sand piles for him, and the hotel owners supply him with water to keep the sand moist, as well as with electricity to keep the sculptures well-lit at night. After shaping the pile the way he wants it using a shovel, a trowel, and a plastic crab picking knife, Hofman then sprays the sculpture with a special glue-and-water mixture, which holds the sculpture intact for up to several weeks. Most of the sculptures take five to seven hours to complete—with the exception of his Last Supper, which can take up to 17 hours. Continue reading
The Jesus Question 