Monthly Featured Quotes:
"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."
Epictetus (55-135 AD)
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"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
Jimi Hendrix
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"Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every
person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human
anger does not accomplish God's righteousness."
James 1:19-20
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"Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls
and looks like work."
Thomas Edison
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"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist
sees opportunity in every difficulty."
Winston Churchill
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Previous Editions of The Edge
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Producers of The Edge
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Vol. IV, Iss. 4 - May 2006
The latest from Student Leadership University
Welcome to the May 2006 edition of The Edge.
In this issue:
| 1. |
On the Edge |
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The DaVinci Code and being prepared to
think and dialogue
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| 2. |
Edge Ledge |
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Christianity and Culture: The
importance of Listening
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| 3. |
Life on the Edge |
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Meredith Simons and the life-changing
impact of The Edge & SLU
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| 4. |
Featured Articles |
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Check out this month's Articles! The
Da Vinci Code |
with Josh McDowell
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Are you prepared for May 19, 2006?
Dan Brown's
best-selling book, The Da Vinci Code will be released as
a movie on May 19, 2006. This could touch off one of the most
controversial periods the Church has faced in years.
Controversy or healthy dialogue?
By responding
wisely to The Da Vinci Code book and movie, the church
can be strengthened and many nominal believers and seekers
grounded in the true faith of Jesus Christ.
1.
Leaders Prepare with Over-arching Strategy
The Last Christian Generation book is ideal for church
leaders to read in advance. It addresses why an entire
generation is not returning to the church. It outlines a plan to
reclaim our precious young people, especially in light of the
skepticism heightened by The Da Vinci Code movie. (more)
2.
Believers Equipped with Solid Answers
The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers is a 128-page book
aimed specifically at questions raised by the movie. It is an
easy-to-read, positive book with a downloadable study guide that
will equip youth and adults with rock-solid answers. (more)
3.
Seekers Discover True Answers
The Da Vinci Code: A Companion Guide to the Movie is
ideal to give to Seekers and Skeptics. This 20-page, full-color,
mini-magazine serves as a timely discussion starter. (more)
Prepare now
to approach
this with a positive readiness. Seize this unique opportunity to
open compelling dialogue about the real and relevant Christ. (more)
Until this generation is transformed,
--Josh
http://www.josh.org/ |
with John Piper
Meditation on Proverbs
18:13
“If one gives an answer before he hears, it is
his folly and shame.”
It is arrogant to answer
before you hear. Humility does not presume that it
knows precisely what a person is asking until the
questioner has finished asking the question. How many
times have I jumped to a wrong conclusion by starting
to formulate my answer before I heard the whole
question! Often it is the last word in the question
that turns the whole thing around and makes you
realize that they are not asking what you thought they
were.
It is rude to answer a
half-asked question. “Rude” is a useful word for
Christians. It means “ill-mannered, discourteous.” The
New Testament word for it is aschēmonei. It is used in
1 Corinthians 13:5 where modern versions translate it,
“Love is not rude,” but the old King James Version has
“Love doth not behave itself unseemly.” This means
that love not only follows absolute moral standards,
but also takes cultural mores and habits and customs
into account. What is polite? What is courteous? What
are good manners? What is proper? What is good taste?
What is suitable? Love is not indifferent to these. It
uses them to express its humble desire for people’s
good. One such politeness is listening well to a
question before you answer.
Not answering a question before you hear it all
honors and respects the
person asking the question. It treats the person as
though their words really matter. It is belittling to
another to presume to be able to finish their question
before they do.
Careful listening to a question often reveals that the
question has several layers
and is really more than one question. Several
questions are all mixed into one. When you see this,
you can break the question down into parts and answer
them one at a time. You will not see such subtleties
if you are hasty with your answer and not careful in
your listening.
A question sometimes reveals assumptions
that you do not share. If you try to answer the
question on the basis of your assumptions without
understanding the questioner’s assumptions, you will
probably speak right past him. If you listen carefully
and let the person finish, you may discern what he is
assuming that you do not. Then you can probe these
assumptions before you answer. Often, when dealing at
this level, the question answers itself. It was really
about these deeper differences.
Questions usually have attitudes
as well as content. The attitude sometimes tells you
as much as the content about what is really being
asked. In fact, the attitude may tell you that the
words being used in this question are not all what the
issue is. When that is discerned, we should not make
light of the words, but seriously ask questions to see
if the attitude and the words are really asking the
same question. If not, which is the one the questioner
really wants answered?
Questions have context that
you need to know. So many thoughts and circumstances
and feelings may be feeding into this question that we
don’t know about or understand. Careful listening may
help you pick up those things. It may be that there is
just a small clue that some crucial circumstance is
behind the question. If you catch the clue, because
you are listening carefully, you may be able to draw
that out and be able to answer the question so much
more helpfully.
Questions are made up of words. Words have
meanings that are formed by a person’s
experience and education. These words may not carry
the same meaning for both you and the questioner. If
you want to answer what they are really asking, you
must listen very carefully. When the possibility
exists that their question is rooted in a different
understanding of a word, we will be wise to talk about
the meaning of our words before we talk about the
answer to the question. I find that talking about the
definitions of words in questions usually produces the
answer to the questions.
Proverbs 8:13 says it is our “folly”
to answer before we hear. That is, it will make us a
fool. One reason for this is that almost all premature
answers are based on thinking we know all we need to
know. But that is “foolish.” Our attitude should be:
What can I learn from this question? The fool thinks
he knows all he needs to know. |
|
The Edge
changed my life. That may seem strange to the hundreds
of people who have had their lives changed during an
SLU conference. Isn’t The Edge a bonus thing?
It is, but for me, that “bonus” helped me remember
lessons I had learned at conferences years earlier and
completely changed the direction of my life.
One day last
April, I was driving through the rain, crying. My
grandparents had been killed in a plane crash, and I’d
already lost my dad and other grandparents. My faith
was shattered and my hopes for the future seemed
hollow. At the end of my senior year, during what was
supposed to be the most exciting time of my life, I
was seriously wondering if life was worth the effort.
I’ve always been driven and goal-oriented. Success was
a top priority. People were a close second. I loved my
family and had a few close friends who meant the world
to me. But the months following my grandparents’ death
made it painfully clear that the things I had been
pursuing were worthless. I was successful –
valedictorian, National Merit scholar, winning
debater. I had great people in my life – a small,
close-knit senior class and a mom and sister who were
close. But I was still miserable. Grief had killed my
desires and dreams.
Suddenly, I
thought of something I had read earlier that week in
an issue of The Edge: “You will be the most
successful when you help other people become
successful.” I remembered Dr. Jay telling us at 101
that we needed to get the focus off ourselves and put
it on others. At 201 he said we needed to love people
the way Jesus loved them. I was reminded that
leadership was about service and helping others. I
realized that my life wasn’t about me. My purpose
isn’t to live a pain-free or successful life. God
didn’t put me on earth so I could be happy or have
lots of friends. I am alive so that I can love and
care for God's people.
Life has
changed since that rainy day in April. God has helped
me become a college student who’s full of dreams. I’m
studying International and Area studies and hope to
work in Africa, helping people heal from physical and
spiritual suffering. This summer, I will be working
with AIDS orphans in Zambia. The things I learned at
SLU about time management, leadership, and people
skills have been invaluable in helping me be effective
in my roles as an employee, student, friend and
disciple. But the most important things I heard at SLU
were Dr. Jay’s words about selflessness and service,
the words The Edge brought to my mind on that
rainy day in April.
Meredith Simons
is a graduate of SLU 201. Every month, we
feature the story of an SLU graduate whose life has
been impacted by SLU in significant ways. Have an SLU
story? Send it to us at
edge@studentleadership.net |
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Relax, It's Just Fiction
From the furor over
The Da Vinci Code, you'd think World War III was about to erupt. Dan
Brown's blockbuster — first the book, now the movie opening today — has
ignited a fight among many Christians over whether it should be shunned
as blasphemy or used as a starting point to win converts...
Read Full Article
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Deciphering The DaVinci Code
The summer publishing
season seems always to include a thriller that leaps to the top of the
best-seller charts and stays there until the fall--when readers get
serious and return to school and work. The Da Vinci Code is this year's
winner, sitting at the top of the Amazon.com ratings this week and
listed at second place in the New York Times hardcover fiction list. The
book was on the top of that list last week, and it has made the list for
18 straight weeks. Not bad for a book with a seemingly unmanageable mix
of plot structure, conspiracy theories, and mountains of detail about
Catholic orders, renaissance art, theological heresy, and theoretical
mathematics...
Read Full Article
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A Response to the Da Vinci Code
Take a look at the way
some have responded to the Da Vinci Code...
Read Full Article
|
Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction
Three years
after its original release, Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code
is riding a whole new wave of publicity. With the recent plagiarism
trial in Great Britain and the upcoming release of the film adaptation,
the book is making headlines all over again...
Read Full Article
|
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