Saturday, November 27, 2004

"Saved"

Trent C. was in town tonight and he brought over the movie "saved." One of the more disturbing movies I ever saw. Not for the normal reasons either. But because...
-it pointed out the hypocrisy in my life.
-it made me want to defend the Church and the Faith.
-it left me judging other Christians.
-it was dead wrong in the end.
-it hurt to watch.
But I guess I can say I was glad I saw it. It sparked a wonderful discussion afterward with Mandy, Trent, and I. Part of me says every Christian should see it, but that is probably the side of me that is judging other Christians. If any of you have seen it or if you see let me know so we can talk about it.

Just to prep you, it is a satire on youth group Christianity. It is definitely from a non Christian perspective, but had to have some inside information based on the way it makes fun of us. You will laugh if you watch it, but you'll probably want to cry as well.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

prayer

Our church has started taking prayer a little more seriously lately. We are praying for one another more as well as for people in our neighborhood asking God to do immeasurably more than we could ask or even imagine. It's been powerfull to see our church pray like this and even more powerful to watch God respond.

Yesterday I found out a family in our neighborhood that Mandy and I know have a father who was diagnosed with cancer and has ten to eighteen months to live. His wife just died of cancer about five months ago and it wasn't pretty and his mother died a week after that. We hurt for his son and his son's family that we know pretty well. They are taking it pretty rough. They are connected to our church in a few ways, but I wouldn't say they are apart of it.

Where I struggle today is how I pray. Do I pray for healing? His cancer is terminal and he is in his sixties and seems to have accepted his fate. Yet I feel God leading me to boldy pray for his miraculous healing in a way that we could never ask or imagine. I get scared cause those prayers give hope to the family. But I am not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Father, I pray for his healing in a way that we couldn't even ask for or even imagine. I pray also through the way you heal you would speak to his son's family in a way we could never ask for or imagine. I pray you would guide me and other believers as we are with the family through this time that we would have the words and love to point them to you. May you do more than we have asked or even imagined and may your name receive glory and honor through it all. Praise be to your name!

Friday, November 19, 2004

Vote

Please cast your vote and rationale under the "names" blog (two posts down) comment area when you get a chance and if you care. At this posting Hobbes is leading the way with 3 votes and any other name is stuck at zero. Please be honest and for the record no one is allowed to steal our name for their child!

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Twice in a day

Normally I don't post other peoples words on this blog, but today I'm gonna do it twice. Below is a response to a question a church planter received when he stated his church wasn't a postmodern church and was basically asked, "well your church sounds like one, how is different from one?"

Good question. Generally speaking, a postmodern church is one that has structured the way that they "do" church in response to the cultural shift happening around them (i.e. from modernity to postmodernity), usually for the purpose of "reaching" the postmodern people in that culture.At LP, we have not structured ourselves in response to a cultural shift, or for the purpose of reaching people. We believe that the church has been called to be the people of God in the world; it is a culture itself, a culture dictated by the Kingdom of God. our goal is not to reach people, our goal is to be the people that God has called us to be. In other words, we don't do decentralized, relationship-based church because we feel it gives us the best shot at reaching people, we do it because we think it gives us the best shot at being the people of God, people of the Kingdom, the "new humanity" that Paul talks about.That would be why I wouldn't put us in the category of "postmodern church". I think that if anyone who was looking for a "postmodern ministry" spent any time with our community, they would probably be pretty disappointed.Is that helpful?

Names

If our child is a boy I really want to name him Hobbes. Mandy liked the name as well, that is untill she found out she was pregnant. We tell people Hobbes might be our boy name and they make fun of us and say that would be a horrible thing to do to a child. I think the name is so cool and I don't understand what is wrong with it. I think Mandy has lost faith in the name and to be honest I'm slipping a bit too. I love the name, but I'm also beginning to love my unborn child and I don't want to scar him for life by giving him a horrible name. But our child may be a girl and we won't have to worry about it untill we have another child. But is Hobbes really that bad of a name?

Sorry

Sorry about the extremely long previous post. If you could care less about how our faith relates to politics in any way please don't read it. But if you do care Jim Wallis has a lot of good stuff to really stretch us good middle of American Christians. Some times I can't stand what he says, but I still need to listen to him. He comes at our Christian faith from such a different perspective than I am used to, but one that I believe has a lot to offer us.

long but good

Sorry to post this long article, but for once I fully, well almost fully, agree with Jim Wallis on something. He seems to be right on with this article.

A flawed exit poll question has sparked an enormous and important political debate in America, and one that will be with us far beyond this election. Voters were asked to name the most important issue that influenced their vote and almost 22% chose "moral values," just edging out terrorism and the economy. That poll result has sparked a firestorm in the media and in Washington's political circles about who gets or doesn't get the "moral values issue." Conventional wisdom holds that the Republicans do get it and the Democrats don't, and the "moral values" answer on the survey simply indicated voters who are against abortion and gay marriage.
But of course a Christian who cares deeply about peace likely would have checked the war in Iraq (one of the choices) instead of moral values, and a Catholic coordinator of a food pantry likely would have checked the closest thing to poverty, which would have been the economy or health care. The single "moral values" question was a whole different kind of choice to the rest of the "issues," ignoring the moral values inherent in those other concerns.
A post-election poll conducted by Zogby International a few days later confirmed that when a list of specific issues was asked, the results were quite different. When asked which "moral issue most influenced your vote," 42% chose war in Iraq while 13% said abortion and 9% said same-sex marriage. The "most urgent moral problem in American culture" resulted in 33% selecting "greed and materialism," 31% "poverty and economic justice," 16% abortion, and 12% same-sex marriage. The "greatest threat to marriage" was identified as "infidelity" by 31%, "rising financial burdens" by 25%, and "same-sex marriage" by 22%.
See the full Zogby poll
Almost a year ago, I wrote in Sojourners and in an op-ed piece for The New York Times that too many Democrats still wanted to restrict religion to the private sphere and were very uncomfortable with the language of faith and values even when applied to their own agenda. And that Republicans wanted to narrowly restrict religion to a short list of hot-button social issues and obstruct its application to other matters that would threaten their agenda.
Well, after a year of political campaigning we ended up at about the same place. While some Democrats are now realizing the importance of faith, values, and cultural issues, a strong group of "secular fundamentalists" still fights to keep moral and spiritual language out of the liberal discussion. And while some Republicans would like to see an expanded application of faith, the "religious fundamentalists" still want to restrict religious values to gay marriage and abortion. A very smart group of Republican strategists effectively appealed to both the faith and the fears of an important conservative religious constituency.
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne covered our "God is not a Republican...or a Democrat" campaign as a real sign of hope. Days after the election he wrote, "What's required is a sustained and intellectually serious effort by religious moderates and progressives to insist that social justice and inclusion are 'moral values' and that war and peace are 'life issues.' As my wife and I prepared our three kids for school the day after the day after, we shared our outrage that we in Blue America are cast as opponents of 'family values' simply because we don't buy the right wing's agenda. No political faction can be allowed to assert a monopoly on the family."
Later that day, E.J. told me that when he called for that deeper discussion of religious issues and moral values, he was thinking of Sojourners. "That's your job!" he challenged me.
It's time to spark a real debate in this country over what the most important "religious issues" and "moral values" in politics are - and how broadly and deeply they are understood. Religion doesn't fall neatly into right and left categories. If there were ever candidates running with a strong set of personal moral values and a commitment to be pro-poor and pro-peace, it could build many bridges to the other side. Personal and social responsibility are both at the heart of religion, and the two together could make a very powerful and compelling political vision for the future of our bitterly divided nation.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

My friend eric s

My friend eric stetler is a funny guy. To see how funny, check out the comment he left on my last blog. The names will be revealed in due time.

To see some friends of eric who he goes to church with look at last Friday's Faith and Value's section in the Columbus Dispatch. My friend Kelli Shearonn got her picture on the front page of the that section. Go Kelli!!!

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Hucy

Well I guess I should blog this now that our church knows. Mandy and I found out a few weeks ago that she is with child and we will have an addition to our family sometime around June 18th, 2005. Hank is very excited that he is going to have a little brother or sister. Hucy is what we are calling our child for now. It is a combination of the boy and girl names we have tentatively picked out.

Saturday, November 13, 2004

3rd place

Yep, I finished in third place today in the 4 mile homecoming classic. Well, that was in my age division in which there where only three runners. To see my results click here and you'll see that I ran it in 37 min. 15 seconds, which is averaging a 9 min 19 second mile. I was quite pleased cause I was praying to run it under 40 minutes.

I was almost emotional when I started the race which was odd. But this one of the few things that I've ever done that was beyond me when I started training. I'm not sure if I ever have run a mile and a half before I started training. I had to do it cause last April I weighed 250 and my blood pressure was like 140 something over 100 and I couldn't run up a flight of stairs without loosing my breath. Now I weigh 225 (which still needs to go down some), my blood pressure is 127 over 79, and I feel good. I don't like to be a boastfull person, but today I am proud of myself and thankful for a God who has given me the ability to do all of this.

Thanks to James, Mandy, and Hank for coming to greet me at the finish line. That meant a lot! Now the journey begins of trying to stay in shape.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Wesley

I just decided a few weeks ago that I wasn't going to do a master thesis, but I just got done talking with one of my profs. who highly encouraged me to do one. She had a lot of good points and mentioned some things I haven't thought of yet, so now I'm back to undecided.

If I do one it will be on John Wesley and money. I want to explore how the socioeconomic conditions of his day affected his views and use of money. I then want to bring it full circle to see if his views on money have anything to say to us today.

I am highly interested in the topic, I'm just not sure I want to put into it what it will take to do it well or just to plain do it. These things have to be 70-100 pages in length. But I do have the works of John Wesley, all 12 volumes, in my library at home. I hate decisions!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

stink

Homecoming is here in two days and I found out today i can't wear my contacts for a week because of a minor eye infection.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Almost done

Tonight is graduation at the seminary we are working at and then tomorrow begins the long journey home. I miss Mandy a lot and can´t wait to be back with her. These trips are so wonderful, but without your love they are bittersweet.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Michael Moore

I asked an 18 year old Christian girl here in Argentina who she wanted to win the election. She reponded that she didn´t like Bush. I asked why and she asked me, ¨have you ever heard of Michael Moore?¨ I guess he is huge down here, they even showed Farenhight 911 in the schools. Well better him than Rush Limbaugh!

Cold and Rainy

For those of you that are jealous that I am in Argentina for the wonderul weather, don´t be today. It´s cold and rainy today. For those of you that are jealous because of all the wonderful things I get to experience, be very jealous. Last night they threw a groucho party for us at the seminary. They had a big bonfire, wonderful food, live Argentinian music, and wonderful fellowship with our group and a bunch of people from their church.

The most frustrating thing is not being able to speak Spanish. I find myself saying gracious all the time, cause that is one of the few words I know. I guess if I only know a few words, that is a great one to know.

Getting to know people through broken spanish, broken english, and hand gestures is frustrating, but worth it. I met this guy last night who graduated from the seminary last year and he told me through an interpreter that his passion is preaching to sinners so that they would draw closer to God. Another guy we´ve been working with is almost done with seminary and when he is done he is going to take his family 500 kilometers away to be missionaries with him in a very poor town.

I love the people we are meeting. I love Colon Argentina. I pray I get to come back. Only next time I hope it is with Mandy. I miss her so much right now.

The other thing I´ll do next time I´m here is not to drink the water, even to brush my teeth, which is the only time I´ve had any local water in my mouth. I´ve been on the pot a ton today!

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

I don´t know if I made myself clear

God really turned the rain off for us. He showed His power to those there in a mighty way. He made it known that He is our Father and we our His children and He is enough for us. He is worthy all the glory and praise and honor!

espanol

After the first half of this trip is in the book I am really convinced I need to learn Spanish. Preaching last night in a tin roofed church was an amazing experience. It rained the entire service very hard and it made it really loud. That is, until I walked to the pulpit and God turned off the rain so everyone could hear me and my interpreter. It was clear to everyone there what God had done. Dios es suficiente. God is enough. He is so powerful and good.

Monday, November 01, 2004

por favor

I preach tomorrow night through an interpreter at a local church in Argentina, please pray for us as we hear from the Father.

From Colon, Argentina

We´ve been at our work sight for a day now. It is in this town of about 25,000 in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. It is a whole different world for me. I always thought that because I am white, American, tall, and male that it would be hard for me to feel out of place anywhere. Not that I want that, I just know that makes me a member of a very powerful group. I feel weak here. I don´t feel in control. I feel I am looked at differently. It is a very good experience for me. I will treat the Hispanics in Mt. Vernon who don´t speak English with so much more compassion.

Moved lots and lots of dirt today and probably will move even more the rest of the week. But it had to be near 90 today without a cloud in the sky, it was wonderful. I like it here, I like my group. No close friends yet and that´s okay, but the older people in the group take care of me well. They all make fun of me cause I´m a Nazarene, they think I´m pretty conservative. I´ll let them think that. Most go, have a wonderful day!