Adam's Audibles

Excellence?

2011-05-11T00:00:00.001-04:00

When I was a sophomore at Penn State, we got a new campus minister who was very particular about one thing: excellence in all things. If we were going to do something, we were going to do it very well. It's an interesting concept in theory. In practice, it's very difficult to pull off.

In my ministry, I find I fall somewhere in the middle of two sides on the issue. On one hand, some argue that excellence or perfection puts God in a box. We can only plan out so much and it's a little arrogant to say to God, "Ok God, this is where we've planned for you to come in and do some amazing things." Because God tends not to respond to such requests on demand, those who plan things out, tend not to plan on the miraculous happening. Some churches rely on being so perfect that there is a minute by minute breakdown of the service. Every detail is planned meticulously and critics argue that there is no room for God to influence anyone or anything... that God only does what the planners allow Him to do. These are the churches that work for hours to perfect the look that they just threw together a worship service last minute that happens to be the peak of excellence.

On the other side of the fence (on the issue of perfection and excellence), observers can find people who say that one should not give anything less than his absolute best. These are the churches who tend to have their members show up in suits and ties, if they're men, and dresses if they're women. The conservative attitude makes church less scripted, but less adventurous. It might not be uncommon to find two bulletins with the exact same order of worship, but a date 30 years apart. These churches have found what works and stuck with it.

Now, I mentioned before that I find myself somewhere in the middle here. I think most people would. Obviously, the object of ministry is not to give God any less than our best, but there's no reason that we should be legalistic about that. Even though my church tends to dress conservatively, I showed up in sandals last week and everyone survived. Someday, I vow I WILL preach in jeans, but that day is still to come. However, our services are fairly scripted, mainly because there is very little that can't be controlled. Because we don't have live music, I know *exactly* what verses are coming up next in the worship songs since I've had the CDs at my disposal all week long. In the 5 months or so that we've had an LCD projector, I've averaged less than one typo every two months. How many churches can say that?

With the resources that I have to work with at my church, I think our services are about as excellent as anyone could expect them to be. So there... I've given God my best... good enough right?

And that's the root of the problem. If all we're doing is trying to give our best to God... without involving God in the process, we're going to end up climbing up an infinitely tall hill. Jesus came because our best wasn't good enough, so why do we try to fool ourselves into thinking otherwise?

But then you go to the other side of the coin... if our best is never going to be good enough, why try at all? God can take those mountains and turn them into molehills without our help... why not just let him do everything?

It's led me to realize that I need to reorient what I think is excellent away from my own preconceptions. I've seen some pretty excellent things turn out to be pretty sour, and some things that I thought were lost causes turn out to be great. Ironically, the key is in preparedness, but not in dressing super-nicely or making sure that church begins at 11:00 AM and ends promptly at 11:59:50. We need to prepare ourselves to be ready for God to use us to glorify Him at any given time, not just on Sunday mornings.

We must humble ourselves and accept the fact that our idea of excellence pales in comparison to God's. We can come to Him and say "God, our best isn't ever going to be good enough, but we know that You have given us many gifts, talents, abilities... we realize we need to work to hone all of those things so that we can use them whenever you call us to do so. But we also acknowledge that apart from You, our best is useless. Empower us with Your Spirit as we learn to give You what you have called us to do, in the way that You would have it done."

Eph 2:8-10

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Sacrificial Living?

2011-05-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

With Easter being last week, I thought a lot about the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross and I thought, "Am I content with what I'm giving to God?" You see, as a preacher, it's easy for me to think, "Well surely I'm doing my duty as a Christian. I preach on the weekends. I lead and participate in Bible Studies during the week. I'm often encouraging and counseling my church members and friends. I tithe. I'll even go out of my way to bake cookies or do some other random acts of kindness around town. I must be on the right track."

But then I take a step back and when I look at it... I enjoy all of those things. I would probably be doing them whether or not it was my job, but when I look at what bigger things I could be doing... things that I'm not very good at... things that I wouldn't be able to do without the help of God, I wonder, "Am I allowing God to use me the way that He wants to use me? or the way that I want Him to use me?"

I still haven't reached a conclusion, but I don't know that I'll necessarily like the answer when I do.

There are two major schools of thought bouncing back and forth in my brain:

1.) God has gifted me for certain things and I perform them adequately enough. This is the option that would certainly make me feel better about what I do for God and how I'm living my life. Clearly I enjoy talking to people, getting to know people, and meeting their needs. God has gifted me for it, and I'm doing it. Simple!

but then I think about...

2.) God is calling me to bigger and more difficult things, but I'm contenting and busying myself with smaller things. What if I'm supposed to be doing more with my faith than I currently am? I feel called to Culpeper for now, but am I supposed to focus only on my church or the people of Culpeper? Should I be starting new ministries? Could I hold a huge event that attracts lots of people just to begin sharing about the sacrifice that Jesus made? Or should I just be ok with handing out cookies at Walmart every few months?

Jesus said that the road to heaven is a straight and narrow path... there are tons of options, but only one way to the Father and that's through Jesus. I think the real heart of the issue is: Am I consistently doing things that glorify Jesus?

I'm sure it looks like different things for different people, in fact it looks like different things for just one person at different stages in life. But the question I think we all need to be asking ourselves is, if we've been given so much, what are we doing with it?

What does this have to do with Easter?

2011-04-20T00:00:00.000-04:00

Jurassic Park: The Ride (Spoiler Alert if you've never been on the ride before... it shows the whole thing).

Listen to my Easter sermon coming up this Sunday...

Sharing the Good News

2011-04-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

As I write this, I'm sitting in the office of one of my friends in ministry. He's not here right now, so I figured I'd commendeer his computer and do my job (with his permission... apparently his "eye health" is more important than our friendship).

One of the things that strikes me, however, is how he and I have grown to trust each other in the eight short months that I've been here. We share stories and victories and pains. We're confidants and ministers and encouragers. We're friends. When I do good things, I expect to hear from him. But flip it around. When I do bad things, I expect to hear from him. When there's an issue in my life, when I'm discouraged, when I'm angry, he's able to call me on it. I'd do the same for him as well.

It's a very simple concept really... we put our trust in the people we know best. We share our hearts, our dreams, our desires, our weaknesses, our struggles, our depressions with those that we know and love the most. It's the natural human condition.

I suppose that's why pictures like this confuse me so much:

Ok, perfect picture for my purposes. First off, don't you really want to meet the ONE drunkard and the ONE general heathen from that sign? There are potentially millions of of the other categories, but only one of those two. Poor two people on the face of the planet who struggle alone with drunkeness and... general heatheness? Huh, that didn't come up on spell check, guess it is a word.

Now, let me ask you, if you were one who actually would identify as a drunkard, fornicator, masturbator, atheist, abortionist, adutlerer, witch, reveler, sodomite, hypocrite, blashphemer, liar, or general heathen, would you be inclined to talk to this man? To listen to anything he had to say? I'm a Christian and I don't think I'd really have anything kind to say to him. There's no relationship there... no trust... nothing but judgement and damnation.

Now look at his sleeve. The mega-irony would be if that last word was "LOVE" but I think it's "LORD" which would make a lot of sense since a message of love and peace doesn't seem to be portrayed. Now, it should be noted that Christianity is NOT simply a religion about love and peace, and he's right in that there WILL be judgement, but that judgement is God's, not ours. The reason that God gets to make those calls is because He *IS* Lord and we are not. As Lord He called us to live lives holy and pleasing to him and to make disciples for Him.

But He did not call us to hold signs scolding people, unless discipleship looks entirely different than I imagine it to be. Ok, time to look at that Bible verse. Hebrews 9:27--

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

Ah! There we go all questions answered! People are destined to die and then to face judgement. Period.

What? There was no period? It was a comma? Well I guess it would be pretty important to read the whole sentence, but surely it's just going to talk about how judgement is the only option awaiting sinners. Let's see:

²⁷ Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Oh. So wait... there's hope? That seems rather important. Maybe someone should share that with people instead of just telling them that only Hell awaits them. Form a relationship... share in life... teach the Good News.

Maybe someone should. Maybe you should.

Power

2011-04-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry if I've been letting anyone down in the last few weeks... I think God is doing some amazing things in Culpeper and I'm looking forward to those, but it's been requiring a lot of time reflecting and praying on my part. Add that to the fact that my computer's power connection is very finicky now (update: dead) so I haven't really been able to spend much time on my computer to write a blog. The church has purchased a new one however, so things should be able to move forward as usual. The last two weeks of sermons have been uploaded to www.firstchristianculpeper.com as well.

You see, until it gets fixed, the power cord for my computer has to be tilted in a very specific way just so it can make an electric connection and charge the battery. If it moves at all, I have to spend about 5 minutes getting it back into the proper place... it's annoying to say the least. There should be a solid connection from the electricity flowing from the cord to the power adapter inside the computer which leads to my battery and allows it to charge. When any of that is out of sync or alignment, the whole machine loses power until finally, it won't turn on anymore.

It's amazing to me how vastly important connections are in my every day life. If I have a bad phone, TV, or internet connection, I become very disgruntled and want it fixed immediately. When I have friends and we just aren't on the same page, it's very frustrating. When God and I aren't sharing a solid connection, all of those feelings come rise again. In each one of those instances, I blame something else... Comcast or Verizon or AT&T, my friends. And yes, even God.

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The writer of Hebrews knew that it was important for man to maintain a connection with God. Even though the Bible is filled with numerous instances where God seeks after man, it's clear that God wants the connection to be a voluntary one. We must do our part to seek after him and maintain the connection.

To often, we neglect the connection with God as one that is important to our lives, yet when we experience the negative feelings that go along with the bad connection, we're so quick to blame God for our troubles. "God's not listening, God's not answering my prayers." Not nearly often enough do I turn the tables and say "I need to do a better job of maintaining this connection." But that's what we need to do. The best part is, God's always waiting for us to turn back to Him, offering that strong connection through his Son Jesus Christ.

Delayed blog post

2011-03-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

I'm going to try to get a blog post up this week, but God has been laying some things on my heart and I have a friend in town this week too. Nothing's wrong, I just don't really feel like composing anything at the moment. I want to sit on this and allow for some time of reflection before I blurt out my thoughts. Pray for me during this time!

Thanks,
Adam... P.S. Maybe look for a blog post around Friday... probably?

Recap 3/16/2011

2011-03-16T00:00:00.000-04:00

I can't share all the "behind the scenes" details of my church life, but just like anything, there are ups and downs. What I can say is that the first week in March was an "up," and the second week in March was a "down." Going into Sunday the 13th, I had been through two incredibly busy weeks and had to preach two separate sermons that day to two different groups of people.

About three weeks ago, I was asked to preach for the Culpeper County Ministerial Association's (CCMA) Lenten Service. Now, I love to preach-- I can't imagine a point in my life when I won't want to preach on a regular basis-- but I've discovered that, if I had my preference, I'd rather not prepare two sermons for one week. Still, it's what the Lord had in store for me, so I did it. Fortunately, given the short amount of time I had between the time I agreed to preach and the time when I actually had to do so, the chapter from which I was instructed to preach suited me very well: John 13.

In this chapter, Jesus washes the feet of His disciples and demonstrates for us how we're to love each other. The sermon went really well (you can listen to it here). Over 40 people were hearing me preach for the first time and I wanted to leave them with something that was meaningful and impacting. Fortunately, Jeff Light, the preacher at Novum Baptist Church where this event was being held had thought even one step ahead of me. I had asked people to consider ways to humble themselves and serve, and he provided basins with water in order to wash each other's feet. People were given the opportunity to come have their feet washed and to wash others. Several people dropped denominational differences to unify in an act of humbling service.

To be perfectly frank, I think we need to see more of that. In the sermon, I described what the church should do as the ultimate "show and tell." Show Christ's love first, then you get to tell people why you're doing it. Think about that this week... especially if you're having a "down" week. Chances are, so are other people around you. To put it in context, Jesus wasn't exactly having the week of his life either. Two of his friends were about to betray Him, and he was about to die a horrible death.

Two acts of service (the footwashing and the dying) and things turned around for the better by the following Sunday. Give it a shot, let me know how it goes.

Reconditioning

2011-03-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

I went swing dancing once. It didn't go well. My date/teacher (Lisa) was great at it, but I was just having so much trouble picking it up and I couldn't quite figure out why. To me, it sounded like the basic count was "One, Two, Rock-step," but when we actually started to dance it would be four separate steps, "One, Two, Rock, Step." I asked Lisa if "Rock" and "Step" were two different counts and she said, "Yes, of course..." so I reverted from a three-count to a four-count.

That made more sense, but something was still off and I figured it out immediately. The music was in a three count, meaning there were three beats for every measure-- but marching band songs were almost always in four, and the first beat of every measure the left foot hits the ground (unless you happen to march with the Cadets). Suddenly, I understood exactly why I was so horrible at swing dancing. Then I understood that it would take along time for me to get any good at it at all.

When I was a junior in high school marching band, we played a movement from Bernstein's Jeremiah Symphony (Profanation, the second movement). This song had changing meters-- 4/4 mostly, but also 5/8 (counted in one long beat and one short beat) and 7/8 (one long beat and two short beats). I'd estimate that in learning how to play the music and march correctly, we probably spent about 10 hours in preparation JUST working on that part of the show before it was ever performed, and then we continued to perfect it all year long. In fact, while I'm fairly certain I understood it by the end of the season, I must admit I was still far from automatic when it came to marching that part of the show correctly.

The point is this: sometimes it takes an awful lot of time and an awful lot of work to get out of the habits that we make for ourselves. To this day, I can't run while I'm listening to music because I always try to make my left foot hit on beat one of a measure, my pace changes with the tempo of the song, and that awkward period between songs almost always makes me stumble. Who knew that marching band would cause so many problems?

So often, I'm finding that my own method of doing things and my own preconceptions of how things "have to be done" gets in the way of effective ministry. For me, I wish I understood better how "the South" works, or at least what things I say and do might be seen as odd, awkward, or even offensive. Too many times, I want things done my way, rather than any other way... and most times I don't even think that there may BE another way than my way.

Confusing? Probably-- but perhaps it should be. I've gotta believe this is how outsiders of Christianity look at God. I was raised in the church. It has always been a very safe and familiar place in my life. It took me a long time to learn that other people didn't have the same experience. How much longer would it take someone outside the church, who has grown up with nothing resembling it to learn our customs, our language, our behaviors?

As the church, we need to do a better job of helping people through this process. It's not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. I don't really feel like looking up the number right now, but there's a statistic that says somewhere in the area of 4 of every 5 new American Christians will not be attending church a year from the time that they start. That needs to get better.

If my series on Ruth taught me anything, it's this: Ruth was an extraordinary woman who was very devoted to her mother-in-law Naomi, and not to God at first. Just because she crossed over into Israel didn't mean that she automatically understood all of the Israelite customs, laws, religion, etc. It took time and people being patient with her, coming along side her, helping her to get out of her former habits and to adapt new ones.

It may have seemed like a lot of trouble, but ultimately, Ruth became one of the ancestors of Christ. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that any new Christian will not have that honor anymore-- but we risk wasting so much potential if we do not help new Christians adapt to learning about God in a schedule that fits them, rather than us.

Infinite love.

2011-03-02T00:00:00.034-05:00

I was listening to a talk by Dr. Lawrence Krauss the other day titled "A Universe from Nothing." Krauss is a theoretical physicist, he's an atheist, and he's really full of himself. In fact, he's that special "full of himself" kind that probably wouldn't mind that I called him full of himself. This post has nothing to do with him EXCEPT for the fact that he brought up a paradox that I hadn't heard before. So thanks for that Dr. Krauss.

So, Hilbert's Paradox of the Grand Hotel. I must say, I don't fully understand this topic, nor do I expect anyone to. I wouldn't be surprised if David Hilbert doesn't understand it either. Here's the simplest explanation that does it any justice.

Imagine a hotel that is infinitely large with an infinite number of rooms all of which are occupied. Then imagine you walk in and want to check into the hotel. The manager says, "We're full..." but then he remembers that he has an infinite amount of rooms... so he just moves the guest in room 1 to room 2, room 2 to room 3, and so on and so on. Therefore, room 1 is now unoccupied and ready for you to move into it.

Confusing right? The only way I can conceptualize it is when I think of some of my friends. Just the other night, one of my friends was nervous and sick. She didn't want to inconvenience anyone, but she said "Hey, you're up late, can I call you if I can't sleep?" Of course I said she could. Then she asked, "How late is too late to call?" and I replied something like, "Aw, that's cute... you think there's a time that you could call when I wouldn't pick up for you."

She's not alone. There are certain people in my life who I love an infinite amount and I would literally do anything I could for them. Nothing they could ever say or do would ever make me love them any more or less than I do now. It's an infinite love.

God has that same kind of love for us. It will never decrease, nor will it ever increase. It is ALREADY full. Not only is His love infinite, but His actions back up that love. His gift of a Son to come to earth to give His life as a ransom for us was all we'll ever need to forever be justified in God. He's done everything He can for us. Here's the kicker though... His love is infinite... for an infinite number of people. He has loved every single person in His Creation the same way. He always has and He always will.

It's nearly impossible to understand... Hilbert's paradox seems to have as many detractors as it has supporters. But when it comes to my faith in God and how He loves me, I take comfort in the fact that it's even purer, better, and just as infinite as I love I have for my friends.

1 John 4:16b-19

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

Aptronyms and Encouragement

2011-02-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have heard my story about Ms. Clara from my church when I younger, you know that I've spent a LOT of time in Acts chapter 9 (81 weeks in a row!), but lately I've been coming back to Acts 4 over and over again. There are so many good habits for the church to "re-adopt" in that chapter, things that we really should focus on. That's one reason I'm writing this blog entry.

My favorite verse in the entire chapter is Acts 4:36:

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”),...

There aren't too many times that I stop mid-sentence to point out verses, and while I realize that verse 37 is still the Inspired Word, I can't help but be amazed by verse 36. Barnabas, yes, of "Paul and Barnabas" fame, was born with the name Joseph.

"Uh... so what?" you might be saying. Well, did you know that? Did you know that we've been calling Barnabas by a changed name? It seems that Barnabas had earned himself a bit of a reputation. It's basically a purposeful aptronym (a name that matches an occupation... e.g. George and Pete Hammer who own a hardware shop in Kentucky, or Dr. David Toothaker, a dentist from Arkansas). Barnabas apparently was SO overwhelmingly encouraging, that the Apostles just decided to call him "Son of Encouragement."

I feel like I've made this point on this blog before... but I'd LOVE to be called something as awesome as "Son of Encouragement." To gain a reputation for doing God's Work that is so much a part of oneself that it just becomes an identifier would be a great honor. I think, if I had to choose one, I would love to be known as "The Conduit" since I like to find out what people are passionate about and connect them to other people who either share that passion, or have a need that can be filled by that passion. What do you think you would be called if you honed the gifts that God gave you?

But the first step in that is getting used to the idea of openly praising people. We don't do that enough. Thinking of people's strengths, and helping them grow into them and reach their full potential, with the help of the Holy Spirit is a task that the church SHOULD do for each other. Check out 1 Thessalonians 5. As a church, we need to become more encouraging as a whole. Looking at the example of Barnabas, the fact that he was such an encouragement to other people led the Apostles to call him by another name, so that EVERY time someone said his name, he too, could draw encouragement from the fact that he knew he was serving God. It's like... an encouragement cycle!

Think about it... is there anyone in your life who could use a little attention for the good he or she has done for the Kingdom? Step out, disregard the social awkwardness, and tell that person how appreciative you are of their service. Who knows? the encouragement might come back around to you!

THON

2011-02-16T00:00:00.047-05:00

Disclaimer (seriously, how many of my blog posts begin with disclaimers? An inordinate amount, I tell you! I guess I'm just a careful guy.): I have no affiliation with THON anymore, they're not paying me to say nice things, my views do not necessarily reflect the views of THON, I'm not trying to solicit, but feel free to donate if you want, etc, etc, etc,)

Did you know that one of my favorite numbers is 5,240,385.17? (Yes, really). On a related note, in my experience there haven't been too many moments in life when I knew "This is a life changing / shaping experience!" February 16, 2007 at 9:00 PM exactly, I knew it, because I walked into a scene that looked like this:

This is actually THON 08... THON 07 was also powerful enough that I knew I had to buy a digital camera to record the next year's for myself

A little background first to help you understand. If you've read this blog, ever, you've probably gathered that I'm a huge Penn State fan and have been my entire life. It got to the point where I was proselytizing. In fact, I think that perhaps my friends Lauren and Kristin did end up choosing Penn State due, in part, to my influence.

I gave people all kinds of reasons why Penn State was AWESOME ranging from academics, to football, clubs and activities, and everything in between. But at 9:00 PM on that Friday night, I found myself texting Lauren and asking, "Are you at THON?" Turned out she was, and I went to find her and said "Remember when I was giving you all kinds of reasons that you should come to Penn State? Well if I had known about THIS at that time, this would have been number one."

Basic information about THON: THON is a dance marathon that started back in 1973. It has evolved since then and currently stands as a 46 hour dance marathon that takes place every year on the third weekend in February. About 700 dancers from all across Penn State University take place every year. Now to be completely honest, there isn't a LOT of real dancing that goes on at THON. Basically, it's a grueling 46 hours worth of staying awake and fighting to stay on one's feet. The only reprieve that the dancers get are 10 second rubdowns on what are called the "Slides of Strength." So, in a span of 46 hours, dancers spend about 45 hours 58 minutes and 40 seconds or so standing. There IS dancing at least once an hour though as they have hourly line dances. (H/T david06pa)

But why subject one's body to such torture? That's something that can be answered in three letters-- FTK. For the kids. When THON began, it was supposed to support a deserving charity. Every year since 1977, the Four Diamonds Fund has been that charity. The Four Diamonds fund supports patients (and their families) in the pediatric cancer ward at Hershey Medical Center. When a young child with cancer shows up there, the family gets welcomed into the Four Diamonds family and are assured that almost anything that their insurance doesn't cover-- operations, treatments, lodging, food, transportation to and from Hershey-- will be taken care of by the Four Diamonds Fund. These families come to visit THON every year to share how much the physical, emotional, and financial help means to them. A few hours before the dancers are finally allowed to sit, some families take the stage usually one family who lost a child to cancer, and one whose child beat it, to share their stories and to thank the kids for their support and what they do all year-round. One of the important things to recognize about THON is that as driven as the college students are on THON weekend, the kids and their families fight cancer all year round with the same drive and strength that the dancers draw on in hours 45 and 46.

There's so much that makes up THON. It's an all-year process that climaxes at one weekend in February. Fundraising starts on October 1 every year and culminates at the end of the weekend with a dramatic reveal... like this one from THON 07 (you'll definitely want to turn your volume down for this-- (H/T to Pituch3))

Hence, 5,240,385.17 being one of my favorite numbers

There is much more to point out... and I could drone on and on (like I haven't already) but the question I have is, why don't we see more events like THON? As special and unique as THON is, it had humble beginnings because someone had an idea and took it to action.

Gretel and Bijal-- Christian Student Fellowship's dancers for THON 07-- with some wimpy dude who was only there for 30 hours of the 46

I love THON, but as a Christian, I'm somewhat secretly envious. If I could bottle THON and let people get even one sniff of it, I believe it would show people that passion and excitement can bring greatness. Let's face it-- THON is doing work that the church wants to be known for, and it's doing it better than most churches. Organization... passion... success... kindness... caring... community... it's all there. I encourage you to log onto THON.org this weekend to view the live webcast and take a look at the activity going on and pray about how you may be able to get THAT excited about something that you can't do anything BUT spring into action.

Now obviously, just because THON is not a religious organization doesn't mean that Christians aren't involved. Nor does it mean that THON shouldn't do this kind of work, like the church has a monopoly on it. THON has it's own issues as well, but I'm convinced that those aren't my concern. The only standard that THON has to meet is its own-- the church needs to meet God's. Are we?

Take a look at this description of the early church from Acts 4:32-35:

³² All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. ³³ With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all ³⁴ that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵ and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

And how about this from Paul? (Ephesians 2:8-10)

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

So I ask again, are we doing that today? If not, I believe we still can and should. If we look at THON as a fantastic example of what can be done without God's explicit guidance, imagine the POWER that would be added if we include Him in the plan.

THON runs from 6:00 PM Friday night through 4:00 PM Sunday. The money total should be announced by 4:45 PM I'd imagine. Anything you need to know about THON, including its history and how to donate can be found at www.thon.org.

Grandpap Sandy

2011-02-09T00:00:00.002-05:00

   This blog post might end up being pretty short. That's mostly because I've been thinking to myself "I will NOT be controversial this week, I will NOT be controversial this week, I will NOT be controversial this week!" But uncontroversial can be boring, and boring doesn't always make for a very enjoyable blog. Let's see if I have anything meaningful, and non-controversial to say-- I think I do.

   I got an e-mail on Monday from my mom. It was forwarded on from one of our family friends who lived across the street from us when I was very young, and it contained an obituary. Our former next door neighbor, a man who I called "Grandpap Sandy" had passed away.

   It had been years since I had seen him, so his death didn't really feel like loss to me, at least not in the way that most people associate loss with death. No, I had already "lost" him just through various circumstances in life... my family moving, too many years passing, and the fact that, according to the things written in his obituary, I had never really "known" him to begin with. But I knew him as my Grandpap Sandy, and that's how I'll remember him, and I can live with that.

   My fondest memories of him, and his wife "Grandma Ruth," involved what I always refer to as "the spot" at "the fence" where my parents would always talk to them. They had a pretty extensive garden set up, especially for that part of Northern New Jersey, which despite its epithet as the "Garden State," has more houses than trees I think. Grandpap Sandy and Grandma Ruth would always send over bags and bags of eggplant, which I didn't like, but I guess my parents did, or at least accepted. They were a weird and wacky couple who had one of those 90's answering machine raps, and a radio that was shaped like a Tropicana Orange sitting on their kitchen table. Their generosity was evident, as well, as I have the first 14 or so Hess Trucks of my life because of them (batteries came with the Christmas present). I'm fairly certain I still have BOXES of animal crackers left in my parents pantry from them as well.

   I can live with those memories, and look back fondly at that time with those people, but when I think about how I proceed from here, I'm never quite sure what I want. It's funny that my mom got the obituary from who she did-- her son's was one of the first deaths that I had experienced, when I was 7. To this day, I attribute the fact that I refuse to leave friends on bad terms to his death... not because we were on bad terms when he died, but because I learned at a very early age how fragile life can truly be. I wish I had time to truly know and keep in touch with everyone I've come across in life... I'm sure there are literally hundreds of thousands of stories, smiles, and tears that could be shared, but it's so easy to get swept up in the "business" of life. Just yesterday, I caught up with a woman who was a camp counselor for me in middle school. Since then, three kids have shown up in her family photos on Facebook! I think I remember the first one-- but three?!

   It comes back to my concept of "investing" in people's lives. Depending on how much effort one puts in, that's about the return you should expect-- and I don't think it qualifies as a friendship if you don't expect some return. I can't return the investment that Grandpap Sandy made to my life anymore, at least not to him. Another name that pops up is Jesus Christ. How can I return the investment He made in my life? I think the answer for both of those men is the same-- pay it forward (Literally, perform the action of paying it forward... don't go out and buy the movie with Haley Joel Osment and give it to people). Matthew 25:40 reads: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"

   So I'll pay it forward... but I don't want to forget the people who are still around me today, the investments, or the returns. Let's make the most of having the people who are still in our lives. In chapter 4 of his letter, James writes "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." We might not have tomorrow to do that, to rectify relationships, or to have the option of telling people how much they mean to us. Similarly, we might not have the ability to give the same to God, to glorify Him.  If I can implore you to do anything... don't wait.

Science in the Classroom

2011-02-02T00:00:00.006-05:00

Well, after 2 straight weeks of controversial subjects (homosexuality and pro-life rallies), I figured I'd take a break from blogging about another controversial subject. But then I changed my mind because I'm in a bad mood and venting makes me feel better.

I'm becoming convinced that many of the problems that the church is facing in finding its place in our world today can be traced back to the public school system in America. Now, before anyone gets bent out of shape, let me throw a disclaimer out here: I am a product of the public school system, and I have a degree in Secondary Education, so I don't criticize my upbringing and professional degree lightly-- but I believe it's fair criticism.

I was debating my friend Lance the other day, and it occurred to me that most people still think that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is accepted by most members of the scientific community. Did you know that's not true? No one denies that Darwin was onto something, and with the limited knowledge he had, he was still able to accurately detect natural selection. Most scientists accept this as the driving force behind current evolutionary trends, but it is not complete. Yet most graduates believe that Darwin's original theory was correct-- But why?

The answer is simple. Kids still learn about Darwin's Theory of Evolution in school, even though it's not up to date by scientific standards. If we're willing to teach kids something that we KNOW to be incorrect, why can't we teach kids something that we can't discern whether it's correct or not? Our current theory of evolution falls under that umbrella... and emergent evolution... then again, so does Creationism... and so does the Mormon account of Creation... and Greek Mythology... really any mythology... Shinto as well... and if we're going to bring Shinto and Mormonism into the fray, we shouldn't exclude Buddhism or Hinduism either. Really, where should that line get drawn? I'm in favor of teaching kids all of those theories and belief systems in science classes in high school, or none of them.

"That's not a science class then," some of you might say... in fact, that's what Lance said to me. My question is, "When did science, as we know it today, become so arrogant?" What I described in the previous paragraph would have been science class if your name was Aristotle or Socrates, Ptolemy or Caesar, Newton or Galileo... but apparently it's not science class if your name is Hawking or Sagan.

When I ask science-supporters why Creation or Intelligent Design shouldn't be taught in the classroom, I get one consistent response: they don't fit the scientific method. Now as I understand it, they're looking for observable, empirical evidence which can also be repeated so we can predict future results. Creationism and Intelligent Design do neither of those.

But, then again, neither does Darwinian evolution. It is not observable in nature, it's not repeatable, and there are many holes in Darwin's original theory. Current evolutionary theory does what it can to plug up those holes, but it can't be proven using the scientific method... it's still very hypothetical. To me, that means it's no more reliable than smacking your hands together and saying, "It's MAGIC!"

But what about the other things that we learn in science classes that don't fit the scientific method? Gravity comes to mind. Newtonian physics largely apply on Earth, but we believe that the laws begin to collapse when dealing with subatomic particles, and also near the event horizon of a black hole. We can't observe what happens in those instances, but we're content with saying "Well it works in most cases and explains almost everything... so it should be taught in schools." But it isn't SCIENCE... at best it's belief. We have NO IDEA why gravity exists, we only know that it does, and most of the time we can predict how it will work. Until 10 years ago, we didn't even know that Gravity actually travels in waves. We believe that acceleration due to gravity is constant, except when it isn't. It varies, not even between planets, but at various places on Earth itself. But ask any student in a physics classroom "What is the accepted number for acceleration due to gravity on earth?" and they'll (hopefully) tell you, "9.8 meters per second per second." We're taught that it's a constant, that it's observable, that it's repeatable, but it isn't! We even have a pretty good idea why it changes, but we don't teach that in school because... I actually have no idea why.

If we're supposed to be teaching our kids science, based on the scientific method, we're doing a terrible job. If we're allowed to teach our kids unreliable theories, why NOT also be allowed to teach Creationism, or at the very least, not mock it. What difference is there between "So you believe a god created everything that's around us?" and "So you believe that we got here because of an explosion that arose from nothing to create everything?" Neither are observable, neither are repeatable, neither are empirical... yet one is the widely respected opinion and the other is lampooned as theological crazy talk, for no better reason than the established order says so.

I'm not the first who has arrived at this conclusion, and I'm sure I won't be the final one either. The late Paul Feyerabend comes to mind when discussing this issue. He went so far as to say that science should be separated from the state IN THE SAME WAY that church and state should be separated.

The way towards this aim is clear. A science that insists on possessing the only correct method and the only acceptable results is ideology and must be separated from the state, and especially from the process of education. One may teach it, but only to those who have decided to make this particular superstition their own. On the other hand, a science that has dropped such totalitarian pretensions is no longer independent and self-contained, and it can be taught in many different combinations (myth and modern cosmology might be one such combination).

Science and church getting equal treatment? Sounds like a pipe dream... but to the rational observer, perhaps it doesn't sound so crazy after all.

EDIT: I've gotten too much heat about "Emergent evolution" to keep it in. "Current leading evolutionary theory" or something to that effect replaces it.

March for Life

2011-01-26T00:00:00.005-05:00

(Quick editorial note: This blog was started on the back of a train ticket holder envelope thingy... so if this blog post becomes really really famous (which is won't, don't worry) we'll have another one of those stories where something life-changing was written on a piece of seemingly inconsequential paper. Yes, I believe I just compared my blog to the Gettysburg Address (and yes, I know that story is an urban legend... not the Gettysburg Address, just the thing where it was written on the back of an envelope... or a napkin... or something).

(Quick editorial note #2: Pay no attention to "Quick editorial note #1).

Right or not, I consider myself to be one of the most open-minded people I know. Since I have such an opinion of myself, I suppose one could argue that I'm actually closed-minded, and to you, I say, "START YOUR OWN BLOG AND COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. Pansy." Let's say for the sake of argument that I'm pretty open minded. I say that, not to mean that I'll agree with anything that someone would say, and I doubt I'll ever change my mind about my deep-seeded beliefs just become of an argument that someone brings up, but I'll always listen to someone's viewpoint, consider it, and usually be able to understand why someone would hold that particular point of view. I can make a fantastic devil's advocate when I want to.

However, there is one group of people that I never really gave a fair shake. It's a little surprising, especially considering the fact that I agree with their position, but my perception (largely fueled by the media and some unfortunate incidents at Penn State) was skewed. I'm talking about the Pro-Life Political Rally crowd.

About 2 weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Grace Prep, a Christian High School in State College, and one of the places where I student taught. Grace Prep is an amazing place filled with amazing people... it's long overdue to be mentioned in this blog, and I'll brag about them all sooner or later. The e-mail contained information that my former mentor teacher (certainly not the least of those amazing people) would be heading up a trip to Washington D.C. for the March for Life and would be bringing students with her. I got so excited to see the kids and my mentor teacher, that I immediately started looking into transportation to Washington to see them.

The only thing that didn't really excite me were the words "March for Life." I'm pro-life; always have been, always will be. I'm one of those pesky pro-lifers that also sees the necessity of war and the death penalty, so call me what you will, but when it comes to a fertilized egg and sperm, I consider that to be life, and I think it should be protected. But, as I told many of my friends who asked what I'd be doing in Washington, I said "Well the kids are going to the March for Life... Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-life, but I'm very anti-pro-life-rally." In my mind, I saw Washington FILLED with GIANT posters with pictures of mutilated fetuses, people screaming and yelling, never listening to the opposing viewpoints, and loud raucous simpletons coming up with not-so-clever slogans.

Now, before we progress any further, I feel I should offer a warning: Those of you who know me well... who have talked at length about any Biblical, political, social, or sports issue with me... please take this opportunity to find a comfortable, safe, balanced spot, and sit down.)

I was wrong. (Is everyone ok? Did we make it? No one's concussed from hitting the floor because of that admission, right?)

I guess I was partially right (see? We all knew I wouldn’t admit to being TOTALLY wrong)... all of the stuff I mentioned was there, but it wasn't the focus, not by a long shot. The entire day was educational, and peaceful, and really cool (and cold… brrr).

It started off by me waiting for about an hour to see my students from Grace Prep, but once they finally got there, you might have confused me for Barack Obama for a minute... I was in Washington and dozens of people were chanting my name and happy to see me. It was a fantastic (delayed) reunion. I cannot stress enough how much I love those kids. But, oddly enough, it wouldn't even be the coolest moment of the day.

Our first stop was to see several of the Congressmen from the delegation of Pennsylvania who were to address their constituents (and in my case, former constituent) about the importance of the issue at hand. We were to meet in the Cannon House Office Building promptly at 1 PM, and at about 12:50 we were all in line waiting to get through the metal detector. However, when we arrived, we found out that we had the wrong time. The Congressional reception wasn't slated to start until 2.

Rather than go outside, join the March, and then get all the way back and go through security again, Nancy (my mentor teacher) decided to have everyone sit down to learn about the issue that the students were there to support. What looked, at first, to be a mistake ended up being an incredible blessing. Jenny Summers from A Woman's Concern, a State College run pregnancy resource clinic, and Nancy shared stories about women that they knew who had wrestled with this issue of abortion. Statistics, Bible verses, anecdotal evidence all came to the surface. I had heard much of it before, agreed with it, but still didn’t feel entirely comfortable “rallying” about it. After the Congressmen shared their piece about their various efforts to help in the pro-life cause, we all got up and headed out to the March.

It was unlike anything I’d ever seen… rather than stopping in the middle of roads, with a stage and lots of music and speakers shouting vitriolic statements, it was just a bunch of people (a conservative estimate is around 400,000) walking up a street. Some people shouted, some people carried signs, and some people just walked and talked, unified under a cause that they passionately believed in.

I felt bad about my previous misconceptions of the people of this event, so I knew I had to blog about it. Most people know where they stand on this issue, but even I, someone who will discuss and debate anything, didn’t give these people a fair chance. The stories that I heard yesterday were stirring… women who had had abortions and regretted them, a story from a girl whose family took a fetus to term, who by scientific standards “should have been aborted,” and stories about women who had an abortion that didn’t kill the baby, decided to take that baby to term and raise it as a beautiful, perfectly healthy boy that is still alive today. These are stories that never get play in the media, stories that I had never heard before, all because a few people who make stupid decisions get all the air time.

Now, more than 24 hours after the March, ABC, CBS, and NBC have yet to report on the March for Life. It was only mentioned once on CNN. It’s not even a part of the media discussion… but it certainly should be. Four-Hundred THOUSAND people from all over the country descended on the nation’s capital to take a stand and it doesn’t even get a mention on CBSNews.com, but the fact that Jersey Shore will be filmed next season in Italy is front page news. How messed up is that? Have you ever heard of the “Million Man March?” Bet you have. Was it important? Certainly. Guess how many people are estimated to have gone to that? Four-hundred thousand. Once. The March for Life has been an annual event every year since 1974, an ongoing, peaceful demonstration asking politicians to pay attention, and asking the nation to get involved with the conversation. So I’ll ask you to do the same.

Abortion is a hot issue in America, and not something that should be done frivolously or in ignorance. Find someone from both sides who is knowledgeable and can make cogent arguments. When you hear the phrase “There are always two victims in an abortion… the baby and the mother,” don’t just shrug it off… ask a mother who has had an abortion what that’s like. This issue isn’t going away, not according to the 400,000+ people that I saw in DC on Monday, and not according to the Congressmen who I heard from. Think about the implications, the consequences of such a weighty decision. But in all things, act in love, discuss in love. And please, be open, like I wasn’t.

Psalm 139: 13,14

For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.

(Special Thanks to those who I asked about using the word “pansy” in this blog post. I hope it didn’t offend anyone. I went so far as to ask someone I consider “more paranoid than God” and she didn’t have a problem with it. It was for comedic effect... sorry if it offends.)

Compromise is not always a good thing

2011-01-18T21:00:00.001-05:00

Note: You get it three hours early this week... enjoy... probably won't happen frequently.

The Huffington Post published an article last week in which the author and one semi-famous Christian pastor came out in defense of homosexuality in the Bible. You can read it here, if you so desire, or you can keep their traffic down as well and just read my rantings and ravings as to why it's wrong.

Jay Bakker (son of Jim and Tammy Faye... if those names don't mean much to you, that's ok), has struggled with a problem for years. When he graduated from Wheaton College, many of his Christian friends came out of the closet. His response at that time was the right one: "Love them. Unconditionally, without caveats or exceptions." However, he has now decided that after thousands of years of scriptural inquiry, the translators of the Bible were wrong, and the Bible doesn't actually say that homosexuality is a sin... at least not in the New Testament.

"The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin ... a capital offense even," Bakker writes. "But before you say, 'I told you so,' consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.
"The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal."
Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.
"The church has always been late," Bakker told me in an interview this week. "We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we're late on this."

I met Jay Bakker at his church when I went to New York on Spring Break trip with my campus ministry from Penn State. I think to call him "seeker sensitive" would be fair. He strikes me as someone who tries to love God, but has decided that he would rather love people first. I get that, I do that a lot too. However, Bob Russell once pulled from the Bible that God's Word is perfect and true... sharper than any double-edged sword... and if we preach the truth, then people will respond. If they don't respond to the truth, it doesn't much matter because following a false doctrine isn't guaranteed to get you into heaven. However, teaching false doctrine is pretty much guaranteed to keep you out. That's where Bakker has made his fatal mistake.

I basically hate anything that HuffPo puts out there because it's usually wildly inaccurate, but based on the article, and his direct quotes, I think Bakker is the one at the most fault here. Using the logic that "Jesus didn't talk much about homosexuality" is stupid... He also didn't talk about bestiality; that's another issue where the Old Testament condemns the practice, and the New Testament doesn't... Hey! Where's the nearest goat and I'll sign Jay Bakker up!

I'd love to know which Scripture he's talking about that has been mistranslated, but of course the article writer didn't feel the need to put it in, and I don't plan on buying this book. Specifically, I'd love to see the explanation for Romans 1:25-27

²⁵ They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. ²⁶ That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. ²⁷ And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.

BUT IT DOESN'T USE THE *WORD* HOMOSEXUAL, SO IT'S OK!!! Please. Now, let's get a few things straight. I do not hate gay people... in fact, I have friends who are gay. They like me and I like them. But when it comes down to it, I respect the Bible more than them, or any of my friends. As I said last week, I'm not perfect, I mess up, and I've sinned. I am as guilty as any gay person who walks on this earth. Both of us deserve to go to Hell. But when Jesus said "Go and sin no more," I think He meant all sin, and not just what we can rationalize as being "not sin" to our depraved minds. I like how Paul puts it in Romans 6:1,2

¹ What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

A good, honest reading of the Bible, for those who trust God and trust his Word, shows that the Bible frames homosexuality as a sin. It's not a mistranslation, it's not an error. So for gay people who try to find excuses to remain in their sin, instead of repenting like the entirety of Christianity, nay, the world is called to, they're in trouble.

That being said, out of the two, homosexuals as a community and Bakker, I feel like the homosexuals are actually in a better place. I'd love to see Bakker respond to 2 Peter 2 (I'll just quote the first three verses)

¹ But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. ² Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. ³ In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.

I do agree with Bakker that people need to be shown the love of Christ. However, the love of Christ isn't always as lovey-dovey as we'd like it. Far and away, the most common attribute used to describe God in the Bible is "holy." We are to "Be holy, because [God] is holy." Sin is not holy, and false teaching is even less so. And so, for people like Bakker, I fear it's not the love of Christ they'll be experiencing, but the anger.

The Motivational Speaker

2011-01-12T00:00:00.004-05:00

Ever sat through a motivational speaker who just didn't do it for you? That was me last week. The problem isn't so much that I wasn't motivated... it was that everyone else around me seemed to be buying into it, and I wasn't.

Disclaimer (for those of you who were there and may read my blog): I would like to make it clear, I fully respect and am not disparaging the people who liked the talk, nor am I disparaging the speaker himself, but I don't agree with much that he had to say.

Full disclosure here: I'm honestly one of the MOST cynical and judgmental audience members that you will ever come across. I hate being told what to do by someone who doesn't know me. I've always ascribed to the view that there is not one quick "fix-it" for all people, except to point them to God, and I admit- even THAT looks very different for all people. So when someone gets up in front of me and tells me, "You need to start thinking in this way," I immediately think "NO, YOU BIG STUPID HEAD!" (Hey, no one said I was mature in my thinking)

Besides the obvious disagreements that I would have with someone whose one-stop-quick-fix-it plan does not really center on "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself," I felt my frustration growing at every suggestion he made. Here were some highlights.

"As a society, we need to invest in our youth! The youth is our future!"-- Michelle Tanner, you wanna take this one for me?
Paraphrase: The solution to all our problems is getting kids to play outside. I sent my kids to an outdoors camp that focused on nature, leadership, maturity, and I never had to check my kids grades again. -- I'm still not sure how those things all run together.
"You've got your soil... that's nature, the basis for everything... then you've got water, and that provides the life into nature, it allows things to grow. Then there's sunshine... that's where you come in, you can control sunshine and figure out where it shines." -- Last I checked, I don't control the sun. I think the analogy was that we can choose to focus on kids who are acting mature, but I'm not sure... primarily because of the next point I'm going to touch on.
Many people who attended this meeting would probably bemoan that I missed the point entirely, or that I wasn't listening. They're probably right. That's mostly because my brain locked up when I heard this: "I've read all the great thinkers, and every single one of them says that when you stop thinking about yourself, you start being successful in life. That's what I'm here to tell you."

Let's look at that again... All of the great thinkers say "Don't think about yourself," but listen to ME because I've read all of them and have figured it all out and can fit it into this 25 minute presentation!!!
And that wouldn't be too bad if he didn't immediately move into "The truth is inside you... only you can know what that truth is." -- So ignore those thinkers I was telling you about, and ignore me, because only YOU have the answers!

Now, I'm 23 years old. I can get a pretty big head about me sometimes, and a lot of times I think I have answers to all of life's questions. But I think the fact that I admit that I can, at times, have that pride should show that I have enough sense to know I don't have it all figured out. I know that not everyone believes the same things I do, but I don't make anyone listen to what I say without first finding a place in the Bible to back it up. If you don't believe in the Bible, you're not going to agree with my hard-line stances. But whenever anyone says to "look within yourself" you need to be VERY careful about listening to anything that person tells you.

Bottom line: If you get to look within yourself, that means I also get to look within myself. If what is within myself doesn't jive with what's within yourself then we're going to have a problem... in which case neither one of us has authority to prove anything because we're looking within ourselves.

That's why I rely on the Bible. I'm not going to let anyone read this and think that I'm perfect and follow everything that the Bible says 100% of the time (in addition to listening to anyone who says that you should look within yourself for answers to life, you should also be wary of people who claim they're perfect). I screw up just like anyone else-- but if you want to know where I stand on an issue, or why I have that stance, don't be surprised when I flip open the Bible to answer that question. The Bible has been around for a good 1900 years by now... 1600 of those it has been canonized and in its current order. In my opinion, that's a whole lot better than "Well, I just decided that this is what's right for me, and you can decide what's right for you... unless I happen to disagree with the conclusion you draw from inside yourself."

This is probably best illustrated by a conversation I witnessed at Penn State. But first, a little background. Gary Cattell, aka "The Willard Preacher," faithfully stands outside of the Willard Building beginning at Noon on every class day and preaches God's Word to the students at Penn State. I disagree with some of his viewpoints and some of his methods, however, what I do not disagree with is his genuine care for the students at Penn State. I'll also say this... don't expect compromises with Gary... it's his way or the highway. We've had our disagreements over the years (as recently as last week), but we still like each other and I respect him (fairly certain he respects me too).

One day Gary and some Penn State students were talking just outside of the Willard Building. The topic was something along the lines of "Why do you think you're right Mister Preacher Man?" Gary had one question for the students who asked that, "From where do you draw your moral authority?"

"Society!" one of the students answered.

"So you think society is always right... no matter the issue, you'll always agree with society?"

"Well no, sometimes society is wrong," the student replied.

"How do you know when society is wrong?"

"The majority of people will know when society is wrong and will rebel against society."

"Ohhh, so the majority is always right," said Gary.

"Well, no, not always."

Gary looked at the student, "So if society isn't always right... and the majority isn't always right... how do you know you're right?"

"Well you just know it... there's something inside of you that says, 'This is the right thing to do.'"

"Ah ok. So if you are your moral authority, then I guess I'm MY moral authority... and if I feel that it's right to rape four year olds, then I guess that's nothing that you or anyone else would have a problem with."

"Of course I'd have a problem with that!"

"Why?" asked Gary.

"Because that goes against society!"

"Oh, so you draw your moral authority from society? So society is always right?"

I'll spare you the rest of the conversation because I swear it repeated about three times without the kid realizing that he lost the logic battle.

There are good approaches that argue for morality outside of the Bible. Greg Epstein's Good Without God: What a Billion Non-religious People Do Believe is one of them. I've not read much by him, but I've heard that John Loftus also makes a compelling argument. That being said, I think most people would agree that some degree of consistency is necessary when dealing with issues such as these.

I'm of the opinion that if you believe in something strongly enough, you should be able to tell me exactly why you believe it, and you should be able to argue for it. Note that I said argue FOR your viewpoint... don't tell me why you DON'T believe in something else as proof for your own beliefs. And there's hope for people out there who don't know why they believe what they do... just don't argue.

So there's some advice to you. I'm not saying that your speech should be restricted, but that you should truly and honestly figure out WHAT you believe and WHY you believe it before you start to spout off motivational mantras. I love to debate, discuss, inquire, but I think back to a quote that my dad had on his facebook a while back and I think it's an appropriate way to wrap this up:

"Nothing is as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what they're talking about"

and my addendum: "Also, it's very frustrating having to sit through a speech by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, and you don't even get to argue!"

Special thanks to Elise O'Loughlin for making sure that I sound at least somewhat rational. All grammar errors are mine and mine alone.

New York

2011-01-05T02:35:00.007-05:00

Quick post today as I get back into the swing of things around Culpeper.

I went to New York City last Thursday so I could see some of the holiday windows and just be in the city (one of my top two favorite places in the world to visit). However, I went with one caveat in mind-- get there and get out before New Years Eve.

Now, Times Square is generally a very crowded place anyway, but no night moreso than New Year's Eve. Most people, save a million or so, had the good sense to stay out of Times Square that night... my friend Brad was not one of them.

Since I had been in the city the day before, I offered suggestions on how to get into the city, where to go once he got there, etc. etc. We communicated via text and phone for most of the day, so I got more of the "Times Square New Year's Eve" experience than I usually do, but it's about as much as I ever want.

What was genuinely interesting, however, was the excitement and anticipation that just exuded out of that experience for Brad. He arrived in Times Square around 12:24 (that's what time he sent a text saying he was there, anyway); he and his friends were among the first to gather for the 11 1/2 hour wait. As time ticked along, there were countdowns to celebrations for the New Year all around the world (beginning in Hong Kong) all the way until midnight in New York.

Cynicism Alert: I don't get excited about much, and replacing a 0 with a 1 in the year really doesn't thrill me.

I think to myself sometimes, what if the church had even 1/10 of the excitement that is contained in Times Square on December 31st for the algebraic expression x+1? We seem to have a lot more to celebrate... maybe we should.

But it appears that Brad and company had fun anyway:

Adam Shellenbarger's life in 2010

2010-12-29T04:04:00.004-05:00

Greetings, felicitations, and salutations!

Hm, perhaps I should include three synonyms for a random word in each sentence in this letter/blogpost/update. Though that could get old/aged/mundane really quickly, and I don't feel like grabbing my thesaurus.

Let's restart, shall we?

Hi everyone!

I've received quite a few Christmas letters this year, and was surprised to see how short some of them were. I think that this is because no one actually expects people to read the letter. There's nothing wrong with that, but I figured that if someone actually takes the time to read the letter part, they must genuinely be interested, or have nothing better to do. What you are about to read is for those of you who care about me for one reason or another, or those of you who are bored out of your mind. The rest of you can just skip down to the bulletpoint list at the bottom of this update, or stop reading right after I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year acquaintances and busy friends!

For the rest of you, I'll give a quick summary of my life thus far, in case you forgot (By the way casual friends... this is not the bullet list that you need to pay attention to... keep going down):

I was born on a Monday
I lived in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
I was a REALLY boring kid.
Though I won my first grade spelling bee on the word “dinosaur,” so I guess I was mildly interesting.
I wanted to be lots of things “when I grew up” but in the 6^th grade, I decided I wanted to be a preacher and never looked back.
In high school, my parents and a campus minister at Penn State decided that I might be better served at a secular college, rather than a Bible College at first, so I could get immersed in a secular society so I could hopefully have an effective ministry. This led me to Penn State, which I've loved since I was in my mother's womb for Joe Paterno's 200^th victory, in which he beat Bowling Green.
I majored in Secondary Education with concentrations in English and Communications.
I got engaged in 2009
I'm pretty sure most of those don't qualify as “bullet points”

→ Real update starting now *buckle your seat belts!* (If you haven't even chuckled up to this point, seriously, just skip to the bottom... the rest of the letter is just more of this flippant stream-of-consciousness stuff... fun fact, I submitted one of my recent blog entries into a computer algorithm that supposedly analyzes one's writing and then says who that person writes like... mine was James Joyce. Oh yeah, you're gonna LOVE yourself for deciding to read this whole thing (sarcasm)... Ironically, after writing this whole thing, I went back to that thing at iwl.me and this is apparently in the style of Cory Doctorow, who's a Canadian blogger. I feel multi-cultural now!).

→ REAL real update starting now: At this point last year, I was getting ready to begin my Student teaching semester at Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania. I was told that at one point in the semester, I would experience all of the following: laughter, tears, illness, frustration, anxiety, anger, and a bunch of other emotions that I don't remember, but if you were paying attention, only the first one sounded remotely attractive.

Well, lo and behold, I did experience all of those emotions and more. My student teaching was filled with wonderful students, a fantastic mentor, a Penn State adviser who was my nemesis all semester (but someone whom I hold no grudges against), and a ton of work. I can honestly say that Student teaching was the hardest I EVER worked in school, but it was an incredibly rewarding experience that led to sermon illustrations for DECADES to come.

I had the opportunity to teach Of Mice and Men, Greek tragedy, Antigone, Julius Caesar, A Raisin in the Sun, The Princess Bride, and I helped my mentor teacher's AP kids through The Canterbury Tales, King Lear, Frankenstein, some poetry, and Time's Arrow. It was an action-packed semester that was tons of fun, and partially miserable. I loved being in a classroom with the students, though, and continue to look for opportunities to impact high school students in some capacity.

Once May rolled around, I prepared for graduation. My fiancee's dad had told me that I couldn't marry her unless I found a job. I had made a trip out to Columbus, Ohio to interview for a church in Ohio State Buckeye territory, and though the church and I had a very positive interview, God must have known that there was no way I could minister to the non-Christians in the area if I was too busy working on the Ohio State cheering heathens within the church there. A week before graduation, I really had no prospects, but I did find a job posting for another church in Culpeper, Virginia. I decided to shoot off an e-mail to them, hoping that they would pay attention to a 22 year old kid from Penn State with no Bible degree. As it turned out, I graduated from Penn State, and they did pay attention and granted me a phone interview, and after that, a trial sermon / physical interview.

The trip to Culpeper went well, and I felt very good about the church and the direction in which my life was heading-- then my fiancee broke up with me. Don't freak out, it's ok now, but if you saw somewhat alarming statuses on facebook between July and October, that's why. I'm not going to go into great amounts of detail on this subject (that's too personal to share in a mass-mailing / blogpost... and besides, we'd get out of James Joyce territory and head straight for Leo Tolstoy... not because the entire breakup took place in social-economically depressed Russia... I was driving for the whole “War and Peace is LONG angle of things... in case you didn't pick up on that). Anyway, long story short, the breakup was MUCH more of a surprise to me than it was to her, and I now faced the prospect of taking a job in Virginia where I knew no one, if the church hired me.

I called the church and informed them of the newly tumultuous situation in my life. After discussing it with the congregation, the elders of the church decided to recommend that the congregation vote on whether or not to accept me for the position of “Preacher.” I'm not sure how many people were there, so let's define the number of people present at church that day to be x, and t can be the total number of people who voted for me, so that works out to x-1=t. The one guy who didn't vote for me has since confessed that it was him, and he said it was due to uncertainty he had about my breakup. Anyway, with a nearly unanimous vote, I became the preacher of First Christian Church at Culpeper, Virginia. 2 and a half weeks later, I was on my way down to Virginia.

While it's true I wasn't exactly overflowing with cupfuls of cheery sunshine and unicorn flavored lollipops at first (… that didn't work... you know what I'm going for) God definitely has been using me in Culpeper. In the time since the breakup, I've come to a point of genuine peace, I've forgiven my fiancee for the things that she did to hurt me and have asked for forgiveness for the things that I did to hurt her. She's still a great girl, and we've reached a point of peace. God has truly shown His faithfulness to me, and for that I'm grateful.

The beginning of my ministry had its trials and tribulations which you can read about on the rest of this blog, or listen to on the podcast at www.firstchristianculpeper.com. The one BIG thing to hear about is that I suggested and implemented a “Campaign of Kindness” at my church. I challenged my church of about 20 people to do 2500 acts of kindness in 6 months. I'm not sure whether or not we'll reach that goal, but I think it's pretty clear that even a little church can do great things. Our most recent project came on Christmas Eve when we sought out those who had to work and spend time away from their families. We took time with our families to spread Christmas cheer to them in the form of tasty desserts. My family alone served somewhere in the vicinity of 80-100 people with cookies, and the rest of the church rose to the challenge as well. It was such a blessing to look at the reactions of the people who work in the service industries when they were the ones being served. For more information on the Campaign of Kindness, check out the article that made the local paper (click), and for more information about our Christmas Eve service project, click here.

My church still has a long way to go, but the people are wonderful and really seem to be getting excited for a new direction. We've recently purchased an LCD projector, so I have a new toy to play with. I feel that God is moving in this church, but I'm not going to pretend to understand exactly what He has in store for us.

As for my personal life in Virginia, I participate in two games nights and have been spending a lot of time talking with friends in Pennsylvania, as well as trying to meet various people in Virginia. I live in a basement apartment in a home with a very fun family who live upstairs. I have the Big Ten Network now, so I can still follow Penn State sports as well!

If you ever feel inclined to come visit Virginia, I would love to see you! Virginia is a beautiful state (which you'll have plenty of time to enjoy as Virginia drivers tend to go 10 miles an hour under the speed limit at all times). Give me a call or shoot me an e-mail to let me know you're coming!

I feel like I've put you all through enough at this point, so let me make that bullet list I promised everyone else:

BULLET LIST (you can start reading again)

Student teaching was hard, but it went well
Graduated from Penn State with a degree in Secondary Education-- English and Communications
Went through a breakup, but am at peace about it
Got a job as a preacher in Culpeper, Virginia and am enjoying it!
Would love to host visitors!

And so that's it! Feel free to pass this on to whoever might be interested in it. You can leave comments on the blog, or you can e-mail them to me at adamshellenbarger@gmail.com.

Lastly, I want to thank those of you who have shown how much you care about me. 2010 was not my favorite year of my life so far, but it's a year when I'll always remember my friends and family who helped me through some really rough patches and helped me to grow into a stronger Christian, person, and preacher. I don't know what 2011 holds, but I feel very confident in moving forward with such a great support system behind me. Thank you.

Adam

Despicable Tradition

2010-12-21T15:44:00.004-05:00

One of my longest lasting traditions is going to end in a week and a half. Every year of my life my family has hosted a New Year's Day party centering on football, food, and fun. The only people not-blood related to me, who have been at every single one of those parties will not be there this year, and while they will be sorely missed, it has made me think a thought which would probably make many people uncomfortable.

Does anyone feel like tradition is overrated?

I guess I've never been one for many traditions. My family didn't have too many when I was growing up, and many of the ones that I do remember only stuck for a few years until we moved on to other things.

Some traditions are not important at all. We used to have ham on Christmas. I despise baked ham. The year that I made a ham sandwich for Christmas dinner was the last year we had ham, and now we have beef. Much better.

Other traditions are incredibly important. No one in our household is allowed to open any Christmas presents until we read Luke 2:1-20. That's a tradition that my family will continue this year, and the year after that, and it's one that I will pass on to my kids as well.

But, for the most part, I feel tradition really isn't as big of a deal as we make it. In fact, I feel like many traditions that people hold are because OTHERS expect them to hold those traditions. Unfortunately, I'm always reminded of this around Christmastime, and then I think back to one particular Bible verse. This is God speaking to the nation of Israel through the prophet Amos:

Amos 5:21-24 NLT

"I hate all your show and pretense--the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your hymns of praise! They are only noise to my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is."

"Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry."

Merry Christmas Everyone!

But in all seriousness, we all come together to celebrate Christmas... but what are we truly celebrating? The birth of Christ? or the exchange of presents? Is Christmas that one time a year when you make an effort to get to church?

A New Year is approaching, a time where we tend to hit the reset button and try to readjust our lives to better ourselves. Examine your heart this Christmas season, see what you're truly celebrating, and if need be make a correction.

In all seriousness, Merry Christmas. Next week I'll be home with my family, but if you check back, I presume there will be a link to some kind of Christmas update letter or something. In the event that I don't get on here next week, though, Happy New Year as well!

Profitable Ideas

2010-12-15T03:03:00.003-05:00

I know it's not necessarily a good thing to be stubborn, but sometimes it pays off.

I experienced that last one this last week when I discovered that a couple in my church had purchased a new television stand for a large and awkward television that we had. Until this point, we rested the TV up on two small chairs which were already on top of a table, so the new TV stand was a welcome addition, one that I didn't even know was coming until I found out that we couldn't use it. The couple had assembled the stand in one of our little classrooms, but when they went to wheel it out into the main room in the basement, they discovered that it couldn't fit through the door frame. They tried everything: removing the door, pushing it through, twisting it and turning it from every angle, but it just wouldn't go. It was too big... by about 1 centimeter.

Now as a preacher, I love to hear things like that, "Oh? It was too big by 1 centimeter? That seems like such a small minor difference, but it's enough to hinder you from your goal... kind of like being on the straight and narrow path!" Analogies would have abounded from that point, except, I decided to give it a try to get it through the door. I assume I tried all the same moves that the couple had first tried, to the same result. Then one of my members came over and jokingly mocked me saying, "You can't get it through that door." Since I've been watching a lot of the television show "How I Met Your Mother," my response to that was, "Challenge Accepted!"

Another woman saw my struggle to try to jam it through the door and believed we could find some way to get it through. After about 5 minutes, we made major progress. Our list of accomplishments now stood at

1.) We have jammed the television stand in the door, making the doorway impassable.

2.) The woman helping me was stuck in the room.

Whoops.

Well now I really had to make something happen, so I crawled over the TV stand and put myself in the room which I will now refer to as "Mount Doom" as it where this television stand was forged (or at least assembled). The woman and I pushed-- it didn't budge. We got a hammer from the other side and started pounding-- it didn't budge. I leaned all my weight on it-- nothing. I took a running start and lunged into the stand-- still nothing.

At this point, I was started to get nervous... is downsizing your available classroom space by 33% and depleting the churches resources by an additional 1 television stand a fireable offense?

My next attempt to get it to move was to try to wiggle it free... that still didn't work. I laid on my back, drew back both of my legs, and sprung them both out as hard as I could, directly on the bottom of the stand, not thinking that if the stand didn't move, I could probably seriously injure myself. Thankfully, the stand gave a little and I heard cries of delight from the crowd which had now gathered around to see the spectacle that was the "preacher vs. the television stand."

"DO THAT AGAIN!!! YAY ADAM! YOU'RE AWESOME!" (I'm sure that's what they said)

So I kicked again, this time at the top of the television stand, and it simply popped out with minimal damage to the door or the stand. Amazingly, no one was hurt, and perhaps even more amazingly, I didn't even gloat... I was just so glad to get out of Mt. Doom!

My stubbornness got the best of me, and then I supposed I got the best of the television stand. But I got to thinking about that, and about some experiences that I have had in my life before. I realized that, in churches today, we tend to hear "No" a lot more than we hear "Yes;" we hear "You can't" rather than "You can." And even a stubborn mule like me tends to get beaten down after hearing "No" too many times. We need to get away from that.

I'm an advocate that individuals, small groups, ministries, churches, and the entire body of Christ should have a direction in which they're moving, but many of those entities don't. I'm very grateful that my church doesn't say "No" outright very often. Sometimes I get a "Let's wait" but very rarely do I receive a "No." When I got to First Christian Church at Culpeper, we didn't have much of a direction, and we're still defining what that direction is fully, but now we have one, and we're a stronger church for it.

As Christians, I think we should all examine ourselves and look for where our lives are heading. If you can't find a direction that you're heading toward, pray to God for ways that you might be able to impact His Kingdom. Think back to passions that you once had, or things that you wanted to see, when someone told you "No," and try to implement it.

That being said, I don't think we need to swing completely in the other direction and just say yes to any idea that comes along. Here's a list of unfinished criteria that I've thought up for "Acceptable ideas"... do you have any other suggestions?

An acceptable idea should never contradict anything the Bible has forbidden.
An acceptable idea should be profitable for the Kingdom of God.
An acceptable idea should have a clearly defined direction, with observable benchmarks.
An acceptable idea should not utilize a ridiculous amount of church resources, including time, money, and manpower, unless the church leadership specifically encourages this.
An acceptable idea, if given the chance to succeed, should be graciously retracted if it doesn't work out.

The True Meaning of Christmas

2010-12-08T02:47:00.002-05:00

Chuck Sackett, the former President of Lincoln Christian College, once told me something that I'm sure has been repeated hundreds of times, but he was the first I'd heard it from. He said “If you can do anything other than preach, do it... if you don't have a passion for preaching, you're never going to make it.” That stuck with me throughout college, even though I decided not to attend Bible College, and when the time came to start looking for jobs, I spurned immediately looking for jobs in my degree area (teaching English) and focused on ministry jobs. My decision was questioned by some, but most people supported me... except for one person who challenged my readiness in a way that no one else dared.

Apparently, her brother had died when she was younger. I'm a little fuzzy on the details of that part of the conversation because the next part shocked me. She told me that her father's faith was shaken to the core and that the minister of her church had gone over to talk to him, to console him, and to counsel him. That minister was met with this response: “Which of your sons has died?” The minister hadn't had any of his sons die and told this woman's father that. The father replied, “Then you have nothing to say to me.” The woman then asked me how I would respond to that when I was a preacher... how a 23 year old might be able to comfort someone who had been through such an ordeal.

I responded first with the fact that, when I was 7, I had a friend pass away and that I understood loss. She retorted, “It's not the same as a son, Adam.” So then I said, “Well, then I suppose I might say, God lost His Son.” This was the end of the conversation. Both she and I were so exasperated at each other that neither one of us really felt like talking about it anymore. I don't really blame her for having these feelings-- it was pretty obvious that we had been treading on some pretty serious ground, but I still think I had a valid point.

Christmastime is that special time of year when we tend to conceptualize the fact that Jesus was actually once a baby, that he was the Son of Joseph and Mary, but also one to God Himself. Joseph and Mary cared for this child, loved this child, raised this child. So did God, but God knew fully what was in store for Jesus when He grew up. The fact that God loved us enough to send His Son, His Holy perfect Son, as a sacrifice for humanity is nothing short of amazing. I'm not a father, so I don't know that I'll truly understand just how BIG that is until I am one, but I know that it's big.

I don't want to gloss over that fact at all. It's enormous. So I gave it this mini-paragraph. And I'll follow it up with Romans 8:3,4

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

Now we know that God desires all men to be saved. Romans 11 talks about how Jews and Gentiles and how the Jews are the true descendents of Abraham, but some have fallen away. Those Jews are like dead branches on an olive tree, and the Gentiles can replace them: Romans 11:17

But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree.

To me, that would have been more than good enough. If God had said, “Ok humanity, you messed up, but we'll let you come along for the ride,” that would have been great. Think of it like a prosthetic hand. There are now prosthetic hands with individually powered digits which are controlled using myoelectric signals (which are generated from the residual limb).* It's not quite a real hand, but it's the next best thing. No one, I don't think, would complain and say, “I'd rather have no hand at all than this stupid prosthetic!” But that's not where God drew the line. Romans 8:14-17

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Christ was a Son to God, and we're told that Christ loves us like the Father loves Him-- and since Christ and the Father are one, we're loved as sons and daughters of God as well! Just as Jesus was God's Son, that's how God views us.

I mentioned last week how Christ was the redemption plan since Adam and Eve's first sin. To put this in perspective, I like to imagine Adam and Eve taking that piece of fruit and partaking in the first sin as the moment where all the angels collectively go “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” like someone just missed a crucial field goal in a football game. But when Christ was born on earth and all the angels are there to announce the birth of Christ, it's like the game winning kick and everyone starts to celebrate.

Check your inboxes in the next few weeks and you'll start to see e-mails circulating about the “True Meaning of Christmas.” There will be talk about how Christmas is over-commercialized, and how “Jesus is the reason for the season.” That's all true. But just as true is this-- when the angels said the “First Noel” they were celebrating the birth of Christ, as well as the fact that millions of other believers would soon be adopted as true sons and daughters into the family.

The end of the second passage I quoted from Romans 8 “But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering” is telling. Just because we're sons and daughters of God doesn't mean that things will be peachy, or even easy. God is a loving gracious father, but He is also fair and just. Sometimes fairness and justice hurt. I can't give an account for why God chooses to do what He does, and I never will be able to. I also don't know if it would provide any solace to the father of that woman to whom I was talking, but I do know this-- God cared for her brother enough that He sent His actual Son to die for him, so that he could be justified as a Son of God, and loved him like one too... just like He cares for all of those who faithfully follow Him.

*Thanks to my friend Nicole for giving me the “jumping off point” that inspired this blog entry. All of that prosthetic limb technical business are her words, not mine.

Chritophanies and Advent Season

2010-11-30T02:37:00.008-05:00

Have you ever gotten a reference to something and said to yourself, "I wonder if anyone else caught that...?" One of my favorite television shows is Bones. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a crime drama in which the main character and forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan and her FBI Agent partner Seeley Booth join forces and expertises to solve murders. The writers on that show exhibit their brilliance on a weekly basis by letting the audience catch on to small subtle jokes.

I was treated to TWO cool moments this week! One: the murdered character of the week (there's pretty much one of those every episode) went to Penn State, which I found neat (and a little sad :-( poor dead fictional Penn Stater). Two: she was a spy named Harriet... aka Harriet the Spy! Quickly wondering if anyone else caught that, I pulled up my Twitter client and searched for "Harriet Spy Bones" and sure enough, other people were having the same kind of "HEY! HARRIET THE SPY! I see what you did there writers!" moment that I was having.

I think God does this as well.

Someone (Bret Koontz? Kevin Brungard?) who was a leader in my church camp when I was a kid pointed out what he called "Jesus cameos" in the Old Testament. These "Jesus cameos" were little parts in the Old Testament where it seems that Jesus pops in for a bit. For example, check out the "Fiery Furnace" scene in Daniel 3. For those of you who may be a little fuzzy on the details to the story, I'll sum it up for you.

Basically, there was this jerk king named Nebuchadnezzar. He had a bright idea to make a statue of himself out of gold and get everyone in his kingdom to bow before it. If anyone refused, they'dget tossed into a furnace. Reasonable, right?

Anyway, there are three guys (friends of Daniel) who are faithful to Daniel. We know them as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (aka Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah). They talk amongst themselves and agree they're not going to bow to this image of the king, because they know the second of the Ten Commandments says they shouldn't. In fact they're so emboldened, they give this response to Nebuchadnezzar: "“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."”

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm pretty sure there was a little of this going on:

But I digress. I love their actual, Biblically recorded response just as it is, their faith, and their total dependence on God. It's for this attitude, I believe, that God uses them to demonstrate His awesome power. Nebuchadnezzar, being royally (get it?) ticked off, declared that the furnace should be heated SEVEN times hotter than normal. It was *so* hot that the guards who took the three men to be tossed in the furnace DIED from the heat. But not Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Daniel 3:24-25

"Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

Many Bible commentators believe that this fourth man was not a "son of the gods" but The Son of God, Jesus Christ. This kind of appearance is called a Christophany, and I honestly believe that one of the reasons God chooses to do this is to allow us to say, "Huh... that's kinda cool." It also generally means that people should pay attention... Nebuchadnezzar certainly learned his lesson (until the end of that chapter of the Bible anyway). Daniel 3:28

"Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God."

This kind of thing pops up all over literature as well (Hagrid mentioning Sirius Black in the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book, for example). Maybe I'm weird, but it always gives me a little bit of joy and pleasure when I find these things.

I think my favorite of all time, though, is that Jesus Christ is mentioned in the THIRD chapter of the Bible. Now to put that in perspective, it takes LESS than 0.336417157% of the Bible to get to a mention of Jesus.

Genesis 3:14-15: (emphasis mine)

So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

From the very beginning of time, even before the beginning of time, God had a redemption plan in place, and Jesus keeps checking in periodically. We can see Him throughout the Old Testament, and of course in the New Testament. One thing always remains the same--when Jesus shows up, people pay attention. We're getting into the time of the year where we think about His arrival on this planet. Jesus showed up... pay attention. Keep that in mind as you delve into all your Christmas shopping.

Happy Advent Season everyone!

Q & A: The Essentials- Sin

2010-11-24T11:07:00.003-05:00

I'm without a computer still (FedEx's fault) and I'm travelling, so this will be a pretty quick post today. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from me to you.

I heard from several people about my post from two weeks ago, the one about the two men who decided to continue to serve in ministry even though they no longer believe in Christ. Many people told me something to the effect of, "Of course they're sinning, you didn't need to tell me that," but I feel that many people (especially those outside the church) would not recognize their sin. My friend Emily took that a step further and commented on my post. Here was her question:

Since the economy is so bad and it sounds like these men haven't really held a lot of other jobs, where could they go if they don't continue to preach? Do you give them any credit at all for at least attempting to stick to the parts of the Bible that they believe in and preaching about being a good person, instead of preaching things that they straight out don't believe?

I was really excited when I got this, because I figured I'd have way too little time to blog this week and I knew I could answer this with one passage from the Bible! It's not that the question is elementary, but what these men are doing is SO blatantly wrong, it's easy to find things in the Bible to refute them.

Titus 1:6-9

An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless-not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Now, it's important to note that the word "elder" here probably translates better as "pastor" meaning "shepherd." Really anyone who guides and oversees the flock would fall into this category, meaning that these two men do. These men came into this ministry which Paul calls in 1 Timothy 3 a "noble task." That task is not that they're doing their own work, but they're doing God's. Their flock have entrusted their hearts and souls to these men who no longer believe or desire to believe in God. Clearly they have trouble maintaining any of the things that Paul says they must do, but obviously the ones that jump out at me are "not pursuing dishonest gain" and "hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught."

So no, I don't give them any credit at all. I know they no longer submit to the authority of the Scripture, so they probably don't care one lick about what God has said. That makes it a lot easier to do what they're doing, but they should still adhere to the Bible since that's pretty much where their job description lies. In fact, I can think of no other profession where this would be considered fair game, so why should ministry be any different?

I'll leave you all with this. Just because these two men have lost their way, I encourage you to maintain yours. Going into Thanksgiving, I thought Paul's words to the church at Colossae would be appropriate:

Colossians 2:6-7

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,
rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

The Essentials- Sin

2010-11-09T15:19:00.005-05:00

I stumbled upon an article yesterday that I wish I would have found prior to my sermon on Sunday. It involves two men, one a Southern Baptist minister with over 20 years of ministry experience, and another, a man who calls himself "Adam" who serves on the pastoral staff of a small evangelical church (don't worry-- not me). Both of these men have reached the conclusion through "careful" study of the Bible and arguments both for and against religion that God probably does not exist. They continue to serve in their ministry, mainly because they cannot fathom how they'll make it financially if they leave their positions.

"I want to get out of the position that I'm in as quickly as I can because I try to be a person of integrity and character," Adam said. "With the economy the way it is, with my lack of marketable skills other than a seminary education, it has me in a tough spot."

Now there is an important thing to say here, right off the top: these men are sinning. There is no question about it. I do not know these men at all, so I do not know what's going on in their heads or in their hearts, but I do know what their doing is wrong and is most likely teetering on some dangerous ground for their own spiritual walk (Matt. 12:31, Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10, 1 John 5:16). I say this not to judge them, but just to be unequivocal about what I think, and what the Bible says about men like these.

What's worse is that these men are leaders of a flock of believers. They're supposed to be an example of what to do rather than what not to do. But we need to work with what we're given, so let's look at the situation (and speculate a bit).

The Good

These men did at one point have a faith of their own, and were looking to make it real.

The Bad

They fell short of their goal. Challenging one's belief systems can be a good thing. It should make a believer's faith stronger; however, in order to do that, he should make sure that his belief is grounded on the solid truth of the Bible.

"The more I read the Bible, the more questions I had," Jack said. "The more things didn't make sense to me -- what it said -- and the more things didn't add up."
Jack said that 10 years ago, he started to feel his faith slipping away. He grew bothered by inconsistencies regarding the last days of Jesus' life, what he described as the improbability of stories like "Noah's Ark" and by attitudes expressed in the Bible regarding women and their place in the world.
"Reading the Bible is what led me not to believe in God," he said.

The Bible doesn't change. For anything in life, there's usually some kind of manual. One can choose to read than manual and get to know everything there is to know about it, or he can get his information elsewhere (the knowledgeable people on Yahoo! Answers would, I'm sure, love to help anyone out*). If one chooses to work outside the framework of that manual, that person is still responsible for whatever the manual contains, regardless of whether or not he has read it. To serve in ministry, or even call themselves Christians, for any length of time, and then become surprised by things in the Bible, especially such biggies like the Great Flood, is ludicrous. I realize that as one's faith matures, opinions and understandings can change, but this is rather dramatic.

Another thing that's noticeable here is that both of these men have chosen a path of extreme and utter loneliness. My biggest pet peeve in Christianity is that Christianity is NOT meant to be done alone. Jesus surrounded himself with 12 friends, three of which he was closer to than all the rest. Paul complains time and time again about being lonely; he shares in his struggles with sin and perseverance. Why then, do we try to be supermen and superwomen when it comes to struggles in our faith?

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

By trying to challenge an immature faith by themselves, and still serving in ministry, these men have put themselves in a nearly impossible, and lonely, situation. That leads us to:

The Ugly

Matthew 15:13-14
He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.
Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

The worst part of this whole ordeal is that these men continue to serve in their ministry posts:

He and Jack said that when speaking to parishioners, they tried to stick to the sections of the Bible that they still believed in -- the parts about being a good person.

I wonder if these men ever truly understood what their supposed "calling" was about. Their spiritual immaturity resonates throughout their churches. Who are they accountable to? Hasn't anyone in their church confronted them about preaching the Truth? About their apparent lack of faith? Pray for their congregations, pray for YOUR leaders, and pray that you don't ever fall victim to false teachers such as these.

Matt 7:15, 16
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Whether they like it or not, or if they even still care, the only example these men have set is precisely what not to do when one finds himself in sin. Rather, look to the Bible for the Truth, and then look to others for help. Challenge each other regularly to inspect your lives and earnestly seek after God's will in order to produce good fruit. Sin is a part of the human condition, but if we have the Spirit within us, we don't have to be slaves to sin (Romans 8). Always look for opportunities to grow, and even challenge your faith, but when doubts begin to creep up, don't feel ashamed, but submit yourselves to those more mature in their faith. Lastly, encourage those who minister to you. Don't allow them to feel like they can't share their troubles.

1 Thessalonians 5:11-13
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.

Whew... just had to get that off my chest. Just so you all know, the blog may be a little late next week (maybe non-existent) as I'll be travelling to Hershey, Pennsylvania for the Eastern Christian Convention... maybe I'll see you there! If you're in my congregation, remember the outreach event at Wal-Mart this Saturday! I can't wait to hear about what God does through your service!

*Disclaimer: If any of you actually takes the advice of people on Yahoo! Answers, I assume ZERO responsibility for the horrible, horrible things that will probably happen to you)

Thank God for the Bible, literally.

2010-11-03T02:34:00.002-04:00

If Election Day 2010 taught me anything, it's that no matter who we vote into office, one of two things is going to happen. Either Americans will vote for someone to affect change, which they will, then we'll vote them out of office in the next election OR Americans will vote for someone to do nothing, which they will, and they'll keep their office for at least 3 terms. I feel that's a pretty fair, unbiased, and nonpartisan assessment of US Politics, so let's not debate that... it was just important for me to make my next point.

Don't get me wrong, I love living in America, and I love the fact that we get choices in our government-- heck, I even love voting! But at a certain point, I realize that my opinions are just those-- opinions. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and they will always vary. I'm so glad that not everything in my life is based on opinion.

One of the things I love about Jesus is that He *is* Truth. I love democracy (or the democratic-republic of America, as it were) when I have to submit to the authority of fallen men-- but when it comes to my Creator, I have no problem with His monarchical reign. Christianity is not a single-issue system, but it isn't a huge complicated multi-faceted one either. Rather, it's a one-man system and Jesus made it very very simple.

John 14:5-7 (NIV)

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

To a lot of people, submitting to Christ may not sound entirely pleasing, and many people find it reprehensible. However, Christ has given us the only true freedom there is in life. If we do not act according to His will, we're slaves to sin. But if we do ground our life in Him, we find our freedom.

Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

The Bible is where we find that Truth today. It's our guidebook and our path to explore God's Will. In truly discovering what God has done for us, we can learn to put our trust in Him. That way, we can realize that the short-sightedness we display in our earthly elections and other decisions pale in comparison to the full understanding that God has for us.

Psalm 119:105-112

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws.

I have suffered much; preserve my life, O Lord, according to your word.

Accept, O Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws.

Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law.

The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from your precepts.

Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.

My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.

Jeremiah 29:11-13

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Seek Him and understand. I promise, Jesus will never let you down. I can't say the same for the folks in Washington.

Testing... One, Two, Three

2010-10-27T02:21:00.005-04:00

...is this thing on? Oh good, it still works. Yes, yes, I know I didn't blog last week, so this blog post will be partially in response to the clamoring that I heard about getting another post up... all the e-mails (none), phone calls (zero), and trips down to Virginia, demanding that I write a blog post (zip) can now be put to rest!

I just didn't really know what to write about last week, and if you do bother to take the time to read this, I might as well have something useful to say. The past two weeks have been rather enlightening for me. I wrapped up the Fruit of the Spirit sermon series at First Christian Church with a sermon called Fruit Salad. If you missed any of the sermons, they can all be found at www.firstchristianculpeper.com but if you don't want to listen to EVERY one of them, Fruit Salad does (in my opinion) a pretty nice job of wrapping everything up and providing the main gist of what I was going for.

Next, we moved onto the Essentials of what First Christian Church believes. Now, I'm not in the business of telling everyone to believe what I believe, I'm in the business of telling everyone to believe what the Bible says... I just try to do my best to figure out what the Bible says and live that out. Hopefully, someday I'll do a good enough job that people who are looking for a Godly example, they can look to me, but it's always an uphill battle.

One of the things that I've been particularly interested in both in the last two weeks and while fighting that uphill battle is trying to figure out what God wants from me. I want to know what he wants from me in the next 5 days, weeks, months, years, though more and more I feel like I should be focusing more on the next 5 minutes.

As it stands, I've been trying to figure out my entire future. Am I always going to live in Culpeper? Doesn't God want me to be able to find friends? Who am I going to marry? All of these questions come up a lot more than they should. In fact, they tend to distract me from things that are going on in my life right now.

I've developed a system of testing. I'm not necessarily testing God-- rather, I'm resorting to what Gideon did in Judges 6:36-40. All throughout the New Testament, we're told to test things by the Spirit so we can discern God's will. I don't really ask God for signs, I just ask for opportunities. I say things like, "God, this is what I think I'd be good at, could you show me a way where I could serve you through this?" or "God, I think you're leading me to talk to that person over there. Could you provide me an opportunity to make it feel less awkward?" As I continue to find things, I can start to feel God tugging me gently one way or another. I've learned to stop doubting myself, and start trusting God. Ultimately, I aim to please Him... not myself or others.

God is clear in what He wants us to do. He wants us to seek the lost and expose them to His eternal glory. If we make that a desire of our hearts, and draw close to God, we'll begin to experience what He truly can do through our lives.

I'll leave you with a few Bible verses:

1Th 2:4 - On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.

2Cr 13:5,6 - Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you-unless, of course, you fail the test? And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test.

Self-Control

2010-10-13T14:20:00.002-04:00

As we've meandered through the Fruit of the Spirit, I had been looking ahead to self-control for quite some time. In some ways, it really does seem out of place with the rest of this section of the Bible, but at the same time one can view it as an underlying force behind all the rest of the "Fruit."

If you take the rest of the Fruit of the Spirit and lay them out, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, there isn't really any ONE that stands out where if you're lacking it, someone might point it out. No one I've ever heard has said, "Look at that random person over there, he sure lacks peace in his life!"

But when someone lacks self-control, we notice it right away. In fact, lacking something like love for other people, or kindness might even get attributed (correctly) to a lack of self-control. Like most things in life, the world always is able to pick up on shortcomings rather than successes, so while most people will never be praised for their great self-control, several people will be criticized if they don't have it. It's definitely something to be worked on and honed as a skill.

Gentleness

2010-10-06T01:51:00.003-04:00

I’ve been thinking about this gentleness thing a lot. I especially like the antithesis that gentleness cannot exist with great power. Two Saturdays ago my friend Brad took his black belt test in the World Tang Soo Do Association. A couple days before that, we had been talking about what this test meant, how long he had been studying this particular martial art, and how confident he was that he could pass.

The conversation weaved around, but a couple things stood out to me. If he does acquire his black belt in Tang Soo Do, he will be open to a new world of great “perks” of being a black belt. He explained to me that a certain level of respect comes with earning a black belt, but there is also a whole new world of the martial arts open to him when he does pass. All of the studying, all of the practicing and skill-building leading up to this point, he explained, basically just consisted of the basics. After achieving the rank of black belt, that’s when the masters assume you know the basics, and you can start getting into the really cool stuff.

That idea somewhat surprised me. I knew that there were varying degrees of black belts in many martial arts, but I never really considered a black belt as anything other than a pinnacle
that one strove for-- certainly not a beginning.

The other thing that really spoke to me is that when Brad does earn his black belt, there is a certain standard that he’ll be held to. I don’t think he’ll actually have to register any of his body parts as lethal weapons, but I’m sure that Brad has the power to do some serious damage, if not cause fatalities, with the skills that he has gained. But as Uncle Ben in Spider-Man said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” If someone attacked Brad in hand to hand combat, unless his life was in danger, he really shouldn’t cause a fatality, even though he has the full POWER to do so. He needs, to some degree, practice restraint.

That’s what we need to learn as Christians. Some of us need to learn that we DO have power... we have the power of the Holy Spirit within us! There’s nothing more powerful than that. But once we realize that, accept that, and begin to wield that power, we need to immediately learn to be gentle with it. Too often, we fall into what Dan Merchant, author and documentarian of “Lord Save from Your Followers,” calls the “gospel of being right.” We have the Spirit inside of us, there’s just some way we know that Jesus is who he says he was.. and we want to TELL PEOPLE ABOUT IT!!!

It’s a fantastic calling, but it’s one that needs to be done responsibly. As you go throughout your week, become emboldened by the power that lives inside of you, but at the same time, harness that power and ask Jesus for help in directing it in a way that will be used to glorify Him, not to tick other people off!

Faithfulness

2010-09-27T03:38:00.003-04:00

Last week at this time, I was preparing for a trip to State College, Pennsylvania, home of The Pennsylvania State University, my alma mater. This was my first time going to a Penn State football game as an official alumnus, and while that was truly the reason for my visit, I knew going into it that I would see some old friends, and have a chance to build some friendships with new ones.

As I mentioned in my sermon, faithfulness manifests itself through three things: trustworthiness, investment, and an expectation of a return. Well, last week I got my return after years of the other two.

From the moment I got out of my car, I felt incredibly welcome. The entire weekend flew by, in part because I barely had a moment where I wasn't surrounded by people who loved me and wanted to see what was best for me. Everyone was incredibly interested in what God was doing in my life through graduation, a breakup, moving to Virginia, and preaching at First Christian Church. I was just as awed by what God had been doing at Penn State, especially through Christian Student Fellowship, New Life, and my pre-service teaching school, Grace Prep.

And that's pretty much what led to my sermon of last week. My friends and I have reached a point where we're trying to be faithful to God, and, in doing so we've been able to remain faithful and loving toward each other. Truly, I see the Word of God living within us, and what a great feeling that is to see. Check this out:

----------------------------------------------

1 Thessalonians 5:10-11

He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Proverbs 3:3-4

Never let loyalty and kindness leave you!
Tie them around your neck as a reminder.
Write them deep within your heart.
Then you will find favor with both God and people,
and you will earn a good reputation.

----------------------------------------------

Hey Pennsylvanians, keep up the good work... A+ for the whole week, honestly.

There came a point, then, on Saturday when I didn't want to leave. I mean, how could I want to leave a place where I felt so welcomed, so loved, and so encouraged? But then I started to realize that there was never a point when I was talking to my friends when we said "Hey, remember this encouragement *if* you go back to Virginia," because rather than the word "if" we always used the word "when." "...when you go back to Virginia."

I don't know if Virginia will always be the place for me, but it is for now and I'm so excited about that. My friend Britainy told me tonight that people in Virginia will like me just as much as the ones in Pennsylvania... they just don't know me yet. So it looks like I get to start being a faithful servant of God, and a faithful friend all over again.

How are you doing walking in faithfulness? Join in the fun... I promise you won't regret it.

"...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds" -Hebrews 10:22-24

Goodness

2010-09-22T02:00:00.001-04:00

Kindness is a pretty clear concept... so why do we continue to be so ineffective in it? I have a theory. We're less interested in being kind, than we are in looking good. Many people in Christendom have bought into the idea that if “I'm a good person, then Jesus will love and accept me,” even though the Bible clearly teaches that this is not the case:

Psalm 14:2-3

The Lord looks down from heaven
on the entire human race;
he looks to see if anyone is truly wise,
if anyone seeks God.
But no, all have turned away;
all have become corrupt.
No one does good,
not a single one!

I've never understood the concept about how “goodness” leads to conversion. “If I act like a good person, then I am a Christian,” is totally false doctrine. The Bible clearly says that we must believe in Christ, confess that he is Lord of our lives, repent of our sins, get baptized, symbolizing the death to our sin and our new life in Jesus, and walk in His footsteps every day. That is conversion, and if you have followed that, then the Bible says you can call yourself a Christian.

But there is a problem. You see, while most Christians to agree on the fact that being “good” cannot save you, we fall into a pretty awful trap: “Well, if I just act like a good person, then people will realize I am a Christian, and they will wonder what it is about me that makes me different, and then they will discover I am a Christian, and then they will want to become a Christian too.” Does anyone know of even one person who was brought to Christ in this manner? Even Jesus had to explain who He was... why should we feel that our lives are worthy of showing Christ's love any better than His own?

To truly be good, and to truly exemplify this concept, we need to first admit that we could not be good without Jesus, and accept his gift of salvation. Once we call ourselves Christians, we go into the mode of show-and-tell. In no way am I saying that trying to be a “good person” is a bad thing... it's just ineffective to leading other people to Christ.

For instance, if you just randomly decide to pay for someone's meal at a restaurant, but do not tell them why, they'll probably think, “Wow, that was really nice of that person,” but I doubt they'll leap to, “They're probably a Christian, so I should become a Christian too.” If you do good, tell people why you're doing it! Teach people that God loves you, and because He loves you and has commanded you to love others, you're doing that to show them that God loves THEM as well.

Every conversion in the Bible has some aspect of “show-and-tell.” Even the apostles, who could whip out some pretty cool stunts in order to “show” people the power of Christ, made sure to explain that it was through faith in Jesus that they were able to perform all their miracles.

So this week, as you try to do good, remember to take it the whole way. Don't just tell, and don't just show, but make sure that both are working together for the good of the kingdom.

Kindness

2010-09-14T02:24:00.003-04:00

I remarked right at the beginning of my sermon this Sunday that I didn't want to waste a lot of time talking about the concept of "Kindness" because there is nothing to explain. Kindness happens, and when it does, we know it immediately. It has varying degrees and levels, but in the end kindness is kindness.

Although I'm only 22 years old, I've lived long enough to figure out a few things about kindness. For one, as much as it is clearly evident when it happens, kindness doesn't seem to happen enough. Two, kindness appeals to a huge demographic of people. Three, when Christians aren't kind, the world is quick to point out that we're being hypocritical... and they would be correct:

Phil 2:12-18

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Now, I need to confess that I don't always feel like shining like a star, especially when it comes to being kind to those who make me angry, but that's not what Paul seemed to have in mind. I've always respected Paul, because I always figure that no matter how bad I perceived my life to be at the time, Paul had it worse-- so when Paul tells me that I should treat people with kindness and respect, I should probably listen... but at least it's somewhat sneakily “righteously vengeful.” :-P

Romans 12:14-21

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”
says the Lord.

Instead,

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
burning coals of shame on their heads.”

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

I'll be completely honest and say that I feel uncomfortable in reading that. I know I need to get better, but I also had an recent experience where I got to live this out, and what a phenomenal experience it was (listen to this week's sermon on Kindness for more info). Reacting to those who angered and upset me in a loving and kind way was a very liberating experience, and one that I know God smiled on. It's a start, and it's something I need to improve. It's what the church needs to improve as well.

When it comes right down to it, I have to ask myself, who would I rather have as a face of modern Christianity: Mother Teresa or Terry “Koran-burning” Jones?

This spiritual battle is changing. For proof, I submit the following video to you. It comes from a Skeptics conference, and the speaker in this clip, Dr. Phil Plait, is a self-professed atheist, and a very entertaining blogger over at “Bad Astronomy.” Someone in the atheist community has discovered what Paul knew 2000 years ago... people don't respond well to yelling, nor do they respond well to being called an idiot. Now, the video has some language that probably wouldn't be considered kosher for this blog, but it's pretty astounding just how amazingly similar his rhetoric sounds in comparison with my own.

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

For hundreds of years, Christians have relied on the fact that the message would get passed on, no matter the delivery. But until we actually SHOW Jesus' love FIRST, we won't have an audience to tell SECOND. Now the atheist community has started to change their delivery, and their tone. They will have an audience, and though I feel our message is superior, we need to figure out a way to pass that message along in a way that people will want to listen and respond. Chew on that, and I'll have a follow-up on this next Wednesday in relation with this week's coming sermon on "Goodness."

Please feel free to post comments and questions in the comments section. Also, I suppose that I should put a disclaimer that I do not agree with much that Dr. Phil Plait has to say about God, or Christianity in general, but this blog post is not meant to debate his a-theology, and I don't want the comments section to devolve into a scientific debate... thanks in advance.

Fruit of the Spirit / September 11

2010-09-09T00:47:00.004-04:00

Well Labor Day really fouled me up... not because I didn't realize that yesterday was Wednesday (I did) but I was called away from what I had planned to do (Labor... ok, laundry and church work) to attend a Labor Day picnic. That's why you're getting this blog about patience a day late... and yes I see the irony in that.

I've struggled in writing this, because I don't have much to add to the sermon that I preached on Sunday without getting into the one that I'll preach this coming Sunday... so I've decided to go in a different direction and tie in some topical stuff to the Fruit of the Spirit.

There have been a couple points in my life where I just knew that nothing would be quite the same as it was before an event or experience happened. Some of them have been normal "growing up" events, like graduating from high school and college, others have been more dramatic.

I have a bit of a tradition that I do every year on September 11th... some years it's much more involved than others, but I always like to remember that day as it happened. I still remember that I was in Mr. Stewart's Algebra I class when Mrs. Mento came in and whispered something to him. When I went out into the hallway after class, one of my friends said, "Hey Adam, did you hear what happened? Two planes flew into the World Trade Center, a plane flew into the Pentagon, a bomb exploded outside the State Building, and the Mall is on fire!" At that time, I thought it would be a story in the English class that I was about to go to, since he had just come from there. I had no idea that it was really happening, and even though he did, I guess his coping mechanism was to smile as he was passing on this information... perhaps because it seemed so surreal to him. None of us in the 8th grade knew exactly how our lives would change after the events of that day, but everyone knew they would.

Obviously, September 11th was a horrible day in history, but some very good things came out of it. Very harsh trials led to acts of love and patience with each other. Out of a terrible ordeal, people of many different backgrounds came together to seek out peace, and with that came joy. The day itself will never become a celebration by any means, and I daresay most of the emotion, the pure unbridled emotion, that came out of that day is gone. But it was there for all of the world to see, if even for a short time.

That's the difference between human love, joy, peace, and patience... it goes away before we can truly understand what those feelings are. God's Fruits don't go away... they're eternal... but I always like to look back on the events of those days *as they happened* to remind me just what we, God's favorite part of Creation, are capable of when we let go of our preconceived notions about each other. When we all stand on solid ground and on even footing, there's a lot of good that can come out of that. And when I see those physical, and very emotional, reminders, it always makes me aspire to having that again... not through the evil of the attacks of that day, but through the goodness provided by God.

Some of the resources that I look back to every year (if not more) will follow.

Fark.com

Fark is a news website that was created not too long before 2001. It's usually a fairly appropriate website to get actual news information, in an inappropriate way. I don't necessarily support everything that Fark stands for, but the comments of the day truly show what the American public was thinking. Most of the people who normally comment on stories on this site fall under the categories of immature and irreverent. September 11th was really a different time for that website, as you can see in the following links (Be advised that these ARE internet forums during a very stressful time... the language is very colorful at times):

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45086

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45102

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45105

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45108

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45110

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45112

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45120

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45123

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45138

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=45139

Archive.org

Archive.org is a website where various parts of the internet are kept alive. When people say that what hits the internet never goes away, I always think of this website. In this case, though, it truly is an invaluable resource to those people who are looking to remember the events of September 11 and the days that followed. Archive.org hosts the "September 11 Television Archive" which is basically three solid days of television programming, on 6 different channels. You can literally watch the news coverage before, during, and after the attacks. It's a very cool website, which takes viewers from an interview with the Duchess of York before the attacks, to the now famous "U-S-A" chants led by President Bush. You can see live interviews, and see the cities of New York and Washington reacting. The sadness is overwhelming, but so is the love.

http://www.archive.org/details/sept_11_tv_archive

I encourage you to set aside some time on what is now known as Patriot Day to reflect on the feelings you experienced on that day, and in the weeks that followed. That common bond is something that we will certainly experience in heaven, but as you remember, think about how love and joy, peace and patience can work into your life right now to help those who feel as if they're under constant spiritual attack and lack guidance.

Take to heart what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18

"Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone. See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

Peace among men

2010-09-01T08:00:00.003-04:00

Disclaimer: This one's pretty much for the Christians

Before I get started on this, I thought it would be awesome to include this from lifechurch.tv. They have some great stuff over there, so you should definitely go check them out!

I'll be the first to admit that I have a deep, deep desire to be right most of the time. I think it comes from the fact that I was never really good at sports, so I tried to be better in the knowledge arena. I like my church, I like what we believe, and I feel very comfortable that we're doing what the Bible says.

But rather be comfortable in that, I became entrapped by the idea that everyone else is 100% wrong-- and let me tell you, if you let yourself get entrapped by that idea, Satan will use it to ruin any kind of witness, or even friendship that you have with anyone. Although you may not agree with everything that others have to say, chances are you agree about something. The key is to find that common ground first, and learn to respect that person's viewpoint on that issue (I mean, he must have good taste in one area, if he shares it with you right?!)

In no way am I claiming to have all the answers, nor am I an authority on this issue, but as I look through the life and times of Jesus, the one thing I don't notice is Him walking into someone house with the Old Testament Scrolls, beating them over the head with them. Jesus understood that He would not be accepted into the lives of those He was trying to reach unless He was approachable.

Take a look at Mark 5. Jesus miraculously interacts with three separate people, all three of which seek Him out. One was a demon possessed man, one was an old woman, and one, a synagogue ruler. All three of them knew that their only hope was Jesus, and all three of them were allowed to approach Him.

How many people know you are a Christian? Are you a Christian who is approachable? And how many people today know that their only hope is Jesus?

If the Christian community today expects to reach out and affect this world, we need to come to some conclusions.

1.) We're called to act:

Matthew 28:18-20

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

2.) We cannot expect people to recognize Jesus as an authority in their lives, nor will they necessarily respect you or scripture.

Luke 21:12-17

"But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me.

3.) We need to love them anyway!

Luke 6:27-31

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you."

4.) We need to become known by our fruits

Luke 6:43-45

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

5.) Live out your faith, be at peace with all men, and love each other

Galatians 5:6

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

To be clear, I'm not advocating any sort of "watered-down" Christianity. Stand up for what you believe in, but realize that this is a process of love and of time. Invest in the lives of those around you, for that's what Christ did for us, while we were still sinners.

Let me hear any stories you have of either past or present successes in the comments!

Joy through Trials

2010-08-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what's going on in my life sometimes. For the last month and a half, it has felt like I'm just going through life, trying to keep afloat, and just when I think I can't keep going, and I don't want to keep trying, my pleas to God become more desperate and at the perfect time, someone or something comes into my life that allows me to keep persevering. That goes along well with the beginning of James' letter.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:2-8)

The question that this raises, in regards to joy, is this: We have joy through trials because we know our reward is greater at the end, which enables us to keep our faith which enables us to keep calling on God as we're called to do. But as those trials are going on, what is the appropriate response? How much mourning, grieving, complaining, should Christians allow ourselves when we face these trials?

Sometimes, there seems to be pressure from other Christians to have faith that is so strong, that nothing shakes you. “Oh, you have cancer? Well rejoice in the Lord always!” “You lost your job and you're running out of money? Well don't be anxious about anything, but through prayer and petition, present your requests to God!” My personal favorites are the ones that aren't even from the Bible: “When God brings you to it, He'll bring you through it!”

I'm not doubting the validity of any of these sayings, nor am I trying to mock them or the people who say them. I feel that this is more of a defense mechanism because we are trying to become more faithful Christians, and we feel if we show weakness or weariness in our situations, we appear to have no faith. In short, we're trying to become automatons.

And it's something that is happening all over Christianity. We tend to say, “Well, you should go to my type of church where we sing my kind of songs and you should react to everything just like I do.” So when we grieve and mourn, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that the first thing I hear is, “Well you should grieve like me,” or even worse, “Well that's nothing compared to what I went through, and look where I am now!” But this attitude is hindering joy in the Lord!

As you go throughout your week, you may come across hurting people, or you, yourself, may be hurting. Here are some things that have helped me work on my joy in the past few weeks.

We are each Created by a loving God and have the freedom to hurt, and to question what God is doing in our lives. We're told to: “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21,22)
We should never feel that we need to go through trials alone: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)
Do not substitute worldly pleasure for Godly joy. Worldly joy is only temporary: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:7-10)

Keep faith... God knows trials too: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
God IS listening: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (John 5:14-15)
God blesses us through trials, and rewards us after them: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)

So when you face trials in your life, continue to have joy, because God has already provided for your final reward. But don't try to be Superman. Cry, wail, question, test do all of that... but surround yourself with Christian friends who will help you fix your eyes on Jesus, and make sure that through everything you're seeking His will. No it isn't easy, yes, it's counter-intuitive to our fallen human condition, and it certainly takes practice, but remember the verses from my blog post a few weeks ago: “...The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deuteronomy 31:7-8)

Love

2010-08-18T14:37:00.000-04:00

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to love someone? Even if you truly love someone else, they also need to allow you to love them, and in today's society, that's a hard sell. I think that is one of Satan's greatest weapons, the automatic distrust that the human race has for each other. In fact, the very first time Satan decided to start poking his nose where it didn't belong, we see see that He's trying to place that wedge not only between Adam and Eve, but also between man and God!

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

As an English major, I can't help but notice that Eve misquoted God. In Genesis 2:16,17, God says:

"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

So from what we have, at least recorded in the Bible, God hasn't said that Adam and Eve cannot touch the tree. Often, when we don't listen to what God, or each other, truly says, we get mad and angry at that other person.

Genesis 3:11-13

And he [God] said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

So we see here that Satan was successful on three fronts. They both were scared of God, and distrusted his love for them, so they hid. Adam now distrusts Eve, and Eve distrusts Adam. God has to step in here and show Adam and Eve what “tough love” is, but the damage was already done. We became a people who distrust love from any source, even God.

And yet, God calls us to love His people, even those we consider to be our enemies. Because God loved us, and gave us the ultimate sacrifice through his Son, we need to answer that call. It's not hard, and often it's not fun, but if we can rise to that, if we can answer that call, imagine how much better our lives would be.

Look at Adam and Eve. Do you think Eve was mad at Adam when he blamed her? What if Adam had said,

“God... I know I shouldn't have eaten the fruit off of that tree. You told me that directly, and I did it anyway. I accept full responsibility for my actions and for my wife's. She ate it too, but I did not stop her from doing so, even though I should have. I'm sorry.”

That would be love, and regret, and seeking forgiveness. What would Eve have done? Well, I don't know her personally, but I'm in a situation where someone shows me that kind of love, I'd have a very difficult time being mad at him, or continuing to victimize him. When someone tenses up for a fight, and another person just completely disarms that person, love prevails.

Love is the foundation of the Fruit of the Spirit. God loves us, we need to learn to accept that, and we need to allow that to radically change the way we love His people. Instead of judging people, persecuting people, disrespecting people... if we can substitute that with love, the Spirit then is free to move in us, and we're free to move in the Spirit.

And that opens the door to the rest of the Fruit of the Spirit... which will be continuing next week.

Continue to work on loving God and loving people. Feel free to share your stories and thoughts about this subject in the comments!

You Never Know What You Had... Until You Leave

2010-08-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

The adage says "you never know what you had, until it's gone." At times like these, in transition in life and location and relationships, I don't think those words have ever meant as much to me as they do now. I've always valued friendships and relationships (I'm sure we'll discuss why in a later post), but I've found new appreciation for some of my old friends, and I've been disappointed in others.

That's not to say that some of my friends are true friends and others aren't. In fact, one of the things that I've learned in the last month is that most people truly think they're doing the right thing most of the time. Some people have viewed my broken engagement and said "You have to move on." They think that's the right thing to say. Others have said, "Wow that sucks... take all the time you need... time heals all wounds." Those people think that's the right thing to say. It's all relative, and I'm getting to a point where I realize that it's not what is actually said, but the sentiment behind it.

Everyone has his own motivations for doing what he does, some of them purer than others. In coming down to Culpeper, I've tried to cling to friendships that I thought would help me make it where the other person in that friendship thought that it would be best to talk less and go and meet new people. Both of us feel that we're right, but it's the motivation behind it... the fact that we still care enough to try to do what's best for the other person that impresses me.

Other people have called and checked in, seeing if I'm ok, seeing if I'm settled, seeing if I need anything. It's been great to see that kind of outpouring of love as well. It's a lot more comforting to know that when I get home at night, if no one's home, I don't have to be bored and lonely.

I'll take the opportunity right here to thank everyone who has shown that love and care for me in one way or another both those who I knew before I left, and those who have met me here and welcomed me. It has meant more than I could ever say, and whether or not you believe and realize it, God has used you as an instrument in my life to encourage me, and make this transition bearable, as well as to reveal Himself to me, and reaffirm that as long as I'm in Him, I will truly never be alone.

In the end, I'm sure that God's going to work things out. But this whole situation has given me new perspective on Him. We have trouble appreciating God, specifically because He's never gone. When have any of us ever needed to face a trial when we could not rely on Him? There have been times on this journey where I have felt, honestly, that God was being unfair, that I couldn't do this alone, and I was angry that God was letting bad things happen to me. After all, I felt He called me to Culpeper to preach? Why were things so difficult. And yet every time I doubted, in the matter of HOURS, God responded.

I'm sure that Moses felt a lot like I have in the past month. Surrounded by all kinds of people and voices... some supportive, others not... he had to lead a nation who didn't want to be led. The people grumbled and complained even though God was feeding them and leading them for most of their journey. I'm sure that Moses got disheartened at times, but every time he needed proof, God was there with water coming out of rocks, or manna, or quail.

That led Moses to a point in his life when he was going to die. It was time to turn the nation of Israel over to Joshua. When he was about to leave:

...The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deuteronomy 31:7-8)

Moses could not have said that, had he not believed it and experienced it himself. So while we go through tough times and lose touch with friends, relatives, neighbors, we can learn to appreciate what we had by their absence. But be careful, because you should always remember what you have and what you will always have, because He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Au·di·ble

2010-07-20T16:31:00.001-04:00

–adjective

capable of being heard; loud enough to be heard; actually heard.

–noun

In Football, a play called at the line of scrimmage to supersede the play originally agreed upon as the result of a change in strategy.

I'll be honest, I've never really been much of a blogger, but there have been a lot of changes in my life lately, and maybe this will be one of them. Hopefully this will get updated about once a week, maybe twice. If it doesn't get updated much at all, then I'll just delete it and we'll chalk it up to a failed experiment.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, I've been called by the elders and the congregation of First Christian Church in Culpeper, Virginia to become their new minister. My first day preaching is August 8th, so regular updates will presumably start then. I anticipate this will be a good place to share thoughts on the goings on of my ministry and the church's ministry in general, along with successes and failures and room for comments.

I chose the name "Adam's Audibles" because this blog will feature sound bytes of my life and of my ministry-- but I also think the football definition counts as well. In a way, it has called its own audible. That's both good and bad, and maybe I'll discuss that in the coming weeks, but either way, it's exciting.

So if you're interested, come on in and join the conversation. I'm open to all points of view, and while I may not agree with you, I'll still respect you and your opinion. Let's be open and honest, and have a good time.

Also, I once had a thought, that I should get a bird and name it Sexton. I think, in the future, due to my VAST influence, the word "sexton" shall be interchangeable with the word "bird." This would not surprise me at all.