Remembering Who Is The Boss in 2007

Its New Years Eve. The night each year when ordinary people think about the future and how to change it. I'm not talking about a science fiction story or a visit to the psychic friends, I am talking about the very real sense in which we dream about the year to come. Dream? Absolutely, we dream. We dream about how to change things. We dream about our hopes and our fears and our triumphs. The interesting thing is that the roads leading to these dreams are the reflections of our past. We look back at all our decisions, some good and some bad. We see the mistakes and missteps, and the successes and the victories. This is a necessary activity because we learn from experience as well as from being taught.

Wouldn't it be easier if we could just be told what is right, and then we would act on it? It would, but we can't. Its not in our nature to submit to the authority and knowledge of another and especially God. We see this in Genesis when Adam and Eve were told what to do, and they made the decision to not “go with the sure thing.” They decided that they knew what was better. They backed the wrong horse as the saying goes. Satan sat there and fed them lies and they chose to do their own thing. “No thanks God, we got a great thing going here, but we could be like you so we'll see you on our terms.” Dumb.

Now I look back at my life and see all the ways in which I jumped at what I wanted to hear, or what I concocted in my own reckoning was right. I've made mistakes, and I've been selfish. I've made the mistake of being a truth unto myself. Dumb.
Here are some of my favorite Proverbs that remind me that my knowledge is insufficient to the task of running my own life.

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22

Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have understanding and power.
Proverbs 8:14 (I added the emphasis)

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm."
Proverbs 1:32-33

Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.
Proverbs 16:20

And from Jeremiah:
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.
Jeremiah 29:11

These verses are just a few that remind me that God is the boss and that my decisions need to be based on what he desires. As this new year begins and I dream about things to come, I need to make sure that those dreams are in compliance with His will.

The Mind Is A Scary Place

I think I am going to start a semi-regular tag called Strange Delaware. In this tag I will discuss some strange things about the First State and some brief commentary on these events. Below is the first:

Today in Delaware History
December 29, 1983 After complaints of foul odors from neighbors, authorities entered the house of a Millsboro man whose body was found propped up in his bed. His 77 year old blind wife and 59 year old daughter denied that he was dead but said he was only under a spirit's spell. A medical exam found that he had been dead since 1980.


It never surprises me to hear about people that do strange things. Mental illness exists in this broken world and mentally ill people do weird and crazy things. What I find more interesting are the odd things groups of people are found to do. Lets look at the event above. Two grown women live with a decomposing man for three years insisting that he is alive. It is obvious that mental illness was involved here, but who was mentally ill? The easy answer is that both were. What a fascinating dynamic. How did they both come to this conclusion? Was one the leader and the other a follower? The human brain can be a very scary and strange place, and it shows that under the right circumstances and with the right stressors we can convince our of just about anything. Could these women have both been fully functional members of society until the father died? It is scary to think that at some point in your life, things could take such a dramatic twist.

Are You A Christian Or A Christ Follower

OK, I came across this video and it provoked some thought. Tell me what you think.


It brings to mind how many a Christian feels that they have to wear some sort of badge or participate in some activities to be a Christian. They need to read all the latest books, know all the latest catch phrases, and participate in all the latest Christian activities. The "industry" surrounding Christian community and education is just a targeted and profit driven as secular industry. They speak the same marketing language and have the same goals.....to turn a profit. The sad thing is that many people think that because they have read The Purpose Driven (insert noun here) that they are fulfilling their obligation to their commitment to Christ. Just another way to disguise works based salvation. I'm not saying that Christian material is bad, but we need to check ourselves constantly to make sure that we are Christ's disciples and not the disciples of the Pastor at the top of the best seller list that week.

An Exhausting Week

I am tired. I have had a really busy week, and it seems that sometimes the weekends are just as busy. It is so easy this time of year to get caught up in festivities, or even serving the Lord. I tend to pack my days with so many "good things" that I crowd out down time. Down time isn't the only casualty of this crammed schedule. The routine things of life that give us structure get pushed to the side in favor of the festive or the perceived immediate need.

I have shared recently about my desire to exercise more and to avoid sugar. This needs to be routine, but as with many other things it hasn't even made it to "routine" yet It has suffered from my packed holiday schedule like some other important things in my life. My blog is another thing that has suffered. I want this to be routine (in a good way), but running to this place and that has left me mentally drained to the point that when I am home I just want to sleep or veg.

I need to be more disciplined with my decisions on what to do with my time. So all you prayer warriors out there, send one up for me on this.

Is Pneumonia Not Sexy Enought?

There was a editorial from the science section of the New York Times in the last couple of days. It focused on Pneumonia and how it kills more people each year than Malaria and Aids around the world. There was an interview included with a Dr. who is part of an organization to raise money to increase vaccinations for children. The story really brought to light the lack of awareness of the effect of this disease and how if gets little press. This Dr. uses an interesting method to prove his point. He compared the number of deaths from a particular disease to the number of Google searches for that diseases name. What you see is an interesting correlation between the two. As the mortality rate for a disease increases, so would its Google searches. He had a chart that illustrates this very powerfully. The most interesting thing is that as you go up the mortality rate death toll and find Pneumonia, you see the Google searches drop dramatically.
My conclusion to this? Pneumonia isn’t political enough to have activist! AIDS is attached to a political movement closely associated with homosexual causes and they get a lot of press. Malaria is the bane of under developed countries where many human rights and poverty groups have their pet countries that they are trying to help. Is it possible that Pneumonia just isn’t interesting enough or it doesn’t have a big enough “hook” for the news networks to bother with? Pneumonia kills mostly children and the elderly, not people our society seems to value any longer. Now if only more celebrities and sports stars would contract Pneumonia, maybe we would actually see how this killer is more of a threat to the world than the AIDS virus.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that we should ignore AIDS or Malaria, I’m just saying that we should focus a little more on Pneumonia and its possible devastation of civilization. A pandemic is not our of the question.

Hanging With The Girls

Last night I had the privilege to sing at the annual Ladies Christmas T.E.A. at my church (GRPC). T.E.A. stands for Tuesday Evening Away and is a pep rally of sorts for all the women’s ministry that happens at GRPC and an evening for moms and daughters. Men in the church serve tea and deserts on china that table hosts bring and set up form their own china collections. There were about 400 women there last night. Not bad. This was the 16th T.E.A. event we have had and I have been privileged to be involved in many of those over the years. What can I say, the women of my church love to invite me to their events. I joke that the WIC committee hopes that the more they expose me to mass numbers of ladies, the more chance I will get married. It hasn’t worked yet, but if this is their sinister plan I applaud the effort.

The Not So Incredible Shrinking Me

As many of my family and friends know, I had Gastric Banding on 3/23/06. At my max weight I was at 430lbs and as I weighed myself this morning I am 364lbs. This gives me a net loss of 66lbs since the surgery. Not to shabby, but also not what I want. Why am I revealing something so personal about myself to the world? That would be because I am tired of the stagnation. I effectively stopped losing weight at the beginning of July. This isn’t because the surgery failed, but because I have been cheating the system. I lost the lions share of the weight in the first 4 months, and have be bouncing around in the same ten pound range ever since then. After the initial change and restrictions of post surgery, I started to do the one thing that is a no no in this process. I began to consume sugar. That’s right, the Great Satan of body weight management. I do have the ability to consume less overall food than before, but the food choices are the problem. Cakes and candy and Arnold Palmers with sweetened lemonade, these are the things that are stopping me. But wait, these aren’t the only issues; I also have not been exercising. I was encouraged to walk, just walk after the surgery. I haven’t seriously done this. I do have a legitimate issue with pain in my hip, but it should be overcome and not used as an excuse. So I am cutting the sugar and I have begun to walk on my treadmill. Last night I did 12 minutes and broke a good sweat. I’m shooting for 15 minutes tonight, and my ultimate goal is 45 minutes 5 days a week. I will be posting regular weight loss updates and ask you to pray and ask me how things are going. I need the encouragement.

RAV

Take a Bite Out of the Apple

I am rapidly approaching a point in which I will be forced to purchase a new computer. Now I have a laptop provided by my employer that I can use to work from home on occasion, and I have my desktop. My desktop crawls. I had it wiped and reloaded and it is still a dog. I just finished an online course provided by cnet.com on how to tweak you XP computer for speed and I have seen very little difference in the changes I have made. Its frustrating to me. So here is my dilemma, to Mac or not to Mac? I have become captivated with the Mac and am seriously thinking about going to that platform. Below is a list of things that I do regularly with my computer. Blog Use itunes. Surf the web Check my email Download pictures form camera and phone Use Skype Use Microsoft Office
All these things seem to be easy to do on a Mac just as with a PC. What to do….what to do? I am thinking sometime in February this will have to happen. Thoughts? Anyone?
I am also a little bit nostalgic for the very first computer I ever used....the Mac SE. I used this in highschool to learn how to use pagemaker for layout and design. WOW have things come a long way. It didn't even have a color screen. Check out these pictures.

Cubic Zirconium - Cheap or Beutiful

I was listening to a podcast on my way to work this morning in which the hosts were talking about how Apple has submitted a patent for a possible use in a rumored iPhone case made of Cubic Zirconium (CZ). OF course during the course of the conversation, one of the females on the show talked about how she would dump her man if he gave her a CZ ring. This made me wonder.

A CZ is definitely man made (except in very rare occurrences in nature), but it is also mega beautiful and has many of the same properties as a diamond. In actuality a CZ has more fire than a diamond does. So why would a woman dump a guy who gave her one? I would guess there are multiple reasons, some good and some bad. I think the culprit is that we as a culture have connected love and money. We have place value on love. The diamond industry has successfully integrated into our culture the notion that true love requires a monetary investment to prove itself. If you love a girl, then you buy an expensive piece of jewelry to prove it to her. Does this pervert love at its core? Does this valuable expression actually devalue love in some way? Diamonds were given because they were beautiful and precious, they still are beautiful but they are widely available. Now a CZ is arguable more beautiful, but less desirable. Just makes me wonder. I guess I need to set up a savings account specifically meant to buy a diamonds so that some day I don't get dumped.
RAV

Why They Think We Are Idiots

Its taken me a week to really focus my thoughts on a meeting I attended from a group that purports to train individuals on defending the creationist position. I have to say that I was less than impressed. Perhaps I caught them on an off night, perhaps not. My biggest frustration is that if this is the caliber of argument that a Christian is expected to present when confronted by an evolutionist, it is no wonder they think we are idiots (see cartoon )

The meeting started with what I am sure is a well meaning God fearing older gentleman sharing a testimony on an article he read in the paper the past week. This article talked about the orbits of certain planets and their location in comparison to the sun during a rare eclipse. His proof that the Big Bang was false could be found in the precision of the orbits of the planets. Why? Because the big bang was an explosion and something as orderly as the orbits could not come form an explosion. That's it....nothing about gravity and the attraction that large dense stars exert. This is anecdotal evidence at best. Now I am not saying that I believe in the Big Bang, but I am saying that if you are going to get into defending a biblical 7 day creation position, you can't use sentimentalism. You need to talk in facts and theory based on good assumptions. The proponents of the Big Bang would say that from a gravitational singularity there was a big bang that continues to expand the borders of the universe. They say this happened 13.7 billion years ago, and that over that time the gravity of larger objects have pulled smaller objects into orbits. From a scientific point of view this is compelling, but you can't defend against it by saying that order can't come from an explosion. If you take dynamite and stick it into a hill and detonate it you will get chaos....for a time. Then the dirt settles and you get structure, maybe different that before but order has been restored. I have no doubts the Big Bang is flawed, but this defense will never cut it if we want to actually compete in the realm of ideas.

The special guest speaker for the evening was a gentleman who was an associate pastor from the Philadelphia area. He wasn't an academic, and he wasn't a scientist. He was a theologically trained pastor. He had recently written a book on evolution and he was "exposing it for the fraud it was." I was hoping that this man would present the scientific approach that was needed to enter the intellectual discussion on the topic. I was disappointed. His presentation was an overview of his book, and it was again full of information where it was obvious that good research techniques were not done or the information that was presented was to evoke a emotional response. One example was a recent discovery of what looked like human skeletal remains of two hands. These remains were fossilized (a rare find). They were also found near some dinosaur fossils, another rare occurrence. Some scientist have theorized that they weren't human hands but large sea turtle fins. This pastor bragged about how he used a google picture search to find human skeletal hands. He then used this picture to convince us that they were human. What would have really pushed this point home was if he had shown us the a picture of actual sea turtle fins, but he didn't. Perhaps they were sea turtles, but because of the point he wanted to make, he only searched the evidence until he found what he wanted. He interspersed his talk with slides of school children and their learning evolution in public schools and a program to take these kids for an hour a day and teach them creationism and how they are coming to Christ as a result. That's great, but how does it expose evolution as false. His biggest argument spread throughout the presentation was that evolution was a natural promoter of racism, and because Hitler, and Stalin were racist, that evolution was barbaric....ergo false. His logic was impossible to flow on some of his points and it felt like he was trying every way to emotionally convince us that evolutions were completely evil. What really peeved me was the way he continually used scripture out of context to support whatever slide he was on. He was eisegetically preaching on creationism and doing the scripture a disservice.

It really shouldn't surprise me. Since the days of Finney the church has been using emotional arguments and sentimentalism to forward its agenda. Whats worse is that the only agenda the church should have is to declare the gospel. I can't help but feel that all these side issues are Satan's way of distracting us from that goal. We get so stuck on extending the general grace of the church to society that we forget to be the messengers of God's special grace to individuals. I know that their are intelligent men and women who are out there debating the position of creationism with fervor and intelligence, but people such as those I saw last week are hurting us more than they are helping.

Mission Alert - Spain

I am a bit excited and nervous. I have been asked to join a team of musicians that will be going to Spain in February. We will be ministering at a missionary women's conference. What a privilege to have an opportunity to use music to minister to those in the mission field. I don't have to many of the details at this time, but I do know that I will have to raise support for the trip. I will most likely have to raise somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500 - $2000. If any of my faithful readers want to contribute, send me a note.

I'll post more details as I discover them, and please pray for me. I am not afraid to fly for the most part, but I am nervous in flying post 9/11. The world is a crazy place. So please pray for me on this. Also pray that the team would be united in spirit and purpose, and that we would be a blessing to those we will minister to.

Phone Saga Update

Our mail room guy just brought my new phone up. I feel like a kid with a new toy, but grrrrrrr I have to charge it for 8 hours before I use it. That is frustrating. Oh well, at least I can watch it charge at my desk the rest of the day. Just a random thought, MC_Shann (link to his blog on my links) and I are hanging out tonight at Starbucks with our crew. That should be fun. Last night we went to a meeting of a local group that defends creationism. I have some strong feelings on this that I am definately going to share, but its too much for this little update. Check back for it soon.

My Quest for a Flat Panel TV

I purchased a one bedroom condo back in January. Why not a condo? I’m busy and single, so not having to care for a yard, and having limited space aren’t my biggest concerns. I just need enough room for me, and the occasional visit from friends. I am also extremely anti-clutter and at least once a year I perform a ritual that involves throwing lots of stuff out (although lately I have a business arrangement with a friends wife to sell this stuff on eBay.) Because of my space constraints, I am constantly adjusting furniture placement and space usage in search of that mythical sweet spot of functionality and style (as much as a man can have style.) To this end, I have determined that my 32-inch Sony Wega TV is just too darn big for my space. I have had it about 1 ½ years and it has served me well, but I need the space. I have determined, after some research that I desire a 32 inch LCD flat panel TV. The front-runner in this quest is the Sharp AQUOS 32" Flat-Panel LCD HDTV. Take a look:



My speed bump in this process is that I am a bargain hunter and I don’t like to buy things, unless their coolness factor overpowers my better judgment. So I have come up with a brilliant (or mad) plan and that plan is…….Christmas! No, I am not asking for the TV for Christmas, but I am asking that those who usually give me gifts give a Best Buy gift card. I know that this will in no way total the cost of the TV, but I have a 2nd part to this plan. That is reward points. My bank checking account provides me with reward points for every purchase. At different point levels I earn different rewards. My bank offers this for free so it cost me nothing to participate. The redemption level that I am interested in is 20,000 points. That would earn me a $200 gift card to, yes that’s correct, Best Buy. I have 4500 points accumulated so far. I just need to use this card the entire Christmas season for my own purchases to build the point total up. My third part of this plan involves convincing my friends who may have large Christmas purchases to make, to allow me to make them for them and then they reimburse me. This will increase the money flowing through my checking account and thus increasing my points total. It’s a brilliant plan. Now if only I can make it happen. I’ll update my TV posts as we go along. My goal is to acquire this TV sometime in January. Check back faithful readers.

My Cell Phone Saga

So I realized that I haven’t posted in several days and that is not cool. I want to be more disciplined about this, so I have decided to share some more details about my cell phone saga. Let me go back to the beginning of the story. Last Christmas my mom and dad gave me some gift cards from Cingular so that I could apply them to the purchase of a Blackberry. I spend time doing research on what I had a need for and all the Smart Phones that could do what I wanted. At the end of this journey I decided I really had no need for a Blackberry, especially when you had another $50 added to your monthly service charge for its data package. Then I became enamored with the Sony Erickson w600i (see picture below).

It had a cool interface, and nifty camera, could play music and had a function that synced up with a calendar in outlook. I thought this phone would satisfy my needs. It also had no required data plan, so I purchased it using the gift cards (this is another story about how I couldn’t get them to accept the cards, but I won’t go into that). One of the cool features of the phone is the way it opens. It’s what is called a swivel. You can see how it opens in the picture. So the phone served me well, but I failed to use the calendar function because I really didn’t like the interface. The phone, camera and music player were all nice, but I really found that my iPod is superior in every way to this music phone in usability and quality. I loooove my iPod. But I also liked my new phone. So the year went by, and it became apparent that I really am too busy in my personal and business life to not have a PDA.

I started researching stand-alone devices and thinking about what I would get. I would get a stand-alone device because I had a phone I liked and an iPod for my music. I was thinking about making the move on the PDA sometime in December hoping to get a bargain with Christmas shopping, and then my plans changed dramatically. On Thursday of last week, I went to open my phone and it didn’t want to open. It was stuck halfway thru. So I closed it and tried again and it opened. I thought…”that’s weird.” SO I used it and then by the end of the call I forgot about the whole thing (I can be forgetful sometimes). Later I went to use it again and when I pushed with my thumb to open it, it snapped apart. Frustrating!!! So I called my provider and they said that it was sad that I didn’t have insurance and the phone was not under warranty for that issue. So this meant that I needed to get a new phone, but as I thought about this I also realized that it was another opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. I started researching Smart Phones again. It had been a year and some of the things that I didn’t like were less of an issue, although I still did not want a Blackberry. I was determined that I wasn’t going to get something the size of a brick that I had to hold up to my ear. Thank goodness Cingular has just come out with their first flip smart phone (pictured below).

It is a computer in a phone, isn’t the size of a brick, and has all the functions I am looking for. The better news is that I discovered that my employer has a relationship with Cingular. This meant that I could go to the Cingular Business Premier website and they had special phone upgrade offers for me. I checked the local store and the phone (Cingualr 3125) listed at $450.00. Although I wanted it, I was not willing to pay that amount, but as with most cell providers you can get a better deal. I called and they quoted my $430.00, still not low enough. The premiere website listed it at 250.00 as part of my employee discount, and then as I singed up for a contract extension the price dropped to $128.00. I ordered it and it should arrive in a day or two. In the meantime I took my simm card out and put it into my moms cell phone, since she hardly uses hers. I had to do this because other than Skype I have no phone in my home. The only other frustrating part of this story is that it took my 3 days to order the phone online because Cingulars business premier website was up and down. The odyssey is almost over thank God. Now I just need to figure out what I should take from this situation because we learn from everything.

Shouldn't I Worry?

So I went out for coffee with some friends last night. We didn't talk about the elections at all. Does that make us irresponsible Christians? Shouldn't we be worried about who runs this country? Shouldn't we be frantically watching election results roll in and be on our knees praying that George Allen pulls it out in VA? I would say no. We must trust in the Lord. He is sovereign over the governments of the world. As citizens we have a responsibility to vote, and as Christians we have the responsibility to have our decision informed by godly principles. After we exercise that right, we are not to worry. Be not anxious brothers and sisters. For His own purposes, God wanted Nancy Pelossi to be the speaker of the house, and he wanted Beau Biden to be Delaware's Attorney General. I plan on writing more about my political views as they relate to politics in a day or two, but wanted to put a message out to calm down those who are spitting mad right now.

Holding Out For A Hero

I have been invited to a costume party on Saturday night at my friend KrebstarXXL's house. He lives there with his cousin. They throw parties 2 –3 times a year and it's always a good time. They have a room about 10x12 that they cram everyone into for dancing. They both love the Lord, so the parties are pretty safe. Even so, they don't shy away from inviting non-Christians to the affair. What a fertile ground to form relationships with non-believers that can be used as steps to sharing the gospel with them.

 

These parties usually have a theme involved. As I said, this one is a costume party. We are required to show up dressed as a superhero. I'm holding out for an idea of what hero to go as. I mean lets be frank, I do not have a superhero build. I'm sure one will come to me. I have noticed that Superheroes are the latest pop culture phenomenon to find its way into every part of our lives. There is a hit TV show about them, several movies recently have raked in big bucks and I even read an article the other day about a superhero appearing on a daytime soap opera. Could this say something about our culture? I'm sure some sociologist has a theory related to some political or geopolitical agenda that causes us to crave heroes. I also assume that there are Christians who would make an argument that we are seeking someone to save us. I'm not going to jump onto either bandwagon, but wanted to make the observation that there is something that causes us to find enjoyment in elevating individuals (fictional and not) to a place of hero status. We all want someone to look up to and someone who can right the wrongs that we feel powerless to oppose. I know who my heroes are, do you?

Harvey Cedars In A Nutshell

Ok I was able to locate my posts form the weekend (well not really, just the pics), so I thought I would reconstruct everything here to document what I could.
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Timeline 9:30 Thursday Night
So here is what the stage looked like when we arrived at 9:30pm Thursday night. Its a two level stage. Outside that door is the trailer full of sound equipment and other media paraphernalia. We had a half hour to unload before they locked this building (the chapel) up for the night. It took us about 20 minutes and then we went and got some food.

Here is a picture of Tony as he is setting up his drums. They sounded really good over the weekend. I love making music with Tony.

Here is a picture of some of the guys at TGI Fridays after we were done loading up. Its funny because we came back to the same table at the same restaurant on Firday for dinner before all the kids arrived. Thats Munchie closest to the camera In the background is Corrie and Jubie.

So we came back to Harvey Cedars and went to bed. All was well, until 5:58AM when I received a text message with the attached picture. It seems that a couple of our teens (who work at a coffee shop) were at work already and want to send me a picture of them in their Gilligans Island costumes. They were sad that I wasn't there to see them in person. They get really excited about dressing up at work.

Two minutes later at 6:00AM I got this picture. They apparently had had their coffee at this point and were happy. For those of you who haven't figured it out, meet Ginger, Mrs. Howell and Mary Ann.

Well after this I got up and showered. The Tony and Paulie and Peter and I (the guys in my room) went in search of Dunkin Donuts coffee, but could only find Wawa. That was fine, I drank two 24 oz. cups and was wired the rest of the day. We all met in the chapel at 9:30 and proceeded to set up. My good friend Jim Weaver (Pastor at Crossroads Presbyterian Church) always comes and leads leader devotions for the adults on this trip and I got to hang out with him and two of his daughters for a bit. Always nice to catch up with him.

We practiced some music and then as I mentioned earlier we went back to TGI Fridays and had the same waitress. After this we got back to HC and were waiting for everyone to show up. All the Church's showed by 9:30pm and we got things started. Below are some pictures taken that first night of kids in our group. Remember these were all taken with my phone. I am in the process of trying to get other pics and will add them as they come in.

It was a great weekend. The speaker (Matt Irvin) is a missionary to London with the Hindu community there. He spoke about our everyday calling to missions right here in our own back yard and around the world. He was very real and down to earth with the kids. I was very pleased that our kids were well behaved (mostly). The biggest snag was that the bus was late picking us up on Sunday. We were so ready to be home, but didn't actually get there until 5pm. Can't wait till next year.

Just a quick note to let you know that the one of the left aint no teen. Thats an adult (ha ha aha) . Anyway, check out her blog. She goes by FancyThis.

Stress!!!!!

I am so totally stressed out right now. I have so much going on. I want to stand on my desk and scream! I just decided to stop for a couple minutes and blog. Here are the things I have going on this week.

1. I am leading worship this Sunday morning at Church.
2. I am teaching this Friday night at Youth Group.
3. I have Choir Thursday night.
4. I have a college class tonight
5. I have a college student who wants to meet before Youth Group Friday.
6. I have a test on the college class Monday.
7. I am juggling 8 databases at work that all talk to each other and at this moment they seem to be speaking different languages.
8. I have a costume party to go to on sat night in which I have to be a super hero and I haven't gotten a costume yet.
9. I need to get a haircut at some point before the week ends.
10. I need to have some reports done for my boss before he leaves for Columbus tomorrow. These reports are a pain.

There......now I feel a little better. Pray for me. I spoke to some guys at Church today about the worship order that I needed to get them and I think I was a bit snippy. I really need to apologize to them.

Disappointment after A Great Weekend

Adventures In Worship
I just got home form the retreat and discovered that all of my mobile blogging did not make it to the website. How disappointing. Well I am TIRED and can't go into detail about things now, but I will. Check back soon.

Later

Have Blog Will Travel

Tonight I leave for the weekend. No it isn't a vacation, but it is a youth group retreat. I always go a day early with our youth pastor (now associate pastor) to help setup for the worship and media stuff. This will be my 11th year spending the last weekend in October with our kids. What a joy and a privelege. For those of you who won't be ther, check back frequently because i will be uploading and posting things and pictures from my phone. That way you may feel like you are here. See you in person on Sunday.

Later

Tivo can be an idol

I love gadgets, but at the same time I am cheap. This is a struggle because I have a desire to own gadgets, but at the same time am hesitant to buy them. I have only owned an iPod for about a year (love it), and I am being driven to a point in my life where I either need a smart phone or a PDA just so I have constant access to my calendar. My parents gave me my Tivo for Christmas two years ago and I have been watching way too much television (not commercials…wooo hooo) ever since. We certainly live in glorious times technologically, but as with any good thing it is possible to corrupt it. As I briefly mentioned, my Tivo and my iPod are distractions from the things in life that I really need to be doing. I am a homeowner and when I am home I have things to do. These things are suffering. The Tivo calls and then I get distracted and lazy. This became apparent to me when the Tivo blew up two weeks ago. Suddenly I realized just how many TV shows that I recorded and then jammed into my free time to watch. In the meantime, my condo has been needing paint, my wall has a hole that need patching, my kitchen cabinets are atrocious. All this AND the lack of time spent with the Lord. All these things are time stealers from spending time reading the Bible. I have felt so convicted about this. I just got the replacement Tivo from the factory on Thursday and just hooked it up on Sunday. My challenge is to not let it become my idol and to get up and do something. I can't worship God in front of the TV. Where is the adventure in that?

Dr. Bryan Chappell and The Gospel

I have to get these thoughts out of my head and onto my blog before I am too far removed form the event. As I have mentioned several times, our speakers over the weekend were excellent. On Saturday night Dr. Bryan Chappell shared with us from John 3:16. I can't remember the last time someone preached a sermon where this was their text. It was a fabulous gospel presentation. To you casual observers of Christianity, it may seem odd to tell a group of believers about the good news of Christ. You would assume that they already know. Most of us do, but we need to be reminded. We need to constantly be brought face to face with exactly what Christ did for us. This isn't because we forget our gift and need to pray the sinners prayer again. It is because we take it for granted. We grow in our faith as we are constantly challenged. We are challenged by continually remembering who we are (sinners) and who God is (savior) and what he did to reconcile us to himself. We need the Gospel everyday, lest we rely on our own works for our salvation. The sermon Dr. Chappell delivered Saturday night was concise and challenging to Christians as it would have been to a non-Christian. This time with his was a glorious declaration of God's love for the whole world and our role as his representatives and vehicle of common grace.

The follow-up on Sunday morning was quite possibly the best sermon I have ever heard in my life. Our text was Isaiah 6. In this chapter we see the prophet confronted with the Holiness of God and his realization of his unworthiness to be in God's presence. I have never heard a more descriptive discussion of the Holiness of our Lord. I was moved in a serious way. The pictures he was painting as he handled the Word caused me to again and again realize just how my sin has separated me from Christ. Then as he continued he described the hot coal used to cleanse Isaiah's lips. The majesty of the temple imagery and the provision that God made for the repentant Isaiah, were amazing. How can we respond in any other way but to worship Him and desire to be sent on His behalf as a servant of the Gospel. I can't wait to get copies of the audio and listen to them both again.

What a blessing this weekend has been. It will be so hard to sum up all of the things that have gone on. In my last post I mentioned that Dr. John Armstrong spoke at the Friday night event. I just want to attempt to condense what he said about the church universal and our church specifically.

1. We need to be inspirational. We need to build our Sunday mornings to charge the faithful up to face the world the rest of the week. I feel that our services are pretty good at this. Our times of song and reflection are good, our adherence to the Word in the preached word is there as well. If I was assessing our body, I would say that we are safe on this action item. Although life always allows room for improvement.
2. We need to be invitational. We need to open the church to those who are not Christians. This is a tough one for me and many others. Now a casual reader may not understand what I am talking about, but this is really counter cultural in many ways to most of Christendom. We like to see church as our fortress, our safe haven. Parents look at it as a place where they can drop their kids off and not worry about them being exposed to the cultural sins that are running rampant in the schools, malls and neighborhoods. They don’t want their children exposed to those who are drug users, or those that smoke or curse. We create this environment that says, “you can come here, but act differently so that you will fit into our cultural requirements. You better behave. And don’t even ask to be involved in anything, unless you just want to sit in the pew.” Because everything we do in the church is under a heading where the word ministry follows a title, you have to be a Christian to participate. He drew the example of an usher. Do your ushers have to be saved? This is so completely counter cultural to the established traditions and practices of the church. We need to have a spirit of invitation, a spirit that says we want you to be here. We want you to be in this building. We can do this while also not compromising on the preached word.
3. We need to be missional. We need to view our lives as a mission, and our church as a mission. Not rely on the pastor, or our missionaries, or our staff to do the mission work. We need to be invitational to get the non believer in our lives, and then we need to be missional to show them the love of Christ. We need to present the gospel in this missional period of relationship. I know that there is a friction between those who adhere to the gospel as relationship and the gospel as truth. I would guess that the answer lies in a mix of both. Isn’t it amazing that as the theologians continue to debate, the Holy Spiris continues to draw men to himself. Where it isn’t our effort or knowledge, or sales techniques that save man, it is our being vessels used by God to deliver that gospel that saves. We need to be missional in our relationships, but to declare the truths in them at the same time.

I am sure that my summary lacks many of the points that Dr. Armstrong made, but I hope I caught the spirit. What a privilege to meet the man and spend some brief time with him in the van ride from the airport (even if it was late), and what a greater privelge to be ministered to by him on Friday night. I was not able to listen to him at other times over the weekend because of various responsibilities, but I will be getting the tapes and listening to them.

So this brings me to Saturday night and Sunday morning with Dr. Chappell. Let me sum it up and just say WOW and I’ll expound on that at a later time. I've got to get going to our big finale event at the church tonight. We are having a big dinner and then watching a video retrospective and then singing some great songs. Blog at you later. Oh and if your reading, let me know.

Thanks

GRPC 20th Year Celebration Day 1

This weekend is my Church's 20^th anniversary. I have attended for 11 of those years, although my routes with the congregation go back farther to a different church. It was a fun time, but not in your regular "we hung out" sort of Friday night event. It started with a dinner in the Family Life Center, and then we moved to the candle lit sanctuary. There our Music Minister put on a mini concert of piano music from his recent CD. It was quite and reflective, and for those who need to be entertained all the time, it probably bored them. I found it to be a refreshing time of just being spoken to by the music. It's a amazing the sound that can come from one instrument and the hands of a man. This makes me think of the detail that God built into his creation. The little things that add depth to life are so over looked in our everyday journey. Colors, sounds, smells, the little things that come together to create our experience in this world. It makes out lives 3 dimensional and allows us to experience God through the context of our senses.

 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalm 139:14

 

How often do I just forget to look at creation and know that the Lord was in those details? Gods fingerprints were in that piano last night, in the way that two or three notes played together created sounds that could make our hearts rise and fall. We didn't sings joyous songs, or get excited by drums and guitars, but I did praise God through that music last night. I'll blog more on our speaker (Dr. John Armstrong) and the things that he shared with us later today or tomorrow. I think he really threw done the gauntlet for our church. I can't wait to hear what Dr. Byan Chapell has to say tonight.

 

Bye for now.

RAV

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I am in airport punishment. I came to pick up Dr. John Armstrong and his flight is gonna be four hours late.

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I am home now (12:45 am). Dr. Armstrongs flight came in around 11pm and then I drove him to his hotel. I can't believe I spent 5 hours in the airport. Dr. Armstrong was a nice man, but he looked tired from his ordeal as well. The ironic thing is that, he could have driven from DC to DE and back again in the time this trip took. Oh well, now we can focus on him speaking at GRPC this weekend for our 20th anniversary. I'm sure he'll have some interesting things to say. I am especially looking forward to hearing Bryan Chapell speak. I really enjoyed him the last time he visited. Now I need to sleep.

RAV

Adventures In Worship

Adventures In Worship

So at the request of some friends and fellow bloggers on other blog sites, I have removed the registration requirement from my blog. I have also added the verification step though (where you have to type the phrase from a picture in). This will help me weed out bots posting. Also, your comments will be sent to me via email for my approval. That way I can make sure that any nasty things stay of the site. So, enjoy everyone.

Funerals...I hate them

I have to go to a funeral today. My grandmother’s sister (my great aunt) died on Monday after a long battle with lung cancer. My grandmother has a big family and my aunt was only a couple years older than my mom, and the two of them were really good friends. Its weird to think that my grandmothers younger sister died. It really makes me realize that as the oldest sister she won’t be around forever. I hate funerals. I really hate family funerals. You see all your cousins that you maybe see once every two years. It feels like they are really more acquaintances than family. This is sad to me, but at the same time it feels “real”. I don’t really know how to explain that, but to quote my favorite phrase of late….”It is, what it is.” We don’t dislike each other; we just don’t seem to desire relationships with each other. No common ground in life other than blood. Speaking of blood, I am getting ready to go meet my sister so that we can ride over together. I pray that I can in some way reflect Christ to those there. I am known in the family as a Christian, but they avoid the subject. I probably just avoid them, rather than confront as well. I pray that this will change. Its funny, I am listening to a random mix in iTunes and the song Instrument of Peace just came on. The lyrics that stick out:

Make me an instrument of peace

Make me a vessel of your love

Make me a minister of reconciliation in this world

Make a picture of your grace

Make me a portrait of your face

Make me a minister of reconciliation in this world

It seems that the lyrics are challenging me as I write this blog. Lord let this be my prayer.

So with that I will bog later. Have some good times planned later with some people at my favorite coffee hang out.

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My parking lot. Kinda boring.

My New Blog

So I have been using another blogging software, but I wanted to try something new I discovered and it has a great link up feature with Blogger, so I am trying this out for a bit to see how I like it. Here we go.

Some of my friends.

So me and some of my buds (pictured above) went to a Corn Maze in Lancaster, PA on Saturday. I snapped this picture afterwards at Fuddruckers. K took some pictures while we were there with her nifty camera. If she sends them to me, I may post some of them.