Welcome Folks From LaGrange Park

Newsletters went out yesterday, which means that they arrived today in most cases. I would guess that many of you just found out that your youth minster writes a blog and are probably here to see what it is all about. So this post is a primer on my weblog.

Some of my posts:

Require a lot of thought and organization like: A Time For War part 1 & part 2

Are hopefully an encouragement to the church like: News That Bothers Me or Saying Yes to Jesus

Are meant to provoke a response like: Silent?

Are about fishing or basketball

Are pure silliness like: this one or this one

My most commented ever is just me asking for help

Anyway, thanks for visiting. And if you got here because of the church newsletter, leave a comment and say hello. And feel free to come back or add me to your RSS reader.

Also, visit this post and vote in the comments

P.S. We mail out about 285 newsletters, anyone want to guess how many extra hits that translates into. I’d set the over/under at 20 with 5 comments.

Why Is This News? pt.2

Last week I saw this story on the interweb.

‘Basic Instinct’ Director Paul Verhoeven: Jesus Was Son of Mary and Roman Rapist

And of course it gets headlines. To save you from reading it, here it is in a nutshell. Paul Verhoeven has spent 20 years researching a book, Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait, so that he can gin up some interest and hopefully make a movie about Jesus.

Since he’s a director and has a couple of hit movies under his belt, people care what he has to say. But here’s the deal.  In his 20 years of study he has learned nothing. But he cannot accept the idea of a miracle so he makes something up. In this case, he says Jesus may have been the result of a rape. Also apparently Judas didn’t betray Jesus.

Every so often I like to write posts like this, and they all have the same theme. You may remember a few weeks ago a story about Moses.  Some scholar cannot buy into the idea of miracles so he makes something up. This is the same thing. Verhoeven apparently has no real reason to believe this except that he doesn’t want to. If you go back to the Jesus Seminar where he gets his ideas you will find that their view of Jesus excludes all miracles and deny all quotes where He talks about himself or eternity. Per wikipedia:

The seminar’s reconstruction of Jesus portrays him as an itinerant Hellenistic Jewish sage who did not die as a substitute for sinners nor rise from the dead, but preached a “social gospel” in startling parables and aphorisms…

Why do people who insist on denying every major Christian doctrine also insist on calling themselves Christian? I think it is dishonest. They deny literally the very core of Christianity, the atonement. Why not just come up with a new title and be honest about who they are.  I believe it is because Christ is so appealing that even those who don’t follow Him, or in this case don’t believe in Him, or believe in a false version of Him, still want to be associated.

I can’t blame them for that.  I came to belief in Christ around 25 years ago, and it is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Finished…I hope

I think, after a couple of hours work this morning, I finally finished the website for Drop Tine & Spurs Outfitters.

Feel free to visit and point out any corrections that still need to be made.

Also, thanks for your help from this post.

I think my next project will be to either cleanup or redesign the church website. Feel free to vote here. should it be a redesign, (probably still a sidebar navigation) or just clean it up so it looks right on IE and Opera? I’m leaning toward a redesign. I’ve leaned so much about web design since I built it, that it won’t take much work to improve.

Also, follow me on twitter. I’ll try to pass along interesting stuff when I see it.

Best Bowling Trick Ever

News That Bothers Me

I saw this news story today:

NASHVILLE, Tenn., 4/23/08 — The number of people baptized in Southern Baptist churches fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the denomination’s lowest level since 1987. Although the SBC added 473 new churches and gave more than $1.3 billion to support mission activities around the world, there’s no escaping the disappointing fact that Southern Baptists are not reaching as many people for Christ as they once did, according to Thom S. Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, which gathered the information on the denomination’s behalf…Read the rest of this press release here.

I don’t know if I have anything interesting to say on this subject and I’m sure I have nothing new to say. But I do want to get some thoughts out there. And thank you for reading.

I love the Southern Baptist Convention. I love my church. And when I see news like this I want to cry.

I know that the SBC is not equal to the church. And I know that Jesus didn’t say, “Upon this rock I will build my denomination.” I also know that there are many good churches of other stripes, but this feels like a kick in the teeth. I’ll restate it. The churches of the SBC baptized fewer people for the third straight year.

Without getting into why I am a Southern Baptist or analyzing lots of potential problems (others will do a great job of that), here is what I see. The tragedy is that we are officially now losing the war for souls. More church members are reaching less people. Which means, simply put, more people will die and spend forever in hell.

I also know that the problem cannot be fixed on a national level or with better leaders. Nobody could do a better job calling for revival in evangelism than Frank Page or Bobby Welch. It must be fixed by individual Christians. Take this test.

• Do I know somebody who doesn’t know Jesus?
• Do I know somebody who doesn’t know Jesus that I haven’t witnessed to?
• Do I love this person?

If you answered yes to these questions, you are officially part of the reason for this news story. I have been deeply convicted lately that I don’t witness enough. And I wanted to share.

BTW: If you are reading this and don’t know Jesus please read here or here

Feel free to comment.

The Death of Remembering Stuff

My favorite podcast is Buzz Out Loud, and one of the recurring themes on BOL is regarding the information age and what we know. They talk about how, because of the information age, we don’t have to remember anything anymore. In this context it pays to know how to look stuff up rather than actually remember stuff.

I can seriously see this in my own life. For example, I personally know only a few phone numbers. And in almost every case they are numbers that I have known since childhood. I know the first number I ever learned, (our house number when I was in kindergarten, 669-1827 about 25 houses ago) my dad, Grammaw & Paw, Pops & Granny, my best friend from high school, my uncle [only because it is one digit different from the previous one], and my current phone number. Numbers I call regularly, like my brother, my mom, or my pastor I have no clue about. Also, thanks to DVR technology, I don’t know when TV shows I like come on. I don’t know so many things that would have been necessary knowledge a generation ago. I do have a handful of passwords memorized, which wouldn’t have mattered a generation ago, but 6 passwords probably encompasses all of the websites I login to [log into, or log in to] regularly.

And I am not the only one experiencing this phenomenon. The other day, John McLamb blogged about computer / internet dependence and Bible Study.

“So what’s the big deal?” you say. “You have the technology, embrace it.” Obviously I have embraced it, but I’m afraid it will lead to a certain mental laziness. Specifically I am afraid that I will become lazy with the Scriptures.

Here’s my plan. I intend to begin a regular schedule of memorizing scripture. I will not just learn scattershot verses from all over the Bible, but I will learn passages. In the past I have learned passages. (mostly because seminary professors required me to.) This is an incredibly rewarding exercise. First you learn the very words of God, secondly they become a part of you as you learn them thoroughly, and third, you are just so proud of yourself when you can quote a large passage of scripture. My plan is to learn them well enough to know the entire passage versified. I’m not what sure what pace I will work at, probably one verse per week. But I will begin with Titus 3:5-8.

All of my readers are encouraged to join me. But you don’t have to. I just wanted to make my plan public so I would feel like a jerk for not following through.

Killing

Today I went fishing. Big shock, I know. The lake I fish most often is in the middle of two neighborhoods. It has back yards and docks around the entire perimeter except the levee. It is a wonderful lake. Very few people ever fish it. It is pretty, though not particularly quiet.  And even though it is in the middle of a large city you can see beautiful glimpses of creation there.

There are quite a lot of geese that live on the lake. There are a lot of domestic geese (the white ones) which I don’t like. They are very loud and messy. There are also quite a lot of Canadian geese, which seemingly live there around the year. Many of the Canadian geese were sitting on nests today.

At one end of the lake I heard an odd sound. It repeated several times, and I told Jack, “It sounds like somebody is shooting at us with a BB gun.” About that time, a Canadian goose flew out of the yard where we heard the shooting, and Jack said, “Yeah, or shooting at the geese.” That goose flew across the lake and honked what I thought was a sad sounding honk. It was weak and whiny. The shooting didn’t stop, and since geese mate for life, I thought it was honking towards its mate. The other goose was hiding under a tree at the corner of a dock. As we turned in the boat, we saw the goose, floating, dead.

I have no problem with goose hunting. I have no problems with any kind of hunting. I have been hunting many times. I have shot rabbits, squirrels, birds and frogs. I built a website for a hunting lodge. But I have a problem with killing just to kill something. A few years back, I shot a woodpecker for no real reason, and I felt guilty for three days. It bothers me terribly to think that that goose is now turtle food, for no reason. (We tried to give the goose to some other fishermen hoping they would eat it, so it wouldn’t die in vain.) Earlier in the day, we saw a wounded goose that we thought was tied or caught in a chain around a tree. I got out of the boat intending to help it out. It turns out he just had a bad leg, and couldn’t get up. I wonder if that goose was a victim of the BB gun as well. BB guns are much better suited for goose wounding than goose hunting. Most goose hunters use a 3 ½” magnum 12 gauge.

I just felt like getting that story off my chest.

A Couple Of Ideas

I have been blogging for 6 weeks now. This is post 27. That, of course, means an average of around 4 posts per week. Originally I said that my goal was to post 3 times per week with something fun on Fridays. But it has been more like 2 posts a week with a couple of something funs. I work from a list of what I am planning to post. This list is made up of topics to write on for days when I have nothing to say otherwise, or stuff that I need to think about and formulate for a few days before it is ready to be posted. One of those is coming on Monday. (I think.) That list is currently about 8 items long and I occasionally expand it.

I’m considering a couple of new features on the blog.

I am considering a regular feature called, Jeremy Answers Your Questions. Two of my earlier posts are in response to a question.  And I have another question to answer in the works.  I am not a genius and don’t want to presume that everyone cares what I have to say about everything.  But this is a blog, and if you are reading it hopefully you care a little.

I am also considering a guest blogger feature. I have many very talented, bordering on genius readers, and I may occasionally let them write a post if they so desire. That would prevent the slow down that this blog suffered last week. My brother may want to write about how he loves Jeff Gordon, or Brent may write about why he doesn’t actually read this blog even though it is written by his very good friend. Caroline may want to write and point out all the grammatical errors in my previous posts. (it will be long) Roland might want to write about the smack-off.   Ryan might want to write about his love of the Helvetica typeface. Adam might write about why he is writing on somebody else’s blog when he has one of his own. (That would be so meta) I hope that pretty much covers all of my regular readers.

This is where I beg for comments. Tell me what you think of these two ideas. Do you care about my answers to your questions? Would you care about guest bloggers? Would any of you ever write anything?

Saying Yes to Jesus

This week, in our association we are holding an On Mission Celebration. What this means is that each participating church hears from 5 missionaries during a 4 day period. In our case we get two IMB missionaries, two NAMB missionaries, and one BSCNC missionary. Our church is four services in, and I am hearing some common themes from each of the missionaries. More than anything else, the theme we hear from all of the missionaries is, “God called and I had to obey.” In most cases that meant not knowing exactly what God had in store for them. They could only say yes and then wait until they got clear direction. In every case that meant having their families on board. It is one thing to say that God has called me to do this or that, but another to say that I will uproot my wife and children from where we are and go, whether it is to Pittsburgh or to Lucknow India.

I admire all these people for their efforts. I admire especially those who go to foreign lands and do these things. They have been honest with us and told us stories about how they have opportunities that people in their countries don’t have, and they have to be careful who they trust, or that they really don’t have much guidance once they get on the field.

What this post is really about is saying yes to Jesus. My pastor uses this phrase all the time to refer to salvation, but I mean beyond salvation. We need to say yes to whatever God may call us to do. Most of us in our American churches have never had to suffer for Christ. At least not more than in a slight way when we are ridiculed for or belief or painted as morons for believing in Christ. Because we have never had to suffer, we limit the ways we are willing to be used by God.

We say, “I’ll help in VBS, but only in the kitchen.”

We say, “I’ll give to help send the youth to camp, but no way I’ll be a chaperone.”

We say, “I’m not going to the nursing home, old people smell funny.”

We say, “I’ll go to church on Sunday morning and even Wednesday, but how dare anyone expect me to go on visitation.”

We say, “I’ll go to church regularly, but I’m not going to consider sitting anywhere other than my seat.”

We say, “I can’t be in choir, they expect me to be at practice regularly”

We say, “Witness to my neighbor? Isn’t that my pastor’s job?”

We say, “I’ll do construction work on a mission trip but I’m not going to do surveys.”

We say, “I’ll bring my Bible to church and read it daily, but I’m not memorizing scripture; that takes work.”

All these are ways that I have seen people limit God. Not that God is actually limited in any way but they don’t allow Him to be used in their lives in these ways.

The thing that separates missionaries from other Christians is not some super-spirituality or extra dose of faith. (Only a little is enough to move mountains.) What they have is the “Yes.” We sing Yes, Lord, Yes but we don’t mean it. I have sung Where He Leads Me I Will Follow hundreds of times, but I don’t remember the “I won’t follow to the Nursery” verse.

In case I have not been clear to this point I’ll say it this way.  We are on shaky ground when we limit what we will allow God to do through or with us.  As I pray for revival for our church and our nation I realize that this is where revival breaks down.  When Christians love God right up to the point that service is not comfortable, I am afraid God will bless us only to that point.

Please make this your prayer today…God I will go anywhere,* Africa to Alaska, and do anything, as long as I know it is your will.

*This includes the nursery and the nursing home

Real post coming this should hold you over

I’m in the process of writing a new [real] post but I just saw this video on Myextralife.com and I have to share. This is great