Atonement and Evil

Has anyone out there seen the movie, Atonement? What did you think? Good, bad? I saw the preview and it looked intriguing.

I recently read a review of it in Critique magazine where the author of the book upon which the movie is based, Ian McEwan (a pronounced atheist) gave a quote about the nature of evil in a PBS interview after the 9/11 attacks.

I don't really believe in evil at all. I mean, I don't believe in God, and I certainly don't therefore, believe in some sort of supernatural or trans-historical force that somehow organizes life on dark or black principles. I think there are only people behaving-and sometimes behaving monstrously. And sometimes their monstrous behavior is so beyond our abilities to explain it, we have to reach for this numinous notion of evil.

See how his logic implodes upon itself here?

If evil is not real and is not something to be believed in as a reality, then why use the word, "monstrous"? If evil doesn't exist then we can't classify anything as "monstrous". We are simply reduced to preferences. One person may prefer murder and betrayal, another may prefer grace and mercy, but to use the word "monstrous" is foolishness if we deny the existence of evil. Monstrosities don't exist if evil does not exist since a monstrosity is by definition something evil. Even atheists are forced to borrow from the Christian worldview to make sensible comments about big questions in life.

See how he sneaks that in the back door?

Is "Personal Peace" A Good Thing?

Francis Schaeffer, my spiritual mentor, used to warn about what he saw as a pernicious temptation for Christians in the West: personal peace, along with the affluence that made the pursuit of it possible. The problem is that life has gotten to busy, margins to slim, and stress so constant that personal peace seems less a temptation to avoid than a respite to be embraced. We can even come up with spiritual sounding justifications for pursuing it. The true solution to these pressures, though, is carefully planned cycles of rest.

Personal peace, in contrast, is an attempt to keep from having to walk by faith, an escape from everything that is different from us as if our comfort is the final standard of all that is obedient for a believer.

It is foolish to try, but sometimes I try to imagine what Christ went through to enter my world: From an infinite, all-encompassing omnipresence to be a fetus in a womb, as the deity of all life to a slow, agonizing death by crucifixion, the One who spoke far-flung galaxies into existence yet was disblieved by the ones he came to love. My mind boggles.

- Denis Haack, from the latest edition of Critique magazine, in an article called, "Pushing Beyond Comfort Zones"

Critique is a magazine that you all really should check out. Denis does most of the writing and it's superb. Sign up to recieve this in the mail by clicking here.

Where is the Salt?

"God intends us to penetrate the world. Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt cellars; our place is to be rubbed into the secular community, as salt is rubbed into meat, to stop it going bad. And when society does go bad, we Christian tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world; but should we not reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat from going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question to ask is: where is the salt?"

- John Stott, The Message of the Sermon On The Mount, p.65


Here is another great book on the Sermon on the Mount: The Sermon on the Mount, The Character of a Disciple, by Dan Doriani. Dr. Doriani used to teach New Testament at Covenant Seminary. He is a GREAT Bible teacher.

The New Masculinity

Salvo Magazine has an interesting article here called, "Girly Men, The Media's Attack on Masculinity"

Here is the conclusion:

Thus, the war against boys seems to have created three main character patterns for the adult male of our time: sensitive guys who want to please women; weenies and dorks who want only to be left alone to drink beer and play video games with their dork buddies; and thugs who, in rebellion against their unnatural education, are perpetually concerned with proving their toughness through increasingly loutish behavior. There are, of course, examples of decent, positively masculine males in the culture, but they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the products of educational and cultural feminization.

The fact is that people learn what you teach them. And the consequences of the war against boys—and the broader social war against masculinity in general—are increasingly evident in both the culture and the world at large. We should hardly be surprised that the results are anything but pretty.

This issue is much more complex than this article gives time for, but please read it and ponder for yourself if you observe these trends taking shape in our culture.

(HT: AB)

Song of the Day - Rend The Heavens - Son of God

Today's song is from a band you may not have heard of (except for on this here blog) called Rend the Heavens. They are not yet on a major label, but after you hear this song I think you'll wonder why this is not the case.

The song is called, Son of God and features a haunting melody, extremely cool piano riff and huge chorus. Check it out here: AmazonMP3,

Interview with Thabiti Anyabwile on "What Is A Healthy Church Member"

I recently conducted an interview with Thabiti Anyabwile concerning his new book, "What Is A Healthy Church Member?" I encourage you to consider getting this book for personal and/or small group study. If all the people in our churches would read this book and take it to heart I think our churches and church leaders would be greatly blessed.

What inspired you to write this book?
By God’s grace, love for the local church. The Lord has knit us together in His body, making each member essential (1 Cor. 12:12-27). I long to see the Lord’s people live with full love and empathy for one another, making our life together as a redeemed people central to all our living. So much of the book market for individual Christians, however, leaves out the corporate aspect of the Christian life. There’s a great deal written to stimulate personal piety. But it’s often abstracted from the spiritual reality of the church. And it’s in the church that God intends for his people to be discipled (Eph. 4), to complete His love (1 John 4), to learn to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25), and so on. So, I wanted to offer something that helped individual church members see the connectedness between their personal spiritual health and the health of their local church.

What is the main thesis of this book? Or, what is one main thing that you hope that people will take away from reading this book?
I would rejoice if the Lord would allow the readers of this book to walk away thinking, "I have a lot to contribute to the strength and vitality of my local church", and, "that has a lot to do with my own communion with the Lord". It’s my sense that most “average Christians” feel they can do little to make their churches places of sweeter communion, or they tend to think that improving the church means adopting a new method of some sort. I pray that What Is A Healthy Church Member? actually says, “No, you have a lot to contribute. Every member is essential. And here are some biblical recommendations for impacting your brothers and sisters in Christ right away.”

What do you feel like you personally learned from writing this book?
How poor my own soul can be at times, and how my poverty of soul is very often connected with my retreating from the Lord’s people. I’m a pastor, so in some sense I’m always around the Lord’s people if I’m fulfilling my call. But it’s possible to regularly gather with people and not be affected by their lives or edified by their gifts because, though we’re in a church with dozens or hundreds of other Christians, we’re thinking and living like individualists rather than a family. I see that in my own life sometimes and I think I see it in the lives of a lot of Christians. And yet, as you survey the New Testament you find that our spiritual welfare is almost always joined together with the welfare of the church or depicted in group terms. The local church is absolutely central to what it means to live a Christian life according to the New Testament. So, I have to do a better job of building my life around the local church and of encouraging my people to do so. It’s in our spiritual best interest as God designed it.

Who is this book for? (Seems like an obvious question given the title of your book, but do you have a more specific audience in mind?)
The book is written for the “average Joe” in the pew on Sunday mornings. Perhaps the Lord would grant that the book would reach those Christians with the nagging sense that they should be “doing more” but don’t know what that is. Perhaps it’s the Christian that runs through the mill on various church programs and is all volunteered-out. Or, maybe it’s the new Christian who discovers they have been birthed into a spiritual family but doesn’t know their part in it yet. I pray the book would be helpful to all those types and many more who would find their souls refreshed by doing the ordinarily profound work of listening well to the word, thinking God’s thoughts after Him, praying fervently, sharing the good news, and following godly leadership.

What influences did you draw upon to write this book?
The chief influence would be Mark Dever’s work with 9Marks Ministries and his books What Is A Healthy Church? and Nine Marks of a Healthy Church which were written primarily for pastors. Healthy Member essentially takes those nine marks and tries to think about them from the perspective of the average Christian church member. So, it’s an effort to help members along the path of supporting their leaders in strengthening the church.

Do you think church membership is undervalued in our current church culture? If so, why?
Certainly. There are probably a number of factors. We share five reasons why people undervalue church membership in our new members class:

First, some Christians are not well informed. They’ve simply never thought much about the issue or been taught that church membership matters and is biblical.

Second, some Christians are indifferent. They think of church as an optional extra, sort of like the sunroof or the heated seats in a new car. It’s nice if you desire it, but not necessary to operating the car, or in this case the Christian life.

Third, some Christians are committed individualists. Their conception of the Christian life stops with “my personal relationship with Jesus,” and fails to see that the broader family really is essential. Often, these persons can be somewhat anti-authority as well. If they see in the church or the church’s leadership something that feels or looks like real oversight, they may recoil at the thought of having people “intruding” into their lives. In that sense, they may think of themselves more highly than they do others and not appreciate church membership.

Fourth, some Christians may simply be indecisive. If they have a consumer’s mindset when it comes to finding a church, they may shop around forever until they find a “custom fit” for their spiritual lives. And, of course, no such custom fit really exists so they keep shopping and never commit to any one body.

Finally, some Christians struggle with an inversion of their affections. What I mean is they’re not opposed to church membership per se, they may even know its importance, but they are emotionally attached to some previous church even though they are physically hundreds of miles away in a new city or even country. They remember fondly the church of their youth, or a pastor that was really influential in their lives, and they sometimes think that joining a church where they now live is somehow to have less affection for that previous church. What we want to encourage people to recognize in this situation is that (a) they should work to join their hearts with their bodies and commit to a church where they live, and (b) joining a new church does not diminish their love for other saints.

Why is church membership important anyway?
“Member” is a Christian word, a biblical idea. Many people think that pastors who stress membership are borrowing from the Rotary Club or some secular outfit. Actually, the idea arise straight from the body metaphor in places like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. And when you read those passages you see two remarkable things: (1) God designs the body to the point of arranging each member in it just as He pleases (1 Cor. 1:18), and (2) His intent is that through the church He would receive glory (Eph. 3:10) and His people would grow into the full maturity of Christ (Eph. 4:11-13). If we are Christians but not attached to the body as recognized and functioning members of it, then (a) we, in effect, say that God does not know what He is doing in putting us in the body and we know better than God does, and (b) we think there is a path to glorifying God and reaching spiritual maturity that does not involve what God in His word says is essential and desirous. Church membership is simply a practical way of reflecting God’s glory as we live together in love, unity, peace and joy and of helping one another mature into Christlikeness. Those are critically important goals that can only be met through Christ’s body.

What other writing projects do you have in the works?
I’m working my way through a couple of things, which I would actually covet prayer for. I’ve been asked to write a book on “race,” more specifically, a Christian approach to thinking biblically about personal and group identity with an eye toward things like “race” and culture and the church. I’m also trying to finish up a short book recommending a gospel-centered approach to witnessing to Muslims, again aimed at the average Christian who may have little understanding of Islam. And I’m reviewing some chapters for a short, hopefully practical book on identifying potential elders and deacons in the local church.

On an unrelated note, I know both of us share a love for jazz music, or as you say “real jazz”. Give me your top 5 desert island recordings.

(Links are to Amazon or iTunes)
1. Miles Davis—Kind of Blue ()
2. John Coltrane—Either Blue Trane ()or A Love Supreme ()
3. Clifford Brown with Strings ()
4. Dinah Washington—Dinah Jams () (or alternatively, Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown)
5. Thelonius Monk—Straight, No Chaser ()

You can purchase "What Is A Healthy Church Member?" here.

Janice It Ain't Funny!

Sorry, buddy. It's VERY funny.

I guess this is an old clip, but I never saw it. So maybe you have not either. As usual, the more you watch it the funnier it gets.



(HT: Los)

Guns and Martyrdom

John Piper:

What do the supreme court ruling on guns and the martyrdom of missionaries have to do with each other?

Noël and I watched Beyond Gates of Splendor, the documentary version of End of the Spear, the story of the martyrdom of Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Nate Saint in Ecuador in 1956. That same day we heard that the Supreme Court decided in favor of the right of Americans to keep firearms at home for self-defense.

Here's the connection. The missionaries had guns when they were speared to death. One of them shot the gun into the air, it appears, as he was killed, rather than shooting the natives. They had agreed to do this. The reason was simple and staggeringly Christlike:

The natives are not ready for heaven. We are.

I suspect the same could be said for almost anyone who breaks into my house. There are other reasons why I have never owned a firearm and do not have one in my house. But that reason moves me deeply. I hope you don't use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun. Better to find some missionaries like this and support them.

9Marks on Marriage

The latest 9Marks eJournal on marriage can be downloaded here as a PDF. As of now, I have only skimmed through it but from what I have seen it looks very helpful.

(HT: Owen)

More Obama Inconsistency

(HT: MTR)

How To Budget Your Time

As a guy in full time ministry, I thought this was a helpful post from Los:

Yesterday I had a coffee time with Dave Bruskas , pastor at City on a Hill Church here in Albuquerque, we were discussing managing our time with church ministry and family ministry. He pointed me to what Dr. John Piper does and implements in his church for the staff at Bethlelhem Church in Minnesota.

John Piper's model is great way to guard time and to help ensure that his family as his first ministry does not play second fiddle to his church ministry. This model really helped me and I hope to implement it starting today. Working at a church I have noticed 2 ditches we can fall in, 1. is the ditch of overwork, where we do not trust God and our pride takes over in thinking we have to do absolutely everything; and 2. where there is laziness and sloth in how we approach our job, where we treat ministry as a 40 hour work week and anymore is considered overtime and not acceptable. I think I fall into the sin of the first one. I hope his fence of time guarding proves to be helpful and good for my family. You can download this installment of "Ask Pastor John" here.

Here is his summary of the model he uses:

"One of the things we do at Bethlehem to try to protect our families and to nurture our wives and make them feel cared for is divide the week up into twenty-one blocks of time (modules). We get that by identifying three modules a day—morning to lunch, lunch to supper, and supper to bedtime—for the seven days of the week.

Then we tell our staff to take seven of those modules off. And three of them have to be in a row, equaling at least one full day off. So you have a day off and then four more modules to work with. It could be four evenings. And if you have to be out in the evenings, then you don't come in in the mornings."

A Couple Great Records For $5 Each

Here are a couple of great music deals today on AmazonMP3. $5 each.

Fleetwood Mac - Rumors


Miles Davis - The Birth of Cool

Persecution of Iraqi Christians

This sounds like a story straight from the book of Hebrews. After I read this piece I was struck with the fact that I hardly remember that this stuff happens in flesh and blood today in our world. May God give endurance in the face of such harrowing circumstances.

"For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come." - Hebrews 13:14

From ThinkChristian.net:

A disturbing secret about Iraqi Christianity is emerging now that the violence in the country seems to be settling down: over the past several years, Iraqi Christians paid hefty ransoms to spare their families and congregations from murder by insurgents.

The issue first attracted attention when it became known that Archbishop Rahho, a respected and internationally-recognized leader of the Christian community in Iraq, paid “protection money” for years to spare his congregation. Two weeks after he stopped paying the extortion money, he was murdered. From the NYT story:

These payments, American military officials and Iraqi Christians say, peaked from 2005 to 2007 and grew into a source of financing for the insurgency. They thus became a secret, shameful and extraordinary complication in the lives of Iraq’s Christians and their leaders — one that Christians are only now talking about more openly, with violence much lower than in the first years of the war.

“People deny it, people say it’s too complex, and nobody in the international community does anything about it,” said Canon Andrew White, the Anglican vicar of Baghdad. Complicating the issue further, he said, some of the protection money came from funds donated by Christians abroad to help their fellow Christians in Iraq. [...]

Officials say the demands could be hundreds of dollars a month per male member of a household. In many cases, Christian families drained their life savings and went into debt to make the payments. Insurgents also raised money by kidnapping priests. The ransoms, often paid by the congregations, typically ran as high as $150,000, several priests and lay Christians said.

My heart weeps for fellow believers caught in such an awful dilemma: pay the extortion money, and fund the insurgency, or have their leaders, families or entire congregations killed. The article notes the shame that many feel for having paid—but I don’t think anybody could fault Rahho and other Iraqi Christians for acting the way they did in the face of such a horrifying choice.

I normally try to close posts like this with a discussion question, but the thought of me tossing this issue out like a Sunday School discussion question (“What do you think they should have done?”) makes me feel ill. Come soon, Lord Jesus…

Read more about this here.

How Do You Deal With Others When They Sin?

"Here is what I have learned. How I relate to others in their sin reveals my true grasp of the Gospel. How I relate to others in their sin really reveals whether I understand what it means that God is Father, that God is merciful, that God has sent his Son"

- Dave Harvey, from the message "God's Mercy and My Marriage"

New Book From Tim Keller

The Prodigal God: Christianity Redefined Through the Parable of the Prodigal Sons. Pre-order it here if you like.

(HT: Justin Buzzard)

A Message To High School Graduates

Shaun Groves with a message for recent high school graduates. I think there is some wisdom here:

Dear Recent High School Graduate,

Don’t go to college. Not yet. Instead, travel, dance, serve, sit, write, think, work. Because it beats being “undecided.” And spending a lot of money while you’re at it.

Yes, your mom won’t like this. Fine. Tell her to e-mail me. And I’ll remind her that the stuff she remembers most from her early twenties are the things she learned about herself not the things written in textbooks or spoken by professors. Which doesn’t mean stuff in books and lectures are worthless. But they can wait. A year. Just a year.

So don’t go to college. Not yet. Take a break, take a trip, take a risk and learn about yourself, the world, and life. Get educated before deciding how you’ll be educated. Take your time.

Then, with your newfound perspective, if you think it’s right for you, rejoin the herd and read those textbooks and take notes on those lectures. Or not. Stay gone. Extend your break for a decade or two or five. It’s up to you, not mom. You should tell her I said that too. She should listen to me. I have a degree.

Your bloggy friend,
Shaun

Marriage Books Breakdown

Here is a helpful link from the new 9Marks eJournal. A breakdown of the most popular Christian marriage books out there today. They profile about 15-20 books and give a very short synopsis and review of each. Check it out here.

(HT: Owen)

Laptop Degenerates Like Me Will Like This

Can you say, "Car Accident?"

This is not a good idea, but I love it!

Out of Ur Repents about "Willow Repents?"

Out of Ur blog:

In October 2007, Out of Ur posted what has now become a much read and much quoted commentary that we titled “Willow Creek Repents?” It was based on comments that Bill Hybels and Greg Hawkins, Willow Creek’s executive pastor, presented at the Leadership Summit, announcing the release of Reveal, a book emerging from an extensive study of Willow and other churches.

Earlier this month, Bill Hybels and Jim Mellado, president of the Willow Creek Association, posted a video on YouTube objecting to the “misinformation” published by Out of Ur and our sister publication Christianity Today regarding Reveal.

The week following the release of the video, I went to South Barrington to meet with leaders of Willow Creek to hear their concerns face to face, which was a very helpful experience. They shared with me new approaches to ministry prompted by Reveal that are in process and things they are not ready to have published. I will honor their trust. I certainly affirm the steps Willow is taking to more effectively turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ.

I do need to respond publicly to two items that were aired in the YouTube video.

Read the rest here.

Obama as Pro-Abortion as is Politically Possible

Doug Groothuis:

Trying to Wiggle Out of the Obvious Contradictions

If you think you may have read this column before, stay with me anyway. There are certain stubborn realities in this presidential election year that are like stains that have resisted the first half-dozen applications of the strongest stain remover.

Too many people whose opinions I ordinarily respect are so caught up in the "promise" of pro-abortion Sen. Barack Obama that they refuse to face facts. Or, more specifically, they soft soap the grim reality that Obama is the most anti-life presidential candidate to run since Roe v. Wade was laid on the shoulders of unborn babies.

Obama is like an instrument that vibrates in sympathetic harmony with the Abortion Establishment. While you know the litany, unfortunately only a tiny percentage of the American public is aware of his abysmal record.

They don't know Obama's support for taxpayer funding of abortion, which increases the number of dead babies. They don't know that he approves of abortionists not notifying parents even when they are performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state.

Nor do they know that Obama supports cloning human embryos, is a co-sponsor of the "Freedom of Choice Act" (Roe on steroids), or that he bitterly denounced the Supreme Court for upholding a law that banned the hideous partial-birth abortion "procedure." This is no small deal. Even some pro-abortion senators drew the line at partial-birth abortion. For example, according to the Congressional Record (Sept. 26, 1996, at S11373), the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "I think this is just too close to infanticide. A child has been born and it has exited the uterus, and what on Earth is this procedure?"

Prof. Paul Kengor recently wrote a thoughtful piece about this whole phenomenon. Although he was talking specifically about Roman Catholic apologists for Obama, his analysis applies across the board.

Kengor does a masterful (and emotionally gripping) job of painting a picture of what happened to those few babies who survived an abortion. The neglect of these victims was so revolting that, in spite of the best efforts of the usual congressional suspects, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act passed in 2002. All BAIPA does is require that these babies receive the same medical attention given a baby spontaneously born prematurely.

"Obama was not a member of the US Senate at the time that the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act passed unanimously through both chambers of Congress," Kengor writes. "But he was a member of the Illinois state legislature, where similar legislation was introduced at the state level." Obama voted against the legislation.

All this and more is outlined by Kengor by way of setting the stage. For all of his egregious pro-abortion positions, Obama is vigorously supported by people who ought to know better--or perhaps do, and pretend otherwise.

Part of the explanation is a variation of the argument that while abortion is (or may be) important, it does not match, let alone override, a panoply of other issues taken as a whole. If this is their position, so be it.

But the website of these same Catholics begins, Kengor explains, with a long quote "from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which states, 'The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of the moral vision for society. … In our society, human life is under direct attack from abortion and euthanasia.' "

So there must be some heavy-duty rationalizing at work to explain why "they are stumping hard for Obama, who, if elected, has promised to do whatever he can to appoint justices and support legislation guaranteeing decades of protection for Roe v. Wade." (I'm not dealing with those who simply want a Democrat elected President.)

Kengor offers a very illuminating example of one man who at least addresses the abortion issue. This guy concedes that he "may disagree" with Obama "on aspects of these important fundamentals," but nonetheless is "convinced, based upon his [Obama's] public pronouncements and his personal writing, that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of views and, as best as is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them."

In other words, I like his smile, so what if he is a force behind FOCA, which would undo with the stroke of a pen decades of pro-life achievements? Obama doesn't raise his voice, so what if he would allow abortion survivors to die unattended? He gives me goose pimples, so what if pro-abortion justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg--the kind that would allow partial-birth abortions--are Obama's ideal?

Kengor is right that there are psychological mechanisms (and rationalizations) aplenty at work, allowing even some who would proudly call themselves "pro-life" to wiggle out of the obvious contradictions.

We need to keep the Truth Squad working 24/7, not for these people, alas, but for those who may be influenced by them. One important component is Today's News & Views.
Be sure to pass this edition on to friends, family, and colleagues. And also, please encourage them to sign up to receive this daily feature.

Song of the Day - Esbjorn Svenson Trio - Seven Days of Falling

For those of you who are still about bit skeptical on the whole jazz thing, you might want to check out The Esbjorn Svenson Trio and specifically this song, Seven Days of Falling. It's sad to report that Esbjorn recently died, but the music of his trio will certainly live on. It's not to "out there" and has a melancholy beauty and simplicity that I find very agreeable. It's a great place to start for those who are not that accustomed to jazz.

You can find this song here () on iTunes and here on AmazonMP3.

If you like what you hear you can find the whole record here () on iTunes and here on AmazonMP3.

Mighty Man of Valor?

Michael Kelley writes well here:

Last night I watched the VeggieTale “Gideon: Tuba Warrior” with Joshua and got to relive the amazing story of Gideon from the book of Judges. My favorite part? The fact that Gideon was hiding in a winepress when he’s first visited by the angel. The angel says, “Greetings, mighty man of valor.”

What?

He sums up:

And that’s why, every single day, He can look down at us, at me, in the midst of many times senseless and repetitive sin, hiding in our own winepresses, and say “Hello, my righteous son.” See, what God did to Gideon He does every day for us. Though we hide in winepresses, we are mighty warriors. Though we play around with senseless sin, we are righteous saints. This is the identity which God has made for us because of Christ. And today, I’m thankful that His reality looks different than my circumstances.

Read the whole thing here.

This Will Be Our Next Date Night

Marriage Resources - Dave Harvey

I just finished listening to one of the most powerful sermons on marriage that I have ever heard. It's called, God's Mercy and My Marriage by Dave Harvey. Please download it here and give it a listen. It will be well worth an hour of your time. Burn a CD and listen in the car. Redeem your time in the car!

Dave also has a great marriage book called, When Sinners Say "I Do" that Kim and I use in our pre-marital counseling quite often. It's a unique take on a marriage book that I think you'll find very refreshing and helpful. He basically helps you see how the gospel applies to every aspect of your marriage. I commend it to you highly.

You can purchase it here.

Flood Clean-Up Pics

Check out some pictures of clean-up from the flood in Iowa City, IA at my old church, Parkview Evangelical Free. Wild stuff.

Your Kid Might Not Need To Be On Ritalin

In May 2006, I had the privilege of speaking at the "Learning and the Brain" conference co-sponsored by Harvard University. I wish I could say that my presentation was the most interesting, but it wasn't. Not by a long shot. The most interesting presentation by far, I thought, was given by MIT professor John Gabrieli.

Dr. Gabrieli's team somehow obtained permission to give powerful ADHD medication to normal children. These researchers also obtained permission to withhold ADHD medication from boys (and a few girls) who undeniably did have ADHD. Then Dr. Gabrieli's team tested both troups, on and off medication, to see how well both groups could learn with and without the medication. There was an audible gasp in the audience when Dr. Gabrieli showed us the crucial slide: medication for ADHD improved the performance of normal kids by the same degree that it improved the performance of kids with ADHD. That's a tremendously important finding.

Many times I've been asked to provide a second opinion of a boy who's already been diagnosed with ADHD. The parent come to me for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the in-laws have told them that their song doesn't need, or shouldn't take, medication. Sometimes the parents have seen something scary on TV about these drugs. So I evaluate their son, let's call him Jake. Several house later, after doing the evaluation, I have sometimes said, "Mrs. So and so, Mr. So and so, I'm just not convinced that Jake really has ADHD." One of the parents answer, "But the other doctor prescribed Adderall, and it's made such a difference. Jake is doing so much better since he's been on the medication. He's much less figety in class. The teacher says he's much better behaved and more focused. And his grades are up."

In other words, these parents - and Jake's doctor as well, in this case - are using the response to medication to confirm the diagnosis. "If mediation for ADHA helps Jake to learn better, doesn't that mean that Jake probably has ADHD?" As many of us have long suspected, and as Dr. Gabrieli's study confirms, the answer to that question is no. These medications - Ritalin, Concerta, Metadate, Dexedrine, Adderall, and other stimulants - are likely to improve the perfoamce of a normal child just as much as a child who truly has ADHD. Just because these mediactions improve a child's performance in class, doesn't not mean that the child has ADHD.

- Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D, Boys Adrift, pages 88,89.

You can purchase this book here. As a parent of two young boys, I am finding it fascinating.

The Police - Sychronicity - $1.99

Children of the 80's like me, remember this one? Yeah, that's right, I had it on vinyl. Get it today on AmazonMP3 for $1.99.

Some Pics From Our Mini-Vacation To Durango, CO

Here is a recap:

1. Jeep tour to waterfalls, and silver mines in the San Juan mountains
2. Amazing dinners every night in cool downtown Durango, CO
3. Great places to stay - Blue Lake Ranch, Apple Orchard Inn
4. Massages at the Trimble Springs Spa
5. Sleeping in until 7:30am! Believe it or not, that is great for us since our kids are early risers.
6. Hiking in the San Juan mountains
7. Lots of relaxing with great books to read


Here are some of the best pics:



Apple Orchard Inn in Durango, CO. It was GREAT:

Interesting Pic of the Day

Edith Macefield, 1921-2008: Seattle woman held her ground as change closed in around her.

“I don’t want to move. I don’t need the money. Money doesn’t mean anything, I went through World War II, the noise doesn’t bother me,” she said in October. “They’ll get it done someday.”

(HT: ADIAPHORA)

"Jesus in China" on PBS

Str.org reports:

"Frontline" on PBS Tuesday night (check your local listings):

A massive wave of Christianity has been sweeping across China in recent years, and the Chinese ruling party, officially atheist, is now struggling to figure out how to control it. In “Jesus in China,” a joint project of FRONTLINE/World and the Chicago Tribune, airing Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings), reporter Evan Osnos investigates one of the fastest growing Christian populations in the world, and how it could potentially transform China at this explosive moment in the country’s development.

Osnos travels first to Henan province, a place known as the “Bethlehem of China,” home to China’s largest population of Christians. Here, members of an “underground” Christian church tell Osnos that, until recently, they worshipped in caves high above some farmers’ fields in Henan to avoid detection by the government. Walking through the weeds and woods where they used to pray, church members publicly describe for the first time the extremes to which they went to conceal their services: “The cave on the left was our Bible classroom. The one on the right was the prayer cave for 5:00 in the morning. The children came here, too.”

“This is what it’s like when a church is underground,” says Zhang Yinan, a historian of Chinese Christianity. Zhang and others say they are coming forward because the government is now signaling a new openness to their faith. But the dangers remain: In an underground “house church,” Osnos meets the wife of a well-known Chinese Christian whose husband has been jailed at least five times in recent years. “He was sentenced to seven years in prison the first time,” she says of her husband, Zhang Rongliang. “The second time, 11 months. The third time, three years in a labor camp....”

In the last few years, the Chinese government has arrested hundreds of house church leaders and, in some cases, destroyed the house churches themselves. Still, the Chinese government recognizes that its homegrown Christian movement can no longer simply be branded an instrument of foreign influence and suppressed.

10th Wedding Anniversary / Blog Break

Today is my wife and I's anniversary. 10 years baby. I can honestly say that I am more in love with my wife today than I have ever been. She is such an amazing blessing from God to me. We'll be leaving today for a much needed short vacation (without kids, yes!) to Durango, CO.

Blogging will be non-existent until Tuesday of next week.

New Chris Tomlin Single - Jesus Messiah

Chris Tomlin has released a new single called, Jesus Messiah.  You can get it below on iTunes or AmazonMp3:


AmazonMP3

Ohart

Michael Patton's post from today:

DANIEL CAMACHO ON OPRAHISM (A MUST READ)

Check it out. As Christians we have to understand and be able to winsomely and wisely deal with the cultural norms we find all around us, namely Oprah's "spirituality" and all the crap that she endorses on her show that is watched by millions of people.

Parachutes - $1.99

Well I guess if you have not been a Coldplay fan in the past, this week at AmazonMP3.com is the week to do it. Today they are listing Colplay's breakout recording, Parachutes, for only $1.99!

This is actually my favorite Coldplay CD. When I heard this for the first time about 7 years ago I knew this would change my life forever. Ok, I guess that is sort of an overstatement, but the influence this record has had since it came out is quite remarkable. The first three songs alone are worth the price of the whole thing. This is a $1.99 that you won't be sorry about spending.

Yesterday's deal of Coldplay's 2nd major recording, A Rush Of Blood To The Head, is still active for $1.99.

10 Helpful Points On Parenting

Taylor Buzzard gives 10 points that she found helpful from "Shepherding A Child's Heart". These 10 were a great encouragement to me as I continually reflect on my parenting.

Buy the book here. It's a must have for any parent.

We also really like this book on parenting and discipline.


**Update** -
My teaching Pastor, Ryan Kelly, also recommends this book concerning sharing the Gospel with small children.

Check Out This Video

Here is a really cool video exposition of Colossians 1:15-23.

A Celtics Win And The Body of Christ

Jim from ThinkChristian.net writes well here:

Congrats to the Boston Celtics for winning the National Basketball Association title last night. (And condolences to my friends in LA.)

This season, the team has stressed, well, teamwork by adopting the South African word ubuntu (pronounced Ooh-BOON-too). In English, it roughly translates to “I am, because we are.” I love it!

“A person is a person through other people,” coach Glenn “Doc” Rivers explained. “Because as good as you are, you can only be great or get what you want through other people.”

The apostle Paul illustrates this truth by describing the church as the body of Christ:

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it (1 Corinthians 12:14-26).

Ubuntu,

A Rush Of Blood To The Head - $1.99

Here is a GREAT deal on Amazon MP3. Get Colplay's record "A Rush Of Blood To The Head" for only $1.99!!! I don't know how long this deal is going to last so you might want to pick this one up soon if you don't have it.

A Gospel Lesson From My Son

Last night my son Taylor woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream. I went up and tried to console him with the usual drill. I went back downstairs after speaking a few gentle words to him but in a few minutes we heard him whimpering again in our baby monitor. My wife Kim went up the 2nd time and tried to console him. A few weeks ago when Taylor had a bad dream he asked to sleep with Mommy in the guest room and she did. He wanted to do this again, but since we didn't want to make this a pattern she said no and told him that he needed to go back to sleep. This didn't go over very well and thus he decided to throw a bit of a fit. At 3am, a fit from your 5-year-old is not exactly something that Daddy is super pumped about, so I went upstairs again to deal with the madness.

I spoke some very pointed words and made it clear that I expected him to calm down and he did. In the morning I felt convicted that I was not as gentle with him as I should have been so I pulled him aside to chat with him. I asked him to forgive me for not being as gentle as I should have been. I made it clear that his fit was not acceptable, but that Daddy wants to strive to be more gentle in the way that he deals with him. I said, "Will you forgive me?"

His eyes softened and he immediately said a genuine and enthusiastic, "Yes", and gave me a big hug.

In that moment the truth of Jesus' words, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 18:3) sank deep into my heart.

I was taught a powerful gospel lesson on forgiveness by my son Taylor:

1. He was so quick to forgive. There was no sense of grudge-leaning hesitation or qualification. It was an immediate and joyful, "Yes!"

2. He was so eager to have the relationship restored. Right after he forgave me he wanted to be with me and asked right away if we could play basketball. It was as if it never happened. The incident was gone, never to be brought up again. He embodied Psalm 103:11,12 in his love for me: For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

3. There was no hint of superficiality. It was completely genuine and real, evidenced by the demeanor of his behavior in the following moments.

How refreshing to see forgiveness modeled in this way for me from my 5-year-old! I ask myself and you: How are we doing in embodying the gospel by being child-like in the way we forgive? Are we quick to genuinely forgive for the sake of love and relationship restoration? I pray for the grace to follow my son's lead and truly become like children in this way.

Luther Liked His Music!

“Next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds hearts, and spirits….a person who…does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God…does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”

-MARTIN LUTHER


(HT: B-Lo)

Pushups - Day 1 Report

Well, yesterday I started the 6 week 100 Hundred Pushup Challenge. To start off you have to max out and see how many pushups you can do at once. Go until failure. I did 36. Not bad, but not quite as good as I thought I would do. I keep forgetting that I am old and crusty now. My wife also has decided to join me along with about 10-12 other people that I know. Should be a fun ride to see who makes it to the end.

Here was our first work-out from last night:

10 reps - 60 sec. rest - 10 reps - 60 sec. rest - 8 reps - 60 sec. rest - 6 reps - 60 sec. rest - Max out (Go until failure)

It wasn't that bad but since I was so sore from the day before's max out test it was harder than I thought it would be. I am VERY sore. The last set where you have to go until failure works you over pretty good.

I'll keep you posted...

Garbage?

Dr. Doug Groothuis:

Our garbage tells quite a story. I can only imagine what the garbage men have seen. What a waste when waste is not waste.

Read the rest of his good meditation on garbage. It's a great reminder.

Song of the Day - Willy Porter - Flying

Probably my most favorite concert I have ever been to was a guy with an acoustic guitar who wowed 50 people for three hours by himself. His name is Willy Porter. He is a freak of a musician and I mean that is a good way. Not a freak in the sense of inaccessible, but just in terms of wild talent. His acoustic guitar playing is some of the best you will ever hear and his singing is soulful and beautiful. His playing possesses deep grooves that will make you want to dance. Just check out the 30 sec clip of one of my favorite songs of his, "Flying". I think you'll get what I mean.

You can listen here at iTunes:

Or you can listen here at Amazon MP3.



Some of my other favorite songs from Willy that show his unreal playing:

Breathe

You Stay Here

Angry Words

New Coldplay Record Avaliable Now

You can download it here on iTunes.

You can buy a hard copy or download here on Amazon.

I have had the whole record for about a week now and I can say for certain that this will launch them into "epic rock band" status. This record is really, really good. You don't want to miss it.

**Update** - Check out the new Amazon.com Coldplay artist store.