I sent this as a text message to myself in July. I just realized that i never actually posted it.
sometimes it feels like the church is losing influence. in the changing culture that we live in, people don't necessarily want to have anything to do with Jesus. What they want is answers. I think that very few people actually believe that this is it, that we live and die and then there's nothing else to it. So i think there has go to be something wrong with the way we're presenting the gospel. In Acts, they reported having thousands of people being converted at a time. We have the same basic message that they had back then. But even huge, enormous churches in America get excited about just a few hundred salvations in a weekend. What is it that we're lacking? The world we live in is trying desperately to pretend that it isn't lonely. I think thats a key. For more and more people, the world is doing a good job pulling the wool over their eyes. We have fancy toys these days that take our mind off of reality. We have more drugs that we can medicate ourselves with. We have relationships, friends, family, maybe a happy marriage here and there.
But the reality is that none of those things can ever change the fact that everything you and i have ever experienced in this life has been flawed. Everything we have ever seen and felt has been seen and felt removed from our Creator.
The world is lonely. Not the kind of lonely that you feel when you don't have a girlfriend or when you first go to college or your parents leave you home alone for the first time. The world is lonely in a deep, tangible way, lonely in a way that we sometimes don't notice because we have never not felt it. Because the world does not offer us God, our creator and dad, the only one we can have a perfect relationship with. The only one who can make us not lonely. People don't realize that. And maybe that's on us because we don't do a good enough job telling people. It might have been easier converting Jews to Christians 2000 years ago because Jews already had half the story. They were waiting for Jesus for hundreds of years, and the Early Church just had to convince them that Jesus was who he said he was.
We face a different challenge now, where people have no idea what to believe or where to start. Back then, their challenge was to complete a theology. Our challenge starts with defining what theology is. Not too many churches that i've been in do that.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Roads
Went on a roadtrip a few weeks ago to New York city to experience Hillsong NYC's opening extravaganza.
It was awesome.
I drove on the way there. Didn't stop once.
Highways absolutely mess me up.
When you're on an interstate, all you see is the road that you're on. At 70mph, you're always looking almost a quarter mile ahead of you. With the exception of passing through (over) big cities, there's usually a wall or trees on either side of you.
Your world consists of your car, and the line that is the road that you are on.
Eventually, when you exit the highway, you look around and realize just how far away you are from where you started. Hundreds of miles. A journey of several days 150 years ago. Several weeks if you were on foot.
Technology has come to a point where "travel" is no longer a Grand Adventure like it might have been when our great grandparents were young.
It is now an inconvenience- we measure the distance away from places in "minutes". We groan when we find out our friend's birthday party is "an hour away" and think about the precious gas money slipping away from us.
Before cars were invented, that would have been a great excuse to take a Holiday, go on an adventure with friends, travel to see people you hardly ever see.
On the route between my home and Barrington NH, there's an overpass that goes over local Route 16. Tebbetts Road. Right before you hit that bridge, there's a street sign next to someone's driveway: "Old Tebbetts Road". If you slow down enough, you can see that the trees on the other side of that driveway are thinner brush than the woods of the surrounding area.
The view from Google Maps makes it even clearer: Tebbetts Road is not where it used to be.
Sometime when they turned "Route 16" into a highway, they had to move Tebbetts Road. It probably made local residents unhappy. Or at the very least, Frazzled.
In fact, whenever they decided to cut down a 150 mile stripe of woodland and pour asphalt over the ground, people must have been frazzled.
We love highways. Roads in general. Without them, we would be confined to our local towns, and Somersworth would have to bring back the Trolly line that it used to operate.
But then you think about the millions of people who have been displaced by them.
"Sorry sir, you are going to have to move your house so people can go on family vacations. You have no choice."
Sounds wonderful.
These are all the things that you don't notice when you're driving on a highway.
You don't notice all the people who live literally a hundred feet from where you're driving at breakneck speed, down that line of black tar, staring at the car in front of you. You don't notice the neighborhoods, the businesses, the people.
Let alone the nature.
Me and Karen Mawikere visited the Rochester Toll Plaza a few weeks ago.
Here's how it went: Drove into what could easily be any random business's parking lot. Walked into the woods for maybe a hundred feet. Stepped over a low fence. Looked up and BAM, there's a toll booth. Cars everywhere. Cars on their way home from work. Cars full of people not liking to pay tolls. Just driving, a part of their daily routine. With absolutely no idea that they were just moments away from a parking lot in Gonic, from what could only have once been a christmas tree farm, from a ministorage place, from everything else that you don't notice when you're on a highway.
Think about all the local things that there are in your town. Parks. Local stores. That Gorge in Troy. People "driving through" on the highway that is no more than ten minutes from your house go by in a matter of seconds, and miss everything completely.
We have turned towns into white words on 8-foot tall green signs. Maybe with an arrow. Maybe with a "miles to" number.
Just one more thing that I'm unhappy about.
It was awesome.
I drove on the way there. Didn't stop once.
Highways absolutely mess me up.
When you're on an interstate, all you see is the road that you're on. At 70mph, you're always looking almost a quarter mile ahead of you. With the exception of passing through (over) big cities, there's usually a wall or trees on either side of you.
Your world consists of your car, and the line that is the road that you are on.
Eventually, when you exit the highway, you look around and realize just how far away you are from where you started. Hundreds of miles. A journey of several days 150 years ago. Several weeks if you were on foot.
Technology has come to a point where "travel" is no longer a Grand Adventure like it might have been when our great grandparents were young.
It is now an inconvenience- we measure the distance away from places in "minutes". We groan when we find out our friend's birthday party is "an hour away" and think about the precious gas money slipping away from us.
Before cars were invented, that would have been a great excuse to take a Holiday, go on an adventure with friends, travel to see people you hardly ever see.
On the route between my home and Barrington NH, there's an overpass that goes over local Route 16. Tebbetts Road. Right before you hit that bridge, there's a street sign next to someone's driveway: "Old Tebbetts Road". If you slow down enough, you can see that the trees on the other side of that driveway are thinner brush than the woods of the surrounding area.
The view from Google Maps makes it even clearer: Tebbetts Road is not where it used to be.
Sometime when they turned "Route 16" into a highway, they had to move Tebbetts Road. It probably made local residents unhappy. Or at the very least, Frazzled.
In fact, whenever they decided to cut down a 150 mile stripe of woodland and pour asphalt over the ground, people must have been frazzled.
We love highways. Roads in general. Without them, we would be confined to our local towns, and Somersworth would have to bring back the Trolly line that it used to operate.
But then you think about the millions of people who have been displaced by them.
"Sorry sir, you are going to have to move your house so people can go on family vacations. You have no choice."
Sounds wonderful.
These are all the things that you don't notice when you're driving on a highway.
You don't notice all the people who live literally a hundred feet from where you're driving at breakneck speed, down that line of black tar, staring at the car in front of you. You don't notice the neighborhoods, the businesses, the people.
Let alone the nature.
Me and Karen Mawikere visited the Rochester Toll Plaza a few weeks ago.
Here's how it went: Drove into what could easily be any random business's parking lot. Walked into the woods for maybe a hundred feet. Stepped over a low fence. Looked up and BAM, there's a toll booth. Cars everywhere. Cars on their way home from work. Cars full of people not liking to pay tolls. Just driving, a part of their daily routine. With absolutely no idea that they were just moments away from a parking lot in Gonic, from what could only have once been a christmas tree farm, from a ministorage place, from everything else that you don't notice when you're on a highway.
Think about all the local things that there are in your town. Parks. Local stores. That Gorge in Troy. People "driving through" on the highway that is no more than ten minutes from your house go by in a matter of seconds, and miss everything completely.
We have turned towns into white words on 8-foot tall green signs. Maybe with an arrow. Maybe with a "miles to" number.
Just one more thing that I'm unhappy about.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Climate Change
There's a lot of hype these days around global warming. I heard the other day that the last major incandescent light bulb factory is shutting down. Apparently, our government has mandated that everyone switches to CFLs in their homes. I don't understand why this is, since CFLs have a much more detrimental effect on the environment than regular light bulbs, requiring more energy to manufacture and causing plenty of problems when not recycled.
Pay attention:
None of you care about global warming. None of you care about the environment as a whole. In fact, pretty much no one on earth cares. Not enough for it to matter.
Because if you did care, you wouldn't be reading this.
In fact, you wouldn't have a facebook account. You wouldn't own a computer. You would live in a log cabin, maybe on Walden Pond, and might spend your free time telling everyone you can about how absolutely horrific the internet is for the environment by simply existing.
"Green" is a marketing term that companies use to get you to buy their stuff. Apple, in all their talk about making environmentally friendly products, doesn't care about the environment. Maybe they recognize that its smart business to try to make a smaller impact on the natural environment, but if they actually cared about the earth, they would just stop manufacturing computers.
See what i'm getting at? No one actually cares about the earth.
Not enough to actually change how we do life around here.
One thing that is true is that there are plenty of fans of global warming.
You know, it seems like everyone in america wants to be "green". That's no surprise, seeing as how "green" products like CFLs are marketed as energy saving, which is identical to money-saving. No one has to "sell" the green movement, it literally buys itself.
But its also so phony. No amount of "reducing our carbon footprint" can ever save the planet. You can reduce and reduce but you will never eliminate it. And as long as a carbon footprint exists, we're destroying the earth.
And you don't care.
Jesus also has a lot of fans. The Bible is the number one top selling book of all time. But just like global warming, not a whole lot of people seem to actually try to work out in their own lives what Jesus was all about. Like, literally, being a Christian means trying to live like Jesus. I'd say that in general, most christians are pretty bad at that because in general, i don't see a whole lot of Christians even trying to heal sick people or even walk on water. Not as a part of their daily lives. Plenty of people, though, enjoy showing up to church, wear christian t-shirts, and listen to christian music. You know, things that fans do.
And its probably for the same reason most people buy CFL light bulbs yet still drive cars.
Its easy to be part of a movement. We're wired to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to participate in a mob. It's a different story to live completely radically.
Pay attention:
None of you care about global warming. None of you care about the environment as a whole. In fact, pretty much no one on earth cares. Not enough for it to matter.
Because if you did care, you wouldn't be reading this.
In fact, you wouldn't have a facebook account. You wouldn't own a computer. You would live in a log cabin, maybe on Walden Pond, and might spend your free time telling everyone you can about how absolutely horrific the internet is for the environment by simply existing.
"Green" is a marketing term that companies use to get you to buy their stuff. Apple, in all their talk about making environmentally friendly products, doesn't care about the environment. Maybe they recognize that its smart business to try to make a smaller impact on the natural environment, but if they actually cared about the earth, they would just stop manufacturing computers.
See what i'm getting at? No one actually cares about the earth.
Not enough to actually change how we do life around here.
One thing that is true is that there are plenty of fans of global warming.
You know, it seems like everyone in america wants to be "green". That's no surprise, seeing as how "green" products like CFLs are marketed as energy saving, which is identical to money-saving. No one has to "sell" the green movement, it literally buys itself.
But its also so phony. No amount of "reducing our carbon footprint" can ever save the planet. You can reduce and reduce but you will never eliminate it. And as long as a carbon footprint exists, we're destroying the earth.
And you don't care.
Jesus also has a lot of fans. The Bible is the number one top selling book of all time. But just like global warming, not a whole lot of people seem to actually try to work out in their own lives what Jesus was all about. Like, literally, being a Christian means trying to live like Jesus. I'd say that in general, most christians are pretty bad at that because in general, i don't see a whole lot of Christians even trying to heal sick people or even walk on water. Not as a part of their daily lives. Plenty of people, though, enjoy showing up to church, wear christian t-shirts, and listen to christian music. You know, things that fans do.
And its probably for the same reason most people buy CFL light bulbs yet still drive cars.
Its easy to be part of a movement. We're wired to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to participate in a mob. It's a different story to live completely radically.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
true inspiration
Inception was one of those movies that kept me smiling almost the entire time.
Not because it was particularly well made. I have a few peeves with the plot, relating mostly to how none of it actually made sense to me and how they couldn't bother to do math for us (if 5 minutes is an hour then 10 hours gets you 5 days > 2 months > a little less than 2 years).
But i was smiling more because of how relateable it is.
Now i really have no idea if the rest of you ever feel this way but i have a disturbingly loose grip on reality.
I, every day in my life, feel like I'm lost.
Not lost in a dream. Not lost on a road, but lost in general.
Not lost in a particularly bad sense. Just like I have no idea where I am.
Usually when i have "work" to do to keep me busy, this is not an issue.
But by golly, an almost 3 hour movie is a great place to think.
Here's one way that I often feel lost: My memory, for the most part, only works when other people are talking about things that happened to me.
It doesn't take much for me to stand back and wonder how I got "here".
I can look around and recognize where I am, and I can know where I've been, but sometimes none of it has any meaning.
This has happened to me on almost every math test I've ever taken:
I look at the page, see some numbers and some funny symbols, and have no idea what to do with it. Like, I probably know how to solve a first order linear differential equation. But it takes quite a bit of effort for me to make sense of what the heck that writing on the paper means. Lost. Very lost.
Another subject that the movie vamped on a bit was Inspiration.
Like, what does it actually take to create an original idea?
They mentioned always knowing when someone else thought of something.
They also covered that feeling you get when you're not actually creating, but "discovering". You know, that musician-architect-designer feeling where the piece reveals itself. It is so incredibly sketchy to me, but i absolutely know the feeling.
That, to me, hits at the very core of what it means to be alive.
A biologist will tell us that in a way, we're not all that different from a tree. We're related- we're both "alive", and made up of the same general materials.
But a tree can't create.
Is creation even possible?
If we don't have souls, then we're just biological engines, reacting to our surroundings, responding to inputs. How can a universe-wide chemical reaction make anything new? Let alone ideas?
I wrestle with the concept that the moment you just spent reading what i am right now writing is GONE. FOREVER.
Yes, you have a memory of it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to look at words on a screen and connect them to the language that gives them meaning. But the actual moment, the infinitely small piece of reality, is gone forever.
And that's why I struggle with the knowledge that every day, literally millions of hours of reality in America get used up watching tv. yelling at children. yelling at parents. Checking facebook. Picking at zits.
LIKE HELLO, THOSE MOMENTS ARE GONE FOREVER, WE COULD HAVE USED THEM BETTER.
Growing up, i've always had this unshakable notion that i could be anything that i want to be. This is difficult for me because i really do want to be and do everything. I want to be rich, I want to develop world-changing innovations, I want to drive a UPS truck, I want to be the CEO of general motors, I want to be an engineer, I want to be a toshiba authorized service person, I want to work on an oil platform, I want to be in the navy, I want to be a researcher, I want to be an IT guy, I want to get a degree from Yale, I want to work at a church. the list really does go on and on.
And I don't want to have to choose.
And so I'm lost. I don't understand how people get stuck with careers that bring them no joy. I don't even understand how people can pick careers.
This is not a dream that we can realize and wake up from. It is very, very real.
I forgot, i was originally going to write about inspiration.
I think I need a kick.
Not because it was particularly well made. I have a few peeves with the plot, relating mostly to how none of it actually made sense to me and how they couldn't bother to do math for us (if 5 minutes is an hour then 10 hours gets you 5 days > 2 months > a little less than 2 years).
But i was smiling more because of how relateable it is.
Now i really have no idea if the rest of you ever feel this way but i have a disturbingly loose grip on reality.
I, every day in my life, feel like I'm lost.
Not lost in a dream. Not lost on a road, but lost in general.
Not lost in a particularly bad sense. Just like I have no idea where I am.
Usually when i have "work" to do to keep me busy, this is not an issue.
But by golly, an almost 3 hour movie is a great place to think.
Here's one way that I often feel lost: My memory, for the most part, only works when other people are talking about things that happened to me.
It doesn't take much for me to stand back and wonder how I got "here".
I can look around and recognize where I am, and I can know where I've been, but sometimes none of it has any meaning.
This has happened to me on almost every math test I've ever taken:
I look at the page, see some numbers and some funny symbols, and have no idea what to do with it. Like, I probably know how to solve a first order linear differential equation. But it takes quite a bit of effort for me to make sense of what the heck that writing on the paper means. Lost. Very lost.
Another subject that the movie vamped on a bit was Inspiration.
Like, what does it actually take to create an original idea?
They mentioned always knowing when someone else thought of something.
They also covered that feeling you get when you're not actually creating, but "discovering". You know, that musician-architect-designer feeling where the piece reveals itself. It is so incredibly sketchy to me, but i absolutely know the feeling.
That, to me, hits at the very core of what it means to be alive.
A biologist will tell us that in a way, we're not all that different from a tree. We're related- we're both "alive", and made up of the same general materials.
But a tree can't create.
Is creation even possible?
If we don't have souls, then we're just biological engines, reacting to our surroundings, responding to inputs. How can a universe-wide chemical reaction make anything new? Let alone ideas?
I wrestle with the concept that the moment you just spent reading what i am right now writing is GONE. FOREVER.
Yes, you have a memory of it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to look at words on a screen and connect them to the language that gives them meaning. But the actual moment, the infinitely small piece of reality, is gone forever.
And that's why I struggle with the knowledge that every day, literally millions of hours of reality in America get used up watching tv. yelling at children. yelling at parents. Checking facebook. Picking at zits.
LIKE HELLO, THOSE MOMENTS ARE GONE FOREVER, WE COULD HAVE USED THEM BETTER.
Growing up, i've always had this unshakable notion that i could be anything that i want to be. This is difficult for me because i really do want to be and do everything. I want to be rich, I want to develop world-changing innovations, I want to drive a UPS truck, I want to be the CEO of general motors, I want to be an engineer, I want to be a toshiba authorized service person, I want to work on an oil platform, I want to be in the navy, I want to be a researcher, I want to be an IT guy, I want to get a degree from Yale, I want to work at a church. the list really does go on and on.
And I don't want to have to choose.
And so I'm lost. I don't understand how people get stuck with careers that bring them no joy. I don't even understand how people can pick careers.
This is not a dream that we can realize and wake up from. It is very, very real.
I forgot, i was originally going to write about inspiration.
I think I need a kick.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
On Camp
Yesterday I got back from this summer's NNED camp. Our church brought a handful of teenagers and me and josh were on rec staff, which means that josh got to tell people how to play games and gave teams points while I spent every day with a video camera and every night editing footage. I've never not been a camper at a camp before. The perspective is pretty good.
My favorite part of the whole trip was watching the pieces come together. Here you have 30 or so individual staff members, all from different churches, half of which were college kids from Valley Forge on the band, and a guest speaker who you've never met before, and in the time between dinner on sunday night to lunch time monday afternoon, you have to all get on the same page and make a weeklong summer camp that actually works.
And it actually works.
Because even though you've never met half of those people before, let alone collaborated with them on anything, you are all already on the same page. Everyone was there for the same purpose, to see lives transformed.
Its encouraging to me that individuals from different backgrounds can have enough in common to get that done.
My favorite part of the whole trip was watching the pieces come together. Here you have 30 or so individual staff members, all from different churches, half of which were college kids from Valley Forge on the band, and a guest speaker who you've never met before, and in the time between dinner on sunday night to lunch time monday afternoon, you have to all get on the same page and make a weeklong summer camp that actually works.
And it actually works.
Because even though you've never met half of those people before, let alone collaborated with them on anything, you are all already on the same page. Everyone was there for the same purpose, to see lives transformed.
Its encouraging to me that individuals from different backgrounds can have enough in common to get that done.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Half
Summer is half over.
This year of 2010 is half over.
I've read the entire Bible through twice so far. I've started a third time with the Message Remix 2.0. I love it. Its easy to read and challenges everything you've ever thought about the Book.
All of it flew by.
So far this summer has been nonexistant.
I started working 50 hours a week over two jobs. I'm making enough to pay off a little more than half my student loan from this past year. All of my personal belongings are still in plastic bins scattered around the house. I've been keeping my clean clothes in a laundry basket in the middle of my room. The last time I picked up my bass was 2 weeks ago. Most days i open my laptop for about half an hour to keep current on facebook before going to bed. I don't know where i'm living yet this school year. I hate paying five dollars a day for gas to go to work. I hate paying maine taxes and social security that will not exist by the time i can retire. Often i fall asleep in my chair at 10pm and wake up at 3. My alarm is set for 430am. I leave for work at 530 when i'm not late. This past week i started running a mile and a half in the morning. I think it makes me less tired during the day. 4 days of the week I don't get home until after 9, which is already past when bedtime should be.
I'm not looking forward to school. I have never in my life looked forward to school. Starting over trying to connect with people i've never met before is a real challenge for me. Especially considering the hit-or-miss personality i seem to have. But somehow I managed to only sign up for 15 credits, and I only have one class on tuesdays, in the late afternoon. For once i never have anything earlier than 10am.
I have not read anything other than the bible since winter break. I have a growing stack of books that i need to go through, some that i was excited to read 8 months ago. I have a growing list of books that i want to read but can't justify buying without first getting through some of the ones that i already have.
Got the new hillsong cd last week. They always all sound the same until you've listened to it over and over and over again.
I still really want prescription sunglasses. But I haven't found a pair of anything that looks good on me. I also have been unable to find any place that sells columbia eyewear, and I could really use a new pair of actually good regular glasses.
I've also always wanted a pair of kangaROOs shoes. That company stopped making shoes in April. I'm torn. Combined with the puma outlet store being closed for who knows how long, and i just now bought my first pair of new shoes since this time last year. Asics. blue. On sale. Just like every year for the past 4.
Last week i wrote a 21-text long text to myself so i could remember a thought that i wanted to blog about. I just re-read it and its depressing, so i probably won't post it. I wonder if its actually possible to measure progress.
This year of 2010 is half over.
I've read the entire Bible through twice so far. I've started a third time with the Message Remix 2.0. I love it. Its easy to read and challenges everything you've ever thought about the Book.
All of it flew by.
So far this summer has been nonexistant.
I started working 50 hours a week over two jobs. I'm making enough to pay off a little more than half my student loan from this past year. All of my personal belongings are still in plastic bins scattered around the house. I've been keeping my clean clothes in a laundry basket in the middle of my room. The last time I picked up my bass was 2 weeks ago. Most days i open my laptop for about half an hour to keep current on facebook before going to bed. I don't know where i'm living yet this school year. I hate paying five dollars a day for gas to go to work. I hate paying maine taxes and social security that will not exist by the time i can retire. Often i fall asleep in my chair at 10pm and wake up at 3. My alarm is set for 430am. I leave for work at 530 when i'm not late. This past week i started running a mile and a half in the morning. I think it makes me less tired during the day. 4 days of the week I don't get home until after 9, which is already past when bedtime should be.
I'm not looking forward to school. I have never in my life looked forward to school. Starting over trying to connect with people i've never met before is a real challenge for me. Especially considering the hit-or-miss personality i seem to have. But somehow I managed to only sign up for 15 credits, and I only have one class on tuesdays, in the late afternoon. For once i never have anything earlier than 10am.
I have not read anything other than the bible since winter break. I have a growing stack of books that i need to go through, some that i was excited to read 8 months ago. I have a growing list of books that i want to read but can't justify buying without first getting through some of the ones that i already have.
Got the new hillsong cd last week. They always all sound the same until you've listened to it over and over and over again.
I still really want prescription sunglasses. But I haven't found a pair of anything that looks good on me. I also have been unable to find any place that sells columbia eyewear, and I could really use a new pair of actually good regular glasses.
I've also always wanted a pair of kangaROOs shoes. That company stopped making shoes in April. I'm torn. Combined with the puma outlet store being closed for who knows how long, and i just now bought my first pair of new shoes since this time last year. Asics. blue. On sale. Just like every year for the past 4.
Last week i wrote a 21-text long text to myself so i could remember a thought that i wanted to blog about. I just re-read it and its depressing, so i probably won't post it. I wonder if its actually possible to measure progress.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
On Adventure
For the first time since 8th grade I've been watching tv regularly- one show, mondays at 8pm. Adventure Time. Amazing. The most creativity in television in a long time. And hilarious. And animated. The main character will go out of his way to make sure he seizes upon every single opportunity he has for an "adventure". It usually involves "bad guys" and new invented words for 'awesome'.
As the semester wraps up, i've been presented with several opportunities for adventure. There's three in particular that have been "big decisions" for me.
One is whether or not to sacrifice the first week of summer vacation, when i could be relaxing and preparing for sl8, for the intervarsity retreat going on up at saranac lake.
Increasing the bracket is the summer internship i got offered for which would be a full time job all summer long. Again, i've been struggling with the notion of all my time this summer disappearing. Not really a fan.
Lastly would be where I'm going to college for the rest of my degree.
And the conclusion I think i've come to on all three fronts is for adventure.
I keep thinking back to the only book i finished reading in 2009. Go read it. Its worth it. Fact is, i really really like being comfortable. It takes work for me to go do something different and unknown.
So i'm going to the IV trip, even though i didn't really want to. I'm taking the summer internship even though i still don't really want to. And i'm thinking about transferring to unh.
The way i'm feeling about it is that RPI was last year's adventure. I didn't really want to go to RPI. I was set to go to unh and stay home. But most of the reason i decided to come here was that I could, and it would be a waste to not walk through a door that swings open on its own. I've been here for 2 semesters. I've gotten comfortable. I'm not sure how i feel about that. RPI is a system that's easy to learn. School is easy, you just have to figure out the motions. But i feel like i've accomplished nothing here. I have nothing to show for my 2 semesters in nerdopolis. And i don't know if that's pushing me to leave quicker or calling me to stay. Either way, life is an adventure and its a complete shame to not make the absolute most of it and chase what God is throwing at us.
As the semester wraps up, i've been presented with several opportunities for adventure. There's three in particular that have been "big decisions" for me.
One is whether or not to sacrifice the first week of summer vacation, when i could be relaxing and preparing for sl8, for the intervarsity retreat going on up at saranac lake.
Increasing the bracket is the summer internship i got offered for which would be a full time job all summer long. Again, i've been struggling with the notion of all my time this summer disappearing. Not really a fan.
Lastly would be where I'm going to college for the rest of my degree.
And the conclusion I think i've come to on all three fronts is for adventure.
I keep thinking back to the only book i finished reading in 2009. Go read it. Its worth it. Fact is, i really really like being comfortable. It takes work for me to go do something different and unknown.
So i'm going to the IV trip, even though i didn't really want to. I'm taking the summer internship even though i still don't really want to. And i'm thinking about transferring to unh.
The way i'm feeling about it is that RPI was last year's adventure. I didn't really want to go to RPI. I was set to go to unh and stay home. But most of the reason i decided to come here was that I could, and it would be a waste to not walk through a door that swings open on its own. I've been here for 2 semesters. I've gotten comfortable. I'm not sure how i feel about that. RPI is a system that's easy to learn. School is easy, you just have to figure out the motions. But i feel like i've accomplished nothing here. I have nothing to show for my 2 semesters in nerdopolis. And i don't know if that's pushing me to leave quicker or calling me to stay. Either way, life is an adventure and its a complete shame to not make the absolute most of it and chase what God is throwing at us.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
On Wonder
Yesterday in between classes i stopped for a few minutes to watch a dump truck empty out some dumpsters.
I was watching from a second floor balcony and got to watch the truck crush the trash inside. Very cool. As an engineering student and as someone who has always been fascinated with big machines, i got a kick outta it.
There's a lot of money, work, and planning that goes into designing and building something that we think of as trivial. Everyone's seen a garbage truck. But they really are impressive bits of engineering. Teams and teams of people worked on that truck, from the fluids guys that designed the hydrolics to the automotive engineers that got drivable.
I can appreciate that. Money, work, effort, and it pays off in real ways.
As I was leaving and walking going to my next class, a squirrel scurried by, looking for food. Squirrels are also everywhere, just like garbage trucks. We've all seen them. Students at RPI are quite familiar with their personalities and the way they act. I don't know anyone around here who hasn't stopped to watch a squirrel at some point.
They are also quite fascinating.
They're small. They're also much, much more complicated than a garbage truck.
I feel like, yeah engineering is vitally important to humanity and all that jazz. But when i look at the results of the very best that humanity has done, it is simply not comparable to what God has already put before us. I also read an excellent line from Perry Noble yesterday: "Disney created a mouse…GOD created the Grand Canyon…HE HAS THE TRUMP CARD!"
That totally sums up everything i was thinking then and there.
Unrelated: Last night i listened through what might be my favorite album of all time. I don't know why, but after all the worship music i've listened to, that one still feels very close to me. It could be because its the first hillsong album i owned. Or because of the memories of learning the songs on it after youth convention that year. Or because its one of the few albums that i've sat down with my bass, and played along from start to finish. Or maybe its just very good worship music to begin with. Its good stuff. Left me feeling nostalgic and warm-fuzzy for the future at the same time.
Also, in wonder of the ridiculous thing we live in called life. What an insane, unimaginable concept.
I was watching from a second floor balcony and got to watch the truck crush the trash inside. Very cool. As an engineering student and as someone who has always been fascinated with big machines, i got a kick outta it.
There's a lot of money, work, and planning that goes into designing and building something that we think of as trivial. Everyone's seen a garbage truck. But they really are impressive bits of engineering. Teams and teams of people worked on that truck, from the fluids guys that designed the hydrolics to the automotive engineers that got drivable.
I can appreciate that. Money, work, effort, and it pays off in real ways.
As I was leaving and walking going to my next class, a squirrel scurried by, looking for food. Squirrels are also everywhere, just like garbage trucks. We've all seen them. Students at RPI are quite familiar with their personalities and the way they act. I don't know anyone around here who hasn't stopped to watch a squirrel at some point.
They are also quite fascinating.
They're small. They're also much, much more complicated than a garbage truck.
I feel like, yeah engineering is vitally important to humanity and all that jazz. But when i look at the results of the very best that humanity has done, it is simply not comparable to what God has already put before us. I also read an excellent line from Perry Noble yesterday: "Disney created a mouse…GOD created the Grand Canyon…HE HAS THE TRUMP CARD!"
That totally sums up everything i was thinking then and there.
Unrelated: Last night i listened through what might be my favorite album of all time. I don't know why, but after all the worship music i've listened to, that one still feels very close to me. It could be because its the first hillsong album i owned. Or because of the memories of learning the songs on it after youth convention that year. Or because its one of the few albums that i've sat down with my bass, and played along from start to finish. Or maybe its just very good worship music to begin with. Its good stuff. Left me feeling nostalgic and warm-fuzzy for the future at the same time.
Also, in wonder of the ridiculous thing we live in called life. What an insane, unimaginable concept.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Action-y
Last wednesday was a pretty different day. It marked the end of a work-intensive few days, and i found myself suddenly without anything important to do. So as I was eating lunch in Commons I ate with some other RCA kids and we got to talking. A certain person kept asking probing questions about me. Not really useful questions. But then again, maybe there are no useful questions. I feel like every question I answered was more frustrating because sometimes, you can't learn much about a person by asking them very specific questions.
Oddly enough, I ate dinner later that day in a different dining hall with a different few RCA friends. Completely different story. We started talking about Bible translations. We cracked out a laptop and started reading the awesomeness of the Message:Remix. I then ended up forcing them to watch videos from church services. I was really excited. I love showing people how much more awesome church can be than what they are used to.
I think the two people I was with for dinner gleaned a lot more about me during the shorter time I had with them than the group I ate lunch with. They saw what I was interested in, what I spend my time doing, where my heart is. And they didn't ask me any questions.
Analytical people bother me. RPI is full of analytical people for some reason. It stresses me out. Why can't we just appreciate what we're a part of without tearing it apart, analyzing it, and graduating with an engineering degree? Ick.
Oddly enough, I ate dinner later that day in a different dining hall with a different few RCA friends. Completely different story. We started talking about Bible translations. We cracked out a laptop and started reading the awesomeness of the Message:Remix. I then ended up forcing them to watch videos from church services. I was really excited. I love showing people how much more awesome church can be than what they are used to.
I think the two people I was with for dinner gleaned a lot more about me during the shorter time I had with them than the group I ate lunch with. They saw what I was interested in, what I spend my time doing, where my heart is. And they didn't ask me any questions.
Analytical people bother me. RPI is full of analytical people for some reason. It stresses me out. Why can't we just appreciate what we're a part of without tearing it apart, analyzing it, and graduating with an engineering degree? Ick.
Friday, April 16, 2010
t-shirt lesson
sometime around winter break, i went around telling people that I was going to start wearing solid color american apparel t-shirts. The main reason for this was that i have a profuse sweating problem to the point where all my t-shirts get really disgusting pitstains after a little while. I love t-shirts. If i wasn't poor, i would collect them. There's something that i really really like about wearing art. Except that i end up buying shirts and then ruining them. So i figure, why not just wear $5.50 shirts and not be sad when they start looking nasty.
So here's what i did.
I started telling everyone i know that i was gonna wear solid color shirts.
Then i bought some.
I got 6.
I only really wear 4 of them, since i'm not bold enough to wear bright pink or purple around people i might want to make a good first impression on.
I have enough shirts where i only wash them every 2 weeks. In any given 2 weeks, 4/14 days i wear a solid color shirt without anything printed on it.
That's less than a third of the time.
But strangely enough, people mention it to me, often enough for it to be memorable.
things like, "i can't picture you not wearing a solid color shirt"
or on the 10/14 days, "woah! you're not wearing a solid color shirt!"
I seem to have created a bit of a reputation for non-printed t-shirts.
I don't wear them most of the time. I only have 6 to begin with. But the reputation is there.
I think there's something to be learned from this.
That it doesn't take nearly as much work as some people think it does to build a reputation for yourself. All it takes is communication and some action. But mostly communication. The important part is any action at all. It doesn't need to be grandiose or extravagant or all-consuming. It just needs to be enough to show that you follow through with what you tell people you are going to do.
I could be wrong on this, but it seems to be what happened with my t-shirts.
So here's what i did.
I started telling everyone i know that i was gonna wear solid color shirts.
Then i bought some.
I got 6.
I only really wear 4 of them, since i'm not bold enough to wear bright pink or purple around people i might want to make a good first impression on.
I have enough shirts where i only wash them every 2 weeks. In any given 2 weeks, 4/14 days i wear a solid color shirt without anything printed on it.
That's less than a third of the time.
But strangely enough, people mention it to me, often enough for it to be memorable.
things like, "i can't picture you not wearing a solid color shirt"
or on the 10/14 days, "woah! you're not wearing a solid color shirt!"
I seem to have created a bit of a reputation for non-printed t-shirts.
I don't wear them most of the time. I only have 6 to begin with. But the reputation is there.
I think there's something to be learned from this.
That it doesn't take nearly as much work as some people think it does to build a reputation for yourself. All it takes is communication and some action. But mostly communication. The important part is any action at all. It doesn't need to be grandiose or extravagant or all-consuming. It just needs to be enough to show that you follow through with what you tell people you are going to do.
I could be wrong on this, but it seems to be what happened with my t-shirts.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
On Excellence
Excellence is always lacking.
Not in the sense that it is unachievable, since excellence in a mostly relative term.
But no one will ever tell you, "nah don't worry about it, we have enough excellence."
Joseph gave us a great example of excellence in action in Genesis 41.
The Pharaoh of Egypt, of whom Joseph has been a prisoner for more than 2 years, has a dream. It freaks him out so he calls all of his officials together to see if any of them can tell him what it means. No one can, but his cup bearer remembers that there's this guy named Joseph in the dungeon.
"I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it." (Pharaoh)
Joseph replies in 41:16, "It is beyond my power to do this, but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease."
So they go over the dream and Joseph interprets it.
"This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do. The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout the land of Egypt. But afterward there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten in Egypt. Famine will destroy the land. This famine will be so severe that even the memory of the good years will be erased." [41:28-31]
Cool. Surplus. Famine. Thanks Joseph. Thanks Joseph's God.
but what comes next is cooler.
"Therefore, Pharaoh should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh should appoint supervisors over the land and let them collect one-fifth of all the crops during the seven good years. Have them gather all the food produced in the good years that are just ahead and bring it to Pharaoh's storehouses. Store it away, and guard it so there will be food in the cities. That way there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come to the land of Egypt. Otherwise this famine will destroy the land." [41:33-36]
pharaoh didn't ask for advice.
he had all sorts of royal advice-givers and planners and such who were in charge of telling pharaoh what's what. All Joseph needed to do was mention seven years of surplus and seven years of famine. Then he was free to go back to his dungeon and be sad.
Instead, he followed up on his interpretation. He thought up a good idea on how to deal with the situation, and it was good enough (or God enough) to get him hired up as the chief adviser in charge of everything except for sitting on the throne.
I believe that we are called to exceed expectations and break barriers of "good enough".
Not in the sense that it is unachievable, since excellence in a mostly relative term.
But no one will ever tell you, "nah don't worry about it, we have enough excellence."
Joseph gave us a great example of excellence in action in Genesis 41.
The Pharaoh of Egypt, of whom Joseph has been a prisoner for more than 2 years, has a dream. It freaks him out so he calls all of his officials together to see if any of them can tell him what it means. No one can, but his cup bearer remembers that there's this guy named Joseph in the dungeon.
"I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it." (Pharaoh)
Joseph replies in 41:16, "It is beyond my power to do this, but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease."
So they go over the dream and Joseph interprets it.
"This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do. The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout the land of Egypt. But afterward there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten in Egypt. Famine will destroy the land. This famine will be so severe that even the memory of the good years will be erased." [41:28-31]
Cool. Surplus. Famine. Thanks Joseph. Thanks Joseph's God.
but what comes next is cooler.
"Therefore, Pharaoh should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh should appoint supervisors over the land and let them collect one-fifth of all the crops during the seven good years. Have them gather all the food produced in the good years that are just ahead and bring it to Pharaoh's storehouses. Store it away, and guard it so there will be food in the cities. That way there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come to the land of Egypt. Otherwise this famine will destroy the land." [41:33-36]
pharaoh didn't ask for advice.
he had all sorts of royal advice-givers and planners and such who were in charge of telling pharaoh what's what. All Joseph needed to do was mention seven years of surplus and seven years of famine. Then he was free to go back to his dungeon and be sad.
Instead, he followed up on his interpretation. He thought up a good idea on how to deal with the situation, and it was good enough (or God enough) to get him hired up as the chief adviser in charge of everything except for sitting on the throne.
I believe that we are called to exceed expectations and break barriers of "good enough".
Friday, April 2, 2010
Another Pet Peeve
Going on right now is Air1's spring pledge drive.
That means they play much less music and do much more harassing to convince people to give them money.
I would be alright with supporting them if they were a radio station.
But what bothers me is how they're talking about how they have 5 pastors "on staff" and "on call". Phone pastors. Not a fan.
I put my radio at air1 so i can listen to music.
Not so i have the option of calling a pastor i've never met so i can tell him my problems.
Counseling, support, growth, that's all what the Local Church is for. Not radio stations.
I don't want to listen to a parachurch ministry. I'm glad you think you're making a difference, but i'm not into that. Play music. Do nothing else. Be good at what you claim to do and don't stretch yourself into what you shouldn't be doing.
Kinda like churches with "libraries" and thrift shops.
There's no need for that. Get your books at a bookstore. Steal your clothes at walmart.
That is all.
That means they play much less music and do much more harassing to convince people to give them money.
I would be alright with supporting them if they were a radio station.
But what bothers me is how they're talking about how they have 5 pastors "on staff" and "on call". Phone pastors. Not a fan.
I put my radio at air1 so i can listen to music.
Not so i have the option of calling a pastor i've never met so i can tell him my problems.
Counseling, support, growth, that's all what the Local Church is for. Not radio stations.
I don't want to listen to a parachurch ministry. I'm glad you think you're making a difference, but i'm not into that. Play music. Do nothing else. Be good at what you claim to do and don't stretch yourself into what you shouldn't be doing.
Kinda like churches with "libraries" and thrift shops.
There's no need for that. Get your books at a bookstore. Steal your clothes at walmart.
That is all.
A Complaint
Last night i finished reading through the entire Bible in 90 days.
Today i'm starting reading through the entire Bible in 90 days.
On January 1st I decided to read from the New Living Translation, since i've had a NLT bible for a few years and have never really read from it.
Now i have.
I don't mind it as much as i used to.
Today I'm starting through with the Amplified bible.
The amplified is a little scarier. The language isn't as nice.
At some point this week, i also have to get around to looking at the notes i took in the past 3 months.
One thing that bothers me is how difficult it is to find a 90-day Bible reading plan.
The internet is full of "one-year bible" plans, but i'm struggling to find even the original list that I used last time.
This is ridiculous.
Christianity is supposed to be based entirely on the bible.
With the sheer amount of marketing done in the "Christian" industry with music and books and other consumer nonsense, you'd think someone would encourage people to actually get to know what they say they're living for. Come on. A year?
In a year's time, I've gone from an overstressed highschool student wanting to get out of "here" into an overstressed college student wanting desperately to get out of "here".
Seriously though, a lot has changed in a year's time.
...if my life can change dramatically in less time than it takes to understand what my life is all about, i'm not in a good place.
So that's my complaint.
That christians don't read the bible enough, and aren't demanding that people help them read and understand it completely.
Frustrating.
Today i'm starting reading through the entire Bible in 90 days.
On January 1st I decided to read from the New Living Translation, since i've had a NLT bible for a few years and have never really read from it.
Now i have.
I don't mind it as much as i used to.
Today I'm starting through with the Amplified bible.
The amplified is a little scarier. The language isn't as nice.
At some point this week, i also have to get around to looking at the notes i took in the past 3 months.
One thing that bothers me is how difficult it is to find a 90-day Bible reading plan.
The internet is full of "one-year bible" plans, but i'm struggling to find even the original list that I used last time.
This is ridiculous.
Christianity is supposed to be based entirely on the bible.
With the sheer amount of marketing done in the "Christian" industry with music and books and other consumer nonsense, you'd think someone would encourage people to actually get to know what they say they're living for. Come on. A year?
In a year's time, I've gone from an overstressed highschool student wanting to get out of "here" into an overstressed college student wanting desperately to get out of "here".
Seriously though, a lot has changed in a year's time.
...if my life can change dramatically in less time than it takes to understand what my life is all about, i'm not in a good place.
So that's my complaint.
That christians don't read the bible enough, and aren't demanding that people help them read and understand it completely.
Frustrating.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
On Apple
Go to Apple's website. As of this writing, you'll be greeted by a full-page spread of the iPad, along with a line describing it as "Magical and Revolutionary".
This has been bothering me for a while.
A little while ago, Apple released the "Magic Mouse", which replaced the already single-button apple mouse (or the however many button 'mighty mouse') with a touch-sensitive surface.
I watched the speech where Steve Jobs revealed the iPad, months ago.
He stood up there and called it "Magical".
Like, not even joking. It was as if he was calling it, "awesome".
Except he called it Magical.
Magic doesn't exist.
But what does exist, is a famous quote from Sir Arthur C. Clark, the writer of 2001, A Space Odyssey: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
And everyone knows that science fiction writers are always right.
But the quote is pretty accurate. Think back to things like electricity, magnetism, the first computers... as far as anyone in the general public was concerned, it might as well have been magic.
But for a company, especially one as in-the-limelight as Apple Computer, to actually assert that their product is Magical is entirely nutty.
Maybe they're trying to be cute.
I'm sure Apple doesn't actually believe their product to be magical.
They probably know that their latest offering will work magic with their stock prices, but there's nothing unexplainable about it.
Here's what I don't like.
Even with the recession and people remember how to be thrifty, we're still a completely consumer-entrenched culture. Companies aren't even trying to sell us their stuff anymore- they don't have to, we buy it anyway. Advertising dollars are literally spent for the sake of selling brands and corporate identities rather than the products that merely carry those identities into peoples' homes.
And you know, i'm sure Apple payed out a pretty penny for that slogan. Have our minds become so numb that a company has to yell "LOOK AT OUR MAGICAL PRODUCT" in order for us to be interested?
Its insanity. I don't like being treated like a consumer.
RPI tried to convince the class of 2013 that we were gonna "Change the world".
Whatever that means.
I'd rather go around yelling at people, "LOOK AT MY MIRACULOUS JESUS" than buy an iPad that claims to have magic.
This has been bothering me for a while.
A little while ago, Apple released the "Magic Mouse", which replaced the already single-button apple mouse (or the however many button 'mighty mouse') with a touch-sensitive surface.
I watched the speech where Steve Jobs revealed the iPad, months ago.
He stood up there and called it "Magical".
Like, not even joking. It was as if he was calling it, "awesome".
Except he called it Magical.
Magic doesn't exist.
But what does exist, is a famous quote from Sir Arthur C. Clark, the writer of 2001, A Space Odyssey: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
And everyone knows that science fiction writers are always right.
But the quote is pretty accurate. Think back to things like electricity, magnetism, the first computers... as far as anyone in the general public was concerned, it might as well have been magic.
But for a company, especially one as in-the-limelight as Apple Computer, to actually assert that their product is Magical is entirely nutty.
Maybe they're trying to be cute.
I'm sure Apple doesn't actually believe their product to be magical.
They probably know that their latest offering will work magic with their stock prices, but there's nothing unexplainable about it.
Here's what I don't like.
Even with the recession and people remember how to be thrifty, we're still a completely consumer-entrenched culture. Companies aren't even trying to sell us their stuff anymore- they don't have to, we buy it anyway. Advertising dollars are literally spent for the sake of selling brands and corporate identities rather than the products that merely carry those identities into peoples' homes.
And you know, i'm sure Apple payed out a pretty penny for that slogan. Have our minds become so numb that a company has to yell "LOOK AT OUR MAGICAL PRODUCT" in order for us to be interested?
Its insanity. I don't like being treated like a consumer.
RPI tried to convince the class of 2013 that we were gonna "Change the world".
Whatever that means.
I'd rather go around yelling at people, "LOOK AT MY MIRACULOUS JESUS" than buy an iPad that claims to have magic.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
On 1000 Years
There's a bible verse that causes a fair amount of disunity between different schools of thought- in 2 Peter 3:8 Peter says, "...A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day."
There are people who use that concept to justify "old-earth" vs. "new-earth", saying that the 6 "days" in Genesis could have been millennia.
But that isn't really important at all.
What I think a lot of people miss is the other half of that statement- that a day is like a thousand years.
I don't know about you, but a thousand years is a long time. Think about everything that's happened in the world since the year 1010. Its essentially all of modern history. There are people who spend their lives devoted to studying a single decade; there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on in a thousand years, and I think you and me probably have no grasp on the size of that scale.
Now think about what you did yesterday. You could probably make a list of events that happened. Pretty boring. Pretty lame.
Christians usually hold that God "Has a plan for each of us". I'm not really sure where the Bible says that, but i believe it to be true. I think that there's no reason why God doesn't plan out our days for us, how we're going to interact with each other, the way that the weather influences us, the wind blowing on our faces.
Imagine if God put the detail of a thousand years into each single day of our lives.
He is familiar with every micro-second that goes down. From your life-changing decisions to how hungry the dust mites inside your pillow are.
What we think about as another mostly boring day is actually jam-packed with everything you could find in a thousand years.
I think we should try a little harder to appreciate that.
There are people who use that concept to justify "old-earth" vs. "new-earth", saying that the 6 "days" in Genesis could have been millennia.
But that isn't really important at all.
What I think a lot of people miss is the other half of that statement- that a day is like a thousand years.
I don't know about you, but a thousand years is a long time. Think about everything that's happened in the world since the year 1010. Its essentially all of modern history. There are people who spend their lives devoted to studying a single decade; there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on in a thousand years, and I think you and me probably have no grasp on the size of that scale.
Now think about what you did yesterday. You could probably make a list of events that happened. Pretty boring. Pretty lame.
Christians usually hold that God "Has a plan for each of us". I'm not really sure where the Bible says that, but i believe it to be true. I think that there's no reason why God doesn't plan out our days for us, how we're going to interact with each other, the way that the weather influences us, the wind blowing on our faces.
Imagine if God put the detail of a thousand years into each single day of our lives.
He is familiar with every micro-second that goes down. From your life-changing decisions to how hungry the dust mites inside your pillow are.
What we think about as another mostly boring day is actually jam-packed with everything you could find in a thousand years.
I think we should try a little harder to appreciate that.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
On CCM
If you asked me to make a list of the things that i dislike about college, somewhere towards the top would be, "no car."
I love driving. I made my brother let me drive the entire way back from a conference in PA over winter break. 2 stops, not counting getting pulled over. It was wonderful.
Part of not having a car is not having a radio.
And part of not having a radio is not having Air1.
...Which makes vacations nicer, actually. Because the time in between my breaks gives the station a chance to change a few songs in the line-up. I come back and there's something different, which is excellent, because it lessens my view of the radio as a song-destroying consumer machine that cashes in on christian subculture.
There's always one or two songs that are just really annoying. Usually its because they are overplayed, but there is a certain example I want to harp on. It's "God shaped Hole" by Plumb. It's not only overplayed and annoying to begin with, but fundamentally distressing. The chorus goes, "There's a God-shaped hole in all of ussss". I couldn't disagree more.
The idea of the song, of course, is that we're all missing something- God- and that He fits right into us and makes us complete. That's about as theologically sound as jello is concrete.
I think a better comparison might be to think of ourselves as Ground Zero after 9/11. A giant heap of burning rubble responsible for hundreds of deaths. It will be 12 years later when the replacement building is finished. That's a long time, and a lot of complicated mess to deal with. But ultimately, One World Trade Center will be a much better, taller, nicer looking place to be.
There's no "god-shaped hole" in anyone. Just a smoldering mound of junk. It takes us to recognize that and realize that we can cash in the insurance and get the Best instead. Simple in concept, often times difficult in practice.
I love driving. I made my brother let me drive the entire way back from a conference in PA over winter break. 2 stops, not counting getting pulled over. It was wonderful.
Part of not having a car is not having a radio.
And part of not having a radio is not having Air1.
...Which makes vacations nicer, actually. Because the time in between my breaks gives the station a chance to change a few songs in the line-up. I come back and there's something different, which is excellent, because it lessens my view of the radio as a song-destroying consumer machine that cashes in on christian subculture.
There's always one or two songs that are just really annoying. Usually its because they are overplayed, but there is a certain example I want to harp on. It's "God shaped Hole" by Plumb. It's not only overplayed and annoying to begin with, but fundamentally distressing. The chorus goes, "There's a God-shaped hole in all of ussss". I couldn't disagree more.
The idea of the song, of course, is that we're all missing something- God- and that He fits right into us and makes us complete. That's about as theologically sound as jello is concrete.
I think a better comparison might be to think of ourselves as Ground Zero after 9/11. A giant heap of burning rubble responsible for hundreds of deaths. It will be 12 years later when the replacement building is finished. That's a long time, and a lot of complicated mess to deal with. But ultimately, One World Trade Center will be a much better, taller, nicer looking place to be.
There's no "god-shaped hole" in anyone. Just a smoldering mound of junk. It takes us to recognize that and realize that we can cash in the insurance and get the Best instead. Simple in concept, often times difficult in practice.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
On Unleash
This weekend was absolutely the best 3 days of my life. Actually, it wasn't even the weekend. But that's okay. Went to Unleash at Newspring church in Anderson, SC. It was an 18 hour each way road trip with my favorite people in the whole world.
Newspring's campus is amazing. Perry Noble, their pastor, has talked a lot about how the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet, and that secular organizations should be looking at the church and asking, "how can we do that?" instead of the other way around. His church is an excellent example of that concept at work. Original architecture and definitely a contender for the most creative kids ministry ever conceived. The church bleeds excellence. From the 600 volunteers at the conference to the 109 staff members that pour their hearts into their ministries.
The conference was divided up into 4 teaching blocks, 2 main sessions taught by the Man Perry Noble and then 2 break out sessions ran by staff members on various topics. As valuable as the teaching time was the space in between, some of it occupied with the free chick-fil-a lunch but the rest with literally being able to wonder around everywhere and absorbing absolutely everything possible.
I'm not going to lie, my face literally started twitching from smiling.
Worship was unbelievable. Newspring is the first church i've been to where i was satisfied with the way the audio was mixed. They had not-too-huge line arrays but lots and lots of subs. And with a D-Show for both FoH and monitor world, everything about everything screamed that they mean business.
We stopped by Elevation Church's main building in North Carolina on the way back. Their graphic arts guy was bomb enough to give us an impromptu full-on tour of the place. Looking back on it, the contrast between Elevation and Newspring might be the most awesome part of the trip. Newspring is an example of a church with a 13.7 million dollar annual budget, with a very deep bucket of resources and some 15,000 total attenders.
Elevation on the other hand, just turned 4 years old and have 1/3 of the members. They have a lot less staff members and have focused a lot of their attention on stretching everything they have as far as possible. Their facility was impressive in its own right, not for how huge it is or for nice equipment, but for how they've utilized what they have. Example, their graphic designer is one guy. Newspring has a team of 9 full time employees complete with an internal 2-week turnaround on all requested work. I saw more graphic arts in the 45 minutes that we were in Elevation than the 10 hours that we spend at Newspring church. He also gave us all t-shirts. That's sweet.
But what do you care?
Sound and Light guys, as well as musicians, are completely obsessed with gear. All of them. You can go up to a sound technician after any show and start asking questions and he will all of a sudden turn into a kid in a candy store talking about his own equipment. Its part of his job to love that. Its part of his job to know exactly how it all works together and seamlessly to produce what you paid money to see. There was no shortage of that enthusiasm at Newspring.
But on the car ride back home, I realized that over the past year or so, i've started to become pretty much church obsessed. I watch church services online. The last time I missed a sunday morning was when I was 12 years old. I love talking about church. I love hearing about church. I loved our 36 hours worth of being on the road for a one day conference about church.
If the symmetric property applies to occupation, then something becomes glaringly obvious.
Newspring's campus is amazing. Perry Noble, their pastor, has talked a lot about how the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet, and that secular organizations should be looking at the church and asking, "how can we do that?" instead of the other way around. His church is an excellent example of that concept at work. Original architecture and definitely a contender for the most creative kids ministry ever conceived. The church bleeds excellence. From the 600 volunteers at the conference to the 109 staff members that pour their hearts into their ministries.
The conference was divided up into 4 teaching blocks, 2 main sessions taught by the Man Perry Noble and then 2 break out sessions ran by staff members on various topics. As valuable as the teaching time was the space in between, some of it occupied with the free chick-fil-a lunch but the rest with literally being able to wonder around everywhere and absorbing absolutely everything possible.
I'm not going to lie, my face literally started twitching from smiling.
Worship was unbelievable. Newspring is the first church i've been to where i was satisfied with the way the audio was mixed. They had not-too-huge line arrays but lots and lots of subs. And with a D-Show for both FoH and monitor world, everything about everything screamed that they mean business.
We stopped by Elevation Church's main building in North Carolina on the way back. Their graphic arts guy was bomb enough to give us an impromptu full-on tour of the place. Looking back on it, the contrast between Elevation and Newspring might be the most awesome part of the trip. Newspring is an example of a church with a 13.7 million dollar annual budget, with a very deep bucket of resources and some 15,000 total attenders.
Elevation on the other hand, just turned 4 years old and have 1/3 of the members. They have a lot less staff members and have focused a lot of their attention on stretching everything they have as far as possible. Their facility was impressive in its own right, not for how huge it is or for nice equipment, but for how they've utilized what they have. Example, their graphic designer is one guy. Newspring has a team of 9 full time employees complete with an internal 2-week turnaround on all requested work. I saw more graphic arts in the 45 minutes that we were in Elevation than the 10 hours that we spend at Newspring church. He also gave us all t-shirts. That's sweet.
But what do you care?
Sound and Light guys, as well as musicians, are completely obsessed with gear. All of them. You can go up to a sound technician after any show and start asking questions and he will all of a sudden turn into a kid in a candy store talking about his own equipment. Its part of his job to love that. Its part of his job to know exactly how it all works together and seamlessly to produce what you paid money to see. There was no shortage of that enthusiasm at Newspring.
But on the car ride back home, I realized that over the past year or so, i've started to become pretty much church obsessed. I watch church services online. The last time I missed a sunday morning was when I was 12 years old. I love talking about church. I love hearing about church. I loved our 36 hours worth of being on the road for a one day conference about church.
If the symmetric property applies to occupation, then something becomes glaringly obvious.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
On a pile of Dirt
I finally had a free moment to pick up Praise Habit again. I read a page before i had to put it down and think about how good it is. Here he's talking about Psalm 1.
"And to live in ways that twist and distort His creation brings death. Real death. Not just the redundant (none of us are getting out of here alive) burring of corpses, but the walking around kind that tastes of dust rather than the Maker's exhale of love. It is repulsive. It doesn't hold together. It is not the genesis-shape imagined for a human.
...Our cultural conditioning of Western nationalistic Christianity typically sends us headlong into pharisaical discussions of R-rated movies and cussing and drinking and smoking and the dangers of associating with heathen who do any of the previously mentioned activities. I am familiar with a copious quantity of people who do not participate in any of these activities yet walk around lifeless, as dead and intriguing as a pile of dirt."
I can remember sitting around as a younger child, being completely terrified of dying. I think we all have moments when we realize that we cannot, as humans in human bodies, comprehend death. Because you can't imagine yourself not existing. That's why Heaven is such an excellent thing. But as much as we're afraid of it, so many people really are dead. And more serious of a death than being physically dead.
That's what's incredible. People are walking around, breathing air and drinking water, and they're more dead than some of the people in your local cemetery. Literally, more dead. That isn't symbolism. People are literally dead. And we need to do something about that.
"And to live in ways that twist and distort His creation brings death. Real death. Not just the redundant (none of us are getting out of here alive) burring of corpses, but the walking around kind that tastes of dust rather than the Maker's exhale of love. It is repulsive. It doesn't hold together. It is not the genesis-shape imagined for a human.
...Our cultural conditioning of Western nationalistic Christianity typically sends us headlong into pharisaical discussions of R-rated movies and cussing and drinking and smoking and the dangers of associating with heathen who do any of the previously mentioned activities. I am familiar with a copious quantity of people who do not participate in any of these activities yet walk around lifeless, as dead and intriguing as a pile of dirt."
I can remember sitting around as a younger child, being completely terrified of dying. I think we all have moments when we realize that we cannot, as humans in human bodies, comprehend death. Because you can't imagine yourself not existing. That's why Heaven is such an excellent thing. But as much as we're afraid of it, so many people really are dead. And more serious of a death than being physically dead.
That's what's incredible. People are walking around, breathing air and drinking water, and they're more dead than some of the people in your local cemetery. Literally, more dead. That isn't symbolism. People are literally dead. And we need to do something about that.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
On the Elderly
Old people are really cool. A good majority of them somewhere along the way stop caring about what people think about them, accept the fact that they're old, and are completely okay with saying everything that comes to their mind, with no censorship.
It's adorable.
The RCA worship band, accompanied by some of Russel Sage's gals and later by other kids from RCA played a set of 5 hymns at a nursing home yesterday.
I've never liked hymns.
I've also never liked nursing homes- as cool as old people are, i get a bit apprehensive when i'm surrounded by them on all sides.
But don't get me wrong, I liked playing. It was a good night, disregarding the lamp that I knocked over with my bass case, shattering a glass tabletop.
But what I couldn't get out of my head was this:
In 20 years, the people living in nursing homes will not want to have college students come to them playing hymns. The old people in nursing homes 20 years from now will be former Dead-Heads. Baby boomers. Unchurched and apathetic.
In fact, I think we were assuming a lot by playing hymns and praying at a nursing home. If it weren't for the fact that nursing home residents will welcome any kind of entertainment you throw at them, i would have expected someone to mention something. Buddy Holly may have been more their style.
But it underlined to me the growing rift between Christians and society.
For example, in the 1200s, the Church was the only thing holding western society together. By the 1800s there were plenty of people who had decided that it wasn't for them. Since world war II, it feels like american culture has been rapidly splitting away from the Church. And in response to that, we have created "Christian Subculture", the horrifying, impact-reducing, relevance-decreasing bombshelter that christians in churches the world over are encouraged to hide away in.
Don't get me wrong. Worship music is awesome. Its almost entirely the only thing i've listened to while in college- Hillsong and David Crowder. And christian bands in general are cool. But the rift between our separate cultures is too big for comfort. We've made ourselves freaks, uneducated and insensitive to the people around us.
I wish there were more bands like Switchfoot.
Jon Foreman writes songs from the perspective of a christian that force people to think, without being a part of that rift. Like you can actually address issues of faith without dragging people inside of the bomb shelter and talking about how nice the stuffy air is and how great the canned peas taste. I like that. I wish more people would do that. Paul took the Gospel to all the corners of the known world. We sit on it and spend our creativity presenting it to ourselves over and over again rather than bringing it to people who need it.
Do me a favor. If you're reading this on facebook, like it. I have no way of knowing how many people actually read these things.
It's adorable.
The RCA worship band, accompanied by some of Russel Sage's gals and later by other kids from RCA played a set of 5 hymns at a nursing home yesterday.
I've never liked hymns.
I've also never liked nursing homes- as cool as old people are, i get a bit apprehensive when i'm surrounded by them on all sides.
But don't get me wrong, I liked playing. It was a good night, disregarding the lamp that I knocked over with my bass case, shattering a glass tabletop.
But what I couldn't get out of my head was this:
In 20 years, the people living in nursing homes will not want to have college students come to them playing hymns. The old people in nursing homes 20 years from now will be former Dead-Heads. Baby boomers. Unchurched and apathetic.
In fact, I think we were assuming a lot by playing hymns and praying at a nursing home. If it weren't for the fact that nursing home residents will welcome any kind of entertainment you throw at them, i would have expected someone to mention something. Buddy Holly may have been more their style.
But it underlined to me the growing rift between Christians and society.
For example, in the 1200s, the Church was the only thing holding western society together. By the 1800s there were plenty of people who had decided that it wasn't for them. Since world war II, it feels like american culture has been rapidly splitting away from the Church. And in response to that, we have created "Christian Subculture", the horrifying, impact-reducing, relevance-decreasing bombshelter that christians in churches the world over are encouraged to hide away in.
Don't get me wrong. Worship music is awesome. Its almost entirely the only thing i've listened to while in college- Hillsong and David Crowder. And christian bands in general are cool. But the rift between our separate cultures is too big for comfort. We've made ourselves freaks, uneducated and insensitive to the people around us.
I wish there were more bands like Switchfoot.
Jon Foreman writes songs from the perspective of a christian that force people to think, without being a part of that rift. Like you can actually address issues of faith without dragging people inside of the bomb shelter and talking about how nice the stuffy air is and how great the canned peas taste. I like that. I wish more people would do that. Paul took the Gospel to all the corners of the known world. We sit on it and spend our creativity presenting it to ourselves over and over again rather than bringing it to people who need it.
Do me a favor. If you're reading this on facebook, like it. I have no way of knowing how many people actually read these things.
Friday, February 12, 2010
On Unused
I went to EMPAC today to get a ticket for a show tomorrow. For those of you tuning in not on the RPI campus, EMPAC is the 220 million dollar building that is very cool and very unused. They tell us that they do research there, but then again, the RPI student union has to pay RPI for ice time for RPI's Div1 hocky team on RPI's own ice.
But here's the deal. The northern wall of EMPAC is 7 stories of glass showing a really cool staircase that goes from the bottom of the building to the top. The top is where the Box Office is, where you get tickets.
Except the box office is really just a wrap-around stainless steel desk.
And there's only one guy working it.
Empac is 7 stories of about 22,000 square feet.
You can walk around in the building all day, and unless there's a show going on, the only person that you'll ever see is that box office guy, staring at his iMac indefinitely.
EMPAC has employees. I'm going to guess maybe 10 or so full time workers.
They have really nice offices in the back. They're the guys that are in charge of programming, getting artists into the place, administrative and creative work.
But you walk inside the building, and there's simply an overwhelming sense of Space. Like you're surrounded by open-ness, you can look out the enormous window at Troy, everything is blue slate, glass, and stainless steel.
But it feels abandoned. Because there are no people in it that aren't shut away behind their locked suites in their nice offices.
I feel like the church has a lot of similarities to this.
Jesus paid much more than 220 million dollars for the church. He died. The guys that wrote the New Testament, most of them died for the church. Centuries of Saints died for the church.
But what are we doing with it?
Paying a single person to sit in the entree way waiting for a few sparse people to come buy tickets? Locking our pastors away in offices while we have theaters and auditoriums full of unused space? (think figuratively, not literally)
The Church is the greatest organization on the planet. We could at least do more than EMPAC with the resources we've been given.
But here's the deal. The northern wall of EMPAC is 7 stories of glass showing a really cool staircase that goes from the bottom of the building to the top. The top is where the Box Office is, where you get tickets.
Except the box office is really just a wrap-around stainless steel desk.
And there's only one guy working it.
Empac is 7 stories of about 22,000 square feet.
You can walk around in the building all day, and unless there's a show going on, the only person that you'll ever see is that box office guy, staring at his iMac indefinitely.
EMPAC has employees. I'm going to guess maybe 10 or so full time workers.
They have really nice offices in the back. They're the guys that are in charge of programming, getting artists into the place, administrative and creative work.
But you walk inside the building, and there's simply an overwhelming sense of Space. Like you're surrounded by open-ness, you can look out the enormous window at Troy, everything is blue slate, glass, and stainless steel.
But it feels abandoned. Because there are no people in it that aren't shut away behind their locked suites in their nice offices.
I feel like the church has a lot of similarities to this.
Jesus paid much more than 220 million dollars for the church. He died. The guys that wrote the New Testament, most of them died for the church. Centuries of Saints died for the church.
But what are we doing with it?
Paying a single person to sit in the entree way waiting for a few sparse people to come buy tickets? Locking our pastors away in offices while we have theaters and auditoriums full of unused space? (think figuratively, not literally)
The Church is the greatest organization on the planet. We could at least do more than EMPAC with the resources we've been given.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
On Stages
Its been a really long week.
By the looks of it, they're only going to be getting longer each time around. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm stressing a bit about where all the time I thought I had to do homework went. It just isn't there.
I watched a few snippets of a church conference this week. There was a lot of talk about home-based churches that are moving especially in california. cool stuff. But I still like Perry Noble's stance- that the church ought to have the most creativity, the best shows, the most captivating experiences, since we have the greatest message of all and we might as well back it up the way it should be.
That couldn't have been underlined more clearly than with The Who's performance at halftime less than an hour ago.
I spent all of the Halftime Report staring at the background behind the commentators trying to get a glimpse of the setup going on the field.
Greatest. Stage. Ever.
I feel like stadiums have always been one of the most difficult places to pull off a good looking stage, since you have people on every direction. A circle is a natural route to go, but an enormous curved LED screen with flash pots inside of it and media that complements its shape perfectly is absolutely phenomenal.
The problem?
Pete Townsend is 64. His days of rock and roll are over. All those guys looked like frail grandparents at a college reunion, enjoying their 12 minutes in the middle of the Sun Life Stadium.
We have the most excellent stage and lighting plot celebrating a bunch of old guys way past their prime who are celebrating football, beer, and wings.
we can do better. It would be my dream to be directly involved with something better than that. But seriously. Jesus >>> football. We make a big deal and throw parties to watch two teams of professionals, neither of whom we particularly cared for during the regular season, and then don't see anything wrong with merely showing up to church on sunday morning. Where's Jesus' circular screen-around-a-stage? Where are his lasers and his Showguns? And by golly, where are His fireworks and His flash pots?
If we did church like that every sunday, the entire state of new hampshire would, at the very least, be really really interested in what was going on.
By the looks of it, they're only going to be getting longer each time around. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm stressing a bit about where all the time I thought I had to do homework went. It just isn't there.
I watched a few snippets of a church conference this week. There was a lot of talk about home-based churches that are moving especially in california. cool stuff. But I still like Perry Noble's stance- that the church ought to have the most creativity, the best shows, the most captivating experiences, since we have the greatest message of all and we might as well back it up the way it should be.
That couldn't have been underlined more clearly than with The Who's performance at halftime less than an hour ago.
I spent all of the Halftime Report staring at the background behind the commentators trying to get a glimpse of the setup going on the field.
Greatest. Stage. Ever.
I feel like stadiums have always been one of the most difficult places to pull off a good looking stage, since you have people on every direction. A circle is a natural route to go, but an enormous curved LED screen with flash pots inside of it and media that complements its shape perfectly is absolutely phenomenal.
The problem?
Pete Townsend is 64. His days of rock and roll are over. All those guys looked like frail grandparents at a college reunion, enjoying their 12 minutes in the middle of the Sun Life Stadium.
We have the most excellent stage and lighting plot celebrating a bunch of old guys way past their prime who are celebrating football, beer, and wings.
we can do better. It would be my dream to be directly involved with something better than that. But seriously. Jesus >>> football. We make a big deal and throw parties to watch two teams of professionals, neither of whom we particularly cared for during the regular season, and then don't see anything wrong with merely showing up to church on sunday morning. Where's Jesus' circular screen-around-a-stage? Where are his lasers and his Showguns? And by golly, where are His fireworks and His flash pots?
If we did church like that every sunday, the entire state of new hampshire would, at the very least, be really really interested in what was going on.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
On Praise Habit
I'm starting to read a book by David Crowder, "Praise Habit".
My brother got it for me for Christmas this year.
It is excellent.
I know this because after reading the introduction I couldn't stop smiling because he expressed everything I've ever wanted to say about eastern religion and its relationship to Christianity so perfectly.
Here's an excerpt:
"The consequences of this discovery were huge. If He was in a sandwich, where else could He be found? Every moment was becoming holy. Nothing was nonspiritual. This was habitual praise- a perpetually sacred acknowledgment of the Giver of every good thing. A relentless embracing of good and a discarding of bad with an awareness of the one who in the beginning spoke those life-affirming words."
-David Crowder
Then last night I read Psalm 148. It goes as follows:
"Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being.
He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children.
Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones- the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!"
It seems to gel well with what Crowder was talking about. The idea that "Nothing was nonspiritual" has always been something that i've thought about. When i've learned about eastern religion it seemed to go along the same lines- that holiness, that truth is everywhere, in everything. Which is the right idea, just a pivotally wrong focus. God can be found in everything, because he made everything. You can find praise in absolutely everything you do, everything you look at, everything you think about. And when that happens, you're probably in a good place.
My brother got it for me for Christmas this year.
It is excellent.
I know this because after reading the introduction I couldn't stop smiling because he expressed everything I've ever wanted to say about eastern religion and its relationship to Christianity so perfectly.
Here's an excerpt:
"The consequences of this discovery were huge. If He was in a sandwich, where else could He be found? Every moment was becoming holy. Nothing was nonspiritual. This was habitual praise- a perpetually sacred acknowledgment of the Giver of every good thing. A relentless embracing of good and a discarding of bad with an awareness of the one who in the beginning spoke those life-affirming words."
-David Crowder
Then last night I read Psalm 148. It goes as follows:
"Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being.
He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children.
Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones- the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!"
It seems to gel well with what Crowder was talking about. The idea that "Nothing was nonspiritual" has always been something that i've thought about. When i've learned about eastern religion it seemed to go along the same lines- that holiness, that truth is everywhere, in everything. Which is the right idea, just a pivotally wrong focus. God can be found in everything, because he made everything. You can find praise in absolutely everything you do, everything you look at, everything you think about. And when that happens, you're probably in a good place.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
1/3
As of yesterday, I am 1/3 of the way through the Bible for 2010.
I've been reading with a pen. Passages that get underlined also get written down for future reference.
Each time I read through the Bible this year, i'm going to compare notes from each version to see how they're different. Just to see. Just to see.
Watched Star Wars Episode II last night.
One scene stuck out to me in particular. It was after Anakin finds his mother. She died in his arms. He then became full of rage and killed all of the Tuscan Raiders who had taken her captive.
Then he and the family that had purchased his mother buried her in the sand of Tatooine. There was another grave stone. It had everything the final ceremony has here on earth- mourning, tears, flowers.
But no pastor.
That's something that I've noticed more than ever this time through watching Star Wars: the complete paganism of the entire galaxy that George Lucas created. Everyone does their own thing. There is no direction, other than the general consensus that Jedis are usually right. In fact, everyone except the Jedis and those that deal with them regularly seem to be motivated entirely by greed and nothing more. There's violence in all corners of every planet. Everything is corrupt. By the middle of Episode II, Emperor Palpetine controls both sides of two powers about to go to war. That's messed up.
The world without Jesus is messed up.
I've been reading with a pen. Passages that get underlined also get written down for future reference.
Each time I read through the Bible this year, i'm going to compare notes from each version to see how they're different. Just to see. Just to see.
Watched Star Wars Episode II last night.
One scene stuck out to me in particular. It was after Anakin finds his mother. She died in his arms. He then became full of rage and killed all of the Tuscan Raiders who had taken her captive.
Then he and the family that had purchased his mother buried her in the sand of Tatooine. There was another grave stone. It had everything the final ceremony has here on earth- mourning, tears, flowers.
But no pastor.
That's something that I've noticed more than ever this time through watching Star Wars: the complete paganism of the entire galaxy that George Lucas created. Everyone does their own thing. There is no direction, other than the general consensus that Jedis are usually right. In fact, everyone except the Jedis and those that deal with them regularly seem to be motivated entirely by greed and nothing more. There's violence in all corners of every planet. Everything is corrupt. By the middle of Episode II, Emperor Palpetine controls both sides of two powers about to go to war. That's messed up.
The world without Jesus is messed up.
Friday, January 29, 2010
On Learning this Week
we've been watching movies every night this week. by "we", i mean some folks from RCA. By "movies", i mean mostly Star Wars. We watched Episode I yesterday and today we watched Gladiator.
Here's my thoughts on Gladiator:
I never realized that being a Charioteer would involve so much drifting. That would be so awesome.
Here's my thoughts on Star Wars I and Gladiator together:
Movies are made infinitely better by the addition of a cute kid that gets a lot of screen time without lines.
Here's what I learned from the Bible today:
In reading through the Old Testament, I'm about halfway through Numbers, not even to Deuteronomy. But one thing has become absolutely clear: redundancy.
I keep feeling like i'm reading the same things over and over again. If I was a little Jewish boy 2100 years ago, all this stuff would literally have been pounded into my head by now. There is no possible way that anyone could have said that they didn't know any part of the law. It's written down like 20 times in like 20 ways in several different books.
Its crazy how after so many examples through Moses alone where someone turned away from God and then God made the earth swallow them or sent fire down or something ridiculous like that, people still disobeyed the laws. Constant reminders just aren't enough. Watching people die just isn't enough.
In Gladiator, Commodus (evil emperor) saw over and over again what it took to make a good leader. He was surrounded by success in his Father, surrounded by success in his friend and general Maximus. But even after throwing opportunities to reform his ways out the window time and time again, he would not budge. He decided to stick with being the evil emperor. And he died for it, killed by the already fatally wounded slave of a former general of a former friend.
We're so stupidly stubborn. Our flesh is doomed to die and stay here on earth. Why are we so determined to remain with it when the reminders and the opportunities are never ending?
Movies are made better by cute kids. And so our lives are made better when we make ourselves like cute kids. Innocent, with few lines, content to be with our master, to win a podrace regardless of the stakes on our victory. (that was a starwars reference)
I could never be a film maker. I wouldn't know where to start.
Here's my thoughts on Gladiator:
I never realized that being a Charioteer would involve so much drifting. That would be so awesome.
Here's my thoughts on Star Wars I and Gladiator together:
Movies are made infinitely better by the addition of a cute kid that gets a lot of screen time without lines.
Here's what I learned from the Bible today:
In reading through the Old Testament, I'm about halfway through Numbers, not even to Deuteronomy. But one thing has become absolutely clear: redundancy.
I keep feeling like i'm reading the same things over and over again. If I was a little Jewish boy 2100 years ago, all this stuff would literally have been pounded into my head by now. There is no possible way that anyone could have said that they didn't know any part of the law. It's written down like 20 times in like 20 ways in several different books.
Its crazy how after so many examples through Moses alone where someone turned away from God and then God made the earth swallow them or sent fire down or something ridiculous like that, people still disobeyed the laws. Constant reminders just aren't enough. Watching people die just isn't enough.
In Gladiator, Commodus (evil emperor) saw over and over again what it took to make a good leader. He was surrounded by success in his Father, surrounded by success in his friend and general Maximus. But even after throwing opportunities to reform his ways out the window time and time again, he would not budge. He decided to stick with being the evil emperor. And he died for it, killed by the already fatally wounded slave of a former general of a former friend.
We're so stupidly stubborn. Our flesh is doomed to die and stay here on earth. Why are we so determined to remain with it when the reminders and the opportunities are never ending?
Movies are made better by cute kids. And so our lives are made better when we make ourselves like cute kids. Innocent, with few lines, content to be with our master, to win a podrace regardless of the stakes on our victory. (that was a starwars reference)
I could never be a film maker. I wouldn't know where to start.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Goal
I think my tentative goal for 2010 is to read through the entire Bible 4 times, in 4 different translations. It shouldn't be too difficult to remember to give myself 45 minutes at the end of each day for reading. Except, of course, when you consider all the other books I have to read this year and how busy this next (and next fall's) semester are going to be. Ick.
I'm starting the year with NLT, and my plans are to pick up an Amplified Bible and an ESV study bible along the way. But that leaves one more translation open to picking. any suggestions?
I'm starting the year with NLT, and my plans are to pick up an Amplified Bible and an ESV study bible along the way. But that leaves one more translation open to picking. any suggestions?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
On Bottlenecks
This winter break is almost over. It's been 4 and a half weeks so far, but from this end, it just flew by. I spent the last two weekends at conferences, which is good in that conferences are amazing, but bad in that I come back from them with a notebook of stuff I thought about and no time to re-read anything or collect my thoughts.
OIL was probably the longest conference i've been to thus far, and it was without question intense. I have a program booklet full of notes from seminary professors and a few more books I have to read. But one thing that one of the speakers said as an aside got written down on the back page:
"Just about every American leader went to college."
Think about that.
Almost every person of influence in our world went to a college of some sort.
We have created a culture that puts a great deal of emphasis on higher education, which is in most cases a good thing.
I did some searching for some numbers. Here's what I found.
There are about 24 million 18-24 year olds in the United States.
There are roughly 7,000 colleges in the United States.
College tuition is climbing at a freakily fast rate.
That's because everyone knows that in order to succeed in our world, you have to go to college. So since everyone goes to college, those 7,000 colleges get to charge lots of money for tuition. It's a bottleneck. Every leader in America has to pass through at least one (often more) of those 7,000 institutions.
Interesting fact I just learned from Wikipedia's article on the US's Demographics: There are about 7,000 Episcopal churches in america. That's one Episcopal church per college. There are hundreds of thousands of other churches in our country.
So... how does it make sense that people are capable of graduating college and going on to lead governments and organizations having not heard the Gospel?
There are plenty of churches. They're just not doing their jobs very well.
One thing I've learned so far as a college student is that the first month or so in the water sets a trajectory for the semester, the year, and for life. The first people that meet each other tend to stick around each other. And the company we keep sure affects everything about ourselves. People join frats, clubs, and study groups. The people in those groups are the people that hang around each other. It's an absolutely critical time.
And if you ask me, it seems like a really, really, incredibly easy time for evangelism. People go into college with "open minds", soft fertile soil for any idea and every idea. Might as well take advantage of it.
College campuses. You have thousands of young people concentrated in a teeny tiny area. There's no reason for UNH to be the 11th top party school in the USA when it could easily be the #1 churched school in the USA. How could the world be different if every year, a few thousand young adults graduated on fire for God instead of graduating mostly drunk? You can't fathom it. Don't even try.
OIL was probably the longest conference i've been to thus far, and it was without question intense. I have a program booklet full of notes from seminary professors and a few more books I have to read. But one thing that one of the speakers said as an aside got written down on the back page:
"Just about every American leader went to college."
Think about that.
Almost every person of influence in our world went to a college of some sort.
We have created a culture that puts a great deal of emphasis on higher education, which is in most cases a good thing.
I did some searching for some numbers. Here's what I found.
There are about 24 million 18-24 year olds in the United States.
There are roughly 7,000 colleges in the United States.
College tuition is climbing at a freakily fast rate.
That's because everyone knows that in order to succeed in our world, you have to go to college. So since everyone goes to college, those 7,000 colleges get to charge lots of money for tuition. It's a bottleneck. Every leader in America has to pass through at least one (often more) of those 7,000 institutions.
Interesting fact I just learned from Wikipedia's article on the US's Demographics: There are about 7,000 Episcopal churches in america. That's one Episcopal church per college. There are hundreds of thousands of other churches in our country.
So... how does it make sense that people are capable of graduating college and going on to lead governments and organizations having not heard the Gospel?
There are plenty of churches. They're just not doing their jobs very well.
One thing I've learned so far as a college student is that the first month or so in the water sets a trajectory for the semester, the year, and for life. The first people that meet each other tend to stick around each other. And the company we keep sure affects everything about ourselves. People join frats, clubs, and study groups. The people in those groups are the people that hang around each other. It's an absolutely critical time.
And if you ask me, it seems like a really, really, incredibly easy time for evangelism. People go into college with "open minds", soft fertile soil for any idea and every idea. Might as well take advantage of it.
College campuses. You have thousands of young people concentrated in a teeny tiny area. There's no reason for UNH to be the 11th top party school in the USA when it could easily be the #1 churched school in the USA. How could the world be different if every year, a few thousand young adults graduated on fire for God instead of graduating mostly drunk? You can't fathom it. Don't even try.
Monday, January 4, 2010
On Advice
Mark Batterson reads the bible through in a different translation every year.
I decided I wanna try that out, and kick it up a notch, so i found myself a nice 90-day bible reading plan and i'm going to tackle my NLT bible with it. The reading plan does 3 different sections each day, so for right now it has me reading chapters in Genesis, Job, and Matthew.
Anyway, i've never actually gone through the entire Bible methodically before. I've done the new testament several times, but there are definitely sections of the OT that i've missed. I'm excited.
This verse in Job made me giggle:
"A wise man wouldn't answer with such empty talk! You are nothing but a windbag."
-Job 15:2, NLT
The book of Job is well known for its exhibition of poor advice.
Those words were spoken by one of Job's friends after Job was pleading with God to show him how he had sinned and deserved to have everything taken from him.
But this man, Eliphaz, wasn't someone that Job should have listened to, and luckily he didn't. His advice was crummy, even though it makes logical sense in the context of the whole chapter.
Its good to have mentors and to seek advice from people wiser than ourselves. But it is incredibly important for us to know who we should be taking advice from in the first place. Without discernment on that front, we can end up more lost and disoriented than if we had never asked for direction in the first place.
nothing but a windbag. Not even a good insult.
I decided I wanna try that out, and kick it up a notch, so i found myself a nice 90-day bible reading plan and i'm going to tackle my NLT bible with it. The reading plan does 3 different sections each day, so for right now it has me reading chapters in Genesis, Job, and Matthew.
Anyway, i've never actually gone through the entire Bible methodically before. I've done the new testament several times, but there are definitely sections of the OT that i've missed. I'm excited.
This verse in Job made me giggle:
"A wise man wouldn't answer with such empty talk! You are nothing but a windbag."
-Job 15:2, NLT
The book of Job is well known for its exhibition of poor advice.
Those words were spoken by one of Job's friends after Job was pleading with God to show him how he had sinned and deserved to have everything taken from him.
But this man, Eliphaz, wasn't someone that Job should have listened to, and luckily he didn't. His advice was crummy, even though it makes logical sense in the context of the whole chapter.
Its good to have mentors and to seek advice from people wiser than ourselves. But it is incredibly important for us to know who we should be taking advice from in the first place. Without discernment on that front, we can end up more lost and disoriented than if we had never asked for direction in the first place.
nothing but a windbag. Not even a good insult.
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