Cedar Point

Monday, June 23, Cedar Point Amusement Park

A great day at a great park with a great (punctual and obedient) group of students!
Rapid Fire Thots:

• Good ratio of unchurched/churched kids.


• New ride is the Maverick, it should've been named The Flipper.


• Hate the price of in-park food ($14 for 3 chicken strips, fries and 32 oz. of Pepsi goodness).


• Here's a picture of a great guy with a great ride:

• Al is a great friend and he's F.A.T. [Faithful, Available, Teachable].

• A great cell phone picture of another great ride if I do say so myself:


• This food joint made me think of my brother Daniel:

The only way that that day could've been better was to have my family with me. But I'm already getting the 'Not-Interested-Dad' signals from the girls.

Sweet 15!

Wow! Norma and I have been married for 15 years! I definitely got the better end of the deal. Although one blog entry does not have sufficient room to explain how good I've had it, I'll share a few things I love about my wife:

- She's my best friend.
- She's my kid's best mom (so far..jk!) EVER.
- She loves Italian food.
- She is tidy. She was OCD in a former life but has relaxed on that.
- She loves Jesus.
- She loves people who don't know Jesus.
- She is great with people of all ages.
- She remembers cool stuff like names and birthdays.
- She's sexy all over.
- She's a straight shooter.
- She figures out stuff that I should see but don't, and she does it quickly.
- She knows our children.

A few years ago I wrote in a Bible I gave to her "To Norma - my wife, my lover. You have done me good all the days of my life." I have that same feeling today, maybe a little stronger; and I am lucky to be with her.

Hey Babe, thanks for the great life together! How about another 15? 20? Can I get that in writing?

The Devils of Bakersfield

This book caught my eye because my parents and grandparents were Bakersfield people. If you've ever been there you can't forget the dryness of the area or the slow and steady oil pumps found in all sorts of places. Bakersfield always seemed like a nice place to me with my child's eye perspective but author John Shannon tells a different story.

Admittedly fiction, there are 'historical accounts' placed throughout the book to shed light on the present circumstances. As I shared some of the 'accounts' [bigotry, racism, classism] with my dad [my leading authority on B-field], he said there was truth in those facts. It was interesting and weird to learn a little B-field history in a fiction book in Michigan.

I sort of liked the main character, Jack Liffey, and thought some supporting characters had more...character. Vicariously visiting Kern County was fun for me. On the other hand, I didn't like the depiction of a crazy church/cult because I just get tired of religious people being portrayed as dorks. The corruption of civil and religious leaders is not new and wasn't interesting in this book. The alternate endings placed the emphasis on a character besides Jack and I just didn't find it sensible or enjoyable or tidy. I wouldn't recommend this book to very many people; my enjoyment came from a personal link to the location and not from the writing.

Romans

Just finished reading Romans. Paul's final thoughts are very practical and personal; lots of clear cut actions and quite a few names. Here are some phrases that caught my eye:

13.1 "there is no authority except that which God has established."
13.6 "the authorities are God's servants"

chap.14 - in three verses regarding personal choices the phrase 'to the Lord' shows up six times and 'to God' once.

chaps. 14 & 15
- big emphasis on consideration for others, seen in direct commands [14.1-15.13] and Paul's testimony [15.23ff]
- a few words deserve study: 14.2 'weak', 14.3 'look down', 14.3 'condemn', 14.10 'judge', 14.13 'judgment', 15.5 'spirit of unity', 15.7 'accept'

14.12 "each of us will give an account of himself to God." Yikes.

14.17 "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righeousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men." I know I preached this many years ago, it makes it's own outline and the point is pretty clear. If I remember correctly I majored on 'not eating and drinking' but I think I would major on 'righteousness, peace and joy' this time.

15.30 "join me in my struggle by praying to God for me." This verse caused me to join with some far-away friends by praying for them. What an encouraging thought that even though I can't literally walk with someone in trouble, I can join his/her struggle.

chap.16 - Reminds me of 3 John where John doesn't sidestep things, he calls people out by name. The one that stands out to me is in verse 10, "Greet Apelles, tested and approved in Christ." What a sweet compliment!

John's Epistles & Os Guinness

For the teen class that I have the regular privilege and responsibility of teaching, we have been looking at John's Epistles. We just finished.

One thing that stood out to me is that John never got very far from valuing the truth. The first letter is a bunch of excited blurbs. The second letter is both cryptic and specific. And the third one is very personal. In each letter the truth is always important. The truth is our bond. As you read his letters you'll come across the topics of love and discernment and hospitality; you'll read some vague things and some very specific things. But a blatant promotion for the truth is never far from his pen. It's like he can't get over it and doesn't want his readers to either.

In a different fashion, Os Guinness writes with the same impetus. Here are some examples:

p. 76 "...differences between views of truth - far from being purely theoretical and irrelevant - make an enormous difference."

p. 78 "Belief in something doesn't make it true; only truth makes a belief true...without truth, a belief may be only speculation plus sincerity."

p. 79 "Biblical faith...has a robust view of truth. All truth is God's truth and is true everywhere, for everyone, under all conditions. Truth is true in the sense that it is objective and independent of the mind of any human knower."

p. 82/83 "Without truth we are all vulnerable to manipulation."

It was neat how God put my nose in both places [John's Epistles & Guinness' Time for Truth] at the same time. They dovetailed very nicely.

Romans

I am reading through Paul's letter "to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints." Here are some verses that have stood out to me:

9.8 "...it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring."

9.16 "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy."

11.29 "for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable."

It's the last verse that I keep looking at and thinking about. I don't usually preach from a single verse, I tend to use a chunk of verses or a story; but that one is too juicy to pass over! It's full of good stuff like a smoked sausage on the grill waiting, begging to be eaten. Or the perfect bowl of ice cream on a hot summer day. Man I'm hungry and I have digressed. I think 11.29 would preach well all by itself.

Tidbits from The Reason for God #1

Part 1 of Keller's book deals with common questions/doubts/reasons that skeptics and unbelievers raise in regards to Christianity. Here are the seven thoughts he deals with:

1 - There Can't Be Just One True Religion
2 - How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
3 - Christianity is a Straitjacket
4 - The Church is Responsible for So Much Injustice
5 - How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?
6 - Science Has Disproved Christianity
7 - You Can't Take the Bible Literally

Here are some bits that I marked in my copy. The chapter # comes first, followed by the page # and then the quote.

2, p.25 "If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn't stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can't know. Indeed, you can't have it both ways."

3, p.39 "The idea of a totally inclusive community is, therefore, an illusion. Every human community holds in common some beliefs that necessarily create boundaries..."

3, p.44 Quoting historian Andrew Walls, "Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith...There is no "Christian culture" the way there is an "Islamic culture" which you can recognize from Pakistan to Tunisia to Morocco..."

3, p.46 "A fish is only free if it is restricted and limited to water. If we put it out on the grass, its freedom to move and even live is not enhanced, but destroyed. The fish dies if we do not honor the reality of its nature."

4, p.59 "The tendency of religious people, however, is to use spiritual and ethical observance as a lever to gain power over others and over God, appeasing him through ritual and good works."

4, p.61 "The shortcomings of the church can be understood historically as the imperfect adoption and practice of the principles of the Christian gospel."

4, p.67 "When people have done injustice in the name of Christ they are not being true to the spirit of the one who himself died as a victim of injustice and who called for the forgiveness of his enemies."

Overview of Keller's The Reason for God

This book has been enormously popular in certain circles and, imho, for good reason. It's very intelligent and very readable; whatta combo! It is first and foremost an apologetic book for today. While Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict is very factual, aggressive and almost confrontational, Keller's is much more persuasive. There is a gentle tone that strikes me as being much truer to the idea of reasoning with someone, while McDowell's is more argumentative. Granted, there will always be a place for McDowell's factual/historical apologetics but I believe that philosophical apologetics are the sharper sword in today's society.

What convinced me to purchase the book 'hot off the press' and read through it with a friend? The gospel-centeredness and sound reasoning of the author. Keller has only published one other book, Ministries of Mercy, in his pastoral career. But he has written great articles for various publications and his NYC church, Redeemer Presbyterian. And there's a good batch of his free online sermons available at http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index.cfm. His writings and sermons and the church all seem to have a gospel-centered outlook; it's crazy beautiful! There are some people you read and re-read because it so resonates with your heart and mind. Well, the gospel-centeredness definitely touches my heart and I hope that the repeated exposure will help train my mind and instincts to be gospel-centered.

Well that's enough gushing for one post. I'll move on to some specifics in the next post.