Uganda Soccer Ball

Jaclyn Konczal, a 121Church Partner, spent a year in Uganda giving her love to the people of Adjumani just south of the Sudan border. You can check out her expedition here. This soccer ball, photo by Scott Pruett, was a souvenir from her ministry. Here is a link explaining how they make the ball to play the most “beautiful” game.

In case you are interested the Charlotte Eagles are hosting a double header (women’s and men’s soccer) next Saturday night, July 18th. The women will play the Atlanta Silverbacks and the men will play the Real Maryland Monarchs. I look forward to a great night of soccer!

ASBO JESUS

I have never been a big comics fan, though some of my current and past mentors are hooked to comics. Within the last six months I discovered the blog  The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus. For whatever reason I enjoy his daily comic. Here is the comic offered today…

Blog Stats + Rachel

My blog stats went off the charts last week. Don’t get to excited it doesn’t take many visits to send my blog stats up, since there are very few people who follow my blog.

I was encouraged though, to discover why my blog stats were rising last week. I had posted this song, O Church Arise, on my blog and my daughter thought every neighbor in our neighborhood should hear it multiple times. The little things God uses to magnify and glorify Himself!

Jesus used Advance 09 to introduce my worship pastor, Craig West, to the song above, which led him to introduce it to our 121Church body, which led me to post  on the blog, which led my daughter to share with all her neighbor friends. This reminds me of the “long tail” effect that Mark Penn discusses in his book Microtrends. The person at Advance 09 probably never realized that his ministry through music would
extend to children without Christ living on Holland St in WS, but it did! I guess this reminds us all to never underestimate how our life effects others for Christ.

—John Piper’s tweet on July 1st, 2009 “The man God used to call me from pre-med to gospel ministry never knew it. Don’t judge your life by known effects.”

HONDURAS Citizen

Many of you have probably seen Honduras in the news recently, since their President Manuel Zelaya was legally removed from office. It appears  the Organization of American States (OAS) is attempting to stiff arm the judicial and legislative branch of Honduras. The intolerant behavior of these socialistic leaders in Boliva, Nicaragua, and Venezuela is unbecoming. They scream foul play when the US pokes their nose south of the Florida Keys; but when one of their key pawns, Zelaya, is removed from power in Honduras they resort to international bullying tactics. How would they respond had Zelaya come from a different ideological persuasion than Socialism? Anyways on to a letter from a friend who is a citizen of Honduras.

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:1-4)

In Honduras there are 3 independent governing powers: judicial (the power to do justly on behalf of the people by a group of people chosen by the people); legislative (a group of people whose job is to look after the best interest of the society by voting in new laws); and executive (a group of people whose job is to obey and make others obey the constitution, the law, and other legal dispositions.  The president fits into this group).  In our government the check and balances do not allow one power to make a decision without the support and the approval of the others.

These are “the governing authorities,” referred to in Romans, that “God has established” in Honduras; “everyone must submit” to them–even, and most of all, the president.  Manuel Zelaya, our former president, did not only disobey the law (which in it self is sufficient reason for him to be punished), but he was also disrespecting our other God-established authorities on national and international television—and that without shame.  Personally speaking, what kind of president disrespects and makes fun of his own people?

What you hear on the news about the military taking over by force is not true!!!  Honduran law, and any law for that matter, states that if you disobey the law you will be punished by the law.  The military did not perform a coup d’état;   Honduras is not under a military dictatorship.  The army received from the Judicial Supreme Court and Congress of Honduras orders to arrest the President and all who were in power. Others who were like-minded were also arrested for violating our law and disrespecting our people.  Then the military took the president and flew him to Costa Rica.  Their reasons for doing that?  I’m not sure, but I think it is because they wanted to be kind and not put him into prison.

We are not looking to pick fights.  We are protecting and enforcing our law, and as a result, we, an independent, self- governing nation, now have Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, lead by Hugo Chavez, intruding into our affairs.  By taking action of our own accord, we are proving to the world that we are taking a strong stand against communism and socialism.  We have not been disrespectful to any other nation. We might be a poor, third-world country, but we have many citizens here who fear God and are not going to idly cross our arms and let just anyone—especially Hugo Chavez—control our country.  In closing, contrary to what many news channels are saying, Honduras IS acting according to law.

Dear friends, please continue to pray for stability and terms of agreement from both sides.”

Federal IT Dashboard

Obama’s Federal Tech Czar, Vivek Kundra, presents the Federal IT Dashboard to the public to track government IT expenses. If your not interested in the content you should at least check out the gadgets. Robert X. Cringely, from InfoWorld, explains in his article at PC World why we should be astonished at this tool.

O Church Arise

121Church sang this amazing song yesterday.

“O Church, Arise”
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2005 Thankyou Music

O church, arise and put your armor on;
Hear the call of Christ our captain;
For now the weak can say that they are strong
In the strength that God has given.
With shield of faith and belt of truth
We’ll stand against the devil’s lies;
An army bold whose battle cry is “Love!”
Reaching out to those in darkness.

Our call to war, to love the captive soul,
But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole
We will fight with faith and valor.
When faced with trials on ev’ry side,
We know the outcome is secure,
And Christ will have the prize for which He died—
An inheritance of nations.

Come, see the cross where love and mercy meet,
As the Son of God is stricken;
Then see His foes lie crushed beneath His feet,
For the Conqueror has risen!
And as the stone is rolled away,
And Christ emerges from the grave,
This vict’ry march continues till the day
Ev’ry eye and heart shall see Him.

So Spirit, come, put strength in ev’ry stride,
Give grace for ev’ry hurdle,
That we may run with faith to win the prize
Of a servant good and faithful.
As saints of old still line the way,
Retelling triumphs of His grace,
We hear their calls and hunger for the day
When, with Christ, we stand in glory.
CCLI No:4611992.

god of Summer

Digital Exhaustion

Our mobile electronic culture bombarded my thoughts yesterday as I sat at lunch with Diana and the girls. I watched a gentleman browse his personal digital assistant to the neglect of his children. I love wireless technology, but I am puzzled at the long term cultural effect it may have on us and the next generation. It is cool to be connected with endless information by something barely larger than the palm of your hand, but my heart sinks low as children are discarded by tech savvy dads who roam the internet and send bursts of text messages, while their children eat a meal. Our digital assistants capture our attention often to the detriment of our children.

Will our children remember the glare of a screen reflecting off our forehead or our conversations with their hearts at dinner time? My mind raced back twenty years before internet connection had become mainstream. WiFi was scarecly a thought and dad’s had nothing better to do then enjoy the meal with his children. Of course pre-WiFi, some fathers were reading the newspaper while their children ate lunch.

I am grateful to have noticed this young family at lunch. The father’s actions abruptly caught my attention and challenged me to consider how I spend lunch with my girls. I hope the joy of leading my girls will not be distracted by the TV in McDonald’s, nor the newspaper on the newstand,  nor my personal digital assistant. God’s design is to engage in my responsibilities as a father and husband rather than be diverted by the flare of gadgets. If I harness the gadgets to help assist my responsibility to guide the lives of my children fantastic. If I simply use them to escape my responsibility to care for the soul’s of my children then I need to separate from it.

Al Mohler offers an important article this week on “Children and the Need for Silence“.

Letters to a Diminished Church Part 6

Letters to a Diminished Church by Dorothy Sayers

Creed or Chaos? (Chapter 6)

“It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality unless they are prepared to take  their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters
enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism.” (49)

“The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.” (49)

“Finally, there are the more-or-less instructed churchgoers, who know all the arguments about divorce and auricular confession and communion in two kinds, but are about as well equipped to do battle on fundamentals against a Marxian atheist or a Wellsian agnostic as a boy with a peashooter facing a fan-fire of machine guns. Theologically, this county is at present in a state of utter chaos,…,and rapidly degenerating into the flight from reason and the death of hope…there are signs of a very great eagerness, especially among the younger people, to find a creed to which they can give wholehearted adherence.” (50)

” ‘Take away theology and give us some nice religion’ has been a popular slogan for so long that we are likely to accept it, without inquiring whether religion without theology has any meaning. And however unpopular I may make myself, I shall and will affirm that the reason why the churches are discredited today is not that they are too bigoted about theology, but that they have run away from theology.” (51)

“…if we really want a Christian society, we must teach Christianity, and that it is absolutely impossible to teach Christianity without teaching Christian dogma…to put before you a list of half a dozen or so main doctrinal points that the world most especially needs to have drummed into its ears at this moment —doctrines forgotten or misinterpreted but which (if they are true as the Church maintains them to be) are cornerstones in that rational structure of human society that is the alternative to world chaos.” (51)

“But if Christian dogma is irrelevant to life, to what, in Heaven’s name, is it relevant?—since religious dogma is in fact nothing but a statement of doctrines concerning the nature of life and the universe. If Christian ministers really believe it is only an intellectual game for theologians and has no bearing upon human life, it is no wonder that their congregations are ignorant, bored, and bewildered.” (52)

“That you cannot have Christian principles without Christ is becoming increasingly clear because their validity as principles depends on Christ’s authority; and as we have seen, the totalitarian states, having ceased to believe in Christ’s authority, are logically quite justified in repudiating  Christian principles. If the average man is required to believe in Christ and accept His authority for Christian principles, it is surely relevant to inquire who or what Christ is, and why His authority should be accepted. But the question, ‘What think ye of Christ?’ lands the average man at once in the very knottiest kind of dogmatic riddle.” (53)

She has an absolute amazing ability with language.

“It is not true at all that dogma is hopelessly irrelevant to the life and thought of the average man.  What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration as though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it make it so. The central dogma of the Incarnation is that by which relevance stands or falls…It is, in the strictest sense, necessary to the salvation of relevance that a man should believe rightly the Incarnation of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Unless he believes rightly, there is not the faintest reason why he should believe at all…If the average man is going to be interested in Christ at all, it is the dogma that will provide the interest.  The trouble is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has never been offered the dogma. What he has been offered is a set of technical theological terms that nobody has taken the trouble to translate into language relevant to ordinary life.” (54)

“Teacher and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy. And heresy is, as I have tried to show, largely the expression of opinion of the untutored average man, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe at the point where they begin to interfere with daily life and thought.” (57)

“I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it…We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus, meek and mild, was so stiff in his opinions and so inflammatory in his language that he was thrown out of church, stone, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever his peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference; and he said in so many word that what he brought with him was fire and sword.” (58)

“I shall say that if the Church is to make any impression on the modern mind she will have to preach Christ and the cross.” (60)

In regards to the doctrine of work…
“Nothing has so deeply discredited the Christian Church as her squalid submission to the economic theory of society…the fundamental question waiting to be dealt with, and that is, what men in a Christian society ought to think and feel about work…The fallacy is that work is not the expression of man’s creative engery in the service of society, but only something he does in order to obtain money and leisure. A very able surgeon put it to me like this: ‘What is happening,’ he said, ‘is that nobody works for the sake of getting the thing done. the result of the work is a by-product; the aim of the work is to make money to do something else. Doctors practice medicine not primarily to relieve suffering, but to make a living—the cure of the patient is something that happens on the way. Lawyers accept briefs not because they have a passion for justice, but because the law is the profession that enables them to live’…If man’s fulfillment of his nature is to be found in the full epxression of his divine creativeness, then we urgently need a Christian doctrine of work, which shall provide, not only for proper conditions of employment, but also that the work shall be such as a man may do with his whole heart, and that he shall do it for the very work’s sake.” (69,70)

Letters to a Diminished Church Part 5

Letters to a Diminished Church by Dorothy Sayers

Creative Mind (Chapter 5)

“According to one great mathematician: ‘God made the integers; all else is the work of man.’ And, according to many mathematicians, number is, as it were, the fundamental characteristic of the universe. But what is number, other than a relation between like things—like groupings of atoms–like unities? We say that we see six eggs. Certainly we see egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg in a variety of arrangements; but can we see six—apart from the eggs?…There has perhaps never been a greater act of the creative imagination than the creation of the concept of a number as a thing-in-itself. Yet, with that concept, the mathematician can work, handling pure number as if it possessed independent existence and producing results applicable to things measurable and observable.” (35)

“…: the perception of likenesses, the relating of like things to form a new unity, and the words as if.” (36)

“It will be noticed that the words of that line—’The singing masons building roofs of gold’—(mine–referring to bees) are far more powerful in combination than they are separately. Yet each word brings with it a little accumulation of power of its own–for each word is itself a separate unity and a separate creative act….” (38)

“Two images are fused into a single world of power by a cunning perception of a set of likenesses between unlike things. That is not all: in its context, the line belongs to a passage that welds the fused image again into yet another unity, to present the picture of the perfect state:

For so work the honeybees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a people kingdom.

This is not scientist’s truth; it is poet’s truth, like the truth latent in that unscientific word, quicksilver. It is the presentation of a unity among like things, producing a visible, measurable effect as if the unity were itself measurable.” (39)

“Perhaps I ought to add a caution about words…It is as dangerous for people unaccustomed to handling words and unacquainted with their technique to tinker about with these heavily charged nuclei of emotional power as it would be for me to burst into a laboratory and play about with a powerful electromagnet or other machine highly charged with electrical force…Similarly the irresponsible use of highly electric words is very strongly to be deprecated” (46)

“At the present time, we have a population that is literate…but owing to the emphasis placed on scientific and technical training at the expense of the humanities, very few of our people have been taught to understand and handle language as an instrument of power. This means that, in this country alone, forty million innocents or thereabouts are wandering inquisitively about the laboratory, enthusiastically pulling handles and pushing buttons, thereby releasing uncontrollable currents of electric speech, with results that astonish themselves and the world. Nothing is more intoxicating than a sense of power: the demagogue who can sway crowds, the journalist who can push up the sales of his paper to the two million mark (blog nowdays), the playwright who can plunge an audience into  an orgy of facile emotion, the parliamentary candidate who is carried to the top of the poll on a flood of meaningless rhetoric, the ranting preacher, the advertising salesman of material or spiritual commodities, are all playing perilously and irresponsibly with the power of words, and are equally dangerous whether they are cynically unscrupulous or have fallen under the spell of their own eloquence and become the victims of their own propaganda. For the great majority of those whom they are addressing have no skill in assessing the value of words and are as helpless under verbal attack as were the citizens of Rotterdam against assault from the air.” (46-47)

“It is right that the scientist should come to terms with the humanities; for in daily life scientist also are common men, and the flight from language will never avail to carry them out of its field of power. They must learn to handle that instrument as they handle other instruments, with a full comprehension of what it is, and what it does; and in so doing they will come to recognize it as a source of delight as well as of danger. The language of the imagination can never be inert; as with every other living force, you must learn to handle it or it will handle you. ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’” (48)