Take my new poll

I use Wordpressfor my blogging software. It is quite popular notably because of its extendibility through plugins. A plugin goes beyond the core functionality to add special features, like the poll to the right. I am playing around with some different plugins so you might see different things from time to time. I had to change my theme to allow some of them, like the poll. Eventually, I want to settle on a set theme or design but I want to play around a bit first to see what I like and don't like.

Speaking of the poll, I don't get too many visitors, mostly my wife, parents and sister. Still, I am curious who actually looks at this site. The poll on the top right is to gauge your relationship to me. I am wanting to test out this plugin to see how well it works, but I am curious who takes the time to view my thoughts. I do really appreciate your time. Thanks.

Acts 2 - analysis

As I alluded to here,  I am reading through the Book of Acts looking specifically for 3 things in the Early Church:

1. The working Holy Spirit with the disciples.


2. Decision making and church authority and the conditions which surround them.


3. The community and unity within the Body.

Acts 2 has the most famous expression of the Holy Spirit in all of Scripture. On the day of Pentecost, the tongues of fire rested on the Church and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. The disciples begin speaking in different languages which allowed every Jew in the immediate area to hear the Gospel in his or her dialect. Peter presents the Gospel and gives the first alter call. 3000 persons are saved this day.

Verse 4 has these first Christians "filled with the Holy Spirit". This work fulfills Jesus' promise in Chapter 1 before his Ascension that the power of the Holy Spirit would fall on them in Jerusalem.

As I mentioned, verse 41 famously depicts the 3000 that join the Church that day. Verse 47 speaks of the Lord adding to their number daily. When we get to Chapter 7 and the introduction of the deacons, I want to talk about the size of the First Church. It is truly a megachurch but "staffed" by so few people compared to our modern megachurchs. I find this quite interesting in regards to their size and the staffing they used.

While the action gets going in verse 2, a crucial component that can be overlooked is in verse 1...

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 

I am going to start noting all references in Acts St. Luke makes to the unity of the Church as 1st Unity Reference, 2nd Unity Reference, etc. so we can see just how often this occurs. We had our first declaration in 1:14 so this is 2nd Unity Reference. The outpouring of Heavenly power comes when they are all together. Just as sin separated us from each other as well as God, the work of Christ and the empowering through the Holy Spirit unites us both with God and each other. Authentic community is insepartable from authentic Christianity.

No where is this better seen than in vs. 43-46:

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart...

First, how great that must have been to be overwhelmed at the wonder of God. I would truly give any earthly treasure I have to be part of a church like that. To be honest, and I certainly may be wrong here, I am not 100% sure we can see something exactly like this again. This may be a unique case of an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit because of God's ordain purpose for launching His Church.

However, I believe we could still see many wonders and signs and have a sense of awe within a local church in today's world. And these verses show us why this is not a common occurance because this type of community is so rare. Personal possessions are sold and shared without reservation. They are together on a daily basis, both in church (temple) and each other's home having dinner. They have a radiating joy about them. St. Luke points out the 3rd Unity Reference with the statement of "one mind" (46) but the whole passage points to their unity. I am waiting until the I am finished reviewing all the individual chapters before analyzing the book as a whole, but Chapters 1 and 2 already point to a critical lacking in the modern Church of too much individualism. The Gospel is flexible in adjusting to different cultures and different times so we don't need to be exactly like this First Church in all details. But this portrait of the Church looks so different from any Church or local gathering of believers I have seen. And frankly, as much as I would like to be in a church filled with awe and wonder, I would probably mess it up because of some selfishness in me which would grieve the Holy Spirit and the unity He has created. May the Lord work in my life to make me a man who not only longs for awe and wonder but is submissive and humble of heart to be of one mind with other believers so that we can together see the awesome power of God.Â

If you get up, Daddy is going to put your right back in bed

I recently posted the video of Jacob's Easter Egg Hunt. It is so precious and shows Jacob as the super cool kid he is. Those are the high points of being a parent, the ones that give you the energy to carry through as a good parent during the far more common mundane moments and especially through the challenging ones.

Last night, Jacob work up around Midnight and after approximately 30 attempts to escape he was back down for good at 1:20 AM. More so than most babies, Jacob has been a challenging sleeper. At about 4 months old, we were emotionally and physically spent. He would eventually go to sleep after 30-60 minutes of holding, but he woke up at least 2 times during the night and required a similar experience to get back down.

 

Our eyes were opened to a solution when reading  Dr. Richard Ferber's famous book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems". Famously or depending on your point of view infamously depicted during "Meet the Fockers", the Ferber method was developed to teach your child how to sleep on his own. I was predisposed to believe Jacob would be a bad sleeper because I was one and have heard numerous stories of my challenging bedtimes from my parents.

I am one who needs to understand the mechanics and philosophy of an idea before I can totally buy in to it. Fortunately, Dr. Ferber provide some excellent research and analysis into his method. Most notable and important to me was his discussion on sleep associations. In describing a young child named Betsy and her sleeping problems:

The fact that she could fall asleep rapidly in her parents' arms was proof that she had no actual sleep impairment. There could be no inherent abnormality in her ability to sleep which would allow her to fall asleep quickly in her parents' arms but not alone in her crib. The inability to settle alone in her crib was due to her experience, her sleep associations.

This was a revolutionary idea to me and when you are getting less than 5 hours sleep a night (me not Jacob) you need ideas which are revolutionary. Jacob could sleep fine, but his sleep associate was being held. I had to break him of this sleep association and move to something else.

We followed Dr. Ferber's approach and in about 3 nights (Night 1 and Night 2 were hard) he was able to sleep in his bed as a 5 month old. He did need his pacifier, but it worked fine through early 2s. Shannon and I got rest and Jacob did as well.

This worked until a little before 2 1/2. At that point, Jacob learned he could get out of the bed and open the door and encounter freedom. He expressed his freedom of waking up Mommy and Daddy. We decided this would be a good time to remove pacifiers as their original purpose was to get him through the night and now something more was needed. Breaking that habit was not too tough, but we had to substitute staying in the room with him as he fell asleep. Shannon and I felt that would be a stopgap measure where once the pacifier habit was gone we would no longer have to stay with him to fall asleep.

As you can tell from the beginning of this post, he has latched on to us being in the room as his sleep association. We are now back to square one but at least with the knowlege this can be repaired. Last night, I told him he could get up if had too - I didn't want to make him fearful of leaving the room for good reasons - but if he was OK, Daddy was going to put him right back into bed. Which I did numerous times last night. As before, it will take a few nights to learn his own sleep association to get himself to sleep. Without an external aid, like a pacifier, it may even take the whole week. But by next Friday, I expect him to be sleeping through the night. If not, I am calling in DeNiro.

Look Mom, I am a public speaker!

In my first semester at Mississippi St., I took Public Speaking. It was 101 like course that all freshmen had to take. We were all scattered across about 30 different classes so you had to get some grad students to teach it. My teacher was a first year grad student. Let's just say I knew I was in trouble the first day when she commented that Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have A Dream" speech was "a pretty good speech". Right, the defining moment of the civil rights movement, in front of the Lincoln Memorial and millions of people was just pretty good. How could my best even be acceptable.

 Well, it was...barely. The big problem was that the Communications School had a common grading system for speeches on a 1-8 scale. Why they use 1-8 is why Communications degrees are a joke. However, most of the teachers would give half points so you could get a 7.5 in delivery or 6.5 in content. But my teacher decided to stick with even numbers. So if you were less than perfect, like Rev. King was, you got a 7. That 7 out of 8 is 87.5% which means the best you could really get was a B. More likely, you were a 6/8 or even 5/8 which put you in the C or D range. I believe my final average for the semester was a 72 which barely got me to a C. I only made one other C in college. It was in a summer class of Electromagnetics II taught by Dr. Donohoe, a very tough but fair teacher, and that was high C. Yep, my 2 toughest classes as an Electrical Engineer was an abbreviated Electromagnetics II course and a 101 public speaking class.

I wonder how my crazy teacher would have graded me this week. I spoke at a Hardlines Technology Forum conference. HTF is the standards body for the Hardlines vertical. In English, they represent the Home Depots, Black and Decker and other building related companies on the world in helping them use technical standards and software to communicate electronically, like sending a purchase order electronically and what software they need to interpret it. And that is related to what I do with the testing of this software.

Here is the Powerpoint of my HTF Presentation. It is about undestanding AS2 and how it compares to other B2B transports. Again in English translation, it is the most popular way to send electronic messages between your business partners and here is how it compares to other ways of communicating with your partners. The end user customer is oblivious to it, but Lowes and most of these Hardline companies use AS2 in their business interactions.

About 25 people showed up, and I feel I did a good job. I read the evaluation forms that were turned in by the session participants, and most indicated I had a good grasp of the concept and did a good job presenting it. I would guess my grade to be B+ to a B. Much higher than the C- I got from my out of touch grad student teacher.

Acts 1 - analysis

In Acts 1, the Apostles finally meet the Holy Spirit. Of course, he has been here forever, and they have seen his work during Christ’s ministry, such as at his baptism. However, the Gospels record no reference of Jesus’ disciples speaking to the Holy Spirit or understanding His nature as God. Jesus spoke of the Comforter to come, but the Eleven seem confused at this reference. As with much of God’s plan, they did not fully grasp it until after the Resurrection.

 

In chapter 1 of Acts, we see the disciples and the Holy Spirit come together three times. The first is in verse 2.

...until the day when Jesus was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.

 

 Dallas Willard makes a point about this verse that I had not thought of or heard mentioned before, but he points out Jesus was addressing His followers in person as the bodily resurrected Christ at the end of the Gospels, including the one according to St. Luke. Now in the 2nd part of Luke’s biography of the Early Church, he speaks of Jesus addressing his disciples through the person of the Holy Spirit. See in verse 2 where Jesus gives orders by the way of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus was teaching his believers that they could know and communicate with the risen Lord without his actual physical presence because of the work of the Comforter.

The dilemma with that point is that it appears to contradict the popular understanding that the disciples did not know the Holy Spirit until Pentecost. While I have often stayed at a Holiday Inn Express (in fact I am a Priority Club member there), I don’t want to try to be too smart and go against common Christian understanding. However, verse 2 speaks of the fact that Jesus was speaking to the disciplines through the Holy Spirit. Regardless of how that affects our understanding of Pentecost, that is great assurance to those who follow him now that Jesus can indeed speak and give guidance to us.

 

Verse 8 is quite well known as it has Christ’s general direction to the work of the Church.

"...but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

 

As has been pointed out in numerous sermons, and we continually need to hear this, the Church can not do its work without the power of the Holy Spirit. I have longed been intrigued by this idea of power that comes from living in the Kingdom of Heaven. What does it look like? How do I know I have it? How does it differ from “my” natural power? That is question I am hoping to gain insight into from this study of Acts.

 

As I said in a previous post, I am most interested in learning how the Early Church reached decisions. We see our first decision in the latter part of Chapter 1. The key verses are 14 and 24-26. Verse 14… 

These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

 

Then Peter speaks of the fall of Judas, how it was foretold by the Holy Spirit in Scripture and how they are to replace his office. In verse 24-26, their method for choosing the replace is given.

And they prayed and said, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

 

Three points on this selection process. One, they speak to and ask guidance from the “Lord” whom I take to mean Jesus Christ. This collaborates with the idea from verse 2 that the disciples were learning they could communicate with Christ even though he was absent physically. So before Pentecost, the Early Church understood Christ was to be personally involved in their daily lives.

 

Two, the disciples were not quite there yet in their maturity. Hey, it’s pre-Pentecost so may be that is to be expected. But drawing lots shows they were still struggling to perfectly understand Christ’s voice and his will. I assume they felt confident the Lord’s will was either Matthias or Barsabbas, but there was some disagreement among the group on the pick. I suppose you could take it as an example that God’s will is not always clear, but I don’t think that jives with the rest of Acts and the other New Testament writing. We will see as we go through Acts. Still, drawing lots is more Biblical method for decision making then a popular voting, but that is a post for another day.

 

Finally, and what I find most important from this chapter, is the example in verse 14 of the Early Church in one mind through intimate community and prayer. I am expecting we will see this several times in Acts. I will hold off making more analysis until then, but this may be the key to understanding the Lord’s will within the Church.

What do you call a Baptist in an Episcopal parish?

A couple weeks ago Shannon and I attended St. Bart's in Nashville for their Good Friday service. It was a 3 hour service (we stayed just an hour and half) on the last 7 statements of Christ on the cross before his death. It was really good. One of the ministers, Dixon Kinsor, did a great job using atypical sacraments/disciplines to illuminate Christ's last words and His local presence. He had us hold hands (for like 5 minutes) for the uncomfortableness of dependence. Then we stood in awkward and slightly painful positions as we prayed for those who suffered. It was wonderful to put my body into my worship, beyond raising a hand or just closing my eyes.



St. Bart's is an Episcopalian parish. It is very evangelical and fundamental in its beliefs. It is one the conservative Episcopal churches opposing the ordination of homosexual bishops. I was first exposed to Episcopal worship by my friend Greg Methvin. Greg was a singles minister at my old church. Greg left this mega Baptist church to be the minister of discipleship at Christ Church in Plano, TX. I met with Greg after he left and he gave me a tour of the parish and explained their different worship style. He invited me to come on Sunday and I did. It was a wild experience. I didn't know how to react or what to do. People were turning and saying "Peace be with you" and I was clueless on how to respond. I did not know when to kneel, when to stand or what to say. But I loved it. I loved the emphasis on the crucified Christ and his last supper and his present presence here with us. I felt that the choir in the back balcony reduced the temptation to be entertained rather than worship the risen Christ. And finishing the service with the Eucharist with real wine - and boy was that wine strong - caused me to leave the service with my precious Lord on my mind. Whether it was because it was so new which prevented me from going through the motions or because it touched something deep inside of me, I really, really worshiped there.

But, I was called to my Baptist church and service there. I stayed at Prestonwood until we moved, but I kept thinking about the Episcopal worship. After Shannon and I moved to Nashville, a friend, whom I told one day of my fish out of Baptist water story, recommended I try out St. Bart's Wednesday noon service. This was perfect since we would not have to miss our services at Springfield Baptist. Shannon and I went, and we loved it. We were able to go several times before moving to Springfield.

My Nashville friend, Timothy Bennett, also introduced us to the Common Book of Prayer. Shannon and I both enjoyed the daily office, how it tied Old Testament, New Testament and Psalms together in a daily reading. The office also provided a structure for a quiet time with the Lord that included prayer, reflection, singing and Bible reading. We don't use it every day, but we still find it refreshing as a spiritual discipline.

I am proud to be a Baptist and proud to be at Springfield Baptist as an active member and don't plan on leaving. The Episcopal/Anglican church has tons of problems with its ecclesiastic hierarchy. I don't think I could give my tithe to an Episcopal church knowing part of the money would fund unbiblical denominational leadership.  Yet, my recent trip to St. Bart's reminds me that there are many ways to worship and serve God, and if we limit ourselves we can miss out on God's best.

It has also encouraged me to take up a challenge a friend gave me recently. We were talking about authority within the church. He suggested I read through Acts and note every time the Holy Spirit was involved in a decision, what the people were doing at that time and how they responded. I am going to do that. I am going to re-read The Acts of the Apostles and look for 1.) instances of the Holy Spirit at work and 2.) any decisions, good or bad, that were made by the church. I want to look at the situations surrounding both of these to see what went right or wrong and why. As I do my journey through Acts, I am going to record my observations here on my website. I am hoping to learn more of the Holy Spirit and how he wants to move and lead us as body of believers. Look for reflections on the first few chapters in the next couple of days.

Jacob on Easter

We had a great Easter holiday. Our church hosted a major community outreach for Easter. We reserved The Center, the larger public seating venue in our county, for our Easter service. We had over 700 in attendance and some decisions for Christ. Shannon did a great job handling the Preschool/Nursery classes during the service with 45 kids and 30 volunteers. I was very proud of our church to reach out with the gospel to our community.

Afterwards, we went to dinner at Phil and Evelyn Klober's. They are wonderful couple in our church. The Klober's invited over their daughter Amy and her husband Jamie along with their 2 kids, Jamie's parents and his sister's family, Micheal Lusby (our Youth minister) and his clan and us. There were 14 adults and 7 kids. The food was fabulous and the company was great as well. We did an Easter Egg hunt for the kids afterwards. The Klober's lost their son Robert in a car wreck at 17, and they have felt a special bond with Shannon after the loss of her parents. I am blessed at their concern for her during this holiday season.

Later that afternoon at our home, we did an Easter Egg hunt with Jacob in the backyard. He was of course incredibly cute. Check out the video of the hunt.

True Story

When I was a kid, I would dump out all my GI Joe characters on the bed or floor and create a Summer movie blockbuster with them and my imagination. Really. Not just bad guys fighting good guys. But I would set up a spy/traitor in the midst of one group. They would have internal conflicts with conflicting agendas. I would give hero and villian characters soliloquies where they express their inner motivations. I can't remember the details of the story, but I do remember I would generally repeat the same basic story over and over except varying it at different points. Improvements to the narrative. However, each iteration would slightly change the story, finding new twists my imagination would consider an enhancement. Over time, the original story would change considerably. (Except for never including the female GI Joe characters like Scarlett. I was too sexist as a 4th grader to have them messing up my story.)

I would always reach the end and prepare to have the final battle. And then I would stop. I would clean up my toys and go play something else. I never wanted to have the final battle because it would mark the end of my over the top story. And once I reached the end, I would have to make a new story. Even though my story changed over time, I considered it My Story. Not changed but improved. Not different but fresh.

Some people like making new stories, new starts, new adventures.  Other people like keeping the status quo and reliving it daily.  I am somewhere in the middle. I like to refine my imagination to keep improving an idea over and over, but I generally stay with my same core beliefs and feelings. I no longer play with GI Joes, but I do think of ideas and beliefs and play them through in my mind. Whether it is an idea for church or an analysis of a college basketball game or new business idea. There is merit in this. Never settling and looking to find better ways. Even when the idea is not feasible at this time, the activity of thinking through the process or concept can be worthwhile.

But I still struggle with closing the story. My ideas rumble over and over in my mind like a dryer tumbling the clothes, but I never, or rarely, put my ideas out there to see how they fit in the real world. My mind provides a sanctuary where the thoughts and feelings are safe to enjoyed but never to potentially fail. As child, I held off the dramatic conclusion because I liked reliving the same struggle and challenges of my imaginary characters over and over. No problem for someone with a $2/week allowance and a 9:30 bed time. But as adult, I have found this same pattern in my life but with greater consequences. Ideas are wonderful but until they are carried out or acted upon they are ineffective. In keeping them to myself, I am missing out on some possibly rewarding experiences.

In reflection, I believe this reveals an aspect of my personality which is afraid of failure. By putting ideas out there, they are tested against the cold, revealing reality. And reality always shows ideas for what they are worth. I might have to admit my precious work is not precious at all. But while there is a danger in putting ideas into works, there is a great potential for reward. To see ideas expressed, beliefs acted upon or feelings exposed fills them with life, and life can bless and enrich beyond what any dream can do. So my choice is this: does the reward of a life giving action outweight the risk of a failed dream?

This is where this blog comes in. A very open forum to put forward my hopes, dreams and ambitions. Not that necessarily any one other than my wife, family and a friend or two will see this, but you don't know. Regardless, here they will be laid bear. Here they will be tested.

Prior to publishing this post, I did a re-read and found my initial post a little on the dramatic side. Not suprising coming from the same boy who produced Michael Bay-like epics with plastic men on his bed with the Cincinnati Bengals sheets. I have taken risks and put myself out there. I am not vicariously living only through my unventured thoughts. I am proud of my life and my accomplishments. But I do know what thoughts exist only in my mind, and I believe some of them are quite good. Why haven't I shared them? This removes the barrier of means as writing is probably my best method for communicating. If nothing else, I will enjoy the experience. Snake-eyes, Hawk, Sgt. Slaughter, Destro and the rest of the Joes would be proud.