My lovely wife and daughter are in Dallas this weekend, getting caught up with baby Drew. He’s making noises now! Chewing on his finger! What delights! What thrills! Wish I were there…
Anyway, here’s Sam and Melinda – they make a papa proud! 
And here’s Joh and The L’il Guy!
Who’s having more fun here, really??
After our new piano arrived, I went to the sanctuary one evening to take some pix. It’s a beautiful place at night! These don’t really do justice to it, and these pix are just a touch blurry, but they give you the idea. Anybody wanna come sit here a while one evening and pray?
You know if you’ve been reading this blog, I’ve been reading Tim Keller’s book The Reason For God and found it quite clear and helpful. Keller’s forte is discussing the Christian faith with “cultured despisers” of Manhattan. I just downloaded a recent radio program on White Horse Inn where Keller discusses his book with Michael Horton and the other program hosts – well worth listening to. You can go directly to the WHI site, or download the program here. Or, you can see a quick video of Keller discussing this book here.
Gene Kramer, our 7th Grade Confirmation teacher, has uploaded 3 new pix of his class – and a great bunch of kids they are! Here’s one, taken after the “Trapped In Sin” exercise. To see the other two, go to St. Paul’s website (www.stpaulsfreeburg.org), click on the “Pictures” tab on the left, and follow the links.
This Youtube video has been around for a while, but it still makes me laugh. Maybe it just gives me hope for my geezer years – still driving Red, though…
One of the books I’ve been reading is Tim Keller’s The Reason for God, which led me to poking around the internet for more about and by him. I found the website for his church (Redeemer Presbyterian – click here) and read one of his articles there entitled “The Importance Of Hell” (clickhere). Here’s a quote that caught my attention:
“Fairly often I meet people who say, ‘I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don’t believe in Jesus Christ at all.’ Why, I ask? ‘My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin.’ But this shows a deep misunderstanding of both God and the cross. On the cross, God HIMSELF, incarnated as Jesus, took the punishment. He didn’t visit it on a third party, however willing.
So the question becomes: what did it cost your kind of god to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this god agonize, cry out, and where were his nails and thorns? The only answer is: ‘I don’t think that was necessary.’ But then ironically, in our effort to make God more loving, we have made him less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way before. The “loving god” of people I meet who deny the reality of hell or the cross, is actually a squishy god, unable or unwilling to bear the cost of love. In my own experience with my wife and children, I know that love costs. And the deeper the love, the more the cost. But this ‘loving god’ who makes no demands, pays no cost, bears no cross, endures no hell, is more the figment of my self-absorbed and self-affirming ego than the God of the Scripture.
Funny how important hell is to my happiness.
You may have noticed that I have a new header on my blog. No big significance here, just wanted a change. Originally I had used a pic of the stained glass window above St. Paul’s altar – Jesus in Gethsemane. It’s a lovely window and a focal point of our worship. But one of my other passions is driving my delightful Miata – particularly at Deal’s Gap NC. Each year I go there just to drive and enjoy some solitude and creation. And I take pics, lot of pics! So my new header for my blog is now a shot of one of the roads at Deal’s Gap, taken over the shoulder of Red, my car. Here, BTW, is the entire photo:
I enjoy the curviness of the road – it’s not high speed (maybe 45 mph) but it’s enough to be pleasant, calling for enough attention to focus on the road, but not so much attention that you can’t enjoy the scenery. The road ahead is often hidden, but does not come up on you so fast that you’ll be taken off guard.
Here’s another one that I took last July, from my modest motel (you can see more of the curves in the second pic):
Oh man, it makes me ache for the road! The motel is out of the 50’s – it’s got yer basic a/c and indoor plumbing, and a shop to pick up some drinks or a snack. But the whole point is not the motel itself, but the road, the drive.
I can wax eloquent on this stuff – the road of life. I wrote a sermon once about how I often get so involved in cleaning my car, waxing my car, detailing my car, accessorizing my car, that I forget to DRIVE the car. Kinda like faith, I think. It’s meant to be trusted and driven, not tweaked and admired. Though tweaking and admiring are good, they’re not the main good.
So the new header is somewhat spiritual after all. Brothers and sisters, start your engines! None of us knows how much road we have left, or when the next curve will be the last. Don’t wait. Drive!
Check out our new website – the address is still www.stpaulsfreeburg.org – but newly designed. Lemme know your thoughts – and we could use pics for our “Pic of the Week” section.
I was driving home from a hospital call last Thursday, and heard on the radio about the “balloon boy”. And not just on one station – they were all over it! Following the balloon, reporting moment by moment on what was happening (or what they thought was happening). When I got home I saw that several TV channels were carrying the “news”, again with live video so we could watch every single moment. And on the ‘Net, my news homepage was full of balloon boy “news”.
Now, it seems, it might well have been an intentional hoax. We still don’t know, and I suspect it will take some time to know.
And isn’t that the problem with the “news”? So quick to report, so slow to analyze. The emphasis is all on quantity (=fastest) rather than quality (=what is actually happening here?)
It takes time to know what things mean. I suspect a look at your own life will tell you that. You lost your job – ok, but what will that mean in the bigger picture of your life? OK, you won the lottery, but what will that mean? It takes time.
In the meantime, I think it’s very distracting to have a river of “look at that” and “watch this” passing before us. (I’ve noticed that my local news guy/gal will actually say “take a look at this”, like I might not have my eyes glued to the screen and need to have my attention called to the image on the TV rather than on my wife sitting next to me).
The media, it seems, is fixated on getting it first, not getting it right. If we don’t ignore that blather and take the longer view of what things actually mean, we’re going to be continually blown about by every of wind images, unrooted, unanchored, and helpless on the fast road to hell.
I’m hoping that St. Paul’s will have their new website set up by this Sunday, or shortly thereafter. It’s been an interesting process!
When our webmaster and choir director resigned, we found ourselves in the position of many churches – at least, according to one excellent article that I read. According to this article, there have been many churches that had websites set up by creative, technologically oriented (“computer geek”) members. Those websites were creative and attention-getting, if not flashy. But those churches found that when their technogeeky members tired of the website, or otherwise moved on, they were left with a website no one knew how to maintain. Thus, the author of the article concluded, usability and maintainability are more important, in the long run, than technological dazzle.
So, when it came to developing a new website, I wanted something easy to maintain; something our church secretary or administrator could edit without having to learn HTML or other code. Something that was simple enough to be used regardless of change in personnel. And I found it.
Actually, Sandi Haege showed it to me. At Microsoft Office Live (click here) you can create your own website for free. Yep, free. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that “for fee” sites and software have. But it does the job quite nicely, in my book. Anyone who can use a word processor can use this site. Simple, easy, straightforward, basic. Kinda like our church, come to think of it!
So, God willing, our new site will be up soon. Our web address will be the same – www.stpaulsfreeburg.org – so I invite you to check it out and give us any feedback you have, good or bad.
I’ve been reading Tim Keller’s book, The Reason For God, and found it quite engaging. Keller is a pastor in Manhattan, whose church is growing despite being surrounded by secular skeptics. One of the reasons for that is Keller has a way of engaging the non-believing mind with respect, understanding, and challenge. The book is an apologetic for the faith, but it demonstrates Keller’s way of understanding those who disagree with him.
In the first part of Keller’s book he deals with the most common objections or reservations to Christianity that he’s heard over the years. One chapter is entitled “You Can’t Take The Bible Literally” – the concluding paragraphs, headed “A Trustworthy Bible or a Stepford God?” are what caught my attention last night – to wit:
“If you don’t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you….Remember the (two!) movies “The Stepford Wives”? The husbands of Stepford, Connecticut, decide to have their wives turned into robots who never cross the wills of their husbands. A Stepford Wife was wonderfully compliant and beautiful, but no one would describe such a marriage as intimate or personal.
Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, if your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it.”
I never saw the Stepford Wives, but remember that beautiful, empty headed, compliant look. On the one hand, every guy’s dream. On the other hand, every guy knows there’s something better out there than a Stepford God.
You can order the book here, if you’re interested. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far I’d recommend it highly.
President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” He joins an impressive group:
Regardless of their different political leanings left or right, it seems to me that these organizations and people have one thing NOT in common with President Obama. They actually did something to deserve the recognition of the award. Of course this is old school thinking, that you should perform first and then be awarded. Or, in economic terms, save your money first, then spend it. Notice the International Red Cross awards? They were given in the war years. That’s Old School thinking. New School thinking would be to award the prize before the next war, not during or after.
Seems to me this is so typical of the way things are now. Style not substance. Intention not accomplishment. Image not content.
Brothers and sisters, we get the government we deserve.
Renovations are getting very close to being complete. Today, Saturday 9/26, I took these pix showing that the carpeting is almost finished, the pews are in, but there’s a lot of cleaning up and putting in place yet to do. The piano is coming on Monday 9/28, and I’m sure that, God willing, the place will be complete by October 4!
Just a couple of notes on the pix below – a couple of additions were made along the way, including a fan in the balcony for our balcony birds (see pic) and spotlights for the altar (also see pic). Lights at the steps are also new (see pics). You’ll also see that the chancel carpeting has a color border at the edge, like the warning track in the outfield. The new computer/soundboard in the balcony sits on a raised step – it’s quite a view of the whole sanctuary.
There are a good many folks who have spent uncounted hours on this project – Nolan Shook, Dean Huston, Mary Weber, and many more whose names are escaping me right now. My heartfelt thanks to all of you!
The sanctuary painting was completed on Friday 9/18, with a couple of additions suggested by our members: accent color was added to the chancel arch and around the stained glass windows. In addition, Shirley Baumgarte thought it would look good to add some white accent to the accents – so we tried it out (see pic below) and indeed, the committee approved!
This Sunday we’ll be worshiping “in the round”, on our old folding chairs. Sorry balcony birds, but the balcony will be closed this Sunday! God willing we’ll have new carpeting installed on Monday and Tuesday, and next Sunday the project should be complete!
PS – that’s Emil changing the light bulbs in the sanctuary…
After much planning and choosing, our sanctuary renovations have begun! As you can see, the chancel area is being opened up as well as some repairs being made. If all goes according to (our) plan, we’ll still be in pews this coming Sunday, 9/13. On 9/20 the pews will be out and we’ll be sitting in chairs, then the project will be finished on 9/27 or soon thereafter. Come check it out! – PS – Nolan found a chisel between joists when he opened the floor – wonder if Dave Scheid left it there back in ‘85?
I’ve been rather dismayed at the uproar over President Obama’s upcoming speech to school kids. I thought the questions he was originally going to ask a bit pedantic – “what can I do to support the President?” – but nothing like “tell mom and dad to vote for this bill, otherwise grandma will starve”. So now we have conservatives giving our kids the message : “this is the President, but you don’t have to listen to him.” What kind of respect for the office is that?
So I was a bit surprised and delighted to find that John Piper’s had similar thoughts. He’s had the chance to read the speech, and was favorably impressed. Below are his notes from his Desiring God blog – they’re worth reading.
I’m not an Obama fan; I have lots of reservations about his proposed health care and other policies. But he’s not the devil, and should be given all the respect a fellow human being, to say nothing of the office of President, deserves.
(Author: John Piper)
This is the speech I expected the President to give to our children—excellent.
Given that he is not directing them to Christ, which would be the best counsel, his advice is a wonderful gift of common grace from God to the students of our land.
If you settle for the news headlines that say the president tells the kids to wash their hands and take care of the environment, you will miss the wisdom and courage in this speech. Within its spiritual limitations it is simply amazing.
You can read it all at the White House Site. Here are my excerpts.
- I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
- I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
- But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world — and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities.
- Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
- And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.
- Maybe you could be a good writer — maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper — but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class.
- Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor — maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine — but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class.
- Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
- And no matter what you want to do with your life — I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it.
- You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
- And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country.
- What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
- You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment.
- You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free.
- You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
- If you don’t do that — if you quit on school — you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
- I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life.
- But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams.
- Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around.
- Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
- But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude.
- That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
- Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
- Today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education — and to do everything you can to meet them.
- Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book.
- I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
- But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
- That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures.
- If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new.
- So find an adult you trust — a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor — and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
- And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you — don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
- But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you.
- So don’t let us down — don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
- Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America
I’ve Read the President’s Speech: Amazing
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:28:29 GMT
The link below will take you to Snopes, and an unusual story about the Mojave Cross, erected in the Mojave Desert in the 1930’s and which is now on Federal land. The ACLU wants it taken down (separation of church & state, etc.) while some individuals, congressmen and, oddly enough, the Interior Department are trying to keep it.
To tell the truth I find it hard to take all this seriously. While putting a big public cross up may be an expression of a person’s faith, or desire to memorialize someone, it’s often an expression of a “civil” Christianity not classic Christian faith. At the same time, is it really that important that it be taken down? As a Christian, would I be upset if my tax dollars were used to maintain a “sword & crescent” emblem of Islam? Not really.
The solution, so far, is to have the Mojave cross encased in a plywood box until the case is decided. How ridiculous is this? What a situation we get into when we try to live by the law (as in law and gospel). 
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Now here’s a fresh approach to evangelism! Click the link below for the whole story from the AP. From there you can go to the church’s website, which is actually pretty slick.
AP – A Michigan church is enlisting Satan in a bid to drum up attendance at services. Metro South Church in the Detroit suburb of Trenton is posting signs saying the non-denominational Christian congregation "sucks" and "makes me sick." The ads are signed by Satan.
Mich. church enlists Satan in advertising campaign (AP)
Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:02:18 GMT
Ok, maybe you’re sick of it, but not me! Just got a couple of pix from Sam in Dallas – here’s one of my favorites. Andrew’s old enough now to be smiling – and boy does he ever!
So how ’bout a caption contest: why is this little guy so happy?
I’ve always loved Cardinal baseball, having grown up in St. Louis. I saw Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Ray Sadecki, Julian Javier. I saw one game of the 1964 World Series, listened to Harry Carey announce the games on my trusty transistor radio. After all this time, I think one of my favorite players is The Secret Weapon: Jose Oquendo. I’ve had my reasons in the past, but recently I’ve learned one more thing about Jose that just increases his stature in my eyes.
Jose began his career in baseball at age 19 with the Mets, but spent the bulk of his career with the Cards. A utility infielder, he spend most of his playing time at second base. But he was known to pitch too. Oquendo once pitched in relief for four innings, shutting out the Atlanta Braves for three innings, earning the first decision by a non-pitcher in 20 years. He once struck out Deion Sanders looking. His best year came in 1989, when he was in the top 10 in batting average, hits, triples, walks, singles, on base percentage, and games played.
He earned his nickname (from Whitey Hezog) of “The Secret Weapon” for his ability to play any infield or outfield position. And here’s what impresses me: that same year he pitched four innings in relief (1988), he also caught a game, making him the first NL player to play all 9 positions in a season. That’s right. All nine positions in one season. In this age of specialization and prima donnas, Jose did what was asked of him. He did it all.
I’ve always admired that. But now the news that increased his status to superstardom in my eyes. The August 18 Post Dispatch reported that there actually are some professional baseball players who play without an “athletic protector” – a cup. Here’s a quote from the article:
“I tell you what, I don’t take the team picture without wearing a cup,” said third baseman Mark DeRosa, who thought it “absurd” that a major-league infielder would put himself at such risk. “My mind was made up in Atlanta one day. Rafael Furcal didn’t wear one. Then he got hit there by a line drive one day during batting practice. When we rolled him over he was blue in the face.” Skip Schumaker never wore a cup as an outfielder but doesn’t leave home without it at second base. “It’s crazy. Not me,” Schumaker said. “For some guys, it’s too uncomfortable. Thinking about the alternative strikes me as pretty uncomfortable.”
Third base coach Jose Oquendo never wore a cup during his 12-year major-league career. He insisted he went without even during a cameo behind the plate in 1988.
“I would guess about half the Latin guys don’t wear one. You don’t wear one growing up and you get here … it doesn’t feel comfortable,” Oquendo said. “I never gave it much thought. You just make sure you catch it.”
You must make sure you catch it. At any position. Including catcher. Forget Manny Ramirez. Forget Barry Bonds. Here’s a real man and a real ballplayer: Jose Oquendo, the cupless Secret Weapon.
For you true blue baseball freaks – here’s a Youtube video about the quest of two STL fans to get Oquendo into the Hall of Fame. Kinda cheesy but it has a nice series of ESPN clips of Jose in action.
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