Month: August 2010

Categories
Twitter

//Godfidence Tweets 2010-08-29

  • Life would be easier and probably better if everyone just stopped using Internet Explorer. #
  • Chocolate flavored Tootsie pops are my favorite. #
  • Community group tonight, tongues and prophesy, this is going to be fun to say the least. #
  • Wow, a really good article on how our sociology reveals our theology from Ray Ortlund http://bit.ly/chpqmm #
  • Oh, joy Walter E Williams on is the radio. I love to listen to him. #
  • RT @ErikKoliser:Love = willingness to have < free time, < sleep & >schedule in order to be faithful to God's calling as a husband/wife -PDT #
  • On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. #
  • Hey person in my office – Don't mark your email sent to everyone with a follow up flag, if I need to follow up I will mark it myself. Thanks #

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Christianity Godfidence

What do you do when people don’t fit in your funnel?

What do I mean by a funnel?  Well this is an analogy that just came to me so please bear with me.  But if you think of Church as pulling in from all types of people in all sorts of situations (the wide part of the funnel) and we work to help disciple people and, probably unfortunately, force them all out of the same small end of the funnel.  It is almost like a twelve step program.  You follow the pattern and you come out the other end of the funnel a nice perfect church goer right?

But what do you do when people don’t fit into your funnel?

Mike Yaconelli wrote a pretty cool book years ago called Messy Spirituality and in it he talked about a young couple in the church who had gotten pregnant before getting married which normally results in quietly getting married while everyone ignores the issue or the couple completely disappearing from the church.  This couple however was welcomed back with a wedding reception after their elopement.  Shortly after reading this I was faced with just this situation.  A young couple in our church found them selves “in trouble” as my parents’ generation put it.  They got married and we as a church threw a reception for them to let them know we loved them.  They are still together to this day and I am so happy they are still in a Godly loving community.

I have found however that even though I hate the idea of the funnel I am so used to it that I don’t know how to function without it.  If there isn’t a program where you take this class and join that ministry I really am not sure what to do with myself.  “Be a Christian”, “Live out the Gospel” you may say but I am still doing a lot of de-toxing when it comes to these things so that isn’t as easy as it looks.

I have recently found myself again in a situation where people didn’t fit in the funnel.  They did things out of order and I am struggling to know how exactly to deal with it because it is messy.  There isn’t one right answer and I want there to be one right answer.

What I have found is grace is messy.  It finds us in the strangest places and brings us along providing all that it demands.  You really begin to see the power of God’s grace when you live outside the funnel.  When you are involved with people who don’t follow the “right” paths, you see God all the brighter.

Categories
Twitter

//Godfidence Tweets 2010-08-22

  • Hey @blizzard why is it that every time I try to play SCII during the day there is a battle.net outage? #
  • I love the arrogance of youth after all you are the first one to get it right in 2000 years. You should be cocky and not humble. #
  • As I want to be honest about software and not pirate it, the costs pushes me toward open source every time. Just not spending 2K on it. #
  • Android is the OS, droid is a set of phones from Verizon. You did NOT get a Droid EVO! – just another pet peeve of mine 🙂 #
  • Anyone else out there use the Mapmyrun or ride sites? I am looking to get back into a work out schedule and could use from friends. #
  • It is really hard to not drink caffeine when there are 60 cans of Mt Dew calling your name from across the room. #
  • How do private property rights fit into the NYC mosque discussion? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? #
  • Special thanks to the men of the "leaf club" I didn't know how much I needed that until last night. You dudes are awesome. #
  • Today two waters for every Mt Dew. #
  • Pandora should have a "best movie quotes of all time" playlist. That would rock. #
  • Why did Google streetview only renew the picture of my house but not in either direction on the street? I love Google but…CREEPY #
  • Got my app inventor access today.. Hope to have my first android app done by Monday even it is just "hello World!" #
  • RT @prodigaljohn: Having a "life verse." New Stuff Christians Like. http://bit.ly/dvn0im // Terribly funny and all too true. #
  • Any dudes want to take the kids to http://bit.ly/akb0xh this morning to bounce out all their energy? #

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Entertainment Godfidence Theology

Scripture you will never see on a facebook Friday

I love to see what people are meditating on when they are putting things on their facebook status but I can’t help but notice every one is always putting such positive little blurbs.  As I have been reading the scriptures this year I keep coming across passages and I think to myself  “Now there is one you will never read on facebook”  and now to amuse myself I have started a new tradition.  “Scripture you will never see on a facebook Friday’s”

Starting with my favorite of the spectrum texts:

I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.

(Isaiah 45:6-7 ESV)

This type of scripture called a spectrum text shows God’s sovereignty over all things.  Of course today God is only sovereign over good and Satan is Soverein over the evil things that happen.  But back in the days of Isaiah they didn’t see it that way.

Categories
Family Life

Quick thoughts on Balance

Just some quick thoughts…I know I am not the only one.  I have talked to tons of others but how to deal with it?

I am a father, a husband, an employee, a student and a Christian, in many areas these things overlap but often they do not.  Where do you find time for it all?  To be successful I need to read a lot for my job.  I need to study and continually improve myself.  I am sure there are many jobs where this isn’t required but mine is not one of them.  How am I supposed to balance my time?

When you feel a call to ministry on your life (as I do) you seem to place a higher priority on study of the Bible and theology than “normal Christians.”  I wonder if that has hindered my career.  God has not yet called me into full time ministry, I don’t know that he ever will but I have tried to walk a line between being prepared for both full time ministry and my full time IT career, so I have not been able to give full attention to either.

How do you balance learning about God and career?

Just some quick thoughts…I know I am not the only one. I have talked to tons of others but how to deal with it?

I am a father, a husband, an employee, a student and a Christian, in many areas these things overlap but often they do not. Where do you find time for it all? To be successful I need to read a lot for my job. I need to study and continually improve myself. I am sure there are many jobs where this isn’t required but mine is not one of them. How am I supposed to balance my time?

When you feel a call to ministry on your life (as I do) you seem to place a higher priority on study of the Bible and theology than “normal Christians.” I wonder if that has hindered my career. God has not yet called me into full time ministry, I don’t know that he ever will but I have tried to walk a line between being prepared for both full time ministry and my full time IT career, so I have not been able to give full attention to either.

How do you balance learning about God and career?

Categories
Twitter

//Godfidence Tweets 2010-08-15

  • I miss Five Iron Frenzy. #
  • Fathers how do you pray for your children? http://bit.ly/9WqGRi #
  • If you follow Jesus faithfully you will seem 2 pagan for your Christian friends and 2 Christian for your pagan friends-@PastorTullian #
  • I pray that my girls are protected from my sins…I already see my temper showing up in them. http://bit.ly/9WqGRi #
  • RT @NathanFillion: Heck! Little fella reminds me of me when I was a wee me. http://bit.ly/ajcZM8 – That is freaking awesome. #
  • Latine loqui coactus sum #
  • This is too funny…http://bit.ly/ao7Pr0 #
  • Ever get retweeted by someone and wonder how the heck they found you in the first place #

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Christianity Godfidence Theology

Thoughts on Reformed Doctrine

This is a walk though my personal thought process hope you enjoy.

Over the past several years I have been moving more and more toward a belief in Calvinism and the Reformed doctrine system.  If you don’t know what that is it may not matter for the sake of this conversation but feel free to look it up here.

I have been having some great conversations about this topic and other with my friend Dale. (just like old time, eh bro) when I started down a strange thought process.  Is it possible that my attraction to Calvinism is based on a logical fallacy?  Let me walk through a little background.

I was first introduced to Calvinism through the ministry of Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church Seattle.  As I studied more of the theology really meant I believe I may have been attracted, at least in part, to the importance they really placed on the power and majesty of God as opposed to the doctrines themselves.  I had come from a background in modern evangelisms where God can at times be reduced to a background figure.  There is so much “How to improve your life” being preached that the Gospel is merely something tacked on to the end of the message for the altar call.  But the reformed preachers seemed different to me.  They truly are committed to “Know nothing but Christ and him Crucified.”  The Gospel of Christ’s sacrifice courses through every sermon and is even orchestrated through our entire service at Veritas.  So, it may have been possible that I linked these two concepts in my brain.

Is it possible that I have attributed truth to their claims based on the factors other than the claims themselves?  I admit it is possible but I don’t believe it is true.

I still find myself torn when it comes to the idea if it is up to us or God when it comes to Salvation.  There are men much smarter than me who have argued this for a long time and I can see good solid points on both sides.  So I still find myself lost in the middle but I wanted to at least get some thoughts out since work is finally slowing down and I have a few moments.

Hope you enjoy the ride that is my thought process.

Categories
Family Life Fatherhood

Fathers and Prayer

How to pray for your children?

  1. Consistently
  2. Constantly
  3. Fervently

You find when you are a parent that your children reflect many things about you that make you smile and many things that will make you weep.  Often I find I am most frustrated with my children at moments when they are acting just like me.  Praying for your children in their presence will not only have the affect of prayer but also of teaching them that prayer is important to you and therefore to them.

There have been many times when I had to go to my daughters and repent for my temper and I have more than once heard my daughter repenting in prayer on the baby monitor. (Yea I felt bad for eavesdropping but I was too touched to turn it off).  I don’t believe she would have done this if it had not been for the fact that she has seen me do it and had learned from me.

Fathers, understand that raising children up in discipline and instruction of the Lord means more than teaching them facts, but teaching them how to live as a disciple of Jesus, even if you are still figuring out what this means, as most of us are.  Both parents are called to raise children but as the head of your house the largest responsibility belongs to you.

We should pray for our children consistently, creating a pattern of prayer will help them to do so in their own life, making it as natural to their daily pattern as breathing, eating and sleeping.  That is why we pray over our meals, not only because we should be thankful for the fact that have more food than we can possibly eat but because it is good to build a pattern into your life until prayer becomes a habit.

You can not pray too much for your children, I took a tip from Matt Chandler and constantly pray that my children would be protected from my sins.  This isn’t a bad prayer for everyone.  I don’t want my children to learn from my anger issues or my pride; I want them to be spared from those issues if at all possible, I am sure they will have enough sin issues of their own without inheriting mine.

Realize that your prayers will have an affect on your children and will create a passion in you to pray for them.

If you would like a place to start, pray these scriptures over your children.

Numbers 6:24-26

Eph 1:17-23

Eph 3:14-20

Categories
Twitter

//Godfidence Tweets 2010-08-08

  • Anyone have an #RDIO invite for me? #
  • Down loading froyo for the second time today, what a day to forget my phone charger. #
  • Liberty means the freedom to fail and learn from your mistakes. #
  • I was once in a birthing class with James and Lily Potter and they had no clue when I asked if they were naming thier son Harry. How sad. #
  • Why Spurgeon Rules: No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching. #
  • What do you android users use to synch your music? I have been using iTunes for years so working with that would be a plus. #
  • Does anyone have a copy of Grudem's "Christian Beliefs" they could give or loan me? #

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Misc

Update

OK, my job is finally slowing down and I have a few minutes to write and get things up and running with //godfidence again.

Next week I will be back to normal publishing schedule.  Hope you like it.