The following link will take you to the inaugural post of my friend Bryan Crothers' new blog.  Bryan is really smart, makes wicked donuts and plays the bass with his tone knob turned all the way down (which takes raging personal confidence).  Check him out. http://www.doxasticavenger.com/2013/11/30/why-so-defensive/

I haven't blogged for awhile. Seems like a good time for a post. I have been coming aware lately that we are turning a corner in our country around the issue of public nudity. I know our culture has been going this direction for a long time (since before I was born) but several pieces of work have been produced this summer that seem to be pushing those few boundaries that we have left really hard.

Several popular musicians have released music videos this summer with either incredibly sexual near nudity or actual full-frontal female nudity. This has got me thinking (and talking with Joanna) about where our culture is headed and how we will raise our daughters in this world. That's not exactly my point tonight though.

I have heard that the new installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise continues to push the envelope when it comes to sexuality. I did a little internet research into what that actually means, and I ran across a review of the game in Time where author Matt Peckham has this to say about the sexuality of the game:

Let’s talk about one last, debatably uncomfortable thing: the game’s portrayal of women. Forget the partial nudity and softcore sex you’ve maybe heard about, both well within the bounds of other art forms and beneath mention here. I mean the way the game often portrays women, from the perspective of adolescent or misogynistic men, as sexual objects. Is Rockstar satirizing the objectification of women, or just objectifying?

Basically, the playable characters in the game are terrible human beings. They are criminals (which is a major plot point) and they visit strip clubs and cheat on their girlfriends in full digital view of the player. The crazy thing to me is not the premise of the game, it's not the violence, the fact that you play a criminal, not even the nudity and sexual content. I think we are way past outrage at that. That's where our culture is. The thing that I can't figure out is that Peckham isn't concerned about the nudity. He's concerned that the characters are portrayed as objectifying women. He seems somewhat put off by this. He wonders if maybe Rockstar, the company that makes the game, is being satirical. Are the characters in the game trying to tell us something about the way men treat women in our society?

What (if I am understanding him correctly) he misses in his concern over the way the characters treat their female relations, is that precisely by buying and playing the game the gamer is treating women the same way. Using simulated sex and digital nudity in these video games is objectifying women. The young male demographic that is buying GTAV is being sold that game, at least in part, by its ability to give the gamer sexual objects to do as they want with. The problem isn't that the characters objectify women in their in-game portrayal, it's that the gamer objectifies women by playing the game in the first place. Peckham seems to be saying that if the digital sex scenes in the game were taking place in the context of committed, loving relationships, everything would be ok. He doesn't see the fact that the gamer is still left as a voyeur in the sex lives of the characters and is still objectifying women by their being used as sex objects by the gamer.

Crazy.

I'm reading Proverbs 29 this morning. In the ESV, verse 18 says this:

Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.

I learned that verse in the King James back in the day. It reads like this:

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

There is a lot of popular church work these days in the field of strategy, vision casting and leadership. Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, the whole Catalyst movement, Driscoll; they all deal heavily in vision casting, strategic planning and management and leadership systems. While proponents of these philosophies would say that they simply exist in the field of human relations much like gravity exists in physics and the leadership of the church can choose to make use of them or choose not to heed them at their peril, opponents of management philosophy that I have encountered online and in person tend to accuse "planners" of worldliness. "The church is not a business." "God's ways are foolishness to the world." Stuff like that.

I tend to attempt to walk in some middle ground in this area (assuming there is some) but what struck me about Proverbs 29:18 this morning is that the vision of leadership impacts the holiness of the people under that leadership. While it's easy to accuse planners of just wanting big churches, or money, or fame or whatever, God's Word, at least to some extent, says that people aren't motivated to discipline and personal holiness when they don't have someone providing them with clear direction for the future.

I think Paul expresses this in 1 Corinthians 9:24-26 when he says:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

When I read literature about strategic planning, or am in discussion with our ministry team about vision, we typically have our eyes on evangelism (not money or fame btw). However, Proverbs 29:18 is a good reminder that the people of God need vision too, if only as motivation for their own holiness. Vision casting isn't just about the external mission of winning souls, but the internal mission of feeding sheep.

So, the last time we went out of town, back when we adopted our daughter Nora, we had some friends house sit for us. One of these friends must have left a Banquet TV dinner in the freezer (because my wife would never buy one nor let me buy one.) Last night for second dinner I thought I'd give it a go. The following will constitute my review.

There were a lot of flashy words, some in English, all over the box. It was however easy to find the picture of the microwave and the clock. The nearby directions told me to remove the plastic covering from the potato cell of the dinner and microwave the dinner for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes I was instructed to stir the potatoes and heat in the microwave for three minutes more. After this came a rest period of 2 minutes and a thermometer test to ensure that the product was 165 degrees. As I was doing dishes at the time, the 8 minutes went by rather quickly. Had I not been otherwise engaged, 8 minutes would have been a rather long time to wait for the satisfaction of eating. At least in the mood I would assume I would need to be in to be satisfied by eating a Banquet TV dinner. However, that is neither here nor there. The 8 minutes expired and my meal was ready. I'm not sure if the typical TV dinner diner has a food grade thermometer to ensure that his or her meal is outside of the temperature danger zone when consumed, but we have one just for these sort of occasions. I was in possession of one hot rectangle of food products.

I carried the dinner underneath a paper towel (to protect my hand from scalding) to my desk upstairs. I made sure to bring a fork along. The footprint of the black plastic service container fit nicely on my desk, with plenty of room to spare for a glass of water and possibly a 2nd or 3rd place bowling trophy, had one been available. The meal was organized thusly: the aforementioned potatoes had slightly less than 1/4 of the area. The nearby, equally sized compartment held green peas.  The major area, and star of the meal, was the chicken, or possibly turkey sitting atop stuffing with gravy.

I must briefly turn my attention to the chicken/turkey. While the packaging indicated a rather large piece of chicken, likely a breast, the actual meal contained what amounted to 2 half circles of thick deli sliced sandwich meat. One slice was white and the other was dark. Choices. The stuffing was a crouton-like material soaked in gravy. And by gravy I mean gelatinous brown salt product. It was really tasty. (By the by, I really struggled to start that one sentence back there with the word "and." I wouldn't have done it, but I got a nice letter from the Vice President and General Manager of AT&T Pacific Northwest and Alaska today offering me $100 off any tablet with a new 2 year service agreement as a holiday gift and he did it, so I thought I could probably get away with it.)

Now for the sides. I immediately recognized the potatoes as instant. Instant potatoes are translucent. The peas however, were remarkable. The problem with peas is that I grew up being asked to eat canned peas. I despise canned peas. They are chalky, and sweeter than they should be. They don't taste like food from the garden. They taste like food from the basement. Only mushrooms can taste like food from the basement. These peas though were frozen peas. They were great. It was at this point (when I was enjoying the peas) that I realized the major positive in the TV dinner model for me as a child is a major negative for me as an adult. I very badly wanted my peas and my potatoes and my chicken/turkey crouton salt gravy to blend together and combine their flavor powers on my fork prior to entering my mouth. The barriers between the food products were just too high and too slippery to make this an enjoyable task. I had to fight my way over the wall with my peas like a band of little round green Orcs at Helms Deep. Just as many fell down into the rainy abyss as lept over into the elf-like translucent potatoes on the other side. It was a lot of work.

I was successful in the end though. I finished my TV dinner. Not in front of the TV, but while surfing facebook. Eating and browsing the internet is much easier than eating and watching TV. One can pause for a bite and pull one's gaze away from the screen without the fear of missing something important. Status updates don't happen that quickly. If I had to give my Facebook Dinner a rating, I would say 3.5 out of 5 stars. 8 minutes is far to long to wait for a good meal and I must be able to mix my food. Points off for those things.  However, the flavor packed chicken/turkey section of my meal really hit the spot.

On Friday, we had a court date. Joanna and I were sworn in in front of the judge at the Kootenai County courthouse to testify that we were willing and ready to take on Nora Jane as our full child, equivalent in every way to our natural child, for the rest of our lives. So, Nora got our last name on Friday. The judge signed off on our adoption paperwork. He asked me the date of our anniversary though while I was on the stand, and I almost totally blanked. It's scary being under oath, even if you know the answers to the questions.

My coworkers and I made a customer service video for our annual employee meeting last week. It was fun. 

I just realized another way that I arrogantly judge people. I'm seldom shocked when this happens, but it's still amazing to me that these kind of attitudes are buried inside my heart. I was driving today behind a van with a license plate that said "PINAPLE." I immediately thought, "That would make more sense if it said, 'PINAPPL.'" I then realized that I do that every time I see a vanity plate. I try to figure out what it says and then I check to make sure that there isn't a better way to have spelled it. Then I judge the person as somehow intellectually deprived if I can think of a better way to communicate that "I'm a sexy grandma" (SXYGRMA) or "This family is made up of 3 cats and a woman" (3KTNLAD).

I never consider than maybe the best vanity plate spelling was taken and they had to settle for second best. I just judge.

My wife and I have been married for 10 years. That's a long time these days. I'm hoping for 10 more, but she said we'd take it day by day and see (just kidding. I probably said that...in jest...) Anyway, we have a yearly anniversary tradition. Money is always tight, so I let her believe that since we don't have any money I haven't made any plans. Then I surprise her with the plans I have made. This happens every year. She's precious like that. This year I saved all the extra money I could find for 8 months and bought us a 5 day Carnival cruise in the Bahamas. She was surprised. What follows is a set of pictures as well as my commentary on the trip.

Ecstacy

Me near Ecstasy

There's our ship. The Carnival Ecstasy. 14 decks. 3,500 people on board. Ginormous. At least I thought so until we docked next to the Carnival Magic at Nassau.

Boat Envy.

That's the Ecstasy on the left. The Magic is in the center and I think it was the Imagination that was pulling on the right. The Magic was way bigger than our ship. It also had 2 waterslides. And a basketball court. And a ropes course. And five more decks. Boat envy.

Half Moon Cay

After a day at sea we stopped at Half Moon Cay. It's a private island owned by the cruise company. It was great. The picture looks pretty overcast, but it was sunny and warm. The water was gorgeous and clear. We snorkeled. <-- Weird word.

Tourists under sign.

Here is a picture of us standing at a sign. Please imagine us standing at a sign at every port, because we did. I'm not showing you all the signs though. Also, I wore shorts. For most of the week. (I actually had to buy said shorts for this trip because I didn't own any)

Squinty.

This is me standing on a bridge that crosses over to Paradise Island in Nassau. That's Atlantis Resort in the background. I think it was a really cool place, but the staff kept hassling us because we weren't staying at the resort, so we didn't get to see much of it.

Police Booth.

This is a mobile police booth. In this booth Bahamian officers of the law operate with courage, integrity and loyalty. They are also very tall and skinny.

Nassau Light House

Goodbye Nassau! Goodbye snobby resort! Goodbye skinny policemen! Goodbye giant ship that I would not rather be on!

Tourists under sign again.

Ok, I lied. Here's another sign. The only thing Joanna wanted to do in Freeport (I had no ambitions this trip besides sunshine and books) was see the "International Bazaar." This site was featured prominently on internet advertising, onboard excursion literature, and a sign at the pier. When we asked a taxi driver to take us there, he said it had been destroyed in the hurricane. The one in 2003. *sigh*

Napping.

This is what I did and looked forward to most of the trip.

Who is this picture for?

I didn't take any pictures of myself. But Joanna did.

After we got back to Port Canaveral, we had a day to spend in Florida before we went back home. So, naturally, we went to the Kennedy Space Center to see ROCKETS!!!

Medium rocket.

Rocket Garden.

Small Rocket.

Wife rocket.

Gemini.

Fake Apollo capsule.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

All of these rockets were well and good, but I waited all afternoon for the mother of all rockets. The largest rocket ever built. The most complicated machine ever engineered by man: the mighty Saturn 5. We were not disappointed.

Large Rocket.

Very Large Rocket.

Much Size. So Rocket.

Large Rocket Inside Largest Rocket.

It's hard to conceptualize how amazingly huge this rocket is. It's just so big.

At the end of this long building, we got to see actual Apollo command modules and a lunar module as well as space suits, artifacts, moon rocks and a rover.

Little Moon Rocket House.

Space Suit.

That was our trip. Mostly. I have a lot more pictures, but I'm not showing them to you unless you come over to my house. Or my desk at work. It's too much of a pain to upload them.

I have been without an iPhone for several months. I got rid of my iPhone so that I could save money. That sort of back-fired though. Here's that story:

"$30 a month is a lot," I thought. "My contract is up. I will use my free upgrade for a new dumb-phone, sell my iPhone on craigslist, and have an extra $30 a month." Unfortunately, in resigning my contract, I had to accept the new terms of AT&T texting plans. My old plan was defunct. All new plans were more texts and more expensive. I went with a family plan sized texting plan which ended up costing $25. I lost my iPhone for $5 a month.

Why do I miss my iPhone? Here's a partial list.

• Instant directions.
• Cataloging my life through pictures and twitter updates.
• My guitar tuner/metronome app.
• My voice memo app. (for recording song ideas)
• It doubles as a flashlight.
• A really solid alarm clock (with a custom playlist to wake up to)
• HD video.
• Not having everyone that calls me go "hey, let me call you back. There is a weird echo on the phone." (granted, that's more of a anti-current phone thing than a pro-iPhone thing, but still)
• Calendar access.
• Instant information. About anything.

Granted, that's just a partial list, but it's a start. Hopefully I will get another iPhone someday. Maybe.

UPDATE: We sold the car. Yay!!!!  

Hey there. This is my wife's car. It is for sale.

It's a 2006 Ford Freestyle. Here are some features:

• 3rd Row Seating (seats 7)
• Fold Down Seats (all but the driver's seat)
• Front Wheel Drive
• Aftermarket CD player w/mp3/iPod dock (stock stereo included as well)
• 67,500 miles
• 25mpg highway

It's been a great family vehicle/SUV alternative.

$7500. Leave me a comment if you are interested.

Trips to Walmart are always exciting for me. It's part Star Wars style pod race, part mission impossible theme song driven time trial, all kinds of exciting. At least when I go alone. I don't like shopping with others. Anyway, my Walmart story today begins last night at 8pm. I breezed through the store, strategically choosing my route based on where my predetermined items were located. I arrived at the express line within minutes. The following people were in front of me.

1. A 50ish year old man of African descent. Big hair, big smile, short shorts. He was purchasing a chocolate pound cake. How do I know? "Have you ever had a chocolate pound cake?" he asked. "They are delicious!" Apparently he had called ahead to check on said cake's availability at the store and was told that they were all out. Undeterred, he made the trip anyway (forgoing proper footwear in his haste) and snatched the last one, hidden from the bakery attendant's eye. He had just enough milk left at home for one piece before bed.
2. Behind him was someone's grandfather. He had had something of a beer belly, but the sheer force of age had worn most of it down to his former, lanky figure. He too had a big smile and enjoyed his brief cake-related words with the man in front of him. He had 4 large bags of pre-popped white cheddar popcorn...and 5 apples. I can only assume it was movie night and his wife was watching her calorie intake.
3. Next in line was the portly gentleman. Shirt tucked in, slacks, burnt orange mustache. He was on a mission, just like me. He didn't care about the cake, the popcorn, or the apples. He was bothered to even be standing in line. He had work to do. There was a 1/2 gallon of vanilla and a 1/2 gallon of strawberry in his hands, and two packs of dark fabric iron-ons for inkjet printers. Yes, his evening consisted of making custom logo'd t-shirts and eating ice cream.

The cashier's name was River. He had the earrings of a 22 year old and the mustache of a 14 year old. I paid with cash. He placed my goods in the bag on the opposite side of the carousel from me. I waited. He just stared into the bag. Finally, after a thoughtful pause, he picked it up and handed it to me. It was 8:20pm.

I walked out of the store with my jar of caraway seeds and my can of tomatoes and drove home.

My wife and I will have been married for 10 years next Friday. Overall, it's been a good thing. I can pretty heartily recommend marriage to most people...seriously though, it's been great. I am a holier person, more dedicated to Jesus, and my life has direction that I'm not sure it would have had otherwise. All of this is due to my marriage. My wife is a wonderful woman. But that's not the point of this post. Joanna and I are really different. Really. Really. Different. Case in point:

A couple nights ago, we were watching a movie on the computer. It was only half over but we were ready for bed. I waited until the movie got right up to the 1 hour 30 minute mark and stopped it. That way, the following night, when we wanted to finish the movie, I could just run the timer up to 1:30 and we would be right where we left off. A solid one and a half hours is easy to remember so I wouldn't have to look for the right place. Joanna found this to be hilarious. She said she would never do that, opting rather to just fumble her way through until she found the right scene. She laughed hysterically at how weird I was. She's the one with the plan to ruin the movie by getting the scenes out of order, but I'm the weird one.

Marriage, kids. It's good for the soul. :-)

I really don't want to accuse the government of taking my money unjustly...but I just can't understand why a criminal history fingerprinting only lasts a year. It's $55 to have your prints taken, and the results from the background check are only good for 12 months. When we started our adoption journey 3 years ago, we were advised to have all our ducks in a row because it could all happen quickly. So we got fingerprinted as part of our required state home study. 3 years later, it looks like we are going to actually be adopting...and we have to get fingerprinted again. Now, I can understand the need for a new background check, and a charge associated with that, but why the whole procedure? Some of my $55 must be going towards the labor of taking my prints (which is the majority of time spent in the appointment, btw). So for a renewal, use the old prints and charge me less. I'm not sure why I even need to come in at all.

The whole thing would be less ridiculous if it weren't for the concept of the fingerprint in the first place. You know, the marks that you have, from birth, that never change and can be used to identify you anywhere, even after you're dead. The state needs updated copies of those every year. Sure they do.

I'm reading through Tell The Truth by Will Metzger for an evangelism class in school. He's a pretty strong Calvinist, but from that position he makes a very thorough case for evangelism. I agree with much of what he says. I love the comfort and boldness that comes from an understanding that God is the one changing hearts. He is the one responsible for the outcome of our evangelism. I can share my faith and the story of Jesus freely and rest knowing that God brings the increase. However, Metzger occasionally throws in some fairly heavy reformed theology, attempting to convince the reader to adopt it. He argues for predestination under the assumption that his readers don't already believe it and that it's hard to understand. Those are probably good assumptions, but the way he does it comes across rather odd sometimes. In chapter 10 he focuses almost exclusively on predestination. God saves individuals that he chooses to save based on His unknowable good pleasure.

I'm just barely beginning to kick this idea around, but why does it seem like the Calvinist doesn't allow anyone to speculate about God's good pleasure? It's ok to say God's ways are not our ways, and we can't possibly understand, but if we throw out some possibilities for why God chooses people, we are somehow cheapening grace. A Wesleyan would argue that God chooses people because they will respond in faith. The truth is they do respond in faith. To the Calvinist though, this subjugates God's sovereignty and free grace to the condition of the faith-choice in the person. It makes God's will a slave to man's. I understand that argument, but doesn't any reasonable articulation of what could possibly be the source of God's good pleasure subjugate his sovereignty to some factor outside of Himself, albeit a factor that He Himself has chosen?

For instance, say it was God's good pleasure to save everyone with a taste for classical music. A love of mozart was the basis for salvation. Let's go further and say that God implants this dormant love in the hearts of those he will save at birth. It will blossom in college and God will grant salvation to them. God chooses the criteria. In this example, God hasn't really chosen criteria for saving people. He has simply chosen people through an affinity for classical music. The "why does God choose people" question still hasn't been answered. The Calvinist responds "we don't know." That doesn't mean that a reason doesn't exist however. If there is no reason, if God is just throwing darts at a board full of faces, isn't he capricious? Isn't he just playing with souls?

I think Calvinists believe that there is a reason why some are saved and others aren't, that's why they use "God's good pleasure" in the first place. When I say I choose to eat blueberries because of my good pleasure, it's because there are characteristics of blueberries that I prefer over strawberries. I don't choose strawberries because there are things lacking in strawberries. I choose blueberries because of the things about blueberries that I like. That's what "my good pleasure" means. That there are reasons behind choices is implied by the statement.

For some reason though, the Calvinist can't have anyone listing the reasons behind God's choices, because that somehow lessens God. Scripture however is pretty clear that God is looking for faith in people. I believe that God has known who will possess that faith since before time began. He has chosen us from before the foundation of the world. I don't think that makes Him any less sovereign. If anything, it makes Him more sovereign. He is discriminating in His choosing based on solid criteria that He Himself has come up with. Saying that God gives us the faith and then chooses us doesn't protect God's sovereignty, it just pushes His real reason for choosing people farther back and forces us to either speculate about what that reason could be, or in the case of Metzger, just say we don't know and glory in His grace anyway.

I think we should definitely glory in His grace, but when we ask the question, "why does God save people," scripture tells us that it's because they have faith in Him. To ignore that solid reason in favor of some unknown one deeper in the mind of God (not that there aren't many things deep in the mind of God that we can't know) seems a little forced.

So, that's my little soteriology rant today. Thank you for joining me.

I like this infographic. It speaks to me.

I've decided to give up two personal conveniences for the good of others and the betterment of myself. Both of these conveniences have to do with my public work during Sunday gatherings at church.

I'm giving up capo'd chord charts.

When I lead music from the guitar, I often use a capo. It allows a guitar player to use the most appropriate and best sounding voicings (or chord shapes) in the best keys for congregational singing. There are several problems with this though. First, no one else in the band plays with a capo. My chord sheets says "G" but everyone else's says "B." That makes it more challenging for me to communicate. I have to transpose as I speak to my team, which, for some reason, doesn't always work right. Secondly, I have on more than one occasion placed my capo on the wrong fret of my guitar. I then played all the right chord shapes in the wrong key. Again, the rest of the band doesn't have this and consequently has no idea where I am and cannot play with me. As a solution, I have decided to just memorize the shapes in each capo'd position and play with charts that are labeled for the absolute key.

What this allows me to do is both communicate with the band easily (because we are reading the same chart) and increase my ability to play the correct chords wherever I am capo'd without having to rely on the transposed chart. They can understand me, I become a better player.

I'm giving up sermon notes. 

I am taking a preaching class this semester and in one of the textbooks the author strongly encourages his readers to get rid of sermon notes. He does not advocate memorizing the sermon, but simply memorizing the outline. I usually preach with an outline about a page and a half long. I was given the opportunity to open up Kroc Church's study of the book of Galatians and got to preach for the last two weeks through chapter 1. I did not use notes either time. It was a lot of fun.

This practice has done two things for we so far. First, it allows me to keep better eye contact with the congregation while I am preaching. I have noticed an immediate difference in my ability to read the congregation. Secondly, it forces me to write a simple outline. If I'm going to memorize it, it can't be 8 points with 3 subpoints each. It has to be simple. Hopefully a simple outline is easier to communicate to the congregation.

So there you have it. Two ways I'm trying to become better at what I do. Hopefully these steps won't come back to bite me one day in a horrible wrong key/forgotten outline mishap. Perish the thought.

The Oatmeal recently published a comic called "How To Suck At Your Religion." (warning, offensive language) There are a lot of things that I would take issue with in it and several points that he makes that I would agree with. There are a lot of caricatures of religious ideas, particularly Christian ones, that are unfair critiques. I have one big issue with his conclusion though, and it's an issue that I find increasingly common. He says,

Does your religion inspire you to help people? Does it make you happier? Does it help you cope with the fact that you are a bag of meat sitting on a rock in outer space and that some day you will die and you are completely powerless, helpless and insignificant in the wake of this beautiful cosmic ****storm we call existence? Does it help with that? Yes? Excellent! Carry on with your religion!*

*Just keep it too your ******** self.

I think that's totally lame. What I take from that paragraph is that religious/faith based/metaphysical/philosophical aspects of my worldview are only as good as they make me feel and help me to cope. If they do that, then they are great (but not worth sharing). If they don't, then they aren't. On top of that, they are completely subjective (see his comparison to a child's favorite color).

Now, I understand that he holds that view. From following his work, I would guess he's at least somewhat of a secularist/naturalist/materialist. My problem is that the view that my religious beliefs are just subjective preference, like my favorite ice cream, is incredibly hard for me to find valuable.

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is who the Bible says that he is. I believe He is the Son of God and that after being brutally murdered in the early 1st century AD he physically rose from the dead 3 days later. There is good, historical, forensic science based evidence for this. I also believe that I have encountered Him, alive, not physically, but spiritually. He has changed my life. If I didn't believe in this objective reality, I wouldn't be a Christian. I would stop being a Christian. I'm a Christian because I know with reasonable certainty what happened in the past and I know what I have experienced.

No one else has to believe that, but it seems that the Oatmeal's position is just a polite way of saying "you go ahead and be crazy, just don't bother me with it." If not arrogant, that's just poorly thought out as far as an argument goes. Anyone that boils faith claims down to subjective self-help maxims isn't taking faith seriously. Either you don't think your worldview is faith based (it is) or you don't care enough about reality outside of your daily rhythms and routines to formulate a coherent philosophy of life (you should).

Religious claims are a big deal. They are a big deal for the Christian, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Atheist/Agnostic and every other adherent of every other belief system in the world. Refute them, argue for the superiority of yours, demonstrate how your worldview best represents reality, but don't dismiss them. That's not reasonable.

Now I know the Oatmeal is a cartoonist, and his medium is limited. If I had to guess I would guess that I would thoroughly enjoy a cup of coffee with him. But this cartoon represents an idea that is pervasive among the non-religious and the mildly-religious: what you believe doesn't really matter as long as it makes you happy and you don't "bother" anyone else with it.

What you believe about the world really does matter. What matters most about it is whether or not its true. Believe what you believe because its true, not because it makes you happy. Take the time and do the work to figure out what's true. Just don't kill people. He got that part right.

Today my daughter bought her first kindle books. She got a kindle for her birthday and she has been reading a few things that were on Jo's kindle and could be transferred. Today though, she bought books. 3 books. What books? Let me tell you.

1. The Gingerbread House (Volume 1) by Carin Gerhardsen. "In a short space of time, several bestial murders occur in central Stockholm. When criminal investigator Conny Sjöberg and the Hammarby police begin to suspect that there’s a link between the murders, Sjöberg goes completely cold. There is a killer out there whose motives are very personal, and who will not be deterred. The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen is the first in the Hammarby series, thrillers with taut, suspenseful plots and unexpected twists and turns. This haunting novel explores schoolyard bullying among young children and the effect it has on them when people look the other way. Many of the scenes in this book are self-experienced and based on Gerhardsen’s own childhood. Urban settings and strong portraits of authentic characters are crafted in depth and detail, insuring the books will linger in the reader’s mind long after the finish. The Gingerbread House is written in the same tradition as the Sjöwall / Wahlöö crime novels, and has been described as a book version of the tv series The Wire. It is not only published by the same publisher as Stieg Larsson’s The Millennium Trilogy, but by the same editorial team."
2. A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss. "WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM? WHAT WAS THERE BEFORE IT? WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING? AND FINALLY, WHY IS THERE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING?” Lawrence Krauss’s provocative answers to these and other timeless questions in a wildly popular lecture now on YouTube have attracted almost a million viewers. The last of these questions in particular has been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of God, and it’s the supposed counterargument to anyone who questions the need for God. As Krauss argues, scientists have, however, historically focused on other, more pressing issues—such as figuring out how the universe actually functions, which can ultimately help us to improve the quality of our lives.
3. Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne "Jack and Annie's very first fantasy adventure in the bestselling middle-grade series—the Magic Tree House!Where did the tree house come from?

   Before Jack and Annie can find out, the mysterious tree house whisks them to the prehistoric past. Now they have to figure out how to get home. Can they do it before dark . . . or will they become a dinosaur's dinner?"

Unfortunately we can't undo the purchase of the first two books, but we did remove them from her kindle and will make sure to keep track of her a little better while she reads.

I grew up in a non-denominational hippie church. Actually, it was a church plant that came out of a hippie non-denomination. What is a non-denomination? That's for another post. Anyway, my pastor's mantra was "teach the Bible." He was good at it too. He still is. I learned a ton and my faith was really formed through the years I spent there. Because of its ties to the hippie non-denomination though, record keeping, and specifically statistics were never really a big deal. In fact, I walked away with the perspective (whether it was taught or not) that focusing on "nickels and noses" was a bad practice to be in. I've come to realize that it definitely can be, but how many people you have and what they do with their money can also be a valuable metric for evaluating the health of a church. Then we have The Salvation Army. 124 countries (last time I checked), 4 US territories, 10 western divisions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Statistics are important. Why? Because if you work at territorial headquarters in Long Beach, California and I work at the Kroc Center in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, there is no reliable way for you to judge how well I am stewarding the Army's resources in my local context without some kind of standardized measurement system that we both understand and agree on. Sure, the leaders at the territorial and divisional levels come check on us from time to time, but it's hard to get a good picture of what's going on from a visit.

So statistics. I find statistics challenging in two ways. Funny thing is, one way is due to my humility and the other way is due to my pride. First off, I find it hard to quantify the work we do. Not because we don't do quantifiable work, but because we do it all the time. For instance, one of the general categories of statistic that the territory wants is "people assisted." Well, we do that all day long, every day. The couple hundred of us that work at the Kroc Center are all about assisting people. It's who we are and it's the culture we have created. That makes it hard to quantify.

Lest I come across too holy and benign though, the second reason I have trouble with stats is that I want to look good. I am always tempted to find ways to make numbers appear greater than they are. Mr. Jones says he really liked the sermon on Sunday? What he probably meant was that he repented from his sins and decided to follow Jesus. A new salvation! That's a stat.

In all honesty though, I've never done that. But I've thought about it. The sick, twisted, Jesus-is-killing-day-by-day part of me that is my flesh has thought about manipulating stories of the saving work of Christ for personal and organizational pride. I would be surprised if I couldn't find others like me.

So when it is time to report stats, I try and ask myself two things:

1. What are all the things we did? Who are all the people we served?
2. Did we really do all those things? Did we really serve all those people?

Hopefully, by asking myself those questions, the statistics I keep are an accurate representation of the ministry that goes on at our corps and in our Kroc Center. I think we lean more towards the "I forget all the things that we do and our stats are a poor reflection of our ministry because we leave stuff out" rather than the "I inflate the ministry we do in order to look good," but this year I want to redouble my effort to collect accurate stats. Not so we can feel good about ourselves, but so that brothers and sisters around the country can rejoice with us in the work that God is doing in Coeur d'Alene.

The Kroc Center is hiring a new business director. Our current business director is moving on to become an officer in The Salvation Army. (Congrats Elaine!) The whole process is very formal and business-like, but I have been told that there are several candidates (all current employees in other positions) and that interviews with a crack team of interviewing professionals and directors will be held next week. That's great. The office is all abuzz with who the candidates are and other miscellaneous gossip.

It got me thinking though, what if upper level positions at work were elected instead of appointed? What if the candidates for business director had to campaign, and the rest of the staff got to vote? A friend mentioned that this idea should be a blog post, so, the following list contains several possible circumstances that would occur:

1. There are more employees in the Aquatics department than any other. They are a powerful voting block, yet most high level candidates are likely completely out of touch with the average lifeguard and their needs. I assume this is a perfect storm for pandering and hollow promises designed to get the votes of lifeguards.
2. The marketing department is one of the smallest in the building, but the one who wins the favor of the marketing department automatically gets great signage. The marketing director also has veto power on anything that gets hung up throughout the building. I'm not sure she has power in the break room, but she could definitely prevent candidates that she didn't support from having signage throughout the rest of the building.
3. Our audio/video team, much like the marketing department controls much in the way of media. A candidate backed by both constituencies puts forward a powerful campaign.
4. Politicians are all about kissing babies. That makes the Child Watch Department a good asset and worth pleasing.
5. I work for the ministry department. We are about 20 strong, but we have easy access to 80 volunteers. For this reason, ministry is a heavy hitter. We are also arguably the most fun department. For an exercise that's likely to degenerate into a High School popularity contest, fun is a huge benefit for your campaign.
6. One positive effect of this would be the necessity to let the lower echelons into some of the more important policy decisions in our somewhat large organization. While it's not reasonable to have everyone making important decisions, it would be necessary for candidates to explain business processes and policy decisions to their constituencies if they wanted to continue in their offices over time. I think this would be a good thing.

So, there it is. Likely outcomes from switching to a democratic hiring system. I'm guessing it's too ahead of its time to be taken seriously. Oh well.