New Website

Hey, check out our new church website (www.roseparkreformed.org). It was developed by a couple super cool guys, Adam Weiler and Mike Kopchick. This is their baby, and I love it. It's super easy to use, edit, adapt, and keep current. They are geniuses!

How Much Is Your Time Worth?

I really wish I had a before picture. What you see above is the culmination of about 5 hours of my workday following a power outage at our church. The power went out after a bad storm last week, and I just got around to trying to restore internet connectivity to our computers. It's really weird how useless I feel when there is no internet available, but I guess that would be a subject for another post.

Anyway, the modem and router area up there used to be a mish-mash of cords, routers, and sketchy electrical work. Let me show you what I mean...



The black wire goes to the surge protector which evidently has trouble protecting from surges if the ground on the plug isn't plugged in!!!

So now it's nice and pretty with the added bonus that our computers are once again connected to the internet. My question, however, is this: how much is my time worth? If I had an IT person come in this morning and work this all out, I have no idea how much it would have cost, but all they would have had to do was look at that idiotic (that's a biblical word by the way) way the surge protector was plugged in to understand that the router and modem were fried by the storm surge. He or she probably could have been in and out in about an hour.

However, I am paid on salary, so technically it didn't cost the church anything to have me do this. Why did it take me so long? Because every time I plugged something different in, something different would happen. I could get wireless to work, but no wired; I could get one wire to work, but no router, etc.

But I'd love to know what some of you have decided that you would pay for because your time is simply to valuable to spend on it. For instance, would you change your own oil which might take 30-40 minutes to save $5-$10? And what would you spend the time you saved doing? Would it be more profitable? Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about. I wonder what I could have done that would have been more productive that working on this post...

Tim Keller Kicks Numbers 22

If you haven't read Numbers 22 lately, pick up a Bible and do so. It should put a smile on your face. I also like the 21st chapter of 2 Chronicles because it ends like this:

"Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no one's regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings."

Jehoram died and no one regretted it. That just made me laugh. Then, of course, it made me think. I assume you know what it made me think about.

Anyway, I tend to listen to about 4 sermons each week on my drives to and from work, the grocery store (although Tracy has gone to the store by herself for the past two weeks!!), etc. I listen to Rob Bell from Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill in Seattle, John Piper from Bethlehem Baptist Church, and Erwin McManus from Mosaic. But the current and reigning champion of mine is Dr. Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC. If you google his name, you'll find a couple sites where you can download free sermons if that's your thing.

Keller has an amazing ability to weave the gospel throughout every passage of scripture. He has an incredible knack for essentially preaching the same thing all the time, but every time it stretches me in a new way. Anyway, I thought I'd pass on the name to my avid reader (Tracy) who already knows all of this. I love you sweety!

quickie (get your mind out of the gutter...)

I just wanted to put together a little quickie post. As I write this though, I realize that there are less than 5 people who actually read my blog, and they probably already know about this anyway. Well, too bad, here it goes.

Go to iTunes right now. Click on "iTunes Music Store" and type in "TEDtalks" in the search box. Proceed to download either the audio or video of the Tony Robbins talk. You won't regret it.

Oh, and as a "reverend", I should probably warn you that it is not entirely without foul language, so prepare your soul for some rough waters. I promise that there is light on the other side.

Authority

This past weekend, I talked about the reason Jesus came to earth. In 1 John 3 it says that "the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." Later, in the same letter, John (or one of John's followers) writes, "In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."

I have been a "Christian" basically my whole life. I always went to church and sometime during my sophomore year of High School, I made my confession of faith at my church. For years, my central belief as a Christian was that Jesus died so that my sins would be forgiven so that I could go to heaven. Now, I should do the right thing and tell others that Jesus forgave their sins too, so they should believe so that they can go to heaven too. I based a lot of this on John 3:16 which many people know, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." So here it was; believe in Jesus and your sins will be forgiven and you'll go to heaven. The thing is, nowhere in that section of John does the word forgiveness or sins even come up (he does mention people whose "deeds were evil", but that is in reference to something we'll talk about in a minute).

In the passage, Jesus is talking with a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus about something called being "born again" or "born from above" depending on your translation. This confuses Nicodemus. But Jesus claims that no one can see or enter the kingdom of heaven without being born again. This is the thrust of their conversation. Now, this phrase, kingdom of heaven, has been thrown around a lot lately, but often it is difficult to really grasp since we don't live in kingdoms anymore. Not only that, but if you've been a Christian for even a short time, you will probably have heard that God is ruler over everything, so what other kingdom might there be?

In the beginning of Luke chapter 4, Jesus is led into the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil. During one of the temptations, "the devil led Jesus up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, 'I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to.'" Jesus doesn't argue with this statement. He doesn't quote scripture about God being omnipotent. He simply says, in light of this declaration, "worship the Lord your God and serve him only."

Numerous other passages in scripture talk about the kingdom of Beelzebub, the powers of this world, powers of darkness, etc. but rarely do we think of them. Is the whole world really under the power of the evil one? (1 John 5) Is our struggle really not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms? (Ephesians 6)

The led to a new take on an old, old passage for me. In Matthew 28, many Christians know what is called the "Great Commission" where Jesus says, "Therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, for behold, I am with you even to the end of the age." But what about what comes before that? Or an ever good question to ask, "What's the 'therefore' there for?" Just before Jesus says these words he says, "All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me." This should make lights go off all over the place in your head. In Luke 4, the devil says that the authority over all of the kingdoms of this earth have been given to him. Now Jesus, following his death and resurrection claims that all authority on heaven and on earth are his. It has been given to him. There is a fundamental shift in the way the world works. Do you believe this? What does this have to do with being born again?

Free Education!

As some of you may know, iTunes (and probably a good number of other programs or websites) offer free podcasts of different types of content. Somewhat recently, colleges and universities have started posting free podcasts of classes on iTunes. Schools like Yale, Princeton, and Oxford are offering either free class lectures for entire semesters of class or free discussion and debates on issues.

These are fantastic! Well, they're fantastic to me because usually I spend a lot of time in my car listening to NPR because most of the music on the radio seems pretty repetitive. My current favorite is Covenant Theological Seminary's podcast of New Testament History. They also offer Old Testament History, Ancient & Medieval Church History, and Introduction to Biblical Theology. Of course, I know all of these things already as an ordained pastor...but a little reminder now and then never hurts!

i'm ugly

when i was younger, i got mocked and teased a lot in school. i was tall and skinny and tended to trip over my own huge feet (which now, compared to my height, aren't actually that big). i often remember thinking i was also ugly. oddly enough, a girl in junior high once told me that she predicted i might actually be good looking once i hit 25 or so. that was pretty nice to hear when i was 13.

can i share something personal? i don't feel ugly anymore. and, i have pretty good looking and popular friends. this didn't happen when i was younger. but what i am now discovering is that i seem to be making up for lost time as a kid. i want to hang out with good looking people (i attribute this opportunity to hang out with good looking people to my marrying such a hot chick), and sadly, embarrassingly, and very sinfully don't want to hang out with people who might be perceived as not good looking.

could i possibly get any more shallow? when i came to this realization that i just shared it made me ill. i seriously want to throw up when i think about myself being like this. i should burn...

i'm telling everybody (all two or three of you who read this blog) this because i believe in the power of confession. i believe that if i hold this inside i have no chance of healing. i have no chance of becoming a whole person who is able to see the God given beauty in every single person i see and meet. i believe it when james writes that we should confess our sins to each other so that we may be healed.

i also have to confess that i don't know why this works. i don't know why, but i can already tell that there's something working and changing inside of me. maybe Jesus knew what he was talking about. maybe he really is truth. or i guess this could have just been an ingenious, counter cultural, self-help plan thought of years ago. kind of like flowers and chocolate i would guess...