Rick Holland is the student ministries pastor at Grace Community Church and will be a keynote speaker at the God Focused Youth Ministry Training Conference sponsored by the organization where I work.
During my West Coast swing I visited GCC and its Crossroads College ministry that Rick pastors last Sunday. On Monday Rick made time for an interview that is now posted on GodFocused.org.
It's amazing for me to think of what God must be doing on college campuses like USC, UCLA, and many others when more than a thousand college students are sitting under Rick's preaching every Sunday. If my memory serves correctly, more than 200 students showed up at the first UCLA on-campus Bible study of the school year.
Rick's ministry has been personally challenging to me. Download some of his sermons and subscribe to his weekly RixMix commentary. I'm told that podcasting will be available soon. The Crossroads philosophy of ministry is also a great resource for anyone in youth work or any aspect of local church ministry.
Monday, October 10, 2005
An EBay Story
The last thing I remember doing before I left my hotel room last Saturday to fly to Los Angeles was winding up my cell phone charger to pack it in my luggage. Somewhere in the three feet between where I was standing at the time and where my bag was resting, my brain apparently ceased to function, resulting in a missing charger when I opened my bag in L.A. I hoped to survive the rest of the trip by shutting down power to the phone except for a few times daily to check my voice mail. My laptop-sized phone/PDA combo, a Kyocera 6035 Smartphone, has above-average battery life, but by Wednesday the phone was dead and I was about to lose all my PDA memory.
Because the 6035 is about five years old (an anthropological artifact in the wireless world) and has been replaced by an upgraded model, Kyocera no longer sells its accessories. That made finding a new cord in a retail store a hopeless cause. Enter eBay.
Tuesday night I checked eBay for any sales in progress with a “Buy it now” option in the Sacramento area. I found one 20 miles away for a reasonable price, but the obvious question was how to arrange for delivery. I e-mailed the seller and he sent his mobile number, but he was out of town until Thursday. After we connected over the phone, he agreed to meet me in a SafeWay parking lot in Folsom at 9:00 p.m., and he threw in a couple extra chargers for free and was friendly enough to chat for a half hour or so in the parking lot despite having been up all night in Vegas the night before.
All that to say this: “traderjmf” told me to tell all my friends that not all California folks are bad guys. I owe him big time. If you ever have need for any of his items for sale, you can count on 5-star customer service. This story warms my heart more than any "baby story" or "wedding story." If it doesn't warm yours, then I feel sad for you.
Because the 6035 is about five years old (an anthropological artifact in the wireless world) and has been replaced by an upgraded model, Kyocera no longer sells its accessories. That made finding a new cord in a retail store a hopeless cause. Enter eBay.
Tuesday night I checked eBay for any sales in progress with a “Buy it now” option in the Sacramento area. I found one 20 miles away for a reasonable price, but the obvious question was how to arrange for delivery. I e-mailed the seller and he sent his mobile number, but he was out of town until Thursday. After we connected over the phone, he agreed to meet me in a SafeWay parking lot in Folsom at 9:00 p.m., and he threw in a couple extra chargers for free and was friendly enough to chat for a half hour or so in the parking lot despite having been up all night in Vegas the night before.
All that to say this: “traderjmf” told me to tell all my friends that not all California folks are bad guys. I owe him big time. If you ever have need for any of his items for sale, you can count on 5-star customer service. This story warms my heart more than any "baby story" or "wedding story." If it doesn't warm yours, then I feel sad for you.
Friday, October 07, 2005
The 1
Perhaps there is three-hour drive somewhere in America that is more visually captivating than the Pacific Coast Highway ("the 1") from San Luis Obispo to Monterey. If so, please tell me what it is. The Blue Ridge Parkway simply cannot compare. Somewhere in the Rockies might have a chance, but there is something about looking down over breakers in the bright blue Pacific 200 yards to the west and up into 2000-foot hills not much further to the east sets a pretty high bar.
I drove this stretch of two-lane windy (WINE-dey and WIN-dey) highway Wednesday morning. A funny thing happened though. After about an hour my appreciation for the stunning beauty of the scene faded. Not even the sensory orchestra of the rich and changing vistas, the sound of breaking whitecaps, and the mixed aroma of a salt water breeze and hillside vegetation kept my attention from drifting to a radio discussion of a Supreme Court nomination.
I think I was jolted out of my daze by the adrenalin shot of taking a hairpin curve a bit too fast. Not long after, I realized how much my progressive sensory insensitivity is like my too-frequent spiritual insensitivity. Just as an incomparable view of God's creation became commonplace when my attention drifted to vain temporal affairs, so my heart's fixation wanders from the incomparable majesty of the knowledge of God sourced in His Word and the indwelling Spirit. When the initial captivation of God's grace wears off from time to time, I need the spiritual discipline to focus my attention on Him so that my awe is infused with renewed energy. I've exchanged all the treasures of the kingdom of heaven for a pocketful of pennies—and the pocket has a hole.
There is poetry in this concept. I will not be the one to mine it. I think Keith Green got pretty close in the lyrics to "Grace By Which I Stand":
I drove this stretch of two-lane windy (WINE-dey and WIN-dey) highway Wednesday morning. A funny thing happened though. After about an hour my appreciation for the stunning beauty of the scene faded. Not even the sensory orchestra of the rich and changing vistas, the sound of breaking whitecaps, and the mixed aroma of a salt water breeze and hillside vegetation kept my attention from drifting to a radio discussion of a Supreme Court nomination.
I think I was jolted out of my daze by the adrenalin shot of taking a hairpin curve a bit too fast. Not long after, I realized how much my progressive sensory insensitivity is like my too-frequent spiritual insensitivity. Just as an incomparable view of God's creation became commonplace when my attention drifted to vain temporal affairs, so my heart's fixation wanders from the incomparable majesty of the knowledge of God sourced in His Word and the indwelling Spirit. When the initial captivation of God's grace wears off from time to time, I need the spiritual discipline to focus my attention on Him so that my awe is infused with renewed energy. I've exchanged all the treasures of the kingdom of heaven for a pocketful of pennies—and the pocket has a hole.
There is poetry in this concept. I will not be the one to mine it. I think Keith Green got pretty close in the lyrics to "Grace By Which I Stand":
Lord, the feelings are not the same.
I guess I'm older, I guess I've changed.
And how I wish it had been explained
That as you're growing you must remember.
That nothing lasts except the grace of God
By which I stand, in Jesus.
I know that I would surely fall away
Except for grace, by which I'm saved.
Lord, I remember that special way
I vowed to serve you, when it was brand new.
But like Peter, I can't even watch and pray
One hour with you, and I bet I could deny you too.
But nothing lasts except the grace of God
By which I stand, in Jesus.
I'm sure that my whole life would waste away
Except for grace, by which I'm saved.
But nothing lasts except the grace of God
By which I stand, in Jesus.
I know that I would surely fall away
Except for grace, by which I'm saved.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
What's the Matter with Dictation?
During the past three days I've been reading in bite-sized pieces through the famous self-proclaimed theological liberal Harry Emerson Fosdick's "sermon" titled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"
[Warning: Paleoevangelical rabbit trail to follow! I call Fosdick's oratory a "sermon" because its content is only tangentially related in any remote way to the text, and the connection between the authorial intent and the content is even more tenuous. Kind of like a Jack Hyles sermon. Quote a brief text, then proceed to the personal opinion portion. Hyles was more entertaining than Fosdick though. But this has little to do with the point of my post.]
Fosdick, like many modernists and today's "moderates," scorns inerrant divine inspiration of the Bible, calling it dictation or mechanical inspiration. I've often heard theological conservatives distance themselves from the dictation theory by using the term "verbal plenary inspiration," defined as divine inspiration that fully extends to all the words of Scripture. Is this a distinction without a difference? If God breathed the writings, is that different from Him giving the writers the words?
Two points are well-taken. First, Scripture does not explicitly teach mechanical dictation. Verbal plenary inspiration defines only what the Bible defines. Second, Scripture offers us indications that the distinct personalities and vocabularies of the human authors are present in Scripture and that these people used existing written sources to compile their writings.
Still, for those of us who believe in the supernatural, would it have been impossible for God to have dictated words that were consistent with distinct personalities and vocabularies? Is it inconceivable that God could have dictated Moses' epilogue to him before his death? I think not. It may be unlikely, but unlikely is not impossible. I'm wondering if defending verbal plenary inspiration requires nuances that sound suspiciously like well-intended obfuscation (i.e. Augustinian dispensationalism). Perhaps the benefits of these nuances might be outweighed by the drawbacks, one of which is that few laymen know what "verbal plenary inspiration" means, let alone how to defend it.
[Warning: Paleoevangelical rabbit trail to follow! I call Fosdick's oratory a "sermon" because its content is only tangentially related in any remote way to the text, and the connection between the authorial intent and the content is even more tenuous. Kind of like a Jack Hyles sermon. Quote a brief text, then proceed to the personal opinion portion. Hyles was more entertaining than Fosdick though. But this has little to do with the point of my post.]
Fosdick, like many modernists and today's "moderates," scorns inerrant divine inspiration of the Bible, calling it dictation or mechanical inspiration. I've often heard theological conservatives distance themselves from the dictation theory by using the term "verbal plenary inspiration," defined as divine inspiration that fully extends to all the words of Scripture. Is this a distinction without a difference? If God breathed the writings, is that different from Him giving the writers the words?
Two points are well-taken. First, Scripture does not explicitly teach mechanical dictation. Verbal plenary inspiration defines only what the Bible defines. Second, Scripture offers us indications that the distinct personalities and vocabularies of the human authors are present in Scripture and that these people used existing written sources to compile their writings.
Still, for those of us who believe in the supernatural, would it have been impossible for God to have dictated words that were consistent with distinct personalities and vocabularies? Is it inconceivable that God could have dictated Moses' epilogue to him before his death? I think not. It may be unlikely, but unlikely is not impossible. I'm wondering if defending verbal plenary inspiration requires nuances that sound suspiciously like well-intended obfuscation (i.e. Augustinian dispensationalism). Perhaps the benefits of these nuances might be outweighed by the drawbacks, one of which is that few laymen know what "verbal plenary inspiration" means, let alone how to defend it.
On Future Judicial Nominations
Just thinking out loud here. I wonder what impact this newly-discovered virtue of judicial anonymity will have on the decisions and opinions of otherwise conservative judges with Supreme Court ambitions.
On top of that, confirming Miers will open the door for the next liberal President (Clinton II?) to nominate stealth justices of his/her own. Maybe conservatives can trust Bush to nominate conservatives, but would anyone doubt that a liberal president's stealth nominee would be a reliable leftist?
On top of that, confirming Miers will open the door for the next liberal President (Clinton II?) to nominate stealth justices of his/her own. Maybe conservatives can trust Bush to nominate conservatives, but would anyone doubt that a liberal president's stealth nominee would be a reliable leftist?
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Trust Me: The Smirk Edition
Prescient Reagan
Today I spent about three hours in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Among many things, I was struck by how many of Reagan's statements about freedom, democracy, and America's role in advancing it are so fitting for our current struggles with Islamic terrorism. I suspect that Reagan might regret today that despite his firm stand against communism, he did not do more to recognize and curtail the early indications of the terror outbreak that was to come.
On the occasion of a 1987 memorial service for American servicemen killed in an Iraqi missle attack on the U.S.S. Stark (apparently Iraqis mistook the ship for an Iranian target), Reagan said these words:
It's a summons that, as a nation or a people, we did not seek, but it is a call we cannot shirk or refuse -- a call to wage war against war, to stand for freedom until freedom can stand alone, to live for liberty until liberty is the blessing and birthright of every man, woman, and child on this Earth.Full text here.
The photo is from my favorite exhibit—an actual portion of the dismantled Berlin Wall.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
California Drivin'
Can anybody enlighten a country boy? Why are roads in the Midwest and South called "I-75" or simply "43," but in California everything is "the 5," "the 101"? As in, "Yeah, take I-75 south to 43 south to 64 east" vs. "Take the 405 north to the 101 north to the 118 east." This is a minor question, but it vexes me. Anyone who can explain the cultural origins of these oddities will be the Paleoevangelical visitor of the day.
Other fun experiences in the west have been looking into some dark mountains at night and seeing where the Hollywood sign is and finding out for the first time that it is not lit at night, having "California snow" (ash from the fires) fall on me, and seeing a couple (apparently on a date) within 30 yards of my motel room door standing literally inside two garbage dumpsters picking out the good stuff and putting it in a shopping cart.
Other fun experiences in the west have been looking into some dark mountains at night and seeing where the Hollywood sign is and finding out for the first time that it is not lit at night, having "California snow" (ash from the fires) fall on me, and seeing a couple (apparently on a date) within 30 yards of my motel room door standing literally inside two garbage dumpsters picking out the good stuff and putting it in a shopping cart.
Trust Me
No, not me. I blew it on the Janice Rogers Brown pick. I have zero credibility. "Trust me" is all President Bush can offer now to conservatives who took him seriously when he campaigned on a promise to appoint Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. So after two appointments, no one has any idea whether he has kept his promise or not.
No doubt many Washington conservative advocacy groups will glean positive clues from Harriet Miers' presence at some Texas Right to Life fundraisers and a couple other indicators (like the President's smirk when asked at today's press conference if he knew Miers' stance on abortion). After all, those vague clues are the kind of things that convinced willing conservatives to fall in line behind the Roberts pick. But for crying out loud, she donated to Al Gore. I can hear them saying now, "But that was for the primary . . . but Gore's campaign chairman is the guy who is now the Republican governor of Texas . . . but this was in 1988 and Gore hadn't entered full wacko mode yet . . . yadda yadda yadda . . ."
Ok, fine. Do what ya' gotta do. Say what ya' gotta say. I hope we can at least agree that if these two picks blow up a la Souter and Kennedy, this love affair between the ideological right and the Republican party has to end.
So the President wants us all to trust him. Well, I'm going to ask you one question. Do you feel lucky, punk? DO YOU?
No doubt many Washington conservative advocacy groups will glean positive clues from Harriet Miers' presence at some Texas Right to Life fundraisers and a couple other indicators (like the President's smirk when asked at today's press conference if he knew Miers' stance on abortion). After all, those vague clues are the kind of things that convinced willing conservatives to fall in line behind the Roberts pick. But for crying out loud, she donated to Al Gore. I can hear them saying now, "But that was for the primary . . . but Gore's campaign chairman is the guy who is now the Republican governor of Texas . . . but this was in 1988 and Gore hadn't entered full wacko mode yet . . . yadda yadda yadda . . ."
Ok, fine. Do what ya' gotta do. Say what ya' gotta say. I hope we can at least agree that if these two picks blow up a la Souter and Kennedy, this love affair between the ideological right and the Republican party has to end.
So the President wants us all to trust him. Well, I'm going to ask you one question. Do you feel lucky, punk? DO YOU?
Saturday, October 01, 2005
The Quote Game Is Back
This may be my favorite yet. Just as a reminder, no Googling the quote.
Who said it?
Who said it?
If you turn hell upside down, you will find "Made in Germany" stamped on the bottom.Anybody brave enough to take a shot?
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