Merry Christmas

This is one of my favorite times of the year; it's also one of the most frustrating.

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a Christian.  I'm proud of that fact.  In a time when it's not politically correct to be a Christian, let alone one proud of the fact I stand and proclaim, I am abundantly proud of my God and my faith in Him.

 

One of the things that frustrate me, in this era of political correctness, is that the words Merry Christmas have become taboo.  "Oh, you might offend someone…"  You know what, fine, if they want to be offended by my expression that they have a Merry Christmas, and then the problem is with them, not with me.  If someone wishes me a Happy Hanukkah, I don't get offended; I turn to them and wish them a Merry Christmas.

 

If you are not a Christian and want to wish me a "Happy/Merry Whatever-It-Is-You-Celebrate", that is fine, I promise not to be offended.  You wish me whatever good wishes you want for me, in anyway that you want, I'll take them.  However, in this season, I will wish you a Merry Christmas.  I'm not trying to convert you; I want you to have a good December 25^th!  It is with my deepest sincerity that I want you to have a good day. 

 

If Christmas day is just another day off of work for you and you have no intention of doing anything special, I hope that you are happy and safe doing it.  I hope that as you travel to and from where ever it is you go or whatever it is that you do that someone hasn't had too much eggnog and plows into you.

 

These wishes get embodied into the words Merry Christmas. 

 

I hate the fact that this world is getting so bound up (as in constipated) with political correctness.  I hate the terms Holiday Gift, when they mean Christmas Gift, Happy Holidays when they mean Merry Christmas and any sideways attempt at saying Merry Christmas without actually saying it.  I don't want to be hamstrung into say to everyone Happy RamaHanQuansMas.  I don't celebrate Ramadan, Hanukkah or Quanza, I celebrate Christmas, the birth of my Savior.  I most certainly don't celebrate Festivus, the new politically expedient thing to hit the waves.

 

Now that I'm done complaining; I want to explain why I love this time of the year.  Roughly 2000 years ago (probably closer to June than December) a baby was born to a mother who had never known a man.  He was the Son of God.  He came, lived a perfect life and became the fulfillment of Gods word.  That man died to become the sacrifice that was required to cover my sins, so that I wouldn't have to pay for them with my life.  He became the bridge between my Father and me.

 

My love for this season has nothing to do with anyone else.  It doesn't have to do with my family or my friends.  It doesn't have anything to do with shopping or gifts.  It has nothing to do with the government or even church.  It has to do with my relationship with my savior.

 

With that I only have one thing left to say…

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

InstallFest

A couple buddies and I had a pretty cool adventure yesterday.  We went to the Microsoft offices in Pittsburgh for the release of Visual Studio 2008, an event called InstallFest (I can hear the collective groan from all of the non-geeks that read this now.)

This was a cool event mostly because I got to hang out with my friend Rich Dudley from Armada Supply Chain Solutions.  I was contracted with them for a while before moving to Giant Eagle, Inc.

Anyway, I met up with Rich at the Armada offices where we got to hang around and talk a little, catch up on old times and what not.

We then got on the road to Microsoft.  I followed Rich over, as I had never been to the MS offices before.  If you've never been to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you must understand a few things.  It is the hardest city to get around in and is easy to get lost.  Traffic patterns make no sense and there is no grid, like in a "normal" city.  Pittsburgh is centered around the confluence of three rivers (there is a rumored fourth, underground, river, but we'll stick to the three you can see.)  This confluence of three rivers gives the city an interesting landscape, since the rivers form a Y in the middle of the city.  Along with the three rivers you have a TON of bridges (There are more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in the world) and mountains.

All of that being said, the trip there was pretty non-eventful, other than me almost getting run over by a 16 wheeler who was going to make that turn no matter what.  He missed me by an inch or so, and my car and I both thank the driver for being so... so... observant.

InstallFest, for all intents and purposes, was about swag.  We went into the building, signed in, took the elevator up to the offices, signed in to the event, got our little name tags.  Then we received our T-Shirt, "WhirleyThing", install disks of VS 2008 Express, our VS 2008 sticker and finally, the coup de grace, the full blown copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Version!  Yes, this was only the 60 day trial, but we got a code to get a license key that would unlock the full glory of the development environment.

Then the fun began!  We all pulled out our laptops and started to install VS 2008!  Yes, it took 1.5 hours to get it installed, but during the time it took to install we got to hang out with Dani Diaz, one of Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net Evangelists.  Dani is an awesome guy.  He got to show us some of the cool features of the IDE and talked about some of the other events that he was taking place in.

All-in-all it was a great time.  The next time they hold an event at the MS Offices, if it's a topic I'm interested in, I'll be there.  This one was well worth the $4 that it cost to park, and it saved me a bunch of money on buying VS 2008.

If you are interested in seeing VS 2008 in action, or getting some info about it check out this site.

Message

This past Sunday, I had the great honor to minister to the main congregation at Family Fellowship Christian Center, where I am the youth pastor.

I taught on Revelations 3:14-22 and had an incredible time.  If you are interested in listening to the message you can go here to listen to it.  The title of the message is Sitting on the Throne with God.  At the moment of this blog post, it is the top one on the list of podcasts.

I think it is really cool that I get the opportunity, once in a while, to act like a preacher instead of a teacher.  I talked for over an hour and it seemed like 20 minutes.  No one in the congregation was even getting figitty, which after an hour and nine minutes, I would have expected.

I also started to realize just how much work goes into a Sunday service, how much responsibility that I actually have on a normal Sunday and how much more I would have if I were also the senior pastor.

To put a normal Sunday Service in perspective, here is a list of things that have to take place to make the time between 8:30 am to 12:30 pm go smoothly.

Pastor arrives to building 8:15 am, turns on heat, sets up the first service (Bible and a Bagel).
Pastor waits for people to arrive.
Pastor ministers to the early morning bible study.  (This is the same message as the main service, even though the two messages are delivered in an entirely different manor and the two are seldom, if ever even in the same ballpark.)
Pastor ministers from 8:45 to 9:30 (or a little later.)
9:30 - 10:30 worship team starts practice/sound check for main service. (The pastor and I are both on the worship team.  He leads the worship team, but when he's out, it falls to me.)
10:30 - 11:00, worship service. 
11:00 - 11:15 - "The Pastor" - Pray over school aged children
                                         - Take offereing.
                      "Me"            - Prepare sound for recording
                                         - As youth pastor and elder, pray over the school aged children
11:15-12:30 - Main service ministry / recording.

Now, that is the overview.  These duties are normally divided between me and Pastor Rick.  However this past Sunday, all of this fell to me.  For about 4 hours I was running around like a frantic beast.  When everything works well this whole process is easy.  When things start failing though, it's crazy.  Not letting people see that things are falling apart takes skill, or luck.  On Sunday, for worship practice, my wireless guitar transmitter was flaking out.  I had to use a mic.  This is no big deal, but it limits my freedom of movement.  After we were done with worship, I went to get the wireless mic for preaching and the mic was not in its normal place.  We found it after a couple of minutes of frantic searching, then, for some reason, it wasn't being broadcast out of the main speakers.  After a quick rewiring job, we got everything going and service started, about 4 minutes later than normal, but the people in the congregation were none the wiser.  It was cool.

Anyway, that was a morning to remember, the chaos didn't crack us and the word of God was delivered.

Cheese Wiz

I will start this post with a warning. If you are a Christian and you are easily offended, stop reading now.

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If you are still with me you either didn't heed the warning, you're not easily offended, or you're not a Christian.

First, if you are the last, I want to apologize for the majority of Christians who by their actions and they way they behave give a bad example of what the Christian faith is supposed to be.

Now, to explain that, I want to talk about the phenomenon in the Christian Church that I call Cheese Wiz.

I have been dealing with something for the last couple of years that has recently went from an annoyance to a personal quest. I am on a quest to show believers in Christ that they can no longer be cheesy. Thus the name Cheese Wiz.

First, I want to examine the actual product of Cheese Wiz. Well, it comes in a pressurized can. It kind of looks like it could be cheese, but deep down, or maybe even right on the surface you know that it's not. You know that, if you change a molecule here and there, you just have semi-solid, almost liquid plastic. You squirt this substance on a cracker and it usually just ends up making you sick.

Now, how does this apply to the church as a whole? Well, when a Christian is talking to a non-Christian and there needs to be a translator present, that is Cheese Wiz. When a church has no relevance in the community, that's cheese wiz. When a Christian artist only performs in churches, that is cheese wiz.

How are we to be salt and light if we are disconnected from the community that needs Christ? Do we really think that if Jesus came today for the first time that he would come into our churches? I contend that if he was on the scenes today, he would turn the tables at any of our churches, just like he did at the temple. He would call us "White washed tombs filled with dead mens bones."

I, for one, don't want to get so caught up in church that I forget the reason for church, and the call that is placed on us as the church.

I'm tired of placing silly, contrived rules on people. Rules that are only convenient for the church, rules that God never put in place. Lets stop taking one verse out of the Bible and building doctrines around it, instead of taking the whole council and seeing what God is really trying to say.

We could look at the verse that says that women shouldn't talk in church, while ignoring the fact that Paul had two prophetesses (women preachers) that went around with him. Things like that upset me, because doctrines are built around things like that and they severely limit the power of the church, because of ignorance.

Another one that gets me is the holiness churches. The take a verses that say, "Be holy as I am holy.", or, "Be perfect as I am perfect.", and think that it has to do with the way a person looks! When are we going to stop looking at modern translations and to back to the original meaning? Concordances are out there for a reason. We need to learn how to use them. When the bible says be perfect, it doesn't mean to be without flaw, it means to be mature. God is saying GROW UP!

And I'm saying it now. We need to grow up. We need to stop acting like adolescents and start behaving like mature people.

I have had many people call me irreverent. That I say things that shouldn't be said. That I'm too offensive with the positions I take on a lot of issues. I had parents up in arms when I was teaching the youth group about Daniel translating the vision of the statue for Nebuchadnezzar. What was it that I said that would get the parents up in arms? Part of the passage talks about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I was talking about them for a second and I said "My shack, your shack and a billy goat." Ahh, that is soooooo offensive!?!?!? How could I say something like that. It's sac religious!

My response to that is... Yes, it is sac religious and we need more of it. Don't we understand yet that religion is bad? Devotion is good, religious devotion is bad. I'm devoted to Christ and His call on my life. I'm not going to get into a rut of doing this and doing that to prove that I'm devoted. I'm going to do what he called me to do.

My point? If you're going to call me irreverent, answer this question, is it more irreverent to act foolish, when you're called to act foolish, or is it more irreverent to act like a board when you are called to be foolish?

I try to present myself in a Hallelujah fashion. The word hallelujah comes from the Hebrew (or Aramaic, forget which.) word halal. The word halal means to "Act clamorously foolish." The word jah is shortened form of Jehovah. So, hallelujah means to act clamorously foolish before the Lord.

All of these things get to me. And they all, in my opinion separate the people who need Christ from the Christ that they need. Can we, as a church, please get back to the true call of Christ, which is:

Matthew 28: 19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

The Blockers

Ah, The Blockers, those pesky little mischievous "gremlins" that pop up from time-to-time and do nasty little things around the house.

Well, we have a house guest for a while, we'll call her "Coagulated Tree Sap" (CTS for short).  Well, CTS was going down to the basement to wash some clothes when she discovered the mess of all messes.  She saw an open paint can, and the contents all over the basement floor.

She called up to my wife, "Uh, I think we have a problem here!"

My wife came down, looked at the mess and started laughing (in order to keep from crying!)  That is when she started her investigation.

Who could have made this mess?

When was the mess made?

What was their motive?

Where was the mess made? (Obvious, she was looking at it.)

 

The mess was relatively fresh, probably within the last 1/2 hour or so.  The paint hadn't started to dry at all, so the clean up wasn't *that* difficult.

In light of that, Hurricane had been at the neighbors playing for a couple of hours.  So he could safely be eliminated as a culprit in this heinous crime.

Godzilla, though he has the ability to create mass destruction, was asleep in his crib at the time.   So, unless he was sleep walking, he could be absolved.

The adults of the house wouldn't have done that, so we were all eliminated from suspicion.

That left only one.

That left the Tornado.  Just like his namesake destruction was sown quickly and effectively.  However, because no one was there to witness the destruction, my wife couldn't "convict" him.

That is where I come in. 

The first words out of my wife's mouth as soon as I entered the house where, "Honey, Tornado painted the basement floor, but no one saw him do it.  Can you talk to him?"

I immediately went up stairs and put on my Good Cop/ Bad Cop face.  First I took the position of the good cop:

"Tornado, what happened down stairs?"

"Paint Spilled."

"Did you spill the paint?"

"No, Daddy"

"Do you know who spilled the paint?"

"Yes, Daddy"

"Um, could you please tell me who did it then?"

"The Blockers" -- ominous music started playing in the background.

"The Blockers?"

"Uh huh."

"Who are the blockers?"

"They're outside."

I looked out the back to where he was pointing.

"I don't see anyone outside, except mommy, and she's cooking on the grill and I know she didn't do it.  So what happened?"

"They hit me on the head."

"Oh, so they hit you on the head and then wen down and spilled the paint?" 

"Uh huh."

"Did you see the spill the paint?"

"Uh huh."

OK, I'd heard enough.

"Tornado, I know that the blockers didn't do this.  I know that you are lying to me and I'll give you one chance to tell me the truth.  If you tell me the truth, you will not be punished, but if you tell me the lie again, I'll be forced to discipline you.  Did you spill the paint?"

"No, Daddy, it was the blockers."

"Wait, hold on, maybe you didn't understand.  You will be punished if you lie to me and you will not be punished at all if you tell me the truth.  Did you spill the paint?"

"No, Daddy."

"OK, you're going to be punished."

He started running, I started after him.  He fell to the floor crying.  I asked again, "Did you spill the paint?"

"Yes, Daddy, I did it, it was me! **Sob**"

"Okay, Buddy, come here, you're not going to be punished, but you need to tell Mommy your sorry for making the mess, and tell her that you did it."

"OK, Mommy, I did it, I'm sorry."

 

Now, why am I telling this story?  First, because it's funny.  Well, at least it's funny when it's told, it doesn't translate as well when it's written.  However, there is a lesson in parenting here that I think is important.

The lesson is consistency.  Be consistent with your kids.  In how you treat them, how you discipline them and how you love them.  If they know that you mean what you say, you will never have to back it up.  I didn't have to punish him for doing the act.  He's a 3 year old boy, they make messes, it's what they do.  However, I couldn't tolerate the lying, that starts a habit that is hard to break, and one that he would pay for dearly later, had he been able to get away with the lie.

I would also like to add that I'm mighty impressed with the story that he came up with, it was quite ingenious.  For a 3 year old to weave that kind of story means that he's thinking and that impresses me, even when it's trying to get out of something.

Anyway, that is the story of the blockers.  I hope you enjoyed it.

More than Meets the Eye

I know, you are thinking that this is going to be a review of the Transformers movie.  Well, it's not, but I will say this about the movie, I was entertained and my 6 year old loved it (He liked Optimus Prime's paint job.)

I keep thinking that we forget that we have been created in the image of God.  We forget that we are the embodiment of potential, whether we, as individuals or the mass, live up to it or not.

There are so many people out there who have all of the potential in the world.  These people can do anything and be anything they want, yet, for some reason, they have never gotten past the starting line.  Actually, they have fall away from the starting line and actually have to work to get back there.

These people are the addicts, the alcoholics and the abused.  I have several friends who fall into these three categories.  Many times category one and two happen because of category three, which I think is actually the most destructive.

There is a movement in this country that I'm not completely on-board with.  It is the self-esteem movement.  I don't think that someone should be made to think more of themselves than what they are and I don't think people should be given things that they haven't earned.  I'm a practical person, I believe that the only entitlement that a person should be given is an equal opportunity.  I think we have a nation of young people who think they deserve everything just because they exist, and that will be what destroys our great nation.

However, I do believe in self-esteem.  I believe that a person who looks at themselves positively will have a better chance of living up to their potential, instead of being an example of wasted potential.

The biggest casualty an addicts, alcoholics or abused persons life is their self-image.  It doesn't matter how much a person is told that they are valuable, if they don't view themselves as valuable, they will never move past that starting line.

I have two friends that have more potential than anyone I've ever met.  I think the only people that rival their potential is each other.  However, they have both fallen into similar traps.  They are or have been caught in an endless cycle of addiction, lies and death. 

Both have been through rehabs.  Both have stepped away from the source of their addictions.  Both have fallen off the horse and gotten back on.  Neither one of them have a real clue on how to even get back to the starting line of life, because neither of them see themselves as having value.

I wish I could show them a picture of the way I see them.  I see both of these young men doing great things.  I see both of them changing the world in their own ways.  I could definitely see both of these guys as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I can see that.  They both have the potential to be mighty men.  Men who can change and influence the world around them.  Men who can be good, no great, examples to those around them.

Yet, they still don't see any value in themselves.

Like Optimus Prime, there is more than meets the eye to people.  I wish, with all my heart that these guys could see beyond the ugly that they have created in their lives.  I wish they could see beyond the scar tissue and see the clean underneath.

One day they will see that through Christ they are being transformed by the renewing of their mind.  One day they will see that they too are a new creation through Christ Jesus.  They will understand that their potential that is, at this stage of their lives, unrealized, will soon be actualized.

Until then...

Dive Deep!

Independence Day

Today I heard something dark and disturbing. I was alarmed to hear that a company in the United States didn't give their Employees the day off for July 4th!

Now, on it's face that isn't so shocking. A lot of companies work on July 4th in the USA. However, what was shocking was that this same company gave it's employees May 5th off.

Okay, granted, I like to celebrate Mexico's independence day as much as the next slob, but I would never expect to have the day off of work. I love going to Los Compesino's and eating a tortilla and watching the other locals get drunk on Mexican beer. It makes for a good night of entertainment.

However, I must say, that July 4th is AMERICAN independence day and it should be celebrated with much more fervor by Americans than any other countries independence. If that company wants to give it's employees May 5th off, that is their choice, but they should also give off July 4th for the much more obvious reason that, with out July 4th, we'd all still have British accents and having a spot of tea over a glorious forte-night of tennis on grass, instead of forging our own place in our own country.

I'm proud to be an American. That may be cliche', but it is true, none the less. I'm proud of my country, and I'm proud of the ideals on which this country was founded.

To switch gears a little, I think we, as Americans, should be ashamed of what our country is becoming.

Our ancestors came here to escape tyranny. They came here to be free. Some of them came to escape religious tyranny. Some came to escape a communist country. Some to escape socialism. Some to escape totalitarianism.

Yet, here we are. Slowly and methodically slipping back to those things that our ancestors were trying to escape. We have slovenly movie producers trying to tell us that the medical system in Canada is what we need here (that would be great if you want to kill off 1/3 of our country due to lack of care.) We have taxes levied against us that were never ratified into the constitution (that didn't stop the feds from creating the IRS.)

We have created our own little nanny state. We have created a state of entitlement. We have become a country that values equal results instead of equal opportunity. We teach our kids that no one should lose. We teach them that competition is bad and the result is a bunch of snot-nosed little whiners that think they deserve everything.

If we stay this course, if we don't get back to our founding ideals, we will be left behind. Our country has a very short future if we cannot get back to our founding ideals. If we keep marching down the road of Stalin, we will end up just like him, dead, in an airtight glass casket. We will still look good on the outside, but we will be full of death.

I love my country. I love our founding ideals. I am terrified that we are losing them. If we continue down this path we will soon need another Boston Tea Party in order to bring things back, or we will go the way of the dinosaur, and I'd hate to see what this world becomes without a United States of America.

Dive Deep!