What is marriage?

This Sunday I start leading a small group study on marriage with my friend Josh. So I've been looking for good video clips for each week to kick things off. Here's a pretty good, rough and ready description of a healthy marriage from your furry friend Grover:

This is redneck, but classy redneck

Pastor Jim, my ministry partner at CBC and a good friend, has been building friendships with the skateboarding kids in our community since his arrival here last summer. A case of Mountain Dew combined with a warm welcome to our property for 3 or 4 boys has now grown to include 10-15 skaters and their buddies hanging out here after school on most days of the week. Which is great. They get a place to skate and hang out; we get to build friendships with kids most people don't really like. But all the skateboarding has meant that the carpet on the north porch is getting pretty fatigued and probably in need of replacement.

So Jim and I took it upon ourselves to get a couple rough estimates for replacing our carpet with something similar. Which, it turns out, is harder to do online than it should be. But, wonder of wonders, we did find something completely unexpected: camo carpet.

Now as a dedicated hunter, I find this a revelation. I literally had no idea! It comes in all my favorite camo patterns, from Realtree AP and MAX-4 to Mossy Oak Break-Up and Obsession. Clearly, this will make a classy addition to any hunter's home. I haven't talked it over with Karen yet, but since she has been talking about wanting to replace our upstairs carpet, I'm sure she won't object...

Something lighter...

There are times when I simply don't have the emotional energy or the introspective qualities to write a decent blog post about spirituality or anything too deep. This week is one of those times. Meanwhile, since the big news of this week is President Obama's speech "explaining" to all of us yahoos out here in flyover country how nationalized health care won't be anything like visiting the doctor at the DMV but will instead deliver better care at less cost than we have now. Since everything else the government is involved in is such a model of thoughtful, caring, efficiency, I'm sure that this is surely going to be the result. Anyway, I'm getting the sneaking suspiscion that the President, along with a number of other members of his party, have a very different vision of what kind of country America should be, and want to wield their power to create in reality the country which has heretofore existed only in their heads and at Renaissance Weekends. So I found this little video, of Jack Webb giving "just the facts" to Pres. Obama, amusing and enlightening.


P.S. The age on this video reminds me that the case for liberty versus collectivism must be made anew, every generation. There are no permanent victories, for every society is always 20 years from barbarism.

Something cool

This fellow from Norfolk, England has spent the last 30 years building a 1:100 scale model of the Temple as it was in Jesus' time. He is still not finished, and probably won't finish in his lifetime since he is now 78, but the total area of the model is 20'x12' and contains over 4,000 individually hand-carved 1/2" tall figures (those little figures are people, which gives you an idea how massive this thing is). Each one of the clay bricks are hand made and fired. Apparently, this is most historically accurate model ever created.

I don't know what would inspire someone to spend 30,000+ hours of their life doing this, but I do find the end result thoroughly inspiring.

Whattya got worth living for?

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Princess Bride. It is the story of how a poor farm boy named Westley leaves his true love Buttercup to go seek his fortune. Along the way, Westley gets captured by pirates and is presumed dead, only to be reunited with Buttercup after she is already betrothed to Prince Humperdinck, who is trying to have her killed as a pretext for war with Guilder, a neighboring country. Westley rescues Buttercup, and leads her through the Fire Swamp and safely past its lightning sand, random flame spurts, and Rodents of Unusual Size, only to be captured by Humperdinck and his men, and killed in the Pit of Despair.

Now you would think that getting killed would pretty much put an end to any hopes Westley had of marrying Buttercup and rescuing her from evil Prince Humperdinck. But you would be wrong. Because Westley’s friends Inigo the alcoholic Spanish swordsman and Fezzik the giant from Greenland find him and take him to Miracle Max, who tells them that Westley is only “mostly dead.” “And there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is still slightly alive. With all dead there’s only one thing left to do – go through his pockets and look for loose change.” With the aid of a bellows, Miracle Max inflates Westley’s lungs and asks, “Hello in there! What you got worth living for?” Westley answers, “True love.” And of course, with the help of Miracle Max, a chocolate coated miracle pill, and his own true love to live for, Westley is miraculous healed to rescue the princess and ride off into the sunset on white horses, kissing passionately.

Now my point in all this is not simply to tell some of the best parts of a movie I enjoy, but to suggest that Miracle Max's question is one well worth answering? What, at the end of the day, do we have that is worth living for? Paul answer is simple: "Christ" (Phil. 1:21).

What Paul means is that Jesus is life; everything else is just details. In this, Paul is kind of like an Olympic athlete. Athletes competing for the Olympics are totally defined by that pursuit. Their schedule each day is determined by what will make them the most successful competitor when the day comes for their race. Their diet is determined by what will help them succeed. Their sleep pattern is determined by the needs of their body for rest to succeed at competing. If they have a job, it is chosen with respect to their need to train. In the same way, Paul’s relationship with Christ is the defining characteristic of his life. It is the center of who he is and what he does. His relationship with Christ is what gives his life purpose and meaning, the thing which reigns supreme over every other concern, need, relationship, and consideration. Christ and Paul’s relationship with him determines what Paul will say, how he will act, and what and how he thinks about every other issue. He is completely dedicated to exalting Christ as long as he lives, and he knows that even if he dies, death is not really a loss but a gain, because in death a Christian passes out of this broken-down life and into the very presence of the Living God.

Down in the River to Pray...

This past Sunday was a great day in our ministry at CBC. Together, Pastor Jim and I baptized 10 people. This was the largest number of people I have ever personally baptized at one time. In fact, I think it's more people than I have personally baptized total to this point in my ministry career. It is so exciting for me to help people take the next step in their discipleship and follow Jesus in this kind of dramatic, public fashion. Though it is sometimes under-emphasized in our evangelical tradition, there really is something quite significant about being publicly baptized.

What a day! We worshipped together at church, ate and talked together at the local Christian camp in whose pond we baptize people, and heard testimonies from all 1o of their conversion to Christ. The weather was unseasonably crisp for late August (must be "global warming") and the water was therefore quite invigorating, but what is that compared to the glory of serving Christ like this? I feel blessed to be a pastor and to have God use me in people's lives. What an amazing privilege.