Something Must Be Working...!

So I have a story and a resource for your Sunday morning.

Last week my 10-year old son Ethan checked this book from the library called Manga Metamorphosis. My son is a big comic book fan and loved the manga style art and format. However, this book also happens to be a graphic novel translation of the book of Acts and some excerpts from the Epistles!

Ethan read the whole thing in one week! It seemed everytime I turned around he was pouring over the pages.

So after that week, we were sitting next to each other in church services last Sunday. I had set my Bible down on the pew between he and I. Suddenly I noticed him pick up the Bible and flip it open.

Cool, I thought.

Then I looked closer and saw that he had turned to the book of Acts and was flipping through the pages. So I asked him quietly what he was doing.

"Checking to see if that manga book was accurate to the real Bible," he said.

Wow. That was a cool parent moment to say the least. And he and I found the book was accurate which was also encouraging.


So, upon doing a little more research, I actually found that Tyndale has put out the entire New Living Translation in a manga format called The Manga Bible.

We are buying it this week.

If some simple formatting will get my son to passionately read and study the Bible then bring on the Manga Bible!

Have a great Sunday!

What Is It...?

So I had a humbling experience this morning while reading the Bible.

So yesterday we had a situation happen with our finances that didn't exactly go according to plan. And when things don't go according to plan, my immediate tendency is to recalculate, replan, rebudget, do whatever I can to fix the problem...

Oh yeah, and WORRY!

So this morning I was doing my Bible reading in Exodus 16 where God first sends down manna for the Israelites in the wilderness. I'm going along, comparing translations, picking out words and phrases of interest, trying to figure out what these words mean, thinking about something cool I can put on my blog, when it hit me...

THESE WORDS ARE FOR ME!

I've been doing all of this Bible study lately, and I'd almost forgotten this time was supposed to be communion with God for my life!

So here is what stood out to me. (I'm going to share from the Message because it was surprisingly similar to the ESV in this text and worded in a way that most clearly communicates what God impressed on me.)

God said to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to my Teaching or not." (Ex 16:4 MSG)

and

God said to Moses, “How long are you going to disobey my commands and not follow my instructions? Don’t you see that God has given you the Sabbath? So on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. So, each of you, stay home. Don’t leave home on the seventh day.” (Ex 16:39-29 MSG)

So often I've read this passage as the Israelites disobeying the Lord. But it hit me today that maybe the most important aspect was that God was teaching them to trust Him. The bread from heaven was to be not only provision but a lesson in trusting God not themselves or their reason or their ability to budget or anything else. And the Sabbath was not a rule to be followed, but a blessing to cherished. He simply used the bread to teach them that lesson. So...

...the people quit working on the seventh day. (Ex 16:30 MSG)

I am thankful to the Lord today that He reminded me that He is in control and I am not; that He wants to work good in my life...if I will obey His teachings. I pray that I will adhere to this lesson.

So how about you? What has God told you lately?

What Are You Reading...?

We showed this video at church service last night.



It is part of our renewed emphasis on Bible literacy. We are kicking this emphasis off with our current Wednesday night teaching series on what it REALLY looks like to be a follower of Christ.

Last night was week two of this series, and as the young man leading the series walked us through most of the book of Job, I was moved by all of the young people huddled around Bibles in ones, twos or threes reading along in the Word.

If you were there, I would love to hear your feedback.
If you are reading the Bible in a renewed way, I'd love to hear about it (and even feature you in an upcoming MyBible video if you would be interested!)

God bless.

It's So Good to See You...

So I'm really terrible at keeping up with old friends.

I know I have this deficiency. I think about doing better. Really I do. But the reality has been that my life is often filled with lots of relationships, so relationships that are no longer in immediate proximity fall by the wayside.

And unfortunately I'm not just talking acquaintances but even close friends.

But thankfully I have some really gracious people in my past who still try to keep up with me. We got to experience some of that this past weekend.

A couple who were some of my very best friends in college contacted us and asked if they could come over for the day. We checked our schedule and immediately said "YES".

They and their four children came just before lunch and stayed until well past dinner. Our children and theirs buddied up and had a wonderful day together. We sat around and visited and laughed just like we had never been apart. We found them to be going through and thinking of many of the same things we are:

Family growth. Educational choices. Eating habits. Stuff management for our households. Simplifying. Even cloth diapering!

It was refreshing. We were sad to see them go. We hope to visit with them again soon.

So, who is it that you need to check up on/reconnect with/visit?

That Stinks...

So let me set the stage a little bit.

As our family grows and we try to save money and create healthier environments for our home, we have made some interesting choices.

Okay, I know some might think weird would be a better word.

Or crazy perhaps.

But one of those choices we have made is to go to cloth diapering.

No, not these kind.



There are actually some really cool new cloth diaper designs like this one.



They actually use snaps or velcro and have removable inserts and don't work too much different than a disposable diaper.

...other than the fact that you have to clean them. And sometimes there are some unpleasant things that need to be scraped off into the toilet. Nine times out of ten...no, more like 99 times out of 100 Shannon has to do this chore.

Okay. I've got you up to speed. Now here's my story.

A few days ago I was having one of those days. I was worried about many things. I was feeling sorry for myself. I was wondering why I was the only one...

You get the idea.

And my wife asked me a normal legitimate question in an appropriate and humble way

...and it made me cranky.

Now I knew it shouldn't. I knew that I was the one in the wrong and my attitude was totally off base.

...but I couldn't seem to kick it. I was upset.

So I'm walking around the house, trying to figure out how to respond and change my attitude and this thought comes to my mind:

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4 ESV)

So I scraped the diapers.

...And I felt better. Immediately. My attitude was changed. My crankiness was gone. My love for my wife was overflowing.

It was weird. And good to experience such a strong tangible effect of Scripture.

So how have you seen Scripture come to life this week?

Hello, My Name Is...

It has been very interesting naming all of our children.

And we've actually had all sorts of approaches to the process.

With Ethan we read all the baby name books and consulted our family and took a vote and wrestled with which name was right.

With Shiloh we felt long before we had her that God suggested her name.

Hannah was easy to choose and I can't tell you why (especially since we had a different name in mind for a girl's name until we got pregnant with her).

Isaac was another one that just seemed like God let us know that was who he was supposed to be.

And Ruth...well, we let the kids be a large deciding factor for her (as well as some prayer).

But the amazing thing is that all of them seem to fit their names.

Or their names fit them.

Or something.

Ethan is intense and singular focused. His name means "strong, firm, impetuous".
Shiloh is such a blessing and very laid back. Her name means both "God's gift" and "Peaceful".
Just this week several people noted that Hannah is graceful, which her name means "grace".
Isaac laughed at everything from the time he was a small infant. His name means "laughter".
And Ruth, we'll have to see if she fulfills her role as "companion".

It is very obvious to me that names mean something. They are important.

So, as I've been doing my comparison study, this truth came very much to the forefront in Exodus 3.

I did my first read through of the chapter in the New Living Translation (NLT). And as I read the account of Moses' burning bush experience, something very interesting jumped out at me.

In verse 13, Moses asks God what His Name is so he can tell the Israelites who sent him. God answers in verse 14:

God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.”

What a cool name! I AM! The footnote on that phrase says "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE". It's this holy word or phrase that indicates the essence of life.

And then in the next couple verses I really got intrigued.

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh,t the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.This is my eternal name,my name to remember for all generations.Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me." (Ex 3:15-16a NLT)

Here's what's so interesting. In verse 15 it uses the word "Yahweh" as God's name and in verse 16 it uses "LORD". But it's the same Hebrew word.

In Hebrew whenever God is being referenced as His personal Name it is YHWH, also known as the tetragrammaton. It is this wonderful and mysterious term that is closely related to the Hebrew term for "I AM" found in verse 14. There is lots of discussion about how it should be pronounced, what exactly it means, and how it should be translated.


Yahweh. Jehovah. LORD. Adonai. These are all different translations of this word for different reasons. (See this article for some more clarifications on these different options.)

For lots of years, English Bible translators chose to use "LORD", but recently some translators have chosen to start reintroducing the transliteration of the Hebrew, "Yahweh".

Some of the translations doing this are The New Jerusalem Bible, New Living Translation and The Holman Christian Standard Bible. (See this article for some more info on the Holman Christian Standard Bible).

As I've read some passages from these versions, it has really struck me what a different feel it is to have an actual name there to identify with God. It somehow makes some of the statements feel more personal.

While I don't quite know why the NLT chose to use "Yahweh" in one verse and "LORD" in the next, it definitely furthered my attention to this all important name - the name of our God!

So tell me your thoughts. Does the use of "Yahweh" help, hinder or confuse you?

In Memory of...

So today I was so pleased to get home in time to help Ethan with his science lesson.

What started out as lesson on lasers quickly turned to a discussion on the speed of light which lead to scientific notation which lead to waves and frequencies and sines and cosines...and on and on.

I may have gotten a little carried away, but I just love science.

Ethan and I actually have been working on another little science experiment...Snowflake Blake.

With all the snow recently, we decided to make a snowman.

(along with everyone else in town!)

For our experiment we documented his evolution. Here it is as follows:

Day 1



Day 2



Day 2.5



Day 3



Day 5



Day 7



Day 8



The experiment was loosely designed to create some discussion on which scientific principle was as work: The Second Law of Thermodynamics or The Theory of Evolution?

The Second Law of Thermodynamics very generally states that systems tend to move to a greater state of disorder, while the theory of evolution basically proposes that certain systems tend to move towards a greater level of complexity and order.

Now I know that there is much controversy over whether evolution and entropy (Second Law of Thermodynamics) can even truly be compared when you get to more in-depth definitions of each. I also know that Snowflake Blake is in anything but a closed system, a proposed criteria for the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

But it still served for a good catalyst for some fun scientific discussion with my son.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on evolution versus entropy.
I'd also love to see your snowman pictures if you have them!

I Gotta Feeling...

So I'm spending a little time listening to JJ Heller and Gungor this morning to get my heart quieted and prepared for worship at church.

What are you doing to prepare to corporately worship Our God and Father today?

Holy Adjectives...

So my new study has already proved to be very interesting.

I'm just a few days in to reading Exodus via several translations and I'm finding all sorts of interesting tidbits that I've missed before. A lot of it seems to be emphasis on certain words that you might just run past in certain translations.

(A great tool I've found to help find those emphasized words is the Discovery Bible. It's the NASB New Testament and it has markings to indicate, in it's words, "emphatic sense, which its Greek sentence implies.")

Today I want to talk to you about one of those instances.

In Exodus 3, I did my first read through in The Message and stopped when I came to verse 3:

Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

I stopped because of the colloquial use of the word "Amazing". This is a word that gets thrown around alot in our culture.

My wife is AMAZING!

That song is AMAZING!

Those donuts were AMAZING!

That person just did something so incredible stupid that it is AMAZING!

And therefore I think it has maybe lost some of its power.

Upon comparing it to the ESV and the NET Bible...

(side note: The NET Bible is a very interesting translation. I don't often like the text itself, but it has the most incredible notes and great online study tools at net.bible.org. Check it out!)

...I found that the Hebrew word for which The Message interjected "Amazing" was actually defined as "great." and had the connotation of something extraordinary; that Moses anticipated something special was about to happen.

And I think we might too if we saw a burning bush that wasn't burning up and a voice was talking to us out of it.

But God is still "Amazing" and wants to do something special. And perhaps we miss that these days because we've taken adjectives that were meant for God and use them for sporting events and pizza.

So I want to challenge myself and all of you, let's start reclaiming those holy adjectives for what they were meant for - the praise of our Creator!

Tell me how it goes. God bless.

I Think I've Caught...!

With being cooped up together inside through all this snowy cold weather, my family has caught many things.

We had the sniffles.

One or two of us caught the stomach flu.

There have been several rampant outbreaks of cabin fever.

There were even some early warning signs of Bieber fever as my two-year old Isaac has been going around saying, "What's a Bieber?"

But the one thing all of us have seemed to have caught was...the Space Bug!

Now there have been lots of factors leading up to this:

1) I got to go to the Kennedy Space Center when I was recently in Florida.
2) My son has been studying about space in his schooling.
3) We just commemorated the 25th Anniversary of the Challenger Disaster.

And it seems since then things have just continued to escalate.

My kids are checking out library books on space. We watched Apollo 13 the other night. Ethan watched an episode of Mythbusters about the moon landing. I even watched an old X-Files episode about a shuttle mission crisis (that was suspiciously akin to the Apollo 13 crisis).

It seems everywhere we turn this week, space is involved. It's been kind of neat for me, as I was so intrigued by space exploration as a child. I loved reading the old Sci-Fi novels. I studied about the NASA programs. I even looked into going to Space Camp, where you train like astronauts for a week.

It has been really neat to get to relive some of that and share that with my kids.

So how about you?

What "fever" have you caught during the great snow-in?

That's How I Read...(Part 2)

So my friends Nathan and Amanda have just recently started a study of 1 Corinthians based on a uniquely formatted version of the Bible called Books of the Bible. (You can read more about their study here and here.)

Now once we were all able to dig our ways out from the recent blizzard, Nathan and Amanda came over to visit. As we visited, we got to talking about some of their observations from the study. One of the issues that came up was that of submission to authority. This began with the concepts from 1 Corinthians, including staying in the position you were in when you were saved (1 Cor 7:17-24), lawsuits between believers (1 Cor 6:1-11), and giving up your rights (1 Cor 9).

But we also began discussing other places in the Bible where it talks about this issue of submission to authority. We noted that in Romans 13:1 it says, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."

And this verse is speaking of the Roman government who was corrupt and oppressive, particularly to Christians!

But we also noted in Acts 4 when the disciples were ordered by the Jewish rulers to no longer speak or teach in the name of Jesus, they answered "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge."(Acts 4:19)

And we obviously know they went on teaching in Jesus' name!

Well, we didn't come to a concrete definitive answer that night, but did seem to agree that we generally need to give up our rights for the sake of Christ's name, even when that means being wronged and treated unjustly sometimes.

So with that fresh in my mind, I was intrigued by something that jumped out at me when I read Exodus 1.

As I did my initial reading in The Message, this grabbed my attention:

The king of Egypt called in the midwives. “Why didn’t you obey my orders? You’ve let those babies live!” The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; they’re vigorous. Before the midwife can get there, they’ve already had the baby.” God was pleased with the midwives. (vs 18-20a MSG)

What?

The midwives directly disobeyed the order of the Pharoah. When called on it, they lied. And God is pleased?

Upon further study I found the phrase there in the beginning of verse 20 more literally means that God "treated well" the midwives.

But this brings up some interesting questions.

When is it okay to disobey the authorities over us?
Why was it commendable that the midwives just lied to the Pharoah rather than tell the truth and face the consequences?
What makes God treat us well?

Look forward to the comments.

That's How I Read...(Part 1)

So I finished my first full read through of the ESV Bible this week.

During the process the ESV progressed from my daily reading Bible to my main study Bible and eventually to my main teaching translation.

But now with the complete read through done, I was faced with the decision of what to do for my daily personal reading next. In this last read through, I went from Genesis all the way through Revelation in traditional order.

Therefore, I've spent the last while in the New Testament. So I knew I wanted to do something in the Old Testament. I also have always been very drawn to the Pentateuch (The first five books of the Old Testament).

Since we just finished the Sunday morning sermon series on Genesis, I decided to pick up with Exodus. But I thought I'd try something different this read through - comparing translations!

So I jumped into Exodus 1 with a read through in The Message paraphrase. I then reread my ESV and then compared them both with the NIV and TNIV. While I would never suggest reading The Message as your main study (as it isn't a translation but a paraphrase), I found it a great tool in conjunction with the ESV and NIV/TNIV. It served to bring to attention some parts of a familiar story that I would normally have just read right over. (I'll talk more about this in tomorrow's Part 2 of this message)

Now, I may not do this comparison style reading every day. I actually may try switching things up from time to time.


I just read a great article in Bible Study Magazine (another great tool for Bible Study) on Francis Chan's Bible study methods.

Here is what he said, "Sometimes I read the Bible aloud. Sometimes I read it slowly and take notes. Sometimes I just read through for flow. For me, the important thing is that I don't get away from that time with Him."

But I am going to try doing a lot more comparison between literal, dynamic and balanced translations. (See my friend Nathan's blog for a great series of posts on these three types of translations.) I'm planning on using YouVersion for this comparison as it has a very easy interface for doing quick switches and parallels of translations.

I'll be posting from time to time my experiences. As we are trying to make a greater emphasis on Bible literacy among our young people this year, I thought it would be good to share some of my experiences and tools.

I also would love to hear your tools and experiences as we go on this continuing journey of knowing and understanding God and His Word.

So let me know what and how you are reading right now.

What I Learned from the Storm...

It was so good to be back at church this morning.

With our continued bad road conditions we didn't know how many to expect but we had a great turnout! I think people are tired of being cooped up in their houses so they braved the elements and we had a wonderful time of fellowship. You could feel the excitement and expectation in the air!

While I'm ready to get back to routine, this storm has afforded me some neat learning opportunities. Here are a few things I've learned this week:

1. It is HARD to slow down. With travel, business, education and pretty much any other sector of society you can think of shutting down, a person should have been able to sit back, relax and have not a worry in the world as he watched the snowflakes fall.

I did not find that to be the case.

There is something in the back of my mind that kept telling me, "You need to be doing something!"

So I'd check the Facebook. Check the phone. Try writing a message. Do some research. Check the Facebook again. Make a list of things I needed to do. Check the phone. It went on and on like this.

I don't think I was alone as I saw the hundreds of other people making constant status updates stating that they couldn't figure out what to do with themselves.

2. Snow Storms Get People out in their Yards Visiting. You would think that you would see less people during a blizzard, but I found our case to be quite the opposite. Nearly everyday we had interactions with our neighbors as we checked on each other, shoveled snow and visited about the upcoming forecasts.

Just yesterday I spent hours outside mostly because every few minutes someone else from the neighborhood would stop by and talk for a significant amount of time.

During normal weather we might go two or three days without seeing any of our neighbors.

Not so in a snow storm I guess.

3. My wife is AWESOME! Now I already knew she was incredible, but this week I've seen first hand that the magnitude of her awesomeness is off the scale!

As I've spent more time than normal at home, I've watched as she balances the homeschooling, housework, cooking, potty-training, and infant processing (just to name a few things she does), and look at how put together she still looks!

I tried to help out best I could this week, and things were still hard. I have a new respect for what it takes for Shannon to make it through a day. I hope I can keep that perspective and be a better help when the weather and routine gets back to normal.

So how about you? How has your storm experience been and what have you learned?

McDonalds or No McDonalds: That is the Question...

So I really don't like McDonalds.

Everytime I end up eating there I feel like I've sabotaged my general well-being. I mean their menu barely passes for food.

On the other hand, because of our growing family size and the invention of the McDonald's Playland, it has become one of the simplest and most relaxing places we can take our children. We can hardly resist the call of the Playland when we find ourselves in Springfield. The kids play, we drink overpriced coffee, all are happy.

But recently we had our first "bad" Playplace experience. We couldn't quite put our fingers on it, but something just wasn't right. There was a disturbance in the McForce.

Maybe it was the large & loud group of boys who were throwing their six pound monster truck toys high into the air so they crashed into toddlers heads.

Maybe it was the fact that there was grease and trash on EVERY table and seat in the place.

But I think the blame rested with the group of three young parents who sat just two tables away.

You immediately noticed them when you entered because they didn't seem to quite fit. They were in their mid to late twenties, well-dressed, fashionable hair and shoes. They had on coats they obviously didn't get from Wal-Mart or the Goodwill.

But it was none of these things that really caught my attention. It was their intent focus.

No. It wasn't on watching their children. I'm not even convinced they had children in the Playplace.

It wasn't how interested they were in passionate conversation with each other.

Actually quite the opposite.

It was their unswerving attention to their cell phones. Each of them were furiously tapping the buttons of their QWERTY pads, hunched in their chair, furrowing their brow in what can only be described as nervous concentration.

And they stayed that way.

For at least twenty minutes.

Not a look up at each other or anyone else.

Not a word to one another.

The one time I saw a small child come over and try to ask a question, they all seemed to not hear or notice.

And it was at this point that we decided to leave.

Our bastion of rest and jovial conversation was tainted by this totally antisocial behavior.

So it left me with these questions:

How do we fight this antisocial plague masquerading as "social networking"?
How do we bring back face-to-face conversation and quiet rhythms to our lives?
Should we try to reclaim the McDonald's PlayPlace or is it too far gone?

Look forward to your thoughts!

Firsts....

Snowpocalypse 2011 (our little nickname for the recent storm here in the Midwest) has brought a week of firsts.

First Blizzard Warning for our area in known history. Record snowfalls. Record low temperatures.

And last night was another first: The First Livestream Church Service for Calvary Chapel!

Since we couldn't have church at church (and have missed three out of the last five Wednesdays!) we decided to bring church to you.

In case you missed it or aren't friends with me on Facebook, here it is:

buffalocalvary on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

It was a lot of fun and we got a good amount of interaction. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Up-2-Date...?

So with all the snowdays, we've spent some time at the church doing some winter cleaning and rearranging in our offices.

And in the process I came across this book. Any guesses as to the copyright date on this little gem?

Actually it's 1945.

Do you see the irony? This book was written before Chubby Bunny was invented.

And Chubby Bunny is so 1980s Youth Ministry.

(not to mention a lawsuit waiting to happen!)

So how can this little manual possible claim to be up-to-date?

This is a question that seems to be on my mind a lot lately. In our culture today things change fast. There is a new TV/cellphone/vehicle/exercise program always vying for our attention (and money!). Everyday new information, media and technology bombard us. Some research says that every 18 months our media and technology culture completely shifts. Which means that it isn’t easy to stay up-to-date. This presents an interesting situation for us as followers of Christ.

Doug & I just recently traveled to Florida so Doug could teach the Palmer Leadership Institute to a group of pastors. As a part of that training, we talked about our culture and how to engage modern society with the truths of Christ. I marveled at how much our society and culture have changed even since Doug has started teaching these classes. I think a person could go crazy trying to keep up with it. And very often when I’m with church leaders, they wonder how to stay up with these current trends to stay relevant.

The other thing that struck me as we went through this training was how much the practical tools we discussed were really a return to ancient tried principles.

Things like when Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and that the second most important was to “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:36-39).

Or when Jesus commanded his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:19-20).

So, in those observations, I had a revelation.

While we need to keep our eyes open to the times, maybe as followers of Christ trying to impact our neighbors and our world for His Kingdom we need to spend less time trying to stay up-to-date and more time focusing on the principles Christ has laid out. Principles that have been the catalyst throughout history to create new culture.

I pray that we can be a part of that catalyst.

So tell me...

How important is it for you to stay up-to-date personally?
How important is it for the church to stay up-to-date? and what does that look like?
What would it look like for us to pursue these ancient principles that Jesus laid out in our modern culture?

Look forward to the discussion!

Back in the Saddle....oh wait!

So this is the view out my living room window as I write this blog.

We are witnessing the beginnings of yet another winter storm, the third since the new year. Today's storm is predicted to be the worst in 100 years with projected snow accumulation as high as 20 inches!

And it makes me just a little crazy!

I am so ready to get back into routine. I haven't blogged in a couple weeks because I was out of state with my pastor for a week at a conference and then have taken several days to get my head back around my "To Do" list. And I was just about back in the swing...

and now another storm. And most likely another Wednesday night of no church services (Again the third since the new year).

I'm ready to get back on schedule.

How about you? Are you loving the breaks or are you longing for routine?