It's CHRISTmas!

The second best holiday of the year has arrived! In the next days, we celebrate the Incarnation, that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His Glory, the Glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). The eternal Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, uncreated deity, fully God, stepped into time, taking on a human nature in addition to His divine nature. The almighty Son became a helpless baby, needing His mother to care for His every need and requiring protection from His step-father. For the first time, He was cold, felt pain, and identified with our weakness. He did not cease to be God, but instead "emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant" (Philippians 2:7), choosing not to exercise His abilities of God, but to live as one of us, depending on the Father and Spirit for strength and wisdom.

The Incarnation is a magnificent demonstration of the love, power, and wisdom of God. It was the necessary prerequisite for our salvation at the cross. It enabled Him to fulfill the promise to David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever and to be the Servant promised in Isaiah. It prepared the Lord Jesus Christ to be our High Priest, ever interceding for us to the Father and bridging the gap between us and Him.

In the midst of the gifts, the time with family and the wonderful food, take time to reflect on the Miracle of CHRISTmas, the Incarnation. Share it with your children and rejoice with the world that God has come near, Immanuel, God With Us.

AWANA Grand Prix

It's time again for the AWANA Grand Prix at our church. Cars have been built, the track is set up, and tomorrow is the big day. My little man has his Green Machine tuned up and ready, and my Go Fish ICHTHUS Mobile is weighted down and ready to go. I'll post pictures tomorrow!

For now, here are some sites I found with tips and tricks for making fast Grand Prix/Pinewood Derby cars.

• Wayne Schmidt's AWANA Grand Prix Race Car Page (Engineering analysis of what works and what doesn't!)
  
• Scoutorama's Mixed Bag (Some good, some bad)
• Fast Facts (Generally good, basic tips)
• Pinewood Freak (Lots of articles - READ THE COMMENTS!)
• The Physics Behind the Car! (Very cool for the geekiest of us - explains why things work)
  

By the way, please note that some of the tips created for Cub Scout Pinewood Derby cars don't work or aren't necessary on AWANA Grand Prix cars. The GP axles don't have those annoying ribs, and GP wheels are made of softer plastic, so some of the tools for PD wheels you have to be very careful with.

So what is my regimen? It's a secret! When you're competing against folks who have tracks set up in their barns, you have to keep some kind of edge!

Colorado Governor and US Senator

OK, so life got away from me. It's election eve, and most of the people following this have already voted by mail, so here is the short and sweet version.

Colorado Governor:
In the words of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (who I like), I "cannot in good conscience give members and gun owners a strong recommendation for this race." McInnis has handled the whole plagiarism issue very poorly, and has a weak record on gun rights. Maes really came across as a nutjob with his comments on the UN International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) program in Denver which is providing bikes to reduce pollution. After a little digging, I found little on the ICLEI program, but it does look like your typical UN socialist program, so maybe he's on to something. They did, after all, put Iran on the Commission on Women's Rights. So, if Dan Maes doesn't like the UN, all the better.

I don't like any of the candidates all that much, but I'm voting for Dan Maes. I just hope he can prove to the rest of Colorado that he's not a conspiracy theorist wacko nutjob.

US Senator from Colorado:
Ken Buck keeps "stepping in it" with his high heels and cowboy boots comments, and he's had some ethical questions, but if you dig a little deeper, at least his heart was in the right place. (That's cynicism, for those of you who don't get it.) Jane Norton, however, sealed the deal for me by getting support from John McCain. I can't stand big government McCain. Plus, when your website for your governor's race leads with "Ken Buck said what?" and a video of your opponent's (albeit very bad) attempt at humor, you must not have any serious issues to run on.

Like the Governor's race, I can't really endorse any of the candidates, but I'm going to vote for Ken Buck, just to tick off the big-government RINOs who support Norton.

By the way, on the Democrat side, I'm cheering for "I'm not taking PAC money(anymore)" Andrew Romanoff. Bennett doesn't care what the voters think and I want him out. With Romanoff's past habits of taking PAC money, it should provide good fodder for whoever wins the Republican nomination.

I Write Like...

This evening I saw a blurb about a fun little website called "I Write Like." I've cut and pasted blog posts, paragraphs from old papers, etc, and so far, it has been pretty inconsistent. I've gotten hits for H.P. Lovelace, Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Foster Wallace. If I ever get the same author two or three times in a row, I'll keep it.

One interesting question: what happens if I take quotes from various famous published authors and put them into the page?

• Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" - Isaac Asimov
• Isaac Asimov quote on publishing - Charles Dickens
• Robert Heinlein's Armed Society Quote - Oscar Wilde
• Robert Heinlein on rules and morality - Charles Dickens
• Robert Heinlein on love and jealousy - H.P. Lovecraft
• Charles Dickens, third paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
• Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation - H.G. Wells
• Charles Dickens, American Notes a few paragraphs later - Daniel Defoe

So, the site's not perfect. I write differently if I am writing a technical document at work, a theological paper for my Master's work, an email to a friend, or a blog post like this one. I suppose with a large enough sample, it might work better, but for now, it's just for fun. Oh by the way, this blog post was written by: Cory Doctorow, whoever that is... :o}

Hiatus

I can't believe I haven't posted since April! Real life is more important than blogging. Back soon!

Pro Football

"22 men in desperate need of rest watched by 22 million in desperate need of exercise."

I'm taking the Spurs over the Yankees by 3 points, with a goal in the last minute of the third period.

Oh, and I'm excited about the Tim Tebow commercial. Everyone was upset about this?



Funny how incensed "progressives" get when others want to express their first amendment rights - especially about a story who made a politically incorrect "choice." By the way, the abortion issue is simple: every abortion ends a human life. It's a baby.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. President!

Just a quick post to wish our President a happy 1st anniversary of his inauguration. Mr. President, you came into power on promises of transparency, hope, change and a new vision for America. A year later, we are celebrating another victory - the victory of the people of Massachusetts. A Republican will sit in the unassailable Democratic Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy. Scott Brown has shown that We the People are angry. We are tired of your backroom deals (when you promised transparency), your divisive politics (when you promised bipartisanship), your wholesale destruction of the American economy (when you promised hope), and your gaggle of socialists and communists that you hoped would change this country.

Some of us saw through you from the beginning. Personally, I'm ecstatic that the rest of the country, who you fooled with smooth rhetoric and empty promises, is now seeing you for the charlatan you really are.

I fully expect you and your cronies in the House and Senate, (Pelosi and Reid) to continue to play dirty, one-party politics. I'm sure you're going to try to cram a socialist health care bill (that We the People, oppose, by the way) down our collective throats. I'm sure you're going to downplay this, but we are so looking forward to next November's mid term elections. Don't think our anger is going away. Right now your super-majority is down by one. By late next fall, it will no longer exist. In two more years, you just will be a footnote in history, recorded as a bigger failure than Jimmy Carter.

Happy anniversary, Mr. President. Election 2012 is coming!

Avatar

I saw Avatar on opening day and really enjoyed the movie. Because they were so overplayed (and so cliche in Hollywood...), I was ready to dismiss the overt environmentalism, pagan religion, secular humanism, and anti-capitalist, anti-military themes in the movie. The story is really about growing up, about overcoming philosophical handicaps and seeing the world through someone else's eyes. The movie is about getting rid of prejudices and moving past our pre-conceived ideas about who people are.

Maybe that's why this revelation from Cameron's script (posted in several places) really ticked me off. Cameron wrote: "TROOPERS issue automatic weapons and magazines to a long line of mine workers. The miners lock and load like the redblooded redneck NRA supporters they are."

What a hypocrite. He makes a movie about overcoming prejudice, and his script is filled with liberal, communist, envirowhacko, pluralistic, post-modern bigotry.

Avatar is a well-made, well-written, incredible movie experience. The scenery is breathtaking and the main storyline is great. (The plant life on the planet is one big brain, a sentient being who the natives worship as their goddess, which appeals to adherents of secular scientism and new age beliefs - quite an accomplishment.)

Don't bother going to see it.

Global Warming is Natural - 100 Reasons

I was happy to see this article in the UK's Daily Express today - "Climate Change is Natural: 100 Reasons Why." The list repeats itself in a few places, and some of the reasons are not as strong as others, but overall it is a good summary of why I am a anthropogenic global warming "denier."

Here are some of my favorites from the article:

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.

6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.

7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.

10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

15) Professor Plimer, Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, stated that the idea of taking a single trace gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an “absurdity”

28) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels are our best hope of raising crop yields to feed an ever-growing population

<rant>
The earth has been warming and cooling for generations. The "warmers" cherry pick their data, ignoring major factors like the effect of sun and clouds. They use the unlikely extremes as scare tactics, and the ratings driven media is only too happy to pass on the horror stories. Socialist politicians have found a good excuse to manipulate the world economy to their ends. Dissent is crushed by the lie that "the science is settled," even though honest climate scientists admit that the earth's climate is so complex that we are only beginning to understand it. Climate change happens. It's natural. It's got some great benefits. Let's put our money and effort toward ending poverty and hunger around the world by bringing the rest of the world into the 21st century, not dragging everyone else back to the Dark Ages.
</rant>

Give back the Helmet

We picked up a game for the kids at a garage sale. It's a Christian themed game called "Armor of God." Overall, it's a pretty good game. You go around the board trying to collect the 6 pieces of spiritual armor described in Ephesians 6. There are "battle" cards that either give or take away pieces of armor depending on the situation. For example, "you got in trouble at school, but then confessed to your parents. You get the Breastplate of Righteousness." or, "you didn't read your Bible, give back the Sword of the Spirit." It's a kid's game, on the kids' level, so it doesn't have to be perfect.

However, my daughter drew a card and got stuck trying to read a big word, so I took it to read it for her. It read:

You are embarrassed to
let your friends know
that you go to church
on Sundays.

Give back the
Helmet of Salvation.

I just smiled, gave the card to my wife and said, "let's pick another card." My daughter ended up with the sandals or something like that, and we kept playing. I kept the card when we cleaned up and put the game away.

So what's wrong? Can you really lose your salvation by being afraid to tell your friends you go to church? The card is based on a faulty interpretation of Matthew 10:32-33:

32 "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven."

At first glance, some would jump to the conclusion that for Jesus to deny someone before the Father means that they will lose their salvation, but the passage is saying something quite different. The real question is, what does it mean to have Jesus confess or deny us before the Father?

2 Timothy 2:11-13 says:

11 It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him;
12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

Here enduring is contrasted with denying. If we endure, we receive the reward of reigning with Him. If we deny Him, He denies us - denying us the reward of reigning with Him. This is just what Luke 9:26 says: "For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." It's not about losing salvation, it's about being ashamed before the Father on the day of judgment. Look back at 2 Timothy 2:13. If we are faithless, if we blow it, if we are ashamed and afraid to tell people about Him, He remains faithful to us because of His character. He gives us grace when we blow it because He is gracious, loving and forgiving.

My favorite passage about our security in Christ is Ephesians 1:13-14, which says,

"13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory."

We are saved by grace through faith, and the moment we believe we receive the Holy Spirit, who seals us and is the pledge - the down payment - on our salvation. God does not break His promises, and His purpose in this promise is His own glory. You can't give back the Helmet of Salvation any more than you could turn a butterfly back into a caterpillar. At the moment of faith, a fundamental change happens inside you, and "you are a new creature; old things have passed away. Behold! New things have come!" (2 Cor 5:17)

I don't think that card will make it back to the game.

Note: Here is a slightly longer article on the topic of eternal security.

Real Hope and Real Change

Today we celebrated the life of one of my wife's Cubbies, a little girl of 5 who died last Saturday of an asthma attack. She was a beautiful, spirited little girl, always eager to help and a strong little leader. She struggled with over 30 food allergies, but was always a bright spot in everyone's day.

During the funeral there was a lot of discussion of how happy she is now in Heaven. (She trusted Christ for salvation recently and then followed Him in Baptism only three weeks ago, on the same night my daughter was baptized.) It got me thinking about the Hope we have in Christ- and not just the hope of Heaven, because there is more!

You see, Heaven is a wonderful place, where God wipes every tear from our eyes and where we are finally free from sin, pain and sickness. We get to worship our Creator alongside the angels, and get to see our loved ones who have gone before us. We find incredible bliss and joy in the presence of the Trinity, and can finally know Jesus even as He knows us (1 Cor 13:12)! In Scripture God gives us these tantalizing glimpses of heaven, but then reveals that there is much, much more!

As wonderful as Heaven is, it is only temporary. Contrary to popular, unbiblical Christian mythology, believers will not spend eternity in Heaven, sitting on a cloud strumming a harp. (And we do not become angels, either!) God created us as both physical and spiritual beings,* and to be disembodied, floating around in Heaven, as wonderful as it is, is not how God created us or intended us to be! It's not natural! My friends, we were made for Resurrection!

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul lays out an argument for the Resurrection of Christ and then begins to give us glimpses of our future. He says (v. 20) that Christ is the "first fruits" of the Resurrection, and that our glorified resurrection bodies will be infinitely different from our current bodies. With the imagery of a grain of wheat falling to the earth, dying, then coming back as a beautiful plant, he describes how our bodies will change to become imperishable, immortal, glorious, powerful and spiritual. When does this happen?** When Christ returns:

Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen,

“Death has been swallowed up in victory."
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Cor 15:51-55)

Now that my friends is Real Hope and Real Change! We will spend eternity in an amazing New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21-22)! We will have immortal Resurrection bodies like Christ's. Most importantly, we will see Him face to face and know Him and His love perfectly! That dear little girl is rejoicing with Christ in Heaven right now, but she has so much more to look forward to. And so do we!

---------------
* For the budding theologians out there: I hold a dichotomous/bipartite view of anthropology. We are ontologically one person with one nature having both physical and spiritual aspects. For my trichotomous friends, a word study of soul and spirit will show that the two terms are used interchangeably for the non-material aspect of man and are not distinct. (While you're at it, compare those terms with heart, conscience, mind, and will). Hebrews 4:12, 1 Thes. 5:23 and 1 Cor 2:14ff. need to be understood in light of the rest of Scripture. In perspective, however, the dichotomous / trichotomous discussion is an interesting in-house debate, but definitely not anything worth dividing over!

** 2 Corinthians 5:1-8 makes it almost sound like we receive our Resurrection bodies when we get to heaven, but 1) we need to understand it in light of all of Scripture, including the explicit timing provided in 1 Cor 15:52, 1 Thes 4:16; Rev 20:5, etc and 2) that the main idea in this passage is that we are struggling and have to live our lives in a way that pleases God, in light of the hope He gives us of a better future with Him!. Now another interesting topic is "How many Resurrections are there?"

Once in a Lifetime

God has blessed me in many ways, but He has given me a special glimpse of His wisdom and grace this week. Work took me away from my family, the farthest I've ever been from home. I miss them very much and call every chance I get. Work is a good distraction, but the evenings are difficult. I'm really looking forward to being home again.

For the last two nights, I've had the opportunity to go down to the beach where I'm staying and see an amazing animal. I missed the main nesting season, but the Green Sea Turtle mothers are still coming on the beach at night to lay their eggs, and some babies are still hatching. Last night I saw two mama turtles and over 20 babies. Tonight I saw more adults and a few babies, and got a chance to watch as one dug a hole in the sand and laid her eggs.

I suppose you have to be patient to be a sea turtle. In the middle of a 2,500 mile journey to her birthplace, the gentle plant eater takes a couple of hours to fight against the undertow, pull herself slowly up the beach above the tide line, then dig a 18" deep hole, lay her eggs, and then return to the sea. (You certainly have to be patient to watch them!) She dug the hole with her back flippers, dipping them one at a time into the hole, cupping the sand like you would in your hand, then dropping it. Before using that flipper again, she would fling the sand away, and then drop her flipper back into the hole. At the end, she was really stretching to get the hole as deep as she could. The eggs went in so fast, all we heard was a small noise, and then she was turning around , covering the hole as she went. This three foot turtle then went slowly and directly back to the sea, where she disappeared in a wave.

Last night I followed a tiny baby (about the size of the palm of my hand) on its journey to the sea. Our footprints in the sand were ravines to this little lesson in persistence. His journey began probably 3 or 4 days ago when he hatched under those 18 inches of sand. Along with his brothers and sisters, he had to dig up out of the sand and then crawl out of the 2 foot deep nest. Getting out of the nest was like crawling on your belly from the bottom of a quarry. Up and down and around, he kept heading for the light of the sea - I probably followed him for 30 minutes (who knows how far he had already come!). A wave came up over the baby, and then he was gone. Only one out of a thousand live to adulthood, but he never gave up.

Thank you, Lord, for the lessons of patience and persistence, and for getting a glimpse of your Glory in your Creation. I will never forget it.

Me with a Mama green turtle.

Two baby turtles on their way to the sea.

Galatians Published in Christianity Today...

When I read this post in The Sacred Sandwich, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The satirical premise is that Paul's Epistle to the Galatians was published in Christianity Today, and these are the letters to the editors the following month.

Why has the church fallen in to such a Christian pragmatism? People think that it must be true because it works - never mind how much they have to abuse Scripture to "support" their pet practices. Whatever happened to the idea that experience must be tested in light of God's Word, and then rejected if it is found to be unbiblical?

Why can't we criticize unbiblical attitudes and behaviors without being called unloving? In Ephesians, Paul tells us to "speak the truth in love." It's like two wings on an airplane - you can't be truly loving without the truth, and to tell the truth without a humble, loving attitude is unChristian. When did the Truth of God's Word become so unfashionable in the Church?

So, do I laugh or do I cry?

An American Tragedy

While many celebrate tonight in Chicago's Hyde Park and around the country, some of us mourn. We mourn the coming loss of liberty. We mourn the coming loss of morality. We mourn the coming loss of prosperity.

Bitterly clinging to my guns and religion for four more years, until change for the better.

Defending the Church Against Maniacs, Crooks, and Others

Authorities have finally released Matthew Murray's reasons for killing innocent Christians at the YWAM center in Arvada and at New Life Church here in Colorado Springs last weekend.

“I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the (expletive) teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. . . . God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shootout. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you . . . as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

How do you defend against someone like this? He is obsessed, furious, and beyond reason. He has a plan in place, has equipped himself (a rifle, two pistols, smoke grenades and backpack with 1,000 rounds of ammunition), and doesn't care if he lives or dies. When he shows up at the dorm, or the church, or the shopping mall, or the playground, you can't reason with him. You can't say, "hey, let's talk about this over a cup of coffee." Your only option is to respond with force the moment the threat is identified. You shoot to stop and you don't stop until he does. It doesn't matter if he is a homicidal maniac, a thief with a gun, a fanaticist strapped with explosives or a mugger with a knife. Life is a precious gift from God, and your life and the lives of those you are defending outweigh his a hundred times over.

For churches, there are a number of things to consider. There are several threats that must be considered. The staff needs to develop contingency plans (including responses to each identified threat, fallback plans, plans for communication and notification, etc.) and train staff members what to do in case of an emergency (including medical emergencies - CPR and first aid). Threats could include anything from:

• power outages
  
• accidental fires and floods
  
• hecklers
  
• vandals
  
• thieves and con artists
• arsonists
• bomb threats
• armed attackers
  
• (against the preaching pastor, staff, or congregation in general)
  
• suicide bombers or car bombs
• hostage takers

The church needs to consider all entrances and exits and how to protect them. If a situation arises, where should the people in the sanctuary, adult Sunday School, and children's ministry be taken? Where are the fallback positions in case the first place is unsafe? Who determines if an evacuation is safe or if people need to remain in secureable areas in the building. How will the staff and security team communicate? Will the security staff be uniformed or plainclothes, openly carry arms, carry concealed, or be unarmed? Will the church hire permanent staff, off-duty law enforcement or use trained volunteers (or some mix of the three)? How much training and preparation is required for safety, effectiveness and legal liability purposes? What information should be given to the congregation? Are there physical measures that can be implemented (like proper lighting at night or concrete posts in front of the building to protect against car bombers)? What are the best positions to post security staff? What areas of the building are most vulnerable to specific threats?

Matthew Murray sent threatening emails to YWAM before the attack, and made hate-filled posts to an anti-Christian website just before and after the Arvada attack. Does the staff know how to identify warning signs like this and know who to notify? Can they distinguish between someone acting suspiciously and some poor guy just looking for a handout? After hearing about the attacks in Arvada, New Life Church beefed up their security and it paid huge dividends in human life. They identified a possible threat and took action to protect their people, even at the risk of looking silly in the eyes of some.

I need to caveat this post with a disclaimer - I am not an expert on physical security - I'm a network security professional, but I am also a gun owner who has thought a great deal about how to protect my family and what it means to carry a weapon. I know enough to say that basic security principles apply whether you look at a computer network or a church foyer. Common sense and deliberate, forward thinking will save lives. The basic steps of incident response are:

• Planning and preparation - without this, you are doomed to failure...
• Prevention - what can you do now to reduce the threat or your vulnerability
  
• Detection and notification - training, training, training...
  
• Containment - you need a capable, properly equipped team in place. Now...
  
• Eradication - removing the threat and protecting people and assets...
  
• Recovery - working with authorities, updating plans
  

The church needs to build relationships with local law enforcement agencies and identify trained individuals (with current or former law enforcement backgrounds, military , government or private security experience) within the church. Those organizations and individuals will be your best resources for increasing security and protecting your congregation. Only bring in outside consultants if you are unable to get the help you need from within the church or from local law enforcement. On the other hand, realize that this will not be a zero-balance item in the church budget. You are going to have to spend at least some time, effort and money to increase your security and protect your people.

We live in a dangerous world. Great Britain has learned that trying to eliminate guns through gun control and bans is an abject failure. Attacks against churches and other public places are becoming regular occurrences. Churches need to take some time, now, to plan, prepare, and train for contingencies. Old plans need to be updated on a regular basis. Training must be recurring. Security needs to be added to the church budget. While we shouldn't turn our churches into fortresses or make security a distraction from worship and fellowship, it should be a reassuring, felt presence that will act as a quiet deterrent for would-be attackers.

Scripture tells us that "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and discipline" (2 Tim 1:7, NASB). We do not live by fear, but by faith. God has given us the ability and the right to defend ourselves (Ex 22:2), and has promised His protection as well. We do our part and then trust Him to do His. Please don't let this tragedy pass by and believe that it can't happen to your church! Do something about it!

Our New Church

After several weeks of church-hunting, and 5 or 6 churches, we have decided to attend Vanguard Church, which is just a short drive from our apartment and new house. Part of their vision for ministry, from their website is very compelling:

Vanguard Church endeavors to be on the cutting edge of reaching the population who has given up on church and God. The people of Vanguard are attempting to do new things in a REAL and refreshing way as we go into the frontlines of battle to rescue those in spiritual, emotional, and physical need.

For those of you who remember San Antonio Metro with Todd Phillips, this church has the same feel. The music has a little more edge than your typical "contemporary" service. The pastor goes verse by verse and makes it very practical (he's a DTS grad, after all). The church has a very strong Great Commission vision, a focus on building community and reaching the lost through relationships, and a set of aggressive ministry goals. They drew us in with their friendliness and a free cup of hot chai tea (free for first-time visitors).

We had a meeting with Scott, the small groups pastor today. We found out that the church is, as we hoped, a "ministry to postmoderns" rather than a "postmodern ministry." He said that he recommends people read The Universe Next Door by James Sire (who also wrote a good book on my shelf called Scripture Twisting: Twenty Ways The Cults Misread the Bible). Some of the good things about postmoderns are that they understand that theology is done in community, the importance of relationships, and the power of narrative, or stories. The major weakness of postmodernism is when it makes relativism an absolute, and Truth becomes some variation of "it's true for you, but not necessarily for me." Vanguard appears to be a ministry that emphasizes the good parts of postmodernism while rejecting the bad. In the midst of it, they reach those who would not feel comfortable or even welcome in the most well-meaning average church. They're not afraid to make waves, like when they used Harry Potter as an outreach tool. (Scott said they have several families still in the church who were brought in when their kids attended the outreach.)

We're looking forward to joining a church that keeps us from being too comfortable, that challenges us to grow and to take ministry to a new level. God has been teaching me in the last couple of years that I don't dream big enough. I can't wait to see what big things He has in store for us at Vanguard.

Welcome to Odegard Online!

I tried blogging once before. I made one post, then life got in the way and it was forgotten. I think the problem was I tried to be too narrow, too serious, rather than just to post whatever I happened to be thinking about that day.

We have a family blog, which is by invitation only for those we know in real life. If you are interested in family news, let me know and I'll consider sending you an invitation. This blog, on the other hand, will remain public. I think open conversation is healthy and challenging. Faith does not grow if it is not exercised. Our brains atrophy if we do not expose ourselves to new and opposing ideas. Even like-minded people can challenge us to go deeper and explore untested avenues of thought.

So, here it is. Let's pray that this one does not suffer the same fate as the last one!

- Jeff