Steam of Consciousness

hello?

2010-11-30T22:34:00.000-05:00

Hello? Is anyone still reading this blog?

If so, do I have some great news! I've just started using dragon dictation software, and this has opened up a whole new chapter in my blogging life. I can just sit here and talk about anything, and it comes right up on my blog. It's almost like tweeting. Except that I can go for a lot longer than 140 characters. And, it's even faster than typing. I never thought anything would be faster than typing, but this is much faster. In fact, I just wrote can, my boss, a really really long e-mail, just because I was bored. Well, let me tell you about what's new. I'm really happy because I finally caught a mouse that has been harassing us for the last couple of months. I first noticed it when I was sitting on my couch and scurried across the dining room floor. Then I went out and bought a couple of those little sticky trap mechanism things that you go to the hardware store. They're the kind that have a sticky thing on the inside, and then when the mouse goes into it it snaps down on it, supposedly killing it very quickly. However, when the mouse actually got stuck in it, the mechanism didn't release. So I had to manually release the mechanism. Then, to my dismay, the mechanism simply hurt the mouse, and didn't kill it. So then I had to take the entire thing outside, and stomp on it with my booted foot. That killed the mouse really quickly, but I'm still pretty upset that the trip was so pathetic. So today, I went out and bought a couple of different kinds of traps. This was precipitated by the fact that we discovered that a mouse had gnawed its way into Britain's snack cup and had pooped in it. I thought Brin had simply nibbled at the little rubber corners, but it turns out a mouse had done that, sneaked its way in, and cooked! I was livid. So today I bought the new traps, and they baited them with peanut butter. Just about an hour and a half ago I heard the trap spring and the little rustling noise came from it. To my great delight I found a little mouse tail sticking out of the trap. The trap had worked perfectly. On the box of the trap it said that it kills mice, guaranteed. I'm not sure exactly what that means. Does it mean that it kills the mouse instantly, or eventually? In other words, does it just trap the mouse, and the mouse dies of dehydration? I sort of assumed that it meant that killed the mouse instantly, although now I'm starting to doubt that. I simply threw the trap in the outdoor garbage can. Now I'm wondering if that mouse was still alive in her. Hopefully it wasn't, but at least it's really cold outside, so it wouldn't have to suffer long I hope. Anyway, I'm procrastinating, and need to get back to my paper. Tata.

Eve Bromley, ballerina

2009-06-16T12:18:00.002-04:00

Telling Stories

2009-01-31T17:15:00.003-05:00

I'm way behind on writing the sermon I need to deliver tomorrow morning, so this blog entry will be shorter.

I saw "The Wrestler" recently with a good friend. It's fantastic movie. Best movie I've seen this year. (And no, I don't just mean from January 1. If I meant only since January 1 I would have said "Best movie I've seen this month." I mean "Best movie I've seen in the last 12 months" but that sounds stupidly precise. It may have been the best movie in the last 11 months, or last 13 months. Know what I mean? [That's why I call this blog "Steam of Consciousness" after all.] Anyway...)

I'm finding myself crying a little bit more these days, which I think is probably a good thing. (Sometimes an increase in crying isn't necessarily a good thing, because it just means a lot more crap is happening than usual. I know a lot of truly unhappy people who cry a lot, so crying isn't always a good indicator of a healthy emotional life and general well-being. But I think *never* crying isn't too healthy either, which is how I had been operating for quite some time.)

I cried during "The Wrestler." (Although not so loud that my friend next to me could tell. I'm still a guy, after all.)

Why did I cry, you ask? I think for me the movie was so powerful because the images were so close to home. I can't really say too much here, because these blogs are sort of public, right? But suffice it to say that I KNOW people like this guy.

And to see him struggle, and sometimes win, and sometimes (and mostly) lose, and in the end to... [I won't tell you, in case you still haven't seen it]

It's so real to life. Life can really SUCK sometimes. I mean, really, really, really suck. I just did a memorial service this past week for a person who committed suicide. In case you've never done a service for someone who committed suicide, let me just say: it sucks. ("Suck" probably doesn't do it justice, but I probably shouldn't use the other words that come to mind. Feel free to give me a call and ask me what words best describe my feelings about it.)

So, you probably expect me to end this blog post with something uplifting, right (those of you who don't know me very well.) Nope, let me just end it like that. Go see "The Wrestler."

Bookanizer

2009-01-01T23:36:00.004-05:00

Books, books, books.

I love a good book. I enjoy reading. I'm a pastor of a church within a faith very much enthralled with one particular book. Books are great.

There are just too many of them, and so little time.

Maybe you've had this experience: you read a great book; the lights come on inside; it's like you're seeing things as they really are for the first time; understanding has bloomed within you and you'll never be the same. You're in love.

But do you read it again? Probably not. The book goes back on the shelf, or back to the library, and you move on. You find a new, great book. Oprah recommended it. Or the Amazon.com computer says you'll love it. It has a sleek, glossy dust jacket and that new book smell. Ooh-la-la.

And so you pick up a copy, and you read it, and it is also very good. You savor it. And it goes back on the shelf. And so forth.

And pretty soon you have large bookshelves full of books. Most you've read. (Some you ordered because they sounded like books you really should read, but you haven't gotten around to it.)

Sometimes you feel like you've got to get through the book more quickly, so you just scan... gathering the general gist of things. Maybe you only read a few chapters that interest you. (Maybe you buy the Cliff's Notes!)

You tell your friends about your favorite books. And maybe they order a copy. And probably they tell you about the last great book they read, and maybe you order a copy. (And if you're a real wanker you even recommend books that you haven't even read yourself yet.)

And so you have hundreds of books. And you can remember little bits from this one and that one. You have a vague recollection of what that one up on top was about, the one with the picture of the mountains on the cover and the embossed title. But goshdarn, you can't even remember if you've read that one there in the middle, lying on its side. Did you buy that one new, or pick it up used? (Or did you borrow it from someone a year ago and just forget to return it?)

You know what I am? I'm a BOOKANIZER.

A WOMANIZER is "a man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them."

A BOOKANIZER is "a person who likes many books and has short mental relationships with them."

Seriously. It's a problem. And maybe you have this problem too. You have an insatiable appetite to consume the next book on your reading list. Once that's done you toss it aside and start on the next one. Your path is scattered with books which have been tossed aside now that they're no longer "needed."

The promiscuity must stop! Now, I'm not advocating for the reading of just ONE book in your lifetime. But I want (and I believe you also want) to have meaningful mental relationships with your books. You want to remember their names and spend some time thinking about them after the reading act. You want to do more than just rip off a few interesting ideas or stories that you can amaze your friends with (or bolster your sermon, if you're a pastor like me).

At the end of your life would you rather have a dozen books that are close to your heart, that you've memorized sections from, that you've cherished and re-read over the years, and understand deeply.... or an enormous bookcase of books which elicit only the faintest memory?

God Story Sunday

2008-05-23T11:23:00.000-04:00

Ruth Sermon

2008-05-01T09:01:00.000-04:00

Sermon: Ruth, the Miniseries, part 2
April 25, 2008
By Don Bromley

Summarizing chapter 1; Naomi and her husband Elimelech move from Bethlehem in Judah (southern Israel) to Moab, a neighboring country, with their two sons. Their two sons marry Ruth and Orpah.

All three women are widowed in a short period of time while living in the land of Moab. Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem in Judah, her ancestral home. Ruth, in loving-kindness and loyalty to her mother-in-law, decides to go with Naomi back to Bethlehem.

At this point Naomi is truly low. She’s absorbed with bitter affliction and loneliness of her life.

Here’s how we end chapter 1, Naomi speaking as they return to Judah:

"Don't call me Naomi, " she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me." (1:20-21)

Glenn Bugala and Gretchen Wolfe are going to perform a dramatic reading for us, illustrating the events of chapter 2, which I will be speaking on.

[Glenn dramatic reading]

ACT 2, SCENE 1

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.
And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor."
Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter." So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

So Ruth goes out to glean, to pick up the leftover grain, after the harvesters have gone over. That was the rule, that the leftovers were for the poor and the foreigners.

From the book of Leviticus:

"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.” (Lev 19:9-10)

This regulation on gleaning comes from the idea that the Earth was the LORD’s, so his people were required to share some his provision with the poor, as acknowledgement that God had mercifully provided for them.

Now…

“as it turned out”; We might be tempted to think of this as “chance” or as an “accident.” In fact, the author writes this with a wink and a nod, because as we read the story we know it has nothing to do with chance or accidents.

The idea of “dumb luck,” or “blind chance” was a foreign one to the Old Testament mind. What made the Hebrew religion unique in all the world was its radical idea that God was a God enmeshed in history—intimately involved in the course of events. The great happenings of history and human lives, both the good and the bad, were orchestrated by God.

The point of the author here is that Ruth didn’t set out to find Boaz, she didn’t even know who he was. But it wasn’t just dumb luck that she happened upon his fields.

We often look at all the circumstances in our lives as a result of either pure random chance or as the logical result of the decisions we’ve made along the way.

We can err to either side. Either, “Things are the way they are because that’s how the dice were rolled, and there’s no real significance to it.”

Or “Things are the way they are because I caused it to happen that way—I made the decisions that brought about these results.”

Neither way of looking at the is completely right or completely wrong—there are things that appear to be just random, and there are things that happen because we set things in motion.

But we just don’t have enough information 99% of the time. How many things, in the history of science, that were once thought to be completely random have been found to obey predictable patterns, if we have the information (earthquakes, eclipses). But likewise, the farther we drill down, as we get to the quantum level, the more random it all seems. We just can’t predict at all.

In our lives, we look at things up close and its just a random series of events, people, places. Like this jumble of images.; we just don’t see the connections. But when you step back you see that it’s not random. There’s a pattern, a story, a design. We see how it all fits together. We see the picture.

I remember the year I first moved to Michigan. Deeply sad and lonely. Just lost my mother to cancer. Didn’t know a soul out here. First night sleeping on a towel by myself in apartment. Felt like Naomi. Bitter affliction of life. No home; an alien in a strange land. Life was empty.

Then connecting with the church. Finding direction in life, receiving prophetic word. Becoming a pastor. Marrying Julie. Having Eve. Another one due in November. Life is so full.

It wasn’t until a few years into my marriage that I was able to step back and see how remarkable my journey has been, and how things that once seemed like pure luck fit together to form a coherent story.

You see, my grandparents on my mother’s side were born in Kalamazoo. All my mom’s siblings were born in the Kalamazoo area. Then my mother’s parents moved to northern California. My mom, the youngest, was born in the Nevada City, California area (only one of seven born in CA). My parents met in college in San Francisco, where I was born. Then they went on to become missionaries, first in San Jose, Costa Rica (where my sister was born), and then to Santiago, Chile (where my brother was born). Then they returned to California, divorced, and my brother, sister, mom and I ended up living back in the Nevada City area, with my step-dad (Rough & Ready). Then they divorced and I we ended up in Sacramento. Then I went to school at Berkeley, near San Francisco, where my parents met. My mom died during my last year of school there.

Then I applied to graduate schools in mechanical engineering and chose U of M from among several schools, only because they offered me the best scholarship first. I received another great offer from UCSB, but I had already accepted at U of M. That’s how I ended up in Michigan, a state I had never even visited. Blind chance?

It wasn’t until after meeting my wife Julie that I began to see how remarkable the journey was. You see, Julie is from Kalamazoo, where my mom’s family came from. I have a great aunt and uncle who continue to live there. Julie’s parents live there. It doesn’t end there. Get this. I learned several years ago that one of my mom’s older brothers, who had died as a child, is buried in a graveyard 1.3 miles from where Julie’s parents live. A blood relative buried less than a mile and a half away from my wife’s family home (now my family), over two thousand miles from where my mother and I were born.

Fifty years later; after tens of thousands of miles of travels; arriving here in Michigan, seemingly by total chance, completely alone and hurting. I find that I’m home in a real sense. I’m no longer an alien wandering in a foreign country.

We’re not always aware of the story in our lives, are we? We don’t always see the patterns, the history, the trajectory… just little hints along the way.

God sometimes acts so very subtly.

That’s why sometimes we need other people to help us step back and see the big picture. People who know the ways of God, who speak into our lives with faith and say, “Wow, that’s an amazing story you have. I can see the pattern. God is in this.”

Sometimes we’re so close to the details, so up close, so beleaguered and weary; that we need help to see. That’s the role of friends, small groups. Ever had someone get to know you and point what they see as the story of your life?

ACT 2, SCENE 2

Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The LORD be with you!"
"The LORD bless you!" they answered.
Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, "Who does that young woman belong to?"
The overseer replied, "She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter."
So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the harvesters are working, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."
At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?"
Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
"May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord," she said. "You have reassured me and have spoken kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants."
At mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar."
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, "Let her gather among the sheaves and don't reprimand her. Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don't rebuke her."
So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening.

Boaz. What a guy. Boaz goes above and beyond what is expected of him. The law of Israel simply says that he must leave the gleanings in the field for the poor. But Boaz (name means “strong”) sees this foreign woman and shows her amazing loving-kindness.

He doesn’t simply allow her to glean, but he allows her to gather among the sheaves with everyone else. In other words, not just what’s left behind, but the first pick. He even tells his men to leave for her some of what they’ve already gathered. Makes sure that everyone keeps an eye out for her, that nobody harms her.

He provides water for her. He invites her to lunch, gives her bread and grain. In fact, so much that she can’t even eat it all, but has much to take home to Naomi.

Ruth is stunned and puzzled by his kindness. This guy is doing so much more than what is required or expected.

Why was Boaz being so kind? Because he had heard of Ruth’s own loving-kindness; he knows the ways of God, and he sees Ruth’s story. Verse 11:

Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before."

This entire book is one of people who have done more than what was required of them. Ruth and Orpah, the two daughters in law. Orpah makes the decision to return to her people, a perfectly reasonable decision. There is no condemnation for her. But Ruth chooses to do what is not required, what isn’t expected, even of a good person. She shows sacrificial loving-kindness in staying with her mother in law, and Boaz recognizes this.

This is the mark of Yahweh’s people. This is the mark of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus in Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount:

Yes, you have the right to fight back and resist. You have a right to punish the one who has wronged you, to hit back. Lev 24:19-20

But the way of the Kingdom is radical loving-kindness. Don’t fight fire with fire. “Do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matt 5:38-42:

Yes, you have the right to hate your enemies. It’s human, it’s natural. Even good people hate their enemies. BUT this is the way of the kingdom. Radical loving-kindness. Love your enemies. Matt 5:43-45:

You see, the people of God, people of the Kingdom, are to be marked by something exceptional. By a kind of loving-kindness that goes above and beyond what is expected of even a good person. Matthew 5:46-48. It’s perfect love.

Back to our story. Boaz says to Ruth, I’ve heard all you’ve done:

“May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."

A beautiful image of God. Like a mother hen who covers her chicks with her wings to protect them.

It’s an image echoed throughout the Psalms (Psalm 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 91:4)

[If you have a little one, you know their vulnerability. Eve scared of a dog, clings to my leg. I scoop her up, enfold her in my arms.]

Boaz sees this woman for what she is, vulnerable. A poor, foreign widow. And his heart goes out for her. Why this sensitivity?

It’s an interesting fact not told to us in this story, but one that would have been familiar to the original readers… that Boaz’s mother is Rahab, who we know as the prostitute. Maybe you know the story of Jericho, and the foreign woman Rahab who helped the invading Israelites (Joshua 2:1)? Only she and her household were spared.

That same Rahab is Boaz’s mother (Matthew 1:5).

So maybe when Boaz sees this poor foreign woman, on the bottom rung of society, socio-economically at the very bottom… he thinks of his mother… who was likewise a foreigner among the Israelites, poor and of no account.

ACT 2, SCENE 3

Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!"
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," she said.
"The LORD bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man is our close relative; he is one of our family guardians."
Then Ruth the Moabite said, "He even said to me, 'Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.' "
Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else's field you might be harmed."
So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

In the OT, the “family guardian” or “kinsman redeemer” was a relative who could redeem people and property. If someone sold themselves into slavery/servitude to pay off a debt, the redeemer was the family member who could purchase their freedom. If a widow was in need, the redeemer would care for them. If someone was murdered, the redeemer would avenge the crime. Regarding property, if someone was going to lose their land because of poverty, the redeemer was the family member who could save the land by paying off the debt.

When Naomi hears about Boaz, a light goes on; she instantly comes alive. Naomi, who was dead inside, lives again.

"The LORD bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead."

Who is Naomi talking about, God or Boaz? Both? Probably. We just don’t know.

Naomi has come to life; a rebirth of hope.

If you’ve ever been in a place of complete hopelessness, of utter discouragement… and then had a breath of hope breathed into your life, you know what this is like.

[example; feeling hopeless about marriage. Meeting with another couple who told us that this wasn’t unusual, that we had things to work on but that we could/would come through it. Who would be there to help us along that way, keep us accountable, walk us through it. All of a sudden there’s hope.]

Boaz, the kindsman-redeemer, the family guardian, who has shown hesed, radical loving-kindness, to Ruth… he has breathed life and hope into Naomi.

The hero of this chapter foreshadows the Hero of the Bible, Jesus. Spurgeon says Jesus is “our glorious Boaz” who came to look upon us with love and care, even though he had no obligation to do so. Jesus is our hesed, extended to us as a gift from God. The gift of true, eternal life. Much like the hesed given to sustain Ruth. Like Boaz, Jesus is our great redeemer, paying our debts, redeeming us and the earth.

But the narrator leaves us hanging… the closing verses of this chapter leave us with Ruth working alongside the harvesters, and alone with her mother. Still empty.

We’ll pick up in chapter 3 next week.

Eve Dancing at Church on Sunday, October 7, 2007

2007-10-09T09:37:00.000-04:00

Eve's Second Birthday

2007-08-25T20:56:00.000-04:00

A short video from Eve's 2nd birthday party, in Jacksonville Beach, FL, on August 17, 2007.

Eve's 2nd Birthday

Sermon: Conspiracy of Kindness #3: Good News for the Poor

2007-08-08T14:53:00.000-04:00

Conspiracy of Kindness: Good News for the Poor
August 3-4, 2007
by Don Bromley

[Day of Kindness update]

This weekend I’m giving the third and final sermon in our Conspiracy of Kindness series. We’ve been examining how kindness and compassion can demonstrate the love of God more persuasively than words can.

I’d like to show a little video clip that to me really demonstrates the Kingdom of God invading the Earth through an awesome act of kindness and compassion.

Jason McElwain video clip – about 5 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzyhnkT_jY

I love that clip. I love the way Jason’s teammates and the crowd are so wildly enthusiastic for this kid to make a basket and have his chance to shine. So wonderful.

I think that what we’re watching in this clip is evidence of the incalculable worth of a single life. It’s an idea that sometimes gets lost in our world.

This is a little group of people, and they give this one guy, who’s likely to be passed over or overlooked, a chance to belong and a chance to contribute and a moment to shine.

I think this clip moves us because it’s a little picture of the way that God intended for human beings to relate to one another. I think it moves us, because in God’s Kingdom, nobody is left out. In God’s Kingdom, nobody is overlooked. In God’s Kingdom, nobody gets passed over. In God’s Kingdom, everybody matters. God wants to point to everybody and say: I want you and you and you and you to play a role in my Universe for good and great things.

Now, in this kingdom, in this world, not so much. So, today as I talk about kindness and compassion—about God’s love for justice and mercy to prevail in human relationships—I’m going to talk about one of the greatest pictures of the Kingdom of God in the Bible. It’s so rich. It’s the Old Testament picture of what was called the “Year of Jubilee.” It’s kindness and compassion done on a huge scale.

As you know, in the Old Testament, the number seven was considered to be a kind of divine number. Every seventh day was to be sacred to God–a Sabbath Day. Every seventh year was to be a “Sabbath Year” —a sabbatical year—in which the land was to rest. It was an expression of God’s concern for his creation and of God’s concern for the poor.

Then, after seven times seven years came the really big deal—a particular year. In Leviticus, God says:

“Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty–nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.

(There’s a bell in Philadelphia—the Liberty Bell—that’s to remind us of freedom and liberty, and it has the inscription of this verse on it.)

Jubilee was a very rare word. It was the Hebrew word for a ram’s horn. The Jews were instructed to fashion a trumpet out of the horn of a wild ram, and this was to be so sacred that it was to be played only once every fifty years. Then there would be Jubilee. During Jubilee, three things would happen.

First, all debts were canceled. Anyone who had been living under bondage of debt would be freed. This expressed God’s heart for the poor. Usually, in the kingdom of this earth, we give preferential treatment to people we think we can get money from. We want to get them “in debt” to us.

I received a letter this week. I get them periodically, and so do you. I told you about one of them a couple of years ago. This is a new one:

Dear Mr. Bromley,

The road to financial success has many milestones marking how far you’ve come. You have just reached one milestone.

You are pre-approved for our card. (I’m not just approved. I’m pre-approved! I haven’t even done anything yet, and they already approve of me. My own mother doesn’t pre-approve of me, but they do.) You should know pre-approval status is not easily achieved, but with your history, our decision was really very simple. We want you as a card member. (They want me. They don’t want you. They want me.)

Now, what are the odds that if they get me, and I get into debt with them big time, they would write me another letter and say “Jubilee” on the outside of the envelope? Or go on to say:

We love you. We care for you so much that we’re canceling your debt. We want you to know this is the year of Jubilee for you.

What are the odds that that will happen? I’ll wait a long time for one of those letters, won’t I?

In this world, generally the way that it works is preferential treatment goes to people we all think already have money and have power.

In the Jubilee Year, God says there will be a fresh start for those who are poor—for those who are likely to be sitting on the sidelines. In case anybody missed the intent, or might try to circumvent it, or think it was just a matter of mechanics, God goes on:

If anyone is poor among your people in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your people and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. (Deut 15:7-10)

In the Jubilee Year, debt is forgiven.

The second thing that happens in the Jubilee Year is all prisoners are released. Now, in our day, this doesn’t sound like good news, because we think of people who are in prison for really bad things, and we’re not sure we would want them all to be released. In the Old Testament days, about the only thing they locked you up for was debt. For almost anything else, they would stone you. (If you talked back to your mom and dad, they’d get the stones out.) Jubilee Year meant the prisoners were going to go free.

Third, in the Jubilee Year, all the land was supposed to go back to its original owner. Now in the ancient day, far more than in our day when economics are much more complex, wealth was tied to land. If you were in a family where your dad or your grandfather had become sick, or done something wrong, or made a mistake, or been the victim of injustice and your family lost its ability to own land, that was it. You were out of luck. Jubilee meant hope for the poor.

You might wonder, what was the rationale for all of this? This is what God says:

The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. (Leviticus 25:23)

We don’t like to think of ourselves as “foreigners and strangers.” We like to think of ourselves as owners. We’ve worked hard. But God has this pesky idea that just because he thought of the Earth and made it and sustains it and gave his Son to redeem it, it all belongs to him.

Injustice and greed and apathy and turning a blind eye to the poor kind of tick him off. It kind of makes him mad.

The Torah declared that there should be a Jubilee Year. The Torah was good news for the poor.

Where else in the ancient world do you find an idea like this Jubilee Year? Nowhere else. It’s unprecedented. Only Torah ...only in Israel. Before the Israelites go into the Promised Land, God is laying out the plan, and he says something remarkable:

However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. (Deut 15:4-5)

Now remember, they were coming out of Egypt as impoverished, oppressed slaves. They knew what it was to be poor and enslaved. We forget the full dimensions of that. And God says:

However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. (Deut 15:4-5)

Imagine a community where there are no needy people. This is good news for the poor.

There is only one problem with the Jubilee Year. They never actually observed it. The best we can tell, it was never actually observed. For some reason, when people get a hold of stuff, they just get kind of grabby. It doesn’t make us happy being grabby. There isn’t any jubilation in it. It just kind of scares us to think of letting go. We forget that we are “foreigners and strangers,” and that it all belongs to God, and that we just manage it for a little while.

So, they never actually observed Jubilee. But when the Prophets would speak to the people, they would say: “You know, God hasn’t given up on this Jubilee idea yet. It’s a good idea. It’s God’s idea. We can’t pull it off ourselves, but it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen when Messiah comes. When Messiah comes, he will proclaim the Jubilee, and he will make it stick.”

For instance, the Prophet Isaiah wrote that the Messiah would say:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me (That’s Messianic language. The Messiah is simply “The Anointed One.”) to proclaim good news to the poor…to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor (Isa 61:1-2a)

That’s Jubilee! When Messiah comes, then Jubilee is coming!

And they waited. Year after year, decade after decade, century after century ...they waited.

Finally, this rabbi named Jesus comes. He’s going to give his very first sermon. He goes back to his hometown and enters the synagogue. The people are all gathered; they’ve known him since he was a little kid. He takes the scroll, turns to these words in Isaiah 61, and then he reads them to the people:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor ... to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19)

Then he rolls up the scrolls. The Scripture says that all eyes are fixed on him. Then he sets them aside. He sits down, because that’s what rabbis did. He says:

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. (Luke 4:21)

What he’s saying is: Jubilee is finally here, and I’m it. It’s arrived on this planet, first of all in me ... in my body. And it’s come in some unexpected ways. Not only is it here for Israel. He makes it really clear that it’s also here for their enemies, the Gentiles.

Jubilee has come. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

Jesus is good news for the poor. Jesus talks a lot about the poor. In one story, Jesus says that if you want to look for him, then you have to get around the least of these ... the poor.

Jesus says that when you embrace the poor—when you give clothes to someone who is destitute, when you go to prison and visit somebody who is alone, when you give food to someone who is hungry and they don’t have anything to eat, or something to drink to somebody who is thirsty and their village doesn’t even have water—when you do these things, Jesus says:

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. (Matthew 25: 40)

He talks about this, and then he forms a little community. There has never been a community like this. Some of them are fishermen; some of them are slaves; some of them are tax collectors; some of them have some wealth, some resources; some of them have nothing at all. He teaches them, and he pours his life into them. He goes to the Cross, and he dies for them. Then he’s resurrected and the Holy Spirit is poured out on them.

Then look at what it says in the Book of Acts about this community. There’s never been a community like this:

There were no needy persons among them. (Remember the promise God made back in Deuteronomy?) For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. (Acts 4:34-35)

What’s that sound like? It sounds kind of like Jubilee, except he’s gotten the idea into people’s hearts. Jesus said that it was coming. And it came. And it was good news for the poor, just as he said it would be. There’s never been a community like this.

Paul gives instructions to Christ’s followers in Corinth about the needy people in Jerusalem, a long way away from them ... people they had never seen. Paul says:

On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income (1 Cor 16:2)

Ordinary people of no great wealth were to systematically gather what they could and send it to people they didn’t know, were not related to ... not even of the same ethnicity ... who Paul calls “brothers and sisters.”

A Yale scholar by the name of Wayne Meeks as he writes about this says that in the ancient world this had never been done—ordinary people systematically saving to give to those they were not related to . . . who were not even of the same ethnic group. Jesus was good news for the poor.

This so overwhelmed the ancient world that an Emperor in the 300’s named Julian the Apostate, who was not a Christian (hence the name) and who was concerned that Christianity was spreading so rapidly felt the need to try to stop it. He wrote to a priest of Roman paganism and said it would be necessary for those who followed Roman religions to create “hostels for immigrants and foundations for the poor,” because “the Christians have by such means won their present dominance.”

Yes, we’re talking about money and resources. I know, talking about money in church—yuck. I actually ran across a church website where they proclaimed “At our church we don’t talk about money.” I get where they’re coming from—I don’t like it when other people talk about me and my money.

But Jesus talked about money all the time. Jesus, the one whom we follow, says:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. (Matt 19:24)

There’s just something about money. I know that tug, and I know that you know it too. There’s just something about it that wants to be God. Jesus said that it takes a miracle of God to be free of its pull.

The One we follow said:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:19-21)

The question about money is: Where do you want your heart to be?

Let’s say that you’re going on vacation. Wherever you end up at, you decide to stay at a Motel 6. You’re going to stay at a Motel 6, and the rule is that anything you get for your room at the Motel 6, you can’t take with you when you leave. It has to stay at the Motel 6. You can’t take anything with you. How likely would you be to take all your money and spend it decorating your motel room? With Van Gogh’s, or velvet paintings of Elvis, or whatever you’d like to have up on the walls? How likely is it you would spend your money decorating your room at the Motel 6?

You’re not going to do that. Why not? Because it’s not home. You’re only going to be there a little while, and then it will stay there, but you’ll be going home. You want your stuff to be available at home.

This ain’t home. This is Motel 6. You’re just here a little while. Jesus says:

For crying out loud! Enjoy it. Enjoy the beauty of it. If you have a home and you love it, that’s a good thing. But don’t stay up nights thinking about better and better and better and bigger and nicer and newer and more expensive ways to fix up Motel 6!!

The one we follow says: “For crying out loud, store up your treasure in what is eternal! And what lasts is God and people.”

Some of you are really good with money. That’s great! Make it! Make lots of it! Stay up nights thinking about ways to release it, so that the Gospel of Jesus becomes once again Good News for the poor. Think about ways of liberating it and spreading it around so it doesn’t create dependency, so it doesn’t dis-empower people, so it creates strength and points to people who are sitting on the bench right now and says: “OK. You and you and you and you, get in the game.”

God will help us with this. God will change our hearts.

----

You know, sometimes when we look at the Kingdom of God and see the beauty of what it is that God intended, and then they look at how things are going down on this earth, we get mad. I love the old King James translation of the Jubilee:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me …To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18a, 19)

Now, if the Jubilee year is the acceptable year of the Lord, then what is every other year? Unacceptable. Just the way that things are running on this earth: materialism, greed, envy, selfishness. Jubilee people look at this gap between the Kingdom of God where God’s will is done, and then how things are on earth where his will is not done. They get mad, not in a self-righteous or judgmental way, but in a way that makes them just want to get up out of their chairs and do something about things! It makes them want to just say: “This is not acceptable!”

The Gospel of Jesus is not the Minimal Entrance Requirements for Getting Into Heaven After You Die. The Gospel is that through Jesus—no other way—through his life, through his teaching, through his death, through his resurrection, through his Spirit, the Kingdom of God is coming to this world.

And God will make you into the kind of person who will change the world into the kind of place he intended it to be when he created it.

People who pray:

Your Kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

In other words, we can become agents of Jubilee. One of the ways that you can know where God is calling you is that, not in a self-righteous way, you will get all fired up inside. You need to pay attention to that. Oftentimes, God is speaking to you through that.

First, Jubilee people get free from bondage to money. They make a decision somewhere along the line: “You know, I’m not going to invest most of my treasure fixing up Motel 6.”

Second, Jubilee people get mad when they see the gap between God’s Kingdom and the way things are. An anger that moves to action.

And third, Jubilee people have joy, because they have Jesus. This is very, very important. You can’t have Jubilee without Jesus. Without Jesus, the church turns into a social services agency. Social service agencies are great, we need them—but they’re no substitute for a Spirit-infused church. Here’s why…

You may have noticed from the text that we read together at the beginning of this message. Jubilee was proclaimed on a particular day once every fifty years. Jubilee was proclaimed on the Day of Atonement. It was proclaimed when the forgiveness of sins was proclaimed. When people recognized their need for a sacrifice to be right with a just and holy God. If God doesn’t come to clean up the mess inside me, he cannot use me to clean up the mess in the world all around me.

Jesus is Jubilee. Jesus is the Day of Atonement. If you’ve never become his follower ... if you’ve never invited him to become the forgiver and leader of your life, you can do that today. This can be the Day of Atonement and the Day of Jubilee for you.

How do you do that?

Jesus of Nazareth, I acknowledge before you my thirst for what you have to give. I surrender myself--whole and entire, what was, and is, and is to come--to you. Plunge the wrongs I have done and the wrongs done to me in your fathomless mercy. Receive me as I am today, and make of me what I am meant to be, and let me walk in the path of your new creation.

Without Jesus, there can be no Jubilee. Only Jesus can clean up a human heart. He can do that for you, and he can do that for you today. You can’t have Jubilee without Jesus. You can’t have Jesus without Jubilee. Without Jubilee, the church just turns into one more religious group trying to win an argument, and the world has enough of those. But our Jesus came, and he said:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

This is Jubilee time. We are a Jubilee community. You are called to live a Jubilee life.

[Ministry Invitation. Communion. Worship]

Conspiracy of Kindness #2: Developing a Heart of Kindness and Compassion

2007-08-08T14:46:00.000-04:00

Conspiracy of Kindness #2: Developing a Heart of Kindness and Compassion
July 29, 2007
by Don Bromley

This weekend I’m giving the second of three sermons in our “Conspiracy of Kindness” series.

I’m picking up this week where Donnell left off. Last week he talked about how kindness can break through our defensive barriers and demonstrate that God is loving, caring, and compassionate. Sowing acts of kindness is our way of joining the Father in what he is already doing.

This weekend I’m going discuss how it is that we can develop a heart of kindness and compassion—and how it involves going out into our world.

But first, I want to show a 12-minute video clip called nooma, put together by Rob Bell of Mars Hill Church. You might know Rob Bell as the author of Velvet Elvis.

In his sermon last week, Donnell shared some evangelism strategies that we find don’t work terribly well in our context. It made me think of this video, and I think it’s a good jumping-off point for my sermon.

[video nooma 009—Bullhorn 00:10 to 12:27 www.nooma.com]

I love the question that Rob Bell asks. What happens when the “good news” doesn’t come across that way? When it doesn’t appear very loving?

The Bible’s greatest command: Love God and love those around you. The defining mark of a Christian is love.

Jesus is saying that the ultimate mark of a transformed life is a compassionate heart. The writer named John, on of Jesus’ followers, writing to the early church says: “If you say that you love God, and you don’t love the people around you, you’re a liar.”

That’s a hard statement to hear! It doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect in order to claim that we love God—but it really illustrates a key point of the Bible: we love God insofar as we are loving other people.

The Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor’s mission statement is—“To humbly bear the transforming presence of Jesus into the heart of Ann Arbor through Jesus brand spirituality, community and works of compassion; to steadily reproduce reproducing churches in southeastern Michigan and beyond.”

From the moment we launched this church in Ann Arbor, back in 2000, we resolved that works of kindness and compassion would be hallmarks of who we are and what we are about.

That’s why we have what we compassion ministries, which we highlighted last weekend: single moms ministry, homeless ministry, Sunday meal, 313 ministry.

If we don’t make kindness and compassion—loving those around us—an integral part of what this church is about; then our gathering together to worship—expressing our love to God—lacks genuineness.

So how do we as individuals develop a more compassionate heart? I want to give you one thought. This comes from a man named Jim Wallis who is one of the great Christian leaders of our day.

He’s written a book recently called "Faith Works." And he gives a kind of starting point for people who want to build compassionate hearts. So I want to tell you the phrase that he offers and then kind of unpack it. "The place to start is here: You’ve got to get out of the house more often." Here’s the idea: We all tend to live in a little slice of the world where we feel comfortable.

I go to school. I shop. I work. I go to church. I play with people who are like me. Our society just divides people up that way. It puts all kinds of really subtle barriers in between different kinds of people. And as long as I don’t get out of the house, people who live in other conditions, people who are different from me–different language, different accent, different skin color, different economic conditions–they’re just not on the radar screen. They’re just not in my mind and heart.

[personal example]

Most people who are deeply committed to the ministry of compassion, who are building bigger hearts and trying to extend themselves as Jesus did, most people in that condition will trace their own transformation to some time when they went to a third world country or had a cross-cultural experience, or went to a neighborhood in the city and had some real experience with some real people who had real names and real faces.

Usually what transforms people when it comes to this business of developing compassionate hearts, is not a great talk, not a good book, not a powerful documentary or a really moving film. It’s a real life experience that grips your heart and seizes your vision and immerses you into the life of a real person. You’ve got to get out of the house.

If you'll do that, if you’ll get outside your normal world, if you know to serve and pray for a real person with a real name, your heart will be touched. God will work in you in that way, and you will want to extend your hand. You will begin to think about how you might do that, not because somebody is trying to make you or because you feel like you ought to. It will come from inside you.

Something happens when you get out of the house. Something happens in the world and something happens in you. In the book by Jim Wallis that I mentioned, he tells about a lawyer named Dale who was into big deals. He had an income in the high six-figures. He helped negotiate the contract for Dolphin Stadium in Miami.

But he began to get out of the house one day, and it changed his life. He started working at the Good News Soup Kitchen in Tallahassee, and this is what he writes.

[reading from book]

"I showed up every day in my three-piece suit to help from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. They assigned me door duty. My job was to make sure street people lining up to eat waited in an orderly fashion. Every day I stood at the door for an hour chatting with the street people waiting to eat.

"Before I came to Good News, street people was a meaningless term. It defined a group without defining anybody in particular from the comfort of my car, my suburban home, my downtown law office. Street people were just those people out there somewhere. Then one day an elderly woman named Helen came running to the Good News door. A man was chasing her and threatening to kill her if she didn’t give him back his dollar.

"’Tell him he can’t hit me because it’s church property,’ she pleaded. In true lawyerly fashion, I explained that Good News is not actually a church, but he still couldn’t hit her. After 20 minutes of failed mediation, I bought peace by giving them each a dollar. That evening I happened to be standing on the corner of Park and Monroe, and in the red twilight I spied a lonely silhouette struggling in my direction from Tennessee Street.

"’A poor street person,’ I thought, as the figure inched closer. I was about to turn back to my own concerns when I detected something familiar in that shadowy figure–the red scarf, the clear plastic bag with white border, the mismatched shoes. ‘My God,’ I said in my thoughts, ‘that’s Helen.’ My eyes froze on her as she limped by and turned up Park. No doubt she’d crawl under a bush to spend the night.

My mind had always dismissed the sight of a street person in seconds. I could not expel the picture of Helen. That night as I lay in my $1,500 deluxe temperature controlled waterbed, I couldn’t sleep. A voice kept asking, ‘Where is Helen sleeping tonight?’ No street person had ever interfered with my sleep. But the shadowy figure with the red scarf and the plastic bag and the mismatched shoes had followed me home. I made a fatal mistake. I learned her name."

---------

That’s what happens when you get involved. You learn somebody’s name. And when you learn somebody’s name, you’re never quite the same. Why is it that one name, one face can be so powerful? I’ll tell you why. Because that’s the face of somebody made in the image of God.

Mother Theresa used to send members of her community to a home for the dying. She wrote of a young woman from a well-to-do family who spent three hours caring for a dying man brought in from the streets who was covered with maggots. And Mother Theresa said to this young woman, "You be very careful. You be very loving as you touch him for there is Jesus in the distressing disguise."

That’s why when you get out of the house and learn a name and see a face something changes in you–for there is Jesus in the distressing disguise. Now that’s why we are utterly committed to building a community of women and men who extend themselves in works of compassion. This is just core to the message of Jesus.

So I’m here to give you just one challenge–just one. Get out of the house. I don’t know what your next step is—there are any number of ways. Two weeks ago we listened to stories from our various compassion ministries. Maybe it will be getting plugged into those.

Or maybe it will begin by participating in our Day of Kindness next Saturday, August 4. [describe Day of Kindness] That’s a low-risk, high-grace way to get out of the house and demonstrate compassion and kindness on an individual basis. It’s a simple way that we as a church can go beyond these walls and sprinkle some grace in the life of someone who might never be interested in visiting a church.

For everyone here who’s a parent, I want to make a very strong plea. Get your kids involved with you. They need it. We need to form our kid’s hearts by taking them to places where hearts will say things like, "I care. I weep. I’ve got to give. I’ve got to serve. I’ve got to make my life about something bigger than just my own comfort and success."

I promise you at the end of your life, you will not regret one act of kindness or compassion. You will not regret one moment that you spent, one dollar that you gave, one tear that you shed. You won’t regret any of it because this is Jesus’ way of life. And every one of us who knows and follows him has been on the receiving end of his compassion.

Jesus looked around at this world and saw all the needs and the hunger and the aloneness and the sin and the guilt and the poverty. And Jesus lived at the right hand of God in unspeakable glory and splendor. But Jesus said to himself, "I’ve got to get out of the house." And he crossed every barrier and boundary to extend himself in love to every human being who would receive him.

He came to the city, and he came to the suburb. He came to the hood, and he came to the barrio, and he came to the mall. He came to needy people like me and you. Jesus comes to us, and then he says, "Now why don’t you do what I do? Why don’t you devote your life to developing and building a kind and compassionate heart?

[ministry invitation]

[worship & communion]

water

2007-07-25T21:13:00.000-04:00

she's getting over her short-lived fear of water... just in time for the trip to florida!

Eve on the porch

2007-07-25T21:12:00.000-04:00

I love Eve's expression here... sitting on our front porch.

Sermon: The Art of Being Yourself #5: Loving Yourself and Living for Others

2007-07-07T18:02:00.000-04:00

The Art of Being Yourself #5: Loving Yourself and Living for Others
by Don Bromley
July 7-8, 2007

This weekend, I’m doing the fifth and final sermon in our series entitled “The Art of Being Yourself.” The subject of my sermon is “Loving Yourself and Living for Others”

The text I’m looking at is in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10:

Jesus is talking with his friends, his students, and two of them have been saying they want to sit on his right and on his left when he becomes King, because they want to be in great glory with him.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
“We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45)

“We want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

James and John didn’t have problems being assertive, or asking for what they want!

One of the interesting things you’ll notice when reading the Bible is that there aren’t many texts that deal with the topic of low self-esteem. You don’t see a lot of the characters in the Bible struggling with it, and there isn’t much that addresses the issue. It’s hard to know exactly why. Maybe people did, but just didn’t write about it. Nevertheless, it seems that the average person in the ancient world wasn’t quite as introspective as we are.

Anyone who’s taken Psychology 101 is probably familiar with Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom you have physiological needs, such as hunger and thirst. If these needs aren’t met, every bit of your energy and resources are spent obtaining them. These needs must be met before you move up the pyramid to the next level of needs, which are safety needs, like security and protection. Next on the pyramid are social needs, such as a sense of belonging and love. Then esteem needs: self-esteem, recognition, status. Finally self-actualization.

So it’s not until you’re in a place where most of your basic needs are met that your mind can wander to issues of self-esteem and self actualization. One theory is that people in the ancient world were much more preoccupied with the lower, more basic needs than we are—just trying to stay alive—and so ideas of self-esteem and self actualization weren’t at the forefront of their thought.

Anyway… in the Bible, the idea that people have a fairly positive view of themselves is pretty much a given. It’s assumed that everyone loves themselves, in the most basic sense—everyone is taking care of themselves, because if you don’t, you won’t last long.

This idea of self-love is fundamental to the Old Testament’s law code:

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” (Lev. 19:18)

Jesus assumes self-love when reaffirms the greatest of the Old Testament laws:

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:37-40)

Paul, in speaking to husbands, assumes that they love themselves first:

“…Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Eph 5:28)

Jesus doesn’t correct this attitude and tell us that we really shouldn’t love ourselves. Instead, he says that we should love others as we love ourselves. If we don’t love and take care of ourselves, how can we even begin to love others?

Sometimes Christians get the false impression that following Jesus means some sort of loss of self, or de-selfing as Ken talked about a few weeks ago. As if we stop existing and somehow are absorbed into some kind of cosmic consciousness. This is the negative sense of “living for others.”

People sometimes say a prayer like this one, "Lord, make me nothing." Did you ever hear that prayer? It's not a good prayer, because what if God answers it. Think about it… What if he should say, "Okay"?

It is a very good thing that you exist. You can’t reject yourself and love God.

Self love is a horse that you can fall off either side of. On the one hand a person can love themselves in such a way that they are selfish and narcissistic. Their interest is only in themselves, see only themselves, and they overlook the needs of others. They’re often aggressive with others.

But falling off the other side of the horse are those that are self-less in the negative sense of loss of self or “de-selfing.” This can take the form of codependence—in which the person’s needs are met in an unhealthy way through their relationships. Their interest is only in others (or so it seems), they “live for others,” overlooking their own needs and desires. They’re often passive and lack assertiveness—thinking that those are Christ-like qualities. I’m unhappy and my needs aren’t being met—so I must be following Jesus.

It’s true that there is a degree of self-denial and selflessness in living for Jesus, properly understood. But first a few things self-denial does not mean. Self-denial does not mean that being miserable is a good thing to God. It does not mean that you are supposed to deny your feelings or that you should try to avoid pleasure. It doesn't mean that it's a bad thing that you exist.

Following Jesus doesn’t mean I should move to a country I don't like, wear ugly clothes, eat bad food, date unattractive people and inflict pain on myself. Sometimes we act as if it is, and we wonder why people aren’t flocking to church.

Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

Living life to the full isn’t a selfish life, and it’s not a life in which we de-self. Jesus’ desire is that in loving ourselves, in discovering our true selves, we will live our lives to their fullest.

When Jesus speaks to his disciples, he’s assuming self-love, and a desire for good things. “Whoever wants to become great among you…” And Jesus doesn’t reprimand James and John for what they ask; he only instructs them in how their thinking about leadership is wrong. Of course, all the other disciples are upset with them—but probably only because they wanted to ask the same thing of Jesus!

Let’s talk about this idea of what it means to “live for others” in a healthy sense—the idea of servanthood.

There is, Jesus says, a standard approach in this world of power and greatness among the Gentiles. That's his way of saying, "The world apart from the kingdom of God." The rulers lord it over their followers.

He says their “high officials” -- the Greek word is the megaloi we get our word "mega" from this word -- the mega leaders, the big kahunas, are tyrants in this world. They use power to dominate, control, gain status and inspire fear. Life among them is a competition. Who's the greatest? Who can climb the ladder the highest? Who can impose his will?

Jesus says, "Not so with you." Now, because power and leadership can be abused and can be dark in the hands of fallen people -- because Jesus has warnings about it -- some people get distrustful about any form of leadership or the exercise of power. They don't initiate, they don't challenge, they don't stretch those who are around them.

They hold back from leading when they ought to lead, and they hold others back from leading. That’s not a good thing. Their families, their churches, their organizations suffer. When people aren’t envisioned and challenged and stretched to grow, they suffer.

To lead is a good thing. At the very beginning, the Bible says that God created human beings to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue it and have dominion over it. Jesus doesn't reject leadership or even the use of power or greatness for that matter, but he redefines it, he redeems it.

As he says here, Jesus himself is the ultimate example of redeemed leadership. He says, "I didn't come to be served," which is generally the measure of leadership in our world. How many people are below me, serving me?

He says, "I came to serve." That's what servants do. Here's a real key point. In Jesus, to lead is to serve. In Jesus, leadership is simply one form of servanthood. In God, to lead is to serve those he leads.

When Jesus places a towel over his arm and washes the feet of those that he loves, he's not disguising who God is; he's revealing who God is. He says God is up to the same old tricks he's been up to before time began.

This takes a little bit of thought, because it’s hard to imagine what this means before Jesus was born, or even what it means today.

Scripture tells us that God is basically community; that within the being of God there are three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit united in a relationship of oneness, a relationship that is unbreakable, unassailable because together they make one being.

These are three expressions of the same divinity but with different roles/functions—they practice these in deference to each other so that the Father gives everything he has to the Son, the Son gives to the Father everything that he is, and the Holy Spirit puts himself at the service of both.

The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, the Holy Spirit glorifies both. It's a mutuality arrangement where each one’s function supplements the other’s function so that there is dynamic within the being of God.

Indeed, the Scripture tells us that God is love, and where there is love, that love seeks expression. It has to give—give of itself, and we know that God assumes servanthood in the fact that he created. Just the work of creation is an expression of God's servanthood, when he lavishes his bounty over his creatures. Actually, in creation he wants to give them all that he has that is give-able, that is transmissible, and the highest good that he can provide in servanthood to his creatures is himself, his image.

There is not only a relationship of servanthood within the persons of the Godhead, but whenever God expresses himself it is for the good, it is to serve, it is to give, it is to support, to provide, to sustain, to nourish, to grow, to develop.

God is community and oneness, and there is servanthood bounding that community together, and God establishes the human community as his reflection, his image, and he wants that community to be bounded by a mutuality of servanthood. Servanthood is not just a passing idea; it has to do with the very essence of who God is and therefore with the purpose of creation.

When Jesus goes to the cross, when he's whipped and beaten and battered and bleeding and dying, he's not disguising who God is. We think that because we misunderstand God. Jesus, on the cross, is revealing. It is the ultimate revelation of the heart and the nature of God -- Jesus hanging on a cross.

"For," Jesus says to his friends, "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many."

At the same time, Jesus had the strongest character of anyone who ever lived. He was never intimidated. He was always assertive. He defied those who held immense power without batting an eye. He threw full grown men out of the temple area with a whip. He is a servant, but he didn’t suffer loss of self; he wasn’t passive; he was truly in touch with his real self.

He calls us, calls his followers to be that form of servanthood – being “servant leaders.”

People who love themselves in the best way: are in touch with their God-given aspirations and dreams, understand that they’ve been made in the image of God, and are seeking to understand the true self that God has created them to be. They’re people who understand that living for others means leading through servanthood. That in being servants we are not debasing or lowering or losing ourselves, but we are expressing the very essence of who God is—a community of love.

Eve on her "computer"

2007-06-19T09:10:00.000-04:00

This is Eve on her little laptop, which does the alphabet, phonetics, and music. She loves to sit at her desk and draw with crayons, or play with her laptop.

Movie: Eve & Her Computer

Eve loves to swing

2007-06-18T19:41:00.000-04:00

she could swing for hours. i ask, "are you ready to get down?"... she anwers, "nooo". 30 minutes later, same answer.

Heading to work, with Mr. Potato Head

2007-06-15T12:50:00.000-04:00

Eve, Guitar Hero

2007-06-15T12:49:00.000-04:00

Eve and cousin Madeline driving!!!

2007-06-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

This is a little movie (wmv format) of Eve and her cousin Madeline driving in a toy car in April...

Movie

Eve is tired...

2007-06-08T11:12:00.000-04:00

Eve must have been tired this morning...

So far she has thrown her sippy cup at my computer, drew on the wall next to her desk with crayons, and put a coaster into my cup full of coffee...

I put her down for an early nap at about 10:45.

time for an update, eh?

2007-01-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

well, it's been almost 6 months, so it's time for my biannual blog entry.

Eve has grown since my last post--she's put on an additional 25 pounds and lost an inch in height--oh wait, that's me. It's amazing how fast they grow. It seems like only yesterday she was learning her ABC's and could barely throw a football.

Life has been great. No problems or issues that I can think of... pretty much smooth sailing all around. Never been healthier, happier, smarter, richer, better looking... marriage is perfect. I've pretty much got it all.

Okay, seriously... I still love being a dad. Eve likes to come up to me when I'm sitting on the couch and say "uppees"... which means "up, please." It's pretty hard to resist, so I sit her next to me, put an arm around her, and let her flip through a magazine while I work or watch TV. My other favorite Eve moment is when i come home from work. As soon as she hears me drive up, she starts yelling "dada"... then when I open the door she practically hyperventilates, trembles with excitement, and her eyes get really big. I kid you not. It's nice to be loved! I can't wait to get home every day. Julie does the same thing (but she says "honey" instead of "dada").

gotta run...

picture of eve, for amy

2006-01-19T10:52:00.000-05:00

here you go amy!

january

2006-01-18T18:17:00.000-05:00

eve had her doctor's appointment on monday morning... she's about 17.5 pounds now, and 26 inches (i think)... she's 99% for height and 97% for weight! i'd been thinking, "wow, she sure seems to be getting heavy!"

being a dad continues to be wonderful... eve's 5 months old now, so lots more laughing, grabbing, "talking" to herself, and almost rolling over. part of me wishes she'd stay this age forever, and the other part can't wait to see what she's like a month from now... not a bad place to be.

winter in michigan sucks... i'm sorry, it just sucks--really nothing mitigating that suckiness either. not like i'm out there cross-country skiing or snowmobiling. i wish they'd create some SUPER-MALLS here in Michigan... i'm thinking like a square mile indoors, 3-4 levels high, sunroof everywhere, plus artificial sunlight. playgrounds, basketball courts, etc... wouldn't that be cool? heck, i'd go there every day.

i'm preaching again next weekend, on *anger*.. part of a relationship series we're in. can't wait! i was really pissed when ken suggested that i preach on anger... almost lost it and went ballistic on him. where does he get the nerve? (just kidding, of course)

i just bought BDAG and HALOT for my Accordance program. if that doesn't mean anything to you, you won't really care even if i explain it. i'm very happy with my Mac these days... the more I use it, the more i like it. even the things that annoyed me are starting to fade away as I get more comfortable with things. microsoft programs still seem to work a bit better in Windows, but that's no surprise.

i'm listening to 'lolita' (nabokov), 'truth & fiction in the da vinci code' (ehrman), and listening to the history of early christianity, a lecture series by ehrman. i'm thinking of starting 'the historian', which is a novel by someone in ann arbor (i've heard) and is selling very well... kind of a thriller/historical kind of novel.

just started our new small group on Tuesday evening... i loved it! there were three couples, the bromleys, the botts, and the thaxtons... our fourth couple, the o'neills couldn't be there. what a great bunch of people... i'm really looking forward to it.

our new pet!

2005-12-31T12:16:00.000-05:00

well, julie and i finally broke down and bought a pet. he's short, round, and a little noisy, likes to eat off the floor, and we love him. his name is Roomba--he's a vacuuming robot. bought him at Sam's Club.

i'm preaching this weekend... part 2 of an evangelism series. ken started the series off saying that everything he's heard on the topic really frustrates him. that's a great set-up for me to do part 2!!! no pressure. fortunately he's preaching (part 1 of the series) in milan this weekend.

we're having a few friends over for a new year's get-together this evening. i'm really looking forward to it. i guess i'll be a little bleary-eyed tomorrow morning for the 9:30 celebration, but starbucks is on the way there.

we had a wonderful christmas at the chilimigras ranch... julie's brother & sister were there, along with their spouses and kids. it was absolutely adorable having the three babies there together... see below:

december

2005-12-23T13:26:00.000-05:00

okay... it's been a long time without a post. i feel like the longer i go between posts, the better the posts should be, so i end up writing nothing. kinda stupid.

anyway, being a dad is just wonderful. i love every minute of it... or 99% of it anyway. i'm sure there are moments when she's really fussy that i'm not "loving" it, but that's pretty rare. but i do look forward to waking up, just so i can go in and see her in the morning. she always gives me a huge smile and even a giggle sometimes.

what's new? hmmm... well, i made a DVD for my in-laws. it features slideshows (set to christmas music) of all 7 grandkids. i had each of the siblings send me 30-40 pictures per kid, from birth to present. then i arranged them, did a lot of photo-shopping to make them all look great, and did the Ken Burns effect on them (moving pictures, panning in and out, etc.) also did a cool DVD menu and such... i'm really happy with how it all came out, but MAN it's a lot of work. i also had to scan a lot of pictures from when the parents didn't have digital cameras.

i'm home working with eve today. i love it... she's taking naps really well now, so i can actually get some work done too.

i've been listening to some good books recently. on the fun side i finished "the lincoln lawyer" by michael connely (sp?)... it was a good, action-packed story... great for summer or vacation reading/listening. right now i'm listening to some lectures by bart ehrman, a biblical studies guy at UNC--great stuff.

the ph.d. research is a bit slow right now just because of the holiday busy-ness. hoping to ramp that up in January.

julie started her new part-time job at U of M. she's really enjoying it, and gets to work some of her hours from home. plus, full benefits! thank you jesus.

looking forward to a new year's eve get-together with a few friends. i have to preach that weekend, so should be interesting! might be a tad tired on sunday morning.

see ya later!

thanks

2005-11-22T10:37:00.000-05:00

we had a great little poker night yesterday. there were only four of us, but that didn't seem to diminish the fun of it one bit. played 'texas hold'em' as usual, and all four of us were still in the game at 8:45, which is amazing... usually someone is out long before that. all four of us were "all in" at some point in the game, which is also crazy. i ended up winning--i can't remember if that's the first time or not. sam bott came for the first time, along with jeff zapor and peter VW. three great guys.

i just downloaded Enya's new CD, "Amarantine"... I love Enya! I used Enya tracks on the Eve DVD I made a while back. I'm sure to use this latest album for the next DVD I make. listening to her music is like getting a spa treatment... just makes you feel relaxed all over.

we're heading out to Kalamazoo tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with the Chilimigras family. it should be a fun time, and lots of babies! Ava (Eve's cousin) will be there, who is only 2 months older than Eve. Christine's family will be there too.

i finished installing a bathroom fan in the upstairs bathroom. wow, what a project! had to cut a hole in the bathroom ceiling, install the fan housing, install a new switch (which involved cutting a larger switch box hole), install a new junction box in the ceiling, run new cable from the switch and the fan to the junction box, reposition the insulation in the attic, cut a hole in the roof, go up on the roof to install the outlet duct (quite a hairy project on a 2-story house), and then connect the ducting in the attic.

yeah, i'm looking forward to thanksgiving!

back in the USA

2005-11-11T07:56:00.000-05:00

it's SO good to be home. i had a fantastic time in England, and a great response to my paper, but it's SO good to be home.

Eve looked just a tad bigger than when i left, but hadn't started walking or anything while i was gone (thank God). she's kicking a lot more now, which is fun, and her neck is much stronger, so she can keep her head straight when she's vertical. right now she's on her little play mat talking to the little lion suspended above her. she seems to really prefer the lion, so the giraffe is getting ignored.

the best thing happened yesterday while i was watching her... she laughted at me! i was smiling at her, so she started smiling really big, which caused me to start laughing, and then she laughed back. it was the cutest thing in the world.. one of the highlights in my life so far. Eve is staring at me whenever she has the chance... i must look funny to her, because my face is fascinating.

life is good. julie's back to work part-time now, so i work from home on thursday afternoon and all day friday. i can only work about half the time while i'm watching her, so will have to make up the extra time during the week.

i'll write more later... gotta get to work.

englishman

2005-11-03T04:34:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting here in my room at Trinity. i'm very happy the wi-fi is working... i've got a nice view from my window, and it's very quiet--perfect for study.

i really miss my family! it's amazing how connected you become to your spouse and child. i really wish they were here with me. we'll have to find a way for them to join me next visit. i miss seeing eve when she wakes up, with those big full-body stretches, and rubbing her eyes with her fists. i miss hearing her talk to the fishes on her crib's mobile (thanks dad!) just miss being at home.

i've got another meeting with nolland today at 2pm. his new Matthew Commentary is coming out soon. should be excellent from what i've heard.

on saturday i'm going to be getting together with the hardison's daughter and son-in-law, who live in Bristol. it's a small world!

in the UK

2005-11-01T11:46:00.000-05:00

i'm back in Bristol for the week, doing meetings with my advisor and a paper presentation on monday. i had my first meeting with dr. nolland this afternoon, and it went better than i had expected. the paper i put together was quite a bit rougher than i had hoped, because i really didn't work on it much before October. having a baby kinda puts things on hold! anyway, the overall gist of things was that he's happy with my writing style, and although i'll have to do a much more interacting with secondary sources in my final project, he thought i had some originality of thought expressed in what he's read. that's a nice compliment, considering he's written two major commentaries on the gospels and a couple hundred articles. so, not feeling to bad.

i really miss julie and the baby. i've been used to seeing the baby every day over the last couple of months, and it's weird being away. can't wait to get back and play with her. man, i just couldn't have one of those jobs where you have to travel a lot... at least not unless i could take the whole family with me every time.

the flight over wasn't bad. it was very full, but they put me in a seat that doesn't have another seat in front of it, which was great. didn't sleep, but sort of rested. i'm struggling to get back on some kind of schedule today. still quite tired.

i love england. i love the climate, the scenery, the history, the people, the language... love it. i love being able to study here, interact with a scholar like nolland... man, this is too cool. i'm so blessed.

well, i'll try to keep in touch this week. the college finally got wi-fi, so i can do this from my room, which is great.

bye!

U2, paper, curly hair

2005-10-24T09:45:00.000-04:00

Should be a fun day today--going to see U2 tonight at the Palace with Ken and Craig. I think I'll enjoy hanging out with those guys as much as the concert.

Still trying to get a paper written! Man, I only have until Sunday.. still a long way to go on it. Maybe I'll just show them pictures of my baby instead of giving a paper.

Whenever we give her a bath, Eve's hair turns all curly!

i'm still alive

2005-10-08T15:33:00.000-04:00

here's one of my favorite pictures:

life is good! eve's sleeping about 7 hours a night for the last couple of weeks... wow, what a difference a few hours makes!

just got back this afternoon from a pastor-board retreat; what an awesome group of people! couldn't ask for a better bunch.

i'm trying to put together a paper to present in Bristol the first week of November. it's a bit daunting, but i'm fairly confident i'll come up with something.

looking forward to another guy's poker night, if i can ever schedule one... hopefully in a couple of weeks.

ta ta

more pictures

2005-09-20T14:05:00.000-04:00

all about eve - the birth

2005-09-10T10:40:00.000-04:00

the pushing phase of labor was by far the worst part. because of the epidural, the active phase of labor wasn't too bad, but the anesthesia didn't seem to even touch this pain. each push brought julie enormous pain, but the midwife kept urging her to "push into the pain"... seems to me kinda like telling a football player with a broken leg, bone sticking out of the flesh, to just "play through the pain." keep running on that leg and ignore the fact that that bone seems to be working its way out of body, blood spurting everywhere.

the most amazing thing was to look down and begin to see the top of the baby's head. how incredible! there really is a baby in there! the hair looked dark, and there was more of it than i would have expected. both julie and i were bald babies.

a few pushes later, the baby's head was out. they suctioned her mouth and nose out. there seemed to be an arm wrapped up around her neck, but couldn't really tell which one! the elbow was still obscured... i'm sure having that elbow up like that didn't make things easier for julie.

soon our baby was all the way out, and they laid her right up on julie's stomach. she started crying--what a sweet voice! i cut the umbilical cord, and just like that... she was on her own! (well, not completely) how amazing... a new person.

---THURSDAY---

julie had torn quite badly, and was bleeding profusely. they wrapped the baby up and handed her over to me. i sat down and held her close as they spent the next 45 minutes stitching julie up. it seemed no matter how many stitches they put in, the blood kept seeping. julie told me later that she could feel each stitch going in; it was agony... oh how i wish we could have turned up that epidural!!

eventually they got the bleeding under control. for the next few days i would be pushing julie around in a wheelchair. she could hardly move without excruciating pain.

pictures

2005-08-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

a couple pictures of our cutie:

all about eve - wednesday

2005-08-26T00:43:00.000-04:00

when we arrived at the hospital wednesday morning at about 3am, julie was still at only 2 centimeters, but was now 100% effaced. because the sleeping pill didn't work, they gave her some stronger pain medicine, and checked us into a room (bed #14 at U of M).

the room was HUGE... much bigger than we were expecting, with a very large bathtub. a stark contrast to the small triage rooms where we had been the previous hours! comfortable lighting, windows to the outside, plenty of chairs... not bad. unfortunately it didn't include a cot or mattress for me, so i had to try sleeping in a reclining chair.

the pain meds helped julie get some sleep between contractions. i, however, didn't sleep at all... maybe if i were 5'6" instead of 6'6" i could have managed a few hours, but the darn thing just didn't go back far enough for me to spread out. so this was night #2 without any sleep at all.

in the morning julie got checked out again, and was up to about 4 centimeters, so things were coming along, but very slowly. for the rest of the morning and early afternoon we worked on various positions to help with the labor. by the afternoon she was up to about 6 centimeters, but was really tired and in a lot more back pain.

the exhaustion and pain was just too much (at this point it's been over 36 hours), so we opted for an epidural. this was a blessing from heaven! julie could still feel the contractions, but the pain was largely eliminated.

in order to speed things up, they broke julie's water early that evening. that did the trick... pretty soon she was up to 8 and 9 centimeters, and by about 10pm she was ready to start pushing.

(more later)

the week eve came to town - the first 24 hours

2005-08-24T21:28:00.000-04:00

i'm going to try to write down some of what i remember from the last week, from the time julie went into labor. sleep has been little and far between, so this won't likely be the most coherent or eloquent recollection, but who cares about that anyway?

THE FIRST 24 HOURS

the contractions began at about 2am on Tuesday morning, August 16. julie woke me up saying that she thought they were the real thing. i was really tired, and not expecting our baby to arrive until later that week, so i tried to convince us both that they would probably go away.

they kept coming, about every 9 minutes. i hadn't gotten to bed until about 1am that night, and was already sleep deprived... i thought "this is not a good time"... i was actually hoping that it wasn't *real* labor, but simply the early stuff.

by morning the contractions were speeding up a bit, maybe every 6-7 minutes. we called our nurse-midwife. she told us to just hang in there until the contractions were about every 2-3 minutes. wow! in the movies you just drive your wife to the hospital with that first contraction--what a load of bunk!

for the rest of the morning they kept coming about every 5 minutes or so. we decided to go to the mall, walk around... hopefully speed things up. whenever julie would walk, the contractions would speed up. at the mall they started coming every 3-4 minutes during walking time, so we decided to leave and get ready to go to the hospital.

once julie sat back down, they slowed to every 7-8 minutes or so. how confusing!! we called the midwife again. she told us to just keep laboring at home, and wait until the contractions were every 2-3 minutes. OR, we could come in that evening around 8 so that they could give julie something to help her sleep.

by about 8 the contractions were still only every 5 minutes or so, but we were exhausted... we headed to the hospital. once there, we waited around for an hour while the more obviously laboring women were admitted first. once we got in, julie was checked... only 2 centimeters and 60% effaced! argh... they gave julie something to help with sleep, and we got out of there around 11pm.

at about 2am wednesday morning, julie was in some really serious pain... the contractions were really strong now, and the pain was mostly in her lower back. i was out of my mind trying to help her... not having slept since sunday night. i packed her up and headed back to the hospital.

[more to come]

baby Bromley

2005-08-23T08:46:00.000-04:00

introducing...

Eve Chilimigras Bromley

born Wednesday, August 17 at 11:36pm
9 pounds 2 ounces, 20 1/2 inches

we had quite an eventful week, with a 46 hour labor, and a couple of scary days due to Eve's hyperbilirubinemia (caused by ABO incompatibility of the blood types). she's fine now... i'll say more later when i can gather myself and reflect. we just had an appointment with the pediatrician this morning, and she's doing wonderfully... she's 95% for weight and 97% for height!

the pool of siloam

2005-08-09T08:17:00.000-04:00

it appears that they've discovered the pool of siloam in jerusalem! i love it when archaeology confirms the biblical story.

check out this link to the LA Times article:

Biblical Pool Uncovered in Jerusalem

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. (John 9:1-7)

a poem for my little girl

2005-08-06T09:58:00.000-04:00

a little girl,
yet descended,
a new soul
newly founded.

eyes closed
to my world,
still she dreams,
thoughts impearled.

what dreams
can yet unlived
life design,
or hope uplift?

and how can i,
being passing by,
hold her gaze,
sight's first supply?

the giver's choice,
can i demur?
no, i can but take
and to god offer

Surveys - Fun

2005-08-04T18:52:00.000-04:00

here are a couple of online surveys you can take... i'd be interested in how you scored, and what category that puts you in.

Spiritual Type Survey

i scored an 82, so i'm a 'true believer'! woohoo! however, i'm 8 points shy of 'candidate for clergy'... darn.

What Kind of Christian Are You?

i scored 342. i'm not even going to tell you what that makes me, according to them!!!

[oh, this is neat... sam's club called for 'copyright release' on a couple of 'studio pictures' that i uploaded there for printing. the funny thing is, they were a couple pregnancy pictures i took of julie, that i did some minor photoshopping on. guess i'll have to open a studio!]

online discussions

2005-08-02T18:29:00.000-04:00

ugh... i'm thoroughly disappointed in myself. i should have known better than to engage in an online 'debate' on an atheist website with people using pseudonymns. not suprisingly, the 'debate' quickly degenerates into aspersions and insults. i can't say i'm totally innocent on that count either, as i'm somtimes... eh... sarcastic. this doesn't surprise anyone who knows me. anyhow, the experience was fun for a while, and they did give me some interesting things to think about. the also gave me some interesting feedback on my master's thesis (which they had access to because i shared my 'don's corner' with them). of course, they all preferred to remain anonymous, so it wasn't really a fair fight.

it reminded me a lot of when i used to get into those online discussions in college, but i was coming at them from a completely different angle.

ta ta,

don

atheist blogs, davinci codes

2005-07-29T10:36:00.000-04:00

amy, thanks for the tip... i'm having fun at nogodblog.com.

i'm halfway through 'the davinci code'. it's pretty good... not the best dialogue in the world, but chock full of action and suspense. great summer reading (listening in my case). they're just getting into all the BS about The Holy Grail and the mystery of who/what it is. Dan Brown is way off on early church history. Constantine invented the Divinity of Christ? Methinks not. The 'Hymn of Christ' in Philippians 2 is perhaps the earliest saying we have about the nature of Christ, and even there we have "[Jesus], being in very nature God". i'm still listening to it.

'beyond belief' by elaine pagels is decidedly less fun. she's basically going through and picking all the best verses out of the Gospel of Thomas, to create the impression that here we have a genuine alternative to the four canonicals. Okay, how about this verse from Thomas:

(114) Simon Peter sais to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Yikes! and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

All Rock, No Action

2005-07-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

Alas...

All Rock, No Action

happy 30th birthday julie!

2005-07-15T09:03:00.000-04:00

from Ashland newsletter

2005-07-14T17:03:00.000-04:00

hey, i had a cool little write-up in Koinonia, Ashland Seminary's newsletter.

if you're interested, i scanned it here

"cows, constitution, and carlin"

2005-07-12T15:09:00.000-04:00

from george carlin:

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington, and they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.

TEN COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse? You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians! It creates a hostile work environment!

my dissertation notes

2005-07-08T14:56:00.000-04:00

if you're interested, i'm keeping a running log of all my dissertation notes and conversations at:

http://aavineyard.annarborvineyard.org/donscorner/dissertation/index.html

sermon

2005-07-07T10:20:00.000-04:00

i had a great time preaching this past weekend. if you're interested, the sermon audio and notes are available under "recent sermons" at http://www.annarborvineyard.org/media/sermon_music.htm

julie and i went up to jim & shannon niedzinski's parent's place on Shannon Lake up north near Fenton. truly a blast... swimming, basketball (in the rain), good food, lots of friends... very nice.

i've seen 'war of the worlds' twice now... once with julie, once with jesse. loved it! awesome sound, special effects, constant action. definitely two thumbs up, four stars. only possible complaint (and it's a minor one) is that the ending is somewhat anticlimactic.

the baby is kicking like crazy... can't wait to meet her. i saw a commercial for disposable baby washcloths--how cute!! were babies always this cute, or is it just because i'm expecting my own?!

inspirational

2005-07-01T20:53:00.000-04:00

lamaze class

2005-06-24T10:57:00.000-04:00

okay, thanks for enduring my brief foray into a political topic there. i definitely have some convictions about public and foreign policy, although i'm actually less 'partisan' than i have been in the past. i now have friends who are much more liberal than i, and also friends who are much more conservative (yes, it's true). besides, i wear one of those white 'ONE' wristbands, so you know that i'm a good and loving person. ;)

julie and i attended our first lamaze class wednesday. i really liked it, although the class was way too crowded. what's with all these people having babies these days, for god's sake?!

the class was much better than the la leche league 'class' we attended (which was actually more of a sharing session). this was extremely educational and interesting. i really did not know what was going on with the uterus and cervix during labor--very interesting stuff (my johnny carson routine here)... i'm glad i'm not having the baby myself.

the teacher was great, the other couples were nice... not too long... liked it. CAN'T WAIT for the baby! the lamaze teacher talked about how when the baby is born, if he/she hears the father's voice, he/she will turn her little head toward the voice. i seriously got choked up even thinking about that--hmmmmm.... wonder if i'm going to be a crying mess in the delivery room. probably not, because i usually 'ice up' during stressful situations.

benny hinn

2005-06-18T14:47:00.000-04:00

i went with mark lafave to see benny hinn on thursday evening at the joe louis arena. i've seen him on TV, so was really curious to experience it live. i'm also doing my dissertation on miracle in the church, so this seemed like appropriate research!

here's my take on it, both the good and the bad. i saw a lot of folks there worshipping and praising God, and it looks like a lot of people overseas are having genuine conversions and new relationship with Jesus. Benny also seemed fairly balanced in what he spoke about--that God's forgiveness is the greatest miracle, etc. the videos from overseas were just fantastic... i'm talking crowds of several hundred thousand in india, huge crowds in japan, the philippines. people crying, talking about relationship with jesus and forgiveness from sin; getting healed. very cool stuff.

my biggest disappointment is (of course) with how flashy and hyped-up everything was. Benny comes out midway through worship, right at the height of things, like some kind of rock star... the gleaming white outfit, etc. etc. neither did i care for the guy who was speaking when we entered at 7pm... he was really trying to hype things up--yelling, shouting... basically encouraging us to be as loud as possible. basically I saw everything that I don't really care for in the Pentecostal church (although they're certainly not all that way). Benny also preached some of the "prosperity Gospel" stuff that I don't care for--that if you give money to his ministry you are *guaranteed* a blessing (financial/material) in return. While that may be true in some ways, there's no guarantee that financial giving will automatically generate a financial return.

i do believe that there were some genuine healings, but i think they also overblew this and hyped it up... i watched through my binoculars as Benny's entourage went through the rows of wheelchairs, and I know for sure that some of those people could already walk. one lady in particular i had just seen standing; before Benny's "deputy" went over to her, literally threw the cushion that she was holding on her lap into the air, pulled her to her feet, and took her up front. then they take the wheelchair up front as if a complete cripple were healed. to be fair, they didn't specifically state that each person was crippled before, but that's the impression given. i also watched one set of parents with a severely handicapped child, and you could tell they were quite disappointed that their son wasn't healed. It seems like the staff gravitated more toward the people with milder forms of disease, and away from those with obviously withered or deformed limbs. like I said, i do think that there were some genuine healings there, i don't think any of the guests were "planted", and i do think people experienced the holy spirit; but the whole show was just over the top.

anyway, those are just my thoughts. i do like what's happening overseas in Third-World countries; I think maybe he should focus his ministry there, because people in the U.S. are too cynical for his kind of show. i would never take someone who was wavering in their faith, or already skeptical, to see him.

the master negotiator

2005-06-16T13:34:00.000-04:00

we received our new dishwasher a few days ago... a stainless steel model from LG. after i opened the packaging we noticed a large dent on back side of it, like it got squeezed during shipment. because dishwashers are mounted under the countertop, you'd never see it, and i highly doubt it would affect performance in any way...but it was an unpleasant discovery nonetheless.

to make a long story short, we called the online company we ordered it from, and when they called me back i was offered a $150 refund and a replacement for one of the items broken/dented on the back. i was pretty happy with that, but deferred to my wife. good move on my part, because she called them today and now they're giving us a $300 refund!

my wife is the master negotiator. here's the basic difference between us: my goal in negotiation with retailers or contractors is to obtain what i consider a 'fair' solution--where both parties are equally happy (or unhappy) with the result. julie's goal is to obtain the best solution that they're willing to give us--whether or not they're happy about it. so her negotiations are usually more beneficial for us! i think there's a strong family influence on this trait, because the people i know who are good (aggressive) negotiators also tend to have more aggressive negotiators as parents.

alpha group

2005-06-13T09:43:00.000-04:00

this is just too cool... scott w. sent me pictures from a recent alpha group (a small group that formed from an alpha course). just incredibly encouraging to me... to see real friendships, community, love for Jesus, baptisms... makes it all worthwhile:

http://www.wolfington.net/vineyard/pictures/

nba finals

2005-06-12T22:17:00.000-04:00

there's about a minute left in the half and detroit is down by 12... this truly sucks. they're missing shots inside the paint, missing free throws... san antonio looks phenomenal.

i think it's time to go to bed. maybe they'll pull it out in the second half and i'll have a nice morning suprise!

ugh... now they're down 14 and SA has the ball. the horror! the horror!

ultrasound & la leche

2005-06-10T10:23:00.000-04:00

julie had her second ultrasound yesterday afternoon at Taubman (U of M hospital). she's measuring slightly larger than usual for this stage of her pregnancy (about 30 weeks), so they wanted to do some measurements. the ultrasound was pretty fantastic. they had the 3-D imaging and everything, and we could see the baby's nose, cheeks, and lips really clearly. they confirmed that it's a girl, and estimate that she's in the 69th percentile in terms of size for this stage of pregnancy (which means she'd be larger than 69 out of every 100 babies at this stage). Julie was a large baby, as was I, so this isn't unexpected. it was so cute, because she also had her arm up over her head, almost as if she was taking a nap in there. the baby has been kicking a lot lately, even to the point of bouncing julie's book off her stomach when she's reading in bed.

yesterday evening julie and i went to a La Leche League meeting for couples, all about breastfeeding. i was a bit surprised that there would even be a 'couples' meeting--it seemed to me like beastfeeding was solely the domain of women and infants. i guess it's a bit more complicated and difficult than you might think, so husbands need to be extra supportive and understanding. who knew? i was a bit afraid that i would be the only man there, but fortunately there were a few other guys. mostly this session was listening to mothers talk about their breastfeeding experiences; it was a bit awkward, but not as bad as i thought it would be.

The Rose

2005-06-09T18:48:00.000-04:00

...something I doodled after a discussion we had at one of our staff meetings. you probably get the idea, but it's something phyllis tickle did recently at a discussion i attended, but apparently the idea is not original with her.

what's hurting?

2005-06-01T00:03:00.000-04:00

ever have a feeling of disappointment--and not be able to pin down the source? not able to verbalize it? or maybe a sense that something is out of place, or out of order... like something in your living room has been removed, but you just can't figure out what it is. but your gut is telling you, "something's missing"?

the other day i was aerating my lawn with one of those coring aerators... it's a long U-shaped device that has two hollow tubes sticking out on the bottom. when you step on it, it forces the two hollow tubes into the ground. when you pull it back up with your hand, the dirt in those two tubes remains, so you've created two holes in the ground, about half an inch in diameter and an inch and a half deep. then, when you do it again, the new dirt pushes the old dirt out the top, and two 'cores' of dirt pop out.

as soon as i got home with this tool, i started using it on the lawn... about every 6-8 inches I would pop out two cores. so you can imagine how many times i had to do this. after i finished the front lawn, my back was already protesting, and my hand was getting sore. i was pretty determined to finshish, so kept going on the 'middle' lawn and the back lawn.

when i got done, i washed my hands and noticed three very large blisters on one hand, where i had been pulling the tool. these weren't shallow blisters, but really deep and large ones. i guess that was what the pain in my hand was for... to tell me "don, this is hurting; i think you should go get some gloves."

that's the funny thing about pain---it really sucks, but sometimes it's really useful. this applies to both physical and emotional pain. for a good part of my growing up i had to deal with a lot of emotional pain, due mostly to a highly dysfunctional and broken family. so i got pretty good at ignoring that pain... there was really no other alternative. i couldn't make the source of the pain go away, and i couldn't respond to the pain without going crazy, so i just sort of ignored it.

the problem is... once you're an adult, you have a lot more control over the things that cause you pain. and so, that method once so helpful for dealing with pain is actually more of a hindrance. a little emotional sting here... ah, didn't even feel it. accidentally stepped on an emotional hot-coal there... no problem, walk it off. then something hits you between the eyes, and before you can say "i'm okay", you're flat on your back... then you wake up, wondering "what the hell happened to me?" don't want to do that again.

it's usually not as easy as putting on a pair of gloves. maybe it's recognizing that a need you have isn't being met in some way. or maybe something is hurting you worse than you care to admit. or maybe there's a sin in your life that you've been allowing to fester for too long. but there's this pain, and it won't let go of you... that's really not a bad thing. i guess that's the good kind of pain... pain where there's something you can do about it; something to minimize or prevent it next time.

well, i've decided to use gloves more frequently, and my hands are in much better shape. so i *do* have the capacity to learn and change. yipee!

wedding in Mackinac

2005-05-30T10:43:00.000-04:00

just got back from a cousin's wedding on Mackinac Island... the sky was blue, the clouds a puffy white, and the temperature was nice and cool... here's one of my favorite shots of Julie from that day:

(&^&^%$ sick

2005-05-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

hack...wheeze.... ugh, it's been a rough week | a little sore throat for my wife julie--then a little sore throat for me; not sure if i'm really sick... but no... soon that tickling progresses to the nasal membranes | "i know, i'll use zicam!" | not a chance--ain't no zinc going to stop this train--the germs are insulted | the snot begins to flow | where's the puffs plus? (i love that built-in moisturizer) | go through a box of that stuff in one day | maybe just a little head cold, then all better? | i can feel the mucus draining into my lungs... this is gonna be rough | start that hacking cough... the "productive" kind | what's a good color for phlegm? | call the doctor--says take some expectorant and decongestant; tough it out; call back if near death | this sucks, sick for the alpha weekend--one of the highlights of my job | start to feel better by tuesday; decide to work--big mistake | wore myself out! sick as a hamster wednesday morning | have to sleep in guest room so i don't keep julie up | feeling better today (friday)--oh lord, i hate being sick.

political typology

2005-05-11T09:20:00.000-04:00

this is cool... i heard about a political typology survey online. It's at: http://typology.people-press.org/typology/

i came out as an 'Upbeat'... very interesting! if you're willing, post a comment and let me know what your typology is.

don

rejection letter

2005-05-10T15:29:00.000-04:00

I received this rejection letter from the JSNT (Journal for the Study of the New Testament), which is "one of the leading academic journals in New Testament Studies. It is published five times a year and aims to present cutting-edge work for a readership of scholars, teachers in the field of New Testament, postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates."

The reviewer pretty much skewered me. The harshest line was "There are a lot of quotations, but little independent reasoning." Ouch! Tell me what you really think. It was acutally a very helpful thing for me to have, and gives me a better idea of what scholarly journals are looking for.

Admittedly, the paper was not up to professional standards. I submitted it to JSNT on a lark, with no expectation that they would actually accept it. In fact, I think I submitted the paper to every journal I could think of. I'm not sure this was a good idea, but oh well. I'm not very disappointed by this rejection, so don't feel bad for me (if you were inclined to).

I still plan to clean the paper up and submit it to the EGLBS journal this summer.

--------------------

Dear Dr Bromley, [I like that! The first time someone referred to me as "Dr" in a serious way! Little does he know...]

Re: The Healing of the Hemorrhaging Woman: Miracle or Magic?

Thank you very much for submitting your above article for consideration by JSNT. I am sorry to say that the reader’s judgment, with which I concur, is that the article is not sufficiently strong for us to publish in the journal. I append the reader’s comments below. You may like to know that we reject over three-quarters of all articles submitted for publication, and only the very best pieces, suitable for this particular journal, can be accepted.

I am sorry to convey a negative judgment and wish you well in your continued work.

Yours sincerely,

David Horrell

David Horrell, Editor, Journal for the Study of the New Testament

[I haven't included the brutal review on my blog here... if you're interested in it, let me know, and I'll email it. You can read it whenever you're feeling bad about yourself... it's sure to cheer you up (at my expense)!]

my workshop at the national conference

2005-05-10T15:22:00.000-04:00

These are the rough notes I used for my workshop on 'Effective Ministry as a Staff Pastor' at the national leaders conference. I originally planned something much different, but decided that I wanted to speak more from the heart than give lots of 'how to' tips and strategies.

FOR THOSE JUST GETTING STARTED IN MINISTRY...

Decide whether you’re called to full-time pastoral ministry. Not everyone is!

Know that there are other ways to serve God than full-time pastoral ministry. There are other good things you can do: you can write books, teach, be a motivational speaker, run a corporation. You can be a doctor, counselor, wealthy philanthropist…

Be sure you can make money in other ways!

Figure out really early whom you’re serving and why. Be completely honest with yourself.

Count the cost (Hope to marry? have kids? Buy a home?) There are implications.

Having said that: full-time pastoral ministry is a privilege. It’s a wonderful way to earn a living. It’s fascinating, challenging, stimulating, rewarding

WORKING FOR A SENIOR PASTOR

When assessing a potential senior pastor to work for, remember that the most important thing is their character (integrity, honesty, godliness), not their giftedness. Other things can be worked around.

Don’t work for a senior pastor whom you don’t personally like. You’re going to spend a considerable amount of time with this person. (not necessarily best friend material, but have to at least like them).

Make sure your senior pastor is someone who will support you and go to bat for you. Is he or she invested in you (e.g. time)?

How does the senior pastor care for those already working for them? How does he/she care for his/her family? Are they dysfunctional?

PRACTICAL STUFF FOR EARLY ON:

Get a detailed written job description and tack it up on your wall.

Full-time pastoral ministry is a job. Insist on regular performance evaluations. Ask questions about your salary and benefits. Get it in writing.

Full-time pastoral ministry is different than other jobs. Not a professional-client relationship. Higher standards of integrity. Greater expectations.

Get as much training as you can. Read books, go to conferences (including non-Vineyard), talk to other pastors.

Consider education: seminary, VLI, VBI, etc.

Start to figure out if you want to be a specialist (long-term associate, etc.) or a generalist (senior pastor). Don’t have to decide right away.

After a couple of years, ask for a few brutally honest assessments from those who know you and have seen you in action.

THINGS YOU'LL DISCOVER:

People who work for a church are sinners too.

There will be some disillusionment during your first years. That’s because you’re probably an idealist and/or a romantic.

Being in full-time ministry does not help your spiritual life.

Your motivations for going into ministry weren’t all good. Maybe not even mostly good. That doesn’t mean you weren’t called. Be real about it.

Ambition is OK. God wants and needs ambitious people. Be ambitious for good things. Confess and repent of ungodly ambitions.

Your senior pastor will not live up to some of your expectations. This is especially true if there is an age gap and you’re looking for a perfect mentor (father figure).

Full-time ministry is a job. You have paperwork, meetings, bureaucracy, boring stuff.

PRACTICAL ADVICE:

Keep your relationship with Jesus at the center. Don’t put your senior pastor, your spouse, your career, there.

Learn spiritual disciplines that work for you. Don’t give up.

Learn to be assertive. Speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). Ask for what you need. Get things off your chest (but don’t dump).

Develop intimate friendships with other men. [acquaintance—companion—intimate friend] Go outside the church if necessary. Have accountability.

Keep envy and jealousy in check. This is not a zero-sum game. God is in charge.

(James 4:10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
(1Pet. 5:6) Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.)

Cherish your family.

Vineyard Leaders Conference

2005-05-07T15:42:00.000-04:00

the national vineyard leaders conference was fantastic... check out the link for audio.

http://www.vineyardusa.org/ministries/nationalconference.aspx

little EGLBS award i won

2005-04-26T08:43:00.000-04:00

I received this email last week from Holly Toensing, the EGLBS secretary. Woo-hoo! I won for the paper I presented at their meeting earlier this month.

----------------

Dear Don--

I think by now you may have received word from Peter Gosnell, the convener of the New Testament sections at the EGLBS meeting..... that you have won the best student paper in the New Testament sections!! [And to think that you were nervous!!] :-) Congratulations on stirring up a lot of discussion with your fine paper!

Now I have to follow up with an administrative task: In order to get you your check, I need to have your social security number. If you don't want to provide this to me via email, perhaps you would feel more comfortable via phone: my office phone is 513-745-3796 my home phone is 513-232-7711.

Hope all is well for you!

--Holly Toensing
EGLBS sec./treas.

girls and macs

2005-04-26T08:19:00.000-04:00

i watched 'supernanny' last night... i love that show. a 9 year old boy and 4-year old twin girls--and what girls they were! cute little monsters. supernanny did a great job helping the two helpless parents get a grip on things, as usual. even though the two girls were badly behaved (to the extreme), i couldn't get over how *cute* they were! even when they were throwing tantrums i found myself smiling. i just don't know how i'm going to be able to discipline a cute little toddler of my own without laughing and smiling... maybe after a few months of it, and enough sleepless nights, the humor wears off a little? let's hope.

i'm writing this entry on a new iBook G4. this is the first apple i've ever owned. in fact, i've hardly ever even worked on a mac before; not counting the Apple 2 I had back in the 80's.

here's my assessment of the apple so far, coming from a life-long PC person: the operating system is head and shoulders above Windows, no doubt about it. things work the way they ought to work... when you close the laptop, it actually goes into sleep mode ever time... not 75% of the time, as with my PC. when you open it up, it works great (unlike my Dell, where i have to 'repair' the wireless connection on wake-up). my bluetooth connection works flawlessly, unlike my Dell, where i had to screw around with COM port settings and such. seriously, why do i even have to know about COM ports anymore?? it takes me back to the days of autoexec.com and config.sys. the apple simply gets out of your way and lets you do what you want to do... how the PC ought to be.

my disappointments so far come mainly from the fact that i'm going from a high-end PC (Inspiron 8500) to a low-end Apple. i hope to remedy this soon by upgrading to a 15" PowerBook in the next couple of weeks. a couple of other gripes: no right-click button on the laptop keyboard. i simply cannot believe that you would not include a right-click button when it's so useful to have! my other complaints have to do with the low-end nature of the iBook: no ability to span across multiple monitors (unbelievable!); no S-video out capability (without an extra adaptor); pretty crappy resolution (only 1024X768); no microphone jack (that I can see)

god is beautiful... (in our backyard)

2005-04-19T18:25:00.000-04:00

our magnolia tree

our forsythia shrub

the EGLBS meeting

2005-04-15T18:15:00.000-04:00

it's been a while since my last post; mostly because i've been too busy to think about the blog...

the EGLBS meeting went great; arrived Wednesday night at about 10:30pm in Wheeling, WV. The meeting was held at a golf resort in the mountains there... beautiful scenery, but the room was small and kinda old.

the first day started off with papers at 11am. we're broken up into different sections (e.g. New Testament, Old Testament, Archaeology...) I was in the NT section. The first session was an hour and 45 minutes, and four people read their papers and took questions. Most of the people at this thing are professors or grad students at state colleges and universities, although there were a few seminaries represented. i was the only person listed as representing a non-college! i'd say that probably half would identify themselves as "Christian", and maybe %20 as "evangelical".

the four papers read in the morning session were fairly dull--mostly stuff that would only interest you if you were a biblical studies major... the Q&A was pretty tame. i was the first presenter in the afternoon session. i had a powerpoint presentation that was incredibly basic by vineyard standards (just one image, english and greek text, and some highlighting animation), but was the most 'elaborate' there! once i finished my paper, the moderator asked for questions, and four hands shot up! the first guy, a teaching fellow at the University of Michigan (interesting coincidence) sort of laid into me... he disagreed with my take on the miracles, and basically said that the pericope in question (the hemorrhaging woman) proved that Jesus didn't heal anyone, but that people healed themselves psychosomatically (though faith); of course, i disagreed with him, and i think i did a pretty good job defending my thesis. another person disagreed with me, saying that 'miracle' and 'magic' are merely words used to accuse or affirm subjective religious interpretations of events.... a classic argument. however, i think i did a pretty good job arguing that one as well.

once the sessions were done, there was a presidential talk (about religion and violence), and finally the plenary session, where Lawrence H. Schiffman was the featured guest... he's a big-wig in the dead sea scrolls community. it was actually quite an interesting talk; this guy knows his stuff forward and backward (literally... get it, he's a hebrew scholar, they read text backward... hahaha... that's a joke)

one of the coolest things about the meeting was that my thesis advisor from ashland seminary, John Byron, was also a presenter in the NT section, so he got to hear me give my paper. we also had plenty of time to hang out, eat meals, and talk... he was really encouraging about my talk, and said it was really quite a good thing to 'stir the pot' like that.

there was a final session on Friday morning, then i headed back home... a great experience!

EGLBS Meeting

2005-03-26T09:45:00.000-05:00

i received the program for the Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society meeting that i'm presenting a paper at on April 7-8 (i'm on page 3, under NEW TESTAMENT 2: Jesus and Gospels). holy cow, i'm feeling a bit intimidated. i thought this would primarily be other students at a similar stage of study as me, but instead it looks as though most of the other presenters are professors. in fact, the professor who supervised my master's thesis at Ashland, John Byron, is one of them! i think i'm going to have to do a little revision and double-checking on my paper in the next week--i think people ask tough questions after you present, and i don't want to look like a complete idiot.

Euthanasia

2005-03-24T10:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, maybe it's just because I have a baby on the way that I'm especially sensitive to this, but this euthanasia thing is really pushing my buttons. To give you an idea of where this debate is going, take a look at this exceprt I pulled from Peter Singer’s website (he’s a medical ethicist at Princeton, and bigwig in the euthanasia movement). Is this a bit scary?

http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html

Q. You have been quoted as saying: "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all." Is that quote accurate?

A. It is accurate, but can be misleading if read without an understanding of what I mean by the term “person” (which is discussed in Practical Ethics, from which that quotation is taken). I use the term "person" to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. As I have said in answer to the previous question, I think that it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents. Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support – which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely.

it's a girl! (probably)

2005-03-21T16:56:00.000-05:00

we had our first ultrasound this morning at UofM... looks like it's probably a girl! we're both incredibly excited, of course. i'm already thinking about what color to paint the walls in the baby room... how awesome; God is good. the whole thing took about 45 minutes--it was a lot more extensive than what I was expecting. seeing the baby in cross-section was a bit unnerving for me... not sure why. maybe just the idea that this life is so small and fragile? i can't wait... a daughter! how amazing.

a bit colder

2005-03-09T16:15:00.000-05:00

well, i think the 'arctic blast' that hit the northeast has made its presence known down here too... temperatues were in the 50's today, instead of 60's and 70's. didn't attempt the water today, but did some jogging on the beach... it's remarkable how much the sand increases the difficulty of running!

i started reading Philip Jenkins' "The Next Christendom"... it's pretty darn interesting... i had no idea there were that many christians in africa. it does explain the presence of so many africans at my seminary (which is anglican)! it's so amazing that christianity has adapted and survived in so many diverse cultures... makes you think there's something 'miraculous' about it!

i'm also still reading clancy's 'teeth of the tiger'... it's pretty interesting, although i don't really find his muslim terrorist characters very believable. it's still fun stuff. also reading the new testament apocrypha... currently working through the gospel material and other sayings sources. some weird stuff going on in those first centuries! wow... makes the latest mind-benders from hollywood seem pretty tame.

decided that i'll wait to get back to michigan to watch 'saw' with jesse... it somehow seems more 'healthy' to watch it with a friend than alone.

so long!

blogging from Jacksonville Beach

2005-03-08T18:09:00.000-05:00

well, here we are! i'm writing from Panera Bread here in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

the drive down wasn't too bad... mapquest said 17 hours, but effect of some bad traffic and snow in the appalachians (not to mention a generous number of rest stops) put the trip at about 18.5 hours. needless to say, i was pretty wiped out when we arrived.

i couldn't believe the snow as we drove through virginia! it was pretty bad in the mountains there... strange that it was worse as we drove south! but by the time we came out of the mountains the temperature was up to about 50, and it was great from then on.

can't believe how warm and beautiful it is here! yesterday it was 78 and sunny, and had to actually turn on the air conditioner in the car... how awesome. i've been out in the water just about every day... kayaked the first two days; it's a bit tricky with the waves, but you get used to it. the water is still pretty cold, so the wetsuit i have is really handy. there were quite a few people in the water over the weekend, but today was a bit windy, so not much action... tried some boogey-boarding today, but the waves weren't too good (the broke too quickly)

i watched 'open water' on the drive down--wow, what a great movie! a low-budget indie film, but real sharks and no over-the-top special effects or gore. definitely had me keeping an eye out when i was in the water!

this climate really reminds me of growing up in california... being able to wear shorts and t-shirts just about the whole year-round. man, i do miss the weather...

sure are a lot more older people down here... you really notice it. also, with so many people retired and not working, the traffic is pretty much heavy all day long.

i see a lot more people down here 'living it up', so to speak. rent a little pad a few blocks from the beach. maybe work 25-30 hours a week, spend all the rest of the time on the water, at the clubs, or drinking beer and playing foosball into the wee hours of the morning on the front porch. i guess if i just wanted to relax and enjoy myself, that's one way to go about it!

i'm thinking that the people who remain in the colder climates (e.g. michigan) do so for: a) family & friends, b) career jobs, or c) are really huge hunting or snowmobiling enthusiasts. that seems to sort for a particular kind of person i think... mostly good qualities (except maybe c.)

however, i've noticed that the people down here in the 'south' are a lot more friendly than up north. people say 'thank you' a lot more, and eye-contact with a 'hello' isn't so unusual. reminds me a bit of the characters from 'a streetcar named desire'--the coarse, brutal north and the genteel, refined south (or that's what i remember from high school). i guess the hospitality is a remnant from the old southern culture, but i suppose it will change as more northerners continue to move here.

julie and i watched 'the notebook' last night on DVD. i really liked it... at first it had me rolling my eyes--just a bit too cutsie & cookie-cutter--but by the end i was into it and even got a bit misty-eyed.

i really want to watch 'saw', against all my better judgment. my dad said it was great... this is a dilemma... i know i'll thoroughly enjoy watching it, but i also know i'll end up thinking 'i really didn't need to see that'... alas. what would grace wilson do? i always ask myself that.

well, enough for now... thanks to the free wi-fi here, i'll have a chance to write again soon. hope everyone back home is doing well, and hope things are warming up!

from my dad in Hong Kong

2005-03-08T18:08:00.000-05:00

HELLO FROM HONG KONG!!!

It's my first break in the schedule so I'm here in the Youth for Christ offfice trying to squeeze my fingers into one of those tiny little keyboards they make for NORMAL hands. Ouch, I'm cramping up already!!

I got to San Diego Airport late Tuesday afternoon, waited a couple of hours, got on a plane to L.A., then got off cuz mechanical difficulties. An hour and a half later, back on plane, to L.A., and then left for Hong Kong at 11 p.m. Yes, I DID get Bulkhead seat. Still had to park my legs in the aisle. Got run over by the Food Cart about a hundred times, but foot still somewhat attached to my leg.

I really tried to sleep this time. Denny Magnuson, how do you do it?? Overseas seats must be about a foot narrower than domestic. Felt like I was wedged in for 16 hours. Maybe standing on my head would work better.

Arrived in Hong Kong 6:30 a.m., found a Bus into Hong Kong, had 20 min. to unpack and was off to 2 school programs(1000 students), Senior Citizen program(400). How I love the seniors here. I think I high-fived all 400 of them. When I get to be old(another 40 years) I want to be like them!! So full of joy and laughter!! They ooh and ahh at everything I do(I could tie my shoes and get a standing ovation)

Got to bed at 11:30 my first night. Had to force myself to STAY AWAKE all day, even after 18 hours of flying, so I could get on a body time clock. My bed is a little 6 foot bunk bed. Not gonna work. So I piled some mattresses on the floor and gave it a shot. My room is 6'7" wide. I am 6'7" tall. Do the math. Do you really think there that many other 6'7" people in Hong Kong? NOT!!!!

Next day(Thursday. You lose a day going to Hong Kong), I did a high school program, back to Youth for Christ to do a Seniors program, then we did an outdoor program at a Fruit Market, kinda like our Farmers Market. We start doing our magic program, the crowds come, and we share the Gospel with them. Almost thought we were going to cancel, due to the rain.It has been VERY COLD and WET. Haven't seen much sun. And no heat in our little apt. so I just put on everything I own and fight through it. Really funny because at a few of schools I performed in, they had he windows wide open AND THE AIR CONDITIONER ON!!!! You could actually see your breath as you were talking!!! I wonder if they do this to kill off any germs or viruses. Still some concern about the viral problems they had a few years ago.

Friday I ministered again to a Seniors meeting. I had the perfect magic object lesson. I came out with a little teapot, poured me some tea(everyone drinks tea in Hong Kong), talked about how Teapot was specially made for making tea and how were specially planned and created to walk with God and become like Him. I then pulled a 30 foot silk streamer from inside the teapot, taling about the blessings of being "filled" with God. Then I told of how we use the teapot over and over, not throw it away. I actually put the teapot in a paper bag, wadded up the bag and threw it away. The audience went wild!! Wouldn't you, too??

Food has been quite good this trip. We go to a restaurant that has become good friends of the Youth for Christ director,David Chu. They bring us about 12 different dishes of all kinds of real Chinese food(Chicken feet, squid, chicken(sliced up, WITH the bones), and yes, RICE and NOODLES. I've learned to stay away from anything that looks like it's still alive and wiggling. The other stuff has been quite tasty. Not crazy about drinking 15 cups of tea everyday. How about just one Coke, but they're about $3 a bottle. Sometimes after a meal, the couple I'm ministering with(Michael and Jeannie) will sneak out to McDonalds for an ice cream cone. UMMMMM!!!

Today, I am preparing to go to a Phillipine Church to preach. How I love to preach and encourage the people in the churches. They are extremely receptive. This one church last week had a Praise service with Praise dancers that went for 50- minutues before they started the regular part of the service.

My health has been pretty good. Always hard to make adjustments the first 3 days. The cold has caused a little bit of a cold, but I feel strong. Last night, we had 2 Chinese young men over to teach them how to use Gospel magic in their ministry. Finished about midnite. Then yesterday I directed some young leaders in a mime Drama to use in their evangelistic meetings. I hoping we will debut the skit in the next day or 2.

Well, got to get some things together for Phillipine church. There is always very much preparation going on because we have a schedule but we never know when they will throw in another meeting or 2 each day. That's what we're here for, to be "on call" for the Lord. Boy, you really get a perspective for serving the Lord "moment by moment" when you go on the mission field. We may possible get ONE DAY to ourselves to maybe do some sight seeing but that's a big maybe.

Thanks for all our prayers. Thanks again to all the people who made this trip financially possible. Amazing all these years that God always provides every single need, sometimes at the 12th hour. All these years of missions trips teaches one to truly trust in the Lord let go of the worries about finances, health, safety, and open doors.

Love you all.

Mr. Tiny

florida, here we come!

2005-03-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

got a 17-hour drive ahead of me, but shouldn't be too bad... have some books on tape and DVD's to watch (when I'm not driving, of course)...

i'm taking the kayak down, hoping to get out on the ocean a good deal... maybe see some dolphins! i'll upload some pictures when i return.

other than that, just plan on reading a lot of books, getting some sun (hopefully it's warm enough), and doing some jogging. looking forward to it! hope it's warmer here when i return... bye!

my response to his response

2005-02-23T16:11:00.000-05:00

Dear Dr. Nolland,

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I realize that there were a few questions of yours I did not address. I think that’s partly due to the fact that I don’t have good answers to them yet, but I can tell you what my thinking is at this point.

You observed that I had apparently not made a decision between the historical, sociological and theological methods. The struggle I’ve had with this questions is that there are aspects of each of these methods that I wish to use, but I recognize that the main thrust of my dissertation cannot be along all three lines at once. I know that an investigation of “The function of miracle in Luke-Acts” will be very different from “The function of miracle in the early church.” Maybe I’m simplifying it too much, but it seems that the former is primarily a theological question, whereas the latter is primarily an historical question. Nevertheless, there is going to be some overlap, and even an historical investigation of the miracles (which appears where I’m heading) is going to involve a discussion of their theological significance. The historical miracles are so imbued with theological significance that to do otherwise seems impossible. Also, the main texts I’ll be examining are first and foremost theological works—which makes the distinction even more vague (at least for me).

Miracle-working is in one sense a social behavior, and I’m investigating it within a social institution—the church. In that respect, I don’t think I could do an historical investigation of miracle-working in the early church without involving myself in sociology. Also, it seems to me that much of what is described as “sociological investigation” could just as easily fall under the rubric of good historical investigation. At this point I don’t think my research will be primarily a sociological investigation, as I’ve seen them done (e.g. Malina). Rather, I see the sociological methods being useful in carrying out my historical investigation. I see my project essentially as an historical study of the worldviews, mindsets, aims, intentions and motivations of the early church vis-à-vis miracle-working.

You had also asked about the range of materials I intend to deal with, and whether I will be after a single ‘early church’ view. I’d like to include any data that will allow me to give a more accurate understanding of the historical questions I’m asking. Having said that, it seems impossible for me to explore every ancient text, so I’ll need to pick the most relevant. Given the fact that there will doubtless be variations from church to church, city to city, and decade to decade; maybe I should inquire as to the functions of miracle in the early church? I suppose there is also the issue of what constitutes the “church”—would I include the Gnostics, or the Marcionites, or the Montanists… etc.? At this point I’m inclined to include what would be considered “orthodox” Christianity, but I haven’t really thought through this issue, or how I would defend that choice. Although I personally tend to take a fairly high view of Scripture, I don’t intend to presume this belief in my readers. In other words, I’m not going to presume the Bible is an inerrant source of historical information. I’m not sure if this is answering your question?

Please let me know if there are any questions that I haven’t addressed in my emails. Also, I want to reassure you that these questions of methodology are not occupying all of my research time. I’m continuing to do a lot of reading (including a good amount of primary materials—Apostolic Fathers, Apocrypha, ancient histories, etc.) I’ve also found an excellent resource at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ (The Perseus Digital Library), where I can explore ancient Greek texts--very useful for the examination of word meanings! I’m also taking some advice from Dr. Green and writing brief “reviews” whenever I finish a book or article. I can share these with you if you think it will be helpful.

This dialogue with you is very helpful for me in the formulation and clarification of my thoughts. Thanks.

Blessings,

Don

latest email to Dr. Nolland

2005-02-22T22:12:00.000-05:00

Dear Dr. Nolland,

Thank you for your last email. It was very thought-provoking! I see now what you meant when you warned me against spending too much time investigating the questions of methodology. I could very easily spend the next 6 years ruminating on the philosophical questions involved here.

However, I wanted to at least make another go at giving you an idea of the direction I want to go in, and why. Here are my thoughts, and my answers to some of your questions.

--------------

I’ve stated my research question as an exploration of “the function of miracle in the early church.” The reason I wish to examine this subject is that I think it can shed light on several other questions which are pertinent to the church today. For example: “Was miracle-working limited to Jesus and the Apostles, or was it intended for disciples of all ages?”; “Was the purpose of miracle-working to authenticate the gospel, or is it part and parcel of kingdom proclamation (or both)?”; and then there are innumerable correlated questions related to healing, exorcism, and the nature miracles. I believe that understanding the function of miracle in the early church would be invaluable in answering these questions.

I say “function” because I’m looking not simply at whether they happened, where they happened, when they happened, etc. Beyond these issues I’d like to get at why they happened. I’m interested in their purpose—what the intent was of those who did miracles, and their effect on those who observed or were otherwise impacted by them. For example, taking the healing miracles: was their primary function that of health-care for the believing community, or were they primarily an evangelistic tool aimed at the non-believing world?

In using the word “miracle” I run into a problem, as this particular word was not in existence at the time. Furthermore, there are several Greek words translated “miracle” (or a closely related idea) in the English Bible, namely dunamis / dunameis, semeion, ergon, and teras. I think it is fair to say that, while the subjects of my inquiry did not have a single term which corresponds directly to our word, I can argue for a category of related ancient phenomena which can be referred to as “miracle”. This does not mean that my first century audience would understand exactly what I mean by “miracle”, because I believe there are significant differences between our idea of the “miraculous” and theirs. But, I think they would recognize a meaningful affinity between the things we regard as miracles: healings, exorcisms, nature miracles, etc. In some way these kinds of things were apparently regarded as “spectacular,” if 1 Corinthians 14 (among many other texts) is any evidence. (In answer to one of your questions, I am inclined to include exorcisms within this category because they seem to share so many characteristics with the other “miracles”, especially the other healings. I don’t have a good reason at this point to exclude them.)

Were the witnesses amazed and astounded by Jesus’ miracles for the same reasons a modern person would be? An exploration of their cosmological worldview will be useful; modern people tend to think of a miracle as something that violates the “laws of nature,” or involves something “supernatural.” The miracles must have been amazing at least partly because “that’s not the sort of thing one sees every day”; they were “other than normal.” However, there are certainly non-ordinary things a first-century person would not have classified as a “miracle.” Beyond this, I’ll need to explore their understanding of nature vs. “super-nature” and their understanding of cause and effect.

I have chosen to limit my inquiry to “the early church.” I haven’t clearly defined this period yet, but I think it would need to begin with the earthly ministry of Jesus. I certainly need to examine the miracle-working of Jesus and the earliest disciples in the Gospels, as it seems to establish the starting point from which I’d trace any sort of developmental trajectory. The first point along the trajectory would be the miracle working of the Apostles (and others) immediately following Pentecost, as recorded chiefly in Acts. The end-date of my inquiry is harder to decide upon. I would want to at least include evidence from the earliest post-Apostolic period, as this would be important in answering the questions involved in the cessation debate. In terms of texts, I would certainly include at least one Gospel and Acts—which argues for choosing Luke-Acts as my primary text. I’d most likely want to include 1&2 Corinthians as well, given its discussion of the miraculous charismata. Finally, I’d need to choose something from the post-Apostolic period: perhaps an early church Father or one of the Apocryphal works? The question of including non-biblical sources is something I haven’t worked out yet. I would want to include them as much as is feasible, as their perspective would be helpful in establishing a more credible historical argument. At least, I would need a good reason to exclude them, if I’m hoping to do “historical” investigation. This gets into some questions of methodology, which I’ll try to discuss now.

In terms of my language, I should probably clarify what I mean when I say “historical,” “sociological,” and “theological.” I am still learning how these methods are used and how they’re distinct from one another. By “historical criticism” or “historical method” I mean that sort of investigation which deals with the historical setting of the relevant documents: the time & place they were written, their sources, the events, dates, persons, and places mentioned in the text. The goal of this method being to write a chronological narrative of the pertinent events, revealing their nature and interconnection.

On the one hand, my investigation of “the function of miracle in the early church” is by definition a historical investigation, because I am interested in “what actually went on” as opposed to simply what those who produced the written sources wanted to report. I would like to know (as much as is possible) the historical questions of who worked miracles, what sort of miracles they worked, what their goals and aims were in miracle-working (this is at least partially a historical question), and what the effect was on the church of such miracle-working. Of course, the problem is that all I have in terms of evidence are those very written sources. I don’t, however, think this is an insurmountable problem.

From my reading it seems that this sort of investigation can get bogged down in questions of what constitutes “objective” history versus subjective interpretations by particular authors. I particularly like what I’ve read of N.T. Wright on this subject, and his proposed critical-realist approach. I believe this critical-realist approach has great promise for my line of inquiry. It allows me to explore the historical questions related to miracle-working (in particular their meaning, function, and significance within a given worldview) without being paralyzed by the problems related to the source texts (e.g. authorial intent, bias, subjectivity). I realize that I will have to address the fact that each author had a goal in mind in writing the text, beyond simply recording historical facts. Nevertheless, I should be able to propose a reasonable hypothesis that “fits” the relevant data and makes sense of the evidence.

In asking about goals, aims, and intentions, I think my exploration begins to take me into the realm of sociology and anthropology. In my last email I mentioned the “sociological” approach. By “sociological interpretation” I mean trying to reconstruct the “social world” of early Christianity vis-à-vis miracle-working. What were the symbols, rituals, and language used that gives us some insight into what their experience of miracle-working was like? Given their social world, what significance might the miracles have had that is not readily apparent to us? In terms of “ritual,” what is the significance of laying-on-of-hands, the “name of Jesus,” or anointing oil? How do we understand the significance of Peter’s shadow?

Much of what I’ve examined that explores questions from a sociological approach involves the creation of social “models,” and then the application of these models to the biblical setting. This seems to be what distinguishes this method from that which is just a good investigation into the “historical setting.” In my study there could be some value in exploring the function of miracle in other cultures (both ancient and modern), and applying these insights. Of course, the challenge will be to find situations with enough similarities to the one I’m examining that I can draw useful conclusions.

Finally, I take “theological interpretation” to mean describing what the biblical texts (or events) meant to their original hearers/readers. This approach has some overlap with the sociological and historical approaches (in the same way that society, history and theology overlap). In this study, I imagine the question will be how the miracles fit within the larger themes of the New Testament (and the Old Testament). After all, any question of “function” seems to imply that there is some purpose within a larger whole. To begin with, what was the function (or purpose) of Jesus’ miracles in his earthly ministry? At some point I’ll need to address a question that you raised in one of our earlier meetings: how do we reconcile Jesus’ suffering and death with his miracle-working? And, how do you make sense of miracle-working power in an early church where persecution and martyrdom were so common (and so effective in the larger goal of spreading the gospel)?

we're having a baby!

2005-02-19T20:50:00.000-05:00

...just wanted to share the happy news: julie and i are expecting our first child in August (around the 15th). yeah! we're very excited, and just shared the news with the church.

i celebrated my birthday (32 yrs old) yesterday (feb 21). i went to dinner with my beautiful wife Julie at Mediterrano (excellent food!). they have the best olive oil around. afterward i went to Conor O'Neill's, an Irish pub in the downtown area. had a great time playing Poker with friends. apparently it is NOT okay to play Poker with chips in public, contrary to what i was led to believe when i made the reservation. so, Jesse and i had to run to the local Starbuck's to find something we could use as a substitute... we ended up playing poker with cofee stirrers as our poker chips! i had fun... i think most of the other guys did too, but i can tell not everyone is quite as enthusiastic about poker as i am--also, the food and drinks there are pretty expensive.

i'm really enjoying my life these days... i'm finding a new sort of peace in being who i am and where i'm at. not to say there aren't challenges; but i'm not experiencing any of the gut-wrenching angst or uncertainty that had plagued me during adolescence and my twenties. maybe it has anything to do with declining testosterone levels--or maybe the 10 years since my mother's death have created something of a 'buffer' between me and that place--and the fact that my life has been pointed toward (roughly) Jesus for many years now, and i think i've been moving in that direction...

well, gotta go to work... long day ahead!

this week

2005-02-17T13:33:00.000-05:00

i agree... titles for blog entries are pointless!

i'm looking forward to our upcoming florida vacation... we're leaving in March for 2 weeks in Jacksonville Beach. i'm planning on taking my kayak down, so should have a lot of fun out on the waves... hope i see some dolphins! hope i don't see any sharks!

i get to preach this weekend, so it's always a little more busy for me... i'm going to be preaching on the fatherhood of god, which is an interesting topic for me to consider. :) i feel pretty good about it, but ask me again Friday night.

on april 7-8 i get to present a paper at the annual meeting of the Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society, in Wheeling, WV. I'll be presenting a paper based on my study of the story of the hemorrhaging woman in the synoptic gospels (which was one of the elements of my master's thesis). very fun! my first paper presentation. i'll also be submitting it to a couple of journals... see if they'll publish it.

my birthday is coming up, on monday, feb 21. i'm really looking forward to it! hope to spend some time with friends...

phyllis tickle weekend

2005-02-11T07:48:00.000-05:00

i went and saw phyllis tickle last night at first united methodist church... it was a 'dialogue' with David Crum, a religious writer for the Free Press. wow! i was blown away by Mrs. Tickle. she is extremely well-read, insightful, perceptive, and lively! You'd never guess she was 70.

very difficult to pigeon-hole her as far as the usual categories go! (which illustrates her point precisely)... some of her earlier comments (esp. physical resurrection of the body) had her firmly in the Evangelical world (as i think of it, a-la Wright)... and then other comments reminded me more of Marcus Borg (i think). definitely had me thinking! She's definitely a Jesus-follower.

she's speaking at all 3 of our weekend celebrations... how fun!

my meetings with Dr. Green

2005-02-09T17:53:00.000-05:00

First we discussed the list of questions I emailed to Drs. Green and Nolland. The questions were too varied and broad for a single dissertation, so we started to boil it down in terms of what kind of inquiry I wanted to make: Historical? Sociological? Theological?

My proposed question was this: What was the function of miracle in the early church? I’m particularly interested in this topic because it has implications for how we understand the role of miracles (healing, prophecy, etc.) in the church today.

I realize that a purely historical inquiry is not what I want to do. I am not asking the historical question: ‘did Jesus perform miracles?’ or ‘did the disciples perform miracles?’ I will be concerned only with how they were remembered, as recorded in our written sources (especially the NT). Also, I will not be exploring the philosophical question ‘are miracles possible?’ However, I believe I need to somehow respond to the argument that miracle-working (as recorded in the NT) is to be rejected a priori as ahistorical and impossible, and as the invention/addition of later author(s). I can best do this by clearly arguing that Jesus and the disciples were widely remembered as miracle-workers, and not just by the church.

At the outset I will need to define what I mean by ‘miracle.’ I will do this by first exploring the language used in my relevant texts (Greek); and its relevant words, namely: dunamis, semeion, ergon, and teras. Secondly, I think it will be helpful to somehow explore the ways in which these concepts are different than the modern, Western idea of ‘miracle’. This will entail some analysis of the symbolic universe(s) and worldview(s) in the first-century Greco-Roman world, as well as some linguistic exploration (what do these four words mean).

I have not clearly defined what I mean by ‘the early church.’ At the heart of my question is this: what was Jesus’ (or Paul’s, or Luke’s) intention regarding the function of miracle-working in the church? I’ll be examining both what these three (and others) said directly about the subject, as well as the evidence for the actual occurrence of miracle-working in the church. For this reason, I believe the earlier witnesses will be more helpful in answering this question than the later. At this point I’m inclined to limit my inquiry to the first and second centuries. The most promising texts, in terms of miracle-working, seem to be: Luke-Acts, 1&2 Corinthians, and the Apocryphal Acts. This is an area where I will need to do a lot more reading of primary sources (e.g. the Church Fathers, the Apocryphal works, other 1st/2nd century literature).

I will not mainly be focused on whether our written sources accurately reflect actual historical events. I will be examining the miraculous ‘as recorded by the author of Luke-Acts’ or ‘as recorded by Paul’. This is perhaps where my study will differ from that of John Meier’s in The Marginal Jew, in which he analyzed the probability that each particular story was historical.

Because I am limiting my investigation to these particular texts, I will not be exploring the function or role of miracle in other biblical texts (e.g. OT), except insofar as they shed light on my topic. Having said that, it does seem that some investigation of OT miracle-workers (namely Elijah/Elisha and Moses) will be called for, as they are clearly alluded to by Luke and Paul.

My first step ought to be an exploration of the relevant literature that deals specifically with this topic (e.g. Kee, Pilch, Twelftree). I will then seek to ‘carve out my own space’, and discover where I can make a new contribution, or ask different questions.

Dr. Green invited me to consider presenting a paper at one of their fortnightly meetings of graduate students (perhaps this fall).

fun stuff

2005-02-07T14:38:00.000-05:00

i'm writing from wilmore, kentucky... at asbury theological seminary. i'm here for meetings with my US advisor, Joel Green. i woke up at 3:45, left at 4:30, and arrived here at about 10:30. very tired! it wasn't a bad drive... mostly good traffic, except a bit around Cincy.

my 11am meeting with Dr. Green was great... he's very differnt from Dr. Nolland, my UK advisor. Dr. Nolland is a man of few words and very much hands-off when it comes to direction. Dr. Green is more talkative, and much more hands-on (offers more suggestions, advice, asks a lot of questions... etc.) it's cool to have both...

we met for about an hour and a half... very productive. boiling my dissertation questions and scope down to a more manageable level... going to mostly focus on the extant literary evidence rather than doing a more historical approach. i want to get more into theology than just doing a pure historical recreation.

asbury is a lot like ashland... very small town (about 4000), not too far from Lexington. Green lives in Lexington... bet most of the staff does. not much here! very beautiful though.

another little cool thing... is sent an email to NT Wright, and he replied! a rather brief reply, but still very nice... i let him know how much i (and the other pastors) appreciated his work, and also asked him some questions about 'miracles'.

well, will update y'all later... i'm going to do some reading and then hit the sack. oh, yeah, i signed-up on audible.com... very cool, because i have a free trial... i listened to The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb on the way down (at least 4 hours of it). it's a big history of western philosophy... very good! i've burned it to CD, so anyone can borrow it when i'm done.

i'm also enjoying Tom Clancy's Teeth of the Tiger. another good book everyone should read: How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler (i think)... very excellent.

Dad's trip to Hong Kong

2005-02-03T08:45:00.000-05:00

I received this email from my dad, regarding his upcoming mission trip to Hong Kong:

-------------

Hi Prayer Supporters,

Wow! Time is flying! I leave in about 3 weeks and still so much planning and preparation to do for Ministry in Hong Kong. With our Gospel Magic presentations it's usually a practice of "Pack Small, Play Big". That's a challenge. Many of our audiences are over a 1000 people and they have to be able to see what we are doing without binoculars. I'm sure we will use alot of colorful silk magic, ropes, sponge balls, stuff that we can cram into suitcases. But I still have to be able to take a table that will set up quickly, look very professional and be big enough for all to see. Looks like it will be a carry-on case with a tripod that can screw into the bottom.

You can imagine what we go through when we are going through CUSTOMS!!! Lots of weird things the inspectors are looking at. They usually take our magic out of the containers and are totally confused. We have to patiently explain that "No, sir, this is a TOY gun, nothing real, we are magicians". That sometimes makes them all the more suspicious!! Pray that we will get all of our "props" through customs, going and coming.

I received a "TENTATIVE" Outreach Ministry Schedule. Already FIFTY meetings in a three week period. So this will probably change to ONE HUNDRED meetings by the time we arrive in Hong Kong. ALREADY 16 Shopping Center Malls!! And these are not strip malls we are talking about but 6 or 7 floors of stores, malls as big or bigger than anything you've seen in the States. So we are talking of THOUSANDS of people in these malls, and we will be doing an HOUR program, presenting God's saving Love to them.

One huge challenge in Hong Kong is reaching the ELDERLY. The government has placed the care of most of their elderly in the hands of churches, so the people we are ministering with, YOUTH FOR CHRIST, has stepped in and taken on a huge part of this responsibility. Isn't that something- HONG KONG YOUTH FOR CHRIST reaching out to thousands of seniors every week with the Gospel. So many of them sit all day long without anything to do. So the people we are ministering with have opened a huge part of the multilevel building they are in(7000 sq. feet of office space that just opened up)and transformed it into a Senior Citizen Outreach Center, where seniors could come and go all day long and experience the Gospel in many different ways. I will be doing MANY Senior Citizen programs and they just love the color and excitement of hearing the Gospel through magic, music, puppets and comedy. Pray for all the Seniors who will find Christ as Savior and for their nurturing.

Our schedule shows, in addition to the Shopping Malls and Senior Citizen centers, many churches, schools(from nursery to High School and Tech Schools) and Fruit Market parks(lots of outdoor veg. and fruit markets). And I'm sure there will be a few jails or prisons and possibly some civic events(dinners, concerts, etc.) And then the Gospel magic classes we will teach to help Chinese young people reach out to their own.

Whew! I'm exhausted!! I'm taking lots of power bars(are there any that are flavorful?)and vitamins. We're talking 5-6 meetings a day, all the bus and subway travel, setting up and taking down our programs. But I can't wait!! I'm excited, God is excited, all the pastors and Christian workers in Hong Kong are excited. I hope you are excited too!!

Some of you have asked about how to give to this ministry. Denny and Karen Magnuson of World Sports Network(WSN), a wonderful Sports Ministry Outreach to all the world, have graciously allowed me to have my supporters make out check to and send their support to:

World Sports Network(WSN)
3199 Fryden Court
San Diego, Ca. 92117

Just note that support is for Don Bromley ministering in Hong Kong.

Well, I'll let you all go for now. Probably one more newsletter before and then some newsletters from Hong Kong.

Love you all!!

Don "Mr. Tiny" Bromley
dbromtinyusa@netscape.net

snowy in ypsilanti

2005-01-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

well, there's still about a foot of snow on the ground around my house... it's not really a problem though, because i was able to borrow my neighbor's snow-blower to clear our shared driveway and sidewalks. it's a little 2-stroke engine, so it wasn't the easiest to use, but worked fine. my father-in-law just gave me his old snowblower, which is a much more substantial machine... should make it an easier job. i even thought about making a few extra bucks clearing driveways and sidewalks in our neighborhood... but julie reminded me that there's already a guy who does it, and he probably needs the money more than i do.

i remember growing up in california... snow was pretty exciting. when we'd drive to the mountains (the sierra-nevada range) to go skiing, it would always be a big deal to see the first snow. i even remember the first time i acutally saw snow falling... i was probably 10 or so. i was really surprised at how grey the sky was... for some reason i was expecting everything to be really white and bright, like snow is on the ground.

one thing i really like about this crappy weather is how much it makes me look forward to spring and summer. and, it sort of separates one year off from the next... when the weather is always the same you lose track of that sense of time passing. i can also see why the holidays originated around the changing of seasons... without the changing seasons, what's there to celebrate?

having said, that, i'm really looking forward to flordia in march! :)

i said 'no' to crack!

2005-01-17T23:49:00.000-05:00

The crack is gone! Long live PVC! Now if my hands will heal up...

color photo of my crack

2005-01-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

here's what I've been working on this past week... see the vertical crack running down the pipe? every time we used the upstairs bathroom, water (and other stuff I'm sure) leaked out of the crack, ran down the pipe, and dripped all over the basement floor. had to tear out a section of the kitchen wall and ceiling to access the pipe, tear it out (a big job... cast iron is incredibly hard and heavy... much harder than normal steel, but more brittle) then i replaced everything with PVC, all the way from the basement to the roof.

pictures!

2005-01-16T13:19:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures you might be intereted in checking out (click on 'slideshow' to see my comments):

Trip with Dad to England/Ireland, November, 2004
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=dec5uxx.by5n1kul&x=0&y=-af090k

Bromley Family Reunion, August, 2004
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=dec5uxx.bqh899pp&x=0&y=-wykwe5

Chilimigras Christmas, 2004
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=dec5uxx.4hooaeb1&x=0&y=-h6l92e

i'm back!

2004-11-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

got back from England on Friday night. let's see... picking up from where i left off:

the second meeting with Nolland went very well. i'm really encouraged... my next step is to learn a little bit more about research methodologies. then i'm going to be exploring the book of Acts, and see how it provides a hermeneutical window on the book of Luke, and its depiction of the miraculous. looking like my dissertation is going to focus on the meaning/significance of miracle in early Christianity.

after Bristol we caught a bus to Birmingham, and then on to Holyhead, where we picked up our ferry. on the way out of Birmingham our bus clipped another bus, so we ended up waiting there for about 45 minutes before we got underway. then we encountered a ginormous (gigantic-enormous) traffic jam on the way to Holyhead, and ended up arriving over 2 hours late! needless to say, we had missed our ferry, so had to catch another. ended up arriving in Dublin at around 10pm.

Dublin is *CRAZY* on Saturday nights, especially in the Temple Bar area. not sure if i've ever seen quite so many people packed into a few square blocks. wow! our hostel was right in the middle of it, literally next door to one of the more popular pubs. our room was tiny, and packed with 10 beds (5 bunks). i was very disappointed at how small the room was... but that wasn't the worst part; we must have been in the noisiest street in Ireland. i kidd you not, at around 1am in the morning there was someone smashing beer bottles right outside our window, for about 30 minutes. he must have been recycling or something. then at 6am they were stacking metal beer kegs right down the street.... not even ear plugs can block that.

we did some sightseeing around Dublin... the zoo, Trinity College, St. Patrick's, etc. after a couple days of this it was time to leave. headed back to Bristol to spend the night, and then off to London.

London was fantabulous. my favorite city in the world. we arrived in the afternoon, and our first task was to ride the London Eye... a gigantic ferris wheel (kind of). that was a lot of fun... great way to see the city. after that we headed to Leicester Square, where they do all the movie premiers. got to see Tom Hanks (from about 50 yards) for his premier of Polar Express. then we went to go watch a movie... this is funny; we wanted to see 'After the Sunset', the new Pierce Brosnan movie... we got confused and ended up in 'Before Sunset' by accident, an independent film with Ethan Hawke. the entire movie is a single dialogue... i kinda enjoyed it, but was definitely not what my dad was looking forward to. oh well.

the next day my dad and i headed out to Wimbledon. he's a huge tennis fan, so it was cool to see Center Court and all. then we stopped by the British Museum and saw a cool 3-D presentation on a mummy... very nice... i love that museum. ate lunch at a nice pub. then off to St. Paul's Cathedral. this was the highlight of the day... we climbed over 800 steps to get to the top, and had an amazing view of the city. i can't believe they built this thing 300 years ago... Unbelievable. people are amazing. after the cathedral we tried to make it to the Tower of London, but we were too late... it looked really cool... next time i guess.

the flight back was OK. i had exactly the same seat as i did on the way over. watched 'Little Black Book', which sucked. read a lot of an N.T. Wright book i'm working on.

hello from Bristol

2004-11-11T10:24:00.000-05:00

...well, here we are, in Bristol.

the plane flight over was long, but not terribly bad. my dad and i were able to get emergency-row seats, which meant a bit more legroom. we flew on an airbus (i think A300) that was pretty big, but not like a 747. each seat had its own video display, so you could watch whatever you wanted at any time.. pretty nice... i watched 'the bourne supremacy', which i liked a lot. i had a feeling that some good stuff (gratuitous violence) was edited out, but still made for a great flick. later on i re-watched 'the anchorman', which was great, even the second time around. the lady next to me was, er, generously proportioned, so i didn't have a lot of elbow room, but at least she didn't snore. the flight was quite bumpy, but not too bad (i guess the plane is too big to really get thrown about). i was surprised to see that we had a 120 mile tailwind. i guess the wind really gets going at 37,000 feet! our ground speed was something like 700 miles per hour... not shabby... and we arrived about 40 minutes early.

after the plane, we had a 3.5 hour bus ride to Bristol. the bus was quite a bit more comfortable than the plane, and we were practically the only people on it. then in Bristol we had to find which local bus to take... took us about 1.5 hours to actually get to the college. so overall a good 21 hours of travelling, from airport to college. by the time i went to sleep, i had been awake for almost 40 hours.

slept like a log last night! i think i slept for about 11 hours or so. in the morning i went to use my electric shaver, which i thought would work here because it said '~250' on it, which i thought meant 250 volts. i'd used a hair-dryer from home in the past, which worked just fine here. well, i plugged it into the adapter, then into the wall, turned it on, and it died in about 2 seconds... smelled burning plastic after that... i tossed it in the garbage can. i'm thinking it wasn't rated for 250 volts after all. went and bought a good ol razor this afternoon.

we had a 'continental' breakfast... cereal and toast. then i met with my advisor at around 11am. the meeting went well. he had read my thesis, which he said he enjoyed. he said it was 'well organized' and that i was a good writer (apparently a lot of people who do graduate work have to really improve their writing skills first). after those nice words he went on to tell me that while it was a good paper for what it was (a master's thesis), it was not to the level i'll need for a successful Ph.D. dissertation. he then went on to tell me why: basically i made too many implicit assumptions in the course of the work. in my dissertation i'll need to write for both a secular and religious audience, so have to be careful about that. he also said i pulled some ideas from sources without taking full consideration of their overall context. also that i too often assumed that the texts were transparent windows into history, without taking enough consideration of the author's motives... also that i need to figure out what kind of research i'm doing: history or biblical theology, or both... that i need to be careful that i have 'methodological clarity' when i pull from such a wide variety of sources. you can't pull something that takes a sociological approach then something from a historical approach and then something from a theological approch without making sure they form a coherent unity. also that i neglected the role of the cross & resurrection in my discussion of miracles... how does jesus' suffering and death impact my understanding of the miraculous.

all these were very good points, and i'm not surprised or discouraged that my thesis was a far cry from what my dissertation will need to be. i'd actually be a bit depressed if it wasn't, since i wouldn't have to learn much in that case. it also means that i can pretty much focus on the same topic for my dissertation, since nothing i wrote thus far can be taken over directly (you can't use the same work to fulfill two different degrees). i meet with nolland again tomorrow morning at 11, and hope to hammer out the direction of my work in the next year or so.

well, that's all for now... i'll write again soon.

England, here we come!

2004-11-09T11:14:00.000-05:00

well, i'm heading out this evening for London with my dad. my flight leaves at 9:30pm this evening, and i arrive in london at 10:05am their time, wednesday. i usually don't get any sleep on flights, but i'm hoping to break that pattern... it makes for a really long day otherwise (basically awake for about 40 hours straight... ouch!) i think it's going to be a total blast hanging out with my dad. i'm going to miss julie a lot, but hope she has a good time with friends while i'm gone.

We'll first head to Trinity Theological College where I'll be meeting with John Nolland, my advisor. After Bristol, we'll head to Dublin, where we'll stay at Barnacles Temple Bar House. Then it's back to London, where we'll be staying at YHA City of London. Hoping to see lots of fun things!

Cloudy

2004-10-29T09:57:00.000-04:00

It's been really cloudy here lately... I've only seen the sun a few times for the past few weeks. I don't mind the cold weather, don't mind the snow... but I really dread overcast skies day after day. I wish there was some technology that would get rid of it! That's what needs to be invented... a cloud disperser; then we could build a mountain maker (I'm thinking of a GIGANTIC bulldozer). Build some really big mountains, dig some new lakes, get rid of the clouds... oh yeah.

Wow, can't wait until this election is over. These TV ads and mailings are just *lame*. Are people really this stupid? Do these attack ads really work? Some little part of me is thinking that democracy is overrated. Seriously, I'd feel a little better about it if I thought most voters had any clue about the issues. On the other hand, the "smart" people don't seem to agree on anything either, so I guess democracy is the best bet. At least we can blame ourselves if the leadership sucks (at least 49% of us).

I've been feeling a bit sick lately. Haven't been sleeping well for the past 1-2 months, and this last week I've had some sort of flu bug. I'm waking up every morning congested, and I'm having interrupted sleep... feel tired all the time. I have some suspicion that something is in our room/bed that I'm allergic to. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday.

I'm really excited about the new Biblical Greek for Everyone class that Brown Kinnard and I will teach, starting tomorrow. We've had really good sign-ups, and looks like it will be a lot of fun.

Only one and a half weeks left until I go to England! Yeah! Can't wait. Only bummer will be not seeing Julie for 10 days... that sucks. Please pray for a safe trip.

stuff this week

2004-10-12T10:01:00.000-04:00

Darn... I wrote a bunch of stuff but accidentally erased it. Oh well... here goes again:

I returned the Sennheiser headphones and ordered the Bose Triport. Can't wait! I love relaxing in bed at night getting deep into some good music. Really been enjoying Yo-Yo Ma lately. A friggin musical genius. Can't wait for U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb". It's got a track named "Yahweh" on it--cool.

Mowed the lawn yesterday. Getting brown--that time of year. Ground is pretty lumpy... i'm going to have to rent a lawn roller to smooth it out in the spring... don't want to sprain an ankle while playing lawn croquet! Also had some moles digging tunnels earlier this year. I sprayed some mole repellent and they went into the neighbor's yard. Then they spray the repellent and it comes back to my yard! Hate to have to kill the thing, but it really makes a mess. What to do?!

Can't wait for the trip to England in November. Really looking forward to the time with my dad. We've already got all the tickets, travel, lodging... everything is booked. I've never had such an organized trip before. My dad is really into seeing everything, so I think I'll be exhausted by the time I come back. It will be fun to see Dublin again... haven't been there since 1995. I like the Irish people... pretty warm and fun, although they can get a bit crazy at the pubs.

Went and saw Friday Night Lights with Jesse last night. I really enjoyed it--a lot more than I thought I would. Kinda reminded me of basketball camp when I was in high school. I remember the coaches talking about their high school basketball glory days, like it was the pinnacle of their lives. Sorta depressing... It's funny how sports seems to bring out the best and worst in people-- the aggressiveness, pride, ego, anger, selfishness, cruelty... but also (hopefully) sacrifice, honor, excellence. Sometimes I wonder if the good outweighs the bad.

Home life is really good. I love being married; love Julie. Marriage has definitely improved over the last couple of years. God is really good, merciful, patient....

Willow Creek Conference

2004-10-03T11:50:00.000-04:00

Just got back from a conference at Willow Creek Church. Wow! What a place! The new sanctuary seats 7,500 people... their 'small' sanctuary seats 4,500. There were waterfalls, elevators, escalators, cafe's, wireless internet, dozens of giant LCD monitors... very cool. The conference was great; lots of good ideas and inspiration for neighborhood small groups. Can't wait to implement this stuff here at the church.

I'm getting better with the orthodontic device... still slurring certain words a little bit, but I'm sounding more normal than before.

Really looking forward to the November trip to England with my dad. We're flying into London, then taking a bus to Bristol, where I'll spend a few days at Trinity Theological College working with my Ph.D. advisor John Nolland. Then we'll take a ferry over to Dublin, Ireland, spend a few nights at a hostel, and then head back to London for a few remaining days.

It's starting to get cold here! Down into the 30's last night... I *love* the fall; the leaves, the crisp, cold air, cider & donuts, fireplace, down comfortor...ahhh.

I got my new Sennheiser 555's... they're awesome, but unfortunately they don't insulate the sound very well, so others can hear them... I may have to return them. I might get the Bose headphones, unless Sennheiser has something better.

Yipeee!!

2004-09-29T13:36:00.000-04:00

South Beach

2004-09-14T20:07:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm doing the South Beach Diet thing. Can't believe it... two weeks ago I can't believe all the people doing it, and now I'm one of them. I was in Sam's Club and saw the book there on the shelf... and BAM! I'm doing the diet. I've been way under-active and eating too much junk... this is sort of a nice jump-start to eating better. Plus it's not un-healthy like Atkins... you still eat carbs and you don't eat bad fats.

Life is good! Things are going well at church, Julie and I have more time at home now, i'm done with the thesis, and the German class is easy. I'm going to a small-groups conference at Willow Creek church later this month. Should be fun... it's a huge church doing lots of cool stuff. I'm hoping I get to drive the Matrix out there... haven't talked to Julie about it yet.

I'm looking forward to seeing Agent Zero soon... right up my alley... looks cool.

Speech Impediment

2004-09-02T20:16:00.000-04:00

On monday my father-in-law (Julie's dad) put a new "device" in the roof of my mouth... it's connected to the braces on my upper teeth and is designed to spread my upper jaw apart. Apparently the arch of the roof of my mouth is too narrow, and is preventing proper placement of my lower jaw.

Well, this device is a convoluted piece of steel wire that hangs about 3/4 inch below the roof of my mouth, from side to side. Problem is, I can no longer touch the roof of my mouth with my tongue, so it's pretty much near impossible to make a "y" sound, "eeee", "r" is hard (or any of the "velars" for you linguists).

Plus, I just started a new German class at WCC, so i'm trying to say German words and can't even speak English right now... ugh! So I'm trying to tough it out until Monday... apparently it takes about a week for your tongue to adapt, so patience....

Dun!

2004-08-25T14:24:00.000-04:00

I was up until 6:30am this morning finishing the rough draft of my thesis. Did it! Thank you Diet Mountain Dew. Haven't stayed up that late in a LONG time. Did you know that the sun rises in the east?! Amazing.

I'm hoping to have some relaxing down time soon... I have to do a funeral tomorrow at 2pm, but after that it's back to a slower pace of life. Maybe get some exercise, breathe some fresh air, take a walk, ahhhh....

Two-Parter

2004-08-21T22:14:00.000-04:00

Got to preach again this weekend, as well as last weekend. My first 2-part series! I did "Hearing God's Voice"; you can listen to the audio or read the notes here. Had a good time, but felt a bit tired and repeated myself a bit too much.

I'm really beat... this was one of the most grueling months I've had in years. Replacing the clutch on my truck, fixing the house for the home tour, thesis, 2 weeks of preaching, trip to NH. Man, I just want to do *nothing* for about a month after this... maybe watch some TV or see a movie if I feel really motivated.

I'm heading to see the in-laws in Kalamazoo Sunday evening after the home tour... looking forward to a few hours of down-time, although I'll be taking the 'puter for evening thesis work.

Vacation, Car, Thesis, House

2004-08-17T02:56:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a busy time...

Julie and I had a nice family reunion with my side last week in New Hampshire. We stayed at a Baptist Conference Center in Rumney, NH. It was a bit cramped, but enjoyed just hanging out with my dad, brother, sister, her husband and 2 kids. I finished The Waste Lands, and started a Tom Clancy novel, The Teeth of the Tiger.

We just picked up our new 2005 Toyota Matrix XR today (phantom grey pearl). I love it... lots of head room and a smooth ride, fairly affordable. Not a lot of power, but great gas milage. Nice to have a dependable vehicle now.

The thesis is coming along nicely (I'm at about 98 pages, 25,000 words, hoping to end up with about 30,000 words) ... I'm hoping to finish the rough draft by the end of the weekend. What a lot of work!

We're on the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival's home tour this year. We're trying to get everything cleaned up and fixed before Friday...

Well, that's all the time I have for this blog right now.

The Village - The Waste Lands

2004-07-31T14:01:00.000-04:00

Julie and I sawM. Night Shyamalan's The Village last night at Quality 16. I really like his movies... they always get ya thinkin, and this one is no exception. My favorit is The Sixth Sense, but I also really loved Signs. I really appreciate Joaquin Phoenix... great actor!

I finished King's The Drawing of the Three last night, and just checked out The Waste Lands (Dark Tower III). They're totally different from the other King novels I've read, but I'm really enjoying them... great escape reading.

Still plugging away at the thesis. I'm probably about half-way through my third big chapter, and it's currently at 75 pages... just for this chapter. I'll probably have to trim it down to about 40-45.

Bummer

2004-07-26T14:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday (Sunday) after church, I spent the entire afternoon and evening working on the house. I put up three lights: one over the side porch, one in the foyer closet, and hung a chandelier in the foyer. Then Julie and I worked outside, putting in a bunch of edging. After that, I cleared out this vine that was attacking our Magnolia tree and my gardening shed. I had plans to see a movie (Bourne Supremacy) with some friends (Ken, Donnell, John, et. al.) at 9:05pm at Quality 16. When I walked in the house and checked the clock, it was already 9:03. I was extremely bummed, to say the least! Then, around 10:45 (after sulking for a long time) I called up Jesse to do some online computer gaming. Once I had my desk ready, I went to set up the computer... and remembered that I hadn't brought my computer home! By then it was too late for me to go get it... what a day! Ugh.

Free iPod

2004-07-22T16:01:00.000-04:00

Hey, I found out about a cool deal from Jesse's blog... a way to get a free iPod. Of course, since I got this idea from Jesse, it's only fair that if you know him you should help him get the free iPod, not me. Otherwise, you could sign up for a free promo and help me by clicking:

click here

You might consider doing the eBay promo... all you have to do is register and place a bid on something, you don't even need to win the bid. So you could bid on something that costs a penny, and you'll surely not win... sound good? All you have to do is get 5 other people to sign up and YOU get a free iPod. Thanks for the idea Jesse! I'll see if I can do one of your promos to help you with your free iPod too.