lamaze class

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

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

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

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

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

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

...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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

our magnolia tree


our forsythia shrub

the EGLBS meeting

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

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

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.