Our Buddy Lowery

I decided a month or so ago that it would be a wonderful thing if this picture were to pop up on someone's blog every now and then, so that Brian's fame can be continually celebrated. Its not everyday that one gets to be the posterboy for the LCC preaching department.

Much thanks to Soebeck for his original post that featured this great pic of Brian and for the photo shop job on the caption at the bottom.

For the confused, you can unlock of the meaning of the caption by visiting the book of Acts chapter 20, verse nine and read about the fate of Eutychus.

Have a great day!

Hope

In actual fact, however, eschatology means the doctrine of the Christian hope, which embraces both the object hoped for and also the hope inspired by it. From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day. For Christian faith lives from the raising of the crucified Christ, and strains after the promises of the universal future of Christ. Eschatology is the passionate suffering and passionate longing kindled by the Messiah. Hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine. Rather, the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian proclamation, of every Christian existence and of the whole Church.


-Jurgen Moltmann, "Theology of Hope." Now available to read online.

Happy Turkey Day....Hot Wing Day

I'm not sure when this happened, but a few years ago our family decided that holidays such as Thanksgiving, where everyone was home, was to significant of an occasion to eat a food as bland as turkey. Therefore, we have usually cooked the family favorite, beef teriyaki.

This year will be no exception as we will be dining not only on teriyaki but will also be feasting on mom's special hot wing recipe. I'm so excited about eating this thanksgiving. Rumor has it that mom has got a new recipe for General Tso's chicken up her sleeve and that we will be partaking of that glorious food at some point during the Thanksgiving holiday.

I'm looking forward to the holiday, and I wish you all the best and hope that your tables are long and full of your family favorites.

Ahab

I've been teaching on the book of Hosea at our church the last month. The book is raw, full of vivid imagery and has lots of language that you'd never dream of hearing or saying in church. So far I haven't been tossed out of the sanctuary yet. :)

The form of the writing is poetry-prophecy and the dominant imagery is that of Israel and God in a marriage relationship, but Israel, God's bride has been unfaithful and is "prostituting herself to other lovers" via the worship of the Canaanite god's. In spite of her unfaithfulness God continues to pursue his wife and call for her return.

I am struck by the way that God is portrayed in this compliation of poetry-sermons, because God is pictured as a husband that refuses to give up on his adulteress wife. It is like God's plan to love people cannot be thwarted in the slightest.

One of the Hebrew words that Hosea uses to speak of God's love is the word Ahab (some know this word as Ahava, if you've seen Rob Bell's Nooma video called Flame). Gary Smith defines ahab as "irrational power that is unexplainable and paradoxical, since it is undeserved. It is a free giving of one's self to another to care for, forgive, and protect that person--without strings or conditions. Another commentator writes saying, "love works irresistably as an original force in the nature of God. When he acts in love, God demonstrates no less than his proper character as the holy God. It nearly seems as if God's love is more powerful in its compelling force than he himself."

Several weeks ago, the headlines were replete with stories about the shooting at the Amish School. The Today Show did a story on the incident and on the community's decision to forgive the shooter. One of the experts that they brought on the show spoke about how forgiveness is an irrational act, yet powerful. I don't think she was using the word irrational in a pejorative way, rather I think she was saying that for most of us forgiveness doesn't come naturally. We would rather get revenge and we would rather hate our enemy.

Then a few days later I read an article about how half of the mourners at Charles Carl Roberts funeral were Amish and that their presence and actions were powerful displays of love and forgiveness. Most everyone attending the funeral was moved to tears.

Most of us look at that story and say, could I forgive like that? I'm not sure I could do that. Nevertheless, it is something that the amish have done and in my mind it is a very poweful story of love triumphing over evil intentions. This is a good story for our society to think and wrestle through. The buzz word and attitude of our society is "tolerance," while this can be a helpful concept properly defined, it is not enough.

There is nothing powerful, or motivational about tolerance; you are merely putting up with someone else. Tolerance is an inadequate posture for our society, rather I think our society needs to learn to love unconditionally. What if people from different social, political, ideological backgrounds actually saw the "person" behind all the other junk? What if we cared about people more than our own agenda? If we could truly learn to love our neighbor could we form a better society, neighborhood, or home?

Here Come The Chompers

Avery now has her first tooth; you can't see it here, but it has just pushed through. It will be interesting to see how fast and furious these teeth will come. If she is anything like her older brother she will start getting a lot of teeth all at once. By the time Xander was 8 months old he had 8 teeth.

Around here we often joke about our mutant powers, i.e. my mutant power is clapping really loud as to annoy Lyndsay. I used to say that Xander's mutant power was shark tooth regeneration. I said that because, sharks have several rows of teeth and when they loose their teeth due to their frenzied attacks on ocean liners and motor boats, the lost teeth are replaced by new ones fairly quickly. And the way Xander grew teeth before he was 8 months old, the comparison was justified.

As for now, it seems that Avery's mutant power is smiling and laughing and basically getting tickles, hugs, and kisses from her daddy.

Ojowee Articles

I just found out that The Christian Standard is doing a two part series on Open Theism. From what I've seen from the online articles it looks to be a fair investigation on their part, which I am excited about because the point of my thesis is going to be that Stone-Campbell theologians, pastors, and churches should engage in fair, irenic discussion on this topic.

William Baker also offers a list of books to read on the subject. All five resources would be good to read for anyone wanting to famliliarize themselves with the subject. The book, "Does God Have a Future," would be a great book to read since it's the published emails of two friends that are theologians that are on different sides of the issue.

Check out the articles here:

Open Theism Articles

While We Fed The Ducks

Doesn't she look warm!!

Is One Ever Too Old

We had a great time feeding the ducks a few weeks ago, and I found that I was really enjoying feeding them myself. I think it is an activity that no one really ever outgrows.

Ojowee

I have been working on my Master's Thesis lately and I am quite motivated and excited about my topic. My degree is in contemporary theology and philosophy and I am writing about open theism and its relationship to the Stone-Campbell movement (Church of Christ Churches and Christian Churches). Open theism could be summarized in several statements.

1. God loves the world and desires real reciprocal relationships between himself and his creatures.

2. God sovereignly chose to create a world in which humans experience significant freedom. Since God's goal is real reciprocal relationships with mankind, he grants humans with signficant freedom, and that freedom is a means to an end, namely reciprocal relationships.

3. Exhaustive, divine foreknowledge of the future is inconsistent with significant creaturely freedom. (How can God know what you or I will do tomorrow if we are significantly free?).

4. God faces a future that is partly open (because he cannot know the future free acts of humans) and partly closed (because God knows what he wants to accomplish and can bring it about according to his wisdom and almightyness).

5. God does not tightly control or micro-manage the world but exercises a general sovereignty of the world.

6. Mankind is a significant partner in the realization of God's purpose and dream for the world.

If you ask Xander what Daddy's thesis is about, he will tell you it is about Ojowee which is of course toddler speak for theology.

Exhale

Wow, that game last night wore me out, probably for the rest of the week. I watched the game at the house of one of the elders of our church, and I'm not sure if he was more entertained by the game or by me when I was jumping up and down and running around the room after that punt return. What a horrible game by the Bears, but we still managed the win with defense and special teams. Kinda reminds us of the 2005 Bears.

After watching the game and reflecting on the team, I am reminded of a line spoken about the bears, "If you are gonna beat the Bears, you gotta play a perfect game." That was true last night, let's see if it proves true for the rest of the season.

Hippo Monster

I watched the Ewok Adventure: Caravan of Courage about 50 times when I was a kid, so recently when I saw the double movie DVD of COC with the Battle of Endor I purchased it without even thinking. I loved this move and still do in spite of its lackluster production; it brings back many memories that I still laugh about with my brothers.

This movie has had quite a viewing here at our house lately. Now, of course the moment I arrived home with the DVD I forced Lyndsay to watch both of the movies, and she claims that they changed her life. That's probably an understatement. But here lately the Caravan of Courage has been viewed at least two time a week, by none other than Xander. He loves this show, and loves the ewoks. So far I've taught him to say wicket's name and the dad's name, Deej. We'll be working on the other names later.

The part that is so funny to me however, is that I think Xander's favorite part is when the Hippo Monster chases the children and then fights the ewoks in the morning. In case you are wondering, there is a very evil monster called the Gorax, who has captured the parents of the human children in the story. This evil Gorax has a nasty dog like pet that the Ewoks have to fight, and for whatever reason, each time the beast is shown Xander yells, "Hippo Monster." I don't know why he calls it that, but it cracks me up every time, even while I sit here typing, I am laughing.

So when we are driving in the car, or sitting around home talking, Xander starts to talk about the Hippo monster. And we talk about how Wicket "got" him with the poison dart, and we all get a chuckle. I can't believe that we are talking and laughing about a movie that I watched when I was a kid.

George Lucas uniting families for three generations.

Recent Photos

Healing Hands

Lyndsay has this amazing ability to fix the oddest items around the house, with absolutely no training in say, the field of electronics, yet can make electronic items function when they wouldn't otherwise. This ability seems to work on just about any item, electronic or otherwise.

Back when we were dating, we were at my parents house and the faucet in the kitchen wasn't' working right. I believe several attempts were made by my folks to resolve the situation, but they had been unsuccessful. Enter the future daughter-in-law. She walks up to the faucet, fidgets with it for a few minutes, and what do you know, its fixed. We all got a good laugh about it, for we all knew that she had no prior knowledge of fixing faucets. Then a few weeks later, she fixes my dad's watch, once again without having much knowledge of watch-fixing.

Since we've been married she has continued her string of genius. Our bedroom TV/VCR combo has had a little trouble powering up since Xander destroyed it by hitting the power button repeatedly and in rapid succession. Yet Lyndsay somehow figured out that if you hit the power button and the eject button with a combination of Hail Maries and Our Father's the television will come on.

Just last night her attribute kicked in once again. Two night ago, I was laboring in vain to get Xander's CD working right. It seemed that no matter what disc I placed in the player, it kept giving an error message followed by a no CD signal. I tried different discs, powering it down, a combination of opening the lid...Etc. Last night we are getting the little man ready for bed, when all of a sudden his CD player starts playing his night time music and Lyndsay says, "I fixed the CD player." I said, "How?!" She says, "I'm not telling." Dang Nabit.

I'm so jealous. I should be able to fix the faucet, watch, TV and CD player. But for some strange reason she is able to fix them and in the case of the CD player, she is not even sure what she did. We agree, that she must exude some kind of magnetic field that fixes all things electronic, which would explain the aforementioned fixes as well as the items in our house that have magically fixed themselves (which is a another story for another time story). I just wish she would lay her hands on my DVD player.

I guess instead of being jealous, I should be happy and be proud of my own heroic tales, like rescuing the tooth paste cap out of the sink drain with my needle nose pliers (flex). But for now I still have to ask my wife if she'll turn on the TV for me.

A Milestone Moment

Before

After

Mountain Top Experience

This is "Red Nose." I saw it everyday for about a week while I stayed in Colorado at the Blessings Ranch for a Ministry Excellence Week with 7 other pastors. This trip truly was a great trip that will help to sustain me over the long haul in ministry.

I've stated this a few times, but I really believe that in 10-20 years when I look back on the week I spent at the BR, I will still be able to say that the week I spent there was one of the best things I ever did. I feel as though I had been lagging behind in my walk with God and that my passion for ministry had tapered off. But this week renewed communion with God, energized me with passion for ministry, and has given me great hope for future ministry.

Of course it was very difficult to be gone from Lyndsay and the kids, but it was well worth it. It was great however, when I finally saw Xander again. I had met TWH and MKH at a halfway point between our homes (he had been staying at their home that week) and we made the exchange. He is always a little unsure of what is happening in those moments. He may not be sure that I've really come to get him, or if he's coming home with me. But when mema and papa drove away and we got in our car and started down the road, he began to cheer, saying, "Yeah Daddy!!" Of course I cheered back saying, "Yeah Xander!!" We cheered like this as we pulled out of Culver's, as we drove down the street, as we drove down Prospect all the way to the on ramp, and several miles down the interstate.

This was about 5 minutes of cheering for one another; it was hilarious and wonderful. It was like he really realized that his dad had really come for him, and was taking him home. And in the midst of that moment I realized that my interchange with my son mirrored the experience that I had all week long as a son with his Heavenly Father at the ranch, where I feel that God was cheering and smiling at me and I was cheering and smiling back.

Well things are getting back to normal around here. Lyndsay and I have managed to watch 3 whole discs of Lost Season 2 in an attempt to begin watching the third season in "real time." Xander has gone number 1 and 2 in the potty chair and Avery is starting to take cereal.

We were sitting around the table last night talking with Xander about Halloween, trying to get him to say "trick or treat," which he can say almost flawlessly. So Lyndsay decides to get him to say, "smell my feet," to which he would respond by dipping his head down towards his feet and taking a whiff in an attempt to smell his feet every time she said that. We finally got him to say, "smell my feet," but not without the dipping and whiffing. ROFL

Life is good, God is faithful, and children are such a joy. May God bless you this day.

Where's The Sugar

Today was the second consecutive day that Xander and I have stayed home together in what is becoming a hospital ward. So yesterday, he and I are sitting on the couch eating frosted mini wheats and watching the Return of the Jedi (for the 5th time). We are eating them with our hands, picking them out of the bowl. As usual, I am picking out the mini wheats that have the most sugar on them, which is the right thing to do, so that Xander doesn't eat too much sugar.

As we sit there eating the cereal I begin to notice that the majority of the mini wheats hardly have any sugar on them at all and I'm like, hmm...that's strange. So I look over at Xander and watch him bite into a piece of cereal, a few seconds later I realize that he is biting the sugar off of the mini wheat. A light bulb comes on in my head and I begin to touch all of these seemingly sugarly-challenged mini wheats, only to discover that they are all soggy. Well, Xander got the rest of that bowl.

Hopper Guy

Well, I have been forcing Lyndsay to watch the original Star Wars trilogy in its entirety for the second time in our relationship, since the first attempt was marred by her falling asleep through the majority of the viewing. Needless to say this continues to be the outcome of our veiwing attempts. However, this recent advent of the trilogy viewing finds me seated next to Xander who is completely captivated by the Hopper Guy.

See, awhile ago I taught Xander to "say" what Darth Vader says, which if you know anything about Star Wars, you know that his breathing sounds a lot like "hauuu perrrr." Well, to my delight he is actually able to imitate the breathing sound quite well when asked to perform, but when he sees Lord Vader on the screen he quickly says, "Daddy, look Hopper Guy." This unexpected referring to the sinister sith lord of course fills us with much laughter and joy and I hope has provided you with a small measure of glee.

Lyndsay, The Professional Photographer

I love this picture and it is on the desktop of my home computer. It so well shot that we have had people look at it and ask if the background of the elephants is a backdrop in a photographers studio.