Author: Glen

Reno Is Beautiful!

This Wednesday Paula and I drove up to Sparks, NV to preach at Crosswinds Assembly of God, which was a great experience.

nevada.jpgThis Wednesday Paula and I drove up to Sparks, NV to preach at Crosswinds Assembly of God, which was a great experience.

First, Sparks is adjacent to Reno–and that is an incredibly beautiful area, sporting snow-capped mountains in virtually every direction.

Second, the church itself was very cool–the people were friendly, the worship was great, and I got to use one of those cool little professional wireless mikes that fits like a headset (the kind Britney and those boy bands use). I love gadgets, and that was just plain neat.

Third, Paula and I were able to meet with five other pastors for face-to-face presentations of our ministry on Wednesday and Thursday: Rodney Waters (Lighthouse of Natomas), David Hoskins (Valley View Christian Fellowship), Brent Johnson (Reno Assembly of God), Terry and Rita Fred (Sierra Church), Stan Friend (Capital Christian Center in Carson City), and John Peterson (South Shore Christian Assembly).

Fourth, Dennis Gaylor (the national Chi Alpha director) happened to be in Reno and we got to meet him for lunch along with Terry and Rita Fred.

Fifth, the last pastor we met with (John Peterson) used to pastor here in Palo Alto. He and his wife pioneered a church here around 1989 and over a decade grew it to around 350 people, including several Stanford students. He got involved with ministry on campus and things were going well, and then he went to join the district denominational leadership team. The church dwindled and doesn’t exist anymore. Still, it was great talking to him!

Sixth, we drove back through Lake Tahoe–simply stunning!

In other words, this trip was fabulous any way you count it. Sorry if you’ve sent me an email I haven’t responded to yet, we just put over 600 miles on our car in two days and haven’t been near a computer for that whole time. I’ll begin processing the backlog today and get it cleared out by tomorrow.

Our Speaking & Travel Schedule

If you’re a pastor, you might be curious to know when we’re available to do a missions window or a service at your church.

If you’re a pastor, you might be curious to know when we’re available to do a missions window or a service at your church.

Our current calendar:

September 2003
Traveling first week in September
Wed 9/3 PM: Calvary Temple Youth Group (Yuba City, CA)
Sun 9/14 AM: Mount Pleasant Christian Center (San Jose, CA)
Sun 9/21 AM: Stanford Multi-Faith Welcome
Sun 9/28 PM: Redwood Valley Missions Convention (tentative)

October 2003 download bone collector the movie
Sun 10/5 AM: Christian Center of San Jose
Wed 10/15 PM: Assembly of God Tabernacle (Keyes, CA)

November 2003
Sat 11/1 PM: The Carpenter’s House (Modesto, CA)
Sun 11/2 AM: The Carpenter’s House (Modesto, CA)
Wed 11/5 PM: Oak Park Christian Center (Pleasant Hill, CA)
Sun 11/9 AM: Southbay Christian Center (Mountain View, CA)
Sun 11/16 AM: First Assembly (San Diego, CA)

February 2004
2/1–2/6: Spiritual Emphasis Week at Crossroads Christian School (Morgan Hill, CA)

May 2004
Sun 5/23 AM: Trinity Life (Las Vegas, NV)

Sample Missions Window

For pastors: if you’re considering having us in to do a missions window at your church, I encourage you to check out the brief video welcome we have on our website.

For pastors: if you’re considering having us in to do a missions window at your church, I encourage you to check out this brief (under two minutes) video:

If you see this text, you need to download the latest Flash plugin for your browser. attic the online

The controls work just like a VCR–hit the play button (>) to begin the video.

If you can’t get it to work (or can’t even see the arrow), download the latest Flash plugin for your browser.

That’s basically what we do for a missions window (without the soundtrack and the cool graphics effects).

If you have us in to do the whole service, I generally do the missions window and then preach a practical message for your people unless you ask me to do otherwise (some pastors prefer that I share about missions or about Chi Alpha the entire time).

The Kingdom of Heaven

Here’s that lengthy quote I read last night:

The Kingdom of Heaven, said the Lord Christ, is among you. But what, precisely, is the Kingdom of Heaven? You cannot point to existing specimens, saying, Lo, here! or Lo, there! You can only experience it. But what is it like, so that when we experience it we may recognize it? Well, it is a change, like being born again and relearning everything from the start. It is secret, living powerlike yeast. It is something that grows, like seed. It is precious like buried treasure, like a rich pearl, and you have to pay for it. It is a sharp cleavage through the rich jumble of things which life presents: like fish and rubbish in a draw-net, like wheat and tares; like wisdom and folly; and it carries with it a kind of menacing finality; it is new, yet in a sense it was always therelike turning out a cupboard and finding there your own childhood as well as your present self; it makes demands, it is like an invitation to a royal banquetgratifying, but not to be disregarded, and you have to live up to it; where it is equal, it seems unjust; where it is just it is clearly not equalas with the single pound, the diverse talents, the laborers in the vineyard, you have what you bargained for; it no knows compromise between an uncalculating mercy and a terrible justicelike the unmerciful servant, you get what you give; it is helpless in your hands like the Kings Son, but if you slay it, it will judge you; it was from the foundations of the world; it is to come; it is here and now; it is within you. It is recorded that the multitudes sometimes failed to understand.

Dorothy Sayers, The Poetry of Search

OK–That’s Fast!

The team transferred uncompressed data at 923 megabytes per second for 58 seconds from Sunnyvale, Calif., to Amsterdam — a distance of almost 6,800 miles, or about one-quarter of the way around the world. This transfer speed is more than 3,500 times faster than a typical home Internet broadband connection.

Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator recently transmitted the equivalent of a 4 hour movie to Amsterdam in less than one minute.

Now THAT’S what I call bandwidth!

The team transferred uncompressed data at 923 megabytes per second for 58 seconds from Sunnyvale, Calif., to Amsterdam — a distance of almost 6,800 miles, or about one-quarter of the way around the world. This transfer speed is more than 3,500 times faster than a typical home Internet broadband connection.

Read all about it.

It’s fun to hang around a place where records are being set and the world is being changed…

Galileo And The Pope: Perspectives

Check out this brief interview with Professor Lindberg (history of science prof at Wisconsin-Madison) Did Martin Luther Get Galileo in Trouble?

How did the church respond to Galileo’s theory?
There was a committee established called the Holy Office, which had the responsibility to determine the truth in matters of faith. Charges were leveled against Galileo, and so the heliocentric question came before them.

We don’t know much about what went on in their considerations. But it’s important to look at the whole picture. And one part of that picture is that the scientific community is overwhelmingly opposed to Galileo. That is, the evidence that Galileo has is not particularly powerful. It’s not overpowering. He was looked on as a crackpot by lots of scientists.

If we combine this picture with the authority of the Catholic Church to interpret the Bibleand their new attention to literal interpretationit’s just clear what the answer is going to be. They’re not going to violate their own hermeneutic exegetical standards in order to adopt this crackpot minority opinion of the scientific community.

So then he goes before a papal court. It wasn’t his science that was on trial, though. What was he tried for?
Obedience was the only issue in the trial. And he was guilty. Everybody could tell he was guilty because Galileo doesn’t just discuss the pros and cons of the theory, he just advocates all the way. It was a blunder on Galileo’s part.

Galileo then recants. Why?
He had two choices. There was the threat of imprisonment or he could recant. Everybody knew it was a formality, so he didn’t cost his cause anything to recant.

How did the theory of the sun as the center of the universe finally get accepted by the church?
Once Newton’s theory of gravitation came along, you had overwhelming arguments in favor of heliocentrism. The church says, “Okay, now we’ve got proof, so now we will reinterpret the Bible.”

By the end of the 17th century, the church was on board, though Copernicus’s book stayed on the index of prohibited books until 1835. This geocentric model remained an albatross around the Catholic Church’s neck.

Interesting stuff.

More Scientists Who Believe

I just ran across a link for the American Scientific Affiliation: a fellowship of men and women in science and disciplines that relate to science who share a common fidelity to the Word of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science.

They have an absolutely incredible respository of articles and links to resources. If you’re in the sciences, you need to check this out!

Cult On Campus

Heads up–there’s a cult active at Stanford. One of Andrew’s friends was approached this week by a group called “Students For the Truth at Stanford.”

They are a part of the “Local Church” founded by Witness Lee. The version of the Bible they hand out is called “The Recovery Version.”

This is not simply another Christian group like Cornerstone or InterVarsity. Those are wonderful groups that are good to be involved in (obviously, we’d prefer you plug into Chi Alpha, but that’s just ’cause we want to know you).

This group is fundamentally different. The Local Church is known for demanding absolute and unhealthy obedience from its followers. Here’s my counsel to you: groups like this mess up your life. If someone approaches you, give them absolutely no information about yourself or where you live. Be polite but firm.

Here are some links you can investigate:

Critical Perspectives
Apologetics Index
Living Truth Ministries
Christian Research Institute

Their Perspective
Students For The Truth At Stanford (does not seem to be actively maintained)
Living Stream Ministries
Bibles For America

Tony Campolo, John Gallegos, Jeff Bills, and Eddie Rentz

Tony Campolo and three Assembly of God pastors. No–this isn’t a joke. Why do you ask?

Yesterday morning I went to hear Tony Campolo speak at ‘Straight Talk’, a really cool ministry to businesspeople sponsored by Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.

He was really funny–I’d always heard that he was a funny guy, but he was REALLY funny. He was also insightful. He contrasted two basic orientations to life (emotional and rational, people and principle, yin and yang, Pentecostalism and Prebyterianism) and talked about how Jesus was able to integrate them both.

Whenever I’m around a world-class speaker I always try to glean some tips. He didn’t do a good job of connecting with members of the audience beforehand (we shared a breakfast table separated by one person and barely exchanged two sentences), although I think some of that may have been due to the structure of the event rather than his proclivity (there really wasn’t much of a chance to talk). He did an excellent job of using humor to make profound points, and was an outstanding storyteller. In fact, his talk was really a series of stories connected by some logical transitions.

He was also outstanding at localizing his message. He had tons of jokes about Presbyterians and Menlo Park and other things his audience would resonate with. I’ve got no doubt he’s given basically the same talk many times before, but it felt fresh and special because of the localizations.

Side note: Tony mentioned that he thinks Pentecostalism is theologically inconsistent. I wish I had been able to talk to him about that… but duty called.

As soon as the meeting was over, I had to book it up to Woodland to meet with two pastors (AGTS classmate John Gallegos and Jeff Bills), and then I drove to Sacramento and met with another pastor (Eddie Rentz, the former national youth director for the Assemblies of God: check out his google), and started to drive home just in time to catch the traffic jams.

After returning I visited a student in his dorm room, and then came home around 7:30pm. Twelve hours on the road–not a bad day.