Oh, You Have One Of Those…

Dana has been potty training lately and she’s getting quite good at it. She’ll be playing with her toys, minding her own business, when all of a sudden she will leap to her feet and sneak/bolt towards the bathroom. After successfully depositing solid matter she will emit a triumphant cry: “I went poop!”

It’s quite charming, really.

Yesterday one of our friends, Jen, volunteered to take Dana in for the day while Paula was on bedrest. Things were going just fine until Dana pooped in her pants without showing the slightest interest in Jen’s bathroom.

Dana needed some cleaning to prevent a rash, and when Jen brought Dana to the bathroom Dana stared at the toilet and then said slowly to Jen, “Oh, you have one of those.” 🙂

Assumptions. As my friend Fraser used to tell me in high school, the word assume makes an ass out of you and me.

For the record, I am assuming the etymology of that comment traces back to donkeys and not to sphincters, otherwise it might be construed as a vulgarity. My thoughts on cursing, vulgarities, and expletives are a little complicated, but the bottom line is that I try to avoid offending people with the words I choose without becoming bound up in silly rules (such as erasing the word ass from the dictionary because one of its uses is a synonym for posterior). Plus the ensuing pun (resulting from the juxtaposition of poop and hiney) would be too awful even for me.

Back to assumptions: Dana assumes Jen has no potty and so she excretes wherever she happens to be. I assume God has no opinion about my decisions and so I don’t pray to receive guidance.

Bad assumptions lead to stinky situations.

Paula in Hospital, Everything OK

Yesterday Paula began to feel contractions, and her doctor decided to put under observation in the hospital.

She gave Paula some medicine to stop her contractions, and so far it seems to be working. She estimates there’s still a 60% chance that our baby will go full term.

In any event, it looks as though Paula will be on bed rest right up until Baby Davis appears sometime in the next few weeks. Or days. 😉

We’re already at the point where Paula can deliver with very little danger to the baby, so this is more about optimizing conditions rather than trying to preserve the life of our child.

Bottom line: Paula is fine, baby is fine, Dana is confused, Daddy is frazzled.

Helping Teens Transition To College

I stumbled upon this quote today: 

Every autumn I have a spate of letters from fond parents, teachers, guardians, and monitors, appealing to me to follow up on such and such a youngster who is away from home at college for the first time, and who has to be hunted, followed, shadowed, intercepted and driven to Christian meetings. I have scarcely ever known this desperate technique to work. I understand the panic of parents and guardians, but it is too late then to try high pressure tactics. Prayer, example and precept, in that order, are the means of bringing up children and young folk in the faith. Nor will high pressure tactics and brainwashing techniques avail when young folk have gone off on their own. Some young folk, alas, will have their fling and sow their wild oats, and come at last to heel, sadly, like the prodigal son. It is where Christians pathetically put their trust in external techniques and artificial stratagems that young folk go astray. Nothing takes the place of the realism of holy living and secret wrestling before God in prayer for our youngsters. We must commit them to God so utterly that we dare not interfere or tamper with their precious souls.

(William Still, late Pastor of Gilcomston South Church, Aberdeen, Scotland)

Well said.

Daddy Can’t Handle The Truth

While eating breakfast this morning, Dana said, “Your bottom is saggy, Daddy.”

Bewildered, I think I said something on the order of, “Huh?”

At which point Dana began chanting, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Over and over.

I didn’t think I’d have to put up with this sort of mockery until her adolescence. I certainly didn’t expect it from a two year old.

I need to tell my ego to buckle its seatbelt — it’s going to be a rocky ride from here on out.

New NET Bible website is awesome

The NET Bible website just got an overhaul and it is awesome. Check it out (be sure to mouse over the footnotes). And they seem to have renamed the web portion of their project NEXT Bible: http://nextbible.org

A Georgetown Suggestion

I found this on GetReligion and was so tickled I thought I’d pass it along here:

what would happen if leaders of the kicked-off-campus Georgetown University chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship applied to the leadership of the Jesuit school for permission to hold a public forum this week in which students and faculty would be asked to read and then peacefully discuss the text of Pope Benedict XVI’s actual speech text on faith, reason and jihad?

Perhaps the event could be held at the well-endowed Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding on the campus?

Just thinking out loud, you know. I am sure the campus administration would welcome such a request by the ousted Protestant groups to organize an ecumenical and even interfaith event focusing on the intellectual thought of a man that Georgetown must realize is in the mainstream of Catholic intellectual life.

🙂

I don’t think it’s going to happen, but it’s fun to fantasize about.

Also see my previous thoughts on the evangelical eviction from Georgetown.

5 Rare Gems for Reaching High School and College Students

I just finished Donny Roberson’s 5 Rare Gems for Reaching High School and College Students. It’s an excellent (and brief) guide to campus ministry. 

You should especially read this if you are in college ministry and are a male over 30 — he makes some insightful observations you won’t find anywhere else.

His “5 Gems” are really just musings on five big topics: understanding your students’ families, being creative, building quality relationships, being persistent, and listening effectively. 

From every gem save one I learned something that I’m looking forward to trying this year — and the book only cost me $3.

So go order it already.

Worst Places To Be When The Big One Strikes

Living in the California Bay Area, my thoughts turn periodically to the Big One.

Recently I was wondering where the worst places to be in an earthquake would be (other than in open-heart surgery or something else that is already life-or-death).

Quick thoughts that I had:

  • Getting a haircut
  • Walking among the stacks of a library
  • In a port-a-potty

I’m sure there are lots of more horrible places to be in an earthquake, but these are the ones that strike particular fear into my heart.

Who Will Let The Dog Out?

Duane Chapman, aka Dog the Bounty Hunter, was arrested earlier today for violating Mexican law while tracking down a wealthy serial rapist.

I have to confess that I’m bummed. Bounty hunting is a noble profession that helps our legal system function more effectively, and Dog was always entertaining. Plus I just learned that he’s the kid of an Assemblies of God missionary (Barbara Chapman, whom I never met and who is now deceased) which gives me a certain kindred affection for him.

I understand that he broke Mexican law, but surely there are higher priorities for the Mexican legal system than arresting someone who helps catch fugitives. Almost anything rather than devoting effort to extraditing an American bounty hunter for catching a vile man who had done despicable things.

The one thing about the reports so far that really puzzles me is that the Chapmans evidently broke bail themselves. Maybe they know something about the Mexican legal system that I don’t, but given their line of work that seems pretty stupid.

Life Church Down The Road

I’ve been thinking about LifeChurch.tv lately (check the Wikipedia article on them).

In case you’re not familiar with the church, it’s one of the best-known examples of the multi-site church movement. At present, Life Church uses live video feeds to simultaneously have the same service in Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, and Tennessee. They also stream the service over the internet.

They both start new churches and acquire existing churches (that’s their language, not mine. They are very clear that they are not proposing mergers — they are proposing acquisitions — listen to Kevin Penry). If you’d like to be acquired you can sign up online ask the dust divx movie online .

One thing I want to praise them for: they make their resources available online for free. They’re clearly very Kingdom-minded.

But something about LifeChurch’s approach worries me.

I’ll explain what it is after some necessary disclaimers:

  1. I have no fundamental theological problem with multi-site churches. If you think it’s okay for a single-site church to have two services on a Sunday morning then you’re inconsistent to oppose multiple-site churches. Once you cede the splitting of the congregation it’s all just a matter of degree (if this is not clear to you then spend some time thinking through your problems with multi-site churches and how they are also applicable to a church that has an 8:00am service and an 11am service). 
  2. There are a lot of ways to do multi-site church and there is certainly diversity within the movement. My concerns about LifeChurch’s approach don’t apply to all the ways multi-site is done. 

Here’s my concern: if LifeChurch’s philosophy becomes the norm (an excellent test of the soundness of a philosophy) then we lose something vital to the health of the church.

Let’s say LifeChurch continues to grow and spreads into 10 or 15 states. They reach 100,000 in aggregate attendance. 200,000. 500,000. 1,000,000. These numbers are not unreasonable — multi-site churches seem to be scale-free networks and thus will exhibit the winner-take-all phenomenon. The largest multi-site will be about twice as large as its next-greatest neighbor and so on down the line.

In effect, LifeChurch (or someone like it) will become the Wal-Mart of churches soon, and just like Wal-Mart the overwhelming nature of their dominance will be surprising and will take a while to sink in. And just like Wal-Mart, that will bring some good and some bad along with it.

What happens when the primary leader of the American gigachurch lapses into stupidity, heresy, or moral failure? How does that affect Christianity in America?

This isn’t an unrealistic concern — evangelicalism has a history of each of these blunders. And the higher-profile a person is the more prone they seem to be to falling into one or more of these.

  • Stupidity: public displays of ignorance, particularly on political or scientific issues
  • Heresy: saying things about Jesus or the Bible that just aren’t true
  • Moral Failure: financial impropriety or sexual immorality, for example

As things stand now, when Joe Preacher on television has a moral blowout that church is destroyed but the rest of us rock on, saddened but unaffected.

Imagine a single church which contains 35% of all evangelicals in America (and a handful in England and Australia) having the same blowout. It’s a completely different story.

That’s bad enough, but what I really worry about is the lack of ideological diversity such an arrangement would bring about. Evangelicals are already prone to sheep-like behavior, but at least we currently hang out in different flocks. 

When we create an evangelical pope who has far more direct influence over his organization than the Pope has over the Catholic church, we will lose something vibrant and vital about evangelicalism. If we’re not careful, we’ll lose a vital part of the gains of the Reformation.

LifeChurch (and the entire multi-site movement) have a lot to offer and are doing some wonderful things. On the whole, I have high praise for them.

But it is not unqualified praise.