SDB General Conference

It is the "hump" day of Conference week. This is generally the day that I start wanting to go home and I am finished with everything left to do. It's slightly different this year. I am still looking forward to the business that has yet to be completed and in playing in the Pastors vs. Youth Basketball game tomorrow. I however am looking forward to seeing my wife and children whom I miss dearly.

I have started to think and pray a lot about priorities (i.e. what needs to come first, and what priority being a pastor has above providing for my family). Interesting thoughts! Anyone who ever reads this and wants to be a sounding board I appreciate it.

I have great friends here that I realize how I dearly miss them on our 51 week sabbatical from each other most years. That's all for now.

45 Ways to Waste your Theological Education

Being a recent seminary graduate, I know people who do these things to waste their learning experience. In my first year of seminary in Maryland, I was guilty of a lot of this as well. This blog post by Derek Brown goes hand in hand with another post I read about "failing seminary for the Glory of God" (an interesting concept):

1. Cultivate pride by writing only to impress your professors instead of writing to better understand and more clearly communicate truth.

2. Perfect the fine art of corner-cutting by not really researching for a paper but instead writing your uneducated and unsubstantiated opinions and filling them in with strategically placed footnotes.

3. Mistake the amount of education you receive with the actual knowledge you obtain. Keep telling yourself, “I’ll really start learning this stuff when I do my Th.M or my Ph.D.”

4. Nurture an attitude of superiority, competition, and condescension toward fellow seminary students. Secretly speak ill of them with friends and with your spouse.

5. Regularly question the wisdom and competency of your professors. Find ways to disrespect your professors by questioning them publicly in class and by trying to make them look foolish.

6. Neglect personal worship, Bible reading and prayer.

7. Don’t evangelize your neighbors.

8. Practice misquoting and misrepresenting positions and ideas you don’t agree with. Be lazy and don’t attempt to understand opposing views; instead, nurse your prejudices and exalt your opinions by superficial reading and listening.

9. Give your opinion as often as possible - especially in class. Ask questions that show off your knowledge instead of questions that demonstrate a genuine inquiry.

10. Speak of heretical movements, teachers, and doctrine with an air of disdain and levity.

11. Find better things to do than serve in your local church.

12. Fill your life with questionable movies, television, internet, and music.

13. Set aside fellowship and accountability with fellow brothers in Christ.

14. Let your study of divine things become dull, boring, lifeless, and mundane.

15. Chip away at your integrity by signing your school’s covenant and then breaking it under the delusion that, “Those rules are legalistic anyway.”

16. Don’t read to learn; read only to refute what you believe is wrong.

17. Convince yourself that you already know all this stuff.

18. Just study. Don’t exercise, spend time with your family, or work.

19. Save major papers for the last possible moment so that you can ensure that you don’t really learn anything by writing them.

20. Don’t waste your time forming friendships with your professors and those older and wiser than you.

21. Make the mistake of thinking that your education guarantees your success in ministry.

22. Don’t study devotionally. You’ll never make it as a big time scholar if you do that. Scholars need to be cool, detached, and unbiased - certainly not Jesus freaks.

23. Day dream about future opportunities to the point that you get nothing out of your current opportunity to learn God’s Word.

24. Do other things while in class instead of listening - like homework, scheduling, letter-writing, and email.

25. Spend more time blogging than studying.

26. Avoid chapel and other opportunities for corporate worship.

27. Argue angrily with those who don’t see things your way. Whatever you do, don’t read and meditate on II Timothy 2:24-26 and James 3:13-18 as you prepare for ministry.

28. Set your hopes on an easy, cushy pastorate for when you graduate. Determine now not to obey God when he calls you to serve in a difficult church.

29. Look forward to the day when you won’t have to concern yourself with all this theology and when you will be able to just “preach Jesus.”

30. Forget that your primary responsibility is care for your family through provision, shepherding, and leadership.

31. Master Calvin, Owen, and Edwards, but not the Law, Prophets, and Apostles.

32. Gain knowledge in order to merely teach others. Don’t expend the effort it takes to deal with your own heart.

33. Pick apart your pastor’s sermons every week. Only point out his mistakes and his poor theological reasoning so you don’t have to be convicted by anything he says.

34. Protect yourself from real fellowship by only talking about theology and never about your personal spiritual issues, sin, and struggles.

35. Comfort yourself with the delusion that you will start seriously dealing with sin as soon as you become a pastor; right now it’s not really that big a deal.

36. Don’t serve the poor, visit the sick, or care for widows and orphans - save that stuff for the uneducated, non-seminary trained, lay Christians.

37. Keep telling yourself that you want to preach, but don’t ever seek opportunities to preach, especially at local rescue missions and nursing homes. Wait until your church candidacy to preach your first sermon.

38. Let envy keep you from profiting from sermons preached by fellow students.

39. Resent behind-the-scenes, unrecognized service. Only serve in areas where you are sure you will receive praise and accolades.

40. Appear spiritual and knowledgeable at all costs. Don’t let others see your imperfections and ignorance, even if it means you have to lie.

41. Love books and theology and ministry more than the Lord Jesus Christ.

42. Let your passion for the gospel be replaced by passion for complex doctrinal speculation.

43. Become angry, resentful and devastated when you receive something less than an A.

44. Let your excitement for ministry increase or decrease in direct proportion to the accolades or criticisms you receive from your professors.

45. Don’t really try to learn the languages - let Bible Works do all the work for you.

Peacemaking Seminar at New Baptist Covenant

Some notes and comments from the Peacemaking Seminar at the New Baptist Covenant (the professor talking was from Fuller (this surprises me!)):

He made fun of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
To be a peacemaker you must be a pacifist or a just war theorist.
Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez were both listed as just peacemakers.
Making peace is a commandment.
Praise of Clinton's use of force; criticism of Bush's
Criticism of US on human rights issues
Criticism of Israel
Gay rights are human rights.

Shaw and Carter at New Baptist Covenant

Here are some quotes and thoughts from the evening where Rev. Shaw and Jimmy Carter spoke at the New Baptist Covenant:

Shaw:
"The difference between calm and peace is justice"
"Being born is an injustice if there is no right to life."

Carter:
Traditional Baptists are not conservative.
We have endangered moral values - meaning peace, poverty, prison, environment

My thought during Jimmy Carter's talk on unity: Does unity mean that you have to meet the lowest common denominator? His answer was apparently yes.

Youth Ministry Seminar at New Baptist Covenant

Just a few things that I wanted to put in the liner notes of posterity from my attendance at this seminar from the New Baptist Covenant:

-Youth need to be involved in all aspects of the church.
-The best youth ministers are the people who are never asked to do it.
-Facebook and MySpace are key tools for communication.
-Indifference is contagious in any setting
-Always discipline youth in a way that brings them towards you not away from you.
-You must talk about the issues that youth want to talk about.
-You can give youth freedom to roam but you must show them where the fence is.
-Parents should be the primary youth ministers.

Closer to Home finally

I started at my new Sears store last week. I was hesitant at first that I wasn't going to enjoy the people I work with as much as my last store but it seems that there is a lively crew that is going to make this exciting new thing work. Me and one of my bosses are the only people at this store with any Sears experience. It has been fun and challenging so far and both of those things are good.

2008 Democratic National Convention Satirical Schedule

I pulled this from the comments section on the Denver Post website (enjoy!):

2008 Democratic National Convention Schedule of Events

7:00 pm ~ Opening flag burning

7:15 pm ~ Pledge of Allegiance to the U. N.

7:20 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

7:25 pm ~ Nonreligious prayer and worship with Jesse Jackson and Al
Sharpton

7:45 pm ~ Ceremonial tree hugging

7:55 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

8:00 pm ~ How I Invented the Internet - Al Gore

8:15 pm ~ Gay Wedding Planning - Barney Frank presiding

8:35 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

8:40 pm ~ Our Troops are War Criminals - John Kerry

9:00 pm ~ Memorial service for Saddam and his sons - Cindy Sheehan
and Susan Sarandon

10:00 pm ~ "Answering Machine Etiquette"- Alec Baldwin

11:00 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

11:05 pm ~ Collection for the Osama Bin Laden kidney transplant
fund - Barbra Streisand

11:15 pm ~ Free the Freedom Fighters from Guantanamo Bay -- Sean Penn

11:30 pm ~ Oval Office Affairs - William Jefferson Clinton

11:45 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

11:50 pm ~ How George Bush Brought Down the World Trade Towers -
Howard Dean

12:15 am ~ "Truth in Broadcasting Award" - Presented to Dan Rather
by Michael Moore

12:25 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

12:30 am ~ Satellite address by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

12:45 am ~ Nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Nancy Pelosi

1:00 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

1:05 am ~ Coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton

1:30 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

1:35 am ~ Bill Clinton asks Ted Kennedy to drive Hillary home

Inventory

We just had inventory at our store. Man!!!! It was a nightmare at the beginning of the day. We were supposed to have 50 counters and we only had around 30. It is common to be short the amount of counters the are supposed to send but that was ridiculous. We were also supposed to count the stockroom completely first. We did get one person for electronics. I also had an associate to go along with the counter to verify things. She was great but my associate had a horrible attitude. I know that we had to be there early in the morning but he volunteered to be there. The inventory crew did make a comeback at the end of the day to finish most of what was supposed to be done. I was stuck in the stockroom finishing the count and verification process there. It was a long day.

The Actual Death of Jesus Christ

This article gives a very good description of what the physical death of Jesus Christ was like. As most of Christendom looks to celebrate His death and resurrection this weekend, this is a fitting act to describe to you the physical pain of the man who took the whole world's sin (past, present, and future) upon Himself to restore humankind's relationship with His Father. He has RISEN and He is ALIVE!

Ear Infections

You have to love Wikipedia. I have had an ear ache for about 4 or 5 days now. It is not getting better and is only getting more painful. This is a chronic problem for me and hopefully will go away in a day or two but it sure is annoying. I cannot verify the accuracy of the Wikipedia article on external otitis but they sure do sound like they know what they are talking about. Prayers for my condition, pain, and healing are appreciated.

WVU win #1

WVU led by the Huggy Bear takes out the Pac-10's Arizona (sorry guys Arizona State should have been in over you) in Thursday night NCAA action. Next on the hit list: a thrilling upset of Duke.

The Crazy House

This place in Weston has had more name changes than Elizabeth Taylor. They have finally decided to go back to the basics and call the hospital what it was known by in simpler times. Amusing! Only in West Virginia!