Creation Museum

Next week, we will be going on vacation to Crossville, TN to stay at a timeshare place. On the way, we hope to visit family near Pittsburgh, friends near Cincinnati and family in Kentucky. Well, I stumbled upon another place I would like to stop - the Creation Museum. Now regardless of what you believe about creation (young earth/old earth, evolution/literal 6-day creation, or combination of all the above) I think this will be a very interesting place to visit. It seems that you walk through the first 11 chapters of Genesis including a full size Noah's Ark. I think it will be fun to expose my kids to these chapters of the Bible in a 3-D/real life sort of way. I will take some pictures and update you after the trip.

I am a Simpsons

I have always thought it would be fun to be on the Simpsons TV show. It seems like a lot of famous people have had the same desire because they end up on the show. Well, not thanks to the Simpsons Movie website, I can a least guess what I would look like on the Simpsons. Here is my character that I created on their website.

Tree

Here is a tree outside my office that I noticed the other day. I do not know what type it is, maybe a Blue Spruce. But I think it is beautiful. The color is amazing. My friend Jim has inspired me to notice more of the beauty around me and to take pictures of it when I see it (Check out Jim's project 365). So above is my picture of this tree with my VGA camera phone. Not quite as good as Jim's pictures, but it is a start.

Questions

I am in the middle of two theological email conversations. I love this stuff. I love talking theology and applying it to our lives. I am honored that someone would ask me these questions and even want my opinion. Here are the 2 questions I have been asked. All names and details have been changed to protect the innocent.

1. Can Christian use pot? If God created this earth then he created pot as well. Therefore, why is it wrong to use it? Besides, when this person smokes pot, he/she enjoys it and feels that it is right. If it "feels" right to him/her than why shouldn't he/she do it?

2. We operate on the assumption that God is omnipotent, if so he would be capable of seeing the results of our behaviors before they even happen. Would this not mean that he already knows which of his children will turn from him and which will believe? Why then bother if he already knows his effort will be in vain? I appreciate God's undying love for us, but is that all there is to it? I mean, it would be maddening to go through all that effort even though you know from square one that it won't do any good.
Also, what is the role of pain in life? Is pain and misfortune simply a necessary side-effect of the free-will God has given us or does it serve a direct purpose (i.e. punishment from God, or a tool used by him for our instruction)?

I am still working on my answers, so I look forward to how you would answer them, it may help me as I try to formulate my responses.

On the cover of a magazine

I became famous last month, well not really, but I did get my picture on a magazine cover. No, I did not do anything to deserve this, it was a Wired magazine special promotion which if you were one of the first 500 to send in a picture to their website, your picture would get on the cover. Here is mine:

The picture is from October when I had orange hair.

I'm back

It has been a very busy month, so I have not found the time to blog. Side note, I am realizing that blogging takes discipline and time, two things I have little of because of my dissertation, but I will try to record my thoughts a little more often.

Here is some of what I have been doing this past month. The second week of July was our vacation bible school at church. The theme was Lift Off. It was a great week with many fun science experiences. I was in charge of the science lab.

Then I prepared for our student ministry summer mission trip to Niagara Falls, NY with Reach Workcamps. It was one of the best mission trips I have ever been on. Reach does an awesome job making it easy for my kids to connect with God while doing simple home construction for low income and elderly homeowners. Here are some pictures.


Also dyed my hair blonde, it is the surfer look.


I am now on a two month sabbatical which the church graciously gave me for 10 years of service. I am using these 2 months to write my dissertation. You can keep me in prayer as I try to spend 6-8 hours a day at my computer working on my dissertation. My goal is to finish the first 3 chapters and have my survey questions complete by October 1.

Star Wars Marathon

As I have said before I am a geek, especially a Star Wars geek. This past Friday, I was in my glory. Our church held a Star Wars Marathon, all six movies, starting with Episode 1 and finishing with Episode 6. We also watched Clone Wars Volume 2 since that is an important set up film for episode 3. The whole event took about 15 hours. Only 2 of the 15 people who stopped in that day made it through all the movies. It was definitely a blast.

Now that I watched them all in one day, I can say that it felt like two very distinct trilogies. Episode 3 did not flow very well into Episode 4, but I rather expected that. It was still a very enjoyable day.

Ocean City, NJ

I love vacations and travel. I think I need vacations or travel on my calendar to get me through the months when I am not going on a trip or vacation. I think I got this desire to travel because every summer my family would head down to Morristown, TN to spend weeks on my grandmother’s farm. I loved it. I loved the car rides, the visiting of relatives, and my grandmothers cooking.

As I became a teenager, the beach became an appealing place to vacation. Now, one aspect of growing up in Pittsburgh is that there is not a beach near by. In Pittsburgh, we had wave pools. Large pools with cement bottoms that made waves. It was very hi-tech stuff in the 80’s. If you went to the beach, you would drive to North Carolina. Therefore, North Carolina was my first introduction of the beach, when my sister let me tag along on one of her vacations. I liked it so much; my senior trip was to Myrtle Beach, SC.

When I married Dena, who grew up in Lancaster, I was introduced to Ocean City, NJ. It was her family’s vacation spot every year. Once we were married, I got to tag along. I now can say that OC is my favorite vacation spot. Every year we share a house with Dena’s parents and have the time of our life. I get to read, go for bike rides, eat Brown’s doughnuts, Mallon’s sticky buns, and hang out at the beach. I am not a big ‘sun’ person, but I love playing in the waves and sitting under our umbrella. Last week, we had our annual beach vacation (another plus, no internet connection, thus the reason for no posts on this blog). It again was a blast. Here are some pictures:

My kids,

View from the boardwalk towards the beach house

View of the ocean

Mike Yaconelli

This is one of my favorite speakers. He always encouraged my heart and he helped me stay in ministry for this long. He past away a few years ago. This is a nice tribute video to him.