What Cars Have You Driven???

What are all the cars you have driven in your life, what color were they, and which has been your favorite?

I got my driver's liscense in 1994. Here's the list of cars I've had since then...

1989 Mazda 626 - maroon
1994 Nissan Stanza - gray
1997 Saturn sl2 - forrest green
1999 Ford Ranger - deep red
1995 Volvo 850 - green

My wife and I now have...

1999 Ford Ranger (same car as above, we traded the Volvo back and forth with my parents)
2006 Honda Odyssey - gold

Along the way, since we've been married Emily also has driven...

1996 Honda Accord - silver
1998 Toyota Avalon - white

That's 8 different cars in 13 years of driving. That's a lot of stinking cars. My favorite has been my truck, the Ranger.

Between Two Worlds...

Okay folks...I read a lot of books and I'm gonna start writing some small interactions (reviews?) about some of them. The reason I'm writing is to help me think as I read (this is important). I just finished chapter 1 of John Stott's Between Two Worlds. This is a book about preaching.

Between Two Worlds
The Challenge of Preaching Today
written by John Stott

Chapter 1 – The Glory of Preaching: A Historical Sketch

The goal of this chapter was to take a survey of the preaching of the Word of God, its high regard and great importance, throughout church history. As such, there was not much argument to this chapter since it was an introductory survey.

Let me list a few notable quotations from the chapter:

• From Chrysostom (4th-5th c.) bishop of Constantinople speaking about the healing of the body of Christ, “[the] only means and one way of cure has been given us…and that is teaching of the Word…without it nothing else will avail.”

• From Martin Luther speaking about the power of the Word of God in combating against the papacy during his trials, “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And when, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip and my Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a Prince of Emperor inflicted such damage upon it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”

• From Stott, “It stands to reason that every recovery of confidence in the Word of God, and so in a living God who spoke and speaks, however this truth may be defined, is bound to result in a recovery of preaching. This must be why so many great preachers have belonged to the reformed tradition.”

• An observation from Stott, “So we come to the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The tide of preaching ebbed, and the ebb is still low today. At least in the western world the decline of preaching is a symptom of the decline of the Church. An era of skepticism is not conducive to the recovery of confident proclamation.”

• This book was written in 1982. I wonder what Stott’s evaluation would be 25 years later? I’m sure he would be very proud of Joel Osteen’s expository sermons.

Latest Luke Pics

Here's some recent photos for your enjoyment. I can't seem to rotate the images.












































At the Chattanooga Aquarium













Em and Luke with the giant crabs.

What Is the Deal with This?

So I read this article on the Baptist Press News (Southern Baptist news agency). It's a rant about some newer churches (some SBC) in the Acts29 church starting network that don't preach total abstinence from alcohol.

But here's the curious part. I found the following paragraph near the beginning of the article, and I feel compelled to comment on it.

"The emerging church movement is diverse and difficult to generalize. However, the mix of influences includes: postmodernism (a focus on sense-making through the various mediums of culture); Calvinism ala John Piper; and for some, Christian liberty, as granted by their scriptural interpretation, to drink alcohol and engage in other cultural activities that many Southern Baptists eschew based on opposing scriptural interpretation."

So the author is trying to give a loose definition for a Southern Baptist audience about what an emergent church is (that's a really big task to undertake, as the author notes). The 3 major influences he claims that make up emergent churches are: 1.) postmodernism 2.) Calvinism 3.) Christian liberty.

What?????

1.) a church cannot adhere to postmodernism b/c Christianity is directly opposed to postmodernism. Christianity and Christ claim absolute truth while postmodernism denies all absolute truth claims. Postmodernism and Christianity do not mix. If a group of people hold a postmodern ideology then they cannot call themselves a church.

But to clarify and comment on what the article seems to say in it's parenthetical statement about postmodernism...Engaging the culture does not equal being postmodern.

2.) Why is the author equaling Calvinism with emergent, like Calvinism is a bad thing? Did he know that many of the SBC founding fathers held to a Calvinistic theology and that we currently have traditional SBC churches that are Calvinist?

Calvinism is a solid theological position grounded in the absolute truth of the Scriptures. I am not a Calvinist, but I recognize it's conservative nature and I appreciate the lives of many of the great men in church history who held this theological view.

Here's the big deal...First the author says emergent churches are postmodern (denying absolute truth) and then says they are Calvinistic (claiming absolute truth of Scripture). Somebody help me figure this out.

3.) So the author would deny that we have Christian liberty to drink alcohol? I don't drink alcohol, but this drives me crazy. Why in the world is this always a recurring battle in Southern Baptist circles? I want people to stop fighting over this issue. We're not getting anywhere and nobody is ever winning the battle. We just fight and fight and fight, slaughtering our own while the world is going to hell.

Okay...so there's my rant. What do you think?

Luke's Stunt...

Yesterday Emily was in our bedroom cleaning up for a few minutes and she thought after a few minutes that she hadn't heard Luke doing anything (usually he makes a lot of strange noises as he plays). She found him sitting on the kitchen table eating cake (all over his face) and holding a kitchen knife in one hand.

We had no clue he had the ability to climb up on the kitchen table.

I think life's about to get interesting.

More Luke pics coming soon!!!