Tuesday, September 26, 2006

4 YEAR OLD WONDER THEOLOGY

This morning Jake and I washed my truck. In the process, he got to thinking and asked…

“Dad, who is stronger? God or Jesus?”

I said, “Neither. Jesus is God. They are both the same.”

Long pause.

Jake: “Oh, so some people just call him Jesus and some people call him God.”

Dad: “Yes.”

If only the incarnation was so simple, then I wouldn’t be feeling so stupid after trying to explain it to my 4 year old.

I wonder how my son is going to feel when he is old enough to understand that Jesus prayed to God (or Himself) and it is not considered schizophrenic.

I wonder if Jesus ever asked God Jake’s question? Like do the Holy Spirit and Jesus and God ever talk about who could take who in a fight? Here’s the conversation:

  • Holy Spirit- I move like the wind. I’ll take you out when you can’t see me.
  • Jesus- the waves obey me, no matter how powerful your wind is.
  • God- they don’t call me God for nothing. Sit down before I make a universe without you in it.

Ok… maybe I need to go back to Theology class again. I think I missed something. Or maybe they missed it.

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Monday, September 18, 2006

100 U.S. Dollars VS 349,000 Zambian Kwacha

This last Saturday, while unloading a weeks worth of groceries (several hundred dollars worth), we got a letter from a family in Zambia we send some money to each month through world vision. Recently I posted that one of the brothers that we used to support passed away from viral meningitis. Anyway, we sent them $100 through World Vision. It was the least we could do. Here's what the letter read:






Dear Brian Berry

Greetings to you and your family. I am fine here with everybody. I hope you the same. I am very happy with the money I received from you. Which was 100 dollars. This was 349,000 Zambian Kwacha. I bought the following items. A suit, shoes, bread, sugar, geisha, salt, blanket, maize, chitenge material, Vaseline, and trousers. I bought these items from the money you sent to me. Some were for my family members. My family and I are all very happy and appreciate for this. I was able to go to town after a long time. I had been there when I was born. This was a second time to be there. I saw a lot of things in Choma. Thank you once more.

God bless you.

Yours child.
Mapila George


As I sat at my kitchen table crying, I realized that we were about to place a picture on our fridge of a family who would never own a fridge. I felt very rich. I wondered why I was born in the US and not there and why it should not make a world of difference and how sad it is that it does. I felt very selfish. I felt blessed to be able to support them. I recommitted to the task and to the responsibility of writing more and sending more at christmas and birthdays and stuff.

I can't believe how far $100 goes in their world and how it wouldn't even feed my family for a week, but from the looks of the pictures, I guess it will feed them for months. I think I've decided that we need to go visit this family. I'm not sure when. But for now, I'm sending money for food and clothing and medicine and we'll keep praying as a family for them and then... one day. We're going to visit. I know it. Maybe we can even take George to town for the 3rd time in his little life.



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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR FLYERS

If the usher gives you this at our church. DANGER!! Don't drop it. Count it. 13 separate sheets of paper and 16 announcements in each of the 1500 programs we passed out this weekend.

That's crazy. We're giving the sunday times a run for it's money. But, what do I know?... I'm just the youth guy. The bar has been set. I'm now going to try and beat them and put 14 in my student program this weekend.

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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

WHEN DOES AUTHORITATIVE BECOME ARROGANT?

I was recently referred to this blog/ad for a sold out conference coming up that John Piper is leading called the Supremacy of Christ: above all earthly powers in a postmodern world. On the blog/ad, he has the following quote:

"Our aim is to call the church to a radical and very old vision of the Man, Jesus Christ- —fully God, fully sovereign, fully redeeming by his substitutionary, wrath-absorbing death, fully alive and reigning, fully revealed for our salvation in the inerrant Holy Bible, and fully committed to being preached with human words and beautifully described with doctrinal propositions based on biblical paragraphs. We love Dorothy Sayers old saying, The Dogma is the Drama. We think the post-propositional, post-dogmatic, post-authoritative conversation is post-relevant and post-saving."

If you understood what he said and are even the slightest bit read on the "emergent conversation" then you know that these are clearly fighting words and on purpose. He is claiming that a group of people who believe that some things we're "certain" of should be held more lightly and maybe a little less "certain" makes their theology, in the words of John Piper, both irrelevant and pagan.

Honestly, I read this and got annoyed. But I've listened to a few "emergent conversation" podcasts and a read quite a few blog posts to make me just as annoyed. I think the "American Church" in specific is returning to a new level of division not seen since the age old days of denominational battles where we planted 5 brands of church in 3 city blocks. Today our division is going back to the battles of Luther's day and prior to the age old fighting over "dogma and creeds." There are two groups in the fight. GROUP 1 is the sold out conference of Piper's world. GROUP 2 has an issue with sold out conferences and prefers small "conversational" gatherings aournd the country with beverages and free-flowing musings.

GROUP 1 are going to look at the creeds and theological view points that were written by the church and its representatives in the 1500 years that followed its birth, decide which ones they are certain were right, and then say that anything outside of those is wrong and heretical.

GROUP 2 are going to read the same set of beliefs, do the same analysis, and decide some of what GROUP 1 concluded is certainly or might be wrong. So, in an effort to not state with certainty, anything they are uncertain of, everything moves to vague non-propositional statements that are stated as hypothesis only with lots of subjective language.

This, on both sides, seems to be to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. For GROUP 1 to claim that we know everything about GOD or have read the Scriptures with such clarity that our view (and only our view) on the mode or model of Jesus sacrifice, the events surrounding the return of Jesus, and the eternal destination of a soul is correct is either the only possible conclusion and the sole representative of truth or presumptuous and pious at best and grossly arrogant at worst.

However, for GROUP 2 to see how with great certainty GROUP 1 tends to overstate propositional truths and to remove the mystery from the Christian faith is one thing. But to respond by doing the absolute opposite and state every truth as subjective and to be certain of virtually nothing is to presume all of those in history before us to be ignorant and arrogant while assuming that you can avoid those labels by being wishy washy and abstract.

I wish somehow we could spend less time being afraid of being wrong or defending our little piece of "certainty" that we could actually have a "conversation" that didn't have to be on thin ice. If people would put down the sword and take the other guys neck off the table, maybe we could decide there's some stuff we know for certain and some stuff we're pretty certain we won't ever know or that we're making our best educated guess on... and exercise this thing called unity, trust, and faith in the God of all creation.

Maybe that would truly change the conversation on both groups.

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Friday, September 08, 2006

SHOTS

I went to the doctor for my DMV physical for my drivers license this week because I have a class B for driving buses and my medical card was past due. Anyway, I went to Kaiser and got this crazy doctor in his 60's who talked really fast and was tons of fun and made fun of me because I never go to the doctor and am healthy and therefore am paying for everyone to use the system. I told him I had 3 kids, one by emergency C-section in a non-Kaiser facility and that I'd pretty much got my money's worth.

But he still pressed me and asked me my medical history and said that since I've been in Kaiser for over a decade and never had much done to me that I should get some shots. I said, "shots". He said yeah... have you ever had a hepatitus A or B vaccine, we give it to your kids but you were born after we started giving it. I said, I don't think so. He said they were giving it to my kids and that I should get it. He said Hep A is common in border communities and that I should get it if I ever plan on eating tacos in Mexico. I said for real? I've eaten more than I can count with a lot of people and no one's ever had a problem of Hepatitus. He said, yep, I see it all the time here at Kaiser. It makes you turn kinda orange for about 6 weeks and be in the hospital for a week or so. I said, wow. Sounds fun. He said it's not.

So, he said the shots were free since I already paid for this visit co-pay and then he talked me into getting my tetnus updated. So they shot me hep A in one arm. Hep B in the other. And Tetnus in my "hip" she said, but it really was my butt. Which is still a little sore from the darn shot. But good news.. now they put whooping cough vaccine in the tetnus shot so I'm good on that too.

Bad news... I have 3 more shots to go over the next 6 months to keep the Hep virus from turning me orange. Guess I'm "getting my money's worth".

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

JAKE TURNS 4

We had a crazy labor day weekend. Jake turned four on Saturday and had a "cars" party.



You can see the latest photos of the party and the casa here. Then we had like 50 people over from out staff on Monday for a back yard bash. Life has been busy and this weekend we host some friends and start the soccer game on saturday marathon. Here we go. It's good times.

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San Diego, CA
Husband. Dad. Jesus Follower. Friend. Learner. Athlete. Soccer coach. Reader. Builder. Dreamer. Pastor. Communicator. Knucklehead.

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