“Spreading the fame of God” is the slogan for our church. This week we sent off a group to West Virginia and soon we will be sending off a group to Guatemala. These are all great but I have to ask, what are we as a church doing to spread the fame of God locally? More importantly, what am I doing locally?

While I’m all about letting my everyday actions speak louder than words,  I have to wonder about my everyday actions themselves. It seems that most of them are not very intentional about spreading the fame of God — wake up, go to work, make web applications, go home, do things around the house, hang with friends … that’s about it. Sure there may be glimpses of opportunities in that schedule but they only occur when someone takes the time to get in my world.

What can I do to be open to someone else’s world? Regina helped at a local Methodist church’s Vacation Bible School program and they seem to really have a good connection with serving the community — they have food drives, donate school supplies to needy kids, etc. on a regular basis.

So I have a couple of ideas I want to document. Maybe you have some more to add — or maybe even help coordinate them.

• Give away bananas at the local Bruster’s Ice Cream Shop on banana split day. The bananas could have stickers to the church website.
• There is going to be a soccer training camp in Guatemala this summer, it seems like that would be easy to pull off in the Cumming area.
• Advertise and set up a chipper for people to recycle their Christmas trees — maybe use the mulch for the church playground or find somewhere that needs it.

Will the guy with F-15 please stop flying over our house under 500′ with your afterburners on? I’m trying to get some rest. Thx!

Play it enough and you’re bound to lose.

Camryn has brought strep throat home five times now since school started and thankfully I’ve dodged it … up until now.

Maybe I’ll post some pictures soon.

This Friday, May 25th, Reed Pittman & The Rest will be playing at the Red Light Cafe. Hear his tunes on his MySpace page — sounds like good stuff to me. I’ll be going down after small group (9ish). Comment if you are interested in carpooling or meeting down there.

Inspired by contemporary rock from the likes of Coldplay and Guster and enmeshed with nods back to the 60’s and 70’s, RPTR combines skill with taste.

P.S. Mention Reed’s name at the door. It helps as the two acts divide up the cover.

If you could, please pray for my friend JB. His dog Shady is in her last moments/days. He has had her since she was a puppy and she is 18 years old — that’s a 126 in human years.

Over the past year we have discussed my experience with Abbey and Gracie. As we pondered, he wondered how he would deal with such a decision. Well it appears these days are upon him. Pray for him the same way I asked for myself about this time last year.

Please pray that she will either be healed and keep food down, or that she will “go to the Rainbow Bridge*” by herself peacefully in her sleep, or that the time will be clear for us to do what is sorrowful but must be done. (Turn, turn, turn.)

*Not intended as a theological statement.

I recently wrote a rant on knowing what you believe and why you believe it. I mentioned Christianese — vague words and phrases that don’t really mean anything, “Let Jesus into your heart,” for example.

Let’s look at something that on the surface sounds very religious, but if you stop and think about it, you have to wonder what it really means — atonement. While this is overall a great word, it requires a more precise definition. Christians seems to stop thinking about the topic once the surface level statement of, “I believe that Jesus died for my sins” has been acknowledged.

It’s kind of like saying, “Evolution is a proven fact.” I could be hanging out in atheist circles and say that phrase with no questions asked. But while it’s a true statement on a micro-evolution level, upon further investigation, I don’t believe in macro evolution and hold an intelligent design position.

So in an effort to help others out there define their faith, what view of atonement do you hold to? What type of atonement did Christ accomplish on the cross?

• Christus Victor
• Ransom
• Moral Influence
• Satisfaction
• Governmental

The Good Part: Here is some great satire that got me thinking about the whole thing:

$40 Million Dollar Debt Paid, But Debtor Still Faces Prison

I purchased an iPod Shuffle for Regina yesterday.

And then I returned it.

It turns out that they (all new iPods) require USB2 and I only have USB1 on the laptop. It’s odd to think my hardware is so outdated that I can’t even get a low-end iPod to work with it — something makes me think this was not an accident. I was already considering a 24″ iMac so I think this just confirms the suspicion that it’s time for an upgrade.

But now I have to wait until mid-June. The iMacs are due for an upgrade so I will wait to see what happens at the developer’s conference. The iBooks just got an upgrade so hopefully it won’t be long. I have a history of purchasing at the wrong time, so just in case you are in the market, here is a helpful site.

In the mean time, I am now able to print borderless 4×6 pictures directly from iPhoto. I got an Epson R300 several years back and have always had to move things into Photoshop to print borderless — which lead to tweaking, making me less inclined to actually print anything at all. (Funny how options complicate things for perfectionists.)

But now I just have to hit Cmd+P. Happy days.

The goatee is on its way back — slowly but surely.

I think I’m going to save its permanent removal until I pass the half-century mark. Like a secret weapon in the fight against the appearance of aging. Funny how it makes me look younger and heavier at the same time. We’ll see how the trade-off effects my decision in the future.

Not much exciting going on … which is something I am thankful for.

While taking Camryn to school, she asked why the news doesn’t report on the Gym Dawgs anymore. I said because the season is over and they are the Champions for the 3rd year in a row. It’s summer — it’s baseball season now.

Then I asked her, “So, what they will report on in the Fall?” She quickly responded by yelling out, “FOOTBALL!”

David says, “Well, what do you think?”
Regina says, “I love you for who you are.”

Click the image for your new desktop wallpaper.

Over the past few years as I’ve grown more in my faith I’ve made it a goal to be able to articulate that faith. In 1 Peter 3, Peter tells us to be, “…prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience…”. While this is a great verse for apologetics ministries and witnessing opportunities, I think it is a vital part of our personal walk as well.

In this book, Peter is dealing with a common theme of the persecution of the Church. When you’re standing in front of the people that decide whether you go free or go to the coliseum, you need to know exactly what you believe and why you believe it.

In my effort to make a defense, I’ve also stumbled across some rather not so common words like justification, sanctification, monergism, palagean, superlapsarianism, and so on. These words define some very important concepts in a theological understanding. However I constantly get a sense of disdain from other believers when it comes to the use of such words — “I don’t need to know about that stuff, the Gospel is simple and I just love Jesus” etc.

I have to wonder, does the same approach apply to vocation as it does to faith? I’m a web developer. I read a lot to stay knowledgable on the latest technologies, applications, and practices. To even be able to discuss the topic intelligently requires the use of words like instantiation, class, method, component, cascading style sheet, etc. While it has it’s place in the market, could I really call myself a professional web developer if after a year at most, I was still just using the WYSIWYG view of Microsoft FrontPage? (”How do I drag in a pull-down-thingy again?”)

Back in Christian circles, the use of such words is often frowned upon because it makes one sound religious, and non-religious people can’t relate to that — Christianese. The distinction between using such words and Christianese is that these words are precise and accurate in their definition while Christianese is vague and ambiguous — what does “ask Jesus into your heart” really mean anyway?

Sure, the word “propitiation” will probably never be heard on Entertainment Tonight but like automotive repair, information technology, and quantum physics, God is a big subject and He has called us to know and love Him. Let’s do that the best we can — even if it requires words that are above a third grade reading level.