Fuzzy Thinking

Wow. It seems like I’m just posting once a month. Not good. I’ll try to do better.

The reason why I’ve not posted is just being involved in other things. I’m doing a couple of shows over at talkshoe.com and that is keeping me busy. Once is the Two Middle Aged pastor’s podcast and then I just started doing a new one called What Would Jesus Podcast. I do it along with two other guys. We look at news stories from “a Christian perspective”…whatever that means.

I’m also trying to keep up with my doctoral studies. I hope to post on that pretty soon over at the InnerJourney page. Other than that, not too much is going on….oh yea…I’m trying to keep up with the kids with soccer and all too.

Random Stuff. That link is to my Tumblr website . It is basically a simple blog, but it allows me to do a few things I can’t do on any of my other blogs. Anyway, I’m keeping it for more random stuff, what I’m doing (via Twitter) and links via Del.icio.us and especially quotes I run across.

Okay…. I had to post this. Found this over at Mustardseed. He posted his NFL Conspiracy theory. And since 1) he is right so far and 2) I am a huge Colts fan, I thought I would post a link to it: http://www.whatischurch.com/mustardseed/ Enjoy!

Dave.

On Sunday we did the song “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” Some in the band said something about it being a ‘downer’, not to mention the fact of it being in a minor key. For some reason my mind has been reflecting on this hymn ever since. I feel that because we live in culture that is one of plenty, it is easy for us to forfeit our cries of Emmanuel coming and rescuing us for a Advent full of Christmas shopping, catchy songs about Santa, fireplaces and snow.

For many, the pleasures of now outweight the promise of heaven (or should I say, rescue). It is easy to forget in the land of plenty that we are, after all, in exile awaiting our savior to come. Yes, he has come and now we are in the time of “the now and not yet.” He calls-invites us to labor for His kingdom and His purposes. The more we embrace this call-invitation the more we discover a longing in our hearts. When we understand that God’s kingdom is about ‘putting things back to rights’ (N. T. Wright) the glitter of earth ceases to fulfill us. Instead we discover a deep yearning within us. A yearning for the kingdom of God to come to full consemation.

It is to this yearning that the hymn speaks. It is a deep call to those who long to see God’s kingdom fulfilled. It speaks to those who have discovered that nothing this world offers can fix the deep emptiness in one’s soul. It speaks to those who have taken up their cross, left the world behind, and look forward and work for God’s kingdom. For those phrases such as “morns in lonely exile here” is more than a catch phrase. It is the cry of their souls. They understand what it means to wait for that final Avent.

O come, O come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might, who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the law in cloud and majesty and awe.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save and give them vict’ry o’er the grave.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;
O drive away the shades of night and pierce the clouds and bring us light.

O come, Thou Key of David, come and open wide our heav’nly home
Where all Thy saints with Thee shall dwell — O come, O come, Emmanuel!

Chorus: Rejoice! rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

I heard about this around 1990 or so. A professor at Cornell University studied incompentence in people. Why are some people just plain incompentent? Dunning discovered that those who are truly incompetent also have the inability to see their own incompetence. If you think this is a Joke, they won the Nobel prize in 2000.

You can check out the link below for more information. Also, if you “google” dunning incompetence and cornell you should be able to find more links. Check This link out too…It is from the American Psychological Association…..

EducationGuardian.co.uk | eG weekly | Incompetents are clueless, research shows

Does this apply to churches????

I usually like to have things pretty much mapped out before I start a journey. However, this has not happened with my doctoral program. So, I’m basically stepping out on faith. I’m finding that doctoral programs are not cheap. So, I’m trying to find various ways to fund this adventure I’m on.

So far, I have some money via my professional expenses and the possiblity of a conference funded grant. Beyond that, I’m not sure. I know God is faithful and where He calls, He provides.

I’ve setup a paypal account for any “online” friends who may want to support me in this. I’ve also setup yet another blog (http://innerjourney.wordpress.com/) to chronical this journey and whatever else I might come up with. To donate, click the “donate” button on the right. Thanks!

Well, I just found out yesterday that my domain (umsourse) expired and goDaddy is charging me $80 to get it back. I’m pretty disappointed considering I can get a new name for about $8. Right now I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I can get a different domain a lot cheaper, or I can wait and see if I can get the domain after it expires from goDaddy.

Usually there is a ‘grace’ period where domain name owners can get the name after it expires. It is usually 30-45 days. Many registrars don’t charge extra during this time. GoDaddy has decided that it can charge quite a bit more.

So for now, my domain is gone…… This site is still working though…..

It’s been a while since I posted last. Thought I shoudl at least get on and post that I have been accepted to the Doctoral program at Asbury Theological Seminary. I’ve been accepted to start the January 2006 session.

This means a couple of things for me. One, it means that I must get back to reading, thinking, writing, etc. It also means that I will have to figure out how to pay for all of this.

I’m not sure which will be harder. Right now my attitude is to just do this and see how far I get. I’ve discovered time and time again that God seems to surprise me and do things that I don’t always expect Him to do.

Hopefully I can get on and write more later. I also may setup some type of paypal account or something if anyone wants to help me fund this thing!

I was able to get gas today for $2.17….happy days are here again!

Well, I took my MAT test yesterday. I needed a 419 in order to get into the Doctorate program. My “preliminary” score? A 419. I wish I knew there were study aids available for this test. Also, I wish I would have had a liberal arts degree too. There were many questions about literature, history, music…not one question about technology.

I hope the preliminary score holds up. I don’t want to have to take it over…but at least I can study for it next time.

Well, my good friend Curt asked that I be a bit more specific on the Doctoral program I’m looking at. So, I thought I’d just do the update here for all to see.

I want my concentration to be in Spiritual Formation, so that left quite a few schools out. I found a program I liked at Gordon-Conwell, but didn’t feel comfortable with the theological slant. I am very much Wesleyan-Arminian, so I don’t believe I would be very comfortable in a Calvinistic environment (which I believe Gordon-Conwell is).

So, I went back to the other program I had been looking at. It is Asbury Theological Seminary’s Doctorate of Ministry. They have a concentration in Spiritual Formation. This program was also listed on Reovare’s site under training.

I was hesitant because I received my M.Div degree from Asbury. But, after looking at the program I felt like it was more in line with what I’m hoping to accomplish. The program at Fuller looked interesting….but it would mean trips to California

I’m filling out applications now. IF I make it, I’ll post more information.

Thanks Curt for making me do this update!!!

Men do have trouble hearing women, scientists find - Yahoo! News

Wow, I don’t know how to feel about this. I find it interesting that when articles come out like this we find that men are more ’simple’ than women. Women can multitask better, they are more complex emotionally, etc. Now, the report says, their voices are even more complex.

Well, at least I have scientific evidence to backup why I don’t end up doing what my wife asks me to

Well, last night as I was editing the DVD for our VBS, the administrator of the computer I host UMSource off of emailed me to say my website had been hacked. In situations like this, those hacking (or rather craking) don’t do it to deface the website, but rather to get access to the host machine. The Admin took my site offline

So, some of you are coming here because of that. I’m working to get UMSource back online, but I don’t have as much time as I once did. Security issues are found all the time and I don’t always have the time to update the site.

For example, the software I run on UMSource is PHPNuke. I’m running version 6.0 and the current version is 7.7. I’ve updated the 6.0 software with all the security fixes, but the real solution is to update to version 7.7. That _usually_means the database tables have to be updated, etc, etc…long story short, most of the time it is a time consuming process.

So, for the time being, enjoy my blog. It is a bit more personal than my UMSource site, but I will try to post some UMSource style articles here.

- Dave.

A Christian bookstore nearby just went out of business. Each week they would increase the discount price by 5%. So, I was buying books anywhere between 30% - 50% off the cover price. So, now I have many books to read…perhaps too many. I also frequent the library and find books that I want to read there. Right now, here is my list:

Your God is Too Small - J. B. Phillips (I’m rereading this for a sermon series)
Mistaken Identity - Gaultiere (I’ve read it, but re-reading for a sermon series)
Uprising - McManus
Shaped by God’s Heart - Minatrea
On Loving God -
Madam Guyon
Shaped by the Word - Mulholland (Have read once, but wanted to read again)
Revelation - Mulholland (Been on my shelf way too long without reading)
The New Testament and the People of God - N. T. Wright (working my way through)
Rethinking the Church (Pastor friend of mine loaned me this)
Stories of Emergence (Same Pastor friend loaned me this)
The Last Word and the Word After That (McLaren)
Birth of the Living God - Rizo (??) (Again, for a sermon series)

Well, I believe that is about it…like I said, too many books, not enough time. I have other books I want to read, but the above is my “short” list.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something. June has been a very busy month with many adventures. And before long I will be going on vacation. So, now, I’m testing this blog thing out using my Palm.

Yes, I can be quite the geek. I have my Palm hooked up with a new wireless card. I’m using my portable Palm keyboard to type this in. I’m curious if this works.

Ah..Numb3rs. I love the show…but I also seem to love numbers. Perhaps it is because I am, in real life, a computer guy. I dig math. However, God called me out of the computer matrix into the church.

What I find is I can still dig math, statistics, and numbers. Yet, I’m begining to sense a dark side to the whole numbers game.

Living in the United Methodist tribe, I find we love numbers. We have forms to fill out and get in on time so others can see our numbers. We have websites that track numbers. We even (for a while) had a catchy slogan; “We count people because people count”

Why do we keep track of our numbers? So we can know how we are doing….ah…there’s the rub. What I’m discovering is that when I become focused on the numbers, I’m focused on the wrong thing. What I’m finding is, when the folks in my congregation are focused on the numbers, they are focused on the wrong thing. Actually, as we focus on the numbers, we take our focus off the main thing. Bottom line: we get distracted.

Numbers do have their place I guess. But they also can generate a very real problem especially as we try to find new forms of ministry. Here’s an example:

In our community there are several “social networks” that meet on Sunday mornings. Perhaps they are Pop Warner players, flea market shoppers, model airplane flyers, or some other ’social network’ that people belong to.

If the social network meets on Sunday, guess what, that is the main time for worship in the area I serve. If I’m focused on the Numbers, I will have a great tempation to “convince” people to forgo their social network and come join the social network I’m a part of (Church).

If I’m focused on reaching social networks with the Good News, I might be more apt to convince folks to go ahead and be a part of their social network and to inflitrate it with the Good News (which could take quite a while). With the focus on reaching new social groups it means that the Sunday morning numbers will be down.

Also, if the congregation is more focused on social groups than numbers then it means we will ‘do’ church differently.

I am becoming more convinced that it is time to do away with our Number crunching. So far it has caused us (United Methodist Tribe at least) to be far to focus on things to get people into the church building so we can count them (because they do count after all). If we do away with the Numbers, perhaps the church will be free to focus on reaching new social groups and going out to them rather than bent on getting them into the building.

I’m sure I’ll have more later…..but this was quite a lot.

Finally….
Tuesday December 07th 2004, 9:41 pm Edit This
Filed under: General

The joys of dialup are simply amazing. I guess once you have a cable modem you really never want to go back. Now that I only can get dialup I find that statement is true.

Actually, I have a pretty good setup. I have my computer set to automatically dialup and get my email. The problem is, I’m unable to respond to my email unless I fire up my laptop, dial into the internet, start MS Outlook, download and finally answer my email. Usually I decide not to mess with it. The downside is that I’m finding I’m not answering my email, my email box keeps filling up and when I’m not online I don’t post to my blog.

Well, tonight I decided to bite the bullet, get online, answer my email and post to my blog.

So…there you have it…what my life has become