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How to Raise the Next Generation with Faith that Lasts

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Old Man God vs. Hipster Jesus

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One of the reasons why I have decided to keep blogging (read more about that here) is because I want to share with you some of the things that I am learning in my classes at Biblical Theological Seminary.  For my most recent class, Reading the Old Testament Missionally, I wrote a paper on God in the Old Testament and how it relates to me.  We were reading the book The Mission of God, by Christopher Wright.  I came across this quote and wanted to interact with it;

The purpose of the exodus was to bring Israel out of slavery to Pharaoh so that they could properly enter the service/worship of YHWH.  Israel’s problem was not just that they were slaves and ought to be free.  It was that they were slaves to the wrong master and needed to be reclaimed and restored to their proper Lord. (pg 284)

Here is an excerpt from my paper.  We were allowed some stylistic freedoms, I choose to write as if it were a journal entry.  I would love your thoughts.

When I look at my entire spiritual upbringing and a vast majority of my education I find that I have compartmentalized God.  So when I read Exodus and the story of Israel’s freedom from Egyptian bondage I easily slip back into flannel graph mode and read God into the part that He has been playing in my head for years.  God is the redeemer and liberator but not much more than that.  I have read Exodus many times and have not once thought about what God was really doing.  Mostly I would read that passage and my mind would see God as compassionate and understanding.  These are conclusions that I arrive at fairly easily when I put myself in the shoes of the Israelites.  If I were an Egyptian slave I would want God to free me too.  It just makes sense to me.  I would say that up until this point in time my understanding of God from this text was that He was compassionate.  Although I think that my previous understanding of God and this passage also bred in me a thought that God loved Israel much more than anyone else.  I arrived at that conclusion by thinking that God pulled Israel out of slavery most simply put because they were His favorite.  Since reading and wrestling through this text again in my mind, my understanding of God has changed significantly.  I now see that God had a much larger goal in the Exodus of Israel from captivity.  I now understand that God was using Israel to show the nations who He was as well as to show His desire that all worship be directed to Him.    I still believe that God is compassionate.  I still believe that God pulled Israel out of captivity because it was wrong.  However, I can no longer just leave it at that.  God was at work doing far more than just those things.

Most importantly the story of Israel’s exodus from Egyptian slavery has formed a much greater understanding of the character of God and how it relates to me.  One of the things that I see is that God was setting up an epic battle.  It was going to be a battle between Himself and Pharaoh and his false gods of Egypt.   God was getting ready to show the surrounding nations that one of the most powerful nations in the world was nothing in comparison to Himself.  God was about to reveal that there is no one who compares to Him.  It is God and God alone.  That truth found in Exodus still applies today.  In our culture and our lives we set up so many false gods and bow down at their feet.  Many of us will try to worship idols made by the hands of our children, our spouses or even our employers.  God is still in the process of showing us that He is more powerful than anything else we set up.  I love how Wright puts it in that prior quote; they were slaves to the wrong master.  God is a jealous God and He wants us to worship Him alone.  God is not just satisfied with only Israel’s worship.  In fact God wants more than just Israel’s worship.  He wants all of the nations.  This includes me.  This includes my family and my neighbors and those people in Bangladesh that my sister and brother-in-law are trying to love on.  God removed Israel from Egyptian Slavery so that I would know that He is God.  In a weird way the Exodus story is for me.

I see God in this story taking His people out of this very unhealthy environment and bringing them into the desert for cleansing and letting them purge themselves of Egyptian culture and mindsets.  There are so many times in my life when I need a good solid purging of this culture and all that I have become desensitized to.  Maybe it is time for me to go back to the desert for a while.

God was in a process of wooing those He loved back to himself.  I thank God for the fact that He woos, and waits.  This is a point that draws me to my knees in prayer.

So, what do you think?

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Runners in Spandex

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This past Sunday we were traveling home from our winter retreat on 611 up by the river.  If you have been on that stretch of the road you know that it is tight enough for just two cars to pass by one another.  Now let’s put a bus into that mix.  That is an even tighter squeeze.  As I said, we were driving home on this very tight roadway when we come upon a man jogging on the side of the road.  Fortunately for us their was not a car coming in the oncoming lane so we easily passed by him.  I have two questions for this guy…

1. Why are you running in the freezing cold with spandex on?

2. Out of all the possible roadways and trails available to you, why did you choose this particular road to run on?

On this Tuesday morning neither question truly matters to me.  However, I can’t get the image of that man running out of my head.  I’m not a runner.  I wish I was.  In fact there is something inside of me that is telling me that I probably should start running. (That’s beside the point.)  BUT, I think that many of us are professional runners and we might not even know it.

  • When finances get really tight and the bills start stacking up on your counter where do you run?
  • When a friend hurts you and leaves you out to dry where do you run?
  • When your spouse sits you down for a difficult “chat” where do you run?
  • When you find out that your teenager is going to be a mother/father where do you run?
  • When you get called into your bosses office and find out that as of Friday you will be unemployed where do you run?
  • When the Dr gets the test results and tells you “it’s not good” where do you run?
  • When life takes a turn for whatever you could have least expected or wanted where do you run?

To often many of us run and hide, run for the bottle, run towards that affair, run for that chemical high, and run to something that can only protect you for a few moments.  We will frequently choose man made solutions that can and will only provide man sized results.

In Psalm 11 we see that King David has some advisors that have  given him the counsel of running and hiding from his problems.  David however is not tricked by the counsel of these men.  Check this out:

“In the Lord I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, ‘flee as a bird to your mountain;'”  Psalm 11:1

David writes this about God, the Lord, the one in whom he takes his refuge;

“The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.”

And…

“For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face.”  Psalm 11:5 & 7

David knew that whatever he would run to could only let him down and disappoint him.  He chooses to run to God.  He chooses to run to the refuge that God provides.  See check this out… God is never shaken, He is never absent, and He is never unaware.  David has it right.  He says from the get go, I run to God.

I don’t know what David’s circumstances are that prompted this Psalm.  But I know where David chooses to run.

I don’t know your circumstances, but I know where you should run.  Why don’t you run to God, the one who can and will produce God sized results!

I think we are all running.  Where are you running to?  What are you running towards?

~Peter

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Can I play favorites?

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FACT: Each one of us only has so much time in one day.

The other day I heard that over the course of an average lifetime an individual will spend six months waiting on red lights.  That’s crazy!  So, while we aren’t waiting on red lights lets make the most of each day, okay?

I figured that I would write a post on some of my favorite time saving/life altering websites/apps.  So here goes.

Favorite Websites

Grooveshark:  I love grooveshark.  I can’t say that it has replaced my use of itunes, but it has come pretty close to it!  Grooveshark is a website where you can search for and listen to music.  When you create an account (which you don’t have to in order to use the site) you can save playlists.  This is a key feature for me.  I listen to music all the time.  I listen to music according to what kind of mood I am in or what task is at hand.  Creating playlists scratches my itch for mood/task oriented music.  Another sweet deal with grooveshark is that you don’t have to pay for it!  It’s free.  So, if you are looking to check out an artist but don’t want to pay for the album yet, then this is the ticket for you.  Jump on search for whoever and let the music play.  I’ve found several new artists that I like through grooveshark.  Since it is an internet based site I can be on my laptop at starbucks and listen to the playlists I’ve created, or on any other computer, so long as it has internet access, and listen to my playlists.  I love it.

YouVersion:  If you haven’t found YouVersion.com yet than shame on you!  This is a fabulous site.  There are tons of different Bible versions just a click away over at YouVersion.com.  One of the things that I like is that I can copy and paste Biblical text right over from their either into blog posts, papers, or youth group lessons.  It is quick, and I can change the version to check out parallel passages with the click of a button.  The site has far more capabilities than I use right now, but it is a kickin site.  Check it out!

DropBox: This is a sweet little run around to the always-annoying thumb drive.  I probably own two or three of those little memory sticks, but to be honest I only know where one of them is, and it is never where I am.  So, DropBox has solved my problems with that.  It is a free service that allows you to sync files between computers.  Right now I have dropbox installed on my laptop, my home desktop and my ipad.  It allows you to access your files from where ever you are.  It keeps the files synced and up to date.  As being a guy that is on the run and grabbing stuff here and there, I am glad to know that I can keep it all in one place and not worry about it.

Evernote: I use evernote to gather and file ideas.  If I have an idea flowing I need to write it down.  If I don’t it will be gone!  I can’t tell you how many of those “GREAT” ideas I’ve had that are now lost somewhere in my brain.  Evernote easily grabs ideas, websites, images, and anything else you feed it and saves it into notebooks.  This is also synced across platforms and kept online too.  Check it out.

Favorite Apps

Budget:  Okay, don’t judge the program by the website.  I know the site may look cheesy, but this thing is a huge timesaver!  Tiffany and I have been working the famous “Dave Ramsey Envelope System” for a while now and it has been helping us out incredibly.  This is a little piece of software that has saved us time and effort.  You don’t have to trick it to do anything.  It is made for those of us who use the envelope system.  All I can say is that it is worth the investment.

Cramberry:  This is a neat little app for the ipad or iphone.  It is a note card study tool.  I like it because I can create different sets of cards and review them in different ways.  It brings the cards up and allows you to tell you if you got the answer right or wrong.  The cards that you have gotten wrong show up more consistently than the ones that you already know.  It is a fun little timesaver.

Flipboard:  This is a sweet little app that combines all of your feeds into a magazine format.  When you fire up the app you are presented with a few different options.  You have your facebook feed, twitter feed, and any other feed you may choose to subscribe to.  It is a fun format and pretty well done.  I keep my facebook, twitter feeds, usa today, and culture feeds right here in this app.

Mindnode:  I’m not a huge fan of mind mapping, but when I do want to map out some thoughts and ideas this is a pretty easy mind mapping app.  It is free, so don’t expect a ton of bells and whistles.  However, that is one of the reasons why I like this program.  It is simple and clean.  It does what it is supposed to.

Like I said, we each only have a certain amount of time in our lives.  Make the most of it!  I hope that maybe something here will help you do that.  I’d love to know what some of your favorite sites/apps are!

~Peter

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You can thank me later

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I would not be a good friend if I didn’t take the time to share this with you.  I promise it is worth the watch.  As you know we are up at camp this weekend and on the first night you have the obligatory “go over the rules talk”.  This year we did it a bit different.  Check this out.  Hilarity is included for free.

Your Welcome.

~Peter

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPQ5QAvcgDs]

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In Faith in Real Life

When Possum’s Attack

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My poor wife.  First off, she has to deal with me, but then on top of that there are so many times when I am out and about, away from home.  It seems that only when I’m away do I get texts like this one:

Text 1:  “Just saw a possum right up against the back door glass… lovely!!!!”

Text 2:  “Yeah just figured out why he was hanging around.  He was eating through our garbage u left on the driveway… He went for the P.F. Changs leftover box…”

Ah… Life is never dull around here.  Just thought I had to share this one… As I said, only when I’m away does this stuff happen.

~Peter “the possum hunter (when I get back)”

Oh and here are a couple possum pics…

 

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In Spiritual Growth

Wakeup!

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In a few short hours our Senior High youth group will gather together and pack up the church van, load up the bus and head on up to Glen Spey, NY for our winter retreat!  It is going to be a really awesome trip.  Our theme for this year is: Wake Up.  I am super excited about our speaker this year.  His name is Clint Ussher.  Clint has been given the task of challenging our students to wake up; to wake up to what God has for them!  This is going to be an exciting weekend.

Will you pray for us?

Here are a few things that you can pray for…

1. Pray for safety as we travel. We are headed to New York State.  You never know what kind of weather you are going to get up there!

2. Pray for the hearts of teenagers.  Would you pray that their hearts would be open to hear what God is trying to say to them?  Often times it is on a weekend away where there are less distractions that we get a chance to actually hear what God is saying.

3. Pray for no distractions! Distractions can come in all forms.  Will you please pray that there would be no distractions this weekend?  That means no girl drama, and no smelly guy gas!

4. Pray for fun! One of the other reasons we get away together is to just flat out have fun!  Pray that we have fun, and lots of it!

Thanks!

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Coffee: The Subject of Tea’s Jealousy

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The other day my friend and I were sitting in class, during one of our breaks a discussion of tea and coffee came up.  He has spent some time in England and has come to truly appreciate Tea Time.  I on the other hand feel like I can say that 2010 was the year of Coffee for me.  See, it was in 2010 that I learned to drink coffee in the morning almost every single day.  More appropriately I should say that it was in the year 2010 I learned that I love coffee every morning.  Our discussion of tea and coffee was brief, but long enough for me to think about my coffee consumption habits.
In the year 2010 I found myself waking up and tiredly rolling out of bed to begin my typical routine of helping get the kids ready, fed, and dressed.  Then I would shower, dress, and get on to packing my bag for the day.  I would grab my to go thermos of coffee and head out the door.  I have found that, my consumption of coffee had gone from being “with breakfast”, to being “for breakfast”.
One of the reasons I like coffee is because of it’s thicker than tea feeling.  Now maybe that is because I use a portion of creamer that would make any young calf jealous, or maybe it is because I use enough sugar which requires the use of an old fashioned egg beater to mix it all.  Coffee seems to stick to your bones a bit more then tea does.  It seems to take on the form of breakfast far better then it’s watery English girlfriend, the tea bag.
With all of this having been said, this has become a problem for me.  I have realized that for far to long I was not eating one of the most important meals of the day.  I was not fueling my body for what was to come and I was not experiencing life to the fullest.  Coffee, or tea for that matter, was never intended to be a breakfast supplement.  It was only ever intended to enhance the meal itself.  This has led me to the decision that each and everyday, as best as I can, I will eat breakfast.  Let 2011 be known as the year of the breakfast.
While the previous stories are true of my life and experience, breakfast and coffee are metaphors for a much larger epidemic that runs rampant in our Churches and Christian Communities.  I find that there are many who say that they are followers of Jesus, but what they are really saying is that they are followers of church attendance.  They are turning coffee into breakfast.  I have talked with people who have the most disciplined devotional time and who work their way through the whole Bible in one year yet they show no signs of a connectedness with their Savior!  They have turned coffee into breakfast.  I know that there are people who approach the communion table and wonder more about if it really is the first week of the month, rather than spending those precious moments in a time of remembrance, embracing the mystery of Jesus death, burial and resurrection.  They have turned coffee into breakfast.
It is not enough just to be a really religious person.  It is not enough to be a person who looks really good on the outside but on the inside is like an empty warehouse!   Jesus has so much more for you than that.  Bible reading is great, I highly recommend it, but not in place of truly knowing Christ.  Perfect church attendance is awesome, but not in place of truly knowing Christ.

Are you enjoying coffee for breakfast or along with breakfast?

~Peter

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In Leadership & Calling

The Moment Has Come

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A while ago I shared about my sister, her husband and their four kids. They are headed over to Bangladesh for two years to serve in the missions work that is taking place there. I arrived here in Texas late Thursday evening and have been trying to help them get ready for this trip.

Their moment has come, their 2 day journey of 8,654 miles is about to begin. It is made up of three flights, with a total of 22 hours in the air! Only to be followed up by a 14 hour bus ride. Did I mention that they were going with four kids?

Tomorrow morning we will head to Dallas Fort Worth Airport to send them on their way.

Would you join me in praying for them? Pray for safety. Pray for their children, Quinton (7), Emma (5), Jack (4), and Addy (2). Pray that God would give them peace and patience as they endure a very stretching experience in these next 48 hours.

You can follow what’s going on in their lives over at their blog: The Long Family

Here’s a few pictures from while I was here…

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Professor Night Lectures Again

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[Written two days ago on my way from Philadelphia to Dallas on board a very small plane. At least I had a window view!]

“God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening.”. Psalm 19:1-2 (the message)

As I quietly pluck the keys on my keyboard, I am flying at 36,000 feet somewhere over Wisconsin, staring at a brilliant full moon, reflected on the great lake below. The night is crisp and cool. Actually, the night is freezing and bone-chilling. The sky is dark, except for the “lesser light” (Gen. 1:16). The light that was given to us in order to rule the night. The lesser light shines in its glory tonight. The lesser light hangs perfectly in the sky because God you set it there.

This is majestic. This is glorious. This is amazing! God is Majestic. God is glorious. God is amazing!

As I look at this scene laid out in front of me I am amazed at how small I am. To think that the God who created the moon, the stars, and the galaxies cares enough to know me. Even more amazing is that this same God who only spoke this lesser light into existence loves me. He loves me so much so that even when I was running and striving for things in opposition to Him, He forgave me. In fact my creator God loves me so much that He sent Jesus to hang on a cross so I wouldn’t have to. This leaves me speechless.

When was the last time that you were left speechless by God? Go ahead, share… It will be like a little online worship service.

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4

~Peter

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Creative Expressions or Colorless Thoughts

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Over the last four months, there has been a wrestling match going on in my mind: To blog or not to blog.  I asked myself questions like, “Do I have enough thoughts in my head to share with people?” or “does anyone even care what I think about ______?”  The question that I really had to figure out was, “Do I have anything to add to the conversation?”

I have stopped blogging all together largely due to four reasons.

Time Pressure. There is only so much time in one day.  We are all responsible for the same 86,400 seconds that are given to us each and everyday.  Those seconds will fly by if you are not careful!

Started Seminary. Life took an interesting twist for my family and I this fall.  I have started taking classes at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield PA.  I am pursuing my Master’s of Divinity.  I will be the first to admit that the last four months have been stressful ones.  It has been a time for me to readjust my life, time and priorities.  It has been incredible, yet it has been a time of adjustments too.

Feeling Uncreative.  No one wants to read a boring blog.  I don’t, and I’m sure you don’t either.  I was feeling boring.  The creative elements were lacking!  I did not want to bore you.

Adding to the Noise. Even more than just being uncreative, I did not want to add to the noise in the lives of people.  If by un-creatively blogging all I was doing was adding 500 words of jargon and nonsense then I’d rather not do it.  There is plenty of noise, plenty of blogs, and books out there that can distract you from your relationship with God/your family/productivity.  I don’t need to be one more distraction.

As I started to say, over the last four months I have been wrestling with the idea of what do I have to add right now?  Is it time to pick up and start writing again? I have three reasons why I have decided to get back into the discipline of blogging.

A Desire to be Creative. I love being creative.  I enjoy creativity of all kinds.  However, one of the ways I most enjoy being creative is in the expression and transference of truth.  I enjoy expressing truth in non-traditional ways.  Blogging often times give me the opportunity to be creative in expressing God’s truth.  I share with people frequently, view life through the lens of a parable.  When you see life through the lens of a parable all of a sudden truth pops out creatively!  I want to be a creator not just a consumer.

A Desire to share what I’m learning. Every week I read tons of pages of information, and I sit through a minimum of 5 hours of class.  I write papers, turn them in and about three people read them.  Each and every month I pay a huge price tag to do all of this.  Believe me I know that my education is a privilege!  However, it doesn’t sit right with me to not share what I am learning.  It would be an incredible waste of resources if I did not share what I am learning and thinking about.

A Desire to Start Conversations (around the other two points). One of the things that I have enjoyed most in my classes are the conversations that inevitably crop up with other classmates.  I love hearing their perspective, life experiences, and thoughts on whatever issue or topic we are discussing.  I see this blog as a platform to allow conversations like that to happen.  It is not just about the 500 words.  It’s the words after the 500.

With these things in mind I invite you to join me in a conversation here.  Let’s see where we go!

~Peter

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