I saw a bumper sticker this morning that read “Minds are like parachutes, they only work when they’re OPEN”. The back of the SUV had some tie-dyed peace symbol magnets so you know what that meant. As I thought about it I wondered how accurate that synthetic simile might be. It occured to me that a parachute only “works” when it is opened and filled with wind. If the parachute is opened and yet has such a large hole it can’t be filled with air, it is useless.

Biblically, the Holy Spirit is compared to wind. In John chapter 3, Jesus says that the wind blows where it may and those born of the Spirit are like that. The word for ‘spirit’ (??????) can mean spirit, wind or breath. So, if we import that Biblical understanding to that bumper sticker then they are correct. Minds are indeed like parachutes, they work, they keep you safe and alive, only when they’re opened and filled with the Spirit.

I can think of a couple of sections of tollway (not to mention toll booths) I’d like to blow up. This has got to be the luckiest motorist in the country!

About a year or so ago I discovered the Metra. The train runs from near our home to right next to where I work. When gas first hit $3/gal I decided to give it a shot. It was so great to take 3/4 of my travel time and turn it into productive reading time. When school started back up, I had to drive on school days but I took the train otherwise. When my son got a job at my store, he mostly took the train.

I have to get to the Libertyville train station about 25 minutes before my train in order to get a parking spot. I didn’t mind, that was 25 minutes in the Caribou Coffee to do some reading and I got an americano to boot. Well, the other day I was sitting there waiting for my train when I see a bus pull up in front of the coffee shop. I quickly wrote down the route number in my Franklin and forgot about it. When I remembered to look it up, it turns out that the bus route runs fairly close to my home and gets me to the train station just before my train comes. What’s not to love?

So Friday I drove up the street to a bus stop on the route map and waited for the bus. I had to leave earlier and the price of the bus ride each way is the same price as parking. Beginning to sound like a wash, except that I was almost a day behind in my reading schedule. ¹I figure out what I have to have read by when, then I count out ‘reading day’ which are non-Sundays and days when I don’t have an evening class. So I found a seat on the bus and started reading. By the time I got to the train station I was fairly caught up. I got a coffee and got on the train. By the time I got to Deerfield, I was almost done. That afternoon on the way home, I finished all the reading of all the books I had with me. Plus got started on a course pack that I got too late to fit into the schedule but one that is due by Thursday. That left a book at home to finish.

Boring post, but the point is a good one. If you are a seminary student and you’re overwhelmed with your reading schedule, public transportation may help you out.

Quentin Schultze has a short but interesting article on the misuse of technology in worship at byFath.com.

Go read but let me just add my 2¢ worth. Technology is neutral. It is not inherently good or bad, but it can be used in ways that are helpful or not. When the technology supports the worship, it is good. Sort of like using illustrations in a sermon. If they support the point of the text, they are good. When they so overshadow the Bible, they are bad. Air conditioning is a good use of technology unless it is too loud or too cold.

Same thing with PowerPoint. If it supports the preaching of the word and the worship of God (I’m not sure PowerPoint has any place in the administration of the sacraments) then it is good. If the technology moves to center stage it is not. When a PowerPoint presentation is so busy and cluttered, or filled with so many beautiful pictures that the presentation is what the people are talking about in the narthex (or lobby or coffee corner or whatever) then it is a bad thing.

The point is that we need to be on guard against distractions in worship. Where possible, we should eliminate the distractions. That isn’t to say that you can’t worship with distractions, you can. In a creative access Asian context we worshipped in the city park with people milling around. We were also keeping an eye out for the police. And yet, it was a God-honoring worship service. But when we’re in settings where we have more control over the environment, we need to take care. PowerPoint for the sake of PowerPoint is not good. A video because “everyone has video these days” is probably not constructive.

At the same time, it must be added that if a video illustrates a point and is well done, (and is SHORT) it might be helpful in preaching. I have noticed that when a quote is put upon the projector while being read, I tend to remember it better.

Let’s just make sure we’re intentional in worship and not too casual or ‘hip’.

First day (night, actually) of school is today. I have The Prophetic and Poetic Books with Dr. VanGemeren. I am really, really looking forward to this class.

What is really cool is that I am on top of the reading so far. We had two books assigned to be read before the final and I did them over the summer and knocked them out. After that, I have to have certain pages read by class dates. So I count the pages and divide them amongst “reading days”. Reading days omit Sunday and the day of the class since it is an evening class and I work all day. Then I grab the Franklin and write down a page range for each day and then scratch them out as I complete them. So far I’m ahead. This cannot last. By mid-term I am usually hopelessly behind. But I’m going to try to stay on top of it.

So now we’re back in that head-down, plowing ahead posture as I enter the homestretch of my seminary time. Last year. Three classes this term and one with an internship next term.

Thursday we dropped our son off at college. I have a child in college. I am old enough to have a child in college. Of course, I’m proud as punch that he’s there. He’s starting his first year as a chemistry major at Wheaton College. About an hour away.

It hasn’t hit us yet that he’s gone. So far it just feels like he’s away for the weekend or something. I think it will really hit us when he’s been gone a few weeks. His youngest sister, Gillian, missed him right away. As we were moving him in to his new dorm room, she called weeping. Bernadette, however, was busy clearing out his old room and moving in her new “distressed” shabby chic stuff.

We all drove down to Wheaton this AM and took him out to church and lunch and bought him a few more things for the dorm. We met his roommate, a fine, cultured Southern gentleman who is studying archeology.

And I have a son in college.

The date of the post looks kind of dorky right now…okay, it looks really dorky. But I’m tweeking my CSS trying to mimic a nice date format I saw on another blog. We’ll get there.

In order to make a mends, here are some Star Trek Demotiviational posters. I really like these:

[HT: Paulo]

Oh man, the latest DGM 2006 video of Mark Driscoll is killer.

I’ve gotta think these guys [David, Paul, John the Baptist] were ‘dudes.’ Heterosexual, win a fight, punch you in the nose, dudes. And the problem in the church today is it’s just a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chick-ified, church boys. Sixty percent of Christians are chicks and the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks. I mean its just sad. When you walk in its sea foam green and fuschia and lemon yellow the whole architecture and the whole aesthetic is feminine and the preacher is kind of feminine and the music is kind of emotional and feminine and we’re looking around going ‘how come we’re not innovative?’ Its because all the innovative dudes are at home watching football.

One good thing for me from the interview is when he was talking about church planters. He said the key is screening. This part consistantly worries me. What if I don’t make it through their process? Does it mean I’m not a church planter even if I think I am? When Driscoll gets to the point where he’s talking about potential church planters I felt better. They are the “trouble makers” in the church who are critical and think they can do it better. It may be that they’re just critical and the screening needs to eliminate them. Otherwise, they might be church planters! They’re leaders and their not leading it is driving them nuts!

That made me feel better. :) I’ll just delude myself into thinking that’s my problem.

Addendum: The thing that is beginning to bother me a bit about this is the unqualified nature of the praise of all things male. Surely masculinity is incomplete without femininity for “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” While it is wrong to allow the church to lapse into a predominantly female organization, it would be equally wrong to incorporate masculinity unchecked. We don’t need leaders who go around punching people in the nose as their answer to problems. There have been many many times when my beautiful, wise wife has clued me in on how other people are affected and feel. I would have steamrolled right ahead and hurt some without my wife’s insight.

That said, we do need to man up in the church.

What are we to do about Mel Gibson? By now, you’ve all heard about his DUI and his anti-Semitic statements during his arrest. It appeared that Mel had committed the unpardonable sin in Hollywood and I know I sort of waited for the condemnations to come. Put that thought on hold for a minute.This weekend I taught on II Samuel 5, the installation of David as king over the northern tribes of Israel. This placed David as the sovereign over a united kingdom in Israel. Frankly, as we had gone all the way through I Samuel to get here, I anticipated David’s arrival on the throne as the pinnacle of this part of the story. And yet it gets very few verses; four total. Then the author tells us about David moving his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was held by the Jebusites at the time and so there was a battle to take the walled city. Again, only two verses dedicated to this battle and only a few more to David’s building project. Then we hear about how a foreign king gifted a palace to David. The entire thing occupies one verse. The biggest part of the chapter is two battles with the Philistines but even there the details are scant.

When we read II Samuel, we’re expecting David’s success to be the high point of the story but it isn’t. The author will slow down narrative time for the next two events; the return of the Ark and the establishment of the Davidic covenant. David’s seat on the throne of all of Israel is only a step in the progress of the story but I know I anticipated it to be the high point.

And now Mel has taken a tumble in a way that should have ruined him in Hollywood. But it hasn’t. Mel came out immediately and confessed and apologized for his hateful words. No blame-game, just confession. Back to Mel. When we look at Mel’s career, we might think that he arrived when he did the Lethal Weapon series and Mad Max II and III. These were big hits for him. Then there were Braveheart and The Patriot. These were more mature films for Mel and ones where we got to seem him really act. He won two Oscars for Braveheart. Surely this is it for Mel, this is success!

When Mel made The Passion of the Christ, there were naysayers and critics. A film in a foreign language wouldn’t make it. The subject matter was too controversial. The film had an anti-Semitic tone. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood was that religious films flopped. Religious people were to be made fun of and religious themes ignored or parodied. Mel made the Passion with his own money and it did well. Very well. Suddenly Hollywood is awakened to an audience who want to see religious movies.

Read On…