Study guide now available for a really good book... Nancy Pearcey is a fine thinker and a great contributor to current discourse of many topics.

Link - Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey Official Site: Home

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Great advice from "Face" over at the A-Team blog...being both in vocational ministry and in Seminary and a blogger - this advice is fresh water reminding me of the dryness I know too well when time with God is scant.

Oh to find the grace to sit, pray, delight, take a walk, dream, read and reflect upon the excellencies of He who has called us from darkness into his marvelous light - 1 Peter 2:9

Link: The A-Team Blog :: Avoiding the Seminary Trap

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This is one of the best things I have seen come through the pages of Relevant Magazine A New Kind of Hipster

Also, see my mini-review of the book referenced at the end of this article. I highly recommend the book: Prophetic Untimeliness - A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance by Os Guiness

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I feel my chest move in and out, in and out

The expansion of my lungs, I feel it…breath

I can hear nothing but the breaking of silence

Nothing, but yet something moves

A sweet breeze, a slow wind coming, yes coming, coming to me?

Oh, I feel a presence, Oh, something real – NO, someone is here

I fear, no I need, I long, I desire…but I fear

Comfort, yes, it is with Him, but yet I stay here

The wind blows…yet I know not where it goes

The wind blows…it is rushing into my soul

I fear, no I need, I long, I desire…but yet I fear

Comfort, yes, it is with Him, yes, I shall come to Him

Move towards Him, Yes, now! Move, now

But no, what will that mean?

But yet he calls, he moves, he breathes

So that in the wind I might hear

I will come – thank you, thank you

Breath to Dust – I am alive again

-- Reid S. Monaghan - September 2005

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Yes, someone is paying to put this web site online - too funny! iiiiiiii --------

LibraryThing | Catalog your books online This looks very tasty - but what if they go out of business? Hmmm....

HT: Theologica, in turn from Evangelical Outpost

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I must confess that ever since my parents bought me an IBM PS1 in 1991 I became a bit intrigued by the computer. In all honesty I was a late comer to the computer scene. I dinked around with old DOS word processors in high school, but the PS1 was my first computer - I was old by computer people standards, a freshman in college, late to the ball. Yet since that day I progressed quickly in the world of tech. I learned to program (which I am now forgetting slowly, like the sands falling from an hour glass), switched into an applied computer science degree, and had a bunch of fun. I enjoyed e-mail on Unix (elm/pine) used text editors vi and got lazy and went to pico.

I have to admit that I am no hacker, probably fading away from the realm of power user. But when asked I always say "I know enough to be dangerous." Since the college days I have primarily applied my tech loves to the task of ministry. Taught myself HTML, hand-coded many web sites (fell in love with HomeSite along the way), learned rudimentary graphic design, designed databases, did some non-linear video editing (which I am embarassed by most of the videos, but usually people still liked my junk)...

Most recently, I have enjoyed the blog world, XML, syndication, and now podcasts. I even just purchased an Apple product (more on this later). Now, the next few lines in my tech autobiography get invovled with what is very akin to religion - don't say you were not warned.

In college I used DOS (mainly to run an obscure Turing Compiler), Windows and a bunch of Unix. On my PC, I began to despise Microsoft (which I called along with other CS types "Mikeysoft") and looked for a change. Thinking Mac's to be somewhat like toys, I switched to a OS/2 (yes, IBM had a goofy idea for marketing and branding - gee - OS/2 - at least they finally called version 3 "Warp"). To say the least, OS/2 never really took off and applications were had to find - so I finally limped back to Windows 95.

Swearing Apple to be of infidel computer stock (really, Apple was not cool back then - I mean there was no Steve Jobs). Well, today marks an historic day - I just bought, yes, paid money for, an Apple product. Yes, an iPod Nano is on the way to our house.

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Al Mohler cites some interesting research - Together is better...Start a Revolution--Eat Dinner With Your Family

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Donate to Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts. The following are recommended by Desiring God Ministries to assist victims of Hurrican Katrina:

• Castle Rock Community Church and Urban Impact Ministries exists together to transform the Central City of New Orleans through Spiritual Development, Christian Community Development and Strategic Partnerships. Last summer, Bethlehem’s Youth Pastor, Brad Nelson, brought a short-term mission team to assist with the summer outreach. Now the ministry staff and church people have scattered. Seventy have evacuated to Arkansas.
• Desire Street Fellowship and Desire Street Ministries are located in New Orleans. Pastor Mo Leverett and his wife moved into the Desire neighborhood and founded DSM in 1990, a time when the Desire project was ranked the worst in the country. The ministry has planted a church, Desire Street Fellowship and a school, Desire Street Academy. In the wake of the hurricane, the staff has been scattered taking with them many of the 200 boys from the school. For the time being they are planning to set up a temporary school in Atlanta. They tell us, “Our greatest immediate needs are for prayers and funding.”
• The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Missions Board has a Disaster Relief section on the website. There you will find several ministry avenues for disbursing relief through Southern Baptist churches and affiliations.
• World Relief can also be supported directly with an online donation or by mailing a check to: Katrina Hurricane Relief Effort, World Relief, 7 E Baltimore St, Baltimore, MD 21202 or call (800) 535-5433.
• Prison Fellowship is gathering critical supplies—toiletries, blankets, etc.—to truck down to Louisiana’s prisons. You can donate online or by calling (800) 206-9764.

An interesting essay by John Piper is available from Desiring God Ministries as well. In times of tragedy, crying out to God, repentence, trust in the Cross of Christ is the only way. Katrina has reminded me of several things in the human condition. Here are some things I have learned:

1. The pride of man to build a city in a bowl, protected by levees, a disaster waiting to happen...Pride goes before destruction,and a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18
2. The kindness of human beings. The compassion of people on their neighbors has been an amazing thing to observe. Particularly the rallying of churches and believers to give, go, pray, open homes, has been a testimony to the God worshipped by these people.
3. The depravity of man. Beyond race, color, creed, or political persuasion, people have evidence the truth of Scripture - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The reports of rape, looting, violence has brought discouragement to many - oh how much more to live through this on the ground. Many brave souls have seen such depravity, yet held on to hope.
4. We are not as strong as we think we are. In the last 100 years the wonderful technological advancement has given the illusion of stability and the easy life to far too many. The reality is that we are but dust, a fraile creature, each of our deaths certain. Those who perished in Katrina passed on in a drastic, tragic fashion. The rest of us have the same appointment, whether quickly or in a few score years from now, slowly dying with tubes and machines hooked to our bodies. The end is the same.

Who can escape this body of death, who can escape this body of sin - but by the grace of God in the person of Christ - we live and then die without hope. In the midst of great suffering, the ancient patriarch Job cried out "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him" Such is our only recourse - our God is a present help in a time of trouble.

An old hymn comes to mind:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is Well with My Soul by Horatio Spafford

Such was written in tragedy by a man who had just lost his children in a shipwreck. Such is the soul established on the rock of Christ and a life built on his words (Matthew 7:24, 25)

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Reading this article - which ran in Oct 2004 - is a bit spooky...

We are not as strong as we think we are...we think we are the masters of our world. We are not...we are not...

Gone with the Water

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