Getting Ready for Christmas

Less of a Man

Yesterday, I felt like I needed a change....felt like I needed to mix things up, so I shaved my beard completely off for the first time in about three years. I'm afraid this might hurt my image as the scraggly young pastor. As a clean shaven man, I feel somewhat like I'm less of a man. I wonder if Jesus would agree with me on that.

Halloween

Jovi was ladybug for Halloween. Jill made the costume, and it looks like it will fit her for the next 3 or 4 years. The night she first put it on, she was pretty proud of herself. We had music on, and she started doing her latest Jovi-dance. See the video below. Lately she’s also found it very amusing to stick an ice-cream bucket on her head and walk around….strange kid…gets it from her mom.

Latest News

Haven't posted in a while. I'm sure most of you have already heard our latest news, but if not, Jill and I are expecting baby #2. Everything on the ultrasound looks good. The due date is May 24. We'll try to keep you updated.

Against My Better Judgment

Well, today I sold my soul to the technological evil of virtual relationships otherwise known as social networking. As I begrudgingly signed up for a facebook account today, I felt a little something inside of me die. Sure, by finally giving into peer pressure and joining the rest of my generation on facebook, I probably haven’t received the “mark of the beast,” although I bet there’s some TBN preacher making that eschatological interpretation. But I do have serious hesitations:

1.Our culture is increasingly becoming virtual. People are replacing real, personal, physically-present relationships for an e-reality. It takes time and energy to make real friendships, but with a few clicks of a mouse I already have dozens of facebook “friends.”

2. Facebook feeds on our celebrity-driven narcissistic culture. Now, I’ve already admitted that this blog is semi-narcissistic and self-indulgent, but my primary reasons for having it are to give me an avenue to update friends and family on Jovi’s life and to occasionally write my thoughts on culture and theology. I’m not concerned with how many people read it, and I’m not attempting to gain friends or influence through it. Facebook seems to me to be a world in which everyone gets to be the star of their own little virtual world. Of course, not everybody uses it for this, but it does seem to promote this mentality.

The one and only reason I have joined facebook is to be able to communicate with a few people who seem to only use facebook as their means of communication. There is specifically one organization that I am trying to stay in contact with, and I’m realizing that it’s very difficult without facebook. So, there is my justification for going over to the dark-side.

Latest Pics

Logic and Football

All none football fans might as well just skip this post.

I’m sitting here anticipating another big Buckeye loss to USC tonight. Yep, I’ve become that pessimistic. If we somehow win, I’ll be super excited and surprised. If we lose, I’ll see it coming and won’t be overly disappointed. So, here I am in my basement, watching Michigan v. Notre Dame and thinking football.

So here are my thoughts on a rule in football. I think the dumbest rule change I’ve seen in a few years was last year when the NFL and college both changed all face-masking penalties to a mandatory personal foul 15 yard penalty. Both leagues said that they changed the rule in order to protect players, but I think this is the most illogical thing they could have done. Sure, it sounds good, but let’s think about this for a minute.

Before last year there were two separate penalties for face-masking. A five yard penalty was given for minor infractions, and a fifteen yard penalty was given for more severe infractions. The referees had to make a judgment call. Now the minor infractions are done away with. From what I understand, the minor penalties were given for face-masking infractions that met two criteria: 1. The grabbing of the facemask was accidental/incidental (sometimes a defender accidentally makes contact with the runner’s facemask in the course of tackling him) and 2. The defender released the facemask as soon as he makes contact. So, if a defender accidentally grabbed a facemask in the course of tackling a runner but let go of the facemask immediately, his team was given a 5 yard penalty instead of a 15 yard penalty.

Doing away with the 5 yard penalty does not protect players. I would argue that it actually endangers them more. Here’s why. By definition, criteria #1 cannot be avoided since it is accidental. Increasing the penalty for something that occurs unintentionally should have no effect on how often the accidental contact occurs, and thus, not make the game any safer for the one whose facemask is grabbed. And now that all facemask penalties are given the major 15 yard penalty there is no reason for a defender to quickly let go of a facemask, even if he grabs in accidentally. He might as well finish tackling the runner by trying to rip his head off. Once one touches the facemask, why let go? Therefore the rule change actually gives a player more reason to hold onto the facemask for longer, putting more players in danger.

Perhaps the only other argument to change the rule is to take the judgment call away from the refs, but 90% of the calls the refs make are judgment calls.

Michigan just beat Notre Dame….bummer…not that Notre Dame lost, just that Michigan won. That makes my day even worse if the Buckeyes lose. Oh well, still got the Steelers.

Mmmmm

8-Track Guy in an iPod World

I’ve noticed that I’ve apologized a number of times on my blog for failing to post more often. Sometimes a month goes by without me ever logging onto my site. I do feel bad because I wish I spent more time and energy writing and posting, but unfortunately it’s normally low on my priority list. I also know that my infrequent updates may cause some people to lose interest and stopping checking my blog. I hope that’s not the case, but I guess that’s just the world we live in.

Rather than apologize again, I want to defend my infrequent posting by saying, at least I don’t twitter or post insignificant details of my life. I could sit down for two minutes daily and write a bunch of inconsequential drivel that nobody cares about, but I’d rather remain silent than to bore you with the tedious details of my everyday. For instance, I could write that I got a gallon of milk for $1.59 at the grocery store the other day. Yeah, I know, that’s pretty cheep. But here’s why I don’t write things like that: unless you live in the Lansing area and want to know what grocery store to go to, this information is useless to you (or unless you’re my father-in-law who is a dairy farmer that cares very much about the price of milk). Our world is increasingly saturated with nauseating amounts of frivolous information and I don’t want to contribute the self-indulgent culture of texting, tweeting, and facebooking. Ok, maybe this post is a little self-indulgent, but don’t worry, it will probably be the only one this week.

Our Vain Child

Jovi is going through a stage in which she whines a lot more than she used to when she doesn’t get her way. She wants her mama most of the time, and it’s been harder to keep her happy and entertained. Her fussiness is partly due to her going through the weaning process….and partly due to the fact that she’s a girl. I recently discovered that she loves watching these videos of herself, so I’m posting them in order to keep her occupied. Every time she watches one, she gives me her sign for “more.” Jill is working tomorrow, so I may find myself sitting at the computer with our vain little girl.

She's learning her body parts but does much better when there is no camera pointed at her.

She's also learned a few animal sounds. The cow sound is getting pretty close to "moo." The sheep clears its throat rather than saying "ba ba." The lion used to growl, but now the lion just says "mama."

Having fun with her favorite person.

Learning to Walk

Sorry for posting so rarely. We've been gone for almost half of June and had VBS another week. I'll try to keep up a little more often the second half of the summer.

Jovi is learning to walk as you can see in the video. She's still too much of a chicken to venture off on her own. She's only brave enough to try if someone is waiting for her to catch her.

She continues to be a tiny little thing. At her last doctor's appointment (12 and 1/2 months) she weighed in at 15.3 pounts.

1st Birthday

It's hard to believe that Jovi is one year old. We had a little party for her with a few friends over, and Jill made this sweet duck birthday cake.

First Taste

After the Party

Waving goodbye to her friends.

Trying on the new clothes.

Dance, Dance, Dance

On Jill’s birthday, my brother got her the largest birthday card I’ve ever seen. When you open it, it plays the “Peanuts” theme song. We’ve gotten more use out of this birthday card than any card in the history of greeting cards. It sits under Jovi’s crib, and she likes to get it out every week and have a dance party.

I Win

I can turn just about anything into a competition. Not long after Jovi was born, I would always tell her, “Say Dada.” Of course, Jill would always tell her, “Say Mama.” While I certainly know that Jovi love her Mom more than her Dad, I at least won the battle for the first word.

The Passion of Sophie

I keep a list of movies on my fridge so that when I go to rent one, I don’t spend 30 minutes at the movie store trying to figure out what to get. I update my list every few months, normally based on reviews. I don’t always like the movies that the critics like, but if the majority of critics hate a movie, I find that it’s a fairly good indication that it won’t be worth my time. So, over the last month or so I’ve rented Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. Both were pretty good, but I didn’t love either of them. I didn't find either of them inspiring, and in a few months I will have forgotten much about them.

The best movie I’ve seen in a long time was one that has been buried on my movie list for several years. It’s a German film entitled “Sophie Scholl – The Final Days.” I’ve been thinking about it over and over again since I saw it a few days ago. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that it’s a very simple movie (not action packed at all). It is inherently Christian without being preachy, and it is deeply moving. I want to write a bunch more, but I hate spoiling movies. Two thumbs way up!

American Idol

I try to keep politics out of the pulpit and for the most part out of my blog, but tonight I just can't resist. I came home from the church this evening and flipped on the old "boob-tube," and there was President Obama answering questions at a prime time news conference. The caption at the bottom of the screen read "First 100 days," and I thought is this his 100th day in office or the 100th time he's holding a prime time press conference? I mean, he's on the TV more than Ryan Seacrest, but I'm sure he doesn't have much else to do being the leader of the free world and all.

So, I looked it up and figured that this is his 4th prime time speech since taking office (3 press conferences and the state of the union address). Assuming this rate continues and that he wins re-election in 2012, we only have 113 more prime time President Obama specials to go!

Rational Faith

You’ll have to excuse my failure to post over the past month. It’s been busy with Holy Week, Easter, and family visiting. I’m also realizing how much less time I’ve had this year compared to last year, before Jovi was born. That darn kid sucks up much of our free time.

Anyway, I still have found time to read (perhaps this is because I’m a pastor and really only work one day a week….haha), and one of the best books I’ve read in a long time is Timothy Keller’s “The Reason for God.” If you are a person who questions whether or not Christianity is true or if you deal with people who are skeptical of Christianity, I highly recommend this book.

Keller is a pastor in New York City, and his book was written from the perspective of the many conversations he has had with skeptical New Yorkers about faith. While Keller’s primary role is as pastor, he is extremely well versed in philosophy. What is great about his book is not the originality of his ideas and arguments. I’ve come across all of his arguments in other books of philosophy or theology. But, what is great is how logical and accessible his book is. He covers the most common arguments that skeptics use to attack the Christian faith, and responds to those arguments with great precision and clarity. He brings together some of the best arguments Christian thinkers have to offer (the book is well documented, repeatedly quoting C.S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, Soren Kierkegaard, and a wide variety of authors from across the spectrum), and he does it in a way that I think most serious-minded laypeople could understand. This is an excellent introduction to apologetics and would be the first book off my shelf that I would give to skeptic of the Christian faith.

Bustin' a Move

Home Alone

Jill went off to a women’s retreat this weekend, leaving Jovi and I to fend for ourselves at home for three days. Surprisingly it has gone really well. Jovi’s been a good girl for me. But, we are looking forward to having Jill back later this afternoon.

Here’s a quick video to show the latest of Jovi in action. And I know what you’re wondering, are those Tristan’s famous chicken legs in the video? Yep, that’s them. I wanted to have my producer photo-shop me some big bulging calf muscles, but due to budget cuts at our production studio, we had to stick with the raw footage.

Death of an Icon

For most of my life I have had my eyes fixed on the future. I always seem to be planning for what is to come, worrying about what might go wrong, and preparing myself for the joys and sorrows that lay ahead of me. If you were to ask me what I have going on next week, I could tell you my schedule in great detail. If you ask me what I did last week, it would take me five minutes to pull that information from my memory banks, that is, if I could remember at all. The very title of this blog speaks to the way I approach reality – driven by the future, quickly forgetting the past.

With that said, I’ve been reflecting about the past more this year than I ever have before. Perhaps it is because I am now a father. Perhaps it is because I’ve entered my 30’s. Perhaps it is because I serve a congregation with a large number of elderly folks and have had to minister to people facing disease, death, and the end of their lives. Whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking a little less about what is to come and a little more about what has been left behind. This was especially true when I heard this weekend that radio legend Paul Harvey died on Saturday.

There are few things that remind me of my childhood more than the voice of Paul Harvey being broadcast over the air waves. My father’s father died when I was only five years old. I don’t remember much about him, but one of my distinct memories from childhood was visiting my grandmother and him in their house in Carrollton, Ohio, drinking sassafras tea, eating cinnamon toast, and hearing Paul Harvey on the radio. On the days that I would follow my dad to work as a kid, we would eat our sack lunches at noon sitting on a couple of five gallon buckets while listening to Paul Harvey report the news on my dad’s little AM radio. My last year of college, I had a class that dismissed at 11:45, and I would listen to Paul Harvey everyday as I drove back to my apartment for lunch. Throughout all the phases of my life, I have memories of hearing Paul Harvey on the radio.

In our world with rapid changes in culture, technology, and worldviews, Paul Harvey was an icon who seemed to transcend many of the boundaries of age and opinions. I imagine that if my grandfather was alive today we probably wouldn’t share a similar taste in music or fashion. I don’t really like Lawrence Welk, and I doubt that he would be a big fan of U2 or Pearl Jam. I’m sure he would be a lot better at working on cars, but I would be more skilled in working with computers. He would know a lot about the political issues that affected his life during the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. I would speak to the issues that are currently shaping our world in impacting my family. My grandfather and I would be divided in so many areas because of time and trends. There are so few things that link my generation to his generation. When Paul Harvey died this past weekend, I feel as if we lost one of those few links.

I’m not sure what this world is going to be like when Jesus comes back to fully establish his kingdom. I’m not sure if there will be radio when the dead in Christ are resurrected and Christ makes all things new. But, if there is radio, I hope Paul Harvey gets some airtime. And I hope my grandfather and I have a chance to once again sip on some sassafras tea, eat some cinnamon toast, and listen to the news from a radio legend.

Deal Me In

I’ve come to find that churches are the worst places to clean and organize. The reason for this is because nobody ever throws anything away, and the reason nobody ever throws anything away is because nobody owns the stuff at a church, and nobody feels that they have the authority to get rid of it. So, things that haven’t been used in 20 years in a church get put into a box and tucked away into a corner closet because you never know, somebody might use that stuff someday. I and a few other folks at the church have been trying to clean the place up and get things better organized, and we’ve found boxes and boxes of files, decorations, and all kinds of other weird stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day since the 80’s. Don’t tell anybody, but much of that stuff has finally found its proper place in the dumpster.

Above is a picture of my favorite discovery so far. I know what you’re thinking…that is the sweetest deck of Jesus playing cards I’ve ever seen. That’s exactly what I thought when uncovered several packs of these babies. I was ready to call up the boys and have a sanctified game of Texas Hold’em right there in the church. I hoped in this deck that the King, Queen, and Jack have been replaced by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I hear a Holy Flush is the new highest hand you could have in poker.

To my dismay, the above cards weren’t actually playing cards. The other side is totally blank. I have no idea what they were used for. I’m thinking about drawing in all the appropriate numbers and symbols and making my self the sweetest deck of cards ever.

The Shack

A friend recently asked me if I had read "The Shack" and what I thought about it. So, I figured I'd post my response to him:

Dear friend,

Back in October a lady from our church came up to me and said, "Pastor Tristan, you have to read "The Shack." I want to know what you think about it. I loved it so much that I went out and bought a second copy, so take this one and let me know what you think.”

My first thought was, oh great, now I have to read some poorly written Christian fiction book (not exactly my favorite genre). But I did want to read because I really appreciate the lady who gave it to me. She's only been a Christian for a few years, so I figured I'd bite the bullet and suffer through some cheesy Christian novel in order to connect with her.

A few pages into "The Shack," I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book was fairly well written. Also, I was relieved to find that its plot didn’t center on a dispensationalist view of the end times…I’m amazed at how many of those the Christian press can publish in a given year! When I finished reading it I had a lot of thoughts on the book, but I’ll try to limit them here to a few positive ones and a few negative ones:

Here's what I liked: 1. Young at least attempted portray God as Triune. All attempts to write about the Trinity in fiction will fail because the Trinity is intrinsically mysterious and beyond our understanding, but I found it refreshing that Young emphasized God's 3-ness. Most popular writers tend to write generically about God, and their writings unintentionally assume God’s oneness. The Trinity is central to all we believe about God, so I commend Young’s attempt to bring the Trinity into popular Christian conversation, even though his attempt falls short at times.

2. The book is about suffering and the problem of evil, and I think it does an ok job of addressing the question of how a Good and All-powerful God would allow people to suffer. I believe this is the hardest questions that Christians have to answer, and Young does an adequate job of speaking to this question in the form of popular fiction.

3. Young also stresses freewill. I’ve read a few scathing critiques of “The Shack” by popular evangelicals, but almost all of them were from a Calvinist background. I could see why a Calvinist wouldn’t like this book because the characters are free and God’s sovereignty doesn’t infringe upon their freedom.

Here's what I didn't like: 1. I have to agree with you that Eugene Peterson’s statement was laughable. I think we need to give “The Shack” a few hundred more years of assessment before we put it on par with “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

2. There was one passage that I found particularly troubling in which Jesus says something like "it doesn't really matter if a person is a Christian or not. If a person really wants to seek me, they will find me. All ways lead to me" (that's not an exact quote, but it was something like that). Anyway, in this one passage, the Jesus character seems closer to being a Unitarian than a Christian. Because Young focuses so much on the Trinity, it wouldn’t be fair to label him as a Unitarian, but I did have big problems with that one passage.

3. Along the lines of the last point, one of my friends thinks that “The Shack” implicitly affirms universalism, and I can definitely see what he means. The book consistently paints a picture of Jesus as Loving and Good but fails to recognize him as the Coming King and Judge. In Young’s defense, the book isn’t about judgment, but any hint of judgment by Trinity seems to be missing.

Curious if any of you have read it or have any thoughs?

Latest on Jovi

They say that weight training works because it stresses out muscles and breaks them down. Then when your muscles get rest and protein, they recover and become stronger than they were before you worked them out.

I think our stressful travel must have been the equivalent of weight training for Jovi’s mind and development. When headed out on Christmas, she was able to roll over and only in one direction. Now, just in the past few weeks, she has gone from rolling, to crawling, to pulling herself up into a standing position. I figure that if we take her on few more stressful trips, we can probably get her walking, talking, and maybe even writing my sermons for me by next year.

The Trip from Hades

It’s been quite some time since I last touched base with the blogging world. Forgive my absenteeism. Jill, Jovi, and I were traveling over the holidays. We returned home for one week before heading out again for meetings with my denomination in Ohio. The last couple of weeks I feel like we’re just trying to catch up with work at the church and around the house, so my blogging has been on the back burner. But, it is good to be home.

Do you ever feel like God is just messing with ya? I’ve never really thought this, but by the end of our trip, I was beginning to wonder. We headed out Christmas morning to fly to Minnesota for few days to celebrate with Jill’s family. Our first flight was canceled. We showed up at the airport for the next available flight, and it was delayed for about 3 hours. We finally boarded the plane and took off. We landed in Chicago and were supposed to have a brief layover, but they didn’t have any gates open for us to get off of the plane, so we sat on the runway for over an hour, causing us to miss our connecting flight. We hung in Chicago for quite some time....our next flight was delayed, but eventually we finally made it to MN.

While in MN Jovi got sick and pretty much hated everybody but her mom for those few days. The following Tuesday morning we got in the car to drive from Jill’s parent’s house to the Twin Cities to catch our flight home. We set out really early because it was snowing hard. A drive that normally takes about 2 ½ to 3 hours took us about 5 ½ hours. We were stopped for over an hour at one point because of an accident. We finally arrived and stood in line for over an hour waiting to get our ticket. All the flights were delayed. Eventually we boarded the plane at about 8 pm. After boarding the plane we sat on the plane for over an hour before taking off….familiar story. Remember all of this was with a 6 month old baby! We finally got to Chicago. Our next flight was delayed again (making it a perfect 4 out of 4 for delays). We tried to drive to see my parents in Ohio, but the snowy roads nearly killed us, so we eventually stopped at 2:30 in the morning. What a nightmare!

So, what did I learn from all of this? 1) While part of me wants to say a big “Bah Humbug” to ever traveling again over the holidays, I came to realize that my experience this Christmas was much more an authentic representation of the first Christmas than my usual Christmas rituals. Rather than waking up Christmas morning to a big breakfast with family, laughing together, opening presents, and celebrating, this Christmas I was stressed, traveling, dealing with circumstances that were beyond my control, and trying to appease a crying, tired baby. I can imagine that Joseph must have felt the same way about the Roman government forcing him to travel to Bethlehem with his pregnant wife as I did about the airlines this Christmas.

2) True joy is most apparent in the midst of suffering. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we really “suffered” on this trip, but the lack of sleep, the stress, the crying kid, the bad weather, and all the delays can certainly steal one’s Christmas spirit. After our second miserable day of traveling, while we were sitting on the plane on the runway, most people’s tempers were getting hot. You could hear people on the plane rustling in their seats, complaining to one another, and being very short with the flight-attendants. I was just like everybody else, getting very frustrated, but then I prayed and God spoke to my heart and reminded me how blessed I was. In that moment I couldn’t help but smile. I began to think that God was just messing with me this whole trip, like some cosmic practical joke, and it made me laugh. I realized that joy is so much deeper than our circumstances. I chatted and joked with the flight-attendant and let her hold Jovi. Jovi eventually started crying, and the flight-attendant asked me what’s wrong with her. I said, “She hates your airline,” and the people in our section all started laughing. Things really weren’t that bad. I don’t want to be happy; I want to have joy