Bullet points for a Monday #3

There is a more substantive post or two in here, I promise. But for now - bullet points.

  • Sewer pipe was replaced, all the pipes are now flowing smoothly. Thankful for drains that drain and that it all got done before the snow started.
  • We got our Christmas tree yesterday and amazingly enough Katie hasn’t tried to pull it down yet.
  • In the “for the first time in over eight months” file: all three girls slept through the night last night. AWESOME.
  • I was invited to fill the pulpit at our old church plant for the Sunday after Christmas. (The new pastor will be on vacation.) I’m honored to be asked. Text will be 1 Peter 1.
  • Oh yeah, did I say snow? We got just a bit overnight, but the forecasters are calling for the SNOWPOCALYPSE on Tuesday night and Wednesday - or at least 6 - 12 inches of the white stuff, along with 40 - 50 mph winds.
  • Matt Chandler is the real deal. Continuing to pray for his recovery from brain surgery. This pre-surgery video is awesome.
  • Every time I think I’ve gotten to some conclusion on whether we’re at the church we should be at long-term, something else comes up that pushes me back the other way. Kinda feels like we’re still in a holding pattern. Still praying.
  • And to finish with the truly trivial, we watched Nebraska do again on Saturday night what they seem to do best - snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Nobody deserved to win that Nebraska-Texas game. Texas came away the winner anyway. *sigh*

Orangeburg

So, those sewer troubles we had last week? They came back. After snaking out the drains on Friday night, by Monday night they were clogged again. Not good. This time I was going to get a better answer, so I called in the professionals. By Wednesday morning we were again cleaned out, but had our answer: we have Orangeburg sewer pipe on our main line, and it was mostly collapsed.

“Orangeburg” pipe is a sewer pipe that was used abundantly in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Manufactured primarily in Orangeburg, New York, it is comprised of wood fibers glued together with a water-resistant adhesive, and then infused with tar. While it was relatively inexpensive, it turns out that it doesn’t hold up so well structurally after 30 - 40 years; any shifting in the ground or intrusive tree roots can cause structural collapse. And so it was with our drain line. The guy who came and did a video inspection of our line said he could barely get the 1.5" camera lens through the pipe. Ouch.

We did some quick research on sewer contractors and found a good one who could come fairly quick. In preparation for the job, they graced our front yard with some equipment on Friday.

On Tuesday they will come replace our collapsed glued fiber pipe with some good old-fashioned cast iron, and we should then be set to flush away freely for as long as we live in the house. I suppose it’s a good general lesson, too, about engineering using new-fangled technology: sometimes the problems with your solution won’t be evident for a while… it’s wise to try to consider the long-term.

Not exactly to plan

Way I planned to spend Friday evening: reading a book and watching TV.

Way I actually spent Friday evening: feverish trip to Home Depot (20 minutes before close!) to rent the 100’ sewer snake.

But it’s not yet 10 pm, and the sewer is once again running freely, and at half the cost of calling a professional.

Still doing the post-mortem on the remains, but my first guess is that a small stuffed toy got sent to its’ watery grave by a resident toddler.

What Would Jesus Want Us To Think about Healthcare Reform? a Quick Response

What would Jesus want us to think about health care reform?

That’s the question that Justin Taylor proffers at his blog, courtesy of Brad Green, theology professor at Union University.  Professor Green’s response to the “what would Jesus do” question has four main points:

  • Conservatives don’t think that big new legislation will fix the problems with the system
  • Conservatives are opposed to the expansion of federal powers as an infringement on liberty
  • The Constitution doesn’t explicitly enumerate power in this area to the Federal government, so Health Care reform would be unconstitutional
  • Christians have a “strong view of human sin and thus are often not inclined to want to grant large amounts of power to any governmental body”

While I will concur with the final point, in the first three points Professor Green misses the boat in two critical ways.

First, he fails to acknowledge the reality that, regardless of how strictly he’d like to interpret the Tenth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court has a long history of allowing the Federal government expanded powers via the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution.  Just because he, personally, disagrees with that interpretation doesn’t mean that health care reform legislation will be unconstitutional.

Second, and far more greviously, Professor Green, by virtue of his first two points, has somehow assumed that Jesus’ political views were American Evangelical Conservative.  How else can he leap from “What Would Jesus Do?” to “Conservatives are opposed to this”?  If he wants to make the argument that Jesus would’ve held those views, he can try to make that argument, but he is foolhardy to think it can just be assumed.

If the evangelical political Right in America wants to oppose increased federal involvement in the health care system, there are reasonable arguments that can be made.  Shoddy reasoning, though, as demonstrated in this article, only makes them look silly.

Joining up... or not

That little announcement made its quarterly reappearance in the church bulletin last Sunday: “Times are available for those wishing to become members to meet with the elders.  Call the church office to schedule.”  It sits there on the page in eight point font and taunts me.  Church membership.  Am I really ready to join?

Ten years ago when we moved to Iowa we decided on a church relatively quickly, and once there, proceed with similar pace through the membership process.  After eight years there we left to help plant another church.  There was no official “membership” in the early stages of that church plant, but we were on the core team and I was an elder, so we were quite obviously committed. 

When it was clear the Lord was leading us away from the church plant, we finally settled on our current church home, where we’ve been attending for a year now.  Not just attending - involved, too.  I’m playing on the worship team once a month, Becky is volunteering in the nursery.  We attended the “welcome to the family” class several months ago.  It was a helpful introduction to the church’s history, doctrine, and philosophy of ministry.  At the time, we weren’t ready yet to join.  And now, as the announcement comes around again every three months, I wonder again, is it time?

My hesitancy isn’t a fear of responsibility or accountability - in fact, I’d much prefer being under the authority of a local church body to being some sort of Lone Ranger.  Three months in, I wasn’t ready to join mostly because joining felt like dating someone on the rebound - it was just too soon.  We’d been with our previous church family for nearly ten years, I wasn’t just gonna dive back in.   But now it’s been a year.  I don’t have any big doctrinal issues that would keep me from joining.  I guess it’s just mostly cold feet.  What if this ends up not being the place for us long-term?  On the other hand, how long do we stay in this holding pattern before we should just give up and admit that our current church has become our de facto home church and we should just go ahead and join?

Much to ponder.  Your thoughts are always appreciated.

Catalyst Compassion "Moment": Amazing or Exploitive?

My internet friend Bryan Allain posted a video on his blog this morning of a moment that happened at the recent Catalyst conference in Atlanta. 

I’ll summarize for those of you who don’t have 10 minutes to watch the video: it’s an amazingly touching story.  A young man from Africa is there live, on stage in front of 12,000 people, telling about his childhood growing up in severe poverty, of a sister who died as an infant from malnutrition, and how then in early childhood he was given a place as part of a Compassion International school and was sponsored for over a decade by a man from Canada. The young man is now a student at Moody Bible Institute and sponsoring his own Compassion child.  An amazing story that makes me want to go out and sponsor a Compassion kid right now. 

But then, in an Oprah-esque moment, the conference emcee asked “have you ever met your sponsor?". 

“No”, the young man replied. 

“Would you like to?”

And then they brought out the Canadian man who had sponsored him for all these years.  And in an incredibly moving scene, the young African man just completely (and understandably) broke down.  After a long embrace this young man could do nothing but sit on the floor and sob, completely overcome with emotion and gratitude for this man who had caused such a change in his life.

I was very torn, watching the video at that moment, between on one hand appreciating the emotions of the situation and on the other hand being disgusted by the planned exploitation of this young man’s emotions for the sake of a “moment” at a conference.  The emcee, himself choking up a minute later, said “we script this for me breaking down…” which, of course, means that they did script it expecting that the other two would break down.

So what do you think?  Am I being hard-hearted here?  Or were the producers of the Catalyst conference so sucked into the current reality TV culture that they crossed the line of intentionally manipulating people’s emotions just to create a “moment”?

Phrases that stick with you

Most of what I remember from Rocky & Bullwinkle is cheesy puns (which are AWESOME, by the way), but there is one phrase that has stuck in my vocabulary: “antihistamine money”.  An example of usage:

“Wow, $100?  That’s antihistamine money.”

“Antihistamine money?”

“Not to be sneezed at.”

I remain easily amused.

The Patient Notebook

I keep a notebook at work for scribbling to-dos and other things I need to remember.  I don’t go through notebooks very quickly - my short-term memory is pretty good and I use sticky notes and scrap paper when I’m at my desk, but a notebook is handy for carrying around to meetings. 

Back in February my notebook (a Mead brand 80-sheet 4/5-per-inch “quadrille”) was starting to fill up (read: it was maybe 2/3 full) so when I noticed a spiffy new National brand Computation Notebook was available in the supply cabinet, I grabbed it. 

About that same time I was applying for a new position here at work - a position in line with my long-term career goals, one that I’d been hoping to get for a long time.  I knew the manager of that new group wanted to hire me (I was offered the job!), and I was just hoping the process would work out and I could transfer.  So I set the notebook aside and decided that I would symbolically keep it in reserve until I got the transfer to the new position.

To make a long story short, senior management decided I was too critical in my present role to be allowed to transfer.  Both my boss and the manager trying to hire me assured me that they’d try to make it work out later on, but in March someone else took that position and I stayed where I was.  I was initially neither very patient or very happy about the situation, but what else was there to do?  So I waited.

Patience is one of those things you probably don’t really want to pray for.  The process of learning it isn’t fun. But it’s a valuable lesson to learn. My old Mead notebook got thinner and thinner through the summer, but I stubbornly left the new notebook on the shelf.  Finally at the end of August I had a moment of weakness and carried the new notebook to a meeting, but didn’t need to take any notes.  After the meeting I gathered my resolve and put it back on the shelf.

September 1st rolled around and I got a phone call.  Another job req was opening in that department.  I was welcome to apply again.  I applied.  I re-interviewed.  I waited.  It took nearly the entire month of September to get through the process and see if I would be allowed to transfer this time.  The notebook waited patiently.  Me, not so patiently.  Finally, last Friday, I got the official word: the transfer would be allowed.  And today I got the official phone call confirming that I would take the position, with the transfer effective in two weeks’ time.

When my transfer is complete and I start the new position, the old Mead notebook will find its way to a recycle bin, and the patient National notebook will finally take up the role it’s been waiting for since last spring.  It will be a happy day for both of us.

Bullet points for a Monday Morning #4

  • Blog posting has been a bit slow lately since I typically post during breaks at work and my blog has mysteriously become inaccessible from work.  IT was no help in fixing it.  I’m using Posterous as a sort of go-between - a solution that works but that I’m not fond of.
  • Had a good, full weekend. 
  • Marriage conference Friday night and Saturday morning at church.  Very good.
  • Watched a fun Hawkeye game Saturday night.  They whooped Penn State good.
  • Played on the worship team Sunday morning, lots of fun.
  • Finally got the fascia and soffet on the garage painted.  That’s been on my to-do list since last fall.  It looks a lot better.
  • Found out Friday afternoon that the job transfer I’ve been trying to get for the past 6 months will be approved.  Will post something more officially on it once I go through all the official steps.
  • The upcoming two weeks before the transfer will happen have the potential to drag a good bit.
  • I have two book reviews that I need to get posted here before the publishers demand their books back.  Problem is, I’ve only gotten one of them read so far.  Posting one would be a start, I guess.

The "Left Behind" influence on the Religious Right

It’s been a common observation over the past several years that one of the practical results of a “Left Behind”, dispensational view of the end times is a lack of care for the environment in general - heck, if it’s all gonna burn anyway, why should I care?  But the other day it struck me that there is another connection that I haven’t heard commented on - a connection between the rise of dispensational end times views and the rise of Republicanism within the evangelical church. 

Now, let’s be fair to Tim LaHaye - just because his “Left Behind” books became so popular this past decade doesn’t mean that he dreamed the whole “left behind” scenario up.  Think back to Hal Lindsey’s Late, Great Planet Earth, published in 1970, which became the non-fiction bestseller of the 70’s.  While we were politically tired out and frustrated by Vietnam, Watergate, and Carter’s “malaise”, Lindsey also got us thinking about premillenial, dispensational end times.  And a primary component of that movement, even though it’s not often stated that way: fear.

Fear was, and still is, a huge motivator in that paradigm.  Fear of the coming one-world government.  Fear of The Antichrist.  Fear of “the mark”.  Fear that somehow we won’t make God’s “cut” and that we’ll be left behind. Fear of the beheadings. Come on, folks, remember A Thief In The Night?  What other bad 1970’s zombie film would ever get shown in high school church youth groups?

Then came 1980 and Ronald Reagan proclaimed that government was the problem, not the solution.  And the Late, Great adherents heard that and figured that any political movement that took us further away from that scary impending one-world government was a good thing.  And now for the past 30 years the Republican party, and, indeed, the entire Republican platform, has been considered the default “right” position for evangelical Christians in America.

Now, this is no sort of comprehensive analysis, but it’s an interesting topic to think through. 

Finally, a set of disclaimers so that I don’t get kicked out of every group I’ve ever belonged to:

  • I like and admire a whole lot of what I know about and experienced of President Reagan.
  • I’m not sure where I stand on the whole end-times thing.  I used to buy into the whole “Left Behind” scenario - let’s face it, that’s what I grew up in.  Today I’m not so sure. Left Behind doesn’t seem plausible, but I’m not entirely convinced by the amillenial position, either. 
  • Obviously not everyone that holds to the premillenial view hates the environment and/or is primarily motivated by fear
  • Obviously the Republican party holds some views that are good.  The Democrat party does, too.
  • I have some non-dispensational libertarian friends who are gonna tell me I’m completely off base on this one.