The Online Rant

It has been a while since I updated this blog and I thought I should post a note giving a status. Especially in light of the Church Hunting post that was my last post.
My wife and I have found a wonderful church that is the perfect combination of not too big and not too small. And more importantly, it has solid biblical preaching without all the “extra” stuff that isn’t really biblical but rather preference. Grace Community Church seems to be what we were looking for. It was along and frustrating search, but it was worth it.

(This is a bit of a rant, but I’m frustrated.)

What is wrong with churches these days? Why is it so hard to find a church where the word of God is preached? Has it always been this hard?

Lately I’ve been doing some church shopping with my wife. The reason being that my church isn’t a good fit for both of us. Not because of it’s doctrine or beliefs, but rather because the culture of the church doesn’t quite fit with me and my wife. So we have been shopping around for a church that would be a better fit for both of us. And you would think that the Pensacola area would be a good place to look. It seems like there is a church on every corner.

As we have been searching around I’ve been struck by how little of the Bible is actually preached in most of these churches. It seems like the majority of time preachers are pushing tradition, the latest semi-Christian psychology, or random political hobby horses. Some preachers use the Bible kind of like a good luck charm attached to the message. They read a verse at the beginning and one at the end. Maybe blessing is a better term than “Good Luck Charm,” but the usage is the same. Other preachers barely use the Bible at all. They all use the term “the Bible says” a lot, but they rarely show you where it says it.

I am so frustrated with the whole thing. How can I trust a pastor who preaches that going against church traditions (that is American church traditions) is sin? How can I trust a pastor who preaches that using a non KJV bible is sin? How can I trust a pastor who preaches that a particular music style is sin? There may be good reasons to avoid certain musicians, or to use certain Bible translations. There even are good arguments for preserving certain church traditions. The problem is that most of those arguments are based on opinion. Not on the Bible.

The Bible doesn’t single out any particular translation as being required. How could it single out a specific English translation when English didn’t even exist at the time the Bible was written? And it is totally silent on the issue of music styles. So you can’t make a case for a particular style being sinful if all you are using is the Bible. And when it comes to American church traditions, such as the Alter Call, they were all established within the last 200 years and none of them are commanded in the Bible. So any pastor that preaches these issues, without making it very clear that they are his opinion only, loses all credibility in my eyes.

But it goes even farther than that. Why don’t pastors use the Bible in their messages to back up the sermon points? How can I trust a Pastor who doesn’t? If he doesn’t use the Bible to back up each and every one of his points, how do I know for sure they are true?

I know a lot about the Bible. I grew up in a Christian home, went to a Christian college, and regularly read the Bible. But I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know everything. So if a Pastor slips something into his message that isn’t in the Bible, I may not catch it. It’s not enough for him to say “the Bible says.” He needs to show me where in the text the content comes from. So that I can see the truth for myself in the context it was written in. Otherwise, the Pastor’s message is no better than that of a motivational speaker at a conference.

And I don’t mean read a verse at the beginning and preach for a half an hour on that one verse. If you can preach for a half hour without using the Bible more than once, then you are NOT preaching from the Bible.

I guess what I’m saying is that I am very frustrated and upset by the way so many churches simply let this stuff slide by. It’s like they don’t care about truth as long as the pastor is an entertaining speaker, or as long as he backs the traditions they like, or as long as the church has all of the programs they want.

So let me tell you what I want.
I want a church that preaches and teaches from the Bible.
I want a pastor that backs up every point using verses from the Bible and takes the time to actually read them. That way I can see them for myself.
I want a pastor that reads the context of the verse so I don’t have to guess or try to quickly skim the passage to know if the verse is being taken out of context.
If the pastor is an entertaining and engaging speaker, that is a bonus, but not strictly necessary. And if the church has a lot of programs, that is also nice. But again, not strictly necessary.

Really, how hard can it be to find a church and other Christians who care about this stuff?

A few years ago I wrote a post on here about modern dependencies. In that post, I was referring to Internet access and how dependent I had become. And now I have yet another dependency that crept up on me when I wasn’t looking. And annoyingly it is one I should have seen coming. Especially since it is related to my previously mentioned Internet dependency.

I’m talking about my iPhone. Specifically the always on internet connectivity and email it gives me. So I guess the dependency is really a mobile internet dependency. The actual phone is not really the issue. Most likely any halfway decent smartphone would fill my new need. It just happens to be that the smartphone I have is an iPhone.

As with the Internet dependency, I feel cut off when I can’t get a decent connection. And old non-smartphones, that I previously would have been perfectly satisfied with, now feel excessively limited. All of the information and communication advantages of the Internet are now with me 24/7. And I’ve become used to having them around me all the time.

What brought this realization on, was buying a new phone for my wife. We went to the store and picked out a phone that was well rated and had a great looking design. It wasn’t a smartphone, but it was a highly advanced text messaging phone with a full keyboard and a touch screen. Just a few years ago I would have loved the phone. But my standards have changed since then, and what I expect from a phone is very different from what I expected then. So when we got it home, and started actually using it, we found it to be frustratingly limited. It had all the technical specs of a smartphone, and yet it had a crippled non-smartphone OS. Email was clunky, web browsing was limited, and there were no applications except the standard ones that were built into the phone. It just felt too limited. And that is when I realized that I could never go back to a “normal” phone.

The end result was that after keeping the phone for a week, we took it back and got a smartphone. And we are much happier than we ever were with the other phone.

Well, its been about a month since I got married. And you know what? I highly recommend it.

While the wedding part was a bit of a pain, I can tell you with great certainty, that being married is the best thing that could have happened to me.
It has involved a few adjustments to my lifestyle, and I’m sure that I’ll have to make a few more. But they are all worth it.

The past month has been wonderful and I’m really looking forward to spending the rest of my life with my beautiful wife Kierra.

The problem some of us have when it comes to leaving work at the office.

Read this quote today and just had to repost it.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
– Terry Pratchett

I saw the following comic today and was struck by how true it is. You can tell an awful lot about people by looking at who their friends are.

Which got me wondering about what “who my friends are” says about me. Is it something I want said? Would I be proud of what it says about me? Does it say something bad? Does it say something good? I don’t really know, but I do know that it’s something I should be concerned with. And you should be too.

A lot of people use who their friends are to increase their status or their importance. And that isn’t what I’m talking about.

No, what I’m talking about is the people you actually enjoy spending time with. I’m not talking about casual friends or acquaintances. I’m talking about your close friends. The people you call and talk to on a regular basis for no reason. The people who you hang out with regularly. Because those people highlight something about your character and your beliefs. They probably have little or no effect on your status or importance. And chances are that no one cares one way or another that you are friends with them. But that doesn’t change the fact that, even if no one cares that you are friends with those particular people, it still shows something about your character. Something that people will recognize either consciously or unconsciously.

Maybe it shows something good. Something you wouldn’t be ashamed to have people know about you. But maybe it shows something bad. Something you would rather your parents, pastor, or other authority figure didn’t know about you. If that’s the case then maybe it’s time to “fix” that issue in your life. Because who your friends are isn’t the problem. Your friends are just a symptom. The problem is you, and your character flaws.

So who are your friends?

I read an article the other day on Scott Adam’s blog titled The Other Scott Adams” In case you don’t know, Scott Adams is the creator of the Dilbert comic. A comic that helps all of us office workers keep a little sanity. And ever since I found his blog, I’ve been enjoying his daily(ish) comments on society and current events.

So anyway, back to the article. The gist of it was that in this day and age, if you have a common name, your reputation ends up closely tied to the actions of the “other” you(s) that are out there. This isn’t really a new thing. Throughout the history you can watch the popularity of names rise and fall based on the actions of prominent people. After all, no one wants to be named after a mass murderer or even have themselves associated with one via their name. What makes today’s name associations different from those of the past, is the ease with which those associations can be found.

In the past, it was unlikely that someone(with the same name) else’s actions would ever be noticed by your friends, coworkers, and relatives unless they became famous/infamous for them. These days those other you’s are a simple Google search away. And as people search engines(which I mentioned in a previous post) become more common and better at finding details about individuals, those other people with your name are going to be noticed by you and your friends even more.

So try it. Google your name and see how many other you’s there are in the first two or three pages that come back. Unless you post a lot online under your own name, you will probably be surprised at how many other you’s there are in the first three pages. Now ask yourself, is it likely that people who don’t know you very well or are potential employers likely to be able to tell which of those “you’s” that come back are really you?

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of work on my house in preparation for my soon to be wife. Basically I’m trying to fix it it up and make it special for her. To that end, I’m doing a lot of repainting and even some remodeling.

One of the things I did, was combine two bedrooms into one to make a master bedroom. Now, initially I wasn’t all that excited about the project. Mainly because it was going to be a lot of work. I had to rip out the wall between the two bedrooms, put in a new door to the bathroom that would be accessible from the bedroom, and build a new wall for the closet. All a rather large quantity of work. And on top of that, I also was replacing all the trim in the rooms. So I had to put up new crown molding, new baseboard, and a chair rail.

Furthermore, that work had to be done after my normal work day in the evenings. That meant I was working late into the night. And I was also using up my weekends on this project. I’m sure that for a professional the whole project would have been done in just a few weekends, but for me a few weekends wasn’t enough time. Hence the long hours.

But now that I’m finally done with the remodeling (still some other projects I want to do before July), I am actually pretty satisfied with the result. And even though the remodeling wasn’t something I was very excited about doing initially, I am very happy I did it now.

The following is a gallery of pictures of the new room. Now you can see what I’ve been doing for the past few months and see why I haven’t been posting here as much.