proud parent

On Saturday Ashtyn and I braved the frigid temperatures and the snow and ice covered roads to go to her final basketball game of the season. Her team hasn't done very well (they finished 1 and 5) but they had fun and really improved through this short season. When we got to the church the coach asked all the players and parents to come downstairs into one of the school rooms. He wanted the parents to witness the type of devotional that the kids have been hearing before each game. He used an Evangecube to present the plan of salvation. If you are unfamiliar with the Evangecube, it's a really neat witnessing tool. It's one of those perpetual cubes that you can continually unfold in the same direction and they keep going back into the cube shape.

Anyway, as he was walking everyone through the cube when he got to the picture of the empty tomb Ashtyn raised her hand and said "I know a good verse for that. 1 Corinthians 15:4 - that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,". Most of the other players on the team were kind of looking at each other like "huh?". One of our ministers kids is on the team and her mom spoke up and said, "That's one of their Awana verses". So the coach put in a plug for the Awana program at our church on Wednesday nights. And of course through all this I'm sitting there going "Yes! That's my girl!" It's awesome to see how spiritual things are starting to come together in her mind and how she is beginning to connect them.

what should the local church look like?

For a while now I've been pondering this question. What exactly should the local church look like? I've seen statistics that say that less than 1% of all ministers will ever serve at a mega-church, one that runs over 2000 in Sunday worship. I have been privileged to serve at 3 (FBC Jonesboro, GA; Parkview in Baton Rouge, LA; and Highview in Louisville, KY). But one of the things I have seen by being involved in large churches like this is how poor a job we do of discipling people and truly getting them involved in the life of the church. Sure we have programs for all ages and Bible studies every night of the week, not to mention choir, men's groups, women's groups, recreation and all the other stuff that comes up. But does this really get people plugged in?

At every church where I have served you can look through the database of members names and see thousands of people who joined the church and are still officially members but who have not been seen or heard from in years. There are hundreds of people in each church who "walked the aisle" to join the congregation and asked to be baptized and are still listed in these databases as "pending baptism". Some of them have been listed this way for 20-25 years. Why have we let things get to this state? I think that in many ways we have been too lax in making sure that people understand what is expected of them when they become Christians. We have fostered a culture in our churches that leads people to believe that all they have to do is walk forward and shake the preacher's hand and get their names on the official membership roll of "First Church in the City" and that will serve as their "get out of Hell free" card. In studying church history I was amazed to see that in the first few centuries of the church, when someone wanted to be baptized they waited, sometimes up to 2 years, while they were discipled and taught what it meant to be a Christian. While I don't think we need to return to a set catechism I do think that a time of study and reflection would be appropriate. We have focused so much on numbers, while saying that numbers don't really matter because "every number is a soul won to the kingdom", that we have almost forgotten that new believers are like babies. They need to be fed and cared for in order for them to mature into adult believers.

So back to the original point of this post. I wonder if we have not focused too much on getting as many people into the pews as possibleby adding more and more pews, and too little on training the ones who have heard the gospel to be able to share it with others. I've talked with some friends about our conception of church and it seems that there are many others who are wondreing these same things.

Here are just a few of the questions that are popping up in my mind:
Should we focus more of our money on ministry and less on buildings and facilities?
Would it be better to keep the size of the church smaller in order to foster closer relationships?
When the church grows should we expand the current church, or start a new one?

In my Baptist History class at here at Southern Seminary we have been reading various confessional documents from William Lumpkin's, Baptist Confessions of Faith and one in particular jumped out at me. In 1611 Thomas Helwys, wrote

That the members off everie Church or Congregacion ought to knowe one another, that so they may performe all the duties off love one towards another both to soule and bodie. Mat. 18.15. I Thes. 5.14. I Cor. 12.25. And especiallie the Elders ought to knowe the whole flock, whereoff the HOLIE GHOST hath made them overseers. Acts 20.28; I Pet. 5.2, 3. And therefore a Church ought not to consist off such a multitude as cannot have particuler knowledg one off another.

It seems that this debate has been around for a long time, and it is likely that it will be around for a long time hence. But these are questions that we need to ask ourselves through every generation, for by not asking them, and making sure that the image of the local church is in line with scripture, we run the risk of following man-made traditions that will lead us away from scripture and therefore away from God.

Any comments or thoughts? They would be much appreciated.

cool idea

As I was surfing through various blogs the other day I stumbled on Thoughts from the Change Race and Race of the Century. These blogs were the result of two friends sitting around a pizza place and talking about how much change is lying around on the ground because people lose it. They decided to have a race to see who could find $100 in change the fastest. One of them actually did it in about 4 months.

I love this idea. I immediately started trying to think of how this could be used for ministry. Unfortunately I haven't come up with anything yet but I'll continue working on it.
If anyone else has any bright ideas let me know in the comments section.

that's more like it

I posted before about the huge stack of books I had to read for the Fall Semester. My stack of reading has shrunk considerably for this spring. The pictures below show the books that compose my required reading for each semester. I placed an 18 inch baseball bat from the Louisville Slugger Museum next to each stack as a point of reference.

There is one book missing from each stack. A friend borrowed one Spiritual Disciplines book from last Fall and one book from this Spring has not yet been shipped by CBD. So each stack should actually be about 1/2 inch taller. Hopefully this difference in the amount of required reading will equate to a little more time to spend with my family this semester.

Well, that's about it for tonight. Gotta go read one of the books in that stack on the right.

here we go again

Tomorrow starts yet another semester in what seems to be the never ending cycle of school that my life has become. My second semester of seminary will hopefully be better than the first. In previous entries here I blogged about the questions and doubts I was having about being here at all, but God has dispelled all the doubts and answered all the questions. Plus, I got my schedule worked out much better this semester. I'm taking:

Intro to New Testament II
History of the Baptists
Survey of Christian Ethics
Greek Syntax and Exegesis

I got my classes worked out so that I'm only in school on Tuesday's and Thursday's. The first three classes listed above will be back to back from 1:30-5:35 p.m. on both days. Then on Thursday I'll take Greek from 7:00-10:00 p.m. This will be so much better than last semester. Then I was in class Tuesday-Friday. I had 5 classes on Tues and Thurs, 2 on Wed, and 1 on Fri. Plus I would have a class, then a break, then a few more classes, then another break, then another class. In between all that I had to try to fit in some work hours.

And to top everything off, my stack of reading this semester has decreased by approximately 7 inches. The only scary thing with the reading is the fact that my professor for Baptist History authored 3 of the 5 assigned books, and coauthored one of the other ones. That should be a challenging class, but interesting.

Now that school is starting back, and I will have to be a little more disciplined with my time, I am going to try to return to blogging more regularly. Hope you'll all tune in.

Book of Daniel

Last Friday I actually watched an episode of "The Book of Daniel" the controversial program about an Episcopal priest and his dysfunctional family. In the show this priest is addicted to drugs, he has a son who is gay, a sister in law who is a lesbian, his wife has a horrid, antagonistic relationship with her mother and he has just hired a construction firm run by the mob to build a school at the church he pastors. Many people have been offended by the portrayal of Jesus, whom the priest can see and interact with on a physical level. I personally found him to be funny. At one point he asks Daniel (the priest) "Aren't you going to take a pill? Somebody said something mean to you." Sometimes I think that is exactly the reaction Jesus has to us. We claim to follow Him and rely solely upon Him, but when we are attacked or when something bad happens to us how often do we turn to our own personal crutches?

To me the really sad thing about the show was how accurate its portrayal of liberal Christianity seemed. They have taken the acceptance of all people into the church and twisted it into the acceptance and even tolerance of all practices, no matter how sinful. They have gone from looking the other way when what they considered to be a small sin occurred to embracing all practices and not calling them sin, even in cases where the practice is clearly prohibited by scripture. This is what saddens me about "The Book of Daniel". Not that it is such a horrible portrayal of what Christianity is supposed to be (which it most definitely is), but that it is such an accurate portrayal of what mahy modern American churches have become.

Anyone else have any comments on the show or the state of the American church?

kudos to ER

I just got done watching tonight's episode of ER and I was incredibly impressed with the way they presented the war and veterans' views of the war. Dr. Gallant, who is recently back from Iraq, visited a wounded friend in the VA hospital. Even though the friend was horribly injured the only thing he wanted was to go back. Gallant later told his new wife that he wanted to go back also and in trying to explain his feelings to her he told her "There's a war going on. Some people may like to forget that, but I can't." What an awesome statement. What an incredible presentation of what the military truly feels about this war no matter how much the MSM tries to tell us that they are disillusioned and have low morale. From this veteran, kudos to ER for presenting the true picture of our military servicemen's feelings.

what a difference a month makes

I retook my Greek final today. When I took it back in December I was questioning whether I should even be in Seminary and what God's plans for my future were. Well, God reaffirmed that yes I am supposed to be here and yes, I am supposed to be pursuing the chaplaincy. Anyway, back to the Greek final. The first time I took it I didn't do very well. In fact I did horribly. I got a 61 on it and I needed a minimum score of 70 to pass the course. But since Southern has experience with people not doing well on the final they offer a free Greek Review course and a chance to retake the final if you don't pass it the first time. So today I retook the final and this time I made a 91.5. Amazing how your scores can change when your perspective changes.

When it rains...

What a whirlwind week this past week has been. On Jan 3 I started taking a two week Greek review course. I didn't score high enough on the final exam last semester to move on to the next level class so I have to take this course and retake the final. Hopefully I'll score high enough to move on so I won't have to retake the entire course. Well, in the middle of me taking this course Dee Dee started feeling bad and went to the doctor only to find out that she has a bladder infection. We got her medicine and she started feeling better toward the end of the week. But then on Sunday afternoon she told me that her back had been hurting all week long and it was getting worse. My first thought was problems with her kidneys. This morning, the morning of the Midterm exam for the Greek review course by the way, she was really feeling bad so I took my exam and then came home. She already had an appointment to see the doctor this afternoon but we called and got the appointment moved up a little. Just as I suspected, the doctor said that she has a kidney infection, so she prescribed a strong anti-biotic to knock it out. We came home and Dee Dee crawled back in the bed and I went to get her medicine. She took the first dose at around 5 PM. Between 5:30 and 5:45 she called me to the bedroom and said her eyes were itching and her mouth hurt. When I looked at her eyes they were puffy and red and the side of her tongue even looked a little swollen. So, we called a friend from church to come sit with the kids and I took off to the emergency room with Dee Dee. By the time we got there one eye was swollen completely shut, the other was about half shut, her face was swollen up like she had just gone 10 rounds with the heavyweight champ, and she said her throat was starting to get tight.

The ER at Baptist East here in Louisville is fabulous. They rushed us back into triage and within a very short time Dee Dee was lying on a gurney and getting a shot of Benadryl among other assorted drugs. Within 15 mintues after that first dose she was already looking better. Her face had lost the red color and the swelling had gone down enough that she could actually open both eyes. We were back home by 9 PM and she sacked out (which is to be expected after 2 doses of Benadryl). Tomorrow I'll go get the new prescription and hopefully this one will agree with her system a little more than the first one did.

We have no idea how much the emergency room visit is going to end up costing us. Hopefully it won't be too terribly much since I have tuition payments coming due again real soon. I didn't really want to do this, and I debated it for a long time, but I have actually added a Paypal donation button to the blog just below the Christianbook.com search box. If anyone is so inclined as to donate to the "Help send Rob to seminary" fund we would appreciate it. We also get a percentage (a fairly substantial 10%) of all sales on Christianbook.com that are made through the search box, or the book links that I have placed on the blog. If you're looking for a particular book you just type in the title, or the author, or whatever other information you have and click Go. If you then make a purchase from Christianbook.com we'll get the percentage back.

If this is not something you feel comfortable with doing, what we could use even more than donations or sales percentages, is prayer. We covet the prayers of our friends and spiritual family more than ever in these times of stress that going through seminary bring. As one of the professors here at Southern put it, "I'd rather get a C in Greek and an A in family than the other way around." These times are stressful on our family with me having to spend so much time studying. Please pray for us, that I would divide my time wisely.

Well, that's it for this installment. It's approaching midnight and I have a quiz tomorrow morning. That is, if Dee Dee is feeling well enough for me to leave her alone with the kids.

Thank you Texas!

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that Texas beat usc last night that I just don't have the words to describe it. I have gotten incredibly tired, over the last 2 years, of hearing about how the current trojans are basically God's gift to college football. They were the media darlings and every sportscaster from here to Timbuktu was talking about how they would make history this year by winning their 3rd consecutive national championship. Excuse me? I know many will think I'm biased since I graduated from LSU but this would not have been number 3. No sir, methinks it would have been number 2. There was a great article on Yahoo! Sports a couple of weeks ago that talked about this very thing. USC won the national championship last year, but the year before that it was LSU.

I absolutely hate the BCS and think we should go to a playoff system (along with basically every other person in the country except for the presidents of the universities in the 6 major conferences who don't want to give up any money). However, all the schools in those conferences, of which USC is a member, agreed that the BCS would crown the national champion. They did not agree that the BCS would crown the national champion... "unless we don't like the outcome and then we'll decide to use some other poll that we like better." That's not the way things work. You have to play by the rules on the field, and you have to live with the results when you come off the field. Otherwise, I think I might just form a foundation to name a national champion every year. We'll even go back and look at records from prior years to name champions for those years as well. If so then in 2006 LSU will be going for its 114th consecutive national title since they started play in 1893. Don't you just love revisionist history.

Oh yeah, Hook em 'Horns!

another step down

Well, I have taken one more step toward becoming a chaplain candidate. After my Greek Review class yesterday I drove up to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio for my commissioning physical today. I spent the day being poked and prodded and running from building to building to get everything done and get all the paperwork filled out. Ah the efficiency of miltary paperwork. This was the first time I have been back on a military base since I got out of the Army in April 2000 and it felt great. Even though this was my first trip to WPAFB it felt like I was coming home. It's amazing how much the military lifestyle can get into your blood. But I digress. Now that everything is done my application will go up to the Department of Defense and we begin the waiting game. As soon as they sign off on it I will be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force Reserves. I've been told that it has been taking about 90 days for applications to be approved, but the length of the wait has been steadily coming down from 7 or 8 months 2 years ago to 90 days a month ago. Hopefully it's still coming down. Well, that's about it for tonight. I need to go study some more Greek.

Don't blame me... I voted for Bobby Jindal

This post over at Michelle Malkins blog points out just how much some people in Louisiana are out of touch with what's going on there. I have heard some horrible reports about Gov. Blanco since she took office and particularly since the hurricanes devastated my home state not long after we moved to Louisville, but this report takes the cake. We are constantly told by the MSM that it's the conservative Republicans who hate the poor and downtorodden and spend all the government's money on themselves but this shows the other side doing so. I have long said that I believe the state's reaction to the crisis would have been totally different if Bobby Jindal would have won the gubernatorial election. I can almost guarantee you that he would not have spent more than half a million dollars to renovate his offices 6 weeks after New Orleans was flooded.

amazing things you can find on the internet

Awhile back I was doing some random Google searches, (this was obviously not during this past semester of seminary) and I came across the site of the USS Fletcher. This was one of the ships my father served on during World War II. For those of you that know me and are wondering how my father could possibly have served that long ago, I was born very late in my parents' lives. My mom was 44 and my dad was 3 days shy of 49 when I was born. Anyway, I started surfing around the site just to see what was there. I started looking through the photos and found a couple that made me say "Hey, Dad has that picture in his memorabilia." Then it happened. I actually found a picture of my dad among the pics of WWII crews. He's standing in the back row all the way to the left. The internet is an amazing thing. My father died in 1979, long before the vast majority of people had ever heard of even the precursor to the internet, and yet now, 26 years later, I can find pictures of him on the web. What an amazing tool we have to share information, and more importantly to spread the gospel.

blast from the past

Last night I couldn't sleep so I went out to the living room and was surfing the internet (thanks to the wireless router that my wonderful wife gave me for Christmas). I was doing some searches for e-sword modules and stumbled across a blog that had a review of the software. But that wasn't what caught my eye. On this blog the author mentioned the 80's Christian metal band Stryper with a link to their website.

Huh? Their website?!?!?

I thought Stryper died long ago. But I have to admit that in the 80's I loved this band. The tape player in my car had a different opinion. It ate one copy of Yellow and Black Attack and two copies of Soldiers Under Command. It never ate anything else. I guess it just didn't appreciate good Christian metal. Anyway, I had to check out this website and when I got there I discovered that Stryper is not only back together, but they have released a new CD titled Reborn. How could this news not have been splashed all over the internet?

Stryper lives! The world seems right again. You may now go about your lives.

The price of freedom

I have a nephew who is serving in the Navy as a construction engineer and this year he spent 7 months in Iraq helping to rebuild the infrastructure there. We see more and more from the MSM about how this war is wrong and how it is like Vietnam in that our troops don't know what they are fighting for and don't want to be there. Well I thought I would present a little different perspective. This is a letter that he wrote while he was serving in Iraq. I think this shows more of what our troops feel.

I learned a lot this July 4th. I spent my 4th of July defending freedom for I proudly answered my nation's call for help and volunteered to go into harm's way. I hope that the sacrifices that I've made over here will help to ensure that our nation is free of terrorists for years to come. I also hope that one day the children of Iraq and other nations will grow up in a world of peace - a world free of terrorists. I think the hardest part of this war is seeing the children endure this hell hole. During my time over here, I've seen thngs that I hope to never see again in my lifetime, but I'm a better man for having seen them because I now know firsthand the true price of freedom.

Happy birthday America!

Derek Cherry
Navy Seabee

Enough said.

One semester down...

Well my first semester of seminary is officially over. I took 2 finals on Tuesday and 2 finals today. I'm glad to have a chance to sit back and catch my breath for a few weeks before I have to dive back in again. Well, actually I won't be able to sit back just yet. If you read my last post you saw that I was having questions about God's plans for my future with the Air Force. I received some great encouragement from some incredible friends and then on Tuesday, out of the blue (pun definitely intended), I got a call from Chaplain Dave Markwalder with the Chaplain Candidate Program asking if I was still interested in the program. After I hung up with him I just had to look up to heaven and say "Yes Lord, I get the point." To make a long story at least a little bit shorter he faxed my information to the recruiter for this area and I will be meeting with him on Monday to finalize my application and schedule my physical. So this weekend will be filled filled with completing a stack of forms for the Air Force and ordering transcripts and whatever else the application process entails. Hopefully now that the semester is over I'll have a little more time to keep this blog updated so those of you that actually check it periodically will know what's going on in our lives. Well, it's late and I have to get up for work tomorrow so I'd better sign off.

Return of the Long Lost Blogger

For all my faithful readers out there (all 2 of you) I must apologize for the long and protracted silence. I have simply been overcome by the daily facts of life, school, work, family, and reading far too many theological books. This past month has been an incredibly busy one as I started my new job as Director of Computer Services for Highview Baptist Church here in Louisville while trying to keep my head above water in school. Dee Dee and I have had many long discussions concerning God's will for our future, especially with some of the things going on in the Air Force these days. It seems that evangelical chaplains are being silenced. The Chief of Chaplains has said that there is nothing to worry about and that everything will be fine, but I can't help but think that he has been in the Air Force for a long time and will be retiring soon. Things can change under new administrations. Needless to say, we have been praying alot about God's will in that area of our lives.

I have also been having lots of trouble staying focused in school, not because of the difficulty of the course work (though it is plenty difficult), but because I hate having to tell my children that I can't play with them or read to them because I am constantly either running out the door to go to class or closing myself off in my bedroom to read something for class. I was talking with David Price, a friend from church and a graduate of Southern, about this today and we seemed to have pretty much the same view. My first responsibility is to my family, and to bring my children to a knowledge and love of the Lord, and if I spend all my time getting a theological education and neglect my children then I have failed.

So, keep us in your prayers as we continue to grow and study and try to discern God's will for our family. Our future seemed set when we moved up here, but now it seems that God is revealing more of His plan to us. He is not changing the plan since He is unchangeable, but He doesn't reveal all of His plans to us at once for various reasons. Sometimes it's to lead us to a stronger faith, and sometimes it's just because of the fact that if He revealed too much of the plan to us at once it would scare us out of our wits and we would turn and run the other direction as fast as we possibly could. Somehow I think the latter might be the reason in my case.

past the halfway mark

Well we've passed through the halfway point of this semester. Last week was midterms. I think I did OK on them, but the results remain to be seen. They were a bit more stressful and quite a bit more detailed than I was used to in undergrad or my previous Master's program. These last two weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster for me personally. Going through the stress of preparing for midterms and getting all the reading done for two papers that are due this week just got me sort of depressed. I ran through a time of wondering why I'm here and if this is really what I'm supposed to be doing. Then I got some good news about a job prospect that really raised my spirits. I'm still waiting to hear back but I'm pretty confident that it will come through. I also completed my application to the North American Mission Board for endorsement in the Air Force Chaplain Candidate Program. I know that I have been called at this point in my life to pursue the chaplaincy. I don't know if that is the ultimate plan that God has for me. I might end up doing something totally different, but for now at least, I'm supposed to be going through this process. That knowledge helps during the difficult times of studying for midterms and wondering where the money for next month's rent is going to come from. I am in the middle of God's will for my life right now, and that is exactly where I need to be. Well, that's about it for tonight. I've just felt a need to put some of my feelings down on paper (ok, so it's cyber-paper) but now I need to get back to reading Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship". Gotta finish it and get that paper knocked out.

Cell Phone Etiquette

OK, I know there has been MUCH debate of this subject over the years, but I'm putting in my two cents now. I'm sitting at Panera Bread studying for a midterm exam that is coming up tomorrow. I watched this woman drive up about half an hour ago. She was already on her cell phone when she got here. She came in, still on the phone, ordered her food, still on the phone, got it and sat down two tables over from me to eat. She's still on the phone. Now I realize that I am in a public place, and I don't expect complete quiet, my problem is with the fact that she is speaking loud enough for people to hear her on the other side of the restaurant. And she's speaking in Spanish no less. Why do people insist on yelling into their cell phones? And if the reception is that bad, why do they continue sitting somewhere they are not getting good reception? Get up and move somewhere that you might be able to hear.

OK, she just got up to leave, and started whispering by the way. Guess I'll end this particular rant and attempt to get a little more studying done.

From the "You've got to be kidding me" department

CNN.com - 'Planet Xena' has a sidekick: Gabrielle - Oct 1, 2005

I was reading some reports on CNN.com tonight and ran across this one. Has our culture degenerated to such a point that we are now naming scientific discoveries after cheesy characters from even cheesier TV shows? I will admit I have watched an episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" here and there. But in my opinion there is a huge difference in watching something cheesy on TV and memorializing it by naming a planet after it.