to tell the truth...

Quote of the Day

2008-07-22T18:02:58Z

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From Rodney Clapp’s A Peculiar People

Hearing the story of God preached, through the exercise of praise, Christians learn and rehearse what it means to be Christians. Liturgy is the primary responsibility of the church because without worship there can be no people capable of seeing and witnessing to the God of Israel. Just as capitalistic Americans could never become such exquisite consumers apart from the rites of advertising and credit cards, so Christians can never achieve the skills and vision necessary to be the church without attention to baptism and Eucharist.

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Church transforms into coffee chain

2008-07-21T22:13:47Z

My friend Andy Storms recently directed me to larknews.com, a website devoted to Christian satire. I remember going here once before and thinking all the stories were true. They aren't, but they do tell the truth in very revealing ways. I appreciated this story:

DENVER — Connection Metro Church, which used its foyer coffee bars to attract visitors to its eight satellite churches in the Denver area, has decided to abandon ministry altogether to focus on coffee.

"People liked the coffee a lot better than the ministry, according to congregational surveys, so we’re practicing what we preached and focusing on our strengths," says former teaching pastor and now chief marketing officer, Peter Brown.

Many in the congregation seem downright relieved.

"The sermons were okay, but the vanilla frappes were dynamite," says one woman who regularly attended the church for two years so she could enjoy the special brews. "I even brought my Jewish neighbors and they loved them."

The staff of Connection Metro Church began noticing last year that more money was coming in through the coffee bar than in the offering.

"People complimented us about the pastries and mochas but didn’t really mention the teaching," says Brown. "After feeling disappointed, we got pragmatic about it and realized God was telling us where to put our efforts."

The church renovated each of its locations into Connection Coffee Houses and removed most traces of its spiritual past. Now crowds are up and many former members are flourishing.

"Who knew I was so gifted at making foam?" says the former head usher, now the head barista, as he makes a heart-shaped design on a cappuccino.

The church’s small groups have been turned into neighborhood reading clubs, with some reading Christian titles and others following Oprah’s recommendations. The only visible remnants of the coffee house’s past are the offering bucket which serves as a tip jar, and the greeters stationed at the door to give a more welcoming feel than the nearby Starbucks.

Some former members were stunned to arrive at church Sunday morning to find the sanctuary transformed into a seating area with newspaper racks and coffee-themed gift items.

"I guess we’ll go back to the Methodist place," said one father who had brought his family. "But only after we try those delicious looking chocolate cream-filled croissants."

People in the surrounding neighborhoods say they are far more likely to stop by now. One man who came occasionally says he feels less guilty standing around the coffee counter now that there is no service taking place.

"Before, we had to sit through the service and pay our dues," he says. "Now we go right to the good stuff — the double espressos."

The staff also feels liberated now that the pressure of ministry is off.

"The best way to be relevant is to give people what they want," says Brown. "In our case, that’s coffee drinks."

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Quote(s) of the Day

2008-07-21T21:10:36Z

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From Walter Brueggemann’s Exodus commentary

“The Mosaic prohibition against idols and images has profound sociopolitical implications, for the practice of worshiping idols is never simply a theological or liturgical matter but always spills over into social, ideological, and political practice, inevitably with the intent of partisan advantage. . . . Where the church is soft on idols, it becomes muted on social criticism.”

“The healing of creation, and of our lives as creatures of God, requires a disengagement from the dominant systems of power and wealth. Sabbath is the daring recognition that with the change of sovereigns wrought in the exodus, such unrewarding expenditure of labor is no longer required. It is only a bad habit we continue in our disbelieving foolishness.”

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Quote of the Day

2008-07-16T20:07:54Z

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From John Wright's Telling God's Story

"The present situation cannot be beneficial for the church. Preaching has largely ceased to incorporate individuals into the concerns created by the Christian Scriptures. Instead, preaching has become the application of an individualistic, therapeutic biblical language to contemporary concerns or disembodied calls to social justice. The church in North America has become adept at translating the Scriptures into the narratives that already shape the lives of believers and nonbelievers alike. . . . The biblical text becomes translated into a therapeutic experience within the life of the individual. Yet it seems that such an approach misses the crucial question, a question necessary to maintain the faithful witness of the church across time. The question is not, How can we make the Scriptures relevant to individuals in need of therapy? but, How do we translate human lives into the biblical narrative to live as part of the body of Christ in the world?"

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Quote of the Day

2008-07-15T14:16:39Z

From David Dark's The Gospel According to America

"We might ask ourselves what we're trying to avoid thinking about when we reflexively say or think, 'That's just your interpretation'; 'This is only your opinion'; or 'Timothy McVeigh/Osama Bin Laden/Saddam Hussein is absolute evil.' What is it that we find reassuring in the assertion that terrorists think only about evil, 'flat evil,' and nothing else at any time? Who are we trying to convince? Simply thinking twice and looking hard for what our categories and knee-jerk responses conceal can become an especially effective form of exorcism. A twenty-four-hour fast from using the words 'liberal,' 'conservative,' 'political,' and 'religious' might open whole new worlds."

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Asian Vacation Pics and Full Travel Log

2008-07-09T02:47:45Z

Okay friends, we've got all our pictures up and they're ready for viewing! There are lots of them so consider yourself warned. You can see them on our Picasa site here or by following the links below to the specific pages:

Japan Pics

China Pics

I also wanted to post the travel log in its entirety. There's nothing new, so if you've been following along with the last few posts then there's no need to revisit it. But if you haven't and you're interested in hearing about some of our travels, follow the link below. Enjoy!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Woke up at 3:45 am, flew from LAX to Seattle and left Seattle for Tokyo-Narita around noon. I spent most of our ten-hour flight reading with a little sleeping here and there; Beth watched a few movies and read some too (but didn't sleep at all). By the time we arrived, it was no longer June 11.

Thursday, June 12, 2008
Arrived in Tokyo around 3pm, made it through customs with no bumps, and met up with Mike (Ackerman). Hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and headed for Nagoya. The trip lasted a good three hours I’d say, and we spent the whole time talking with Mike about all sorts of things. Hopped on a smaller train to Okazaki where the team lives. Got in late that night to Mike and Erin’s house, where the whole team was waiting to greet us. Got hugs, gave gifts, ate some food (Erin made us a tasty rice breakfast dish with egg and meat called “gudon”), and headed to bed. Worried about jet lag keeping us up.

Friday, June 13, 2008
Slept pretty consistently that night (especially Beth). They told us we’d wake up early and not be able to go back to sleep, but thankfully we didn’t have that problem! We had breakfast with the Ackermans, and then I went to Nick’s to watch the NBA Finals game. The Lakers lost. Beth spent most of the morning with Erin. After the game, I grabbed some lunch at Mike’s and then we split guys and girls for the afternoon. The ladies met up at their language school, where Beth tried her hand at some very authentic Japanese food, and she gagged! (That’s saying a lot, too, because Beth is pretty tough when it comes to foreign food! We later found out that most of the team won’t even eat this stuff.) Then the girls went to lunch and had “cak-ee set-os” (cake sets) at a restaurant called Pastel. I overcame jet lag by playing basketball with some of the guys from the team (and a Belgian guy named Ben) in a really hot, muggy, non-ventilated gym. We spent the evening with the Ackermans, who took us to Nagoya. Nagoya is a large city near Okazaki, and I’m pretty sure it’s bigger than both New York and LA (though it’s like a fourth the size of Tokyo). We walked around the city a bit and had tasty ramen dishes (and potstickers) from a restaurant where you order your food from something that looks like a vending machine. (You don’t get the actual food from the machine; you get a receipt with your order, hand it to the cooks, and then they cook and serve it.) After dinner we headed home and went to bed.

Saturday, June 14, 2008
Had breakfast with Andy (Rodriguez) at the Ackerman’s. Beth and I both ate frosted flakes. Then we made our way to a barbecue planned by Andy and Tony for the team and about a dozen of their Japanese friends (and friends of friends). The boys met a Japanese girl named Reyna on Skype who speaks fairly good English; she introduced them to a lot of 20-somethings, including those at this barbecue. (Their friends had thrown a Japanese barbecue for our boys, so the guys decided to return the favor, but most of them brought back-up Japanese food just in case!) We played a yard game that Jay (Greer) made called “Stitch” (that’s what I call it anyway); it’s sort of an adult version of beanbag toss, but it’s a lot more fun than “adult version of beanbag toss” sounds. Beth and I won every game we played together. Tony (Coulombe) grilled burgers and hot dogs, and it was very funny to watch the Japanese guys learning to say the word “hahm-bah-gah” with r’s instead of h’s! (They don’t have an “r” sound, so it just ended up a more nasally form of the h’s.) The Japanese guys also sung a few American-ish guitar-led melodies over and over. We headed home from the barbecue and later that evening ate Mos Burgers, which is basically a Japanese version of the chili-cheeseburger. (Yes, on our second full day in Japan we had burgers, hot dogs, and frosted flakes!) After dinner most of the team came over to the Ackerman’s, where we hung out until way too late. Beth and I spent most of the evening fading in and out – we could blame it on jet lag, but truthfully we just don’t stay up that late.

Sunday, June 15, 2008
On Sunday most of the team went into Nagoya for language teacher training. Erin made us breakfast sandwiches. Then we spent the morning at the local mall with Erin and Brayden (Mike and Erin’s son). Beth bought a rockin’ purse that we had to put together ourselves. I got to hold Brayden a bunch, which was a lot of fun. We saw many t-shirts with English writing that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. We’ll post a picture of one of the shirts on our Picasa site when we get back. After the mall, Beth went to (an extended) lunch with Erin at the Taio No Cafe, and I went to lunch with Jay at Pastel. We both had a great time catching up with our friends. After lunch Mike and I went to McDonald’s so he could eat lunch, and we had some good conversation. That evening Beth and I went to Luke and Kacie (and Sterling) Chase’s apartment for dinner. Kacie made us tacos that were really tasty! We hung out there and talked until way too late, but it was worth every minute!

Monday, June 16, 2008
Beth and I spent all of Monday apart so I’ll tell the stories separately. Beth had a leisurely morning and then went to lunch with Kacie and Rachel at the Indian restaurant. She was in a small group with both of them way back in the day, so it was a great chance for them to re-connect on a deep level. Then they went grocery shopping so that Beth could participate in one of their regular routines. After that she went to the kids’ school and Colette (Parsons) gave her the full tour. That morning I went over to Nick’s and watched another NBA Finals game. The Lakers won, but it wasn’t pretty. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed over to the gym for some more basketball of our own. It was just the two of us for a while, which was exhausting because Nick is considerably bigger than me! After we wore ourselves out playing one-on-one, Luke and our Belgian friend Ben showed up and we a while longer. That evening Beth and I moved from the Ackerman’s to Nick and Rachel Parson’s, where we lived for the rest of our time there. We played with their very fun kids, and Nick made us all “resurrection eggs” – an updated version of the omelet that’s sure to become a worldwide sensation very soon. I especially enjoy watching Colette because she looks exactly like Nick and acts exactly like Rachel! After the kids went to bed, Nick and I watched some videos on Youtube and the ladies had more time to talk and catch up – or as Rachel put it, “we talked, we laughed, we cried – it was so much fun.”

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
We got up very early Tuesday and went with Nick to Hiroshima, one of the places we (the USA) dropped an atomic bomb in 1945. They have a very moving museum/memorial there. It was really a strange experience filled with all kinds of emotion. The highlight for Beth was when a young Japanese girl approached her to “interview” her as part of a class assignment. One of the questions Beth had to answer was, “What do you think about the atomic bomb?” Ouch. For me the most interesting thing was learning some of the “reasons” why we did it. Honestly, one of them seems to have been that we just wanted to see what would happen – it was a sort of test of how powerful these things were. That is in no way justifiable, I don’t care who you are. A second reason had to do with post-war power relations. We knew that if the war ended before the Soviets entered, we would have more power after it was all over. But the Soviets had recently declared war on Japan, which put us on guard. So we dropped the bomb and ended the war before the Soviets had a chance to enter, thus securing our place as the superest superpower in the world. The whole experience was very humbling and reinforced my own convictions that we as the church must not be afraid to speak out against corporate, political, national evils. What we (the USA) did was flat wrong, and we (the church in America) should be the first to denounce it. Okay, enough soapboxing. That night we hung out at the Parson’s with the whole team and said our goodbyes to most of them.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Because of our long Tuesday, we slept in a little bit on Wednesday. We eventually woke up and played with Colette and Owen for a bit; then they had to say goodbye and go to school, which was a very sad time for Colette especially. Then while Nick and I watched the first half of the last NBA Finals game (the Lakers ended up losing pathetically), Beth went with Jay and Caitlin to buy lots of interesting lunch items. We got on the Tokyo-bound train with them and ate these lunch items, most of which were very good! We hopped on another train that took us to Tokyo. After checking in to the hotel, we toured some parts of Tokyo – the largest city in the history of the world! First we walked around Shinjuku, the area where our hotel was, and the home of the busiest train station in the history of the world. We went up to the top of a government building and looked out over Tokyo. The viewing room had windows all around and we saw what looked like downtown in every direction as far as we could see. We also toured a Japanese garden with a Shinto shrine. Then we ate at a tempura restaurant and headed to an area called Shibuya, home to the busiest intersection in the history of the world. (Noticing a pattern?) Literally hundreds of people cross this intersection in multiple directions every two minutes! The whole thing looks a lot like Times Square in New York, and there is a Starbucks that sits right on the corner. We sat there enjoying the craziness for a while, and then we decided to participate! We took turns as couples crossing the street, and the other couple took pictures from Starbucks. Some of them turned out pretty good! We left Shibuya for Harajuku, a place where we were promised to see some of the craziest looking people in (the history of) the world. It’s apparently sort of like Hollywood Blvd, where people dress up in costumes – like Spongebob, Rambo, Hellraiser, etc – but weirder. We were sort of late and it was the middle of the week, so we didn’t see a whole lot of weird people, but it was a lot of fun. Jay and Caitlin helped us get back to Shinjuku and then we said goodbye and headed to bed.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
We woke up early Thursday and headed for the train station. On the way we stopped at McDonald’s to get some breakfast. (Keep in mind we were in a place where no one speaks English, and we no longer had our friends to help!) Then we ordered our tickets for the train (again, with no help), ran through the train station in somewhat of a blur, and made it to the train with a few minutes to spare. The trip from Tokyo to the Tokyo-Narita Airport is pretty long, because the landowners in Tokyo wouldn’t allow the airport to be built in the actual city. We got to the gate about two hours early, so we had lots of time to sit and say goodbye to Japan. Then we took a four-hour flight to Beijing, during which we watched the movie Vantage Point. We made it through customs with no problems, but after that we couldn’t really figure anything out. It was a bit frustrating, but eventually we got some money and ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC is huge in China). We waited about three hours in Beijing, another hour in the plane on the runway, and then finally took off on a three-hour flight to Guiyang (pronounced gway-yong), where Joshua and Jessica live. They met us at the airport and we took a “taxi” to their apartment at Guizhou (gway-jo) University. Immediately we noticed big differences between Japan and China (at least the parts we had seen). For one thing, Japan is immaculate; China not so much. And Japan is much more urban, which in practical terms meant our ride in the minivan-taxi was much bumpier than the Japanese bullet trains. We settled in, marveled at how skinny Joshua and Jessica are, chatted for a bit, I had a Chinese-style PB&J, and we headed to bed. (By the way, Chinese-style PB&J is exactly like American-style PB&J, except you eat it in China.)

Friday, June 20, 2008
We woke up and ate Jessica’s homemade granola cereal for breakfast, and took the morning easy here at the house. For lunch we ate fried jiaozi (ji-oud-zuh), which is like what we call potstickers in America. It might be my favorite meal here. Then we registered with the police and bought a few post cards. We spent the afternoon in an old walled city called Qingyan (ching-yen), where we saw numerous water buffalo and some old Chinese church buildings (among other things). That evening we went to a campus restaurant and ate rice with various dishes: eggplant, potatoes, spicy meatballs, and tofu with green veggies. We came home, hung out for a bit, and went to bed.

Saturday, June 21, 2008
Joshua got up early and ran thirteen miles. He’s crazy. And he’s skinny. Then we all had Jessica’s amazing granola breakfast again. Then Beth went to the vegetable market with Jessica and was thoroughly impressed by her Chinese speaking skills. We ate Muslim fried pulled noodles with meat and vegetables for lunch; it was fun to watch the guy make the noodles by stretching them out over and over again right in front of us. After lunch we toured the campus in the blazing heat. We saw some guys playing basketball. For dinner we ate Guizhou (gway-jo) burritos (very spicy) and watched School of Rock. We live hard core.

Sunday, June 22, 2008
We went to a club (ekklesia) meeting in the morning, which was pretty cool. We listened to a good sermon on James 1. I wasn’t feeling so hot though, so after club I came home with a stomach ache. Beth, Jessica, and Joshua (hereafter “Joshica”) ate lunch with some of the other workers and had a wide variety of dishes.That night we hosted a barbecue with two other American couples: Richard and Esther from LA, and Adam and Jess from Ohio. Josh grilled burgers and Richard brought delicious kabobs, and Jessica made deviled eggs and jello cake. We played some Cranium (the girls beat the boys). After everyone left we watched The Island. Then we stayed up too late and got delirious, so we laughed way too hard at everything anyone said. It was mucho fun.

Monday, June 23, 2008
Joshua got up early again and ran six miles. When he got back we skyped with Marv (Joshua and Beth’s dad) and his family. A little rain was falling in both places (here and St. Louis). After skyping we had more granola goodness for breakfast. We hung out around the house all morning and then ate boiled jiaozi for lunch (also incredible, though not quite as tasty as the fried kind – surprise, surprise). That afternoon we went to Guiyang (gway-yong), the large city near Joshica’s home. We went to a “minority store” – where they sell all sorts of goodies made by people in the minority groups further into the rural areas – and got many souvenirs. We had to visit the Guiyang Wal-Mart, which wasn’t much different from our own (except that it was underground – all the best things in China are ;) ;) ). We took a stroll through the meat market in search of dog; we saw only parts (like rear) but no whole dogs. We did see whole geese cooked and hanging, awaiting purchase, as well as brain, pig snouts, a cow face, and all sorts of other things. Went to dinner with Jake and Monica (and Creed and Chloe), another family working in the area, at the campus restaurant. We came home, Skyped with Becky (Joshua and Beth’s mom) for a bit, and played UNO. I love UNO.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008
We had plans to get up early and head to a rockin’ waterfall. Joshica’s alarm was set to PM so we delayed the plan a bit, but we still made it! There were three beautiful locations as part of our three-park ticket. The first was a small but impressive waterfall called Douputang. The second was a huge waterfall – the highest in China, taller (though much narrower) than Niagara Falls – called Huangguoshu (which means “yellow fruit tree”). On the way to this waterfall, Beth almost got bit by a snake, but she masterfully eluded its grasp (and ended up in a thornbush instead – ouch!). The waterfall itself truly was majestic, and we all got soaked on our way up to, behind, and away from it. Then we went and hiked through and around the Tianxing Bridge area. We cleaned up a bit and then ate lots of meat, vegetable, and bread kabobs at an outdoor grill. Then we came home and played UNO. What a game.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Jessica made yummy blueberry and banana muffins for breakfast. We took it easy for a while and then headed to lunch at a different Muslim restaurant. Josh and Beth had rice dishes and I had noodles. I actually noticed myself getting just a little better at using chopsticks (the rest of them are already pros). Then we went into Guiyang and spent a few hours at Quianling (chien-ling) Park, home to hundreds of monkeys. We took cable cars up the mountain and hiked for a while without any monkey sightings. A little worried that we might not see any, we headed down a different route and saw dozens of them! One of them tried to jump at me and I ran away as quickly as I could. It didn’t eat me. They were running all over, sometimes very close to us; our favorites were the little baby monkeys hanging on to their mothers for dear life (or so it seemed). After that we toured Guiyang on top of a special tour bus. For dinner we ate at Pizza Fun, one of Joshua’s favorite places. We tried all sorts of interesting pizzas, including one kind that actually moves (we called it “living pizza”). We shopped around Guiyang for a bit looking for tennis shoes for me, but no one had large enough sizes. We came home, played Five Crowns, and went to bed.

Thursday, June 26, 2008
We decided to spend Thursday at home so we could be fully prepared to leave on Friday for the rest of our travels. Joshua made Beth and Jessica a huge birthday breakfast, which was delish. Then we started a game-a-thon. First we played, you guessed it, UNO. Then we took a break and played Five Crowns again (also a great game). Then we watched some Jack Black videos on Youtube, searched online for Beijing miniature golf courses, got ready for our trip, and played spades.

Friday, June 27, 2008
On Friday we ate yummy yogurt and granola again for breakfast and headed for airport about 8:30. Thankfully we zipped through, arrived at our gate during the boarding process, and stepped right onto the airplane. Our flight to Xi’an (schee-on) took about an hour-and-a-half, and as soon as we got off the plane we learned our first lesson about Xi’an: It is HOT! We would not forget this important Xi’anic truth for the remainder of our time there, so if you want to really feel our experience I’d advise imagining everything else we did being done in intense heat. Upon arrival we took an hour-long bus ride into the city and walked a few blocks to our hostel – Han Tang Inn Youth Hostel. We planned on eating lunch at Subway because Josh saw a sign, but the sign lied and there was no (open) Subway, so we settled for KFC. Then we went shopping for a bit in the Muslim quarter. After shopping (and the attendant haggling that comes with shopping in places like this) we went back to Hostel, played UNO, and waited for a dumpling party. At the dumpling party we learned how to make jiaozi, which you might remember from earlier in the trip. It was quite fun and they were quite tasty (again)! Then we finished our UNO game back in the room where we had temperature control, and went to bed.

Saturday, June 28, 2008
We went to Starbucks for breakfast and then took another hour-long bus ride to see the Terra Cotta warriors. They area apparently pretty famous but I hadn’t heard of them. To see them and hear the story was one of my favorite parts of our trip. They are basically thousands of clay (or cement, I don’t really know) soldiers that have been buried underground for hundreds of years, but only discovered a few decades ago. Apparently one of the ancient Chinese emperors believed that his rule would continue in the (underground) afterlife, so he commissioned the construction of an army to accompany him. Shortly after his death, competing armies partially destroyed his underground militia, burying it in the sands of hatred (and history). I’d advise googling it if you want to learn more. We took the bus ride back to Xi’an, and for lunch Joshica ate Muslim sandwiches while Beth and I enjoyed burgers from McDonald’s. Next we planned to visit the Big Goose Pagoda but couldn’t find the bus, so after walking quite a distance in oppressive heat we decided to nix the Pagoda and head back to the Muslim quarter. I think we bought T-shirts or something touristy like that. We went back to the room, ate some snacks, played games for a while, and said goodnight.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
On Sunday morning we ate muffins for breakfast on a bus to the wall surrounding ancient Xi’an. The wall itself is extremely wide (as ancient city walls generally are), and we enjoyed riding bikes for two all along its bumpy floor. Unfortunately, the sandal-wearers almost lost their toes several times and Joshica’s bike wound up breaking, but we had made it most of the way around the wall so it didn’t ruin our day. We came back, showered, checked out of the Hostel, and once again made our way to the Big Goose Pagoda. On the way we visited a different Muslim quarter and found glorious chicken taco sandwiches. We came back for seconds. The actual Big Goose Pagoda was closed – Who’s surprised? – and, as Josh pointed out, it was stupid hot outside. So we went back to the air-conditioned Starbucks again, ordered giant Frappuccinos, and played cards for quite a while until we got the boot. They said we couldn’t play cards in there. We didn’t ask why, but we did notice that other people were surfing the Web, reading, and (rather shamelessly) sleeping. But no card-playing was allowed. I did have two grand on that game of Five Crowns. Phew. We went back to the hostel, played some more cards, got some more chicken sandwiches, and took two taxis (we wouldn’t fit in one) to the train station. We left Xi’an about 8pm on the train, watched August Rush on my laptop in our little room, and went to sleep. Or I should say we turned off the lights and tried to rest as much as you can on a bumpy hot train that sent second-hand cigarette smoke through the A/C vents. It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds. We enjoyed our little train adventure.

Monday, June 30, 2008
The next day we woke up on the train and arrived in Beijing around 7:15am. We promptly made our way to a ridiculously long taxi line, where we witnessed some feuds over people cutting in line. (You should know that Chinese people (a) don’t really have lines per se, and (b) rarely engage in heated confrontations over anything, so it was quite surprising and more than a little entertaining. It certainly made standing in a quarter-mile line in fresh-airless heat more bearable. We took one taxi (with a large trunk) to our hostel – Nine Dragons House – and immediately showered off the train funk. We went to Schlotzky’s for lunch, and it was very good; then we went to Coldstone for dessert, and it was also very good. Then we found a sports store called Decathlon and did some shopping. Joshica got a lot of running and hiking gear. Beth got a breathable shirt for our Great Wall hike. I finally found some shoes that fit. After Decathlon we tried to find T.G.I. Friday’s but ended up at a Subway. Then we went to see a Chinese acrobat show. Just to be honest, I didn’t expect to enjoy this event much. My expectations proved incorrect, however; the show was truly impressive and very entertaining. Those little guys (and gals) are strong! After the show we came home and went to bed.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
On Tuesday we got up early and left for the Great Wall around 6:30am. We had ordered breakfast sandwiches from the hostel that were more like lunch sandwiches, so they were fairly filling. We took a three-hour bus ride to the Wall, along which we hiked over 6 miles. We were very glad to be on a partially unrestored portion of the Wall, which means (a) we got to witness firsthand some of the historical-ness of it all, (b) at times we had to get down and walk around because the Wall itself wasn’t safe, and (c) there were no Starbucks like at certain modernized sections. And they call that “restoration”? Interesting. Our hike was very up-and-down and thus rather grueling, but very enjoyable. As part of our package a nearby restaurant had prepared lunch, which was waiting for us at the end. We ate like emperors. Then we rode the bus back (3 hrs), took showers, and enjoyed a late dinner at Outback Steakhouse. After dinner one of the workers took a picture of the four of us outside the restaurant. It was a fun picture. Exhausted, we came back to the hostel and went straight to bed.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
I woke up sick and had to stay home, so I’ll tell their story and then mine. Beth and Joshica (remember, that means Joshua and Jessica) enjoyed delicious strawberry French toast for breakfast at the hostel. Then they went to the Temple of Heaven, which, according to a sign on our room wall, was “where emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties worshiped heaven and prayed for bumper crops.” They found a T.G.I. Friday’s and ate a “tex-mex tower” for lunch – I hear it was awesome. Then they had ice cream at Baskin Robbins – I hear it was awesome as well. After ice cream they went to the Summer Palace (where past emperors spend the summer months) and climbed all the way to the top. At the Summer Palace the girls got separated from Joshua and a bit of drama ensued. In Josh’s words, “I went around the corner to check things out. And the girls stopped to rest behind a large rock. When I came back around the corner to find them I couldn’t see them, because apparently they were behind a large rock. So I thought they must have gone ahead of me, thinking I was further along. So I walked way down a huge hill, realized they were not there, and then walked way back up the hill. By this time I was quite frantic, because I had no idea what to do if I couldn’t find them. And then as I was running back to the front gate, I heard Jessica’s beautiful voice calling out my name.” After the happy reunion they saw a giant boat made of marble that sat in the water and didn’t go anywhere. And they saw some big buildings. They left later than planned and experienced the subway at rush hour, which I’m pretty glad I missed. Jessica stood behind a guy who literally smelled like a cow. They returned to the hostel two hours later than they planned. Meanwhile, in between trips to the restroom, I did quite a bit of sleeping, finished reading a book, and watched some Chinese television. There were about eleven programs duplicated numerous times and spread out over seventy channels. I finally found a Chinese soccer game, muted it, and watched a bit. As the day got older I began pushing back the time when I would start worrying about where they were, since there was nothing I could do anyway. About the time I had reached my final “when the clock hits ____, I’ll start worrying” time, I noticed the Lakers on the television. They were running some special that went back through all their games this past season, highlighting Kobe’s best plays. It distracted me for a while and eventually Joshica and Beth walked in the door. We ate dinner at the hostel restaurant, played all three games (UNO, spades, and Five Crowns) and went to bed around 1am.

Thursday, July 3, 2008
We woke up Thursday and walked to a bakery where we selected breakfast items. Then we made our way to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. If you don’t recognize the former, it was the location of a famous protest and “massacre” back in 1989. You can read more about it hereor here. I enjoyed being there and I couldn’t help but notice a similarity to Hiroshima, being that both are the sites of past murderous tragedies. The Forbidden City is a huge complex right across the street from Tiananmen Square, where past emperors lived for almost five centuries, from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It’s apparently in the middle of Beijing, and outside there is a big picture of Chairman Mao. It (The Forbidden City complex, not the picture of Mao) was featured in the movie Mulan. After a short stay at the City (it was very hot in Beijing as well) we made our way to a famous Beijing duck restaurant. They way that you haven't truly been to Beijing until you've (a) visited the Great Wall and (b) eaten duck. So we ate some duck, and it was pretty good. According to the card they gave us as we left, it was the 115,639,421st duck they've served since 1864. After going back to the hostel and packing up, we took a shuttle bus to the Beijing airport. We shared a final meal with Joshua and Jessica at Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant. The food was good, but it wasn’t fun to say goodbye. We hugged and talked about when we’d see each other next. Then Beth and I disappeared down the escalator and officially began our journey home. We got on the plane around 8:30pm and left at 9. Our 12-hour flight wasn’t too painful. This time Beth slept a lot. I read a little and watched most of an embarrassingly bad movie called Jumper. I fought to stay awake because I preach on Sunday so I can’t afford much jet lag. Toward the end of the flight we watched 27 Dresses together; Beth's audio was broken so we shared earphones. It would have been cute and romantic except that I kept accidentally jerking the earphone out of her ear (which didn’t exactly feel good). We landed, waited in line at customs, got our baggage, took the Flyaway bus to Van Nuys, got picked up by Brandon, ate at Taco Bell, arrived at our apartment, cranked the A/C, took some Tylenol PM, and went to bed. Our trip was complete.

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Asian Vacation Travel Log (pt 5)

2008-07-04T23:15:01Z

Thursday, June 26, 2008
We decided to spend Thursday at home so we could be fully prepared to leave on Friday for the rest of our travels. Joshua made Beth and Jessica a huge birthday breakfast, which was delish. Then we started a game-a-thon. First we played, you guessed it, UNO. Then we took a break and played Five Crowns again (also a great game). Then we watched some Jack Black videos on Youtube, searched online for Beijing miniature golf courses, got ready for our trip, and played spades.

Friday, June 27, 2008
On Friday we ate yummy yogurt and granola again for breakfast and headed for airport about 8:30. Thankfully we zipped through, arrived at our gate during the boarding process, and stepped right onto the airplane. Our flight to Xi’an (schee-on) took about an hour-and-a-half, and as soon as we got off the plane we learned our first lesson about Xi’an: It is HOT! We would not forget this important Xi’anic truth for the remainder of our time there, so if you want to really feel our experience I’d advise imagining everything else we did being done in intense heat. Upon arrival we took an hour-long bus ride into the city and walked a few blocks to our hostel – Han Tang Inn Youth Hostel. We planned on eating lunch at Subway because Josh saw a sign, but the sign lied and there was no (open) Subway, so we settled for KFC. Then we went shopping for a bit in the Muslim quarter. After shopping (and the attendant haggling that comes with shopping in places like this) we went back to Hostel, played UNO, and waited for a dumpling party. At the dumpling party we learned how to make jiaozi, which you might remember from earlier in the trip. It was quite fun and they were quite tasty (again)! Then we finished our UNO game back in the room where we had temperature control, and went to bed.

Saturday, June 28, 2008
We went to Starbucks for breakfast and then took another hour-long bus ride to see the Terra Cotta warriors. They area apparently pretty famous but I hadn’t heard of them. To see them and hear the story was one of my favorite parts of our trip. They are basically thousands of clay (or cement, I don’t really know) soldiers that have been buried underground for hundreds of years, but only discovered a few decades ago. Apparently one of the ancient Chinese emperors believed that his rule would continue in the (underground) afterlife, so he commissioned the construction of an army to accompany him. Shortly after his death, competing armies partially destroyed his underground militia, burying it in the sands of hatred (and history). I’d advise googling it if you want to learn more. We took the bus ride back to Xi’an, and for lunch Joshica ate Muslim sandwiches while Beth and I enjoyed burgers from McDonald’s. Next we planned to visit the Big Goose Pagoda but couldn’t find the bus, so after walking quite a distance in oppressive heat we decided to nix the Pagoda and head back to the Muslim quarter. I think we bought T-shirts or something touristy like that. We went back to the room, ate some snacks, played games for a while, and said goodnight.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
On Sunday morning we ate muffins for breakfast on a bus to the wall surrounding ancient Xi’an. The wall itself is extremely wide (as ancient city walls generally are), and we enjoyed riding bikes for two all along its bumpy floor. Unfortunately, the sandal-wearers almost lost their toes several times and Joshica’s bike wound up breaking, but we had made it most of the way around the wall so it didn’t ruin our day. We came back, showered, checked out of the Hostel, and once again made our way to the Big Goose Pagoda. On the way we visited a different Muslim quarter and found glorious chicken taco sandwiches. We came back for seconds. The actual Big Goose Pagoda was closed – Who’s surprised? – and, as Josh pointed out, it was stupid hot outside. So we went back to the air-conditioned Starbucks again, ordered giant Frappuccinos, and played cards for quite a while until we got the boot. They said we couldn’t play cards in there. We didn’t ask why, but we did notice that other people were surfing the Web, reading, and (rather shamelessly) sleeping. But no card-playing was allowed. I did have two grand on that game of Five Crowns. Phew. We went back to the hostel, played some more cards, got some more chicken sandwiches, and took two taxis (we wouldn’t fit in one) to the train station. We left Xi’an about 8pm on the train, watched August Rush on my laptop in our little room, and went to sleep. Or I should say we turned off the lights and tried to rest as much as you can on a bumpy hot train that sent second-hand cigarette smoke through the AC vents. It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds. We enjoyed our little train adventure.

Monday, June 30, 2008
The next day we woke up on the train and arrived in Beijing around 7:15am. We promptly made our way to a ridiculously long taxi line, where we witnessed some feuds over people cutting in line. (You should know that Chinese people (a) don’t really have lines per se, and (b) rarely engage in heated confrontations over anything, so it was quite surprising and more than a little entertaining. It certainly made standing in a quarter-mile line in fresh-airless heat more bearable. We took one taxi (with a large trunk) to our hostel – Nine Dragons House – and immediately showered off the train funk. We went to Schlotzky’s for lunch, and it was very good; then we went to Coldstone for dessert, and it was also very good. Then we found a sports store called Decathlon and did some shopping. Joshica got a lot of running and hiking gear. Beth got a breathable shirt for our Great Wall hike. I finally found some shoes that fit. After Decathlon we tried to find T.G.I. Friday’s but ended up at a Subway. Then we went to see a Chinese acrobat show. Just to be honest, I didn’t expect to enjoy this event much. My expectations proved incorrect, however; the show was truly impressive and very entertaining. Those little guys (and gals) are strong! After the show we came home and went to bed.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
On Tuesday we got up early and left for the Great Wall around 6:30am. We had ordered breakfast sandwiches from the hostel that were more like lunch sandwiches, so they were fairly filling. We took a three-hour bus ride to the Wall, along which we hiked over 6 miles. We were very glad to be on a partially unrestored portion of the Wall, which means (a) we got to witness firsthand some of the historical-ness of it all, (b) at times we had to get down and walk around because the Wall itself wasn’t safe, and (c) there were no Starbucks like at certain modernized sections. And they call that “restoration”? Interesting. Our hike was very up-and-down and thus rather grueling, but very enjoyable. As part of our package a nearby restaurant had prepared lunch, which was waiting for us at the end. We ate like emperors. Then we rode the bus back (3 hrs), took showers, and enjoyed a late dinner at Outback Steakhouse. After dinner one of the workers took a picture of the four of us outside the restaurant. It was a fun picture. Exhausted, we came back to the hostel and went straight to bed.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
I woke up sick and had to stay home, so I’ll tell their story and then mine. Beth and Joshica (remember, that means Joshua and Jessica) enjoyed delicious strawberry French toast for breakfast at the hostel. Then they went to the Temple of Heaven, which, according to a sign on our room wall, was “where emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties worshiped heaven and prayed for bumper crops.” They found a T.G.I. Friday’s and ate a “tex-mex tower” for lunch – I hear it was awesome. Then they had ice cream at Baskin Robbins – I hear it was awesome as well. After ice cream they went to the Summer Palace (where past emperors spend the summer months) and climbed all the way to the top. At the Summer Palace the girls got separated from Joshua and a bit of drama ensued. In Josh’s words, “I went around the corner to check things out. And the girls stopped to rest behind a large rock. When I came back around the corner to find them I couldn’t see them, because apparently they were behind a large rock. So I thought they must have gone ahead of me, thinking I was further along. So I walked way down a huge hill, realized they were not there, and then walked way back up the hill. By this time I was quite frantic, because I had no idea what to do if I couldn’t find them. And then as I was running back to the front gate, I heard Jessica’s beautiful voice calling out my name.” After the happy reunion they saw a giant boat made of marble that sat in the water and didn’t go anywhere. And they saw some big buildings. They left later than planned and experienced the subway at rush hour, which I’m pretty glad I missed. Jessica stood behind a guy who literally smelled like a cow. They returned to the hostel two hours later than they planned. Meanwhile, in between trips to the restroom, I did quite a bit of sleeping, finished reading a book, and watched some Chinese television. There were about eleven programs duplicated numerous times and spread out over seventy channels. I finally found a Chinese soccer game, muted it, and watched a bit. As the day got older I began pushing back the time when I would start worrying about where they were, since there was nothing I could do anyway. About the time I had reached my final “when the clock hits ____, I’ll start worrying” time, I noticed the Lakers on the television. They were running some special that went back through all their games this past season, highlighting Kobe’s best plays. It distracted me for a while and eventually Joshica and Beth walked in the door. We ate dinner at the hostel restaurant, played all three games (UNO, spades, and Five Crowns) and went to bed around 1am.

Thursday, July 3, 2008
We woke up Thursday and walked to a bakery where we selected breakfast items. Then we made our way to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. If you don’t recognize the former, it was the location of a famous protest and “massacre” back in 1989. You can read more about it hereor here. I enjoyed being there and I couldn’t help but notice a similarity to Hiroshima, being that both are the sites of past murderous tragedies. The Forbidden City is a huge complex right across the street from Tiananmen Square, where past emperors lived for almost five centuries, from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It’s apparently in the middle of Beijing, and outside there is a big picture of Chairman Mao. It (The Forbidden City complex, not the picture of Mao) was featured in the movie Mulan. After a short stay at the City (it was very hot in Beijing as well) we made our way to a famous Beijing duck restaurant. They way that you haven't truly been to Beijing until you've (a) visited the Great Wall and (b) eaten duck. So we ate some duck, and it was pretty good. According to the card they gave us as we left, it was the 115,639,421st duck they've served since 1864. After going back to the hostel and packing up, we took a shuttle bus to the Beijing airport. We shared a final meal with Joshua and Jessica at Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant. The food was good, but it wasn’t fun to say goodbye. We hugged and talked about when we’d see each other next. Then Beth and I disappeared down the escalator and officially began our journey home. We got on the plane around 8:30pm and left at 9. Our 12-hour flight wasn’t too painful. This time Beth slept a lot. I read a little and watched most of an embarrassingly bad movie called Jumper. I fought to stay awake because I preach on Sunday so I can’t afford much jet lag. Toward the end of the flight we watched 27 Dresses together; Beth's audio was broken so we shared earphones. It would have been cute and romantic except that I kept accidentally jerking the earphone out of her ear (which didn’t exactly feel good). We landed, waited in line at customs, got our baggage, took the Flyaway bus to Van Nuys, got picked up by Brandon, ate at Taco Bell, arrived at our apartment, cranked the A/C, took some Tylenol PM, and went to bed. Our trip was complete.

To those of you who’ve kept up with the travel log, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I'll post a link to our pictures in a few days once we've put them on our Picasa site. Our trip was truly unforgettable, and while we may be financially recovering for a long time, we’ve also already begun dreaming about going back!

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Asian Vacation Travel Log (pt 4)

2008-06-26T09:22:26Z

This may be the last I'm able to post until we get back home, so I'll bring you all the way up to date.

Friday, June 20, 2008
We woke up and ate Jessica’s homemade granola cereal for breakfast, and took the morning easy here at the house. For lunch we ate fried jiaozi (ji-oud-zuh), which is like what we call potstickers in America. It might be my favorite meal here. Then we registered with the police and bought a few post cards. We spent the afternoon in an old walled city called Qingyan (ching-yen), where we saw numerous water buffalo and some old Chinese church buildings (among other things). That evening we went to a campus restaurant and ate rice with various dishes: eggplant, potatoes, spicy meatballs, and tofu with green veggies. We came home, hung out for a bit, and went to bed.

Saturday, June 21, 2008
Joshua got up early and ran thirteen miles. He’s crazy. And he’s skinny. Then we all had Jessica’s amazing granola breakfast again. Then Beth went to the vegetable market with Jessica and was thoroughly impressed by her Chinese speaking skills. We ate Muslim fried pulled noodles with meat and vegetables for lunch; it was fun to watch the guy make the noodles by stretching them out over and over again right in front of us. After lunch we toured the campus in the blazing heat. We saw some guys playing basketball. For dinner we ate Guizhou (gway-jo) burritos (very spicy) and watched School of Rock. We live hard core.

Sunday, June 22, 2008
We went to a club (ekklesia) meeting in the morning, which was pretty cool. We listened to a good sermon on James 1. I wasn’t feeling so hot though, so after club I came home with a stomach ache. Beth, Jessica, and Joshua (hereafter “Joshica”) ate lunch with some of the other workers and had a wide variety of dishes.That night we hosted a barbecue with two other American couples: Richard and Esther from LA, and Adam and Jess from Ohio. Josh grilled burgers and Richard brought delicious kabobs, and Jessica made deviled eggs and jello cake. We played some Cranium (the girls beat the boys). After everyone left we watched The Island. Then we stayed up too late and got delirious, so we laughed way too hard at everything anyone said. It was mucho fun.

Monday, June 23, 2008
Joshua got up early again and ran six miles. When he got back we skyped with Marv (Joshua and Beth’s dad) and his family. A little rain was falling in both places (here and St. Louis). After skyping we had more granola goodness for breakfast. We hung out around the house all morning and then ate boiled jiaozi for lunch (also incredible, though not quite as tasty as the fried kind – surprise, surprise). That afternoon we went to Guiyang (gway-yong), the large city near Joshica’s home. We went to a “minority store” – where they sell all sorts of goodies made by people in the minority groups further into the rural areas – and got many souvenirs. We had to visit the Guiyang Wal-Mart, which wasn’t much different from our own (except that it was underground – all the best things in China are ;) ;) ). We took a stroll through the meat market in search of dog; we saw only parts (like rear) but no whole dogs. We did see whole geese cooked and hanging, awaiting purchase, as well as brain, pig snouts, a cow face, and all sorts of other things. Went to dinner with Jake and Monica (and Creed and Chloe), another family working in the area, at the campus restaurant. We came home, Skyped with Becky (Joshua and Beth’s mom) for a bit, and played UNO. I love UNO.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008
We had plans to get up early and head to a rockin’ waterfall. Joshica’s alarm was set to PM so we delayed the plan a bit, but we still made it! There were three beautiful locations as part of our three-park ticket. The first was a small but impressive waterfall called Douputang. The second was a huge waterfall – the highest in China, taller (though much narrower) than Niagara Falls – called Huangguoshu (which means “yellow fruit tree”). On the way to this waterfall, Beth almost got bit by a snake, but she masterfully eluded its grasp (and ended up in a thornbush instead – ouch!). The waterfall itself truly was majestic, and we all got soaked on our way up to, behind, and away from it. Then we went and hiked through and around the Tianxing Bridge area. We cleaned up a bit and then ate lots of meat, vegetable, and bread kabobs at an outdoor grill. Then we came home and played UNO. What a game.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Jessica made yummy blueberry and banana muffins for breakfast. We took it easy for a while and then headed to lunch at a different Muslim restaurant. Josh and Beth had rice dishes and I had noodles. I actually noticed myself getting just a little better at using chopsticks (the rest of them are already pros). Then we went into Guiyang and spent a few hours at Quianling (chien-ling) Park, home to hundreds of monkeys. We took cable cars up the mountain and hiked for a while without any monkey sightings. A little worried that we might not see any, we headed down a different route and saw dozens of them! One of them tried to jump at me and I ran away as quickly as I could. It didn’t eat me. They were running all over, sometimes very close to us; our favorites were the little baby monkeys hanging on to their mothers for dear life (or so it seemed). After that we toured Guiyang on top of a special tour bus. For dinner we ate at Pizza Fun, one of Joshua’s favorite places. We tried all sorts of interesting pizzas, including one kind that actually moves (we called it “living pizza”). We shopped around Guiyang for a bit looking for tennis shoes for me, but no one had large enough sizes. We came home, played Five Crowns, and went to bed.

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Asian Vacation Travel Log (pt 3)

2008-06-25T04:25:59Z

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
We got up very early Tuesday and went with Nick to Hiroshima, one of the places we (the USA) dropped an atomic bomb in 1945. They have a very moving museum/memorial there. It was really a strange experience filled with all kinds of emotion. The highlight for Beth was when a young Japanese girl approached her to “interview” her as part of a class assignment. One of the questions Beth had to answer was, “What do you think about the atomic bomb?” Ouch. For me the most interesting thing was learning some of the “reasons” why we did it. Honestly, one of them seems to have been that we just wanted to see what would happen – it was a sort of test of how powerful these things were. That is in no way justifiable, I don’t care who you are. A second reason had to do with post-war power relations. We knew that if the war ended before the Soviets entered, we would have more power after it was all over. But the Soviets had recently declared war on Japan, which put us on guard. So we dropped the bomb and ended the war before the Soviets had a chance to enter, thus securing our place as the superest superpower in the world. The whole experience was very humbling and reinforced my own convictions that we as the church must not be afraid to speak out against corporate, political, national evils. What we (the USA) did was flat wrong, and we (the church in America) should be the first to denounce it. Okay, enough soapboxing. That night we hung out at the Parson’s with the whole team and said our goodbyes to most of them.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Because of our long Tuesday, we slept in a little bit on Wednesday. We eventually woke up and played with Colette and Owen for a bit; then they had to say goodbye and go to school, which was a very sad time for Colette especially. Then while Nick and I watched the first half of the last NBA Finals game (the Lakers ended up losing pathetically), Beth went with Jay and Caitlin to buy lots of interesting lunch items. We got on the Tokyo-bound train with them and ate these lunch items, most of which were very good! We hopped on another train that took us to Tokyo. After checking in to the hotel, we toured some parts of Tokyo – the largest city in the history of the world! First we walked around Shinjuku, the area where our hotel was, and the home of the busiest train station in the history of the world. We went up to the top of a government building and looked out over Tokyo. The viewing room had windows all around and we saw what looked like downtown in every direction as far as we could see. We also toured a Japanese garden with a Shinto shrine. Then we ate at a tempura restaurant and headed to an area called Shibuya, home to the busiest intersection in the history of the world. (Noticing a pattern?) Literally hundreds of people cross this intersection in multiple directions every two minutes! The whole thing looks a lot like Times Square in New York, and there is a Starbucks that sits right on the corner. We sat there enjoying the craziness for a while, and then we decided to participate! We took turns as couples crossing the street, and the other couple took pictures from Starbucks. Some of them turned out pretty good! We left Shibuya for Harajuku, a place where we were promised to see some of the craziest looking people in (the history of) the world. It’s apparently sort of like Hollywood Blvd, where people dress up in costumes – like Spongebob, Rambo, Hellraiser, etc – but weirder. We were sort of late and it was the middle of the week, so we didn’t see a whole lot of weird people, but it was a lot of fun. Jay and Caitlin helped us get back to Shinjuku and then we said goodbye and headed to bed.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
We woke up early Thursday and headed for the train station. On the way we stopped at McDonald’s to get some breakfast. (Keep in mind we were in a place where no one speaks English, and we no longer had our friends to help!) Then we ordered our tickets for the train (again, with no help), ran through the train station in somewhat of a blur, and made it to the train with a few minutes to spare. The trip from Tokyo to the Tokyo-Narita Airport is pretty long, because the landowners in Tokyo wouldn’t allow the airport to be built in the actual city. We got to the gate about two hours early, so we had lots of time to sit and say goodbye to Japan. Then we took a four-hour flight to Beijing, during which we watched the movie Vantage Point. We made it through customs with no problems, but after that we couldn’t really figure anything out. It was a bit frustrating, but eventually we got some money and ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC is huge in China). We waited about three hours in Beijing, another hour in the plane on the runway, and then finally took off on a three-hour flight to Guiyang (pronounced gway-yong), where Joshua and Jessica live. They met us at the airport and we took a “taxi” to their apartment at Guizhou (gway-jo) University. Immediately we noticed big differences between Japan and China (at least the parts we had seen). For one thing, Japan is immaculate; China not so much. And Japan is much more urban, which in practical terms meant our ride in the minivan-taxi was much bumpier than the Japanese bullet trains. We settled in, marveled at how skinny Joshua and Jessica are, chatted for a bit, I had a Chinese-style PB&J, and we headed to bed. (By the way, Chinese-style PB&J is exactly like American-style PB&J, except you eat it in China.)

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Asian Vacation Travel Log (pt 2)

2008-06-23T02:57:17Z

Saturday, June 14, 2008
Had breakfast with Andy (Rodriguez) at the Ackerman’s. Beth and I both ate frosted flakes. Then we made our way to a barbecue planned by Andy and Tony for the team and about a dozen of their Japanese friends (and friends of friends). The boys met a Japanese girl named Reyna on Skype who speaks fairly good English; she introduced them to a lot of 20-somethings, including those at this barbecue. (Their friends had thrown a Japanese barbecue for our boys, so the guys decided to return the favor, but most of them brought back-up Japanese food just in case!) We played a yard game that Jay (Greer) made called “Stitch” (that’s what I call it anyway); it’s sort of an adult version of beanbag toss, but it’s a lot more fun than “adult version of beanbag toss” sounds. Beth and I won every game we played together. Tony (Coulombe) grilled burgers and hot dogs, and it was very funny to watch the Japanese guys learning to say the word “hahm-bah-gah” with r’s instead of h’s! (They don’t have an “r” sound, so it just ended up a more nasally form of the h’s.) The Japanese guys also sung a few American-ish guitar-led melodies over and over. We headed home from the barbecue and later that evening ate Mos Burgers, which is basically a Japanese version of the chili-cheeseburger. (Yes, on our second full day in Japan we had burgers, hot dogs, and frosted flakes!) After dinner most of the team came over to the Ackerman’s, where we hung out until way too late. Beth and I spent most of the evening fading in and out – we could blame it on jet lag, but truthfully we just don’t stay up that late.

Sunday, June 15, 2008
On Sunday most of the team went into Nagoya for language teacher training. Erin made us breakfast sandwiches. Then we spent the morning at the local mall with Erin and Brayden (Mike and Erin’s son). Beth bought a rockin’ purse that we had to put together ourselves. I got to hold Brayden a bunch, which was a lot of fun. We saw many t-shirts with English writing that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. We’ll post a picture of one of the shirts on our Picasa site when we get back. After the mall, Beth went to (an extended) lunch with Erin at the Taio No Cafe, and I went to lunch with Jay at Pastel. We both had a great time catching up with our friends. After lunch Mike and I went to McDonald’s so he could eat lunch, and we had some good conversation. That evening Beth and I went to Luke and Kacie (and Sterling) Chase’s apartment for dinner. Kacie made us tacos that were really tasty! We hung out there and talked until way too late, but it was worth every minute!

Monday, June 16, 2008
Beth and I spent all of Monday apart so I’ll tell the stories separately. Beth had a leisurely morning and then went to lunch with Kacie and Rachel at the Indian restaurant. She was in a small group with both of them way back in the day, so it was a great chance for them to re-connect on a deep level. Then they went grocery shopping so that Beth could participate in one of their regular routines. After that she went to the kids’ school and Colette (Parsons) gave her the full tour. That morning I went over to Nick’s and watched another NBA Finals game. The Lakers won, but it wasn’t pretty. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed over to the gym for some more basketball of our own. It was just the two of us for a while, which was exhausting because Nick is considerably bigger than me! After we wore ourselves out playing one-on-one, Luke and our Belgian friend Ben showed up and we a while longer. That evening Beth and I moved from the Ackerman’s to Nick and Rachel Parson’s, where we lived for the rest of our time there. We played with their very fun kids, and Nick made us all “resurrection eggs” – an updated version of the omelet that’s sure to become a worldwide sensation very soon. I especially enjoy watching Colette because she looks exactly like Nick and acts exactly like Rachel! After the kids went to bed, Nick and I watched some videos on Youtube and the ladies had more time to talk and catch up – or as Rachel put it, “we talked, we laughed, we cried – it was so much fun.”

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Asian Vacation Travel Log (pt 1)

2008-06-22T07:14:21Z

Sorry we haven't been updating you on our trip. We've been working on a daily travel log, so we'll post it bit by bit. Enjoy.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Woke up at 3:45 am, flew from LAX to Seattle and left Seattle for Tokyo-Narita around noon. I spent most of our ten-hour flight reading with a little sleeping here and there; Beth watched a few movies and read some too (but didn't sleep at all). By the time we arrived, it was no longer June 11.

Thursday, June 12, 2008
Arrived in Tokyo around 3pm, made it through customs with no bumps, and met up with Mike (Ackerman). Hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and headed for Nagoya. The trip lasted a good three hours I’d say, and we spent the whole time talking with Mike about all sorts of things. Hopped on a smaller train to Okazaki where the team lives. Got in late that night to Mike and Erin’s house, where the whole team was waiting to greet us. Got hugs, gave gifts, ate some food (Erin made us a tasty rice breakfast dish with egg and meat called “gudon”), and headed to bed. Worried about jet lag keeping us up.

Friday, June 13, 2008
Slept pretty consistently that night (especially Beth). They told us we’d wake up early and not be able to go back to sleep, but thankfully we didn’t have that problem! We had breakfast with the Ackermans, and then I went to Nick’s to watch the NBA Finals game. The Lakers lost. Beth spent most of the morning with Erin. After the game, I grabbed some lunch at Mike’s and then we split guys and girls for the afternoon. The ladies met up at their language school, where Beth tried her hand at some very authentic Japanese food, and she gagged! (That’s saying a lot, too, because Beth is pretty tough when it comes to foreign food! We later found out that most of the team won’t even eat this stuff.) Then the girls went to lunch and had “cak-ee set-os” (cake sets) at a restaurant called Pastel. I overcame jet lag by playing basketball with some of the guys from the team (and a Belgian guy named Ben) in a really hot, muggy, non-ventilated gym. We spent the evening with the Ackermans, who took us to Nagoya. Nagoya is a large city near Okazaki, and I’m pretty sure it’s bigger than both New York and LA (though it’s like a fourth the size of Tokyo). We walked around the city a bit and had tasty ramen dishes (and potstickers) from a restaurant where you order your food from something that looks like a vending machine. (You don’t get the actual food from the machine; you get a receipt with your order, hand it to the cooks, and then they cook and serve it.) After dinner we headed home and went to bed.

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Ministry Promises

2008-06-05T20:25:36Z

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the day I heard and accepted God's call to vocational ministry. Years later I was ordained at Real Life Church, where I currently serve, and as part of the ordination ceremony I offered promises to those present about what I considered myself called to be and do. I think this is a good occasion to offer those promises to the wider community of whoever it is that reads my blog. I will offer them exactly as I wrote them at the time.

As a minister of the Gospel,

I promise first and foremost to die to self and seek the glory of God in all that I think, say and do, giving no regard for my own status or recognition, embodying the words of Jesus himself: “Not to be served, but to serve.”

I promise to never stop meditating on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, so that my living and teaching of the Christian life will be based on who he actually was and is.

I promise to pursue a life of character, modeling Jesus’ intimacy with and obedience to God, seeking to embody the virtues of faith and hope, love and joy, peace and gentleness, patience and generosity, humility and discipline.

I promise to regularly engage in practices that will create space for the Holy Spirit to work in my life so that I might grow as a holy and faithful man and minister of the gospel.

I promise to always critique my own assumptions—theological, philosophical, and pastoral—so that my care for individuals and communities will be based as closely as possible on truth.

I promise to always tell the truth with courage and grace, neither ignoring truth’s difficult demands nor overlooking its promise of hopefulness for the world and the people in it.

I promise to labor for justice and peace, caring for and defending those who cannot care for or defend themselves, always modeling the nonviolent but powerful love that was displayed in Jesus’ death on the cross.

I promise to imitate the attitude of the Apostle Paul, considering my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying, in both word and deed, to the good news that God has acted to save and transform the world.

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RLC Q&A Wrap-up

2008-06-04T16:44:49Z

This is the eighth and final post in a series in which I've tried to offer simple answers to questions often asked in our church. It's really more of a table of contents rather than an actual post, I guess. Here are links to the questions I've dealt with:

How do we know God exists? (pt 1)

How do we know God exists? (pt 2)

Why does God allow pain and suffering?

If Jesus is the only way to Heaven, what about people from other religions? (1)

If Jesus is the only way to Heaven, what about people from other religions? (2)

How can we trust the Bible? (pt 1)

How can we trust the Bible? (pt 2)

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RLC Q&A – How can we trust the Bible? (pt 2)

2008-06-03T19:27:28Z

(This is the seventh of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church, and the second in which I deal with this particular question.)

Science and history have never disproved the central claims of Scripture. I do not mean by this that every statement the Bible makes about ‘history’ or ‘science’ is absolutely accurate in every way. I mean that in many cases they were never intended to be. The Bible is not primarily about history, and not about science at all. It is about God, and how God is moving through history. Science doesn’t really have a say one way or another about the Bible’s credibility. Science and Scripture are talking about the world from very different angles; one could argue that these angles call one another into question, but that is another question altogether, and involves a faith decision one way or the other (see above on the existence of God). This may be frustrating for us because we are socially conditioned to believe that something must be scientific to be true, but this simply isn’t the case (as much of our lives prove quite clearly; see above on the existence of God). As for history, of course the Bible’s retelling has been edited and stylized. They were not primarily concerned with recounting facts, but with telling a story that shapes a community of faith by rendering the truth of/about God. The formal discipline of history (as we think of it) is a relatively new phenomenon and would have been entirely uninteresting to the writers of Scripture. Most importantly, once again, the resurrection of Jesus stands up to the toughest historical scrutiny, and its dependability validates the rest of the story of which it is part (though certainly critiquing much of the earlier story).

I would also stress that we have to trust in something, whether an ancient book or the contemporary mindset/mood of ‘the times’ in which we live. Many people in our world distrust the Bible, choosing instead to figure the truth out for themselves. What they don’t seem to realize is that they have been socially conditioned to make this decision – shun tradition and follow your intuition. In other words, someone (or rather some tradition) has told them to think like this, which means that this someone or tradition is their authority. The idea that they are free to think for themselves is a myth. And like all myths, it is one established by people in power to keep us out of their way. If everyone is concerned with their own private life and private spirituality and personal choices, the powers that be can continue to do their thing without any interference from something so annoying as an ancient tradition which exposes their claims as idolatrous and their pretension as empty arrogance. Anyhow, back to the point: even if you choose to distrust the Bible, you’re trusting some authoritative tradition. You’re believing in something. I just happen to think this is the most reliable - that is, truthful - tradition.

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Enemy-love in action

2008-06-02T20:49:35Z

My friend Tyler Stewart sent me this story a while back, but I hadn't seen it until now. And it's too good not to post:
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Julio Diaz, a 31-year-old Bronx social worker, just wanted to do what he did every night on the way home from work: grab a quick bite to eat at his favorite diner. Only one thing stood in his way from doing just that—a mugger. When Diaz stepped off the train and onto the subway platform, a teenager ran up to him, pulled out a knife, and demanded Diaz hand over his wallet. Realizing it wasn't worth a fight, Diaz fished the wallet out of his pocket and gave it to the boy. Much to the mugger's surprise, Diaz decided to go the extra mile. As the teen ran away, Diaz called out, "If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The boy stopped in his tracks, shocked. Diaz explained that it was quite clear the teen needed money, so he told him to keep the wallet, take the coat, and if he wanted, grab a bite to eat with Diaz. The boy was too shocked to say no.

As the two ate dinner at Diaz's favorite diner, the teen marveled over how many dishwashers and waitresses offered Diaz a wave or a friendly word. He figured Diaz owned the place. When the boy shared his observation, Diaz smiled and said, "Haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"

"Yeah," the teen replied, "but I didn't think people actually behaved that way."

The two continued to talk about life and other matters. When the bill finally came, Diaz told the boy that he needed his wallet to pay. The boy handed it back over without thinking twice. Diaz paid for the meal and offered the teen $20. He also asked that his would-be mugger surrender the knife—which he did.

When Diaz told his mother about the encounter, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you would give them your watch."

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Thoughts from Brother Bonhoeffer and Captain Stan

2008-06-02T20:00:26Z

These quotes aren't necessarily related, except for the fact that I read them on the same day. I just thought they were worth re-producing.

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
Lately I have been toying with the idea that God always calls us to an undefined future. I've been journaling about it and I might blog it out sometime. Anyhow, this is the context for why Bonhoeffer's words caught my attention. Commenting on Jesus' call of Levi in Mark 2, he writes: "What is said about the content of discipleship? Follow me, walk behind me! That is all. Going after him is something without specific content."

Later on he writes, "The disciple is thrown out of the relative security of life into complete insecurity (which in truth is absolute security and protection in community with Jesus); out of the foreseeable and calculable realm (which in truth is unreliable) into the completely unforeseeable, coincidental realm (which in truth is the only necessary and reliable one); out of the realm of limited possibilities (which in truth is that of unlimited possibilities) into the realm of unlimited possibilities (which in truth is the only liberating reality." Wordy, perhaps, but beautiful nonetheless.

From Stanley Hauerwas:
"One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend."

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RLC Q&A – How can we trust the Bible? (pt 1)

2008-06-02T15:59:54Z

(This is the sixth of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church.)

Scripture's story centers on an historical event that stands up to critical scrutiny: Jesus’ resurrection. In discussing the trustworthiness of the Bible, I never start with the Bible, but with Jesus, and particularly Jesus’ resurrection. I believe with very good reasons that Jesus rose from the dead. I believe that this is the most historically likely way to explain the facts: Jesus was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate; his tomb was later found empty (otherwise the movement would never have gotten off the ground); the disciples believed Jesus appeared to them in a new physical body (they wouldn’t even have thought to make up the story, since they never expected Jesus to be resurrected alone within history, and it is very unlikely that they would have died for something they knew was a lie); the Christian movement was founded and took off, centrally based on this event. There have been many attempts to account for this evidence, but the only historically tenable conclusion is that something did, in fact, happen on Easter morning, and that this something was Jesus being resurrected from the dead. And this validates the rest of the story; Jesus’ resurrection proves that Jesus was God’s Messiah, and thus the world’s true Lord, which affirms the central lines of Old Testament hopes and promises. Jesus is likewise validated as the clearest revelation of Israel’s Creator God.

Its description of the world tells the truth about our world. To put it differently, it’s story fits. It describes the world truly. This is a huge point, so let me just offer an example or two. Take the story of Adam and Eve. When we free this story from questions like, ‘How did the serpent talk?’ or ‘Did Adam and Eve have belly-buttons?’ or ‘Why can’t we find the garden of Eden?’, we see that it accurately describes the human situation. We have all – as individuals and societies – listened to the voices in our world and in our heads, and chosen not to trust that God loves us and is out to do us good. We have all taken our destiny into our own hands, rejecting whatever it is we know of God’s command. We know that something is wrong with the world, and that it manifests itself in relational strife, toil, labor, and frustration from the ground (famine, drought, etc), and pain in childbearing. This story describes our world truly. There are many more ways this is true, both in general and of specific stories.
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RLC Q&A – If Jesus is the only way to Heaven, what about people from other religions? (pt 2)

2008-05-30T17:31:02Z

(This is the fifth of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church, and the second in which I tackle this particular question.)

If God plans to “save” people who aren’t explicitly identified as Christians, he hasn’t told us. All we know is how God has purposed to bring salvation to the world – through Jesus – so until God tells us otherwise we’re going to focus on that. This brings up two other points:

1. God hasn’t told us to spend a lot of time speculating what he might do with others. (In the Bible, this is one of God’s people’s favorite ways of avoiding looking at our own problems.) And he hasn’t told us to determine with certainty who will go where and experience what when God returns to make things right.

2. Consider that God might sometimes intentionally not tell us things for our own good. You’ve probably heard of the age of accountability – the idea that children are not held responsible before God for their actions until they reach a certain point in maturity. Well, Scripture never tells us specifically when that is. But if you think about it, that’s probably a good thing. If God had said, “All children are safe from judgment until they reach the age of 10” (or whatever age), then what would happen? You’d have some crazy person going around killing all the children under a certain age in places where the message of Christianity was not present or allowed. Do you get my point? If we knew that there was some “other way” for people to be saved – not other than Jesus, but another way of being saved through Jesus – then lots of (or lots more) people would never worry about telling people the truth about Jesus. (I owe this point to my friend Nick Parsons!)

So does God save people apart from explicit faith in Jesus? We don’t know. If he does, he hasn’t told us about it, and for that we are grateful. Within this, we hold out the possibility that God may accept into “heaven” persons not explicitly identified as “Christians” (such as Ghandi or someone who never heard about Jesus). We are not saying that we’re sure this is the case; that would take us beyond the bounds of what we think God has revealed. But we are affirming that we don’t think it would contradict the character and ways of God revealed in Scripture’s witness to Jesus Christ. So does God save people apart from explicit faith in Jesus? We don’t know, but we’re not willing to say we know for sure that he doesn’t. And more importantly, we believe that God has come to us in Jesus, offering salvation in both the next life and this one. Our task is to faithfully respond to what we believe God has revealed.
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RLC Q&A – If Jesus is the only way to Heaven, what about people from other religions? (pt 1)

2008-05-29T15:43:05Z

(This is the fourth of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church.)

There is a huge problem with this question, which generally assumes that the thing God is concerned about is individual persons getting to heaven when they die. But God’s goal is not to save individuals out of the world to live with him in heaven, but to redeem – and eventually re-create – the world, including the people in it. Moreover, the Bible does not teach that we will live together with God in heaven forever, but that God will come from heaven and dwell with us on a freshly created and fully healed “new earth.” Nevertheless, the question still remains as to who will “be there,” so to speak, wherever “there” is and whatever it will be like. So we continue. (For the most part, I will use the language of “saved” and “heaven” in the way they’re typically used, but keep in mind that I find this usage problematic.) I will offer my thoughts on this topic in two posts.

God can be trusted to do the right thing. It’s his call, and I’m very glad about that. Whatever God does will be right, and it will not violate his love, his grace, or his holiness.

If anyone will be in heaven, it will be because of Jesus. No one can be “good enough.” The only reason any of us can be “saved” – that is, liberated from the powers of sin and death (in the next life and/or this one) – is because Jesus both averted God’s wrath and broke the stranglehold of sin/Satan over humanity. Had Jesus not done what he did, none of us would be saved. So there is no way anyone can be saved apart from Jesus.

We want God to save as many people as possible! We never rejoice at the prospect of anyone being shut out of God’s future. If we get to heaven and out that God’s mercy and grace were wider than we imagined, we will certainly celebrate. We don’t use God as a way to make ourselves feel better than other people.
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RLC Q&A – Why does God allow pain and suffering?

2008-05-27T15:31:30Z

(This is the third of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church.)

(This question is obviously much more than merely an intellectual problem. The words 'suffering' and 'pain' hardly grasp the realities they speak of. So I offer the following thoughts as woefully inadequate reflections on a much deeper problem.)

To put it in simple terms we can understand, when God created the world he had two options: (1) Create a world where creatures did not have an opportunity to rebel against him. If he chose this option, then the world might be tragedy-less, but human beings would be more like robots than actual people. Most importantly, love would not have been a real possibility in the relationship between God and humanity, and between humans and one another. (2) Create a world where creatures did have an opportunity to rebel against him. In choosing this option, he opened the door to the possibility of evil, suffering, and death entering his world, but he also kept open the door of love and authentic relationship.

So either you have a world of love with suffering, or a world with neither suffering nor love. And the whole purpose of creation was for our Triune God to share Divine Love, to invite other creatures into this dynamic interplay of life and love. Basically, it goes against God’s nature to avoid love, even though love is always inherently risky.

Another important biblical teaching is that there are beings in this world – evil spirits, if you want to call them something – that work against God’s purposes by leading humankind into personal and corporate rebellion. One of the main purposes of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was to defeat these powers of evil that enslave human beings and cause both 'natural' evils (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc) and personal evils (murder, pollution).

This brings us to what the Bible considers to be the more crucial question: What is God doing to overcome the problem created by sin and death entering the world (that is, evil and suffering)? From the very beginning, God has been working to overcome the sin problem begun in Adam. He has done this by calling together a community of people committed to worshiping, obeying, and trusting him alone. Through this community God seeks to show the world what life is like when God is honored as God, draw all people back into relationship with him, and to put the world back together again. We believe Jesus stands at the center of this plan as God taking upon Godself the world’s evil and overcoming it. Once gain, it is now through the church that God seeks to continue this mission. So in a very real way, we are God’s answer to the problem of evil and suffering.
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RLC Q&A - How do we know God exists? (pt 2)

2008-05-22T15:43:38Z

(This is the second of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church.)

Yesterday I argued that no one – neither believers nor atheists – can be absolutely certain about God’s existence. Yet we (Christians) believe that God is here and that he is not silent. Here are a few reasons why:

Design – When we consider the brilliant and complex design of our world, we believe it makes most sense to believe in an intelligent designer. (FYI, this is different from the specific position in modern scientific debates called “Intelligent Design”.)

First cause / Final explanation – If you continually ask the question Why? or How? of our world, eventually you must answer either ‘God’ or ‘That’s just the way things are.’ We think it probable that God is the first cause, rather than mere chance.

Moral conviction – While it is certainly true that morality differs among different cultures, there is always some sort of moral expectations among human beings. Something is seen as right (or commendable) and something is seen as wrong (or punishable). We think that ‘moral law’ implies a ‘moral lawgiver’ (even if we don’t think those terms best describe God or what God asks of us).

Spirituality – Throughout history, the majority of human persons and societies have sought some form of spiritual or transcendent experience. Either 99% of human beings are stupid and/or deceived (and/or not 'scientific' enough to believe that science can and must explain everything), or there is some reality beyond us that calls out to us.

Beauty and goodness – Much is made of the problem of evil and suffering, but we think that the opposite question is equally powerful and problematic for those who deny God’s existence: Why is there so much beauty and goodness in the world? How do you explain the way we feel when we stand on top of a mountain, or what we experience in authentic friendship or romance, or when people selflessly sacrifice on others’ behalf? Of course there are many possible explanations, but once again, we think the one with God in it seems most likely.

Jesus’ resurrection – Most importantly, we believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, and this would not be possible if God didn’t exist. God raised Jesus from the dead, which validates this story about God as the true story about God. The story of Jesus’ resurrection is unexplainable apart from the reality of God. (I realize there are many who deny the resurrection and thus consider this point null and void, but I simply disagree. If anyone wants to know why feel free to ask, and I'll try to eventually present a case (though it might be a while).)

We should note that the Bible never tries to prove God’s existence to us. The Bible simply assumes we’ll believe in some form or idea of god or gods, and it tells us a story of the One it claims to be the True God. It ignores the question, ‘Is there a God?’ in favor of the question, ‘What is God really like?’ The difference between our world and theirs is that we can believe in, for instance, the value and authority of democracy or individual autonomy (freedom), and yet separate these beliefs from any talk of 'God.' Biblically, these things simply are our gods, and we are all idolaters. In other words, from a biblical perspective, idolatry is much more interesting than atheism, because atheism is simply a disguised form of idolatry (since, once again, all people give allegiance to something, even if only themselves or their own human reason / opinions).
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RLC Q&A – How do we know God exists? (pt 1)

2008-05-21T18:53:29Z

(This is the first of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church.)

We'll start with a question that seems foundational to many people: How do we know God exists? I'll offer my thoughts in two entries.

First we have to acknowledge that we don’t know for sure that God exists, any more than we know for sure that he doesn’t. Absolute certainty about whether God exists or not is impossible.

Some people might say God doesn’t exist because God’s existence can’t be proven “scientifically.” But if anything like what we mean by the word “God” does exist, there is no way science could answer the question one way or another. Others might say that God has to exist because we’ve experienced him; but there is no way to know for sure that our experience matches the reality we’re claiming is behind it.

It is impossible for us to find a place or perspective from which we can look down and determine God's existence either way. This would only be possible if God were below us, which would make him something other than God.

Instead of certainty, we are dealing with degrees of probability. Those who affirm and deny God’s existence are looking at the world, gathering information, and making an educated evaluation – a guess really – about the best explanation for what they see. Some think the world is best explained by the existence of a God. Others think the opposite. But neither position is inherently more logical, and both involve faith – a risky commitment we each have to make given our limited knowledge and perspective.

Within this, there are many reasons I think it more likely that God exists than that he doesn’t. I will post them tomorrow.
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Answers for Australia

2008-05-20T04:47:37Z

A while back I posted some of my assumptions about the whole issue of world religions (here), and someone from Melbourne commented rather critically. To put it simply, he took me to task for claiming that God's plan to save the world centers on Jesus (that Jesus is the "only way," so to speak). I decided to answer his concerns because while perhaps stated uniquely, they are rather common objections. His comments are in italics, and my responses follow. Feel free to agree with either of us (or both) as you see fit. Enjoy.
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Hi, I’m from Melbourne Australia.
Hello. Welcome to my blog. I’m glad you commented, and I hope you’ll come back.

Most of what you have written above is uninformed psycho-babble (Babel) with no basis in fact or Truth or Reality with a capital T & R.
I’m eager to see why you think this is the case (the psycho-babble part), especially considering that my comments don’t have to do with what that phrase generally refers to. As for basing things in Truth and Reality, I’m eager to see why you think you have special access to these things in their “capital T & R” forms, and why you think your foundations are more secure than mine.

We live in a time when all the Sacred Scriptures (plus every aspect of their cultural expressions) of the entire Great Tradition are freely available to anyone with an internet connection. Have you done a comprehensive study of any of them?
We certainly do live in such time, and in many ways I’m glad for that. It helps us all be faithful to our traditions to have to rethink them in light of others. (And we do all have traditions, yourself included! Yours just happens to be the tradition of the Enlightenment project / modernity, which, while theoretically based on the idea that we can escape our traditions, actually just becomes one more tradition, or one more ‘social construction of reality’, if you will.) As for your question, this of course depends on what you mean by comprehensive. Of course I haven’t read all of everything; have you? In fact, what I was doing with this entry (and the second one that I never posted) was admitting that I cannot come to these sacred writings with a completely blank slate. I confess that I come from somewhere, with convictions and assumptions that have been shaped by many factors. Out of love and respect for these traditions, and a sincere desire for honesty, I wanted to admit my assumptions. My hope is that I will be able to reevaluate them appropriately in the light of what I find in these other faiths.

If not, you are just displaying your own unexamined inherited dim-witted religious provincialism!
I certainly hope not. They aren’t unexamined, whatever else they may be. I could say the same thing about your comments, with the added fact that you are being mean. ☺ (No worries though! I don’t take any of it personally.)

And why do you presume that the rantings (and DELUSIONS) of someone in a small tribalistic cult of 2000 years ago is binding on the totality of Humankind?
And why do you presume to know what is and isn’t delusional? Honestly, why are your rantings not delusional and/or tribalistic – because you live in a later age than Jesus? And you yourself are espousing a position that you apparently consider ‘binding on the totality of humankind’, or at least on me. Why do you presume that the practical outworkings of Enlightenment rationality – what we might call the pontifications of some white Western European intellectual elitists – are binding on me (or anyone else)? I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but that there is really no substantial difference between our positions qua positions. Each of us is committed to a tradition that may or may not be true, and neither of us has a neutral vantage point from which to view all other traditions from the outside. We can evaluate other traditions, to be sure, but only from the inside of our traditions. Both your tradition (which I am broadly identifying as “enlightenment”) and my tradition (“Christianity”) have wrongly assumed neutrality, and both need to repent for that.

If the church hadn’t been co-opted by the Imperial Roman State it probably would have dis-appeared into the dustbin of history. And don’t tell that that was part of "god's plan"
First of all, I won’t tell you that this was God’s plan. Just the opposite in fact! It was a rejection of what Jesus called for, if you ask me. Secondly, thanks in part to our rootedness in sacred scriptures that testify to Jesus (oftentimes against his people), this co-option of which you speak wasn’t the last word. There have always been minority Christian witnesses who avoided imperial co-option, perhaps most notably in the Radical Reformation of the 15th and 16th centuries. And as for your assertion that the church would have disappeared, there is simply no way for you to know this (which I presume is why you said ‘probably’). Sorry, but you are speaking about that which you (and everyone else, myself included) must admit ignorance. We don’t know what would have happened to the church if history had happened differently.

A "holy" Empire being the ultimate oxymoron!
Perhaps not the ultimate oxymoron, but an oxymoron nonetheless!

What has the tribalistic cultic "god" of Israel got to do with a totally inter-connected multi-cultural world in 2008?
I’m sorry, but you simply don’t know as much about Israel’s God as you think. The whole story of Scriptural is about a non-tribalistic creator God calling into being a people who don’t try to domesticate this God. Of course his people failed time and again, and of course we have continued to do so since Scripture’s story was closed. Instead of elaborating, I think I’d rather counter with a question. Why do you assume that the god of Israel could have nothing with a totally inter-connected multi-cultural world in 2008? I’m not even (yet) arguing that you’re wrong; I’m just asking you to defend your assumptions.

What does "god's plan" have anything to do with 300,000 deaths in a Tsunami, or an earthquake in China, a cyclone in Burma, or the wholesale slaughter of over 100 million human beings in World Wars I & II brought to one and all by the Christian West.
These would be particularly horrific manifestations of the “the disastrous effects of sin” that I mentioned under my second assumption in the original post. God’s plan is precisely to overcome such evil and suffering. How would you explain these evils?

World wars which effectively destroyed global civilization.
That’s just not true. We’ve never had a more globalized civilization than we do now. I’m not offering a value judgment one way or another, but what you are saying just isn’t true.

Or the fact that thousands of children die every day of mal-nutrition and starvation. Or that world-wide ONE BILLION people now live in slums. And their numbers are increasing every day. Check out Planet of Slums by Miuke Davis.
More great examples of the problem God has been working to overcome for quite a long time, a mission into which I consider both of us invited.

Or the fact that "christian" America, supposedly the most "religious" country on the planet is easily the world's largest maker, owner, seller, and USER of weapons of all kinds, including WMD'S.
Couldn’t agree more with your critique, and this is one of my hardest tasks as a pastor – to convince people that “Christian America” is a harmful and totally untrue myth that powerful people have used to harness social control (though I also must add that many have done so sincerely and with much better motives than I just assigned to them). So while I think your points are important and true, they don’t call into question anything I wrote in the original post.

Or the fact that USA "culture" is totally dominated by the "values" of the military-industrial-"entertainment" complex. Check out a new book titled The Complex by Nick Turse. The "culture" of death quite literally rules in the USA.
I concur. And I very much appreciate the book recommendation. I will read it as soon as I can. Here are some others that you might find interesting from my perspective: The Myth of A Christian Nation by Greg Boyd; The Gospel According to America by David Dark; Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism by Robert Jewett and John Lawrence; Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne; An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land by William Stringfellow. (I understand if you don’t want to read them, but you might find them interesting.)

Seems like a rather psychotic "plan" if you ask me.
I’m sorry you feel that way. Though I do understand some of your very legitimate critiques of Christians, perhaps particularly here in America. And if I have been rude or inconsiderate in this post, I apologize. If you’d like to engage me further, you are certainly welcome to do so!

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RLC Q&A Weekend

2008-05-18T23:03:19Z

So I’m not officially back as a regular blogger – I’ve needed a break to reflect on some important upcoming milestones in my life, and I’m not done taking this break yet – but I have some material I put together for another venue that I think will make for decent blogging. At Real Life (the church where I am a pastor), we do an annual “Q&A Sunday,” where some of the pastors and laypeople host a Q&A session with the people in our church. Some questions are planned ahead of time, but about half are based on questions asked from the audience during our time together. We’re doing this in a few weeks, and my boss asked me to offer some thoughts on a few questions that always come up. So I did. And as I did, I thought to myself, “I should blog this stuff.” So here I am, blogging this stuff. The answers are mid-length – brief when compared with all that needs to be said, and long when compared to what we have time to explain on Sunday – so I think they provide a decent introduction into how I approach the issues. Here are the questions (his wording, not mine):

How do we know God exists?
Why does God allow pain and suffering?
If Jesus is the only way to Heaven, what about people from other religions?
What is our church’s view on homosexuality?
How can we trust the Bible?

Starting tomorrow (if I have computer access; otherwise starting Wednesday) I will post my reflections on these questions every two or three days. I hope you enjoy thinking about these things, and as always I welcome any and all feedback.
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PS I received some pretty heated comments from someone in Melbourne a few posts ago. I will gladly and I hope graciously respond to them soon!
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