Archive for August, 2008

The Awe Factor Of God – Francis Chan

If this doesn’t give you a little perspective on life and wonder today, I don’t know what will.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8.3-4

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Our community has enjoyed a local news website since the fall of 2006 – MonticelloLive.com. Several months after its birth, the local weekly started a site called MyMonticelloNews.net in an attempt to compete. In spite of having a large staff and advertising budget, the local paper, still a part of the MSM (main stream media) struggled to keep up. 

In the past six months, however, the late-comer has had a total redesign and overhaul of their site. It transitioned from simply regurgitating the news that was in the Thursday edition of the pater to trying to keep up-to-date news on the website (what a novelty!). MyMonticelloNews.net may still have less traffic than MonticelloLive.com, which remains a one-man show. However, there are several national sites which are trying to move into the local news site business.

Topix.net has grown to become the 3rd largest news website, according to Market Watch. With Topix.net, you can plug in your zip code and view the latest in local news. 

What Topix can’t do at present is what our two local news sites are doing. That’s provide up-to-the-minute updates and news. MonticelloLive remains the best at this. 

However, I predict that one day these national news sites will make great strides in smaller, local markets. They will do so by employing local writers, photographers and stay-at-home moms to help them create a relevant local news presence. 

The future of the MSM is in a great state of transition right now. In the past 10 years, content no longer has to be filtered through an agenda-promoting liberal-leaning media elite. With the advent of blogging, information becomes fair game, and what was formerly hidden (because it may have conflicted with the MSM’s point of view) is now able to make it to the light.

In 1644 Milton wrote in Areopagitica, “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.”

One can see the struggle involved as local news expands and meets this marketplace of the mind. I know that both local news sites have in the past edited contributors’ comments (or refused to publish them altogether). Many times this is not done because they are libelous or slanderous. Rather, content is screened so as not to offend either a) advertisers or b) influencers. This approach reveals the tension involved in releasing control of the flow of information. 

One has to decide what’s more important – the information itself and truth – or your media. This censoriousness is fine, since both media are privately owned. However, a person should be aware that as much as a site might try to promote objectivity, if screening such as this is done (and it is), you may not be receiving all the information.

In a 1919 dissenting opinion Justice Holmes said, “…the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” (Abrams v. United States)

I know firsthand the difficulty of maintaining fairness and balance in a free-wheeling, feedback-oriented news site since I started MonticelloLive. I know that harsh comments are disturbing, but when you allow dissent and disagreement, it usually allows the truth to rise to the top. Fools are made quickly with the push of a return key. The wise are revealed by their patient and careful response. (And many times, the wise are those who don’t respond to a fool.)

MSM’s paid subscription numbers are falling across the world as more and more people turn to the net for their primary news. With the advent of streaming media, online viewership of TV shows, movies and podcasts will continue to increase.

To be continued

It’s been a crazy past week here at the Noble household trying to get our school routine down. Car-pooling, kids’ activities and sports, photography shoots, meetings and out-of-town trips have taxed our one-car, no-scooter strategy. We’ve put it off as long as we can, so…

This weekend we’ll be doing some serious scooter shopping. My Pastor’s Scooter Fund only netted about $140 to date, and we’ll be using that and most likely financing the rest. We can do one-car-one-scooter. We just have failed at doing one-car-eight-legs.

Rest assured, I will rig up some kind of remote explosive device on this scooter that can be detonated through my iPhone. So any thieves better think twice about stealing this one. It will also come equipped with a seat that can be remotely activated to release booty bugs that will crawl into one’s booty and cause lifetime, irreversible damage should someone ride it that is unauthorized. Oh yeah. You think I’m kidding…

And then I’ve also finished inventing a helmet that will suck all oxygen away from its wearer. 

Too bad I wasn’t prepared with Ghost.

I don’t know what this scooter will be named, but we may have a Name That Scooter Contest locally. I’ll post pictures as soon as we’ve settled on a purchase. We’ve learned over the past two months that scooter prices have gone up. Go figure. If Exxon can’t get us, Honda will. Dadgummit.

Sunday night was the last night of freedom for the kids before school started. We had a dual-purpose family meeting in the living room. One of the purposes was to spend time in prayer with the kids, commissioning them, so to speak, to be representatives of their Lord, our church and our family at school this year. It was a powerful and special moment for us.

The other purpose of the meeting, admittedly, was created by me without knowledge of wifey. It was the announcement of the Clutter-Free Campaign. It was met by three pairs of pupils that could have won a gold medal in synchonized eye-rolling. I was not discouraged or deterred.

As our kids have grown, an unfortunate genetic trait has been passed down to them from wifey. It’s the Clutter Gene. Additionally, it seems to be contagious, for I too am guily of clutter. The Noble household is a hectic, non-stop adventure with few established routines and many interruptions, guests, and spontaneous happenings. You just never know what happens around here from day to day. And we thrive in it. A few of our friends seem be a little overwhelmed by our busy-ness and joyful embrace of life’s chaos. Others get sucked up into it.

However, the problem is that our family life produces clutter. I defined clutter Sunday night for them as “piles of crap lying around in wrong places.” Pretty ignominous. But an effective definition.

What happens around here is that in our comings-and-goings, whatever is in our hands as we walk around the house inevitably is put down in certain hot spots and left there. It’s like the unfortunate back round dumping ground. Once someone throws out an old sofa, everyone else assumes, “Hey, we can use that place to dump our junk!” And clutter-piling begins. So it is for the Nobles.

After the CFC announcement, I took the family on a tour of the house to point out clutter zones so they would understand what I was talking about. Adelyn made sarcastic remarks the whole way. Sam just kept shaking his head with a bemused look. Wifey had this look of “you’re-a-complete-idiot” the whole tour but kept a good attitude.

After pointing out dozens of clutter spots, I said, “OK, here’s the goal: Clutter-Free in 30 Days. If we all deal with a clutter spot every day or so, we’ll be a CFZ (clutter-free zone) before we know it.”

I then documented our clutter spots (some of them – the bathroom cabinet is off-limits) in photos as an everlasting reminder of how things were at the beginning of the CFC.

I think part of the campaign’s genesis was a thought-remnant from reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done (reviewed here). In it, he advocates limiting your “collection buckets.” For us, any horizontal surface has become not just a collection bucket but a clutter pile. All in all, it was a pretty good beginning, I thought. Caro cleaned off her desk Monday, and I de-cluttered my dresser also.

While I doubt the variety and speed of life will change much, perhaps the piles of accumulation will. If you’d like to join the CFC, leave a comment, and maybe someone will make us some t-shirts…

What a full day we had yesterday! The Noble family rose at the crack of dawn to head to Little Rock in different directions. Carolyn and Adelyn rode with some friends to LR so that Adelyn could try out for the Nutcracker – her second year. Much to the Monticello’s crew delight, all the girls that tried out from Monticello made it!

Sam and I left early as well – after cleaning up the kitchen from having friends over to dinner Friday night. We went to mom and dad’s house for a fantastic brunch with my visiting uncle from Minnesota. We spent the day with family, laughing, playing chickenfoot, and enjoying the weather. Anything sub-90 in Arkansas during the summer is like early winter.

After Carolyn and Adelyn returned from the tryouts, we went out into mom and dad’s backyard. While it’s beautifully landscaped, it can pretty much fit into a thimble. It’s small. But that didn’t stop us from finding a baby toad and a box turtle. We felt like regular Dr. Doolittles.

While Sam was intrigued, Adelyn was positively radiant. Animals share a special place in her heart. Of course, that didn’t stop her from racing inside to wash her hands in disgust after the toad peed on her.

We loaded back into the Sequoia (still with For Sale window chalk all over it), and raced back to Monticello for Journey’s Back to School Pool Bash and Birthday Party. David and Tammy English graciously allowed our church to use it as an outreach event. Sam (it was his birthday) didn’t mind at all. There were a ton of kids there, and it was a joy to visit, laugh, and watch our own Michael Phelps win gold in an informal relay against some kids and an anonymous state trooper.

There was a full house at Journey today, and it was exciting and humbling to see how many educators and teachers the Lord has brought into our fellowship. We prayed for them as a group, in addition to praying for our students. Ryan taught on the Great Commission in our Harvest Series, and it was interesting how he emphasized Matthew 28.19 where Jesus said that making a disciple is about teaching others to obey all that Jesus has taught us.

A fun video about the history of Apple…

After a wonderful week in Glorieta, Jeremy and I left Friday morning. We drove through Amarillo and then headed south to rendez-vous with my family in San Angelo at wifey’s folks Lakehouse.

It was a huge change from spending the week with 1200 collegians. I think my two kids and five other niece and nephews matched the Glorieta in decibel level.

We have had a great time relaxing, laughing, jetskiing, and eating. My in-laws are the penultimate hosts, and I’m very grateful for their consistent generosity.

If all goes well, we’ll be hitting the road for the last leg of our journey on Sunday a.m.

(By the way, if any of you follow me on Facebook and have noticed some unusual status updates, it’s because everytime I level my iPhone lying around, Jeremy thinks it’s funny to leave an update on my account for me. I’ve been able to return the favor a few times, thus becoming the Fantastic Facebook Faceoff of 2008.)

On Wednesday a.m., Michael Kelley spoke from John 11 about the death of Lazarus. It was not only high drama, but it was high impact. Kelley walked us through the event and the seeming stunning callousness of Jesus’ intentional 4-day delay.

Get this. Three of Jesus’ closest friends – one is on his deathbed. An urgent message is sent to Jesus. They have come to believe in Him as the Messiah and Savior of Israel. They know that He can.

Jesus gets the message… and does nothing.

He can. But He won’t.

How does that hit you?

Kelley pointed out that in at least one other circumstance in scripture, Jesus had only to say the word, and healing took place without Jesus even being there. But He doesn’t do that here either.

On top of that, He doesn’t even head in that direction. He waits two more days, and then makes the two-day journey to Bethany. By the time He arrives, Lazarus is dead, Mary and Martha are mourning, and Jesus’ reputation is on the line.

Jesus has two powerfully poignant conversations with Lazarus’ sisters: Martha and Mary. Martha confesses her belief in Jesus; Mary can only fall at His feet in tears. Both state the obvious: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

I could not help reflecting on all the instances in my own life in which the big IF statement was there. When I’ve “iffed,”  it is usually because my understanding of my circumstances is exceeded by my frustration with them. Implicit in “if” statements is a disagreement with how God has chosen to handle a matter.

When was the last time you were there? You realize that God can, and you’re devastated that He won’t.

Mary and Martha should be commended for their understanding of Jesus’ power. They were confident in Jesus’ abilities. They were now not so sure of His motives.

Things were so bad that upon arriving at the tomb – and I like how the King James Version puts it – they object to Jesus’ command to roll away the stone: “Lord, by this time he stinketh…”

That’s how I sometimes view situations in which the Lord doesn’t act on my own timetable… they stinketh.

But Kelley focused on Jesus’ encounter with Mary. She was the sensitive one, the contemplative one. She was the one who had sat at Jesus’ feet in Luke 10.39 in quiet adoration of the Messiah. Now she was at his feet in grief and confusion.

It was this that stirred the heart of Christ. The ESV records, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled.” (v33) Just a moment later, “Jesus wept.”

Kelley asked, “What is more amazing – that Jesus raised the dead, or that Jesus knows the end of the story and weeps anyway?”

This is a profound indication of Jesus’ love for His children. He has a larger purpose. We are unaware, and our vision is obstructed. Yet Jesus weeps with us.

One other thing… Kelley pointed out that there is a sense of anger and indignation in the phrase “deeply moved and greatly troubled.” He asked where it was directed:

• To Mary: “Suck it up, Mary, and be a good soldier.” Was she angry that she didn’t get it after all this time?
• To the Sin-Infested World: The world is in such a state that the only way to break through the stranglehold of sin and announce the truth of the Gospel in Christ is through the suffering of God’s people. Sin has so obscured men’s view that His people must suffer in order to for others to see.

He pointed out that suffering is a preeminent theme throughout scripture. Suffering is a primary means that God uses to refine His people and display His glory.

Kelley did a magnificent job preaching this message. It wasn’t a sermon; it was a faith-conversation with us all.

I’ve summarized David Platt’s message here, but you can listen to it here.

When was the last time you saw over 1000 college students study the Bible deeply for five straight hours?

I saw it last night.

David Platt has led his church, Brookhills, to host an event called Secret Church. Here’s what the site says about it:

When we think of “church” in America, we think of going to meet at a building, singing, praying and hearing a message from a Pastor or teacher. But in many places around the world, “church” meets in a home, an apartment, even in secret. These small groups of Christ-followers often meet for many hours in study, prayer and fellowship, as it is dangerous to travel to “church” and they want to make the most of their time together.

Secret Church is our “house church,” where we meet periodically for an intense time of Bible study–lasting 4-6 hours–and prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters across the globe. This is not for the uncommitted or faint at heart. But if you desire to know God more deeply through His Word, and know His Church more fully around the world, then please join us for Secret Church.

David led us all in a 5-hour study of the Doctrine of God. We had a 74-page booklet that we went through that detailed the awesome attributes and character of our holy God. It was powerful to be part of the event and see students eating it up.

What does that say about a generation of church folks that can hardly tolerate a sermon longer than 20 minutes? And what does it say about the amount of doctrine that folks can possibly know? Perhaps are churching are starving for God’s Word.