Save Me
Words: H. Fowler.

Save me, O God, my spirit cries,
And on thy faithful word, my world relies,
Save me from sin, my desperate foe,
That fills my soul with every woe.
O save me, O God, my spirit cries.

Save me from pride, that angel form
That swells a poor and weak and sinful worm
That moves the tongue, the hands, the eyes,
And often takes me by surprise.
O save me from pride, that angel form

Save me from this bewitching world,
That has to death ten thousand thousands hurled
Whose charms enchant, and lead astray
From Jesus Christ the living Way.
O save me from this bewitching world

Save me from Satan’s wiles and snares,
From all the malice and the pain he bears
Against thy image, work, and grace,
Against the visits of thy face.
O save me from Satan’s wiles and snares.

Save Me from gloomy black despair;
On thee alone, I would, I’d cast my care,
And wait, and pray, and groan, and sigh,
Till thou in mercy drawest nigh.
O save Me from gloomy black despair.

The thing that baffled me was that someone had all this information that we’d never heard of. Literally, I didn’t know this company existed until they sent us this letter and our information existed on their computers for purposes I’m still trying to understand.

Well, we got the account number changed and we’re spending the next week or two connecting with people and businesses that need to know the new one.

What’s ironic, I think, is that I spent the morning yesterday speaking to a group of people on social networking. That, as educators, they had an opportunity to teach their students about apprpropriate uses of facebook by modeling it and that sharing some information online is not bad and allows them to connect with this student generation.

However, I believe that this current generation lives in a glass house; that information for them and communication is something that happens within the context of a larger community.

The problem comes though is that a weakness with that idea is the inability to be alone. In college some of the most valuable times for this extrovert were up at Cedar Campus, InterVarsity’s training center in Michigan, spending Sunday afternoon’s being quiet and alone–an activity that required that I not interact with people or technology.

I think this is where experience and a different viewpoint become valuable. Managing information online is becoming more of a dance. Reveal too little and you lose your ability to, in a very 21st century sort of way, “connect”. Reveal too much and you lose your identity.

Well, I helped out Chapter Focus Week this year (InterVarsity runs week long camps at the end of each Spring semester for training and planning for groups for the next school year) and got into some discussions with some friends from NIU and we had some really in depth talks about how we fit into the body and how might IT people be better used or even visualize what they can do for the Kingdom and the idea was floated about having a tech exchange, if you will, where needs can be met with skills. People who otherwise wouldn’t be connect to InterVarsity, the particular ministry I help out in, could reconnect with their alma mater or even the movement in general. Students who are already moving towards a degree can cut their teeth on projects they might otherwise have not known about and InterVarsity chapters can benefit as a whole, and hopefully people can have a fun time doing it.

One of the things I had always appreciated about my time in InterVarsity has been the opportunities I have had to participate, to include my particular skillset (whether it be web design, sound, or geek-fu in general) and to help; it’s been fun, challenging and I’ve always came away learning something. I’ve literally prayed over computers (you laugh, but have you tried it?) and watched God do some amazing things in the field of technology. In short, it’s been a growing experience.

On the same end, I know there is an unending need for skill and there are knowledge gaps that occur when information isn’t passed on. Like a doctor, there seems to be no shortage of ’sick’ computers. Where does that meet? I think Romans 12 offers a suggestion. IT people are a part of the greater Body and have a vital role to play in advancing God’s kingdom. We can help. So, in the spirit of Open Source Communities, I’d like to propose Body Sourcing; allowing IT people who are a part of a community a chance to help out.

I’ve created a facebook group ‘IV Students/Alumni with IT Skills’ as hopefully a start to this. If you’re not on facebook (and why aren’t you?), get on, and if you’d like to contribute, or even benefit from it, join the group and we can get a dialogue going. Either way, please tell your friends because it’ll be as good as the community that comes to it and by all means have a good time .

So, my day started around 5 a.m. and I made my way out to the wind farm, literally, at the crack of dawn with the intention of doing a quiet time out there. What’s particularly cool about the wind farm is that it is, literally, out in the middle of nowhere. I was able to take about a 2 mile stretch of country road, off of the interstate route, and took another left to give me a nice front row seat for the sunrise.

As I sat there, reading the Bible and waiting for the sunrise, with no one around for miles, I thought about a couple of things. It is facinating that there are so many things that happen in this world, so much visible art, that large goes unwitnessed. Sunrise this morning was beautiful and I never really quite totally appreciated just how much cool things were going on in the sky at that point. There are so many things within creation that speak of the creator and watching the sunrise really spoke volumes of his artistic flair.

The other lesson for me was in watching the sun rise, and looking at periodically during the day and noticing it’s trajectory across the sky and realizing that there are so many things that happen in spite of me. That as a human it’s important to rest, that things will continue and that the same God who sustains a sunrise will keep me through the day.

But the thing is, I’ve really felt like photography has been a relaxing, creative outlet that strangely is mixed with work and I wanted to bring up the camera for similar reasoning that someone might bring up a guitar; it just would be fun to work with and allowed me to worship a bit by being creative.

Anyway, now I’m sharing with y’all. Enjoy. And for you folks that have made Cedar Campus a destination, feel free to share cool stories.

Photoalbum # 1 – Family

Photoalbum #2 – People

Photoalbum #3 – Cool Photos Part 1

Photoalbum #4 – Cool Photos Part 2

AND….Photos from the soo locks. We got a chance to see a boat go through.

Enjoy…and again, click on the above to check out the full albums.

I just got back from a men’s bible study I’ve been leading for the local InterVarsity chapter and it was a really great study. We went over Galatians 2:1-10, and specifically it was about Paul’s meeting with the church leaders in Jerusalem and the comparing of notes that they did.

The central theme of the passage was that of Unity amongst the denominations and how we have commonality in diversity which compels us to love each other and extend each other a ton of leeway in methodology.

For me, I realized that although I fancy myself willing to extend leeway to others in their practice, I still have a lot of people I lump into a ‘them’ camp that God really convicted me of; there’s alot of freedom in extending love and grace to someone else and appreciating the true diversity of the body.

There’s a post on the Emergent movement and worship and what might happen in 30 years when we’re all older and greyer and 20 somethings are complaining about our music on Margaret Feinberg’s blog today; will modern worship somehow take the place of being old and stogy and will something else be considered ‘hip’. My answer was Yes.

I have to say I’m not a fan of Philip Bliss and most of his contemporaries and their music. I find it too simplistic lyrically and musically, although catchy at times, lacks the density of some of the big daddies of hymn writers.

With that said, I have older friends in churches currently who are in a pitched battle with the younger generation who long to sing David Crowder, David Ruis, and Matt Redman. When I ask my older friends about it, they usually respond with an allusion to listening to music in the car and how you should get to listen to what you want to just because you’re driving. Their point is that they did their time and now it’s their turn at the wheel.

My worry is that we’re headed to this same argument in 2037 when the next big thing that is relevant and meaningful to the 20 somethings of the day usurps the place of David Crowder as being ‘relevant’. The grey haired people of the church will pine away about the time when music was ‘good’ and how the only music that speaks to them was written in the late nineties and the early part of the 21st century. We will, most likely, become what we rail against: a hegemony of worship style and music.
I think the call, given the passage tonight is to recognize the beauty of both David Crowder and Philip Bliss in that they speak to people’s thirst for God and assist them in worship and that is beautiful.

We need to get away from seeing non-essentials as ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ and simply appreciate them for what they are – broad, beautiful brush strokes of a God who loves diversity. Does that compel me to get a CD of Philip Bliss music for the car? Not likely. But before I tear a brother or sister down by chiding them for listening to bad music, I should love the fact that they are spoken to through it.

What do these two guys look like when they’re brought under the same roof? I’m not sure, but it’s a good thing that God gave that task to broken, imperfect people because it’s really beautiful when it happens; when we think less about ‘them’ and how ‘they’ are different and start looking at ‘them’ for who they really are: ‘Us’.

 - Yesterday was technology day.  We ended up severing ties with our dear ‘friends’ Verizon; we switched to vonage.  Along with that, I followed the instructions on their site and made our house into a closed loop.  If you cut your physical connection to Verizon, you can plug your vonage router into a phone jack in your house and suddenly all of your phones are vonage phones; it’s very cool.  We also bought an iMac this year; yes, an iMac.  Last night, after some struggle, I finally finished configuring it (it always is a struggle in a paradigm shift). We are owners of a computer manufactured by Apple…wow, I said it. I hear admitting it is a first step.

 - Lord willing, we’ll have some big news to announce soon. Pray for us if you think about it, we’re trying to make something logistically work that will be…big.

 - Along with that, Sunday was one of those Spirit filled days at Church where God really affirmed alot of things in our hearts.  The talk is available here, and it was about God’s will for us, and death and doing your life well.  Great stuff; we sang ‘We Rest On Thee’ afterwards, which, if one could have them, is our theme song as a couple (like Over The Rhine’s music, that song factors in a couple of key moments for us in our marriage).  Anyway, couldn’t sing the second or third verse just for weeping; the Pastor led and I have to wonder what he was thinking. It’s a balm to have God really challenge, convict and encourage you all at the same time. 

We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”

This showed up in a ‘freebies’ section of slickdeals.net tonight; you fill out the form and they send you a copy. What makes me laugh is title’s like this because it’s a fake argument. The agenda of the book is obvious; it’s a book against the emergent church, but the title makes you think that it’s not and gives the people looking for some ammo the false sense that they are getting an objective look at things.

It’s humorous but also makes me a bit sad in that I’ve read or heard of far too many books like this that just ended up being divisive in the end; especially detailing churches that dear brothers and sisters are in. Instead of creating a conversation and seeking to understand, attack books like this one end up drawing people into an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ where I don’t think such a line exists or even should be drawn.

In the end I just don’t get it. The day is just too short and there are far too many real enemies out there for us to be drawing imaginary lines within our own house and selling it as Christian scholarship. We should be about the business of Jesus; about really becoming salt and light in the world and not arguing about the dangers of overconsumption of sodium. Are we really that way when our time is spent in lame attempts to discredit contexts where people are spoken to and meet God in a true way because it somehow looks different than the norm?

Disclaimer: I’m not in the emergent conversation but have tons of friends that are (and are blogging buddies with) and have a relative who recently came to know Jesus as a result of a church. I also have a passion for culturally relevant, high production quality worship – it ministers to my heart to see people care about how things look and to take care in making sure things are done with quality. Not for the sake of quality, but for a genuine desire to worship through their gifts; to see God in the details. I guess that is one of the reasons serving at Urbana 06 this year was an act of worship that I’m appreciative of the opportunity to be a part of…but I digress.

Further disclaimer: I’m always a bit gun shy writing pieces like this.

On getting a snack:

“I want Cereal!  That’s NOT Cereal, that’s Cherrios!”

On apologizing after getting in trouble:

“I’m sorry” 

“Why are you sorry Aidan?”

“I’m sorry because I want you to be happy.  I love you daddy!”

On What he wants to be when he grows up:

“I want to be an astronaut and play music.”

Today was a battle of inches.  It started around 5:50 this morning with Aidan getting up to go potty and wanting to wake up for the day.  Melissa is sick and so I flew solo for most of the day.  During the midst of the day there were a ton of time outs, a couple of spankings and a few stern talks; we’re firm believers in a strata of discipline.  Tonight, I may have bit off more than I could chew in starting to get rid of his pacificer by cutting the tip of it down.  Needless to say, he isn’t going to be right away and notices things are a bit different.

Tonight I also thought about how God sees us.  While I was sitting with him, weary and sinking into despair about the length of my day I thought about how God sees us and about how, as a perfect God, how much he may get frustrated at our behavior and yet still loves us.  How some days as we try and learn lessons changing us becomes a battle of inches.  For Aidan, my ultimate goal is an individual who loves and respects authority and who does things with integrity.  For God, the ultimate goal is fitting us for heaven, in technical terms to sanctify us. 

Along the way there are huges lessons that are learned – learning to go potty, eating solid food, learning to read – but there are also days that are battles that gain only inches on the way to adulthood; the only results of which are tears, disciplines and sorrow at the end of the day. In these days, it’s important to think about the final product.

Days like today make me look at my father and God with tons more respect that had before today started.