Hold real still

trying to get three teenagers to be still for 15 seconds.

my flashes

so much fun. makes we want a couple more of the little light makers. here one flash is behind and to the left of the pin and one in front to the right a bit.

New link in the sidebar

I put a new link over to the right to this excellent page on Resurgence. It is an excellent refutation of doctrinal errors that some leaders are making in an attempt to be culturally relevant. I post here again Driscoll’s summary words on the topic. if you have time, here is the page where you [...]

Role of singing and speaking in worship

Here is another video promoting the upcoming Desiring God conference on the power of words. This one relates to the role of singing in the worship service. Good stuff Hat tip to Desiring God via the Ramblin’ Pastor Man. There are two other good clips embedded at the Desiring God link above. This sounds like [...]

sb800s

If anybody is in the market for a Nikon flash, the SB800s are going cheap. I just picked another one up at Best Buy on clearance for half price. Here is Joseph with two flashes.

what he said

and now for a change of pace. Mark Steyn has nailed the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama in six short parts. this is the one I liked, but go read them all: Third, real people don’t define “experience” as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been [...]

more reading

do you agree or disagree with congregationalism? (governance of the church by the congregation). I grew up Baptist which means basically that we were pastor led congregational governance model churches. I never really thought about whether or not that was an appropriate biblical model of church governance until a series of events in 2003 plunged [...]

some weekend reading

a three part series over at the Ligonier Ministries blog explores “the church, the Body of Christ. here is part one There are fundamentally two views of the church…..The first conception of the church is stated as follows: It is that body of persons who profess faith in Christ, who are subordinate to properly appointed [...]

“Donald” Miller

Most of you know that Don Miller gave the benediction after the first night of the DNC this week. What you may not know is that he had extensive email correspondence with Barack (and Michelle) Obama prior to that. Here, take a look. Very Interesting reading. Hat tip to Catablog

photo phriday

here are some pictures. Off-camera flash laying on the floor pointing up at Pluto close by. off-camera flash pointing up at Natalie from camera left

more on marriage

This quick post is an update to the one below it to give a little more context. The angst described in this article has been felt by every person married more than a week. That is why the article strikes such an emotional chord. The very real presence of ebbs and flows of happiness in [...]

one of the saddest things I have read

If you want to see “the Lie” in action then read this article. It is an offering from Oprah.com. Here is a peek or two or four: I contemplate divorce every day. It tugs on my sleeve each morning when my husband, Will, greets me in his chipper, smug morning-person voice, because after 16 years [...]

offered without further comment

megan mcardle: We live in degenerate times, my friends. Our ancestors got into ships that would hardly do for a weekend sail on the lake, crossed stormy oceans, fought mountain cats and drought, sailed their prairie schooners into the wilderness, all without as much as a single “Warning: Contains wild animal ingredients” label slapped on [...]

here is where we get hung up

originally posted on 8/27. everyone needs to listen to part two at this link. seriously. if God is sovereign over all like He says He is in Ephesians 1:11, then it necessarily follows that God wills that evil exist. “God wills evil to exist. (without being evil)” according to the Ligonier ministries blog, that is [...]

are you serious?

How many times have I said that you can’t replace something with nothing. Taking christianity out of mainstream dialogue/culture/practice does not leave non-religious secularism. Instead, the human religious impulse gets directed toward the worship of nature (environmentalism) or more directly toward the worship and exaltation of man himself. Check this out if you don’t believe [...]

part of the tension

I seek to live in the tension (see my “about” page). the main tension we live in is the tension between our responsibility for our actions and God’s sovereignty. The intersection at this point is a profound mystery that belongs to God alone. Deuteronomy 29:29. But notice that the things that have been revealed are [...]

Piper on the importance of doctrine

John Piper has a post up pointing to and discussing briefly Joseph Bottum’s essay on the decline of protestant America. Mr. Piper quotes a last point from Bottum and then concludes: What happened? “The churches’ desperate hunger to mean more in politics and economics had the perverse effect of making them less effective opponents of [...]

Jon Bloom on Hebrews 12

Is God punishing me? that is the question we sometimes ask when things aren’t going well. Jon Bloom takes a look at Hebrews 12 and concludes: These saints were not to interpret their painful experiences as God’s angry punishment for their sins. That angry punishment was completely spent on Jesus—once for all—on the cross. Rather, [...]

one pollster’s take on the church of the future

here is a part of Chuck Warnock’s post on one pollster’s take on the future of the church in the U.S.: “The church of the future will be a bungalow on Maple Street, not a megastructure in a sea of parking spaces. It’s intimacy of experience people long for, not production values.” — The Way [...]

the election

Stephen Nichols has some excellent advice for Christ followers in the United States during this election year. The whole short post is worth your time. His first point is to dial down the rhetoric a notch, here are his last two points: Number two. Let’s not make the presidency, the office, into an idol, thinking [...]

by the way,

ain’t she pretty? still makes my stomach go funny after almost twenty years.

marriage

Julie and I went up to Irving, Texas yesterday (home of America’s team) for the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Lois and Ted. Lois is Julie’s dad’s big sister. Julie’s mom and dad will have been married fifty-three years in a couple of weeks. my parents have been married forty-six years (I think. mom, is this [...]

Puppies

These three little ones are about a week and a half old now. Anybody need a piebald dachshund?

Transparency is worth zero if you have no passion

Michelle Greer has a great post up about “transparency in marketing.” (warning, a mild expletive) Her point is that the latest marketing buzzword means nothing to a person/company that is bored with or dislikes their own product. Here is some of what she says but go read all of it: People are not stupid and [...]

Friday fotos

colors on a wall city hall