charlieDEAN’S Blog

This morning, I spent time meditating on John 15:5-8, asking a lot a questions about what it means to “remain in me.”

And so, here’s one of the questions that came to mind.  What’s more beneficial — spending time daily doing a consistent, discplined devotional, 10 minutes a day, or scheduling one hour a week of inturrupted, focused time with Jesus?

Of course this assumes that the two are mutually exclusive, which they are not, but for the sake of discussion, assume that they are.

We have a refrigerator downstairs that is mostly used to store beverages.  Since we go through about 6 gallons of milk a week, someone has to regularly (almost once a day) go down and get more milk.  This has become Caleb’s chore.  He doesn’t like it and only does it with much whining & complaining.  So last night he busts out with this after bringing a gallon of milk up:

Caleb: I hate being on the earth.

Me: Why do you hate being on the earth?

Caleb: Because it takes to long to be a grownup.  I just want to be in heaven.

then…out of nowhere…

Gavin: I want to live with God.

You just can’t make stuff like this up!

On Sunday night a few of us who had recently read William Webb’s book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, gathered at my house to have dinner and discuss the book.  In the near future, I am planning a series of posts on “Why I am an egalitarian,” but for now, let me just reference the book a little bit.

•  I’d say that the subtitle to this book is more significant than the title.  The central question Webb seeks to answer is “how does one determine whether something you read in the Bible is culturally bound or trans-cultural?”  I think that for most of my life, I’ve does this intuitively, but that’s probably not good enough.  Webb, gives a structure, with his 18 Criteria to think through a host of cultural issues.
• I was reminded that everyonetreats parts of the Bible as cultural.  Sometimes, conservatives, like to play the “we just read the Bible and do what it says,” and yet they don’t greet each other with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16), disallow braided hair for women (1 Timothy 2:9), or lift their hands in worship (1 Timothy 2:8).
• I’d probably have to claim ignorance as to whether Webb’s criteria are the right criteria or the bestcriteria.  I’m not engaged in the academic realm enough or smart enough to think that comprehensively.  Although, I would say that his criteria seem to be solid.
• I think that Webb’s 18 criteria work well against “slippery slope” arguments.  Whenever you start talking about what cultural and what’s trans-cultural, some people start arguing that if you say something is cultural, than you can slide down the slippery slope to saying that everything in the Bible is cultural and can therefore be ignored.  Webb’s framework works against this particular logical fallacy.
• Ultimately Webb’s book, has helped me formulate my egalitarian views — I’ve been riding the fence on this one for a while…feeling stuck in my own mind and heart, pitting Galatians 3:28 vs. 1 Tmothy 2:11-15.

Overall — this is a good read — I’d say an essential read for anyone who teaches the Bible on a regular basis or who is interested in “digging in,” a little deeper.

I have no idea what prompted me to pick up this book, except that I had heard that the author was honest and didn’t hold much back.  So this weekend, I blew through Me, Myself & Bob, by Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales.  In case you don’t know, VeggieTales, despite its meteoric success, eventually went bankrupt.  Here’s what Vischer says about dreams….I’m not sure yet whether I agree or not…

  “…beware of your dreams, for dreams make dangerous friends.  We all have them — longings ofr a better life, a healthy child, a happy marriage, rewarding work.  But dreams are, I have come to believe, misplaced longings.  False lovers.  Why?  Because God is enough.  Just God.  And he isn’t ‘enough’ because he can make our dreams come true — no you’ve got him confused with Santa or Merlin or Oprah.  The God who created the universe is enough for us — even without our dreams.  Without the better life, the healthy child, the happy marriage, the rewarding work.

I finally got the opportunity too watch An Inconvenient Truth.  Personally, I find Al Gore condescending and patronizing, and never more so than in this documentary.  He really irritates me.  However, that doesn’t mean that he’s not speaking the truth. 

I’m not a scientist.  I really don’t know much.  But it’s not hard to see that with the population explosion and with increased CO2 emissions, things on our planet are changing.  Maybe it’s just a coincidence, maybe it is all just cyclical.  I really don’t think it is, but what does it hurt to reduce one’s environmental impact?  I guess, in my mind, it’s kind of like Pascal’s Wager applied to the environment — if we act and it turns out that it didn’t really matter, what have we lost?  But, on the other hand, if we don’t act, and we experience cataclysmic climate change, we lose everything.

I don’t think this is all that controversial, except when it moves into the political realm, maybe I’m wrong.

Anyway…sorry for the lack of coherence…I’m kind of all over the place…and my battery is dying…gotta go.  For stats, and information, you can go to the Inconvenient Truth Website.

I’m no “Hollywood type,” but I do know that in my lifetime, television has been considered the ugly stepchild to the silver screen.  However, things change.

Today, I was reading a Newsweek article called, “Why TV is Better Than the Movies,” and it took several shows and movies, put them head-to-head and then declared that TV is better. (for an online version of the article, go here)

I have to say, that for me, it’s true.  I used to be a total movie fan.  I remember in college there were so many great movies, so little time.  But at this period in my life, it’s rare to find a good movie.  I was just thinking that it’s been a long time, since I found a movie post-worthy.  In fact, many nights I’d rather watch TV (or at least TV shows on DVD) than watch a movie — and I haven’t even had cable or satellite since we built this house a couple years ago. 

In the Dean family, Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover is the holy grail of money & finances.  We read it for the first time a couple years ago, and then made it a goal to put a couple of things in motion:

1. to get out of all debt (except for the house)
2. to build up an “emergency fund”
3. to invest at a level that will accomplish the goals we’ve set for our future

 Today, Jen called Honda, got the payout amount, wrote the check and paid off our Honda Odyssey.  We have no debts to pay except for our mortgage.  Praise God!  He’s been so good to us!

Okay, I don’t really have a favorite quote (actually, I do, but it’s not really fit for posting…it was from Jan Levinson)…but this was a solid episode in several ways…

• the continued downfall of the once-competent Jan Levinson

• Roy’s true colors come shining through

• Creed’s moonlighting job

• Dwight’s home inspection

While I was working out at the gym I was reading a book (shocking, I know).  It was a book about a NEW! and EXCITING! way to do church better and if you just do this thing, YOUR CHURCH WILL BE AS AWESOME AS OURS!

Maybe I’m just feeling sassy today (I’m confident in my manhood…I can be sassy), but I’m just growing tired of all the chatter…innovative this, 7 steps to that, irrefutable these and everything will be better.

Maybe someday I’ll eat crow when I think of something NEW! and EXCITING! with the promise to REVOLUTIONIZE! your church.  But today, I’m just overwhelmed with how to be Purpose-Driven (TM), seeker-sensitive, worship evangelizing, big idea, postmodern, emergent, innovative, strategic, missional, evangelistic, relevant, hip, techno-savvy, practical, come-as-you-are….ARGHHHH!

This morning I finished reading Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath.  I don’t remember how I first heard about this book, but it was a great read.  Similar in style to Malcolm Gladwell’s writing (lots of interesting stories & studies), this is a great read for anyone who has an idea that they think someone else needs to hear and act upon.

Spoiler Alert [since it's on the book jacket anyway, I'll give you their six qualities of a "sticky" idea]:  Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, Stories.