Monthly Archives: May 2007

Our Modern Way of Meeting (NTRF)

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A buddy of mine pointed me to this house-church website, and I found quite the funny (because it’s so true) paraphrasing of the meeting regulations in :

How is it then, brethren? When ye come together, the pastor hath a doctrine, and the minister of music hath psalms. Let all things be done unto edifying. If anyone besides the pastor hath a doctrine, let him not speak; let him hold his peace. Let him sit in the pew, and face the back of the neck of the person which sitteth ahead of him. Let the people keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith church tradition. But if they will learn anything, let them ask their pastor after the service, for it is a shame for a layman to speak in the church. For the pastor, he hath a seminary degree, and the layman, he hath not so lofty a degree. If any man desire to remain a church member in good standing, let him acknowledge that what I write to you is the command of the denominational headquarters. But if any man ignore this, he shall be promptly escorted out the door by the ushers. Wherefore brothers, covet not to speak in the church. Let all things be done decently and in the order in which it hath been written in the church bulletin.

How to Have a New Testament Church Meeting

Geppi’s Entertainment Museum

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Wanna see my boss’ latest venture? This pop-culture museum (right beside Oriole Park at Camden Yards and across the light rail from the Baltimore Convention Center) has been attracting a lot of attention since it opened in September ’06, including this segment of Retirement Living’s The Daily Apple:

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Ron Paul Might Just Have My Vote

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If the Republican Party wants my vote in ’08, they’ll have to nominate Ron Paul. Here’s a few videos that might just show you why I feel that way:

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IconBuffet is Totally Addicting!

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IconBuffet: Free Deliveries I Lack.

What you see here is a summary of all the IconBuffet Free Deliveries that I don’t have yet. I’ve been part of the IB crowd almost since they began. There was a time when you could take a couple of hours in their forums and get caught up, but with the new point system I don’t think I’ll catch up before the end of the year! (Shoot, three of those have been added since I started drafting this post.) Now I have to be more picky about what I get, because I’m not in a position to spend $6 a month on icons I’m not really using for anything…

My Favorite DVD Player

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A few years back, when Nicole and I started watching DVDs on our computer, we started out with the software that came preinstalled… but that didn’t work half the time. Then we let one of those DVDs install the InterActual player. Oy, what a headache! We got such jumpy, twitchy video and audio through it that we almost gave up on watching movies at home.

Then I found VLC. Here’s a few of the reasons why I like it so much:

Unobtrusive: VLC doesn’t sit in the background hogging system resources from the moment you turn the computer on, and when you turn it off, it really turns off. (Take that, Quicktime and RealPlayer!)

Versatile: VLC handles pretty much any and every type of audio or video format I use, right off of a fresh install. And it’ll play files without trying to make itself the default player/viewer. I like being able to make that choice for myself, especially because the day may come when I move from VLC, and I’d like to be able to do that without worrying about what it may have done to the Windows Registry.

User-Friendly: I don’t need to be at Nicole’s side when she wants to watch something. That’s important to me. :)

Free: Praise God for the open-source community!

I’ll admit that there’s probably better software out there, but VLC seems to have the best mix of features and operability. And that’s not even getting into how VLC can record streaming audio and video… ;)

Mini-Review: Future Men

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Wilson covers all the major concerns of shaping boys into real men: laziness, sex, secret sin, courtship, girls, friends, fights, school work, and sports to name a few. Each section is written with that ‘serrated edge’ he is known for, so you need to read with a smile and not take offense if you are to gain from many of his good insights. —Paul W. Martin @ kerux noemata

Interestingly, Wilson notes that the abandonment of the Psalms in worship means that the church has discarded a songbook, that is throughly masculine in its lyrics, in favour of the effeminate hymns of the 19th and 20th century. The result being that the church is dominated by females as men are put off attending divine worship. The author also has lots of helpful advice on how parents should instruct their boys with regard to work, sports, education, friendship, sex, courtship, fighting, bearing firearms and the use of money; which, all in all, makes for a very stimulating read. —Daniel Ritchie @ Reformed Covenanter

This is a book on raising boys? Wow, I think I came away from reading Future Men with more instruction on raising myself! Not that it was necessarily Wilson’s aim, but his lessons are of the sort that I need to put them into practice myself before I can raise my own boy in them. This one is so insightful that I need to read it again; there’s just too much to soak up in the first reading!

Mother’s Day Weekend

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Relaxing on Mother's Day Weekend

We had a really nice Mother’s Day weekend this year! On Saturday, we bundled up the kids and a picnic lunch and moseyed on over to Spring Lake Park. We’d only ever been to the “lake” side of it before, so the open grass and the quiet creek were wonderful. (More photos at Flickr.)

On Sunday we decided to pass on message #2 of Chesapeake’s building fund series and instead visit a nearby congregation. (See, we’re really bad about driving 30 miles to attend Sunday services and not having a clue who the believers are within a 2-mile radius of our apartment.) Timonium UMC got the short straw, so we went over there and checked things out.

Wow.

It’s one thing for a church to think it’s okay for women to serve in pastoral roles… but I saw a number of appointed leaders in there yesterday morning, and not a single one was a man. (The men were either in deacon roles or just not there.) If that wasn’t enough of a shocker for me, they had the kids come up for a kiddie sermonette on Acts 16 where they were told that Lydia had her husband and kids baptized and pastored a church in her home. Needless to say, Katie got some of Papa Bear’s personal commentary on that passage at lunchtime. Maybe I’ll post my thoughts on it later, but suffice it to say, I think there was no small part of eisegesis in what was told to the kids.

The really nice part about visiting that church, though, is that we were back home by 11am (where we usually get back after 1pm). We couldn’t get over how much longer the day felt because of that, so we went driving around later, looking at houses for sale.