pinakidion.*

Turns out that my vigilance against spam emliminated the ability to post any comment at all.

Sorry, not intentional. They should work now.

HACKED! 5-01-05
My thanks to fd for hacking access to the server this website is hosted on. I hope the folks at 1and1.com have made steps to correct this: I suspect that it was someone using Google to send a php vulnerability.

You may have come here because I asked you to visit. You may have stumbled here because you did a google search on the word pinakidion and discovered that this is the first entry. Some of you may have even come over from the ICC Discussion forum or other places. However you got here, welcome.

I really pray about the things I post here. Sometimes, I think of this place as a personal psalter. Some posts are happy, some are angry, some are sad, all of them are honest. After reading a few, that may seem odd that I pray about things like my fantasy world, but I do. I really enjoy writing and I pray to develop those fantasy world ideas for their own sake. As far as theological issues go, I strive to be fair pointing out good and not so good things in everything around me, including myself. Don’t be surprised if I am unrelenting, random, and/or bizarre. Consider that your only warning. I do not apologize for what I think, but I am always willing to discuss it and admit where I am wrong.

I would like to think that one day, many people will come here and read my thoughts on various topics. At that point, I remember that I am not writing to be loved, respected, or even hated. This place is not my life, just a record of things that move around between my ears.

To the folks at “online poker”, you can stop spamming me. I have a package that automatically deletes the 200+ spam comments you send a day. Your posts do not appear, do not waste my db space, and besides, if they do appear, they have the nofollow tag.

I would love a look at our history that is written like this and the follow-up to how to present their church’s history here. However, I do not believe that we can make similar claims. The primary reason is probably due to the fact that we haven’t taken ten years to go through ‘changes’. In many places two years is seen as too long, so the rhetoric is akin to “Okay, we wrestled for two years: now that it is finished, let’s get back to evanglizing.”

In any case, I present it as a means to present bad news, be honest about doctrinal errors and look to God for the future.

Read the question about “Why don’t you stress the positive elements of Dr. Armstrong’s work?” I believe it is a fair and honest response to the dynamic that is really going on. I believe the following quote will one day describe our current struggle to understand our history:

In our recent history, we have both good things and bad things, and we have found it difficult to deal with this mixture. When we mention the good, some members get angry. When we mention the bad, others get angry. It seems that these events are so recent that the emotional level is very high.

Some members suffered because of the church’s doctrinal errors. These people often have an emotional desire to emphasize the bad so that it not be done again. Other members found the church to be a spiritually energizing fellowship despite our doctrinal errors. These people often do not like it when the problems are mentioned. We receive letters from both kinds of people regularly. It is helpful for each group to know that the other exists: not everyone had the same kind of experiences in the same church, even in the same congregation.

I have to admit that I have trouble dealing with friends that keep trying to stress the positive and ‘move on’. I have always bristled at the mention of positive thinking and roundly denounced how American businesses and churches defined it. I’m biased. I want to acknowledge that there are people, different from me, that have had largely positive experiences in the ICC and strive to hold on to that good. I really want to see how that is NOT avoided the issues. I also do not want to force others to be like me in this way.

However, I don’t think it is unfair to ask for the same consideration. The fact that I would like our troublesome past to be more public is because I do not want our past to come back. I am not crying out for help. I am not licking my wounds. I am following my conscience. I do not want to be made to be conformed to always looking to the positive. I fear that people like me are marginalized as bitter complainers, when we are desperately trying to be Christians.

I confess, I truly do not understand the need to stress the positive. I perceive it as phony and unreal. However, I know that others do not understand me. I can be perceived as bitter and unable to enjoy life.

In short, it seems that a lack of value judgement is needed on this issue. More understanding needs to be experienced. People like me don’t want to see the past repeated. People not like me want others to experience the good in Christianity. Both of us are needed.

Hey everyone,

I am feeling down and it has persisted for longer than the usual day or two. I know that a lot of it is my wife being out of town this week. Some of it is not respecting my own personal needs to be with other people. I have also become more disheartened that folks I looked up to as leaders and agents of change are not leading or changing. Maybe it’s good for me, but it doesn’t help me right now. I am also having trouble battling my personal demons, especially in areas of self-control (temper) and controling appetites.

There’s a lot more, but suffice it to say that I am feeling really low. Thanks in advance.

You know, days like this I don’t have time or energy to post quotes from Al Baird or Gordon or even Thomas. I did write a parable in answer to this parable, but why bother? It’s part of what is getting me down, but not the only thing. Days like this, I wish I was anywhere else but here. However, I am glad that I am here with my wife who loves me in all my moods.

Anyway, pray for me, I really need it.

I know, it’s April 28th and it is snowing here. I realize that the weather is different here than in my home state of NC, but this is a big adjustment for me.

One I enjoy making because I do not like hot weather.

My wife and I stayed home Sunday to deal with some family issues. It wasn’t that we had a bump or an argument, it was physical and mental health related. Iit was special to sing songs and worship together privately instead of the usual devotional.

Our church is trying to develop a ’study series’ to help people become Christians. Central to any series is “What is the Gospel?” The prevailing thought at the moment is that the Gospel is the person of Jesus Christ, both man and God. In my mind, I am thinking of a story that would best describe the Gospel. Considering the chance to explore this with my wife, I believe I found this story in John 8.

Most Christians remember the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus does a few amazing things in this little tale. Because John is written in order to teach others about Jesus (John 20:31), I look at this story from the perspective, “What does this tell me about Jesus?” The answer inspired me, and I hope it can encourage you.

Jesus is teaching and his enemies produce a woman caught in sin. They had hoped to trap him in this situation by getting him to go against theLaw of Moses. (John 8:6)

When I look at Jesus’ reaction, I think about the things he could’ve done:

He could have told them they were hypocrites. (Luke 6:42)
He could have said that they were not obeying the Law because the Law states that both the man and the woman must be stoned (Lev 20:10).
He could have answered with a question. (Luke 13:15-16)
He could’ve sent the mob away so that he could continue teaching.

However, he answered by stooping down and writing on the ground with his finger. In essence, it seems like he blew them off. Here is this crowd full of indignation at this woman all ready to go with the stoning and the leaders of the mob confident that they could finally pull one over on Jesus. After all, if this whipped up crowd got an answer they didn’t want to hear, they’d stone Jesus, too.

But Jesus changes the focus of the crowd off her and on to him. They kept questioning him while he wrote (John 8:7ff). When he finally answered, they changed focus again, but this time to themselves. He made them think. When they thought about their own life, they walked away.

On a bit of a tangent, I find it interesting is that there were several capital offenses including having a bull that continuinally gores people (Exodus 21:29), being a disobedient son (Deut 21:18-21), or even cursing your parents (Exodus 21:17). This is in addition to the typical things you’d expect would be punished by stoning (murder, adultery, child sacrifice). I’m not saying that the crowd thought about these things, though I suppose there could have been one or two out there.

In any case, once the crowd was dispatched, he then put his focus on the woman herself. He assures her that he is not condemning her, he forgives her, and then tells her to stop sinning. Truly a compassionate moment that shows the heart of Jesus.

What does this have to do with a story exemplying the Gospel? Plenty, I believe.

We have accusers (Satan, our conscience, others) that really have us dead to rights. We have sinned and we know it, and our accusers know it. Yet, here is Jesus taking them on. In fact, the woman does nothing (and she cannot do anything). Jesus defends her and sends away the accusers. In the same way, Jesus defends us from our own accusers and sends them away. She was still guilty of the crime, but he defended her.

Then, when she could be punished by the one man that had a right to throw the first stone, he forgave her. Jesus could condemn us and his judgements would be right. Instead, he offers forgiveness. He could have forgiven her and left it at that, but he gives her a chance for a new life. It’s the same for us.

You know, it was clearer in my head on Sunday, but I felt the need to write it down before I forgot the whole thing. It helped my wife and I respond to God on a heart level, so it was a valuable study for what we needed.

It’s amazing to me to think of the creation. I understand the Genesis account as more of a literary account than 100% literal, but I would still like to have been there for the literal part of it. It’s one thing to say that God “brooded over the vapors” or that He separated the waters, it’s another to actually witness the very first dawn or see the water evaporate en masse to form the atmosphere. I absolutely do not believe in the LDS doctrine that you can evolve to be a god of your own world, but I do hope that God allows me to go back in space-time to witness when he did it.

The next closest thing is to create a world of my own. I believe that God put in us an urge to create something (art, music, computers, houses, sandcastles, etc.) so I figured why not create a different world? So far, it has helped me to understand in a small way some of the things God had to do to make everything work.

to be continued …

Note: This has now been finished. This is the link to Part One

Discipling According to …
What does discipling mean? It is not unique to the ICoC at all. The Navigators use this terminology and Mark Dever uses the term as a part of his Nine Marks of a Healthy Church ministry. It even appears in many baptist churches and in the Shepherding Movement amongst charasmatic churches. With so many variations, it presents a problem as the word discipling means different things to each group. Read more…

Wade Hodges continues his series on the Emergent Church of Christ.

I touched on it briefly some time ago in this post, but I felt the need to expand on it after some study of my own.

The premise of this post is that when we put meaning into a word or a verse, the ramifications can be severe. It is important to separate doctrine from methodology. Subtle changes to key words can bind things on Christians that were never intended (Matt 23:4). This is not to say that a specific methodology is wrong. I am saying that no one should impose a given methodology and expect obedience to it. Read more…

One is a post by a CoC minster featured by icocinfo.org. Here’s a vision of what I had hoped the ICoC could be and still can be.

Another is that my long-lost,best friend from high school has found me. I regret that I have been the one that lost touch with him. He can be found at his blog here. For some reason, his comment did not appear on my site.

Lastly, I took the Nerd Test because of a link on Scott’s site. I thought that I’d be in the thirties or forties for a score. I was quite shocked that I scored 95%. Maybe it’s the Linux, maybe it’s that I built my own computer (and trying to build more). Maybe it’s things I left in my computer room.

Not only am I a lout, I am a bona fide nerd.

As for those who continue to oppose us, they are lost– not because their baptism became invalid, but the Scriptures are clear that those who oppose and grumble against God’s leaders and divide God’s church are, in fact, opposing God (Exodus 16:8; Numbers 16). Thus, the rebellious become lost because they do not have a true faith.

a) 2005 - Critics by Thomas McKean
b) 2002 - Revolution through Restoration III - From Babylon to Zion by Thomas McKean
c) 1994 - Revolution through restoration II - The 20th Century Church by Thomas McKean
d) 1988 - Denver reconstruction by Thomas McKean Read more…

The NFL Season
The NFL posted their 2005 schedule today. In case anyone is wondering, I am rooting for Joe Gibb’s team in Washington. No, I don’t like the owner, but I can’t blame him. He had to be begged to buy the team.

Of course, it’s only 2.5 months until the American Bowl in Tokyo. You know where I’ll be Aug 6… asleep. I love football, but the time lag is too much for the kid. Michael Vick is great. Peyton Manning is great. Giving them a free trip to Tokyo to play 15 minutes is great. I’ll be sure to think of the market share in Asia as I roll over in bed at 3am.

For me, the season begins on Aug 13th in Charlotte. Will we have a decent quarterback? Will the defense show up? How badly will we miss Champ Bailey (salary cap casualty last year) AND Smoot (traded this year)? Has Gibbs gotten the gist of free agency?

Personally, I question the signing of Santana Moss, especially as he didn’t report to voluntary practices. I know, they’re voluntary. In this case, I consider it as voluntary as a root canal, and so does Gibbs.

Newspaper coverage
I’ve talked about the local paper here before. With Creighton University playing for the Sweet 16, the front page of the Sports section has photos of Callahan with the tagline, “Huskers look to retool Defense”. Creighton was on page 4.

I do not, however, miss the News & Observer. It has been appropriately dubbed the Blues and Disturber by critics for several years. I do not understand the editorial policy of hammering the local university, I have always assumed that this policy is what passes for news in the UNC-Chapel Hill journalism school.

Give me real sports news like my old local paper does. Sure they have problems, but they cover local high schools, the local AAA Baseball team, the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Redskins, the new Washington Nationals, and college sports in several states, even smaller colleges like Coastal Carolina. (Who incidentally hired Buzz Peterson as coach. Think UNC-CH basketball when they didn’t have a winning season.)

Oh well. I do what I can to keep up with the indoor footbal team, the AA Baseball team, the USHL and college hockey teams, in addition to the other university in Nebraska with a football team. Thank goodness for RSS feeds.

This relates to football because there is ZERO Washington news out here and I’m too cheap to buy a Season Ticket from the cable company. Until then, I have to rely on the official site, and that is about 25% marketing by volume. (Caution: Contents may settle during shipping.)

Link Crazy
On a tangent, not sure why today is a link heavy day. Just seemed the thing to do.

It is my wife’s birthday today. Unfortunately, she is home sick today. The weather changed from beautiful spring to dismal autumn in a three hour span.

In any case, this is a quick note to profess to the blogosphere my undying love for my wife.

She is patient with me in my “But-I-Am-Always-Right” moments.
She is loving to me when I do not like myself.
She is my friend to listen when I need to share.
She is my partner in crime to work on the teaching ministry.

But aside from what she does for me, she is:

Spontaneous, Creative, Thoughtful, Serving, Gracious, Kind, and very Big-Hearted.
She is tender and easily affected by the feelings of others.
She is incredibly intuitive and empathetic.

She loves me, and I give thanks to God for that everyday. She loves me for who I am, not who I am supposed to be.

I love her, too. She is the greatest.

The paschal laugh, or the celebration of the Sunday after Easter.

so I hope to eventually get some sleep in the next two weeks. I’ll write more as things develop.

Otherwise, life is good.

What is said recently (emphasis added):

We believe God’s church universal is composed of all the disciples in the world. We believe local congregations should be composed of only disciples. That does not mean that International Church of Christ members are the only disciples. But we do believe we are the only fellowship with congregations of only disciples. Presently we are reaching out to several leaders who share this conviction in order to help reunite “discipling churches” through relationships between leaders.

Was said 14 years ago (emphasis added):

I have never believed or taught that anyone has to be baptized into the Boston Church of Christ to be saved. The Scriptures clearly teach you must be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and then, the Lord adds you to his church (Acts 2:36-47; Romans 6:3,4; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Acts 2:41,42). However, I do not know of any other church, group or movement that teaches and practices what we teach as Jesus taught in Acts 2:41,42: one must make the decision to be a disciple, then be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins to be saved and receive the Holy Spirit. When one is born again at baptism (Titus 3:5), one must have Jesus’ heart and attitude to do anything, go anywhere and give up everything for God. After baptism each disciple is taught to obey all the commands of Jesus as one grows and goes making disciples. If this is what God teaches in the Bible, then we are God’s movement.

I know, you’d think I was proud of the baptisms in my church or something the way I carry on about them.

She has been working through enormous circumstances in her life and has overcome so much. It was great to see her father and cousin honor her publicly, without even mentioning the studies or her baptism. She has been fighting her demons for quite a long time, suffice it to say that this wasn’t a case of someone trying to prove themselves before baptism.

In any case, we celebrated today and had a great time. Most folks went to Wendy’s(tm) afterward - I wish I could have been there.

A friend of mine baptized his girlfriend this past Sunday and the entire church celebrated.

I remember a conversation that happened sometime ago with my friend about a girl that wasn’t a member of our church. I wasn’t the only person he talked to, but I did tell him that I trust him and that others may not like his decision. I also told him that she is not going to understand certain lingo in our church. She will not be familiar with our history, and that can be good and bad. Either way, she wasn’t going to immediately do the things that a member of our church would do, because she hasn’t been a part of it. Don’t be surprised when she doesn’t do what you expect. He told me that he laid out the boundaries of the relationship: they would go to our church, the relationship would be pure (and he defined it quite clearly), he was active in the teen ministry and he had hopes for campus ministry one day. When he said that she was fine with that and that she wanted to be active in church, the cynical part of me said, “yeah right.” You have to understand, my friend is in his early 20s, he’s an outgoing guy, very mature for his age, but he still has fun, very athletic, etc. In short, he’s what parents would consider ‘the perfect guy’.

He’s also had struggles in his life of all kinds. However, his mother was restored last year, his brother baptized a couple months ago - he is truly grateful for the wonderful things in his life. Again, the cynical side of me thought that this would be inviting trouble onto himself.

Don’t get me wrong, I had no problems with him dating a non-member at all. I didn’t doubt his heart one bit. I was more afraid of everyone else’s reaction to him.

In the end, though, I told him what I feared for him, I prayed a lot, and decided that if this was a mistake, that God would see him through it to teach him something he needed to know. Sure it felt funny, I had a lot of fears for my friend. However, I knew it wasn’t a sin and I had said my peace for him to think about.

Last night at our 40 Days of Purpose celebration, our minister read a portion of a letter she wrote to him two weeks previous. In it, she expressed her joy for what she was learning, the daily devotionals, and the love and acceptance she has felt from day one. She shared that she has never felt like a part of a family in church before and that she is truly grateful.

I was in MN, but I saw the pictures last night. The church truly celebrated at her baptism. As I always do to those recently baptized, I got to congratulate her last night and say, “welcome home.”

I get upset sometimes and I make things bigger than they really are. I still hurt over many things that happened to me and to others. No matter what, though, I am grateful that this family that so willingly opened their hearts to me, has opened their hearts to her as well. I am familiar with ‘lovebombing’ and I have been a part of it in the past. I believe this to be different because even two years later, folks still take time to express their love to me. I have gone from nobody to leader to teacher to regular member and this love has not changed. It gives me hope that she will experience the same thing.

It reminds me of the scripture that we will be known as disciples by the love we have for one another. It is an encouraging thought.

I have sleep apnea. I will be getting my machine in the next day or two. Then I will go to a sleep study and be diagnosed.

Yes, I typed that correctly.

There is such a backlog for people to be tested in a sleep study that doctors are actually treating patients first. The current backlog is six to eight weeks.

I have friends with a CPAP machine. One named his “Flo”. The other named his “Wendy”. Were I to continue in this tradition, I would name mine “Gail”, but I will leave mine unnamed for reasons of marital harmony.

I am also getting a Cat Scan and chest X-Rays. My doctor is concerned that I have other complications that may need to be treated (i.e. deviated septum, undersized sinus cavities).

So, I am looking forward to getting some sleep for the first time in years. My wife is looking forward to some peace and quiet at night.