The First Day of School

I have always loved the first day of school. The new books, the new teachers, the sense of excitement over all that we will learn over the course of the semester. I know, I know…[NERD SALUTE].

Some observations about my morning classes (Old Testament, Barth)

• Intro to Old Testament Exegesis is going to be a huge course. We have a lot to cover and hardly any time to cover it. It will be good, though, so I won’t complain. I don’t have to do as much intensive Hebrew as I expected, so I’ll make it.

• My class on Karl Barth is going to be fun, although I’m one of only three grad students in the class. I feel like I am at the point where I can understand and interact constructively with his thought. It has taken six classes that had a major emphasis on Barth’s thought to get there.

• Rule of thumb for differentiating between grad students and undergrads in a mixed classroom: grad students use laptops…They also tend to cross their legs while listening to the professor and generally have an expression of, “I am understanding this at a way deeper level than you” on their faces. It’s not true, but we don’t let the undergrads know that.

• When asked why she was taking a class on Karl Barth, one girl said, “Well, my Mom used to wake me up every morning by reading a selection from Barth’s writings.” I’ll note that for future parenting techniques.

• There is one thing I can’t stand about people who are into Karl Barth. I love Barth, but lots of people do. He’s hot right now in theology in the English-speaking world, and American Evangelicals are waking up to the fact that he is awesome. At the moment, everyone who is into theology is into Barth. The problem is, even though the whole theological world has a major crush on Barth, everybody thinks they are the only person who appreciates him. So, you hear a lot of comments like, “I’m studying Barth because everyone thinks he is evil and they are all idiots. He gets ignored in American theology, and nobody realizes how awesome he is. But, I want to help change that and bring him back so that people will stop bashing him. I want to change the church’s opinion of Barth, because nobody likes him!”…All this, said in a classroom that is overflowing with so many students that there aren’t enough desks, and every student in there is thinking the exact same thing. How come we always think that we are on the cutting edge? Why is everyone else not as insightful or enlightened as ourselves?

Well, I’m off to get started on my reading.

Heaven: A Preview from Colbert and N.T. Wright

I am going to be starting a series on heaven in the near future. But, before I get to that, let me give you a little preview of the sort of things I will be discussing. Actually, N. T. Wright and Stephen Colbert are going to help. Yesterday, Wright went on the Colbert Report and the two of them discussed theology. Basically, this was my ideal form of entertainment, theology and satire in harmony. (On a side note, I love that Colbert is actually a faithful Catholic, and he really does know his theology.) What Colbert and Wright discussed was the premise of Wright’s new book Suprised by Hope. It is a book about heaven, the end of the world, the resurrection, and the new creation. This is a quick summary, and frankly, if you don’t already have a grasp of Wright’s theology, you might not catch it all. But, I loved it, and maybe it will get things primed for my upcoming posts on heaven. Check it out.

Also, while I’m on the subject of Wright, a friend of mine from Ecclesia is blogging as he reads What Saint Paul Really Said by N. T. Wright. His name is Joe, and here is a link to his first post on N. T. Wright.

Palm Sunday in 3rd Grade

Let us ignore for a moment the fact that Palm Sunday is a fairly misunderstood holiday. (The crowds at the triumphal entry were cheering Jesus on as a nationalistic savior, clearly misunderstanding him and worshiping him as something he wasn’t. This makes children’s Palm Sunday parades kind of ironic as part of our worship services.) I have two stories about Palm Sunday.

Story #1

Because I teach 3rd grade Sunday school, I got to participate in the Palm Sunday parade. We have about an 4-1 ratio of boys to girls in our class, so things are always high energy in our room. But today was particularly rowdy, even before the palm branches were passed out. When we did get our palm branches, I went around and tried to get the kids into it. A lot of kids are shy and not that enthusiastic when they walk through the adult worship service. So, I went around and made sure my kids would “wave it like they mean it!” We all practiced waving our branches in big, sweeping motions over our heads, instead of just shaking it a little down by our sides. We were all lined up in the hall way, and I was getting the kids psyched up to go upstairs to the main worship service. The energy, and therefore noise, was high. But it was for a good cause, we were going to honor Jesus the King.

Then, the 2nd graders came out to the hallway, and one of the 2nd grade teachers did not enjoy our enthusiasm. I don’t think she saw that I was the one stirring up the kids, so she yelled out, “Boys and girls! In second grade we talked about why we are doing this. We are doing this to worship Jesus. And that means you have to calm down and be quiet!”

It took a lot of effort for me not to yell back, “You are in for a rude awakening in the Kingdom, lady! I have a feeling the worship is going to be pretty loud.” Or even quote Jesus at her, since when someone told his students to shut up on Palm Sunday, he said: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:40)

Story #2 

After the parade, I was teaching table time. I was telling the story of the triumphal entry. I told the kids how not everyone was happy that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. I told them how the Pharisees wanted the people to stop cheering. And how Jesus refused to stop his disciples from celebrating. In the course of the story, I was paraphrasing Jesus and said, “Jesus said, ‘I’m not going to tell my followers to shut up. If they shut up, the rocks will worship me!’” That was a mistake. As soon as I said, “Shut up!” The kids all gasped and one kid said, “He said the S-Word!” And to think, their Sunday School teacher didn’t just say the S-Word, but Jesus did.

Reformation Day Celebrations

So, my wife and I came up with an idea dorkier than naming our kids Paul and James…

As today is the day before Halloween, I was about to wish my wife a “Happy Halloween Eve.” Of course, before I said this I realized how silly it was because Halloween is itself an “eve,” because it is the eve of All Saint’s Day. (I will be celebrating my favorite saint on that day, St. Drogo, the bilocator.) It is a bit excessive to wish someone a happy eve of an eve, so I stopped myself. But then I realized that today actually is an “eve.” It is “Reformation Day Eve”, the day before the anniversary of the start of the Reformation. There are some Christian families that won’t let their kids dress up for Halloween or go trick or treating, and instead, they have their kids have alternative festivities, often around Reformation Day. Personally, I think that is stupid (mostly because Halloween is one of the only holidays where there are community-wide activities of celebration, you actually see all your neighbors, and kids get free candy…why miss out on that?), but what if we did have our kids celebrate Reformation Day? I could be awesome!

They could dress up like Calvin, Luther, Knox, and Zwingli, which I’m sure will be a big hit at the school Halloween party. If we had more than four or five kids we could start busting out the lesser known reformers. (Of course the kid who got stuck with Oecolampadius probably wouldn’t be so happy, because he was against using humor in sermons and no one can pronounce his name.) And Reformation Eve would be the best! There would be so much anticipation. The kids would stay up as late as they could to try and catch Martin Luther sneaking in at midnight like Santa, not to bring gifts, but to nail the 95 theses to our door. Instead of cookies and milk they would leave him a pint of beer.

This is just what my wife and I came up with, but some people go way further than that it turns out. Check out this description of a Reformation Day Fair. I can’t believe people seriously celebrate this stuff. Lord, forgive us for making ourselves more weird than we have to be.

My Blog is PG-13?

This website said my blog was PG-13 based on the presence of the word “death” and “pain.” I’m not so sure of that. If I’m going to get that rating, I need to start cussing more.

But I’m getting out of youth ministry…

So, I just looked over my syllabus for my theology class next week. The prof is a Barth scholar, so he will be theologically rich and intellectually rigorous, which I am looking forward to. The topics in the course is in a pretty standard sequence, following the Apostle’s Creed. Since it is 4 hours of credit in one week of work, it’ll be a bit intense. Thankfully, there is only one essay. But, I couldn’t believe it when I saw the prompt. I thought I was getting out of youth ministry:

This assignment is asking you to put yourself in the following position. Your church has committed to take high-school seniors and College students on a 1-month mission trip to Tanzania next summer. The leadership team of your church have become aware of your theological training and they have seen your excitement as you have talked about world Christianity. As a result, they have asked you to come and teach the high-school and College students in order to prepare them for their mission trip.

Your critical task—in as creative a way as you wish—is to provide an account of (1) what you learned about a new understanding of mission emerging out of Donovan’s work; and (2) to demonstrate what, in your judgment, are the most important things to teach these students about mission and the Christian faith in Africa so that they will be well-prepared for this short-term missions trip.

Sounds familiar…

If you know PJ…

This will probably only be funny to you if you know my father, P. J. He eats breakfast a couple of times a week at a local restaurant in town called the Red Apple. He has developed a sort of reputation for going there a lot, especially among the guys in the youth group. So, when he and I were out for lunch today, we were both surprised to see that he is part of their current advertising campaign. We were going to go to Wendey’s, but we just had to stop in and get a couple of steaks because of this. This will only be funny to you if you know my dad or have been to the Red Apple.

Names for Children

I literally have 18 pages of notes saved on my computer about possible posts that I could write for this blog. The problem is, to turn those 18 pages into actually entries requires time. Maybe when I am back in school, I can dedicate a little bit more time to my musings here. I mean, isn’t that was school is, space to think and write?

Here is one short thought from my wife. Michelle and I often talk about having children. No plans are in the works for little ones right now, but we know that one day we really want to have kids. It is the next big life transition that is ahead for us, and since, in the scheme of things, it isn’t that far away, we like to talk about what it will be like. Every once in a while, we talk about possible names for our children. I particularly like Bible names. (Of course, Michelle is not sold on my idea of naming our children after the 12 patriarchs and the 12 minor prophets…24 boys with names like Haggai and Zebulen just doesn’t appeal to her for some reason.) The other day, Michelle had a great idea for a couple of Biblical names for our kids. She suggested that we have two sons and name them Paul and James. We could then make them fight with each other about works and faith. We would expect a lot out of James and always let Paul off the hook. We’d interact with James based on law and Paul based on grace. And then we see which kid turned out better. I know it is totally warped, and pretty nerdy, but the thought was really hilarious to me.

The Importance of Context

Last week, we were trying to plan the devotional lessons for our summer mission trip. Our student leaders write the majority of the devotions, and so we have them help brainstorm verses and topics to use. This year, our trip’s theme is unity, and so we were discussing verses on that topic. One of the students suggested the following verse:

The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

It sounds inspiring, doesn’t it? One people! Nothing will be impossible! This is only the beginning! It is, until you realize that it is from Genesis 11:6, and you look up the context.

It is almost as good as the year (before my time) when the trip theme came from Habakkuk 1:5:

Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

Check out the context for that one.

So remember, always read the whole passage, and look into the written, canonical, and cultural contexts of verses before you use them…especially if they are from the minor prophets.

Butterburgers with a Friend

My friend Dave blogged a story about our most recent trip to everyone’s favorite fast food chain. Enjoy: Butterburgers.

A Dream

My wife told me that I needed to blog this.

Last night I had a nightmare, which in the dream scared me, but in the morning was a bit more humorous. I dreamed that I had married into a large, Greek family like the one in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I now lived in a house completely decked out in blue and white, with gaudy decorations that celebrated Greek culture. I was  trying to learn Greek, so I was in the kitchen of our house, writing down all of the Greek words I could remember. The kitchen was dirty, and there were crumbs all over the floor as well as several large chunks of food. Part way into my dream, my father and my brother-in-law, Al, came by to see me.

When they arrived, a large cockroach came crawling out of nowhere to grab one of the fist-sized chunks of food on the floor. This terrified me because the cockroach was enormous, about the size of a small dog. It was scurrying along the floor towards a chunk of food near my food, and I was backing away, trying to jump onto the kitchen counter, when all of the sudden, a large rat came by and pounced on the cockroach. I think it wanted the chunk of food. The cockroach was strong and it kept moving towards me, with the food in its mouth and the rat on its back. Then, out of nowhere, a bird with large talons came swooping out of the sky (of the kitchen?) and grabbed the rat and pulled it in the air. The rat held onto the cockroach, which held onto the chunk of food, and all of them rose into the sky together. This all happened in a matter of about 25 seconds, while my father and brother-in-law looked on. I had managed to scramble onto a counter top to escape the creatures, but because of the bird, it was no use. I tried to back away, but it was flying directly towards me. When it was about a two feet in front of my face, I woke up, grabbing at my wife and kicking wildly.

She asked me what was wrong. I said, “I had a nightmare. I don’t want to talk about it.” Then I went back to sleep.

Now, friends, in the spirit of the King of Babylon, I seek wise men to interpret my dream. Tell me what you think.

A Compliment from a Student

Last weekend, a student of mine told me: “Clayton, you’re sort of like Blade, who is half-vampire and half-human, which gives him the strength of both with none of the weaknesses. You are half-nerd, half-pastor. You have the strength of both and none of the weaknesses.”

I’m not even sure what that means, but I like it.

Dividing By Zero

Are you kidding me? Scientists these days…they just can’t stop messing with the education of young children. First they get rid of a planet. Then, they start making up numbers: BBC - Berkshire - Features - 1200-year-old problem ‘easy’

The article didn’t explain it enough, actually. Because right now it sounds like instead of saying it is impossible to do, they are just making up a number to mean, “It is impossible to do.” I’d like to see how it helps any math for real. It feels like the number i, at first it just seems to be a made up number to represent something we can’t do. (square root of -1), but eventually, you see that it really does help in a lot of situations to have that made up number.

Either way, kids are going to be screwed up because of this, I’m sure…

Update: Here is another story about this that explains how silly it is: Good Math, Bad Math: The Nonsense Number

Shakey Face

A friend of mine (another pastor on staff), has just made his own website, which, frankly, will likely change the face of the interwebs as we know it. Check it out: The Shakey Face.

Depressed in a Christian Bookstore

Here is a cynical post to follow up a hopeful one

I got depressed the other day when I when I went into a local Christian bookstore. Most of the time, I leave the Christian bookstore a little more cynical than when I went in, but this time, I was downright sad.

Two products in particular made me sick to my stomach. The first was a book called, “Is Someone in Your Church a Terrorist?” It had a picture of a church building with a long, lit fuse running out of it. It was a book about “problem” people in churches who bring about destruction of the church from within. It was littered with jokes about AK-47s and dirty bombs. I am sure it was written with good intentions, but it was done in really poor taste. It made me wonder why we can’t let tragic situations in our world be what they are, instead of co-opting them as sermon and book illustrations for our mundane church problems. It is a lot like all the sermons on “Weathering the Hurricane in Your Life” after Katrina and “Facing Life’s Tsunamis” after the devastation in Southeast Asia two years ago. Is it because those tragedies don’t register with us as truly real that we feel the liberty to casually apply them to more trivial situations? I don’t know, but it made me a little embarrassed to be a Christian at that moment. If a non-Christian saw that book, would they really take anything we say seriously? I wouldn’t. Maybe that is just me.

The second product made me even more frustrated. They were called “Gospatalities.” They were so hideous that even Sandberg’s Store for Men and Boys wouldn’t stock them. (Sorry, inside joke for the locals.) I have grown accustomed to ugly clothing and lousy art in Christian stores, but these were some of the worse I had seen. I might have passed the display with nothing more than a roll of the eyes and a groan, but the tagline for the brand left me bewildered. It said, “Soul-Winning Ties.” That’s right, these ties were going to win souls. Simply by wearing these masterpieces, people would flock to Jesus. It made me so sad. My sorrow was partially because I was questioning my faith just looking at the ties, thinking, “How could loving and all-powerful God exist if he would allow such disgusting objects to enter his creation?”

But, more than that, I was truly sad that anyone would ever think to market clothing by claiming it would “win souls.” I was sad that anyone would think that a tie could lead someone to faith. I was sad to think that there were people wearing clothing, sporting bumper stickers, and paying to put up billboards, thinking that it was a good way to help people enter the Kingdom. My sadness was over the fact Christians have ever honestly thought that anything other than the Spirit of God working in the context of a loving relationship through the truth of the Gospel could “win souls.” We don’t need
t-shirts, or ties, or anything other than the Spirit, the Gospel, and love to see people come to know Jesus. Why are we buying (literally) a lie? Why are we selling it?

I almost called out the manager about the ties, but I settled for ranting to two of the cashiers. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll be spending any more money in that store. It was one of those moments where even for someone born and bred deep in the subculture, that I felt so utterly alone and isolated. I felt foreign and confused. I left thinking, “Why can’t we just
be normal?”

Preston, ID

There is only one highway that goes north out of Salt Lake City into southeastern Idaho. There is no need for more highways, because most people have no reason to visit this part of the country. As you go north, however, at some points there are parallel roads that run alongside the highway, smaller pathways where few choose to travel. It is on one of these alternate routes that you find Preston. 

Preston is a town of about 5,000 people, which by Idaho standards is a major hub of activity. For most of us, though, it is just a dumpy little town. When you enter the city, there is a large sign that warmly welcomes you, but if you didn’t know any better, you would have no idea that this was setting for one of the greatest comedic masterpieces of all time, Napoleon Dynamite. It was in honor of this work that Michelle and I made our pilgrimage to Preston. 

We drove around the town for a few minutes, looking for some landmark that would orient us so that we could find the places where the movie was filmed. There were no signs, souvenir shops, or Napoleon references to be seen anywhere. It took almost five minutes before we saw something we recognized: the high school.

Just like in the movie, there in the front were the steps where Napoleon explained the nature of the Liger to Deb and the bike racks where Pedro’s protection came in handy. Around the corner was the track and the bleachers where Napoleon showed off his girlfriend’s bangs. 

It was great, but after driving around the block a few times, we realized there wasn’t much to do other than look at the school. We were going to just drive off, but I decided that I had to get a picture on the steps. So, Michelle and I parked, got out of the car, and I sat down right where Napoleon waited for Uncle Rico to come pick him up. It was classic.

And then, unexpectedly, as she was taking the picture, a creepy conversion van pulled up behind Michelle. I thought, “Oh no, a creepy conversion van. They are probably going to ask us to leave because we are on school property.” When the van stopped, an old man stepped out and slammed the creaky door, slowly shuffling his way up to us. I told Michelle that we’d better finish up the picture and get going.

But then the old man said, “I don’t really need to ask what you’re doing…Normally, I don’t do this, but since you have the Napoleon haircut, come with me.” 

He then proceeded up the steps, walked over to the school doors, and took out his keys. As he unlocked the doors, I couldn’t believe what was happening. As he opened the door he said, “Why don’t you get one by the lockers?” 

He then proceeded to tell us how he was a retired teacher from Preston High School. He used to teach German and English, and he had Pedro in his class. Now, after retiring, he was just the locksmith for the school. He then told us where to find Pedro’s house, Napoleon’s house, Rico’s van, and a few other landmarks from the movie. According to him, they had a hundred visitors a week taking pictures on the steps of Napoleon’s house, which curiously enough is owned by the old man who shot the cow and performed Kip and Lafawnda’s wedding. We also learned that Pedro’s dad works at the car wash in town, is very friendly, and loves taking pictures with people. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go meet him. 

After Michelle and I got some pictures by the lockers, the locksmith began unlocking another door just down the hall. He waved us over and said, “Go on inside.” We walked over and looked in, and there before us stretched the auditorium and the stage where Napoleon performed his dance for Pedro’s skit. I got to go up on the stage and have my picture taken. I would have done the dance, but with the locksmith watching, I felt kind of stupid.

All in all, it was a great detour on our way back to Salt Lake City to catch our flight. It just goes to show that having untamed curly hair sometimes pays off.

Related Link: ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ Town Cashes in on Flim

A Dream I Had Last Night

I don’t dream much. My wife does. Most nights she wakes up with a crazy story to tell, but I don’t. If I do dream, it is lame and I don’t remember them. But last night, I had a good one.

It all started with me at work. We were trying to advertise and recruit more students to come to our youth group, so we were hosting an open house for people to come and meet the pastors and find out what the youth group was like. (This seems like a pretty silly way to reach students if you ask me, but that is what we were doing.) The strange part about it was that we were not using our own youth building or even our main church building. We were using the building of the Lutheran church next door. I was putting up signs all around the building to attract people. But, I had to hurry.

You see, something unusual was happing in Wheaton. For some reason all of the Christians were coming to be registered. I don’t mean all the Christians in the town. I mean all the Christians in the world. They were all coming to Wheaton. (I know, were the Mecca of Evangelicalism, right?) And they were being “checked in” on the steps of College Church, a church a few blocks away from my church, right next to Wheaton College. I had to go and check in with my family, but I was late, so I was rushing. My nephew was with me. Now, for some reason, my nephew did not look like my nephew normally does. Instead, he looked like one of the kids in the youth group, the goofy kid who does tech crew on Sundays.

Well, my nephew and I had to catch up with my family in order to check in, so we started rushing around Wheaton College campus, in the midst of throngs of people…I suppose there were a few billion people, but they all seemed to fit on Wheaton College campus…We were running into people all over, and they were all wearing brightly colored shirts. This is because all the families wore matching shirts so they could find each other easier. It didn’t help, but that is what we were doing. My Mom called me on my cell phone to tell me that the rest of them were in line at College Church, and that they had shirts for my nephew and I. They had left them in the basement of College Church, and we could change there.

When we found our shirts in the basement of College Church, they were bright turquoise. I’m not sure what was up with the color, but that was what my Mom had left me. My nephew’s shirt was striped, turquoise and white, with a colar. Mine, on the other hand, was a t-shirt with words on the front. The words were:

Denying my faith is like denying my tatoo.

I’m not really sure why my Mom left me a shirt like that. I don’t even have a tatoo.

Eventually we found my parents at the check in place, but they told me we didn’t need to check in anymore, because they had done it for us. I ended up wandering around the town, seeing old friends and famous Christians, and feeling self-conscious about my shirt. And then I woke up.

Church Names

Funny: Church Names | Resurgence

Man Witnesses a Car Accident

A student sent me this, and it cracked me up: Man Witnesses a Car Accident. Make sure you have the sound on.

This Would be A Fun Christmas Present

USB Powered Air Darts

Cartoon Versions of Reformed Theologians

A third post in one day…this made me chuckle.

Hall of Contemporary Reformers

Car Navagation System with Personality

Turn Right in 500 feet…fool!

Ever wish life was a musical?

I’ve thought sometimes, “I wonder why life doesn’t have more spontaneous musical responses to situations. How come there aren’t more dance numbers? What if life were more like a Broadway production?” This guy provides us with a glimpse into that happy alternate reality…oh, and no one else in the room is expecting this.

Library: The Musical
Lecture: The Musical

An Experience from Today

It is a sad and strange experience to walk into a Radio Shack and have the employees say, “Hey, where have you been? You haven’t been around in a while.”

With All Due Respect for Jews and Ninjas…

This made me laugh: The NinJew