Nice Contest!

I have written before about my love for the products developed by the folks at Logos. The newest release, Logos 4, is just about to ship as a full final-version release for the Mac platform. This is a HUGE deal for those of us who have been using Logos for years in Alpha and Beta versions, on Emulators, or even on actual Windows boxes!

I first encountered Logos when my Senior Pastor, Mike Biolsi, was teaching me how he did research for preaching sermons back in 2001. I got even more exposure to the product when I attended Practical Bible College (now Davis College), and bought an entry-level package to use for research papers and the like.

When I switched to Mac in 2006, there was only one program I missed. You guessed it; Logos. I ran Windows in an emulator program so that I could still use my old copy, but when Logos for Mac was announced, I signed up quick. Likewise, when Logos 4 was announced, I paid the upgrade fee immediately.

Now that the product has reached maturity, I’m truly excited. I’ve been actively using Logos 4 Mac since the late Alpha stages, and every update (especially in the Beta stages) has brought increased performace and stability. It’s a great tool, and I use it all the time in my ministry.

To celebrate the impending release, Logos is running a huge Logos 4 Mac Ship Day Giveaway. There is an iMac, Macbook Pro, iPad, iPod Touch, iPod Nano, and a slew of various gift cards to be had. Head on over, enter the contest, and of course BUY a copy of Logos 4 today!

This is a clip from a sermon on Romans 8 by Dr. John Piper (the music and images were added in following the sermon). While it’s not specifically focused on the issue of health and weight loss, I think it’s very much related. The clip also addresses a number of other societal issues that people struggle with, so check it out even if you aren’t into the whole “health thing” I’ve been doing on here lately.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What do you think? Does the true Christian life require a mean-streak?

Wish I had GPS!

I’m a theology geek before I’m a political geek, but I do love both topics. My good friend Justin Fontes has been informally posting a series of questions on Facebook that are designed to examine the intersections of faith and culture. As one would expect, his questions in that digital public-forum result in a variety of passionate responses from diverse viewpoints.

Justin recently posed the question mentioned in the title of this post, “Is ‘Separation of Church and State’ Biblical?”. Here’s the response I came up with:

I’m in agreement with Mathew about the original intent of the separation of church and state as a historic American political doctrine. The nation was founded with a Judeo-Christian ethic by Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, and Jewish individuals (among others) who sought freedom to practice their faith free from governmental interference. It had nothing to do with constraining religion; quite the opposite, it was meant to protect it.

As for separation’s theological correctness from a Biblical perspective, the bottom line is that it is neither Biblical nor un-Biblical; it’s simply not addressed in scripture. Outside of God’s Covenant with the specific nation of Israel in the Old Testament, the Bible doesn’t prescribe a specific system of government. However, if the question is, “Is separation of Church and State biblically-compatible?”, I’d most assuredly answer in the affirmative.

There are a number of scriptural principals to consider. Again, no one government system is prescribed for the Church age by scripture. In the New Testament, neither Christ nor or any of the Apostles rebuke the secular governmental systems of the day. In Mark 12:17, Christ actually ignores the question of whether or not the Roman occupation is unjust, but states that it’s right to pay taxes to Caesar (understanding of course that God’s Kingdom transcends all earthly rulers and nations). In Romans 13, Paul explains that Christians are to be subject to their ruling authorities, to include paying taxes and giving respect when it’s due. Interestingly, these commands are not predicated upon the governmental system in place, or the moral character of the leader(s) of said government; these are constants, whether under a democratic republic, or a communist regime…

However, that’s not all. Most interestingly, Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2: “1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

My take on that passage is this: Paul commanded prayer for governmental leaders, so that they would be blessed as civil leaders (and be saved, if not believers) and allow Christians to live “peaceful and quiet lives”. His primary motivation was to build God’s Kingdom by protecting the Church from civil intrusion (particularly from Rome at the time he wrote) as it missionally spread the Gospel. If a nation’s government has a hands-off approach to issues of faith, allowing religious institutions to exist without intrusion, then half of Paul’s motivation for the command to pray for that government is already accomplished within that nation. To me, that means separation of church and state, at least as it was originally defined by the founding fathers, is certainly compatible with the principles of scripture. Of course, we don’t have that luxury, anymore… but I digress.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, our governmental role as members of the New Covenant is primarily one of prayer. We pray for our government leaders on multiple levels: on the personal level, that God would regenerate their hearts and draw them to salvation in Christ; on the administrative level, that God would give them wisdom and discernment in their administration of the civil law and national defense; and in their relationship with the church, that God would grant the church protection from intrusion, so that the government is “hands off” in matters of faith, allowing us to lead “peaceful and quiet lives.”

At least, that’s my geeky approach to it. I’ve just begun reading an excellent book by Hunter Baker called “The End of Secularism” which promises to address many of these issues (so far, I’m in the early historical summary section). I’d recommend the book to anyone reading this thread. It contains much to chew on.

Am I on the right track, or have I gotten way off base? As always, I’d welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

Edit (1/14/10): Justin has resumed blogging, and does so At Land’s End.

http://lessof.lenflack.com

It seems like right around January 1st each year, I roll out some newfangled change to this site in anticipation of a stellar year of blogging. And then, a month goes by without any posts before I ashamedly post one or two thoughts before disappearing again. Last year was particularly disappointing for me in regards to blogging frequency. I had presumed that being in full-time ministry would make it easier for me to find time to blog. Ha! Yeah, right.¬†Nevertheless, I’m rolling out two newfangled changes this year!

The first and more important one is that I’ve begin blogging over at lessof.lenflack.com. You know… because if I can’t keep up with one blog, two will be a cinch, right? Truth be told, I think LessOfLen will work quite well. It’s tied to the only New Year’s Revolution that I chose to make this year. Yes, I did use the word “revolution”; This year I’m going way beyond simple resolutions to radically change my lifestyle. Check out lessof.lenflack.com for more information.

The other change is related to this site. If you’re using a feed reader (I’d be surprised I have any subscribers left, but I digres…) you might not have noticed that the visual presentation of this site has changed dramatically. After using a heavily hacked version of Cityscape, I’ve switched to a lightly hacked version of Pyrmont V2. Why the change? Simple: I was sick of looking at the same theme for three years. I like the new look, and I hope you like it too. I do still miss the “Hello, my name is…” logo from the last site, though; it may find it’s way back on here eventually.

2009 by Colorcubic.com

I really enjoy the celebration of the New Year’s holiday. Now, I’m not referring just to the traditional aspects that involve socializing with others until midnight; those gatherings can be fun, and I certainly do enjoy ringing in the new year with good friends. Rather, my favorite part of the celebration is actually the opportunity that it creates to conduct an introspective examination of our life and conduct.¬†It’s true that we can (and truthfully should) do these evaluations throughout the year as well, but the new year creates a uniquely natural break in the normal rhythm of life. This break, often paired with a day or two (or more!) of rest from one’s work is a perfect opportunity to both look back, and plan ahead.

When I wrote my year-end post last year, I had no idea what to expect for the year to come. As I look back at 2009, I’m struck with the realization that it was a time of both blessing and struggle for myself and my family. However, I can honestly say that I felt Christ was present and active through all of it.

Rather than focusing on the struggles, I’d like to take just a moment to share some of the things that were blessings to me this year.

• My wife, Diana Lin. I am so thankful for the ways we grew together this year. Diana, I love you more today than I ever have.
• My kiddos, Elijah and Moriah. While there are moments that these two could wind up in the “struggles list”, the reality is that they bring me immense joy. There is nothing better than an “I love you, Daddy!” when things are tense.
• My family. This includes all three sets (the Sisk’s, the Flack’s and the Stiles’). I’ve grown closer to all of them this past year, and I truly value their wisdom, love, and faith.
• My church. This year marked my third year as a pastor, and my first in full-time ministry, which I love. The love and grace that the people of NCF have shown me is amazing; I’m so glad to serve here.
• Old friends. In some ways 2009 was a hard year on my friendships. I didn’t spend nearly as much time with old friends as I have in years past. However, I am blessed to have a handful of folks who are literally like family, and always there in¬†crisis situations.
• New friends. In other ways 2009 was a great year for my friendships. I’ve met a handful of people through Twitter and Facebook who have become real friends in the offline world, meeting for meals and conferences. I am especially thankful for my CBMNE brothers!

I guess this list is the kind of list you’d usually share during a Thanksgiving Day feast, but it’s what is on my heart tonight, just hours from 2010. So, what does 2010 have in store? I don’t have any more of an idea than I did last year, but I know that God is ultimately in control of all of it… and that gives me incredible hope!

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. РProverbs 19:21 (ESV)

Happy New Year!

In preparation for my return to the blogosphere (yes, I say that every December/January and July/August), I’ve been doing some under-the-hood things to the site. This post is about the most recent geek-change.

In the world of URL shorteners, it seems bit.ly has the edge for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, I prefer the j.mp service (which is actually powered by bit.ly, but obviously has a shorter domain name). I’ve been using Alex King‘s Twitter Tools to announce new posts on Twitter for a while now. As of version 2.0, Twitter Tools includes a plugin of it’s own to shorten URLs with bit.ly. This is better than nothing, but not exactly what I want.

Since the technology of bit.ly and j.mp is essentially identical, I think that a bit of find-and-replace PHP hacking will allow me to post using j.mp. I’ve made those changes, uploaded the file, and activated my plugin. Essentially, this is the test post. We’ll see if it works!

Edit: About 20 seconds after posting this entry, the following tweet appeared on Twitter:

@lenflack New post: Custom j.mp Plugin for Twitter Tools http://j.mp/7hRziR #fb

Success!

However, I thought it may be nice to share a cute picture of my daughter, Moriah, playing with her friend, Natalie. (Moriah is the little one.)

I hope the post works well, and that the graphics match the style of the site. It would be nice to post from my iPhone… It may mean more regular posts.

Although I’m not quite sure why, over the years I’ve had a handful of opportunities to be featured on television, radio, podcasts, and other forms of media. With the exception of one incident, all of them have been enjoyable experiences. But none compare to my first-ever media appearance.

My parents (who address me by my middle name, Andrew) ran a nice resturant named the Adams Center Inn during the late 1980′s and early 1990′s. Somewhere along the way, a decision was made to create a series of radio spots for the business that would feature myself and a local radio personality. I had all but forgotten about these, until my Dad shared the cassette master with me recently. I digitally recorded them (in fairly poor quality!) and turned them into MP3 files for my family.

I thought it might be cute to put up two minutes of me from twenty years ago. These three clips aired starting in February 1989 on 790WTNY and T-93 FM in the Watertown, NY region. Enjoy!

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Edit: After this was originally posted, I modified it to add a Flash-based MP3 player and tweak some settings under the hood. I think it’s better this way…

The Watertown Daily Times is reporting that Dr. John W. Deans (left, with Congressman and current SECARMY-Nominee John M. McHugh) is expected to be named today as the Interim President of Broome Community College. Dr. Deans previously led Jefferson Community College as President from 1992-2002 and again on an interim basis in 2006.

I was a student at JCC during the 2001-2002 academic year, serving on the Student Government Executive Board during the fall semester, and as Editor of the college newspaper during the spring semester. I had opportunity to speak with Dr. Deans a number of times, and found him to be warm, congenial, and professional; a class act. I remember his personal concern for the many students from Fort Drum whose lives were personally thrown into upheaval in the days and weeks following 9/11.

I spent three years living in Binghamton as I completed my bachelors degree, and am also somewhat familiar with BCC. The college has a beautiful campus, offers a variety of great academic programs, and and is located in close proximity to Davis College and Binghamton University, which provides a number of continuing education options for BCC grads. That said, there have been a number of struggles to recruit and maintain solid leadership for the college.

While reader comments on Binghamton’s Press and Sun Bulletin website are pessimistic about bringing in another “temporary” leader who is an “outsider”, I’m certain that with appropriate support, Dr. Deans will bring stable and practical leadership to BBC. I believe he will set the college up to go great things in the future, while the board focuses on searching for their next permanent President.

Congratulations to Dr. John Deans and to Broome Community College. Hopefully this will be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Since late 2004, when my wife first bought me a copy of the English Standard Version, the ESV has been my Bible translation of choice for most applications. I pre-ordered the ESV Study Bible when it was announced, and was very pleased when it was released last fall. It’s an incredible resource, and I highly recommend it to any of my church members interested in seriously studying scripture.

Crossway has released the ESV Study Bible materials for a variety of platforms, including Accordance for Mac. (Incidentally, it’s not available for the cross-platform Libronix Library System, which I love… but I digress. [Edited 7/29/09: As Kent pointed out below, Logos is now offering the ESV Study Bible Notes on Pre-Order, with or without the ESV text.]) However, I don’t have Accordance, and didn’t want to buy a different application to use it on my Mac.

That said, one of the neatest aspects of the ESV Study Bible is that the publisher, Crossway, has an awesome online version containing all of text, notes, charts, pictures, and articles in the print editions. You can add notes, listen to passages being read, and more. All that,and it’s FREE if you’ve bought any of the print editions.

I tend to lose track of the tabs in my browser while I work on projects, so I wanted to have the ESV Study Bible as a unique application with a dock icon, not just a website in a Safari or Firefox tab.

Enter Fluid. Fluid is a Site-Specific Browser. It allows you to pick a site and create a custom “application” that launches the site in it’s own dedicated web browser. You can customize the appearance and dock icon, or leave it with the defaults.

Here are the steps I followed to create an ESV Study Bible application:

1. Download Fluid and run the program.
2. In the URL field enter: http://www.esvstudybible.org/search
3. In the Name field enter whatever you want. I used “ESV Online Study Bible”.
4. The Location drop-down should be your Applications folder.
5. The Icon can either be the Webside Favicon, or something different. I used the following image from the ESV Study Bible site: esvsb-feature.png:
6. Once you’ve done that, click create. It will place the new app in your Applications folder. Run the application.
7. The first time the site loads, you’ll need to enter your ESV Study Bible login and password information.
8. While this is optional, I prefer the “HUD” Theme, which you can select in the Preferences menu under the Appearance tab. Quit and restart the program if you change the theme.
9. In order to enable access to Articles and Maps & Charts, open the Preferences menu, go to the Advanced tab, and add this string to the list: *esvstudybible.org/*

That’s it. Pretty simple stuff. There are a number of other options in Fluid, and it can be used to make SSB’s for any number of websites. I also have one made for Stafftool (where I first learned of Fluid last year), the church management software we use at NCF. This is what the program looks like running on my desktop:

If you give this a shot, and encounter any problems, or have any questions, let me know.

NOTE: Chris Giammona pointed out on Twitter (and in the comments section here) that this setup doesn’t allow you to access the Articles and Maps & Charts sections of the ESV Online Study Bible. The fix for this has been added as step 9 above. Thanks Chris!

For some time now, I’ve had lenflack.com (powered by WordPress) configured with Twitter Tools to automatically update my Twitter account with an announcement of any new blog posts. I’ve also had Facebook configured to pull my tweets as a status update. This essentially keeps all of my major social media outlets linked together, and requires less work on my part to keep others updated.

A month or two back, I changed how Facebook imports my tweets. I tweet quite often, so I didn’t want it to automatically use every tweet as a status update. To solve this, I began using Selective Twitter Status. This allows me to manually choose which tweets are posted to Facebook by appending the hashtag “#fb” to the tweets I’d like posted.

This inadvertently caused the tweets that were automatically generated by my blog posts to cease being sent to Facebook. Doh! I usually generate a fair amount of traffic from my Facebook friends seeing a blog post in my status updates, so this morning I decided I wanted to fix this somehow. Here is the really simple solution I came up with, using Twitter Tools 1.6:

Open the twitter-tools.php file in your favorite text editor (usually located in /wp-content/plugins/twitter-tools/). Find line 127, which reads:

$this->tweet_format = $this->tweet_prefix.’: %s %s’;

Append ” #fb” after the second “%s” so that the line reads:

$this->tweet_format = $this->tweet_prefix.’: %s %s #fb’;

That’s it. It adds the #fb tag to every blog-generated tweet, which are then posted to Facebook by Selective Twitter Status. Not bad, eh? The only downside is that if and when Alex King updates Twitter Tools, you’ll have to re-apply this suffix hack.

As an aside, you might be interested in using http://tr.im to shorten the link URLs Twitter Tools passes. Leo Lincourt has posted an excellent tutorial for this. Check it out!

I’ve written in the past about my health and related goals. I lost 40 pounds in 2008, and had been aiming to drop another 60 in 2009.

Unfortunately, around the first of the year I hit a brick wall. I started feeling bad. Really bad. Like crap, really. All the time. Long story short, I’ve got arthritis. It’s genetic, but my weight doesn’t help.

So, with an adequate treatment plan for that in place, I’ve been back to work on my weight loss goals.

That said, have any of you checked out LIVESTRONG.COM? Many people are familiar with the yellow LIVESTRONG brand, the non-profit anti-cancer foundation headed up by Lance Armstrong. However, they’ve set up a for-profit health website (hence the dot com) as well. One of the best features of the new site is the integration of a website that used to be called The Daily Plate.

This feature allows one to track their caloric intake, weight, body measurements, and more. I’ve been using it for the past week, and it’s been a great tool; I’ve lost 6.4 pounds. The food database is a hybrid of verified nutritional data and user-submitted information, so virtually everything I’ve cataloged as having eaten was already in the site. This means I haven’t had to keep labels from the foods I’ve eaten, and process them at the end of the day like in previous tools I’ve used.

It’s a free site (though there is a paid gold membership option), and is only made better by the free iPhone app that syncs with the website. NOTE: The iPhone app is no longer free, and now runs $2.99. They also have a BlackBerry version available.

If you’re trying to lose weight, and want to use technology to assist you, check out The Daily Plate at LIVESTRONG.

I recently mentioned the awesomeness that is my wife’s buffalo chicken wing dip. Here is the recipe, for anyone who is interested.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 9 oz hot chicken wing sauce
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 12 ounces blue cheese dressing
• 1 bag Tostito corn chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Place chicken in a pot with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook 25 minutes, until chicken juices run clear.
3. Drain liquid from pot and shred chicken.
4. Mix wing sauce and butter into pot with chicken. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes.
5. Spread cream cheese over the bottom of an 8×8 inch baking dish.
6. Pour chicken mixture over cream cheese.
7. Top with dressing.
8. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until hot and bubbly.
9. Serve with Tostitos.

I recently discovered an awesome utility for Mac OS X called GeekTool. The author’s site describes the software like this:

GeekTool is a PrefPane (System Preferences module) for Panther or Tiger to show system logs, unix commands output, or images (i.e. from the internet) on your desktop (or even in front of all windows).

In other words, GeekTool allows you to run shell scripts and terminal commands in the background, and output the results in visually appealing ways on your desktop. (And yes, it works with Leopard, too.) Check out the screenshot of my desktop.

I’ve used GeekTool to display date and time, as well as current weather conditions, network interface information, and current audio information from iTunes. It was a little confusing to set up at first, but I think it was worth the effort.

If you are interested in using this, here are some helpful resources:

• GeekTool Love for Noobs @ Victor World
• GeekTool Setup @ Irishstu.com
• GeekTool Scripts @ nicinabox.com

Got other suggestions? Post them in the comments!

Ryan Burns over at Going to Seminary is running a contest to give away a signed copy of Mark Driscoll’s book, Death By Love. The way one may enter the contest is simple: post a comment on the GtS blog to “publicly thank someone who has helped you on your Christian journey.”

You can also get a second entry by posting about the contest on your personal blog, so while this post is a shameless attempt at increasing my odds of winning, I also wanted to share what I wrote at GtS:

The person who has influenced me most in my faith is my Senior Pastor, Mike Biolsi of North Country Fellowship in Carthage, NY. I am most thankful for Mike’s example and counsel, and now have the pleasure of serving alongside him daily in pastoral ministry.

I love serving at NCF, and working with Mike is an incredible blessing. There’s nowhere Diana and I would rather be!

My sister, Ruth, gave me the letter W for this fun meme to list 10 things I love. All ten things have to start with W.

1. Water – we take running water for granted, but not everyone in the world is so blessed.
2. Women – particularly the most important ones in my life: my wife, daughter, mom(s), and sister.
3. Winning – the word “competitive” may not come to mind when you think of me, but man, I love to win at whatever I’m doing.
4. Wisdom – the wisdom literature of the Bible is awesome, and I seek to be grounded in it more every day.
5. Walmart – everyday low prices FTW!
6. Winter – if I didn’t like winter, I wouldn’t live 30 minutes from Canada.
7. Writing – this blog (and it’s lack of activity) may not prove it, but writing is an incredibly enjoyable activity for me.
8. Worship – we were made to worship Christ; I love doing it.
9. Walking – neither Diana nor I do this enough, but I love holding her hand and going for a stroll, or if she’s not available, walking alone.
10. Wallace – this is my dad’s first name, and it was my grandfather’s as well; I love them dearly.

Want to play along? Just leave me a comment and I will send you a letter!

My awesome wife, Diana, recently posted a series of blog entries on her blog detailing her story of faith (that’s a “testimony” for those of you who prefer Christianese).

Even though we’ve been together for over six years, and are coming up on our fifth anniversary, I learned new things about her through reading these posts, and thought I’d share them here as well:

• Diana’s Testimony – Part 1
• Diana’s Testimony – Part 2
• Diana’s Testimony – Part 3

Those of you who know me well are aware that my own story is incredibly different than Diana’s. I once blogged about my conversion story, but that was about switching to Mac. Perhaps sometime soon I’ll write about my switch to living for Jesus instead of self.

I love music. All music. Well, most music. I even love music that sucks by other people’s standards. Even the Gaithers. Even Eminem. Even this stuff.

You get the point.

That said, I’m really digging this new Christmas album by Doctor Octoroc called 8-Bit Jesus: Classic Christmas Songs in the Style of Classic NES Games. Released as a free download (donations welcome), 8-Bit Jesus sounds just like playing some of your favorite video games from the mid-to-late 80′s, only more Christmas-ish!

The songs are a little short, but seriously, it’s awesome. And it’s free, so go do yourself a favor and download it for next year!

I’ve been doing the “read the whole Bible in a year” thing for a number of years now (with varying levels of success in different years) and overall I’ve found it to be a great discipline to get into.

I’ll be doing it again this year, and while I originally had planned on doing it with my physical Bible as I had in years past, this afternoon I decided to change it up a bit for 2009.

A fellow graduate of the Davis College class of ’05, Art Boulet, has set up a new blog to read the ESV Bible in 2009. He’ll be posting the appropriate sections each day, which one can subscribe to with an RSS reader like Apple Mail or Google Reader.

He writes the following on his personal blog:

I will be using the text of the ESV, as that is being widely read in evangelical circles, and will be posting the text without chapter and verse numbers. This will hopefully allow the reader to focus on the text and the story instead of worrying about verse numbers, chapter breaks, etc. The amount of reading averages about 3 chapters a day. The ordering will follow the order of the biblical books.

One of Art’s goals is to allow the Biblical narrative to stand on its own. I think this approach to distributing scripture will certainly help to highlight the overarching redemptive themes of God’s word, and not simply focus on using the Bible as a tool for proof-texting particular doctrinal positions.

I’m truly looking forward to reading the Bible this way! You can join us by visiting Read the Entire Bible in a Year!

Happy New Year!

Last year I posted some of my resolutions for 2008. It was the first time I recall articulating “New Year’s Resolutions”. Looking back, I feel I did pretty good with the list.

• Blogging Once a Week: Fail!
  Certainly not; didn’t even average a post weekly!
• More posts on Ministry, etc.: Success!
  51% of 2008 posts counted; plus I had more total posts than 2007.
• Read more books: Success!
  I read around 10 books in 2008; it was only like three in 2007.
• Improving Health: Success!
  I’ve lost 40lbs, have more energy, and get regular checkups with my physician.

This year I’ve decided to post my entire list of resolutions (and some commentary) which despite the advice of most “self improvement gurus” is more generalized than specific.

The following items are real and personal. Some may not be interesting to you, but they are what I’m looking at as I think about the year ahead.

• Love God More
  I do okay at loving God with my mind and strength (though both of those can improve too); however, I want to focus on loving him more with my heart and soul as well. I see this working out through spending more time in prayer and solitude with him regularly. I also need to increase the amount of time I spend studying scripture for non-ministry reasons. Ultimately, I need to be a better follower of Christ before I can be a better husband, father, and pastor.
  
• Love Diana More
  I love Diana, but (and I know she’d agree) as we’ve been together for six years, some of the silly and fun romance stuff has been preempted by children, work, ministry, and the like. This is my fault; I dropped the ball. In 2009 I aim to rekindle some of the stuff we had as teenagers though date night, and some other surprises. I also intend to go deeper by helping her around the house more, and just generally seeking to put her needs and desires first by being the Ephesians 5:25-33 husband.
  
• Love Elijah and Moriah More
  My kids are the cutest kids in the world. Really! And I know of other families with cute kids! But, mine are still the cutest. That said, I’m not the most patient daddy, and I need to work on that. We’re also going to be starting a new tradition in this household: Family Worship. I take seriously the responsibility of training my kids in how to live for Christ, and need to act on it in a more intentional way.
  
• Love My Family More
  This one is all new. I’m close to my Mom (who lives a few miles away, and is a member of my church), but due to a variety of reasons, I’ve never had a good relationship with my Dad (South Carolina) or Brother (Colorado). Two weeks ago, God broke down my wall of bitterness, and made me realize that at this point in my life, as a married man with a family of my own and a life of ministry, the only reason I didn’t have any connection to this side of my family was me. I’ve repented and been in contact with my dad (who came for Christmas) and brother, and we’re getting to know each other better. I’d appreciate prayer for healing.
  
• Love North Country Fellowship More
  I have a great church, and at this point in my life, there is nowhere else I’d rather be. God has blessed me immensely to be able to serve at NCF. However, as with any church, it’s made up of sinful people, and things aren’t perfect. I have a tendency to get cynical and frustrated when conflict comes along, even if outwardly I deal with it with grace. I’m praying and striving to love the church more in 2009, so that I can speak and lead with grace.
  
• Love Myself More
  This isn’t an “improve your self-esteem” kind of thing. This is where I place things like continuing to lose weight (I lost 40lbs in 2008; shooting for 60 in 2009!), lowering my blood pressure, and keeping up with physician and dental appointments. It’s taking care of myself, so I can take care of my family. It’s also realizing that I’m not perfect, and not setting the bar so high that I force myself to end in failure. I’m a weirdo with my own idiosyncrasies, and in 2009 I hope to be okay with that.
  
• Manage Time More Effectively
  When I switched from being bivocational to full-time in ministry, I really threw off my schedule. Previously, the way I did things was dictated by the hours I wasn’t at the office. Now, I essentially set my own hours, and I don’t always do a great job with it. I’m aiming to improve things in 2009 by imposing some flexible structure into the week. More on that soon.
  
• Manage Money More Effectively
  I don’t think I’d consider myself a “bad steward” of money, but we haven’t been great at it either. In 2009 I’ll be taking over the balancing of the checkbook and paying of the bills, and Diana and I will be communicating about these things better. We aim to pay of a significant chunk of debt (we have some credit card debt, but it’s mostly student loans), and build an emergency fund.
  
• Read More Books (and Fewer Blogs)
  I read a ton, but it’s usually other people’s blogs, not printed books. While blogs can be useful for staying on the cutting edge of theological and ministerial discussions and concerns, I think I need to cut back on the blog intake, and continue the trend I started in 2008 of reading more books. My goal for 2009 is 26 books, one every other week.
  
• Improve My Preaching
  This is a big one. Now that I’m preaching the majority of the time, I really want to get better. The best advice I ever heard came from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, which was essentially to take your passage and make a bee-line to the cross. However, in doing so, I want to ensure I’m both theologically sound and contextually appropriate. I find myself saying and doing things in my messages that may be dead on, but don’t communicate well with my audience. I want to improve in all aspects of sermon prep and delivery.

Well, that’s the list. It’s ambitious, and certainly the most detailed one I’ve ever made (or announced publicly), but I think it’s doable. Notice that I didn’t make any promises regarding blog content or post frequency; I learned my lesson!

Will I complete the year well, or will I ditch all of these goals by next weekend? I guess time will tell!

Happy New Year!

It’s currently about forty-five minutes to 2009. Diana and I have the obligatory Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on for background noise, and have enjoyed an evening of chatting while working to straighten our desks and organize random files from the year.

It occurs to me that as I await the arrival of this new year, I have nothing to look forward to. Now, I don’t mean that in a negative or depressed way. I’m sure there will be exciting developments (as well as difficult trials) in 2009. However, this is the first year of my adult life where at the stroke of midnight, I won’t be anticipating some major milestone or event.

The past few years opened with the following events being expected (or hoped for) before the end of the same year:

• 2001: High School Graduation, starting community college
• 2002: Moving out from mother’s home
• 2003: Getting engaged to Diana
• 2004: Getting married to Diana
• 2005: College graduation
• 2006: Elijah’s birth, becoming a pastor
• 2007: Beginning (paid) bivocational ministry
• 2008: Moriah’s birth

Some of those things happened in neat ways that I didn’t expect. For example, I did move out of my mom’s place, and into a dorm room at Practical Bible College. At New Year’s Day 2002, I knew I wanted out, but I didn’t know I’d be going to Practical. In 2006, I knew I felt called to pursue the pastorate, so in January I communicated my intentions to my senior pastor. That conversation began a ten-month process of confirmation and discernment, and I was installed on November 19th, 2006. The church provided me a part time salary soon thereafter.

Other things happened that were altogether different from what I was looking forward to. For example, I actually met Diana in 2002 because I had gone to Practical. That clearly impacted my goals for the next two years! One of the most unexpected things happened this year: going full-time in the church, to focus on preaching. I didn’t see that coming a year ago today, but it’s been four months now, and I’m loving it.

But 2009? It’s different. The only major life goals I currently have (outside of loving God, loving my wife, raising my kids, leading my church, and serving others) are to begin MDiv studies and buy a house, but I don’t have those “scheduled in” for 2009. It’s a completely blank year, both in regards to it’s newness, and my own “big plans”. I wonder where God will lead us?

One thing is for sure: I’m really looking forward to the journey!

Merry Christmas from Elijah and Moriah!
(and Diana and I, too!)

Well, I can’t use Apple’s Time Machine to set back the clock on my blog’s destruction, but the good news is that I just managed to generate a text file of all of my old blog entries.

This means I’ll be able to slowly cut-and-paste old entires back onto the site. It’ll be time consuming, and I won’t have all of the images and videos I had posted, but it’s better than nothing. I really don’t want to lose it all; not that it was genius-level content or anything, but some of it was quite sentimental to me.

Maybe I should pull all my old blog articles from my old blogs out and post those too? I mean, it would prove I have absolutely no life, but it would be fun to see how things change over time. And with the new backup system I have in place, I should never lose the content again (note my crossed fingers)!

Lyrics from “Had A Bad Day” by Daniel Powter:

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong

Yep, that’s the gist of it.

Early this morning, as I lay in peaceful slumber, everything on lenflack.com was destroyed by automated script gone crazy. I have semi-recent backups of most of the visual theme stuff, but the content from the last two years is gone.

Note to self: backups of databases are just as important, if not more so, than custom theme files.

There is a chance I may have a way to get the posts back. I’ll be working to bring back as much as I can over the next day or so.

Either way, I have been blogging more in recent months than I had in the previous year and a half, and I intend to continue that, so keep visiting!

Update: Content posted after February of this year, including my most recent stuff, is toast. That said, I’m just going to consider this a mandatory refresh, and start from scratch.

In America, a paradigm has developed where pastors often focus exclusively on the issues of congregational care and evangelism, leaving the work of biblical and theological scholarship to those in the academy. Likewise, those who spend their time in academic pursuits are often functionally isolated from active participation in shepherding the local church. Consequently, I believe there is often a disconnect between the scholarship being produced and the needs of the church as a whole.

Apparently, I’m not alone. This sentiment is shared by the The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology, which recently posted the following blog entry:

Athanasius, Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Edwards‚Äö?Ñ?Æmen whose enduring legacies have shaped the landscape of contemporary theological thought.

‚Äö

Though diverse in their theologies, all of these men shared a common and significant mark of distinction‚Äö?Ñ?Æthey were churchmen. They were bishops and preachers, pastors and founders of denominations, shepherd of souls. Though not all of them were formally pastors in the sense we understand today, their social, theological, and intellectual life was inseparably woven into the fabric of parish ministry.

‚Äö

The legacy of such great men teaches us the value of uniting the role of pastor with that of theologian; yet a resounding absence of such a union marks the church today. Our most significant theologians now reside almost exclusively in the academy. To be sure, the rise of the academy requires thoughtful academic theologians who live and move in that environment. But is it best that virtually all of our theologians have moved to the academy? There is a need for a renaissance of the pastor-theologian, pastors who endeavor to do theology from the pastor’s study and not solely the professor’s lectern.

I was educated at a four-year Bible college that essentially taught (albeit not intentionally) that one could successfully aspire to be a scholar or a pastor, but not both. I’d note that I don’t consider that a slight to the school, but rather to the prevailing paradigm of our day.

I strongly sensed a call to serve in a local church setting, and thus ignored academic scholarship in favor of “more practical” studies for a practitioner. However, in the few years since I completed that course of study, I’ve become increasingly interested in the kind of dual-roled ministry and scholarship practiced by men like many of the men mentioned in the SAET article.

That said, I do not consider myself a scholar, especially considering graduate level education has not yet been possible, though Lord willing, it may be in the next few years. Regardless, I do aspire to the kind of competency and ecclesial scholarship that characterized the church in years past: scholarship not just for the mind, but also for the soul.

There’s much studying to be done!