Month: February 2008

The death of Ernie Pyle

The AP recently uncovered a photograph of WWII journalist Ernie Pyle. Pyle covered WWII for many papers and wrote “The death of Capt. Waskow.”
The Belton Journal (my former employer) has run the piece from the World War II correspondent numerous times in the past about Belton’s own Capt. Henry T. Waskow.
The piece was originally run on the front pages of newspapers across the country and The Washington Daily News devoted its entire first page to the column — not even a headline, just solid text.
The paper was completely sold out that day.
Until today I overlooked the interesting connection between Waxahachie and Belton for Capt. Waskow.
Belton Journal Associate Editor Berneta Peeples writes:

There is another war now, and have been others since, and The Belton Journal continues to reprint the Waskow piece once in a while, as a tribute to Belton men and boys who have been killed in wars of this century, ranging from privates to generals.
Actually, Ernie Pyle wondered about this piece; he thought maybe he was “losing his touch.”
Henry Waskow was a 1935 graduate of Belton High School, attended grade school at Hay Branch and Wiltonville.
He attended Trinity University in Waxhachie, paying his way with his “Guard Money.”
He highwayed it back to Belton every Tuesday to make the guard drill.
Guardsmen were paid $3 for every drill they attended.
Waskow taught school two years before Co. I was mobilized in November 1940.
Belton’s Waskow High School bears his name as well as Henry T. Waskow V.F.W. #4008 Hall located at 2311 S. Pearl.

See the picture/cutline on Ernie Pyle or via Wikipedia
Read “The death of Capt. Waskow”

The need for fellowship

A good friend of mine e-mailed me a question about fellowship in the church yesterday.

I wanted to ask you a question about church and Fellowship.

Is there debate about people who don’t attend or belong to a church,
but conduct Fellowship (by that I mean prayer and study) in their
home with other people, but without a reverend or priest or some sort
of Church leader present?

Some people go to Fellowship during the week with like minds and then
go to church on Sunday. But is it rare for Christians to not go to
church at all and just have Fellowship throughout the week?
Basically, what’s the role of Fellowship?

Here are my thoughts:

Not sure if by Fellowship you mean a specific program of some sort or not. My circle of friends refer to “fellowship” in a number of terms/ways/definitions but it mainly just simply means to “hang out together.” If we sit around at a coffee shop we’re fellowshipping. If we eat a meal with family or friends we’re fellowshipping. If we attend church together we’re fellowshipping.

There are those who are adamant that Christians be a part of a local church body. That definition can vary depending on who you talk to. Some may say being a part of a community group/small group meets the “requirement.” Some say a home church would work. While others think you must be a part of a particular church body that meets in a church building and you must be there every time the doors are open.

For me personally, I believe a person can be just as strong of a Christian by simply studying Scripture in their home alone as they can be by being a member of a mega-church like Prestonwood Baptist, or a small local church like Sardis Methodist.

But I do believe Jesus talked strongly about community and our need for community. I believe we are created to yearn for community, both with God and with our fellow man. I think that community is important on many levels. For one it helps encourage one another and two it gives us an opportunity to “work out our faith” (Philippians 2:12) with others. In other words by meeting with others in fellowship or community it helps us understand and “work out” what Scripture means when it talks about things like “going to church” or “tithing” or “sharing love” or “loving our neighbor as ourselves.”

Our church has a strong push towards community groups that meet throughout the week (full disclosure – I oversee them). Our leadership team has talked many times about the people involved in the groups.

Some see our community groups as an extension of the church – people come to the Sunday morning service, want to get more involved and know more people, so they go to a community group and build relationships there. Others see community groups as the entry point for people outside our church – i.e. people who aren’t coming on Sunday mornings, who aren’t involved in a church are invited by their friends to come and enjoy community/fellowship/Bible study at someone’s house, rather than feeling pressured to attend a large church service.

I think both views are vital and I’m thrilled to see both happening. I can think of 3 or 4 people/couples that are involved in a community group during the week and have never attended a Sunday morning service. That’s awesome to me! I’m glad they’ve found a place where they feel comfortable to share their thoughts on God and life.

I’m also thrilled to see those involved in church finding ways to share God’s love with those around them – whether they attend our church or not.

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Any additions, subtractions or disagreements? What are your thoughts on fellowship and church attendance?

The end is near

While uploading the encounter podcast tonight – yeah I really got behind this week – I got back into “Everything Must Change” by Brian McLaren. I’ve been itching to read it lately but have set it aside while I wait for others in our book club to “catch up.”

Reading Chapter 10, McLaren talks about some of the differences between the conventional view of Jesus and the Gospel and the emerging view’s. He gives four comparisons and then suggests six unintended negative consequences of the conventional views of Christ.

Simply put, the conventional view of Jesus poses little or no significant challenge to the dominant framing story that currently directs our societal machinery in its suicidal trajectory. It only fails to confront and correct the current dysfunctions of our societal machinery, but energetically aids and abets its suicidal tendencies in at least six unintended but nevertheless harmful ways.

The conventional view:

  • relegates Jesus to practical irrelevance in relation to human social problems in history; His message is about the soul, its guilt before God, and it’s afterlife and not about our world and its current crises
  • offers relatively little hope for history but anticipates the complete destruction of the world; easily becomes an “opiate of the masses” pacifying people with dreams of a better afterlife rather than motivating and mobilizing them to transform the world here and now
  • tends to be dualistic, with human souls and other “spiritual things” in one category and human bodies and other “secular” things in another; it tends to keep faith private and personal so believers are seen as “just passing through” and steering away from “worldly” social engagements beyond their personal, family and church-related concerns
  • may view blessings as God’s blessings to an elect group and little or nothing else (except condemnation) to everyone else
  • sees God’s essential attitude toward the world as one of wrath and believers are discouraged from seeing God as an ally in the world’s transformation
  • by postponing the essence of salvation to the afterlife, and by assuming that God plans to destroy the earth, the conventional view leads us to assume that the world will get worse and worse and that this deterioration is in fact God’s will or plan. This assumption tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not only that, but in some versions of the conventional view, the worse the world gets, the better we should feel since salvation – meaning post-mortem salvation after the world is destroyed – is approaching.

McLaren suggests there are many lines between the conventional and emerging viewpoints that people may agree with or disagree with. Some may take the conventional view as their “contract” and portions of the emerging view as the fine print or vice versa.

But this really got me, when he suggest that our “framing story” in our modern Western culture has resulted in a “Gospel about Jesus” and not the “Gospel of Jesus.”

Share your thoughts. Comment away – and yes – you can do it anonymously.

Excel/ Access hack

This is probably a simple hack many have already thought of, but it came in super handy for me today.
I had to search an Access database for college courses that are no longer offered in our district. Apparently a number of colleges still show them as active at their college though so I wanted to be sure they were all set to “de-active” or “no” in our database.
After several minutes I was getting cross-eyed trying to check the appropriate line.
To remedy the solution I simply posted a post-it note above the bottom line. Every time I did a search for no in the appropriate column, that row appeared right below my post-it note and kept me focused on the line I needed to make changes to.

In other solutions/ideas to help keep you focused on what you’re working on?

hack.jpg