Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

Happy Reformation Day

While there is another holiday going on today, today is also Reformation Day, the day that is traditionally believed to be when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the doors of a church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517.
In doing so, Martin Luther brought about the Protestant Reformation and current fracture in the church between the protestant and catholic church.

In honor of Luther and the changes he brought about, here is his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, translated by Frederic Hedge:

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

I’m attempting to find a modern arrangement but I haven’t been able to find anything yet unless it sounds like 80’s bubble gum pop. Sigh. Let me know if you find anything.

Random news

1132727104.jpg
a. We bought a new truck last night
b. I love it, but I think Laurie may be more excited than I am – I think she may try and sneak off with it one day before work and leave me the Xterra
c. Our Community group is finishing up Colossians this week (hopefully)
d. We’re going to start on Mark Batterson’s series Chase the Lion next week
e. I’ve done some real searching today on my family history.
f. Found some confusing information and it turns out, as I suspected, two Strother sisters, married two Gaines brothers
g. Once that was confirmed, everything else started making sense again.
h. While I’m not completely sure on one or two generations, it would appear that one relative on my mom’s side signed the American Declaration of Independence, and another signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Crazy!
i. It may be crazier to think that they were only a generation or two apart.
j. In the meantime, I posted a challenge on our Wiki page – but unless you’re still reading this, I doubt you care anything about my family’s history. But if you do, feel free to join in – or start your own Wiki for your family tree. Maybe we’ll find they connect somewhere in the not to recent past.

Put your computer to work

I know sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down with a schedule and while you’re really wanting to do something good in your community or for those around you, you just can’t seem to fit much time into your schedule for volunteering (granted I know this isn’t the case for most of the folks at encounter).
But if you’re interested in doing more for those around you, here’s a few interesting ideas that you can do at work or at home while you’re surfing the web:

  • Breast Cancer Site – you click and advertisers give to help sponsor women who need mamograms
  • GoodSearch – a search engine like any other, except 50% of the revenue from this site goes to charity
  • FirstGiving – offers organizations an easy online way to raise funds through a variety of means

Maybe you’d like to help financially…

  • Kiva – puts you in contact with small businesses in third world countries that need a loan to help their business grow
  • One Laptop Per Child – lets you buy a specially designed laptop for children around the world (and for your own children if you’re so inclined)
  • Nabuur – connects you directly to people online in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; they tell you about their challenges and you work together (with a facilitator) to help solve problems

After all this “hard work” you may feel really inclined to get out in person and do some good in the community, if so you can do your own search in your area with these sites:


Visit Lifehacker for more information on these sites or other comparable sites.
And if you’ve got any other sites that you’ve found helpful? Let us know.

Huckabee steps up his hotel accomidations

According to a report from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Mike Huckabee has stepped up his hotel accommodation’s during the campaigning.
He’s now staying at the “luxurious” Holiday Inn.

He thinks a stay at a Holiday Inn is “luxurious.” It’s hard to imagine Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani thinking the same. And while his fellow candidates travel in large entourages neatly packed into convoys of black SUVs, Huckabee says he gives local cabbies and car-rental outlets lots of business.
“I finally put my foot down about subpar accommodations earlier this year,” said the former Arkansas governor. “I understand frugal and budget but there was a place my staff had me stay near Houston that was so bad that I was the only person in the hotel that did not have tattoos, metal objects piercing my face — and wore sleeves.”

Read the full story.

Club for Growth report on Huckabee flawed?

Joe Carter rebuts the Club for Growth’s scrutiny of Gov. Mike Huckabee’s fiscal record as governor.
Well worth a read. (source no longer online)

For several months the Club for Growth has been attacking Huckabee’s bona fides as a fiscal conservative. In the process, they’ve slandered the Governor’s record, deceived numerous trusting conservatives, and cast doubts on the organization’s honesty and trustworthiness. It’s a disgraceful situation made all the more shameful by our continued willingness to be duped.

While Huckabee was in his first term as Governor of Arkansas he:

  • Pushed through a Democrat legislature the first, major broad based tax cuts in the state’s history.
  • Pushed through a Democrat legislature an $80 million tax cut package.
  • Cut the state’s capital gains tax by 25%.
  • Established a Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights.
  • Limited the increase in property taxes to 10% a year for individuals and 5% per taxing unit.
  • Eliminated the income tax for families below the poverty line.
  • Increased the standard deductions.
  • Eliminated the marriage penalty.
  • Eliminated bracket creep by indexing the income taxes to inflation, thereby preventing taxpayers from moving into a higher bracket when their paychecks increase due to inflations.
  • Doubled the child care tax credit.
  • Eliminated capital gains tax on the sale of a home.

Of course Huckabee is the only candidate, that I know of, who has pledged to give his support the FairTax if he’s elected. Sure other candidates have said they’d sign it if it ever comes up, but Huckabee says he’ll work for it, which will lead to a complete overhaul of our current tax system and give you much more money in your pocket as well as completely shut-down the IRS.

encounter baptisms 10-28-07


encounter baptisms 10-28-07
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

we had four more baptisms Sunday. Always awesome. Laurie and I were on media duty. She had the camera and I had the video camera. We struggled to get a good shot as we were prepped for everyone to face one way, and they ended up facing the other – doh! And once the crowd moved in around the “baptismal tank” (a.k.a. horse trough) there wasn’t much hope in moving around.
Probably my favorite moment of the morning was watching my friend Dave baptize his daughter Chloe. Very cool!
Check out Laurie’s pics on Flickr and hopefully we’ll have some video edited of this Sunday as well as our last baptisms very soon. I promise it’s on my to do list.