Television

I was invited to the home of a family I know from church last night and I had a very nice time eating very nice food which was good for me, but which is all gone now. The family gave me a television antenna and I hooked it up today. I can now receive eight digital channels!

I took a look at them this afternoon and I am amazed that the things that I saw are somehow lucrative. I guess that this wouldn’t seem like quite such a suprise to me if it weren’t for the existance of public libraries and the internet, but since these both exist, I can’t figure out who watches it.

One of the channels is a weather only channel, so I think that I’ll just leave the tuner there.

Blogging for Brandon

Brandon has been asking me to blog, but not the Brandon who became married in September.  I haven’t blogged since October because I figured out that blogging is generally something that I do in an effort to get people to worship me because I worship myself.  In an effort to blog without worshiping myself (because that’s idolatry), I’d like to tell you about some things that are better than my blogging.

I’ll start with the Coffee Oasis place in west Bremerton.  The Coffee Oasis place  is a facility that his been configured for ministry to lots of different people, but many of them are quite poor in the eyes of the world.  Every time that I go there I am reminded of how small my love for Jesus is.  This usually happens when I am standing around the few people with whom I am aquanted there and thinking about the best way to make myself sound good.  About this time someone starts telling someone else about how amazing Jesus is or what Jesus did for her or how grateful he is to be saved because he is not very smart, but God laid salvation out for him on a silver platter in such a way that he would have been a fool to not choose it.  I met one of the Coffee Oasis ministers at Washington State University.  Now I attend a different church in west Bremerton with people whom the world would say are significantly more successful than those at the Coffee Oasis, but I have recently been thinking that perhaps my friend has been blessed with greater love for God because he has taken people who have been discarded by the world and made them his community.

So let me point out to you a better blog (like, better than my own) by Daniel Frederick of the Coffee Oasis in west Bremerton:  in full and glad surrender:  http://dafrederick.blogspot.com/

You probably won’t find too much author glorifying stuff there.

Dating Verse?

I read this verse in the Bible and I thought to myself, “that verse seems to be about dating” or something like that.  I could be wrong though.  What do you think?

Proverbs 18:22

What is desirable in a man is his kindness,

And it is better to be a poor man than a liar.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Pr 19:22). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Perhaps one (or more) of you male readers is (are) dating.  Let me know how being kind kind and not lying works out for you.  I can tell from where I am at that the not lying part does not seem to be very attractive all by itself.

Worship Pastor Patso’s Birthday Celebration 2008

If I understand right, worship pastor Patso had his birthday celebration on the evening of Saturday, June 5th. Someone whose name I don’t remember blogged about this celebration, but forgot to include pictures of worship pastor Patso (worship pastor Patso: Go ahead and remind me in the comment field so that we can all enjoy that incomplete journalism). In an effort to remedy this problem, I have uploaded the following pictures which are not really good for anything except fixing this particular problem (they’re not good quality pictures, so I am not proud of them at all):Maybe I am proud of some of them. I think this because some of the pictures that I uploaded do not include worship pastor Patso.

Logos Bible Software

I bought my new Bible software during the end of last summer. I like it a lot. This Bible software is called Logos Bible Software, and it runs on the Libronics Digital Library System. When I lived underneath my parent’s roof I used version 2, and now I get to use version 3 (level 2), which is even better. Well, maybe I just know how to use it better. I don’t have as many language tools as my dad did because I am not good with languages that are not English or the American language, as my mother would call it.

I don’t really know how to describe the system in a complete way, so here are five things that I like about it.

1. The Bible software is not just Bible software. Many different books can be downloaded and plugged into it. For instance, the books that I have plugged into it since my original purchase are: The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, The distinguishing Traits of the Christian Character, and Systematic Theology.
2. By searching the entire library for a particular biblical passage, any reference in any book in the library that refers to that biblical passage will be found. In this way, the entire library can be used as a Bible commentary.
3. Lots of books that are plugged into the library system include references to the Bible. By placing my cursor directly on top of these references, the text of these references is instantaneously displayed before my very eyes in the translation of my choosing. This takes much less time than flipping through the paper pages of a book.
4. A double click of any word in any book opens up the appropriate dictionary. This may be a Bible dictionary or just the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
5. The whole thing stays on my hard drive, so there are always lots of things to read, even if the computer is not connected to the internet.

Man Camp 2008 Notes

This last weekend, I visited Black Lake Bible Camp with some of the men who attend Red Sea Church in Portland Oregon and Seaside Church in Bremerton, Washington.

There was a bit of Bible teaching there (three session) and I took notes. I am providing these notes at the request of those who attended, but neglected to take notes. I am not providing these notes because they are particularly clear, terse, or helpful. Sometimes I just type things out to help me to follow what is being taught and I never look at them again.

Notes are here

Differentiation (as opposed to Integration)

People have begun to notice and comment regarding the decreasing frequency of my blogging. This decrease in the frequency of my blogging has come about because I realize that the things that I have to say are generally not things that people want to read. That is not anyone’s fault but my own, for I am not a prophet of God. If I were a prophet of God, I would have to write the things that no one would want to read regardless of their desires because God who would have appointed me to deliver His messages would not be at fault.

But I have come up with something that may be beneficial to some of you. Here are two Bible verses which I have had several occasions to use recently:

Proverbs 18:1-2

He who separates himself seeks his own desire,

He quarrels against all sound wisdom.

2 A fool does not delight in understanding,

But only in revealing his own mind.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Pr 18:1). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Visiting Mars Hill Church in Seattle yet again

You know that a city is not a very interesting place to live when the most interesting thing to do during a Sunday afternoon is to travel to another city for a church service (especially after having already attended one church service in said uninteresting city during said Sunday morning). Bremerton is such an uninteresting city and I talked to someone yesterday who told me that after she arrived in Bremerton, but before she began attending Seaside Church, she cried over the dullness of Bremerton. That is why I was standing around talking to Brian and Crystal and we all decided to travel to Mars Hill Church yet again yesterday afternoon. We decided to ride the bus to cut costs. The bus took a very long time to take us where we wanted to go, so we missed the 4:30 service and had to settle for the 6:30 service.

The sermon was about regeneration which I have not studied very much aside from learning Titus 3:5 in AWANA. The sermon reminded me of a book that I read in December of 2007 as I began to benefit from a confrontation regarding my sin which was pushed upon me (the confrontation was pushed upon me, not the sin). The book is called The Distinguishing Traits of the Christian Character (1819) by Gardiner Spring. The book is almost like a lab manual that enables its reader to do science in his or her own mind so that he or she can determine whether or not the uncommon graces of God are at work inside of him or her.

I think that these sorts of things are important to look over so that you can make sure that you are not deceiving yourself and confusing the grace of God with your own wishful thinking (so listen to the sermon and or or read the book).

Pastor Mark talked about three works that Jesus does (in the following particular order):

1. The work that Jesus does for someone (justification)
2. The work that Jesus does in someone (regeneration (I think that this drives sanctification))
3. The work that Jesus does through someone (good works)

A whole list of observations that a person can make about himself or herself to determine whether or not they have been regenerated was pointed out based on scripture. I seem to remember that most of them had something to do with newness (newness of heart, newness of mind, newness of desires, etc.).

So I left Seattle with some ideas that I had not thought of before:

1. Christianity really doesn’t have to be very complicated. All that I really have to do is respond to Jesus appropriately
2. I have been regenerated, my deepest desires are to worship Jesus and not myself
3. Seems like there was something else. Perhaps I will be reminded of it and replace this line with it later

Visiting Mars Hill Church in Seattle again

I was at my new community group location on Tuesday with Allan and Brian and Crystal and we all decided to visit Mars Hill Church during yesterday afternoon. We decided to use the ferry boat that was to leave Bremerton at 3:00 in the afternoon. The easiest way that Brian and I have to get to the ferry boat is to drive to the Seaside Church parking lot and then walk. The question answered by the sermon at Mars Hill Church was, “Why does an all knowing, all loving, and all sovereign God will into creation people He foreknows will suffer eternal condemnation?”

Of course I recommend it along with another sermon about Unlimited Limited Atonement (small audio, large audio, notes).

Yesterday’s sermon is available here.

During the sermon, I learned two new words: Monergism and Synergism.

Monergism is the idea that God decides ahead of time who He is going to save and then He saves them unilaterally. God just reaches down and grabs a sinner and says, “sorry, I know you were traveling towards hell as quickly as your little legs would carry you, but I have decided to save you. You’ll thank me later.”

Synergism is the idea that God extends His arm from heaven to men, and that those who are saved are the people who wisely accept God’s help and reach out to Him so that He can lift them up to be with Him.

Picture #2

This is a picture of the Engstrom family which visited me on the evening of Sunday, November 4th, 2007. I am including it here because when I visited my neighbors a little while back (probably on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007) they asked me about the family that visited me which they noticed because of all of the child noises. I also include it because people have been accessing my blog and spending time on it because they were performing Google searches for Mr. Engstrom. I figure that more mentions of him means more traffic and since I don’t have to pay for traffic, it can’t be bad.

Mr. and Mrs. Engstrom have hosted a number of Seaside Church events at their home during this past summer and Mr. Engstrom has often taken the trouble to be sure that I am fed one way or the other. During one event this fall, I decided to return the favor and I was very surprised at how quickly he jumped for it. It has been observed that in many churches, the members are just waiting around to turn down any and every invitation that is extended to them (perhaps this is for the purpose of appearing self-sufficient) but I haven’t run into that too much at Seaside Church.

Picture #1

I have just decided that I could probably get a whole lot of fun blogging done by uploading pictures and then typing about them. Here you go:

I took this picture at the Bible Study Methods class that Bishop Jefro teaches. The black writing on the right was copied by myself, although Joey read most of it to me. This picture was taken inside of the house that Seaside Church began to rent for office space because the Seaside Church office was being pushed away from the previously existing Seaside Church building by many many children. Fortunately, the landscape between said house and the Seaside Church building is conducive to controlled access between these buildings.

Those of us who attended this particular class session (11/7/07) learned that walking in the light is strongly related to confessing sins.

I don’t always attend this class because sometimes I am busy serving the Seaside Church musicians instead. Now if I could just learn to do that cheerfully, I’d be all set. Well, maybe.

Not feeling good about myself

On Saturday, November 17th, I finished reading the first book that I have finished reading in a long time because I had stayed home from work for a couple of days prior to that due to an illness. You might think that I would have gotten around to reading this book as soon as I had nothing better to do, but when it comes to non-biblical books, I generally don’t get around to reading much until there is almost nothing else to do.

I had been borrowing this book called Humility: True Greatness from my community group leader for a long time, but I got around to reading it after listening to a sermon about joy in humility by pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. That sermon can be accessed by clicking here.

When I started reading the book at my community group leader’s home a long time ago, I got through a couple of chapters and I thought to myself, “This isn’t so impressive. I could have written this because it is not rocket science,” but I didn’t get around to even remembering that until I was almost finished with reading the book this last time because I was so busy with thinking of my own problems and about how I don’t seem to be as mature as I used to seem to be, even from my own perspective.

So if you are looking for a book that is guaranteed to not make you feel good about yourself, there you go.

October 31st, 2007

Because my church’s Halloween costume party and under attended concert were held before October 31st, I had no particular plans for the use of my time after work on October 31st. As I was about to leave work, I decided to buy myself some skittles because I like skittles and I didn’t get to eat any skittles at said Halloween costume party. I drove to Target in Sliverdale and bought some skittles. I also bought a copy of the Firefly TV-show on digital video disk because it was only $25 and I had already downloaded it all from the internet. I also drove to the library, but then I drove home.

As I was walking near my apartment building I saw one of my neighbors (I’ll call him #5) entering the apartment of one of my other neighbors (I’ll call her #10). #5 was dressed for the occasion and as I saw him, I began to think to myself about how Jesus got invited to parties and had a good time. I then proceeded to think to myself about how I never get invited to anything (exaggerating slightly). After that, I did some thought processing about how I must not have been like Jesus and about how being like Jesus would be preferable to my then current state because sometime after I entered my apartment, I prayed, telling Jesus that if he wanted to invite me to a party that night, it would be alright with me.

Not long after that, #5 & #10 arrived at my door (the one labeled #8) and invited me to the bar with them because they were going to attend a costume party. Being the really sharp person that I always have been, I decided that God’s will was for me to go to the bar with them, so I thanked them and waited for the right time and put on my black Johhny Cash clothes and walked to the bar and drank my first Guinness which was not incredibly good. I think that they were surprised to see me I stayed for an hour or so and told the first part of this story that I have been typing and I left and I walked home without being run over.

I had forgotten how eating too many skittles makes me feel hung over well into the morning after.

Covenant Theology 2

Well, I just found out that my recent blogging about covenant theology is little more than a display of my own ignorance about covenant theology. I used title Covenant Theology as kind of a joke because I didn’t even realize that anything that I was writing about could actually be related to the baptism of infants. I was wrong.

I have been referred to a great big book that was first published in eight (8) volumes on twenty-eight-hundred-eighty (2880) pages. I have located it at the local comedy (community) college library and maybe, just maybe, I will have something less ignorant to type about it later. By the way, isn’t amazing how many different books have Systematic Theology as a title?

If you happen to be one of those people who understands these things already, please forgive my previous oversimplification.

Candy Partying

The October 31st of 2007 (and all future years) is being approached by us in our single speed time machines which we call our bodies. Seaside Church is planning to have a costume party on the 27th of this month instead of a candy party, but I have decided to publish my Candy Party Memo from last year again because it went over so well last year. Bleep, I even had a young, unmarried woman compliment it! Let’s see what happens this year.

I plan to make an effort to get some more costume party information for this years event so that we can all see your costume and take your picture and never see it again. Bleep bleep, maybe there’ll even be candy!

Covenant Theology

I attended the missional community group at my neighbor’s home last night. For some reason the people who attended began to talk about covenants. The text was Amos chapter 3 and the word covenant does not appear in Amos, except in chapter 1, so I am not exactly sure why the people who attended began to talk about covenants, but I think that it had something to do with the fact that God had made a covenant with Israel and Israel is mentioned in the first several verses of Amos 3.

So I jumped in and recalled some knowledge that I had picked up from a sermon that I had listened to three (3) or four (4) years earlier which included an explanation about how eternal security works so well because there exists a covenant between God the Father and God the Son of which the other children of God are the beneficiaries. I was asked to blog about this this week. Hence, this writing.

The community group leader read to us from a Systematic Theology book and from Hebrews 8 & 9 and from Galatians 3 and from Jeremiah 31 & 32 about how the covenant which God made with Abraham is the same covenant that all of God’s children are involved in now (the one that says that God counts faith in Jesus as the righteousness required to live in His presence as His friends), but since the time of Abraham, Jesus has fulfilled the human end of the covenant so that the covenant is effectively between God the Father and God the Son. This is convenient because a covenant that required something of men would surely fail. This makes me suspect that the mosaic covenant was rigged.

But I do plan to contact the person who delivered that one sermon all of those years ago and find out what is the reasoning for thinking that there is a particular covenant between God the Father and God the Son. I it isn’t too hard to say that there must have been an informal covenant (binding agreement) between them to bring salvation to men through an acceptable vicarious sacrifice because that is what happened.

I have included my sermon notes from all of those years ago here. Note particularly the large paragraph on page 1.

Football

Now I have been to three football games during my lifetime. All of the football games that I have been to were high school football games. The first football game that I traveled to was in Sultan, Washington. I went there and watched my friend Lane Barnhill lose. I went to another game last year at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds, hoping to see Central Kitsap play, but I attended on the wrong day.

Last night I decided to attend another high school football game and I traveled with the family of one of the coaches so that I would be sure to choose the correct time and place.

We got to see Real Deal Mark Keel do one of his jobs. You can see his back in this picture. The back of his jacket has an orange triangle on it. The team members associated with Central Kitsap High School were wearing the orange shirts. I think that the Central Kitsap High School quarterback did not get sacked during this play.

Some of the people pictured here are some of the people with whom I traveled to the high school football game.

Here is an image of Real Deal Mark Keel’s wife.

I was told to take pictures of a particular young lady doing junior cheer leading during halftime. I didn’t do a very good job. One of the pictures that I took is pictured directly below this text.
Perhaps a more interesting picture of the same subjects is directly below this text.No one sitting around me was feeling very enthused during the minutes one either side of halftime. I wonder if that was my fault. I guess that I’ll include another baby picture for you, and then some more football pictures.
The Central Kitsap Cougars did not allow those out of town Lion people to score any touchdowns.

Of all of the times that I attended football games this was the first time during which the team that I attended to see smashed the other team. The score was 21 points – 3 points. Don’t confuse points with watermelons or other things.

Even better Judgement

A reasonable person might think that the last post was quite enough. Bishop Jefro has probably been thinking to himself that he doesn’t ever want to make root beer again except perhaps for his own personal use and that Joshua should have just shut up and been grateful for it.

I am sure that all of you noticed that I was trying really hard to be annoyed with the comments that became attached to my last blogging post. I really wish that I hadn’t tried so hard to be annoyed with these comments, particularly those from the church leadership because I have learned that at least two church leaders have had to have discussions about me and that must have required time. That time is time that could have spent on the mission or on resting or being refreshed by my joy and progress in the faith (if I had chosen to have joy or progress in the faith). But I didn’t. I was too busy trying to create and maintain confusion regarding the alleged mixing of children and alcohol at a Seaside Church event.

I hope that all of you will forgive the foolishness which I typed into the last blog post. I will likely re-write it and do away with the document as it exists now. If you particularly like it for some reason, please save it to your hard drive now becayse for me to have where it is is embarassing.

MS Office 2007 vs. MS Office 2003

Today I uninstalled Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student trial version so that it neither runs nor is installed upon my new computer. I did this because ever since I got used to Microsoft Office 2003 Professional on my first computer, I felt like Microsoft had kind of arrived as far as the program doing what it was supposed to and managing to do lots of things for me without doing them only halfway and without doing a whole load of things that I never want. It doesn’t try to be smarter than it really is, but it makes things easier than they were in previous versions.

Even so, I gave Office 2007 a try for ~three (3) weeks and I have not been favorably impressed. I don’t know what is to be gained by doing away with the traditional menu bar, and the substitute seem to arbitrary for me. Maybe I would like it better if I took a class. But I don’t want to take a class because that would require time and money.

I came home from my little trip to a portion of the east side of the Pacific Ocean, during which I had a fair amount of time to think because I didn’t bring very many audio compact discs with me and because radio reception is not good way over there, and I thought to myself that I should make sure that Microsoft Office 2003 will function on top of the Windows Vista platform. So I did, and I also found out that there is a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. This pack is available for free download from Microsoft and allows said Microsoft Office programs of some previous versions of said programs to view, edit, and save their respective files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

I haven’t tried it yet, but this download was the thing that convinced me to switch back to Microsoft Office 2003 Professional.

Practicing

Do you like the way I manage to have so many pictures become parts of my Words blog? A number of people have told me that they like the pictures and that the words are just not interesting enough for them. Oh well. As I looked at the pictures from Adam’s wedding, I realized that I had forgotten that I have a camera that can take halfway decent pictures when it is used outside during the daytime (local time of course), so I have been using it a bit more than I had been before that time.

I traveled to a portion of the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean. I guess that a more orthodox way of saying that would be I traveled to a portion of the west coast of Washington State. I was hoping (unrealistically) to meet someone there, but I ran out of energy with which to look for him when I arrived there hungry (my own fault) and then rain began to fall with intensity that seemed to be ever increasing (nothing that I could have done about that). Seeing the ocean was nice, but it involved a lot of driving. I began to think of all sorts of things that I could have done instead, but the activity did beat sitting at home with my own degenerative thoughts. I need to find a place that is very conducive to spiritual discipline other than my own home when it is in good order. Have you any ideas?

as I was driving along, I remembered a portion of a book that I had previously (as opposed to futuristically) which indicated that anytime that men are on road trips with women and they are driving, they need to stop every half hour. So just to practice (just in case I ever find myself driving in such a situation) I decided to stop twice — once on my way to said ocean, and once on my way back home from said ocean. I took pictures of the location of my second stop because it was kind of interesting. The body of water pictured in said pictures is called Lake Crescent.

This is an image of the Illuminate 2 which has yet to fail me.