KevinStoverBlog.com

A few months ago I was having lunch with some friends, (friends you might find on twitter as @jameslaws and @jeremymoore) when one of them mentioned having an old roommate who liked to “poke holes” in Christianity. We didn’t really discuss what he meant by the term “holes”; whether he meant something akin to “pot holes”, which can be filled in and smoothed over, or something more life-threatening like “bullet holes”, I don’t know. As I sat and pondered all the different types of “holes”, please, insert punchline here, I wondered what kind of inconsistencies would really cause me to re-think my faith. What piece of doctrinal, historical, or biblical contradiction would cause me to reject God? If I was looking for a reason to reject God, how would I not find one?

That’s when I thought of the title of this series: Perforated Christianity. How do you live with a faith that is full of holes? In this series of posts, we’ll discuss some of the aforementioned “holes” that are poked in Christianity and how deadly, or not, they are to the body of Christ. We’ll also talk about the ways in which our responses to these assertions effect non-Christian’s perception of us and the God we are trying to represent.

I confess that I don’t have all the answers. The areas in which I am the most knowledgable, particurlaly those relating to the earliest Christian texts and contexts, will obviously be the focus of this examination. There are other areas of what I will refer to as a “holey faith”, in which there are experts far greater than I. Of course, I also welcome your comments, and would like to end this intro with an invitation to post some of the holes that you or someone you know sees within Christianity.

I’m probably going to be ostracized for saying this, but: “I don’t find Macs to be intuitive, at all”. Maybe it’s because I cut my digital teeth on Dos prompts and command lines, but it’s true. We recently purchased a Mac for church presentation use, and I’ve had the privilage of getting it all ready to go. Now, I’m not an elitist, this post isn’t about about how PCs are better than Macs, its simply an explanation of my early enteractions with the Mac. Here are some of my issues:

• There isn’t a delete button. Ok, techinically, there is a delete button, but it’s really a backspace button. Why’d they have to call it delete? It’s backspace!
• The touchpad lacks a right click button. To right click you have to put two fingers on the touchpad.  Come’on Apple, join the 20th century, get a two button mouse.
• Shortcut keys are a pain. I really didn’t expect to be able to use my old ctrl + b, i, u, etc. standbys, but on the Mac you have to use the Command Key instead of the Control key. The problem is that the Command Key is very awkward to reach from the home keys.
• There are archaic looking runes on some menus that aren’t even printed on the keyboard. One kind of looks like a tilde, but weird. Well, even weirder than a ~ normally looks.
• Do the window control buttons have to be in the upper left hand corner?? That just makes no sense.
• When I alt+tab I don’t see every instance of a program (every Firefox window, for example), just one program icon. That’s just frustrating.
• Why do I have to drag things to the trash to eject them? I’m confused.
• Why can’t I just click a button to install a program? Why do I have to drag an icon over to my applications directory? Just give me a button to press that says: “install”.

Those are some of my observations, I’ll try to come up with some positives for the next post :)

This post is a test of how well my newest toy, an iPhone, works with Wordpress. So far I really like it. Hopefully it will help me be more active in my blogging and tweeter. Thanks for reading.

Well, if you read the title and guessed that the church could learn to be ethical, you’re right. But, I want to tell this story anyway.

A few weeks ago I got a call at the Library where I work as the IT Manager from some company wanting to sell me their crap. I explained to the person on the phone, we’ll call him Louis, that I did not want to order anything, and indeed I could not because of our new building project. He asked when we expected the building to be completed, to which I replied a few months, thinking I had just bought myself a few months of “Louis” not calling me.

Apparently, I was wrong. What I had really bought was a $500 case of printer cleaning supplies. Of course, I had no idea that I had done such a thing until I got faxed an inovice from Louis’ company. (I really wish I still had it so that I could scan it in, but alas, it is no where to be found.) After getting the invoice, I fired off an email to the address listed on the fax, and called the 800 number. The number gave me a busy signal, and I never receieved a reply to my email. (In fact, I’m still waiting). 

Fast forward to this week and receive a package via UPS. You’d be surprised at how underwhelming 500 dollars worth of printer cleaning supplies can be. It all fit into a 12″ x 6″ cardboard box. Who knew? I was finally able to get their customer support on the phone and explain to them that I did not place an order. After a few minutes of discussion, the support rep assured me that their warehouse manager contacted every customer to make sure that they were shipping the right thing. This gentlemen apparently had a record of speaking with me. Now, I get a really low number of work-related phone calls. The rep finally accepted that I wasn’t going to be paying for the order, when he honestly said: “What if I were to hold the billing for a few months?” To which I replied: “Listen, it’s not about the money, it’s about honesty. You guys made up an order, didn’t respond to my emails or phone calls to cancel the order, which I didn’t place, and now you want me to give you money? Are you serious? I don’t understand how you’re in business. I’ll be shipping these cleaning supplies back to you, please don’t call me, or make up orders for me again. Have a great day.”

As a church, are we signing people up for things they didn’t ask for? At LifePoint, we’re getting ready to launch some new things that will let people know where we’re headed up front. No surprises.

• Really tired and not wanting to be at work today. I hate bureaucracy. #
• Re-installing windows xp pro. yay. #

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• Leaving work early today to get some church stuff done. #

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I posted this about a year ago, but I thought, since I was reminded about Friday the 13th by Jeremy Moore, that I would repost it for your enjoyment.

For all of our readers with Triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), I thought I’d give a little bit of the history behind your fears. There are lots of theories about the origin of the unlucky nature of the number 13. They range from the number of disciples that Jesus had (12 + Judas = 13), to the disbanding of the Knights Templar in the 14th Century AD on Friday the 13th. Despite the origin, it appears that the number 13 only became associated with bad fortune in the 1900’s. Some fast facts about Friday the 13th from our good friend Wikipedia:

“It’s been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do.” ^[4]

Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they are simply unable to get out of bed when Friday the 13th rolls around. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that more than 17 million people are affected by a fear of this day. ^[5] Despite that, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines don’t suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays. ^[6]

A British Medical Journal study has shown that there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents on Friday the 13ths.^[7]

On Friday the 13 you must beware of 3 am. For that is when the devil mocks God’s worshipers. On this day many people have claimed to have noticed a presence of a spirit. Is the spirit harmful, related to you, or the devil? This depends on the time place and person experiencing this spirit.

I’d think that most of these facts were made up but during my 7 or so years of retail experience, I had at least a few hundred people refuse to pay for a purchase that totaled $6.66. They would add items to their order or take items off, but felt like it was wrong to pay for a purchase totaling to the devil’s number. Sometimes I think I’d like to write a book about Christians and their superstitions. It would be fun.

I broke a mirror today and a black cat sat in my lap. I guess we’ll have a few more weeks of winter. Happy Friday the 13th!

• Off work today, lots of loose ends to type up at different medical offices around town. #

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• Just got to the computer at work, trying to get some stuff done… #
• Reading “Pause” http://tinyurl.com/bl3cjg #

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• Company just faxed an invoice for comp. supplies never ordered. I hate that. Lesson for the church somewhere in there? #
• I really miss basketball. Shot a little bit yesterday, about 30 minutes worth. Can’t wait to get to actually play again…. #
• @prodigaljohn I think Jesus said it this way: “The harvest is plenty, but the workers few…” #

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