They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this blog post is already too long.
As the subtitle of this blog clearly states, I’m a gamer. Now, before you go and resign my level of geekiness to equal that of mere video games, I should warn you, I am also into PnP games. What are PnP games, you may ask? That’s a great question. PnP is an acronym for Pen and Paper. That’s right. DnD. The devil’s game. (Just kidding, we all know that Parcheesi is really the devil’s game.) Every Saturday night, a group of friends gather at my house to play a table top role playing game. (James says that I like to throw in the “table top” just to make myself feel better.) Yes, this confession may have revealed more about myself than I would have wanted, but I needed to explain my credentials for critiquing some of the most popluar Christian Board Games.
Today’s game, Apples to Apples: Bible Edition, like most others, is based on a popular, yet heathen, original. In the game Apples to Apples, sinners, I mean players, take turns drawing a green Adjective card. They read the card aloud, and then the other players select a red Noun card from their hand that best matches that adjective. It’s all pretty simple.
Before we get started talking about the Bible Edition, click on the image and read the cards. Just from reading the samples, I fear that anyone I played this game with would find themselves questioning my salvation. I mean: Michael the Archangel, The Bible, Prince of Peace, The book of Life, how do you decide which is the most amazing?!?! I just don’t know if I can take that kind of pressure! What happens if you don’t pick the Prince of Peace? How do you get more amazing than Jesus? Well, the Bible was written by over 40 human authors under the direction of the Holy Spirit and is full of confirmed prophecy, what if it is more amazing? But I thought Jesus was the word? What if we’re only talking about the Prince of Peace aspect of Jesus? But he came to bring a sword, not peace. And what about…
*KA-BOOM*
That was the sound of my head exploding.
Why do we Christians find the need to buy Christian versions of a game that’s already rated for all players? One of my favourite quotes is from the back of the box (pictured below):
Apples to Apples Bible Edition brings the award winning card and party game, Apples to Apples, to the Christian community! Players will delight in the clever comparisons while expanding their knowledge of the Bible.
Despite what I just said about the craziness of having a “Christian” version of an already “G” rated board game, I’d really like to own Apples to Apples: Bible Edition. Imagine the fun that could be had by mixing these cards in with the original game. Adjective: Sexy. Noun: Billy Graham. Oh, the hilarity that would ensue
Yesterday James and I went to Six Flags over Atlanta. I’m really tired and not feeling much like blogging today, but here’s something to whet your whistle.
If you are reading this in a feed reader, like Google Reader, then you can just ignore this post altogether. For everyone else, though, I’ve grown relatively tired of the green forest theme. Because of my bordem and borderline ADHD, I’ll be playing around with different themes for the next couple of days until I find one that I like. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment.
Wow, I don’t even want to think about how much time has passed since I wrote the first post in this series. All I can say is that I’ve been really busy. And lazy. Ok, mostly lazy.
Back in the original post, we talked about how discipleship isn’t just memorization of scripture, commandments, or traditions. Discipleship goes way beyond just “knowing” stuff. If it didn’t, then I’d have to say that Jesus chose the wrong types of people to be his closest followers: most were fisherman, some were tax collectors or zealots, not exactly an Ivy League crew. (But I bet they’d be really good at rowing). Some of the disciples were at the bottom of the intellectual barrel, but Jesus knew that being a disciple was about more than just brains.
Today I’d like to take a look at how we oft-times confuse gifts of the Spirit with spiritual maturity. If you come from a pentacostal or charismatic tradition, this post may make a little more sense to you. If you don’t, just bear with me and I’ll do my best to bridge the gap. In every pentacostal or charismatic church there’s the super-spiritual man/woman who always manifests some “Gift of the Spirit” during the service. It may be praying in tongues during the worship service, or having a Word of Knowledge for everyone, or, my personal favourite, having an interpretation for someone else’s outspoken prayer in tongues. Like I said, I think it’s mandatory for every pentecostal or charismatic church to have one of these guys/gals. In the church I grew up in, we had “Bob”. (Don’t worry, Bob isn’t his real name)
Every time there was a prophecy, or a tongue, or an open alter, or dead space in the service, Bob was there. Once, during a Sunday Evening Service, we had some visitors who, unbeknownst to Bob, were from South America. Our guests, who were missionaries from Argentina, spoke English, but prayed in their mother tongue of Spanish. (If you grew up in a pentecostal or charismatic tradition, you should be able to tell where I’m going here.) After the worship service, our pastor asked one of the gentlemen to pray for our church and the message he was about to give. This is where the “unbeknownst to Bob” part comes in. When the missionary stopped praying, our pastor made the fatal mistake of leaving some dead air. Bob, sensing the moment was absolutely right, began to interpret. Luckily for Bob, our pastor was used to dealing with situations like these and quickly moved in to fix the situation. But I’ll never forget the looks on the faces of those missionaries. I can only imagine him thinking: “Hey, I didn’t even know I was speaking in tongues!”
Bob is a good example of Spiritual Gifts not equalling Spiritual Maturity, but unfortunately he’s not the only one. There’s the world renowned pastor who gets caught in an adulterous relationship. Or the worship leader who’s become completely self-obssessed. The problem is that all too often, we confuse Gifts with Fruit.
We’ll pick up with the topic of Gifts vs Fruit next post. I hope it’s not two months from now. :)
Given the fact that I’m an IT Administrator and a geeky technophile, it might be easy to assume that I do everything on the computer. While it’s true that I probably spend way too much time surfing the interwebs or staring at some piece of enigmatic code, there are some things that just work better offline. For me, planning is one of those things.
I do all my important planning using good ole pen and paper. Why? Because I’m easily distracted. I have at least four programs on my computer (not to mention all the ones I’ve signed up for online) designed to help me plan everything from sermon series to software programs, but I rarely ever use ‘em. When I do, I find myself playing around with all the features, exploring more about what that piece of software can do than actually planning anything. Hey, I can put flags here. Wow, that’s a cool bevel, look, I put a link in there!
When it comes down to it, I’ve got pen and paper figured out. No surprise buttons, or “hey, what does that icon do” moments. It just works.
PS: I really want one of these:
Instead of publishing my next post in the WTF series, Wordpress deleted all of its contents. Awesome. I’ll have to re-write the post, but won’t be able to do that till later tonight. Thanks Wordpress. I love you.
In a few weeks, LifePoint will be joining with hundreds of other churches in a series called One Prayer. I’m sure that James will be sharing more about this groundbreaking series as we get closer. For now, I want to focus on the month of July, after One Prayer is finished. In July, we’re making James take a weekend off (his first in a few years), and Dr. Jason Ward and I will be taking over speaking duties for almost the entire month. The series, in case you’re still curious about this post’s title, is WTF?: Where’s the Fig?. In the gospels, we’re told a story about Jesus’ cursing of a fig tree because it had all the leaves, but no fruit. Although it appeared healthy, it was barren. In WTF?: Where’s the Fig? we’ll be taking a look at this story and how it connects with the Fruit of the Spirit talked about by the Apostle Paul.
* SPOILER ALERT! * If you’re a regular LifePointer, all the stuff you read in the rest of this post may be a spoiler for what I’ll be sharing in July, but it’s 1:00 am, and I have to get this stuff off my mind before I can sleep. If you don’t think you can handle hearing me talk about the same thing more than once, you may want to skip on over to weather.com now.
WTF?, as I’ll be referring to it from here on in, is really shaping up to be a look at how we can cultivate the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives, which, really comes down to discipleship. It’s natural to assume that discipleship means cramming our heads with more knowledge about Jesus. From the time we eat our first crayon in Kindergarten, to when we walk across the stage at graduation, we’re taught that learning and maturing is all about knowledge. [For those who were a: home schooled or b: didn’t graduate high school, please insert your own, applicable school reference here.] When you take a test, your teacher grades you based on how much of the information you can recall. They don’t care how hard you studied for the test, or how much you really wanted to pass.
Our educational focus on knowing facts has influenced how the church handles discipleship. We assume that feeding people more information about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, etc. will make them better followers of Jesus. And, it will, to a point. The problem is that knowing the facts about something without applying them only makes people pompous and arrogant. And, let’s face it, none of us acts up to our level of knowledge. We all know more of the Bible than we are applying at any given moment. Now, before you get all: “Hey, this guy doesn’t think people should learn about Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or the Bible. Where’s the stake?” Let me say that I whole heartedly agree that people should learn more about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible, but let’s not be fooled into thinking that that knowledge makes us better disciples, or produces the Fruit of the Spirit on its own.
Tune in next time where you’ll hear Kevin say:
“…Some of the disciples were at the bottom of the intellectual barrel.”
Goodnight.
I love music. If you ask those that know me best, they’ll tell you that my musical taste centers around a chewy nougat of classic rock, with a dark chocolate coating of modern rock. While I can still get my classic rock fix from Chattanooga’s KZ 106.5, there’s not much else on the airwaves to soothe my palate since 96.5 The Mountain went Top 40. Thankfully, I spend more of my time behind a computer than behind the wheel, and have discovered the following sites to satiate my musical hunger. (Like all the food refrences? You have no idea how hard it was to refrain from saying: ‘…centers around a chewy Nugent of classic rock’. Get it? Nugent, classic rock? See how much self control that took?)
- Songerize - Great for that one song fix. Just type in the name of the song and artist you want to hear, and songerize plays it for you, no strings attached. Downside? You can only play one song at a time.
- Pandora - By far one of the best things to happen to the interwebs since the blogs. You give it the name of an artist or song and it plays that artist/song followed by artists and songs that have a similar musical style. It’s great for discovering new bands. Downside? I’m not always in the mood for discovery.
- Skreemr - This is the most…how we should say, ethically sketchy of the list. I’m not advocating musical piracy, but Skreemr has access to a plethora of mp3s for download. Downside? RIAA. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
I’ve been holding on to this post for a while now, mainly because I fear that I’m not going to do it the comedic justice it deserves. When I saw the picture below, wait, don’t scroll there yet, I felt like a kid in a toy store. Where do I begin? Do I go look at the action figures? The video games? The Legos? AHHAHAHA the possibilities are just too endless. Knowing that I probably could have written a more witty, well thought out post about it, I’m going to put up my comments anyway, as crude as they are.
So, the other day I was walking through Wal-Mart towards the checkout, when I saw these little islands. If you’ve ever been in Wally World, then you know what I’m talking about. The $5.50 DVD’S that no one really wants, like Weekend At Bernies 2, or Land Before Time MMCXVII: Little Foot Goes To Vegas. Or maybe the newest cd compilation of your favourite 80’s country-western singer. Adrift in this sea of unwanted plastic I saw the sales island pictured below:
It was an island full of DVDs which had to do with Earth Day. The advert on the side of it made me bust a gut laughing. Seriously? Happy Feet? I apologize for the quality of the picture, but I took it with my phone.
Just for the fun of it, here’s a quick synopsis from www.imdb.com about each of the four movies listed:
11th hour: A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet’s ecosystems.
Planet in Peril: CNN takes viewers around the world in a two-part, four-hour documentary that examines our changing planet. This worldwide investigation, shot in high definition, looks at four key issues: climate change, vanishing habitats, disappearing species and human population growth.
An Inconvenient Truth: A documentary on Al Gore’s campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
Happy Feet: Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!
Nothing says “Let’s get our butts into gear and save this planet like penguins that can tap dance something fierce!” If the cuteness of dancing, computer animated penguins is enough to save the environment, I can’t wait for the story of Jumbles the Baby Panda, whose family lives in valley of cute, singing flowers. Jumbles will bring world peace by refusing to eat the talking bamboo. Then we will be able to lay aside our petty differences and truly live happily ever after.