Attempting to glorify the worm

These are pictures of pastor Dale. He ministered to my grandparents someplace and then to my parents years ago at 15th Avenue Bible Church (which no longer exists) before I was born.
He ministered to me at Sky Valley Bible Church in Monroe from 2001-2004.

Come to think of it, I must have been born for some of that 15th Ave Bible Church stuff because I know that loves to tell a story about me praying for snow at a time when snow was unlikely and getting it and then going four-wheeling in his orange pickup truck.

I have taken several of the sermons that he preached during his time at Sky Valley Bible Church from audio cassette tapes and placed them on the Sky Valley Bible Church web site because I find myself referring back to my recollections of his teachings over and over again. These include preaching on:

• eternal security
• the exclusive priesthood of Jesus
• the meaning of propitiation (1 John 4:10)
• the meaning of repentance (probably not what you think)
  
• the fact that Jesus lives in each of His children
• the need for believers to restrain themselves to keep themselves from pontificating and making people feel guilty over things that don't matter
• the need for believers to deal with bad behavior in the church
• the fact that Jesus is the King
• the need for believers to walk with Jesus all the way through the end of their lives
  

Pastor Dale has his own ministry which he calls Reaching Men Ministries which takes men (not too many at a time) away from normal life (often to some sort of wilderness) and talks to them about regular old things and things of eternal significance because many to most of the deep conversations that Jesus had with his disciples took place during such excursions.

I learned something new about the Pollyanna movie

Today my mother requested that I drive my little brothers to the library and that I wait there with one of them for an hour. I pulled out my computer and decided to read a sermon called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" which was written by Jonathon Edwards because Mark Driscoll stated explicitly in his blog that Jonathon Edwards is the "greatest theologian that America ever produced" because of the aforementioned sermon which Mark Driscoll described as "America's most famous sermon." I.e. I decided to read America's most famous sermon because I had never read it before.

I read the first twelve or so pages (of eighteen in the format that I found first) before I had to drive my brother to another location. When I returned I decided to find the first sermon scene in the pollyanna movie because I was reminded of it by my earlier reading. As I watched it, I decided that sermon therin had obviously been taken from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." I got on the internet and found it to be so.

So I just realized that the first sermon in the Pollyanna movie is really not as bad as the movie tries to make it out to be. It is just incomplete, i.e. just about all of the content of the Pollyanna sermon is contained in the first 12 pages of the "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon and it ends with "Yes, death comes unexpectantly! Amen." and says absolutely nothing about Jesus or anything that he did or does. So it is a good 90% of a sermon, but makes people uselessly miserable. At the end of the movie, all of the sermons are preached exclusively from the happy texts and are even more useless than those previous. If you are at all interested in knowing why both of these components are required in these proportions, I recommend reading or listening to Hell's Best Kept Secret.

I guess I do find it interesting that Disney made money off of making fun of America's most famous sermon way back in the sixties when it was supposed to be so clean and moral.

Spring Break

I get to type about spring break! Of course I can't make you read about it, but that is just the downside. Again, the upside is that you can't stop me from typing about it.

My car was full during the trip from Pullman to Seattle. That means that I got paid so that the trip to Seattle didn't really cost me anything. I left on Friday the 10th. I found out that my car traveled 27.5+ miles every time it consumed a gallon. I didn't even get my car in a wreck! Wow.

I helped my grandmother move to assisted living on Saturday. I went to church and visited with friends on Sunday. I scheduled an interview on Monday and went shooting. Yesterday I had my hairs cut by my sister and ate dinner with her and watched the Cosby show. Today I had a different interview and went on a run with my brother. Me, me, me, I, I, I. When I left Pullman I was hoping for two interviews, neither of which were confirmed. Now I have finished one, confirmed another and am hoping for yet another. I should be praying to Jesus about these.

Re: So what do you do for sex?

You may have noticed that my little brother replied to my VIP posting. Being a young teenage male, he wanted to know how I responded when I was asked, "So what do you do for sex?"

If I remember correctly, this response went something like this: "Nothing." Of course this man couldn't believe that and proceeded to question me further regarding masturbating and a particular homosexual act, both of which he praised because of the pleasure he said that they brought him. The visit ended directly after he asked me to remove his pants from his body.

I told the activities director that I would only put up with so much of that kind of preaching before I began some preaching of my own and we agreed that I would cease visiting that individual. I think it is interesting that some of the men there are glad that I am in Jesus, some are just glad to talk to someone, but some want to have sex with me.

Perhaps some later posting will include my reasoning for believing that masturbating is wrong. I guess I will just say that the power that God continually provides for me so that I can avoid masturbating is a great assurance that I really am in Jesus and that He is taking care of me and that He will continue to do so even if I die. I think that since I am living a (nearly) superhuman lifestyle, Jesus must be living in me. I tried to stop without His help multiple times. Each was unsuccessful.

So yeah, if anyone cares to know more about my experiences with masturbating and Jesus changing me, I will share with him (or her as the case may be).

Families

I had a most unexpected pleasure yesterday. Let me tell you all about it.

I was going over to the home of my friend who is married and has one child. He and I and perhaps the rest of his family were about to go shooting because I have not practiced in a very long time.

As it turned out, no shooting was done. His family piled into a small SUV with me and met another family and drove up into a recreational area at a relatively high elecation and played in the snow.

After the playing in the snow was done, we all returned the the home of the second family and rode unreliable trail bikes around the lawn. I had never driven a motorized cycle before and I tipped mine over and now I have a bruise on my right shin. I really didn't know what I was doing. It was good that I stayed off the road.

I was invited to dinner at the same home. It was during dinner that I realized that all three of the children that lived there were exceptionally well behaved, but also fun to watch (most people would say "cute").

If I understand right, their father is an elder in the church and is quite concerned about making sure that he is above reproach. He is quite conservative and goes further than I would, but I wasn't about to disagree with him unless I was asked, since I was enjoying his hospitality.

It has just been so long since I have seen members of a family pay so much attention to each other. It was kind of interesting to look at it and think that I could have a family just like that soon (like in five years or so).

The Nuart

This is kind of fun. I just arrived at the Nuart Theatre in Moscow Idaho where I talked to that one kid about Jesus two weeks ago. I can hear one man sharing his testimony with a lady at the next table. I arrived with my computer, but without my power supply and without my mouse. My onboard touchpad mouse has not worked since I had to take my computer apart so that I could replace my power jack, so I am relying upon my keyboarding skills entierly. I guess it is good that I don't plan to be here for longer than the two hours that my battery is supposed to be able to last.

The Nuart is great for a whole load of reasons:

1. You don't have to buy anything
2. There is free internet
3. There are lots of Christian books that you can pick up and read or buy
4. On Tuesday nights the owner plays his guitar and his harmonica and he is quite good. Some of the songs are about Jesus, but some of them are not.
5. There are free movies to watch on Friday nights.

Again, the Nuart used to be a theatre, but it is set up as a book store, a coffee shop, a theatre, a concert venue, and a church.

Missions

I went to a Career Expo at the University of Idaho on Wednesday. I had to go three times: I went the first time and realized that I had forgotten my resumes. I went the second time and eploited the career fair. I went the third time on Thursday for an interview. I mailed the thank you note yesterday.

As I walked around the Expo on Wednesday, I was quite suprised to see the Operation Mobilization booth. I have been on the Operation Mobilization boats and heard about their missions work previously. I talked to the recruiter about a trip this summer.

In church on Sunday I got to listen to Dr. Fred VanGorkom who graduated from Washington State University (which I am now attending) and heard all about what God has done for people in Eithiopia.

These two instances have got me to thinking that I should ask God to give me a job for the fall and to let me go on a mission trip to someplace this summer. I have never been on a mission trip except to Canada with my dad. I didn't really see anything new and different as far as people or God there.