Surveying

I think that my official title at my place of employment is Project Engineer, but I got to go surveying a bit today because I needed an as-built drawing of a site with an accurate bottom elevation for a particular pond that has a significant depth of stormwater in it already. When the official company surveyors did the as-built surveying, they forgot to bring a boat and waders, so my boss found me a boat and I went to the field to help finish the job. On the downside, I couldn't get the boat to go very fast. On the upside, I managed not to tip the boat over (like the previous time that I was in a small boat) and I should have the numbers that I need.

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.

Appearing to be Normal while Eating

I did a strange thing today. The strange thing that I did today was that I appeared to be a normal person during my lunch hour. I appeared to be a normal person during my lunch hour by eating formal food like normal people. You may think that normal people do not exist, but the people who make the salt container with the picture of the lady and the umbrella disagree with you.

My apparent normality was made possible by the writing of my dear sister, which is included below. Prior to reading that, please enjoy this picture of me appearing to be a normal person during my lunch hour.

Eating out

Veggie Burritos (Qdoba, Chipotle, Taco del Mar)

When you order the veggie burrito, make sure you say “no beans, no cheese” (possibly more than once). Other than that, you should get a flour tortilla with rice, lettuce, tomatoes (are considered “mild salsa” or “pico de gallo”) and guacamole if you wanted it. And sometimes there are grilled green peppers and onions that can go in as well.

Veggie sub/sandwich (Subway, Georgio’s, Panera)

You need to pick the sub (“I’ll have a veggie sub please”), then you pick the bread (ask for “Italian” or “white”), then you pick the size (6’’ or 12’’) and the kind of cheese (none (duh)). I like to have mine toasted with green peppers and onions and then other stuff added on when it comes out of the toaster, but you can have it anyway you want it (toasted or not—you have to ask if you want it toasted) with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, olives, pickles etc… Pretty much the person making it will ask you what you want, and you just tell them as they are putting it together for you. At the end, you can get oil and vinegar (pretty much the 2 components that make Italian dressing, which I like), mustard (I usually get one stripe of spicy mustard—isn’t really that spicy, but it’s a good flavor), mayonnaise (I usually skip ‘cause I already have the oil and vinegar for moisture and flavor), salt, pepper, parmesan (cheese—no!) or oregano (a spice that’s fine, but I usually skip). The 6’’ veggie sub at Subway works out to be less than $3.50 ‘cause meat is expensive and you’re not having any.

Mexican Rice (Azteca, Tijuana’s, Ixtapa)

Self-explanatory. Doesn’t hurt to clarify/remind “no beans, no cheese” because some restaurants automatically add that to the rice or anything else they happen to be serving. You can also order a burrito—just tell them what you want, or find the veggie one on the menu and modify it to what you want, again “no beans, no cheese” or ask for extra rice to replace the beans. If the burrito comes with red sauce all over it, it’s okay. It’s not spicy, it’s some yummy totally legal tomato stuff that goes on burritos to make them “wet burritos”

Pasta and Marinara sauce (Olive Garden, California Pizza Kitchen)

Pasta is pasta. Angel hair, linguine, spaghetti, cappelini, penne, rotini. All of those are pasta, just in different shapes and sizes. There is almost always one of those (or something of the like) that comes with marinara sauce or pomodoro (read the description—if it has “meat” in the description, don’t order it). “Marinara” is universally (okay, maybe not quite that) known as “tomato pasta sauce with no meat”. Ask if it comes with cheese, or say “no parmesan” so they don’t bring it to you with cheese all over it.

Baked potato (Wendy’s)

Order the “Sour cream and chive baked potato”. The sour cream comes packaged separate from the potato. You can trade your sour cream back for some margarine, or just ask for margarine and throw the sour cream away.

Steak Fries and Salad (Red Robin)

I don’t know why they’re called steak fries. Maybe because they are so big. I don’t believe it’s more than $3 for a bottomless basket of fries. Maybe they aren’t called steak fries on the menu at Red Robin. I think they might not even be by themselves on the menu (apart from coming with burgers), but I was there last week and asked for either a basket of fries, or a side of fries, and they brought them to me, and when I finished them, they refilled them again. They also have a decent side/garden salad, but you have to ask for no cheese. I don’t care too much for their Italian dressing, but it’s better than eating no dressing at all. They put tortilla chip pieces on their salads, and I like that.

Beer

I had Brandon as my roommate for one year when I lived near Washington State University in Pullman Washington. Brandon had to take technical writing class in order to finish earning his Bachelor of Science degree and he wrote about beer for his final project. I understand that his writing about beer was well accepted and that his teacher was willing to put his or her points where his or her mouth was so that Brandon's grades were quite good.

Brandon was quite generous and has provided the digital copies of his work to me. He has also given me permission to publish his work here for your enjoyment.

The Pullman/Moscow Beer Handbook

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my current community group leader and Seaside Church's newest elder for inviting me to his residence to drink beer with his family on the evening of December 23 of this year after he learned that I was sitting at home all by myself.

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.

My Weird Church

This morning I decided to act in accordance with my better judgment and submit to the wishes expressed in the comments of the official elder and the unofficial elder both of whom dared to tell me what I should write. I used to think that I was slow to anger. I used to think that I could live with authority. That was before I met people who actually use authority.

So, let it be known that it is the expressed desire of the Seaside Church leadership that all of you who read this blog post know that none of the bottles pictured herein did contain alcohol at the time during which these pictures were taken.

Now, if I could just find some way to get around those biblical commands to be subject to spiritual authority so that I can do whatever the hell I want.

Today there was a baptism at which three people became baptized. Lots of us decided to travel to Tom Engstrom's house (pictured below). That person doing the cooking in that picture up there told me yesterday that by watching a movie called The Blues Brothers I could learn what would be required to build a culturally relevant church for black men (and their families).

Tom Engstrom had some very uncomfortable surgery performed upon his body last week. For some reason, he decided to be hospitable anyway. Please note the beer bottle in Mr. Tom Engstrom's hand. This beer bottle is kind of like the beer bottle which is pictured in the picture above it.

This is a picture of Tom Engstrom's backyard.

Here is an image of some kid with another beer bottle.

I figure that as long as I am making people happy, I had can make Crystal happy by removing this picture also.

Here is a picture of two of the people who were about to be baptized who were also having their picture taken while holding beer bottles.

Here is a picture of the person who was baptized first. Inconveniently, I don't seem to have an image of this person holding a beer bottle. Conveniently, there seemed to be a number of beer bottles such that each person present seemed to be able to empty one all by himself or herself. I didn't even hear any mothers saying, No Billy, you only get ONE!

This is an image of the person who was baptized second. It is also an image of the newly installed elder whose name is Eric Schuette and who is also my community group leader. I think that he is the only elder of Seaside Church who plans on attending any one community group consistently.

This is an image of the person who was baptized third.

Here are some other pictures that seem to have come out well:

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.

Work Pictures

This is a picture of my shoes and my blue jeans and my shoelaces which match my bluejeans. I selected the shoelaces at Target where there was minimal lighting because said Target store was not being provided with electricity. I was able to go shopping that morning because my place of employment was not being provided with electricity either. Fortunately, my home was being provided with electricity, so I sat at home for most of the rest of that day.

This is an image of me and the piece of watermelon which I ate yesterday afternoon. It tasted kind of nice and I didn't spill too much of it on the drawings or on the desk.