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.

More Visitors

I matched my all time high of five (5) visitors again this evening. I had a very nice time because Eric and Abby and Avery and Emily and Halsey came to visit me and eat my food and share their food with me. Eric is my community group leader and he came directly from his football coaching to his family's home where his family honored him by waiting so that they could all travel to my home together.

The older children seemed to be cranky and hungry because the energy that used to be within them had been depleted during their afternoon at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds, but that hunger and crankiness seemed to vanish during the meal.

So while I was eating and after my guests had finished eating, their was some conversing. Some of that conversing went something like this:

Emily: Mommy, why doesn't Joshua have a wife?
Abby: Why don't you ask Mr. Horky? Ask Mr. Horky.
Emily: says nothing. Is again prompted by her mother
Abby: Go ahead and ask him Lilly, it's nothing to be embarrassed about
Me: (not yet knowing what Emily's question is) It's over there (pointing toward the bathroom)
Emily: That's not what I was going to ask.
Abby: Say, "Mr." (waits) "Joshua" (waits) "why" (waits) "don't" (waits) "you" (waits) "have"...
Emily: ... a wife?
Me: Because I'm picky and the women whom I pick are picky and there are conflicts in the synthesis of our pickiness.

Alright, that last line didn't really come out quite that well, but I was happy to hear such a question from a little girl who just walked into my home for the first time to eat a meal.

After dinner we took some pictures and watched some football and music videos on my two notebook computers and Halsey fell asleep while I held him and then it was time to leave. Oh. Eric didn't take long to discover that I haven't read nearly all of the books on my bookshelf.

This is a picture of Eric holding Halsey while sitting in the chair that Avery says looks as though Halsey pooped green or yellow or some such color all over it.

This is a picture of Emily realizing that she really is still hungry and wants to eat even more dinner.

This is a picture of Abby (not to be confused with Abby herself).

This is a picture of all of my guests staring at other pictures which are being displayed by my computers.

This is a picture of baby Halsey who began to sleep numerous times during the evening.

Thank you for viewing these mediocre quality pictures.

Adam & Liumi become married 1

I attended a wedding today. Today was a nice day as far as the weather goes. I've included some pictures in this post. A couple of them are pictures of me having my picture taken. I think that I need some more practice with that. Oh well.

This is an image of me and the man who became married at the event which I attended today.

This is an image of me and the woman who became married at the event which I attended today.
This is an image of the first champaign that I have ever consumed. I consumed it during this afternoon.

This is an image of my community group leader providing for the needs of his family before the wedding began, but after the wedding was supposed to have begun. My community group leader attended the same wedding event that I attended this afternoon.

Blogging after the Jazz Event

Last night's jazz event has ended. I found out that the feedback was caused by the lead musician on purpose, so I don't feel so bad about it anymore. I was given some pictures of the event, but I don't like any of them very much, so I left them out of the blog. Not much money was made for the chairs, but I guess that that beats losing money to caterers and musicians.

I managed to not give the lead musician such a bad time that he never wants to come back. I know this because the man who ran the show told me that the lead musician wants to help with advertisements next time. Free advertising is always nice. Now if we could just make money while we get people to advertise (I never did understand those beer shirts).

I found out that root beer bottles that have root beer inside of them are not supposed to be shaken up.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 4

Well, Real Deal Mark Keel has arrived with his wife and begun to eat. The saxophone player has become a flute player. I didn't know that flutes were part of jazz music, but now I know that flutes (or at least this one) are a part of jazz music. Oh, that song has ended and now she has become a saxophone player again.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 3

Well the dinner part is over and the desert part has begun. I know this because the dinner serving dishes have been removed from the food distribution area and the deserts have been moved from my left to the food distribution area. Conveniently for all of these people, I am a phenyleketonuric and I am not able to eat the deserts in a healthy way, so there are some deserts left for the attenders of this event. Isn't that nice?

I wonder what will happen next.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 2

Well, the 1st root beer was good and people have arrived and the live music has started, but I haven't seen anyone checking tickets.

I think I mentioned in the pre-event post that the proceeds from this event are to be spent upon chairs for church, so if any of you would like to get up from your computers to Seaside Church directly across the street from Evergreen Park here in Bremerton just to drop some money off for us here, please do because someone's rear end will appreciate the purchase(s) resulting from your donation(s). An even better plan would be for you to show up at said church on Sunday morning and hand over said money.

The man in charge just told me that the tickets got axed.

Oh, and I just had some feedback through the guitar channel. Perhaps that is because I have never heard that guitar before I didn't get to set it up ahead of time, or maybe it is because I jacked the slider as far away from me as I could move it without moving myself or the board. I suppose that I should know better. Oh well, at least I didn't let it become very developed.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 1

I arrived at this event before I had planned to because I was called at home about one half hour before I had planned to leave said house. I was told that the musicians were ready to do a sound track and play background music and so on. I tried to leave said house immediately but was unable to do so because of the magazine saleswoman who was trying to win personality points for a contest because the reward for the contest was $1000. It sounded a lot like the program that I was told about my another sales woman on the Wednesday before. I disappointed them both.

When I arrived here, the band leader asked me when I wanted to have the sound check. I thought that he was in a hurry and unhappy about me not arriving as early as him so I answered, "in about forty seconds." I entered the building and began to turn things on and he followed me and told me that we should wait for a band member and perform the sound check half of an hour later.

We finally made it through a sound check without his band and argued about the best way for him to make a recording with his MD recorder. Then I was offered a root beer and dug out my computer, and I'll probably be blogging about this little event as the slow parts come.

Jazz Event at Seaside Church

On Friday, August 17th, I get to do some sound mixing for a jazz event. Well, perhaps my volunteer will be doing it instead of me, but neither of us has ever mixed jazz before and neither of us has ever mixed anything that anyone has paid money to listen to, but maybe it will go well anyway. Please note that the date on the poster shown below is wrong. Oh, and there will be alcohol. I mention that because I have recently learned that knowledge of the presence of alcohol seems to make people interested, even in church events. So consider yourself invited if you are old enough to legally consume alcohol and enjoy jazz music without disturbing the people around you. Oh yes, the profit is to be spent on new chairs so that the next event can be made even more classy and comfortable.

Clarity of mind

I helped a business in Poulsbo move after work on Wednesday and this moving took four hours and the job still wasn't done at the end of those four hours and I became quite tired because I am a paper pushing, mouse clicking civil engineer who doesn't generally visit the field even once a week.

I returned to my home after I was all through and cleaned myself off and climbed into my twin-sized bed and fell asleep after a while. Then, after a while longer, I woke up again and then after some more time had gone by, I thought to myself, "my body is quite tired, but my head is quite clear. My head was not clear like this before talking to worship pastor Patso on Tuesday." Then I remembered how the NIV reads in 1 Peter 4:8.

The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.

So we now know about one of the things that can be done with a clear mind.

Of course we can think of things to do to acquire or maintain a clear mind like:

1. Confessing our sins
2. Not becoming drunk
3. Eating our breakfasts
4. Sleeping when we're supposed to so that we can be awake when we're supposed to
5. Many, many other things which you may choose to type about in the comment field

1 Peter 4:7 indicates that doing these little things can help us to deal with the end times.