Still one of my all time favorite bands.

Dave Emmert

So my friend Dave Emmert is in a band called Mr.Lendingworth and Friends and they just finished their new album. I love this guy. GO LISTEN. I am really proud of him.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE MUSIC.

Ecclesia. Sign me up.

Sometimes I’m not so sure why I want to be a pastor. I mean lets just break it down: bad pay, long hours, high stress, and I have to deal with weird church people. So why do I want to spend my life this way?

Every once and a while, they are becoming more frequent, I have these moments of clarity. These moments of clarity allow me to see exactly why I want to be a pastor, why I want to be a part of the Church. Today at church I had one of those moments. Today was my church’s fourth anniversary of being planted and we had a baptism service. They gave each of the candidates a chance to address the congregation and give a few words of why they were being baptized. One of ladies who was being baptized said that she had been a Christian for over a decade now and was instrumental in planting Ecclesia and had been heavily involved in starting ministries. For a long time she couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t willing to be baptized. Then she said she really did know but it was hard to say out loud. She went on to tell us that she was afraid that she would leave, leave the faith and the Church. She said that it had been easy for most of her time as a Christian but she was worried that when times got hard that she would just give up. She continued to tell us how this past year had been the hardest year of her life, the loss of her parents, the long fight against sickness and death of her husband, and now being a single parent. The reason that she didn’t leave she said was because of the church. At this point the pastors on stage and anybody who knew the woman and her story were crying and fighting back tears. She said the reason she didn’t leave was because of the people in the church who paid her bills when her husband was sick, the people who constantly stayed with her in the hospital overnight, and the love and support that the community gave. She said she hadn’t walked away and it was time to go public with her faith because she knew she was never walking away. The pastor chocked out through tears you were dead in sin and dunked her into the water and when she came up he said you are now alive in Christ. In that moment I knew that this church, this community and others like it around the world was what I wanted to spend my life for.

Intelligentsia

So not to belabor the point about Portland being better than Los Angeles but when I moved out here I was really disappointed. Portland has an amazing coffee culture and it was hard to leave. There are some descent coffee shops around me but nothing really that good. No one knew how to make a pretty cappuccino. You would think that LA, being the hipster/yuppie capital of the world, would have serious coffee drinkers. Up until last week I didn’t think so. My friend Drew (not a coffee drinker but works at Starbucks) asked me, “have you ever been to Intelligentsia Coffee?” I hadn’t but I wasn’t really expecting too much but he said he had heard good things! Since I don’t have much of a life, checking out Intelligentsia was immediately on the top of my important things to do list. So I went and I discovered serious coffee! Their baristas have to go to school for a few months to brew their coffee. Ever cup is freshly ground and brewed. Not to mention one of their baristas just won third place in the world barista competition! Needless to say I was pleased with what I found. I sat down and had a seriously good cappuccino.

Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea here.

Owen

Owen takes me there. I am not sure where "there" is but we go there. sad news its usually alone. working on it.

I love this video. Relax. Breath deep. Watch.

Port-land.

Thought about Portland a lot today. Someone was asking me what I thought about the city, my friend Chad is coming to visit LA from Portland, and the New York times did a story on Sunday on how affordable/perfect Portland is. So of course it was time to think about all the ways Portland is better than Los Angeles. That's how I do things... grass is always greener.

Here for the full article.

Espresso Book Machine

"What Gutenberg’s press did for Europe in the 15th century digitization and the Espresso Book Machine will do for the world tomorrow."

The Espresso Book Machine is the newest technology in printing, it prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes on demand. The sad reality of out of print books is a thing of the past. These machines are small enough to fit into a retail shop or library (or my bed room - Christmas wish 2012) and can potentially change the way people buy books forever. The customer can choose from a web based catalog of books or bring in their own file or flash drive in PDF format.

I am just thinking about the possibilities and implications of this machine. self publishing. Seriously amazing.

On demand books here.

Its Suburbs Without the Car

I read an article in the New York times today that has been plaguing my imagination all day.

In Vauban, Germany they are creating communities without cars. If a resident owns a car they have to park at the edge of the community in super expensive parking lots ($40,000 per space). 70% of Vauban residents do not own automobile.

This is my dream world… except that its in Germany. Not that I don’t like Germany, I just don’t speak German/ I think it’s really cold.


To read the full article: click here

Saturday nights in Seminary...

So I am writing a Paper on synod of Dort for my systematic theology class. It's a 15 page paper and I'm on page 6 and it is due Monday at 1pm. So needless to say I am on a time crunch. Mid-term week is really crazy and you honestly don't have very much time to get done everything that has to be done. It is really frustrating because I am in the place where I am not satisfied with average work but when time is short you do the best you can. The gift of studying theology is that when I am sitting in a coffee shop on a Saturday night feeling quite desperate, God can really speak and move through what I am reading and researching. My paper's tentative title is, I grew up an Armenian and didn’t know it: Discovering Biblical truth within Calvinism. So I am having a good time even though it is pretty heavy material. I am currently writing on the fist article of the Synod which is Predestination and Unconditional election. One thing I am realizing is that the Bible is filled with really hard truths and they are often not easy to swallow. What has been amazing is God gently guiding me into a fruitful theology. I have struggled and had doubts but I am thankful for the men that have come before and labered and worked to help me have a greater understanding of God and His word.Bastian Kruithof tells a story in The High Points of Calvinism a story that really encouraged my soul:

"Some day ago I talked to a man who can be considered a refugee from Hungary where Russian totalitarianism is grinding the people down. One of the first words he spoke to me was: "Predestination." He told me of the several million Hungarian Calvinists who are by no means defeated. He said to me that whenever a brother appears on the verge of despair, the invariable retort is: "are you a man?" That sentence has tremendous significance when it comes from those who are not stoics but Christians who know that God is with them, and that they are in God's unshakable plan and under his lasting grace. I was interested to read this sentence in Hasting's Encyclepedia of Religion and Ethics: "The Calvinistic 'fate' is the incentive to heroic effort, a challenge to play the man."

Samual 10:9-12
When Joab saw that the battle was set against him both in front and in the rear, he chose some of the best men of Israel and arrayed them against the Syrians. The rest of his men he put in the charge of Abishai his brother, and he arrayed them against the Ammonites. And he said, “If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and blet us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.”

Encouragement for my spirit.

A great way to view differences within the Church:

Theological National Boundaries

Indeed, there are theological national borders that need to be retained, such as Scripture as God’s Word; God as Trinitarian community; humanity as sinful; Jesus as God and man; the virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus; and the necessity of Jesus alone for salvation from sin, hell, and the wrath of God.

State Boundaries

Beyond these sorts of national borders are state borders. State borders include spiritual gifts, baptism, communion, worship styles, Bible translations, sense of humor, and the like. Various states can have their own proverbial borders on these issues. Nonetheless, like states we must be able to live as a loving and unified nation. We cannot turn our state borders into national borders and refuse to live at peace in unity and love with those who live in other proverbial states. Simply, the state borders should not be battle lines where personal and theological wars are fought because bigger things are at stake, such as the evangelizing of lost people and the planting of missional churches.

My prayer today is this

“Thank you Sovereign God for an opportunity to influence the nations for good. May you please give us your Spirit to keep our minds learning, hearts loving, ears listening, hands serving, and humility growing for your glory and our joy. We ask this for your fame by the Spirit’s power in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

-Mark Driscoll @http://theresurgence.com/time_magazine_new_reformed