The Ever-Expanding Blogosphere

Disasters come in 3's. Apparently, so do new bloggers. First there was Aaron Burgess. Larry Budde started a My Space blog that I would link to but can't [because My Space sucks] so his RSS feed is here. And now Emily Hill is joining the web log world. All these people are friends involved in Echo, but are also articulate people with interesting things to say.

Just keep writing, friends. Nothing is as depressing as a stagnant blog.

p.s. A must read is Emily's post about the benefits of living here in the city, more specifically, Walnut Hills.

Meet The Neighbors

Skipped out on our prayer meeting tonight [terribly pagan of me, huh?], and headed over to the monthly East Walnut Hills Community Association meeting; I had planned on attending before Kelly was in the hospital, but never got around to it. First, I should note that I don't think we live in East Walnut Hills. My uncertainty was reinforced as I asked around tonight where the border of East Walnut Hills is. I received differing answers. But I do know for certain that the Walnut Hills Church that we rent IS in East Walnut Hills, so we should be involved in what goes on in our community.

The meeting was well worth attending. I got the opportunity to meet some local business people as well as expose Echo to some residents in the community. And it was exciting to hear about some of the things happening in the area. I'm hoping to attend the meeting every month, get our church involved in the neighborhood, and plant some roots.

It was interesting to learn about the new businesses moving in every month. After the meeting, I even stopped by a new coffee place [Cafe Moca] that opened at Woodburn and Madison. They have free wi-fi and good coffee, so I might have a new hang out.

The toughest part of starting this church has been getting into the community. I think the next few months will be huge for us making connections in the community.

I'm really excited about the future.

If You've Got Soul . . .

And now, a personal subject. I decided to change my picture on the blog for one taken on my thirtieth birthday. If you know me well, you'll notice it's a little different than my regular appearance:

A smaller soul patch.

"What is a soul patch?" you ask. I respond, "it's the little tuft of hair below my lip." I shaved it off on Christmas Eve, determined to turn a new page, but I just couldn't do it. I felt naked without it; I just had to grow it back. Honestly, I would've given it up long ago, but Kelly encouraged me on the journey. Thanks, Kelly, for believing in me . . . and my flavor-saver.

To the best of my knowledge, I started growing it about five years ago. I was by no means on the cutting edge of this facial hair trend, but jumped on the bandwagon quickly. The soul patch was the follow up of the goatee, which I was never able to sport because of personal hair growth limitations. So the soul patch has done me well.

But now, I'm constantly living in fear that I'll miss the last stop of this trend. Who wants to be the guy hanging onto the soul patch years after it's out of style. I know there are some of you who will claim that I needed to abandon this ship long ago, but I think I can still make it work. It's not like this is a p0rnstache.

WHAT DID HE SAY?

I said, at least it's not a p0rnstache.

"What's a p0rnstache?" you ask.

I respond, "it's the 1970's era mustache made popular by p0rn stars."

Here's a great visual example: I was unfamiliar with the terminology until I heard it years ago on the Jim Rome show. Admit it, you never knew just quite how to classify it, but the description is apropos. Despite this facial hair fad being deader than Eddie Murphy's career, you know you've spotted some of these in the past few years. It's usually the guy who thought he was cool for growing it out back during the Carter Administration, loved to drive his TransAm with the t-tops off while quoting lines from Smokey and The Bandit. The poor sap has never quite been able to bring himself to put a Bick to his upper lip.

This, friends, is what I fear.

I know the soul patch will not work forever. At some point I have to give up the ghost. But I just can't bring myself to do it. There's entirely too much skin between my chin and bottom lip. I might have to admit that someday, I'll be no better than those p0rnstache sporting fellows.

Me and Apolo Anton Ohno- soul patches united in gold medal quality glory.

Nice Catch, Adam

I was going to write a post about Opening Day in Cincinnati, how much it means to a hometown guy and how significant today was, as my daughter's first one. I was even going to dress her up in her Reds onesie and take a picture of her. But a 16-7 drubbing at the hands of the Cubs took the wind right out of me.

I'll try again next year.

Preach It, Preacher

Preachers are interesting people. Give a guy a pulpit and a microphone and absolutely nothing will stop him from getting through his message. I guess the line of thinking is, "I worked all week on this sermon and I'll be damned if anything will stop me from getting through it." I remember when I was a kid going to church in Price Hill, there was a shoot-out going on across the street. The police came over and told us we had to move to a less exposed part of the building to ensure our safety. So about forty of us moved into a back hallway while the minister continued on with his sermon as if nothing happened.

We shall overcome . . . any distraction.

With that in mind, I present to you video of a preacher determined to finish his message . . . despite the fact the a loud fire alarm [including strobe light warning] blares behind him. Do you think anyone was actually listening to his point or were they wanting to get away from this annoying sound. By the way, it's so bad that, as I was downstairs listening to this clip on my Mac, Kelly came downstairs to ask me where the alarm was coming from. If listening to it on the internet is that horrible, can you imagine if you had been there?

Sometimes you just have to admit defeat and move on. Dude should've cut it off.

HT: Bob

One Down, a Lifetime to Go

Just in case you were wondering, I had a good day today. Funny how the time change doesn't affect you as much when you don't have to wake up for church [ah, the benefits of church at night!]. Kaelyn's been up with increasing frequency during the night, which means sleep is a commodity. So when we get the opportunity to sleep in, we take advantage of it.

I had everything ready for church tonight, so all I had to do today was hold my daughter. Tough life. As Kelly and I talked about things, we decided that this would be the week that we would finally take Kaelyn to church. That made me happy for two reasons:

1) Kelly would finally be able to come to church after a four week hiatus. 2) Kaelyn would finally get to hear her daddy preach.

I feel a little bad for the girl. She has 18 more years of having to listen to me speak on Sundays, in addition to what she'll get throughout the rest of the week. She'd have to get used to it sometime, so we started her off tonight. The text I preached from was Genesis 29 & 30, concerning Jacob's dysfunctional family. I promise to Kaelyn that I will always put the "fun" in our dysfunctional family. She did a great job, staying pretty silent throughout the message, mumbling an occasional "amen" in her sleep.

I asked her afterward how I did. She spit up. Don't know how to take that. I'll ask her again in a couple of years.

Like I said, it was a good day.

Best Blog Ever

Finally the news came this evening that I have been waiting years to hear: Aaron Burgess is now blogging.

I am now confident that all the world's problems will be solved. Oh happy day.

Say A Little Prayer For You?

A new "scientific study" has given print/internet media the opportunity for a fun headline day. Here were some of the headlines published after a report from the American Heart Journal concerning prayer for heart surgery patients: "No benefit of prayer found after surgery" "Prayer for the ill may do more harm than good" "Prayer does not heal the sick"

Way to piss off a bunch of religious folk there, guys.

This study, along with all other studies concerning prayer and health, are a royal waste of time and money. They is no possible objectivity in these studies because the funding behind them is given to produce a certain response. It's all for propaganda- for Christians to say prayer is scientifically proven to be powerful or for scientists to say claim that it's proved to be useless. With both sides out to prove their own preconceived notions, who gives a rip what their research shows?

As a pastor, I have yet to meet someone hospitalized who, when asked if they wanted prayer, refuse it. Does it work? It depends what you're looking for. Sometimes they recover physically and sometimes they don't. But if you believe that there is a God who answers prayer, then is the most important result a healing in this life? Maybe the prayer accomplishes something more, something immeasurable in scientific terms. This entire subject is way beyond the realm of science to be able to answer in a single study. But keep trying there, scientist man. It's not like there's cancer to cure or AIDS to eradicate.

Allow me to propose just one hiccup in such a study. This study claims that people who didn't receive prayer did as well or even better than those that did. But what if, somewhere in the world, there's an extremely faithful, extremely spiritual little girl who prays every night before she goes to bed. And in her prayers, she prays for all the sick people in the world who aren't being prayed for. What if God chose to answer her prayers and that's why those un-prayed-for people did so well-- all because that little girl. How does that affect the research?

I need sleep. Pray for me.

Cult-Like Status

Every once in awhile I check out my hits on Sitemeter to see how people found my blog. Many readers of Beit Carr are friends and acquaintances who come back frequently, but some find it by random search. The most popular recurring web search is for a post I did a year ago about a sewage problem we were having at our house. So, on certain search engines, when someone enters "Where Does Poop Go," they get this article.

Every once in awhile there's an interesting/unusual search that leads people here, but I found one tonight that made me laugh out loud. The search that someone made was this:

"Is Christ's Church at Mason a cult?"

OK, first, the answer is no. After working there three years of employment there, I can honestly say that. No blood drinking. No secret handshake. No "we love the leader" chants.

Second, I never wrote that CCM is a cult. The Google search grabbed a month were I typed the words "Christ's Church at Mason" and "cult" in different posts. So the phrase was never typed out by me.

Finally, I find this rather humorous because I can't imagine that someone wondering if a certain church was a cult they would go to Google for the answer; like they're expecting an objective news article to pop up as a result.

So just to make a point, and to send future obscure searches my way, here are some Google searches I made so you can see what it came up with. Is Willow Creek a cult? Is Lakewood Church a cult? Is Amway a cult? Is Blogging a cult? Is Culture Club a cult? Is Steve Carr a cult?

"Then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

A Walk In The Park

I think Spring has sprung. A 70 degree afternoon seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce our daughter to nature. We packed her up, grabbed her stroller, and headed to Eden Park.

We discovered that sidewalks in the city of Cincinnati aren't the best maintained traveling paths, but we made it nonetheless. So here's what it looked like:

I think Kaelyn actually enjoyed being outside. Who wouldn't today?

Yes, I am one of those over-protective, first-time parents who is constantly checking on the baby to make sure she didn't swallow her face.

And here is my baby . . . holding my baby, glad to be outside.

Real March Madness

Back in 2004, I wrote about the steroid revelations that were swarming around Major League Baseball. Here we are, in 2006, and MLB is now [finally] ready to begin a special investigation about player steroid use. This, my friends, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. The investigation has been spawned by some new books which claim that Barry Bonds used illegally used steroids to improve his ability to play the game. The books cite evidence from grand jury testimony against the San Francisco-based BALCO company that allegedly supplied many athletes with banned athletic-enhancing substances. These new books have been getting a lot of press lately, apparently too much for MLB commissioner Bud Selig too ignore.

But this begs the question, Bud: you ignored the steroid issue for years. Why start caring now?

It's because, as I wrote in that earlier post, that the integrity of the game is taking a hit. Bud Selig needs to at least pretend that he's doing all he can to bring these allegations to light. But the problem is that baseball owners, management, and league officials allowed steroid use to run rampant in the game for years but turned a blind eye to it. Everyone knew it was going on, but people knew that steroids made the game more profitable.

I was one of those people who, after the 1994 baseball strike, wanted nothing to do with the game. But the Mark McGwire verses Sammy Sosa home run chase in 1998 brought me back, as it did many fans. Most likely, both these guys were shooting up, but it put butts in the seats. It was an acceptable trade off for baseball officials who sold their souls to the devil.

And now, after whoring themselves out, they want their souls back.

I remember back in high school when I read the Sports Illustrated that covered Oakland Raider Lyle Alzado admitting his steroid use. It was a sad story. Alzado was dead in a year's time. The NFL responded quickly, revising a steroid testing policy implemented a few years earlier.

Major League Baseball had plenty of time to react but did not enact testing until last year.

This new investigation is an excuse for MLB to make the players the scapegoats. And, not to defend the guy, but Barry Bonds is going to experience the worst of it when people just as guilty [Mark McGwire, who could possibly be elected to the Hall of Fame this year] will get by without any penalties. Baseball doesn't want to know the Pandora's Box they're getting ready to open. To put a twist on the famous Colonel Jessup quote, "They can't handle the truth."

If there's really a need for an investigation, I hope there's an honest evaluation of the neglect that baseball officials have shown with the steroid issue.

Maybe it's time for Bud Selig to resign.

Why We're Here

About six months into this endeavor, Kelly and I have enjoyed living here in the city. We're getting used to the neighborhood and urban living, looking forward to raising our family and ministering in the Walnut Hills community. Yet the news of another fatal shooting in the community wears on me. Especially considering that I was at the gas station just twenty yards from this parking lot twenty minutes before the shooting took place. The good news is that most violence in the area is drug related so, when it comes to our safety, I'm not concerned. But still, it's difficult to teach about the freeing power of Christ in a community where people feel captive to the dangers of daily living.

I'm not sure how long it will take, but I honestly believe that God will be able to use Echo will be able to make a difference. If things continue like this, the next few weeks and months will bring about community meetings and forums to try to solve this problem. We're hoping [praying] that people will realize that Jesus is the solution.

Spare Some Social Change? Part 2

This is part two of a post I started earlier. I would suggest reading Part 1 here before you read this. As I left this speech at Xavier last night, something was really bothering me. While the crowd ate everything up, I had indigestion.

Jim Wallis brought home his thoughts on Christian political action with a phrase he repeated throughout his talk. It sounded like a profound statement, so much so that I wrote it down. After talking briefly about Martin Luther King Jr, he asserted: "Pulpits are supposed to shake nations." I liked the sound of that. Of course I do, I'm a preacher. I get up in the pulpit every week, so I like to think that what I'm doing is worthwhile. But he meant it differently than I understood it.

Wallis intended that Christians need to be active about changing the injustices in this world. He was passionately inspiring the Christian crowd to step out and get involved in our country's political process. He stated we need to speak up for those who have no voice, citing how Christians did so in the past with the issues of slavery, women's suffrage, and civil rights. Wallis argued that we need to continue to spawn new movements to solve our nation's and world's problems.

While this sounds attractive, I think it falls short of what God would want from His followers. Sure, waving the social justice banner feels good, but it is not the original intention that Christ has for His Church. No matter how embarrassed some people get about it, the number one mission of the church is proselytization. The final directive Jesus gave on earth was to tell people about Him and God's way. Perhaps this is why we Christians are struggling to be effective in areas of social justice: because we've misplaced our priorities. And while I'm on a roll, the major flaw of this way of thinking is exposed here: a lack of faith in the church of Jesus Christ. We are told in the New Testament that the church is the bride of Christ.

Maybe the world isn't a better place because we [the church] aren't a good bride. Maybe we're trying too hard to shake the world with our pulpits. Perhaps we need to worry more about shaking the people in the pews and sending them out, empowered by the gospel, to shake the world.

People like Wallis like to point out that Jesus' ministry was to hang out with the poor, the leprous, and prostitutes. But that wasn't the main point of his ministry. Yes, He came to change the world, but not by enacting social change. He came that people might have life in Him. And almost all of those people of ill-repute had one thing in common: they were Jewish. They already had faith [some stronger than others] in God. Summing up the work of Jesus on earth with His social action marginalizes His life and makes Him no better than Ghandi- someone to be admired as opposed to a Savior.

And it must be noted that not once, throughout the entire evening, did Wallis use Scripture to support this mandate for social justice. Yes, he cited the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me" that phrase is no better than "judge not lest ye be judged yourself" when taken by itself. Without a Biblical mandate, I can't buy into it. You might as well be telling me Christians need to stop wearing shorts and t-shirts. This movement for Christian social change was born thirty-plus years ago from hippies who loved both social justice and Jesus. The result was people like Wallis and Campolo who gain quite a following. And I'm fine that these people are choosing to make this their life's work, but they need to be very careful when they say that this is what God wants from His people. Scripture doesn't support it.

As I find myself continually writing in my blog, please don't misinterpret what I wrote here. I agree to disagree on this issue. I could be wrong, but I'm confident in what Scripture teaches on this issue.

Of course we should help those in need. I'm living in the midst of this now as we started Echo in an economically diverse area. But as much as we should care about the physical needs of people, churches need to care more about people's spiritual conditions. It's definitely a balancing act.

My take: less politics, more Jesus.

Spare Some Social Change? Part 1

Note: Drawn out political diatribe ahead. This is your last chance to turn away. Last night I, and about five hundred others, attended a speech at Xavier University given by Jim Wallis founder of Soujourners and author of God's Politics. Wallis is from the same mold as Tony Campolo, known as a left-leaning evangelical Christian. His topic was Christian Leadership, Political Engagement and Social Change.

I went rather reluctantly because the first time I heard him speak it was rough; I think his assigned topic was too narrow that evening and he struggled. Still I decided to go because Xavier is just two minutes up the road and Kelly encouraged me to get out. And, to be fair, Wallis was actually rather good last night; he was humorous and engaging, so it was by no means a waste of my time.

Still, I felt like a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by hundreds of aging Catholic hippies, in addition to college students forced to attend as credit for a class. I did see three staff members from CCU there, which is surprising as our Christian Churches/Churches of Christ rarely acknowledge social issues. Yes, I asked them if they had any marijuana. Hesitant laughter followed. I thought it was funny.

As for the speech, Wallis asserted that evangelical Christians, when it comes to American political issues, usually boil it down to two issues: abortion and gay marriage. This, he said, does not promote a consistent life ethic because four times as many Africans die of HIV every year than are aborted. And I can actually agree with that; Evangelical Christians [or more specifically Republican voting, evangelical Christians] use those two issues as a metaphorical line in the sand to show whose side you're on. I agreed with Wallis on this. While I believe those two issues are important, way too much emphasis is given to them by Christians.

That being said, I find it difficult to buy into Wallis's plea for, what is basically, social liberalism. I'm all for helping the impoverished and fighting AIDS in Africa, but lumped in there is always the obligatory environmental mandate: that protecting planet earth needs to be a Christian priority. Honestly, that's crap. I'm not suggesting that we intentionally burn forests, get automobiles with bad emissions and use aerosol until we destroy the earth. But these Christians that argue that protecting the environment is akin to caring for the poor are full of it. They use a poor hermeneutic, taking verses out of context and slapping them into a brochure. It's irresponsible and, perhaps, even heretical. So, as you can tell, that put me off. But something else bothered me even more.

I'll talk about that in my next post.

Crossing The River

Speaking of Saturday, we were able to finally take Kaelyn on her first trip to Kentucky. Kelly's grandparents had only gotten glimpses of her in the NICU and, because it's tough for them to make the trip up north, we took Kaelyn there. She did really well traveling. She hit her car seat and slept the whole time- both ways. And Kelly's family loved the opportunity to hold the little one without tubes sticking out of her. It was a great time.

I apologize to the in-laws but, despite Kaelyn's Kentucky roots, she was born a Buckeye. As she gets older, I'll buy her a gas mask to wear on trips down there.

It Wasn't Me

I swear, Saturday was the first time I was in Lexington was Saturday. There's an outbreak of Hepatitis A at a Lexington Elementary School. Is it sick that I feel a little relieved to hear this? Since I had it, I was the only Hepatitis case I had heard of.

Sorry, kiddies, it sucks.

The Shot Clock Is Winding Down

I'll try to make this my last basketball post in awhile, but two quick things: 1) Saturday and Sunday my brackets were bombed. But whose weren't? I picked six of the eight teams remaining only to end up with ZERO in the Final Four. True, George Mason killed me, but now they need to go the distance. If they could win two more games, it'll be one of the most improbable underdog stories in sport's history.

2) Mick Cronin is already doing what he needs to do. Saturday [his second full day on the job] he attened Ohio's Division 3 State Basketball Championship, in which North College Hill was playing. OJ Mayo and Bill Walker, two of the top five national prospects for 2007 play for NCH. They were big Huggins guys, but I'm not too sure they want to go to Kansas. Channel 19 interviewed their AAU coach who said, now that Mick's the guy, that could reopen the UC door.

Remember The Afghan Christian . . .

. . . who was facing the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity? He was released from prison. While this seems like a victory, the problem still remains. Now that the media has already made a big deal of the subject, chances are, the next time it could slide. There are still many unresolved issues in our country's campaign for democracy. I'm wondering how we'll feel about all this ten years from now.

Incarcerated

I've visited people in prison before. It could be the least favorite thing I've done in ministry. I'd venture to say that it's worse than doing a funeral. When someone dies, you know how it ended. When someone's in prison, you don't know what the future holds. There's a local guy who's been coming to Echo who was locked up for a month for stealing some CDs. I just found out a couple of days ago and went to visit him today at the county detention center.

The thing I don't like about visiting prisons is that you [the visitor] are made to feel as if you are guilty too. First, all the parking lots around the justice center are expensive; most places charge a flat fee of $10 after forty-five minutes. I drove around for ten minutes until I came across a parking meter.

Then there's an endless line of questions and papers to fill out all so you can spend a few minutes talking to an inmate on a telephone on the other side of half an inch of plexiglas [fortunately, I knew the guy who was checking in the visitors, so I had an easy go of it]. And usually you're forced to wait upwards toward half-an-hour just to see the prisoner. I talked to this guy about twenty minutes and it took me an hour and a half to get in and out.

But the worst part of the entire experience is seeing all the families that are torn up because someone's in jail.

As I visited this guy, there was a young girl with a four-year-old son visiting his father; one of this kid's earliest memories is going to be seeing his dad behind bars.

And as I left, I got on the elevator with this guy wearing a UC sweatshirt and jacket. Looking to make some small talk, I asked if he was excited about the new basketball coach. Appearing confused, he answered, "I haven't really been paying attention. I'm just trying to figure out how I can get my wife out of here." I really didn't know what to say, so I think I just expressed my sympathy. Then he added, "Well, they've got her in detox, so maybe she's made it through." I asked his wife's name, and he told me it was Anna. I told him I'd pray for her.

As I said, visiting prison is rough; you never leave feeling better about yourself. If only people would think how many lives they were affecting when they committed their crimes. If only they knew in advance the toll their mistakes would take on their families. It breaks my heart.

That's why I don't like going to the prison.

Hitting The Boards

I swear, this isn't a college basketball blog, but I can't resist talking about the games last night. Did you stay up to watch? That might have been some of the most exciting hours of college basketball I've ever seen.

First Duke and LSU go to the wire and, when Coach K's kids forget how to block out, the Tigers pull away with an impressive victory.

I picked West Virginia to be NCAA runner-up in my bracket so I watched, with great interest, their game against Texas. The Mountaineers rallied in the second half, with Pittsnogle [no kidding with that name] tying up the game on a three-pointer with five seconds left. However elated I was, I was soon deflated as Texas hit a three-pointer as time expired to win the game.

And just when it couldn't get any better: Gonzaga, who had maintained a lead over UCLA throughout the game, thoroughly choked and let the Bruins score the last eleven points of the game to push them to the Final Four.

And, this might be cruel of me, but we got to see J.J. Reddick and Adam Morrison cry in the same night.

It was awesome, even if my brackets did take a huge hit. I need UConn to pull it out to look respectable.