2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV):

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

I am a graduate of Davis College in Johnson City, NY. I earned an Associate of Applied Science degree in Bible (while the school was called Practical Bible College) and a Bachelor of Religious Education degree in Theology and Church Ministries. Since graduating in 2005, I have continued to study independently, always seeking to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. In some ways, I have grown more during this period of non-matriculated study than I did in the years I spent in college.

However, like many pastors, I do truly value formal education. I originally planned to attend seminary about a year after I graduated from college, but that plan didn’t mesh up with what God had in store for my family and I.

God has given my wife and I two incredible blessings in the form of our kids, Elijah and Moriah. He has also chosen to use me as a pastor at North Country Fellowship Church, and I currently split my work time between the church and a secular job in the healthcare field.

I still very much want to complete an MDiv, but if I do so, I don’t think it would be possible for me to do so as a full time resident student given my family responsibilities. Also, since God has called me to service at NCF, I doubt I’ll be able to enroll in a regular residential program. As far as I can tell, that leaves the following options:

The first option is to find a commuter program. There are a handful of seminaries within a couple hundred miles of my location. MidAmerica Baptist (Northeast Branch), Nyack, Northeastern, and Rochester Colgate are all here in NY. Baptist Bible Seminary is just over the border in Clarks Summit, PA. Theoretically, I could commute to one of those schools if they had an appropriate commuter study program (such as MidAmerica and Northeastern do). However, depending on the school, I may not be a good cultural or theological fit. Also, with the hazardous travel conditions of our harsh winters and the rising cost of gasoline up here, it may not be feasible.

The second option is a distance-learning program. There are a number of online seminary programs, however many are simply unaccredited degree-mills. Liberty has an online MDiv program that looks interesting, however, Ergun Caner’s rhetoric does bother me, and I am still concerned with the degree being perceived as less quality than a more traditional degree. Regardless, it’s an accessible and affordable option.

The third option is a hybrid program. Bethel and Western both offer InMinistry programs for pastors who are just that: in ministry. Both are ATS accredited, and involve online and in-person coursework, generally completed through on-campus intensives. Western looks especially interesting, as it is missional in its approach, is affiliated with CBAmerica (offering scholarships to CB pastors like myself), and recently graduated one of my heroes, Mark Driscoll, with an MA in Exegetical Theology.

So, the question is, given my circumstances, do I put off (or perhaps never engage in) traditional seminary education, or do I get further equipped by availing myself of some of these atypical options? 

Better yet, does anyone know of a conservative missional seminary campus or extension site opening up in Syracuse in the next few years?

Proverbs 19:21 (ESV):

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

God’s sovereign plan often amazes me, especially when the plans that we make for ourselves are overruled and we are sent on a different path than the one we might choose for ourselves.

After my first year of college, I decided to persue a degree in Theology, and transferred to Davis College.  When I arrived I made a number of new friends, many of who wanted to serve as pastors, missionaries, and in other ministry positions.  Two of the guys who desired to be pastors are still dear friends of mine.  

When I arrived at Davis, I had absolutely no desire to be a pastor.  I wanted to know more about my newfound faith, as I had only been a Christian for a year, but occupational ministry was not on my radar.  I thought it might be good to get an undergrad degree at Davis, and then go on for a masters in counseling or political science, with the goal of serving as a counselor or professor.

During that first (sophomore) year I felt God calling me to the pastorate.  I did a pastoral internship at North Country Fellowship in the summer of 2003, and haven’t looked back.  I’m now serving bi-occupationally as a Pastor/Elder at North Country Fellowship, and would like to go full time at some point in the future, Lord willing.

You know what happened to my two close friends who wanted to be pastors?  One discerned that he wasn’t called to be a pastor, but was called to counsel professionally. He is now working to finish a masters degree in marriage and family therapy.  The other guy is currently serving as a Youth Pastor, but is working on his MDiv, with the ultimate goal of earning a PhD and a professorship.

Funny how we all sort of swapped paths a bit, eh?

Okay, so my wife tagged me to do this random things list on my blog.

Once you’ve been ‘tagged’ you have to write a blog of ten weird/random facts/habits/goals about yourself. At the end choose ten people to be tagged, listing their names and WHY you chose them.

Here’s my list:

1. I once worked at a public television station. They had employees who dressed up like a purple dinosaur. It was a scary place to work.
2. When I was a teenager, the last thing I wanted to be was a Christian, let alone one of those born again ones. Now I’m a pastor.
3. My regular reading list of periodicals is somewhat eclectic. It includes Your Church, Leadership Journal, Relevant Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine, and 2600 (The Hacker Quarterly).
4. I have been diagnosed with ADHD, along with Hyperfocus, which is an autistic-spectrum disorder. Results? I twitch. A lot. And I have a hard time communicating my torrential brainstorms to others in a coherent and useful way.
5. My first job was selling cellular phones and other retail electronics at RadioShack. It was awesome.
6. I love books.
7. I’d like to complete an MDiv degree, and some sort of doctorate as well.
8. I tend to be a cynic and and a grump. Mark Driscoll says that Irish people have two emotions, angry and asleep. I see the truth of that statement evidenced in my own life.
9. I wasn’t a great person before I came to Christ (immediately prior to college). Now, since I’m pastoring in my home town, conversations with old acquaintances are often quite uncomfortable, but I still love having them.
10. Having children of my own has changed my understanding of God the Father in amazing, healing ways.

Now… I’m supposed to tag ten more people. But I’m not going to. I’m just going to tag Calvin, Mandy, and Earl, since they are the only regular readers I have!

I listen to a lot of theological, social, and political commentary on my iPod. One theme I keep hearing, especially among Christian commentators, is that today’s kids aren’t expected to “grow up” the same way they used to be. There are two trends I’ve seen in our culture, or at least highlighted by commentators, but I’ve never seen the two trends discussed together as related topics.

The first tend I keep hearing about is for men to continue being boys even into physical and chronological adulthood. You can blame it on a lack of fathers. You can blame it on video games. You can blame it on poor discipline. Blame it on whatever you want, but we’re being told that more and more twenty-something males are taking on less and less responsibility. We’re told they all stay indoors and play their PlayStation 3’s, watch Family Guy DVDs, and get pizza delivery to their homes (read: mom’s basement) all day.

I don’t know if this is true nationwide or not. I do see a lot of twenty-something’s in my area who are just slackers, but that may just be human nature. When many of my peers, especially those from high school, find out that I’ll be 25 next month, have been married for almost four years, have two kids, and am a bi- (or soon, tri-) vocational pastor, I get the same blank stare I see in the catatonic psychiatric patients in the IMHU at the local hospital. And I’m not an overachiever. Any of you who read this blog and know me personally know that I have a bad tendency to be a slacker.

The second tend I hear about, is for girls to be hyper-sexualized into incredibly young “women.” Now that 8-year olds are buying (they have more money than me?!) makeup, and shopping for bras and thongs at Victoria’s Secret, we have an entire generation of single-digit “women”. Barbie is one thing, but the culture and message presented by the newer doll toys for these kids is amazing. Take a look at the Bratz line, and then tell me Princess Barbie isn’t a wholesome toy for our post-post-post-postmodern (which iteration are we now?) culture. There are one or two little girls in my church who fit into this category. It breaks my heart. They are boy crazy even before puberty, using appearance and flirtation to get attention.

So, combine the two trends together, and what do you get? Start with thirty-year-old women who have been “adult” for twenty years and have the spiritual, emotional, and even physical scars from decades of trying to get male attention. Then add thirty-year-old men who are just waking up from their pre-teen years, who have been emotionally disconnected and disinterested in any meaningful pursuits, except that of spiritual, emotional, and physical pleasure. Mix in a theoretical fifteen-year social development gap, and bake for a year and a half. Recipe yields one nuclear-level relationship meltdown, two people who have significantly different priorities and values fail to integrate into one cohesive unit.

Clearly, there is considerable room for debate in these issues, and some may not even agree with the statement that women are “growing up too quick” and men are “growing up too slow”. However, I think there may be some truth to those statements, and the implications are interesting, and scary.

When I was in Bible College, multiple guys failed out because they were busy playing Halo to go to class, sleep, or eat. Some of those same guys got married to very career- and ministry-oriented women. As with any marriage, as two become one, stress and tension ensued. I don’t know if any of these folks have divorced, but statistics show that the church doesn’t do any better than the world in the realm of marital success, so I am sure the juvenile habits have caused issues in some of those marriages.

Maybe I’m wrong, but if these social trends are true, in a general sense, is it any wonder so many relationships, and marriages in particular, end in failure?

Will the church stand up to redeem and reform the roles of boys and girls, men and women, in culture? (And I’m not even talking about gender roles as it applies to offices in the church, headship, and all the rest, though that may well be the next related topic one would address).

And if all history moves in pendulum swings, from one extreme to another, will my son Elijah, and my daughter Moriah, be part of a more socially conservative generation that will over-stress gender roles to the point of oppression, and become puritanical in regards to entertainment?

I hope not. Redemption is great, but over-reaction may be worse than what we have now.

While we were at the tobyMac concert, I was involved in two conversations I thought were amusing.

In the first conversation, I found out that I’m a celebrity. I had shaved my head a day or two before, and was wearing a ball cap. My goatee is two or three inches long, and apparently, some event staff people thought I was Bart Millard of MercyMe. I had to explain to them, in all seriousness, that I am not the guy who sings “I Can Only Imagine.” They told me they could have gotten me backstage if I wanted to. Nice, eh? Maybe I should have said I wanted to go backstage anyway…

In the second conversation, I was invited to apply to be a student at Davis College, again. I was with two of my high school students, looking at the merchandise tables. One of the tables had literature from Davis, so I picked up a view book, and started looking for pictures of people I know. I saw Will Hall, Naaman Pallo, and a few others from my Davis days. The guy standing at the table asked, “Are you interested in going to Bible College?” “Absolutely not.” I replied. “Oh…Never mind.” I jokingly told him that I graduated from the school twice already, and didn’t think I wanted to do it again. He continued the conversation, asking if I enjoyed the school. I told him that I enjoyed it some days, and loathed it others; that I loved and hated my time there, and that I think that’s okay. He just stared at me, like I had eight heads.

Oh well. I thought they were amusing, anyway.

Have you ever noticed that people say they don’t like labels? “Don’t pigeon-hole me!” “I’m more complex than your label!” “Calvinist or Arminian? I don’t play that game!”

Clearly, people are indeed complex. We each have intellectual convictions and personal identity constructs that won’t always fit snugly into the confines of a metaphorical box. We’re all unique, just like everyone else, and no one better affix a label to us, because we’re just too darn different to be grouped with “those people!”

The thing is, it’s all talk. We do like labels. The creation and use of identifying terminology is simply a part of the human experience, and that’s okay. Labels help us to make logical order of our universe. Just like on Sesame Street, labels allow us to process information, and determine that “one of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn’t belong!”

Even God uses labels, and sometimes he has his people use them too. He had Adam name the newly created animals in Genesis 2. They weren’t nothin’ till he called ‘em! Later, God called his chosen people “Israel”, and set them apart from the rest of humanity. Today’s followers of Jesus Christ are called “the church”, “the Bride of Christ”, “Christians”, and a gajillion other labels, some of them applied by God, and others applied by people.

Within the church, we love to throw labels around; perhaps even more so than those outside the church. Here are some examples: Calvinist and Arminian, charismatic and cessationist, covenantal and dispensational, Baptist and Methodist, emerging and emergent, relevant and traditional. There are plenty of other examples as well.

Let’s look at pop-culture for a moment. On Facebook and Myspace people join interest and affinity groups for the purpose of social connection. Musicians, gamers, bibliophiles, democrats, republicans, and the LGBT community all have groups one can join and thus label oneself as affiliated with those subcultures. We put graphics on our blogs and profiles the way we put, stickers on our notebooks in gradeschool.

Less digitally, we sometimes wear certain brands or types of clothes as a visual label of who we are. Sean John for those in the hip-hop culture, Carhart for workmen (and Linkin Park), Columbia for outdoor sporting enthusiasts, Wrangler for cowboys (yeehaw!), BigDog for fat guys like me, and ThinkGeek for, well, geeks. It goes on and on, and it’s not just limited to clothes. We buy coffee at certain places. What does the difference between Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts say about a person? We get food from certain places, enjoy certain genres of entertainment, and support certain political ideologies. All of these can serve as or lead to labels.

The second I apply the labels “Calvinist” “charismatic” and “Baptist” to myself, I’ve alienated a large section of American culture, both in and out of the church. However, I’ve applied those labels to myself, so it’s “okay”, and I’ll have to deal with the consequences. If someone were to come along and call me a “fundamentalist” it might bug me a bit. If someone were to call me a “heretic” (and mean it, as recently happened) I’d certainly take issue with it. (As an aside, all comments on this post calling me a fundamentalist or a heretic will face immediate and forceful retaliation! ;-))

As I think through this, I’ve come to the following conclusions. Labels help us figure out who we (and others) are, which can be a really good thing. However, labels also open up the possibility for the polarization of people based upon perceived differences. I think people naturally give themselves labels, even unintentionally. However, what we really rebel against is when other people assign certain labels to us. I think this is due to a fear of discrimination. People want labels, perhaps even need labels. We just don’t want others to label us, because then we lose the perception of control over our self-identity.

The problem is, if a label is accurate, it’s accurate. Right? Somebody pick holes in my thoughts, please!

Okay, so I am a little late on that one, but at least it is within the same week, right?

I’ve never been much of a New Years geek. I’ve never really made resolutions, or seen that big of a difference between December 31 and January 1, but I have to admit that I was looking forward to the New Year this time. The past year was a hard year for me in a number of ways, and the idea of a fresh start has been appealing. I even made some resolutions for the year. Well, not resolutions, really, but ideals to shoot for. Personal benchmarks, if you will.

Most of those goals are personal, however some of them relate to this blog. For starters, I’m (really) planning to post more often, ideally at least once a week. Also, I’d like to move the focus of the blog a little bit, focusing more on ministry, theology, and scholarship, than on personal stuff (though that will always be included, of course).

I also plan to increase the time I spend reading, and that is likely to be shown here through reviews, random quotes, and the like. Diana and I got rid of a lot of books last year (something I really regret), so I am now slowly building my library back up, which you can check out at LibraryThing. One of the benefits of starting over, and having limited funds to do so, is that I’ll get need to be discerning about what I buy, so I’ll spend less time reading fluff.

You may have noticed from a past post that I’m concerned about my health. Improving my health is the closest thing to a traditional resolution that I have this year. You may see posts about that ocassionally. If you aren’t interested, skip them.

I’m looking forward to the coming months, and am trusting God for his faithful provision, and the transforming work of the gospel in the lives of myself and others. Will you join me?

I sometimes see humor in insignificant and random things, and also allow my imagination to play out like a movie screen in my head… kind of like the character J.D. from Scrubs.

Here’s an example: The hospital where I am employed bivocationally recently had a book sale in the main entrance lobby. The book sales are always a collection of pop-culture “best sellers” and usually includes a small “Christian” section. T.J. Jakes recently released a book called Reposition Yourself. Perhaps the book sellers should have repositioned this book in their display? Click on the [poor-quality cell phone image] thumbnail above to see what I mean… I don’t think the good Bishop would be happy with where he was placed…

Recently, a new friend has been sharing with me some of the issues that come in dealing with her diabetes.

My son, Elijah, is sick with an inner-ear infection that required my wife, Diana, to make an ER visit on Sunday during church.

Diana herself is 25-weeks pregnant, and saw her obstetrician yesterday; this pregnancy that has had a number of issues that have made us nervous.

I’m just getting over an upper respiratory infection that required me to get myself to an urgent care clinic on Saturday.

All of this medical-related stuff has prompted me to be thinking about health and wellness quite a bit lately, and I have come to a few conclusions.

First, health is really important. Obviously this isn’t a true surprise to anyone reading this, but relatively few of us truly live our lives in a way that highlights being healthy as one of our core intents. Our lack of commitment to live active lifestyles betrays our knowledge of the simple things it takes to be healthy in general. In America, we have a higher average lifespan than ever, but our quality of life (distinct from our quality of lifestyle) is lower, in a sense. We aren’t dying due to many of the things that used to kill us; now we just suffer through chronic conditions. Most of these conditions are things that can be prevented by proper diet and exercise, but that seems to be too much for many people to bother with. As Christians, we recognize that our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. Just like many churches who focus far too much on growing their facility, many of us have undertaken a “building expansion project” on our temples. In America, where food and processed “food products” are abundant, we’ve forgotten that what we consider a basic meal would have been considered gluttony by a first century believer. Beyond that, portions that we should still consider gluttony today are common. It’s a sad state of affairs when a national restaurant chain, launches an advertising campaign touting a special new menu with “smaller portion entrees.” We truly live in a land of excess.

Second, I am more interested in my health than ever before. I think that having kid(s) has made me realize that I’m not a kid myself anymore, and thus, I’m responsible for my health. It isn’t just that I need to take care of myself because no-one else is going to, but also because, God forbid, if something were to happen to me it would be incredibly hard on Diana, Elijah, and our little girl on-the-way. The reality that I care about my own health more now than in years past is shown in the fact that I went to the urgent care immediately upon finding myself sick. In the past, I’d try to “man-up” and just suffer through it, which is a stupid-yet-common way men deal with illness. I also find myself, through work at the hospital and articles on the Internet, reading a fair amount of material relating to healthcare and preventative medicine. In fact, I’m not just reading it, but I’m being convicted by it, and that leads me to my last conclusion.

Third and finally, I’m horribly unhealthy. I could say that I’m big boned, or overweight, but the reality is that I’m obese. I’ve struggled with weight since, as a kid, I quit playing hockey and baseball, and became a computer geek. Over the past few years I’ve relaxed some of my computer geek focus to become a theology geek. I love being a geek, but generally the concentration and commitment involved in earning geek cred involves sitting on one’s rear and reading lots of stuff so as to internalize it in such a way that is can be brought back up and interacted with at will. As a byproduct of that information intake process, I also often took part in a caloric intake process that included sugary drinks and high carbohydrate and fatty snacks. While I was in college I also was a cook at the college’s cafeteria, and that job helped me pack on the weight as much as anything. Since getting out of college, and moving up here, I’ve managed to pack on a few more pounds as well. Between being a new father, the ministry, the job, and a variety of other things, I’ve been keeping crazy hours and using caffeine to augment my natural abilities. I’ve told myself that because I have ADHD, and some studies have shown that caffeine helps people with ADHD that it’s no problem that I drink Jolt, Amp, and all those fun calorie-filled drinks. But in truth, I’m just addicted. It’s enough to kill a guy. Literally.

So those are my three conclusions. It’s a damning scenario I’ve managed to get myself into, and I do take responsibility for my actions (read: sins) that have gotten me this far into physical bankruptcy. I can’t continue like this. I’m convicted about it. And as Mark Driscoll has said (paraphrasing a bit) the only correct response to conviction is repentance.

It’s impossible for someone to snap their fingers and end years of bad habits and addiction in the strength of their own flesh. However, as Romans 8:13 says, I intend to yield to the Holy Spirit and in doing so, put to death the deeds of my body. I’m submitting to Christ in an area of my life that I now realize I never have before, something not just temporal (as in unhealthy food) but spiritual (as in food being an idol) as well. That said, I ask for the prayers of my friends and other readers, that I would successfully yield to God, end my food idolatry, and begin the long process of getting healthy.

Yes, despite rumors to the contrary, I’m still alive and kickin’. Barely.

Summer was awesome, actually. Diana and I moved into a new apartment, I preached a number of sermons including a series in the book of Jonah, and best of all, we found out we are expecting again! (Prayers are welcome, especially considering our history of miscarriage, and the fact that Diana is supposed to be on bed-rest right now because of some issues we’ve encountered…)

August was going to be the big posting month of the summer for me, but it didn’t happen. The server this site was housed on was hacked, my site as well as a number of other church and ministry sites were toasted. It took the web hosting company quite some time to get things going on a new server, relocated to a new data center a couple thousand miles away from the last one. I was frustrated by the wait, but that’s how things go sometimes.  I’ve tried to recreated the posts that were lost between the last backup and the day the site died; I didn’t lose much because I never post!

Maybe it’s God’s way of telling me I’m not cut out to be a blogger, but September is set to be busier than ever. I’d like to post more than I have been (I say this every six months), but I’m not going to sweat it if that doesn’t happen either, mainly because Calvin is the only one who reads this anyway, and he just started his MDiv at Gordon Conwell.

Anyway, I’m still alive, and busy working and ministering in the North Country. Post a comment if you see this and you aren’t Calvin.