Scripture Memory - Memlok

Hi everyone. Peggy and I celebrated the wedding of Peggy's sister Theresa to Erik. The celebration took place yesterday at friends of Theresa's, who live in Wisconsin near the Apple River. So yes, Peggy's side of the family, along with Peggy and I and the kids were taken tubing on the Apple River, upstream from Sommerset. The tubing lasted about 35 minutes, no rapids, and the hosts provided boys to steer our group of tubers down the river. They drove us, provided the tubes, picked us up at the end, and drove us back to the farm where the party was taking place. It was a lot of fun, although Elijah and I are the worst victims of sun burn today. But despite the sunburn, it was a great way to celebrate the marriage.

Today's post is about my favorite Bible memorization program, which I can now whole heartedly recommend – Memlok. They recently updated their program so that it works with Windows 7, and the new program is better than ever. Memlok uses a picture to help you get started with the memory verse, then you can type in the verse, or play a word jumble, or fill in the blank. It uses the combination of the word picture and repetition to lock in these great verses. It works, it stretches your brain, but it is well worth it. The Family version costs $29.95. Try it, it's a great way to learn Bible verses.

Unity, not Uniformity

In our Thursday morning Men's Group we are studying the Book of Ephesians. And this week's lesson includes Ephesians 4:3, the unity verse. It reads:

Unity in the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV))

4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 

So in verse 3 we see Paul's instruction to Christians that the Church be eager to maintain "unity". With three main braches of Christianity (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant), how can the call given Ephesians 4:3's for unity when we have (according to Christianity Today) over 38,000 different denominations today? I am a Protestant. I am also a 'Lutheran' Protestant. Protestant's tend to place more emphasis upon Scripture than the other branches of Christianity – sola Scriptura is one of our battle calls. Yet nearly all of the 38,000 denominations that exist today are from the Protestant branch. So how come Protestants have so blatantly ignored this call for unity?

The reason I am writing today's post is that I do not think that the divisions in Christianity are such a bad thing. Yes, I know the primary reason for so many denominations is human pride. They might say, I know this better than you do, so if you won't follow me, then I will start my own Church. This is pure arrogance, and this attitude clearly flies in the face of Ephesians 4:2's call for humility. But each denomination has something different to offer, that when taken together shows the beautiful bouquet of the "flowers" of faith that are in the different denominations of the Body of Christ:

Roman Catholics – Who fights harder for marriage and against abortion than the Catholics? They also tend to be more freely giving of their time and effort to help those in need;

Baptists – No one loves the Holy Scriptures like the Baptists. Their love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel is second to none.

Lutherans – I see Lutherans as the most "normal" of those who call themselves Christians. And many times, normal is important – they cherish family, the Protestant work ethic, and volunteering their time. All good things. And the Christians I I respect the most for their proper understanding of God's Grace, are Lutherans - Simultaneously saint and sinner.

Pentecostal – The faith of Pentecostals is fun. They believe in miracles, answered prayer, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. There is joy in their worship of God. And they really believe God hears their prayers, and that their prayers are answered. If I want someone to pray for me, I want someone with a Pentecostal background doing that prayer.

Eastern Orthodox – The incense, the beauty of their Church and services, and the seriousness they take the mystical worship of God. There is a lot to be said for going to the same place of worship that has been around for hundreds of years.

Anglican – I don't know much about the Church of England. But I watched the wedding ceremony of William and Kate on TV. And I loved the preaching, the message that gave the royal couple, and the singing of their choirs.

Christian Liberal – The social Gospel, of helping those in need. They help the poorest around the world to have food, water, clothing and shelter. Their compassion has changed how the world responds to disasters.

And yes, there are many more denominations, but I hope that you see my point. And I understand these are generalizations, and that I am painting with a broad brush. But the point I want to make is that if we see fellow members of the Body of Christ, those who call themselves Christians, and we focus on the positive things that they are doing, then we don't have to worry so much about the differences we have in our faith. Let God sort out on the Last Day the mistakes in our interpretation of the Bible, and the misunderstandings we have of salvation, forgiveness, missions, the work of the Holy Spirit, etc. If we turn this over the God, then we do not have to worry so much about pointing out the problems in other's faith, and instead concentrate the positive things that we see in their faith. Is it possible if we focus on the good things in others faiths, then perhaps we can start incorporating all of the positive things in the faiths of those around us. Do you want a Bible verse that teaches this? How about Philippians 4: 8:" Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." In other words, let our brains tune into pure, excellent, good things, and stop thinking about things that are wrong with others.

So my take away this week is look at the different denominations of those around you not as a sign that Christians are hopelessly divided, and that unity is impossible. Instead, try looking at the other Christian faiths as part of wonderful bouquet of flowers, with all different kinds of smells and looks, coming together in a wonderful way. And the individual beauty of each comes together with the others to show the glory and majesty of the One who made these flowers – the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God please bless us in our upcoming week. Thank you for your sending your Son. Amen.

Disc Golf (and Happy 4th)

I wish a Happy Independence Day (July 4, 2011) to everyone. We are blessed to live in a country where we have so many freedoms. I feel blessed today, as I dragged my wife and four children out to play Disc Golf with me. Here is what my initial attempt at Disc Golf was like:

A friend at work recommended Disc Golf (or Frisbee Golf for the unlearned) as a fun, cheap way to enjoy the outdoors with the family. So to start, I checked out the local second-hand sports equipment store, and I was able to pick up 7 disks. Here is where I discovered that there are different discs depending on how far you want your throw to go. Yes, just like in golf they have drivers, putters and mid-range discs. So I began with mostly drivers, because doesn't everyone enjoy it when the disc / ball / puck goes far and fast? So last Friday with my collection of discs in hand, the next step was to find a course to play on.

There are all sorts of FREE Disc Golf courses around the area. The two I focused my attention on were the Braemer Pool, Edina course, and the Alimagnet (on the border of Apple Valley and Burnsville) course. I was afraid the Edina course would be too crowded. And so my focus turned to Alimagnet. Now, I heard that the Alimagnet course was hard to reach. But I knew it must be near to the Alimagnet Dog off-leash park, where we have been many times taking our pooches. So after convincing my family to test this sport out earlier today, we gave the Alimagnet Disc Golf course a try.

Here I thought Disc Golf would be easy – you hurl your disc as far as you can, and drop it into the hole / basket. The "holes" are really poles covered with chains and a basket to catch the discs. But I couldn't whip my disc anywhere near as far as I would like. But the first couple of baskets were nice, short holes that gave us a good introduction to the game. Just toss it as far as you can, then try and get it close to the basket. But it's much tougher than it looks…

So Asia had the best looking, straight and long throws. But it turned out to be Elijah who caught on the quickest. After the first hole, Elijah ended up having the best score of the family in three of the next four holes. He's such a natural athlete. And I did horribly. Sigh.

OK, it was a beautiful day outside, no bugs, and together with the family. What could be better? Well, it would have been much better if we could have parked in the Alimagnet Disc Golf course parking lot, and not at the Dog Park parking lot. I am told it is off of Garden View Lane, but next time we will have to search it out. But we tried to discover the course through walking the back paths of the Dog Park, which led to a much longer stroll than we were looking for. I am saying we did something on the order of a 'Stripes' 20 mile hike in the forest to finally find the course. But after playing 5 holes, hiking back and finally returning to our car, I saw that we had only spent 1 hour and 45 minutes with our hiking and disc golfing. So it probably was a little shorter than 20 miles. But to my credit, it was mountainous. Err, I mean hilly.

So my overall impression was that if we eliminated the hike trying to find the course, and allowed us to just play disc golf, it was fun enough to try again. I hope to get my family out again here one of these days. Maybe with practice, I can improve from horrible.

May God bless you with peace, provision, and more laughter today and this week. /s/Tom Wolff