Establishing Infrastructure in Iraq

As a digital map maker I enjoyed reading the following article. Geospatial referencing is such a big infrastructure enhancement allowing everything from aircraft approaches at airports to designing a transportation network. We don't hear enough good news about what the coalition military forces do in Iraq. Here's a good article from The American Surveyor on how the military is working together with the Iraqi government to set up the Iraqi Geospatial Reference System . Link. The article specifically mentions US, Italian, and British military troops working together with each other and the Iraqi government to enable a geospatial reference system for the Iraqis.

This Week at The Gate: Jan 29

Brothers and Sisters, We have another great week planned this week at The Gate.

I hope you all had an inspired time at Bible Study tonight. I am very excited that we have so many young men and women attending the Monday Night Bible Study. I know God is working in marvelous ways in your lives and knowing how His plan works in our lives is the biggest part of studying the Word of God.

Wednesday Feb 2:

Thursday Night Alive! at 7:30 at The Gate. We have another dynamic McKendree graduate who is in the full-time ministry sharing with us at Thursday Night Alive! Danny Walls graduated from McKendree in 2003 and is the Associate Pastor to Students at FBC O'Fallon. He does great work with the Jr High and High School kids and is deeply involved in mentoring and leadership development of FBC O'Fallon's collegiate students. The Lord has has been speaking to Danny's heart and I can hardly wait to hear what he has to say. Plus he is a real good drummer! Snacks and drinks will be provided.

The Gate is located at 225 N. Monroe St, Lebanon, Illinois, 62254. Here is a link to a Yahoo Map of the Gate's location. Link.

I am looking forward to seeing each of you on Thursday.

God bless you all.

Work Day at The Gate: Jan 16

On Martin Luther King Day the Lord blessed us with an unusual 70 degree day, so we held a work day at The Gate. Here's some pictures from the projects we did that day. Everything looks so much better!

Thursday Night Worship at The Gate: Jan 19

Thursday night was the kickoff for the Spring semester at the McKendree College Baptist Collegiate Ministry, also known as The Gate. One of my plans this semester is to have a worship service every other week where McKendree graduates who are serving in the ministry come back and speak to current students about how they can make a difference in people's lives. Kind of a "I was in your shoes a short time ago and understand what you are going through and you can make a difference sooner than you think." Our first guest speaker was Noah Oldham, a 2004 McKendree graduate who is a charter member of The Gate and out first student Bible study ledader.

Thanks Noah for helping us kick off our new semester at The Gate. Noah is currently a Pastor at Little Chapel in Harrisburg, Illinois. Noah is incredibly bold in his faith and the Lord has really used Noah to work on the hearts all who meet him.

Music was led by Mike Cheeseman and we definitely felt the presence of the Holy Spirit during the entire evening.

We had about 30 students show up for our kickoff service and we are looking forward to what the Lord wants to do with us this semester.

We will have Danny Walls, a Youth Minister at First Baptist Church of O'Fallon, Illinois with us on February 2. Danny is a 2003 McKendree graduate. There is nothing so satisfying in my couple of years running The Gate than to see young, dynamic Christians make a commitment to the ministry. Praise God.

I bought a new digital camera for our annivesary and promise to post many more pictures this year. These are from Thursday.

Human Ears Evolved From Ancient Fish Gills!

Here's the link to a Yahoo news article. Link.

Just another ridiculous claim that the evolutionists are making that shows me how desperate they are to tie anything that sounds like scientific research to evolution. I don't see much scientific proof in this article.

A Sudden Ending To A Great Life

I received an E-Mail from an old Elementary School, Junior High, and High School friend named Jim this morning. He was also back home in Los Angeles for New Year's Day. He left on Friday to go back to Michigan and after his 76 year old Mom dropped him off at the Burbank Airport her car was hit my the Metro Train on her way home and she was killed. The accident was reported here. Link.

I feel so sorry for Jim. I had lots of great memories of his family helping out with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and school events.

God please comfort them in their time of need.

Final College Football Thoughts for 2005

It was a good round of College Football Bowl Games for me. Here's how my teams fared:

Nebraska beat Michigan 42-38
UCLA beat Northwestern 50-38
Texas beat USC 41-38 in the BCS Championship Game. I am not a big Texas fan, but I am a UCLA alum, so I cheer on whoever plays USC.

I came in second in Rob's College Football Bowl Mania group on ESPN.

Nebraska ended up ranked in the top 25 for the first time in over 2 years. They finished out at #24 in both polls. Link.

UCLA ended up ranked #13 in the USA Today Poll and #16 in the AP Poll.

I look forward to an even better year in college football next year. Nebraska looks like an up and coming program again and USC looks like they will lose the heart of their program to the NFL.

Rob's Place

Rob of the Orangejack blog has a new web address. He is now located here. Link. Nice looking blog Rob!

I can't believe you thought Michigan would beat Nebraska on the Bowl Mania pool! I guess that is as stupid as me believing Colorado would knock off your Clemson Tigers. Oh, well, so far it has been a fun pool. Who is in first place?

Finding God In The Land Of Narnia #1

I just started the book Finding God In The Land of Narnia by Bruner and Ware. I zipped through the introduction this morning while on a short break. Wow, is it ever an incredible read (I don't ever remember saying that about an introduction before!) . I am a pretty right brain dominated person, I guess I don't have a creative bone in my body (call me boring). So, I haven't thought too deeply before on how a persons faith can be linked to fantasy. I guess it is a natural link, but I didn't understand it much before. C.C. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were certainly gifted and I have enjoyed their works for years. They created so many opportunities to explain the gospel in new and creative ways that people who are insensitive to religion and Christianity can absorb.

I want to push the limits and explore the possibilities of explaining the gospel in new ways over the next year. I suppose many of those who live in a right brain world won't understand, but I have a feeling the world is a lot more left brained that I am.

On page xv in the introduction the authors use a quote from Lewis that I loved. It states,

Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child-psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out "allegories" to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself of its own accord. It was a part of the bubbling.

This reminds me of another favorite quote from a Pastor friend, "Too many pastors prepare so hard to preach a sermon. Prepare your life and preach from your life".

Maybe sometimes we just try too hard to push the gospel to the point it becomes an unnatural part of ourselves. It should flow out of us naturally as the Lord fills us.

I'm looking forward to making my way through the book, it sounds awesome.

Resolution Thoughts

Last night as we were worshipping the Lord our worship leader said something that made me reflect on New Year's resolutions. He said, "Let this song be our New Years resolution for 2006." After thinking about it for a while I agree. Here goes:

Lord prepare me to be a Sanctuary
Pure and Holy, tried and true.

With thanksgiving I'll be a living
Sanctuary for You!

I can't think of a more meaningful New Year's resolution for 2006.

But, in addition, I will still do the meaningless, selfish, pointless task of establishing resolutions that are measurable sometime during the next week. Have a great New Year's Day.

Just for grins, here's a list of my goals for 2005. They came out of my posts from last January. Link, and Link. I didn't do very well in attaining them. An even mixture of accomplishment. The ones in Green I accomplished, the ones in Red are still in progress:

My Goals for 2005:

1. Family:
Develop deeper relationships with my wife and kids:
- Start a weekly family Bible study
- Marilyn: Have a night/lunch out with Marilyn at least twice per month
- Matthew: Go with Matthew to Student Life Camp. Support him better at Boy Scouts (Although I supported Matthew he is in the process of dropping out of Boy Scouts)
- Bethany: Take Bethany to lunch monthly

2. Faith: Take the love of Christ to the unchurched:
- Find a compassion oriented organization for The Gate to partner with for student ministry projects
- Continue to direct The Gate student ministry
- Continue to pursue church planting directions. Become an ordained minister (I am on the way; I get licensed next month) and an approved Acts 29 church planter this year (in progress, but not complete)

3. Physical: Take better care of my body:
- Average at least 10 minutes per day exercising. Be able to run the Scott Air Force Base running trail loop (6.5 miles) nonstop by August 1.
- Stop eating ice cream after 6:00pm. I can't go cold turkey on ice cream, but I can limit my intake.

4. Community: Foster relationships in the real world and in cyberspace:
- Average at least 1 blog entry per day. (I only have 91 so far this year)
- Continue developing a deeper relationship with the brothers and sisters in the Acts 29 network

5. Intellectual: Make a major push to complete my PhD:
- Complete my PhD dissertation by Christmas 2005 (I am sadly very far behind)