Thoughts on the Nicene Creed

Sorry, these aren't my thoughts. A friend of mine posted a link to this on facebook and I thought it was good enough to post here (although it's not like I've been doing a lot of posting lately).

The author of this post thinks that how we view the Nicene Creed reflects our theological heritage and beliefs. Read through the post and see what you think. I think the author is pretty dead on with his assessment.

The Council of Nicea is a Theological Rorschack Test

(h/t to Kyle Potter for the link on facebook)

The Feast of The Annunciation

This is a repost from what I wrote last year on this day.

Today the church exhorts us to join in a great paradox of feasting even in the midst of our Lenten fasting since today is the feast of the Annunciation. Today is the day that we celebrate and remember that glorious day when the Angel Gabriel came to the Virgin and proclaimed:

Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you...Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of the his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end....The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God....For nothing will be impossible with God. (Luke 1:30-33,35,37 NRSV)

Today is the day when we can see the full spectrum of our salvation. We look ahead to Good Friday when we remember our Lord's death, and we even glance beyond Good Friday longingly looking toward Easter Sunday, the feast of feasts, when we celebrate our Lords glorious resurrection. We look ahead like this today as we think of the angel's visitation to the Virgin. We recognize today, maybe more fully than at any other point, that our Lord came as a child to die and rise again for us and for our salvation.

The Lord and maker of the heavens, he who is uncontainable humbled himself so much that he allowed himself to take on flesh and to be contained in a womb. He who knows the expanse of the universe and who spoke to the darkness at creation is the same incarnate word that came and took on flesh as a fetus (if such an impersonal word can be used). We celebrate this day the incorporeal Son, the second person of the Trinity, taking on flesh so that humanity may be united to God. We rejoice in the fact that Christ our God took on every part of what it means to be human and yet was without sin. Our Lord took upon himself not only our flesh, but also our will - assuming everything that is intrinsic to us, for as St. Basil states: "that which was not assumed cannot be redeemed."

Today we also remember Mary's response to the Angel: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). We remember that her response was a free choice and that it was not forced upon her. In this same way we remember that we are called to emulate her and to respond to God daily with the same words. Theotokos, the God-bearer, that is the title given to Mary by the early church, not as a sign of her exultation but to proclaim the mystery we celebrate today that God himself, in the person of the Son chose to be born. The uncreated one who is withoutbeginning chose to unite himself to humanity so thoroughly that we can say with confidence that Mary bore God in her womb. To say this statement is hard and absurd is true, and yet it is also beautiful in the truth it proclaims. Christ is the fullness of God, and yet also the fullness of humanity and today we proclaim his love. We can see this love clearly as we remember his incarnation and look toward the cross and resurrection.

Glory to God in the Highest! Our redemption is at hand, for Christ our God is conceived in the womb of the virgin so that he may cleanse us from our sin.


Sadly this holy-day is forgotten in most of Protestantism probably due to a number of reasons, chief of which may be (and I'm just offering a hypothesis here) connected to the staunch rejection of anything having to do with the Virgin Mary at the time of Luther's reformation. I believe it would do us well to remember this day with our Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters. I believe this feast helps us to think more accurately about the incarnation of our Lord. It helps us to avoid the heresy of adoptionism and some gnostictendencies that run deep in some of our traditions.

So let us today join with our Catholic and Orthodox friends and boldly sing the praises of God. For today we can see both the incarnation and the crucifixion/resurrection clearly. Let us praise God for his redemption of humanity for today we celebrate the coming of grace as the Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin!

More Thoughts on Youth Ministry

I have read a couple articles recently that I wanted to share in light of the last post about some of the problems in youth ministry. Both of these articles are by a guy named Mike Yaconelli. Mike, is considered by many to be the "Father of youth ministry" as we now know it. He was the founder of Youth Specialties, one of the largest youth ministry companies out there. Mike passed away some years ago (I can't remember why) but has left a deep legacy. Sadly, as much as his name is championed, his words are seldom heeded.

The first article, "10 Easy Steps to Guarantee a Successful Youth Ministry," is a wonderful piece of satire. When I read the article in a recent issue of Youthworker I was both saddened and elated. I was elated, because it felt nice to hear a voice that expressed the same thoughts I was having, but I was saddened because these are the exact things that I am being criticized by the parents and counselors here for not doing.

Here is the article: 10 Easy Steps to Guarantee a Successful Youth Ministry

The Second article is about rethinking youth ministry. Since my first youth ministry class with Dr. Walters at Houghton, I've held the belief that one of the highest goals of youth ministry should be to engage the students in the greater life of the whole congregation. This article takes this belief one step further and asserts that no youth ministry is the best youth ministry. Yaconelli doesn't say that we need to get rid of youth ministry all together (thankfully, because I need a job) but that we do need to get kids plugged into the church at deep levels that transcend just attendance. I agree completely and from, what I've found, so does everyone with whom I've talked. The problem I've found is that everyone like this in theory, but once you try to actively implement engagement with the whole church people get angry if the youth take a while to respond or "get it."

Here is this article: A Better Idea Than Youth Ministry

I'd love some extra thoughts on these issues.

- Ben

Entertainment or Ministry

A little over a week ago I took a group of students from our church on a ski trip to WV. As I stood in the parking lot I saw streams of teenagers file out of bus after bus. Some of the busses were chartered and others clearly had the church logo and name painted on the side. As I stood, waiting for our rental agent, I realized that you couldn't tell there was a recession going on in this country and that somewhere people were in need. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty disgusted as I looked at all these lines and all this money. I was upset about the entertainment driven focus of youth ministry. (You might be asking why I took our students there. Well, I tried to not do a ski-trip this year and do a spiritual formation retreat, but I met so much resistance that it couldn't be done.)

I guess I never realized how much ski-trips were essential to youth "ministry" until the other day. Growing up in poor, rural Pennsylvania I didn't go on my first youth group ski trip until we had a new pastor come in and tell us that to be an effective youth ministry we need to go on one.

I was upset, and was going to blog when I got back but I put it off and never got around. Then the other night in our youth council meeting the students tossed out the idea of doing a movie night at youth group. I spoke up and said that a movie night would have strict limitations given current copyright laws and the fact that I would not allow anything over a "G" movie. As we were having discussion I heard one of the youth counselors mutter to another counselor "he's never been a fan of showing a movie" in a disgruntled tone. To be fair, she's right. I'm not a fan of taking valuable spiritual formation time and spending all that time in entertaining students. The only real way I'd consider this would be if we found a movie that offers a great chance for spiritual dialogue and then we analyzed the movie afterwards. But I know that this isn't what they have in mind.

I was a little disturbed by the fact that I have to constantly defend my desire for formation over entertainment in our youth program but just counted it up to a need for further growth and education.

Today, as I came into the office I got a small "events guide" in the mail. The guide is by a group called "Entertaining Teens" which offers "Live Entertainment, Touring Ministries & Events." Seriously? How did youth ministry ever get to be about entertainment? Especially the crappy, cheesy, gimmicky, over-the-top entertainment that this organization offers. What are we doing?

Many people would object to my anti-entertainment ministry stance citing that we need to "attract" the youth and get them here. I honestly can't think of a bigger lie in the history of the Christian church. The idea that we, in youth ministry, can somehow compete with Hollywood, friends, video games, etc in the realm of entertainment to "get kids here" is absolutely laughable and until the youth ministry culture realizes that we will continue to produce generation after generation of half-discipled students who will easily drift away from Christ when life gets hard, the entertainment stops, or other things grab their attention.

Some would point out that the youth ministry culture is changing. That this is a growing realization. I would disagree.

I recently (back in September) attended the Youth Specialties National Youthworkers Convention in Los Angeles. As I sat in the small break-out groups I had much hope. I heard the presenters talking about deep discipleship, having kids encounter the scripture, and other wonderful things. I really thought the culture was changing...until I went to the main sessions. These main sessions were filled with "sermons void of content," rock 'n roll covers as "worship" songs, high production videos, sound, and lighting design, and enough "ra-ra, yay Jesus" to put the National Cheerleading competition to shame.

As these two worlds (the small and large sessions) I realized that the culture really isn't changing. Sure, there is a growing emphasis in youth ministry on contemplation, silence, and the like. But it is still shrouded in gimmicks and entertainment. Silence is only valued if it's accompanied by powerpoint images and eclectic music. Contemplation is valued only at a pragmatic level. The emphasis is still with entertainment. Why? Because this is how the youth directors are filling their souls.

Sure there are always the exceptions (Praise the Lord!!) but as long as those who lead the youth seek entertainment and not discipleship then youth ministry will continue to be entertainment driven and as such we will continue to fail generation after generation.

New Lenten Blog...Kind Of

I'm doing something different with our youth group this year during Lent. Instead of handing out costly paper devotionals I'm jumping on the trendy-train and doing a daily Lenten blog for my students. Maybe they won't read it (like the devotionals I handed out last year) but I thought I might as well try.

Unfortunately this idea just struck me the other day so I didn't develop a long-term plan for a direction of this blog and as such the blog will likely change, grow, and develop throughout the Lenten season - especially as I receive feedback from my students. My initial plan is to poach information from the Asbury Readers that I edited while I was in seminary and add in some of my own thoughts for clarity. I also plan to explore various topics that come up that need some explanation so it might not be as systematic and ordered as I like. I guess we'll see how it goes. But you can bank on the fact that there will be a lot of scripture and quotes from the saints!

Since I'll be focusing a lot on that for the next 40+ days my posting on this blog might be a bit more sparse than it normally would be during the Lenten season (even though I just returned after a busy season at work). I may cross-post a few things but I'll try to keep that to a minimum. Fear not, I will return and I will eventually post the thoughts I've promised (*cough* filioque *cough*).

If you'd like to follow along with this feel free. The only thing that I ask is that if you read along over there try not to get into a theological discussion in the comments. Feel free to comment a bit since it might help the students feel free to engage but I don't want to scare my students away. =) If you have comments or questions email me or comment over here. My students are smart, but they're still learning the faith (as we all are). I'm trying to challenged them as much as I can without completely overwhelming all of them and it is very hard to try to write for students in grades 6-12 all at the same time.

The address is: http://saintlukeyouth.wordpress.com

May we all see Christ more clearly this Lenten season!

- Ben

Lenten Quote

I just read this quote from St. John Chrysostom in a book I'm using for Lent and I thought I'd share it. I know it's not Lent yet, but this starts earlier than Ash Wednesday.

When the fast begins, let us get ready and polish our spiritual weapons; as cultivators, let us sharpen our sickles; as sailors, let us order our thoughts against the waves of extravagant desires; as travelers, let us set out on the journey towards heave; and as wrestlers let us strip for the contest. For the Christian is at the same time a solider, a sailor, a plower and a wrestler. St. Paul states, 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of evil. Put on therefore the whole armor of God.'

Put on the spiritual armor, and become a soldier. Strip yourself of worldly cares, for the season of Lent is one of wrestling. Cultivate your soul. Cut away the thorns of evil. Sow the word of godliness. Subdue the body, and bring it into subjection. Keep down the waves of evil desires. Repel the tempest of evil thoughts.

- St. John Chrysostom.

Let us keep these wise words from St. Chrysostom dear to our hearts as we approach this most holy season.

By the Waters of Babylon

Lent, my favorite time of the year, is quickly approaching. I think I love the season of Lent so much because it places my sin, my weakness, my mortality, and my deep need for God at the forefront of my mind. The fasting inconveniences my life and challenges me to think of God at every turn and helps the increased devotional reading pierce my soul in ways it normally wouldn't.

I really do love Lent because it prepares me for Easter and helps me to clearly see my God. I think there may be no greater travesty among Protestants than the slow removal of Lent from our calendars.

During seminary while I attended St. Athanasius Orthodox Church I heard one of the most wonderfully piercing Lenten hymns I've ever experienced. This hymn brings me to tears every time I hear it because it reminds me of deep ravine that separates who I am from what I am called to become by the grace of God. I was reminded about this hymn today on an Orthodox blog that I often read - Glory to God for All Things. This is the blog of Fr. Stephen Freeman and it is a wonderful wealth of wisdom and spirituality.

The hymn that I'm talking about is "By the Waters of Babylon" and is based on Psalm 137. Here is are a few of the lyrics re-posted from Fr. Stephen's post (here).

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. Alleluia.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Alleluia.
For there they that had taken us captive required of us a song;
and they that had carried us away required of us a hymn, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Alleluia.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? Alleluia.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Alleluia.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem as my chief joy. Alleluia.

How does this Psalm bespeak of Lent? It tells of the exile of Jerusalem and how they chose to worship God even when they were separated and driven from the true place they belonged. It reminds us of our condition that we meditate strongly on during Lent - that we too are exiled. We must keep our hope, we must continue to sing the Lord's song even in this strange land.

So let us prepare ourselves for this Lenten journey. Let us ready ourselves that we might truly embrace the fast and let us sing the Lord's song even as we remember our sin, our mortality, and our exile from Eden.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

- Ben

If you're interested there is a great Lenten "pastoral note" by Fr. Justin Paterson at the top of the St. Athanasius web-page (here). You can also scroll down if you are interested in learning more about Eastern Christian fasting practices during Lent.

The Feast of Transfiguration

I think this marks the end to one of my longer absences from this blog. It's been over two months since my last post and while I've intended to come back multiple times before now I have been consumed by a plethora of other things. While I'm not promising I'll be back in full-swing yet, I will try to post more regularly and try to finish up the series on the Filioque as well as post some other thoughts that have been brewing for quite a while.

What brings me here today is just a quick question that I really don't have time to answer but thought that some of you (if any readers still exist) may have more insight than I into this issue.

February 14 is the last Sunday before Lent this year and it is marked (as always) in the Methodist (Protestant?) lectionary as Transfiguration Sunday. My question is why and when did Transfiguration Sunday change dates in the Liturgical Year?

For the Orthodox Transfiguration Sunday is celebrated on August 6

For Catholics it is celebrated on August 6

For Anglicans it is celebrated on August 6 (according to the Book of Common Prayer )

This issue first raised its head last year when I was preparing to preach according to the Lectionary in one of our services on Transfiguration Sunday. At that time I noticed that the UM lectionary was different than the other lectionaries I was familiar with. This year as we approach lent I began to wonder about this issue again.

Why the change in the lectionary?

Why the change for such an important feast day of the church? Was it theological? Was it practical?

If any of you have any insights so my curiosity can be satiated I would be very appreciative. Like I said, I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to this now so I thought I'd just toss it out there.

- Ben

Vampires, Romance, and Monasticism.

It seems like only in the world of youth ministry could there be a blog post written that encompasses vampires, romance, and monasticism. Or maybe it could only happen in my mind - I'm not sure.

Anyway, I was over on Anna's blog (here) and she posted something about the new Twilight movie coming out. I intended to post a quick comment about an event from breakfast this morning and it ended up being a little mini blog post. I figured I'd repost it here.

Here, with a few edits and additions, is my comment from her blog:

I confess I haven't read the Twilight books but I did experience one of the fall-outs from the books this morning while talking to a member of my youth group. This girl wanted advice on what to do because she has a friend who actually believes that she is a vampire. In fact, she believes it so much that she sucks her boyfriend's blood. Somehow this girl's friend is so caught up into the vampire mythos that she is unable to differentiate from reality.

I'm really not blaming the books for this as much as I'm blaming what seems to be a societal renewal of interest in this narrative over the past 3-5 years (of which Twilight is just cashing in). My beef with twilight (and again I haven't read them) is the same problem I have with most of those dramatized romance books that teenage girls (and sometimes guys) read. These books paint an unreal picture of teenage "love" and affection. Causing students to seek after such intense relationships when most of them are far too emotionally immature to handle such a relationship. I fear that these types of highly dramatized romantic books will heighten the teenage problem of seeking to find fulfillment and identity in a relationship with another person instead of in God. This misplaced fulfillment will likely result in more teenage pregnancies, emotional distress, suicides over broken hearts, and other problems of the same ilk.

Maybe I'm over-reacting because I've not read the books, and to be sure I'm not intending to single them out. I put this issue squarely at the feed of all of Hollywood and book distributors.

The church is also not without blame. As protestants we mostly reject singleness as a blessing and gift from God and have outrightly rejected monasticism. This has resulted in the same problems with relationships existing in the church because we tend to view people as incomplete until they are married.

This is a major problem within Protestant theology. Not only are we refusing to accept the biblical principles, but we are imposing on people a paradigm which may indeed hinder their spiritual growth. I truly believe that some people are called to singleness and/or the monastic life. If we insist, as we often do (albeit through actions and no so often words), that these individuals are incomplete in their singleness we are in essence asserting that they cannot be fully redeemed until married.

Think about what this lie does to our Christology. If a person is incomplete in singleness then we assert that Christ, in his singleness, was not a complete individual and thus there is a part of humanity that he did not fully redeem. Are we implicitly calling Christ's work insufficient by our exhortations and expectations of others?

I'm not really trying to speak ill of the twilight books. I'm sure their well-written pieces of creative fiction. I'm not even discouraging my students from reading them, I just think that we need to be aware of the subtle messages we send our kids.

Things have been super busy here lately, but I fully intend to write part two of my filioque posts pretty soon.

- Ben

Why I Do Not Profess the Filioque: Part 1

I came across this article the other day via my friend Chuck's blog (here).

In this article Ben Myers defends Protestant use of the filioque in the Nicene Creed. Over the next few posts I will attempt to defend my position as to why I do not profess the filioque as a Christian.

Although I'm sure I'll address some of Myers concerns I don't think I'll spend much time picking apart his arguments. Rather, I intend to spend time discussion the development and the potential ramifications of this doctrine and why I find it to be erroneous.

From the outset I should note that much of my thoughts will be adapted from my paper "The Filioque Controversy: An Historical and Theological Analysis" written in 2007. I will try to condense things but will still strive to be true to my sources and cite them when necessary (even though I don't know how to do footnotes on a blog).

To start off the discussion let me just briefly define what is meant by "filioque."

In the 325 the Nicene Creed was birthed as the primary definitive statement of belief for the Christian at the council of Nicea. Since this time, the Nicene Creed (slightly clarified at the council of Constantinople) has remained the chief confession for Christians (even more popular than the apostles creed until the rise of various protestant usage).

In the Nicene Creed is a statement: "I believe in the Holy Spirit...who proceeds from the Father..."

There is however, a much later western tradition (which we will analyze later) that professes the Nicene Creed as follows: "I believe in the Holy Spirit...who proceeds from the Father and the Son..." This phrase "and the Son" is what is meant by "filioque."

While it may seem like this small phrase is something inconsequential we must realize that the theological implications of this phrase are huge. The Great Schism between the Eastern and the Western Church in 1054 was, after all, mostly due to this tiny little phrase.

- Ben

Tactile Inspiration

I was just sitting here watching ESPN's College Gameday and they had a special spot on how most of the high profile college football programs have an inspiration object that they touch for motivation before they run onto the field. This spot chronicled teams such as Notre Dame who has touched their "Play Like a Champion" sign since the Lou Holtz era in 1986 and Texas who touches a pair of long horns before running onto the field.

During this spot the discussion approached near spiritual terms. According to the program, not only do these tactile expressions create motivation, but they also unify the team and create a sense of identity for the players.

As Christians what are we to make of these physical expression of "faith." Should we condemn the practice because these individuals are offering respect and honor to physical objects or should we just play it off as enigmatic of sports and declare that because it is not done in a religious context it has no real spiritual meaning. How do we respond if we realize that we can't dichotomize our spiritual lives from our "regular lives" because all of life is indeed spiritual? I really don't have these answers but this does prove to be an interesting issue. I wrote a bit about the issue of seemingly religious "touching" in conjunction with sports after the Super Bowl in February (here) so you can check those thoughts out if you're interested.

This topic does make me think about our own practices of tactile religious practices. Before relocating to NC I spent about three years attending St. Athanasius Orthodox Church. While I am not Orthodox, I don't think my love for Orthodoxy is any secret and I think there are many ways that we Protestants can learn from our Orthodox brothers and sisters. One of the things that we can learn is that worship, just as much as it is mental and emotional, it is also physical.

Since fully reentering the protestant world there have been many, many times where I have felt my body aching to be involved in the worship of our holy triune God. At times my arms and hands have felt cheated when I was hesitant to make the sign of the cross over my head and chest in holy reverence. My nose has been left out by not being able to smell the incense that symbolizes the prayers of the congregation as they rise to God. My knees have become soft with the lack of bowing and my eyes long to see the beauty of the Father made manifest in the images of his Son and the holy saints. I'm adjusting, and I don't mean this to sound like a complaint against the things we do at my church or against Protestantism in general. But maybe ESPN is right. Maybe we are tactile beings and touching things does inspire us and motivate us. Maybe looking upon a sign and touching a common object can create unity amongst us. And maybe this is part of the reason that the iconoclastic heresy was so detrimental to the faith and was rightfully condemned at the 7th ecumenical council.

Surely our worship practices do more than these sports practices. We do things for more reasons than to inspire, motivate, and create unity amongst ourselves. We are not "spiritual beings having a temporary physical experience" as I once read on a "Christian" bumper sticker. For if that were true then why would Christ our God become truly human and physical in order that we might be fully redeemed. Indeed we are both spiritual and physical and as such our worship must be both physical and spiritual or else by our practice we deny the truth of the incarnation and become no better than the Arian heretics of the First Council of Nicea.

May we all worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with body, mind, and soul.

- Ben

EDIT: Here is the link to the original video from College Gameday.

Gameday: Pregame Touch Traditions

More Football

I'm not sure why I've written so many posts on football and sports lately but here is another short one. I promise I'll get back to posts about theology and ministry soon.

While I opposed the Vikings' signing of Brett Favre on many, many levels there was one reason that seemed to rise to the top of the list. I knew that if Favre signed with the Vikings it would no longer be the team that was credited with the victory but Favre. I knew that if the Vikings make it to the Super Bowl and win it'll be Brett Favre who took them there and he will be the one upon who's shoulders the team will carried all season long.

When Favre signed I hoped that my fears would be disproved, that maybe the media would realize that the Vikings are built around Adrian Peterson, or that they would credit the defense with the marvelous work that they do. Well, I found out yesterday that my fears were correct.

I spent my weekend on a retreat with my Sr. High students and got back into town just in time for me to run home, shower, change and head back to youth group. After youth I remembered that I had a church council meeting. As I struggled to stay awake in our meeting I came to the wonderful realization that our meeting space had wireless internet and thus I could check football scores. To my dismay the first two headlines (from the ESPN and the CBS Sports applications...i think) gave headlines similar to "Favre carries Vikings in win." or "Favre and Peterson help Vikings roll over Browns."

After reading these headlines I clicked on the stats page and expected to see monster stats from both Favre and Peterson. As it was indicated Peterson ran all over the Browns gathering 180 yards and 3 TDs. Favre, however, was less than stellar throwing for 110 yards and 1 TD (stats from www.nfl.com).

Now, I didn't watch the game, but to me it seems like Favre was fairly average or slightly below average. So how in the world, with stats like that, does Favre get credit for carrying the Vikings to a win? Sure, he didn't throw any picks, but there is nothing in his stat line that indicates he carried the team to the win.

This is going to be one long season with this over-rated QB starting every week!

My Fantasy Football Team

Ok, here is my fantasy football team for our 12 team keeper league.

QB

Kurt Warner

Chad Pennington

RB

Maurice Jones-Drew

Derrick Ward

Reggie Bush

Felix Jones

WR

Bernard Berrian (you know I had to go with a Viking)

Marques Colston

Donald Driver

Earl Bennett

Patrick Crayton

Domenik Hixon

Bryant Johnson

Robert Meachem

K

Ryan Longwell

DST

Chargers

My keeper from last year was Michael Turner (RB) and I had the 10th pick in a serpentine draft format. I traded Turner and my 10th overall pick for Maurice Jones-Drew and the 5th overall pick. This would have worked out great except that, like I said in my last post, I over-thought the situation and ended up picking Warner 5th overall. Let me note that following people were off the board by the time I picked:

Peyton Manning

Tom Brady

Drew Brees

Steve Slaton

Matt Forte

L. Tomlison

Brian Westbrook

Michael Turner

Ronnie Brown

Clinton Portis

Deangelo Williams

Adrian Peterson

Chris Johnson

and 2 other people I can't remember

Novelty

A worship service works best when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it… The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping… Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god. A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant…There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the chart to Peter was ‘Feed my sheep’; not ‘Try experiments on my rats’, or even ‘Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’

~ C. S. Lewis

The above quote by C. S. Lewis was introduced to me during seminary by my friend JD Walt. Although Lewis wasn't around to observe the contemporary mess that is protestant worship he hits the nail right on the head. I do believe that Novelty is the destroyer of meaningful worship services. As long as worship leaders and planners seek first creativity, uniqueness, and that which is novel, protestant worship services will continue to leave masses of Christian unfulfilled and longing for something deeper...something divine. My friend JD has been having this conversation over at his blog for as long as I've known him so if you're interested in this Protestant dialogue I'd encourage you to take a look over there because I want to take a step out of the world of worship and apply this quote to something completely different - Fantasy Football.

Just as novelty is the killer of liturgy and worship so it is also the destroyer of fantasy football drafts. In preparing for fantasy football one can find himself or herself wrapped up in an endless maze of stats and strategies. In this maze one can quickly lose sight of the practicality of it all and end up over-thinking every draft move. Sure there is advantage in having a well thought out strategy and plan for your draft but when these plans turn to trying to be sneaky, creative, and novel then one's team will quickly turn into a bag of sleeper picks that never materialize.

I speak these words from experience. About a week ago our HAG fantasy football league had our draft and at some points I succumbed to the draft death that is novelty. The desire to outthink everyone lead to me using my first round pick on a QB instead of taking a solid RB or WR. In an attempt to defend myself a little bit let me state a few things. First you should know that our league is a 12 team keeper league so all of top RBs were off the board by the time I got my first pick (#5 via trade). Secondly because of our scoring system QBs far outscore every other position in our league. For example the top QB in our league last year scored 452 fantasy points while the top RB only scored 335. Despite the difference in value the perceived value of RBs is much greater in our league and thus it was my attempt to outthink everyone that caused me to overvalue a QB and destroy my draft with novel thinking.

There is one thing that I neglected to take into account on draft day that would have saved me from succumbing to this novelty - ADP. ADP or average draft position helps people like me, who arrogantly think they can outwit everyone in their league, stay grounded and know when they should draft certain players according to the general consensus value. Sure you'll always have that person who doesn't follow the plan and takes a Defense or Kicker in the 6th round, but if I would have utilized ADP I think it would have checked my novel thinking and enabled me to get a better second string RB (aside from my keeper) and still have a great starting QB. All in all my team isn't totally destroyed but it's surely not as good as it could have been.

So there you have my thoughts on why novelty is not only a killer of worship but also a plague upon fantasy football drafts. Hopefully if you haven't drafted yet you can learn from my mistakes and use average draft position states to help you truly out-draft your opponents.

- Ben

Going Old School - an ode to krispy Kreme

Sitting here in our church lobby surrounded by the "great cloud of witnesses" that is 1,908 Krispy Kreme doughnuts for our youth group fundraiser (a very easy and profitable fundraiser, by the way) I was just reminded by a friend on facebook of the poem I wrote in college about these wonderful cake and glaze objects.

Irresistible Grease

- by Ben Howard

I

Krispy Kremes

Drenched in Grease

Clogging my arteries as I feast

II

My mouth is watering

My heart is beating

Krispy Kremes come for my eating

III

Thinking of you,

You wonderful cake

I dream of you until I wake

IV

Manna from Heaven

Sweet cake and glaze

I wish to devour you until the world becomes a haze

V

Oh Krispy Kremes

My greasy joy

I'm so glad that you're not made of soy

VI

Calvinists are wrong

Arminians are right

Krispy Kremes come to me in the night!

In case your wondering this was written as a joke after consecutive all-nighters in which my friends and I survived on Krispy Kremes, chicken wings, and caffeine. Also, if you can believe it, this was actually published in our college's poetry publication. I still can't believe this fact...they must have really been hurting for some submissions that year.

Big hat tip to Gustav and Moeller for the all-nighters and their help on this.

Morality and Sports Part II: The Part where Morality is Thrown Out of the Window

First off I want to thank many of your for your kind words and your condolences. Yesterday was indeed a dark, dark day in my life as Brett Favre signed a contract with the Minnesota Vikings. Honestly even typing those words makes my heart sink a little.

Since this has happened I've gone through a couple stages of grief (denial and anger) but I think I might stop there. It is at this point that all of my moral reasoning within sports flies out the window. Even though I know in my heart this is reality, I still want nothing more for him than to have his arms fall off and be eaten by wolves. I want his partially torn rotator cuff to finish itself off with his first pass and his "enjoying the game so much smile" to be ground into the dirt by a fat defensive lineman. I hope when he plays GB that they destroy him and leave him crumpled up beneath a pile of behemoth defensive lineman. This list could continue, I'm sure with a bit of time this wound will heal, but Brett Favre has now destroyed part of my early adulthood like Jeffrey Maier destroyed parts of my childhood.

Now obviously as a Christian I don't really desire these things for Favre. We are, after all, called to love our enemies. But my sports angst knows no limits in a situation like this. I have grown up having great sports disdain for Favre and his overrated quarterback play. I've argued for years that he's not as good as everyone thinks and that he really is a detriment to a team. I've rejoiced in his failure on the field (and regrettably sometimes off the field) and now I'm told that I, as a die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan since the beginning of my life, am supposed throw all of that aside and support the man 100%. There is no way in the world this is happening.

I'm not sure what my course of action will be. I've mulled over just ignoring the fact that the Vikings are even playing this season (like my friend Fous did last year when Favre was traded to the Jets). I've thought about just watching the games and hoping he keeps building upon his all-time interception record (the one bright spot in his continued play) but I'm not certain what I'll do. All I know is that the football season just became a whole lot less enjoyable. I probably won't watch as many games and my desire to go see the Vikings when they come to Charlotte to play the Panthers just went from "I need to find the money" to "meh, maybe if someone gave me a ticket and paid for my gas I'd go."

So there you have it. I feel a little bit better having ranted about this but I still feel that sick vomit inducing reaction every single time I think about Favre donning a purple helmet and jersey. If you want some real logical commentary on this scenario then you need to go elsewhere because you won't find it here. I am biased and I will never cease to be a Favre hater when it comes to football.

If you're interested in more of this check out what Joe Fischer has to say about the logic of signing Favre over at Pacifist Viking. Some of his particularly good insights are:

Against Favre

Favre Does not Push the Vikings Over the Edge

The Risk of Favre

On Cheering for Favre

Brett Favre: Pros

My Stages of Grief

Morality and Sports

One of my favorite blogs on the net is a blog called Pacifist Viking. Not only is this blog incredibly well written (the author is a college English prof) and full of solid logic, but it also combines a love for the football (especially the Minnesota Vikings - a love I share) with interesting philosophical discussions. The reason I bring this up is that I just finished reading an interesting article in which Joe Fischer (the author) discusses the relationship between morality and sport especially in light of the recent signing of Michael Vick.

You can find the article here

One reason I find this article particularly interesting is that the topic of morality and sports was one of the many reoccurring topics of discussion in our house during seminary. While our seminary discussions were mainly concerning moral actions on the playing field (i.e. is sliding hard into the second baseman to prevent him from turning a double play a morally acceptable action?) and not discussion the morality of sports personalities like this article I still think almost all intersections between sport and morality are interesting.

Youth Ministry 101

Some things they just don't teach you in seminary and, I suppose, to be fair most of those things you just have to learn on your own. Last week I encountered one of those moments.

Our youth group had planned a trip to the local water park a few weeks ago and before we went I was thinking through a list of things to bring while walking around Wal-Mart when I came to sunscreen. As I thought about it I realized that it was very obvious that I couldn't ask a student to apply sunscreen to my back and it would be very awkward to ask one of the adult counselors to do it as well. (I suppose this is part of the curse of being single in youth ministry - you don't have anyone to apply sunscreen to your back during the summer).

As I thought about the issue and walked by the sunscreen aisle I realized that they now has sunscreen that sprayed on from an aerosol can. I grabbed a a can of and walked away reveling in the fact that I had the foresight to see this as a problem and was able to find a solution.

Our trip to the water park came and went and I escaped the sizzling North Carolina sun unscathed. A few weeks later I was getting ready to embark on a beach retreat with a few seniors who will be going off to college in the fall. As I set my bag down on the sand during our first full morning at the beach I asked one of my seniors to spray my back down with aerosol sunscreen. She obliged and gave my back a good spray and then I took the can and sprayed my chest and arms. After a full day at the beach in the blazing sun I got back to the beach house, and wast getting ready to hop in the shower when I looked in the mirror.

What they don't teach you in seminary is that aerosol sunscreen doesn't really mix with a strong ocean breeze and it's also hard to see in the bright sun. Basically it looks like Zoro attacked my back with a can of red spray paint and my chest and arms are spotted red from where the wind blew the sunscreen away from my body. Seminary Fail!

In case you're interested my friend Luke and I have started another blog where we will post random experiences like this that "they don't teach you in seminary." I'm not sure if it'll take off or not, since I hope for our sake we don't have too many more of these experiences (even though I'm sure we will). You can find the site here.

Debaptism?

In a moment of distraction today I stumbled upon this article in the USA Today religion section. The article is about the atheist mock rite of debaptism. If you were wondering debaptism is exactly what it sounds like - a rite where former Christians forsake their baptism.

This is truly saddening indeed.

Quote for the 4th

For some reason a quote came to my find today and figured that it was worth re-posting here, especially given that this one of the most patriotic weekends of the year.

This quote is from the Epistle of Diognetus which is a very early christian apology (probably 2nd century). I first heard this quote in a sermon at Asbury given by Dr. Bauer and then later found it in Raniero Cantalamessa's book The Eucharist Our Sanctification.

The quote:

[the Christian is one who] lives as an alien in a homeland, who participates in everything like a citizen but bears with everything like a pilgrim; one for whom every foreign land is a homeland and every homeland a foreign land.

Take that for what you will.


- Ben