Yesterday I had one of my most eventful days of summer camp ever. One of our students fractured a bone and I spent a good portion of the day at the hospital. We went to a children’s hospital which is much better than a normal hospital. There were stickers all over the walls and televisions everywhere. I watched a lot of children’s programming and here are some thoughts about what I watched.
Phineas & Ferb
Sometimes I doubt my faith.
Nothing significant causes the doubt, I just wonder if I’ve committed myself to nothing more than a story created by humans to make life easier. Karl Marx’s statement that religion is an opiate for the masses gives me pause and creates a little room for doubt in my brain.
I don’t often doubt my faith but I did last night, sitting in chapel on commitment night. Read more »
This week I’m at summer camp and it is providing a lot of material for this blog. Our speaker seems to be a little nerdy and he let his nerd flag fly a during one of his talks. He put up pictures of two fictional villains and had the audience cheer for who they thought would win in a fight. Here are some of the matchups he presented.
Darth Vader vs. Ursula
This week I am at summer camp with our high school group. I love summer camp. Even though I’m sleeping in a room that smells like a boys’ locker room, camp is one of my favorite weeks out of the year. I’ve already written about how summer camp can be difficult for nerds, so here are some ways to make summer camp a little nerdier. Read more »
I finally saw Green Lantern and I wasn’t that impressed. The action sequences were rather short and the space in between them wasn’t that interesting. Ryan Reynolds did a great job of portraying Hal Jordan as a tremendously self-centered jerk. He was so convincing, in fact, that Hal Jordan was hardly likeable. If I were more familiar with the Green Lantern mythology, I may have liked the movie more but, as it is, I don’t feel a deep need to see the movie again.
Even though I didn’t love the movie there were some themes worth examining from a Christian perspective. As always I’ll try to keep things spoiler-free, but Ryan Reynolds playing both Hal Jordan and making a cameo as Deadpool was a little over the top. Read more »
There are a lot of different church nerds. I’ve already discussed PowerPoint Guy and Christian Music Guy. It’s easy to poke fun at church nerds because they can have a lot of different idiosyncrasies. PowerPoint Guy uses specific slide transitions depending upon which person of the Trinity is the focus of the lyrics. Christian Music Guy is undefeated at six degrees of TobyMac. There is one church nerd, though, that I won’t ever make fun of because it’s far too dangerous.
The prayer nerd.
First of all, I am in awe of prayer nerds because I have a hard time praying. So many people I know and respect are amazing prayer warriors; they’re like the Maximus of prayers. Unfortunately, when it comes to prayer, I’m like that dude standing in front of Maximus who wets himself. I wrestle with prayer, I always have, which is why I admire those to whom prayer comes so easily and naturally.
But along with that admiration, there’s also a little twinge of fear.
I have a friend who is like the Maximus, Obi-Wan, Captain Picard and Aragorn of prayer wrapped up in one. She’s amazing and whenever she says she’s praying for me I know that she means it. I’m so grateful for her prayers but it always scares me a little bit. Maybe the Spirit is prompting her to pray something in my life of which I’m not even aware. I’m pretty pig-headed and stubborn when it comes to God’s prompting so it’s entirely possible that my friend knows something about my own life that I don’t know. And that scares my stubborn heart.
My grandparents were also amazing prayers. They were missionaries for most of their lives and I can’t express how much they’ve influenced my faith. They have 10 grandchildren and, of the 10, they decided to pray that I would attend seminary and go into vocational ministry. I don’t know why they chose me but they followed the Spirit’s prompting and obediently prayed that prayer. They were total prayer nerds and their prayers for my life were answered. And that’s still a little scary.
In my better moments, though, I know that I shouldn’t be scared when someone is praying for me, especially a prayer nerd. For those of us who like to be in control of our lives, it can be scary to know that someone is praying for us. If that person cares about us, though, and is simply obeying the Spirit’s promptings, what do we have to fear?
We should welcome the prayers of those who listen and respond to the Holy Spirit, especially when we’re not listening as well as we could. So the next time a prayer nerd says that they’re praying for you, be sure to thank them and ask them to fill you in on anything the Spirit has told them.
How have the prayers of another person impacted your life?
Above is a picture of the new Super Star Destroyer Lego set. When completed, the 3,152 brick set will be four feet long and weigh eight pounds. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted a Lego set more but at $400 I don’t imagine I’ll be getting it any time soon.
But sometimes I do imagine that I had $400 to spend on something like a Lego replica of the Empire’s flagship. Or I think about a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses I could purchase if I had $260. Or sometimes I think about the Movado watch I would buy if I had $2,000 lying around. I often find myself day dreaming about all the things I’d buy for myself if I had more money.
But then I think about how selfish I am and start to think about all the generous things I could do if I had more money. Read more »
Our church’s Vacation Bible School begins today. There’s nothing like hundreds of children screaming, laughing, having fun and learning about Jesus. Every VBS curriculum is basically the same. They revolve around a selection of stories from the Bible, some sort of animal mascots, some crafts and an overarching theme that sets ties everything together. In years past our church used themes like rainforests with tropical animals and oceans with sea animals. This year our theme is Nazareth and there will be a lot of farm animals.
Animals and forests are all right, but I was thinking what it would be like to have some nerdy VBS themes. Here’s what I came up with.
Star Wars VBS
With the influx of super hero movies this summer, I thought it would be fun to look at Bible characters who could have been super heroes. Here are five Bible characters who could stand alongside the Green Lantern and Captain America.
Elijah
One of my favorite Bible stories is Elijah’s showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Like the Human Torch, Elijah calls down fire to consume his sacrifice. I can just picture Elijah flying around in the Fantasticar with the other members of the Fantastic Four. With Elijah on the team, he could just challenge Dr. Doom to a sacrifice showdown whenever Doom wanted to conquer the world. With a simple prayer of “flame on”, Elijah would defeat Dr. Doom and save the world. Elijah would be so great he would basically become the Justin Timberlake of the Fantastic Four. Read more »
