Category Archives: General Life

Theological Musings of the Moment

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Seminary is almost done! It has been an extremely enriching time for me as few are granted the opportunity to set much of life aside to look into theology, history, missiology, and the scriptures for three years. There has been a lot that I have learned about: contextual theology, evolutionary theology, preaching, contextual theology/indigenous churches, and much more.

This isn’t a note directly about those things, but about the things I am currently musing over. These are the three that I think of as I walk to and from work, drive to class, and just let percolate in my mind.

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Becoming a Bi-Vocational Pastor

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The natural question one is asked as they graduate from Seminary is: What is next for you/Where is God calling you? With only 82 days between me and my Masters of Divinity this question is looming in the bushes (or shrubbery if you will). For my wife and I we will be bi-vocational pastors.

Choosing Bi-Vocational

This does not mean part-time pastors. This does not mean that don’t believe we could secure employment at a church full-time. We have chosen this because of the call we have on our life (to minister in France – more on this in the future). As we sat down 4 years ago looking into the fog of our future we were faced with one primary question – How will we go back to France?

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Why I believe Occupy Wall Street Matters #OWS

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Marking the start of the third month of the Occupy movement’s work in lower Manhattan I feel like I have finally had enough time to process through everything that has been going on to share a few thoughts and one frustration. Let start by saying that I believe this is a thoughtful group of people with important things to say.

My Frustration

First the frustration. There has been widespread attempts to marginalize this movement of people. This has been done by attempting to hijack their slogans (We are the 99%, etc.) and calling them to get jobs. Those who have marginalized this movement have – more than likely – avoided interacting with their very clear core complaint. This also includes all of the spin-off advertising (Jay-Z…) and attempts to redirect the frustration into other pursuits.

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A Rolling Series of New Beginnings

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Life is a rolling series of new beginnings that we often fail to acknowledge. It seems that life can be viewed one of two ways, as a series of conclusions, or of beginnings. With the deluge and overlapping story lines of our lives, every day we are rolling through these points. Points that can be viewed either way.

Over the last many weeks I have been watching my own life, and those lives intertwined with my own, to see how we view these moments. There have been many big changes in my life this year that fall into this category: my dad’s passing away, changing churches, and bringing on staff to help Fresh Vine grow (amongst smaller stories). The same goes for my friends, but I won’t write of them here.

I try to look at each of these being the beginning of a new story. My dad’s passing starts the story of my life continued without his council and smile. Starting to attend Mill City has been the beginning of many new friendships and opportunities. Fresh Vine is a different organization than it was a year ago (two new employees, many new clients, amazing opportunities, new branding, and more exposure).

Looking at scripture this plays out as well. When Adam/Eve fell in the garden it was the beginning of the story, not the end. When Christ died on the cross it was not a conclusion, but another beginning. There is life after the fall, there is life after Christ, and there is life after death. This is not mystical hogwash, but reality. Yet many want to look at Christ as the end of faith, yet I believe Jesus saw himself as the beginning and means to a new life. The life that God intended from the beginning and was never possible before Christ. Even death is a new beginning, eternity is not an end but another beginning. There are no last pages in life, only starting points to what is to come.

Starting points call us to live each moment with excitement for where the story goes next.
I can promise you it will be good, bad, and ugly – and I can’t wait.

Making Dinner: Parmesan Crusted Chicken

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I decided I needed to do something less mentally taxing that programing for an hour or so last night. The choice led me to make some Parmesan Crusted Chicken (via Elise) since we had everything here we needed. It turned out really good and was a nice break for me. I might have added a bit to much Italian Seasoning and Parmesan… but come on, thats what makes it delicious.

If you were wondering, Jordan gave it a thumbs up – so it must have tasted good.

Remembering Mike Prins

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It has been almost 8 weeks since my dad passed away and with the ALS walk coming up this Saturday I wanted to make sure that we had the audio from the Celebration of Life service available online.

Video Slide Show (no audio):

 

Eulogies

John Prins: Brother (5 minutes)

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Ryan Prins: Son (11 minutes)

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Paul Prins: Son (6 minutes)

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Kyle Prins: Son (10 minutes)

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Related Pages Code Snippet for WordPress

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I’m currently working on getting the documentation together for our API (with Fresh Vine) and I needed a bit of code to place in the sidebar that would display any resources from the same family.

Within WordPress I have the pages all nicely nested. So there is a top-level page with a slug ‘api’ (page ID 16), and that has a child slugged ‘documentation’ (page ID 20). This related pages script will check for the children of ‘documentation’ including the first level which we add in at the beginning there.

The page hierarchy looks like: api-> documentation->members->view-id (for example)

The Code

php $Page = get_post();		// Get the Current Page
$ParentID = $Page->post_parent;	// Get the Parent Page ID
if( $ParentID == 16 )
	$ParentID = NULL;	// We're a child of
else if( $ParentID == 20 )
	$ParentID = $Page->ID;	// We 

$Related = get_pages( array(
					    'child_of' => $ParentID,
					    'sort_order' => 'ASC',
					    'sort_column' => 'post_title',
					    'hierarchical' => 0,
						'parent' => -1,
						'post_type' => 'page',
						'post_status' => 'publish' ) );
// Look to see if there are any related pages.
if( !is_null( $ParentID ) ){

	// Get the Parent Page
	$Parent = get_page( $ParentID );	?>
	 post_title; ?>>

post_content ) // Check for empty page
				continue;	?>
		 post_title; ?>

Final Thoughts

All in all the code works splendidly. Though I have taken out all of my styling for this example I have it setup to display the method and to give visual indicators of what page the user is currently on (with a simple if $rPage->ID == $Page-ID check).

Well I hope this was helpful for someone else out there in the inter-webs. If you used the code leave a note so I can see how you used it!

If the Resurrection is a sneak peak…. #WhatRapture

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In my opinion many Christians who affirm the Rapture fail to take into account the simple reality that Jesus was already transformed before he was ever taken up into the sky. The leaving the disciples and ascending into the sky seemed to be a requirement for; the interim period we are now in (between the resurrection and the consummation of history) and our reliance on the Holy Spirit (“I must go so the counselor can come”).

That Jesus was already raised from the dead is the key part of this part of the gospels for me. His body was already new and transformed so that he was not immediately recognizable to some of his disciples,  he could walk through walls and even appear out of no-where (traversing dimensions?)! This new body also seems to have come out of the old body, that his previous physical body was transformed into his new body (creating the empty tomb the women found, he was not simply given a different body).

Since Jesus’ resurrection is described as the foretaste for the church (this is where immersion baptism comes from – to die and rise in Christ) I believe we can understand the transformation of his body to be one and the same that all matter in the cosmos will one day go through. A new, transformed, and perfected creation will emerge from (come out of) the current creation in a way we cannot understand or ourselves create/induce.

What are your thoughts on the idea that every atom of the cosmos will be transformed? 
I’ve shared this notion with a few peers recently to a very warm response and would enjoy further feedback.

Photo Credit: Me – Snow Covered Mountain Cemetery