In a matter of days many of you will be receiving a letter describing the last chapter in our journey at our current location.  Since writing the letter, we have some very encouraging news.  We hear God’s voice calling us and there is clarity in the direction we may be heading.  We are still coveting any prayers that you could spare regarding the sale of our home.  We have about 2 more months of hard work ahead of us, but we anticipate the light we can feel warming our spirits at the end of the tunnel.  Thank you for being such wonderful friends and faithful givers.

I am writing this post so that you can take the next few minutes to listen:  Listen to me read to you our recent newsletter.  For those of you that get the paper version, thank you.  For those that don’t have a clue what I’m writing about, I’m sorry, feel free to listen as well.

It was IBM claiming they are building a smarter planet.  At first glance I said yeah, that sounds good, but then I caught myself.  What is this saying?  Why a smarter planet? Do we really want a smarter planet?  I thought we wanted a simpler planet, thus the inventions of so many things like dishwashers, microwaves, fridges with water dispensers and the like.   Why do I have a problem with this advertising?  I read their website and although they talk about why “smarter” is better I don’t think they have the right framework. I guess it may not be a big problem, but it just rubs me the wrong way.  To assume that we can build a better planet than the we already have, says a lot.  Maybe semantics is just where I like to fight?  I don’t know.

I do know that one thing I think IBM may be trying to do has very little to do with being a smarter planet.  I think they stopped short, they could have gone all the way.  For some reason they chose to stop at smarter planet.  I think they should have gone all the way and suggested we build a “wiser” planet.  You see, I know a bunch of ‘smart’ people but they are far from “WISE.”  Take the guys at Enron for example, they were smart guys, but lacked wisdom.  There is a big distinction from being smart and being wise.  You see, wisdom will not always profit a company in the short-term, but being smart pays now.  We want to be the smartest because we think it is the same as being “WISE.” I don’t think it is.

Look at Proverbs 4.  Take a look at proverbs 3:19, “By WISDOM the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place.”   Not by being smarter…  The great thing about wisdom is that one of the byproducts happens to be ‘smartness.’  But IBM doesn’t think about that.

So I guess my main problem is that I get what IBM means, but I think it lacks something, MORE, something transcendent, something IBM can’t quantify.  What do you think?

I say that tongue and cheek but I was thinking about that today at church. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church.  Commonplace in our regular weekly worship services was a pianist, organist and minister of music.  Usually the pianist or organist was the spouse of the pastor.

Today, that was how the scenario looked at our contemporary worship service. As I walked into the service, I was surprised to hear a solo piano and see us singing out of hymnals.  Why?  Because our service is a contemporary service that usually has a piano accompanied by several guitarists, a drummer and vocal accompaniment.  All the worship team was out this weekend and they needed music, now I know it sounds kind of odd but that is the nature of our worship service. 

Hearing the old hymns again brought back several emotions and thoughts, firstly about the idea that although my wife can play guitar, she is not a pianist , so if that excludes me from some senior pastor roles, then so be it.  I don’t believe God has called me to the senior pastor roll anytime soon.  Until then maybe my wife can start taking lessons when (or if) I go to seminary!

Lastly, do I think the church needs to present the “Timeless truth of the gospel with Timely Methods ,” as Mark Driscoll puts it?  Yes I do and I think we need to re-evaluate if, how and when we use hymnals at all, in the context of modern contemporary worship where screens have replaced decorative wall hangings behind the pulpit in churches.  That speaks to how timely our methods are at relating the gospel in a clear way.  We use the hymnal in our home to teach song, rhythm, doctrine and verse to our young children.

Because someone once told me that Hell was real!  I believed and still believe them.  The last few days as I drive home, I have been thinking, why does the church strive to identify with the grace of Christ?  Then yesterday, it hit me, I remember turning the steering wheel in my truck (I have a Big red truck, some say it’s a Napolean complex, I disagree) and saying AHA.

In a small group I was part of several years back, my leader defined grace for me.  He also defined mercy for me and the definitions have stuck ever since.   Grace is getting something we don’t deserve, while Mercy is not getting something we deserve.

I don’t hear the word Mercy tossed around in the Christian subculture I stay connected to.  To be honest, it saddens me a bit.  Mercy I believe is why I became a Christian.  His grace wasn’t made known until later in my journey.  Why did I first learn about his Mercy?  Because, we must understand his Mercy before we can accept his Grace!

What are your thoughts?

Do you know what the most popular mobile social networking tool is?  If you don’t, then get ready for something that will shake your world the likes you haven’t seen since you could carry your phone in your pocket.  The, now mature application, of Twitter.  Find it at twitter.com.  For those of you already in the know, what are you tweeting these days? Watch this video for the best explanation.  

In 2007 I was scouring the web for ways to connect my online calendar and my to do list to my phone from the confines of my computer and the WWW, when I discovered Twitter.  I signed up, and began using apps that accomplished that task, so I could send little text messages to my google calendar with appointments I made throughout my day.  I could also send text message reminders to my online to do list.  All the while being out and about away from my computer, meeting, eating, and playing with the "real world."  So that when I got back to my computer, all my tasks would be there at my computer for me to sort, all my appointments waiting neatly in the days I gave them.  So that is how I got started Tweeting.  Then something happened, mySpace became, my so boring space and facebook drew me in, then twitter connected to facebook and voila, I can now tweet my status updates and never need to access the web!!!!!!  (until I want to)   Then I had this thought…..

Is twitter really that new.  Everywhere I see people saying "Follow Me" on twitter @______ is my name and you can follow me….. everyone wants to have some followers but I’m here to proclaim, that I think Jesus was the ultimate first ever Tweeter!!!!  Check it out…

Speaking to Simon and Andrew in  Matthew 4:19 (NIV) Jesus says "Come Follow Me!  If Jesus had a twitter account what would that look like? 

Until then, you can follow me @jhcuatro!!!!!!!!!

We feel this pressure as parents, I surely understand it from my childhood experiences, but when I watch what is being promoted and fed to American children through the “Tube.”  My knees get weak and my eyes swell up.  I want to throw the TV out the window.  I want to move to Alaska or Iceland and live at the foot of some mountain.  It breaks my heart to see kids forget how to play, how to show grace and mercy to one another.  I want to scream, STOP!

My heart aches for the millions of children who will grow to be adults and not know how to say “NO” to stuff, to things!  The rise in weight related illness amongst children is staggering.  Kids are sedating themselves to death, and the collective ‘we’ as parents are allowing it to happen.  But The cycle has started, how can we break it?

(Here is the trailer to Consuming Kids)

First off, most radio edits to modern music bleep out words or phrases that have been deemed inappropriate for public use.  However that standard has slowly been bent and pushed over the years to the point where 2 different radio stations have different radio ‘edit’ versions of the same song.  (mostly due to the stations producers interpretation of that word ‘inappropriate’) But this particular song, Rockstar, had one word cut out, (I know this because I have heard both the uncut version and another radio stations radio edited version)   That word was the word “PILLS.”

I thought, isn’t it ironic that they would let words and phrases like “girls come easy and the drugs come cheap”  and “playboy bunnies” make the radio edit while editing the word ‘pills’ from the phrase “pop my pills from a pez dispenser.”   But being a youth minister and working with teens helps me understand why. Teens today are struggling with addictions to prescription drugs and “pills” have quickly become the number one teen problem.

Although I don’t condone such behavior or even like such lyrics in music, this is the kind of songs that are played at high school football games, middle school and high school dances and on popular radio stations all throughout America.  In case you don’t listen to anything but Christian music, I would challenge you to know what is being fed to our Children’s minds through their ears.

    When seraching for adoption agencies, a couple years ago, we fell in love with CHI.  Now CHI is slowly fading away, due to some unscrupulous  individuals that worked for them. I deal with Christian organizations as a profession and I have worked for and still work for different ones.  One thing I know is that Good Christian Organizations are run by people, and people are not perfect…just take a look at David or read Romans 3:23. 

    CHI is fading away and the fragment that is left is trying to pick up the pieces.  They are no longer able to fulfill adoptions in many countries because they lack the necessary credentials that were stripped from them because a handful of people that used to work for them, lied.   

    This makes us sad.  So as our government attempts to ‘solve’ a global economic ‘crisis’ we gasp and hold on to hope that our adoption agency, which we love and are grateful for, is able to once again unite families together forever.

“Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.”

I found this to be profound and quite true. The real honest thing is to identify these people and acknowledge that they are sitting with you at that table or in that coffee shop. They greatly affect the resulting relationship and can influence the connection between the two people.

When I meet someone new for the first time I really see this play out in our conversation. Every week during the school year I spend about an hour at the local high school meeting new teens and connecting with old ones. I sometimes enjoy the scrumptious nutritional lunch as well.

I notice this right away, the teens are trying to figure out who’s dad I am. Then I usually break the ice by introducing myself and saying what I do. Right away I see their minds struggling with how they identify themselves to me. “He’s not a teacher?! He is short?! Does he really care about me?!”

They ask themselves these clarifying questions before they even proceed to introduce themselves. Usually the defenses go up and they try to push me away by acting like a jerk or establishing their social dominance over me by poking fun at me. That’s ok, I’m a grown man, I am not confined by their social order.

Every-time I walk into a lunch room, I am reminded that I am clearly a missionary..

Powered by Qumana

His family and his wife then recall how they continued to disobey their strict parents by doing things as teens and young adults that their parents didn’t know about.  Raymond then goes upstairs and offers this not-so-great parenting advice to his 5 year old twin boys. 

"Promise to obey what your mother and I say until your 65?" "yes, dad!"  "We know you will do things when you get older and we can’t stop you or there is nothing we can do about it…just don’t let us find out.?"

First off, let me acknowledge that I believe our children will make poor decisions as teens and young adults, but I don’t believe there is nothing we can do about it.  We, as parents, have a great responsibility to not only try but seek help from others to help our child go from good child to Great Man or Woman. 

The second piece of his advice also rubbed me the wrong way because it told me as well as his twin boys.  Everything you do is okay with me especially if I don’t know how stupid you are going to be, or how close to death you come.  That kind of parenting is a lot like russian roulette… load it, spin it, then pull the trigger.  In other words what that says to kids is this, I give you permission, just don’t tell me, you can do whatever you want, I will close my eyes and pretend to not know, and hope you survive. 

Turn your head, close your ears and deceive yourself kind of parenting doesn’t work.  Instead we should, Open our eyes, turn our hearts toward God and our kids, and always correct and love them.