What Should Mom by Paid?

There is a great article on Salary.com about the calling of being a "Stay at Home Mom." In our society Mom's can be berated by those who think it is a disgrace to be home with the kids rather than building the career and making the big bucks. I was really encouraged by the positive tone of the article as well as the interviews with real live stay at home Moms.

Many such as USA Today are making a big deal about the articles salary calculation for Moms - and I would only say they pay calculated is far too low. But as many know, you cannot measure the value of a Mother's example, love, instruction and yes discipline of children.

More than anything both articles indicate that intelligent, professional, trained, and highly competent women are turning to their children rather than trying to be Mom and CEO at the same time. More power to the one trying to do it all. But I am encouraged by our generation's desire for family and home rather than simply "me and money." As a man married to a brilliant, educated, talented woman - who is leading our children at home, I cannot say how I marvel at my wife...So I will go ahead and say it: Kasey, I love you, you are awesome! I can't wait to see all that God will do in and through your life...As a mom, in different jobs, service and callings.

Here is the link to the Salary.com pieceSalary.com™ Careers & Jobs by Location and Category

Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

More information is now up concerning the 2006 Desiring God National Conference.

A new full length promotional trailer is online here.

HT - Theologica

Folk do read your blog you know...

There is an interesting article in the Boston Globe about employers reading people's blogs, MySpace, Facebook, etc. when they are interviewing them for a job. 

The counsel and commands of the Scriptures do apply to blogging

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; James 1:19 ESV

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor...Ephesians 4:25 ESV 

If you are interviewing for a job and you say: This job really sucks, I may just work there a year, and you write it on your blog.  Well...it seems you are being a bit two-faced, duplicitous with your possible employer, and stupid to write it on the blog. Here is an exerpt from the Boston Globe piece:

In October 2002, after an interview for a job at a nonprofit, she said, someone at the organization read her blog, where she had broadcast to the world that she wasn't actually all that interested in the job and didn't plan to stay for even a year if she were hired.

Don't lie to people, that is wrong.  Then to go and publish the truth on your blog...that is wrong and stupid.  One solution that was offered doesn't seem that great in my mind:

Natalie Gioella, a senior at Northeastern University, knows students who received offers for internships and co-op jobs, but were later turned down because of their postings on Facebook.com. So, Gioella, 23, doesn't post.

The other option would be: Post with integrity so people see who you actually are.  Or don't post and put on whatever face people want to see in your interviews; but that is a very hard way to live.

Here is the link: Job applicants' online musings get hard look - The Boston Globe

Marriage is for White People?

Al Mohler has an insightful commentary on marraige up on his blog. See - “Marriage is for White People”—The Decline of Marriage among African Americans To all my young brothers out there, both black and white. This call is for us:

In order for this to happen, couples of all ages, races, and ethnicities need to live out the fullness and fulfillment of marriage before the watching world. Christians have a special stake in this, because we understand that marriage is not only a social institution, but that is also the unique arena in which the glory of God is demonstrated in the holy relationship between the husband and his wife and in the proper ordering of the household as a testimony to the grace and goodness of God. Furthermore, we are the ones who know that we will give an answer for our responsibilities in marriage--and every single Christian has an important stake in this mission of recovering marriage. Above all, the church should be the one place where healthy marriages are nurtured, expected, supported, and lived out, not only before the congregation, but before the entire society.

God, preserve your vision for marriage in us, and through us...by your grace and to your renown. Help us we beg - redeem our sexuality, our marriages, and our children.

Thankful for a man I did not know

Many have probably heard by now of the passing of Ronald Nash.  Dr. Nash was a philosopher and a teacher in both secular institutions and evangelical seminaries.  I did not know Dr. Nash and was exposed to his work just recently through his excellent works Faith and Reason and Life's Ultimate Questions.  Both are fine introductions to Christian thought and philosophy in general.

Nash's emphasis on worldview and conceptual schemes coupled with his modified Augustinian epistemology was a fresh breeze to my mind this past summer.

I regret that I did not have the chance to study with him, but the Lord of Nash's philosophy saw fit to call him home.  Pray for the Nash family.  The church has lost a great defender of the truth and a looming figure of evangelical thought. 

 [Updated - Russell Moore now has a tribute online to Nash]

New Blog Coming Soon

We are busy working on a redesign of Power of Change Blog. We are moving to the Moveable Type platform in order to utilize blog categories and a little more robust design.

I think it will be similar to the current blog yet better looking and a bit more organized. Be ready to point your feedreader to a new address. I'll let everyone know the address when it is ready to roll. ...

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Mark Noll Leaving Wheaton for Notre Dame - Christianity Today Magazine

Mark Noll Leaving Wheaton for Notre Dame Best wishes to a great historian heading to Notre Dame. May he sit well in George Marsdens seat. (HT - Theologica) ...

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Steelers Win Fifth Super Bowl Title

Steelers Win Fifth Super Bowl Title - Yahoo! News

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Steelers win...

I had one of these as a little kid in the 70s when I was a huge Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swan, Rocky Blyer and John Stalworth fan. Time to bring the Steeler Gold and Black back into play as the 2005 edition of the Pittsburgh club is going to the Super Bowl.

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Mark Driscoll's blog | Resurgence

Mark Driscoll has started blogging - sort of. It looks like a new cooperative network of evangelical theologians and pastors is forming who desire to hold to the historical gospel, engage missionally in culture, and get some cool hang time together if forming. Driscoll - thanks for not going down the Pelagian finger painting roads that many emerging people are slopping around in. My next generation sisters and brothers, get in the Resurgence and pass on emgergent. Here is the call...

As another generation comes of age, the Gospel of Jesus Christ must resurge to meet the needs of people and their continually changing cultures. The time has come for the church to move forward into the time and place for which God purposed us, and to meet our day with unchanging, vibrant, unabashed Truth.

Thanks for the capital T in truth - I feel you dog...praying for resurgence Link - Mark Driscoll's blog | Resurgence ...

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Pregnant Skydiver Survives Face-First Fall

This is a crazy story - BREITBART.COM - Pregnant Skydiver Survives Face-First Fall HT (JivinJehosophat)

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From Vampires to Christ the Lord

Many are familiar with the vampire novels written by Anne Rice. Some of you may have heard of her recent return to the Roman Catholic Church out of decades of wandering in existential thought and unbelief. There is an interesting interview with her on Christianity Today's Web Site. ...

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Fox News airs footage of Sex Power God - Campus News

This Thursday I am going up to Brown University to speak to a group of people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. See the following article from the Brown Daily Herald - the Campus Newspaper of the University. This article is pretty unbelievable. Not because it describes a party that sounds essentially like an orgy, but the response of the students who were there. Mind you, these students were partially or mostly naked, making out in public, it is reported that some were having sex at the party in the open etc. Were they ashamed to go and do this? No, they are angry because it was video taped. Here are a few quotes:

One student who appeared in the producer's footage and wished to remain anonymous said she found it "incredibly offensive" that Fox News videotaped and aired images of her without her permission. "I am a student now but I will one day be a professional," she said. "I never thought that going to such a social function would have such jeopardizing consequences for me." Monica Skeldon '06, who was shown briefly as Watters described same-sex kissing, said she felt "a little violated" that she was taped without her knowledge. Tumiski said he was upset that his image was shown on television without his permission. "They didn't have to show our faces. I thought that was unnecessary," he said.

It is a strange tale of a people flaunting morality, but not wanting to be shown as doing so... Jesus once said: "For God so loved the world,[g] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God." I'm so thankful that Jesus forgives and redeems the lives of those like myself who do wicked things. That he draws us to himself, brings us into the light to expose us...so that we might call upon the God of grace who sent his son to a cross to redeem us, to make us knew, who once walked in darkness. Full Article from the Brown Daily Herald -- Fox News airs footage of Sex Power God - Campus News ...

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What It's Like to Work at Google

Justin Taylor has pulled some fun quotes from a Washington Post article about the internal culture at Google Worth your time to read. Source - Theologica - Between Two Worlds: What It's Like to Work at Google

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Archaelogical Evidence for the Philistine Giant Goliath

A story commonly scoffed at by doubtful folks has found some verification at the tip of the archaelogist's spade.

Get em David! Link - Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath - Yahoo! News

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Ancient church found on jail site

Cool article on the BBC about the archaelogical find of an ancient church in the Holy Land. Link - BBC NEWS | Middle East | Ancient church found on jail site ...

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Katrina...

Donate to Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts. The following are recommended by Desiring God Ministries to assist victims of Hurrican Katrina:

• Castle Rock Community Church and Urban Impact Ministries exists together to transform the Central City of New Orleans through Spiritual Development, Christian Community Development and Strategic Partnerships. Last summer, Bethlehem’s Youth Pastor, Brad Nelson, brought a short-term mission team to assist with the summer outreach. Now the ministry staff and church people have scattered. Seventy have evacuated to Arkansas.
• Desire Street Fellowship and Desire Street Ministries are located in New Orleans. Pastor Mo Leverett and his wife moved into the Desire neighborhood and founded DSM in 1990, a time when the Desire project was ranked the worst in the country. The ministry has planted a church, Desire Street Fellowship and a school, Desire Street Academy. In the wake of the hurricane, the staff has been scattered taking with them many of the 200 boys from the school. For the time being they are planning to set up a temporary school in Atlanta. They tell us, “Our greatest immediate needs are for prayers and funding.”
• The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Missions Board has a Disaster Relief section on the website. There you will find several ministry avenues for disbursing relief through Southern Baptist churches and affiliations.
• World Relief can also be supported directly with an online donation or by mailing a check to: Katrina Hurricane Relief Effort, World Relief, 7 E Baltimore St, Baltimore, MD 21202 or call (800) 535-5433.
• Prison Fellowship is gathering critical supplies—toiletries, blankets, etc.—to truck down to Louisiana’s prisons. You can donate online or by calling (800) 206-9764.

An interesting essay by John Piper is available from Desiring God Ministries as well. In times of tragedy, crying out to God, repentence, trust in the Cross of Christ is the only way. Katrina has reminded me of several things in the human condition. Here are some things I have learned:

1. The pride of man to build a city in a bowl, protected by levees, a disaster waiting to happen...Pride goes before destruction,and a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18
2. The kindness of human beings. The compassion of people on their neighbors has been an amazing thing to observe. Particularly the rallying of churches and believers to give, go, pray, open homes, has been a testimony to the God worshipped by these people.
3. The depravity of man. Beyond race, color, creed, or political persuasion, people have evidence the truth of Scripture - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The reports of rape, looting, violence has brought discouragement to many - oh how much more to live through this on the ground. Many brave souls have seen such depravity, yet held on to hope.
4. We are not as strong as we think we are. In the last 100 years the wonderful technological advancement has given the illusion of stability and the easy life to far too many. The reality is that we are but dust, a fraile creature, each of our deaths certain. Those who perished in Katrina passed on in a drastic, tragic fashion. The rest of us have the same appointment, whether quickly or in a few score years from now, slowly dying with tubes and machines hooked to our bodies. The end is the same.

Who can escape this body of death, who can escape this body of sin - but by the grace of God in the person of Christ - we live and then die without hope. In the midst of great suffering, the ancient patriarch Job cried out "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him" Such is our only recourse - our God is a present help in a time of trouble. An old hymn comes to mind:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul. It is Well with My Soul by Horatio Spafford

Such was written in tragedy by a man who had just lost his children in a shipwreck. Such is the soul established on the rock of Christ and a life built on his words (Matthew 7:24, 25) .

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Louisiana's Wetlands @ National Geographic Magazine

Reading this article - which ran in Oct 2004 - is a bit spooky... We are not as strong as we think we are...we think we are the masters of our world. We are not...we are not... Gone with the Water

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Is it Hot Outside?

Graphic from usatoday.com Accessed July 25, 2005.

There are some days I thank God for nature in all its beauty and severity, other times I thank him for the insight and wisdom of human innovation and technology...today, I thank God for air conditioning! .

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British Abbey rejects Da Vinci Code film plans - Yahoo! News

It seems like the leadership of the Anglican church still has some backbone on some issues... British Abbey rejects Da Vinci Code film plans - Yahoo! News

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