The Flood - GodsCharacter.com

The Flood - GodsCharacter.com

Here is a video on my flood post from earlier. It is interesting.

Why do we need Adventist Ed

Why  Keep Adventist Ed?
We like to brag that we are the second largest parochial school system in the world. And we have reason to brag. If I were to poll my pastor/youth pastor peers, I can guarantee that they would like to have the amount of hours discipling students that we, as Adventists, have with students that go to our schools. The trade off of student's being able to do evangelism on public school campuses pales in comparison to the foundation that 6 hours a day, 5 days a week can build in students taught by Christian teachers.

A book came out a few years ago, How to Kill Adventist Education by Shane Anderson, as well as a book by George Knight, The Apocalyptic Vision and the Neutering of Adventism that came to similar conclusions. While I didn't agree with all of their findings, I do agree that we as Adventists have a reason to exist. We do offer something to the 'body' of Christ, which is his Church (all denominations.) The Christian world would be worse off if Adventists didn't exist. Just as it would be worse off if Baptists, Lutherans, or Methodists cease to exist. Our distinctness adds value to the picture of God that is portrayed to the world.

Adventist Education, in my mind, is the key to holding that together in North America. Think about it, without Adventist Education my fear is that the church will cease to exist. In other words if all our schools closed today I don't think we'd have a church for my grandchildren to go to. The friends and peers that are made in school last a life time, if those relationships: friends, spouses are not Adventist or tied to the church somehow, all of the sudden we cease to exist...

Next...some ways to improve on the system.

Go Big, until we go home

Those of you who get this blog know that I'm excited about Adventist Christian Education. I'd like to start a series of posts about how we fix the system before it's too late. Some posts may sound like rants, some may be musings about how we could improve. At the end of the day however, I hope that the reader knows that I want Adventist Christian Education (K-12) to endure. It really is a great institution.

Go Big...
Right now in my church it costs our church around $10,000 for each student, each year that they go to our school. That number doesn't even include the tuition that the student pays. That is a lot of money invested in to students. Now, I'm not complaining but guess what my youth budget is?  Its somewhere south of $10000 when you include all the Sabbath School expenses, VBS, etc. I have over 80 students that attend my church on a regular basis K-12 and of those kids only 8 go to the school. Do the math...We are spending over $80,000 on the 8 kids who go to the school out of our budget and $10,000 on the 70 who don't go to the school.

Some would say that is going big, and to some degree I would agree with them. I wonder how many churches face a similar problem? I hope they do. Because far to many of the churches in my area are choosing to not fund their children at all. That HAS to change if we are going to keep any semblance of Adventist Education...

Next, why do we need Adventist Education

What's the Plus side for God in this story?

I was working on a study for my 5-8th grade bible study group today...We are going to be going over the Great Controversy. Now in my opinion it is hard to argue the rift between Good and Evil, God and Satan. It is hard to argue the existence of Satan. (I won't go into my challenges with using Isaiah 14, and Eze. 28 as proofs of Satan's rebellion) Anyways the belief statement ties the flood into this story and it got me thinking, how was the flood a win situation for God in the Great Controversy theme? Seems to me that the flood could have been used as proof that God was a tyrant that just wanted to get his own way?

Now I'm a believer in miracles and even in God's intervention in nature. But could the narrative about the flood be God trying to save people from an upcoming natural disaster, wanting to save everybody?

I'm not going to bring any of this up with the kids, but I'd love to hear some feedback.  How does the flood make God look good? Or how does it play into the Great Controversy theme? Isn't it just like the kid who is losing at checkers so they decide to knock over the board to get a new game?

Sorry to sound sacrilegious.
Benji

Lets get along

I wonder if Facebook sometimes challenges relationships. I’ve noticed a couple of groups in my youth group that are having challenges this week. I think it’s that time of year, but I hate seeing relationships hurt.  Here are a couple of hints:

•  Facebook is not the place to air out personal grievances. Pick up the phone, go get ice cream together, grab a cup of joe.
•  Another boy/girl is not a good reason to lose a friend. God values all of our relationships and our relationships here on earth model the relationship we have with God.
•  Reconcile, Reconcile, Reconcile. If you can learn to work through differences you will go a long way in life. I believe Jesus said something about forgiving 70x7.
• The way we treat each other as Christians is the way people outside the church view Jesus. Take a second to think that over.

Over the years I’ve had lots of students (and Adults) who have had challenges with each other. I know that even the biggest differences can be resolved. Let’s not ignore problems, but face them head on with candor and courage. Often we grow in our understanding of each other and as a result in our God.

Keeping Jesus #1

The Real Economics of Christian Education

I've spend a lot of time in the last few months thinking about Christian Education. (for you non SDA's out there by Christian Education right now I am talking about school, not discipleship classes on Sunday/Sabbath mornings.) Anyways now that we have that cleared up, the Adventist church is about to go through some very difficult times or is already going through difficult times depending on where you are (AUC/WAU, you know what I"m talking about.) And there are many out there that are thinking of ways we can do this more easily by tightening our belts. I think that while we need to be good stewards of God's money, this is not the first thing we should do. We have already found that this hurts us.

First of all let me tell you about our church situation. Our local congregation, a great one at that with a little over 600 members, has over the last 4-5 years pumped around 200k-400k into our school. I could go into a lot of details about those numbers, but they would not necessarily help in my points here. I ask my self, if we did not put that money into the school where would it have gone? Perhaps we'd have a new sanctuary by now, or a youth room or a few more pastors? My belief is that money and the money people paid for tuition would have stayed in their pockets. We are really good at laying up our treasures here on earth, instead of in people. Stuff doesn't go to heaven, people do.

Perhaps, one of the great things that Christian Schooling does is that it helps us not accumlulate so much worthless stuff. I spent this evening in a very nice mall in Edina. One of the stores I went into was Crate and Barrel. As I perused the store I found many things that were both useful and very attractive. But as I was walking out (empty handed) of the store I made the comment to my wife, "There was a lot of really good looking stuff in there that we don't really need." I guess I need to challenge myself sometimes do I really need that? the answer is usually know. Now, don't get me wrong I impulse buy with the best of them, and sometimes we do need to just have a little happiness in life, but perhaps its things like having a tight budget that keep our spending in check as well as our priorities in the right place. And nothing says tight budget like 2-3 kids in Christian school.

So while it may be cheaper to do Christian Education other ways, perhaps the idea of investing in people, both teachers and students is actually the wisest Kingdom Economics thing we can do.

Keeping Jesus #1

Feeling a little Lance Armstrongish

Ok so today I started Cytoxan which is a form of Chemo therapy for my Minimal Change Disease. It's a long story. Its kinda scary. I don't know what the side effects will be but there is something unsettling about taking 10 pills when you get up in the morning. Anyways as always chin up and hope for the best. who knows what the future holds make each day count.


For those who even mildly care...which I doubt you do, but the purpose of this is to get me off of another drug, which was working but can cause cancer in 25% of people taking, and hopefully wean me off medicine all together and put this into remission. That would be awesome. Nonetheless I still may be on something called Cellcept for a long time but its better than the drug I'm on now.
For all of you CHIPer's and health nuts out there I have looked at alternative methods and both Google and some Dr.'s that I trust say that for this there really isn't much you can do for this disease. In fact I am in such a small segment of the population that right now my Dr. describes what we are doing as 'voodoo' medicine because there is just no research on cures for what I have. that's encouraging isn't it.
Well my class is coming in now so I gotta go. I have lots to blog about especially Adventist Education! so keep your ears tuned.

So we had buttermilk left over in the fridge so I decided to make buttermilk pancakes. the recipe on cooks.com was not tasty. However the evening was saved by my syrup. Got lucky with it and decided to share. All measurements are approximate

1 Cup Apple Juice
1 Cup cubed Mango (used trader Joe's frozen mango chunks)
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup light coconut milk
2 tsp corn starch

Bring Apple Juice, mango, coconut and coconut milk to a simmer. I used my hand blender to semi-puree the mango, but I left a few chunks. Dissolve the corn starch in water and add to mixture return to simmer for a couple of minutes and then remove from heat.

It was pretty yummy so I decided to share...

Ideas for the future, add pineapple chunks, perhaps some candied ginger or ginger powder?

Secrets of girls need exposure

This morning as I was putting on a spritz of the cologne (Tommy Hilfiger) that I've had since college(same bottle), I was reminded of one of the mysteries of life. As a guy who is happily married for almost 10 years I feel it is high time that I receive some answers. Here's my question...How come, in college, whenever I, as the perfect gentleman that I was, loaned out my sweater, coat, or hoodie to a girl did it come back smelling like it had been dipped in the pools of heaven? How do girls do that? I would actually loan out stuff and then not wash it for weeks until the wonderful smell wore off? It wasn't just one girl, its a universal phenomenon it seems that this is a conspiracy. I've tried different sprays, laundry detergents...none of if recreates that smell. I'm completely mystified and my wife is no help it's like there is some sort of conspiracy. Can any of you in Facebook/Blogger land help with this great mystery of life? Thanks

Communion and more

Ok so below I'd like to post the Special Feature article that I put in the Bulletin this week so that we can get some discussion going on the topic. Part of what made this topic interesting to me is that I've been really wondering for the last few years "what's next." I remember in high school and college how Contemporary Christian Music was what gave the Christian youth of the 90's and early 2000's their identity in the church separate from the adults. Then the adults started liking that music too. Now in my youth group the parents and kids basically listen to the same music, ok the parents are 2-3 years behind, but music no longer creates an identity for youth culture. So how do the youth 'rebel' or feel different or create their own thing for church? To me this is a very interesting topic and perhaps, according to Youth Ministry 3.0 it is an irrelevant question for this generation. Below is the article I wrote:

I don’t know about you but I love to read. I probably read about 5-6 books a month. In fact if you see me walking around with headphones in my ear (which admittedly is a lot of the time) I’m probably listening to a book. (Does that still count as reading? I like to think so.) If you’re a reader like me then you probably also have an ever growing stack of books to be read sitting somewhere in your house. This week I was able to pick up a book from that stack and read it through, and I found some insights that may be valuable to us as a church. See what you think.

As many of you know I like change, probably more than most people. Because of that I’m always on the lookout for trends and asking myself the question “What’s next?” I’ve been challenged in many ways because the future has looked somewhat cloudy. In the past I could go to conferences, hear speakers, listen to the newest music and put my finger on the “next new thing” that was going to bring effective change to the church. However, over the last few years the “next new thing” has gotten seemingly more elusive. In my reading this week I began to get some clarity on why it has been so difficult to identify the newest trends. I was reading a book by Mark Oestreicher called Youth Ministry 3.0. In it he identifies that our culture, especially youth culture, has become more and more contextualized. What this means is that one thing, one program, one event, doesn’t work anymore. This is not only true in culture, but I would venture to guess that even in a church our size that there are multiple contexts and communities within our small congregation. There is no “next new thing” anymore! So how do we be relevant and missional? Perhaps some of the answers come in the idea of community. I know that it is somewhat of a catch phrase, but the more I look at church and it’s reason for existence (even in multiple cultural contexts) community seems to rise to the top. Community answers the key question of the postmodern era “where do I belong and to whom.”

The following are some key concepts of what communion is as described in the above mentioned book. See if you agree, and ask yourself the question as I am: Is the Minnetonka church doing this well? If it isn’t, how can we do better?

"Communion is best done small

Communion building takes time and takes patience

Communion is simple and not flashy

Communion is fluid

Communion is present – it demands face time and lives in the here and now

Communion is Jesus-y – God is expected to show up"

Haircuts

So I went in for a haircut today, much needed. Maybe this is just me but getting a haircut is always a little awkward. Most of you know that I'm a 'people' person, but its just always a little awkward talking to the hairstylist. It's not like you can ask them what the do for a living as a conversation starter.

Anyways, let's get to the point here, I sit down in the chair and get comfortable and then comes the question: "What do you want me to do to your hair" or something like that...The problem is that I never know? Sometimes I'll try to say one thing or another, but what I've found is that I usually don't like the product that I try to explain to the stylist. Tonight I think I surprised the stylist, but just saying, "do what you think is best and I guarantee I'll be happy with it." And you know what, I was. Hey they are the professionals not me, if you can call Great Clips professionals :) So I wasn't sure whether to make that part of my Facebook status or make it part of a blog since I haven't blogged since April. You can see what decision I made.

So as all this is mulling over in my mind, still sitting in the chair, I wonder what my decision making process about getting a haircut says about me? Still not sure, but its fun to think about why we think the way we think.

Sorry for not posting anything deep tonight.
Benji

Prophetic Arrogance

First let me say before you get up in arms. I'm a big Ellen White fan, for my non-Adventist readers, look her up www.whiteestate.org

I'm sitting here in Prophets class and thinking about the role of the prophet. One of the problems that Israel had was an arrogance that God was only for them because they were the ones who got the prophets. (Interestingly enough look at how much of the writing of the prophets deals with other nations) this notion blinded Israel to the fact that God was a God for all nations, the Abrahamic covenant was for everybody.

Are Adventist falling into the same trap as Israel and thinking that God's message, through his prophetic revelation in Ellen White, means that we have a corner on truth and on God's favor. That line of thinking didn't turn out too well for Israel. How do we not repeat that mistake without throwing out the 'real' role that prophets play.

Question for thought.

Adventist Education

Below I'm going to post an article I just wrote for our church newsletter about the impact of Adventist Education in our church. I know that the system is hurting and in some cases has its issues. But I think you will see from the article the importance that having a both a strong youth program and a Christian school. I know that the three legged stool is an over used metaphor, but I really think that if the home, the church and the school work together we will do the best at keeping students involved in the church. We have a much better chance with these three working together than we do without it. Let me know what you think of the article and perhaps post your pros and cons of Adventist Education. How can we do better, how can we save the system, should we work to save the system?

"As we are faced with the financial crunches at MCA it is easy for us to ask whether having the school is worth it. I have had the benefit of observing the impact Adventist Education has had over the last 9 years, specifically through MCA. I can not speak for MCA students that attend other churches, but I have kept track of the students who are part of our youth ministry. I have long been curious about whether there is a correlation between church attendance and being enrolled at MCA or another Adventist school. Over the past several weeks I have gathered data about 120 students who are either currently High School aged or have graduated from our youth ministry. For the current students separated them into four groups: Public School, Other Christian School, MCA, Other SDA schools. Then I looked at their attendance at church, those students I see at church more than twice a month I marked as involved, less than twice a month: occasional and those I don’t see over a two month period: not involved. Currently there are 35 students in the High School Ministry. As far as our average we are at an all time low of students from the youth group who attend High School at 43%. The average of our alumni who attended MCA is 53%. As you can see both with the alumni and our current students about 60% of the students are actively involved. Here is where the rubber meets the road however. The question to ask is ‘does going to MCA increase the chance of a student being involved in Church?’ Here is what the numbers say 83% of the students who attend an Adventist school are involved in church and the other 17% are occasionally involved. Of the students who do not attend an Adventist school the numbers are different, 35% are involved 17% are occasionally involved and 48% are not involved.

The numbers are impressively stacked in MCA’s favor for our current students, but what about the 84 students who are alumni of our youth program. As you can see from the graphs 53% of our alumni graduated from MCA with a whopping 70% attending Adventist Education. What interested me was the difference in church involvement between those two groups. Historically has MCA been an influencer of future church attendance or involvement. I must admit that there are some assumptions with these numbers and that they are in no way 100% accurate, but I feel that the margin of error is within acceptable ranges. According to national polls of high school students, it is generally understood that 60% of students leave the church after graduating from high school. So that is a benchmark for us to look at. According to my data the students from our church defy those numbers, in our case 68% of our students who attend an Adventist school are still involved in church. This is contrasted with 44% of the students who did not attend Adventist high schools currently being involved in church! That is a big difference. Not only are we 28% above the national average with the kids that attend MCA the numbers for those who did not attend MCA are right around the national average. This tells me two things. First MCA is very important and is beneficial to the long term future of our church. Secondly this tells me that if students do not attend MCA we must to better at keeping them as part of the church. I hope as we consider the future of MCA and Adventist Education in the metro area we keep these numbers in mind, I am so grateful to the commitment of the Minnetonka church’s dedication to Adventist Education and to Youth Ministry. Our kids are important! Let’s keep fighting on their behalf and seeking God’s will for the future of our church."

Sabbath and Sports

A few weeks ago in our staff meeting at church we were discussing the impact of sports on church attendance. Over the years this is something that I have thought about a lot and over the course of this post I hope to explore (and journey together) some of the issues that are being risen by this recent phenomenon in the Adventist Church.

I have found myself on both sides of this issue. Growing up one of the greatest benefits of having an Adventist Education, (it still is a great benefit) is that I didn't have to choose between playing sports and the Sabbath. This choice was made less difficult because I never made a sports team :). My Senior year of high school I went to my first High School football game because a good friend of mine, Kyle, was playing. I remember how rebellious, cool, and guilty I felt as I went to the game and then went to a local pool hall afterwards to hang out with people we'd met at the game. I stayed up so late that it was difficult to make it to church the following day.

As I began youth ministry, the first church I pastored at had no kids in Adventist Education. All the kids attended public school. Dances, and sporting events were all on Friday night and so I had the difficult decision to make about whether I should attend games when invited by students. Part of me wanted to show up and support the kids and part of me wanted to show them my respect for the Sabbath. I remember reading about athletes and teams who had taken a stand and refused to play on Sabbath, and articles were written in the youth magazines lifting them up as heroes of the church for making difficult decisions.

Being a big fan myself, I also read about athletes like Deion Sanders and James Worthy who took a stand for their faith as Christians and were able to spread the gospel in their respective sports. As I thought about it, I was sad that there would never be an Adventist who could share our unique and valuable perspective on Jesus with the sports world. If we were to share the gospel to the entire world didn't that mean athletes? And if people did accept the Sabbath would that mean that they would no longer be able to use their greatest gift to minister to other athletes and use the stage of sport to spread the gospel and the blessings of Sabbath? I didn't have good answers for these questions, and perhaps I still don't. So I left the issue alone.

Recently my mind has returned to these issues. More and more, kids at our church, beginning as young as 5th grade are choosing sports over church and worship. Kids are joining a traveling team or they have tournaments that all take place over a whole weekend. Kids and parents are more and more often choosing sports over community worship. And I, as a pastor, am starting to get worried. Are we going to lose a generation of kids to because of sports. I am seeing that sports is the catalyst that begins the slippery slope of prioritizing things higher than corporate worship. I would love to see some posts by my non-Adventist friends on whether this is an issue in their youth groups as well.

So I want to start a conversation. I am more and more convinced that God is concerned about community and unity. Worship services are one of the church's greatest tools of creating these two things, and more and more families are missing out. Does this concern you or am I over reacting. I'm hoping that people will post on both sides of the issue.

p.s.
After seeing some of the posts I wanted to put up this chart that I have used to evaluate Sabbath in my life. I try to find the balance between Rest (stopping, taking a break) Blessed (what brings joy, happiness) and Holy (set apart for God) which is what God intended the Sabbath to be. I try each week to eat the whole pie, but sometimes more often than not, I fail. I think that for me the most difficult part of the pie is to find the holy aspect of the Sabbath. It is easy to stop our everyday activites and take a break from them, it is easy to be happy (Isa 58) but to find the holiness of God through the Sabbath can be the critical evaluator when we determine how to be fully enriched by the blessing of keeping the Sabbath.

Is it time to change our Outlook.

I'm a little frustrated with our eschatology. Why are we always doom and gloom? This morning at church during prayer I heard the lament again of how awful this world is and that things are going downhill so fast that Jesus better come quick to yank us out of this miserable existence. Now, I will freely admit that I have lived a relatively pain free and sheltered life. Sure I've had some bad things happen to me, but not to the extent of many people especially the millions of children who will die this week because of starvation. But for a while now I've been a little miffed by the view that this world for the lack of a better term, sucks.

I'm blogging about that this week because I am in the middle of reading a book titled "Younger Evangelicals", while I don't really consider myself and evangelical there are many things about the book that resonated with me. In a nutshell what the book said was that from 1950-1975 fundamentalist evangelicals held the view that since Jesus was coming pretty soon, (premillinialism, which Adventism including myself believes) we don't really have to worry about the problems of the world, i.e. the environment, the poor, social justice, because Jesus was going to come and judge everybody and we'd go to heaven and live wonderful blissful lives. I'm finding that this view (often promoted by modernistic evangelists) has gotten the Church (capital C) into a lot of trouble.

I remember being about 15 the first time I thought about Adventist believes in this vein. I had heard through Revelation Seminars or maybe at school that at the end of time those who worship on Sabbath would be persecuted and that Sunday worship laws would force us to choose between the Sabbath and our lives. (Theoretically this could all still happen, who knows) These events would mean that Jesus was about to come. My thinking at the time was why in the world are we paying all of these lawyers to protect the Sabbath, just let it go and Jesus will come sooner!

My postmodernism has taken over my thoughts in this area. I have travelled to several parts of the world. Interestingly enough people are pretty happy. In fact I'm pretty happy. I like living, I like growing in the shape and purpose that God intends for me. I like hearing the stories of peoples lives. I like technology, I like my family, I enjoy a good meal, playing games, sports, music. In spite of some of the crummy things that happen I dig the life that God has given me. So I just don't resonate with doom and gloom eschatalogical thinking. Why do we focus on the bad instead of leading people to the good?

I like to think that I'm looking forward to Jesus second coming as much as the next guy, but perhaps I also am looking forward to the journey of searching for Jesus in this life as well. What do you all think?

Day 2 -- Chillaxin' at the hospital

After getting a few hours of rest at home I'm back at the hospital this morning. What an awesome expeience being a dad again. Holly is just so wonderful, she wiggles and loves being held. Amazingly she has taken to feeding right away with no problems at all. Just a content, and very little, baby.
I thought that I'd go into why we chose the name Holly. First of all like Dylan we made some lists of names, (this time it was even easier because of a sweet application on Steph's ipod touch). Holly is cool for us in many ways, it derives from the term Holy which means set apart and special. Holly is also the birth flower for Dylan's birthmonth (Christmas time duh) so that was a nice tie into Dylan as well.
Marie is my mothers middle name so that ties Holly to my side of the family and Dylan is tied to Stephanies family by his middle name. Marie Carlson is also a great mom here in our church that has been very good to our family and has been present at both our kids birth so the middle name was easy to choose. Here is a video I took with my web cam this morning. Holly has so much hair compared to Dylan and it is very dark. We can't quite figure out who she looks like yet, but tell Stephanie that she looks like her :)

Welcome Holly Marie Ferguson

At 8:55 Holly Marie joined us. She weighted 6.2 and is 19 inches long. Everything went fine and we are super excited. She is a beautiful baby girl with wonderful dark hair and bluish grey. Pictures and video very soon.

We're getting on the schedule

Right now there is an anesthesiologist in the room getting Stephanie all set up, blood work, IV and we're going in for surgury between 7 and 7:30. I'm still trying to crank out a paper on the Chronicles of Narnia for my seminary class. I know it sounds rediculous. But this crazy girl is coming early.
I wonder if this is a sign of things to come, this young lady is going to have a mind of her own. I think I'm in trouble :)

Update: We are now scheduled for 8:30. Dr. Dedeker/Torres is coming in for the surgury. Steph is busy puddling on her chux. Dont' ask, the nurse just said it and it sounded funny. So my next post should be after the baby is born!

A long drive

So here we are in the hospital, we got a bunch of snow and of course Steph's water broke during rush hour on top of that. So it took about 40 mins to get here, but we're here and Steph is in her hospital gown and now she is getting hooked up to the monitors now. Anyways we'll keep you up to date with whats going on.

The Best Laid Plans

So.. about 15 minutes ago I'm working on a paper for my class and I see Stephanie rushing for the bathroom...It seems that her water just broke so we're heading to the hospital now. Not sure what is in store, but I'll keep people informed.