Continuing at a new web address

I've relocated both my Daily Devotional Writing from Pastor Scott and my General Writing from Pastor Scott to a new service, Nazareneblogs. The new web address for my devotional writing is http://nazareneblogs.org/pastorscott/ and my General writing is now at http://nazareneblogs.org/miscellany/. I'll leave everything as it is here on Blogger, at least for the time being but my new entries are there.

If you receive these articles via email, you should continue doing so with no interruption of service, including a new one for today. If you don't receive them please let me know and I'll look into it.

Windows Mobile 6.1 - broken "to do" task list

I recently upgraded to a new Smartphone that has Windows Mobile 6.1 on it. It's a neat little phone and I do use the PDA side of it a lot. I like having my Outlook calendar, contacts, etc. with me all the time. I also keep certain files in sync between my desktop and my Smartphone. Once I imported everything to the new phone, I was surprised to see that my "to do" list had every single future event listed. In Outlook, I have the task list set up to only show current tasks. Apparently, Mobile 6.1 thinks that even a task that isn't scheduled to start for 2 years yet is "current." That's just plain dumb and it makes the task list on the smartphone much harder to use. I tried some third party stuff, but none of them worked with the simplicity of the Outlook task list. I also found several places on the internet where others are complaining about this new "feature." Apparently, Microsoft is "working on it." Isn't that strange! It worked fine since the beginning of Windows Mobile but now they can't figure out how to fix it!

So, after using Outlook+Windows Mobile+ActiveSync for years, I've gone looking for a replacement. My solution isn't perfect but here's what I ended up doing.

I use Gmail for all my email so I'm on that webpage all the time anyway (actually, I never close it). After fooling with Gmail's own task plugin, I opted to go with Remember the Milk plus their Gmail plug in. I put all my task list items there rather than in Outlook.

The only drawbacks are: I don't have access to my tasks unless I am on Gmail and I don't have them in my Smartphone anymore.

A few years ago, I decided Gmail worked better for me for email than Outlook did. Now, I've decided that Gmail+RTM works better than Outlook for the "to do" list. All I have left on Outlook is contacts and calendar, both of which still work better for me in an office environment than Google's offerings.

However, if Microsoft keeps messing around, I may be cutting yet another of my ties with them soon.

Book review: "Common Ground" by Keith Drury

I've just finished Keith Drury's "Common Ground - What All Christians Believe and Why it Matters."

The book consists of 10 page essays on the elements of the Apostle's Creed. Since the earliest days of Christianity the Apostle's Creed has stated that faith of the followers of Jesus. Drury takes each phrase of this ancient creed and helps us understand why it is included in this crucial statement of faith.

The book isn't long and is easy to read. At times the prose is absolutely beautiful and reads like poetry. The chapter on "Jesus Christ" is very good. Also, the chapter on "Forgiveness of sins" blessed my heart.

Drury includes considerable church history in his essays, helping us understand how the Church arrived at each particular statement in the creed.

Even a life time "low churcher" like me comes away with a fresh appreciation for this ancient creed which has been a part of Christianity from it's first baby steps.

Review of "The Shack" by William P. Young

I started reading "The Shack" by William P. Young and couldn't get through the first few chapters. I didn't think I wanted to wade through all the nightmare stuff.

So, I stopped reading after the first chapter or so. Then a couple of months later I heard people talking about it and decided to give it another try. Instead of reading it, I just scanned through the first 4 chapters enough to know what happened and then joined the story from chapter 5 on.

I find the story of the weekend to be quite compelling and love the emphasis on the Trinity and the relationship within the Godhead.

I am helped by several of the teaching aspects of the book -- especially the constant message of God's desire to have a relationship with people. I doubt I will ever forget that the Lord is especially fond of each of us. I also love the description of the "wastefulness of grace."

I like the way Jesus is described. His manhood, humanness is very easy to connect to.

I like the good natured response of the Trinity to mistakes and misunderstandings and the powerful emphasis on grace.

Two things that make me somewhat uncomfortable:

1. The seeming universalism in the theology. I wish that at some point there is an acknowledgment that humans can ultimately and finally reject the love and grace of God. The presence of Mac's father with no background on how that came to be seems to underscore the universalism message.

2. The encounter with Misty coupled with the funeral scene makes no mention of a bodily resurrection. We have Jesus, very human and much is made of that. Then we have Misty and the "night of lights" as though that is all there is to it. Even the funeral service contains no mention of resurrection.

So, I think I'll subtract one point for the background story being unnecessarily disturbing and intense. I'll take away another point and a half for the two theological issues I mentioned.

For me, that should give the book a score of 7.5 -- however, my gut is that it has terrific potential to speak to people in compelling ways on the issues of human suffering, the nature of God, and the good will of God toward all human beings. The final rank, then, to me is more like a 9 or a 9.5. In other words: if you haven't done so yet, you ought to read this book!

My Devotional Writing Blog

As a personal discipline I started writing short devotionals in blog form in June of 2005. By the end of December, 2008 I will have finished writing through the Old Testament - around 780 devotionals. Actually, I don't write for others as much as I write for myself as it helps me process things more thoroughly.

Anyway, I've decided not to press forward into the New Testament. Instead, I'm going back to Genesis and starting again. Early on in my writing I was more haphazard in what I wrote about and tended to skip through books. I never imagined this would settle into a long term project.

Also, I write somewhat longer (still very short) devotionals than I did at the beginning. My plan, therefore, is to go back to Genesis and continue as I have been. When I arrive at a devotional I've already written, I'll edit it (or delete it) to bring it up to my current standards.

I haven't yet made a firm decision on it, but I'll likely change the format of the blog entries a bit. One thing I'll probably do is start giving each devotional an actual title rather than making it a short quote from The Message.

Suggestions from anyone who might be interested are welcome.

Christmas is a hard time for a lot of people

I have a sermon about Grinches that will steal our Christmas. I haven't shared it in a couple of years but I've certainly been reminded recently of the Grinch of expectations.

Many of us have bought into Hollywood's version of the "perfect" Christmas when the unexpected gift suddenly appears under the tree, the snow falls at just the right time, and some old hurt is wonderfully healed.

The fact is that not only is does this time of year have its fair share of unwelcome things but the expectations of the season serve as a magnifying glass on them, making them feel even bigger than they would normally.

Since this is, indeed, a "Season" we attach things more easily to it. If a loved one passed away unexpectedly in the summer we will associate it with that time of the year in a more vague way than if they passed away the "week of Christmas."

In recent days I've been reminded of how people I care about are going through unwelcome things this year. There are surgeries, job loss, health worries, financial stress, and other things that take the luster off of Christmas for these good people.

The cure for this is a realization that we are real people and not actors on a Hollywood film stage. Magical things are not likely to happen and for us, life goes on, with both good and bad things coming our way.

The core of Christmas isn't magic. Rather, it's Christ. God loves me and sent his Son into the world to be my Savior. The glory of Christmas isn't a lack of problems so much as it is the knowledge that God has come to be with me in all of life, including the unwelcome aspects.

I may not get the surprise gift of a fancy new car in the driveway on Christmas morning, and, in fact, I may deal with some bad news instead. Still, "Emmanuel" - "God with us" is true. That's what makes life worth living not only at Christmas, but all the year through.

That "Still Small Voice"

I was listening to the radio as I drove home today. Being alone in the car, I had the volume up higher than usual so I could hear the bass really well.

As I slowed down to turn, I thought I heard a voice telling me to "turn left." I smiled to myself that something on the radio plus my getting ready to turn combined to cause me to think I heard that.

Then, closer to home, I slowed to turn again and this time, I knew I heard it: "Turn Left."

It was then that I remembered that I had put our little TomTom gps in the arm rest console. Somehow it had gotten turned on, and it's last command was to take us "home."

For a minute there I thought I had heard the "Still Small Voice" of the Lord and that I had made the theological discovery that God has a pleasant female voice!

Opening the service with Communion

In our church we generally observe Communion about midway in the worship service or at the conclusion of the service.

However, I've just finished re-reading Keith Drury's "There's no I in Church" and in the chapter on Communion he suggests sometimes starting the service with Communion.

So today, I did the call to worship and then explained that...
1. We believe Communion is a means of grace and that
2. Since we believe our Lord is present in the Communion, and that,
3. Since we want the presence of the Lord in all the worship service
...we were going to open the service by observing the Lord's Supper.

We had a blessed Eucharist, and then went right into an enthusiastic worship service. As I began the message I remarked that I had just noticed that I could still taste the grape juice and that reminded me that the Lord was present, indeed, in that place.

I don't know how meaningful it was for others, but I was blessed by observing the Lord's Supper at the beginning of worship today and plan on doing it that way again sometime in the future.

"I don't preach long - it only seems that way"

Anytime the length of my sermons comes up I always respond with a smile and say, "I don't preach long - it only seems that way."

Actually, I preached my first sermon while I was still a teen - I think it was 5 minutes long and in it I said everything I knew. Now, I've been in the ministry over 35 years and I can honestly say I never pay any attention what-so-ever to the time.

However, since nearly all my sermons are archived online, it is easy to check out the length of them and the time is amazingly consistent at between 23 and 33 minutes. I have a personal rule that when I get up to preach, I preach and when I finish I quit. I don't do add on announcements before the message and I don't rehash the message at the end.

Also, my style is almost completely expository. I'm not a story teller and I'm not a joke teller. There's plenty of light-hearted stuff along the way and I try to illustrate points the best I am able, but I don't have long drawn out stories to tell.

A few decades (no kidding!) ago when I spent a few months preaching in Australia, my friend John White (now gone to heaven) told me I didn't preach like the famous American preachers who came to Australia - that I preached like Australian preachers who were less story prone and more "come now, let us reason together" in my approach. I think it was a compliment!

In fact, I think that is the major difference between most pastors today and the more famous preachers of my youth. The evangelists who came to our church were terrific story tellers who could make you laugh and cry at the same time. They preached 45 minutes to an hour, with about half of the time spent telling stories. There's a big difference between that and an hour of more intense expository preaching.

Because of that, I think any question about sermon length has to be qualified as to the purpose and content of the sermon. Had some of those wonderful story tellers preached only 20 minutes people would have been very frustrated. In fact, to be fair, you almost have to subtract the "story time" in the sermons of great preachers like him and time the sermon only by the remainder of the content. If you do that (and I'm exaggerating) some of the "great" preachers of the past only preached 5 minute sermons (the other 55 minutes were great stories).

htaccess htpasswd and Godaddy

On a Godaddy hosted website I wanted to do two things. First, I wanted to allow users to view list of files in the directory. Second, I wanted to password protect that directory.

I've used htaccess before, but not often enough to really understand it. However, a bit of googling and I was ready to go.

I started off with the directory listing side of things. Using a simple text editor I made a one line file containing this command:
Options +Indexes

Windows doesn't like saving a filename with no name before the dot so it balks at naming a file .htaccess. The solution is to save it in quotes:
".htaccess"
I ftp'ed it to the directory and it immediately disappeared (it's supposed to). The first time you upload htaccess to godaddy it takes awhile to be recognized. Give it about 10 minutes. After that, changes to htaccess (and htpassword) are immediate. Once it was recognized, I used my web browser to navigate to the directory it worked.

I had one complaint, the filename column was too narrow. A little more googling and I came up with the fix of adding a second line:
IndexOptions NameWidth=*
That caused the filename column to expand to whatever size it needed to to display the full file name.

Now, I was ready to go for password protection. Godaddy's help files describe the process. First, I added to .htaccess

AuthName "User Name and Password Please"
AuthUserFile /home/content/x/x/x/xxxname/html/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthType Basic

<_limit GET POST_> (remove the underscores)
require valid-user
<_/limit_>

The main thing you have to understand is the "x's." Let's say your godaddy username is "scott." In that case you replace the x's with the first three letters of scott (letter case matters). Now that line would read:
AuthUserFile /home/content/s/c/o/scott/html/.htpasswd

Or another example, say the username is "Pastor." Now that line is:
AuthUserFile /home/content/P/a/s/Pastor/html/.htpasswd

One caution - and this cost me about an hour. I was so focused on the /home/content/e/t/c stuff that I forgot to designate the actual directory. I wasn't changing .htaccess for the root (html) directory, but a sub directory. Therefore, I needed to add the directory to the above command:
AuthUserFile /home/content/x/x/x/xxxname/html/password-protected-dir/.htpasswd

That line has to point to the actual location of .htpasswd! After an hour or so the light finally dawned on me - hopefully this will save you that hour of frustration!

Next, we create the .htpasswd file - following the same approach we used for the creation of the .htaccess file.

Do a google search for "htpasswd creation" - you'll find many websites that will hash the password for you. Once you get it, the .htpasswd file will contain lines like this:
username:hashed-password

Upload it to the directory and you should now have a password protected directory.

How I arrived at Open Theism

I arrived at Open Theism via the back door. I had never heard the term and had never heard the concept expressed. However, I was struggling in understanding how free will and God already knowing everything that was going to happen could possibly co-exist.

My first conclusion was to embrace paradox. That is, I concluded that God somehow blinded himself to the choices he already knew people were going to make and dealt with people accordingly. As you can imagine, that was not a very satisfying conclusion.

Meanwhile, I wrestled with the whole purpose of prayer. Was I just praying what God already knew I was was going to pray, in fact, what he intended me to pray since the creation of the world? Or, was I actually dealing with God? Did Abraham really intercede for the wicked cities, or did God orchestrate the whole thing?

Finally, I struggled with what appears to be a "learning God," especially in the book of Genesis. God's statement to Abraham that "now I know" was a real challenge to me. On one hand, I believed that he already knew everything, but I found several examples in Genesis of God learning something. I felt I was somehow being disrespectful of God to wonder if he could not know something at one point and then know it later on.

My conclusion to all this was pretty much kept to myself because I feared I had drifted from orthodoxy in concluding that God learns and adjusts how he deals with humanity based on what people do.

When I started hearing about Open Theism I realized that there was an approach to understanding God that allowed me to plug all this stuff in.

I don't think any of this makes me a better Christian than I would be otherwise, but it does give me a handle on some of the more perplexing aspects of how God works in this world and in our lives.

Hurricane Ike - 22: We've got power!

The mighty Casey hadn't struck out after all! The trucks all left, but in an hour or so they were back with some friends. I counted five big rigs in all. By the way, they were all from Florida. They took down fences and backed their trucks through back yards so they could replace the broken power poles. It took them all day, but around 6:30 the digital clocks around the house began flashing! We were without electricity from Friday evening, September 12 to Wednesday evening, September 24. Once the power was back on, the Florida power and light guys walked through the area checking for any problems. At every house people came out to thank them. We made it okay without power, but we sure like it better with it!

Hurricane Ike - 21: No joy in Mudville

There's no joy in Mudville today, although we had a momentary thrill. Around 10:00 we spotted the first power company trucks yet seen on our street. As you can guess, the whole neighborhood stirred. There were three trucks in all and the guys with hard hats went yard to yard up and down both sides of the street. One of them told me that they had to get trucks into at least two back yards to replace snapped off power poles, which means the fences to those yards have to be taken down. I saw them head into one yard with a chain saw. Then, they all gathered for a conference.

Then, they all drove off.

Again, there's no joy in Mudville today.

Hurricane Ike - 20: Give me power!

I write this on Tuesday morning - day 10 and counting without electricity at our house. We are thankful for the loan of a 5kw generator which we are using to power our camper with a/c. I'm having to buy around $20 in gas a day just to run it in the evenings and overnight. It's not to high a price to be able to sleep, something that would be hard to do otherwise. Our overnight lows have been in the mid 70's the past few nights with high humidity. I think we have a minor cool front coming in tomorrow. It will drop the temps a few degrees and is supposed to bring us some very welcome drier air.

Another complication is mosquitoes. They have exploded in number since the storm and being outside means constantly brushing them off or donating blood to their cause. Happily, the county has started aerial spraying. The sound of the "buzz bombers" was welcome this morning and I was actually able to sit on the back patio to read my Bible at the start of my day.

One of the biggest problems for Jackie is that she has to go through several intersections where the stop and go lights are either not working or not there at all. In morning rush hour traffic that turns into a nightmare with traffic backing up at some spots as far as you can see. Also, people tend to get a little nutso about stuff like that.

Hurricane Ike - 19: Sunday Services

Our Sunday morning worship service was considerably different this week than it was last week. Last Sunday we were just starting recovery from the storm. Many of our folks were still out of town and of those who attended, none had electrical power at their homes and just about all had tree limbs down, had lost entire trees, had fences down, and other damage at their homes. This morning we had around 80% of our regular crowd. The church has power, so aside from the damage to the building, it felt like a regular service. The music focused on praise and thanksgiving and I spoke on prayer and hurricanes, of God's grace in the storm, and the wonderful gift of his peace in our lives. We concluded the service by making a large circle of prayer. Many offered prayers of thanksgiving and we concluded the service by singing "Always Remember Jesus" - a chorus we sing at the conclusion of most services.

Each Sunday we have a "meet and greet" time as part of the worship service. I often give humorous directions, like "shake hands with someone taller and someone shorter than you and tell them you're glad they came to church today." This morning I gave everyone a choice. They could either say, "Rejoice with me, we have electricity at our house" or they could say, "Woe is me, we have no electricity." That caused some good natured laughter.

I'm still on the "woe is me" side of things.

Hurricane Ike - 18: More power!

With temps rising to the mid to upper 80's and no power company repair crews in sight I decided to see if I could track down a bigger generator. My idea is to fully power the camper so we can have a/c for sleeping. Otherwise, we are in for some warm, humid, and noisy sleeping conditions. I don't know if this is a future strategy or not, but many people we know already have power restored so their generators are once again unused. I made two phone calls and ended up with offers of two generators! The one I ended up with is a beautiful 5kw Huffy power plant. This one would actually power our entire house, but I'm going for the easy approach for now and am just powering the camper plus whatever we want plugged in inside. It should take less than five gallons of fuel for a night, which is the capacity of the generator. Hopefully, we'll get a good night's sleep tonight.

Hurricane Ike - 17: More on generators

We’re still waiting on electricity. I think we have some power lines down on our branch of the blessed electrical tree and that means we have to wait till they get the easier ones up and running before they look our way. The storm was overnight Friday and we are now at the following Thursday morning. There may have been a truck from the electric company here, but if there was I missed it. I’m not complaining but I’m looking forward to seeing the power back on. Meanwhile, a lot of people in the community are getting power and some gas stations are opening up. The result, for us, is more noise than ever. Apparently, as folks get power they loan their generators to the less fortunate in our neighborhood. People know they can get fuel, so there is no effort to spare the gas. One neighbor was given a big and old welding machine for power. She already had a couple of small and quiet generators, but now she’s running this workhorse. You can’t carry on a conversation in the front yard without practically shouting. These are nice people but it’s frustrating to have all the windows open so the nice cool air can come in and having the racket of at least four generators, one of which dominates all the others. I’ve probably spent too much time in state park campgrounds where people value quietness and being outdoors.

Hurricane Ike - 16: Forgotten rituals

Several years ago Jackie and I were invited to the home of some friends with a strong Oriental connection. When we arrived our host invited us to the table where we visited while he made us some hot tea. He commented that the making and drinking of tea was a part of the Oriental culture. That ritual came to mind these past few days as I’ve offered folks a cup of coffee. Normally I put some coffee and water into the coffee maker, press the “go” button and within a few minutes I have some good hot coffee. Living in these non-electric conditions makes the “cup of coffee” experience a bit more complicated. I have to pump up the camp stove and light it. I have to put water and coffee in our old fashioned coffee pot, and then wait for the water to start boiling and then percolating. Whenever I decide the color of the coffee in the little glass top is dark enough I can pour the coffee, but it is way too hot to drink having just come off of a rolling boil. Through all of this, there is time to chat. In this case the conversation is about the storm and the clean up and what stores are open. Anyway, it’s a bit of a throwback to simpler, slower-paced times.

Hurricane Ike - 15: It’s kind of like camping

I wouldn’t have been surprised had I looked out on Saturday morning and seen my little Casita camper on its side. However, it was still there. One rivet has leaked – I’ll have to fix it with a dab of silicone. With the survival of the little camper, my survival plan has worked out. I fired up the propane refrigerator and we moved everything we could into it. I then filled our trusty old Coleman camp stove with fuel and set it up in the garage. We also have the propane BBQ grill next to the camper. We have the Coleman with two burners, the camper with a two burner stove and the grill for cooking. Dish washing still takes place in the house, but otherwise the garage has become our kitchen. We’re very thankful that our community water supply has not been compromised and we have had no “boil water” orders.

Hurricane Ike - 14: The shadow of normalcy

Even as people clean their yards and dream of electricity normalcy edges in. I was surprised on Monday to find that the US mail ran. Then, this morning, Tuesday, regular trash collection took place. We were told to keep the regular pickup items separate from the storm debris. Sure enough, the big truck came down the street right on schedule. I had a phone call from the pest control people reminding me of their scheduled visit tomorrow. They just wanted to know if they could get around the outside of the house. I said, “yes” and they said they’d see me tomorrow afternoon. Also, I heard a familiar truck this afternoon. It was UPS making a delivery. The driver asked, “You folks okay? Get any damage?” We said we were fine and off she went. Jackie’s library had power restored today and they plan to be open in a few days. She’s going to work tomorrow. The storm was still winding down on Saturday. On Tuesday, we have UPS and the mailman and garbage pickup.