A Little Nerd Fun ... and Perhaps a Good Tool

As you noticed in last week's bulletin, we have added a couple of "QR codes." QR codes are simply textual information encoded in a graphic form that certain devices, like smartphones, can use to decode back into the original textual information. For example, the following code can be read by smartphones to navigate the phone's browser to our church website:

We added two codes last week. The first is the one above, pointing to the church website. This is on the back of the bulletin and is mainly intended for visitors to be able to quickly get to our website to find out more about us.

The second code we added was to an online version of the sermon notes. That makes it possible to follow along with the sermon points and passages on your mobile phone, if you so choose. This will not become our only way of having notes - we will always have the insert for handwritten notes.

With the growing popularity of tablet computers, these notes could become even more useful than on smartphones.

These notes can also be used to follow along if listening to the sermon online sometime after the sermon was originally given. That helps those who couldn't attend a particular Sunday, people who live away from the area, or those who want to go over the sermon a second time.

We are still experimenting with the format of these notes, and we could use your feedback. Please let me know how the notes could be formatted better to assist (rather than distract from) the teaching.

At present, we don't have any way to take personal notes along with the given notes. We could get there technologically, but they would be quite difficult to manage with the small keyboards on smartphones. Tablets, however, might make it worth the effort. Again, we need your feedback on how to make these notes the most useful.

OK, so it's a little bit of geek fun, but there is real potential to use the technology in a positive way to enhance how we learn and apply God's Word.

The Crusades are *Great* for Witnessing

You've probably heard it more than once. You're having a conversation with someone, and the dialog moves in the direction of spiritual things. You are (somewhat) prepared to discuss spiritual matters, and you feel like it could be a decent, civil conversation. But then ... they throw out the Crusades. There it is. No matter that it was 800 years ago, and you had nothing to do with it. Now you have to deal with it before the conversation can go anywhere ... if it's going to go anywhere. "How can you believe something that is responsible for that?"

Often, the Crusades "trump card" is a smokescreen. I rarely find that the Crusades really are the sticking point with someone. But, it's a lot more convenient than the real sticking point - which is often fear, guilt, shame, or other uncomfortable thought. It's much easier to talk about dead people who did bad things thousands of miles and hundreds of years removed from my fear, my guilt, and my shame.

But you still have to respond. What are your options? First, you can put down the people of the Crusades, which they deserve, but now you've presented Christian against Christian. Second, you can claim the Protestant-Catholic distinction, but then you've inserted denominationalism, which usually only makes it more complicated. Third, you can virtually ignore it and say, "But I'm talking about you," which really is the point, but leaves the question unanswered, as if Christianity doesn't have all the answers.

Sounds sticky. But actually, this can be an excellent opportunity to really talk about the Gospel! However, rather than trying to provide simple, pat answers to a complex problem, use this legitimate question as an opportunity to ask questions back to the one who asked. Use their question to cause them to ask even better questions.

Try questions like: "Do you think that their actions were in agreement with what Jesus taught?" and "What would have happened back then if these people took the words of Jesus seriously?" In the process, you've got to talk about what Jesus really did teach. Explore the issue with them, but find out what they think, rather than telling them what they ought to think. Let them explore the claims of Christ by comparison. Your point isn't to solve the problem with the Crusades, but to have that person interact with Jesus and His claims. So invite them to explore!

Instead of the Crusade question being a barrier, it's now a springboard. It's really not a bad question for them to ask, and we should reinforce that it's a reasonable question. But rather than trying to answer it, let it be a tool to talk about Christ.

In general, I find that asking questions to explore spiritual truths and respecting the other person enough to listen without arguing is a far more engaging and safe way to talk about spiritual matters, especially with the skeptic. It honors the person, it helps them discover (rather than be spoon-fed), and it moves the agent of change from your words to their internal thoughts.

You really don't have to have all the answers - so don't expect that of yourself. It helps, though, to ask really good questions.

Too Much to Process

I have not yet had a chance to sit down and sift through my notes to write up a trip report to encapsulate the last two weeks in Kenya. I need to get this done, and I will. But not today. Therefore, I am left to ponder singular events and activities for the moment.

On Sunday, I briefly mentioned a reading in Jeremiah that impacted me in a strong way while in Kenya - Jeremiah 2:5, Thus says the Lord, “What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?”


I was reading this one morning during my Quiet Time. I hadn't read Jeremiah in a long time, and so I just picked it up that morning. There's so much in the first two chapters that catch our attention, and so I've never really dwelt on this verse before. The image of becoming empty because of walking after emptiness shocked my sleepy-headed system. I asked myself, In what ways have I been walking after emptiness and becoming empty?


One could easily say, "Well, here I am in Kenya on a mission trip. I've given up so much earthly comfort to be here. Surely this is anything but walking after emptiness." And it is true. But if one satisfied himself with this statement, he can successfully ignore the power of the passage. Even if I'm willing to go to Kenya, that doesn't mean I don't have times in my life where I'm walking after emptiness.


I can walk after emptiness by wasting time in front of the tube, by pursuing recreation to the point of imbalance, by getting caught up in consumerism, by letting my mind wander onto topics best left alone, even by pursuing ministry goals for personal benefit more than the purposes of the Kingdom. Anything (and indeed everything) I do that is unrelated to the Kingdom of God in some way is walking after emptiness, from sin to idleness to occupying myself with strictly temporal matters.


And by pursuing emptiness, we become empty. In a sense, we get what we've been looking for, to a tragic fault.


"Weigh" the hours of your week. Do you hours have any weight in God's Kingdom? If too few of your hours are pulled by the gravity of heaven, perhaps you are walking after too much emptiness. For our pursuits to be un-empty, they must be substantive in God's economy. We will get what we're looking for - if we walk after emptiness, we'll find it. If we walk after the weighty stuff of God's Kingdom, we'll find it.


I didn't expect that a mission trip to a developing nation would reveal just how empty some of my pursuits are. However, had I read that passage from the comfort of home, I may well have missed what it has to say.