personal trainer

The Blog is Dead! Long Live the Blog!

Personal Trainer is going the way of all flesh. After several years running, it is time to move on to something else. It is not that I am weary of blogging; I am not, though there are weeks and even months when life creates a more demanding set of priorities. It is that the opportunity for something better has presented itself.

Personal Trainer was just that--one person named Trainer, and one person is a rather limited creature. The author of Ecclesiastes, when comparing life to a journey fraught with hazards both natural and nasty, extolls the virtues of companionship along the way. The opportunity that has crossed my path is just that--companionship.

I have always enjoyed blogs with more than one contributor. One can count on better quality on a consistent basis when more horses are in the harness. To my delight and great fortune, another author has decided to cast his lot with mine and join forces in blogdom. It seems clear to me that Personal Trainer needs to die in order for the best transition to occur. So this will be the last post on the blog and you are encouraged to join the ongoing conversation at ex vilis cathedra (from the cheap seats). Blog on and don't forget to change your links!

10 Reasons Why I Don't Care If You Read (or Don't Read) My Blog

I thought I would rise to Andy's challenge and come up with a quick response to his appeal in the comments of the previous post. Both of us need to get a life.

1. I'm only writing it for my narcissistic self anyway. You are just icing on the cake.

2. There are ten million other bloggers out there doing a better job than I am.

3. You could be doing something more valuable with your time.

4. I've already been crowned The King of the Blogs so your adoration is meaningless.

5. My wife doesn't read my blog so why should I care if anyone else does?

6. You don't pay me to write my blog.

7. I already get enough hits from people looking for a "Personal Trainer" on Google.

8. I enjoy having the higher rankings on places like Technorati...like 129,435...who needs number 1 with figures like that?

9. The real people are out there living in the real world. They don't have time to read blogs, and we won't even bring up the people that make comments.

10. And just to prove that I REALLY don't care if you read my blog, I am going to KILL IT!! Yep, that's right...drive a stake through it, dead as a door nail, assuming room temperature, dead.

But it would be nice if you would click here now and read this blog.

flotsam & jetsam (3.11.08)

A conversation at the beginning of the day. I am making my famous peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (with twice the amount of peanut butter and jelly required because that is the way I would like it) for the kid's lunches. Jay, age 12, is bent over the fridge reaching for a sealed plastic container of diced peaches.

"Dad, you didn't buy the right one. We told you to get the little metal tins."

"Well, I...."

Lauren, age 15, interrupts, "And you didn't get the right kind of applesauce either. You bought the store brand and we always get Motts."

Don't these kids know that just last night I was solving all the world's problems and being sought out for my well-crafted advice on sticky community and church issues? I had stopped at the store on the way home from a late meeting at their mom's request--a selfless hero. But it doesn't take much for me to see where I really fit in the world...right to the back of the lunch making bus, baby. If we let it, the mundane routine of the day will keep us in our place like that...relentlessly. In other, less important issues...

Groothius echoes some of the thoughts of Kevin Bauder recently on the development of Christian scholarship, and hits another home run with this post on a theology of listening. Try adding silence to your order of worship and see how long the congregation tolerates that.

Bet comes up with her own list of reasons for "Why I Don't Read Your Blog." She's got a really good list here and hits on a couple of my pet peeves...dark backgrounds, long posts (I am guilty sometimes), arguments to no end, etc.

This is painful reading...a guy thinks he threw his MacBook Air out with the trash.

Europe and unbelief.

"Go away!" Sometimes the best advice for would-be comforters.

flotsam & jetsam (3.10.08)

10 Reason I Don't Read Your Blog. I thought this was a pretty helpful read for those interested not only in blogging, but having people read their blogs as well.

Vision statements for churches. The benefits and pitfalls (mostly). Somehow the Church managed to survive a couple millennia without this little addition from corporate America. I don't mind sitting down and planning wisely for the future; the Sage admonishes us to go to the ant and who can deny that the godly woman of Proverbs 31 is looking down the road? However, it is dependence upon a vision statement and using it as a measurement of success or failure that is disconcerting.

Ligonier interviews Sinclair Ferguson. Their blog is off to a rousing start.

Londonistan. This reminds me of an actual conversation I read about somewhere on the web this weekend: A Londoner is traveling in the States and hops in a cab in NYC. The cabbie notices his accent and asks where home is. After hearing the Brit respond, "London," the quick-witted driver asks, "Shia or Sunni?"

Mass murderer in Jerusalem is declared a "holy martyr" by the Palestinian Authority.

I was tracking down links to my blog this weekend and noticed someone had used a bit of commentary I had written on Proverbs 26:4-5 on another blog, only the entry was in a foreign language. After a super quick perusal of the entry I said something about not being able to read French, but happy they could use my stuff and posted the comment. After I posted the comment I took a closer look at the language and noticed it was definitely not French, and after a little more research realized it was Romanian. Needless to say, the dumb American has once again embarrassed himself and they no doubt are having some fun at my expense...only I can't understand it. Anybody read Romanian?

And what will replace the SR-71 Blackbird? Maybe this.

flotsam & jetsam (3.9.08)

Ohio has been hit by the Blizzard of '08 (though technically this may have been a borderline blizzard). Port Columbus measured 20+ inches on the ground--the greatest single event snow fall since 1898 in the Buckeye State. Most churches, to include ours, cancelled services this morning. I started shoveling the 200+ feet of our driveway early yesterday morning, but the wind and snow just came along behind me and erased my work. A kind neighbor plowed us out later in the afternoon. We've enjoyed having a good reason to stay huddled up in the house watching old movies and playing games.

A humorous take on the evolution of a worshipper.

The White Horse Inn's latest program is on the topic of Tradition and Traditionalism.

Oprah the guru. The book has sold 3.5 million copies and 500,000 have signed up for the online classes. People are sheeple and searching.

Ligonier has launched a new blog and Peacemakers joins blogdom as well. I believe it was the Ligonier blog that pointed me toward this thoughtful letter from John Newton to a friend about to engage in theological controversy with a fellow minister. If only we would be so thoughtful.

A peek under the sheets at the American media establishment.

The last surviving WW1 vet is honored by President Bush. Frank Buckles, who is now 107 years old, entered the service at age 15, served in the trenches of France, was captured by the Japanese during WW2, and has outlived the 24 million others that completed draft registration cards between 1873 and 1900.

The SR-71 Blackbird. Simply nothing compares. This is a well-wriiten piece by one of the elite few that flew the bird in harm's way. An excerpt:

One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was 'Dusty 52, we show you at 525 on the ground,' ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, 'Aspen 20, I show you at 1,742 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

flotsam & jetsam (3.7.08)

I am off early this AM to work for Uncle Sam. His cohorts effectively block my access to the blog world all day, so have at it and here are a view links that make for interesting reading.

"Laudator Temporis Acti" (a praiser of time past) is a blog I enjoy. Shishkin's picture, Pine Trees Lit Up By the Sun, is a wonderful study in light.

C. J. Mahaney offers solid council for those in difficult times.

Al Mohler pens a quick response to the home schooling decision in California yesterday. An excerpt:

The court's decision states that California's compulsory education statute does not allow for parents to teach their own children as an exemption. Instead, the only teachers qualified to teach children under the law are those with official teaching credentials.

The decision is sending shockwaves across the homeschooling movement nationwide. In California alone, over 160,000 families homeschool their own children. Some believe that the number is actually far higher.

In an event, the requirement of teacher credentials has long been used by the public school systems and teacher unions as a ploy to shut down competition.

In the most important section of the court's ruling, the 3-judge panel ruled that California parents have no constitutional right to educate their own children.

Eurabia may be more fact than fiction.

Libya blocks a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the brutal attack in Jerusalem yesterday.

Five great little web apps that may interest you. HT: Instapundit.

Happy B-day to Cornflakes...would you believe 1897?

flotsam & jetsam (3.5.08)

Michael Lawrence at 9Marks on social activism. Here is a quote in which I think he is dead-on:

It seems to me, anyway, that Reformed evangelicals' talk about social engagment is largely motivated by the correct sense that the Kingdom of God should be felt and seen wherever Christians are: in the workplace, at school, in the neighborhood, etc. But being creatures of modernity, we immediately think in terms of programs and strucutres, which leads us to the church, and wondering why the "organization" we're a part of isn't more engaged. The initial impulse is correct, but where it leads us is confused. It's not the church's responsibility to address the problem of homelessness in society at large (though it better make sure that it's own members aren't homeless!) It's Christians' responsibility, as servants of the King, individually and together, to address that issue, as we seek to display the saving reign of God in every sphere of life.

Workplace chaplaincy. We send out workplace chaplains from New Hope every week. See above.

Piper on the prosperity gospel.

Bob McCabe on global warming, I mean cooling.

Industrial evangelicalism versus art. An excerpt:

Technology is the new currency of evangelicalism. Churches define themselves with websites, billboards and logos. Pastoral image is imported directly from MTV and the Comedy Channel. The formation of spirituality is a matter of mass consumption. Spending money on image is doing missions in evangelicalism.

Evangelicalism is a market share, a brand, a consumer movement. Churches are the outposts of choice and a measure of how successful leadership can be in using the tools of a technological age to create a phony version of awe and wonder.

The church is cool. The hip people are there. The programming is hot. The sermon series is on sex. The disdain of the past is open. The connection to the church historic and catholic is minute and sometimes non-existent.

The new pastor is a brash creature of attitude. He stalks the stage. He hits the audience with words, jokes, wit and brash cultural analysis. He has contempt for other points of view. He has swagger, jokes, sex appeal. He is more Jon Stewart or Chris Rock than Lloyd-Jones or James Boice. (Thank God for Tim Keller several times a day.)

Evangelicalism is industrial. Technological. A culture of consumption, getting more, winning the game, having the best. One need not buy into the “prosperity gospel” to be part of a movement that advertises itself as young, hip, relevant, edgy, successful, hot and trend-setting.

Christian spirituality, however, is art. Creation. It is poetry, not the work of an assembly line. It is spiritual, not industrial. It is not produced by methodology purchased in a kit or acquired by subscription service. It is not the result of surveys or research. It is God’s Kingdom work, now as always.

I've heard of cows with guns, but Anglicans with guns? Click the vid.

flotsam & jetsam (3.3.08)

So a guy is studying Paul's letter to the Galatians, reading John Stott's The Cross of Christ, and listening to C. J. Mahaney preach on the atonement. He is compelled to write lyrics inspired by Christ's finished work and ultimately produce an album. Permeated with biblical content, theological vocabulary, and a robust Calvinism (one song, Mission Accomplished, is a straight-up defense of limited atonement), the lyrics are God-centered and full of the gospel. Only this album, The Atonement, is sure to put many off, for the genre is hip-hop. The artist is shai linne. You can watch him interviewed about his work here and here; he comments directly about the genre and his reasons for employing it...the creation of a "grimy cityscape" as a backdrop for the theme of Christ's crosswork is effective. You can read a review of the album by Tony Reinke on the Sovereign Grace blog here; you can also listen to one of the songs from the album. I have never listened to hip-hop. I am as conservative about music in worship as they come...accused of being liturgically bent even. But these lyrics against the backdrop of this sound and the interjection of audio bytes from Mahaney's sermons on the cross are worth hearing. This is not music to dance to--a point made by shai linne in the interview. This is music to make one think. Don't listen for it anytime soon on a Sunday at New Hope, but don't be surprised at that hip-hop beat drifting out of my car windows either--ever the eclectic. The album is available on itunes. UPDATE: Phil Ryken warns you to be prepared for heavy doses of Romans while listening.

No gender neutrality in the RC church. Get baptized in the name of the Father or don't get baptized at all. In a statement released on Feb 29, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said variations or approximations of the words “Father, Son and Holy Ghost” were impermissible. Persons baptized in the name of the “Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer” were to be treated as being “unbaptized” under Catholic Canon law. The only point being that resistance to political correctness persists and is appreciated amidst a church world bent on cultural appeasement.

Yes! The Red Army Chorus singing "Sweet Home Alabama" along with the Leningrad Cowboys. Great hair too. They just do things different on the other side of the pond. HT: The Corner. One poster said, "This is why we won The Cold War."

Ink jet printers...how much do they really cost you?

This is a great little site designed to shrink long urls when you are posting them in a blog or sending them to friends. For example, in the link directly above, the original url was: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/03/how-much-does-a.html. I tossed it into the "Tiny URL" engine and got: http://tinyurl.com/2pmayb. A huge improvement. Give it a whirl.

flotsam & jetsam (3.1.08)

Everyone and their mother is going to post the latest e-journal from 9Marks, so I might as well join the crowd. This issue covers the tension between gospel unity and gospel purity. The list of participants is encouraging; the ideas exchanged helpful. I'll try to spend some more dedicated time on this issue next week. Here is the .pdf.

The anatomy of a stroke...a view from the inside. A neuroanotomist describes in intimate detail what she experienced as her body shut down over a period of four hours. She says, "In that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life." It's nice when one can get to that conclusion sans stroke.

Jollyblogger posts a couple funny preacher vids.

Polyamory. Always fun to learn a new vocabulary word--not. Actually, the word appeared on this blog in July of 2005.

Life and death in an airplane above Argentina. You'll have to have a unique sense of humor to enjoy this.

flotsam & jetsam (2.29.08)

James Kushiner comments on the other end of the religious affections spectrum.

A hermeneutics quiz. In the spirit of full disclosure, I scored a 56, which is rated "a moderate." The strength for the moderate position: the voice of reason and open-mindedness; the weakness: charges of inconsistency and struggles in the process of interpretation. Read more about the scoring here. To be taken with a grain of salt.

Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at the world in 2009. It's not a very friendly place.

A deal has apparently been brokered in Kenya. Let us hope.

In India a mom gives unexpected birth to her premature baby on a train...over a toilet...that opens directly onto the tracks...the mother passes out...two hours later they find the newborn on the tracks...the three pound tough-as-nails little girl is expected to live. My thought after being thankful she made it was...how would you like to live near those tracks? I'll take my chances under planes that drop frozen waste out of the sky.