I find that people generally think they have above-average skills in three areas:

1. Driving
2. Communicating
3. Being a good judge of character

That is all for today.

Yesterday Carey and I brought home our new pet and 2008 Christmas present to each other, Apollo. He’s a five-year-old lab mix adopted from the Pasadena SPCA. Before anyone asks, we named him after the Apollo Space Program and not the Greek god or Rocky Balboa’s arch rival.

More photos here.

Via a link from Tony Jones, I have enjoyed the word clouds on Wordle. Here are a few word clouds taken from the texts of some sermons I’ve given. You can see the rest here.

“When God Changed the Rules,” Jeremiah 31.31-34

“Behind Locked Doors,” John 20.19-23

“A Mother, a Disciple,” Luke 1.46-56

On Sunday night, my 94 year old grandmother went to the hospital. Her health was in serious decline the past few months. On Monday night, March 16, she died. Our family is deeply sad, but also at peace. Grandma said she has been ready to go for a few years. I am grateful for her life and the love she gave her family and friends. This is the third death in our immediate family since 2005 and that feels like a lot.

Last night, NBC aired the series debut of The Chopping Block, a new reality elimination show that pits teams wannabe restaurateurs against each other. At the end of the season, the winners make off with $250,000 to start their own restaurant. British chef and the man who supposedly made Gordon Ramsay cry, Marco Pierre White hosts, offers criticisms and aphorisms, and ultimately casts off the losers. The reason I’m sharing this is that my brother-in-law, Todd, helped write and perform the majority of the music for the series. We went to his house to watch the premiere last night. I’m so excited to see him get his work out to a national audience. It was great to celebrate with him. He did a great job.

So yes, this is a shameless plug to tune in next week, Wednesday night at 8pm. You can watch the premiere at Hulu.

I haven’t been blogging as much since taking the position of a pastor. Most of my creative energy for writing goes into sermons these days. Preaching regularly makes me think a lot about public speaking in general and I have become something of a critic of oratory. One thing I have noticed in my own speaking is that I have some of the worst public speaking traits of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. I consider Obama to be a fine speaker, perhaps one of the best I’ve ever heard, whereas Bush is serviceable and not someone whose rhetorical abilities I want to emulate.

In my sermons I work from a manuscript because I like to craft exactly what I am going to say. Part of my reasoning for this is that I want to make sure that I communicate accurately and part of it is that I’m like Bush when he goes off the cuff. Without a script, I have no idea what might come out of my mouth. I’ve put my foot in my mouth enough times to know that without choosing my words carefully beforehand, I am taking a gamble and the house usually wins. I don’t want a daily calendar of “Wastonisms” to ever surface (see here for the Bush version).

Off the cuff, Obama comes across as a funny, warm guy. In his speeches, however, he is stern, serious, and decidedly void of humor. He can come across as something of a stick in the mud. The same goes for me in my public speaking. I think I have a decent sense of humor, but I can’t write funny lines very easily. As I prepare my sermons, it’s hard for me to fit in jokes. I worry that I come across much more dour in the pulpit than I actually am. Maybe I should just preach from Jeremiah and Lamentations and blame my lack of humor on the fact that I am trying to be faithful to somber tone of the texts.

On Sunday morning I dropped Carey off at the airport so she could fly to Honolulu. She just started a six-week rotation at a Kaiser hospital there as part of her residency. Neither of us were/are excited to be apart from each other like this. For whatever reason Kaiser Honolulu has this agreement with USC to get third-year residents to go out there and work. It doesn’t seem to be a very family-friendly agreement. Fortunately Carey will be able to take some time off and I’m going to fly out there for a week’s vacation in February. That way we’ll be able to split up the time, so we aren’t apart for six weeks straight.

The insult to injury is that USC used to send their third-year residents to either Kaiser Honolulu or Kaiser Bellflower. Married residents and residents with kids would usually take the Bellflower rotation and the single residents would take the Honolulu rotation. In the past couple of years, Kaiser Bellflower dropped out. If they had not, and had Carey gone to Kaiser Bellflower, her first day on the rotation would have seen her likely assist with the delivery of the octuplets on Monday.

My friend Josh informed me that UC Davis emeritus professor of religious studies, Lincoln D. Hurst died on November 11 of this year at the age of 62. Hurst was one of the most popular professors among the Christian population at UCD. He taught primarily New Testament and Christian theology courses. In some ways, Hurst was a rarity in the scholastic world. He taught at a secular university and believed in much of the New Testament texts his classes covered. Hurst was a proclaimed theist—he wouldn’t admit to much more in classes, though it was clear in conversations that he was a Christian. Most Christian academics dealing with that level of scholarship work at seminaries or faith-based colleges and universities. Hurst’s academic career landed him knee-deep in the interest and debates surrounding the historical Jesus, with the Jesus Seminar making the covers of national magazines. He often criticized the methods and findings of the Jesus Seminar while appreciating the work of some of its members. The courses I took from him dealt heavily with the historical settings of the New Testament and early Christianity.

Hurst acted as my true introduction to an academic treatment of the Bible and Christian origins. In his classes I heard the names and read from N. T. Wright, Bruce Metzger, Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and C. H. Dodd for the first time. His critical approach made sense in my mind and I found my faith deepened by his classes. We made the joke that if you sat in on the first two lectures of any one of his New Testament courses, you wouldn’t be able to tell what class that was since they always covered the historical setting of first century Palestine—e.g., the different sects of Judaism, the Herodian monarchy, Rome, etc. The students of Davis have lost a special voice on campus.

UCD’s daily newspaper, the California Aggie has a nice write-up on Hurst as does the religious studies department website.

The congregation I serve shares a campus with a Spanish-speaking Covenant congregation. It has been a joy to get to know the staff and people of Iglesia Del Pacto (IDP) since I started at Eagle Rock Covenant Church. Yesterday IDP had their annual Christmas potluck after the worship service and they graciously invited us from the English-speaking congregation to join them. We had a great time meeting new people, laughing, and eating terrific food. I also experienced one of those moments when the reality of the kingdom of God is overwhelming. Usually those moments are not something altogether unique and yesterday was no different. It came as Gus, the worship pastor of IDP, prayed for the meal in Spanish. I barely picked up a few words since my Spanish is terrible to non-existent. As Gus prayed, I was in awe of the fact that we worship this big and glorious and multilingual God who loves and receives praise from his children who speak all sorts of languages. How many times in my life have I heard prayers in languages I do not speak? For whatever reason, yesterday’s prayer moved me. I am so grateful to be a member of Christ’s bride. We as one are all preparing to celebrate the incarnation in a few days. How amazing it is to think we worship the same God. That is a miracle of Christmas.

Some food for thought from Charles Schulz regarding our Christmas traditions.