Clearing the Attic – Page 24 – A blog about ministry, theology, and whatever else clutters my thoughts.

Scripture and the Rick Astley Effect

One thing I have become more passionate about over the years is Scripture memorization. The Bible is clear that we should not only read it, but hide it away in our hearts (Psalm 119:11). Memorization allows us to be away from our Bibles and still meditate on God’s word throughout the day.

I have met several people who are trying to figure out God’s plan for their lives or trying to “hear God” but who are unwilling or just too undisciplined to just read and memorize Scripture. The discipline of Scripture memorization provides a vocabulary by which God can speak to us through his inspired Word.

I understand that Scripture memorization is not easy. And it’s not really that flashy or exciting. It is a lot of repetition over a long period of time. I think that is one of the particular challenges that makes it a difficult discipline for my generation which is characterized by the “I want it now” mentality (myself included). Immediate twitter updates. Immediate access to wikipedia articles. Even immediate access to Bible verses on the phone.

But What’s My Motivation?

The fact is that we can usually memorize things if the motivation is right. If you know a teenager, you know this is true. The same kid who can’t tell you who the first president of the United States was can quote Napoleon Dynamite beginning to end and reproduce the liner notes to any Jay-Z album.

As a side note, this is one of the reasons Scripture-centered hymns and songs are so helpful. Music is always easier to memorize than words on a page even when you don’t want to memorize it. I call it the Rick Astley effect.

Despite how the interweb or TV or red meat is hindering our ability to be patient and diligent, we must develop the disciplines of reading and memorizing Scripture if we are to ever think and act in ways that align with God’s word.

Reading the Bible Prayerfully

A few weeks ago, I began a series of posts on how to read the Bible. The first two posts discussed reading the Bible consistently and contextually. In this post, I wanted to address how we can read the Bible prayerfully.

Reading the Bible prayerfully is not a complicated concept. It just means that when you read the Bible, you also pray.

Reading the Bible is like listening on one end of a phone conversation. The Bible is God’s authoritative word to us and speaks to us. Through the Bible, God addresses our hearts and our minds. But this is only one part of the conversation.

What should I pray?

John Piper has created an acronym, I.O.U.S. for praying before you read the Bible. I believe they originally appeared in his book, When I Don’t Desire God. This is a very helpful list of scripture to pray.

I – Incline – “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” (Psalm 119:36, ESV). In order to hear from God rightly, we need to have hearts that desire him and his word.
O – Open – “Open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18, ESV). Through prayer, God can open our eyes to the amazing things in his word that are already there.
U – Unite – “Unite my heart to fear your name.” (Psalm 86:11, ESV). I have heard the definition of a pure heart as a heart with a single focus. We can pray that God be that single, unifying focus.
S – Satisfy – “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:14, ESV). One major goal of reading the Bible should be that we become more and more satisfied with God. Pray that this encounter through the word produces that fruit.

Aside from this, there are other things that we can pray and ask for as we read Scripture.

Wisdom – The first chapter of James tells us that we can ask God for wisdom, who “gives generously to all without reproach.” We need this wisdom as we seek to read and understand God’s word.
Acknowledging God’s Greatness – I want to set my heart and mind on God’s greatness as I approach his word. Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 both deal with his word. Psalm 145 is an amazing psalm that declares God’s greatness. Reading and praying through these psalms has been an encouraging activity.
Confession, Repentance, Thanksgiving – Hopefully, as we read, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, identifies areas of our lives where change needs to happen, and even gives us further direction. As this happens, we should respond to God through prayers of confession, repentance, and thanksgiving, responding to how he is addressing our hearts.

Reading the Bible is a different exercise than reading any other piece of literature because it is a living word through which God himself speaks to us. Prayer is an important part of both hearing and responding to him.

Tech Tuesday: Alfred, the Quick-Launcher

Since part of my job deals with the IT infrastructure of my church, I spend a lot of time on my MacBook. So I am always looking for software that helps me be productive. Though to be honest, I often spend more time reading about and playing with “productivity” software than actually being productive.

One application that has actually helped me be productive is Alfred. Alfred (not to be confused with Batman’s butler or the infamous Hitchcock) is a quick-launch application for Mac OS X. For the uninitiated, a quick-launch application runs in the background and can be called to the foreground with a customizable hotkey. On my computer, whenever I press the keys “⌘+space”, a rectangular window pops up where I can type things. So for example, if I wanted to open Mail.app, the standard email app for Mac OS X, I would just type “⌘+space” and then type “mail” and press return.

More than Spotlight

If you are Mac user, then it is likely that you’re familiar with Spotlight. For those that are not, Spotlight is a search tool for Mac OS X that will search your Mac for applications, documents, images, etc. Once the item you’re searching for is found, you can open that item by pressing return.

Alfred is similar to Spotlight in that it allows you to search the various objects on your Mac (apps, docs, etc.). However, it is different in a few ways.

It learns stuff. The first time you open Mail.app, you may have to type “mail” before Mail.app shows up first on the list of apps to launch. But the more you use Mail.app, the less you’ll need to type. After a few times, you’ll only need to type “m” to get Mail.app to come up.

It can search more than your computer. Besides just finding stuff on your Mac, you can use Alfred to search google, bing, yahoo, wikipedia and nearly anything else that is on the internet. Alfred defaults to searching google if it does not find what you’re looking for on your computer.

It does quick calculations. Say you need to find out how long it would take 30 ninjas to chop down 14 trees with a combined rate of assassinating 3 trees per minute. Normally, you would have to do the calculations on your fingers, launch the calculator app, or just know that the ninjas will get it done. But Alfred allows you to type in simple calculations in and gives you the solution automagically (4.667 minutes).

Alfred is a great tool that may cut down on your time finding stuff, opening stuff, and calculating stuff. And it’s free. You can download Alfred at www.alfredapp.com.

Five Reasons I Love Electricity or
Why I Wouldn’t Have Survived the Oregon Trail

Yesterday there was a crazy thunderstorm in my area. When I say “crazy” I don’t mean, “wow, pretty lightning.” I mean, “where did that tree branch come from? We don’t have maples in this area” crazy. I found a trash can lid outside our fence, random pieces of trash scattered throughout the yard.

But the worst part of this summer storm was that it took out the power for my whole neighborhood. From yesterday afternoon until about 3pm today, my household was without power.

Before yesterday, I did not realize how dependent I am on electricity. I considered myself “resourceful” even though in elementary school when I played Oregon Trail, I always wanted to be the Banker and never made it all the way. Everyone in my party always died of dysentery or being eaten by wolves or whatever. It’s kind of like the kid who has taken three martial arts classes and considers himself a “lethal weapon.” I’m that kind of “resourceful.” And after today, I know that. I’ve accepted it. Here are five reasons why.

I like light. There. I said it. I like that when I walk into a room, all I have to do is flip a switch, and then BAM, light. No matches. No candles. No flint. No heartache. Just light. I must have walked into the bathroom ten times and tried to turn the light on.
I like air conditioning. Know how it gets hot in the summer? That’s not fun. Know what is fun? Not being so hot you don’t know where your skin ends and your clothes begin. Gross but true.
I like modern refrigeration. We had a lot of cold, soon to be tasty food in the refrigerator. Now we don’t.
I like the interwebs. Probably a little too much. Being without power for a day shows you how crazy your obsession with double rainbow really is.
I like watching movies with my wife. We ended up watching a movie on her laptop. Until it ran out of battery power. We then moved to my laptop. At least my geekdom paid off there.

In summary, electricity is good. If it were not for electricity, I would be a useless dead-weight on a horse-drawn wagon.

Seminary Education on the Cheap

One the exciting privileges I have in life is to be able to go to seminary for formal pastoral education. I have been attending the DC campus of Reformed Theological Seminary for about four semesters now. And although I don’t believe that a seminary education is all it takes to be a pastor, it has certainly equipped me in areas in which my breadth and depth of knowledge was deficient.

Two of the major challenges I have faced in going to seminary are the cost and time. With a family to provide for and a full-time job, neither time nor money are in huge abundance. I think this is probably true for most people with a family and a job. So the question is, “how do I get equipped for ministry with so much limited time and money?”

Getting Equipped without Going Broke

The first thing I would say is to check with your church. Our church leaders have a strong burden to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry” as Paul puts it in Ephesians. It is likely that your pastoral staff feels the same way. So find out what educational and discipleship opportunities your church provides.

The second thing I would say is that the internet is a wealth of information. You can find information on nearly any topic. That includes seminary-level educational material. In particular, there are many podcasts and videocasts offered through Apple’s iTunes U. Here are a few that I would recommend.

RTS on iTunes U – RTS offers one of the best online educational programs. They offer an Masters of Arts in Religion, entirely through their virtual campus.
Westminster Seminary on iTunes U [opens iTunes] – WTS is an excellent school that has produced some amazing theological minds.
Covenant Theological Seminary on iTunes U [opens iTunes] – Covenant is another great seminary that offers many of their lecture online.
BiblicalTraining.org – BiblicalTraining.org is a website that exists “to help make new and fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.” It has resources geared toward discipleship for new believers all the way to graduate seminarians.

Listening to podcasts can be a productive way to redeem wasted time. If you are stuck on a metro or in stop and go traffic, you can listen to a podcast on theology (and despair less about the commute). There are other great resources listed in my “Links” section that are not associated with a particular seminary, such as the Desiring God Resource Library and the Resurgence.

As one of my pastors has said, we often confuse information with education. The amount of information that is available to us is amazing. Hopefully, these resources can help equip you, not just for knowing stuff, but so that you can serve and do the work of ministry in your spheres of influence.