Atheists and a Flat Earth

On my morning cycling commute to work, I was pondering God's existence. I asked Him, "Why can't you make yourself known in clear and obvious ways? What is the value of faith, that we must rely on it rather than on empirical evidence?" As I mused about the various ways I wished God would manifest himself to us in the modern age (including a giant robot-like creature that perpetually roamed the earth), I was suddenly reminded of the unbelief of the ancients when presented with the manifest power of God (the Plagues, Jesus's miracles, etc.) Why didn't they believe, after seeing these amazing manifestations of God's presence and power? Of course, if I were a modern atheist, I could simply say, "Because those miracles didn't actually happen. They're just fables." Now, of course, we're stuck with arguing the veracity of the Bible (which, I believe, there are some great modern apologetic resources on, including the work of Douglas Groothuis and Ravi Zacharias).

But, returning to the simple question of why God would not reveal himself in obvious ways so as to put an end to all debate, I realized that, even if we dismiss the Bible miracles as fable (which, to be clear, I do not), the argument as to man's refusal to believe in spite of overwhelming evidence can be seen in modern times by examining modern proponents of the Flat Earth theory (yes, there are still those who espouse this belief). Although, from my understanding, they concede that other planets and satellites are indeed spherical, they refuse to accept that Earth follows this pattern. Their arguments are typically based on their own limited experiences and observations, and any evidence presented to them clearly showing a spherical earth is dismissed as conspiracy (to what end would governments perpetuate such a ruse, I haven't been able to surmise).

However, I expanded my idea of how God could manifest himself in such a way that everyone could see that he does, indeed, exist, and what I realized was that, due to his surpassing glory, we could never view him exactly. This means he would always have to show evidence of himself in lesser ways that we could actually observe and comprehend. And there is the essence of the problem: There is necessarily a separation between the manifestations of God's existence and God himself. That separation, or distinction, is where man goes astray.

If we take my childish solution of the giant robot wandering the earth, proclaiming the existence of God, what would quickly happen as a result of seeing this robot? Would we believe in the God it professes, or would we instead worship the robot itself? Hopefully you can see where we're heading with this, because it presents a problem for us that is pointed out clearly by Paul in Romans 1:18-24 and is still quite evident today in the way in which we approach nature. Because we cannot directly observe God in His glory, he has shown himself to us in other ways through his creation. But we have dismissed the Creator, and have instead worshiped the creation. In this case, we have set the creation as the creator. We have made nature the supreme, non-sentient designer of things by way of extraordinary chance. It takes the same amount of faith to believe things exploded into being out of nothing than to believe that a sentient, eternal god put them here.

And so, as I continued riding my bike along the city streets, I was reminded of the value of faith for, without faith, even something as seemingly evident (in modern times) as the spherical nature of our planet can be called into question, until such time as each one of us is able to take a rocket ride into the void and see for ourselves. Looks like we must put our faith in quite a few things, people and entities in order to discover the truth about ourselves and our existence. Thank you, God, for revealing yourself the way that you have. It is by your grace we even receive those manifestations we have of you.

How will I know you, Mr. Jesus Christ?

While recently listening to the song "Diggin' Me Down" by Ozzy Osbourne (yes, I listen to Ozzy), I was struck by one of the questions in the song: How will I know you, Mr. Jesus Christ?

My immediate response was, "If you read His Word, you'd know Him." I believe this is absolutely true. But then it struck me that there's still the "human" element to all of this. In other words, Christ's church is central to His witness in our world today. Ozzy's question forced me to examine myself in light of who Jesus is and pose the question: Could someone imagine Jesus being like me? In other words, am I enough like Christ that his characteristics are evident to those around me? If one were to begin reading Scripture in an effort to know who Jesus is, would one start to realize that He seemed familiar, that one had seen those same qualities in Christ's church?

The challenge laid before us by Jesus is clear: "You are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). Terrible tragedies happen every day: sickness, death, rape, war, hunger, ambition. What is our role in tragedy? Are we to avoid it, separate ourselves from it, condemn it, work in the midst of it? How are we effecting change in the world for Jesus' sake? How do we work to alleviate suffering? How much of Jesus' compassion, kindness, love and patience is part of our character?

There will always be cynics, critics and skeptics. As Christians, we must understand and even sympathize rather than attack them. But perhaps, at times, their criticism is well-placed. Can the world see Jesus in you? If Jesus were among us, would people mistake Him for you?

It's a tall order, but we are called to do no less than be imitators of Jesus on earth (Philippians 2-3; 1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1). But as we surrender our lives more and more to his Lordship, we realize that it is not us, but rather He Himself acting through us (Galatians 2:20; Romans 8:9-11).

So, to answer Ozzy's question: You will know Jesus by His Word and by His church.

María, no Marta

Cuando pienso en la vida cristiana, a veces me abruma todo lo que debo hacer y no hago. Empiezo a pensar, "Estoy tan ocupado. ¿Cómo puedo hacer más?" Cuando contemplo en todas las personas en este mundo que no conocen al Señor, empiezo a dudar la eficaz de mi trabajo cotidiano. ¿Debo vender todo y cambiarme a un país del tercer mundo? ¿Qué de mi familia? Estoy haciendo bastante para el Señor.

Pero, al contemplar Lucas 10:38-42, me doy cuenta que lo tengo al revés. Mi "falta de fe" no viene porque no estoy haciendo bastante para el Señor, sino porque no estoy pasando bastante tiempo con el Señor. En vez de preocuparme por todo lo que no estoy haciendo, hay que primeramente sentarme a sus pies. Conocerlo. Aprender de él. Ser transformado por él.

Es tan fácil en este mundo seguir la cultura estadounidense que nos enseña a trabajar más y más para ganarnos un júbilo seguro. Pero esto no es la manera del cristiano. Si yo estoy dudando el poder de Dios para proveer lo que necesito, si cuando pienso en las miles de actividades que puedo o debo hacer para proclamar las buenas nuevas me pongo nervioso y me siento culpable, la solución no es hacer más y más. La solución es soltar las riendas; es sentarme en un lugar privado con la Palabra y meditar en los preceptos de Dios; es examinar la vida y las palabras de Jesús para transformarme por adentro.

Cuando el tiempo viene para hacer obras increíbles o mundanas para el Señor, no voy a preocuparme, porque yo "sé en quién he creído, y estoy seguro de que tiene poder para guardar hasta aquel día lo que le he confiado" (2 Timoteo 1:12).

Spanish English Hymnals

Almost a year since my last post! Ugh! Well, since that time we've continued working in our bilingual congregation, but there are many hurdles to overcome. One of them is how to sing together.

Since our Spanish hymnal is quite a bit smaller than our English hymnal, the challenge is first of all how to give the song leaders enough songs to maintain variety and follow the theme of the lessons. We recently purchased a set of our hymnal for use on our newly installed overhead projection system. Unfortunately, not all the files have arrived. The blessing we have is that our building has two screens, so we can project English on one side and Spanish on the other.

However, I'm always looking for ways to improve this system. Eventually we'd like to be able to have the entire worship in both languages, but currently we only do the first part (through the Lord's Supper) together, then break off into English and Spanish.

I wonder if anyone out there has experience in ways of bringing two languages together in worship? What's the best Spanish hymnal out there? Is it good for singing with English speakers?

Encouraging signs

I've been encouraged lately seeing some folks begin to participate in the activities of our congregation. One of the ladies will begin teaching the Wednesday night ladies' class, and someone will translate into English what she's saying! Awesome!

I attribute this to a few of things:

1. She has always been an active member of our Spanish-speaking group, but until now really hadn't done much since our move to the English-speaking congregation.
2. One of the ladies from the English-speaking group has asked her to help in a few other things.
3. We have had several visitors from our computer lab (which has been an excellent source of Spanish-speaking visitors, by the way. More on this later.) They have been attending some of the different classes, asking for translators (especially for the ladies' class), etc.

May the Lord continue providing us opportunities here to serve the community the gospel and providing for their earthly needs.

I just received a call on how to produce accent characters on the Mac and realized this could perhaps be a helpful tip for those interested in Spanish/English ministry. Therefore, here is how it's done:

To produce accented vowels (á, é, í, ó, ú), simply hold down Option+e, then type the desired vowel. So, to make "á", for example, do the following:

1. Type the letter "e" while holding down the Option (or Alt, or ⌥) key
2. Release the Option key
3. Type the letter "a"

If you desire the letter to be capitalized, hold down the "Shift" key while typing the desired letter (in this case, Shift+a).

Hope that makes sense!

In the same vein, the ñ character can be produced by holding down Option and hitting the "n" key, then typing "n." In shorter terms:

Option+n, n

For the occasional umlaut (ä, ë, ï, ö and ü), hold down Option, type "u", then the desired letter. All of these codes can be found on your Mac by opening the Keyboard Viewer (if it's not in your menu bar, go to System Preferences>Keyboard and select "Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar.") It'll look like this when you open it from the menu bar:

When you hold down the "Option" key, it should look like this:

You can see that the gray button represents the Option key. The highlighted keys indicate that this key can be used in combination with a letter to produce the correct symbol. Have fun playing with all the different symbols available at the touch of a couple of buttons!

Perhaps you'll notice the logic behind this methodology: The most common letter to receive the accent or symbol is the letter used to invoke the symbol. The most common uses for the above symbols are "é", "ñ" and "ü". It really makes memorization simple.

In contrast, if you are using a Windows system, things are a bit more difficult to remember. To put it simply, symbols are accomplished in Windows by holding the Alt key while typing a combination of 4 numbers on the keypad. So, for example, to produce the "á" on a Windows machine, you must type Alt+0225. Upon releasing the Alt key, the á will appear. For a complete list of codes for your memorization pleasure, please see http://www.asciitable.com/. You can also copy/paste these symbols into a Notepad file and save it to your desktop for quick access if you have difficulty memorizing the codes (or buy a Mac ;).

¡Qué Dios los bendiga!

(That reminds me, to accomplish the "¡" symbol on a Mac, type "Option+1". For the "¿" symbol, it's "Option+Shift+?". Simple, huh?)

It's a slow process, but I really do want to turn this blog into something significant for the English/Spanish ministry community. In light of this, I'd like to post just a few thoughts I've gathered in the short time (6 years) I've been doing this, especially with regarding to the last year-and-a-half in which we've moved to an English-speaking congregation as a (mostly) Spanish-speaking group.

1) It is vital to strive early for people from both groups to get involved in the transition process, including signing up for activities the church is already involved with.
2) Do NOT try to be an advocate or mediator for Spanish-speakers. If they have issues or complaints, they should address them directly to the leadership (you can, of course act as translator.) It is important they feel like they are part of the church, not just "visitors". Make sure they are prepared to offer solutions to the problems they may have, including their personal involvement in the resolution.
3) Stress to both sides the importance of reaching beyond their normal peer groups to include others in activities (such as Sunday dinner, weekend activities, etc.)
4) Seek others in the English-speaking part of the congregation who may be able to translate and get involved.

That's all I can think of for now. We have been trying to implement some of these precepts, while others I've learned from trial & error. The best advice I can offer at this time is to lead by example. It sounds obvious, but we often feel like we should exert all our energy as a g0-between instead of modeling how integration should work by spreading out amongst the congregation as a whole. I pray this helps some while I try to get a bit more organized. A few topics I'd like to cover soon in this blog: bilingual worship, song availability, technology, sermon preparation, sermon delivery techniques in a bilingual setting, and a continually growing compilation of translated hymns (which I pray will receive contributions from others out there who've translated their favorites.)

In Christ,
LT