Just inside a month

Alright, I am back. It has been a crazy few weeks, but now for a chance to relfect with my two favorite readers. I was on a trip this last weekend to Jaurez, Mexico to sort of scout out the site of where our church team will be going in about a month. Jaurez was amazing, and I met some incredible servants of Christ, doing really hard gospel work there. In connection with the visit, I was part of a missionary training seminar, which was not as spectacular. I have long said that I am still an Evangelical at heart, but I happen to care about liturgy and Church history, though I must confess that after this weekend that may not be true anymore. I have always operated with the general idea that being Evangelical meant loving and valuing Scripture, caring about peoples souls, etc... Under this loose definition I have been comfortable calling myself an Evangelical because that is where I come from, and I still passionately love Scripture and people, but this weekend I felt exposed as a fake somehow. I just can no longer endorse the prevalent use of Scripture employed by Evangelicals, coupled with the continued ridiculous preaching, is enough to make me say that I just don't fit there anymore. It is not that this conference was "bad" in fact it was the quality of the teaching that made me realize I do not belong anymore. After 60+ years of loving Jesus and serving in missions, being on boards, and training thousands of missionaries, our esteemed facilatator still talks about principles of missions in Scripture, proof texts our brains out and thinks of Jesus as a cross cultural missionary. I just can't take it anymore.
On another note, our oldest son Josh is in Kindergarten and is reading pretty well, so I was on ebay trying to track down a first grade reading book and I found this:


If you can't tell the book is "Reading for Christian Schools 1-2" The submissive bow of the Christian flag to the American flag is really my favorite part.