Husbands/Dads, Do You Shepherd Your Families?

I loved this short article. I would really like to implement this sort of thing at home.


"How I Pastor My Family" by Justin Hyde

Bono, Bonhoeffer, and Carl

"It would be tragic and a travesty of New Testament church life  if, in spending so much time listening to everybody else out there, pastors ended up with no time on their schedule to listen to the voices of their own people."

--Carl Trueman in "Life Together--or Maybe Not"

I love Carl Trueman. Lately it seems like half the quotes that grab my attention are from him. If you're a pastor, I highly recommend the above-linked article. If you're not . . . read it anyway and forward the link to your pastor!

Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community

Do You Like Drawrings?

I've got to acknowledge a couple of links my brother has passed along to me. He's turned me on to two comic strips. I suppose I'm a bit late in starting reading these two comics because one has been around for five years and the other for around three, but they're worth reading no matter when you hop on board.

The first comic I read was Wondermark, a strip by Dave Melki that uses old Victorian-era illustrations to great comedic effect. Start in the 'A Good Start' area and then move on to reading the entire archive. You'll find good laughs with regularity. My favorite strips are, of course, the silliest ones.

The second comic is called The Abominable Charles Christopher. I was pretty much made a fan by the title alone, but I found the comic itself was even better than its title. Charles Christopher is a sasquatch who is in the midst of discovering the world. He doesn't quite understand how some things work, and can't quite communicate, but he's learning. The animals who live in the forest provide a healthy dose of humor, while many of Charles Christopher's adventures appear to be leading somewhere more dramatic. Combine that with the absolutely superb art, and you have a comic I'll be coming back to week after week. If you're new to Charles Christopher, start at the first episode and move forward. If you're like me, you'll catch up to this weeks episode much more quickly than you'd like. I could've kept reading for another hour or so.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't point out the link to another wonderful website I've run across. The site just happens to contain the work of Mr. Rex Queems himself, frequent commentor on these pages and excellent cartoonist in his own right. It's only fair that I point out this link, since he was the one who introduced me to both Wondermark and The Abominable Charles Christopher.

Ladies and Gentlemen, follow me to the Illustratorium. Enjoy.

Visit Maple Mountain

A while back my old friend S.D. Smith asked if I could write a post he could put up on his blog, The Maple Mountain Story Club, when he and his wife had their baby. This was probably in January sometime, but I can't directly recall. I like S.D. and I like writing for other blogs, so I thought I would take him up on his offer.

I immediately realized I was faced with a problem. Most of what I post here amounts to hand-wringing about the future or attempts at humor that die miserably. I was guessing that S.D.'s crowd of readers didn't want to hear my progress toward MFA applications (there hasn't been much, by the way), nor did they want a one line humor post that likely involved the word 'butt.' So I had to come up with something good.

As it turns out, I had a decent idea percolating in my head. I had been thinking about The Band's song "The Weight" a lot, and I wanted to do a post on the concept of sainthood Robbie Robertson has in the song as opposed to a true Christian one. So I did. It worked out well because I knew I was never going to write a substantive post to put up here. It would be too much work. But for a friend, I would do it.

Go to S.D.'s blog and check it out. I read part of the post, but I find it hard to revisit my own writing once it's out there for public consumption. I see too many changes that need to be made. I've gotten a couple of nice comments though.

By the way, be sure to read S.D.'s introduction. It's probably the better piece of writing on the page and it captures me pretty darn well. Except I was a c-section baby, so I never went through the birth canal.

See, now you're curious. You'll have to check it out.

My Publishing Debut

Several months back I got an e-mail from a guy named David Dunham. David is a representative for the Southern Ohio Theological Society, which had recently started a theological journal. David, having read some of the things I wrote for the Huntington Apologetics Team, contacted me to write for their second issue. The topic assigned to me was atheism and morality, which has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I gladly accepted, and am happy to say that my article, titled 'A Hollow Imperative,' is up on their site. This is my first article to be published by a site that is not run by me or my close friends, so I'm very pleased.

In retrospect, I'm not 100% pleased with the article. It could use a rewrite for stylistic purposes,and I'd like to tighten up the arguments a bit. I have no one to blame but myself, though, because I had enough time to do that. My persistent time management problems struck again. I alo had to delete one whole section called "what is not the question" to meet the space requirements. I may publish it here later. In the meantime, here's the link to my article:

"A Hollow Imperative"

I hope you find it useful.