All of that to say that I have been doing CRPCs Vacation Bible School for the last 13 years and have done a lot of the same stuff with a lot of the same puppets for all of that time.  Many of the older kids know my stuff as well as I do. This years theme is outer space and I will be “Space Man Sam” (not an entirely bad title for me I am told by some).  I decided since this year’s theme is outer space that I would get an alien puppet.  I actually waited until the last minute, but I bought one today from EBay.  I don’t want to spoil the whole surprise, but here is a shot of his face.

Let me know what you think.  I don’t have him yet, but I’ll let you know how he acts, sounds, and what his personality is like once he arrives.  If you are around Ft. Lauderdale in a few weeks and would like to help out or just stop by for VBS, call Coral Ridge at 954 771-8840 for more details.  I remember VBS as one of the great times of my life as a child and I want to pass that on to the kids at Coral Ridge.  I want them to leave thinking, this is a great place to be; I really like coming to church.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.

DrSamLam
AKA “The Space Man”

The problem, you see, is that I would rather not have broadcast that to everyone who reads the blog, but because I didn’t know how everything works I was pretty much forced to.  I think sometimes that is a good thing.  I am reading a funny, but also pointed book now called Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh (I found out about the book though a mention in a libertarian magazine that I subscribe to, this month it arrived with UFO magazine and Genii: The magazine for Conjurers, I think my post-man may be a little afraid of me).  Radosh follows one of his family members to a Christian concert for the first time and finds evangelicalism a rather strange subculture for a person who is not a Christian.  He then attends “Christian” concerts, book conventions, abstinence get togethers (it just doesn’t seem right to call it an abstinence show), comedy nights, and even Christian wrestling matches.  One of the things that I was struck with as I read the book was how often we evangelicals are not really honest.  Not honest with others and more often not honest with ourselves.  There is no lack of examples in the book of twisted statistics and sometimes downright lies that are accepted by the community when “used for good.”

Somehow I think that honesty and openness is a better tactic than many of those that I read about being used by my brothers and sisters.  Don’t get me wrong.  The whole point of this piece is that I would rather not show my mistakes to the world and in many ways I think that is a good thing.  But in many ways I think that we have to be willing to admit that we Christians fail, often, and that God loves us in spite of that, in spite of our spelling errors, our lack of love, our hateful mean-spirited ways, and our less than Christian and sometimes anti-Christian actions.

The truth is, we are all broken.  Some of us hide it pretty well, but for others there is no spell checker in the world than can hide the brokenness that is written on their face.  I can’t help but think of the great Derek Webb song “They’ll know us by the T shirts that we wear”
They’ll know us by the T shirts that we wear
They’ll know us by the way we point and stare
At anyone whose sin is worse than ours and who cannot hide the scars
of this sin that we all bear

Can’t we do a little better job at showing the love of Christ to those that are around us? 

Just a thought, Your mileage may vary,

DrSAmLam

My theory is that problems build up like burdens on a proverbial camel.  They come a little at a time, more and more until one day, the unlucky person who happens to be in the one who finally pushes the one burden, problem, or issue that just sends someone over the edge.  Maybe you’ve seen that person.  Maybe you’ve even been that person.  I have a tendency to let small things bother me, but not to tell anyone.  As I teach at Knox Seminary sometimes I let some small student issue bother me much more than it should.  At the church sometimes the slightest complaint can send me into a tailspin.

But I should be better.  I should be

In the church this is not a good thing.  We should, in obedience to Matthew 18, be willing to speak to a brother or sister who has offended us or if we are not willing to speak to them, then to let it go.  If we are not willing to speak to a person whom we think has wronged us, how can the matter ever be settled?  This is a difficult issue and I am in no way saying that I have always or even nearly always done the right thing, but I can say that I believe that I know what the right thing is.  Relationships are often damaged forever by the failure of individuals to come to one another and speak.  To say to a person “I feel that you have hurt me in doing this . . . “ is to force them to come to grips with the fact that wronging another human being is a sin.

These things are hard, though.  Sometimes the person feels terribly offended and some sort of war starts.  Casualties arise that no-one could have seen and battles rage on for years over things that should have been settled in seconds if not minutes.  It seems that we who are members of Christ’s church should be better than that.  It seems like we ought to conduct ourselves in a way that is different from those who don’t know the grace of the saviour.

I have often thought that those who claim to hold to the doctrines of Grace (Calvinism) are sometimes the most ungracious of people.  How can we understand grace so well in our minds and yet not have one whit of an idea of how it works out in our lives?  Put more starkly how can we speak with such eloquence about grace and live with such evil in our hearts?  Shouldn’t the church be making more of a difference?

I think that it does make a difference.  After all who knows how mean I would be if I were not a Christian?  But I think that we all need to examine our lives and ask ourselves about our own grace.  Are we willing to be gracious to others and if not what does Matthew, at the end of his 18th chapter, have to say to us?  What do we say to ourselves when we say the Lord’s prayer (forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtor’s).  I ought to be more gracious.  I ought not to let things get to me.  I ought to show the gentleness of Christ more in the way I act.  Perhaps that is what is wrong with our Christianity.  It is not that it is not working, it is that we are not changed.

Just a thought,

DrSamLam

This picture is from my hotel room in Dallas.  To the left you can see the book depository and the road on which the murder of JFK took place.  It was an eerie feeling looking out at that scene all these years later.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the JFK assassination since visiting Dealy plaza.  I’ll share my thoughts l’ll share my thoughts later.  For now, don’t ride around in any open limousines.

DrSamLam

This is a close up of the window from which the shots were fired, notice the boxes piled up, in the same way they were on the day of the shooting.

This is a shot of the map showing the parade route which led JFK onto this road.

Here you see a historic marker at the foot of the book depository.  Notice that the word “allegedly” has been underlined by lots of scratches.

Here are Seminary President David Nicholas and COO Buz McNutt standing on the very X where the head shot hit JFK.  There is no fear in Knox leadership.

I will tell you more about the people I met on the grassy knoll later on.  It was quite a trip, in more ways than one.

DrSamLam

Here is a picture of the graduates who were at the lunch.

God is doing some wonderful things at Knox seminary and I am excited to be on board.  There are new classes being formed, a new track in “Leadership” being developed, and some great new students are enrolling.  I can’t wait till classes start in the fall.  This has been a year with a lot of controversy at Knox and Coral Ridge, but I know that God is in control and is going to do things that we can only dream about.  As we teach young people about the truth of reformed theology, I expect to see God move in a mighty way.  I am proud to have graduated from Knox and proud to be a part of the seminary right now.  Stay tuned to see the blessings that God pours out.

DrSamLam

The next is standing on the X looking up at the school book depository from where the shots were fired.

Next is Jim Dietz, my fellow conspirator at Knox and roommate here in Dallas, and myself standing on the “grassy knoll.”

Last is the fence behind which the gentleman whom you may not be able to see in the picture, is telling me that the fatal shot came from, finally killing the president. 

It was a very interesting time.  I’ll tell you all about it later, but for now, I can mark another thing off my list.  Now if I can just get to a snake-handling service maybe I can mark off two in one trip.

DrSamLam

I know that I promised a blog on Bigfoot, but this alien film has to be spoken about.  If you haven’t heard, a man named Stan Romaneck has claimed to have true footage of an alien creature.  Romaneck claims that he thought that he had a peeping tom and set up a video camera to catch the lowlife who was looking in on his two teenage stepdaughters.  What he found was that he was being visited, yet again, by aliens and had captured one on film.  The official photo of the alien is above. The window is eight feet high which explains why all we see is the top of the head.  The aliens can only stretch their necks out so far (for proof, just go rent ET again). 

After seeing the image I have only three questions:

1.  Who would have thought that the aliens would look so much like Miss Piggy?
2.  Why would an advanced race or civilization need to look through the window?  You would think that if they could make it all the way here from a planet light years away that they would have binoculars or a telescope.
3.  Why is it that these things never happen in a place where a good picture can be taken?  Every time the aliens appear, it is to Uncle Pokey and his best friend Wienie, when they are out on a fishing trip drinking moonshine, rather than to the president.  It’s just a thought, but the aliens could make it a little easier on themselves.

All of this to say that while I don’t believe that this film is anything but either a mistake or a hoax.  While I do have a pretty carefully thought through theory about what constitutes the “Abduction Phenomenon,” I don’t think that what you see has anything to do with it.  What then are we to make of those who claim to have been abducted?  Some are experiencing sleep paralysis (google “old hag syndrome"), others have some serious mental problems, others (and there are many in this category) just like to make up stories.  Don’t believe those who say “they have no reason to make this up.” There are some who just like to be the center of attention and one way of getting this attention is claiming that some bizarre situation has happened to you.  But then there are those others, who are clearly not lying, experiencing mental difficulties or suffering from sleep paralysis.  What about those?  There are such people and I believe that they have experienced something real.  I’ll tell you what I think if you like, just let me know.  For now, however, I wouldn’t bet the farm on this image being a real alien.  Of course I could be wrong, in which case, can anyone lend me a Miss Piggy puppet?

Onward . . .

DrSamLam

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and helpfully comments.  I will give you a full report tomorrow, as well as owning up to another of my quirky interests: Bigfoot.

Until tomorrow, Onward . . .

DrSamLam