Randy Wray’s Blog

We are spending the week in Daytona Beach, Florida. A few weeks ago we joked about trying to get out of the heat and humidity of Virginia for a week and so we were heading to Florida for our vacation. Someone jokingly told us to watch out for hurricanes and we all laughed. As the old saying goes that was then, this is now.

On the drive down we passed convoy after convoy of utility trucks all headed down to Miami. It’s an odd feeling driving past these trucks knowing why they were headed to where they were headed. Makes you re-think your vacation destination.

We’ve been watching the weather channel (as probably are most of you) and just grateful we chose Daytona Beach over Destin for our vacation. We made these plans a year ago and actually tried to get into Destin first. Ignites an interesting God vs. coincidence argument.

Our friends from Cocoa Beach kept track of the hurricane path for us until we arrived to see for ourselves. Our first few days featured lots of wind and choppy surf. Nothing like the devastation in Lousiana and surrounding gulf areas. We called friends of ours in New Orleans (The Lawson Family) and reached them as they were in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get out of town.

I won’t be blogging for the rest of the week - taking some “down time.” I’ll catch up with everyone next week. In the meantime, keep the Lawson family in your prayers and if anyone knows of anyone else in the storm path leave their names in the comments section and we will keep them in prayer as well.

6 Comments »

Finally, the contrast and parallel themes of the words of God, as given to Isaiah, regarding Jesus:

Here is my servant, the one I support. He is the one I chose, and I am pleased with him. I have put my Spirit upon him, and he will bring justice to all nations. He will not cry out or yell or speak loudly in the streets. He will not break a crushed blade of grass or put out even a weak flame. He will truly bring justice; he will not lose hope or give up until he brings justice to the world. And people far away will trust his teachings.‚Äù God, the LORD, said these things. He created the skies and stretched them out. He spread out the earth and everything on it. He gives life to all people on earth, to everyone who walks on the earth. The LORD says, “I, the LORD, called you to do right, and I will hold your hand and protect you. You will be the sign of my agreement with the people, a light to shine for all people. You will help the blind to see. You will free those who are in prison, and you will lead those who live in darkness out of their prison. (Isaiah 42:1-7 NCV)

3 Comments »

Notice the contrasts and parallel themes from the words of David in Psalm 34 with these words of Paul:

God, with his mercy, gave us this work to do, so we don’t give up. But we have turned away from secret and shameful ways. We use no trickery, and we do not change the teaching of God. We teach the truth plainly, showing everyone who we are. Then they can know in their hearts what kind of people we are in God’s sight. If the Good News that we preach is hidden, it is hidden only to those who are lost. The devil who rules this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. They cannot see the light of the Good News–the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is exactly like God. We do not preach about ourselves, but we preach that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we are your servants for Jesus. God once said, “Let the light shine out of the darkness!” This is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts by letting us know the glory of God that is in the face of Christ. We have this treasure from God, but we are like clay jars that hold the treasure. This shows that the great power is from God, not from us. We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated. We do not know what to do, but we do not give up the hope of living. We are persecuted, but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but we are not destroyed. We carry the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the life of Jesus can also be seen in our bodies. We are alive, but for Jesus we are always in danger of death so that the life of Jesus can be seen in our bodies that die. So death is working in us, but life is working in you. It is written in the Scriptures, “I believed, so I spoke.” Our faith is like this, too. We believe, and so we speak. God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, and we know that God will also raise us with Jesus. God will bring us together with you, and we will stand before him. All these things are for you. And so the grace of God that is being given to more and more people will bring increasing thanks to God for his glory. So we do not give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day.
(2 Corinthians 4:1-16 NCV)

6 Comments »

Some words of comfort and encouragement from Psalm 34:

Children, come and listen to me. I will teach you to worship the LORD. You must do these things to enjoy life and have many happy days. You must not say evil things, and you must not tell lies. Stop doing evil and do good. Look for peace and work for it. The LORD sees the good people and listens to their prayers. But the LORD is against those who do evil; he makes the world forget them. The LORD hears good people when they cry out to him, and he saves them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed. People who do what is right may have many problems, but the LORD will solve them all. He will protect their very bones; not one of them will be broken. (vv.11-20)

8 Comments »

So, can you withdraw fellowship from someone for beating you in Ping Pong?

We had some work to do last night preparing the church provided residence for our incoming Associate minister. I called one of our members, who has been hinting and begging to play ping pong with me, to come and help with the work holding out the promise of ping pong. It’s all in how you motivate the troops. We worked and accomplished our objectives and then set about to participate in the sport of table tennis.

We played a number of games (I actually don’t remember) I won some he won some. I think he was taking it easy on me. Which I hate worse than getting beat. He’s got a game of style, finesse and spin. I shout a lot - usually random quotations from Leviticus, try to engage in distracting conversation, and trash talk to intimidate my opponent. My worthy opponent just smiles, laughs and spins the daylight out of that ball. With such spin prowess he should have a job in politics.

I told him, right up front, that if he beat me I would kick him out of the church. Can anyone think of any way to make it stick? Be careful, however, he reads and is a frequent comment contributor to the ol’ blog!

4 Comments »

In preparation for the Zoe conference, as recommended by Mike Cope, I’m reading StormFront: The Good News of God (Brownson, Dietterich, Harvey and West). This book, actually a series of papers, is written to challenge a North American view of Christianity which they contend has become a “consumerist menu of personal spiritual care products intended to assure eternal life at minimal cost to the customer.”

Some interesting ideas are suggested in this book about the incorrect way churches “market” themselves to appeal and reach a consumer oriented society. The result of this effort is a misunderstanding regarding salvation.

In the final analysis, the biblical understanding of salvation is not merely that our lives will be set right again at last. The biblical understanding of salvation is that our lives become swept up into something larger and greater than ourselves, into God’s purposes for the world. In other words, the receiving of salvation and the call to mission are not to be conceived sequentially, as if one followed the other (first salvation, then grateful obedience in mission). Rather, to receive salvation is to be called into something larger and greater than we are, to be invited to participate in God’s saving purpose and plan for the world. That is why the gospel is primarily about God, and only secondarily about us.

How would our way of doing “church” be impacted where we to adopt the view of an invitation to participate in God’s saving purpose and plan for the world?

We’ve got our purposes and our plans for our communities. We seem to charge ahead and expect God to bless something we have invited him to instead of allowing him to invite us into his work. Our numbers shrink so we automatically think it is because we are not doing whatever the church down the road is doing. So we reinvent, recast and rebrand news which has longed ceased to be good.

But our culture is relentless in its tendency to twist the biblical, missional understanding of the gospel into a consumerist one. This tragic result has been the proliferation in America of passively oriented churches, preoccupied with their own survival and the care of their own members and struggling to discover a sense of transcendence and the presence of God.

And that quote, unfortunately, has found its mark within my own church experiences.

By contrast, the gospel calls into existence churches whose fundamental identity is that of a people called to participate in God’s mission, caught up into a reality greater than themselves, invited to bear witness to the world of a new way of being human in God’s presence.

And that quote, fortunately, shows how to escape the status quo of survival. It reveals the path from passive to passion. It closes the window on struggling and successfully opens the door to the throne room of God.

9 Comments »

I‚Äôve been an off and on runner for as long as I can remember. With my gazelle like frame I‚Äôve never been a very good or fast runner but there have been times when I‚Äôve actually enjoyed running. I‚Äôve run a fair share of 5K and 10K races. I‚Äôve participate in one team endurance event and run one ¬? marathon. I‚Äôve always had in the back of my mind to run a marathon before I reach the age of 40. I‚Äôm running out of time!

Beth and I ran for a while back when we were young and happy. I ran my first few 10K races with her. I‚Äôve had some excellent running partners in Oregon - the birthplace of running or Nike anyway. One of my friends even flew all the way to Virginia to run in the ¬? marathon with me. I‚Äôve run with a couple of dogs but have never been able to get that lazy cat to run more than a mile or two.

Over the last few years my running has not been about enjoying running so much as it has been about enjoying eating. Currently, I’m in my third week of my “on again” phase. There is a difference this time in my attitude towards these runs. It’s not so much about the running, the eating or the other health benefits from running. I look forward to the run days because I have a new running partner.

This is the third week that Reese has been joining me on the run days. We started running together to get him ready for his upcoming soccer season. We are taking it slow, running and walking a pre-set course and trying to run just about 10 yards farther, before we start the walking segment, each run day. On our first run together I told him that if he kept at it eventually we would get to the point where he was leading me on the run yelling back at me “come on Old man try to keep up!”

It seems that day is approaching sooner than we both thought. Yesterday, at the last running segment, he pulled ahead – looked back over his shoulder – smiled at me and said “come on old man try to keep up!”

I’m going to have to put a lead vest on him for our next run.

7 Comments »

Today’s blog is dedicated to some “housekeeping details.”

First, I want to thank those of you who read and take the time to comment. I truly enjoy reading your thoughts and observations. On so many occasions your comments make the daily blog worth reading.

Second, If you haven’t registered, so as to comment, please consider doing so. It’s free and simple to set up. Yes, you have to actually setup your own blog page but you do not have to update it or maintain it. It would be keen if you did. The more people writing and sharing thoughts the stronger community we build.

Third, I try to be diligent in preventing spam comments. For those of you who are new to this genre, blog pages can be spammed just like e-mail. These are the comments that say something like “nice blog, good content, I enjoyed reading.” Then something like “hey check out my web page for this that or the other” with a hyperlink will appear. DON’T CLICK ON THE HYPERLINKS These comments often appear as anonymous but just last night I had three such comments from fictitious registered users. These type of comments are simply unsolicited offers to purchase or enlarge (and we are not talking about Jabez here). I think in the long run if blogger does not find a way to stop this practice it will eventually bring an end to the blogging for everyone.

Those of you who have your own blogs and find these comments on your site just log in to blogger (with your username and password) click to view your blog - click to view the comments - next to each comment you will see a trash can - click on the trash can and a prompt will appear - select the option that says permanently delete this comment (it may include something about this blocks the user from commenting) which is what we want. In fact, there’s a couple of you out there that had better straighten up or I’m going to block you as well! (I’m just kidding).

I’ve been enjoying this blog experiment and hope you have as well. Let’s end with one of those questions designed to troll for comments. If we came to visit you, in your town, where would we have to go eat?

9 Comments »

Captain Crunch or Lucky Charms? It’s a toss up for me. Which one get’s your vote?

Speaking of toss up . . . I came downstairs this morning and saw the kids had already poured bowls of cereal for themselves. I decided to follow suit and have bowl of Life cereal. I poured my bowl, added the milk and began to eat my cereal as I caught up on some e-mails. The first couple of bites tasted funny. I thought it was toothpaste residue conflicting with the cinnamon goodness of Life cereal. But the funny taste never went away. I just ignored it and assumed it was the toothpaste.

I finished my bowl and went to see if the kids were ready to go to the office. They said, “oh by the way Dad we think the milk is spoiled.” You know what it’s like when that light in your brain suddenly kicks in and all the puzzles pieces fit? Yeah, that’s what happened. I went and looked at the expiration date on the milk.

I’m severely college educated and I ate the whole bowl. The kids took one taste and new right away there was a problem with the milk and stopped eating. I think that’s funny.

Speaking of cereal, here‚Äôs a link for a new Cereal Caf?©

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/12/cereality/

Have a good Monday and remember if it tastes funny it’s not the toothpaste!

6 Comments »

. . . quiet. Let’s hope it stays that way! Not much planned for today. Waiting on a repairman today to fix our Air Conditioner. The company promised he would arrive sometime between now and when Jesus comes back. We are planning a trip to Costco (on a Friday are you nuts?). Some friends of ours are moving, in a couple of weeks, to Texas. So they are coming over for dinner tonight.

That’s one adjustment we’ve had to make living in this area, a very transient place. We’ve made friends with people time and time again only to see them move away as jobs take them away. Beth and I, in a joking way, often comment as to who we should get to move away next. It would be simple, we just befriend them!

So for now it will be a calm day, some final edits on the ol’ message and powerpoint slides for Sunday and goofing off with the kids. We’ll enjoy our dinner with our friends as we don’t know when we will have our next opportunity.

6 Comments »