I was going through some of my early notes on Facebok, and it helped me realize two things. First, it made me realize how much I use to like blogging reflections, where I can just talk about what's on my mind. In the past years, due more homework and more friends than high school, I haven't been able to blog as much I can. This past summer I set up a vlog, or video log, to try to achieve the same reflective process without the time-consuming writing. But it seems like the medium doesn't matter. Either way, both take time, and I've had problems to find the time. So now that I have found a little time, let's talk. The second realization I came to while reading my old Facebook notes was what month we're in: February. A few of my earliest notes were about Valentine's Day and dating. Ok, I know this is a big "duh" but Valentine's Day happens every February. Thus, February becomes a hard month for me because it seems that no matter what my relationship status has been in the 6 months before, I always end up single by that day. So a month that has a holiday that glorifies couples is hard on the single man. I praise God that quizzing in during February because quizzing takes mind off of the holiday less and put it on quizzing more. But still, February is always the hardest month, and leads to a lot of reflection on the subject of relationships. So between reading my old blog, and thinking about how I feel now, there's a lot on my mind.
When I last time had a serious sit-down reflection time, I only had two ex-girlfriends, one from a 1-month relationship and another from a 10-day relationship. As weird as this sounds, that was when things were simple (and I use this term loosely). Why do I say things were "simple" back then? Because from that point on, things got complicated quickly. After my second ex-girlfriend dumped me, I then went a couple dates with another girl, but we stopped things before we got into a relationship, realizing both of us were still attached to our ex-es. Shortly after, my second ex-girlfriend and I tried to get back together, only to fail trying to pick things back up from where we left off, leading to us ending it permenantly (she would find a new boyfriend in a week). After that, I found myself taking interesting and flirting with two non-Christian girls over the summer, with both of them overlapping for a short time. With each one we tried to work things out, and I even went on a date with one of them, but when summer ended, so did any relationships with them (more about that later). Because four times with 4 girls (including the 2nd ex trying to get us back together) turned out a disaster, it gave me bitterness in my heart for women. All hope seemed lost until I started talking to a facebook friend I hadn't talked to in a while. We started talking more often, starting texting, and she really helped get rid of those bitter feelings about girls. We hit it off, and soon after the fall semester, we started dating. This 3rd girlfriend would last longer the second one, but not as long as the first. I considered the relationship ended when the year ended because that was the last time we really saw and talked to each other. It dragged out another 2-3 months, with me trying to win her back and her pushing away. It wasn't until late February or early March that everything ended. She said the break-up was "kinda mutual" but I feel like she wanted to dump me, but didn't have the guts to do it, so she pushed me away until I forced to do it myself, possibly so she could pose as the victim who was dumped. But that's not the issue. The issue is that 2-3 months in limbo with a "complicated relationship" (whatever that means, facebook) ended up giving me more bitterness towards women, added to 2 other ex-girlfriends and 3 girls who were something between "friend" and "possible girlfriend" (maybe that's what facebook means with "complicated relationship"). This scarred me enough to not have any interest in women at all for a couple months (aesexual, not homosexual). And then in August, something happened to me that has not happened since April 2006: I was rejected when I asked a girl out. And relationship-wise, I feel like innocence is lost, in terms of optomistic hope.
Why do I mention this to you? Why go through a somewhat embarrassing history of the relationships I've been through? Because all the questions that go through my mind have been caused by these past relationship. The first question is more an attack on Calvinism, or pre-destination in general. If you Calvinists, or anyone who believes in predestination say God has planned everything in our life, and if you believe every good thing is from God, and that God does not create evil, then has God planned, designed and predestined me to be in failed relationships? Does God predestine breakups? Does God want me to go out with girls, well-knowing it won't last and will end in a painful breakup? See, I can't say that because I don't believe it. Partially because I believe a girl and I have chosen each other when we date, but more because I believe God cannot be the cause of any evil, which includes the depression that comes with the break-ups. But I also believe that God can, and does, take an evil, and make good come out of it. God does not want me to be in failed relationships, but when he allows me to do so, he has made sure I've learned a lesson to prevent further hurt in the future. Let me tell you.
The first lesson is that the faith is not worth giving up for girls. This will give me time to explain the sumer of the non-Christian girls. After a disaster of my second girlfriend (who was Christian) dumping me, a failed attempt to start a relationship with a Christians girl, and then my second girlfriend trying to restart our relationship, only to leave again, not only made me upset about girls, but upset about Christian girls. To me, it seemed these Christian girls were not acting Christian in the areas of flirting, dating and breakups. And it got me wondering, "Why is it a big deal to make sure I'm dating another believer if she's just going to act like a non-believer? Might as well date a non-believer. At least I can say she doesn't know better." Another lure was the fact that these non-Christian girls liked things that most typical Christian girls don't like (not saying they are sinful activities; just something not sinful that it seems like Christian girls aren't interested in). The one girl liked football. The other girl liked video games. It's hard enough find a girl who likes football or video games; it's even harder finding a CHRISTIAN girl who likes video games or football. The fact that they had something in common with me that was hard to find among the Christians is what enticed me. I knew what the Bible said about uneven yoking, but I went hoping that I would convert them to Christians through dating them, also known as evangedating. But by being a witness, I got two different reactions. The one girl was indifferent. When I told her about my faith, she said she had no experience with the church or the faith, but she said, and I quote, "I'll try for you." That quote is what stuck with me, resonated with me, and led me to ending things. If she attempted to be a Christian, it was for the wrong reason - me. Her faith would never be genuine. I ended things, and prayed a true Christian would truly win her over to the faith. The second girl was much different. She wasn't just non-Christian, she was an atheist. She didn't believe in God. So it started out with (and these are all paraphrases of long conversations) "well, you can have your beliefs, and I have mine", which went to midway"you can be religious in work and at church, but not when you're around me" which went to "it's either God or me". Praise be to God this is when he smacked me across the head by pointing out that obvious warning sign. We ended it. Through both reactions, I learned that summer that my faith could not be separated from my dating. In the long run, dating a non-Christian will never work out; it would cause conflict later on. Also, being a man whose head is always in the Bible, I realized how much I missed being able to have conservations about the Bible, theology and doctrine. I could never have that with a non-Christian. Besides, in the future, it would cause raised eyebrows by future employers and church pastors/elders, and could hurt finding a job or a ministry if they know I am married to a non-Christian.
Side note on that. When I look back on my "dating history" I am reluctant to show the embarrassing failed relationships. I do wonder how they make me look. It's not out of a selfish concern over my self-image; it's a concern over my witness of Christ. As a Christian, Jesus calls be to bear His image. When people see me, they should see Jesus. Do I represent Jesus well 3 ex-girlfriends and 3 complicated relationships, with the longest serious relationship lasting no more than a month? The time factor makes it worse. If someone were to know that I had 2 ex-girlfriends and 3 complicated relationships within 14 months, what does that make me look like? Does it make me look like I'm girl crazy? Does it make me look like a pimp or man-whore? With my closest friends I have explained what happened so this image doesn't come across because it's simply not true. Before graduating high school, I only had one girlfriend. In between the serious girlfriends, at least a year has gone by (that pattern is still continuing - 14 months since my last girlfriend). Why so much time? I don't easily get over girls, it takes me a while, because I care about them as people. I feel like I might possibly making the mistakes most people make whne they start dating in high school. Because I really didn't date in high school, I might be making those critical mistakes in college. But that's another point; let's keep going in order.
The second lesson is that the ministry is not worth giving up. This one was learned with my second girlfriend. She told me about her dreams of living in New York City, with her two children and her 2 dogs, as a veterinary assistant. But I know from previous experiences (which was verified to me during missions week this year), that I am to stay put in Pennsylvania, and not go any further out of state than Ohio. This was an obvious conflict that I knew about, even before we officially started dating. But silly me was so enraptured by the thought of finally having a girlfriend after so long, my hopes were similar to that of the non-Christian girls I liked: over time I hoped I could convince them to leave their plans for me. Looking back, I know the thought was stupid, but my dreams were too loud to listen. Even when things didn't work out the first time around, when I had a glimmer that she was coming back, I ignored the different future plans factor and went back to her. It's not until the following fall I learned that this lesson. That's why I was so sure girlfriend number 3 was the one- our futures didn't collide, but meshed well. And today I can tell you that I have learned that lesson. During the Israel trip I took an interest in a fellow student who was also part of the trip. She studied abroad the fall semester and when she was back in the spring, I was glad to see her. But talking to her, I learned God has given her a heart to serve in Europe. Far be it to me to steal her away from her calling, nor should I rebuke my calling for her. God has wonderfully equipped us and specially called us all for His workmanship in the world, which we will be rewarded for in heaven. Why give it up for marriage, which is temporary? Why give it up for one spouse, while with another spouse, we could have both?
The third lesson I've learned is to learn from my mistakes. As I have already pointed out, mistakes include attempting to date girls with different faiths and different ministries and different future plans. But I've also learned more than that. I'm a guy who needs closure. When a girl breaks up with me, I need to know why. What did I do wrong? Is there anything I could do better? The first girlfriend ended it because while I listened well, I didn't talk enough, and thus it seemed like I was uninterested in her and her life. The second girlfriend told me that while we talked enough about her, she really didn't hear about me a lot. She even said, "You sound like an interesting person, but you never took the initiative to tell me about yourself." The third girlfriend told me that I wasn't social enough for her, especially around her friends. Not keep these all in mind. Did ex-gf no. 2 complain that I was too quiet and didn't talk to her enough or I didn't seem interested in her? No because she could not. I made sure I keep the conservation going, especially asking how her life was going. Did ex-gf no. 3 complain that I was too quiet around her, that I didn't seem interested in her, nor did I not talk about myself? No, no, and no. I made sure that I kept the conservation alive, balanced between talking about herself and myself. See I have learned from my mistakes. I sometimes imagine that one day my first and second ex-girlfriend meet, and somewhat realize the common connector is that they dated. As they talk about their experiences, the first ex-gf says, "yeah, but i broke it off because he never talked enough, and I didn't know if he was really concerned about me" and the second ex-gf replies, "what are you talking about? He was always talkative, especially about me." The 1st ex-gf, instead of waiting for me to change, decided to give up instead, and missed out on a possible improved relationship. Now ex-gf 2 and ex-gf 3 meet. Once again, they talk and find out they both dated me, and start talking about that. All of a sudden, ex-gf 2 says, "yeah, but I broke it off because he never talked about himself enough" to which no. 3 replies, "What are you talking about? Graham was talked about himself, just as much as me. Our conversation was a healthy balance between the two." Ex-gf no.2 missed out on an improved relationship because moving on was better than waiting. And now if I ever find another girlfriend, if my 3rd ex-gf were to dare complain that I wasn't social around her friends, the new girlfriend would reply, "What are you talking about? He's good friends with my friends, too." I even told my 3rd ex-gf that, but she was done waiting, and just moved on. And it hurt when I found out she didn't want to wait. It's like I said above, since I didn't date during high school, I'm still working out the "bugs" that someone usually has when he starts dating. I'm learning lessons, I'm learning what works and what doesn't, and I'm waiting for the woman who will accept that.
Yet while I have learned those 3 helpful lessons, still more questions pop into my head. While I'm learning what works and what doesn't, I'm still clueless. I'm still asking myself, "What worked? What didn't? What needs to change? What should stay the same?" The worse part is that it seems like the in the case of either/or, neither works. Neither the girl I know well nor the girl I hardly know works. Neither the girl with many similarities nor the girl with few similarities work. Neither the girl with many friends nor the girl with few friends work. Neither the girl with many common friends as I nor the girl who doesn't know any of my friends work. Neither the desperate-for-a boyfriend nor the happy-single work. Neither the popular, nor the artistic, nor the intellectual, nor the preppy, nor the skater, nor the spiritual, nor the girly, nor the tomboy, no the sportsy, nor the musical, nor the dramatic, nor any girl from any clique works. I'm almost at the point where I might just try to talk a girl into working into building a relationship from nothing but the basis of that we're both Christian. But on the other side of that, I sometimes wonder if relationships, both serious and complicated, failed because of stumbling on one point; they were unwilling to accept me for who I was on one point. Do I change that? If I do, I might cease to be me, and thus become uncomfortable with myself. If I don't, I have to better accept when I lose a girl. I do have a list of 8 things that I look for in a girl. That alone leads to questions: Are these in stone or flexible? Do I need all reached, or will half reached or a quarter reached be good enough? This all seems self-centered, which leads me to a second question...
What do I have that I can offer girls? This might seem like a simple question, but it's harder than you think. I struggled with this every Valentine's Day, like I did in my last Valentine's Day blog. Sure I can say, "I'm a good Christian" but there's tons of guys who are. What do I have? I'm not athletic nor artistic. I don't have good looks or a fit body. I'm barely paying through college, so I don't have money, in the present and near future. I got nothing that attracts girls. In fact, sometimes I feel like I have more detering factors that I do helping factors. For the most part, I am introverted, while most girls are extraverted. I like keeping to myself, while most girls like being social. Girls want someone who is social with them, not keeps to himself. Girls like costly gifts, I can barely afford to pay bills, nor spend money on myself. Girls like strong men who can save them and I am weak and have problems with practical issues. Girls are emotional, and I'm more intellectual. Girls like things like proms, formals, and banquets, and I feel uncomfortable at those events. After thinking about these, I feel like I got notihng. Don't get me wrong, I like who I am because I recognize this who God made me to be. That's not the issue. The issue is if the girl likes me for how God has made me.
I also can't help but ask if the failed relationships is a sign that God wants me to be single, and by attempting to date, I am holding a high hand against him and sinning against His Will for my life. Once against, I know that sounds like a little but of Calvinistic predestination, but it might have some truth. I cannot go fully on free will on this issue. For example, let's say by my free will I choose that I want to get married and have a family. What if no one wants to marry me? Then my free will is being violated. My choice to be married is denied, and it is out of my control. But I know God is control. So can he plan for me to be married, which sounds a little more like Calvinism. Either way, we need to recognize that God has commands for everyone of every relationship status, whether single, dating, engaged, marrried, divorced or widowed. I can spout of Bible passages. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells us it is better to be single than to be married. In Luke 20, Jesus says that in the new heaven and new heart, there is no marriage. In Matthew 19:11-12, it even sounds like God has predestined some to be single. Those verses all seem to be supporting singlehood over marriage. But there is still some "on the other hand..." Maybe Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, while favoring singlehood, is trying to get across the message, "whatever your relationship status is, use it for the glory of God." And if you look closely at the Matthew 19:11-12 passage, it uses the term "eunuch" as in "God has made some eunuchs" If that is true, then if God has predestined people to be single, it sounds like those predestined single people have no sex drive at all. There is not attraction to the opposite sex at all. Where am I in that mix? While sometimes annoyed at women enough that I want to be single, my heart sometimes still longs for a girlfriend and hopefully one day a wife. But as I have been reminded this week, sex itself is not evil, but it can lead to evil things. Maybe I'm suppose to be resist any attraction to the opposite sex and focus on being single to increase the ministry. But the same time, more doors might be opened to me for ministry as a married because most churches seek couples to lead ministry, for that balance of male and female. Maybe I was suppose to be only dating girls for a time, so they can be edified somehow through our short term lesson and move on to bigger things and to a good husband.
It sometimes seems that way, no lie. Fact: starting with my first girlfriend, all my ex-girfriends, those 3 girls I was in complicated relationships with and even the girl I asked out last summer all have boyfriends. As a matter of fact, the first complicated relationship is actually married. But yeah, my first girlfriend is moving in with her on-and-off boyfriend of 1-2 years (please pray for her, as she is spiritually wayward). My 2nd girlfriend has been dating the guy she started dating a week after ending it the second time with me for 2 years in April. My 3rd ex-girlfriend has been dating the guy she started dating a month or two after we were done for 11 months. They'll probably get married once he's out of the military. Both the non-Christian girls have boyfriends, too, both over half a year. I can't help but feel like Good Luck Chuck. For those of you unfamiliar with the plot line for the movie Good Luck Chuck, every time Chuck sleeps with a woman, she finds her true love with another guy. Ok, not a perverted, but it seems like all my ex-es find true love after going through me (I should almost make this a service). Maybe it just helps them realize they're not as desperate as they thought they were, maybe it helps them realize more what they want or don't want in a boyfriend and find it in the next guy. Whatever the cause, it seems like my ex-es do better than I do. And another thing, they seem to rebound faster than I do. I takes me a year to fully get over it and be brave enough to take an interest in another girl. The girls seem to find a new guy in less than a month, a matter of weeks. I take so long because my past relationships meant something to me. Did our relationship ever mean anything to her?
But the biggest question that I have to ask myself is "why is this an issue?" If you remember from my blog my freshman year, I said that I was finally satisified being single when I had friends, especially ones who were also satisfied being single too. I can't help but think that my insecurity in relationships comes from the insecurities living here at my dorm. This is probably the first semester, and maybe even the first year (this semester and last semester) that I did not want to be in my dorm or on campus. It's tough for me living in my quad. In one dorm I got a legalistic pastoral student who puts down anyone who doesn't share his exact beliefs, including his own roomate. In the other dorm, I got a guy who always thinks my music is too loud, especially on Guitar Hero, when I play it nowhere as near as loud as I do at home. In my whole section altogether, it seems like they spend hours playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl in a loud, obnoxious fashion. I know this might sound selfish, but it makes it so hard to do homework or sleep. Plus, playing the Wii is a huge stress reliver for me. But it seems whenever I might have the small chance to play Wii, they always are playing their 50th round of Brawl. I also got a section who likes open dorms to allow girls to come in. My dorm and my quad is my "manctuary," where I can get away from girls and couples. I feel like my "mantuary" is breeched and defiled when they enter. Every time I feel like I have leave my safe haven. Even my own roommate sometimes gets on my nerves. From his anger issues to crazy ideas, I have found myself frustrated with him. I've been spending more times at Lou's place. It's gotten so bad that I actually enjoyed being home winter break. Not the fact that I was at home, but rather I just wasn't in this quad for a month. I don't mean to point any fingers of blame at people, because I'm not. What I'm really doing is pointing the finger back to myself. Have I really become intolerant of people's views, feelings and actions that I can no longer live with them too long? I once heard that parallel living with someone during the college years was to prepare me for living with a spouse for the rest of my life. I seem to be failing. It's been 2 years and I'm having problems with my roommate, even to the point he keeps asking me if I want to "divorce" him. On one night when I was open to him, I had to ask him, "If it wasn't an issue of money, and if we had known each other sooner, would you have roomed with me all 4 years?" which led me to ask "Am I someone that another person can live with?" Sadly I am at the point where I have to answer "no." I easily get sick of being around too long. Combing intolerance of the guys I am with now, and the short term relationships, both serious and not, I was in, I have this utter fear that even if I get married, my wife will be demanding a divorce in a year or less because I have become unable to live with anymore. That is my fear.
See, the problem is I have is two contradicting fears: the fear of people and the fear of being alone. The fear of people is an intellectual fear - I'm always thinking that people are judging me, so I withdraw so they have nothing to judge. The fear of being alone is an emotional fear. My heart longs for emotional intimacy with someone of the opposite gender. The funny things is that the emotional fear is contradicted by the intellectual, but the intellectual fear is defended by the emotional. Intellectually, I realize I am happier by myself, and it is the emotional side that is just saying I hate being alone. But both my heart and my mind tell me to withdraw to avoid judgment. (But even more ironic my mind is starting to think by withdrawing I'm bringing that same judgment on myself.). This also isn't helping my dating life. Because of my fear of people and rejection, I withdraw and spend little time with people, and even less time with girls. If I don't even hang around girls, what's the odds of finding a girlfriend? Slim to none.
I think another contradiction is that while I want a girlfriend, I have a problem with women. Between my short relationships, show-off couples, and dimishing female friendships, I really don't like girls anymore. Now let's make sure you understand what I am saying. I am aesexual, not homosexual. When I say I don't like girls anymore, that doesn't mean I like boys instead. I do not like either, hence aesexual, meaning "without sexual desire". It is funny, though. Twice in my life I was accused of being gay. The first time was in middle school and the underclassmen years of high school. Because I spent more time with girls than boys, and that I was never flirty around the girls, but just their friends, and girls in 6th-10th grade spend a lot of time talking about boys, others assumed that I hung around them because I was gay and liked talking about boys, too. On the contrary, I was very interested in girls, had many crushes, and would talk to these female friends about these girls just as much as I listened to them talk about boys. The second time was my freshman and sophomore year of college. When some saw that I hung around guys all the time, spent little to no time with women, and when I was around girls, I wasn't openly flirting with them, they concluded I must be gay. This is a horrible assessment because I had two girlfriends during those years. What I find wrong with both of them is the expectation that if a man is talking to a woman, he must be fliriting with her, for there is no other reason to for a guy to talk to the opposite gender. Can't a boy and a girl merely be friends? Apparently not. That brings up another issue why I'm not too fond of women right now. It seems like that every time a female friend of mine gets a boyfriend, she stops talking me to and cuts off any friendship. It has led me to conclude either she is flirting with me when single and I am too stupid to recognize it, or that when these girls starting dating a guy, their boyfriend expects them to cut off all relationships with any guy who is not related to her. I don't know the cause, but I do know the effects. As my female friends find boyfriends, they dwindle down. So not only do I not have a girlfriend, I don't any friends who are female. Without any kind of connection like that, I am doomed to remain single. Excuse me for going on a tangent with that, back on subject. Like I said way above, when the Christian girls would act like non-Christian girls pre-dating, dating and post-dating, I became upset with them. When girls around campus are openly flaunting their relationships, I get angry at that girl (funny thing is I never get angry at the guy. I see him more as a victim of her.). Whenever a female does talk to me about her relationship issues, I automatically side with the guy, no matter how little I know him. I even sometimes slip with my tongue and call a woman a "ho" instead (never to their face or in public, but when referring to them privately around guys). How can I want to date when I get upset with woman? Because there is a very small glimmer of hope in my heart, that one day I will stop meeting "hos" and meet a woman. Yet don't get me wrong, my frustration with women is a mere relationship thing. I reject any of these views for women in the church, in the ministry, in the classroom and in the workplace. I treat them with respect and honor and with equality.
But still sadly I've become cold to relationships. I take bets on how long a relationship will last. I don't know what to say to people about relationships. When my sister announced to my family when her last relationship ended, I said, "Lasted longer than I thought." When two of my friends got engaged, the best that came out of my mouth "Ok." OK?? At least I didnt do what was on my mind: say to the bride-to-be, "Congratulations!" the said to the groom-to-be, "Terribly sorry." To me I see guy with a girl and think, "Game over." Back in high school I was jealous of guys who had girlfriends. Now I find myself feeling betrayed by them. I feel like they betrayed mankind (as in guys, not humankind) for a girl. I think it goes back to see the guy as the vicitm of the girl. There's this one girl is half my classes I can't stand. She is freshman girl ENGAGED to a freshman guy. She is the worst of the show-off couples And for some reason she has to tell everyone in every class how the process is going. Hello?! Not eveyone cares. Personally, I don't give a crap. I'm pretty sure that someone else who has relative dying is more important than finding your perfect wedding cake. The worst part concerns my third ex-girlfriend. Her boyfriend is in the military. I wanted her back so bad that at sometimes I had the uriah and bathsheba idea in the back of my head. I wanted to call the military and tell them to station her boyfriend in the front line at the worse places in Falleujah. It's when you hit the bottom that you finally realize how bad you are. That wouldn't make her come back, and even if it did, I would have gotten her in the wrong way, just like I did the first time. To hate couples is wrong. It would be better to tunnel vision and not see them instead of wanting the worse to happen them.
See, I told you I haved a lot on my mind. So where does this leave me? Good question. When seeking advice about it, I get the answer "Pray about it." This answer has Biblical principles, but it also seems like the automatic, generic Christian response. I can say "Pray about it" for jobs, ministries, girlfriends, best friends and other troubles. What specific advice is for this specific trouble? At least they could be a little more specific than "pray for God's will" or "Pray for a girlfriend." And that answer doesn't help either when I feel guilty for praying for what I think is a selfish reason, when there are people in the world without food, water or homes. What more can someone give me? Something that did help was a book I borrowed from a friend. It is Sex God by Rob Bell. Don't get confused by the title; the book and chapter title is just to get your attention. Only a third of the book is really about sex. Another third is about our gender in relation to God and the other third about male-female relations in general. In the book, Rob Bell looks at those Matthew 19, Luke 20 and 1 Corinthians 7 passages about singleness and compares them to passages about marriage and married couples. Rob Bell makes many statements, but three consecutives statements about my singlehood stuck out to me. First, I am not missing out. Second, God is not holding me back. Third, God has something better planned. Those "pro-single" verses (I use that term loosely) make marriage kind of belittles marriage (I also use that term loosely so it doesn't sound like I'm giving thumbs up for sexual promiscuity. I'm not). Thus, I can't be missing out on something in marriage. Therefore, no one, including myself, should look down on my because I am single. I am nothing less, with or without a girlfriend. God is not using my single status as a curse. There is no curse in being single. In fact, Paul says the being single is easier than marriage (1 Corinthians 7:25-35). So God is not to be blamed for being single. Paul also mentions that those who are single can use the benefit of being single to glorify God by being more flexible for God's plans in the ministry. I can see truth in that already. Remember what I said all the way up top? What did I say made Valentine's Day easier for me? I was quizzing. Everyone who knows me how much my heart is in quizzing. I know that sometimes quizzers who have boyfriends/girlfriends the same time they have quizzing come upon a dillema. They have to find a way to please the boyfriend/girlfriend and meet the quizzing standards. Their interets are divided (another 1 Corinthians 7 quote, lol). I had no such problem, and I put my focus into quizzing for the Lord. And with all my faith in the Lord, I believe it will be true for the rest of my life. If I remained unmarried and single for the rest of my life, God will take the time, money and love I would put forward to a wife and children and put to good use, maybe with quizzers, students or someone I'm mentoring, or even a church or ministry as a whole. Intellectually, in my mind, I know it's true. It's a head truth. Now it's a matter of making it a heart truth: a truth that is emotionally true in my heart. I was struggle with that. Sometimes when I see couples, or even just starting thinking about how single I am, I have to close my eyes, plug my ears, and repeat those 3 statments over and over again. The problem is never that I'm thinking too much, but that I'm not thinking about the right things. I take my thoughts off of God and put it on being single. This is when my walls are down, and Satan tempts me to leave the Lord and the ministry for girls. But I've learned my lesson, that neither God nor the ministry is worth giving up for a girl. So I have to patiently wait for a woman where I am not put in a place to decide either God or girl. Because every time God will win, and the girl will lose. Sometimes I feel like crying out to Jesus what Peter once said to Jesus (in a totally diferent context), "I have left everything to follow You!" and Jesus replies somewhat the same as he did to Peter, "You left that relationship for the kingdom of God" Sounds like a fair trade off to me.
Thank you for putting up with me in so many ways. And if you don't like what I have to say, I'm going to make the same defense my roomates says: "Don't pay any attention to anything I say after 1 in the morning" :-P
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
An uphill battle
On Sunday, Conestoga had 3 matches at Lancaster Mennonite. As the night would go on, each of the quizmatches would get tougher as we would have to face a harder team. On that Sunday afternoon, the quiz team met at Julia Yoder's at 2 PM. A few of us had to circle around her road a couple of times to find her house. We practiced in fron the of the fire place. Amanda found one of those old-fashion foot massagers and she had it under her feet most of the time. For Kristy and Denise, who weren't at practice on Wednesday, I updated them where we were in our standings and what are goal was: to get at least 5 team bonuses by the end of the year. We went over 4 rounds of new questions, taking a break halfway through. During our break, I introduced the quizzers to Lightning Reaction Extreme, a game that shocks the slow buzzers. I know a lot of people who fear this game, but the younger quizzers seemed to like it. We ended our practice with one match of all the questions that were missed on Wednesday. This was good for Kristy and Denise to hear those questions. Denise got a little bit frustrated wtih some of my questions, but I insisted it was learning the material. Julia Yoder served us a wonderful breakfast for dinner: blueberry pancakes, bacon fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. I had to leave for a quizcoach meeting at 5:45, so I left the quizzers early, letting them to their own devices.
I got to the coach's meeting right at 5:45 p.m. I think I might enjoy coach's meeting a little too much. Coach's meetings are like a rite of passage to me now. It represents that I have grown up and I am truly the coach now. But the coaches meeting was nothing overly exciting. We discussed what worked, what didn't, and what was going to happen for the final season playoffs, the ACC Tournament, and the Invitational in Kidron, Ohio. The meeting got over at 6:20, 5 minutes after worship started, so I had to go through quite the search to find my quiz team. When I found them, I joined them in worshipping the Lord. Then the typical announcement and joke, then all of us left the auditorium at once. In the midst of trying to get through the crowd, I thought I spotted out of the corner of my eye someone I knew. It was someone I knew! It was Coach Dave and Coach Vicki from Spring City! I darted through that crowd so fast so I could hug them (although it seemed to end up to be more of a tackle). I was so glad to see them. They said they hoped to come to more matches, but they had to go to ministry committee meetings, so they couldn't come to as much as they like, but here they were. I couldn't wait for them to come to Conestoga's matches.
Conestoga's first match was during the second round against Hinkletown 1. When Erik Zimmerman from Hinkletown 1 buzzed in on the first question and got it right, I was worried. Hinkletown 1 was below us in the standings and the easiest match we'd have all night. If we lost this match, it could really damper spirit. But there was nothing to worry about, for Denise quizzed out by question 7, and Justin followed by quizzing out on question 8. This allowed both Amanda and Meredith in to help us for team. After Justin quizzed out in question 8, Kristy and Joy got the next 2 questions correct after buzzing in, giving us team bonus on question 10. We had the four quizzers for team bonus, but it didn't stop there. Amanda buzzed in on question 11 answered correctly with "Paul was abnormally born." It was funny because Amanda told us in practice her favorite phrase for this week was "abnormally born." The match wasn't over yet. Joy quizzed out on question 14, and Amanda got the last question, also a buzz-in. The end score was in Conestoga's favor, 155 to 20. This was our best match by far all season.
Conestoga's second match was against Zion 2, who were slightly ahead of us in the standings. I had watched two of their matches, and it seemed like they were evenly matched to me. It was all a matter of Zion gettig team bonus. I recognized Joel and Ben as younger siblings from older siblings I quizzed along side of. It was pretty close for the first few questions. After six questions, it was Zion 2 - 40, Conestoga - 20. Even with Joel from Zion 2 quzzzing out on question 8, the 35 point deficit was not putting down the team. Sure enough, Zion 2 got four of their quizzers to get a correct buzz-in and got team bonus. I just urged them to stay strong and still get the most points they can. And that's exactly what they did. Denise quizzed out on question 12, and Joy followed, quizzing out on question 14. Justin kept at it by getting the last question correct. Conestoga did lose the match, but did earn 80 points, which technically above our average.
The third match was consective to our second match. The opponent was RiverCorner, 3rd place in our league. Their top quizzer was one away from perfect. Yet she seemed a little tipsy off of Mountain Dew. She did get the first two questions right, one a buzz in and one a bonus. But on questions 3 and 5 she errored, which Denise was able to get one of them correct. The reason she couldn't get in on question 4 was because Denise got the buzz-in correct. With her two errors, RiverCorner called a timeout after question 5, and pulled her. At that point, the score was tied with 20 points each. But after timeout, the team was refreshed. RiverCorner answered 6 of the next 7 questions correct, all buzz-ins. In that, they got team bonus and 2 quiz outs. Joy buzzed in on the last two questions, getting one right, and erroring on the other. After a close start, RiverCorner won, 110 to 40.
So after Sunday night, Conestoga's average went up from 78 to 81. Yet we stayed the same in standings, in slot 11. Denise is now 20th in the Top 50 Quizzers List. And after Justin's quiz out and Joy quiz outs, the two of them are now in Top 100. Next week we have the oppurtunity to go up in the standings.
I got to the coach's meeting right at 5:45 p.m. I think I might enjoy coach's meeting a little too much. Coach's meetings are like a rite of passage to me now. It represents that I have grown up and I am truly the coach now. But the coaches meeting was nothing overly exciting. We discussed what worked, what didn't, and what was going to happen for the final season playoffs, the ACC Tournament, and the Invitational in Kidron, Ohio. The meeting got over at 6:20, 5 minutes after worship started, so I had to go through quite the search to find my quiz team. When I found them, I joined them in worshipping the Lord. Then the typical announcement and joke, then all of us left the auditorium at once. In the midst of trying to get through the crowd, I thought I spotted out of the corner of my eye someone I knew. It was someone I knew! It was Coach Dave and Coach Vicki from Spring City! I darted through that crowd so fast so I could hug them (although it seemed to end up to be more of a tackle). I was so glad to see them. They said they hoped to come to more matches, but they had to go to ministry committee meetings, so they couldn't come to as much as they like, but here they were. I couldn't wait for them to come to Conestoga's matches.
Conestoga's first match was during the second round against Hinkletown 1. When Erik Zimmerman from Hinkletown 1 buzzed in on the first question and got it right, I was worried. Hinkletown 1 was below us in the standings and the easiest match we'd have all night. If we lost this match, it could really damper spirit. But there was nothing to worry about, for Denise quizzed out by question 7, and Justin followed by quizzing out on question 8. This allowed both Amanda and Meredith in to help us for team. After Justin quizzed out in question 8, Kristy and Joy got the next 2 questions correct after buzzing in, giving us team bonus on question 10. We had the four quizzers for team bonus, but it didn't stop there. Amanda buzzed in on question 11 answered correctly with "Paul was abnormally born." It was funny because Amanda told us in practice her favorite phrase for this week was "abnormally born." The match wasn't over yet. Joy quizzed out on question 14, and Amanda got the last question, also a buzz-in. The end score was in Conestoga's favor, 155 to 20. This was our best match by far all season.
Conestoga's second match was against Zion 2, who were slightly ahead of us in the standings. I had watched two of their matches, and it seemed like they were evenly matched to me. It was all a matter of Zion gettig team bonus. I recognized Joel and Ben as younger siblings from older siblings I quizzed along side of. It was pretty close for the first few questions. After six questions, it was Zion 2 - 40, Conestoga - 20. Even with Joel from Zion 2 quzzzing out on question 8, the 35 point deficit was not putting down the team. Sure enough, Zion 2 got four of their quizzers to get a correct buzz-in and got team bonus. I just urged them to stay strong and still get the most points they can. And that's exactly what they did. Denise quizzed out on question 12, and Joy followed, quizzing out on question 14. Justin kept at it by getting the last question correct. Conestoga did lose the match, but did earn 80 points, which technically above our average.
The third match was consective to our second match. The opponent was RiverCorner, 3rd place in our league. Their top quizzer was one away from perfect. Yet she seemed a little tipsy off of Mountain Dew. She did get the first two questions right, one a buzz in and one a bonus. But on questions 3 and 5 she errored, which Denise was able to get one of them correct. The reason she couldn't get in on question 4 was because Denise got the buzz-in correct. With her two errors, RiverCorner called a timeout after question 5, and pulled her. At that point, the score was tied with 20 points each. But after timeout, the team was refreshed. RiverCorner answered 6 of the next 7 questions correct, all buzz-ins. In that, they got team bonus and 2 quiz outs. Joy buzzed in on the last two questions, getting one right, and erroring on the other. After a close start, RiverCorner won, 110 to 40.
So after Sunday night, Conestoga's average went up from 78 to 81. Yet we stayed the same in standings, in slot 11. Denise is now 20th in the Top 50 Quizzers List. And after Justin's quiz out and Joy quiz outs, the two of them are now in Top 100. Next week we have the oppurtunity to go up in the standings.
Monday, February 15, 2010
This is how you end the first half of the season
On this Valentine's day, the quizzing material was 1 Corinthians 11:17 to 14:25, which includes 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter known for love. Fred said he didn't do that on purpose, but who knows. Quiz practice was at the Essicks. Because they had limited parking space due to the snow, we all drove up in Justin's car, and the Beams met us shortly later. As a Valentine's gift, I told the quizzers I would give them a piece of dark chocolate if they answered a good buzz-in correctly. Candy was flying everywhere in practice. Practice went ok. We got off 4 new matches, and did a match of missed questions. Amanda knew her lists, but seemed to be missing simple bonuses. Kristy seemed absent for many questions and her column would go blank for questions. Denise was quizzing out, and so was Joy. Justin would either quiz out or error out. We studied our best, had dinner, and left for quizzing.
We got to Neffsville at 6:15, just in time for worship to start. Right after worship, announcements, and joke. Then once 6:30 came around, it was time for Conestoga to quiz. Our first round match was against Petra 2. This match some of my quizzers were looking forward to because they had a friend on the team. Other quizzers were not looking forward to it because Petra 2 was the no. 1 team in our league. Again, for the holiday, I gave all the quizzers a duct tape rose to put with their nametag. Not really wanting to do it, but needing to, I started Amanda over Kristy because Kristy wasn't getting a lot and I needed someone who knew the lists in starting just in case the list questions came early. I told them to just do their best, score as much as they can, and rely on God's strength. The first half of the match was pretty close. Both Denise and Joy got 20 points. On Petra 2's side, they had their perfect quizzer quiz out. But by the end of question 9, it was only 45-40 Petra 2. On question 10, Denise errored, Nadine on Petra 2 got the bonus, and the match swung in Petra 2's favor for the rest of the match. Petra 2 buzzed in on every question, getting team bonus. On the last question, Kristen from Petra 2 errored, and Amanda got the bonus right. We lost 50 to 115, but we've score less than that twice before, and held Petra 2 from reaching their average.
We had a match break, but only one. We met Hope Community in the stuffy upstairs room. I told the quiz team to shake off the old match. This was a new match and we couldn't give up. Once again, it was close up to question 9. Hope Community was leading 55 to 40. Stephanie Hartman, Hope Community's top quizzer, quizzed out, and had another quizzer ready to quiz out. Conestoga was set up for team bonus with only 1 quizzer. After question 9, Conestoga took control of the match. Denise quizzed out on question 10. Kristy took her seat and on question 11 she buzzed in, answered correctly, and got team bonus. Question 12 Hope Community had a second quizzer quizzed out. The last 3 questions were review, and they were all Conestoga's. Kristy took question 13. Then, out of nowhere, Joy buzzed in on the last 2 questions, answered them both correctly, and got a quiz out, her first of her career! Way to go, Joy!
Conestoga had a two match break before their final match of the night. We all went down to the room we were going to quiz in, sat on the coaches, and just rested. During one of those matches, we watched Gehman get team bonus on question 4. Yikes! Before we knew it, it was time for us to quiz against Parkesburg 2. I went with the same lineup, seated differently according to what I saw in Parkesburg 2's other match. I told the quizzers to do what they did the last match. A lot of the questions I heard being asked I personally asked during the practices, so they knew it. I personally told Justin that because I knew he could quiz out with buzz-ins in practice, so he could do it in a real match. That talk must have been the encouragement he needed because he buzzed in on the first question and got it right! Denise gave me a scare when she errored on questions 3 and 4. I made her promise me that she wouldn't kill the seat by erroring out. On question 6, Alyssa quizzed out. During the timeout, I told the quizzers she was the only one we say action from, so now the rest of the match is ours. Sure enough, it was. Joy buzzed in twice in a row to get 20 points. Even Amanda buzzed in, but ended up erroring because she finished the question instead of giving the answer. Denise redeemed herself by getting the next to buzz ins correct and quizzing out. We were once again 1 question away from team bonus, with Kristy taking Denise's place. On question 12, Justin, who had been dorment since question 1, buzzed in and answered correctly. On question 13, Joy buzzed in, answered correctly, and quizzed out again! Here's a 2nd year quizzer (and may I mention it's an inconsecutive 2nd year) who got her first two career quiz outs, all with buzz-ins! With Joy sitting down, Meredith got up, increasing our chances for team bonus. So either Kristy, Amanda or Meredith could get team bonus, or Justin could get a quiz out. Technically, with two questions left, we could get both. On question 14, Justin buzzed answered correctly, and quizzed. This was his first quiz out since week 2, and only his third quiz out all season. On question 15, Kristy buzzed in, but couldn't think up an answer and errored. Well, neither could Parkesburg 2 because the bonus was dropped. Conestoga didn't get team bonus, but did score in the triple digits. Conestoga won 105 to 35.
At the end of the first half of the season, Conestoga has a win-loss-tie record of 6-4-1. Our average increased to 78.18. That was a great boost for our team. If we can start the second half of the season the way we ended the first half, we can really move up our average.
We got to Neffsville at 6:15, just in time for worship to start. Right after worship, announcements, and joke. Then once 6:30 came around, it was time for Conestoga to quiz. Our first round match was against Petra 2. This match some of my quizzers were looking forward to because they had a friend on the team. Other quizzers were not looking forward to it because Petra 2 was the no. 1 team in our league. Again, for the holiday, I gave all the quizzers a duct tape rose to put with their nametag. Not really wanting to do it, but needing to, I started Amanda over Kristy because Kristy wasn't getting a lot and I needed someone who knew the lists in starting just in case the list questions came early. I told them to just do their best, score as much as they can, and rely on God's strength. The first half of the match was pretty close. Both Denise and Joy got 20 points. On Petra 2's side, they had their perfect quizzer quiz out. But by the end of question 9, it was only 45-40 Petra 2. On question 10, Denise errored, Nadine on Petra 2 got the bonus, and the match swung in Petra 2's favor for the rest of the match. Petra 2 buzzed in on every question, getting team bonus. On the last question, Kristen from Petra 2 errored, and Amanda got the bonus right. We lost 50 to 115, but we've score less than that twice before, and held Petra 2 from reaching their average.
We had a match break, but only one. We met Hope Community in the stuffy upstairs room. I told the quiz team to shake off the old match. This was a new match and we couldn't give up. Once again, it was close up to question 9. Hope Community was leading 55 to 40. Stephanie Hartman, Hope Community's top quizzer, quizzed out, and had another quizzer ready to quiz out. Conestoga was set up for team bonus with only 1 quizzer. After question 9, Conestoga took control of the match. Denise quizzed out on question 10. Kristy took her seat and on question 11 she buzzed in, answered correctly, and got team bonus. Question 12 Hope Community had a second quizzer quizzed out. The last 3 questions were review, and they were all Conestoga's. Kristy took question 13. Then, out of nowhere, Joy buzzed in on the last 2 questions, answered them both correctly, and got a quiz out, her first of her career! Way to go, Joy!
Conestoga had a two match break before their final match of the night. We all went down to the room we were going to quiz in, sat on the coaches, and just rested. During one of those matches, we watched Gehman get team bonus on question 4. Yikes! Before we knew it, it was time for us to quiz against Parkesburg 2. I went with the same lineup, seated differently according to what I saw in Parkesburg 2's other match. I told the quizzers to do what they did the last match. A lot of the questions I heard being asked I personally asked during the practices, so they knew it. I personally told Justin that because I knew he could quiz out with buzz-ins in practice, so he could do it in a real match. That talk must have been the encouragement he needed because he buzzed in on the first question and got it right! Denise gave me a scare when she errored on questions 3 and 4. I made her promise me that she wouldn't kill the seat by erroring out. On question 6, Alyssa quizzed out. During the timeout, I told the quizzers she was the only one we say action from, so now the rest of the match is ours. Sure enough, it was. Joy buzzed in twice in a row to get 20 points. Even Amanda buzzed in, but ended up erroring because she finished the question instead of giving the answer. Denise redeemed herself by getting the next to buzz ins correct and quizzing out. We were once again 1 question away from team bonus, with Kristy taking Denise's place. On question 12, Justin, who had been dorment since question 1, buzzed in and answered correctly. On question 13, Joy buzzed in, answered correctly, and quizzed out again! Here's a 2nd year quizzer (and may I mention it's an inconsecutive 2nd year) who got her first two career quiz outs, all with buzz-ins! With Joy sitting down, Meredith got up, increasing our chances for team bonus. So either Kristy, Amanda or Meredith could get team bonus, or Justin could get a quiz out. Technically, with two questions left, we could get both. On question 14, Justin buzzed answered correctly, and quizzed. This was his first quiz out since week 2, and only his third quiz out all season. On question 15, Kristy buzzed in, but couldn't think up an answer and errored. Well, neither could Parkesburg 2 because the bonus was dropped. Conestoga didn't get team bonus, but did score in the triple digits. Conestoga won 105 to 35.
At the end of the first half of the season, Conestoga has a win-loss-tie record of 6-4-1. Our average increased to 78.18. That was a great boost for our team. If we can start the second half of the season the way we ended the first half, we can really move up our average.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Supposedly the easiest week? Ups and downs.
Week 3 of the quizzing season started off crazy with the snowstorm that went from Friday to Saturday. Even though the snowstorm was done by Saturday, the snow drifted back onto the roads. Sunday School was cancelled, but church service was still on. But we needed practice for the Sunday School hour because he had limited practice in the new afternoon. So I contacted the quizzers and they were all willing to still come out for quiz practice. I hope their driving circumstances weren't as bad as mine. My car stalled starting up, and I slipped about 3 times trying to turn. The scariest part was passing buggies. But I made it in one piece, and so did everyone else. During the Sunday School hour, we read the material and got off two practice matches, althought the second match I only gave them 15 seconds to think. After that, we joined together in worship. Following worship the quiz team ate a warm lunch of sloppy joe and mac n cheese, provided by my mom. We were making good time, so we did 2 more practice matches: 1 new, 1 missed questions. We wanted enough time to drive in the snow, so we left about 1 PM for Bowmansville. We got there around 1:20-1:30 did rounds of questions in a classroom, then joined everyone for worship.
Conestoga's first match was during the second round. We quizzed against Bowmansville 2. Since it was aginast Bowmansville, we were up in the sanctuary. I introduced the quizzers to a sanctuary match, telling them to listen carefully to the quizmaster and talk into the microphones. The match started off with Bowmansville, but Conestoga got back into the swing of things. Kristy, Joy, and Denise all got a buzz-in. We were only one away from team bonus. All we needed was Justin. Denise quizzed out, putting in Meredith and increasing our chance for team bonus. On one question, Justin buzzed in...and errored. I told him to shake it off and keep on trying because we needed him. Soon enough, Justin buzzed in on "What do we partake..." I knew Justin had this because "partake" was one of the keywords. Justin answered "the body of Christ" and got it correct! Of course I went wild; it was our first team bonus of the year! When the quizmaster heard, and was told, he said, "I was wondering what all the commotion was about. That's team bonus." I replied, "DARN RIGHT!" Justin also got the last question right for team bonus, giving Conestoga the win 95-30.
We watched Hope of the Nations for the match in between, and then we were off to our next match. We were quizzing Weaverland 2 downstairs. I had bad memories of that place because that is where I lost my last perfection for the last time. I hoped the team would avenge. That would not happen. Weaverland was just too fast. They got very good buzzes, and on the ones that weren't, they got luck on their answers. Weaverland's point went quickly the the triple digits. Maybe out of frustration, Denise somehow squeezed a quiz out. Conestoga lost with 45 points.
Since we only had 2 matches, and the Super Bowl was 3 hours away, we all went back to the respective Super Bowl party. While the quizzers went to Dylan Beam's, I went back to the college because I had homework I need to finish. The college did put on a decent party for the Super Bowl. They even had a contest to who had the right winner and the closest score. I lost because I picked the Colts. It looked like the Colts were going to win, but with the Peyton Manning interception, the only interception of the game, it turned the game around to the Saints, and sealed the victory to them. The Saints won 31 to 17.
Back to Conestoga and quizzing, Conestoga's average dropped from 74 to 73 points per match. It's not too much, so hopefully we would stay in the same ranking. I was hoping the 95 point match would boost us, but with the 45 point match, it would only negate it. But I believe the quizzers did their best, and we got the best results we could get. Jesus be praised. We'll just keep practicing and learning. And with the snow storm coming, that might become an issue.
Conestoga's first match was during the second round. We quizzed against Bowmansville 2. Since it was aginast Bowmansville, we were up in the sanctuary. I introduced the quizzers to a sanctuary match, telling them to listen carefully to the quizmaster and talk into the microphones. The match started off with Bowmansville, but Conestoga got back into the swing of things. Kristy, Joy, and Denise all got a buzz-in. We were only one away from team bonus. All we needed was Justin. Denise quizzed out, putting in Meredith and increasing our chance for team bonus. On one question, Justin buzzed in...and errored. I told him to shake it off and keep on trying because we needed him. Soon enough, Justin buzzed in on "What do we partake..." I knew Justin had this because "partake" was one of the keywords. Justin answered "the body of Christ" and got it correct! Of course I went wild; it was our first team bonus of the year! When the quizmaster heard, and was told, he said, "I was wondering what all the commotion was about. That's team bonus." I replied, "DARN RIGHT!" Justin also got the last question right for team bonus, giving Conestoga the win 95-30.
We watched Hope of the Nations for the match in between, and then we were off to our next match. We were quizzing Weaverland 2 downstairs. I had bad memories of that place because that is where I lost my last perfection for the last time. I hoped the team would avenge. That would not happen. Weaverland was just too fast. They got very good buzzes, and on the ones that weren't, they got luck on their answers. Weaverland's point went quickly the the triple digits. Maybe out of frustration, Denise somehow squeezed a quiz out. Conestoga lost with 45 points.
Since we only had 2 matches, and the Super Bowl was 3 hours away, we all went back to the respective Super Bowl party. While the quizzers went to Dylan Beam's, I went back to the college because I had homework I need to finish. The college did put on a decent party for the Super Bowl. They even had a contest to who had the right winner and the closest score. I lost because I picked the Colts. It looked like the Colts were going to win, but with the Peyton Manning interception, the only interception of the game, it turned the game around to the Saints, and sealed the victory to them. The Saints won 31 to 17.
Back to Conestoga and quizzing, Conestoga's average dropped from 74 to 73 points per match. It's not too much, so hopefully we would stay in the same ranking. I was hoping the 95 point match would boost us, but with the 45 point match, it would only negate it. But I believe the quizzers did their best, and we got the best results we could get. Jesus be praised. We'll just keep practicing and learning. And with the snow storm coming, that might become an issue.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Possibly our hardest week of the season
Going into week 2, we were entering possibly our hardest week of the season. Part of it we were quizzing on 3 chapters and a bit of a 4th chapter. Half of the material was on 1 Corinthians 7, which had a lot of situational people (like "the man who was a slave before he was called" or "the woman whose husband died" for example). But probably the biggest reason was we had 3 back to back matches. It was take endurance to get through something like that.
The quiz team met at Bonnie Beam's house for practice at 2 PM...well, most of the quiz team. Kristy and Denise were at a bridal shower. We waited a little bit for them by doing a crossword with the keywords in it. It was interesting as we discussed how to spell "puffs" (compared to "poofs"), "physically" and "trivial." We read the material and discussed how to distinguish the lists. I had them practice pronoucing idolaters because some of them were saying "idol-laters" instead of "i-dol-a-ters." Still waiting for Densie and Kristy, I didn't want to begin new questions, so the 4 quizzers did a match going over the questions we missed Wednesday, with 4 question quiz outs. Justin quizzed out on this match. Running short on time, we did a match of new material. Both Meredith and Joy quizzed out on this match of brand new questions! During this match, Kristy and Denise arrived. We put them back into the matches and went back to 3 question quiz outs. In the first, Denise, Joy and Justin quizzed out by question 12, and they were all one the same team! That looked good. The next match not som much. The team of Denise, Joy and Justin errored 6 times, and the team of Kristy, Amanda and Meredith only got 2 of those bonuses right. Those 2 bonuses were the only questions they got. With not enough time for another match, we did one set of round questions, and then had dinner. The Beams cooked us a wonderful dinner of Meatball Sandwiches.
We arrived at Petra around 6:05 PM. The girls had a lot of friends from there so they were scattered about talking to friends. In the meantime, I got us seats in the sanctuary, front and center. Andrew Jensen led the worship team and the whole sanctuary in worship. Then there was announcements, a mini-devotional, and then we were off. The quizzers stayed in the sanctuary to watch Grace & Truth the first round and Hope of the Nations the second round. I went scouting, watching Maple Grove 3 the first round and Ridgeview 1 the second round. I was hearing a lot of questions with the keywords I was using, so I thought that this might be easier for us than last week. Some of the quizzers thought so too. Round 3 came up and we headed to the classroom for our match.
In round 3, we quizzed against Strasburg 2. Travis from Strasburg 2 started off the match was 2 right buzz-ins, putting us behind 20-o right of the bat. On his 3rd question, he errored, giving us a chance for points, but the bonus was dropped on our side. Luckily Denise help pick up the team by answering 3 consecutive questions correctly for a quiz out. That shifted the gears of the match. Strasburg 2 struggled with errors, getting six errors, and losing 10 pooints. Conestoga was quick to pick up the bonuses. Joy got 2 consective answers correct for her first points! Conestoga won the match, 75 to 45.
From the Classroom, we had to run all the way to the opposite end of the church for our next match in the sanctuary lobby. Conestoga was on the left, and Ridgeview 1 on the right. This match was hard and hurt us. Ridgeview 1's best quizzer Shaun quizzed out by question 4. After question 4, Carrissa, possibly their second best quizzer, buzzed in twice in a row and got them both right. It was hard starting a match 55-0. Carissa would later on quiz out on question 10, another buzz in. Conestoga tried their best. Justin would go ahead and quiz out. The 5 point bonus from quizzing out would be soon negated by losing 5 points for our 5 errors on question 14. Conestoga lost that match, 40 to 80.
Once again, we were on the run to the opposite side of the church, as we quizzed in the church's cafe (it was literally a cafe) for our match against Maple Grove 3. I encouraged the team to forget about the last match, and to stay strong and sharp, and to endure. I even tried to change the seating up a bit. We started the first question down by 10, but then we answered the next 4 questions correctly, butting us up 40-10 a third the way through the match. Denise quizzed out on question 8. It got scary on question 11 when Maple Grove 3 was 1 away from team bonus, but instead they errored more, losing 5 points. Conestoga won the match, 85 to 45.
The good news is we were 2-1 for the night in terms of win-loss record. The bad news is that the quizzing standings go by points, and our average to 74 1/3 points per match. But combining the two, even if we won with low scores, the opponenents with won against scored even less than we did. So it will be interesting to see how the standings turn out. Looking ahead in the schedule, we seem to be going from possibly the hardest week, last Sunday, to the possibly the easiest week, with only 2 matches. Hopefully the material will be just as easier so it can give the team a confidence boost.
The quiz team met at Bonnie Beam's house for practice at 2 PM...well, most of the quiz team. Kristy and Denise were at a bridal shower. We waited a little bit for them by doing a crossword with the keywords in it. It was interesting as we discussed how to spell "puffs" (compared to "poofs"), "physically" and "trivial." We read the material and discussed how to distinguish the lists. I had them practice pronoucing idolaters because some of them were saying "idol-laters" instead of "i-dol-a-ters." Still waiting for Densie and Kristy, I didn't want to begin new questions, so the 4 quizzers did a match going over the questions we missed Wednesday, with 4 question quiz outs. Justin quizzed out on this match. Running short on time, we did a match of new material. Both Meredith and Joy quizzed out on this match of brand new questions! During this match, Kristy and Denise arrived. We put them back into the matches and went back to 3 question quiz outs. In the first, Denise, Joy and Justin quizzed out by question 12, and they were all one the same team! That looked good. The next match not som much. The team of Denise, Joy and Justin errored 6 times, and the team of Kristy, Amanda and Meredith only got 2 of those bonuses right. Those 2 bonuses were the only questions they got. With not enough time for another match, we did one set of round questions, and then had dinner. The Beams cooked us a wonderful dinner of Meatball Sandwiches.
We arrived at Petra around 6:05 PM. The girls had a lot of friends from there so they were scattered about talking to friends. In the meantime, I got us seats in the sanctuary, front and center. Andrew Jensen led the worship team and the whole sanctuary in worship. Then there was announcements, a mini-devotional, and then we were off. The quizzers stayed in the sanctuary to watch Grace & Truth the first round and Hope of the Nations the second round. I went scouting, watching Maple Grove 3 the first round and Ridgeview 1 the second round. I was hearing a lot of questions with the keywords I was using, so I thought that this might be easier for us than last week. Some of the quizzers thought so too. Round 3 came up and we headed to the classroom for our match.
In round 3, we quizzed against Strasburg 2. Travis from Strasburg 2 started off the match was 2 right buzz-ins, putting us behind 20-o right of the bat. On his 3rd question, he errored, giving us a chance for points, but the bonus was dropped on our side. Luckily Denise help pick up the team by answering 3 consecutive questions correctly for a quiz out. That shifted the gears of the match. Strasburg 2 struggled with errors, getting six errors, and losing 10 pooints. Conestoga was quick to pick up the bonuses. Joy got 2 consective answers correct for her first points! Conestoga won the match, 75 to 45.
From the Classroom, we had to run all the way to the opposite end of the church for our next match in the sanctuary lobby. Conestoga was on the left, and Ridgeview 1 on the right. This match was hard and hurt us. Ridgeview 1's best quizzer Shaun quizzed out by question 4. After question 4, Carrissa, possibly their second best quizzer, buzzed in twice in a row and got them both right. It was hard starting a match 55-0. Carissa would later on quiz out on question 10, another buzz in. Conestoga tried their best. Justin would go ahead and quiz out. The 5 point bonus from quizzing out would be soon negated by losing 5 points for our 5 errors on question 14. Conestoga lost that match, 40 to 80.
Once again, we were on the run to the opposite side of the church, as we quizzed in the church's cafe (it was literally a cafe) for our match against Maple Grove 3. I encouraged the team to forget about the last match, and to stay strong and sharp, and to endure. I even tried to change the seating up a bit. We started the first question down by 10, but then we answered the next 4 questions correctly, butting us up 40-10 a third the way through the match. Denise quizzed out on question 8. It got scary on question 11 when Maple Grove 3 was 1 away from team bonus, but instead they errored more, losing 5 points. Conestoga won the match, 85 to 45.
The good news is we were 2-1 for the night in terms of win-loss record. The bad news is that the quizzing standings go by points, and our average to 74 1/3 points per match. But combining the two, even if we won with low scores, the opponenents with won against scored even less than we did. So it will be interesting to see how the standings turn out. Looking ahead in the schedule, we seem to be going from possibly the hardest week, last Sunday, to the possibly the easiest week, with only 2 matches. Hopefully the material will be just as easier so it can give the team a confidence boost.
Monday, January 25, 2010
New job, new role, new team, new season
Just like any other quizzing eve, I had problems sleeping because I was so excited to start a new quizzing season. But new to any other quizzing season, I might have had problems sleeping because it had finally hit me that I was going up to sit in the seat, but had a permanant place on the bench, only getting up for timeouts. It humbled me knowing there was no individual score I could pedestal myself upon, but instead I had to trust my team for all points. So I prayed that God would make me a humble coach, never asking too much nor too little from my team. Then I was able to get some sleep.
During church service Sunday morning, Pastor Bob comissioned the quiz team. We all went up on the stage, and I introduced the quizzers on the quiz teams, which most of the congregation already knew, maybe better than I did. Pastor Bob prayed, as we walked off the stage, Bob commented on my orange suit: "it's amazing what color schemes the younger generation can get away with" :)
After church, the church served a soup and salad fellowship meal, so the quiz team was part of that. We started practice around 1:30 p.m. We started practice by listening to the material, and practiced buzzing in on keywords. We had two brand new practice matches with brand new questions. From when we started having quiz practice on Jan. 6, I had asked 2 questions from every verse in 1 Corinthians chapters 2-4, and 1 question for every verse in 1 Corinthians 1. We took a 15-minute break, in which we took our team picture. We had 3 more practice matches. Those 3 matches were going over questions we missed throughout previous practices. The first match of the 3 the quizzers started out strong, but ended weak. The 2nd of 3 they started out weak, but ended strong. The third of 3 was very weak, as there were14 errors in the whole match. We figured that we were growing tired due to empty stomaches so we called it quits and drove to our dinner hosts.
Harvey & Lillian Stoltzfus gladly hosted the team for dinner. They had this toy, which easily entertained Amanda. For dinner we had taco salad with hot sauce that reminded Amanda of chinese food. Of course, Amanda led in conversation. We thanked Harvey & Lillian and left for our quizmeet at 5:30.
We joined in the LMS Fine Arts center for the worship. After worship, they gave announcements about rulings, where even the staff sounded unsure about the material. Since we had to wait a match, I asked the quizzers whether they want to watch 2 experienced teams in the room we were facing, or if they wanted to watch their friends in Hope of the Nations instead. They were quick to respond "Hope of the Nations." So we watched Hope of the Nations face Media. For being all the way in Reading, Hope of the Nations brought a healthy cheering squad. Charleton from Media was quick to quiz out and take an early lead. But Hope of the Nations came back and won their first quizzing match! Way to go, Hope of the Nations!
We went down the hall to our first match against Neffsville. It was kind of ironic because I had spent several Sundays in my underclassmen years attending church at Neffsville. Neffsville, which was known for having multiple teams, only had one. In fact, since I began quizzing in 2002, I can always remember Neffsville having multiple teams. So it's been at least 9 years since Neffsville only had one team. The only one I recognized was Carissa Harnish, a long time quizzer from the Harnish dynasty. I had Kristy sit across from her. The first question Kristy buzzed in and errored, but Carissa was unable to pick up the bonus. It flip flopped the next question, as Carissa errored and missed the bonus. This is the only bonus we missed all night. By the third question, when Carissa errored, Kristy got the bonus. Well, Denise must have been tired of sitting out the first 3 questions because she buzzed in the next 3 questions, answered them all correctly, and quizzed out on question 6. Justin was next to quiz out, on question 12, with 3 right buzz ins and 1 error. Carissa from Neffsville recovered from her 2 early errors and quizzed out on buzz ins by question 13. Carissa was the only real action on that team. In the end, Conestoga won, 90 to 45.
We had to hurry for our next match back in the other building. We were facing Petra 4, coached by Andrew Jensen, someone who I have quizzed against a quizzer few years back. The match was always close, as no team took more than a 20 point lead. It got scary when Petra 4 was only 1 right buzz in away from team bonus with 4 questions left. Denise quizzed out on question 10, followed by Kristy quizzing out on question 14. But even more exciting was on question 13, when Amanda got her first points on the first night of her rookie year! On question 15, Petra 4 did not get the team bonus for the win, but did get a quiz out to tie the match at 80 points. As I shook coach Andrew's hand, I said to him "Isn't it scary when we become the adults?" :) And I left the music room, someone came out to me and asked, "Spring City, right?" and I couldn't help but laugh and say, "As a quizzed yes" :D
After a one-match break, we had our final quiz of the night against Gehman. My quizzers knew them as the team with the intelligable word of "yes", which annoyed them all. To my surprise, we had added a new fan, but an old teammate of mine: Tim Moss. He encouraged the "revolving door" strategy, but I told him to forget it :P . Gehman started with a correct buzz in from Paul, their top quizzer. Annoyed by his audible word "yes", Conestoga got 3 consecutive buzz ins correct from 3 different quizzers, going down the line from seat 1 to seat 3. I encouraged seat 4 Amanda to get us team bonus on question 5 with 4 consective buzz ins. Paul didn't want to see that, as he buzzed in twice in a row and got them both right for a quiz out. After 6 questions, Gehamn led by 5. This match was close for the next 5 questions. All but one were correct buzz ins, and the 1 error was from Brandon, but Amanda picked that one up. After question 11, Gehman took off. They got team bonus on question 12, and another quiz out on question 15. Denise, seeing a perfect season flash before her eyes, Denise buzzed in on question 15 and quizzed out. Conestoga scored 75 points, but lost to Gehman, who scored 110 points.
Next week is 1 Corinthians 5-8:30 at Petra. Come support the team!
During church service Sunday morning, Pastor Bob comissioned the quiz team. We all went up on the stage, and I introduced the quizzers on the quiz teams, which most of the congregation already knew, maybe better than I did. Pastor Bob prayed, as we walked off the stage, Bob commented on my orange suit: "it's amazing what color schemes the younger generation can get away with" :)
After church, the church served a soup and salad fellowship meal, so the quiz team was part of that. We started practice around 1:30 p.m. We started practice by listening to the material, and practiced buzzing in on keywords. We had two brand new practice matches with brand new questions. From when we started having quiz practice on Jan. 6, I had asked 2 questions from every verse in 1 Corinthians chapters 2-4, and 1 question for every verse in 1 Corinthians 1. We took a 15-minute break, in which we took our team picture. We had 3 more practice matches. Those 3 matches were going over questions we missed throughout previous practices. The first match of the 3 the quizzers started out strong, but ended weak. The 2nd of 3 they started out weak, but ended strong. The third of 3 was very weak, as there were14 errors in the whole match. We figured that we were growing tired due to empty stomaches so we called it quits and drove to our dinner hosts.
Harvey & Lillian Stoltzfus gladly hosted the team for dinner. They had this toy, which easily entertained Amanda. For dinner we had taco salad with hot sauce that reminded Amanda of chinese food. Of course, Amanda led in conversation. We thanked Harvey & Lillian and left for our quizmeet at 5:30.
We joined in the LMS Fine Arts center for the worship. After worship, they gave announcements about rulings, where even the staff sounded unsure about the material. Since we had to wait a match, I asked the quizzers whether they want to watch 2 experienced teams in the room we were facing, or if they wanted to watch their friends in Hope of the Nations instead. They were quick to respond "Hope of the Nations." So we watched Hope of the Nations face Media. For being all the way in Reading, Hope of the Nations brought a healthy cheering squad. Charleton from Media was quick to quiz out and take an early lead. But Hope of the Nations came back and won their first quizzing match! Way to go, Hope of the Nations!
We went down the hall to our first match against Neffsville. It was kind of ironic because I had spent several Sundays in my underclassmen years attending church at Neffsville. Neffsville, which was known for having multiple teams, only had one. In fact, since I began quizzing in 2002, I can always remember Neffsville having multiple teams. So it's been at least 9 years since Neffsville only had one team. The only one I recognized was Carissa Harnish, a long time quizzer from the Harnish dynasty. I had Kristy sit across from her. The first question Kristy buzzed in and errored, but Carissa was unable to pick up the bonus. It flip flopped the next question, as Carissa errored and missed the bonus. This is the only bonus we missed all night. By the third question, when Carissa errored, Kristy got the bonus. Well, Denise must have been tired of sitting out the first 3 questions because she buzzed in the next 3 questions, answered them all correctly, and quizzed out on question 6. Justin was next to quiz out, on question 12, with 3 right buzz ins and 1 error. Carissa from Neffsville recovered from her 2 early errors and quizzed out on buzz ins by question 13. Carissa was the only real action on that team. In the end, Conestoga won, 90 to 45.
We had to hurry for our next match back in the other building. We were facing Petra 4, coached by Andrew Jensen, someone who I have quizzed against a quizzer few years back. The match was always close, as no team took more than a 20 point lead. It got scary when Petra 4 was only 1 right buzz in away from team bonus with 4 questions left. Denise quizzed out on question 10, followed by Kristy quizzing out on question 14. But even more exciting was on question 13, when Amanda got her first points on the first night of her rookie year! On question 15, Petra 4 did not get the team bonus for the win, but did get a quiz out to tie the match at 80 points. As I shook coach Andrew's hand, I said to him "Isn't it scary when we become the adults?" :) And I left the music room, someone came out to me and asked, "Spring City, right?" and I couldn't help but laugh and say, "As a quizzed yes" :D
After a one-match break, we had our final quiz of the night against Gehman. My quizzers knew them as the team with the intelligable word of "yes", which annoyed them all. To my surprise, we had added a new fan, but an old teammate of mine: Tim Moss. He encouraged the "revolving door" strategy, but I told him to forget it :P . Gehman started with a correct buzz in from Paul, their top quizzer. Annoyed by his audible word "yes", Conestoga got 3 consecutive buzz ins correct from 3 different quizzers, going down the line from seat 1 to seat 3. I encouraged seat 4 Amanda to get us team bonus on question 5 with 4 consective buzz ins. Paul didn't want to see that, as he buzzed in twice in a row and got them both right for a quiz out. After 6 questions, Gehamn led by 5. This match was close for the next 5 questions. All but one were correct buzz ins, and the 1 error was from Brandon, but Amanda picked that one up. After question 11, Gehman took off. They got team bonus on question 12, and another quiz out on question 15. Denise, seeing a perfect season flash before her eyes, Denise buzzed in on question 15 and quizzed out. Conestoga scored 75 points, but lost to Gehman, who scored 110 points.
Next week is 1 Corinthians 5-8:30 at Petra. Come support the team!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
1 Graham vs. 4 Moss Quizzers
Quizzing is going to be different for me this year as I will be involved from a different perspective. This year I will be a coach. Being a quizzer from the past, I hope it will help make me a good coach. As I try to envision how I could be influential to my quizzers, I think of those in quizzing who influenced me. Naturally I thought of my coaches, and I could write pages on how they influenced me. But who else have influenced me? Well, a lot of quizzers have. And not just merely being on my team or being a tough opponent. These quizzers were my friends, who showed me how to quiz, who gave pointers and advice, and who pushed me to compete my hardest. Quite few have done this, but I would like to highlight a certain family that lead this group. The Moss family was there in the beginning, with Jake & Josh (and even Mrs. Diane Moss helping coaching) to Tim, entering during my second year and exiting during my last year. And even in the middle, when there wasn't any Moss on my team, they were always present somewhere in quizzing. And I'll never forget them.
Now while each has been on my team, each of them has been on another team for another church during my quizzer career as well. Because this was caused by a team split, strong feelings and sharp competition rose between us. I had this want, almost need, to beat them, to show that I was better than them. When tension dropped and friendships were restored, the need to beat them was gone, but the want was there. It was for different reasons now. I saw it more as a "final test," if I could demonstrate that all I learned from them I have put to use. For the "student" to beat the "teacher/master" was a way of "graduating." And by the end, I did graduate. Let me tell you.
Graham vs. Josh Moss
Josh and I were on the same for my first three years of quizzing (2002-2004), and then finished his last year with Zion the year after. Josh and I were pretty close those years, possibly because he was closer to my age and grade than Jake was. I credit my obsession with situation questions to Josh. Before I quizzed for Ark, Ark's go-to-guy for situation questions was Josh. When I came on the scene, Josh entrusted me with the situation. I didn't let him down. When my first points and first buzz in was a situation question, I have to credit Josh with helping me get my first points and first buzz in. Josh to me was always the fun-loving easy-going guy. If there was craziness, he was involved in it somehow. Josh had a successful quizzing year, finishing his last 4 years on the Top 50 Quizzers List, being in the top 10 from 2002 to 2003.
On February 13, 2005, Spring City quizzed against Zion, allowing the two of us to quiz aginst each other, head-to-head. It seemed like a good match-up. Both of us were in the Top 20 at the time. Our teams were pretty well matched up, too. Both had 2 Top 50 Quizzers and 2 previous Ark quizzers. Both of us sat in seat 3, so we were across from each other. I would get his bonus questions, and he would get mine. Josh got one right, but then got 2 errors and was pulled out. I proceeded to quiz out, one of the right answers was a bonus from Josh. As for my team Spring City, Brandon and Mike quizzed out, and we also got team bonus. As for Josh's team Zion, the other top 50 Quizzer errored out with zero points. The final score was Spring City - 135, Zion - 20. I quizzed out, and Josh didn't. From then, feelings were repaired.
Graham wins match-up, 1-0 quizouts.
Graham vs. Becky Moss
I never quizzed along side Becky. Her rookie year was in 2005 with Reading, and I was already on Spring City. Yet I feel like she is worthy of being mentioned because she is a Moss who quizzed the same time I did. Because Abby didn't quiz, she was the last of the Moss family to quiz. Becky would be famous for the 2006 haircut, where she was constantly mistaken for an emo boy. I think the line was drawn when girls were fliriting with here because they thought she was a hot emo boy.
On February 5, 2006, I faced Becky in the Spring City vs. Reading 2, allowing us to face each other in a match, although we were not sitting across from each other. It was a big mismatch. I ranked 29th, and Becky was 124th. I had 125 points; she had 60 points. I opened the match by buzzing in and answering the first two questions correctly. I was aiming to quiz out by question 3, but on question 3 Becky beat me in. She errored on that question. I was able to get my quiz out by question 5. After that, Becky would get her second error and get benched. As for our teams, Becky's Reading 2 had new highlights, but Spring City also had Mike and Jai quiz out. Spring City won, 105-35.
Graham wins match-up, 1-0 quizouts.
Graham vs. Jake Moss
The first memory of Jake was Jake showing me the quizbook and how he marked up his quizbook and giving me tips on how to mark up mine. I don't exactly remember his system, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something similiar. I always learned from Jake by watching him quiz, and he might have learned a little bit from me. For example, when we were quizzing on Exodus, he would always buzz in on the situation question early and answer "the Lord to Moses" because he saw me do it and got it right. Jake was also a good quizzer, and it wasn't from mere guessing. Jake was one of the top 10 quizzers from 2002 to 2004, peaking in 2004 with a 3rd place, and earning in a spot in the fun match as an all-star quizzer. Jake would wrap up his quizzing career with Reading. He would place somewhere between 100-120th those last 2 years, but that was because Jake took more of coaching role for his team. And in my personal opinion, I think Jake would be one of the top 3 tallest quizzers that I know :)
On March 12, 2006, I quizzed against Jake as Spring City took on Jake's team (what Christine always called it by) Reading 1. I started, but Jake did not enter the quizmatch until one of his quizzers quizzed out, naturally taking the coach's role. still, there was a point where both Jake and I were in the match at the same time. Even with Jake coming in late, he got one right and one error, putting up the best fight compared to his previous siblings. Still, it was no match compared to me, as I quizzed out with only one error.
Graham wins match-up, 1-0 quizouts.
Graham vs. Tim Moss
I knew Tim from my rookie year of quizzing, even though Tim wasn't old enough to quiz. He was many times a fan, even coming to Ohio with the team to root for us. Tim's rookie year was on my second year, and we were both on a team of 7. I remember Tim getting sick on the first week of that season and not making it to his first quizmeet. He only scored about 20 points that year, but could name the list of 13, the biggest list there was. We wouldn't be on the same team for another 4 years, as Tim quizzed for the other Ark team, and then quizzed for Reading after the split. There was a lot of hurt in that split, as Tim got more competitive as he got bettter. We would constantly butt heads because we were so closely matched up. On top of that, Tim was out to get a trophy. He would always trying to stack quizzers into a "super team" coached by himself. Tim tried selling his dream team to many churches but no church would take it. It made me laugh, thinking, "Finally the little punk is getting what he deserves." But when I heard now that he himself could not find any team, I pitied Tim because I hated to see good quizzing talent go to waste. So when Timasked the Deitricks to be on Spring City, Mike and I made sure we put in a good word for Tim. When Tim joined Spring City, it was a true reunion between him and me. Our relationship was reconciled and restored. It went from hard feelings to blessings. We went from fierce rivalry to friendly competition. And that helped as teammates.
Tim and I never quizzed against each other when we were on different teams, so the competition was all in the stats and the standings. It's hard to compare you both of you have different schedules, but being on the same team and having the similar schedules, it's now easier to compare. Tim and I had a way of encouraging each other that some might consider odd. We encouraged each other by being competitive. We encouraged each other by trying to beat each other. While Tim was now on my team, I still wanted to do better than him. So in the 3 years we quizzed together, I kept track of our quizouts. Every season I would try to quiz out more than he did. And altogether, I wanted to have more overall quizouts than he did in our last 3 years together. This wasn't an easy task. Tim finished all 3 of those years in the top 50 Quizzers List: 35th, 29th, and 39th. That is almost expectant because Tim was a Top 50 Quizzer 4 times in his career and one of the top 100 quizzers 6 times in his career. But his placing were no match for my 16th, 8th, and 4th.
Graham wins match-up, 46-40 quizouts (over 3 years on the same team).
So after 8 years of quizzing, I beat Jake, Josh, Tim and Becky Moss. I wish I could build a time machine and take on Debbie Moss, because I heard she was a great quizzer as well. By defeating these 4 Moss quizzers, I have shown that the student has mastered the teacher, and now the student is mastering being the teacher. This will be helpful as a coach, but I hope it's not too late, because these guys were influential to me as older quizzers to a younger quizzer. I hope that I was this mentor to the younger quizzers on my team when I was quizzer myself.
Now while each has been on my team, each of them has been on another team for another church during my quizzer career as well. Because this was caused by a team split, strong feelings and sharp competition rose between us. I had this want, almost need, to beat them, to show that I was better than them. When tension dropped and friendships were restored, the need to beat them was gone, but the want was there. It was for different reasons now. I saw it more as a "final test," if I could demonstrate that all I learned from them I have put to use. For the "student" to beat the "teacher/master" was a way of "graduating." And by the end, I did graduate. Let me tell you.
Graham vs. Josh Moss
Josh and I were on the same for my first three years of quizzing (2002-2004), and then finished his last year with Zion the year after. Josh and I were pretty close those years, possibly because he was closer to my age and grade than Jake was. I credit my obsession with situation questions to Josh. Before I quizzed for Ark, Ark's go-to-guy for situation questions was Josh. When I came on the scene, Josh entrusted me with the situation. I didn't let him down. When my first points and first buzz in was a situation question, I have to credit Josh with helping me get my first points and first buzz in. Josh to me was always the fun-loving easy-going guy. If there was craziness, he was involved in it somehow. Josh had a successful quizzing year, finishing his last 4 years on the Top 50 Quizzers List, being in the top 10 from 2002 to 2003.
On February 13, 2005, Spring City quizzed against Zion, allowing the two of us to quiz aginst each other, head-to-head. It seemed like a good match-up. Both of us were in the Top 20 at the time. Our teams were pretty well matched up, too. Both had 2 Top 50 Quizzers and 2 previous Ark quizzers. Both of us sat in seat 3, so we were across from each other. I would get his bonus questions, and he would get mine. Josh got one right, but then got 2 errors and was pulled out. I proceeded to quiz out, one of the right answers was a bonus from Josh. As for my team Spring City, Brandon and Mike quizzed out, and we also got team bonus. As for Josh's team Zion, the other top 50 Quizzer errored out with zero points. The final score was Spring City - 135, Zion - 20. I quizzed out, and Josh didn't. From then, feelings were repaired.
Graham wins match-up, 1-0 quizouts.
Graham vs. Becky Moss
I never quizzed along side Becky. Her rookie year was in 2005 with Reading, and I was already on Spring City. Yet I feel like she is worthy of being mentioned because she is a Moss who quizzed the same time I did. Because Abby didn't quiz, she was the last of the Moss family to quiz. Becky would be famous for the 2006 haircut, where she was constantly mistaken for an emo boy. I think the line was drawn when girls were fliriting with here because they thought she was a hot emo boy.
On February 5, 2006, I faced Becky in the Spring City vs. Reading 2, allowing us to face each other in a match, although we were not sitting across from each other. It was a big mismatch. I ranked 29th, and Becky was 124th. I had 125 points; she had 60 points. I opened the match by buzzing in and answering the first two questions correctly. I was aiming to quiz out by question 3, but on question 3 Becky beat me in. She errored on that question. I was able to get my quiz out by question 5. After that, Becky would get her second error and get benched. As for our teams, Becky's Reading 2 had new highlights, but Spring City also had Mike and Jai quiz out. Spring City won, 105-35.
Graham wins match-up, 1-0 quizouts.
Graham vs. Jake Moss
The first memory of Jake was Jake showing me the quizbook and how he marked up his quizbook and giving me tips on how to mark up mine. I don't exactly remember his system, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something similiar. I always learned from Jake by watching him quiz, and he might have learned a little bit from me. For example, when we were quizzing on Exodus, he would always buzz in on the situation question early and answer "the Lord to Moses" because he saw me do it and got it right. Jake was also a good quizzer, and it wasn't from mere guessing. Jake was one of the top 10 quizzers from 2002 to 2004, peaking in 2004 with a 3rd place, and earning in a spot in the fun match as an all-star quizzer. Jake would wrap up his quizzing career with Reading. He would place somewhere between 100-120th those last 2 years, but that was because Jake took more of coaching role for his team. And in my personal opinion, I think Jake would be one of the top 3 tallest quizzers that I know :)
On March 12, 2006, I quizzed against Jake as Spring City took on Jake's team (what Christine always called it by) Reading 1. I started, but Jake did not enter the quizmatch until one of his quizzers quizzed out, naturally taking the coach's role. still, there was a point where both Jake and I were in the match at the same time. Even with Jake coming in late, he got one right and one error, putting up the best fight compared to his previous siblings. Still, it was no match compared to me, as I quizzed out with only one error.
Graham wins match-up, 1-0 quizouts.
Graham vs. Tim Moss
I knew Tim from my rookie year of quizzing, even though Tim wasn't old enough to quiz. He was many times a fan, even coming to Ohio with the team to root for us. Tim's rookie year was on my second year, and we were both on a team of 7. I remember Tim getting sick on the first week of that season and not making it to his first quizmeet. He only scored about 20 points that year, but could name the list of 13, the biggest list there was. We wouldn't be on the same team for another 4 years, as Tim quizzed for the other Ark team, and then quizzed for Reading after the split. There was a lot of hurt in that split, as Tim got more competitive as he got bettter. We would constantly butt heads because we were so closely matched up. On top of that, Tim was out to get a trophy. He would always trying to stack quizzers into a "super team" coached by himself. Tim tried selling his dream team to many churches but no church would take it. It made me laugh, thinking, "Finally the little punk is getting what he deserves." But when I heard now that he himself could not find any team, I pitied Tim because I hated to see good quizzing talent go to waste. So when Timasked the Deitricks to be on Spring City, Mike and I made sure we put in a good word for Tim. When Tim joined Spring City, it was a true reunion between him and me. Our relationship was reconciled and restored. It went from hard feelings to blessings. We went from fierce rivalry to friendly competition. And that helped as teammates.
Tim and I never quizzed against each other when we were on different teams, so the competition was all in the stats and the standings. It's hard to compare you both of you have different schedules, but being on the same team and having the similar schedules, it's now easier to compare. Tim and I had a way of encouraging each other that some might consider odd. We encouraged each other by being competitive. We encouraged each other by trying to beat each other. While Tim was now on my team, I still wanted to do better than him. So in the 3 years we quizzed together, I kept track of our quizouts. Every season I would try to quiz out more than he did. And altogether, I wanted to have more overall quizouts than he did in our last 3 years together. This wasn't an easy task. Tim finished all 3 of those years in the top 50 Quizzers List: 35th, 29th, and 39th. That is almost expectant because Tim was a Top 50 Quizzer 4 times in his career and one of the top 100 quizzers 6 times in his career. But his placing were no match for my 16th, 8th, and 4th.
Graham wins match-up, 46-40 quizouts (over 3 years on the same team).
So after 8 years of quizzing, I beat Jake, Josh, Tim and Becky Moss. I wish I could build a time machine and take on Debbie Moss, because I heard she was a great quizzer as well. By defeating these 4 Moss quizzers, I have shown that the student has mastered the teacher, and now the student is mastering being the teacher. This will be helpful as a coach, but I hope it's not too late, because these guys were influential to me as older quizzers to a younger quizzer. I hope that I was this mentor to the younger quizzers on my team when I was quizzer myself.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Christians under friendly fire
This entry is for both my forum post for Redemptive Cinema class and my blog. I've always wanted to write on one my favorite movies, Saved!, and now with needing to do one for Redemptive Cinema class, I have the time to. I could say so much about this movie, almost to the point I could write a book about it. But for now, I'm going to do a small bit. But first, I need you to check out this clip...
The Gospel is not a weapon
or read the transcript of it below
Pastor Skip: [to the Christian Jewels] Listen, I'm concerned about Mary. Something's going on.
Hilary Faye: Yeah, me too.
Pastor Skip: Well, she's part of your posse, and I think that you could help her. I'm gonna need you to be a warrior out there on the front lines for Jesus.
Tia: You mean like shoot her.
Pastor Skip: No, I was thinking of something a little less gangsta.I need someone who's spiritually armed to help guide her back to her faith,to love and care that only Jesus can supply. You down with that?
Hilary Faye:Yeah, I'm down with that.
Pastor Skip:She's pretty vulnerable right now,so I'm gonna need you to be extra gentle.
[cuts to Mary walking, reading a book. Hilary Faye's van swings around]
- Hurry! Hurry! Come on!
- I'm going! I'm going!
- Get her!
- Come on, Tia!
-Stuff her in here!
-Hurry up! Hurry Up!
Hilary Faye:In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you,leave the body of this servant of God.
Mary:You're performing an exorcism on me?! Get off me!
Hilary Faye: We've gotta get rid of the evil in you.
Tia [holding up a picture of Jesus to Mary's face]: It's God's will!
Mary: God's will?
Tia: Christ died for your sins!
Hilary Faye: Ok, wait a second. [to Mary] Are you not going to accept our intervention?
Mary: You mean kidnapping? No!
Hilary Faye: You are backsliding into the flames of hell.
Veronica:You've become a magnet for sin.We've all witnessed it.
Mary: Sure.Veronica acting all pure. What about last spring break at the Promise Maker's rally?
Hilary Faye:You are making accusations as we're trying to save your soul? Mary, turn away from Satan. Jesus, he loves you.
Mary: You don't know the first thing about love.
Hilary Faye: [throws a Bible at Mary] I am FILLED with Christ's love! You are just jealous of my success in the Lord.
Mary: [Mary holds up the Bible] This is not a weapon! You idiot.
So what's your response to the last quote, said by Mary? If you're somewhat knowledgeable in the Bible, I bet you might have though of Hebrews 4:12, " For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" or maybe Ephesians 6:17b, "... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Both verses compare the Bible to a sword, the most lethal weapon at the time. When I think of it that way, I wonder if the Bible was written today, would the Word of God be described as a machine gun, shotgun, bazooka or atomic bomb? Actually, I kind of think that atomic bomb might work. An atomic bomb immediately consumes those in close proximity to where it fell, and those off a distance still feel side effects in the present and future from the radiation. In the same way, those in direct contact with the Word of God will be consumed by it, while those who get bits and pieces of it indirectly will still have those bits and pieces weighing down on their heart, in the present and future. But back onto subject, the Lord says His Words are like a lethal weapon, but the movie seems to say "no" to this, and makes anyone who believes this look like a fool. So what do we say? Do we blindly just say, "God is always true, God says it is a weapon, thus it is truly a weapon, no question, end of discussion" or do we have a logical response for the fallen non-Christian who won't accept that as answer? I know when I first saw this movie, I started out saying, "But Mary, you're wrong! It is a weapon. The Bible says so!" But then I started saying it's a metaphorical weapon, or "not that type" of weapon, and it would lead to some pretty messed up theology. And I couldn't help but think that Mary might have had a point. What do you with it?
I came across this clip because I was naturally searching for YouTube clips of one of my favorite movies. This one showed up. Interested on why the person put it up, I clicked on his YouTube profile, which gave a link for his blog, on which he used the clip for a point he was making, called "The Gospel is not a weapon." Below I have provided the links if you want to read them...
The Gospel is Not a Gun- Part 1
The Gospel is Not a Gun- Part 2
If you were too lazy to look at those blogs, I'll quickly summarize what he said. The pastor admitted that in his early years he was treating the gospel like a gun. He would "load his gun" by learning as much Bible and theology as he could. Those on his side with guns were traditional theologians like Calvin, Spurgeon, Piper, Keller, and Edwards. The enemy on the opposite side of the gun were guys like McLaren and Osteen. And he would open fire on them his theology. And he was convicted of this. He felt like he was misusing the gospel.
Are you familiar with the term "friendly fire"? It is when the troops are under fire, not from the enemy, but rather their own side. It may have not been intended for guns to be fired against their on side, but for whatever reason (possibly just bad directions/orders), mistakes are made and friendly fire occurs. The most recent popular story of friendly fire is the story of Pat Tillman, a football player with a big contract from the Arizona Cardinals. He gave up that big contract to go serve his country. He died in Afghanistan, and was made a hero because he gave up both his career and life. When an investigation went on, it discovered he died in friendly. I believe that what's made his story so tragic. Not that he lost his big football career because he died in a war, but rather that he died in a war from his own side not the enemy. Of all the ways to die in gunfire, I feel friendly fire is the most tragic.
And I think the biggest tragedy in Christianity is that Christians are under friendly fire from themselves. We load up our guns with the doctrine from our perferred denomination or faith statement, then we go open fire on those from different denominations, telling them they're wrong. And it kills the relationship between brothers and sisters in Christ; it kills the unity of the Body of Christ. Sometimes it's so bad the attacking Christian will even tell his target that he's not really a Christian if he/she doesn't exactly agree with the attacker's faith statement. Even worse this ends up polluting our evangelism. I believe Christians are to evangelize to save souls from hell and separation from God and bring them into heavenly unity with the Lord. Instead, sometimes it seems like Christians go out and evangelize to prove themselves right and the lost wrong. Heck, I heard someone in my college went out to evangelize to a Jew, and his opening line to him was, "How does it feel to be wrong?" Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Truth, and God's Word is Truth, but are we really aiming to save people from being wrong?
It's sad to say I sometimes see this at my college. People will go on and on, arguing and arguing, about who has got the right answer to this doctrine. And in the end, people just end up mad at each other, not talking to each for a while. The relationship is ruined. And let me tell you, I've been under this friendly fire. I've heard everything from "I would highly doubt you're a Christian if you call yourself a Democrat" to "If a whole nationwide conference of several churches has one or two churchs that are ok with homosexuality, then they support homosexuality, and have no part with the greater church" at my college, and let me tell you, it's made it harder and harder to attend here. I feel like I don't fit in and have no support. Even the few Mennonite "brothers" I have at this school have put my under this same friendly fire, and even my roommate. Is there anywhere safe I can go?
This is what I see in the Saved! clip. I don't believe Mary has fallen away from God, because in the end she admits she messed up. I would also like to (arguably) say many are turning to God. What's happening is Mary is entering this period of questioning and doubting. Even when she seems to be rejecting God, she is still seeking (even though it's other religions) because she believes it can't be all wrong, there has to be a right. Arguably, I like to say what caused Mary to doubt was that she was put under friendly fire. Hilary Faye took her loaded gun of evangelical Christianity, and shot it at Mary, at Dean, and every one who was struggling with sin. And sometimes, I think we're misusing the weapon we're given, to end up killing the soul. Just like the pastor from the blogs I gave you, I sometimes want to cry out to God, "Lord, please take Your Word away from us! We don't know how to use it properly!"
So in the end, I have to conclude by saying, "Yes, the Bible is weapon, but who is our target?" Lucky for us, God provides that answer. Remember Ephesians 6:17b? Look on top of that paragraph at Ephesians 6:12. It says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." The target is not the flesh and blood human being, but the dark powers behind the sin the human is struggling with. To borrow from the old adage, the target is not the sinner, but the sin. It's time we stop firing at people, especially Christians, and time to start firing on Satan and his demons.
The Gospel is not a weapon
or read the transcript of it below
Pastor Skip: [to the Christian Jewels] Listen, I'm concerned about Mary. Something's going on.
Hilary Faye: Yeah, me too.
Pastor Skip: Well, she's part of your posse, and I think that you could help her. I'm gonna need you to be a warrior out there on the front lines for Jesus.
Tia: You mean like shoot her.
Pastor Skip: No, I was thinking of something a little less gangsta.I need someone who's spiritually armed to help guide her back to her faith,to love and care that only Jesus can supply. You down with that?
Hilary Faye:Yeah, I'm down with that.
Pastor Skip:She's pretty vulnerable right now,so I'm gonna need you to be extra gentle.
[cuts to Mary walking, reading a book. Hilary Faye's van swings around]
- Hurry! Hurry! Come on!
- I'm going! I'm going!
- Get her!
- Come on, Tia!
-Stuff her in here!
-Hurry up! Hurry Up!
Hilary Faye:In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you,leave the body of this servant of God.
Mary:You're performing an exorcism on me?! Get off me!
Hilary Faye: We've gotta get rid of the evil in you.
Tia [holding up a picture of Jesus to Mary's face]: It's God's will!
Mary: God's will?
Tia: Christ died for your sins!
Hilary Faye: Ok, wait a second. [to Mary] Are you not going to accept our intervention?
Mary: You mean kidnapping? No!
Hilary Faye: You are backsliding into the flames of hell.
Veronica:You've become a magnet for sin.We've all witnessed it.
Mary: Sure.Veronica acting all pure. What about last spring break at the Promise Maker's rally?
Hilary Faye:You are making accusations as we're trying to save your soul? Mary, turn away from Satan. Jesus, he loves you.
Mary: You don't know the first thing about love.
Hilary Faye: [throws a Bible at Mary] I am FILLED with Christ's love! You are just jealous of my success in the Lord.
Mary: [Mary holds up the Bible] This is not a weapon! You idiot.
So what's your response to the last quote, said by Mary? If you're somewhat knowledgeable in the Bible, I bet you might have though of Hebrews 4:12, " For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" or maybe Ephesians 6:17b, "... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Both verses compare the Bible to a sword, the most lethal weapon at the time. When I think of it that way, I wonder if the Bible was written today, would the Word of God be described as a machine gun, shotgun, bazooka or atomic bomb? Actually, I kind of think that atomic bomb might work. An atomic bomb immediately consumes those in close proximity to where it fell, and those off a distance still feel side effects in the present and future from the radiation. In the same way, those in direct contact with the Word of God will be consumed by it, while those who get bits and pieces of it indirectly will still have those bits and pieces weighing down on their heart, in the present and future. But back onto subject, the Lord says His Words are like a lethal weapon, but the movie seems to say "no" to this, and makes anyone who believes this look like a fool. So what do we say? Do we blindly just say, "God is always true, God says it is a weapon, thus it is truly a weapon, no question, end of discussion" or do we have a logical response for the fallen non-Christian who won't accept that as answer? I know when I first saw this movie, I started out saying, "But Mary, you're wrong! It is a weapon. The Bible says so!" But then I started saying it's a metaphorical weapon, or "not that type" of weapon, and it would lead to some pretty messed up theology. And I couldn't help but think that Mary might have had a point. What do you with it?
I came across this clip because I was naturally searching for YouTube clips of one of my favorite movies. This one showed up. Interested on why the person put it up, I clicked on his YouTube profile, which gave a link for his blog, on which he used the clip for a point he was making, called "The Gospel is not a weapon." Below I have provided the links if you want to read them...
The Gospel is Not a Gun- Part 1
The Gospel is Not a Gun- Part 2
If you were too lazy to look at those blogs, I'll quickly summarize what he said. The pastor admitted that in his early years he was treating the gospel like a gun. He would "load his gun" by learning as much Bible and theology as he could. Those on his side with guns were traditional theologians like Calvin, Spurgeon, Piper, Keller, and Edwards. The enemy on the opposite side of the gun were guys like McLaren and Osteen. And he would open fire on them his theology. And he was convicted of this. He felt like he was misusing the gospel.
Are you familiar with the term "friendly fire"? It is when the troops are under fire, not from the enemy, but rather their own side. It may have not been intended for guns to be fired against their on side, but for whatever reason (possibly just bad directions/orders), mistakes are made and friendly fire occurs. The most recent popular story of friendly fire is the story of Pat Tillman, a football player with a big contract from the Arizona Cardinals. He gave up that big contract to go serve his country. He died in Afghanistan, and was made a hero because he gave up both his career and life. When an investigation went on, it discovered he died in friendly. I believe that what's made his story so tragic. Not that he lost his big football career because he died in a war, but rather that he died in a war from his own side not the enemy. Of all the ways to die in gunfire, I feel friendly fire is the most tragic.
And I think the biggest tragedy in Christianity is that Christians are under friendly fire from themselves. We load up our guns with the doctrine from our perferred denomination or faith statement, then we go open fire on those from different denominations, telling them they're wrong. And it kills the relationship between brothers and sisters in Christ; it kills the unity of the Body of Christ. Sometimes it's so bad the attacking Christian will even tell his target that he's not really a Christian if he/she doesn't exactly agree with the attacker's faith statement. Even worse this ends up polluting our evangelism. I believe Christians are to evangelize to save souls from hell and separation from God and bring them into heavenly unity with the Lord. Instead, sometimes it seems like Christians go out and evangelize to prove themselves right and the lost wrong. Heck, I heard someone in my college went out to evangelize to a Jew, and his opening line to him was, "How does it feel to be wrong?" Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Truth, and God's Word is Truth, but are we really aiming to save people from being wrong?
It's sad to say I sometimes see this at my college. People will go on and on, arguing and arguing, about who has got the right answer to this doctrine. And in the end, people just end up mad at each other, not talking to each for a while. The relationship is ruined. And let me tell you, I've been under this friendly fire. I've heard everything from "I would highly doubt you're a Christian if you call yourself a Democrat" to "If a whole nationwide conference of several churches has one or two churchs that are ok with homosexuality, then they support homosexuality, and have no part with the greater church" at my college, and let me tell you, it's made it harder and harder to attend here. I feel like I don't fit in and have no support. Even the few Mennonite "brothers" I have at this school have put my under this same friendly fire, and even my roommate. Is there anywhere safe I can go?
This is what I see in the Saved! clip. I don't believe Mary has fallen away from God, because in the end she admits she messed up. I would also like to (arguably) say many are turning to God. What's happening is Mary is entering this period of questioning and doubting. Even when she seems to be rejecting God, she is still seeking (even though it's other religions) because she believes it can't be all wrong, there has to be a right. Arguably, I like to say what caused Mary to doubt was that she was put under friendly fire. Hilary Faye took her loaded gun of evangelical Christianity, and shot it at Mary, at Dean, and every one who was struggling with sin. And sometimes, I think we're misusing the weapon we're given, to end up killing the soul. Just like the pastor from the blogs I gave you, I sometimes want to cry out to God, "Lord, please take Your Word away from us! We don't know how to use it properly!"
So in the end, I have to conclude by saying, "Yes, the Bible is weapon, but who is our target?" Lucky for us, God provides that answer. Remember Ephesians 6:17b? Look on top of that paragraph at Ephesians 6:12. It says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." The target is not the flesh and blood human being, but the dark powers behind the sin the human is struggling with. To borrow from the old adage, the target is not the sinner, but the sin. It's time we stop firing at people, especially Christians, and time to start firing on Satan and his demons.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
9 Ways the modern-day* church has gone wrong with worship
Ok, this is something that has been on my heart since fall 2007 (perhaps attending LBC started it), but I have repressed for the benefit of not harming any relationships in the body of Christ. But as we all know, if we fill the gun power keg too full, and if it kept it the heat too long, it might spontaneously combust into a huge explosion. This is something I cannot hold back anymore. I entrust that I can get appropriate feedback from trusted people, instead of just hateful spews from people who barely know me. But I can no longer turn my head and ignore what is going on in the worship time. There are just some things that irk me about the way we have approached worship in the church. I hope that someday worship will be reformed, just like Martin Luther reformed the church. I may not have 95 Thesis, but I do have at least 9 points that the church needs to address to be able to successfully reform worship.
9 ways the modern-day* church has gone wrong with worship
Times God/Jesus is implicitly mentioned: 138 times
Times God/Jesus is mentioned altogether: 246 times (top 2 added together)
Times the self (I, me, etc.) is mentioned: 247 times
Times the alturistic sense of "you" is used: 1 time
Times the body of Christ/church is mentioned: 6 times
Times the creation is used in praise: 49 times
Times passion week and redemption is used: 56 times
Possible Conclusions:
-We focus more about ourselves rather than God
-We focus more on 3 days of Christ's early life over the whole redemptive history
-While we might understand worship, the non-Christian or new Christian may not
-Very little time is dedicated to building each other up
Are you familiar with the term "sensual"? Today it has a bad reputation because it is often seen as a synonym to the word "sexual". But the etomology of the word shows the word sensual simply means "exciting, arousing, or appealing to the senses". I want to argue that all music gives us a sensual experience. We play music that reflects our emotions. We play upbeat songs when we are happy, we play downbeat songs when we're sad, and we play loud music when we're angry. No matter what genre you like listening to, this is true. May I go further on to this is true for both secular and religious music. The Bible does this. In David's good times, he wrote Psalms of praise, and in David's bad times, he wrote painful laments. So emotional involvement in praise and worship isn't fully wrong, but it isn't fully right. We have to remember our emotions is only one part of us, one part among many (physical, mental, social, spiritual, etc.). We also have to be careful with driving up emotions so high. Emotional thinking and decision-making isn't always the wisest. It may contradict the logical answer. Sometimes feeling good will become more important than expressing truths. And if that gets to an extreme, a wolf in sheep's clothing can sneak in, exchange the truths with lies, and we won't notice because all we care about is the emotional high. It calls for extra accountability to the worship leaders. Lastly, extra attention on the emotions can cause the intellect or anyone who is less in tune with emotions to feel left out of the worship experience. God wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth, both emotionally and intellectually.
3. Worship songs are not always Biblically accurate
This piggy-backs off the last point. When all we care about is the emotional connection, we ignore the heresies and blasphemies that enter our praise songs. We need to make sure the songs we sing speak Biblical truth. Anything else is a lie. I can go on and on with this, but I will try to limit to a few examples. First example: "Come, Now is the Time to Worship." The song says in one line, "Come, just as you are to worship." This is not right. The Bible says we need to prepare and cleanse our hearts and minds as we enter God's presence. This is found in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Second example: "Above All." Yeah, it's a cute song about how Jesus died for us, but the biggest error is what i said in point 1: it's self-centered. Hello, Jesus was thinking about [God] the Father's Will above all. Because Jesus always put the Father before His ministry, just as we should. Third example: "Blessed Be Your Name." Now this one isn't as bad because it is taken from Scripture. The only problem is that it is used out of context. It's true that the bridge is a taken right out of the book of Job. But when Job says that, he is lamenting in the deepest sorrows. We sing it in a upbeat, happy praise. Trust me, it's better sung as a lament. Fourth example: "The Heart of Worship." It says "I'll bring you more than a song." Hello, this is a song! And people get caught up in the song, too! I don't know, I just never got it. And there is enough more. I once heard this one song (forget what it was called, but it's not like I want to remember) where the song said that something is missing in life, and that the writer is searching for it, but left it at that! No mention of the Lord, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or how God gives more to life. Worship songs have to come back to praising Jesus in a Biblical way. Furthermore, I call for worship songs to mention God and Jesus more explicitly. Notice in my survey that Jesus and God's name usually came in the form of "You" or some title given to either part of the trinity. Yes, the mature Christian on spiritual meat knows what the song is about, but the non-Christian or the newborn Christian on spiritual milk may be clueless, and it wouldn't be edifying to them. It is key for church to be edifying to all, which means understandable to all.
4. Worship songs tend to focus more on the death and resurrection
My survey alone should show that is true. The survery showed we sung more about redemptive themes than even the creation. Now in writing this, I don't want it to seem like I'm favoring hymns in worship just for the sake of favoring hymns, but if there is one thing I like about hymns, it's the variety. Open a hymnal (if you can find one), and you'll find hymns on peace, hope, love, joy, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, suffering, wisdom and so much more. You can find hymns on the advent of Christ's birth, Christ's birth, Christ's ministry, Christ's works, Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, Christ's ascension, and Christ's Body, filled with the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to comtemporary praise and worship, most, if not all, songs can be placed in two categories: praising God for His creation or praising God for his sacrifice. And the survery shows which one is more used. Is it wrong to sing praise of Christ's work on the cross. Not at all, or at least not fully. Where does it go wrong? When we can't move on. Let me explain better by explaining how worship has ended up just focusing on passion weekend (Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday). To briefly sum up the Bible and redemptive history, it can be done in 4 stage: creation, fall, redemption, re-creation. To say it in sentence form, "God created you, you fell into sin, Jesus saves those from sin who receive him, and makes them a new creation through sanctification." But over time the 20th century evangelical church has shaved off the ends of the redemptive story, leaving only the fall and redemption side in. So the evangelical's method of evangelism is saying to non-believers, "You have fallen into sin, but Jesus can save you from sin if you receive him." Is there anything wrong with this saying? No, but I believe this saying robs people of the full picture, of being wonderfully made in the image of God and, as Christians, being remade into a new creation. But no. Instead, it's just fall & redemption. The four parts are now: humans sin, Christ died, Christ, receive the gift. And this idea has sneaked into our worship time. Our worship singing is all about the fall and redemption. We keep reminding ourselves that we are fallen sinners, totally dependant upon Christ. Is this a lie? Not at all. But it does have a negative effect on us when we don't have the full redemption story on it. Ever feel guilty of your sin, even after being saved. Why would you be? Hebrews tells us that once we are saved, God remembers our sins no more. Romans says that if we are in Christ, there is no condemnation. So why do Christian still feel condemned? They are constantly reminded in worship they are sinners dependant on Christ's salvation, so they keep worshipping God in that aspect, as if God will not forgive them if they don't. Instead, what should be happening is we should be hearing more praise and worship songs that talk about re-creation and sanctification, so that we can grow in those areas. Sometimes I think God can do so much more with us if we moved on in the way of sanctification, and stop groveling at the cross, thanking for forgiveness that we have already received. It is like Jesus is crying out to use, "Yes, I get it you're thankful you're saved. Can we move on to working in my kingdom and in my ministry?" Or better yet, it is like Jesus is saying, "I am off the cross. Are you?" Finally, I'd to close with pointing out a Biblical proof for this: the Psalms. There is not just 1 genre of psalms. There are quite a few: laments, praising God for rescuing, praising God for who He is, and wisdom psalms. If the Psalms are in variety, shouldn't the comtemporary worship be as well?
5. Worship team does not lead, but rather performs
It's typical for the worship team, especially the leader of the team to be incredibly talented musically. Is there anything wrong with that? No. In fact, it seems like they are the first ones willing to do it. Do I think that musical talent should be the discerning factor in choosing a praise and worship band. I don't believe so. I do believe there is a difference between the spiritual gift of worship leader and musical talent. But the problem I am about to discuss can happen to worship leaders who are talented and not as talented; it just seems more prevailant in those who are musically talent. It might be because the worship team is musically talented, or it might be because the stage is set up like a concert. But whatever the cause, it seems like the worship team is performing than leading worship. First sign of a performing worship team: singers, especially the lead singer, uses his/her/their full octive range in singing. Obviously less talented singers in the audience/congregation aren't going to be able to reach these notes. So why are doing it? Second sign of a performing worship team: instrumental solos. Yeah that's cool to hear at a concert, but how is it edifying the rest of the congregation? I won't even rule out it's an act of worship to God, but the soloist is not leading the rest of the church with the soloist. Pretty much, today's worship scene is set up like this: the worship team is the performers, and the church congreation is the audience. It needs to switched as God is the audience, and the performers are both the worship team and the rest of the church congregation. It's time we define the lead in "worship leaders." They are worship leaders, not worship performers.
6. When worship team does "lead," they are commanding
Ever have a worship team tell you what to do, what to think or how to feel? I have a problem more with the last two then the first one, but let's go in order. Now I don't have a problem of worship leaders telling their audience to sit or stand. It tells the congregation, both members and visitors, what the appropriate stance or position is while worshipping. But I think when the worship teams tells the congregation to sing a certain way, say a certain line, or put their hands in a certain position, that goes to far. Those actions are suppose to be something that comes from the heart. Speaking of which, I can move on to my dislike of worship teams telling the congregation on how to think or feel. This is just wrong inside and outstide of worship. If you're telling me how to think or feel, and it's contrary to how I really think or feel, then changing it would not be genuine. And I might be getting something else out of the worship time, but if the worship team tells me to think/feel another way, I might feel wrong, and lose spiritual growth. God made everyone individually special, and the Body of Christ must recognize that it will create different worship styles. I believe the worship team's job is to encourage worship, no matter what the style.
7. There is not always unity in worship
This goes beyond the fact of the powerpoint not matching the worship team. Ever have this happen: half the worship team repeats a verse, another repeats the chorus? Or have the singers repeat a verse, while the instrument players repeating the chorus? This can lead the worshipping congregation confused on what to sing! Heck, that happens, too! The worshipping congregation goes to continue to song as normal, and the worship band decides to change order. Now we, as Christians, claim that the Holy Spirit is with us in worship, and that the Holy Spirit unites. This is true. But what do you say when you the above incidents happen? It is embarrassing! It's a bad witness of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is there at worship, uniting us, this shouldn't happen. Now don't get me wrong: I claim both statements about the Holy Spirit as truth. So that leads me to want to question the motifs of the praise band when it does happen, especially if the praise band has been practicing too. But I will not question too much, so I don't have to face judgment. All I'm saying is that at least at hymns, the hymn leader would say what verse are being sung ahead of time.
8. Worship can get too complex with instruments and sounds
Sometimes I think worship can get too carried away with how we sound. First is the instruments. I think the biggest worship team I saw had 10 performers on stage: 4 guitars (lead, rhythm, bass, and acoustic), 2 pianists (baby grand piano & keyboard), 2 drummers (full drum set & double bongos), and 2 singers. Another time I saw 3 acousitic guitars. I turned to one of my friends, who is musically talented, and asked him, "Is there really a point to 3 acoustic guitars?" and his reply was "No, not really." Doesn't this kind of seem ridiculous? Truth to be told, if we really cared about sound, the better worship teams I've heard are the ones with the fewer instruments, the better. Ever listen to the Amish? They don't believe in playing instruments, and their voices are wonderful. Second in this subject is the singing. As I said above, some worship leaders will sing full octives. Others coordinate the church into 4-part singing. Still others don't care and just have everyone sing in unison. The worst causes is I heard worship leaders say in a low-tone, implicit, "nice" way, "If you can't sing, don't sing" (they will say something like "pause and silently think about the words" but that's what they mean). Last time I checked, Psalm 100:1 says to make joyful sound unto the Lord, not necessarily a pleasant sounding one. Point is that it's about the heart. It may even be true that the worshipper who sings "badly" might have a better heart in worship than someone singing "well." Third part would just be sound in general. This ranges anywhere from designing the church building to have good acoustics to installing microphones and speakers in the right place. For this I say the same I said for singing. It's not how we sound, but where our heart is.
9. Worship and the rest of the service is separate, where worship becomes the center
I've noticed the typical pattern for worship is: call to worship, praise and worship music, announcements, offering, sermon, prayer requests, bendiction. Sometimes prayer time comes between offering and sermon, but not the point. Somehow this setup is group in sections, instead of one whole thing. Thus, sometimes more attention is given to one than the other. The popular choice is the praise and worship time. I've seen people give their all in praise and worship, singly loudly and waving their arms, but then after they are unlively, so unlively it's like they are do. They zone out for rest of the service. Heck, I've even seen some people leave the sanctuary, and even leave the church, after the praise and worship time, as if church is done. Why is this? It could be something as simple as they put in all their energy in the beginning, and by the time praise and worship singing is over, they are out of juice and pooped. But I think there is something more. I think it's because they are in the wrong mindset. They believe that the preacher giving the sermon is merely the preacher's act of worship, not theirs. But this is only paritally true. Sure the preacher is worship God by preaching, but he's also doing it to edify church. He's giving you just as much spiritual food as praise and worship will. And if you believe as I, that the Holy Spirit is speaking through the preacher, then the Holy Spirit might be speaking to us in the sermon as in praise and worship singing. Then those that zone out will be missing out on God's Word. I know that I truthfully get more out of the sermon than the praise and worship music. If you give it a try, you might find that out as well. As an LBC chapel speaker once said, "If you refuse to listen to God through His Word the Bible, then why would God speak to you any other way?" This kind of goes back to my second point. Church, it is time you stop just feeling, and start thinking.
In closing, I want to leave you with a verse and an experience I had. The verse is Hebrews 5:13,14- "Anyone who lives on milk, still being an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by cosntant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." I love the imagery the author (possibly Paul, because Paul uses the same imagery) uses here. When infants start eating, they have to start on milk first, but as they mature and need more calories, they move on to solid food. In fact, a lot of infant nutritionists say it's unhealthy to push solid food on an infant. But you ever think of this way: is it unhealthy to keep an infant on milk when it needs to move up to solid food? That might be denying the baby the important nutrients, like calories, that the infant needs to keep growing. I will tell you of the experience I had. I went on a fast for five days, having nothing but a quart of milk for every meal (which is about a half gallon a day). See what happened to me and try to connect it with the verse. Did I survive? Yes. Was I hospitalized? No. Did it keep me alive? With the help of God, yes. So on the surface level, it did its job. But deep down inside, I was lacking something. At the end of my milk "meals," I was still hungry. Even though it gave my the nutrients to stay alive, I robbed myself of other nutrients that were neccesary to grow. I could feel inside that I was lacking solid food, and I craved for it. I crave for something to fill me. Some days I felt aching muscles, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the fast. See the connection? While milk keeps us alive, we need to eventually move on to solid foods to keep growing strong. This is true in the spiritual aspects, too. See, I believe that when we are only focusing on a praise & worship time where the individal is center, where feelings are more imporant than thinking, and where passion week and redemption themes are the only themes mentioned, we are just feeding ourselves spiritual milk, the same we did as when we received Christ. When people who have been Christians for a long just feed themselves spiritual milk, they are depriving themselves of the nutrients they need to continue growing spiritually. This will leave them as weak as infants, depending on a "spiritual high" to keep themselves going. They will be aching and yearning for something more. Look at Hebrews 5:13,14 as an encouragement to grow up. Many of you Christians are ready to grow up after many years in the faith. But you must move on from your milk and eat solid food. I believe if we can approach and conquer these 9 ways, we as a church can move on to bigger and better things. Once again, I call the church to grow, taking on solid food instead of staying milk, and to start thinking.
*I chose the term "modern-day" although I was tempted to use "evangelical" instead because these problem seem prevailant in the evangelical church. Yet I've noticed these problems sometimes in the emergent church, as well as the pentacostal/charsmatic church. The only churches who have less of these problems are the older churches with older traditions. Therefore, I think the problem isn't a church movement issue, but rather a time period issue. Thus, I settled with the term "modern-day"
9 ways the modern-day* church has gone wrong with worship
- Worship is self-centered. It's all about me.
- Worship is all about the emotions
- Worship songs are not always Biblically accurate
- Worship songs tend to focus more on the death and resurrection
- Worship teams does not lead, but rather performs
- When worship teams do "lead," they are commanding
- There is not always unity in worship
- Worship can get too complex with instruments and sounds
- Worship and the rest of the service are separate, where worship becomes the center
But before I go on, let me say that these observations I had made were in a "scientific" way. How is it scientific? I kept score; I did a survey. In my notebook, I made 7 columns to find 7 things I thought I would find in worship songs: number of times God is mentioned explicitly (Lord, God, Jesus, Christ, Holy Spirit, Yahweh, etc.), number of times God is mentioned implicitly (any title of God or Jesus that does not use God or Jesus, or any time "You" is used mentioning God or Jesus, but not really stated in the verse or chorus), numbers of time the self is mentioned (I, me, my, myself, etc.), number of times "you" is used (an altruistic use of "you," the ones not in reference to God), number of times the church or the Body of Christ is mentioned (pretty much "we"), number of times the creation is mentioned to worship God, and the number of times the passion weekend and redemption is mentioned (this is Christ's death, resurrection, or any redemption themes, like paying for sins, etc.). These are my results:
Times God/Jesus is implicitly mentioned: 138 times
Times God/Jesus is mentioned altogether: 246 times (top 2 added together)
Times the self (I, me, etc.) is mentioned: 247 times
Times the alturistic sense of "you" is used: 1 time
Times the body of Christ/church is mentioned: 6 times
Times the creation is used in praise: 49 times
Times passion week and redemption is used: 56 times
Possible Conclusions:
-We focus more about ourselves rather than God
-We focus more on 3 days of Christ's early life over the whole redemptive history
-While we might understand worship, the non-Christian or new Christian may not
-Very little time is dedicated to building each other up
1. Worship is self-centered. It's all about me.
One of the most eye-opening discoveries in my survey is that the column that won was the high numbers that the self was mentioned, even more than God implicitly mentioned or God explicitly mentioned. I can only naturally conclude that in praise and worship, we sing more about ourselves than about God. In a way, we're not worshipping God, but ourselves, or at least our relationship of God. Do I dare even say we're asking God to praise us for deciding to follow Him? I blame the modern era influence on Christianity during the 20th century. 20th century modern philosophy is very centered around the self. Now don't get me wrong. I do believe that salvation comes with every one's individual decision to follow Christ. But we forget that when we do make this individual decision, we become part of a community, the Body of Christ. One of the reasons we go to church is to help fellow Christians be edified by one another. But the praise and worship time seems to say different. The worshipper sings so little about the church community and even less about others in the church community. It means praise and worship has become narcissistic, which is not Christian.
Are you familiar with the term "sensual"? Today it has a bad reputation because it is often seen as a synonym to the word "sexual". But the etomology of the word shows the word sensual simply means "exciting, arousing, or appealing to the senses". I want to argue that all music gives us a sensual experience. We play music that reflects our emotions. We play upbeat songs when we are happy, we play downbeat songs when we're sad, and we play loud music when we're angry. No matter what genre you like listening to, this is true. May I go further on to this is true for both secular and religious music. The Bible does this. In David's good times, he wrote Psalms of praise, and in David's bad times, he wrote painful laments. So emotional involvement in praise and worship isn't fully wrong, but it isn't fully right. We have to remember our emotions is only one part of us, one part among many (physical, mental, social, spiritual, etc.). We also have to be careful with driving up emotions so high. Emotional thinking and decision-making isn't always the wisest. It may contradict the logical answer. Sometimes feeling good will become more important than expressing truths. And if that gets to an extreme, a wolf in sheep's clothing can sneak in, exchange the truths with lies, and we won't notice because all we care about is the emotional high. It calls for extra accountability to the worship leaders. Lastly, extra attention on the emotions can cause the intellect or anyone who is less in tune with emotions to feel left out of the worship experience. God wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth, both emotionally and intellectually.
3. Worship songs are not always Biblically accurate
This piggy-backs off the last point. When all we care about is the emotional connection, we ignore the heresies and blasphemies that enter our praise songs. We need to make sure the songs we sing speak Biblical truth. Anything else is a lie. I can go on and on with this, but I will try to limit to a few examples. First example: "Come, Now is the Time to Worship." The song says in one line, "Come, just as you are to worship." This is not right. The Bible says we need to prepare and cleanse our hearts and minds as we enter God's presence. This is found in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Second example: "Above All." Yeah, it's a cute song about how Jesus died for us, but the biggest error is what i said in point 1: it's self-centered. Hello, Jesus was thinking about [God] the Father's Will above all. Because Jesus always put the Father before His ministry, just as we should. Third example: "Blessed Be Your Name." Now this one isn't as bad because it is taken from Scripture. The only problem is that it is used out of context. It's true that the bridge is a taken right out of the book of Job. But when Job says that, he is lamenting in the deepest sorrows. We sing it in a upbeat, happy praise. Trust me, it's better sung as a lament. Fourth example: "The Heart of Worship." It says "I'll bring you more than a song." Hello, this is a song! And people get caught up in the song, too! I don't know, I just never got it. And there is enough more. I once heard this one song (forget what it was called, but it's not like I want to remember) where the song said that something is missing in life, and that the writer is searching for it, but left it at that! No mention of the Lord, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or how God gives more to life. Worship songs have to come back to praising Jesus in a Biblical way. Furthermore, I call for worship songs to mention God and Jesus more explicitly. Notice in my survey that Jesus and God's name usually came in the form of "You" or some title given to either part of the trinity. Yes, the mature Christian on spiritual meat knows what the song is about, but the non-Christian or the newborn Christian on spiritual milk may be clueless, and it wouldn't be edifying to them. It is key for church to be edifying to all, which means understandable to all.
4. Worship songs tend to focus more on the death and resurrection
My survey alone should show that is true. The survery showed we sung more about redemptive themes than even the creation. Now in writing this, I don't want it to seem like I'm favoring hymns in worship just for the sake of favoring hymns, but if there is one thing I like about hymns, it's the variety. Open a hymnal (if you can find one), and you'll find hymns on peace, hope, love, joy, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, suffering, wisdom and so much more. You can find hymns on the advent of Christ's birth, Christ's birth, Christ's ministry, Christ's works, Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, Christ's ascension, and Christ's Body, filled with the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to comtemporary praise and worship, most, if not all, songs can be placed in two categories: praising God for His creation or praising God for his sacrifice. And the survery shows which one is more used. Is it wrong to sing praise of Christ's work on the cross. Not at all, or at least not fully. Where does it go wrong? When we can't move on. Let me explain better by explaining how worship has ended up just focusing on passion weekend (Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday). To briefly sum up the Bible and redemptive history, it can be done in 4 stage: creation, fall, redemption, re-creation. To say it in sentence form, "God created you, you fell into sin, Jesus saves those from sin who receive him, and makes them a new creation through sanctification." But over time the 20th century evangelical church has shaved off the ends of the redemptive story, leaving only the fall and redemption side in. So the evangelical's method of evangelism is saying to non-believers, "You have fallen into sin, but Jesus can save you from sin if you receive him." Is there anything wrong with this saying? No, but I believe this saying robs people of the full picture, of being wonderfully made in the image of God and, as Christians, being remade into a new creation. But no. Instead, it's just fall & redemption. The four parts are now: humans sin, Christ died, Christ, receive the gift. And this idea has sneaked into our worship time. Our worship singing is all about the fall and redemption. We keep reminding ourselves that we are fallen sinners, totally dependant upon Christ. Is this a lie? Not at all. But it does have a negative effect on us when we don't have the full redemption story on it. Ever feel guilty of your sin, even after being saved. Why would you be? Hebrews tells us that once we are saved, God remembers our sins no more. Romans says that if we are in Christ, there is no condemnation. So why do Christian still feel condemned? They are constantly reminded in worship they are sinners dependant on Christ's salvation, so they keep worshipping God in that aspect, as if God will not forgive them if they don't. Instead, what should be happening is we should be hearing more praise and worship songs that talk about re-creation and sanctification, so that we can grow in those areas. Sometimes I think God can do so much more with us if we moved on in the way of sanctification, and stop groveling at the cross, thanking for forgiveness that we have already received. It is like Jesus is crying out to use, "Yes, I get it you're thankful you're saved. Can we move on to working in my kingdom and in my ministry?" Or better yet, it is like Jesus is saying, "I am off the cross. Are you?" Finally, I'd to close with pointing out a Biblical proof for this: the Psalms. There is not just 1 genre of psalms. There are quite a few: laments, praising God for rescuing, praising God for who He is, and wisdom psalms. If the Psalms are in variety, shouldn't the comtemporary worship be as well?
5. Worship team does not lead, but rather performs
It's typical for the worship team, especially the leader of the team to be incredibly talented musically. Is there anything wrong with that? No. In fact, it seems like they are the first ones willing to do it. Do I think that musical talent should be the discerning factor in choosing a praise and worship band. I don't believe so. I do believe there is a difference between the spiritual gift of worship leader and musical talent. But the problem I am about to discuss can happen to worship leaders who are talented and not as talented; it just seems more prevailant in those who are musically talent. It might be because the worship team is musically talented, or it might be because the stage is set up like a concert. But whatever the cause, it seems like the worship team is performing than leading worship. First sign of a performing worship team: singers, especially the lead singer, uses his/her/their full octive range in singing. Obviously less talented singers in the audience/congregation aren't going to be able to reach these notes. So why are doing it? Second sign of a performing worship team: instrumental solos. Yeah that's cool to hear at a concert, but how is it edifying the rest of the congregation? I won't even rule out it's an act of worship to God, but the soloist is not leading the rest of the church with the soloist. Pretty much, today's worship scene is set up like this: the worship team is the performers, and the church congreation is the audience. It needs to switched as God is the audience, and the performers are both the worship team and the rest of the church congregation. It's time we define the lead in "worship leaders." They are worship leaders, not worship performers.
6. When worship team does "lead," they are commanding
Ever have a worship team tell you what to do, what to think or how to feel? I have a problem more with the last two then the first one, but let's go in order. Now I don't have a problem of worship leaders telling their audience to sit or stand. It tells the congregation, both members and visitors, what the appropriate stance or position is while worshipping. But I think when the worship teams tells the congregation to sing a certain way, say a certain line, or put their hands in a certain position, that goes to far. Those actions are suppose to be something that comes from the heart. Speaking of which, I can move on to my dislike of worship teams telling the congregation on how to think or feel. This is just wrong inside and outstide of worship. If you're telling me how to think or feel, and it's contrary to how I really think or feel, then changing it would not be genuine. And I might be getting something else out of the worship time, but if the worship team tells me to think/feel another way, I might feel wrong, and lose spiritual growth. God made everyone individually special, and the Body of Christ must recognize that it will create different worship styles. I believe the worship team's job is to encourage worship, no matter what the style.
7. There is not always unity in worship
This goes beyond the fact of the powerpoint not matching the worship team. Ever have this happen: half the worship team repeats a verse, another repeats the chorus? Or have the singers repeat a verse, while the instrument players repeating the chorus? This can lead the worshipping congregation confused on what to sing! Heck, that happens, too! The worshipping congregation goes to continue to song as normal, and the worship band decides to change order. Now we, as Christians, claim that the Holy Spirit is with us in worship, and that the Holy Spirit unites. This is true. But what do you say when you the above incidents happen? It is embarrassing! It's a bad witness of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is there at worship, uniting us, this shouldn't happen. Now don't get me wrong: I claim both statements about the Holy Spirit as truth. So that leads me to want to question the motifs of the praise band when it does happen, especially if the praise band has been practicing too. But I will not question too much, so I don't have to face judgment. All I'm saying is that at least at hymns, the hymn leader would say what verse are being sung ahead of time.
8. Worship can get too complex with instruments and sounds
Sometimes I think worship can get too carried away with how we sound. First is the instruments. I think the biggest worship team I saw had 10 performers on stage: 4 guitars (lead, rhythm, bass, and acoustic), 2 pianists (baby grand piano & keyboard), 2 drummers (full drum set & double bongos), and 2 singers. Another time I saw 3 acousitic guitars. I turned to one of my friends, who is musically talented, and asked him, "Is there really a point to 3 acoustic guitars?" and his reply was "No, not really." Doesn't this kind of seem ridiculous? Truth to be told, if we really cared about sound, the better worship teams I've heard are the ones with the fewer instruments, the better. Ever listen to the Amish? They don't believe in playing instruments, and their voices are wonderful. Second in this subject is the singing. As I said above, some worship leaders will sing full octives. Others coordinate the church into 4-part singing. Still others don't care and just have everyone sing in unison. The worst causes is I heard worship leaders say in a low-tone, implicit, "nice" way, "If you can't sing, don't sing" (they will say something like "pause and silently think about the words" but that's what they mean). Last time I checked, Psalm 100:1 says to make joyful sound unto the Lord, not necessarily a pleasant sounding one. Point is that it's about the heart. It may even be true that the worshipper who sings "badly" might have a better heart in worship than someone singing "well." Third part would just be sound in general. This ranges anywhere from designing the church building to have good acoustics to installing microphones and speakers in the right place. For this I say the same I said for singing. It's not how we sound, but where our heart is.
9. Worship and the rest of the service is separate, where worship becomes the center
I've noticed the typical pattern for worship is: call to worship, praise and worship music, announcements, offering, sermon, prayer requests, bendiction. Sometimes prayer time comes between offering and sermon, but not the point. Somehow this setup is group in sections, instead of one whole thing. Thus, sometimes more attention is given to one than the other. The popular choice is the praise and worship time. I've seen people give their all in praise and worship, singly loudly and waving their arms, but then after they are unlively, so unlively it's like they are do. They zone out for rest of the service. Heck, I've even seen some people leave the sanctuary, and even leave the church, after the praise and worship time, as if church is done. Why is this? It could be something as simple as they put in all their energy in the beginning, and by the time praise and worship singing is over, they are out of juice and pooped. But I think there is something more. I think it's because they are in the wrong mindset. They believe that the preacher giving the sermon is merely the preacher's act of worship, not theirs. But this is only paritally true. Sure the preacher is worship God by preaching, but he's also doing it to edify church. He's giving you just as much spiritual food as praise and worship will. And if you believe as I, that the Holy Spirit is speaking through the preacher, then the Holy Spirit might be speaking to us in the sermon as in praise and worship singing. Then those that zone out will be missing out on God's Word. I know that I truthfully get more out of the sermon than the praise and worship music. If you give it a try, you might find that out as well. As an LBC chapel speaker once said, "If you refuse to listen to God through His Word the Bible, then why would God speak to you any other way?" This kind of goes back to my second point. Church, it is time you stop just feeling, and start thinking.
In closing, I want to leave you with a verse and an experience I had. The verse is Hebrews 5:13,14- "Anyone who lives on milk, still being an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by cosntant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." I love the imagery the author (possibly Paul, because Paul uses the same imagery) uses here. When infants start eating, they have to start on milk first, but as they mature and need more calories, they move on to solid food. In fact, a lot of infant nutritionists say it's unhealthy to push solid food on an infant. But you ever think of this way: is it unhealthy to keep an infant on milk when it needs to move up to solid food? That might be denying the baby the important nutrients, like calories, that the infant needs to keep growing. I will tell you of the experience I had. I went on a fast for five days, having nothing but a quart of milk for every meal (which is about a half gallon a day). See what happened to me and try to connect it with the verse. Did I survive? Yes. Was I hospitalized? No. Did it keep me alive? With the help of God, yes. So on the surface level, it did its job. But deep down inside, I was lacking something. At the end of my milk "meals," I was still hungry. Even though it gave my the nutrients to stay alive, I robbed myself of other nutrients that were neccesary to grow. I could feel inside that I was lacking solid food, and I craved for it. I crave for something to fill me. Some days I felt aching muscles, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the fast. See the connection? While milk keeps us alive, we need to eventually move on to solid foods to keep growing strong. This is true in the spiritual aspects, too. See, I believe that when we are only focusing on a praise & worship time where the individal is center, where feelings are more imporant than thinking, and where passion week and redemption themes are the only themes mentioned, we are just feeding ourselves spiritual milk, the same we did as when we received Christ. When people who have been Christians for a long just feed themselves spiritual milk, they are depriving themselves of the nutrients they need to continue growing spiritually. This will leave them as weak as infants, depending on a "spiritual high" to keep themselves going. They will be aching and yearning for something more. Look at Hebrews 5:13,14 as an encouragement to grow up. Many of you Christians are ready to grow up after many years in the faith. But you must move on from your milk and eat solid food. I believe if we can approach and conquer these 9 ways, we as a church can move on to bigger and better things. Once again, I call the church to grow, taking on solid food instead of staying milk, and to start thinking.
*I chose the term "modern-day" although I was tempted to use "evangelical" instead because these problem seem prevailant in the evangelical church. Yet I've noticed these problems sometimes in the emergent church, as well as the pentacostal/charsmatic church. The only churches who have less of these problems are the older churches with older traditions. Therefore, I think the problem isn't a church movement issue, but rather a time period issue. Thus, I settled with the term "modern-day"
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