Instead of telling you about the computer work I did in Scotland, let me tell you about the adventure I had at Dunnottar Castle. It began when Jessica Heaton, an old friend from Belton, offered to take me on a Castle tour. She purchased a car the day before and this was her first day to drive on the backward Scottish roads.

Instead of driving up to the castle we drove to Stonehaven where we could see the castle in the distance. At the top of a massive hill we saw a small stone building with pillars all about. We decided to visit the the building of pillars first. As we left the car we saw a path above us on a high hill and a bridge before us that appeared to lead up to this path.

The bridge was a foul deception and led to the bottom of a steep cliff upon which was no trail made by the hand of men. The only way up lay in a long journey back through Stonehaven to the true source of the path. Undaunted by the high of the hill, I suggested we ascend it, rather than retrace our steeps which I was fain to do for we were in want of time.

At first Jessica hesitated and bid me scale the hill and bring tidings as to whether the accent may be attained by the gentler sex. As I climbed the hill I found the way fair and summoned Jessica to join me. Upon reaching the crest of the hill we were greeted by a a sign with dark tidings.

The sign forbade the climbing of the cliffs and issued a curse on all who attempted the perilous path. Leave it to the Scots to put such a sign a the TOP of a cliff and not the bottom.

At the top of the hill a fair air and a crisp breeze greeted us. As we looked upon the ocean we could not tell when the waters ended and the sky began. All was but a sea of blue above and and the sea of blue below.

Upon reaching the pillared mound we saw that it was a memorial to great warriors who had fallen in ancient war. We marked that the placed seemed used more frequently for weddings than for mourning. The ping of grief had faded into shadow in the memories of the people.

We continued on as we could see Dunnottar Castle in the distance. It looked as if it floated over an ocean of sky and not of water.

Upon reaching the castle we found the gate locked and the wall high. A gloom came over me for the great iron eagle was to summon me to the far away land of California on the marrow and my only chance to see the castle lay dashed before my eyes.

Un deterred I attempted to scale the wall. Though covered in chain fencing the way was to hard for me for my feet were to big to hold to the fence.

Then we happened upon a hole in the cliff that led away to a different place. I was sucked in by a yearning to scale the castle if only I could find a way.

The cave led us to the far side of the castle beyond which was a bay filled with seagulls. When I gazed upon the castle I saw that it stood above high cliffs.  I saw that the cliffs could be scaled.

I set in my heart to gain entrance. Jessica the wise knew not to dissuade me for the nagging feminine voice of caution is never regarded and often encourages fool hearty actions. She resorted to filming my ascent until she turned off the camera in fear that she might record my doom.

At first the way was easy. But as I climbed higher I was obliged to work my way across the cliff. Soon I hung above a high drop. Several times my hand holds gave way sending earth and stone echoing down into the rocky foam below. But I refused to turn back and be denied entrance to this ancient citadel.

At last I crested the final wall. There at the top of the cliff stood a sign forbidding anyone to climb these slopes. Crazy Scots.

Before me lay Dunnottar Castle in all its glory. As I started to explore the castle I turned a corner and hear a mans voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi” I replied

There sat two men. One with a weed eater and another with clippers. They looked at me with wide eyes. Was this a castle ghost?

“How did you get in?” The man with the clippers asked.

“I climbed.” They both stared at me not saying a word. “Does that happen often?” I asked.

“No.” The man said. He was still surprised but this ghost had an American accent so he must not be so bad.

“My plane leaves for America tomorrow and I wanted to see a castle before I left. Would it be ok if I looked around a bit? The men looked at each other and then shrugged.

“Come get me when you want to get out.” The man said. “I’ll let you go out the door.”

“Thank you!” My heart swelled with gratitude for these kindly Scots.

Photos could not capture the majesty of the place. So I prepared this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When it was time to leave the man picked up a massive key from a shed and let me out the main door.

Jessica before the cliffs.

As we left the castle the clouds parted and a clear sun caused the sea to shine with green life.

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Here is a quick video with some of the cool people we met at the ACW conference .

I’m in St. Petersurg now and will post about that soon.

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You may not know Charity Chambers but she is an up an coming poet. Unfortunately, she has no blog so it is hard to read her work. The good news is that she gave me permission to publish this poem. I think you will like it even if you’re not into poetry.

A Woman at a Well
By Charity Chambers

I was almost there,
I needed one more day.
I was following a vision,
and I was on my way.

Chasing after this dream,
I joined a mighty throng,
“If only…” was our anthem,
to this world did we belong.

Our thirst for happy living
kept us coming to this well.
But the waters left us thirsty;
that we’d drunk, we could not tell.

If only we drink faster!
If only we drink more!
We must get a bigger bucket!

And soon joy became a chore.

In the waters we no longer found
the satisfaction that we sought.
Still we drank, and deeply,
trusting joy these waters brought.

Then one day as I was drinking
of the water of the well,
a man sat down beside me.
The things that he could tell!

He first spoke to me of water,
his was living, so he said.
I couldn’t understand him,
Did he mean that mine was dead?

He seemed to fully know me;
he’d been watching all the time.
He showed me what I looked like,
that I now lived in crime.

I perceived that he was wise,
but still he didn’t understand.
I may not quite be worthy,
but I do the best I can.

“I worship on this mountain,
I give to God his due.
Because I’ve never seen his temple,
is there more that I must do?”

I trusted that I’d shown him,
there was nothing he could say.
But if only I had known him,
on my lips my hand would lay.

He said the moment hastened
when I would not be simple.
I’d not worship on my mountain,
nor yet in Jerusalem’s temple.

He said my worship was vanity,
for salvation was of the Jews.
My face grew hot in shame
as I thought “this is not news.”

A child of illegitimacy,
how did I even think
that of life containing water
I could ever drink?

At once I was in confusion,
I stammered, then sat still.
My gaze fell on my waters
and I thought I’d drunk my fill.

He didn’t seem to notice,
for uninterrupted still he spoke.
And when he’d finally finished,
My heart I knew he’d broke.

For he said the time had come
when false worship was at an end.
I knew with painful conviction
that this rule I could not bend.

He said that God, who is a Spirit,
seeks for worship of one sort:
spirit and truth must meet
and fall adoring in His court.

At last, gathering my courage,
I spoke loudly, to be heard.
“I know Christ, Messiah’s coming
and Truth will be his Word.”

Oh! How I should have known it!
I suspected it must be.
The man for whom we waited said,
“I that speak to thee am He!”

The pitcher I’d been holding
slipped unheeded to the ground,
and tumbled, spilling the water.
At last, true joy I’d found!

I rushed back to my village
with marvelous news to tell!
I found my friends still drinking
the dead water of the well.

Excitedly I told them
to hurry up and see!
Jesus Christ had come,
and the things he said to me!

The whole village turned out,
their parched throats drove them on.
Christ spoke to all who’d listen,
And for some, all doubt was gone.

Others wouldn’t listen.
Still others laughed and mocked.
They went back to their water,
and to us no longer talked.

But we no longer cared
for their water or their well.
We found the living spring,
and now in joy would dwell.

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In part one we talked about Spiritual Cancer and how to see if you are a cancer cell in the body of Christ. So now what do we do about the other cancer cells in the Body of Christ?

Here is what Jesus has to say about it:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away.When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.

“The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’

“‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.

“‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn. ’” Matt 13:24-30

Spiritual radiation treatment is not an option because it will kill good cells as well as bad cells. We often can’t tell between a true and false convert.

So this is what we should not do. So, What do we do?

Well, Saint Paul has some advice on this regard.

“When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that.

I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin , or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-11

So if someone is in open sin and calls themselves a Christian don’t have anything to do with them. You can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do . But you can pray for them.

Sometimes the clearest way to send a message is to avoid them all together.

One Last Note
Our value is based on who Christ is not on what we do. God has blessed the church with special people who are unable to give much because of an injury or physical or mental impediment. I belive that God has blessed the church with these people so that we can learn to be like Christ in how we treat them. There is a big difference between can’t and won’t .

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Fear and questions both assail me, could it have gone a different way?
Could I have spoken different words, to make today a different day?
My heart not only hurts for me but also for another.
The one I spoke the words of death to, why, did I have to hurt her?

My selfish sinful pride hath reared its ugly head.
I could not hold my tongue, and so my hopes are dead.
Should I curse the fates, if they exist at all?
Blame the God in heaven, or Adam for his fall?

But here I stand, all alone,

with blame on none but me.
To ask the King who reigns on high, and her, to forgive me.

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2. A Woman at a Well (Psalm) You may not know Charity Chambers but she is an...
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New Business
I now setup websites for Author’s and businesses. Many of them are paying to much for golden handcuff sites. Others have no site at all. What I like about WordPress is that my clients can update the site as easily as they can ask me to do it for them. They like this too because they can keep their site current.

Some wordpress sites I have made include:

• PeerlessRoofing.com Great roofing & remodeling company in the Temple Belton TX area.
  
• RenaeBrumbaugh.com An expository daily devotional.
• AustinRhetoricClub.org My favorite debate club ever
• GreatShalom.org An Austin radio show about healing, homeschooling & health. A podcast is coming soon so that you non Austinites can listen in.
• CaltarionChronicles.com David Umstattd’s blog about a book he is writing.
• JenniferLackey.com A friend of mine. She is smart and too busy to update her blog.

Thomas Camp
I have started an internship program with my businesses called Thomas Camp. Paul Hastings is my first attendee. He is learning about marketing, web design, book keeping, organization, cooking and vacuum repair. Follow his blog for day by day rundown of Thomas Camp.

BrookAudio.com
We will be launching BrookAudio.com today! If you love Audiobooks you will love this site. Brook Audio: Turn your car into a classroom by bringing to the classic audiobooks on the road.

Writers Conference
By God’s gracious provision I have pulled together the funds to go to the Glorieta Christian Writers Conference in New Mexico next week. It is the second biggest writers conference and my best chance to get a publisher all year. At the conference I will get a chance to "pitch" my book to publishers.  Pray that I get favor.

Courtship Blog
Over the last several weeks I have talked to dozens of homeschool moms and a handful of homeschool dads from all over Texas about courtship.  Many of them are concerned that courtship is not working very well to get young people married, particularly young women.

I have also talked with people from all over the world including a member to the Chinese underground church to an Indian who grew up in Singapore about different methods of courtship in other cultures. I have heard about betrothal, courtship, Christian dating, arranged marriage, and even "dateship."

I will start a new blog soon that will examine the obstacles to modern courtship and then discuss solutions. My hope is to spark a dialogue as we pioneer this new approach to marriage. I will post a link once the blog is up and ready to go.

Grandfather
On a sad note we are concerned that my grandfather is dying. Please pray for him. He is not born again as far as we know.

I think thats it. Let me know if I forgot anything. Sorry for all the personal posts.

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in the stillness of a quiet moment
when conscience finds its voice to speak
it tells of deeds done in night’s darkness
pitch-black lust and hidden hate

noise can drown the accuser
and summon back a chaosed mind
but noise cannot hide truth
and chaos cannot cleanse sin

the din that dulls the guilt
cannot save on judgment day
darkness comes not from without
but from within a soiled soul

in Christ alone can there be hope
only He can end the night
to follow Him is to be free
only from Light will the darkness flee

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What has happened?

We hear echos or war, the clash of resounding arms and we long to be a part of something greater than ourselves.  The drumbeat for battle echoes the beating of our hearts. But, we can’t see the battle because it is fought not with guns but with words and deeds. The war is not in trenches but in the arena of ideas. Our enemy twists the truth to steal, kill, and destroy.

Will we stand to fight him?

Throughout the centuries men of God have stood up against this unseen foe. They carried the torch of truth and now hold it for us to take. But, for many of us, the only battle we fight is against an enemy that doesn’t exist. Why invest hours trying to beat level thirty when a spiritual war wages all around you? If we, the generation of today, fail to take up the torch of truth, who will pass it on to the generation of tomorrow? Will history remember us as those who let it die?

All my life, adults told me that my generation would be the one that God would use to usher in revival. Yet, when I look around I see Christian youth sitting idle, getting entertained by their TVs, computers and youth groups. Where are the warriors training? Where are the strongmen who long to run into battle? Where are the warrior poets holding the torch of truth for all to see?  Most of them haven’t even signed up for boot camp. Encouraged by their mothers to value safety over obedience they are still boys. Boys living in men’s bodies. 

This is your invitation.

For you, boot camp can start today if you are willing. The only cost of admission is total commitment. There is no room for double mindedness among the soldiers of light. Those who sign up and then look back have no place in the Kingdom we fight for. Our General shares our allegiance with no one. We are either all His or not His at all. God has no grandchildren, step children, or part time warriors. We must follow him alone and with our whole hearts or admit we follow a different king.

But our journey does not end with bootcamp. Some of you reading this are already trained beyond your obedience to God.  If that is you, the next step is to do something with the hundreds of hours of sermons you have heard. Take the Gospel out of the church and share it with the lost. Feed the poor. Care for widows and orphans.

God has not called us to play defense against evil. We can’t win if the game ends with the score 0-0.  We won’t win by attending weekly Sunday training and then seldom showing up for the battle. God is calling boys to become men of God .

Will you be one of them?

Are you ready to put away childish things and get about your Father’s business? If so, there is a place for you. This book isn’t about helping you quit gaming. It’s an invitation to an adventure that is better than gaming.  This book will change your life, if you will let it.

You have been reading an excerpt from a chapter in my book Digital Cancer. What do you think?

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Questions for My Daddy

Daddy, why did You give us women? You say it is not good
for man to alone, but is it not worse for him to have woman? What is her
purpose if not to torment us? They play with our emotions and ring us dry.
They play with our eyes and tempt us to sin.

Daddy, is it not cruel to give us something and then not let us have it?
Why did You give them to us, only to say later “it is better to walk alone.”
Should only the weak take this “gift” from You?

Why would You give us a thirst that we are not permitted to quench?
Why am I compelled to talk with those who only cause anguish?
Why are they so beautiful?

Selah

Daddy, why did you make the rose? I do not understand it.
The velvet petals are the source of such beauty and fragrance.
Yet the thorns are sharp, hard, and unforgiving.
So different than the beauty above. Why do the thorns cause such pain?
Why does my hand bleed when I try to pick one from the garden?

Was it good when men of old took roses and chopped of their thorns?
Do You take pleasure in allowing men treat the rose as trash? Why is
the simple so complex?

Could it be that I am handling the rose incorrectly? Is there a way to
enjoy a rose without pain? Would You give something so beautiful
that cannot be enjoyed? Do roses exist just to taunt us? Or, did You
give us the rose to teach us of other things?

Selah

Does the blood dripping from my heart come from the mishandling of a
rose? How do I guard my heart from thorns I can’t see? Why are they so
sharp, why do they hurt so much?

Will You, the Maker of thorns and roses cause the bleeding to stop? Will
You teach me to love You more than the rose? Can the rose teach me
something about You?

Daddy, thank You for listening to my questions. Thank You
for Your patience with my foolishness. I know You are wise.
May I find favor in Your eyes that I might learn Your ways.
Thank You for being who You are.

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the cares of the world press me into the ground

the spiritual rain that comes not from You

crackles and pops on the embers of my heart

make my soul so hot that the waters from the world

turn to steams of praise rising to Your Name.

may my life burn as a living sacrifice for You

shining Your light throughout the earth

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An old man and a boy were fishing on the shore of a great lake. As they listened to the sound of the birds and the whispers of the wind the old man started to tell the boy stories. He talked of how he had grown up and how some things had changed and some stayed the same. He talked of how he had seen the land on the other side of the lake.

“What are you talking about Grandfather?” The boy interjected. “There is no land on the other side of the lake.”

“There surly is for I have seen it.” The old man replied with a smile. “Even though I have never set sail on this lake I have seen the land with my own eyes.”

“Surly you must be mistaken. I have looked out on these waters all my life and while I am not privileged to have lived as long as you, I have never seen anything but water.”

The old man paused and watched the smile waves ripple upon the shore making no effect on the impregnable beach..

“You can’t see the land from here. You must climb the mountain to see the land beyond the Lake.”
“But Grandfather, no assent up those treacherous slopes will change my basic view. It will not let me see any farther. Soon you will be telling me I won’t know how to walk utill I wear your shoes.”

The boy startled by his own energy and passion began to real back his line.

“Why don’t you climb the mountain and look for yourself, my son.”
“I don’t need to climb the mountain to see something that doesn’t exist.”

And so the conversation faded back to the chirping of birds and the whispering of wind. And the boy never did see the land beyond the lake.

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As a child when I heard the stories of Narnia I always wondered: what world lay beyond the other pools in the wood between the worlds. What adventures do they hold? Well, my brother has found one of those worlds.

David’s world is called Caltaria. It is a land of adventure. Think Count de Monte Christo meets the Lord of the Rings with a Pirates of the Caribbean twist. I can’t wait for David to finish his first book in this world. But, he does I am reading his new blog CaltarianChronicles.com . If you want to visit Caltaria and say you saw it first Check it out and let me know what you think.

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Here is a recording and slides for the Ladder of Abstraction talk that I gave at the Austin Rhetoric Club a few weeks ago.

• Transcript
• Download MP3

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Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

The Ladder of Abstraction I got this blog and I set up a RSS syndication feed which means that you can subscribe to it though an RSS agrigator on your computer but I was having some trouble yesterday because I was also trying to syndicate the RSS feed from cgames.com podcast which is also a blog onto my blog so that you could see both feeds on the same page.

The problem was that the RSS feed that was on there was looking toward the wrong FTP server so the xemail link was bad. Who understood what I just said? Two people! That was exactly what I was expecting.

What I will be talking about today is something called the "curse of knowledge."

Believe it or not knowledge is a curse or it can be. Here are a few reasons why knowledge can be such a curse. #1 It can make us proud. "Knowledge puffeth up" is what the Bible says. #2 The other thing that knowledge does to speakers is it makes it hard for us to communicate. The way that it does that is when we have knowledge it’s difficult for us to understand that other people don’t have that same knowledge. So when we speak to them we speak in terms and abstractions that make perfect sense to us but that have no meaning for our listeners.

So when I talk about an RSS agrigator only a few people know what that means. If you know what that means it opens up a whole world of meaning in your mind but if you don’t know what it means you start to fall asleep. I was looking at some of your expressions and you were like "oh, no! This guy is talking about stuff that I totally don’t understand!" I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t of understood what I just said until my blog broke yesterday and I had to fix it. I was asking Google help and then I had a friend come over and fix it. So the talk that I’m giving is based off of two books. One is "Presentation Zen" which came out recently. It is amazing! The guy is Japanese so he mentions Zen but it’s not very Buddhist despite the name. He has some really great principles on simple communication.

The other one is by another Japanese guy; "The Love Langue of Thought and Action." That is what this talk is about in part and the Ladder of Abstraction. So most speeches are boring, right? Most speeches are boring. Why is that? What makes speeches boring? Because of the person that presents it? O.K. more specifically how does that person make it boring? Monotone voice? To fast? Some one has heard that talk before? They pause? There are lot’s of things about the way that we speak that can make it boring but it also a lot about what we say that can make it boring and unclear.

You see even if I was what I was saying earlier in that example was interesting and I was saying it in a good way because of what I was saying was unclear it was boring. So, I bet you are asking what is the "Ladder of Abstraction?" Well, let’s look at our good friend, Bessie, the cow. She is a key to understanding the ladder of abstraction. You see, Bessie, here is not any cow. This particular cow is Bessie! She is seperated from all of the other cows is Bessie the very specific, individual cow.

The word cow is a little more generic. It’s a little more abstract. It doesn’t just include, Bessie, it also includes all of the other cows that are in existence. Now remember we are talking about words that make words make sense. Because if our words don’t make sense we don’t make sense and if we don’t make sense we are BORING! Right? So to explain the ladder of abstraction I have a slide.

On the bottom of the ladder I have "Bessie" A level up from that I have "cow" which includes Bessie and the other cows. Then I have "livestock" which also includes "Horton the pig" and all of the other pigs. Then up above that we have "farm assets which not only includes the livestock but also the tractors, the shovel, the elbow grease that the farmer puts in…well that isn’t really an asset……anyways, you go on up and there you have asset which not only includes stuff on the farm but his stuff in the bank and the real estate that he owns. And then finally we have "money."

So, Bessie, down here at the bottom is money in a kind of abstract way. Y’all laugh about this but so often we tend to be way up high on the ladder of abstraction. We say money but we’re thinking Bessie but we aren’t saying Bessie. One of the things that I want to warn you about is dead level abstracting. Dead level abstracting is very bad. Dead level abstracting is basically not moving up and down the level of abstraction. Dead level abstracting takes to forms. Number one is people who get stuck in the details.

Who gets stuck in the details? Team Policy people or Lincoln Douglass debators? Team Policy! Oh, we love those details! I have pieces of evidence to read in four minutes and by, Golly, you are going to hear all of those pieces in the first minute and a half! So, we try to cram in all of the details. Allot of you have read Science text books that cram in all of the details. What happens when you cuddle up at night with your Science text book? You have a great sleep! Some of my best naps were inspired by Science text books!

The thing is, and I do remember taking Science, and all I needed to grasp Science, and I did get this in Biology was the big picture. How does this information connect with everything else that I am learning? How does it apply to my life? In Biology they were like germs make you sick. You need to know what is going on in your body and what makes you get sick and I was, like, okay! I understood that! Then I took Chemistry.

I asked my Chemistry professor why I needed this. His answer was; "Well, you need it so that you can get into college!" Well, I went to a college that didn’t need it. So I didn’t need it and I didn’t get the big picture that I so desperately needed. The other temptation is to get caught up in the clouds. Who does this? Team policy or Lincoln Douglass people? Lincoln Douglass people! "Judge, I’m here to talk to you today about Justice.

I’m not exactly sure what Justice is or what exactly comprises Justice but it is very important. In fact, I value Justice!" So we then have very abstract, very unclear debates. What you’ll have is two Lincoln Douglass debators using such abstract terms that at the end of the round the judge had no idea what they were saying so they will vote for the person that they liked the best or who spoke the best and it will wind up being all about persuasive speaking. That is why for Lincoln Douglass people it’s all about being persuasive because the judges won’t know what you are saying half of the time! If they could understand you then they would vote for you a lot more. Does that make sense?

Also learning how to go up and down the ladder of abstraction can be helpful when you play games. Have you ever played "Twenty Questions?" Have you ever played "Twenty Questions" and not been able to figure it out even after forty questions?

If you’re doing dead level abstracting you will never win "Twenty Questions." "Is it a vegetable, animal, or mineral?"

"It’s an animal."

"Is it a cow?"

"No."

"Is it a bear?"

"No."

See you could do that all day and use up all twenty of your questions but if you understood the ladder of abstraction you could win "Twenty Questions" with far less questions than twenty. My mom once got the wax on top of the king of spades in her drawer back in her room within twenty questions. Her family is very compitive at this game and they have little machines, you can get a computer that will have you think of things and it will ask you twenty questions, with you answering yes or no and it will figure it out.

People will be, like, "It’s magic!" No, it’s not! It’s the ladder of abstraction! Okay, it’s this thing. The the ladder of abstraction is very helpful but not only that if you are ever using a filing system it uses the same type of thing. What the is this on the ladder of abstraction? You’ve got a really big filing cabinet for finances.

In one drawer you have you’re family’s finances and in that drawer you have you’re budget folder. In that folder you have you’re January budget and in that folder on a certain piece of paper you will have you’re January budget for food. You see how that is very specific and yet still a little piece of a larger more abstract system? Now we will focus more on how to use the ladder of abstraction.

The ladder of abstraction can help you win debate rounds. It can also help you to communicate better. The goal is to make your arguments sticky. If you’re judge can not remember your first speech as he’s casting his ballot you lose unless he remembers the other team even less. The goal is to get your arguments sticky.

To illustrate this I’m going to give you to messages on the same idea and you can tell me which one is more sticky. Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry though maximum team centered innovation and strategically targeted arrow placed intitiaves. Or we could say "Our mission is to put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade." The 2nd statement was from JFK. He said those word and our nation was like, "Yes! Beat the Russians!"

So we put a man on the moon and brought him back safely by then end of the decade. Allot of men died in the process but by Golly, we got it done! What it was was it was sticky! It stuck in the minds of Americans. It rallied us to a common purpose and we got things done.

Now, I’m going to quickly give you some principles from "Presentation Zen." One of the keys to a sticky argument is to keep it simple. There was a reason why Jesus’ talks in the wilderness were repeated and repeated and repeated to the edges of the earth. The reason why is because He kept His message simple. While we take it for granted how simple Jesus’ messages were can you imagine someone who contains all knowledge communicating to us?

Can you imagine how complex what He said could of been? Have you ever heard a college professor talk? A college professor doesn’t have a fraction of the knowledge that Jesus had and yet he is still so complex in what he says that sometimes you’re like; "I think what he just said was good or I might have disagreed with it. I don’t know!" Jesus was talking about very abstract concepts. How did He talk about concepts? Lets take the Kingdom of Heaven?

He used simple, simple langue. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl of great price that a man found. He sold all that he had so that he could buy that pearl." It’s very very simple. Another thing that helps make our arguments sticky is if they are unexpected. Who expected me to start talking about computer programming langue at the beginning of this talk? Sometimes what you need to do is do the unexpected. Jesus did a lot of unexpected things. He would be talking and then some one would ask Him if it is lawful to pay taxes and everyone would get quite wondering what he was going to say. Jesus said; "Give me a coin." It was so simple.

I would venture to guess that most people don’t have most of the Bible memorized. but that was so simple, so unexpected, so concrete that we would remember. If we can speak in those little proverbial terms such as "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." It’s those simple little things that are so concrete. Another thing that is helpful is to make it concrete. Jesus spoke in very concrete langue. He talked a lot about farms, farmers, shepards, coins, fig trees, things that we would all interact with. Things that are concrete.

He didn’t use big words. The theologians have taken Jesus’ simple words and have added big words to them. Jesus didn’t need big words. He was so smart. So cool. By Golly, he could talk about a coin and make it profound. Another thing is credible. People won’t listen to you much if they don’t beleive what you’re saying. I want everyone to listen to what I’m about to say; "Statistics do no make you credible." You can use statistics but what makes you credible is the contextuluzation of those statistics. Steve Jobs, I would encourage you to watch him.

He’s one of the better presenters in the more modern form with using slides. The best, I think, traditional speaker is Alan Keys. If you can find a recording of him, he’s great! They’re styles are very different. We need a kind of balance. Anyways, Steve Jobs presented statistics at the beginning of his most recent talk he’s talking about market shares. Instead of listing off how are market share was 26% or whatever he compared his market shares to other peoples’ market shares. That made it very credible. Very real. He told us a story and used contextulazation.

Here is an even better example. You can say; "66 grams of fat" and then you can talk about how fattening that is or you can say "66 grams of fat is equivalent to 3 big Macs." Suddenly, that can stick in my mind. "3 Big Macs! That’s a lot of fat!" That is what you need to do. Don’t just sight statistics. Break it down. Next is emotion.

What I’ve learned in my marketing classes is that we Americans think that we are rational beings and we think that we buy products for rational reasons and marketeers are very good at getting you to think that you are buying their product for a rational reason. When really you’re not. This is also true with sharing the gospel. I can think of only one person that I know that actually came to Christ by looking at the stats and the figures and logic.

This guy is an engineer and he’s very effective and he’s well very much an engineer. The rest of us are not engineers and we don’t make desicions based off of facts and reason. Most everyone makes their desicion based on emotion and then come up with a reason. It’s very important to learn to appeal to emotion. Let’s say that you’re talking about the devastation of the Hurricane Katrina or the war or immigration. You could share a lot of facts about how badly they are treated or you could tell a story about a family who came to the U.S. to keep from dying, to keep from starving to death.

They already had a few children in the U.S. who were citizens but when the came over the Immigration Services nabbed the family and thrust them back into Mexico, took the children who had been born in the U.S. and put them into foster care and absoulutly destroyed that family. Did you see how much more impactful that was them a bunch of statistics. You could tell about Katrina and how millions of people were displaced or you could tell a story of one person who you know who had to flee for their lives from the water. Connecting emontioally is so much more effective then just giving facts.

That is the best way to up and down the ladder of abstraction, it’s sticky and memorable. The best way is to tell stories. Jesus did this all the time and so did God. He had a book of 66 little books. What does He spend the whole first book doing? Telling a story! There is basically no preaching at all in Genesis. It’s the same way with the first part of Exodus and then around Exodus 20 He tells us how to live.

He talks about murder and you can look back to Genesis and see the first story of the first murder and you can see how that broke God’s heart and Adams’ heart. He says not to steal. You can look back and find stories about people stealing. You can look back and see what that means in the context of a story. They do this in Japan very well. The way they do training is they have a Sin Pi and a Co hie.

The Sin pie is the trainer or the coach and the Co hie is the greenie. The guy that doesn’t know anything. They match them together and the Sin pi trains the Co hie by telling him stories. Instead of saying here are all of these facts and how you are more likely to get hurt if you don’t wear you’re hard hat he tells him the story of that one poor fool who didn’t wear his hardhat and died.

So the Co hie always wears his hard hat and every time he takes it off he remembers poor Johnnie who didn’t wear his hard hat. It’s far more effective. Okay, back to the ladder of abstraction. Dictionaries do not give words their meanings.

Now this is really important when you’re competing and you’re saying I have Black Law’s dictionary or I have Webster’s. Dictionaries don’t give words their meanings. The meanings existed so we had to attach words to them. Sometimes there are meanings that words can’t hardly express so that is why we have art. That’s why God not only wrote the Bible but He also wrote the Clear Testimony of Nature.

Paul talks about this how the Gospel is clear in nature. You can look at a tree and be like what can this tree teach me about the Kingdom? It’s not that the tree is the Kingdom but if the tree can teach us things. That is why Jesus was able to use such concrete examples from the very beginning because God wrote those truths into nature from the very beginning.

If you’re looking and asking the right questions you can find the truth in nature but when you read the Bible and study nature you learn so much more. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is like breath, like wind. So you’re like "I need to go learn about wind!" So you go learn about wind and suddenly what you learn about wind shows you more about the Holy Spirit. So the meanings existed and we simply attached words to the meanings.

There are different types of definitions. Extetionsal and Intentional . Extensional means that you can just point at something and say that is a pig and I mean a pink animal with four legs. But if I point at you and say that you are a pig it has a totally different meaning. Some words their connotative meanings speaks so loudly that their denotative meaning is lost. The denotative meaning of say the stars and the bars, that flag, is that it was a nation that existed and believed in states rights but the conative meaning of that flag is slavery and racial hatred.

You have to be careful with the words that you use, that their conative meaning is not offensive. A lot of time it simply depends on the context of the word. Like a note. The notes in a melody make sense in the context of the song just as the words make sense in the context of what we’re saying. That is how stories help. They give some context to what we say. Here is a real life example of how using the ladder of abstraction can help you. If someone defines something by going up on the ladder of abstraction take them into the clouds.

For example; "What do you mean by the word red?" "Well it’s a color!" (Go up on the ladder) "What’s a color?" "Well, it’s a quality." "What’s a quality?" "Hey, what are you trying to do anyways?" Form a definition loop around the other team. You can do this allot. This happens when the other team defines a word by staying on the same level of the ladder.

"What do you mean by democracy?"

"Democracy means the preservation of Human Rights."

"What do you mean by rights?"

"By rights I mean those privileges that God grants us , inherent privlages."

"Such as?"

"Liberty, for example."

"What do you mean by Liberty?"

"Religious and Political Freedom."

"What do you mean by religious and political freedom?"

"Well, it’s what enjoy under a democracy."

See? It’s gone in a full circle. Pull people down in cross examination and make them be more specific. Get them to reveal the true truth of what they are saying. A politician can get up and talk for a really long time and say nothing by simply staying abstract. "I beleive we should improve education in the U.S.!

We need to do this by making sure that the class rooms teach better materials and that the students learn better. We need a smaller government. We need to do things smaller! We need to have a better economy!(Everyone is like "yeah, better economy! Fix the economy!) But they never say how they are going to fix the economy. Be careful of that in a debate round. You can easily lose the round or bore you’re judge. You don’t want to be boring. Go up and down the ladder of abstraction.

If you can tell an emontially compelling story to connect with the judge you can get them to vote for you. I used to tell a story of story of a blizzard and the currant IRS system and how they take up so much time. The judges were like "Yeah!" So you need to connect with judges.

In closing I would like to tell a story. Antioch in the Bible was located on the southern border of Turkey and the northern border of Syria. The church in Antioch was known for it’s church planting.

It sent out mission teams. It sent out Paul and Barnabas, John, Mark, and Paul and Sylas. That church planted all though out the Roman world. God allowed the lamp of the church to be exstinusished in that place. Two decades ago you could count the number of people in the churches by the dozens.

The lamp of the Gospel had completely gone out. He is allowing the lamps of Europe to also go out. If you look and see what has happened in Europe in the last 100 years we can see that His light is going out.

We can look and see the same thing happening here in the U.S. but God is wanting to do something with our generation. God has a plan but the enemy is fighting against Him. The enemy has a 3 fold plan to stop God’s plan. One way is though addictions. We can get distracted with addictions such as gaming, alcohol, or drugs. We can not do what God wants us to do if this addiction is consuming our passions.

The second way that Satan is trying to stop us is though abortion. He knows that we can not speak if we are dead. 1/3 or my generation has been killed. The enemy is serious. Dead serious. The third thing that the Devil is trying to do to destroy the light is though apathy. If he can’t kill us or addict us, he’ll get us to just not care, to keep the truth we know to ourselves. He’ll keep us out of the public square, out of the voting booth. Out of a world that is falling. I ask you to say no to these three things. Say no to addiction. If you know some one who is addicted pray for them.

Say no to abortion. Take a stand. Say no to apathy. We must make stand up and make a difference and help stop these dying children. So that we might defeat the enemy and also his third plan, that of apathy. We can stand up and say no. You can say no. You can say I will stand up for God’s purpose in this generation.

I will not let the lamp go out while I’m alive. Generations of Christians have died to see the light of their nation continue to b urn. The lam p in China is beginning to shine for after more than 1800 years. God wants to use you. Thank you!

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Here is a talk I gave at the 2007 Christmas Evangelism Boot Camp. You may recognize the first few minutes as from my blog. The audio quality improves dramatically after about five minutes.

Summary

Learn the principles that ground good evangelical methods. Learn to balance your presentation of the Gospel between Spirit Truth and Love. In this talk we discuss the challenges to balanced evangelism and how to overcome them. You can get the Balance in Evangelism Handout from here .

Watch

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Transcript
Before we get started, I would like to share a story. A family once had a pool party at their house. They had friends from all over filling their backyard.
While no one was looking a young boy creep ed over to the pool and fell in. "That kid can’t swim!" One of the ladies said. Then a man replied; "Why don’t you go and help him?"

"Oh, no!" The lady responded. "I’m just the eyes of this party. I don’t have the gift for saving people." She then turned back to her food and continued eating while the child gasped for breath.

One guest thought about saving the boy but then he decided that he might offend someone by implying that children shouldn’t swim.

Another guest felt sorry for the boy so he ate his food by the edge of the pool, hoping to make dry ground look so appealing that the boy would want to leave the pool and get out of the water.
Yet, another man, behind a grill was so busy serving the guest that he never even noticed the drowned child. "I will call my father about this." A man hesitant to get wet lives said. "He lives in just the next town and he loves children. I’m sure he would love to come in and save this child for us."

Finally a teenage girl saw the baby now floating in the water. She jumped in, grabbed the boy, and tossed him out of the pool. She listened for breathing an hearing none she started roughly pressing on the baby’s stomach, as the girl tried to administer CPR and save the babies life, the guest gathered around the girl and began to criticize the girl’s efforts.
"You’re being much to rough with that child." One of the guest responded. "You should be much more gentle."

"You’re not pushing hard enough!" An elderly man commented. "And you’re pressing in the wrong place." Finally in desperation the young girl cried out; "Will someone please call 911?" At first none of the guest made a move but finally a lady sighed, walked into the house, and made the call. The paramedics came and whizzed the baby away. Soon all was quiet. As the sirens faded away into the distance the guests turned upon the teenager. "How dare you order us to call 911?" one said. "Did you see how rudely you splashed water all over those guests when you jumped in? You’re going to scare visitors away from this party."

These comments hurt deeply. She didn’t want to be rude or hurt anyone. All she wanted to do was to save the baby but the guest continued. "You should be ashamed of yourself for how insensitive you were to that child." A man said. "You just grabbed him and tossed him out of the water. You should be more loving."

He didn’t even asked to get saved!" said another. "Who are you to jump in and force your dry ground on someone else? You should never of forced your own air down someone Else’s throat."
Finally the girl could not take it anymore. She ran away from the party. The guest never did find out if the baby survived or not.

I share this story tonight to give us some respect for what evangelism is really all about. It’s not about techniques or methods. It’s about reaching into a lost and dying world. A world that is gasping for breath and who desperately needs a Savior. We have a passion that makes it easier for us to share the gospel and frankly it makes it easier for us to withstand persecution because the world does come to persecute us. He who is in us is stronger than he who is in the world.

Today, I’m going to be sharing some principles for grounding our methods. The reason that I’m doing this is not to criticize methods. I don’t want to be like the guest at the pool and, frankly, I don’t want you to be, either. I have been on the receiving end of quiet a bit of criticism when it comes to evangelism and unfortunately I’ve been on the giving end as well.
I’ve realized that he who plants is nothing and he who waters is nothing. The way that they plant and water is nothing. God uses us despite our mess ups and it is He who does the saving.
That said, I think that there are some Biblical principles that we can apply to the methods we use weather those methods of the "Evangelic Cube" or the "WWJD" questions there are some Biblical principles that we need to apply to be in accordance with God’s law. There are three things that we need to keep in balance. To talk about these three things I would like to talk about a simile of the fire.
There are three components that you have to have for a fire to burn correctly. What are those three components? Fuel, heat, and oxygen. Alright, so you have to have fuel, you have to have heat or spark and you have to have oxygen. Each one of these corresponds with each of the three critical things that we need for evangelism.
The heat is like spirit. The fuel is like truth and the air is like love. These are the three things that I am primarily going to be talking about, today.

Love is vital. Who here has seen a lump of charcoal? We’ve all seen them. Who hear has tried to burn one? They’re kind of hard to burn, right? Once they get started they will burn but by themselves they will not burn very well at all. If you’re trying to build a fire and all you have is charcoal it’s going to be very difficult. Why is that? You’ve got the match, you’ve got the heat, and you’ve got the fuel right there so why doesn’t charcoal burn?

Well, there was a competition to see who could burn a lump of charcoal the fastest. They brought in engineers from all over and they could do whatever they wanted to this lump of charcoal to see who could consume it the fastest. You could use a blowtorch or use any other type of fuel.There was one team that was able to completely burn up a lump of charcoal in less than a second.

In a fraction of a second it burned up the entire charcoal. I was like, how do they do that? Charcoal is so hard to burn. Well, they figured out what charcoal needed. It didn’t need more fuel. See, other teams were doing jet-fuel and other really flammable liquids. Charcoal doesn’t need more fuel, it has all of the fuel that it needs. There were some teams that were using blowtorches to add more heat. It doesn’t need that either. What the charcoal desperately needed to burn was oxygen. What this team did was soak this piece of charcoal in liquid oxygen. You lit a match and that was all that it needed, the charcoal was gone!

Now when you cook something or heat it up you suck the life right out of that. We see this as a bad thing but it is actually used to create something that many of y’all like. It’s called coffee. When you make coffee, you burn the beans in such a way that sucks the life out of them without destroying the bean. What they do is roast coffee beans in a vacuum so that they don’t catch fire and become consumed. If you’ve ever tried to cook or dry a coffee bean you have discovered that there is no life in them.

This is what happens when we share the gospel without love. We just cook someone and they become this dried up shell. We become a clanging gong and a resounding cymbal. The Apostle Paul says that without love we are nothing. Love is vital. I think we all can agree on that.
Truth is also vital. Without truth there is no message. It’s just a puff of smoke. You’ve got heat and air but there is nothing that sustains it. Often we do lot’s of well intentioned evangelism but we are afraid to share the truth. So we do everything but that. We will spend thousands of dollars to go somewhere and we will spend thousands of dollars to build a house.

We will smile a lot and we will hug these people and we will tell them how much we love them but we never share the gospel. Then we leave. The fire hasn’t been started. It’s just a puff of smoke.This is often what many Christians do and this is what their evanglism is. They don’t include the truth because they are afraid too. Are they don’t include the vital elements of the truth because it might be offensive. The thing is, is truth is HARD! If you have a block of wood….it’s hard but that doesn’t mean that it’s not vital.

Spirit is also vital. You have a fire. It’s ready to burn. It even has cardboard on the top so that when that spark hits it it will be ready to go. Imagine this fire. You have all of the people around it…they’re doing all of the motions. They’re warming their hands. You even have some people with some marsh mellows and a guy with some hot dogs. The thing is is that they are not burning.

They are like, we’re doing it all perfect. I’ve got my marsh mellows on the stick just right! This fire is perfectly constructed. It is soaked in gasoline. It has tender at the bottom. All it needs is to get started. All it needs is the spark of the spirit. So often we do it all right. We’ve got the structure just right. We have everything set up and we’re going though all of the motions like it’s supposed to happen. We’re, like, "we’re doing it just like those Christians over there that we heard about who were warming their hand!" But there is no fire. There is no spirit. The spirit is vital. It’s like everything without the match. You have to have both.

So we have these three. Spirit, Truth, and Love. Usually what happens, in my experience, is that people will tend to combine a couple of them. They will really try to emphasize on those two. They will criticize people for not doing those two as well as they do. I would like to do some math here and just see what happens when you add up two of these and don’t include the third one.

So truth and love. What happens when you take truth and love together with no spirit. You get nothing. It is powerless. Oftentimes this is what happens in modern evangelism but it is powerless. There is no power in it. We can get our tracts and make them be the pretties tracts in the world. But if God does not bring the increase there is no increase.

So what about spirit and truth and no love? What happens? The people that I’ve seen share without love tend to wash out in about a year if they make it that long. A lot of the people that came here last year are not here because they could not take it. The lack of love just turned black like those coffee beans. It did damage to their souls and it hurt their souls, sharing with others without love. It’s very damaging to share with others without love.

O.Kay, what happens if you have spirit and love without truth? Heresy! Exactly! You get away from the Bible. It’s like you’re floating with the spirit and all of the sudden you start floating with the wrong spirit. The Bible calls the Holy Spirit holy for a reason. The Holy Spirit is set apart. The Holy Spirit is different from all of the different spirits. We each have a spirit in us so there are many spirits in this room with each one of these people and there are also unseen spirits and domains and things that we do not know much about.

The Bible talks about them and we see Jesus and the disciples interacting with them and they can be very distracting. Sometimes we think that we are being led by the Holy Spirit and we’re actually just being led by our own spirit. You have to be grounded in the Bible. You have to be grounded in the Word. You have that truth or you get into trouble.

I challenge you to examine the way that you share the gospel, whether you are doing open air preaching, using the "Evan gel Cube," doing relationship witnessing, or whatever. Look and see if you are really being led by the Spirit and if you are really listening to God and co-laboring with God in this person’s heart. Listen and ask God if you are doing it though a heart of love. Are your motivations and means of love? or is it "oh, I must love them or I wouldn’t be sharing the truth." Sharing the truth is loving.

It can be an act of love but it can also be an act of hate. Who is that almost only ever spoke the truth in the Bible regarding Jesus and His true nature? The Devil! The Demons! Every time Jesus came up to speak to someone possessed by a devil or demon they almost were always like; "What will you have with me, Son of God? He has come to take away the sins of the earth!" or something like that. They were saying totally who Jesus was and they were telling the truth.

Still it was sin. Why? Because they were sharing the truth out of an evil motive. Sharing the truth is important but it must be done at the right time, at the right place, with the right motive, and to the right person. The truth can be very damaging. It is like a two edged sword. If you don’t share it in the right way it can be destructive.

That is one thing that we need to keep in balance. Another thing is the way that we are sharing the Gospel. This is more balancing around the person. You see 85% of people think that they are going to heaven. They think that they are Christians. So if people think that they already have Jesus they aren’t going to see that they actually do need Him. They are not going to see that sin separates’s them because in reality they are in sin. When you are far away from a whole you can’t see it. O.K. so God is a big huge God and you’re looking but you don’t see this big huge hole which is a Cosme of sin. You’re way back here looking forward and saying; "me and God, we’re cool!"

Most people in the U.S., this is not true all over the world. If you go to places like in the Muslim world where they don’t see themselves and God as being "cool." So you would share the Gospel with them differently because their needs are different and they are in a different spiritual place.
So if we have people that are far away from the their hole of sin how do we get them to go to the edge and see the hole? So that they can see how their sin is separating them from a Holy God? The Truth? The Ten Commandments? Exactly! The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. You see the law doesn’t save us, in fact, it kills us. Here is a neat thing about the law. The law was written on our hearts and our conscience in bearing witness. So that the whole world is without excuse, right?

So, when did we get a conscience? Knowledge of good and evil? At the time of the fall. Eve took that apple, what was the apple? The apple was the law, the knowledge of good and evil. The law is what brings the knowledge of good and evil. She bites into the apple and suddenly she has a realization of sin. Then sin entered into the world, what does sin bring? What does the law bring? Death! It killed her! It killed Adam and it is going to kill all of us! It’s a big problem!
What did God promise when He was explaining to Adam and Eve what they had just done? He said that there is going to be a coming One. He promised of Jesus. He said that Jesus would crush the heel of the serpent. The law was intended even from the very beginning. The law was intended to bring us to Christ.

It doesn’t save us. It just leaves us helpless. The law can not do all of the work. That’s not the Gospel. Only Christ can get us to the Father. It is only by One name that we are saved and that is Jesus Christ. No one else can do it. There is no hope except though Him. That is the purpose of the law. It is a good tool for what is was intended but it is not good for any other use. Sometimes you’re going to be talking to people who are already broken.

I talked to this one guy…….about two years ago he had a big showdown with God and he is realizing the extent of his sin. I was talking with him and he was like, "Yeah, I’ve been trying and I’ve quit a lot of stuff but I haven’t quiet gotten it all together." He was really struggling with his sin and he has a knowledge of it. He know he doesn’t have victory. He said that his mom had been praying with him. I asked him if he had been born again. He was, like, "no." So I explained to him what that means, being born again means putting your trust and faith in Jesus Christ, you realize that you can not do everything on your own and you turn from your sins once and for all and you say: "Jesus, I’m giving you Lordship over every aspect of my life. Not just Sundays but Saturdays and Friday nights and Wednesday afternoons."

I told him that once you do that Jesus will give you a new heart. He will give you new desires and that you’re old desires for sin would be taken away and you would be given new desires for righteousness. I told him that this is so radical that that the Bible calls it being born again. You could just see it click in his eyes. He was like, "I’ve got it!" I told him that he was not far from the Kingdom. He wasn’t quiet ready to make that commitment.

Committing your whole entire life to Jesus is a big deal. It’s not something that you can push someone into or manipulate someone into. Some people with strong personalities can manipulate people into saying the prayer of commitment. That’s like manipulating someone into getting married. Our commitment to Christ ought to be and is even stronger than our commitment to our spouse. None of you would of had someone say to you; "Read these vows real quick before you change your mind!" And you have this person on the other side of you and you’re, like, "Hi!" and they’re, like, "Hi!" Nobody would do that!

That is what we’re trying to do with the Gospel so often. When we’re shoving the sinner’s prayer down peoples’ mouths or throats. I don’t want to criticize to much evangelism but you do need to be mindful of that.

Another thing that we need to keep in balance is the two extremes. Temporal salvation. Temporal salvation is people who are starving and you have Christians who come in and feed them but don’t tell them about the gospel. I have read books from India. There are millions of them. "White man has fed millions of us into hell." We have sent millions of people into hell with a full stomach. We go in, feed them, and these people are not saved so they are out. It’s a tragedy.

People who only focus on the Eternal salvation…..I heard a story of this one Christian hospital and they bring in these people in from the villages and they are about to die and they are about to admit them and the doctor comes up and is like: "Have you prayed with them to receive Christ, yet?" And this person is dying on the table. There is a time where before they can hear the gospel you need to take care of temporal things. Jesus, oftentimes, before He would share the gospel with them would heal them. Then He had their attention. Other times He would just share the Gospel. So I think that there is a place of balance here where we need to be mindful of the whole person. Both their eternal person, their soul and spirit, but also their physical person. You can’t separate one from the other.

We don’t think of ourselves as separate beings, we’re made in the image of our Father, we’re tri-part beings, we have a spirit or heart, a soul, and flesh, right? And we are supposed to love the Lord our God with all three of those. We don’t see ourselves that way. I am, Thomas, the one person, even though sometimes I will very much disagree with myself, I’m still one person.
Have you ever had that? Where you had a big decision and you’re debating with yourself about different stuff. Oftentimes that’s like you’re spirit or mind saying one thing and you’re emotions are saying another thing. Anyways, it’s kind of interesting, so that is one thing that we need to keep in mind.

Another thing is "growing the church versus growing the Kingdom." On one side we have people who all they do is hare the Gospel with other people and they just leave them out to dry. It’s, like, "Here pray this prayer." or "O.K. find yourself a good church." Now that can be useful and it is Biblical but it can also be dangerous because, you know, they might find themselves a "good" Latter Day Saints Church or something like that. I mean, it looked just like a church. It had church in the name, a really pretty building, it has all this money…."

So you have to be mindful of growing the Kingdom. On the other side, I’ve heard pastors say that the only purpose of evanglism is to grow this church. Have any of you experianced that? You’ve been to a church where whenever you talk to someone and then talk to your pastor or one of the elders they are, like, "Well, did you get their information so that you can follow up and they can join this church?" Where it’s all kind of about growing the local church. Sometimes the best church for someone is not your church.

Actually, I’ve found out that it is nor-mall that way. I was at a fair one time sharing the Gospel with these three girls, one of them went to, Temple Bible Church, which is a really good solid church and the other two basically realized that they were going to hell and that they needed to get right with Jesus. I was, like, "you need to give your life to Jesus and then tonight go to church with your friend." They would already have a relationship there. She could take them to church and get them plugged in as opposed to me saying; "Oh, you have to come to my church!" See how that could be better? Sometimes we have to listen to God and realize that there is a better church for this person than my church.

Another reason for this is that sometimes there can be huge cultural distances. Sometimes God will bring in a huge cultural mismatch into your church to make your church more diverse, culturally. Other times this person simply needs a place where they can grow and not have to worry about the fact that everyone else is completely and totally different then them in every single way.

Have you ever gone to a church were you are pretty much, totally different then anyone else in every single way? Like, everyone else was about 5 times wealthier than you were and their shoes cost more than you’re entire outfit? I’ve been to churches like that. I was, like, "Okay! I’m glad I parked far away and that I was late!" Anyways that is another thing to keep in balance.
We have another thing. "Converters opposed to Diciplemakers," the goal, ideally, is that every person we share the Gospel with comes to know Jesus, they get set on fire for Him, then they go out and share the Gospel, and tell others about God. However, this does not happen overnight. Pretty much you have Christians who only want to do one or the other. You have some who say; "I am here to make converts, by Golly!"

So they do not have any disciples. They don’t have anyone following them on a day to day basis. They don’t have any one that they are trying to invest in for the long run. They are just scattering seeds. That is important but again we want to be whole Christians. We want to model Christ who did both of these. He went and He made converts. He preached to 5,000 people, and He spent a lot of time with Peter, James, and John. There was a whole range between. He spent time with the 12, with the 72, with the 120, so don’t feel bad if you’re just, like, I just not a "converter" it’s easy to feel guilty and walk around condemned and ashamed all of the time. That is not the goal of my talk. I do not want to be one of the people at the pool criticizing. But I don want to encourage you to try to engage in more than one level.

One question y’all are probably asking is; "So what? How does this apply to my actual sharing the Gospel with someone, having no idea what to say next, where do I apply this?" Well, allot of these things are heart things. Things that you decide ahead of time. You decide ahead of time that you are going here under the motive of compassion and out of love. There are some people who are sharing the Gospel not out of love or compassion but for the "rush" or to have fun. It is fun. It is scary. It has a lot of adrenaline but that is not a good reason. I encourage you to examine your hearts.Each one of you to see whether or not that is why you are here.

Some of you are sharing the Gospel because someone drug you. Basically they grabbed you by the ear and yanked you in. That can be good but I was reading a passage in Deuteronomy. It was the passage the Palestine’s were going to war and God said to Moses. "Look at your army and have everyone raise their hands." He didn’t say it quiet this way but this is kind of what He said. "Everyone who raises their hands, send them home." I think the only General in the Bible who actually went by this protocol was Gideon and he totally whipped those Malachite’s with just a handful of people.

So you had everyone who was scared leave and everyone who had gotten married in the last year raise their hands and they were to go home and be with their wives. It was not right for a man to die at war when he had just gotten married. And then God said; "Everyone who has just bought a field and it has not tasted it’s first fruit you go home, too, because it is not fitting for someone to not taste the first fruit of their fields."

The Gospel and God is not needy. That is something that we all have to come to the tragic conclusion of. "I am not vital." Now with that said, that does not mean that God doesn’t want you. He has called forth every single one of us as believers and commissioned us to go forth and proclaim the gospel. There was a guy that went to Africa, David Livingston. David said: "A commission in any army is considered a great honor, how could a commission from the Heavenly Father be any less of a great honor?" A commission in the army says; "I trust you. to be responsible for a certain number of men. I trust you to be a leader. I trust you to lead men into the fields.

When we have been given the great commission, we have been given a very similar commission where God is calling you to be responsible for certain souls that He says that He will give to you to share the Gospel with. That is why we are here. That is why I shared the story at the very beginning of the boy and the pool. We want to be the girl, who even though everyone is criticizing us, is still faithful to go and to reach the loss. She does not answer to other people at the party. We do not answer to the other people at the party. We answer to our Heavenly Father and to Him alone.

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A family once had a pool party at their home. Friends from all over filled their back yard, laughing and talking as they mingled around the grill.

While no one was looking, a two year old boy toddled over to the pool and fell in. Soon a lady pointed the child out to the group.

“That kid can’t swim.” She said.

“Then help him?” a guests replied.

“Oh no,” the lady responded. “I am just the eyes of this party. I don’t have the gift for saving people.” She then turned back to eating her food while the child gasped for breath.

One guest thought about saving the boy but then decided he might offend someone by implying that children shouldn’t swim.

Another guest felt sorry for the boy, so he ate his food at the edge of the pool. He hoped to make the dry ground look so good that the child would ask to leave the water.

The man behind the grill was so busy serving the guests that he never even noticed the drowning child.

“I will call my father about this.” A man hesitant to get wet said. “He lives just in the next town and loves children. I am sure he would love to come and do this for us.”

Finally, a teenage girl saw the baby, now floating face down in the water. She jumped in, grabbed the boy, and tossed him out of the pool. She listened for any breathing. Hearing none she then started roughly pressing on the baby’s stomach. Green water and bile flowed from the boy’s mouth.

As the girl tried to administer CPR the guests gathered around and started criticizing her feeble efforts. “You are being much too rough with that poor child” one man said “you really should be more gentle.”

“You’re not pushing hard enough” an elderly man commented, “and you’re pushing in the wrong place.”

Finally, in desperation the young girl cried out. “Will one of you just call 911!” The guests, offended at her brashness, at first did nothing. But finally, one of the women sighed and walked inside to find a phone. Soon, the air filled with the colorful lights from rescue vehicles as paramedics quickly whisked the baby away.

As the sirens faded into the distance the guests turned on the teenager. “Who are you to order us to call 911?” Said one. “Did you see how you rudely splashed water all over those guests when you jumped in? You are going to scare visitors away from this party.”

These comments hurt deeply. She didn’t intend to be rude or scare anyone. All she wanted to do was save the baby’s life. But, the guests continued.

“You should be ashamed of yourself for how insensitive you were to that child.” one man remarked. “You just grabbed him and tossed him out of the water. You should be more loving.”

“He didn’t even ask to get saved” said another “Who are you to jump in and force your dry ground on someone else? You should never shove your own air down someone’s throat.”

Finally, the girl could take it no more and ran from the party weeping bitterly. The guests never did find out if the baby survived or not. But, they reassured each other that they really did… care.

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After several days, Pagiel joined several other pilgrims who were also on their way to Jerusalem.

“What is your name young traveler?” A large man asked.

“Pagiel, son of Tola” Pagiel replied.

“Tola?” The man’s eyes brightened. “Of the Shelah clan?”

“Yes! Do you know him?”

“We fought in the war together. My name is Elizur” the man smiled.

“God asks little of us Pagiel son of Tola. He pours blessings on those who know how to make the right sacrifices. I have gone to Jerusalem every year and never has my family gone without food. Ba’al brings the rain and The Lord God keeps the Philistines away.”

“You sacrifice to Ba’al?” Pagiel asked, surprised.

“Of course young man as did your father. Ba’al is the king of the winds and the rain. If you want a fertile soil you sacrifice to him, everyone does.” An awkward silence followed. Pagiel expected someone to confront Elizur but no one did.
Elizer had never seen as many people as he did on Mount Zion. He followed Elizur through the city to the temple.

“That is an Asheroth Poll” Elizur said pointing to a tall wooden poll that stood outside the temple walls. “That’s where we make sacrifices to Ba’al.” Pagiel stared at the intricate carvings that covered the length of the poll. The people around it were smiling and seemed to be having a great time.

“Welcome to the sacred meeting place, would you like to make an offering?” Pagiel turned to see a young veiled woman. Pagiel stammered not knowing how to respond. “Have you ever offered a sacrifice to Ba’al before?” The girl asked with a smile in her eyes.

“Uh, no” Pagiel replied, not wanting to appear ignorant.

“We ask Ba’al for blessing though both offerings and a demonstration of what we wish him to do for us.” The girl looked Pagiel in the eyes. “What would you like Ba’al to do for you?”

“Can he really bring rain and make the soil fertile?” Pagiel asked. The girl laughed.

“Of course! Why else is everyone here? Give me your lamb and we will ask Ba’al together.” She led him through the crowds to a tent attached to the outside of the temple wall. Come, lay with me and we will show Ba’al what we want him to do for your farm. Let us drink our fill of love and fulfill all righteousness. She took off her veil revealing to Pagiel one of the prettiest faces he had ever seen. He wanted to say “no” but everything in him cried “yes.” His field needed rain and this was just too easy not to try.

The next morning Pagiel felt nothing but a cold numbness. The girl gave him a wooden figurine that she said would allow Ba’al to find him for blessing. Pagiel tucked it into his saddlebag as he led his donkey into the temple courtyard. He gave the grain offering to the Levites who looked somewhat surprised that he didn’t have a lamb but they didn’t say anything about it. “I guess I can please both gods.” He thought as he headed for home.

As he headed for home he passed a disheveled man shouting in the streets about idolatry, the wickedness of temple prostitutes and a coming judgment. Everyone ignored him and Pagiel decided to do the same.

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Let me know what you think!

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Chances are you have thought about writing a book someday. Well here are some free resources I have found helpful.

How to Write A Book (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXMghQTGNLs
Good tips on writing as an action. Getting writing done.

Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses (mp3)
http://librivox.org/fenimore-coopers-literary-offenses-by-mark-twain/
A 30 minute mp3 of an essay that Mark Twain wrote making fun of another authors horrible writing. Great if you are doing fiction. Funny.

Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips (Podcast)
http://grammar.qdnow.com/
I know you don’t like grammar but this is an easy way to start getting better. Each episode is only about 5 to 8 minutes long. Well produced podcast. Grammar is important.

American Writers (Podcast)
http://www.americanwriters.com/
Podcast on the nitty gritty on writing fiction. How to develop likable characters how to write dialog etc. Read more…

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In the movie The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn takes a risk by going into the mountain of the dead. He went in hopes of securing for Gondor reinforcements to aid in the fight against evil. The dead while an unlikely ally in this cause ended up making the difference.

I have been thinking a lot lately about why I am writing a book about the dangers of digital gaming. And frankly, it’s not about the games. My heart is to see a generation of young men rise up as men of God and start living kingdom centered lives.

Imagine what would happen if thousands of gamers suddenly dropped their nets and started following Jesus like the men in the New Testament. I see gaming as an area filled with bound men who have huge potential for changing the world.

Many of my friends have hearts that burn for various nations around the world or even for the nations in general. My heart is to see the world reached but my heart burns for the United States. The U.S. church is withdrawing from society so quickly I am afraid we are quickly on our way to becoming another England or Europe.

If we are to see victory we need to gain small tactical victories that can lead, through Christ, to bigger victories and I think setting gamers free from gaming is one of those areas.

Like Aragorn I want to go into a place unlikely to yield greatness and find mighty warriors for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. I don’t hate video games. But, I love Jesus and I want to see an army raised up that will make a change for good.

I want to see men of God run after Jesus whole heartedly. Thats why I am writing this book.

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