The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 25-29, 2016

I am terrible at getting to sleep on time. Truly awful.

Seriously.

This week was filled with training, app meetings, app construction, and a day-long marketing conference.

That's pretty much it. I don't have any witty words this week. I'm tired.

See above.

Sorry. It's not my intention to be short. I've just got nothing to really chat about this week.

Oh! I have been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack. It's fun, if not entirely historically accurate. I'll be rapping all weekend now. I should apologize in advance for that. 

Future Comments

As a rule, I don't talk politics on here. Or say extremely controversial things. (Mildly controversial is fine.) I don't really want to break that streak now. But...

Last week, I read an article in New York magazine. It's about a cyber attack in December 2017. No, I didn't get the date wrong. It was describing a large event that could happen based on isolated incidents in the last few years. I found it to be quite an interesting article, if more than a little terrifying.

Based on what has happened in the last few months, I wrote my own predictive text for a future article.

Read into it what you will.


"Over the next few months, attacks increased exponentially. The response was also exponential, but in the opposite direction. Where once a mass shooting would monopolize the evening news, eventually only triple digits inspired more than a standard blurb in minute fifteen. Investigations took place, but largely only into isolated incidents - few bothered to take more than a cursory look into possible links between worldwide events. Those who did were stonewalled by political posturing and cultural apologetics. Officials feared assigning labels such as 'terrorism' or 'evil' because of the inevitable backlash from the media and the more vocal members of the public. By the time anyone (outside of a small minority who were ignored) recognized the common denominator, it was too late."



How long do you think it will take for this article to become reality?

I'd like to provide an appropriately horrified and saddened response to all of the attacks that are taking place. People are dying, in ways they couldn't anticipate, at the hands of people who don't seem to need provocation or reason beyond a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life.

But it seems like there's a new attack every other day. Sometimes every day. And keeping up that level of horror and sadness is exhausting. Day by day, it becomes a little more commonplace. It's accepted that this is going to happen. And my own respect for the sanctity of human life is diminished.

I don't want to live in this kind of world. But ignoring it doesn't make it go away. I was listening to someone talk about the "broken windows" policy in policing. If you leave a broken window in a building, eventually all of the windows will be broken. People will assume that, since no one cared to fix the first window, no one will care about the rest of them. Ignoring problems only creates bigger problems. Claiming that a broken window is not actually a broken window but a cultural norm or a broken door does not fix the problem.

Only by facing the problem head on, i.e. recognizing a broken window for what it is, fixing the window, and preventing what broke it in the first place from happening again, can we begin to make progress. 

Live Blog of Home

I wasn't going to do this. But I got 20 minutes into this movie, and I'd already yelled at the screen so much that I figured I should get it out this way instead of scaring my neighbors.

(I don't know if anyone actually cares about these live blogs. But I like doing it. So I'm going to keep doing it. But maybe just for animated movies.)

Let's do it.

I don't actually know much about this movie. I guess Jim Parsons and Rihanna are in it.

Wow. Yeah, Jim Parsons is definitely in it. I keep expecting this alien dude to knock three times asking for Penny.

This syntax is going to drive me nuts. Why are these aliens even speaking English? Maybe the universal translator is broken and garbling the message.

Whose voice is this? It sounds like Kent Eller. This is going to drive me nuts.

Oh! It's Steve Martin. That was not immediately obvious.

Okay, there should have been at least a few missiles fired off by now. Humanity is taking this way too well. I suppose nuclear annihilation is too heavy for a kids' movie.

I really want to smack him in the face. I don't know if I can do this much longer.

Toilets are useless? Do I want to know how these aliens excrete waste? No. And also yes.

Pause for a moment. Where exactly did they stick all the humans? Can you fit seven billion people onto one continent for a sustainable amount of time? Pretty soon, they're going to get tired of carnivals and fair food. And did the Boov account for different languages? Different cultures? Did they stick Sunni and Shi'ite next to each other? Are the Russians, Chinese, and Americans vying for supremacy? What about farmland? I don't like the logical conclusions here!

If toilets are useless, why does his apartment still have one?

I'm guessing colors mean something here. I think red is excitement. Not sure about the others.

Kitty!

Speaking of, what happened to all of the animals? I don't see any just roaming about now that humans are gone. Are the domesticated ones eventually going to die now?

I'm confused. Did this girl set all of this up in one afternoon? How long has it been since the Boov invaded?

Did they invade at Christmas? That's just rude.

Quite a resourceful child.

Oh's neighbors are jerks.

Yellow is panic. Or annoyance.

Deeper blue or purple is sad.

Kyle is a jerk. And I recognize that voice.

Red is also anger. (I'm about to have another Inside Out rant here.)

Why would you give a Boov you don't like access to everyone's email? Why do you even have a reply all button?

Penguins!

Are women the only ones who can speak properly? Why does a Boov computer not have a Boov voice?

See, cats know what's up.

Green is lying.

How old is this girl? It's impossible to judge age in animated films.

Smeck must have great control over his color change. It seems to be a rather involuntary thing in others, but he held it at bay during his speech.

Can't they just shut down the server? That would keep the message from getting out. All of these tech savvy kids in the theater were probably like, "Why don't they just change the password? It would be really easy to hack. Stupid adults are stupid." And don't tell me that they were all eight and wouldn't know what to do. Who fixes your iPhone?

The car is pretty cool. Not very inconspicuous, but cool nonetheless.

They have patterns, too?

I'm guessing that's why the Gorg are after them. They are seeking the Precious!

Like, did they just carve chunks out of the Earth? Why bother with the landmarks? As Oh would say, I am not with the understanding!

Oh good, I'm learning about how they excrete waste. I suppose I did say I wanted to know. But I could do with less of the toilet humor.

Is Rihanna listening to Rihanna songs? The meta is killing me.

I like the music otherwise.

I think this girl is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I still want to punch Jim Parsons in the face.

There's a lot of movie left. Did we just solve the central conflict? Ish?

Of course it's Australia. The one place that actively tries to kill everyone who lives there.

Smeck is an ass. I've had that vibe from the beginning, and nothing is changing my mind.

Something tells me Steve Martin had a lot of fun voicing this. Or he stopped caring about five minutes in.

Are they just not bothered by the human in their midst? That strikes me as a much better reason to go after Oh than "you might make a mistake again."

I'm confused about the moral of this movie.

Oh good, the requisite "landed in water so we know they're not dead" shot.

Is Starry Night really that small?

Clever.

Can I get a property damage figure for this movie?

Aww, he's cute when he's happy.

This phone has amazing battery life.

Oh, good. The Gorg are here. And I'm pretty sure that would knock Saturn out of orbit, which in turn would probably destroy the solar system.

Yeah, they're all dead.

I really want a "Welcome to Earf" moment from this girl.

Oh look. Human crop circles.

So. Does Oh stay on Earth, or does he run away with his own kind?

Never mind. Although it's pretty bad when he's more afraid of his people than he is of the supposed enemy.

Watch your language, sir!

Oh yeah. These Boov ladies know what's up.

Go Kyle! (And I love his head gear.)

There's still a lot of movie left. Time enough to learn that friendship is magic, right?

Oh sure. Now the battery dies.

People. Stop standing around cheering. You have to get from Australia to the rest of your planet and start fixing it. The fallout from this will take years to overcome.

This movie has a lot of faith in humanity. A lone Boov wandering around, and no one is trying to kill it.

Yes! The Precious!

Yes, make sure you close the gate after going through. Very important.

Okay, there was a lot less space between the ship and the town before.

Wow. That's really dark for a kids' movie.

It's a little baby starfish! They totally stole that from Men in Black.

I'm amazed all those single-celled organisms are still alive with all that shushing they've been doing.

Seriously?! Two weeks later, you have the Eiffel Tower back in place? Who is your contractor?

So how does commerce work now? The Boov can apparently do pretty much anything. Is this how Star Trek happens? Is this an origin movie?

This is a weird movie. Cute. But weird.



Do I overthink these things? Yes. But I can't help that that's how my brain works.

Final verdict: it's worth watching. But probably only once. Maybe twice if you didn't understand it the first time.

I hope you've enjoyed the color commentary. (See what I did there?)

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 18-22, 2016

Do you ever look back on a week and just think: what in the world did I do? This week was definitely like playing a pachinko machine. I bounced from one thing to the next and then back again.

On Monday, we recorded two radio ads for the Bibles for Cuba project. Technically, we can say Cuba now. Sort of. But you can hear the fruit of our labors here. I advised the writer a bit, but it's nice to not have to do a lot other than record and coach. You can also give to the project here. 

We've been working on sorting out app tags this week. They have to be correct, because when we start pushing other languages into the app, everything has to go in the correct place. It's no good to have a T&M app that only works in English. And of course we're still meeting every morning to hash out what needs to be done.

On Tuesday, I brought in my swords to give my spiritual warfare TED talk. I've only just now decided to call it that. But that's pretty much what it is. I talk about my swords and the importance of Scripture for roughly ten minutes and then spend the rest of the day worrying about how the swords are being handled. People seemed to really like them this year. I got a lot of compliments. And I got to debut my new purchase - the battle axe! I'll try to find a picture and post it soon.

We've also been making changes to booklet 32. Since we changed booklet 5, we had to also change all of the booklets that deal with evangelism. I basically wrote three new paragraphs for the book, along with a few other parts.

It would be nice to be done with the English now.

The big thing this week was the commissioning service for the cross-trainers. I ran tech for them, which is both more and less involved than it sounds. It's fairly easy when people assume you know what you're doing. It gets more difficult when people have 'helpful' advice. Or last-minute changes. But I don't mind doing it. It makes me feel needed.

So. That was essentially my week, minus a few smaller projects. Now, I must endeavor to stay cool while hanging out at the Brickyard. That's right, baby dolls - I have Brickyard 400 tickets.

Well. My mom does. But same difference.

:)

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 11-15, 2016

It's pretty much a ghost town this week. I kept getting all these emails last week about things that were changing, so I expected chaos this week. But no, just a very quiet building.

Not that I'm complaining. I've spent most of the week recovering from being away and trying to sort out my life again and getting back into my routine. Twice, I woke up in the morning not knowing where I was. On Monday, I kept waiting for my mom to turn off the infernal alarm until it finally dawned on me that my mother wasn't around and I was probably annoying my temporary downstairs neighbor.

Actually, this week felt a little bit like Inception. I would start doing a task, but then another, more urgent task would come along, so I'd start to work on that. Then another task, so I went down another layer. And then another. I'm not sure if I've actually successfully worked my way back up and completed all of my tasks.

Actually, I just looked at my desktop. I have not, in fact, completed all tasks. But I'm close.

I think.

I've spent a good portion of time preparing file structures for new language projects. While at the ECC conference, we received several requests for new translations. This is good. But it means we have a lot of work coming at us. It'll be staggered some as we are working with many translators on different timetables, but some work very quickly. We just sent five Estonian files, and we already have five back. Our translator is very motivated.

I've also been sorting out the plans our ministry partners put together. Numbers keep changing, but we're solidly over the 370,000,000 mark, so I'm not too worried.

The app is coming along nicely, though we're now moving into more interesting levels. We have to make it available to people online, we need guest accounts - there's a whole slew of features yet to be created. At the same time, we need to make sure the normal stuff is still working.

I think part of why I'm so frazzled this week is that people keep coming to me for answers to questions I really don't know how to answer, but I happen to be the only one around.

Here's the final thing I learned this week: Don't try to mail 200 brochures to Oregon and expect them to get there in 3 days. It will cost $90. Ridiculous. 

Was Jezebel Jesus' Great-Great-Grandma?

Let's talk about biblical genealogies.

No, wait! Don't go anywhere! This will be interesting, honest.

I hope.

So, as you know (I think I've mentioned it), I've been working my way through the Old Testament. I'd like to tell you that I've done an in-depth study several times in my life, but I haven't. Everyone focuses on the New Testament these days. But there is a gold mine in the Old Testament. And a lot of it is in text that everyone skips.

Be honest. Do you ever read through the lists of names in the Bible? Not just the begats and so forths. I first noticed something when I read Deuteronomy 33. You read it, right? Moses is blessing the tribes of Israel before he dies. Did you notice anything weird? Maybe count the number of names Moses mentions?

There are 11.

What's that you say? Jacob had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel? Yes, yes he did. And Moses left one tribe out of his blessing because of the crap they pulled during the exile.

(Bonus: Can you remember which one he left out and what they did?)

Anyway, that's why I started paying attention to lists of names.

Do they always make sense?

No. But I try.

So I was reading 2 Kings 8:26-27.

"Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother's name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel. He followed the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab's family."

Ahaziah was a king of Judah. There were two kingdoms at this point, Israel and Judah. As you should know, all of the kings of Judah are descendants of David. Ahaziah's mother was Athaliah. She was the daughter of Ahab (probably). We learn this later in 2 Kings when reading about how she murdered all of Ahab's sons and tried to murder Joash (her grandson).

But learning she was the daughter of Ahab got me thinking. Does that also mean she was the daughter of Jezebel, Ahab's wife?

If so, then the subsequent line of Judah's kings have Jezebel blood running through their veins. And eventually, if you follow that line far enough, you get to David's ultimate descendant: Jesus.

Is Jesus a direct descendant of Jezebel?

(I haven't been hit by lightning, yet. Stick with me.)

In reading about Athaliah's massacre of Ahab's sons, we learn that he had at least 70.  And sure, Jezebel could have been a baby factory, but I'm willing to bet she didn't pop out 71ish children. Ahab very likely had concubines, possibly even other wives (though I'm not sure Jezebel would tolerate that).

So it's entirely possibly that Athaliah is NOT, in fact, the daughter of Jezebel. But she IS still the daughter of Ahab. And how is Ahab described?

"Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him." 1 Kings 16:30

In other words, he's super evil.

Now, granted, the line of Judah has more than a few sketch individuals. But something about the Son of God being related to Ahab makes my skin crawl.

So I turned to the genealogies of Jesus. Because while I'm reading the Old Testament, I'm also reading the New Testament.

Everyone knows there are two genealogies listed for Jesus. One is in Matthew. One is in Luke. And they have different names listed. These are used as evidence by skeptics that the Bible is inconsistent. There are also names missing (probably - there are just too few generations to account for all the time involved). I am not addressing the skeptics at this point other than to say - really? That's all you got?

The common position is that the genealogy in Matthew belongs to Joseph (because it includes Joseph's name and Matthew was writing to the Jews) and the one in Luke belongs to Mary. It makes sense (despite also listing Joseph) because the style of the time would have been to replace the mother's name with the father's name and then continue on with the mother's father.

Both Mary and Joseph are of the line of David. There was not a significant amount of inter-tribe marriage up to this point (though it did happen occasionally), and, as people knew the Messiah would appear out of the line of David, careful records were kept and bloodlines preserved.

But where do the lists of names diverge?

Right after David.

The line of kings went through Solomon, son of Bathsheba. But David had a lot of other children. (Seriously. A lot.) And in Luke's genealogy, just before David (because Luke went Joseph --> God while Matthew went Abraham --> Joseph) is the name Nathan.

Nathan is mentioned exactly four times in the Bible. In three of those four verses, he's listed with his brothers from the same mother. Nathan and Solomon were brothers. (Not sure of the order, and we never hear about the other two, but I like to think that Nathan was named after the prophet who told David he was being a tool.)

Remember when I talked about bloodlines before? It's important that both Mary and Joseph are from David's line because, while Joseph is not the bio-dad, fathers mattered a heck of a lot in Jewish society. If Mary had been from the tribe of Judah but Joseph had not, Jesus would have been listed as a member of Joseph's tribe and discounted. Conversely, if Joseph was from the tribe of Judah but Mary was not, people would jump all over that and say that, as Joseph was NOT the bio-dad, only Mary's blood counted, and again, Jesus would not be from the tribe of Judah, and he'd be discounted.

So. Both Joseph and Mary are from the tribe of Judah. Furthermore, they are definitely from the line of David. Joseph is descended from the line of kings. Mary is descended from the princely line. If the kingship was still around, Joseph would have a legitimate claim, and through him, despite not being Joseph's biological son (because Joseph acknowledged him and let everyone believe he was the father), Jesus also has a legitimate claim. But because Jesus is biologically Mary's and God's (however that works), he has no blood from the bad king Ahab.

Theoretically. I'm not going to say this is proven. It's just my interpretation.

But you see what kind of really fun rabbit trails you can get onto when you read the lists of names?

(Incidentally, as Nathan is the full brother of Solomon, this also means he's the son of Bathsheba. So as much as God hated what David did regarding Uriah, he also established the Messiah as a result of that act. I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole.)

The Ultimate Conference Post

So.

Been a while.

Instead of posting multiple times during conference, I'm going to cover the highlights in one post. I do this as both a report and as an encouragement to entice you to join us at the next OMS conference. We had amazing opportunities, and it saddens me that more people weren't there to take advantage of them and to really rejoice in what God is doing around the world.

Nous le faisons.

I actually went up to conference, held at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana, earlier than most. As I was part of the planning team, stage dec team, Illuminate Experience team, etc., I went up on Wednesday to help get things set up.

People really have no idea how much work goes into conference. They can guess, but I guarantee they won't even come close. No matter how much prep you do before the event, at least 20 things will change when you actually get there, so you also have to be prepared to deviate from the original plan. I don't know how many times I ended up saying, "At this point, I'll take what I can get." Not to imply that the conference services staff at IWU were not prepared - there's just no way to keep track of everything.

Anyway.

The first job is always to unload the big moving truck. We packed it up on Tuesday. We have to hire a moving truck because we have a lot of rooms and events with a lot of stuff populating them. All of our stage decoration, the flags for the ceremony, nursery items, prayer room items, the IR items, signs - you name it, it ends up on the truck. 

For pretty much all of the rest of Wednesday, we worked on the stage. Foster had a really great idea to use furnace filters to make pillars. They were incredibly awesome. We've been painting them for the last three months, and then we had to tape them, and then we had to assemble them. Then place them. Then put lights in them. Then mirrors on top. Then take the mirrors off because they were too heavy. We changed our original idea slightly, but the whole stage presentation was incredibly awesome. And when I say all of the rest of Wednesday, I mean we got to our rooms around 11:30.

 

 And then we had to turn around and use most of Thursday to set up the Illuminate Experience. This was something brand new for OMS. Typically, we do a display room, so each region has a display with what is happening in their countries, or we highlight the funding project for conference, or something similar. But it always ends up being a pretty static room. This year, we wanted something more interactive. Thus, the Illuminate Experience was born.

We divided the room into three sections. The first section had our book tables and our photo opportunities. I was in charge of the photo ops with Lori. We came up with some pretty fun ideas, if I do say so myself. We had the SHNE letters so that people could be the 'I' and let everyone know that they were letting their light shine. We had a group option with the posterboard messages. And we had an Instagram sign. I was quite pleased.

The second room was also a lot of fun. Well, fun in the sense that it was meant to convey the reality that is the darkness in the world around us. I didn't get good pictures of everything, but you'll get the idea. On one side, we had a wall of news articles and photographs that reminded people of everything evil happening in the world today. Interspersed were Scripture verses about overcoming darkness. In the opposite corner, we had a station set up for people to write notes to missionaries, Christians, students, and others living in situations where they confront darkness every day. Then we had a light bright-esque board set up for people to light up places they were praying for, countries they served in or visited, and various other questions we asked. The effect was very cool.

In the very middle of the room, however, was the piece de resistance. Our maintenance guys built a maze of darkness. It was literally a dark maze that then took you to photographs of people still living in darkness, without the knowledge of a Savior. The quote at the end of the maze really hit home for me the urgency of the Great Commission and the dedication of missionaries to penetrate the darkness with the light of the Gospel.

Around the outside of the maze, we asked questions about how people could shine the light in their own lives. It was a very cool effect. 

The last section of the room gave people a chance to really understand how OMS is shining a light. Our Mobi team had a place to talk about opportunities to serve. We had a 'multiplication cage' of sorts. 

The first night, people put a paper in to symbolize themselves. 

The next night, they put in five more pieces of paper to symbolize the five people they would reach. 

The final night, we put in 25 pieces of paper to symbolize each person those five people would reach. It was a great word picture for multiplication.

We also had a place to talk about Train & Multiply, since multiplication is what we're all about. 

There was also food. Food is important.

Conference officially kicked off Thursday night. 

                      

    

First up was the flag ceremony, of which I was in charge. 

I was very proud of my flag bearers!

The Hunter Smith Band led worship throughout conference. Hunter Smith was a pro football player, but he also leads worship at his church, and he has a band. And their song "Indiana Moon" was chosen as the bicentennial anthem for Indiana. 

OMS President Bob Fetherlin gave the keynote address about the one billion vision. This is truly a God-sized goal, and we need all the help we can get from you and other partners in order to see this happen. 

I'll just give a few highlights from the rest of conference as there really was too much to cover completely. Dr. David Garrison joined us to talk about Muslim movements to Christ. The numbers are awe-inspiring. God is really on the move in the house of Islam. 

  We had a 5k to raise funds for our literacy program. I'm proud to say I completed all 3.1 miles!

 

 I also participated in the Great Adventure, which was a bit like 'Amazing Race' on TV. We didn't win, but we had fun! Turns out I have excellent rhythm. I was able to figure out a traditional Filipino dance. Ask me about it sometime.

On the last day, I got to help out with the children's program. Somehow, that was the day we had to sing on stage. Did I know the songs? No. Did I know the motions? No. But I can fake it with the best of them! #watermelonwatermelon

And that was pretty much it for conference. Like I said, there are so many other things that happened, it's hard to list them all here. Again, you should really consider joining us in 2018. 

So on Sunday afternoon, I went home and...

Wait, what?

I didn't go home?

Nope! Because after the OMS conference, I attended the Every Community for Christ WorldWide Coordinator's Seminar. Also at IWU in Marion. 

I had less to do for this one. Mostly behind the scenes stuff, taking photos and video, whatever needed to be done. I was there for another 4.5 days. 

Again, David Garrison was there to give us more information about the church planting movements happening around the world. He gave us a lot of encouragement and a lot of things to think about. Yes, the Church is moving forward in a lot of places. But it's being wiped out in others. 

We had participants from more than 30 countries and ministries partnering with ECC. Many of them are using Train & Multiply. A few are in security risk countries. Many more couldn't join us because they couldn't get visas. 

At the end of the conference, each ministry team created an action plan for the next ten years. They included a number that was their best estimate for how many people they thought they could give one significant opportunity to hear, understand, and respond to the Gospel in the next ten years. I counted them all up. That number is below. 

We have a lot of work ahead of us.