Picture This

These are a couple of pics I took at our city fireworks show last week. You can see more at my flickr page.

Patriotic Worship [Update]

Did your church have a patriotic styled service Sunday? Did you sing patriotic songs? Did you preach or hear a sermon on the virtues of America? Her Christian heritage? The war in Iraq? The goodness of political freedom? Did you recognize military veterans as a part of your service?

Here’s what we did. We had a classical band (trumpets, trombones, tubas) that played for our introduction and benediction. We sang The Star Spangled Banner. We said the pledge of allegience. We sang America the Beautiful, the Battle Hymn of the Republic and then had a video/musical salute to the various branches of the armed forces. I preached a message from Genesis 22 on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. I mentioned how certain “defining events” in our country shape our understanding of who we are and what this world is like. Events like the Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution, the Civil War. I mentioned how some defining events re-shape our sense of who we are in this world. Events like the Korean war and Vietnam. Then I talked about how God seeks to define us and how he uses spiritually defining events to do that; events that sometimes don’t make sense, don’t sound reasonable, don’t sound very much like God. Yet our response is always the response of obedient faith. We closed with God Bless America.

There was a couple sitting behind me and the wife kept saying, “This is wonderful.” “This is one of the best services.” “They’ve done such a good job with this service.”

For the most part it made me uneasy (just about everything but the sermon). Read more

Blog Lite

Things have been sparse around here lately, I know. This is just a note to let you know that things may not change much on that front. This summer is going to be a busy one (which one isn’t, especially in church life?). Just to let you know what’s going on this summer:

Next week I’m going with our youth to Austin, Texas to evangelize the pagan Longhorns work in a soup kitchen and sing in some churches. It also sounds like the roofing experience of last week may get put to use again. I can’t imagine standing on a roof in Austin, Texas in June, but that may well be what we find ourselves doing. The following week I will be off on our summer vacation to the Branson, MO area where we’ll take it easy, relax and fish for a week.

Then we’ll be starting Vacation Bible School here at church and as soon as we’re done with that I will begin a summer online course through Northern Seminary on Readings in Postmodern Theology. That will go through the end of August. I’ll probably put up some photos every now and then and I may have a thing or two to share about my class or something else, but expect summer postings to be slow. Have yourself a great summer!

Picture This

These are some photos from the Sapulpa Junior Olympics recently. This first one is Victor in the football throw.

This is Jessica in the long jump.

Originally uploaded by plittleton

Picture This

Bengal

Old Man Monkey

King and Queen

Originally uploaded by plittleton

Some recent pics from a day at the zoo with my son’s first grade class.

Busy-ness

Posting has been light because things have been hopping busy for me lately. I’ve been on field trips to the Tulsa Zoo with my son, to the Omniplex (I can’t get their url to work right now, but it is www.omniplex.org) with my oldest daughter, had a funeral service and I’ve enrolled in an online course through Northern Seminary for the summer, so I’ve been flying around trying to get through the admission process and enrolled in the class.

The class is Readings in Postmodern Philosophy/Theology led by David Fitch, and it looks like it’s going to be goooo-ood.

Aw, Hail

My van got hit pretty hard by a hail storm we had a few weeks ago and it seems like I’m not the only one. My insurance will pay for a rental car, but the Enterprise lot down the street is completely out of cars. They said they’d have something by this afternoon, but here I am, waiting by the phone. Maybe this is just practice for how I’ll get along without a vehicle as gas prices continue to move way outside my comfort zone.

Spanish Love Song

HT: Adam Feldman

Picture This

These are a few photos I took while we were in OKC on spring break. They are from the Murrah Memorial where the bombing in OKC occurred on April 19th, 1995, thirteen years ago tomorrow.

The reflection pool at the Murrah Memorial [above]

The survivor tree at the Murrah Memorial [above]

See more of my photos here.

Picture This

This is from a local park after we got over five inches of rain Monday. The bridge is a walkway over a creek that normally runs six to eight feet below. This week it has been running a foot or two above. Later I’ll add an “after,” or normal shot. I just have to take it first.

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