The Craw

Gallery of the Pathetic

Oftentimes I will see an establishment that has a horrible idea for a product or service or a really bad location. I don't like even looking into these places because they end up being so pathetic that I feel obligated to buy something out of pity. Everytime I see something along these lines I add it to what I call the Gallery of the pathetic. Some entries:

1. The City Mall in Orange, CA was closing down. There were only two shops left: (1) Mike's hand-dipped ice-cream bars and (2) The Cat Lover's Shop (featuring every cat statuette imaginable. In both establishments sad looking proprietors peered out of half darkened shops with pleading eyes. I was compelled to buy a severely freezer burned ice cream bar out of pity.
2. “Jell-o World” in a rough area of Arleta, CA. It was an apparent jell-o restaurant. I did not investigate further out of fear of being compelled to take home a jell-o casserole.

To all this I now add: The Santa Clarita Farmer’s Market. I had seen the advertisements and it being the end of summer, I thought it would be a nice way to spend an evening. When we arrived there were only a half dozen dried up looking stands at the far end of a vacant parking lot. I drove around the far side of the lot for a closer look. Imploring eyes stared vacantly from a mobile tamale stand and I saw there were only flowers and dried fruit. Well, I high-tailed it out of there because my family wouldn’t go for a dinner of tamales and a sack of dried fruit.

To Spite His Own Face

Recently there have been a number of high-profile and lesser profiles defections from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. Some folk, seeming to want to gain cover for their own decision, tie in this decision to Federal Vision (FV) theology. While this is occurring, opponents of the FV have sought to capitalize on this situation by saying “See, see, the FV does lead to Rome!”

Is this how adults look at things?

I actually acknowledge that a certain number of folks enter the Reformed church through the back door, begin reading FV theology and think it doesn’t go far enough, and head out the front door to Rome. Such a person might find the baptistic views of the sacraments that exist in much of modern Reformedom dried out and discover in the FV a more appealing catholic apprehension of the sacraments. This person might also proceed on in reading the Patristics or modern Roman Catholic apologists and be persuaded to head to Rome. It happens. Can we blame people for wanting some objective substance (beauty in architecture, worship, and a more historical and broad apprehension of the Faith) in their Christian experience? We often offer them a hollowed out A-frame building with no windows, a dude wearing a cheap black suit up front, and liturgy that is being invented on the fly. So they go.

But is that all that is going on?

The answer, of course, is no. In my experience I have seen one man who was heading out the door of Reformedom for Rome and attributed some of his longing to FV theology. This man, however, was persuaded to stay Protestant and Reformed through non-reactionary pastoral care. So, was anyone else making any moves at the same time? Yes.

At the very same time (while the local church was expending all of it’s energy on hunting down heresy) a large number of people were being caught up in the FV dragnet whether they had theological affinities to it or not. A very large number of them were heading out of the back door of the Reformed church to attend generic evangelical churches. Why? Because they perceived Reformedom as a small, cantankerous sub-culture. In addition, some folks who perceived Reformedom thus, eventually stopped attending church altogether. They asked questions like, “This is Christianity?”

So what’s the point? Well, I have seen one man…ONE MAN, go through a Roman Catholic dizzy spell as a tertiary result of the FV but I have seen scores and scores, displaced out of Reformedom because of the anti-FV crusade. From my perspective it looks like a man who out of self-loathing spite, gouges out both eyes, cuts off his ears, lips, and nose and then through his bloody maw mumbles, “See, now we have cleansed ourselves of the problem.”

New Anti-FV Group

A new anti-FV group has recently organized.

Happy Birthday St. Andrew's

The church I pastor, St. Andrew's Community Church, turned one year old today. Next week we begin a new year (with a new name, Christ Church) and who knows what wonders the Lord will do amongst us this year.

Bowl Nite

We went to the Hollywood Bowl last night for a concert under the stars with some of the crew from St. Andrew's. The entertainment was Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the fireworks show went off to Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing." There's nothing like a summer evening at the Bowl.

Glorious

I just spent the first half of the week over in Ventura. Instead of screaming in the dust in 95+ degree weather in Santa Clarita we went to the beach in 70 degree weather over in Ventura and Carpinteria. It was glorious.

A Sermon Fragment

Here's a part of a recent sermon delivered using a narrative style:

Nisei Week 3

Finally, we watched a Taiko Drum demonstration and the kids played the drums too. Here my wife is encouraging my youngest daughter to play more vigorously. Michele is a 114th degree ascended Taiko Drum Master.

We capped off the day with Nihon shoku (Japanese food) and a nightcap of mochi (Japanese rice cakes) from Mikawaya.

Nisei Week 2

In the museum we viewed a painting by my great uncle, Henry Sugimoto, who was the most famous Japanese American artist of his generation (my daughter Christiana is the shadowy figure to the left).

Nisei Week 1

We moved along to Little Tokyo in downtown LA to attend the Nisei Week Festival. The kids made kites and flew them in the plaza in front of the Japanese American National Museum.