I am off at a conference today, so my wife is posting this for me. If you are reading this, it means she remembered what I taught her about Movabletype. It also indicates that she remembered to post at all! I told her I would be quite upset if she disturbed my streak of consecutive posts when I am so very close to posting every day for an entire year. Within two weeks I will have reached the goal I set for myself. Aileen also said she intends to write something on my site today, so I look forward to seeing what she has to say to all of you!
Another blogger wrote me this week to ask whatever happened to BlogSwap. Truth be told, I kind of lost interest in it. I had never intended that it go on forever, but instead was to be a way of introducing bloggers to each other. Even after a few weeks I found that interest was waning, so when I became busy with work I let it go. Perhaps in the future I will start it up again, but for now I think it served its purpose quite well and I am content to let it go. Of course if anyone else wants to try it, they are more than welcome. It was quite successful for the weeks it ran.
Tim Irvin (of TheIrvins.com fame) presents an interesting dilemma. Would God call someone to be a pastor who was unable to speak? This goes to the nature of God’s work of equipping His people, doesn’t it? God not only desires that we do something, but also equips us for the work He has marked out for us. His article makes for some good food for thought.
Halloween is coming up fast, so I expect we’ll start to see discussion about the pros and cons of allowing our little ones to go door-to-door begging candy. I acknowledge this as a difficult issue. Our conviction is that it is a very poor witness to have the house of believers blacked out on Halloween. It is a great opportunity to interact with neighbors, to meet their children and to prove that you are part of the community – not merely a person who sticks only with his church friends. At the same time I despise how evil Halloween is. Already our neighborhood has ghosts hanging from trees and evil plastic figurines stuck into lawns. One section of houses nearby always feels the need to go the extra step, putting on scary music, dressing in occult costumes and generally glorying in evil. To this time we have allowed our children to go out trick-or-treating, provided they do not wear evil or occult costumes. It is a compromise, and admittedly not one I am entirely comfortable with. Our church offers an alternative to Halloween with a “harvest party” which allows kids to dress up and get their fill of candy, but again, this would leave the house conspicuously dark when our neighbors come by. And so we justify allowing the children to go out, but every year I re-evaluate.
Well, that’s all you’re getting out of me today. I hope Aileen has something more interesting to say!
