Man = Deacon

I received an e-mail from one of the elders in my church regarding the Men's Ministry, announcing a "Worship through Service" Day. It's a wonderful situation, and the reason I initially left my previous church (which was a wonderful church otherwise--just not where I thought God wanted me to be) was because this kind of thing *wasn't* happening.

So it got me thinking, and I think I'm understanding a little more how the Church should operate. Every man at church (or at least those who are not teachers, elders, or in some other specialized ministry) is called to deacon ministry. Simple as that.

I hope that the elders continue to push orienting the "men's ministry" in this fashion. Too often in churches, the various ministries, "men's ministry," "women's ministry," "youth ministry," etc are oriented around serving that particular group rather than training up and mentoring the people in that group to love their neighbor and spread the gospel. Interestingly enough, the one exception to this tends to be the "music ministry". I wonder why that is. (That's not a hypothetical... I really wonder why that is.)

Intelligent Design -- testable predictions

OK, I am not learned enough to pretend I understand everything about the whole "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" debate, but William Saletan made an excellent in point in a Slate Magazine article that a lot of my fellow Christians would do well to understand.

A core principle of modern science is that theories have to make predictions. A belief that doesn't make testable predictions isn't a theory and can't be taught in science classes.

I would change "can't be taught" to "shouldn't be taught," but the point stands.

This is the same philosophy required for an objective interpretation of Scripture. That is, we can come to an agreement about what God's Word says by looking at the same text and concurring with each other. Without this approach to truth, the Protestant Reformation would have never happened.