Nathan Diehl

Today Chet Swearingen attempts to collect an all-encompassing list of legalism rules.
It’s a good companion to what i’ve been talking about, and thought you should check it out, and add your own suggested rules as well.
Some of my favorites:
Don’t wink
Don’t go bowling
Don’t go to country fairs

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a few weeks ago, i talked about the rules of church.

the last couple of weeks i’ve actually been getting hits from search engines from people looking for the rules of church.

i found a site, though, which lists the rules of one church. I got a kick out of one rule, which officially states, “Follow church rules…” Aren’t the rules supposed to be the rules and not reference themselves? Here is the list of rules.

So what do you think a list of rules like this does for someone who doesn’t already understand them? to an outsider? What about someone who is really checking out God, and they get yelled at for exiting through the wrong aisle or at the wrong time?

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I found an interesting post over at Monday Morning Insight, and just wanted to provide a link to you about it.

It ‘defends’ ‘Sex Sermons’ (such as Next Level Church has recently done), and raises some really great points. Check it out.

EDIT: Please note, i have closed comments due to a large number of SPAM comments hits on this. apparently, bots are drawn to spam any post with the word Sex in it. This has been open long enough. Send me an email if you have any further comments, please.

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Last week, when the Olan Mills photographers were at New Hope taking photographs for the Church Directory, one of the Olan Mills people walked into the office. Our conversation went something like this:

“Hi, how are you?” The guy asked.
“I am great. How are you doing today?” I replied.

Then, the silent pause…
nothing. He didn’t answer my question–he just kept on walking right past me. I realized that he didn’t care how i was. He was making conversation and attempting to be ‘nice.’
That made me wonder how many times I’ve left people hanging like that unintentionally. If i’ve ever seemingly left you hanging, i apologize–it was not intentional. I really do care about you, and i’m sorry if i’ve ever offended you by my ignorance. I hope to do better in being intentional and real in my conversation.

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you know, a lot more people know who i am than who i know. About once a week or so, someone will wave at me. Sometimes I don’t have a clue who they are, so i just smile and wave back, pretending i know them.
I have found that being a pastor’s son at a church with well over a thousand different faces who consider this their church home, way more people ‘know’ me than i know them.. I remember several years ago talking with my friend Matt Keller, and he related, saying (i’m paraphrasing) yeah, it’s like everyone knows all about me, but i don’t have a clue who they are. i’m thinking, ‘i’ve never seen you before in my life!’

But anyway, i say that because yesterday, Emily and I were walking out of Home Depot, and i looked over and there were three Home Depot employees messing around with a generator. The one lady (with sunglasses on) looked up, smiles and happily waved at us. So, i waved back. Then one of the young guys (about age 20, i would guess) with her looked up, and he stood up straight, seemed VERY, VERY excited to see us, waved and yelled, ‘how are you’. Then i waved again, Emily waved, and then i looked the other way…There was a 20 year old girl walking out of the other door, and we were directly in the middle of their line of sight.
I wouldn’t have thought much about it, but the guy really looked intent on saying hello. He was happy to see us, i thought. But now that i think about it, he was just trying to impress that girl.

I wonder how many times we are considered about impressing someone that we forget about others. Sometimes i think we look past people to see what we want to see, while leaving the people in the middle trying to figure out what is going on.

BTW, my wife and I were sitting outside at Starbucks last night, and my friend David (a senior in high school) drove by, he waved at us, we waved back, but it made me smile, because between us and him were two high school girls about David’s age, who probably thought David was waving at them. I thought that was fitting…

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Recently, ABC News ran a story on speaking in tongues.

What was really interesting is that they did a CT scan, looking at brain activity while praying in tongues and compared the scan to a scan while praying in English or listening to gospel music.
They found that while praying in tongues, the person’s frontal lobe became very inactive, meaning whatever they were saying was not controlled by their thoughts. In an English prayer, the frontal lobe is very active, as ones level of concentration increases.

one of the scientists, Dr. Andrew Newberg concluded:
“When they are actually engaged in this whole very intense spiritual practice � their frontal lobes tend to go down in activity. � It is very consistent with the kind of experience they have, because they say that they’re not in charge. [They say] it’s the voice of God, it’s the spirit of God that is moving through them,”

one of the participants (who got the CT scan done), Gerry Stoltzfoos, said:
“I don’t think faith has anything to be afraid of from science. Science validates faith, so bring it on, whatever the facts are, bring it on.”

I thought this was an interesting little story. take a read.
There are some discussions about the story here.

what’s your take on this?

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So i’ve been reading a great book by Mark Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church.

Mark is really cool, and i want to be like Mark, except that i don’t cuss, and don’t particularly want to start. But anyway, he says this in his book:

Over the years, I’ve just accepted that if I do not quickly open the back door when God is trying to run people out of our church, I am working against God by keeping sick people in my church so that they can infect others. Indeed, the church is a body, and one of the most important parts is the colon. Like the human body, any church body without a colon is destined for sickness that leads to death.

What do you think about that statement? Do you agree or disagree?

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I have recently added a new feature to the sidebar of my blog, listing the most popular posts.

It uses a complex (or if you understand it, simple) mathematical function to decide the popularity of posts. Right now it is changing a lot because it is just starting to gathering data. i expect it in another week or so to settle down and quit shifting around so much.

But that led me to be curious…what is your single favorite blog to read?

Just one, not loads of them, and not your complete blogroll. Just one.

Oh yeah, and i know nathandiehl.com is your favorite, so it is eliminated…what, other than nathandiehl.com is your favorite?

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I have received this question on several occasions, so i figured i would address it. The question is:

What is a troll?

In case you hadn’t noticed or read via RSS, i used the term in my disclaimer at the bottom of my sidebar. Part of the disclaimer reads: : “Do not hijack nor troll. Your comments will be edited or deleted without warning. I have no patience for a troll. NONE.”

Wikipedia defines a troll as: “a troll is a person who enters an established community..and intentionally tries to cause disruption, often in the form of posting messages that are inflammatory, insulting, incorrect, inaccurate, absurd, or off-topic, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others.”

After serving as a moderator at the Joomla! forums, i became very aware of trolls and trollish behavior, and developed a deep disgust for it.

If you’re familiar with fairy tale trolls (think: Three Billy Goats Gruff ), these Internet trolls aren’t much different…both are ugly and mischievous, looking to cause disturbance.

Anyway, just thought I’d address that. I’m not accusing you of being a troll, or presently having any trolls around. But i won’t have any trolls around. i’ll shut off comments before i allow a troll to have a voice on my site…

Thank you for reading about trolls. Now, don’t become one!
(sorry for the angry undertones…i’m really not an angry person, i promise! But, Trolls suck!)

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A little over a week ago, i posted here about Next Level Church appearing on CNN.
The new time of the spot airing is tonight on Paula Zahn, 8 p.m. EDT.
Check it out.
(There is a 75% chance it will air tonight…so it still may not!)

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This weekend at New Hope, i GUARANTEE you will SEE and HEAR something you’ve never seen or heard at New Hope before.

I GUARANTEE IT.

We’ve never done anything like this before, and it will ROCK!. I’m excited about it, and I think it will be really cool!

woohoo! don’t miss this!

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