Our Third Anniversary- Part 1

Our Anniversary was May 24th. We went away for the weekend togther : first to Williamsburg and then to Charlotssville.

We stopped on a bench beside the Governor's Palace to get a picture together.

We spent that first day in Williamsburg shopping and seeing the sights. That night we stayed at a hotel that I booked for us.... let me tell you ... it was SKANKY! Tim had gotten kind of expensive reservations for the next night, so he told me to get a cheap hotel for the first night... well let's just say it was VERY cheap. I don't think we touched anything while we were there....BUT the ONE redeeming factor was that they had an outdoor pool, so Sunday morning when we woke, we laid out in the sun and read our Bibles.

Sunday we drove to Charlottsville. The first thing we did was go to luch in the Hisoric Distric of town. It was gorgeous!

More on our trip to Charlottsville later...

Choices

For my end of the year gift, my students so graciously gave me a KITCHENAID mixer!
I am so pumped. I can't wait to use it. The only problem is that I am still deciding on a color. Those of you who know my kitchen know that it is brown and green, so should I go with , white, black, or gray? Oh yea, my other appliances out are black and my dishwasher and fridge are off-white. I'd love to hear what you think:o)

Back on Track...

Well, I am finally back to blogging... needless to say it has been unbelievably busy! But I will try ot catch you all up as to what has been happening in our lives :o)

First, the School year ended May 31st, last wednesday!!!! Now we are in teacher training until the 16th. The picture on the top is of my sweet 4th grade children :o) I'm just now starting to miss them... hee hee .


The picture below it is of the teacher's I work with: Jessica Palmer, Lacie, Melissa, Laura, Danielle, and Katie. They are sweet blessings from the Lord!

Yahoo! Summer begins in a week and a half!


I will be working at Shoneys' Friday and Saturday (daytime) and working tutoring Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Hopefully, I will end up with Sunday and Monday off :o)
So I can go do some FUN stuff :o)

Mothers Day, Veitnam Tom, and a Graduation Party

This past sunday was busy for us. After church Julie and I drove up to Hampton to have lunch and see Nana and Papa Knerr who were in town visiting. It was great to see them again and in such good spirits!




















Of course, Julie and I had to stop at the Bass Pro shop and get our picture taken, calling Tim Jordan to remind him that the last time I was in a Bass Pro shop, he was getting married . . . did that sound right?





















Many thanks to the bears at Bass Pro, they were surprisingly congenial.




















Call me "Veitnam Tom" . . . I never thought I would be wearing one of these again so soon after that fateful day when Suin Pea ratted out our detail.


Any way, after the Bass Pro, Julie and I were plumb tuckered out, so we went home to prepare for the graduation party we were hosting for Dawn and Nate Mihelis and Scott Logan. Nate graduated this spring with his MDiv; he won the Greek Award for highest cumulative GPA in that lanuage and he won the Servant Leadership award. Congratulations Nate! Dawn was graduating from a job she has hated for the past 4 years to being a stay at home mom of their son, Noah. Scott stopped off on his way to getting his MDiv to get an MBS, with honors. He is going to complete the full MDiv, but having this degree will give him more credibility in the mean time, and ultimately more earning power in the ministry . . . yeah right. Congratulations to the graduates, we all look forward to seeing God's grace use you to further the Kingdom.

Walk For Life, 2006

Those of you who read this probably knew Julie and I were doing the Walk for Life for our local Crisis Pregnancy Center . . . you probably knew this because we were calling you asking for donations. This year, I assigned the CPC Walk for Life as the extra credit for those needing a "boost" in my theology class. Many of them participated and we, as a group, were able to raise (the total figures aren't in yet) approximately 3,000 dollars for our local CPC!

Last year there were over 9,000 abortions in the Hampton Roads area alone; however, the local CPC has an 83% success rate in terms of convincing mothers of unwanted pregnancies to look to other solutions outside of abortion, and this is to say nothing of the many women who hear and receive the gospel because of the CPC.


I want to say a big "thank you," to all the students involved and especially to those students who went beyond the requirement for the grade, to raise some extra money for a great ministry, and to those who supported me and Julie. Thank You!

3 Reasons Why "Your Best Life Now" Is No Gospel At All

God knows that I am loathe to turn my family blog into a forum for theological discussion, but those of you who frequent here, like myself, love the gospel because in it God's message of grace is fully disclosed, and has liberated us to a life free of guilt and full of mercy. Because of this grace, we have learned to love the message of Jesus' substitutionary death for our sin and life for our righteousness; therefore, we want the gospel preached -- there is no substitute.

This morning on the Today Show I watched an interview between Katie Couric and Joel Osteen, a man who is being shoved more and more into the lime-light of Christian Evangelicalism. They were discussing Osteen's new book set to come out next year. His first book, Your Best Life Now, grossed millions and was # 1 on the NY Times Bestseller list.

I am concerned, however, when Osteen's view of life begins to become the face of Evangelical Christianity in America, because I think, with good intentions, and perhaps without knowing it, he is pulling a bait and switch -- he uses the term "gospel" to draw Evangelicals (and he does by the thousands each Sunday), but when the people sit down they hear "7 Steps for Living at Your Full Potential." This post is not aimed at Osteen's book, per se, it is aimed at the differences between the meaning of the gospel and "Your Best Life Now." Again, so I am not understood, people ought to live good lives, but living a good life should never be confused with the gospel. The following are 3 reasons (we could list many more) why we cannot allow this to happen.

1. The Gospel begins as a message of human hopelessness, whereas "Living at Your Full Potential" is humanly optimistic. I think it is imperative to understand, that true happiness in the gospel begins with a humiliating observation -- human nature is incapable of, unwilling to, and unrepentant about change. The gospel consists of the recognition that "without me, you can do nothing;" but the message of Full Potential begins, "you can be anything you put your mind to."

2. The Gospel is a message about receiving, but the message of Full Potential is a message about getting. What is the difference? Simply this, the gift of God vs. the work of man. Again, a good life requires hard work, but a good life is not the gospel because the gospel is about receiving grace (Eph. 2:8-10), and grace cannot be "gotten" by the means of a good life.

3. The Gospel rests on the obedient life of Jesus, while the message of Full Potential rests on the obedience of man. I will post more on this doctrine later, as I believe it to be the most liberating doctrine in Scripture, but allow me to say now that we must return to a focus on the work of Christ. The Scripture teaches that God looks favorably on me, and considers me to be righteous, holy, justified, sanctified and blameless because Jesus was perfectly obedient to his will (Rom. 8:1-4; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:3-7). The obedience of Jesus stands as my obedience -- because Jesus was perfectly holy, God considers me perfectly holy.

But the message of Full Potential is not about dependence on the obedience of Jesus' righteousness as our sufficiency before a holy, demanding, righteous God. Instead, it is about performance. The gospel is about performance, make no mistake, but the glory of the gospel is that it is not about my performance -- it was about Jesus' performance on my helpless behalf.

Friends, let us keep the gospel the gospel and keep self-help, self-help; let us accept no substitutes for the message of the gospel, because self-help is not "the power of God to all who believe," nor is it the "wisdom of God." It is not in the message of Full Potential that "the righteousness that comes from God is revealed from faith to faith," but only in the good news of Jesus's substitutionary life and death -- the message of the gospel. If the message doesn't end with "my every hope rests on what Christ has done," its just not the same.

Whats on my iPod

Check it out over at Luther's Stein.

She Is Worth Far More Than Rubies

You will have to pardon, for a moment, my unblushing praise of my parents. This is because at the end of last month, when Julie and I received an unexpected blow finding out that we owed money to the IRS (though we filed zero on our exemptions, bought a house, and carried a school bill all year long), my wife immediately picked up the phone, dialed the restaraunt she waitressed at in the summer, and asked if she could work 3 nights a week in order to make up the difference.

Those of you who know Julie are likely not surprised that she would take on something like this. Now please understand, I am not writing this primarily to boast in Julie, though I would not be wrong to do so, but I am writing to boast, primarily, in my parents. I remember when I was in high school, and how my dating relationship was a constant "on-again-off-again." During those times both my mom and dad would constantly encourage me to look for those qualities in Julie which are most noble and worthy of love. My mother would constantly point to Julie's servanthood and diligence as excellent qualities for a spouse. Strangely, as a teenager, work-ethic and servant-hood were not the most exciting qualities to look for in a wife.

Yet when Julie made that call this past month, I all at once understood what Mom and Dad meant -- how can you express the value of a woman whose love for her family drives her to serve them at expense of her own time and energy? She is worth far more than rubies!

Finished!

I just finished my Theological German Exam -- we translated a selection from Deitrich Bonhoeffer -- I am officially finished with my work for the semester! I couldn't be happier to be finished. I have an entire month before my next class (this summer I will be taking 3 classes, 6 credits), which means I can read what I want to read!

I will probably spend the month attempting to complete my notes for my Theology class. I still have 2 whole doctrines left to write, so there is a lot of work to be done.

Science Fair: " What effect do differenet forms of chocoloate have on the consistency of a chocolate chip cookie?'

Here is my wonderful class getting ready to make cookies! We had such a fun time and learned so much about CHOCOLATE duirng this project.



This is our Science Fair display board. They did such a great job!




They even dressed up as oompa loompas and other chracters from the book, WillyWonka and the Chocolate factory!

And then of course, we had a major CHOCOLATE party and watched Charlie and the Chocolate factory :o)
What a great Science Fair topic!

THE TWO WEEK COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE SEMESTER!

Ladies... we have a GREAT opportunity and responsibility to love, care and aid our husbands during this Oh, so difficult time! I know... I have the tendency to get tired of seminary LIFE at this point. I think: " Why in the world are we doing this?" We have no money, no time together! But then .... as usual, the spirit convicts me and reminds me of the necessary sacrifice and the resulting blessing of GRACE ministry! He will be our strength and our guide... and MAY will be here before we know it!
God Bless ladies. Let's pray together that we will have the strength necessary to be SELF sacrificing and give ourselves wholly to the support, sumbmission and upholding of our precious husbands.


I am currently reading this book by NOEL PIPER, called "Faithful women and their extraordinary God"
It give a mini-biography of 5-6 women of faith. One of them being Sarah Edwards, Jonathan Edwards wife. She was the mother of 11 children. She cared for the kids, the cows, the house, and the finances while Jonathan was away ministring as an evangelist to churches. SHE did everything! And I complain when I have to make dinner and clean up too... how lazy and selfish am I! Noel basically shares how Sarah freed her husband up to do the ministry of the Lord! In so doing she impacted history forever by being "faithful in the mundane". Not to mention, that she raised 11 god-fearing children who served the Lord in various and amazing ways.
May we also followin suit. May we be willing to lay down our own selfish desires, in pursuit of God's Greatest GLORY through our precious husbands!

Dear Father,
Thank you for your divine providence in our lives. We are forver and continually grateful for this work of grace! We come before you today on behalf of each seminary student and, if pertinent, his supporting and submissive wife.
*May these MEN have the strength and wisdom necessary to continue on to the end of this semester. May they have Christ-like love for their wives.
*May each WIFE support, love and aid her husband in the truest, purest way possible.May we offer our desires to you as a sacrifice of PRAISE. You are our GRACE!
... Father be our help and our sustainer in these weeks. Strengthen each marriage by your grace! We love you more than life!
Amen

KING KONG!!!

This past Sunday night, Julie and I had Rob and Julie Hall over after Church to watch King Kong. I had already seen it in the theatre, but Julie hadn't and I wanted to see the fight scenes again so we rented it and invited the Hall's over.


I love that movie. I have to say it. I know the acting is terrible, and the relationship between the skipper and the black skpper named deck-hand "Jimmy" seemed a little too "broke-back sailboat"-ish at more than one place.
Nevertheless, I am a red-blooded American man, which means I love violence -- especially violence between Monkeys and Dinosaurs. I tend to get carried away (notice my face in the mirror).


We all got carried away.



Julie Hall especially.


Furthermore, the graphics are so realistic. That monkey looks real. Some things about the movie were rediculous of course. I thought that it was unusual that a King Kong eat a single bananna, try an hookup with another 35 ft. monkey, or throw feces at anyone (I have never been to the zoo when this doesn't happen). That seemed a bit unlikely to me, but on the whole, it makes sense why they would edit those takes out when watching Kong rip a T-Rex in two is so much more enriching.

Yahoo!!! I finally have my own office!

Ok..I know you're all wondering...yes! That is the closet in our REAL office.... mine is just the pretend office I guess... for playing :o) I plan to make lots of jewelry and cards in there. And that is serious business!

Ok...I may do a little master's work in there this summer too if I can get myself to put away the beading long enough :O)

A Great Yardsale Find!

We bought this at the "Agape Church Yardsale"last week for only $10! We may refinish it and put new hardware on it. But it serves us well as a coffee bar no matter the color :O) I even had room to put my coffee cups and cookbooks underneath!
I love yardsales!

Ryland Timothy Baylor

My brother just had his second child -- a boy named Ryland Timothy Baylor. Ryland is my brother Jon's middle name, and Timothy is, of course, my first name. As I am sure all of you were thinking, his first pictures reveal that with a name like Timothy, he will be devilishly hansome and irresistably charismatic. http://www.baylorfamily.com/

Back to Posting
I have been out of the Blogging world for quite some time now. I have been sick for about a month now. there have been three or four different problems that I was facing. Among them was a bad cold. The others I won't go into detail about (mainly girl problems) and I don't want to weird out any boys that are reading this :o)If you're a girl and are interested in all that has been going on, feel free to e-mail me :o)

Nevertheless, the Lord has been good and I am feeling much better!

Thank you so much for thos of you who were praying for me. I am very greatful!

"Mein deutscher Test war gut!" This means, "My German test was good."

For those of you who were praying, thank you! I got a 95% (after the curve of course). I am very thankful for God's grace in this class as I have been working very hard in it. My teacher told me today that I have an A in the class -- a miracle, I assure you (seriously, I think God may have suspended natural laws of science and mathmatics for this one).

Soli Deo Gloria

Update on Soccer:

We had a scrimage against a varsity team last night and we only lost 1/2 We played pretty decently against such an experience team. Our first real game is next Tuesday away. Until then we will be weight training... i'm heading that up, since I am so massively buff and all :o) and we will be doing A LOT of running. I am hoping to do both with them, as long as I can remember my practice clothes. This tends to be a problem for me :o)

A must visit restaraunt: "Alexander on the Bay"

Tonight we went to an amazing local sefood restaraunt. It is neatly tucked away amidst some gorgeous beach houses. The name is "Alexander on the Bay". A family from GCA took us out as a "thank you" for teaching their children. Tim taught their son Theology and I taught their other son in 4th grade.

They had reserved a table overlooking the water, but indoors, since it's a little chilly. The beach was gorgeous, with only a few meandering people crossing it. The food was... well... incredible! Tim and I both had crab soup as an appetizer---WOW, that's all I can say :o) For our meal, I had shrimp scampi over linguini, with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic... very tasty, and Tim had meatly crab cakes. The seafood was so fresh! It was very different from your typical Red Lobster or Olive Garden. It was superb! We tried to help pay, but they said they wanted to bless us as we are teaching and going to school!

What a blessing! God is so good. There are very few times that we can actually go out to a nice meal together, and this was so nice. We had such a wonderful time enjoying the atmosphere and the fellowship. They are truly a wonderful family, a blessing from the Lord!

Oh yea... for dessert we had gourmet coffee and shared a chocolate moulton cake-decadent!

ps if you are interested in visiting, let me know and I can find you some directions. I certainly wasn't paying any attention through all of the little turns.

pss We would have had a great pic to go with this of our table and the ocean... but I was a DORK and brought the camera and left the battery charging at HOME! So let your imagination take you away :o)

I am coaching the girls 6th - 10th grade (jv) soccer team at GCA. I have really been enjoying it. We won our first scrimage against a varsity team 10 to 0 :o) --Which if you remember our team last year... is quite amazing! I am looking forward to the season with these 16 middle school and highschool girls. I am trusting the Lord will provide ministry with them as well.

Julie