Ray Vander Laan on Jesus and Biblical History in the Holy Land

geography, history
This summer at our church for adult Sunday School, we are watching DVD segments from the fantastic faith lesson video series, “That The World May Know.” These are narrated by Ray Vander Laan. His website for this series is:

http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=1687

We used a DVD series last summer too, but I found it very frustrating because no discussion time was provided. This year one of our pastors each week IS facilitating a time of discussion following each segment, and it has been wonderful! I am taking notes each week on my iPad using Evernote, and sharing them via the following website:

http://www.evernote.com/pub/wfryer/notes

I am not taking time to edit these thoroughly so please forgive typos. This is a great video series and opportunity to learn more about Christianity from both historical and contemporary perspectives.

Sent from my iPad

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Greyson Chance, YouTube, Lady Gaga, Paparazzi, Ellen and Jesus

BLASTcast, kids, music, struggles

Today in our fifth grade Sunday school class, we discussed Edmond 6th grader Grayson Chance and his experiences on the Ellen show Thursday. To start, the students brainstormed answers to three different questions in pairs, and then we shared/discussed them together. (Turn/Pair/Share activity) Each time students had 45 seconds to brainstorm and write down ideas, and then we shared/discussed aloud. Remember these are the results of what STUDENTS brainstormed, not my OWN ideas / lesson notes.

What do you know?

Greyson Chance

  1. Going out with my friend McKenna
  2. On Ellen Show Thursday
  3. Goes to Cheyenne Middle School in Edmond, Ok
  4. 12 years old
  5. 6th grade
  6. sings
  7. plays piano
  8. sang Paparazzi by Lady Gaga on Ellen
  9. writes and sings his own songs
  10. mom texted him in Math class, saying Ellen called
  11. talent show for 6th graders at church
  12. dad videoed his performance and his family told to put on youtube
  13. he is male

Lady Gaga

  1. real name is Stefani
  2. coming to OKC and Grayson will be her opening act
  3. changes her hair/style very often
  4. she sings
  5. she is/looks weird / unique / different
  6. she wears wigs
  7. has odd shows (lots of special effects)
  8. natural hair is brown
  9. she called Grayson on Ellen
  10. she is female

Before our third turn/pair/share brainstorm, I surveyed our class of 11 on the following 2 questions:
– How many of you have heard at least 1 Lady Gaga song before?
– How many of you personally OWN at least one Lady Gaga song on your iPod, as a CD, on your own music player?

These were the results:

Influence of Lady Gaga on our Sunday School Class

(Created with the NCES free “Create a Graph” website)

If you cannot view the Flickr image above at your location, here are our results shared as text:

  1. 11 5th graders here
  2. 10 of 11 have heard at least 1 song
  3. 5 of 11 have her music

These results confirm what I had suspected about this topic: Lady Gaga has a HUGE cultural influence and our 5th grade students not only know about her and are listening to her music, they also know about what happened with Greyson Chance, YouTube, and the Ellen show last week.

We watched this two minute video from the Washington Post about Greyson, the Ellen Show, and Lady Gaga.

Then students then brainstormed answers to the following question, with these results

What do you think the message(s) of Lady Gaga are for YOUR life?

  1. Nothing – just a crazy show
  2. No matter what you do you can be Christian
  3. Stay loose
  4. Don’t be afraid to stand out
  5. Be yourself

Before reviewing our verses of the day, I shared with the students that my lesson messages today are NOT:

  1. You need to or should listen to / watch Lady Gaga music/videos
  2. You need to setup a YouTube channel and publish videos (you can’t have a Google account until you’re 13 legally)

My message in our lesson today IS that we need to take a lot of care when we choose what we put into our brains and hearts through our eyes and ears. Also, a message is that people judge / form opinions about us based on what we SAY (what comes out of our mouths.) We need to strive to follow the words of Jesus and fill ourselves with LIGHT instead of darkness, to be pure and clean vessels.

These are the two verses we read aloud today, wrote down, and discussed:

Matthew 15:10-11 (NIV)

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’

In “The Message” translation this verse reads:

He then called the crowd together and said, “Listen, and take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up.”

We discussed the context of this verse in the early church, when non-Christians were sacrificing animals and eating that sacrificial meat. Jesus’ reference to “unclean meat” not polluting our minds is a reference to that meat, which is something Paul wrote about in several of his New Testament letters. This verse and story (which is a very short parable) says that if we say corrupt and vile things, they reveal what is truly in our hearts.

We discussed how people form opinions about us make judgements based on what we say / the things that come out of our mouths. The students shared examples they have heard or seen of unclean things others say (using clean language, of course.) These included:

  1. gossip / slander
  2. profanity
  3. lies
  4. singing the lyrics of songs with bad words or bad messages

We also read and discussed the following verse: Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV)

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

I shared how over the past several months, I have listened to the songs in both of Lady Gaga’s albums, because my 9 year old daughter had purchased “Paparazzi” and as her dad I felt it was important for me to know what messages that song was teaching. We talked about how when we choose to listen to songs and watch videos, the words and messages of those songs are “teaching” things to our minds/brains.

I addressed the student comment that “The lesson of Lady Gaga is ‘No matter what you do you can be Christian”” as being false and a trick. We should avoid being confused by Gaga / Stefani saying she was raised Christian / Catholic, and that she therefore is sharing a Christian message. The words of her songs and the messages of her songs/videos are NOT to follow Christ or live a moral life.

We looked at the numbers of views on Greyson Chance’s YouTube channel, and discussed how remarkable it is that a 12 year old 6th grader from Edmond (right where we live) is having this chance to talk directly with millions of people worldwide. We live in a day when we are more connected than ever, and where we have more opportunities to make choices about what we listen to and watch. We need to choose wisely.

We closed our lesson in prayer for God to help us make good choices about the things we say / the things we choose to let out of our mouths, as well as the things we let into our minds and hearts.

MY OWN THOUGHTS FOLLOWING THE LESSON:

These are very challenging issues to address and discuss with our students, and I certainly tried to tread lightly on some of them. The informal surveys we did today confirmed what I knew going into today’s lesson, however: Gaga’s cultural influence on our children/youth today is HUGE, and we need to be talking about these issues. In March CNN reported Gaga has more views on YouTube than any other artist in the world.

In our own family, these issues have been important in past weeks because I’ve had to decide (as the dad) what will go on our iPods? Should Lady Gaga’s song be on them? While I am not and did not share the message with our 5th graders, “Lady Gaga is the devil,” I have no doubt that Satan IS spreading his lies through her music and videos. In class today we DID talk about who “the father of lies” is, and that he IS real. We need to look at the words and messages which come out of the mouths of others, to discern if they are messages with which we want to fill our minds.

See my post yesterday on my main blog, “From a church talent show to the Ellen DeGeneres Show: YouTube fame for an Edmond 6th grader” for more background and thoughts on this situation, especially as they apply to Internet safety and Greyson specifically.

Cody (our co-teacher) discussed with me after the lesson the popular song “Kiss – Kisse” by Holly Valance. Kids as young as three are running around singing this song today, and as parents/adults we need not just take notice but take action. One of the basic things we all need to be doing in our homes is TALKING about these issues: Finding out what our kids know, what they are hearing, what they are listening to, and what they believe. If our kids (as at least one of our fifth graders today) believe “You can do anything in life and be a Christian,” that is a serious misconception that needs to be addressed. We need to all put on the full armor of God. We’re living in the midst of a culture war, and our own hearts of minds as well as those of our children are at stake.

Let’s all read together and follow the words of John 14:21 (NIV):

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.

(Cross-posted to BLASTcast)

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Is Jesus the only path to salvation?

God, questions

The following comment and question was posted on my main blog on a recent entry, “Message for Oklahoma Christians: Muslims are NOT our enemies.” The comment was:

I have one thing to ask of the people who claim their respective religion is the “only” path to God, and that is to ask themselves what happens to people who are atheistic or of the “incorrect” religion, but are truely [sic] good people? Does this mean that they are never saved, never loved by God in heaven (or whatever you believe happens when you die)?It is an interesting question, one that I have wondered often, especially when some christians claim that the path to God is only through embracing Jesus.
Jeff – a high school student who stumbled on this article

Here’s my response:

Jeff: Great question.

In the case of Christianity, I go back to what CS Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity.” A lot of people want to put Jesus in a box and say something like, “He was a good moral teacher but not the Son of God.” Lewis says Jesus was either a raving lunatic or exactly what he said he was: God on earth. Jesus in his teachings was clear about “the path to salvation” being through a narrow gate. This is a HUGE stumbling block for many people who consider themselves Christians today, but have a more unitarian / universalist view of salvation. It may sound much nicer to say “all religious roads lead to the same path” but that is not what you’ll read in the Bible. So a fundamental question to answer for yourself in this regard is, “Who do I believe Jesus was and is?”

Jesus, of course, did not endorse a terrible list of evils which have been perpetrated throughout time in his name: the inquisition, the crusades, actions by white supremacists, etc. These are big issues that keep many people from understanding Jesus and his message as well.

Christianity is differentiated from all other religions in the world in one significant way: Grace. In every other faith, you’ll learn about how you need to work and “do things” to earn your way to salvation. For the Christian, a transformed life is one filled with good works for God– but salvation is not a result of works. You don’t find this in Islam, Hinduism, or any other mainline religion but you do in Christianity.

My encouragement to you is to keep seeking the answer to the question you’ve asked here, keep asking other people, and keep praying to God to open your eyes and reveal Himself to you. Read the Bible and seek God’s spirit through it, especially reading the gospels.

Ultimately there are MANY things we don’t know and can’t answer with certainty, even when we have a strong faith and conviction in knowing God. He is infinite and so definitionally He’s beyond our limited abilities to fully understand. This is not a cop-out, I think it’s actually wisdom which you will find with many “religious” people, Christian and non-Christian alike. This does NOT mean truth is relativistic and “unknowable” either, but it does mean we aren’t going to get everything figured out while we’re still all mortals on this planet.

If you see or hear someone who claims to be a Christian espousing damnation and a condemning judgement on others, in a hateful spirit, be wary. When you read about the life of Christ in the Bible, you learn he never acted that way toward everyday people. He was most severe and condemning when he criticized the religious leaders of his day, the Pharisees. Believing that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” and the “narrow gate” through which we are able to be forgiven and accepted by God does NOT mean we are to go around condemning everyone we meet who doesn’t believe the way we do. Jesus simplified all the laws in the Old Testament in these two commands: Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. There’s not any condemning in those commands.

What would you say in response to Jeff’s questions?

Memorial at Ponte Vedra Beach
Creative Commons License photo credit: minds-eye

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Confident in God, not in ourselves

focus, God, prayer

These words from the apostle Paul spoke to me most clearly this morning, in 1 Corinthians 10:11-12. In this context Paul is comparing the people of Corinth to the Israelites who God led out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

The world says, “Do it yourself.”

God says, “Rely on me.”

The world says, “Christianity is a crutch.”

God says, “You need a crutch, for your strength is insufficient for the challenges before you.”

The world says, “Do it your way.”

Jesus says, “Follow me.”

We all fall short of the glory of God. Thanks to his grace and mercy, we find forgiveness and strength. This day, for others and for myself, I pray we will all have confidence in God’s strength and God’s ability to see us through our struggles. Rather than focus on our own abilities and be confident in what we think we can do, I pray we put our faith and confidence in God.

He’s the pilot we need at the controls, and he’s a much better one than I am.

In Control
Creative Commons License photo credit: Steve Snodgrass

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2010 Men’s Conference at Mo Ranch, Texas

discipleship, God, worship

Last weekend I had an opportunity to attend the 2010 Men’s Conference at Mo Ranch, Texas. Mo Ranch is a Presbyterian camp located in the Texas Hill Country. The following are three panoramic images I took during the conference with my iPhone using Pano.

Panorama at Mo Ranch

This photo shows the river area and the big water slide, which unfortunately was closed this year. Last year I went down it several times. It was very exciting!

Panorama at Mo Ranch

The BBQ on Saturday night is always a highlight food-wise. The brisket this year was some of the best I’ve ever had.

Panorama at Mo Ranch - Saturday BBQ!

The best parts of the men’s conference at Mo Ranch are fellowship and worship. The short video below of the men’s choir on Saturday night will give you a small taste of the experience. It really is wonderful singing with over 400 men and worshipping God together. Most of the songs we sing are in unison with just two leaders up front, but a choir practices during the weekend twice for this Saturday evening performance.

Choir singing at Mo Ranch

The Sunday morning sunrise service at the Men’s Conference is another highlight. It’s rare for me to get up this early and worship God with other men as the sun is rising, so this makes for special memories.

Sunday morning service at Mo Ranch

This year at Mo Ranch was particularly special because my father, Tom, was able to attend with me. This is a photo of us after the Sunday sunrise service. The original photo was a bit underexposed, so I tweaked it using ToonFX Paint.

Wesley and Tom Fryer at Mo Ranch

The monday morning after the Mo Ranch weekend, Dad and I were able to play 9 holes of golf before he drove home at Cimarron National Golf Club in Guthrie, just north of Edmond where I live. This was a REAL treat as well, even though I didn’t play very well! Best ball is a great thing at times like these.

Golf in Guthrie, Oklahoma

Golf in Guthrie, Oklahoma

Each day, every day is a gift from God. I am thankful for this past weekend’s opportunity to draw closer to God, my father, and other men from our men’s group in Edmond. The weather was perfect, and the time “offline” and in God’s beautiful creation was sorely needed by yours truly.

If there is any way you can attend I strongly recommend the annual Mo Ranch Men’s Conference. It’s always held in early May.

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Survey: 72% of Millennials ‘more spiritual than religious’

BLASTcast, evangelism, God, kids, struggles

The USA Today article, “Survey: 72% of Millennials ‘more spiritual than religious’” caught my eye today. From the survey of US residents:

Among the 65% who call themselves Christian, “many are either mushy Christians or Christians in name only,” Rainer says. “Most are just indifferent. The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith.”

Key findings in the phone survey, conducted in August and released today:

  1. 65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.
  2. 65% rarely or never attend worship services.
  3. 67% don’t read the Bible or sacred texts.
  4. Many are unsure Jesus is the only path to heaven: Half say yes, half no.

“We have dumbed down what it means to be part of the church so much that it means almost nothing, even to people who already say they are part of the church,” Rainer says.

Some days I definitely could be called a “mushy Christian” because I don’t open up my Bible. We live in the most distractible culture in history. We must be intentional to immerse our minds in God’s Word each day. I need regular reminders of this, and to do a better job making Bible reading a regular habit each day. All too often I find myself reading a LOT of content online, but not making the time to read God’s Word first. I need to resolve to check in with God regularly each day, and NOT make that something I “just” do on Sundays or Wednesday nights.

some food
Creative Commons License photo credit: Rushay

These are alarming statistics, and provide me with greater incentive to continue teaching youth Sunday school. We need to not only help our children and families understand and follow God’s Word, but also share it regularly with others who come to a church on Sundays and those who don’t. It all begins with our personal walk with God, however. If I’m not walking with and talking with the Lord each day, it’s not possible for me to authentically share him and invite others to know him.

Walking the walk as we talk the talk. It’s a daily challenge. Please pray for me and our family as we struggle to continue following God and seeking HIS will in our wide world of choices.

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Frank Martin and the Power of Prayer

God

Lots of people in my hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, are elated the KSU Wildcats are in the sweet 16. What most of them may not know, at least not yet, is the compelling backstory of coach Frank Martin’s battle back from death and the power of prayer. See Bill Reiter’s article in the Kansas City Star, “A real Manhattan miracle: Frank Martin recalls his brush with death” to read “the rest of the story.”

Hat tip for my mom for sharing this link.

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