Wherein I get to announce news that hasn’t officially been announced only because somebody else beat me to it and, well, it’s no longer news, now tell you what I’ve been itching to say for the past [undisclosed amount of time] because the news has been embargoed till now. Whew!

Update 10/28/2008: This post has been updated with information from the October 28 Muskegon Chronicle news story. See below …

Update 11/07/08: ChristianityToday.com interviewed Zondervan CEO, Moe Girkins, on the recent acquisition of the Bible Gateway and Gospel.com. See: “Why Zondervan Bought BibleGateway.com: CEO Moe Girkins wants to take the site beyond just verses. iTunes-style commentaries, anyone?” (Interview by Jeremy Weber)

Ever since Gospel Communications announced the closure of their Internet division and Web-hosting ministry (as I noted here), there’s been a lot of speculation about the eventual fate of the Bible Gateway, one of the most highly-visited sites anywhere (Alexa.com ranks it as #1,837 as of today). Friends from CTI speculated that it would get snapped up by one of the Bible Societies, friends on Twitter wondered whether it would fade away, others wondered who could do as good a job.

I’m happy to announce, though, that the Bible Gateway has been acquired by my own employer: Zondervan (which is owned by HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corporation). Though Zondervan hasn’t issued a press release yet, and it’s officially still a secret, Larry Tomlinson (DotComLarry) broke the news last Thursday at 1:32 PM via Twitter:

BTW, I couldn’t talk about this yesterday, but BibleGateway and Gospel.com has been bought by Zondervan publishers.
01:32 PM October 23, 2008 from web, view Tweet

dotcomlarry
Larry Tomlinson

Apparently, when a “confidential” announcement was made at the recent Internet Ministry Conference it was being streamed live online — thus, several Twitterers, live-bloggers, and stream watchers, uh, paid attention. :: whoops! :: So, that cat’s out of the bag, but there are still further announcements regarding the fate of the rest of the GospelCom properties waiting to be made. Viewing the Twitter stream regarding GospelCom, it does look like there will be some continuity of mission and purpose. Somewhere.

Meanwhile, there are big plans in the works for extending and expanding the Gateway. I don’t know what those plans are (I’m not privy to those official discussions, really), but the rumors are interesting. And, really, it’s just like putting peanut butter in your chocolate to mix a Bible gateway with a major publisher of Bibles and related materials (commentaries, exegetical tools, Bible studies, curricula, devotionals, and on-and-on).

I only hope that we keep the spirit of the original Bible Gateway’s mission alive and that it remains one of the most truly useful online Bibles ever created.

Update: Before I got a chance to post this, I received three pieces of communication. One came from Moe Girkins, my über-boss at Zondervan, officially announcing the acquisition internally. To my surprise and delight, I learned that, “In addition to BibleGateway.com, our agreement also gives us rights to Gospel.com, an online community of Christian organizations.” Even better, Moe writes, “BibleGateway.com will not be just a Zondervan initiative. Rather, our vision is for this to continue as truly cross-publisher and the result of a team effort of a wide variety of content providers focused on meeting the needs of Christians and seekers alike.” And just to help make the transition smooth, half-a-dozen or more GospelCom employees will be coming to work at Zondervan immediately.

The second piece of email came from long-time friend, Peggie Bohanon, of Peggie’s Place, who wanted to let her readers know about the acquisition. Peggie also let us know that the acquisition deal does not include the ministry Web hosting provision, which kept over 300 non-profit ministries afloat on the Web. Fortunately, there’s 5Q Communications to help with the hosting (founded by former GospelCommers, some of whom I’ve meet and can recommend as smart, quality guys). That is, in fact, where ol’ Peg-leg’s moving, herself. So, if you’re looking for hosting, they might be worth looking into.

The third piece of email came from Moe Girkin’s executive assistant, green-lighting my release of this news here, now. So, you (may have) read it here first.

Enjoy!

Update (10/28/2008):

Today the Muskegon Chronicle announced this story (by Clayton Hardiman, who also broke the news of GospelCom’s closing back on September 12), “Gospel Communications Online Sold.” Strangely, the main story is not yet online, anywhere, but here are some salient quotes from the paper:

The future of Gospel Communications’ ministries had been in a state of limbo since early September when the agency’s board of directors, promoted by at least two years of fiscal difficulties, informed partner ministries it would shut down its Web-hosting services. …

Gospel Communications … began operations as Gospel Films Inc. 58 years ago … [and] became the largest distributor of Christian films and videos in the world. …

As part of the acquisition, eight [GospelCom] staffers … have been hired by Zondervan to continue their work on BibleGateway.com.

(The article notes that the BibleGateway was born in 1995 and was developed by Nick Hengeveld. Actually, the gateway was announced to the world on Tuesday, December 28, 1993. It was then hosted at Calvin College, where Hengeveld was a student and network administrator. However, when Nick came to Gospel Communications as their first webmaster, he brought his gateway with him — much to the delight of his new employer, I’m sure. When Hengeveld left in 2006, his brainchild stayed behind.)

The Grand Rapids Press also weighed in with its story, “Zondervan acquires religious site BibleGateway.com,” by Julia Bauer. It pulled in a quote by CEO Moe Girkins:

“Our vision is for BibleGateway.com to be the premier online aggregator of Biblical resources, blending relevant content and community features for anyone searching for information to help them in their spiritual journey, wherever they may be,” said Moe Girkins, Zondervan president and CEO.

(Again, in the interests of full disclosure, if you haven’t noticed by now, I work at Zondervan, though not in the business unit that will be working with the Gateway.)

It’s an interesting time to be a part of Zondervan’s story!

Wherein I lament the passing of one of the Christian Web’s greatest and most popular Websites.

One year ago I interviewed for a job at Gospel Communications. There was an opening for a training specialist and I happily made it through the various rounds of interviews and reference checks. In the end, I was invited to Muskegon to visit the offices of GospelCom in order to give a trial-run 15-minute presentation to Brian Atkinson and his team of intrepid Web wonks. There were two other applicants before me, also giving presentations, showing their mad training skills. I didn’t get the job.

At first I was both disappointed and pleased. I did a fair enough job with my presentation that I was invited (and paid!) to give a followup, expanded presentation at last year’s Internet Ministry conference (”Relationship Blogging” and “Integrity on the Internet“). That was great fun. But, still, I didn’t land the gig, and I would’ve been happy to: GospelCom has been a great organization, and ever since I visited their offices for the first time back in the late 90’s I’ve been impressed with how effectively they dominated the Christian ministry hosting space and totally ruled the online Bible application concept.

But now, I’m filled with a different mixture of disappointment and relief. GospelCom is closing it’s online doors. For purely selfish reasons, I am relieved: Had I landed that job I would once again be looking for work.

I am not sure whether GospelCom was the first one to put the full Bible online, but it was certainly the first to do so in a way that made sense. The text was fully searchable, it was fast, it provided relevant links to broader scriptural context, they linked verses with audio clips, they had a mind-boggling array of translations, and I think they were the first to get permission to put the massively popular New International Version (NIV) of the Bible online. Even now, I think they might be the only one to host Today’s New International Version (TNIV) as well. It has been a Godsend and a great boon to Bible students and believers everywhere. Others have imitated it, but nobody has ever come close to improving on it, much less surpassing it.

All of that is coming to a close. It’s the end of an era. Or at least it feels that way.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen this announced online anywhere. I searched fruitlessly for it today, but haven’t seen it. This, despite the front page announcement I read in last Friday’s Muskegon Chronicle:

“Muskegon-based Christian media giant near close“

As far as I can tell, and from whatever scuttlebutt I’ve heard, Gospel Communications itself is not closing, but that remains to be seen. At the very least, the Internet portion of GospelCom will be going away.

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that my GospelCom social networking contacts have quietly been updating their online resumés and some of them have already listed new jobs as their current place of employment. Former coworkers of mine have related that some Bible Societies (likely the International Bible Society, copyright holder for the NIV and TNIV) have been bidding to purchase the Bible Gateway to keep it alive in one form or another. There will likely be big news to announce on this front in the next few weeks when the secret corporate handshakes are all done.

Let’s hope and pray that our hard-laboring brothers and sisters at GospelCom land on their feet. Michigan’s economy is in the tanks right now and it will take miracles for these capable people to find jobs quickly.

Wherein I reflect on gay marriage and just a wee little bit upon marriage itself. Please note, I really have no business writing this stuff. But I just don’t have the sense…

Okay, so during my one-hour drive home from work a couple days ago, I was listening to public radio and heard a story about a woman who was undergoing a divorce from her spouse — another woman. (Turns out it’s as hard to get a legal gay divorce as it is to get a gay marriage in some states. That’s why the story…)

Partway through her narrative, this lady described how, after the wedding, she and her lover stopped at a homey little restaurant for dinner, mentioning that they had just gotten married. A few minutes later the server delighted them when he arrived with compliments from the chef and owner, presenting them with flowers and champagne to celebrate their nuptials.

I paused. I reflected.

What if I had been that server? How should I have responded? (How would you respond?) Do I congratulate the new couple? Do I say anything that indicates happiness for them? Would this condone their relationship?

Or do I give them sacred stony silence and the cold shoulder of moral outrage?

Further, though I do not approve of their “marriage,” shouldn’t I stay silent at least? Why tell my manager, knowing that he will award the complimentary house bubbly? (Nevermind whatever I might think about the morality of drinking that “demon likker!”)

After un-pausing, I considered my reflections….

For myself, I think I would congratulate them, give them the best wine the house has to offer, and add them to my prayer list. (They’ll certainly need both!) Whatever else might happen during my service would be up to the Lord and any conversational opportunities that come up.

My moral example?

When slapped in the face and confronted with relational and governmental injustice, Jesus told his followers to turn their heads, offering the unslapped cheek as well. When pressed into service to carry a hated Roman soldier’s baggage for a mile, Jesus instructed his listeners to not stop at the end of the mile (which the law allowed) but to go even further — to go the second mile. When sinned against, Jesus told his disciples to forgive. And forgive again. (Again and again and again Finnegan.) When modeling how to pray, Jesus demonstrated a plea for God’s forgiveness predicated on our own proactive forgiveness of others sins against us.

If we’re to offer such unconditional forgiveness against personal injustices, what right do I have to hold sin against someone who hasn’t sinned against me, but against God himself?

I agree with my fellow conservative bloggers: We should fight hard to preserve the sanctity of the very concept of marriage in our culture, with the caveat that we haven’t done so well at preserving the sanctity of marriage within our own churches — more than half of us cannot bear to stay wed despite our protestations of holy, straight matrimony.

Thus, I also agree with others that we desperately need to clean up our own act and a good place to start is living holy lives, and leading and loving unbelievers to Jesus.

And building healthy, holy marriages.

Moral outrage? That’s easy. Beautiful, Christ-like lives? That’s hard.

No wonder so many of us are combative.

A few days ago, a friend from an Assemblies of God-oriented discussion group raised an interesting topic. Since I haven’t posted much here for a while, I thought I’d share my thoughts and joyfully invite your comments.

The Good Pagan

Carissa wrote:

« I think, and this is a lay person’s humble opinion, that a person can live a good moral life without knowing Christ as Savior. »

Amen, Carissa!

It’s a sad myth among us Christians that people can only act “good” by knowing Jesus when, in fact, Christianity is proof of the fact that good behavior is possible while not helpful at gaining eternal salvation. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus, he was not condemned by Jesus for bad behavior. The young man, in fact, kept all the commands since childhood. He said as much and Jesus, knowing his heart, did not call him a liar. But the law, for all its moral purity, is not enough because, as Jesus says, “No one is good — except God alone.” (See Mark 10:17-31.)

God has revealed himself not just in his Word but in creation as well, and many who do not believe in Jesus have perceived what is right and good through God’s general revelation. God has given a great deal of truth, knowledge, and wisdom to unbelievers, and we benefit from it every day.

When I fly safely thousands of feet in the air via a sturdy Boeing 747, I thank God for the pagans (and believers) who applied their knowledge to build that plane to fly safely. I thank God for their sense of ethics and morality in controlling quality and making constant inspections.

In short, I thank God there’s no such thing as a “Christian” airplane.

The better we understand this, the better and more winsome our conversations can be with unbelievers. I think.

Shortly after, Carissa followed up with some more thoughts, prompting me to pick up the keyboard again. …

Good People in Hell

When I wrote about the possibility of unbelieving folk exhibiting good moral behavior and enjoying God’s “common grace,” Carissa responded:

« There’s a friend of mine that refuses to believe in Jesus or God for that very reason. If you can live a good and moral life without Him, then why do you need Him? Especially with all the negative connotation “Christians” have on themselves. He also has a hard time with the fact that God sends “good, moral” people to hell. With as much love as I could, I explained that God doesn’t send people there, they chose to go there through His gift of free will. »

Sounds like you’ve had some great conversations! Keep them up.

True, individual Christians don’t always fare all that well when compared to individual pagans. Some believers act worse than some unbelievers. Some Christians, in fact, exhibit frankly evil attitudes and behaviors (just read the newspapers). We’ve all known believers who’ve cheated on their spouses, who’ve stolen, who cheat on taxes, who engage in risky behaviors, and who are addicted to vices. And yet we’ve all known unbelievers who are faithful to their spouses, who shrink at the thought of stealing, who pay their taxes honestly, who enjoy wise lifestyle choices, and who conscientiously abstain from alcohol, wacky tobacky, or thriftily avoiding gambling on the state lottery.

In any given church there are likely a handful (or more!) in whom we would be hard pressed to identify any holy behavior beyond that of appearing in church relatively sober and even-tempered on Sunday morning while a trip to the local pub might reveal a handful (or more) of relatively sober and even-tempered patrons who would be a joyful addition to any church’s membership roster. (Save for the fact that they don’t mind hoisting a tankard or two now and then. (Count among them C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, who met regularly at local pubs with their friends, The Inklings, to talk theology while swilling brew and inhaling smoke.)

But Jesus didn’t die on the cross, suffer the pain of our sin and separation from his Father, and rise again three days later so we could be paragons of moral virtue for our neighbors. He didn’t save us to be good — he saved us despite our paltry attempts at goodness. Our goodness doesn’t count for much. For no matter how good our best behavior is it is never ever good enough. Not when compared to the pure, unadulterated, undiluted, pristine infinity of God’s absolute, burning holiness.

That is not hyperbole.

Even the most faithful husband is guilty of moral adultery in his heart. Even the most even-tempered peace-nick is guilty of murder in his heart. Even the most honest policeman is guilty of theft via his heart’s jealousy. And the most abstemious tee-totaling librarian is guilty of the secret vice of addiction to the drug of self-conceit. Only God is truly holy. Only god is truly good. And the detritus of our holiest ambitions are steaming piles of rotten carnage when compared to the solar brilliance of God’s fiery righteousness. In his presence the holiest of all of mankind’s venerated saints would burn to a crisp without the protection of Jesus’ grace and protection.

What I most need reminding of when I start feeling good about my own efforts and my own false sense of purity is that Jesus’ sacrifice and victory over death doesn’t save me from Hell — it saves me from God himself. For without the debt of my moral bankruptcy being forgiven in full by God through Jesus, my eternal death would be the price I would pay upon entering eternity.

God’s holiness suffers no sin. In his presence sin will not be tolerated — the very hint of it would result in destruction. Only by submitting to the covering of the sacrifice and blood of Jesus will I be admitted into his presence. His death “covers” my debt. His sacrifice doesn’t magically make me good: it mercifully loans me his goodness.

The rest (being good) I must learn, with the help of the Holy Spirit, constant training, meditation on the Word, worship, prayer, service, and fellowship. That’s what discipleship is. That’s what sanctification is. That’s what growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is. Hopefully, by God’s grace, in ten years I’ll be a “better” man, closer to being like Jesus, than I am now. That doesn’t make be a bad Christian now, or less likely to enjoy Heaven. It just makes me “on the way.” And that’s true for the new believer, the old believer, and the scarily ineffective believer who still does bad things while burning up grace minute-by-minute. (That’s me, by the way.)

In the scale of things, when compared to God’s purity, I am no more clean and worthy of eternal joy — now, or ever — than is bin Laden, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, or Dahmer. Sure, compared to them, I look great. But on my own and compared to God, I’m in their league, not his.

You’re right. God doesn’t send “good” people to hell. They’re already there. It’s only by his grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy that we are saved from life without God by God himself.

May I ever be mindful of his grace and mercy.

Finally, there were a couple follow-up emails that I had missed and failed to respond to in my previous post, so I rounded them up and sent one final email.

As a follow-up to my recent post, I realized there were a couple other comments I wanted to chime in on, please forgive me if I act like I “have all the answers.” I don’t, but I do have a perspective, and I hope it helps.

Conversation with Good, Happy Pagans

Last Tuesday, March 11, Steven wrote:

« I’ve found that the “good” and the “moral” are the hardest to witness to. They don’t see their need for a Savior. Anybody else found that to be true? »

And Carissa followed almost immediately with agreement:

« Definitely… To be honest, I was kind of at a loss when my friend pulled that card. All I could think was, Jesus makes it better. »

Good Hypocrisy

I think it’s not the morally “good” people that are the hardest to talk to about faith. Rather, I think the morally “self-righteous” seem hardest to talk to — and that’s true whether they are believers or not. And when you read the gospel accounts, the morally self-righteous are the ones Jesus spoke most harshly to. Self-righteousness comes in many forms, I guess, but the worst are the religiously self-righteous, and they need to be help as much as the happily unchurched “good” folk do. Why? Because it seems the zealously good self-righteous crowd will be the the most surprised on the Day of Judgment. They will remind Jesus of the good things they’ve done in his name, the sacrifices they’ve made, and the moral acts they’ve performed. Instead, Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

You’ll find that text in Matthew chapter 7. Interesting, that’s also the passage where Jesus makes the point that everybody knows, basically, how to be good, but that God is even better. He illustrates this by saying, “Look, compared to God, you’re evil — but even so, you know how to be good to your children. When your son asks for bread, you don’t hand him a rock to eat. God does even better than that!” (My paraphrase. See Matthew 7:9 and following.)

But their moral goodness toward their children, as I mentioned earlier, doesn’t count for much in the eternal scale of things because, in the end, only those who do the will of the Father in heaven will be counted as inheritors of heaven. What is the will of the Father? It’s not only obedience to his commands — his will is that everyone call on his name, repent, and confess Jesus Christ as Lord of their total life (John 6:40, Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:3, Acts 3:19, Acts 17:30, Romans 10:9-10, 1 John 1:9).

Done vs. Do

See, the self-righteous believe that it’s what one does that earns a way into heaven. But alone among all religions stands Christianity teaching that nothing we do earns us eternal life. It’s only what has been done by Christ that works. All the rest, our obedience, flows from that, but even then it’s not to our credit for it is God who works in us and through us to do his will. (Philippians 2:12 and following.)

How Do We Know What Is Good?

For discussion with unbelievers, I believe it’s good to discuss the reality of good and evil to help introduce God’s goodness and what he considers evil. What’s great about this is that unless you’re a committed materialistic humanist who believes that all of life is merely “molecules in motion,” that we are simply advanced forms of protoplasm, then a belief in the moral good has to have something that informs it.

In other words, if we are simply massive collections of molecules, then ideas such as good or evil, right or wrong, or beauty and ugliness have no real meaning. If we are mere matter and nothing more, then it makes no difference whether you murder or love me, all that would matter is whether murdering or loving was useful for the moment. For the committed materialistic humans, there is no more literal value on a person’s life than a rat’s. Fortunately, few people outside academia or death-row are that fully committed to materialistic humanism: it takes a sociopath to truly believe that.

So, the good news is that since your friend believes in good and evil, half your work is already done. The question that you can wrestle with together is this: Where does he get his ideas of good and evil from? What justifies his belief that, say, murdering an innocent person is wrong while feeding the poor is good? How does he make this judgment? If goodness, beauty, and decency are to have any meaning at all, if there is some sort of moral law underpinning our codes of conduct, then where did we get this law from? Who, then, is the law giver? If your friend has ever experienced guilt, shame, or regret, ask him why? What made him feel this way? Would his life be better off if nobody ever felt guilt or shame from wrongdoing? What kind of a world would that be like? On the other hand, what kind of a world has rules for what’s good and bad and where violators are expected to feel remorse? And how would that kind of world merely evolve into being?

If God Is Good, Then…

If God, who created all these molecules, is the source of this universal moral code, then it makes sense to find out what his expectations are. And now! And, I believe, only Christianity points the way. Only Christianity describes a law-giver who not only created the universe and all that is in it, but also condescended to reveal himself to his creation not only generally, through nature and our own innate sense of right and wrong, but also specifically through revealed writings (the Bible), and personally in the person of Jesus Christ.

Further, in all other religions, what one does is the measure of one’s worthiness of reward. Only in Christianity is God the one who acts on our behalf to save us from the effects of sin. Only in Christianity is man seen as innately flawed and incapable of self-redemption. That’s why in nations influenced and shaped by Christianity, you’ll see checks and balances on power because Christianity recognizes that man is innately flawed and susceptible to evil. And that’s why when any other religious system is in political power in a nation, despots rise up and great evil follows. We only have to look at the Middle East to see this truth.

Embrace Doubt, Then Examine It

Finally, your friend’s doubts are healthy. But it might be helpful to talk about how his belief system is itself informed by leaps of “faith” that are essentially presuppositions and assumptions. For instance, in his view, people are (probably) basically good and that left to their own devices, people will usually make good choices. However, the reality is that people are heavily driven by self-interest and will often make bad choices, especially when manipulated by the need to be accepted, loved, praised, respected, followed, or feared. A number of psychological studies have shown this to be true, from subjects who thought they were giving volunteers electrical shocks to other subjects who abused “prisoners” in campus experiments conducted in the last century.

More…

There’s more that could be written on this, but I’ve already written too much. I encourage you to seek out Tim Kellers’ book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism and C.S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity. I understand Chuck Colson’s recent book, The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why It Matters, also covers this ground nicely, though I haven’t read it yet. Also, noted and influential (former) atheist Antony Flew, after decades of leading the charge against Christianity, recently converted to Theism and now accepts the possibility that there is a God. He’s not fully Christian (yet!) but his account of his “conversion” may be helpful, it’s titled, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

Regards,

Wherein I describe my first day on the job after a harrowing 14-month unemployment ordeal.

So, there hasn’t been much news on this blog lately, mostly because I’ve been busy, I’ve been distracted, and I’ve been unemployed. Somehow, not having a job makes me less productive in my blogging alter-life. Go figure.

Here’s the news: I’ve been hired!

I didn’t want to spend a lot of time talking about interviews and possibilities and potentialities, getting hopes up, and boring you with my uneven work possibilities. But after leaving Tennessee just before Christmas, I contacted Zondervan for a new open position I’d found on their website: Senior Editorial Manager. I expressed my interest.

Then I moved. Jennifer and the kids and I packed up and moved to Muskegon to live with my father-in-law while we sorted things out, worked on selling the house, and licked our wounds.

By the end of the month, I had a nibble from Zondervan. Then, in February, I got an interview. Then I was called back for more interviews. Then, finally, I got … the call.

March 10, today, was my first day on the job.

I have no idea what I’m doing. Yet, anyhow. As far as I can tell from the conversations I’ve had and the job description I’ve seen, I’m going to be a project manager/expediter for anything and everything produced by Zondervan’s Curriculum, Academic, Reference, and Resource division as well as their digital/online division. If it’s going to be a product, I’ll be pushing it through the system. I won’t be editing. Rather, I’ll be managing the stuff that editors are working on.

It’s a big job, but I’m happy to do it, and I’ll be learning a lot over the next few months, not only about the job itself, but about Zondervan, its 75+ year history, and its highly refined publishing process.

Word to the wise: Zondervan looks to be a great company to work for. Their benefits are phenomenal and their employee culture is great. Everybody is friendlier than tame puppies, and they’ve bent over backwards to make me feel really wanted and celebrated at the company.

Thanks to all who prayed for us and kept sending us helpful suggestions and encouragement. It has been hugely appreciated. We’re not entirely out of the woods yet: we still have accumulated debt, a house to sell, untreated medical stuff, and the need to move into our own home. But apart from that, God is really blessing us!

I couldn’t let the day end without wishing all of you a happy new year! Welcome to 2008!

I am safely tucked away in Michigan right now. My family secure and housing provided. Work has already begun to find work.

It’s going to be a good year. I’ll keep you updated.

Hi, all.

First off, I apologize for not spending much time in this space over the past couple of months.

If you’ve followed my blog activities (and inactivity!), you know that on October 22, I accepted a position as marketing and media director at one of the Assemblies of God’s 100 largest churches. I was thrilled not only to have a job but to be in a position that required top-notch creativity and performance from many areas of my skill site — and many areas I was eager to acquire new skills in.

As marketing and media director I designed several promotional and in-house printed pieces, I wrote press releases, I worked with vendors, I approved and gave guidance for the video and broadcast editing (though not much of that because my staff was not only skilled but very professional and surpassed my knowledge in many ways). My team struggled with print deadlines, malfunctioning and aging equipment, and volatile tempers. I raised the visibility of my overworked team’s plight (loads of stress and too much work), and asked a lot of questions. I didn’t always like the answers, but my job wasn’t to change the church, but to understand it first.

Unfortunately, I failed to understand many things quickly enough and I now find myself looking for work once again after the single shortest tenure at any job I’ve ever held in my short, if rotund, life.

But, fortunately, my hasty departure from the church is not due to any sort of illegal, unethical, or moral wrongdoing. Instead, I chalk it up to a severe failure to communicate on my part. Which is ironic, really, since communication was my … err … job. (Big failure on my part.) As the pastor noted when he released me, my personality was not a good fit for the church.

Upon tearful reflection, we are agreed.

So, once more into the breach. My family and I will covet your prayers yet once more. We are packing up to move to Michigan where we will live with family while we wait for our Chicago home to sell and try to find gainful employment again.

Regards,

View and browse tags for this post…

Wherein my wife and I describe a day without meds, without sleep, and concluding with a horse tranquilizer. For AJ, that is.,

Intro

So my son has a pretty severe case of ADHD. And lest you nay-sayers pooh-pooh that notion, let me say that even when merely undermedicated both his pediatrician and psychiatrist remark that his is one of the more extreme cases of hyperactivity they’ve ever seen. Yet when properly medicated with methamphetamine salts he’s calm, collected, and controlled. (Mostly.) When completely off his meds? He’s a a wildcat on crank. But once in a while, even under meds, AJ will space out for a few seconds and lose time, lose his thread of thought, and just stare off into space. When he resumes he carries on with whatever catches his attention first. The docs thought, at first, that this would pass with time. But, really, it hasn’t.

So his doctor finally decided to prescribe an EEG for our little boy, just to check on things. But, thing is, the EEG requires that he be sleep-drived, hungry, thirsty, and completely unmedicated.

Boy, what a trip!

Here’s what my wife has to say about the day.

Jennifer’s Tale

So, Thursday I woke AJ up for school at 8:00 am. Went to school, came home, day goes on … time for bed. But I couldn’t give him his sleeping pill per Dr.’s orders. So, at 9:00 pm he’s in bed. At 4:00 am, we planned to wake him up because they wanted him sleep-deprived. But — he still wasn’t asleep!!!!

So, I took him downstairs where he ran around and goofed-off and played computer puzzles and made random noises with his mouth non-stop for the next 2 hours. Finally, I woke up Rich to take the next shift. He reports the same behaviour. Finally, around 7:30 am, they went to McDonalds where AJ had his breakfast and then ran around the playroom like a wild animal until it was time to come home at 11:00 am — still full of energy and random noise.

At 11:30 pm, we left for the hospital. Prior to driving there I was worried he’d fall asleep, but noo … Instead, I heard, “Mom why  … ” fill in the question with anything you can imagine. He talked non-stop all the way to the hospital.

12:15 pm: AJ’s now been awake for 28 hours. Is he slowing down? No. Speeding up.

Run, skip, walk backwards, somersault, hop hop hop, wiggle wiggle, run jump climb hop run — all the while explaining to anyone who wanders by how lighting strikes work, the reason people get shocks when they touch something metallic, how positive and negative electrons attract and reject each other  … and so on.

1:00 pm: 29 hours awake. … We get to his hospital room which has a bed. He quickly figures out that it has a brake to stop it from rolling, turned that off and starts jumping on the bed at an angle to get to speed across the room. Weeeeeeee! “What’s this?” “What’s that?” How why who what hop hop skip fly climb jump roll the bed hop karate jump and, of course, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

2:15 pm: 30 hours awake. Still blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Run jump hop skip. Bounce off the walls. Literally.

Finally they come in and give him the sedative. It takes 20 minutes before he starts to calm down and a little longer before he finally falls to sleep at 2:45.

They hook him up to all the wires (there was no way they could do it before with him vibrating like a Ronco bread knife) and watch him until about 3:30. “Now we’re going to wake him and he’ll be groggy, but we want to watch his brain in a wakeful state.”

So, the technician, the nurse and I start rubbing his arms. “AJ AJ AJ!” There is no response at all. All the monitors said he was fine. But he was totally and completely unconscious. We poured cold water on his head and there was no response that we could see, although his heart rate shot from 78 to 120. Yet as soon as the shock was over, it settled in the 80s.

So, we let him sleep another 30 minutes. Tried again. In order to leave the hospital, he had to eat, drink and open his eyes. But, he couldn’t talk and when he tried to, it sounded like a wounded animal screaming. Drool everywhere. Finally got a cracker in his hand and told him to eat it. Eyes still closed, his hands both shoot up toward his face, the cracker goes flying and both hands hit his forehead. It seems there was no small muscle coordination. (Yes, you may laugh — we certainly were.) We’d stand him up and walk him up and down the hallway. He’d screech with every step, and cold barely hold his own weight. The nurses named him “Our little drunken sailor.”

Now, don’t “poor AJ” yet, because they said this was mostly normal. Kids wake up hard from this stuff and he likely won’t remember any of it.

Back to the room, more pouring cold water over him … After an hour, the nurses said it’s no longer normal and they called the doctor on call. He took a look at what was going on, saw that AJ had been awake for 30 hours and told us to forget trying to wake him up. Did a bunch of tests and said he was fine. Tired. Very, very tired, but he was fine and it was safe to take him home.

It’s 6:40. He’s still sleeping.

We’ll know results in a few days or weeks. Depending on when the doctor gets them and calls us. We have an appointment in the 3rd week of October, so we’ll know for sure by then.

Conclusion

This is Rich again. Finally, at 7:30 or so I finally managed to annoy AJ enough that he woke up. But it took poking, prodding, wet towels and, at last, a forced march out in the chill night air. I was certain the neighbors would call the police: at every step AJ wrenche and flailed and howled and cried like the most severely abused child in all of Chicagoland.

This, kids, is apparently what happens when you take chloral hydrate when you’re sleep deprived. What is chloral hydrate, you ask?

It’s a horse tranquilizer.

Well, among other things.

Why was AJ without sleep for over a full day? Because he has to take clonidine to counteract the effects of methamphetamine salts which counteract the hyperactivity he normally experiences. At night, when the clonidine kicks in, his normal sleepiness takes over, and he can pass out. Without it, he’ll stake awake and alert all night long. Literally. And since we were instructed by the docs to not give him any clonidine the night before. Well, we had one very hyperactive, unmedicated puppy the next day.

After getting him awake, though, he perked up for an hour, ate voraciously, then promptly passed out when we put him back to bed.

Hopefully, Saturday will get him back on track.

So, breaking news, San Fransisco is a gay-friendly town. Oh, more breaking news: Chrisitanity is anathema to a sinful lifestyle. And it’s an easy target for sinners.

So the 24th annual hedonistic fetish event, San Fransisco’s Folsom Street Fair (wiki definition), created a poster playing off da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” Instead of tableware, there are sex toys. Instead of Jesus and his disciples, there was “Sister Roma” and ” “half-naked homosexual sadomasochists” (WND). And, of course, there were sponsor logos.

The fair is scheduled for September 30, three days from now.

Predictably, the Christian community at-large has recoiled in disgust and lashed back with angry diatribes and calls for apologies. The poster, itself, has been labeled an “unprovoked attack against Christ and His followers” (WND, again).

Ironically enough, the Miller Brewing Company has responded to the pressure from my fellow believers and is removing its logo from the promotional poster.

Huh. Fancy that. One of the last companies you’d expect to worry about losing customers, a “likker” company, has bowed to Christian pressure. The sarcastic part of me wants to quip, “Jesus approves, gentleman, and hoists a tankard in a comradely toast.” But, for fear of reprisal from the people who didn’t like my “Church vs. Bar” post, I’ll refrain.

I get it. Really, I do. I understand why my peers in the faith would react in anger against the poster. And I, too, find the poster heartachingly distasteful and viscerally provocative as well. Though I must admit — the ornery side of me still finds this all a bit humorous.

I mean, really, what’s worse here? A sarcastic and cunning spin of a da Vinci masterpiece (a long-standing meme, actually)? Or … sin? Does anybody in their right mind really believe that the poster is going to do more damage to the cause of Christ than failing to reach out in witness to those gripped by the sins of the flesh? Meanwhile, we just gave the event plenty of free publicity. :: sigh ::

I sense much laughter in Hell. Wormwood is proud.

This is a battle I, personally, would have recommended avoiding. Perhaps anger limits our creativity here, but surely there are better ways to respond to the real issues than attacking a poster.

Posters, after all, don’t send people to Hell. Sin does.

Where’s the moral outrage over that?

(PS: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you“, right? And “Blessed are the peacemakers” as well as “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” I guess the Sermon on the Mount is still as hard to live up to today as it was 2,000 years ago.)