The UmBlog

from the Hartford Courant

Let's read the end of 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 12 Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. 16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21 Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil. 23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will ...

First a little history. Here is John Umland, curator of the Umbl0g (check out that hair), and I, Geoff Gordon , your guest blogger, in our freshman dorm room circa 1989. Coupla dudes chillin' out. We thought we were living large with that sweet black and white tv and yard-sale fish tank. We named the fish, Dennis, and made sport of publicly berating him. Poor Dennis. John and I grew up going to church together but at this point in our spiritual development we were pretty stinking lost. A frequent - and delusional - saying between us at the time was: "Man, if we weren't Christians we'd be getting all the girls." It was a convenient excuse for our lack of romantic accumen . The Jungle , as our dorm was called, was indeed a wilderness experience for us. I'll let John fill you in on the gory details . Fortunately, God, as is his habit, did not leave us there . Eventually we dealt with our unresolved conversion issues and experienced the blessings God intended fr...

about every 1000 days a corpse flower will bloom. it's from Sumatra though. fortunately, my alma mater, UConn , has one, and it bloomed this weekend. my son and i had a free day together so when i saw it announced in the local paper i thought what more fun can be had then taking my boy to go see a giant flower that smells like rotting flesh at the beautiful campus in Storrs, Ct. we packed a lunch and drove the hour north. there was a line only ten people long. it definitely was giant, taller than me, they provided a stepladder to look down into it, but it didn't stink too much. bummer. it's rotten smell attracts flies in search of carrion to walk around on it in frustration and pick up pollen to bring to another blooming corpse flower. too bad so many people can't appreciate a creator for this amazing design and instead appreciate the lottery called evolution. we then toured the campus, watched frogs and bluegills and a turtle in a pond while we ate our lunches and end...

Boundless offers a few tips : find a good church (and go to it), choose your friends, stay pure, study (the reason one attends college), phone home, walk in dependence on God.

i'm continuing the dialog with Ben , pastor at St. Paul's near UConn. Hi Ben, thanks for replying. i did listen to your message, but i wasn't enlightened much more. sorry. i'm a better text learner than oral learner. so here's some text to dialog over, if you think it's beneficial and worth our time and your readers' time. the American Heritage Dictionary defines Christian "adj. 1. Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. Relating to or derived from Jesus or Jesus's teachings. 3. Manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus; Christlike. 4. Relating to or characteristic of Christianity or its adherents. 5. Showing a loving concern for others; humane. n. 1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus." if we stick with the noun, only Jesus hi...

Kind of a weird question from a pastor. So i posted a comment but it hasn't been approved so i'll share it here. it really helps to read the article first though. fwiw, the church describes itself as, "St. Paul's Collegiate Church is a post-denominational community church in Storrs, CT, that was planted and officially launched in February 2005. There are over 18,000 college students and 20-somethings living in the Storrs-Mansfield community, home to the main campus of the University of Connecticut. Less than five percent of this group attends a local church." i wrote i'm a UConn IVCF alumnus, '92, and i was excited to see some more outreach at UConn, including this church. IVCF actually let me come back and give a talk last winter. it's at my blog in series called things i learned in college . but that's my introduction. i've been following your blog for awhile, but this is the first one that makes me want to comment. i think it's misleadi...

i had the privilege of teaching today at the Springfield Calvary, Mass . Here is what i taught. 1 Corinthians sermon Sept 17, 2006 NIV 12:31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 13:3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 13:5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 13:6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 13:7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 13:8 Love never fails. But where there are pro...

he seems like one of us born agains. his tats are bible verses. he was homeschooled in elementary school. unfortunately, the Lord decided he should play for the devil school, Duke. what did that get him? "...after a come-from-ahead loss to eventual champion Connecticut in the national semifinals -- in which Redick missed a crucial late shot -- it was time for a critical re-evaluation of the prodigy's progress." so he matures, even repented..."I regained my passion for basketball," Redick said. "My relationships with my family members were as good as they've ever been -- and my first two years, those were sometimes rocky. I met my girlfriend during that year and regained my spirituality...I try to be humble. I realize that any talent I have is a result of God's blessing. I don't feel the need to [talk trash] as much anymore." but still, i actually like the buy, but still... "in the final month of his college career, for headlong pursuit...

Mat invited me to speak at the UConn Intervarsity Fellowship tonight. If you ever get the invitation, go for it, they feed you, they give you T-shirts, you laugh, you cry, you worship with a passionate praise team...it's better than Cats. This is the talk i gave. it's a reworking of stuff i posted in the past few weeks... WAYS THE BIBLE WOULD BE DIFFERENT IF WRITTEN BY COLLEGE STUDENTS * The Last Supper would have been eaten the next morning - cold. * The Ten Commandments are actually only five, double-spaced, and written in a large font. * New edition every two years in order to limit reselling. * Paul's letter to the Romans becomes Paul's e-mail to abuse@romans.gov. * Reason Cain killed Abel: They were roommates. * Reason why Moses and followers walked in desert for 40 years: They didn't want to ask directions and look like Freshmen. * Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, he would have put it off until the night before it was d...

As i grew in grace and out of legalism i relaxed in my formalism in praise. a campus gropu doesn't usually have hymnals and organs. in fact the campus praise in song leaders sounded alot like my youth group's band. but where i grew up, the youth's band style was abandoned in big church. i also found out some churches also had bands in their big church. this worship was emotional and physical. don't get me wrong, the hymn "and can it be" brings tears to my eyes. and i love belting it out. but i found freedom in college to include in my praise clapping (just like camp and youth group) and kneeling and hand raising and unashamed out of key singing. i also encountered in my trans-denominational college church charismatics. and then i ended up at a vineyard my senior year. but there's a cautionary note at this point of the story. i returned to campus and the group had fallen under the spell of someone off campus who offered many answers. and instead of pointin...

2 of us are Born-agains, one of us got a PhD in Social Psychology and married a woman who did also, one married a woman from our dorm, the other married his sweety from high school, we haven't all gotten together in over 10 years, the punchline? 4 of us own the same Honda minivan we all have 1 to 3 kids. Thanks Guys, i hope we can get together more often.

Grace. For whatever reason, most likely my sinfulness, i entered a rut of considering myself unworthy of answered prayer (true) unless i was a good boy (false). so i entered this weird religious performance cycle of sin - guilt - need - recommitment - good works - sin .... and my wonderful Intervarsity staff person decided to start a special education Bible study for me, my roommate, and another student and affirmed to us over and over God's love and grace. i responded in that typical immature way by having less guilt about the more sinning. i turned it into an i can do it all, sin and security thing. what Father also did was develop a genuine love relationship between us through this. i wasn't performing for Him. at one point i was sick of my acting and told Father i wouldn't be talking to Him in the mornings or reading His love letter to me so i could pursue earthly pleasure. i missed Him. after some period of time, more than a week, less than a month, i broke down and st...

There's a reason laws were written to discourage alcohol consumption for those under 21 years of age. Young adults grow into the concept of subtlety. Usually life is lived in extremes. There are many positives to this, but when it comes to drinking, having a beer is a difficult concept. Getting drunk is a simple concept. Since the youth culture esteems extremes, heavy drinkers achieve a high social status. Because my higher value on being a cheapskate overrode high social status via drunkenness I didn't imbibe as much as my friends. I was limited to free or really cheap beer. But when I came across it, I imbibed with abandon. Perhaps having German and Irish genetics saved me from of the typical reactions to drunkenness that my friends suffered, vomiting and black outs, but also left me, perhaps, with a predilection to alcoholism. After 2 years in the UConn party world, I found myself drunk the night before a test. I realized, by the grace of God, that I had lost control to alco...

Why date? I dated women inside and outside of the kingdom. If you aren't ready to marry anytime soon, just make friends with people. You will get to know women so much better if you aren't focused on the making a move on them. Whenever I jumped out of the dating pool, either by conviction from the Lord or from another broken heart and membership in the "He-man Woman Haters Club" I had friendships with women that were so normal. Raging hormones bring on a form of psychosis anyway so you never date the normal version of a person that you didn't know until a few months after you marry. I met my wife on an IVCF missions trip to Jackson Mississippi where we served under John Perkins and his ministry, Voice of Calvary . We both thought each other attractive and made a casual friendship. I didn't see her again until our schools did joint meetings sporadically. When I did a Co-op 2 years later by her school I got to know her and all her friends. Yet attraction never b...

I spent my freshman year at a Christian college on the North Shore of Cape Cod. I wanted to pursue my biology studies under Christian professors and experience dorm life with Christians. Unfortunately for me, I was expecting Christian camp, not Christian college. I was disillusioned that the kids drank and smoke and swore and fooled around with their girlfriends. I didn’t drink or smoke there, but I was guilty of the other two. I expected an environment of exhortation and encouragement where people like me could stay on the higher path. The words were spoken, but for the most part, this Christian college had also abandoned for all intents and purposes the role of parent, technically called in loco parentis, see this article for an expansion of the concept especially in relation to sex in the dorms. To make matters worse, my excellent Ecology professor taught us about human evolution. I wouldn’t say he advocated it, but it wasn’t his job to discuss biblical interpretation. On top of t...

Certainly, the emerging church crowd brings legitimate issues to the table. The issues however aren't necessarily new, but the solutions haven't been necessarily satisfactory for those seeking new ways to do church. Unfortunately, as any reader of this blog will know, some of the proposed solutions, in my opinion, not only are lacking but can be downright spiritually dangerous. But who is doing it well? If people are producing eternal fruit under different formats then many are doing it well. I have no problem with all the different channels or flavors of church. My blend starts with the one I grew up in the Plymouth Brethren continues into my college exerience at UConn, where I grew spiritually under the influence of Intervarsity ) and the one I chose after graduation, a Vineyard which is charismatic and is now a Calvary Chapel where I am an elder and enjoy sitting under a verse by verse exposition through the entire Bible. I teach classes there and am currently facilitati...

Not that I am making any new insights here, but today’s opinions weave a tangled web. I subscribe to my alma mater’s, UConn , daily newspaper The Daily Campus to keep up on the basketball teams and also to stay informed of the opinions of today’s college students. Here is a letter to the editor questioning the value of the institution of marriage. Marriage: a misguided Tradition His arguments against marriage are less sex (necessary for mental health), poverty from the eventual divorce, fidelity (the author is a male), and puts on paper what’s should only be in the heart. I fear this isn’t an April Fool’s article. I don’t think he is gay since this is the normative gay male lifestyle yet they want to have the right to marry like heterosexuals. Nicholas D. Kristof over at the NY Times also has a problem with marriage. In his March 30th article, When Marriage Kills , he blames the Bush administration for emphasizing Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms in that order in AIDS aid to Africa...