Happy Birthday Scott

----- Updated 4-21-2006: If you do not know me or Scott Anoil (either personally or through the internet), please read my Word of Clarification regarding this post. Since I discovered that this post actually comes up fairly highly on a google search of our old church name, I wanted to urge you to check out our church web-site or a normal post on this blog and understand that this is a joke between friends before making any rash decisions about me or the church. ----



Today is an illustrious day in the blogosphere. Our good friend Scott Anoil turns 19 years old today!!! That's right - 19!

Scott is the host of the Kara Ministries Weblog and spends way too much time on the internet.

Here is another recent picture of little Scott. See if you can pick him out among the children.

Scott is also a talented writer who has written a very nice hymn that we often use at our church when we celebrate the Lord's Table, called, We Gather to Remember.

Well, because of his well-known love for all things modern in Christian music - and particularly because of his love for Majesty Hymns, I hereby bequeath to Scott Anoil a copy of Majesty Hymns - complete with his hymn (We Gather to Remember) proudly glued into the back cover. (And yes, I really do have this combination - in about 50 hymnals in our church - enjoy the thought on your birthday, Scott.) Since Scott also clearly appreciates and values being able to entertain others with his music, I also bequeath to him some longer hair and leather pants so that he may fit the part he desires.


Austin Matzko of Il Filosofo also has a BIRTHDAY GREETING FOR SCOTT that you should stop and read.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Category: Friends_, Blogging_, Popular_,

An Interesting Conversation

Today I was reminded again that some of the things that I tend to take as "common knowlege" are not always so commonly known.

Due to a series of unexpected events, I ended up in Olney, Virginia this morning having a conversation with an older "retired" Methodist preacher. He was a relative of a Fundamentalist Pastor who went to BJU and we had a pleasant conversation regarding ministry and preaching vs. teaching and even about the ministries that this Fundamenatlist Pastor has had (being a single-man, he has often had difficulty finding anything more than "barely surviving" churches in IFB churches).

At one point, this relative made a comment about the Fundamentalist Pastor needing to branch out and be willing to go to churches that are from "his school." Knowing enough about this Fundamentalist Pastor to know that he is not a "BJU is the only Fundamental school" type of guy, and having just heard the elderly gentleman speak of preaching in Lutheran, Methodist, and other churches without apparently seeing much difference, I decided to venture a comment on this Fundamentalist Pastor's behalf.

"I can't speak for ..., but I would imagine that his concern is more about the positions of the churches than it is about BJU." When he asked me to elaborate, I commented that when a Pastor goes to a church to preach, he is in some ways at least endorsing that church.

This older gentleman, with years of ministry experience, said, "I have never thought of that before." Part of me was floored. In my thinking, I tend to jump to the conclusion that everyone who does not practice Biblical separation has made a choice to reject Biblical truth. This man reminded me (though his response) that there are many men out there - even men who have been preachers for years - whose disobedience in this area is as much out of ignorance as out of rebellion.

We had an intersting conversation as he explored some questions on this topic and I shared passages and principles that I could remember off the top of my head. It was also interesting for me to see this man catch some of the principles himself. At one point he asked me about "going to a resturant or a store", but before I could complete my answer, (I had started by saying, "when I go to McDonald's, I go there as a customer" ...) and he finished it with, "you are not going there to worship."

(BTW, in case you are wondering about why this gentleman had not heard this from his Fundamentalist Pastor relative, he did indicate that they had agreed years ago to not discuss theology.)

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting discussion.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

File under Fundamentalism_, Christianity_, Personal_

Meaningless March Madness Update

I have not had much chance/time to post this last couple of weeks. I don't even know if anyone is still visiting here or not.

In case anyone is wondering, the Coin Flip guy is still winning in the March Madness Tournament. If I had taken it more seriously this year, that would be depressing.

In second place is the person who would represent what would happen if you just selected all of the higher seeds.

My selections based on who I would like to see do well is in 3rd place - beating my predictions of the teams that I actually thought would win.

The fake person representing the Republican states is in fifth place.

Andy Rupert follows the Republican states - but should actually be winning if the points were just scored by getting the picks correct. (Unfortunately for Andy, the rules were set up to give a bonus that added the seed value of the winning team to points for getting the pick right.)

So... the real human who is doing the best is really ANDY RUPERT. The real human who is doing best by the scoring system provided is FRANK SANSONE. And both of us are being beaten by the Coin Flip.

Oh, well.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

File under Sports_, Personal_, Humor_

This is sad!

I started a Tournament Challenge the other day, but I did not generate much interest.

In order to make it a little more interesting, I decided to create a few fake players.

The fake players made their choices based on the following criteria.

1. One players choices were determined by flipping a coin
2. One players choices were determined by choosing the higher seed for each game
3. One players choices were determined by choosing the lower seed for each game
4. One players choices were determined by choosing the team that was from a state that voted for George Bush as president in 2004 (if both teams or neither team fit the category, the higher seed was selected).

After the first night of games, the top player was not me or another real person, but rather the fake player whose choices were determined by flipping a coin.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

File under Sports_

March Madness!

Okay. I might get killed for this, but I HAVE TO do it.

I know I am behind on getting back to my reports from the National Leadership Conference at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Things have been kind of busy around here with the new building and all. We are trying to get everything together for our Building Dedication Sunday on April 9 (this is a change from the original March 26th date).

However, even with making that plea of being busy, there are some things that are just a tradition for me. And one of those traditions is having a little friendly competition regarding the NCAA Basketball Tournament - The Road to the Final Four.

When I was teaching and occassionally with youth group, I would have brackets available for the students in my class and have a little competition in the classes, posting the brackets that had been filled out and keeping track of who was doing the best, etc.

(As a Youth Pastor, for a couple of years we had a March Madness Basketball Tournament on Final Four Saturday - complete with trophies, food, fellowship, an evangelistic sermon and the Final Four games on in a room where those who were not watching the live games in the gym could watch the Final Four games.)

Anyway, I am going to start A Thinking Man's NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge and I hope some of you join me.

For those of you who are worried about me being a ringer, pleae be aware that I have watched no single NCAA Basketball game in its entirety this year and have only watched or listened to more than a few minutes of about 5 games (and I think that is a high estimate).

The bracket challenge is set up through CBSSportsline.com. I have used them in previous years and they never sent me a bunch of junk, so I would assume the same would be true this year, as well.

The group can be reached at http://athinkingmansthoughts.mayhem.sportsline.com/e
The password you need in order to join the group is "tourney".

If you have not registered with CBS Sportsline before, you will need to register in order to take part.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

File under Sports_

If you have not found this already

I am sure that many of you are aware of Phil Johnson's recent presentation at The Shepherd's Conference entitled "Dead Right: Part Two"
I have yet had the time to respond (and at this point with all the responses done, not sure one more voice is going to add much - I think I'll wait for Doran or one of the big guns - besides, I want to get back to doing some more National Leadership Conference Reports on here).

Anyway, I did want to point you to Mike Riley's response on his blog: On 'Dead Right: Part Two' (HT: Scott Anoil)

I also appreciate some of the comments of Larry Rogier over in the SI thread.

Just other people's thoughts,

Frank

File under Conferences_, Hot_Issues, Fundamentalism_, Internet_

Settlement is completed! Praise the Lord!

After an unexpected delay, we are rejoicing tonight in the Lord's goodness in allowing us to go to settlement and complete the purchase of our new church building.

As was mentioned in a previous post on The Pastor's Pen, we were scheduled to go to settlement on our new building back on February 1, but we ran into some difficulty in the process.

Praise the Lord, that today - exactly one month after the originally scheduled date - we went to settlement at 4:00 p.m. We are now the happy owners of a new church building located at 1308 Robins Avenue in Salisbury, Maryland. If you live in the area, we would love to have you come and visit us. If you are from out of the area, we would love to have you stop by when and if you come to town. If you have been praying for us as we have been seeking a building, we thank you for your prayers for us.

Here are a couple of pictures of the new building.






File under Church_

Welcome, visitors

For those of you over here from Greg's Link over at Sharper Iron, I intend to get back to evaluations and comments about various sessions and workshops at the National Leadership Conference shortly.

First, however, I want to get this little matter of our church completing the purchase of a building out of the way! (Please pray for us - closing is schedule for 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, March 1 - TODAY!) As was mentioned on The Pastor's Pen, we were originally supposed to go to closing exactly one month ago on February 1, so this is kind of "touchy" time.

The National Leadership Conference articles are as follows:
Tne National Leadership Conference - General Thoughts
National Leadership Conference - One More Quick Thought
Separation from Professing Brethren - A Summary and Comments regarding a presentation by Dr. Kevin Bauder
Shaping the Future - some comments regarding church internships flowing from presentations by Pastor Mark Franklin and Pastor Dan Brooks

File under Church_, Conferences_