Random

~ Blood pressure around the world is rising -- an international epidemic of hypertension? Either it's another indicator of global warming or we're living longer -- providing more opportunity to suffer from the condition.

~ This is why bicycle helmets are essential. (via)

~ When we lived in Texas, one of the preachers that I actually enjoyed listening to on the radio was George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church. I recently came across a link to their website and now I am sitting here on Guam, late on Tuesday night, listening to George again. He's as fresh as he was 15 years ago.

I submitted his name as a potential Covenant Midwinter speaker but nothing ever came of it. I wonder if the committee wasn't scared off by the fact that he's a Baptist in Texas. They shouldn't be.

~ Proposing marriage through a blog post? How ahhh... romantic. She said, "yes" by posting a comment.

~ Scot McKnight is using Mark Noll's book The Rise of Evangelicalism to float a few ideas about the emerging church as a Pietistic movement -- or at least there are some similarities between Pietism and the emerging movement. Make sure to catch the comments where he further suggests that Pietism was more concerned about personal and corporate holiness while the emerging movement is concerned about justice.

I'd say that early Pietism was as equally concerned about ministries of compassion as they were about holiness -- e.g. Francke's orphanage, school, hospital, etc. Zinzendorf opened his estate to disenfranchised Moravian Brethren. They in turn started the modern missionary movement out of concern for the lost. When you think about it, none of that is so terribly far from having a heart for justice.

~ How the rise of youth culture transformed the American church. As Jim Rayburn used to say, "It's a sin to bore a kid." I seriously doubt that he understood the implications of what he was saying.

~ Senior Anglican clerics in the UK are annoyed with a new government directive which would force churches and cathedrals in Britain to post "no smoking" signs at their entrances. Generally speaking smoking hasn't been a big problem in the church buildings.

~ We had graduation this evening. There is a post on our Guam blog. Click on the picture below for my slideshow with pictures from baccalaureate and graduation.

Graduation 2007