Industrial Radiography

This year I am doing something practical with my Bachelor of Arts in Theology, I am learning a trade. It's not unusual for me to learn a trade, I've been learning stuff like trades since I was young. My first year out of high school I learned how a house was built and since then it's sort of haunted me. Last summer my dad and I worked on a reno for my boss and that was kind of neat since it was just my dad and me working together doing the electrical. It's nice to spend time with my dad working on a job, it was always difficult when I was younger because it was a more of a chore and never seemed like I was actually learning anything... well now this summer I'm helping the dean at Prairie with his house a bit on the side. Now, however, I'm doing something completely different using radiation to produce X-Rays (really it's gamma rays, but I don't really know what the difference is) of pipelines to inspect welds. It's pretty interesting and I really like it. It's kind of ridiculous how my parents wanted me to be an x-ray tech. I guess they'll just have to settle for a gamma-ray tech instead.

Christopher J.

Updates

In three days I will have been married nine months, that's long enough to have produced a fully developed child. Fortunately, since we're not ready to have kids, we aren't having any. There's a couple that lives three floors below us however that are due to have their baby sometime in the next month or so. They were married exactly a week after us so seeing them (as rarely as we do) is sort of like staring into an alternate universe seeing how it could be. In their circumstances, he is from Kansas and she is from BC, in our circumstance I'm from BC and Natalie's from Kansas, and of course, we're not expecting any time soon (just to clarify again).
Next friday I'm going to be taking the morning off to take Natalie to get a medical exam for her application for permanent residency (immigration stuff). Interestingly enough, the lady who does these exams for permanent residency applicants works in a maternity ward. While all these lady's are going to be talking about when their due they'll probaby be looking at Natalie and think that she's three weeks along or something... at least there's a ring on her finger so it's not going to be terribly indecent or scandalous or anything like that.
I haven't been up on the blogging lately because I've been just taking it easy with only working and pretty much wasting time in the evenings doing as little as possible. I'll probably get back in the habit though since there's little else going on in this small town that I have any involvement with. It's going to be a very different summer for me then it has been in previous years. Previously I'd spend my summers working and living at home with my parents. After work we might go out for a beer, go sailing and on the weekend go camping to nit-nat windsurfing or something along those lines. It seems to me in this town that tee-totaling is the 'Christian' thing to do here and of course there's no ocean for sailing or windsurfing. Also during the summer I'd play cricket normally every week. unfortunately I get all the email for everyone on my cricket team just to make me want to go back and play all the more because I haven't been removed from my coach's email list yet. Work is pretty consuming as far as time is concerned though and on the weekends we usually watch a movie or go somewhere. So I'm starting to find stuff to do, but not as much as I'd like to. It'd be good if I could find some sport or something active to do this summer. I like playing competitively but nothing like stressful. Cricket was an ideal sport in that way, everyone would play hard, but no one really cared who won or not in the end.
One of the fellows at work will be quiting this saturday because he's moving to some small town outside of Fort McMurray. It's too bad because he's one of the most experienced guys and he's probably the most mature guys closest to my age at the place and also the most experienced. now I have to put up with two teenagers to work with come this monday. As well, this fellow who is leaving drives the three ton delievery truck. It's the biggest transport vechicle you can drive without needing a special liscense. I'm a little unsure about driving it because I've never driven anything so big, but I guess it's either me or one of the two teens (one of whom doesn't even have a liscense) so it has to be me. Come monday, I'll be driving all over central and southern alberta in this beast delievering the homehardware stuff: roof truses, lumber, ect. I really hope I don't hit anything; I have a great driving record, I'd like to keep it that way. It's pretty different driving it because your so high up it's not as easy to tell how wide you are or how far over you are in a lane. I want more practice before I have to give this three ton truck a shot full time. It's different driving the truck I normally drive, but I'm really excited about the three ton, just really apprehensive about it at the same time.
I recently heard that someone from Michigan regularly checks my blogg from my friend Katie. I wonder if I know who it is. I felt like I should be updating this site a little more regularly if people actually look at this site. In anycase, I best be getting some sleep since I have to work tommorow.

~Christopher J.

Ministry Employment

I am so frustrated with people who advertise about church work or whatever. It's really annoying. The only decently paying jobs want 5 years experience and an MA or some seminary degree, but they'll never pay off your loan so they'll never hire anyone. Half the people who put out the advertisements can't even spell their own advertisements. One was looking for a bilingual person who "understand both English and Spanish." These churches ask so much of people looking to go into youth ministry and they want a pastor to be educated, an administrator, set a budget, organize a youth program or just even start one part time with the possibility of it growing into full time. Somehow, getting youth to your church is not going to increase your budget, at least not high school students anyway. How can churches not realize this, it's pretty unlikely that if the church is 50 and you grow the youth group that the rest of the church is going to grow too unless you wait ten years until all the kids are tithing adults who become members... which won't happen if the church is only 50 there's probably a reason for it (ie. the congregation or the pastor). Most churches kill their youth pastor with loads of responsibilites that have nothing to do with ministry and they pay them nothing almost and act like the pastor doesn't have anything to do anyways. I would like some church try and coherce me into becoming their youth pastor, tell me why I would be good for them. It's ridiculous that these little church committees run around looking for the most charismatic personality they can find with no brains just to attract people like church is supposed to be a tele-evangelized program. The most annoying thing in searching for jobs is when they advertise "looking for a Spirit-filled..." what does that even mean? They probably don't even know what that looks like. I think I'm going to learn to drive a bus or something, forget church work, I'd rather just lead a Bible study at home or something, do my own thing. Why don't church's advertise "looking for a youth pastor who will grow the youth and teach them what you've learned in Bible College, do what it takes, just don't be a heretic or mistreat the Bible or our tradition." I think churches and church boards today have a real power trip over youth ministry thinking that Bible College graduates are incompetent or something. And what is up with the age thing too? I have seen so many church advertisements saying that the youth pastor should be between 20-30? Is this just because Robb Bell and what's his name down at the purpose driven church are that age? I hate looking for jobs, I get depressed just looking at the sort of advertisements and what sort of pastors everyone wants. On the plus side I'll be graduating soon with a BA in Theology... now what do I do? I think I'll get a liscense to drive a semi or something.

Tainted Water Scandal

Today my fish died in a tragic water changing/tank cleaning. I went to clean their tank because it was in desperate need of a cleaning and after I had finished I noticed that our smallest fish wasn't doing so well and began to swim sideways. Well eventually the smallest one died in the next couple minutes and then a little while after that our largest fish had begun to do the same thing, (swim sideways). Well I didn't have any time to mess around with them because I had to go to work, by the time I got back home again, the two remaining fish had died. I'm a little annoyed because I'm certian it's the water in our apartments and a little sad too because I hate it when anything dies because I did something wrong, I should have just left it. Davidson Apartment's water has been kind of strange lately, Walter's water was a little yellow earlier and I think something happened recently that we haven't really been told about to change our water. Anyways, unfortunately it killed our fish and now Arius, Pelagius, and "tink-tink" (named after tinkerbell because we got it at the Jr/Sr Banquet) are all gone. Unfortunately my parents will never get to see my fish, they're coming this friday. It will be neat to see them again, I haven't seen them since Natalie and I were just married which was almost nine months ago; I'm excited for them to meet my teachers. Well, back to school work I guess... I think I will get turtles next :o
~Christopher J.

Done a Little, a Lot More to go

So I have a bunch done so far, the presentation's done, I wonder if I'll get a grade for that or if it was just a formality. Right now I don't care if I do get a grade for it because I really don't like doing presentations, I get so nervous doing them and I forget a lot of what I wanted to say as soon as I get up there. It's so ridiculous, I'm always more comfortable at the end of a presentation then I am at the beginning, I hate that. You'd think with all the presentations I do over the school year I'd get better at giving them. It was pretty fun that Clorisa, the Lewis' daughter came, she's only in grade 11 and didn't really have a clue what was being said, but she understood a bit of it at the beginning. Well, I have about half of my world religions homework to complete, a portion of my CMFX and a bit of my Youth Issues class still left to go. As well I still have to go over my big paper probably at least 2 more times. I'm not sure though, I'd like to add a bit more to my conclusion and critique. AHH so much, only a few days left. It's Natalie's birthday on saturday (grad day), I don't know if we'll have time to do anything for her birthday, it's going to be so busy. (I still need to figure out what to do for that, maybe I'll send her to France).
Christopher J.

Situational Eschatology: How Dispensationalism Became Fundamental

 

Well, I'm getting it done, It's not getting done fast, but it's getting done, Here's another exerpt from my paper of doom:
For Darby, the invisible church or body of Christ is distinctively heavenly in nature. The union shared by believers was also an eschatological tension held by Darby. While the invisible church or body is present on earth there is a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile, however, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Darby writes that this union with Christ is never cited as taking place on earth but in heaven, so that since believers are not truly in Christ until heaven, they are only unified by the Spirit. Since heaven isn't on earth, believers are bound by the dispensations between Christ's first coming and His second.
Well, I think that pretty acurately describes the dispensational system as I have been able to understand it. I hope my little add up above is cool enough, I think it's catchy, I like the background photo.
Christopher J.

Exerpt from my paper

Here's an exerpt from what I've been working on right now.

The foundations of Darby’s Dispensational system lie within his Plymouth Brethren views on the state of the Church. Like all Plymouth Brethren after him, Darby rejected the formal office of clergy and wrote that Christians should and do have the ability and commission to preach and do not require any earthly ordination. “The leadership was then still as the exercise of a gift (Rom. 12.8) without having become a regular charge.”
Perhaps one of the more striking and more important doctrines of Darby concerned the church and individual Christian’s role as being the temple or house of God. The church takes on two forms, one being the visible administrative church, and then the church as a body on the earth. Darby wrote that “when there is an attempt at displaying the position and unity, there will always be mess and failure.” Essentially Darby felt that the church is failing with its position of being the house of God because it tries to display that God it present in the Church; “God will not take such a place with us.” The Church is not something that can by synthesized by membership or ordination. Rather, membership or ordination comes through the spirit and the church is something that the believer is brought into, not something that the believers create as a result of getting together. The nuance is significant because it gives justification for the Brethren ecclesial structure and it rejects a formal high church ecclesial structure. The formal church may function without any believers, but the body of Christ functions through the believers who are unified under the spirit. The body cannot be formally governed.

I did a copy past thing from my paper, unfortunately none of the footnotes carried over. If you want them you better come to my presentation.

A while ago I had a conversation with my old pastor saying that I've been wanting to be involved in the teaching in some way. I remember him telling me that it's not so simple as that and giving me some long winded speech why I couldn't do anything. I think in reality there was no good reason since we were a community church with plymouth brethren roots. If he knew more about the Brethren then what he claimed to be defending I guess he wouldn't have had much of a leg to stand on. Unfortunately I'm only doing this paper just now to find out that he should have said yes if he really wanted to be true to the Brethren roots that our church had.

~Christopher J.

Paper of Doom!

 

I've decided that giving my presentation the title 'situational eschatology' is a bit too cliche, although who knows, maybe it's clever. I think I will call it the Paper of Doom! just kidding. So, as you can see I'm getting this paper done, slowley but surely it will get done. I think over the summer I may just have to quadruple the size of this paper and get it published though, cause this ended up being way more work then I expected and I hate just the fact that the more I get into this the less focused this paper becomes and the more broad my thesis becomes as a result. Well it'll get done eventually. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this....

~Christopher j.

Dispensationalism or Hyper-Fundamentalism?

I can't help but wonder after researching fundamentalism if dispensationalism is simply an eschatology of convenience for the fundamentalists. While not all fundamentalists are dispensational, it seems nowadays that if you are an upstanding evangelical (a term that is basically synonomous with fundamentalism) you are therefore dispensational. I can't help but wonder if my eschatology and hermeneutics allows me to fit into the evangelical model still. Am I still considered an evangelical if I'm not necessarily dispensational? I remember a conversation that I had with another student a few months ago where I was told that good evangelicals only hold to a literal interpretation to prophetic scripture. The more I read about fundamentalism and dispensationalism I can't help but wonder if it is really whether people care about the praxis of their eschatology, or if it's just some version of hyper fundamentalism.
Christopher J.

TWU

I found a good school. Hooray. This is momentous, it is a school that I actually really want to go to. And I really really want to go also. It's kind of odd I think, like I've never even gone to the school, but I know that I want to go. They offer an MA in Biblical Studies that is basically the best sort of degree a Christian could want. It is very reputable and could lead into other University doctorate programs which are much more secular, which I think would be good. TWU is really my 'gateway' school that will allow me to enter the secular scholarly level as well as maintain a good Christian foundation in my studies. Their Dead Sea Scrolls program is what first attracted me, and the guy who runs the DSS stuff would be the program advisor for my degree... or the degree that I'm looking for, which is an MA in Biblical Studies. This school would also allow me to get government scholarships in the humanities, which of course, is always cool. As well, people in the MA program get oppertunities to publish their work with their professors. Not only do they work for them, but they work with them too, which is very cool.
Well, I hope one day we can afford to go. If not, we could to Kansas City the first year, then TWU in Langley the second year.

Christopher J.
www.twu.ca

A Good School

I feel as though I am stuck at a cross roads in the middle of life right now. Any hasty decision will determine the rest of my life. It seems so strange that when I am so young trying to earn an undergraduate degree and at the same time consider graduate studies that even if I am accepted into a program I will only be 25 by the time I finish. Then when your that young why even stop there, why not just go on? So why not get a PhD? Even then by the time I finish that I’ll still be under thirty.
So now that I know I have all this option to go on in further education I have to play my cards right. Where to I get my MA? What do I choose for a program? What MA at what school will allow me to on to get into a PhD program? Even if I get a Masters degree from a particular school will it be acceptable to get into a school of my choosing to get a PhD? The whole degree situation is really the most confusing thing I’ve ever had to work out. My forty page paper on eschatology is simpler then this. If I go somewhere that’s too expensive I won’t be able to afford it past my first year. If I go somewhere that is cheap in Canada my American wife won’t be able to work right away. If I go somewhere cheaper in the states how do I know if the school is reputable enough? I don’t want to go to a denominational seminary because the education for something like theological or biblical studies probably won’t be broad enough. Most seminaries have inbred faculty who went to the seminary then decided never to leave.
I just want a good school. I just don’t know what it looks like when I’ve found one I can afford.
Christopher J.

Talking with Oma

 
Well, today I got to talk to Oma. (That's dutch for Grandma). It's nice to talk to my Oma every so often, espicially since I don't get to see her very often. She's going to have to sell her place soon and move into a home where she can be better taken care of. Someone isn't home all the time and sometimes she forgets critical things like insulin so it'll be good if/when she does move into a home. Oma was saying that her drain was plugged and that according to some guy's estimate it would be something like 1,700 dollars to get it cleared. It sounds like someone's trying to rip off my Oma just because she's older. Well, I don't live anywhere near her, and I kind of wish I did, but as is the case with all my relatives, they're far away. I never really grew up knowing my relatives with the exception of a few families. It was always neat to go to my grandma's for Christmas, or to visit Oma during one of my parents holidays. The one thing that was cool about growing up was that when my parents took a day off work to go to Vancouver and visit relatives was that they would take us with them because we were to young to be left alone. I wish I was too young to be left alone. It's kind of funny how people regress when they get older. When your first born you are in completely dependant on others, and eventually when you get older you return to that state. I guess it's kind of God's natural form for humiliation. Certianly no one can really go to God proud, if they did, they'd surely be surprised when they met someone greater then they, but if they were someone who is completely dependant on God and others, then I guess your stuck with your faith and a few friends and family, so in the end when you do go to God, it's probably better to be older in a much more dependant state of faith, then being young and independant like me. Then again, by the time your eighty, you may just make it look easy.
~Christopher J.

 
Well, we finally made it back from western Kansas. We had to make a stop in Arizona for one night because we missed our connection in Phoenix International. We were welcomed by one of those true Canadian Blizzards yesterday. Today it is a whopping minus 23 degrees Celsius. It was freezing this morning. To think that we were just in phoenix is incredible. I nearly had to take a bus up to Calgary from Phoenix. I should mention that Phoenix is only two hours away from Mexico. Passports became mandatory for people traveling from the USA to Canada out of Phoenix intl. on the seventh and we ended up flying out of Phoenix on the 6th. The airline put up 100 dollars towards a cheap hotel. I do not recommend flying with American West because they should have paid for the whole thing. The people at Phoenix intl. were less then helpful when it comes to distressed passengers, with the exception of the people at the information both. But overall it was a fun trip by far and completely worth all the stress of making it back in time. The computer was just fixed under an hour ago, so now I am blogging again. Recently, for whatever reason, the computer would not get passed the bios screen. well, now that it's working again I need to finish writing for my TH 390 class, which should have been done last semester. Fortunately, since I have a very graceful prof, who has decided not to fail me, I have an extension until the end of this month. Well, I have decided to apply to Nazarene Theological Seminary. Fortunately between the loan and what we'll make this summer and with the help of the school with a scholarship and student aid to help with our broken pick-up we'll be able to afford to make the move and go to the school. We only now just have to worry about me getting accepted to the Seminary. I'm pretty excited. Natalie has a job for this summer here at the library on Campus, I just need to find a job for this summer too. I have all my syllaby now so I guess I better get started on this summer before we can really plan on anything.
~Christopher J.