Brian Berry

FINALLY, A REAL REASON TO WATCH TV

March 26, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

This… is AMAZING… and a good reason to watch tv… or at the very least to spend several hours browsing the discover website. I haven’t watched TV in forever. I even sorta gave up on 24. I’m like 8 episodes behind on my DVR. But tonight.. I’m giving this planet of mine and the God who created it 3 hours of my attention. And between now and April 22, I think I’ll make it part of my Sunday night ritual.

here’s some facts about the filming:

5 years in the making
2000 days of footage
204 locations
Every Continent
Sigourney Weaver is the narrator

Basically- this thing is sick. Rock on…..

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BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT QUESTION

March 25, 2007 by Brian Berry 1 Comment

Lately, I’ve had a few former students e-mail me with questions about the Bible and faith. It’s cool to know they feel like their time with me in high school resulted in some adult desire to seek out a trusted friend. This is both humbling and a great honor.

But, as I answer them, I do so with some fear… cuz I certainly don’t have all the answers, but for what it’s worth, I was praying about it the other day and thought maybe others would enjoy them. So I made some minor changes to the questions so they’d be situationally neutral, and still keeping their feel and honoring the anonymity, since I didn’t ask if I could post them.

So, this post, and at least one more to come later in the week will be about theological questions others have asked me to expand on from my point of view.

QUESTION:

Sorry to only hit you up or information…but when I thought “Wise Councel” I thought of you. [see honored and scared note from me above] I’ve been attending this great church. At first I was resistant, mostly because of all of the baggage from the past few years, but I’m returning to the Lord, and it’s exciting – but scary. The scary part is being filled with the Holy Spirit, sure that’s not really scary – but this church is so Spirit filled and focused, that because of my background, I’m not super comfortable. I wanted to know what you felt about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and spiritual gifts. It’s a nondenominational church, but they believe in a prayer language, or speaking in tounges (only to God of course – not as a congregation so much) and I have just heard so much against that – or more like an attitude of negativity to speaking in tounges, etc. I keep hearing in my head “oh those crazy babbling people…” you know? 🙂 But the more God is working on my heart, the more I want to be free in him – i don’t want to be held back from biblical truth and all that God has for me – but I have this fear…a stupid fear really, of being a “fool”.

MY BEST SHOT AT A BIBLE BASED ANSWER:

“Good to hear from you. I’m glad that you’re finding your way back into connection with the church and God and exploring your faith in new ways.

As for the baptism of the Holy Spirit- here’s the scoop. On the one side. No problem. Sure, I think God uses tongues or other languages and I know some very connected people who have a prayer language they believe that God has given them. It sounds as though this church embraces “all the gifts” and that they control the use of them in the contexts where Paul gives clarification for these in 1 Cor. 14.

On the other side. I’m concerned about 2 things.

That there is no pressure or idea that somehow, these are the true sign that you are holy spirit filled. Some churches read the day of pentecost in Acts as a sign that if the spirit of God is in you, then by default, you will speak in tongues. This has several problems, not the least of which was that in the book of Acts, they were speaking in languages that were “known to others” but “unknown to them.” Like all of a sudden, by the power of the holy spirit, you can now speak fluent Cantonese, etc. So, as long as they are “permitting” the gifts to be expressed and encouraging people to explore them without some sense that you must exhibit this character trait or you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, then I’m good with it.

I’m concerned that they don’t also indicate some sort of heirarchy of the gifts. Like your prayer life is going to be amazing if you start praying like this, and not so much if you don’t. That super prayer people pray in tongues and idiots don’t. I think you should ask God to show you what is truth and what is not. You should read up on the texts that deal with this in the New Testament, and then you should be open to whatever gifts God might give you or express to you through others. If this church believes in prophecy and someone comes to you with a “prophetic” word, go ahead and hear it. But then do what 1 John says and test it too. Test it against Jesus and against the Bible and against your own convictions.

I went to college and got involved my freshman year with a Bible Study I was enjoying. But before I knew it, they were telling me that I had to go to their church and that unless I was baptised by their church, I was not a true follower of Jesus. I bolted. It was false.

However, don’t let your “conservative protestant” roots keep you from exploring the whole truth of God’s word. Some churches would say that some of the gifts are no longer used today. I would disagree. I don’t see any evidence for that in Scripture… I do however see evidence of ways the “other gifts” and often those called “spirit gifts” which really they all are- but you know what I mean… tongues, prophecy, etc…. those gifts are often said they are dead today…. I don’t think so. They should however be used properly and with checks and balances. Don’t fall for the lies or pressure. Trust the Holy Spirit’s voice in you too.

Also… depending on your involvement at this church and such, you may want to set an appointment with someone on their team and ask them what they think or what they teach specifically about this. Because it’s kinda “controversial” sometimes, they may also offer a class or have a pamphlet or a part of their website that expresses their opinions too that you could check out and read or attend or whatever.

Ok.. hope that helps. Praying that God continues to restore and build you into the one he created you to be..

Brian

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BICENTENNIAL

March 24, 2007 by Brian Berry 6 Comments

Well, it’s been just under 2 years of blogging my life experiences, rants, family photos, ministry stuff, and such. This marks my 200th post. Some people achieve this really fast. I’m kinda slow I guess.

My blog meter thingy says like 250ish people a week hit this thing up. Most stay on it for less than a minute. Don’t know that it matters. Maybe in honor of my 200th post… if you enjoy this blog and read it psuedo regularly, you could comment as such and tell me what you like best or whatever. Might be kinda fun to know who really does drop in now and again.

Maybe if no one comments I know that I do this for myself. Peace out people. I’m going to bed.

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CARIBBEAN CRUISE- DAY 2 ON THE SHIP

March 24, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

Well, this day started rather lovely and unforgettable. We started off with our first (of what would become many) continental breakfasts ordered by us and delivered by a nice man from Mexico, straight to our lovely balcony. Shannon would hide in the bathroom (evidently strangers are not allowed to see you sleeping or standing anywhere in your robe) and I would stop my reading and get the door (I got up early each morning to read by the ocean and enjoy some java). He’d set up and then we’d eat. Danish. Cereal. Fruit. Juice. Java. Lovely.

After eating we went for something we had decided we wanted to try on this cruise that was a first for both of us. We had a couples massage. This meant that the two lovely ladies in the picture gave us a massage while we lied on two tables about 18 inches apart. This was weird on numerous levels:

This was the first time we have both been naked in the presence of others together. Separately we’ve had to strip down for doctors and such, but never both of us for the same visit. Sure, we were covered up by a sheet, but basically- naked in front of strangers. I guess my wife’s fear of the breakfast delivery man doesn’t apply to the masseuse.

They played ocean music on a boom box in the back ground to relax you. The last time someone played soothing ocean music in the background for my wife and I, it was the Lamaze class when she was pregnant with T.J. The whole scene was so fake and ridiculous since they were asking me to whisper to my wife that she needed to relax to the sound of the ocean while in imaginary excruciating pain, that while I was whispering the stuff in my wife’s ears, she started laughing at me and I started laughing so hard we got kicked out of the class. She is still mad at me and blames me to this day for this episode. If I got kicked out of this massage I was going to end up sleeping alone on the balcony all week. But I really bad wanted to crack a few jokes. I bit my tongue the entire time.

They use a lot of oil. Like enough to cook a 20 lb turkey. By the time I was done with this massage, I wasn’t sure if I should step into the sauna to bake for a while or go shower to remove the 1/4 film that was now all over me.

The lovely woman from Thailand, Christina, who gave me my massage kept moving my sheet that was covering me up. She would creatively fold and roll it around so as to expose various portions of my body so she could consequently give them oil and then rub them while I had my face buried in a pile of uniquely stacked towels. I was cool with this until she lifted the thing up to expose my right butt cheek. She then proceeded to oil my entire leg and rub my butt. Then she repeated the process on my other leg and buttock as well. This was really weird. I was not prepared to have my oily butt rubbed by some strange woman. Worse yet, I paid her a lot of money to do it and tipped her when she was done. And it wasn’t even Vegas.

Um… well they then leave and ask you to turn over. Um.. I was not expecting to turn over. Regardless of this thin little cover up sheet thingy they have over me. I was expecting to have my back rubbed. This roll over thing struck fear in me. Not nudity fear cuz I went ot college with like a gazillion roommates who took pretty much all the modesty I had left and flushed it down the toilet… but that’s another story. It’s a different kind of fear here. Anyway, I have lots of funny and ridiculous things I could share right here, but since I have no idea who reads this stuff, so I’m going to omit them… I will say that I spent the remainder of the massage thinking about chores I had to do and dead puppies and other non-exciting items. Not helping much they now had the towel that used to be under my head now blind folding my eyes and covering my face. They also nuked it or something to make it warm.

After our 1 hour and 15 minute massage, we went to our days events at the Mayan ruins which I described in my previous post below.

Then we came back from lunch on shore and 3 of the couples went to Sabatinis- an onboard 16 course Italian dinner restaurant. You pay $25 per person to ditch dinner in the main dining room to have dinner in this restaurant. You pick your salad, your entree, and your desert and then in between all of those courses, there are several others. Totaling like 16. They just come around and deliver up all kinds of various fruit, seafood, vegetables, breads, cheeses, several types of caviar, sardines, and a grip of other stuff. They pass it out to everyone, you eat as much as you want off your plate, and then they load it up with new stuff. It was amazing. I ordered a huge lobster tail and we split a lovely bottle of wine. We all agreed it was well worth it. We grubbed and ate stuff we never would have had even tried had we not experienced this.

When we were done, we waddled out to go dancing.

here’s the photos… no there’s no naked ones. Click on them to get a closer look at the amazing lobster I ate if ya want.

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JAKE’S OCEAN

March 24, 2007 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

Today I picked jake up from pre-school. I asked him if he had anything in his box. He said yes and I went to pick it up.

Now close your eyes and picture this….. ok so that will make it hard to read, but you’re going to need to imagine… however you choose to do that. Cuz I don’t feel like scanning this art into my computer… so here goes:

IMAGINE:

One sheet of Pink construction paper.
On it, like 40 sea creatures are stamped on it in black ink.
Not 40 different sea creatures, just like 40 dime sized sea creatures of about 4 varieties.
Fish, crabs, sharks, and octopi (i guess that might be the plural of octopus.. I’m pretty sure it’s not octopuses)

…and 2 cows.
both are upside down.
Jake explained this to me. This one is a fish. This one is a cwab. This one is a shawk. This one is the octooopus. These ones awe the land animals. They awe dwownin.
Yep, my kid made an ocean seen and decided that it would be funny if 2 cows drown in it.

Aren’t boys fun!!! These are among the givens of imaginative play time: someone dies, gets blown up, discovers a hidden super power, or decides to have a battle with another.

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