Website Change!!

GO TO WWW.SMOAKSIGNAL.COM FOR THE LATEST POSTS!

Our website has been radically changed and now I will be blogging on its homepage. I will keep this blog in place for the previous posts on it. I will continue to interact here with comments from the previous posts.

So, let smoaksignal.com be your place to go for updates and be sure to interact there.

The Uncommon Needs blog will continue and I hope to find new items to add there as well.

Thanks to all and I hope you enjoy the transition.

iGrace

This past Christmas, my seven-year-old son was surprised by his grandparents with an iPod Touch. It was amazing how quickly he figured out how to use it and where the “app store” was! It wasn’t long before we started downloading appropriate apps, games and music. It has been almost five months and this gift has not grown old. In fact, we have had to put time limits in place to prevent too much gaming. 

We have also tried to use this gadget as a tool for discipleship. We found there were many Bible apps available for it, but the other night, the concept of the iPod became a tool. 

What if God Designed __________________ to Make us Holy More than to Make us Happy?

I'm shamelessly borrowing a subtitle from Gary Thomas' book Sacred Marriage except I put a blank where the word "marriage" goes. Maybe there are some other things that can go in that blank. Gary makes a great point in this book that many Christians go into marriage with expectations which have been shaped more by our culture than by Scripture. When I share the subtitle of this book with folks and say, "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" their brows wrinkle in repulsion!

Osama bin Laden Deserves a Special Place in Hell...and so do I

The news of Osama bin Laden's death brought mixed emotions. In one way, it brought a feeling that something had finally come to an end, though terrorism is still a threat. In another way, the anger over what happened on 9/11 and price our military has paid in the subsequent wars found a bit of satisfaction. But as I watched the reaction in the media and online, I also got a bit uneasy.

Extra! Extra!

So, my hometown paper, the Aiken Standard, did a story on the book The Lord Struck the Child. It was great and surprising that it made the front page!! The full story can be read here! Thanks to Michael Gibbons for doing the article and hope folks will find the book, be blessed by reading it and bless others by purchasing it.