Is a Super Bowl Ad Worth It?

I’ve been seeing a lot of Christians questioning the He Gets Us ads as a waste of money. Please check out the ministry before jumping on that bandwagon. It isn’t about a 30 or 60 second commercial. It is about the follow up those commercials encourage. The people talking and the people going to the HeGetsUs.com web site, asking for prayer or asking for help finding a church. Those prayer requests and questions are passed on to a local church volunteer (including a group of us at Little Hills Church).

At Little Hills, we have meaningful opportunities to pray for people and encourage them in Jesus’s love every week as a part of this ongoing effort, of which the Super Bowl ads were just a small part. And thanks to the generous donors who paid for He Gets Us, little churches like us don’t have to pay anything in this process — they just ask us to receive those prayer requests and questions and share Jesus with people looking for Him.

Allegations Against John MacArthur's Church

I’ve been increasingly concerned regarding alleged spiritual abuse coming out of John MacArthur’s church, their “Biblical counseling” program and related ministries. Kate Shellnutt’s superbly sourced exposé for Christianity Today is disturbing, but corroborates what I’ve feared for a number of years.

MacArthur’s church, Grace Community Church, elders’s reply to Shellnut’s article will sound familiar to anyone who has been through #SpiritualAbuse. As someone who has both experienced spiritual abuse subsequently spent years ministering to those who have, I’m unsurprised the church mischaracterizes the reporting as anonymous lies. Sadly, churches caught in such things almost inevitably attack those who bring it to light.

CT appears to have done all journalistic due diligence and offers names in most cases. Grace CC’s statement tries to hide behind keeping matters Biblically private, but if the church is unresponsive to private confrontation, a public callout is both Biblically good and necessary. Covering up abusive counseling and the like has no place in the Church. Period.

Away for the First Time

We say the church is God and not ours, but planting a church one gets pretty attached and sometimes that can get blurry feeling. I’m used to being there to fix the things that don’t work, hit all the right knobs for the live stream if something goes wrong and so on. I’ll admit it was a little scary being away from it for the first time during a worship service, even if my absence was made necessary by chickenpox (the last thing I’d want to do is share this!).

But what a wonderful reminder that the church is HIS, not mine nor anyone else’s. His Body at Little Hills Church went into overdrive tonight to make everything work for worship in-person and for those of us worshipping online. Thank you to my mom (Tamara Haffner Butler) who got there super early to make sure all the systems were on, Jim Krenning who faithfully delivered God’s Word on a challenging passage, Melanie Lawrence Haynes who led worship beautifully, Pastor Tim Krenning who oversaw the Lord’s Supper, Jeff Landis who read Scripture and helped with a few technical points and of course, the entire church family (whether online or in-person) who was praying and simply BEING together.

God is at work and this was beautiful tonight as He made sure His work continues. Indeed: His Treasure is the lasting treasure.

Ukraine Waging War on Christianity

A notable TV personality claimed last night that Ukrainian President Zelensky declared “war on Christianity.” Wondering if this is true? It is not; this is unequivocally false. Here’s what’s going on: the Ukrainian government has restricted the Russian state church’s operations in Ukrainian after the Russian government was found to be using it to do espionage. (That same church is led by a man who is explicitly encouraging war on innocent civilians in Ukraine.) The Orthodox Church of Ukraine recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, along with Catholics and Protestants, are unaffected and able to minister in Ukraine freely. In other words, this restriction is only on a group blaspheming the name of Christ by functioning as an arm of a hostile government waging an unjust war and trying to use the teachings of Christ to justify it.

Wombat Pine Pro

An Unfamiliar Name Proves Intriguing

Continuing the fall keyboard review season with the interesting Wombat Pine Pro:

Mechanical keyboard makers generally fall into two broad categories: established gaming peripheral companies and a series of upstarts, like Keychron and Epomaker, focused purely on mechanical boards. Wombat Keyboards is neither and, like the company, its Pine Pro keyboard feels like a unique entry into a market flooded with very similar offerings.

Don't Take Grafting for Granted (November 14, 2022)

This week we explore how we get to be a part of the story we have been following throughout Scripture. And how that affects our attitude.

Songs for Our Temple (Week 46: Ps. 129-130)

Melanie takes us through Ps. 129-131 and how they help us to turn our trust toward our God.

Missed Doomsdays (November 7, 2022)

Lots of things get predicted… but do they happen? As we consider the New Covenant, we see that God foretold something that applies to us.

Songs for Our Temple (Week 45: Ps. 126-128)

This was my week on “Songs for Our Temple” and for it, we turn to Psalms 126-128 to think about thankfulness and blessings from our God.

Das Keyboard MacTigr

Metadot Exquisitely Crafts a Mac-focused Keyboard

I’ve been reviewing keyboards once again on OFB, this week a new Mac-focused keyboard from one of my favorite keyboard makers, Metadot:

At the height of the rage around the first consumer marketed Hummer, later rechristened the H1, I remember getting the chance to climb into one at the nation’s leading dealer of that incredibly robust SUV. The vehicle was capable of tackling terrain no car I’ve ever owned could, but also was incredibly basic on certain creature comforts. This is a professional tool. That analogy aptly fits the Das Keyboard MacTigr, the curiously spelled, newly released keyboard from Metadot.