The Best Gift This Year

The best gift this Christmas was having all my boys old enough to not only be in the Christmas Eve service but have them be old enough to understand exactly what was going on. While Max and Josh used to be so afraid of going on stage this year they had no problem being donkeys in our nativity account and Tate made for a fine Wise man.

At our church Richard sits in a red rocking chair on stage and tells the Christmas story and in between each part of the story we sing a Carol. Each child as we enter the church picks who they want to be and put on a head dress (or ears if they are an animal). Then when it is time for them to come on the scene they go up on stage. This year the stage was full!

After we go through the story of the nativity we take communion. This was our first time to have all three in the service with us and this year Tate had asked Jesus to be the boss of his life earlier in the year so he was going to get to take the Lords supper with us. It was the best part of my Christmas getting to explain to him what the bread symbolized and what the juice represented. To hear him ask why Jesus had to die and why he had to bleed was truly a moment I will never forget! The simplicity of a four year old agonizing over the fact that Jesus had to bleed and die for his sins was so simply warming and heart wrenching all at the same time.

We finished the service with a candle lighting as we had just celebrated in Christs birth through the nativity story. His death through Communion and now his Resurrection and life in each of us and through us to the world as we are commanded to be the light to the world.

After it was all said and done I got to visit several of our members. All of them are like family to us. One of the people we got to visit with was a former youth of ours. As he and his wife were in town to visit with family for the holidays they had brought an international student from the university campus where he studies and his wife works. They had invited this young lady from China and as she sat through the service the grace of our Lord descended upon her and her eyes were opened to the Gospel and she received Christ as her savior!

It doesn't get any better than that!

Trendy?

First of all let me just say that this pic is not being posted for artistic or photographic qualities what so ever! This is a cell phone pic that wasn’t even taken by me. I saw something similar to this but was too disgusted and embarrassed to take out the iphone and snap a shot so I came back and googled to find this pic.

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The reason for posting this “mess “on my blog, is for the content. While I am sure that this young lady, at least I hope, was unaware that she was making a fool of herself, and not just trying to be trendy, today this is indeed a trend that is growing. Indeed when I googled low rise or sagging jeans the amount of modeling or advertisement adds outweighed the real pics like this one at least 10 to 1.
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It is amazing what is trendy today!

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I recently picked up a book titled “Radical, taking back your faith from the American dream” by David Platt. IT is an easy read but an incredibly convicting and insightful one as well. In it David Platt challenges us to begin to rediscover the gospel and center focus of Biblical Christianity vs. our American version of it. It is amazing how much the church in the U.S. and yes, I have allowed myself centered Americanized culture to influence how I live out my life and my Christianity
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Case in point…

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I have become a huge Rangers fan this year. Not just because they are winning. Rather I became interested when they declared bankruptcy and had a change in ownership that involved a lawsuit, an auction and months worth of “dirty laundry’ aired for the world to see.
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Well now that they are in the playoffs and one win away from going to the World Series many more have become or at least begun to express their support of the Rangers. I must admit, I have watched every game at home in HD with the surround sound blaring and even converted Kim to where she is sitting down watching the games with me and she is even screaming at the umpires with me when bad calls are made.

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Even as diehard of fans as we have become I have seen some facebook posts recently from friends that have caused me to take pause. Below are a couple of versions I have seen this week.
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Our Cliff Lee, who art in Texas, hallowed be thy name. Thy win will come, thy will be done, in New York as it is in Texas. Give us this Monday our daily win. And give us our strikes and home runs, but do not let others strike and home run against us. And Lead us not into frustration, but deliver us from evil Yankee Empire. For thine is the MVP, the power and the glory, for ever and ever

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Or
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Our Rangers, who art in Texas, winners be thy name. The Yanks will come, they will be done, in New York as they will be in Texas. Give us this week a series win, and forgive us our bullpen loss as we cause losses upon their bullpen. Lead us not into theoffseason, but deliver us a Championship title. For the Rangers are the swingdom, t...he claw, and the antlers forever. It's time! AMEN!!!!!from Kathryn Hardaway
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Now please do not misunderstand what I am about to say. I am not saying that the individuals who are posting this are heathens! Rather, that in all my fan craze that I have been going through myself is there a line where that craze can go too far? Is there a place where the line between our Christianity and our version of it is so close or in tune with the life we live or culture we live in that the two can blur and cross into each other with such ease that we don’t skip a beat?

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Let’s consider for a second what the quotes are spoofing.
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Our Father Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

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These words have become so commonplace for us that we can rattle them off by memory. They are so familiar we do not pause to think about the meaning of those words hardly at all. We neglect the verse just tow before these that states we should “not use meaningless repetition.” In the original language the passage here in Matthew really states that we should not use “idle” words or “babble.” No instead Christ suggests that when we pray we should be very intentional with our affections and praise.
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To one of the facebook posts one person replied, “--God probably has a hand in the Rangers winning--I'm sure there have been prayers lifted up for them, right? : )”

Now I am sure this was a comment made not as a statement of belief rather as one intended for humor.

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But that is just it. We have trivialized the gospel down to that. Jesus died for us; prayers to God are for Him to provide for our needs and our whims. There are 6,783,421,727 people in the world today. According to the most liberal estimates, approximately one-third of the world is Christian. These numbers include all those who identify themselves as Christian, whether religiously, socially or politically. Likely, not all of them are actually followers of Christ. But even if they were that still leaves 4.5 billion people who are separated from God and will spend eternity in hell if nothing changes.
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CHRIST DOESN”T CARE ABOUT THE RANGERS!

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He is about His Fathers Glory! About His Fathers Will manifest in the earth! HE dares to ask for His daily need not desire. Remember this is the Christ who is a shepherd that would leave the flock for the one that was lost! He didn’t die so you could become “a better you” so that if you planted a seed he could bless you tenfold! He came to invest in Twelve lowly men and then left the salvation of the world in their hands commanding that they go and follow His example and carry on His legacy by living as he would. Even more than that by dyeing to themselves and allowing His Holy Spirit to transform them and move through them.
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Not so we could take His examples and make them cliché phrases to exalt our American pass time. A bunch of guys throwing and hitting a ball for a game.

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Am I a fan of the Rangers? You bet! Will I watch their games? You bet! Will I cheer for them? You bet! And enjoy every minute of it.
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Will I be so bold as to take what I consider to be words of my God and an example of what is truly important and minimize them to nothing more than a catch phrase that I will use for a meaningless pass time in lieu of the hundreds of thousands who have lived out those words and have been martyred for believing in them strongly enough to try and see them realized in their countries and cultures?

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I choose not too!
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Trendy, What is it really and is it worth getting caught up in? I think naught, after all “I wouldn’t want to get caught with my pants down.”

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Now there is a catch phrase for ya!

What Do You See?

When you look at this man what do you see? Do you see his white hair? His plaid wrap? His Smile? Does this image cause you to question his age? How someone his age can still have his muscle tone? How on earth does he have the flexibility to be able to sit on his heals? How can he smile while sitting on his heals?

I took this shot while I was in Cambodia. A couple of friends and brothers in Christ were in Cambodia with me trying to explore the possibilities of our church getting involved in spreading the gospel in a nation where only 2% of the population claim to know Christ and 71.4 % of the people groups in the nation have literally never heard the Gospel nor do they have access to it.

During our trip we were filming a documentary of sorts and traveling all over the country. This particular shot was taken one afternoon as we were traveling from Phnom Penh, the capital, on a six hour drive to Siem Reap. We had been driving for a while and had just come out of a typical afternoon rain shower which had cleaned the air and what was left of the clouds was filtering the light of the sun perfectly making it perfect for picture taking and right there was this small village off of the road.

We immediately asked the driver to stop the car and off we went just trying to catch a glimpse of real ordinary Cambodian life. After all that is what we had set out to do. We weren't as interested in the normal tourist spots as much as the real everyday life of the people. So off we went hiking down the small dirt path you see coming out of the right of the picture. Carrying our cameras and equipment along with some bread (a nice commodity we had brought with us to hand out as a gift.) I can only imagine the sight as these people who had most likely never seen Americans before watched as these two tall white men came walking down their path into there little village of seven huts built on stilts. This was definitely not on the tourist track and I'm sure they were as intrigued by us as we were of their living conditions. Indeed, for us it felt much like it would if you were with National Geographic out in the jungles filming some documentary of this people group discovering their way of life for the first time.

It was quite exhilarating! After asking if we could take some pictures and giving out the bread Chiv our Cambodian brother began sharing the gospel while Mark and I began taking shots. Soon after we began taking pictures the old man in the first pic of this post came to the threshold of his little one room hut. His was the biggest hut right in the middle of the little village.

I imagine that this village was an entire extended family and that this must have been the patriarch of the family. As we took pictures he just sat there on his heals in his door and watched us without saying a word. He quickly caught my eye and eventually the eye of Mark as well and before to long we were both taking pictures of him in his doorway as he smiled back at us. Usually the kids and people are tickled to see pictures of themselves after we take them and show them in the little LCD displays of our digital SLR's but this man was content to just sit there and let us take his picture for a good thirty minutes to an hour all the while just smiling. Which as we would discover later is not customary for Cambodian culture. In fact when most Cambodians are having a picture of them taken it is customary to look serious. While here in the U.S. we tend to smile, in Cambodia they do just the opposite. So for this man to smile for us most likely meant that he had never been photographed before.

So back to my original questions.

When you look at this man what do you see? Do you see his white hair? His plaid wrap? His Smile? Does this image cause you to question his age? How someone his age can still have his muscle tone? How on earth does he have the flexibility to be able to sit on his heals? How can he smile while sitting on his heals? Or do you see a precious loved one of God, who has never heard the name of Jesus. One who has never known the hope that only the true gospel of the Bible can bring. Do you see one of more than a billion people today who have yet to hear the gospel? Does he cause you to reflect on the gospel you believe in? Suddenly catch phrases like "You do your best and God will do the rest" or "just plant a seed and God will return it ten fold" don't seem to matter much. The color of our churches carpet seem to lose their meaning. What style of music is played and whether or not it is to our liking as we "worship" God seem to become petty.

No, when you look into the eyes of a man that survived the single largest genocide since the holocaust of WWII, a man whose next meal depends on how his crops did that year, a man who has never know electricity or plumbing, who most likely owns the single pair of pants he is wearing, the gospel that the American church has created just wont do. For this man one must return to the true gospel of the Bible. The gospel of Luke 9 or Mark 10 or Matthew 13.

I began this post with a series of questions and will end it with a few more.

Are you willing to risk it all for the gospel? For people like this man? For the sake of the more than one billion people today who have yet to hear the gospel? For the sake of the twenty-six thousand children who will die today of starvation or a preventable disease? For the sake of a church subculture that has trivialized and changed the gospel into one of their liking?

I would like to think that I am

A Change in Perspective

This year sending our boys back to school was a pleasant experience. Last year we had to move Max from the private christian school that the church that I work at runs to public school. Max was going into first grade and Joshua was entering Kinder. Kim and I wrestled all summer to try and find ways we could afford to send them both to our private school but ultimately there was just no way. So last years first day of school was a huge leap of faith for us along with the normal separation anxiety that usually accompanies the first time you send your kids to school. We knew Max had a great year in kinder and had heard about Jesus and we were not sure how the whole public school thing would end up. We struggled with the decision of what to do and as we grew more unsettled Kim even toyed with the idea of homeschooling. Then one day while the grandparents were visiting, or we were visiting there, I can't remember which, my father said something in passing to us as we were talking about it.

Now I need to pause here and say something about my dad. My dad is a man of very few words and always has been, but for as long as I can remember when dad said something you had better listen. When we were younger it was often because we were acting up and we were only going to get one warning. The older I have become the more I realized that while dad seldom speaks, when he does it usually carries an incredible amount of wisdom behind it.

Anyways, I don't know if dad had really thought it through, or whether he was just thinking out loud, but either way, he said "you know, if all the Christians and christian teachers just went too and taught in christian schools, then who would be there to be an example of Christ to the world?" or something to that effect. Now for the rest of the room that might not have resonated like it did for me, however for me, it was intimately profound and I think God was using my father to speak directly to me.



Now fast forward to yesterday. Yesterday we took Max and Joshua to their first day back at school. This year was completely different. Max remembered his teacher he has this year from the interactions he had with her last year and when he found out she was his teacher he literally jumped for joy. Joshua loved his teacher as well. Neither of them had any apprehensions about going back to school, well except for Joshua who wasn't to sure about his teachers choice to sit them boy-girl-boy-girl. Both of them ended up with Christian teachers again this year. Both teachers recognized the Dietz name and were eager to meet our boys and us because of the reputation the Dietz boys had as good students and who's parents were supportive and people they could rely on. Joshua's teacher even asked "Now you are the pastor, right?" to which when we replied yes, she said "awesome!"




God is good! He has taken care of our boys yet again with awesome teachers! He has used them through their relationships with friends at school to create relationships between us and their parents that Kim and I are praying, allow us to reveal the love of Christ and as 1 Peter says "the reason for the hope that we have..." one of Joshua's classmates from last year and again this year is from Argentina so we have an instant connection because of my background. Another family that has boys both Max and Joshua's ages, well there mom is from Chile where I grew up.

God has changed my perspective and I am so happy my boys are in public school. It has helped ease my worries that God become so institutionalized with their father working at a church. It has already given us the opportunity to teach through life lessons that we need to not just Love God but Love people and that they might be the only Jesus their friends see. To watch them internalize that and take that challenge on already has been amazing! God knows what He is doing all the time even when we don't see it that way!

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P.S. Today was Tate's first day of preschool and yesterday was his first time to go to the big boy potty and #2 completely on his own without having to be asked! Now that is Miraculous!

The Director's Vision

Have you ever seen "Schindler's List." What a great yet gut wrenching movie! There is a scene in the movie where in the middle of all of the chaos of the Holocaust, a young girl goes walking down a street. This particular scene stands out because while the rest of the movie and even the scene are in black and white, this girl is wearing a red. Obviously Spielberg wanted the contrast of the black and white and this colored coat to elicit certain emotions and focus for the viewer.

This past week I performed a wedding for a former youth of mine. Marcela was a child born into a situation that none of us should have to be born into. Her mother was a homeless drug addict living in the streets in Colombia and thus Marcela was what is known as a "street kid" an infant being raised on the streets of Bogota. Friends of ours who were missionaries in Bogota at the time adopted Marcela and her sister and the rest is history! Now here I was marring her to a young good looking youth pastor who has graduated from seminary and who works vocationally with the younger generation raising them in the ways of the Lord. It was so awesome and comforting seeing one of your youth who waited on Gods timing and for Gods best for her marry someone who had done the same. Because of her and his obedience God was blessing them with each other and at the same time ending a generational curse that keeps so many Colombian women living in the streets turning to prostitution and drugs to survive.

As I sat in their living room with Marcela's family helping them get the house decorated as Marcela wanted I noticed a picture hanging on the wall that Andrea, Marcela's sister, had matted and framed for her. It was a picture of the streets in Bogota just like many pictures I have taken. The difference was that she had converted the photo to black and white and then punched in the original colors in just some areas of the photo. Seeing the image that was so similar to photos I had taken as recently as this year in a new light was absolutely amazing!

As soon as I got home I had to try it on one of my photos as you see above. It wasn't until I was done that i realized something I hadn't noticed before, even when I took the photo. if you click on the photo and then look to the left their is a homeless man sleeping on the ground in the threshold of the building in the forefront.

I think many of us like to ask God to reveal the "big picture" of our lives to us when in reality what we really want is just to see the pretty or comfortable parts of our lives. I'm not saying that having seasons of blessing and enjoyment are wrong rather that many of us would rather take the good but not the bad or hardship the Lord needs us to go through in order to paint the whole picture of our lives.

In the pic above just a little of the original colored buildings is enough color to draw your attention int o the street. To highlight just enough to make the whole scene look beautiful. Yet when the whole picture is in color those things tend to fade into the rest of the image. By bringing color to just part of the image it makes the rest pop in a different way.

Maybe that is how God paints the picture of our lives. Rather than using such a broad stroke he details every part. Just enough powerful and great experiences to make the refining we need to go through to be more like Christ have meaning and make them be beautiful as well.

May the Lord and author of your picture have His way with you and I! May He make beauty out of all of our lives, not just the parts you or I would deem worthy or deserving.

Big Brother

Jason and his family were in town on furlough from the mission filled for the first time in four years since they left. It was great to see him and his family and to pick up where we left off. Jason and I always were close and while being very different in many ways we have always had plenty of common ground as well. I will miss them as they head back to Germany but am proud of him for the work he does for the kingdom.

What One See's vs Reality

I have recently taken up HDR photography! It has opened up a whole new world to me as far as how I approach taking a shot and how I go about framing the pic and even what and how I shoot it. HDR or High Dynamic Range is a post-processing of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.
To help put it in laymen’s terms, you might consider that the way the human brain keeps track of imagery is not the same way your computer keeps track of picture files. There is not one aperture, shutter speed, etc. In fact, have you ever noticed that sometimes when you are in a beautiful place or with special people and you take photos —when you get back and show them to people you have to say, “Well, you really had to be there?” Even great photographers with amazing cameras can only very rarely grab the scene exactly as they saw it. Cameras, by their basic-machine-nature, are very good at capturing “images”, lines, shadows, shapes — but they are not good at capturing a scene the way the mind remembers and maps it. When you are actually there on the scene, your eye travels back and forth, letting in more light in some areas, less light in others and you create a “patchwork-quilt” of the scene. Well HDR gets us one step closer to seeing what the eye saw.

Essentially what one does is take batch photography, or in other words one takes multiple takes of the same shot but adjusting the aperture between each shot and then combines them all taking the best lighting for each portion of the pic and leaving the bad portions out. While this sounds very complicated it is actually not that hard with today’s DSLR cameras and Photo editing software. Most digital SLR cameras have what is called automatic bracketing options available. This is a setting that will allow you to set up your shot and then only have to push the button once and the camera will take either 3-5 shots depending on the camera and adjust the aperture between each shot automatically. Then there are various software programs that will combine the three and keep the best lighting for each portion of the shot.

Notice in the shot above the richness of the color and lighting in every portion of the shot. Now look at the shot immediately below at the same shot taken with the camera in automatic setting. You can immediately see that the detail in the clouds is washed out as is the detail in the stones the church is made of. The lighting on the people and the buildings all the way down the street are muted as well because the aperture was automatically set for the best option for dealing with the way the light hit each element in the shot and thus leaves us with a muted version of reality so as to grab all of the scene. The shot above however consist of multiple shots of the same scene with the camera adjusting aperture between each take so as to grab the detail and best lighting for each part of the scene. Then once combined it gives us a much richer and more accurate shot of what the human eye saw because the eye adjusted for each part of the scene on its own.

In many ways life can be similar. What one see’s and what really is can often be two totally different things. Understanding this truth is ever more important these days. The culture in which we find ourselves today is completely immersed and blinded by relativity. In other words in the U.S. and much of the western world TRUTH is not seen as an absolute anymore, rather most people you talk to would say that TRUTH is different in every given situation depending on the individual circumstances. Unfortunately this philosophy has even crept into the mindset of the church these days.

This week I read an article by Alice Park written for Time magazine, you can read it in it’s entirety at: http//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100412/hl_time/08599198101900

In this article there are claims made about a study conducted by Tulane University that suggest that spanking leads to more aggressive behavior and of course the American Academy of Pediatrics jumped all over it to say that they do not endorse spanking for any reason and were so excited to have evidence to support their views. Some of the results of the study were that children who were spanked were more likely to be aggressive. The reason that the author of the study gave was that "spanking instills fear rather than understanding. Even if a child were to stop his screaming tantrum when spanked, that doesn't mean he understands why he shouldn't be acting out in the first place."

So at first glace I guess we should quit spanking our children and turn to timeouts unless we want to continue being a abusive society that instills fear in our kids!

Or wait! Is fear always a bad thing? Is Aggression always bad? Maybe rather than painting the truth about the topic with such a broad brush after reading one study would be like taking a pic in automatic. Perhaps there is so much more going on that if we are not careful we will miss unless we take into consideration everything and look at the whole scene in the best light available.

In fact in Deuteronomy chapter 6 it tells us not once, not twice but three times to "Fear The Lord." In fact in verse two after telling us to observe the decrees of the Lord, it tells us "so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live ... so you may enjoy long life." God is not just a loving, compassionate God. He is the Lord our God and we should fear Him with respect as such and pass that fear down to the younger generations. No where in the Bible does it say that we need to understand God in order to have to obey Him. That His desires are only applicable to us when we come to an understanding of them and then chose to do them. When we disobey God sometimes there is no time out or second chances. A healthy respect and fear of the Lord is His desire and it is His desire that we pass that respect and fear down to our children. Proverbs 13:24 states that "he who spares the rod hates his child, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." Other scriptures that allude to the rod could be II Sam. 7:14, Job 9:34, Psalm 89:32 all of which allude to God using the rod on the disobedient. The only way they could understand this metaphor is if they had been spanked as children. Finally Psalm 23:4 we see David consider the rod not just as an instrument of instruction but he finds comfort in the rod of God. the lesson to be gleaned here is that often during the punishment we do not like or understand it but after when we look back on it we see care, love, concern and it brings comfort. I see many a teenager that wasn't disciplined as a child and they act out because ultimately they feel unloved. Their parents didn't care enough to be involved in raising them right and when they look back that is what the teen sees.

Before we throw the baby out with the bath water we need to take a closer look at everything.

what i might have considered a mediocre photo in the past might have great potential when worked right.

For more on HDR photography go to:

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/