I’m a Facebook Freak

Okay, I admit it. I’m a Facebook freak. I love it. 

Since I joined Facebook I’m more in touch with our daughters and with our grandchildren. I’m better in touch with my siblings who are on Facebook and I’ve learned to know nieces and nephews better and even know what’s happening in their lives. I have somewhere around 95 first cousins, although way too many have gone on to heaven already. (My mom had eleven siblings and dad had six and all except one of Dad’s (a brother) lived to raise their own families). In addition to all these first cousins, all of whom I know and love, I now know my cousins in the second and third generations that I never knew before, but have become their friends on Facebook.

Of course, one reason is that Carol and I have such wonderful families! We are so blessed to have two wonderful daughters, their spouses, and four wonderful grandchildren. We keep in touch so much better through Facebook and added to that, I love being able to email back and forth. This is an amazing time that we live in. I love the information age. I think it’s the best “age” yet!

But we also enjoy our extended families—the Blumenbergs and Aringtons, (my family) and the VanScoiks and Hiatts (Carol’s family). Many of them are on Facebook—and probably many more are on, but we haven’t learned about them, haven't found them and haven’t yet become their “friends”.

I also love families. The family is a creation of God and he liked what he did there so much that he modeled the church after it and made the church just a great big extended family that includes all the “saints” in every state, nation, culture, continent, and every era of time.

I also like that fact that Facebook is a good place for a prayer meeting. I don’t know if Mark Zuckerburg is a praying man, but his Facebook invention now makes it possible for prayer requests, praises, prayers and answers to prayer to skim across the internet almost at the speed of light. I once placed a prayer request on Facebook and had a commitment to pray within two seconds from a niece who lives over a hundred miles away. Thank God for Mark Zuckerberg!

Just yesterday I had a Facebook conversation back and forth with Tammie Tregellas, our Missionary in Malawi. Several months ago, once again through Facebook, I became friends with Emmanuel Masamba, one of our pastors in Malawi, Africa. What an incredible time to be alive!

There are some things I don’t like about Facebook. I don’t like farms, factories and games and if any of you asks me to be involved I just klick on “Hide”. Sorry, but I’m just being honest.  If it was up to me all the Facebook farms, etc. would just disappear. But not the people who farm those farms or run those factories—I still love all of you! I just don’t want to visit your farms, factories, etc., unless they’re real and you’re there to greet me.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.
:)

Everybody Has a Story!

When winter comes people tend to spend more time indoors. Even for those of us who enjoy the snow and the outdoors in winter, there are still times when the weather or darkness forces us inside and that is a great time to work on the family genealogy. Every time one of our old folks die they take with them a multitude of family stories that will be lost forever. The only way to prevent this is to get those stories recorded. The best way is to write or record them yourself as a genealogical gift, both to your forebears and to your descendants.

If you're a senior citizen don't wait until someone asks, take the time to write your memories and save them for your descendants. Don't worry about how well you do it. Just get the information recorded before it is lost. Some of my most important family information was written in the trembling hand of an aged ancestor and those documents are now treasures.

I remember with great fondness both sets of my grandparents. They lived in the same town, went to the same church, and called each other “Brother and Sister Blumenberg” or “Brother and Sister Arington”. They first became acquainted when both their families attended Pulltight Church of God in Southeast Missouri. During the 1937 flood on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers which destroyed so much farmland and disrupted so many people’s lives, my Blumenberg grandparents lived on the dry side of the levee, but my Arington grandparents lived on the flooded side. When the Missouri State Police warned residents they had to get out, Grandpa Arington took his family, as many possessions as he could carry with available wagons and teams, along with cows hogs, chickens and kids, and furniture including stoves, then headed for the dry side of the levee. Grandpa Blumenberg invited grandpa Arington to put his livestock in his barns and pastures until he could get settled. Grandma Arington and the girls spent the night at the Blumenbergs, while Grandpa Arington and the boys went to a house they had rented, to put up stoves and get it ready to live in.

Two of Grandpa Blumenbergs sons, our Dad Roy, and our Uncle Elmer, married two of Grandpa Arington’s daughters, our mother Mollie and our Aunt Dalvia. What an amazing amount of happiness those two marriages conceived, along with nine kids and a multitude of grandchildren and great-grandchildren!

This is one of my favorite grandparent stories and it is the sort of story that makes family history fun to read. Your family has similar stories if you will seek them out and write them down. If you don’t, those stories will soon be lost forever, so get it done before it is too late!

My friend Bob Confer, one of the pastors at First Church of God in St Joseph, Michigan, has written a workbook to help with this important and joy-filled process. If you would like to know more about the Living Legacy Journal, by Bob Confer, email Pastor Bob at the church (bob.c@myfirstchurch.com) to order a copy for yourself. You can use it to teach a Sunday School class, share with a small group, or just use it for your own family to get your history recorded before you grow old and lose it. I know you think you’ll never grow old, but if you’re lucky, you will. Someday you’ll be the older generation and the stories of your parents and grandparents will only be recorded in your mind. Don’t let those stories die when they would mean so much to your descendants.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . .and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

The god Atheists don’t believe in…

During the recent Spring floods on the Mississippi River, when they blew the levy at Bird’s Point in Southeast Missouri, I read the comments about the event. One person, who claimed to be an atheist, wrote “What good does it do to pray to god? He is the one who sent the flood?” His point was that Christians are obviously confused about their science and theology.

That’s really bad science and, if possible, even worse theology. Anyone who understands weather knows God did not send the flood. It was a major weather event and many of us think it was made worse by human intervention—but why would we blame God for that? On the other hand and contrary to our atheist or agnostic commentor, praying for the people affected by the flood makes perfect sense for those of us who believe in the Creator God who showed his love to us in Christ Jesus and continues to show it with his loving care and companionship.

It seems to me that atheists reject the same false gods that we Christians don’t believe in either. If they knew the God we know, the One who created the heavens and the earth, and who came to earth as the Creator among his creation, in order to redeem us from the sin into which we have fallen, they would find it much easier to believe in Him. If God were like how most atheist and agnostics describe him, I wouldn’t believe in him either and I certainly wouldn’t love him.

The reason Jesus came was to help us know what God is really like. Many times the Old Testament concepts people had about God were a sort of mixture of paganism and primitive thought made firm and unyielding because those same people made them into laws, and tried to force their ideas on the people around them. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now—at least it doesn’t work to make the world a better place. But when Jesus came, we got an entirely different view of God.

Looking at Old Testament Israelites through the eyes of Jesus we can see that God’s original plan was for his people to save the world rather than conquer it, but they never seemed to understand. Jesus introduced radical new ideas like turning the other cheek and walking the second mile—ideas that were totally beyond human comprehension. If Jesus hadn’t come to demonstrate how they worked, we never would have understood them. Doing them is so much more difficult than talking about them. We needed someone, not just a teaching, but a person—Jesus, to show us how to live out such a new and different concept.

Our task as the people of God is to be Jesus to the people we meet who have never met him. We need to turn the other cheek and walk the second mile and find all sorts of ways to show people that we value them. When they grasp the fact that we really do care, we have opened the doorway of their hearts to know God, the source of all such unconditional love. We know from the Word of God that God is love. It is the nature of his being. He loves everyone, everywhere and he loves this beautiful world and universe he created. His goal is not to cast us into a devil’s hell, but to redeem us from Satan’s entrapment. He is on our side! He wants to help! That’s what Jesus came to teach us, but even the teachings of Jesus are not enough for many people—they need someone to show them how such ideas work in the everyday stress of life.

Our job is to surrender our bodies to the Spirit of God so he can reveal his unconditional love in as many ways as possible to a world of people who cannot even comprehend a God like that. However, if they can see Jesus in us, they will see God in him and by thus working together with God we can help him transform the world into a place where the unconditional love of God is shared openly across cultures and beyond human barriers, breaking down walls that divide us and helping all people on earth to live together as loving and beloved siblings in the marvelous family of God!

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

Squabbles in the Family of God

Christians are a lot like oil companies—we all think our brand is the best, even though any one of them will get us where we want to go, whether we’re talking about fuel to get our cars to the grocery store, or faith to get our souls to heaven. But once in a while we get all in a dither about the specifics of our beliefs and when that happens, the greatest arguments usually come, not from those who are farthest apart, but from those who are closest. A recent example is the book Love Wins, by Rob Bell, former pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church near Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The media, who love Rob Bell, jumped on his latest book and the fact that he is a bit wishy-washy about whether or not anyone will go to hell. His rationale for questioning this is that the Bible makes it clear God does not want anyone to go to hell, so Rob’s thinking is that since God is God, he can always get whatever he wants and since he wants all people to be saved, maybe they will be. His conclusion is that since the Bible talks a lot more about grace than eternal damnation, maybe we should preach more about grace and eternal damnation, not so much. The media then acted as if Pastor Bell didn’t believe in hell and as if he were a Universalist, who believes that everyone can be saved in any religion. (Sort of like how it would be if our cars would run on any liquid instead of just any gasoline.)

The biggest criticisms seemed to come from Rob’s Reformed “friends”, such as Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. who has been quoted as saying Bell’s “Love Wins” book was “theologically disastrous”. While his Reformed and Calvinist friends seem to think Bell is a heretic, we Arminians have always thought God was more about salvation than condemnation (even though our preaching has not always made that clear) but when Rob says God wants all people to be saved, we say, “Welcome to the Wesleyan-Arminian world of Christian theology.”

The problem, of course, is that if you accept the concept that God wants all people to be saved (as is clearly stated in 2 Peter 3:9 which tells us God doesn’t want anyone to perish, but instead, wants everyone to come to repentance. Or, I Timothy 2:1-4 where we are urged to pray for everyone because God wants everyone to be saved. Then you begin to have serious reservations about “unconditional election”, the concept that before the world was created God chose some people to be saved and others to be eternally lost with no hope of salvation. I don’t know if Rob Bell considers himself to be among those with this Calvinist-Reformed theology, but I think they have always claimed him and now this revelation in “Love Wins” stirs up a plethora of  squabbles among our Calvinist brethren. It will be interesting to see where it leads, if it goes anywhere at all, or if it just flutters out and disappears.

Rob’s writing also suggests we need to be open to the possibility that an opportunity for salvation may exist after death. He sees this as a possibility that can be found in scripture rather than an anti-biblical heresy. On the Mars Hill website they have FAQs about the book “Love Wins” and it is written “Love Wins helps us have a biblical imagination that leaves room for the hope of the redemption of all while recognizing humanities free will to continue to reject God.” That definitely requires imagination, but I’m not convinced it is biblical.

What I do know is that our faith should be big enough for us to love each other even when we don’t fully agree on the details. I thank God for all those in the family and out because I believe we are all created in the image of God and all valid subjects of His amazing grace and love. I thank God for Rob Bell even when I’m not sure I fully agree with him. I even thank God for those Christians with whom I greatly disagree. As Bill Gaither wrote, “There’s plenty of room in the family” and I do greatly love the family of God even in the midst of and in spite of our family squabbles.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

The woods are sparkling tonight!

“The woods are sparkling tonight!” said Carol as we drove into our front yard and I parked the car beneath the over-hanging trees.

I loved that phrase and wanted to be sure I remembered it so I could use it later in some sort of written communication. She was talking about the abundance of fireflies that seemed to fill the woods on the tree-covered dunes that encircle our home. They seemed to be everywhere. This year they seem to be much more numerous than in recent years. They were so thick they reminded each of us of nights of our separate childhoods, mine in Southeast Missouri and hers in Northern Indiana. 

In both places we grew up with the amazing experience of seeing lightning bugs sparkling all around us any evening we were outside at dusk. They were not only beautiful, but harmless and probably beneficial, although I have always thought of them as being there mostly for my personal enjoyment. They were easy to catch and would continue to blink their phosphorescent lights on my fingers as they crawled out of my hand—closed, but not so tight as to harm them.

So Carol’s phrase, which so beautifully described what we saw, transported each of us to the private places of our separate childhoods. With memories that were remarkably similar even though almost 500 miles apart, we sat for a moment in the car and watched this beauty created by God that has blessed human life with joy over eons of time and throughout the Midwest. 

Why did God create fireflies? Why here but not everywhere? What makes them glow and why do they blink? I don’t have a clue as to the answer to any of these questions. I’m sure someone who studies bugs could tell me where they fit into the environment. But I’ll still feel like they were made just for our enjoyment.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

Remembering Dr. Fred Schmidt

As I write this I just received news of the death of a saint—Dr. Fred Schmidt, beloved former Superintendent of Lakeshore Schools, retiree, Realtor, retiree, and all the while, churchman extraordinaire. When Carol and I first came to this area, Dr. Fred was one of the first people we met. Many newcomers to First Church of God say the same thing. He looked for new people and made us all feel welcome with his friendly smile, warm handshake and cheerful voice. He had the gift of hospitality and used it for years in our congregation and throughout our community. Even people in our community who never knew Dr. Fred benefited greatly from his life through his positive influence on students, co-workers, and employees.

While Superintendent, Dr. Fred helped start Lakeshore Rotary Club. Their website reads, “In 1973, Bill Galbreath and Fred Schmidt both worked in the Superintendent’s Office at Lakeshore Schools. Bill commented to Fred, ‘We should have a Rotary Club in the Lakeshore Area’….Fred was convinced. Despite invitations to join the St Joseph/Benton Harbor Club, Bill and Fred persisted in forming a new club.”

I’m not surprised Dr. Fred helped start a “service” club. That fits.

Many people knew Fred and Norma as the friendly couple who drove the beautiful old car in the Blossomtime Parade and area events. This year, they were Honorary Grand Marshalls—once again riding in their 1930 Model A Sport Coupe.

Fred and Norma came to the area in 1973 to be Superintendent at Lakeshore School System. They quickly become a special part of our community.

Often when our church missionaries gathered to go on a mission trip to some far-off place like Mexico, Paraguay, Atlanta, or West Virginia, Fred would be there early to see them off and join in prayer for their safety, the success of their venture and for them to have a wonderful time doing good mission work. Most youth and even some adults probably knew little or nothing about Fred’s great contribution to our community and to our congregation—he was just the friendly man who exuded love and joy—and made them feel loved by the entire congregation.

Fred represented his Lord and Savior well in everything he did.

For years he’s been one of our best teachers—along with his beloved wife Norma. They were a marvelous team in the adult Sunday School class, and led one of our most successful, enduring and largest Life Groups.

When I visited him in the hospital just hours before his death, I asked how I should pray. He said, “Pray I can accept God’s will.” That was the story of his life. He always wanted to be centered in God’s will, serving him not only whole-heartedly, but with joyful exuberance. I’m just sorry I didn’t stay longer and be there for his promotion to Glory. I’m sure the Lord Jesus came personally to welcome him home and see him safely to the other side. It would have been good to be present for such a meeting, even if I couldn’t see all that was happening, I know it would have been a special moment—perhaps shared by his recently departed friend Don Goetz.

What Paul wrote to Timothy (II Timothy 4:7&8) could have been written for Dr. Fred: “⁷I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Dr. Fred was a great example of practical sainthood. One of many I've known and a great example for all of us in this community he quickly learned to love. Goodbye Brother. We'll miss you, but we'll see you in the morning.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . .and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

Jeremiah's Prophecy

In Jeremiah we read a prophecy of the Christ and of the times in which we now live. The key verse is 34, which reads “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

This is a prophecy of our time—a prophecy of Christ and of the times in which we live—the time from his resurrection to his return in glory. The prophecy has not been fully fulfilled but it is our task (the task of the people of God and our privilege) to help usher in the fullness of the Kingdom of God by the prayers of the saints, the witness of the risen Christ in our lives and in our testimonies, and, by the power of his Spirit fully revealed in the life and witness of the people of God!

Sometimes our hellfire and brimstone preaching sounds as if God is rubbing his hands in glee, thinking about the time when he can cast all those lost sinners into the lake of fire. But God’s word clearly states that his desire is for our salvation and for the salvation of the whole world. The Bible clearly states that hell was prepared, not for people, but for the devil and his demons. It is no place for people and God doesn’t want anyone to go there. Only Satan desires such and sin is the only thing that will put us there—not God.

Jesus asked us to pray for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now we know that in heaven everyone loves God and lives to praise him, so if the Lord ’s Prayer is answered, that means the time should come when everyone on earth loves God and serves him with all our hearts. I’m not talking about a future millennial age—I believe this is a prophecy for this present age.

The Jeremiah prophecy in chapter 31 verses 31-34 and especially verse 34, speaks of a time when everyone will know the Lord, when God will forgive our wickedness and no longer remember our sins. This can be nothing else but a prophecy of the Christ and his present kingdom.

It would appear that God’s heart is blessed more by vibrant faith than anything else and I think the reason is that it is God’s plan, through the faith, prayers, and witness of his people, to fulfill the kingdom as he saves lost souls through Christ and in so doing, transforms society, one life at a time. He is doing that now, all over the world! What a marvelous and exciting time we live in!

Just as God has poured out his Spirit into the lives of his people who have been saved through faith in Christ, he wants this same blessing for every human being on the face of the earth. God prophesied it long ago through Jeremiah and it is our glorious privilege to live in the time when the prophecy is being fulfilled. But it is not happening as fast as it ought to be!

It is not only our privilege, but our task, and our calling, to pray, as Jesus taught us, for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is our privilege to be Christ’s witnesses as we live transformed by his Spirit to do good works and thus glorify our Father in heaven.

I am told approximately one-third of the people on our planet are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is marvelous when you think that Jesus began with twelve not very competent disciples only about 2,000 years ago! But it’s not good enough! God loves everyone on earth! May the prophecy of Jeremiah be fulfilled in our day and may we each be privileged to join God in what he is doing and hopefully, see this prophecy fulfilled in our lifetimes!

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

Attitude is the Issue

Following are words of a poem written by Daniel Sydney Warner sometime before 1895.

Some murmur when the sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,
If some small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue.
And some with thankful love are filled,
If but one streak of light—
One ray of God’s good mercy guild
The darkness of their night.

Notice, Warner is really saying attitude is the issue. What situation we are in is important, but an even more important question is “How do we look at the situation in which we find ourselves?” Do we look only at the cloud or do we see the silver lining? Are we the type to complain about the one tiny cloud in a beautiful sky of blue? Or, the type to thank God for that one beautiful streak of moonlight shining through on a dark and lonely night?

The question we each need to ask is, What attitude do I have? When the sky is a beautiful blue with few, if any clouds, do I ignore the beauty and look instead at the small and insignificant clouds? What do I look for and expect? Do I notice the good or the not so good? When it rains is it a shower of blessing or do I let it ruin my day?

There are two kinds of people in the world (talk about a clique). But it really is true, as with most cliques! One kind always seems to look on the bright side, see the beauty, or the good, in every situation. Another kind always sees the bad, no matter how much good there is around.

The real questions is which kind of person do you want to be? What kind of person I am now is not as important as what I want to become. If I tell my brain what I want to be, this marvelous part of the human anatomy will work hard to help me become that. But we do have to tell our brains what we want. Our brains don’t make decisions for us. They merely obey what we tell them and work hard to help us achieve what we want. If I try to eat less in order to lose weight, but I continue to tell my brain, I am a fat person. My brain may help me continue to be what I tell it I am. Rather than cooperate with the diet, it will try to sabotage it.

That’s why attitude matters so much. Our attitudes communicate to our brains at a feeling level what is important to us and basically tells our brains what to work on. But the brain doesn’t just work on it, that marvelous brain of ours gets all of the other organs of our bodies working together to accomplish what it believes is important to us. If our attitudes say one thing, but our words say another, the brain trusts the attitude unless you tell your brain “My attitude stinks and I want to change it.”

Another thing that helps in this process of change is prayer. With prayer we can ask God’s help in the change process. However, God won’t always help. He only helps when the thing we desire is good for us. He is not like a brain to be bossed around. He is God. He loves us and wants what is best for us. It is better if we first ask God what is best for us and then seek his help to accomplish it.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

What it means to worship

When we worship God, and we can only rightly use the word “worship” in regards to God, because nothing and no one else deserves our worship. But when we do worship God, all we do is

appreciate God at the level he deserves!

All of us like to be appreciated. And I mean genuine appreciation, not flattery. There is a huge difference. An example would be if someone says to me “Rick, you are absolutely the handsomest man on the face of the earth.” It does not make me feel good because I know it isn’t true. And I know they know it isn’t true. Flattery does not make us feel good, it makes us feel lied to. But when someone says something that is both good and true about you, you feel validated, affirmed and blessed, because this person cares enough to notice something good about you.

So when we worship God, or

appreciate him at the level he deserves

we cannot flatter him, because all superlatives of good are true about God. He is not only the best God there is, he is the only true and living God. He not only Created the best world we have ever seen, he is the only Creator of the entire universe, and all that is good and beautiful and true, including that which is too far away for us to see, even with the Hubble telescope, or too small for us to see, even with the most powerful microscope!

He loved us so much he sent Jesus, the Christ, to be our Savior—the savior of the entire world! “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the whole world through him might be saved.

Jesus loves us so much he sent us his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, to be with us and live in us.

Paul also helps us to understand that true worship is not only when we come together in holy places, but true worship is a life rightly lived in the purpose and power of God. In Romans 12:1(NIV) Paul writes, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

So we gather in holy places to worship God and in so doing, we worship him more effectively in every other hour of our lives and in every place we go because we now understand it is all holy ground.

Eternal God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—we have come to praise you! You, who are light and life and truth and beauty and so many other superlatives beyond our comprehension. All we can offer you is genuine love, enduring faith, hearts bursting with praise and thanksgiving for your goodness to us, and a life well lived in the power of your Spirit. We lift our hearts in genuine offerings of praise and thanksgiving to you. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . .and that's "My View from Tanner Creek."