The Intentionality of My Faith

Over the last few months, I have been thinking about the intentionality of my faith. What do I mean by intentionality?

The term derives from the Latin verb intendo, meaning to point (at) or aim (at) or extend (toward). The term was dusted off a bit in the 19th century by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano; he, being one of the most important predecessors of the school of Phenomenology used it to lay claim that "intentionality is the defining distinction between the mental and the physical; all and only mental phenomena exhibit intentionality."

I was thinking about the few things I do well, and I noticed... there was an intentionality to each of them. I am not one who does very many things well so it was fairly easy to determine that they all have a common theme... intentionality. I try to keep up on the latest education theory, and I think I do a decent job on that even though there are many who will tell you otherwise. But, my point is this: the reason I do it fairly well is because I am intentional about reading and keeping abreast of certain websites, magazines, associations and the like in order to keep current. I do not causally do this, but instead, I am intentional in my actions in this area.

Thinking about the things of faith, the areas where I have grown have been areas soaked with intentionality... scripture memory, discipleship, and teaching are just a few of the many elements that God has used in my life to move me forward in my walk. Quiet times and accountability groups are, again, areas of life that require intentionality in order to be effective and impacting.

So, where am I going in this diatribe? Simple, as men and women, we are sinful and in need of a savior. There is not question that our default is sin and selfishness, so my question is this: how come there are Christian leaders actually moving us away from an intentional approach to life? Jesus our Lord asks for our intentional approach to Him in the gospels when he instructs us to "beware of the false prophets" and "enter the narrow gate" and in chapter eight He gives, in my opinion, one of the most intentional statements ever... "follow me and let the dead bury their own dead."

I have determined that excellence requires discipline, and to be disciplined is to be excellent so... my faith must have an intentionality to it. It must have some disciplined thoughts and actions to my faith and be intentional in more and more areas of it; for example memorizing scripture and prayer are two areas that require intentional thoughts and actions to accomplish the goal. What about your faith? Should you be intentional in it? In what areas? It is a worthy question to examine. Blessings!

Graduation Night for Westminster

There they are... the senior class of 2009 preparing to march. What a class they have been. They have led us through our year of transition with the excellence, the spirituality and the maturity demanded by our situation and circumstance. We are so proud of them for many reasons, but for me, they embody the true meaning of graduation.


Historically, a graduation ceremony is a cultural tradition of sorts and deemed a rite of passage. It marks one stage of a student's life to another. "Rite of passage" was actually termed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in 1909; he believed that all societal passage rituals had 3 steps:(1) Separation from Society(2) Inculcation-transformation; (3) Return to Society in the new status.


The class of 2009 and their families chose to separate from society in the sphere of education. They chose a Christian education for their children. Knowing that education is inculcation and transformation, these families chose to inculcate their children with a Christian worldview through Christian education, which partners with the faith of their family and their church. Trusting that they provided every opportunity for their children to experience that transformation from a child in the Lord to an adult in the Lord, each family now readies to return their student back to society trusting in the Lord that their student is indeed ready to stand for Christ in every situation.


The question will come, "are they ready?" As a parent of two students in Christian education, the time will come when I will have to answer that question. I still may not be able to answer it completely, but I will rest a little easier knowing that my children have been inculcated in a school that believes what I believe and teaches students to think and discern from a Biblical presupposition. After listening to the speeches of our class president and our valadictorian, I now rest a little easier as both speeches made clear statements... we are ready!


I congratulate each student and family of the class of 2009. Well done good and faithful servants!


If your wondering how you can know God in a personal way, please click HERE to read Tim Keller's wonderful article on how to know God and believe in Jesus Christ! Blessings!

A Great Quote

Here is another one to add to our list. Enjoy!


"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. "

Winston Churchill

And the polls show...

...conservatism is on the rise! Despite all that we hear in the media about the death of conservative thought, it appears that the exact opposite is taking place. The headlines read,

"A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995."

Let me say a few words about this. First, it may be the first time this mindset has shown up on any poll, but I believe it has been this way for years. We sit and listen to the media tell us that a conservative will never win another election, but this tells us something totally different. Second, when we break down any poll numbers what we usually find is that there are more liberals responding than there are conservatives. This is why I never get real excited about poll numbers. This article goes on to tell us...

"The new results, obtained from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50% were pro-choice and 44% pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46%, in both August 2001 and May 2002."

The article goes on...

"Americans' recent shift toward the pro-life position is confirmed in two other surveys. The same three abortion questions asked on the Gallup Values and Beliefs survey were included in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 12-13, with nearly identical results, including a 50% to 43% pro-life versus pro-choice split on the self-identification question."

Why the shift?

"A year ago, Gallup found more women calling themselves pro-choice than pro-life, by 50% to 43%, while men were more closely divided: 49% pro-choice, 46% pro-life. Now, because of heightened pro-life sentiment among both groups, women as well as men are more likely to be pro-life."

Will we see this on any front pages or in any headlines in the mainstream media? If not, it will confirm, once again, that most of the media gave up reporting the facts long ago. It does not matter because we know that God is in complete control. Rest in Him and enjoy a glorious Lord's day tomorrow. Blessings!

The Right Way to Read

Dr. Gene Edward Veith Jr. wrote a wonderful article about reading books the right way. As Christians we must never stop reading books the right way. In his article, Flex the Brain, Veith writes,

"A personal relationship to God, like human relationships, is built on the medium of language, of two people communicating with each other. The Christian speaks to God in prayer; God speaks
back by means of His Word."

"So Christians dare not despise reading. In fact, where Christianity has gone, literacy has always followed. The Old Testament scribes and the reading of the books of Moses as a rite of passage for young Hebrews led to Christian academies and the invention of the universities. The very goal of universal literacy grew out of the
Reformation and its emphasis on the Bible."

Veith's point is this: as Christians we should be reading our Bible, and we should be reading books. Veith continues,

"Arthur W. Hunt, in his new book The Vanishing Word, shows how Christianity and the written word have prospered together. He also shows what happens when the habit of reading is lost and people orient themselves instead to sensate images. Reading encourages thinking, reflecting, and the cultivation of truth, but image cultures tend to be driven by subjectivism, superstition, hedonism, and propaganda."

Does any of this sound familiar? As Christians we should be marked by our deep thinking, reflection and cultivation of truth. But, Veith goes deeper in this article and actually provides instructions on how to read and discusses the books we should read.

Reading and the Christian go perfectly together. I highly recommend reading this article as your first step toward reading in the right way. Blessings!

Dawkins and his god...

Richard Dawkins loves evolution and gleefully declares himself an atheist. In a recent article, one gets a sense that his exuberance of Darwin and evolution has made him a weaker scientist and a weaker scholar.

In his latest article, he declares that evolution is not mere opinion but, instead, a "matter of scientific fact" and is therefore off limits as far as debate and criticism. You will never read those words from him, but this sentiment is clearly present between the lines of his writing. Dawkins writes,

"Whence, then, comes the oft-parroted canard, “Evolution is only a theory”? Perhaps from a misunderstanding of philosophers who assert that science can never demonstrate truth. All it can do is fail to disprove a hypothesis. "

Is not science but, first, a theory? Is the word, "theory" a bad word in the world of science these days? Before the laws of gravity were proven, they were theories. Before the laws of thermal dynamics were proven they were theories. And, no real scientist has ever said that science can never demonstrate truth, at times it does, but, at times, it does not. At times, what science states as absolute truth turns out not to be truth at all. The eruption of Mt. St. Helen's proved that strata in rock which science was absolutely certain took millions of years to form, formed in millions... of seconds.

Dawkins is a wonderfully bright man with a dazzling intellect, but his god is evolution, and he worships it in such a fanatical way that it is making him merely an average scientist. Dawkins writes,

"Evolution is, after all, the true story of why we all exist, and an exhilarating powerful and satisfying explanation. It supersedes – and devastates – all predecessors, no matter how devoutly and sincerely believed."

This article concentrates on his support of a book by Jerry Coyne entitled, you guessed it, Why Evolution is True. Dawkins goes back to his pet example of why evolution is true and creationism, his pet antagonist, is not.

"The book includes a lucid exposition of natural selection at the level of the gene (knowing nothing of genes, Darwin expressed it at the level of the individual organism). Coyne describes how a parasitic worm changes the appearance and behaviour of its ant host, turning the ant’s abdomen into a simulacrum of a red berry, angled temptingly up in the air with carefully weakened stalk joining it to the thorax. You’ve guessed the sequel. The “berry”, full of worm eggs, is eaten by a bird, which is the definitive host of the worm."

Is this example taught to all evolutionists? I have a 15 year old article by Dawkins referencing the same parasitic worm. There are other examples of devastation and dominance in the animal kingdom referenced in this article that, according to Dawkins, provide proof that a creator does not exist.

The problem for me is that Dawkins has a worldview with a presupposition that he has predetermined to exclude anything beyond the dimensions of himself. In Expelled, a documentary by Ben Stein, Dawkins is willing to jump to the far-fetched "theory" that life may have been seeded on this planet by alien beings from another planet, but he will not even give the concept of creator a chance. His constant attack of creationism, as a science it has some issues, and now, intelligent design, which is good science, becomes more arrogant, irrational and less scientific with each assault. This article is a perfect example as he writes,

"Such dishonesty by omission is lamentably characteristic of creationists. They love fossils because they have been schooled, wrongly as Coyne shows, to believe that “gaps” in the fossil record are an embarrassment to evolutionary theorists. The geographical distribution of species really is an embarrassment to creationists – and they conspicuously ignore it. "

He goes on to reference Coyne's reference to the parasitic worm but does not write about the "gaps" in the fossil record. Evolutionists have conveniently explained it a way with the "Cambrian explosion" which was the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals around 530 million years ago, as evidenced by the fossil record. According to Wikipedia,

"The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted as early as the mid 19th century, and Charles Darwin saw it as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection."

But, you will not read that or hear that from Dr. Dawkins, and Wikipedia is not exactly the preferred Christian reference.

I grow frustrated with those who write articles that take shots at God and Christianity with no fear of anyone or anything. Dr. Dawkins is bright, but each article he writes in defense of his god, evolution, is less scientific and less scholarly than the last. When I first began to read his work many years ago he was difficult to understand, at times, but always well written and well researched. With each passing article, I find him crawling closer to becoming what he claims is detrimental to all of us... a religious fundamentalist with a closed mind unwilling and unable to hear or discern truth. I pray Dr. Dawkins discovers the truth before it is too late. Blessings!

Another Great Quote

Here is another great quote. Enjoy!


"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence,
therefore is not an act but a habit."


Aristotle

The Grand Opening of the Brockway Campus

On Saturday, May 9th at 11:00 am Westminster Christian Academy and Westminster Presbyterian Church celebrated the grand opening of their new Brockway campus at 237 Johns Road with a Ribbon Cutting ceremony attended by over 700 people. Representative Parker Griffith, Mayor Tommy Battle along with other local officials and representatives of the church and school cut the ribbon that officially opened the first academic building of Westminster Christian Academy at the Brockway campus, a ministry of Westminster Presbyterian Church for 45 years.

Even though the rains came and the power went out briefly, the enthusiasm could not be dampened as the crowd came and kept coming. Eventually the rain gave way to the sun and the power returned just at Mr. Curry Knight, chairman of the Westminster School Board, stepped to the podium to begin the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. Mayor Battle, Rep. Griffith and members of the school and church all made meaningful remarks directed at the school's desire to educate students in Christ and in excellence and to be a meaningful part of the community. The ceremony went better than expected and ended with the cutting of the ribbon and the official opening of the Brockway campus.

As the sky cleared, many took advantage of the dry weather to walk the campus and take in the recent additions. Coach Dick Spybey, Director of Athletics at Westminster, gave tours of the new field house, in progress, and painted the completed picture of Van Dyke Stadium with bleachers and track which will be completed sometime in late June.

We give great praise to God for the wonderful things taking place at Westminster. Below, you can find my remarks from the ceremony. We thank you all for your prayers and support. Blessings!



Comments on May 9th:

On behalf of all of us at Westminster Christian Academy, welcome! I would like to extend a special welcome to the WCA school board, the WCA Building Committee, specifically, Mrs. Vicki Boren, Mr. John Cyr, Mr. Jim Service and our building committee chairman, Mr. Keith Johnson, our architect, Mr. Rob Mercer and our builder, Mr. Bruce Mullin. Thank you all for your hard work put in on behalf of the school.

As we stand here before a building that was not here a year ago, we give great praise to our God who has sustained us not only this past year but throughout our 45 year history. Today, we celebrate what God has done and is doing in the life of Westminster Christian Academy, and in that celebration we rejoice with everyone who has been used by God in the school’s 45 year history. Every single person has contributed in some way or another to today’s reality.

What you see before you is a testimony to a Holy God. It is a building of 26,000 square feet on two floors with 23 state –of the –art classrooms, an atrium with concession stand, a 1000 seat gymnasium with a maple flooring system found at many Division I colleges including the likes of Duke and Vanderbilt, and double locker rooms… what you do not see yet are two custom designed modular buildings created to blend in with our new academic building that will become home to our library, our band/choir room and our administrative offices.

As we take residence of our new Brockway campus and all of our new facilities, I am excited about all of this, but I am also excited about what God is doing inside the walls of Westminster. Motivated by I John 4:1 which commands all of us to, “not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,” we have examined our graduates and asked the questions: will they be prepared to further their education in the college or university of their choice? Will they be able to discern and think critically in order to distinguish God’s absolute truth from falsehood? With these two questions in mind, we believe a Westminster education begins with a foundation rooted in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Upon that rock solid foundation, our goal is to produce graduates that can think critically and in higher categories, work independently and do so successfully, and finally, engage their culture in a loving, logical and articulate way while never wavering in their faith in Jesus Christ. We believe in an education that prepares graduates to be in a position to do whatever or go wherever the Lord calls them. We believe in an education that prepares graduates to think critically and discern in order to root out the false prophets and the wolves in sheep’s clothing. This is Westminster Christian Academy, education that is distinctly Christian and excellent in all things.

As I close, I leave you with one of my favorite quotes; it is a quote by G.K. Chesterton that I believe communicates the spirit of a Westminster education. Chesterton once wrote,

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

At Westminster you can expect an education that teaches your children to swim actively against the current toward God and not just float aimlessly with the current away from God. This is the essence of an education that is in Christ and excellence in all things!

On behalf of all of us at Westminster… thank you for being here today to celebrate with us the great things God is doing in our midst. Blessings to all!

Understanding Education's Impact on Culture

As I moved about in society, I have noticed a few things in my forty plus years. I have traveled to the Middle East, the Ukraine, Europe, Mexico and Canada. I have lived in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and now Alabama. And the one thing that keeps coming back to me is this question: do we Christians really understand the impact education has on culture? I am not sure we do.


I am sure that the enemy understands the impact that education has on culture; why else would there be such an intense battle for the nation's colleges and universities? And, the battle is now being waged on the k-12 battlefield. Why does the enemy want our schools? Simple, he wants our children.

Outside of a changed heart through salvation from the Lord, nothing changes a person, a people or a culture like education. By its very nature, it engages culture and shapes culture. Any doubt will disappear with a study of our educational system's last 50 years. Slowly our colleges and universities were over run with those who were liberal, secular and pragmatic in their orientation towards life. As this worldview becomes entrenched in our educational system's fabric, it will soon become the norm of our culture. And, soon, it will be the Christian worldview that is abnormal.

There are many reasons why the Christian worldview is viewed with increasing disdain these days, and I believe that has much to do with an educational system that was lost years earlier. There is a book entitled, The Dying of the Light, which tracks the origins of our colleges and universities. Over 95% 0f our colleges and universities were founded by Christians and their churches. Harvard was founded by the Congregationalists, Penn by the Quakers, Davidson by the Presbyterians, Duke/Trinity by the Baptists and the list goes on and on. These churches donated time, energy and the financial support to ensure that these institutions for higher learning where the very best. They understood that a Holy God commanded them to do "even school" well because education was that important.


Is it that important to us today? Do we understand the impact that education has on culture?
Is it that important to us that there be a Christian school for our children to attend? Is it important enough to give of our time, energy and finances? Or, do we really believe deep down in our soul that there really is no difference, after all school is school. Is it? Click HERE to read one couple's response to this question as they make their case for Christian education. Blessings to all!

Peter Drucker on Leadership

Peter Drucker has authored over 35 books; his ideas have impacted me in many ways. He writes of four main competences leaders need.

1. Listening:

Drucker writes, "As the first such competence, I would put the willingness, ability and self discipline to listen. Listening is not a skill; it is a discipline."

2. Communication:

Drucker continues, "The second essential competence is the willingness to communicate, to make yourself understood. That requires infinite patience."

3. Mediocrity:

Again, Drucker writes, "Say: This doesn't work as well as it should. Let's take it back and re-engineer it. We either do things to perfection, or we do not do them."

4. Selflessness:

Drucker writes, "The last basic competence is the willingness to realize how unimportant you are compared to the task. Leaders need objectivity, a certain detachment. They subordinate themselves to the task, but don't identify themselves with the task. The task remains both bigger than they are, and different."


As leaders, these four competences are vital to leading well. Blessings!