My wife and I were flipping through channels on the TV one night last week.
Well, actually, my wife had control of the remote and I was trying to keep her from seeing that I was slightly interested in her shows by “working” on my laptop (which doubles as a heating pad in this frigid Canadian winter!). We were happily sharing some “quality” relationship time in watching TV together but I finally drew the line when she tuned in to one of those trauma-ER-hospital-story-docudrama things. I get nauseous at the sight of blood and really can’t get why my wife is fascinated by the inner workings of the human body displayed in all of it’s wonderfully made gooey glory on the operating table via a TV in our HOME! I keep telling her she should be a nurse. But she says she can’t handle snotty noses or dirty diapers (the early years with our children were….interesting….). Being the hero husband that I am I suggested to her that I really wanted our quality time together in front of the TV to continue so could we please watch something else (and threatened to leave the room – with my laptop of course)!
“Strange Fire”
Jan 7
[photo from Flickr]
This past summer at my church Marshall Eizenga and I preached through a series called The Bible’s Biggest Losers and a couple of the people I preached about were Nadab and Abihu (kind of sounds like names Disney writers would come up with doesn’t it?). Now these names might be a bit unfamiliar to you. Probably because there isn’t a whole lot said about them in the Bible. Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and the first man to be called High Priest of Israel. What’s interesting about their story is that they were literally burned alive by fire coming out from the presence of the Lord. Well, interesting in a kind of macabre kind of way. What did these two brothers do to deserve this?
1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. (Leviticus 10:1 NIV)
Where the NIV translators used the word “unauthorized” to describe the fire, the KJV Bible calls it “strange” fire (hence the title of the message). What was so strange about their fire? In the message I gave three reasons:
[image from flickr]
..and new decade – wow! What was I doing 10 years ago? Hmmm…I think I was doing an all-nighter with some youth in the church I was pastoring in Hanover. Honestly, I can’t remember… which is probably not a good thing. I actually caught myself saying to my 6 year old son tonight that in 40 years I will probably be dead. Note to self: don’t tell your young child at his bedtime that you are going to die someday. It leads to a very long conversation. Just saying.
I’m really looking forward to 2010 and this next decade. From a tech point-of-view, the changes that I’ve experienced in the past 10 years are simply astounding! Of course there have been a lot of changes in my personal life as well. I really can’t imagine what the next 10 years are going to bring!
As far as new years resolutions go, I’ve never really been one to make them – I guess I always think, why should I only resolve things only once a year? It’s funny, but for me, my year tends to start in September, not January – must be something to do with having kids in school and pastoring a church…
A little late to the party but here’s my contribution to all those top 10 lists that are appearing all over the blogosphere (is that word even used anymore?)…
For most of 2009 I didn’t post as frequently as I wanted to here at UnfoldingNeurons.com but I did manage to get a few posts off. I thought I’d take some time at the end of this year to give an overview of the most viewed posts. Since anything to do with my Organize Series plugin kind of blows all the other posts out of the water I’m going to skip including it in this list. I’m also only including in this list posts that I actually wrote in 2009. Starting with the most viewed post…
- Number 1: Donate Friday
- Number 2: Catalyst Day One: Rob Bell
- Number 3: Catalyst Day One: Francis Chan
- Number 4: Catalyst Day Two: Dave Ramsey – “The Momentum Theorem”
- Number 5: Why I think every Church and Pastor should Blog
- Number 6: How I Keep Track of Printed Articles [Evernote Usage]
- Number 7: …because it’s the way it’s always been done
- Number 8: Catalyst Day Two: Chuck Swindoll
My name is Darren Ethier. I'm the Assistant Pastor of Waterloo Pentecostal Assembly in Waterloo, Ontario. I'm the father of four children and husband of the most beautiful woman in the world. My passion is technology and it's strategic use in ministry. I'm also the developer of the popular WordPress plugin Organize Series 
