Final Four weekend is upon us! It has been a great run with loads of excitement, although not nearly as many upsets as last year.

UT (the real one) made a good run - almost made it to the Elite Eight. UT (the fake one) left me high-n-dry in my bracket, although I’m not bitter. (sarcastic hint)

Good luck to everyone this weekend. It looks like it could come down to the final game. Thanks to everyone for participating.

Big props go out to Brian for organizing and setting the whole thing up! Thanks, Brian!

After two exciting rounds last weekend the dance continues with the Sweet 16 teams tonight. We’ve got six playing along and the standings so far are :

Texas A&M and Kansas really need to win tonight to keep my bracket from going bust. But, we’ll see how it goes. Good luck to everyone!

UPDATE - 3/23 @ 9am : For my dear wife, the current leader of the pack. Here ya go.

We won’t even talk about what happened to my bracket.

A friend shared the verse below which starts “Christ with me, Christ before me…” at church on Sunday. When I started hunting for it and found it was part of a larger whole I thought I would share it here. It’s commonly known as “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” and I love the Christ-centeredness of it.

I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the
Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession
of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.

I arise today through the strength of Christ with His Baptism,
through the strength of His Crucifixion with His Burial
through the strength of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
through the strength of His descent for the Judgment of Doom.

I arise today through the strength of the love of Cherubim
in obedience of Angels, in the service of the Archangels,
in hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
in prayers of Patriarchs, in predictions of Prophets,
in preachings of Apostles, in faiths of Confessors,
in innocence of Holy Virgins, in deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through the strength of Heaven:
light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendour of Fire,
speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea,
stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.

I arise today, through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to secure me:
against snares of devils, against temptations of vices,
against inclinations of nature, against everyone who
shall wish me ill, afar and anear, alone and in a crowd.

I summon today all these powers between me (and these evils):
against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose
my body and my soul,
against incantations of false prophets,
against black laws of heathenry,
against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry,
against spells of women [any witch] and smiths and wizards,
against every knowledge that endangers man’s body and soul.
Christ to protect me today
against poison, against burning, against drowning,
against wounding, so that there may come abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right,
Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length,
Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the
Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the
Oneness of the Creator of creation.
Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of Christ. May Thy Salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Found this courtesy of Rey (and he, in turn, gives credit where it’s due). None of these are ever 100 percent, but this one was too fun. And fairly accurate. For those of you who know me IRL, do you think it’s a good representation?

My lovely wife notices that in my previous post I wasn’t entirely clear that the invitation to play along with our bracket challenge was only for our buddies out in blog-land. So, if you join you won’t be playing along with weird Uncle Harold or Ted in accounting.

Now that that’s out of the way, if you want to play you’d better sign up soon. And those that have signed up but haven’t made their picks(like me) need to get that done. The deadline is tomorrow morning but the website is usually so jammed that it’s better to get it done the night before.

We have 6 signed up so far but would always welcome more. What are you waiting for? Instructions for how to join are right here.

The brackets are set and March Madness is upon us. I want to invite you(yes you!) to join me in a friendly little challenge. Just click here to fill out your bracket and see how your picks do. Hopefully we’ll have a decent number of people join in and we’ll have fun seeing who wins.

Now for the details…

This group is hosted at CBS Sportsline and you’ll have to register for a free account to play. They do ask for first and last name and you zip code so if you don’t want to give that out then be a little, ummm, creative.

You’ll need a password to join the group. It’s madness.

All picks must be submitted by 11:00AM ET on 3/15. I suggest getting them done by the night before.

The scoring system is as follows :

First Round  : 1  point
Second Round : 2  points
Third Round  : 4  points
Fourth Round : 8  points
Semifinals   : 12 points
Finals       : 16 points

Any questions? Leave a comment and I’ll try to get it answered.

A day late but worth it…

If you’ve never seen Phil Keaggy play live then you’ve really missed something. He has an amazing talent that is just remarkable to see. This video captures a piece of that but if you get a chance to see him on tour then you should. Also check out Phil’s web site for some free music downloads.

I ended my last post asking how one moves away from the mindset engendered by the CofC hermeneutic. For me, it all started to unravel on the issue of instrumental music. The are two main passages that are used to support the view that God does not want instrumental music in worship :

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph 5:17-21)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3:16)

You can probably see where this is going. The passages above say sing, and nothing else. Since scripture elsewhere is silent on the topic of using instruments then we have no authorization to use them. Anything else would be “adding to” the word of God.

Let me step back and say that in the CofC we really like to argue. Setting up debates with local Baptists, atheists, etc. was par for the course. I remember growing up in Sunday School learning how to debate Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, and others on why their doctrine was wrong. If you keep in mind that salvation is dependent on knowing the right things then it makes a little more sense. Suffice to say that the CofC considers themselves very reasonable and logical.

My bent is towards the rational side anyway so all this seemed perfectly natural - and I liked it. But in the end this emphasis on being logical is what started my journey away from the CofC. And the first stop was the prohibition on instrumental music(IM). There were just too many inconsistencies that I couldn’t reconcile. I won’t go through them all but here are two :

• IM is not allowed but song books, pitch pipes, PA systems, etc are. Now the CofC will try to make a distinction between aids(hymnals) and additions(pianos). But in the end I think it’s a false distinction. The addition of any of these things does not prevent singing from happening.
• There are other, clearer commands that get ignored - “Greet each other with a holy kiss”, “…not with braided hair or gold”. With the CofC emphasis on “speaking where the Bible speaks” it seems odd that stuff like this is left out. While the case for forbidding IM is really an argument from silence.

And from there other doctrines start to get questioned - “Why can we meet on Wednesdays when only the first day of the week is authorized?” And the biggie - “Is Baptism really essential for salvation?”. Which leads to - “Are there other Christians besides us?”

One thing you’ll notice is that I’m still approaching scripture from a slice and dice perspective - though I’m trying to do it consistently. There’s that nasty little thing called context that I’ll talk about next time.