Darren LeBlanc

The term “false teachers” isn’t one I use very often. It seems like a term that one of those “holier-than-thou” type Christians would always be using and I spend a great deal of time working on not being one of those folks.  The truth though, is that I haven’t been able to get away from the term this last week. I read a good chunk of the new testament of the Bible in the last few weeks and I’m absolutely astonished as to how many references there are to false teachers. In fact, there are a few books like Jude or 2 John, that basically contain nothing but warnings against false teachers. Yup, entire books of the Bible dedicated to telling us to watch out for people who sound like they know the Bible but really aren’t on point at all.

If we subscribe to the common tennet of Christianity that God’s word is not only what God said 2000 years ago, but what he is saying today…well, its pretty hard to imagine that now in 2009, we suddenly don’t have to worry about this problem. So what does this mean?

I guess it means that we are needing to be wise in what we accept as good teaching. Perhaps it means that we need to study the Bible on our own and discern whether or not what we are being taught is true. I am no expert in this…in fact, over the course of my life I’ve been pretty bad at studying the Bible on my own. But I work on it. I’m just thinking out loud here.

I’d love to take the next few years and study the teachings of all the preachers on TV and radio and examine their doctrines…but I’m hardly qualified. I can tell you though, if your teacher tells you that Jesus wants you to have a life without suffering, or perhaps a life of financial prosperity…well, he isn’t reading the same Bible that I do :)

But seriously, I was just amazed at the frequency with which the net testament exhorts us to be careful about false teachers. I’m going to be thinking about that this week.

For my Christian readers, I’d like to pass on a great blog post from today. Mark Batterson exhorts us with a candid discussion about how he hasn’t done the best job of personal bible study/reading in recent years. He notes that its imperitive for us to feed ourselves, not just rely on a pastor to “feed” us. Makes a lot of sense when we think about how in reference to physical needs, even my Olivia is feeding herself…and she is 2. Most of us are spiritually mature enough to be feeding ourselves in that area as well.

http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/the_best_decision_i_made_this_year/

Today, as I was driving home, I got pulled over on rt 36 eastbound – just after the Home Depot plaza. I knew I wasn’t speeding, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have any lights out or anything. I politely asked the officer why I was pulled over and he told me he was on seat belt duty…and I wasn’t wearing said critical protection device.  My first ticket in probably 8 years or so. And despite my disagreement with its mandated use, I do usually wear my seat belt!!

It is fairly amusing how 12 days ago I posted THIS.  Apparently, the Click It or Ticket campaign is quite real :)

By the way, the officer was quite pleasant.

As I crossed the George Washington Bridge tonight on my way home from MA, I landed on one of the local NYC stations. There was an ad sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration promoting their Click it or Ticket campaign. I didn’t really love the ad…and at first I was even annoyed that my tax dollars were spent helping big brother remind me to be a big boy.

I have somewhat loathed the whole seat belt law for years. Not because I want to be reckless, but because I feel like it should be my decision to protect myself or not. I always wear a seat belt, but shouldn’t that be my decision? And if the government imposes rules about my personal private safety in a car, why don’t they impose it in my house. By extension, I would expect that it should be illegal to shower without a non-slip mat underfoot (as there are thousands of slip-fall deaths each year in the shower).

Well, here is where my high school political science thinking was wrong. No one (especially not the government) cares about  my getting hurt. If they did, the Golden Gate Bridge would have safety nets since well over 1200 people have committed suicide by jumping from it (yeah, probably multiple people this month). The choice to not implement that is largely to maintain aesthetics but also due to the cost of implementing it (their words are “engineering challenges” which as an engineer I know means it just costs a few bucks). The decision to make me wear a seat belt comes back to the same thing everything else comes back to: money.

“On average, inpatient hospital care costs for an unbolted crash victim are 50 percent higher than those for a belted crash victim. Society bears 85 percent of those costs, not the individuals involved. Every American pays about $580 a year toward the cost of crashes. If everyone buckled up, this figure would drop significantly. By reaching the goal of 90 percent seat belt use, and 25 percent reduction in child fatalities, we will save $8.8 billion annually.” (reference)

I’m glad my fundamental right to worry about my own safety is infringed upon for something more than just my own well-being :)

I’ve long been a fan of Google. I mean what is there not to like? They make great products and give them away for free (hmmm…reminds me of anthem of hope..haha). Like google documents (love it), google voice, google analytics and scads of others.

Well today they announced a new product: Autopilot for Gmail. In short, it is an application that reads your email and sends intelligent automated responses. Basically, you can set it up with your preferences (even preferences for misplelling words and using emoticons) to make it look like its really you. After it tracks a couple hundred of your responses it can take over and do the work for you.  Here is a screen capture:

 But, alas…once again the internet giant has fooled me on April 1st.

(Thanks to Chris Renda for his twitter post helping me realize this was an april fools joke. They had me going for a bit)

Anyway, I have strep and am told I need to get more sleep. So I’m off to bed early, but it feels good to blog again :)

I went a lunch today for a group of pastors in my area. Someone spoke briefly and encouraged the group that we all need to remember that if someone isn’t a Christian, it may just be that no one has ever told them. Well, in his case, that was true. I’ll never question his story. And in many other cases, that is also true. But, I dont suspect those cases are the majority. A couple weeks back I read, Unchristian, by David Kinnaman. I mentioned it before and the discussion today brought it to memory. Here is a clip from that book: >> Listen to the Audio Clip

See, I would tend to agree with Mr Kinnaman here. And from that this is what I suggest…The major problem today isn’t lack of information. The problem isn’t what people don’t know about Christians, its what they do know. It’s the image that people have that is constructed of the lives they observe. The overhwleming image of Christianity is one that is not appealing…and for that, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Comments? I will discuss this more soon…

I got a call a few weeks back from a good friend who had listened to “Family Radio” on some station out of Camden, NJ. The teacher, Harold Camping, said a few things that made this young lady a bit worried.

I didn’t want to write this beacuse I really don’t want to give the guy any more publicity, but I’m worried that some of you have come across his teachings and perhaps not noticed. You can easily recognize his voice because he sounds very old and almost sounds like he has some speech problems going on. I’m not in anyway making fun of him, just trying to help you recognize his voice if you hear it (its certainly not a usual “broadcast” voice).

Anyway, this guy is a quack. Completely off the wall. Honestly, unless you are a Bible student and want to spend some time researching how stupid his ideas are, I wouldn’t even listen. He predicted the world would end in 1994, and now he is preaching its 2011. Apparently, the church is run by satan and everyone should flee from it.

Ok, enough of that. I just wanted to encourage you to change the channel if you hear a really old man with a funny voice talking about the Bible on “Family Radio”.

By the way, I picked up the video from Misty’s service tonight. I’ll have it available soon. It came out great. That will get its own post away from Mr. Camping…but not tonight. (I’m tired – its kinda late)

I miss my wife. Yes, I still call her my wife. I still wear my ring. I don’t know….in some ways, everything has changed, but in others…not much has. That could easily be a corny line in any stupid story, but really, it feels like that sometimes. I still miss her like I did the first day she was gone. In that way, nothing has changed over these 5 months. I don’t have any desire to be with anyone, nor do I suspect that will change in the very near future.

I often get asked about dating, so I decided to just come out and talk about it. When Misty died, I knew that someday there might be a chance that I would marry again. I thought however, that it was wise for me to set some boundaries so that no matter what emotional state I may be in, I don’t make poor choices in trying to fill the hole from Misty, with someone else. I decided early on that I would wait at least a year before even considering if I would date again. I think too often we let bad emotional times in our life dictate our relationships. This is so destructive.

PS. this all came from a discussion I had tonight. A friend that I respect very much exhorted me that sometimes my friendliness is perceived as flirting. I appreciate good friends to keep me in check! And at his request, I’m letting you know that if I give you a hug and compliment your hair, I’m just being friendly :)

I took my date out to the mall tonight. She had a great time. The escalators are just about her favorite thing in the world. And when we are up on the second level she loves to look through the glass down at the people and wave. Occasionally she will catch someone’s eye and get a wave-back. This of course thrills her. Also occasionally, she will put her face on the glass and force me to speak strongly about germs and such. We walked through the whole mall just observing people riding the escalators. Letting her walk by herself next me makes her feel so grown up, like she is among all the big people…and just one of the crowd.

Tonight though, I was taken aback with my own Pharisaical tendencies. I passed a man who was speaking to his son in a way that I didn’t totally approve of. Immediately, I was filled with this sense of how much better I am than him. A few seconds later I came to my senses and nearly slapped myself. Please don’t get caught up on the fact that the manner in which this man was speaking was in fact wrong…that doesn’t matter. I want to ignore his ignorance for a moment and talk about my arrogance.

This is something that creeps up often and I hate myself for it. For instance, if I am in a group, I often have this instinctive compulsion to play “can you top this” during group interchanges. A few weeks back, I went to a photography expo with a few friends and 3 or 4 times during the day I found myself literally biting on my tongue while doing some serious coercing of my inner attention hungry demon.

Even in little things I find myself struggling with pride. My aunt Valerie told me that she has seen such a change in me over the past year. I immediately felt the need to explain why I may just have been a little more mature than she thought a year ago. Give me a break. And when I took those pictures of Acadia National Park a few months back, I don’t think I ever gave full credit to Artie Hughes who taught me a few things before I went. It was like “oh no, people can’t know that I’m only now learning how to use a circular polarizer” – yes, I struggle with pride.

Some recent research by the Barna Group (an authority in church-related statistics) indicates that for 16-29 year olds who are not Christians, the #1 reason for hostile feelings towards Christianity is the perception of a certain swagger or arrogance that we Christians carry around. That makes me sad and I’m going to do my best to not support that statistic.

In his musings on Christianity (and the disparate lives of its purported Christians) Leo Tolstoy writes:

Blame me — I do that myself — but blame me,
and not the path I tread and show to those who ask me where,
in my opinion, the road lies ! If I know the road home, and
go along it drunk, staggering from side to side — does that
make the road along which I go a wrong one ?

Anyway, I am not always an arrogant jerk…wait… Here I go again…caring too much about what you think of me :)

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 1 Corinthians 3:7

I went to the doctor today. She opened my mouth and said “whoa…somebodies infected”. Nice. Gotta love that reaction…

So I did the regular routine and picked up my 5 day supply of drugs (why does it take 30 minutes to fill a perscription that is already prepackaged per treatment…its not like you have to count the pills or anything!! ) and I headed home. Now, I only started getting sick yesterday…maybe the day before, and I was there at the doctor’s, first thing this morning. Many of us do this. If we know we are really getting sick, we go to the doctor and get drugs. If we break a bone, we have it set and put in a cast. If our eyes start to go, we see an eye doctor and get some glasses.  We even go to see the doctor some times for a checkup, just to make sure we are on track.We take care of our physical health.

But what about our emotional health, or our mental health. Why is that different. Why do we look down on people that see doctors in that field? This has long been a source of frustration for me. So this week (prior to todays doctors visit) I decided that I was going to buck the trend myself and go in for a checkup: A checkup on my mental health. I have been through a fairly traumatic experience recently and it would be foolish of me to think that I am “above” being affected by it.

So I saw a licensed counselor…and it was great.  I came away feeling validated in my grieving process (i.e. I feel like I’m normal, and healthy) and overall was given a sense that my mental health is in good shape (if it weren’t I’d gladly go back regularly till it were).  Additionally, there were things we talked about that were kinda enlightening. He helped me in a couple areas of feelings that I didn’t fully understand. Now, I’ve always been a pretty ”self-aware” guy. There isn’t much that goes on in my head that I haven’t analyzed and fully understand. And the visit was still quite beneficial for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell the world that you shouldn’t be ashamed of seeing a professional counselor, whether personally or for your marraige. Mental health is as important as physical health. You should only be ashamed if you need to go, but don’t.