Saturday, November 13, 2004

The Days of Wine and Roses

Some things of note from the past couple of days.

I had to take a set of psychological evaluations (fill in the bubble stuff) yesterday for my foundations of ministry course. I have determined these tests are evil. I am sure there is some scientific resoning behind this, but some of the questions were like this:

I prefer to work alone rather than with a group of flesh eating rabbits:

A.) Sometimes
B.) ? (the inbetween answer)
C.) Never


Now, my question is, why would you pair an absolute like "never" with an ambiguous term like "sometimes" and then give an option to go between sometimes and never? what goes there? Almost Sometimes?

Bah

Next and most interesting this week was that my Professor for my Gospels class breifly brought up the class that John Wimber taught with C. Peter Wagner here at Fuller back in the 70s called "Signs and Wonders"

Dr. Hagner was actually a student here in those days and attended the class. It seems that perhaps the class was not what we in the Vineyard want it to be in some aspects.

Dr. Hagner was speaking about the eschatological (relating ot the last days) realization of the Kingdom of God (the already and not yet aspects of it) and was talking about miracles and their place for today. He is a believer in miracles as true possibilities in this day and age. But, when he spoke of the class it doesn't even sound like the Vineyard would not even agree with aspects of it anymore. The biggest was that there was a lot of emphasis put on the faith of the person being prayed for and it was really affecting the students in a bad way. I was surprised since I have always been taught that it is dependant on God's desire to heal or not. So, perhaps John Wimber had a change of position on that end of things not too long after that?
He also spoke of an incident regarding the lengthening of legs. It appears that while some of these occurences are true, there is also a medical explanation that happens as well. One of the things that happens when you lay hands on someone(which is a supernatural effect) is a warming sensation. This can allow for the muscles to relax and the leg to lengthen, which accounts for the visual of seeing the leg move. One person who had experienced this was found in a couple of days to have to reinsert the lift inside his shoe. When the muscles tightened up again the leg went back to its old shape.

His main point (rightly in my opinion) was that we have to be accurate in what is a miracle and what is not. There are miracles that can only be explained supernaturally, but we shouldn't run in guns ablazing for everything.

That all said, when I approached him after class we had a pretty interesting conversation for about half an hour on the Vineyard as I presented (my understanding of) its philosophy and such which to him sounded very healthy.


And finally I was browsing Sports Illustrated's website, and found that it has a couple lists that are interesting.

Teams to root for and not to root for in NCAA basketball. While my Wildcats were not on either list, two of Cincinnati's teams made it. Xavier was listed as the number 3 team to root for. Here is the excerpt:

3. XAVIER A Cincinnati school has the No. 2 NCAA graduation rate for
student-athletes. Impossible? For the Bearcats, yes, but not for the
Musketeers. Xavier is everything Cincy (page 22) is not. Xavier's 2004
run to the Elite Eight is proof the team delivers in the postseason. NBA
clubs have noticed the skills and work ethic of X-Musketeers, drafting
four in the past two years. Cincy in that time? None. Xavier's big-man
lineage includes Brian Grant, Tyrone Hill, Derek Strong, Aaron Williams
and David West. Next up? Sophomore Justin Doellman. Perhaps the biggest
compliment comes from the higher-profile colleges that have pillaged the
Muskies' coaching staff (Pete Gillen to Providence in 1994, Skip Prosser
to Wake Forest in 2001 and Thad Matta to Ohio State this summer). --
M.H.

UC however is the number one team not to root for:

1. CINCINNATI Every year without fail the Bearcats trot out a police, er,
starting lineup stocked with juco transfers and miscreants. Cin City ballers
have been charged with every crime in the book -- and some that aren't: Donald
Little was kicked off the team in April 2002 for taping his roommate to a lawn
chair, throwing weights at his head, clubbing him with a whiskey bottle and
burning him with a heated coat hanger. Only then did Little stab him. The warden
of this outfit? Coach Bob Huggins. Yes, Huggy Bear has taken Cincy to 12
straight NCAA tournaments; the problem is that student-athlete is not the
preferred term for describing the players who have gotten the Bearcats there.
Huggins's 1996 comment "Our guys have done a good job educationally" rivals any
of Baghdad Bob's assertions. The team's graduation rate, according to the latest
NCAA figures, is 25%. But it was Coach Bob's performance during his DUI arrest
in June that cemented his Most Vile status: When Huggins staggered from his
Lexus, the officer spotted vomit on the inside of the car door. At least the
puke matched Huggins's sweater.


This one was kind of long... so if you didnt make it down this far, I understand lol.


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