Leaving Amish Paradise, the sequel to Trouble in Amish Paradise is now airing in the UK.  In it, we follow the continuing saga of Ephraim and Amanda Stoltzfus as well as another couple who have left the Amish, Jesse and Elsie Miller.  Spoiler Alert: click the links at the bottom of this post if you want to see it for yourself first before reading my comments.

To quote the caption from BBC2′s website this is a:

“Documentary following the lives of two Amish families leaving the only world they’ve ever known and trying to get to grips with the modern world. The Amish travel by horse and buggy, and dress exactly as their forebears did when they first arrived in America almost 300 years ago. They have countless rules which keep them separate from the modern world, with electric lights, mobile phones, television and radio all forbidden. For those born into this culture, leaving is the biggest decision they’ll ever make.”

And here are a few quotes from the film itself.

“All around the packed church (Charity Christian Fellowship), I see Amish in transition to the modern world. Most of the women have replaced the Amish head covering with simple scarves. Some of the men still dress and shave in the Amish way, while others are in the process of shedding the look. It is full of people just like Elsie and Jesse.”

“See I didn’t need a set of rules anymore to guide my life when I became a Christian… I now have living inside of me God himself who knows right from wrong, and so I don’t need rules.” –Ephraim

“Jesse wants to buy a car, but he’s having trouble selling his buggy. While only Amish would want it, no Amish would buy it off him….  ‘They don’t want to help us to something different than what we were brought up from’.”

“The Amish are taught to obey without question and to conform. At first glance, the congregation of Charity Church doesn’t appear to be all that different to the Amish church that so many of them have come from. Although Charity claims not to have rules like the Amish, they’re lives are governed by what they read in the Bible, and they too, keep their distance from the modern world. But although it might not seem much of a difference, coming to this church is probably the biggest change they’ll ever make in their lives.”

And the ending words from the film:

“But still, the Amish elders see him (Ephraim) as a threat; and not without reason. If this move towards Evangelical Christianity takes hold, it could be the end of the Amish as they are now. But, it could also be the beginning of something new. (credits roll).”

The documentary has been posted on youtube and can be viewed at the links below.

Leaving Amish Paradise:
1 of 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TU3AYgYlW4
2 of 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn7OwBUEypA
3 of 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlIQFoUZfOs
4 of 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k32HbZkdNkc

In our Explore the Book class at church, we are looking at the book of Job.  This book addresses the philosophical and theological issue known as “the problem of evil”.  In relation to this, here is a video about John Piper’s book, Job.

MP4 Video

MP3 Audio

Charity Ministries will be hosting their annual Youth Bible School running from November 2nd to November 8th this year.  Registration is now open to any single young people aged 16-28 who are serious about their walk with God and would like to be immersed in good Bible teaching for an entire week. This event is sponsored by Charity Christian Fellowship and Ephrata Christian Fellowship located in Leola and Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

From the application form:

We are providing this Bible School for young people who are serious about their walk with God. We intend to provide an atmosphere of spirituality and discourage worldliness and carnality. We are not expecting everyone to be at the same place in their walk with Christ. However, we do expect students to be willing to be taught and guided in their walk with Him.

Our mission and purpose is threefold:

• To give the youth a week of concentrated Bible teaching
• To stimulate them to a closer walk with Christ and a deeper commitment to Him
• To provide an opportunity for them to fellowship with other like-minded youth

The speakers this year will be David Janzen, Dean Taylor, John D. Martin, Leonard Guenther, and Mose Stoltzfus.  As usual, Earl Fox will be the chorus director. There will be three sessions each day beginning at 8:50 AM, as well as a time for prayer and sharing in the afternoon. Revival meetings will be held for several of the evenings when the church people and community are welcome to come.  Lunch and supper is provided.  Housing will be provided through church families.  Of course, space is limited and applications are accepted in the order they are received.

To apply online or download a mail-in application form go to the Youth Bible School Announcement on Charity Ministries’ website.

See you there!

Working in IT and being in conservative Christian circles has allowed me to have some great discussions on how to implement (or not implement in some cases) the use of the internet by Christian families seeking to follow the Biblical mandate to be “in the world,  not of it”. I want to share some thoughts on this, as well as link to free resources that I have used and recommended to Christian parents who have asked for resources that work.

The internet is an interesting social phenomenon in that there is no central governing agency. Any one government can only control what “nodes” of the internet are physically located within its borders. So any person on the planet can post whatever content they choose to post and as long as that content is hosted in a geopolitical area that doesn’t restrict that particular type of content, anything goes.

As a result, it is up to individuals, familes, businesses and other organizations to “filter” what parts of the internet can be viewed by the computers under their jurisdiction. I’m going to focus on the family and a few best practices that make the use of this tool as trouble free as possible.

Best Practices for Families:

• Parents, take time to learn how the internet works and keep current with any major developments. If you aren’t very technically inclined, ask a Christian friend who is, to keep you updated.
• Parents, use some form of reporting (internet history, reporting software, Vista’s or OS X’s parental controls, etc) to keep family members accountable for where they goes on the internet and for how long.
• Use a form of internet filtering that is effective and can’t be easily circumnavigated. This is not a silver bullet. Parents, train your children in areas of moral purity and in the use or avoidance, depending on age levels and parental choice, of social web applications such as email, IM, blogging, Facebook, micro-blogging (Twitter), and other social media.
• Computer use should be in an open area where parents can easily walk past and see anything that is being displayed on the screen.
• If you can, go on an internet “fast” as a family occasionally, so you can see how the use of the internet affects your family life.
• Parents, make an Internet Use Agreement for your family and post it by the computer or in another prominent area of your home. This is something used even by non-Christian families. Microsoft has an article on this as well HERE.

Free Internet Filtering and Reporting Software for Families:

• Adblocker Plus - If you use the Firefox web browser, install this plugin to eliminate all those flash banner ads, which often promote selfish consumerism and immoral sensuality.
• Open DNS – This filtering solution is easy to implement and can be installed on either individual computers or your router.  The router option is better as it is harder to get around.
• K9 Web Filtering -   Mac/PC compatible software gets installed on a computer and provides filtering and reporting capabilities.
• File Sharing Sentinel -  Prevents peer-to-peer software such as Limewire, BitTorrent, eMule, etc from being installed (Windows only).
• McGruff SafeGuard – Excellent reporting software. Description from the website: McGruff SafeGuard is a service that intelligently monitors kids’ internet activity, including: website visits, chat and instant messaging, search engine phrases, social network profiles on MySpace, Facebook and many others. The Service alerts parents to problems such as Internet predators, dangerous behavior, underage/illicit sexual activity, suicide, drug use, credit card abuse and crime.
• XXX Church’s X3Watch – Accountability reporting software. The free version sends out biweekly reports and you can have up to 2 accountability partners.

Other Books, Articles and Resources:

• Logged On and Tuned Out: A Non-Techie’s Guide to Parenting a Tech-Savvy Generation |  Excellent book by Vicki Courtney who has done a lot of research in this area. You can read a sample chapter HERE (PDF).
• Internet Safety – Building Character and Building Walls (PDF) |  Top-notch article by Focus on the Family that focuses on the core issues.
• Making Space for Character in a Tech-overloaded World (PDF)  |  Another article from the FoF website with some wisdom and insight I found helpful.

Those are the thoughts and resources that come to mind at the moment. Feel free to share your own experiences, insights and other resources in the comments and I will add them to this post for the benefit of others.

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STEPHEN FRY – THE MACHINE THAT MADE US

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

And here’s one for laughs comparing their time and ours.

Telephone Pole

St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church – Arlington, WA

St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church – Arlington, WA

Bridge on Highway 530 – Arlington, WA

Bridge on Highway 530 – Arlington, WA

I was teaching a 76 year old man yesterday how to use his iMac computer and he asked me a very good question.

“What does the word ‘default’ mean?”

I had to think for a second, because even though I’m always setting defaults in the BIOS or resetting IE to defaults, I didn’t pay much attention to the term before. So, I said, “Well, defaults are the setting that came with the computer, the way the designers, manufacturers and computer software engineers designed it to be before you customized it”. The answer seemed pretty satisfactory, but it got me thinking about the defaults in our lives. What defaults has God programmed into us, or are there no defaults, just continuous variables? I’ll have to think about that one some more.

In other news, I’ve been checking out the TNIV version of the Bible that was completed two years ago and which has been recorded by a whole cast of professionals in audio format. It’s going on sale this fall. I’ve got half a mind to get it. It sounds pretty amazing.