By Jaime Nava –
My wife is waddling around with our second child in her womb. She is in full glow. It boggles me to consider how amazing it is to have a human being growing in inside another. Yet, it happens every day. It is common. There are those who would carelessly destroy such a gift. There are those who would profit on the same death. Yet, as little as some consider that tender life and despite how common it is, it retains all the mystery of God sustaining the human race.
By Jaime Nava –
There was this game I remember playing on the SNES. It’s called “Out of This World.” The art in it was fun to watch, and the story was interesting. You were this guy that ended up on an alien world. Captured by aliens, you try to break free. There is no English spoken, as the game goes on, so the player is as clueless as the character being played. There’s this one scene where you end up in an alien tank. There’re no instructions. There’s no clue as to what you’re supposed to do, so you just try everything. You just mash down on the buttons hoping something will happen. The game expects that kind of reaction, and eventually you create enough havoc to save yourself. It’s cleverly done.
By Jaime Nava –
What Is An Internet Troll?
I remember sitting in a chatroom on AOL back in the day when AOL had chatrooms (Do they still? I don’t know). The computer would make its loud dial up squeals and the wide world of chatrooms was at my fingertips. You could pick a username of any stripe. You could join a plethora of chatrooms. I recall one occasion where I joined the French speaking room. I didn’t know French (and still don’t). I remember grabbing a shampoo bottle from the bathroom with the directions for washing one’s hair. It was in French. So I typed out the directions in this French chat room. People found themselves rather unhappy at my intrusion. It fueled my delight. This, ladies and gentlemen, is an internet troll.
By Jaime Nava –
The United States feels like it’s in a tail spin, at least to me. More than likely, I think the next president will be a goon. Subjective morality has become the local truth which is no truth at all without absolute truth. Socialism is the glimmer in the eye of so many millennials now. We’re setting ourselves up for the same wall that Germany and Russia ran into. First, we’ll try to be great one last time only to get kicked in the nuts as a nation. Next, we’ll sulk and blame the old ways for all the troubles. Following that will be a leader who promises to send us to greatness. He’ll do this with total control because the people want him to have it. With each and every step, the church will be relegated to a room, then a corner, then finally kicked out.
By Jaime Nava –
America has been considered a Christian nation for quite some time. It’s considered that because of the number of Christians who are here and the values they hold, not because everyone here is automatically converted. People have been saying for years that America is becoming or has become a post-Christian nation. What do they mean by that? Usually, it means that there are fewer people going to church in the US or that attendance is down. Those things are true. Attendance across all denominations is dropping.
By Jaime Nava –
As a pastor and sinner, there’s an unspeakable privilege in the office I’m called to. God’s Word comes through my unclean lips. Each week, we commune on the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine because the promise was spoken. The Words of Jesus echoed once again for sinners to hear, see, and taste forgiveness. To be able to place eternal life into people’s mouths is something I am certainly not worthy of. Despite that, here I am doing what the congregation called me to do. And I’m not alone. The people, those I shepherd for the Good Shepherd, go out into the world. They speak forgiveness to each other. They unlock the heavenly gifts of life by letting wrongs go.
By Jaime Nava –
Do you know your short, fuzzy pal, Grover? He’s the blue monster from Sesame Street. When he is caped, he is also known as Super Grover and even Super Grover two-point-oh. Grover has a trait in all his appearances. You see, he thinks he knows something when in actuality, he doesn’t. For example, he wears a professor’s garb, calls himself professor Grover, and wants to tell you about one of nature’s wonders: mailboxes! No, trees! (He’s corrected by Cameron Diaz). In one episode, Grover is the Music Monster, and he breaks down crying because he has to admit that he knows nothing and that he’s a sham. He had been trying to lead everyone into thinking he was a musical expert. Grover is the self-deluded non-expert who makes claims that are true because he says they are. It is rare for Grover to repent.
By Jaime Nava –
A couple years ago, Google introduced a piece of cardboard with a couple lenses. You had to cut the cardboard, insert the lenses, fold it together, and voila! You had virtual reality (VR). Well, you had to stick your phone into the headset as well. With the motion tracking and camera on the headset, Google provided a cheap way for people to experience virtual reality. The idea of a virtual reality headset made with something as cheap as cardboard seemed silly to a lot of people. In reality, it was an appetizer for the feast of VR to come.
By Jaime Nava –
A couple years ago, archaeologists unearthed something unexpected in New Mexico. There was a legend of items buried within a landfill that had many hoping they were the ones to find it. It was in 2014 that the hunt for an urban legend proved fruitful. What was found? E.T. It wasn’t the actual Reese’s loving alien, but rather a video game that had been released in 1983. Some claim that it was one of the worst games ever made.
By Jaime Nava –
Reading a fellow writer’s recent post got me thinking. There’s a lot of Christian denominations to choose from. I say Christian because God’s Word is presented in a Trinitarian way with Jesus Christ as dying for sins. So whether Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, Revival-oriented (i.e. most non-denoms), or what have you, there are Christians present in those places because God’s Word doesn’t return void. The Jesus they preach is the same that Christendom has always preached: the God-man (100% both), who is the second person of the Three-In-One, died for our sins. Cool. Preach Jesus. Even so, denominations differ. Emphases are placed on different things. What’s the big deal? Let’s consider our American history.
By Jaime Nava –
As a kid, I walked to school. I started with my mom in kindergarten and walked to school all the way to my senior year in high school. Once I got to school, the bell would ring and we’d get to work. Of course, as a kid, I just wanted to be done and go have fun. Recess and lunch were nice, but it was when school was out that the fun happened. And Summer. Oh sweet glorious summer. I’d burn my feet on the street going to the local market to buy twenty-five cent candy. I’d play until the street lights came on.
From an early age, I was taught that you work hard from nine to five. I was also taught that you play harder when you’re out.
By Jaime Nava –
Jesus entered Jerusalem during the period of the Passover. This was a time for the Jews to recall God’s saving work recorded in Exodus. The Passover meal is recorded in Exodus 12. When Jesus was in the upper room with His disciples, He was taking the old meal, a shadow, and in its place gave a new meal: Himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The meal of the first Maundy (Holy) Thursday is one we partake of every week.
By Jaime Nava –
As Americans, fatalism is a four-letter word. Which of us would like to think that our life map is planned, and our stars set? No, instead we look to those well worn boot straps, take a deep breath, and pull. We’re the John Wayne, Rambo, Lightning McQueen that carves out our reality against all odds. Those same bootstraps can be found hewn to many churches across the US. There’s the bootstrap of age-segregated services, food banks, or all types of kitschy games people play during the church service. We’re ready to try all kinds of things to make sure we grow God’s church. There’s always a new strategy, a new form of leadership, or some new law to draw people to God’s place of grace.
By Jaime Nava –
So I was doing this one thing the other day. I overheard someone talking about something I hated. I could not believe they would even talk about it in public. What kind of people would even support this thing? They must have been brainwashed to think that thing that I overheard that one time I was doing that one thing the other day. I paused for a second to look at the other person who said that one thing. I didn’t notice it before, but yeah, I should have noticed it to begin with. They dressed like a person who says things I don’t like.
By Jaime Nava –
*The following is a play off of Robert Munsch’s 1995 book Love you Forever, which has sold 15 million copies. I do not mean to discount his original intention for the song or his book, but rather provide a theological twist.*
There was a father who had a son. When this son was just a tiny baby, he was baptized at church. The father would look at his son and say, “I’m with you forever, even though you’re a sinner. He bore your transgressions, the Kingdom to bring.”
By Jaime Nava –
Although I do spend time playing digital games, I also enjoy the occasional tabletop adventure. This means sitting around a table with others, usually my family, playing out a story with individual characters. We’ve started doing this relatively recently and one of the people who has the most fun is, believe it or not, my mom. We roll dice. We eat junk food. We say what our character would do and sometimes we even speak for them. It’s really a good time all around. What is it that we play? Dungeons and Dragons.
By Jaime Nava –
When I was a buzz-headed lad growing up with my similarly shorn siblings, we would all gather around the Nintendo and play some of the most frustrating games I have ever seen. Granted it could be that we were too young to actually understand a specific game like, say, Metal Gear. It could also be that some games were just too incredibly difficult. People actually have a term for this: Nintendo Hard. These were games that were so difficult they were nearly impossible. It was the kind of thing that caused many a kiddo to hurl the remote control in an original rage quit. Games like Contra and Double Dragon come to mind. To be honest, I can’t recall all of them; but Nintendo was hard, okay?
By Jaime Nava –
Tomorrow is moving day. Cool. Leading up to moving day has been a ton of work. Wife and I just bought our first home and we had the bright idea to renovate it. Take out a wall here. Put up some drywall there. Seems easy. It wasn’t. If not for the help of people around us, our family, friends, and congregation, I don’t know how anything would have gotten done. Along with my regular duties as pastor, the studying, the people to visit, the reading, the bible studies, and along with my wife being over 8 weeks along, and with this move, I am so stinking tired. I feel too tired to think.
By Jaime Nava –
Growing up we had some well abused “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. You roll stats by randomly choosing a number on the last page for certain abilities or something of the sort. Once that is done, you begin on the first page. From there things are off and running. You would get a few paragraphs and then you had to choose which path to take. It would tell you which page to turn to and start on the next branch of choices.
By Jaime Nava –
In a plethora of video games armor is a thing. Many times it’s like the Medieval era with different pieces for the head, feet, hands, chest. There are of course other accessories too. In many games, although the armor’s properties are identical, it looks completely different between the male and female characters. Even worse, when it is worn by female characters it is often skimpy and revealing.
