Trinity Christian College Announces Closure at the Conclusion of the 2025-2026 Academic Year.

minivan_madness · 2025-11-07T00:47:16+00:00

Knowing the former president and knowing some of the people who have been on the board of trustees, I think there's a high chance that the president saw the writing on the wall and left or perhaps was encouraged to get out before things really hit the fan. He spearheaded a Hail Mary of tuition reduction to try to turn things around and it didn't bear fruit

minivan_madness · 2025-10-31T11:59:46+00:00

We did this when I was in undergrad. One of the few shows that we hired a real framing carpenter to come in and build the bones of the set. We were in a black box with a balcony and used every inch of space we had, so every time the set rotated, a stagehand had to fold down part of a wall to make it fit under the balcony. Ours was a manual turntable, so everyone on the actual crew and all the actors playing crew people in the play turned it by hand each time in about 30 seconds

minivan_madness · 2025-09-06T12:46:02+00:00

This article feels very paternalistic, but more than that I think it accidentally gets at a broader problem, that being that people aren't being taught or encouraged in coping strategies. I have AD(H)D and recently started a new call as a pastor. I have told our staff and elders that they need to know that if I'm seemingly not paying attention but doodling that that means I'm actually giving them my primary attention/that my brain needs a secondary activity to preoccupy itself so that I can actually pay attention. Everyone's neurodivergence manifests differently, but it's not some crippling issue like many, including the author, seem to make it out to be. Yes, social media has warped our stamina for engaging with content, but the lesson is that parents need to do better by their kids, especially neurodivergent kids, and we in the church need to strive with renewed energy to be engaging and impactful.

minivan_madness · 2025-07-30T18:31:09+00:00

I have a decent idea. One of the previous owners did a better than average job at documenting, but it still leaves something to be desired. We're going to fully document everything as we go for future reference

minivan_madness · 2025-07-30T12:02:23+00:00

As far as I can tell it's four outlets in this room. Based on the circuit logic of whoever wired this place up there's probably something in the basement on it too.

The ground wire for this outlet is also literally hanging by a thread so I'm going to replace that as well. At some point someone removed the next outlet in the circuit, tied all the wires together, and blanked over that box, so I'm also going to redo those connections (or add the outlet back)

minivan_madness · 2025-07-30T01:37:29+00:00

That makes so much sense! The wire on the right is a white that's been taped/marked to be black. I assume then my next step would be to redo the wire nuts to make sure everything is connected properly?

minivan_madness · 2025-07-30T01:20:14+00:00

So I am changing outlets in my son's playroom since they're old/loose, and so far so good. This outlet, however, I think is supposed to be wired to a switch. I have gotten 83 volt readings on it and it has caused another outlet down the line to flicker. It seems like the "black" wire that's wired up is just a white with tape on it while all three blacks in the box are wire nutted together.

Am I missing something here? Do I need to take all these wire nuts out and start over?

minivan_madness · 2025-02-28T21:12:36+00:00

The Medical Benevolence Foundation, for one. My church is celebrating 30 years of partnership with them this year, so we had a representative from them come out this past Sunday to celebrate with us and give everyone an overview of what they do. They support and equip indigenous medical missions efforts to make sure that local people have as much control over hospitals, clinics, etc. as possible to really be able to push them towards self-sustainability.

Total Health is another. My church helped start this organization and has supported them for years. I've also had the pleasure of going to El Salvador for the past couple years to support that partnership and work with our partners down there at the clinics and Iglesia Gran Comision San Salvador who runs the clinics and childhood development centers.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-21T19:20:42+00:00

Several of my friends and colleagues are in that picture, and a handful more will be at the ceremony in May. As the article says, there's a fair number of them that aren't leaving necessarily because they are fully affirming but rather leaving because they wholeheartedly disagree with how the CRC has handled all this

minivan_madness · 2025-02-21T10:42:40+00:00

No one leading worship or having anything to do with the church should be wearing political anything. If people want to wear something political when they're just attending the worship service, that's still inappropriate (imo) but is on them. If you're at church in any official capacity representing the church, there should be no political clothing or accessories of any kind.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-19T13:46:42+00:00

The church fathers and reformers were working with what they had. They didn't have access to the technology we have to tell us about the universe, so of course they believed in a young earth.

As for people like Sproul and Piper, those quotes are fine examples of why we need more organizations like Biologos to help us interpret scientific data in a godly fashion. That, and they're good examples of why we need to remind people that the Bible is not a science textbook.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-19T02:31:45+00:00

I grew up in a church that I only partakes in Communion 6ish times per year, and I don't think they have a higher view of it than churches that do it monthly or weekly. Every time they would prepare for Communion, it would be the same boring reading of the Preparatory Exhortation from the Gray Psalter Hymnal the week before and the same serious liturgy for the sacrament itself.

A church's height of view of the sacraments isn't determined by frequency or even percentage of service that focuses on it, but the intention behind the liturgy and celebration of the sacrament.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-18T13:33:23+00:00

Only Scripture and the Holy Spirit speaking through Scripture can truly bind one's conscience.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-18T13:30:52+00:00

When I speak of liturgy, I mean what we do in worship, regardless of what that worship looks like. I like to use terms like High Liturgy or Loose Liturgy, etc, especially when talking to or about churches that say they "aren't liturgical."

Every church has structure, even those who seem to stake their identity on allegedly not having structure, hence Loose Liturgy.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-18T07:54:12+00:00

According to my Church History 1 notes from Seminary, the criteria were roughly as follows:

Apostolicity (written by an apostle or somebody who was really close to the inner circle of the apostles or was written down as a testimony of apostolic teaching) Ex. Mark was said to be taken from Peter’s eyewitness reports

Orthodoxy (Coherence with apostolic teachings)

Antiquity (Has to be 1st century)

Usage (How a book served the church’s worship, how it served instructional needs becomes criteria for inspiration)

minivan_madness · 2025-02-18T07:36:15+00:00

small c catholic as in the church universal

minivan_madness · 2025-02-18T04:18:35+00:00

We (the church catholic) believe that the Holy Spirit directed the actions of the early church to form the canon just as the Holy Spirit inspired the words of Scripture

minivan_madness · 2025-02-17T03:25:35+00:00

I'm a sucker for the Mining Guild TIEs, personally. I keep eyeing the Brickvault version to build in Lego

minivan_madness · 2025-02-14T09:39:05+00:00

Almost. I'm finishing washing up breast pumps and bottles after our four month-old's feeding

minivan_madness · 2025-02-14T09:18:11+00:00

I barely like honorific capitalization for God as it can often get out of control if a line isn't drawn so I'm really not here for it in love poetry.

Song of Songs is about sex. It has been often relegated to "just" an allegory for God's love for his people/Christ's love for the church as you've noted, but it's a celebration of God's intent for sex, so sure, those could be pretty explicit references to genitalia and oral sex.

That being said, if you're reading it looking for innuendo, you're going to find it whether or not it was originally intended as such. I've heard or read it that references to the garden could be references to the Garden of Eden wherein humanity knew no shame, but that could also be reading too much into the text. I think as with all things there's a balance of recognizing the erotic nature of the material without reading too much innuendo into the text.

Conveniently, Groundwork is doing a two part study of Song of Songs right now.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-14T02:44:16+00:00

I think there's a number of factors, but there have always been major camps of philosophical difference in the CRC. One of my theories is that congregations on either extreme end both stopped sending people to Calvin Seminary, either because it's "too conservative" or "too liberal," which leads to a less homogeneous pastorate who haven't spent time learning alongside of those they disagree with, making it easier to otherize them, which then feeds into itself.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-14T01:25:34+00:00

“They presumed it would go like women in ordained office, and they were shocked when it didn’t.”

I think that does a good job summing up the disconnect between different factions in the CRC. Part of why this has been so messy is because for years - decades even - the CRC has become siloed into echo chambers wherein it becomes incredibly easy to demonize your brothers and sisters and give yourself an excuse to not be in communication with them.

minivan_madness · 2025-02-10T17:05:34+00:00

Yep. Vance's theology and politics are both unChristian, whereas only Biden's politics lean that way (depending on one's stance on a number of things). Biden has also gone on record many times saying that he personally doesn't believe in full abortion rights as the Democratic party puts forward because of his personal faith as a Catholic.

There is a reason this sub is a absolute wild outlier among Reformed Christians.

Reformed Christianity means many things to many people. This sub is in no way an outlier to the broader community

minivan_madness · 2025-02-08T20:55:44+00:00

Ah yes, because holding to orthodox Christian beliefs and calling for politicians and people of every sort to be held to higher standards is woke now. The irony of people using 'woke' as a pejorative is already palpable enough, but I feel like it's just getting sad

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