AR

@JoshuaBarzon There is a way to achieve simplicity without sacrificing all the convenience of a smart phone: put your smartphone on grandma mode. By selecting a few options in the accessibility menu of your iPhone you can limit your phone to only show you just the absolute basic apps you need.

What’s stopping you from converting to a flip phone?

@thisisfoster j/k of course. Excellent post. But, painful to read. Our family has roots here in the Northeast, family, work, church, homeschool, familiarity, etc., Hard to imagine leaving, but it’s a tough place, in big part because of structural barriers. Hard to see my kids thriving here.

@thisisfoster And here I was, ready to dig in Batavia.

Putting down roots is hard, especially if you grew up like I did. I was born in Independence, Missouri, in 1980. By the time I was thirteen, we had moved to North Dakota, Kansas, Indiana, and Virginia. I had gotten used to being the new kid at school. In those early years, I went to five different school districts in Indiana, so the longest I stayed in any one district was about a year and a half. I wasn’t a military brat. My dad was just searching for Mayberry, which is ironic, given that where we finally landed was next to a bar across from a whiskey plant in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. That is where I finished eighth grade and all four years of high school. I know every nook and cranny of Lawrenceburg. This was before the internet really took over, so we spent all our time outside. Functionally speaking, that is my hometown. It sits right on the edge of the greater Cincinnati area. This is where I went to college, entered the workforce, got married, and had my first two sons. This region is home. Place matters a hundred times more than most people give it credit for these days, and it is the people who make it. In 2009, I went on a vision quest of sorts and moved my family three hours west to Bloomington, Indiana, for what was supposed to be three years. It turned into five. And while I knew we needed to end up back in Cincinnati, we decided to add another leg to the journey and relocate to Spartanburg, South Carolina, for another five years. At one point, I casually suggested to my wife that maybe this was where we belonged. She disagreed, and she wasn’t wrong. There are good people everywhere, but we didn’t quite fit in. They had their own history, and we shared very little of it. We were Midwesterners from north of the Mason-Dixon and west of the Appalachians, and those are two very significant divides. As a side note, I would say the same thing is true of being west of the Mississippi or west of the Rockies, though by degrees. We did not belong there. We did not have family there. My mother had moved to be close to us, but she had no history there either. She just wanted to be close to her people. So in late 2018, Emily and I decided it was time to make preparations to go back home. After a little over a decade away, we moved into the apartment above my father-in-law’s former dental practice in Hyde Park. It was the very place where I used to pick Emily up when we were dating in high school after she got done working as a dental assistant. We had friends here. Emily still had her aunt and uncles here, along with her mother. My family was scattered out west in Colorado, Arizona, and Montana. They, too, had a bit of the wanderer in them. We had to pick somewhere, and I picked the place where I had the most roots, the most history, the most connections, and at least a little head start on building something deeper. During the pandemic years, people didn’t just move. They scattered with a purpose. Some were chasing political alignment. Some wanted space, land, and a feeling of control if things went wrong. And a noticeable slice were looking for strong church communities. Our little town of Batavia ended up on the radar for more than a few of those people. Between my online presence and the early growth of East River, we became, at least in their minds, a kind of destination. And I remember those conversations. Some of them were… something. People asking what our plans were to influence the local sheriff. Others telling me I needed to be building out serious food storage systems for supply chain collapse. One guy insisted my deacons should be leading that effort. We didn’t even have deacons or elders. We were a year or so into a church plant with an advisory board and a sending church. A lot of people who reached out weren’t just looking for a church. They were looking for a finished product, something already built that they could step into without having to do the hard, slow work of building anything themselves. I wasn’t offended those folks didn’t come. Honestly, I was relieved. We couldn’t have handled it. But what stuck with me, especially in 2021 and 2022, was the mindset. Church had become something to shop for. Like a truck with a checklist. It needs four-wheel drive. It needs to be this color. It needs to have this feature and that feature. Underneath that was a deeper assumption that real community could be acquired fully formed, and it can’t be. Even if you walk into a mature, healthy church, you still have to build relationships, and real relationships take time. You still have to learn the weather and the history, the traditions and the people. Otherwise, you stay what a lot of people have quietly become: a kind of refugee, always evaluating, never settling. I’ve talked to pastors in some of those destination communities, the ones that pulled people in during the pandemic, and what they’re seeing now is telling. A number of those transplants are restless again, unsatisfied, already looking for the next place. That’s a good thing. Disillusionment is reality breaking through a bad picture in your head. My dad went looking for Mayberry, and a lot of people did something similar in 2020. But Mayberry doesn’t exist; it’s a projection, and you can’t move there. Communities aren't products to be purchased. They have to be joined and, over time, built. Sometimes the right move is going back: back to family, back to history, back to somewhere you already have roots. That’s essentially what we did. I’m grateful for our years in the South, but we were always something like temporary missionaries there: helpful, involved, invested to a degree, but not from there and not ultimately staying. We were always coming back here. Even with our history here, it hasn’t been automatic. We’ve had to work at it: building friendships, reestablishing rhythms, plugging in. I’ve invested deeply in local business and civic life. Our kids have gotten involved in trade school and local sports. Making a generational home takes time… generations even. Wherever you go, you’re going to have to live the rest of your life there, and there are no shortcuts through that.

@XianImperialist Proverbs 6:1-5 would like a word with you.

Everyone is jumping on Dave Ramsey for being an out of touch boomer, also showing his hypocrisy with what he pays his "coders." About a year ago, as a Real Estate Investor, I started a little thought experiment with his "pay off your mortgage as fast as you can" theory. So the idea of the mortgage is to allow you to pay as little for an "asset" as possible the day you close on the house. It tries to put as little burden on your monthly cashflow as possible, and underwriters limit this by using the 50% "rule." Today's dollars are more valuable than tomorrow's. Yes you end up paying "double" over 30 years. But youre paying back the loan with devalued dollars. So the question is who benefits from paying back your mortgage early? Well, your lender, the banks. By following Dave's advice you are infusing the banks with more valuable dollars TODAY than withholding it and paying it back later with cheaper dollars. (Further you no longer get to deduct interest payments on taxes, but thats another discussion). Dave Ramsey is telling you to transfer you BETTER BUYING POWER today to help banks have more power to engage in the fractional lending and grow their grip. It would not surprise me if banks help prop up Ramsey or aid him with favorable positioning in media specifically because of the "gospel" he preaches. He helps them all while villainizing them to his audience. If you really want to stick it to em, dont pay them back early.

@TheJollyBrawler Excellent point. Compartmentalization of work from the rest of life is a cope.

One advantage of owning a business is the ability to move beyond the idea of work/life balance to something more effective: work/life integration. Work and life should flow together to create a wonderful, whole, rewarding, and productive life. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.

@going_concern Look no further

Rough out there these days

@yonann Does Mr. Ramsey know coding is obsolete? We’re in a whole new universe. Better catch up quick.

Dave Ramsey says a $600 pressure washing job can be the first step to making 150K a year "You don’t want to be 63 years old still pressure washing. But to get through this week, you can do a lot of pressure washing" "Use the pressure washing money to pay $10,000 for code school, then go make 150K a year coding, every move should be a step toward where you want to be in 10 years"

@avrilbradley23 @presbycast I’m not commenting on this particular incident. As a whole, there is a lapse in accountability and discipleship. It’s folly to think the sermon and liturgy does all the heavy lifting.

@IusEtPecator @presbycast How are the church leaders responsible?

Low online behavior here and a missed dunk. In a URC church every congregant will hear the exposition of the Law in catechetical preaching and confessions, which clearly condemn this person's actions and inclinations.

@PerfInjust 2/2 The clearest difference I see is that the R2K position assumes the State cannot obtain either natural or theological virtue, whereas your position allows for the possibility of the secular to obtain natural virtue because that is it's God-designed telos. Wrong?

@PerfInjust 1/2 In a post-lapsarian world, how does strict adherence to your compartmentalization of secular/sacred functions - assuming those can be clearly delineated in the first place - differ from modern two kingdom approach that argues for separation of church and state?

The civil office, as created by God, is sufficient in itself for its own ends and does not require, per its nature, any outside instruction. The pastor's instruction on civil duties is accidental and unnecessary by nature, but necessary in a postlapsarian world where knowledge is corrupted. Pastors instruct magistrates not from some storehouse of truth that is exclusive to them. Nor are they mediators of some divine or adventitious revelation concerning civil magistracy. Rather, they point to, via Scripture, what is proper to the magistrate per its office and to principles that pre-exist the Christian pastoral office itself. That is, the pastor instructs in natural truths, which magistrates ought to know apart from pastoral instruction. Both offices are sufficient in themselves for their ends, but pastoral instruction is a post-fall necessity. So, pastors are not essential to good magistrates, as if the civil office (by its nature) requires any instruction extrinsic to it. Pastors have an added duty (accidental to civil office) to correct deficiencies resulting from corruption.

@PerfInjust Mathison‘s analogy is cute but misplaced. Great theological works are the products, not the tools, of great theologians. their tool was their mind. The problem is we have inferior tools today.

Established academics are not responding well to the wealth of resources now available, and they're realizing that their own work (whether it's in theology, ethics, or politics) will be surpassed (and much of it dismissed) by the rising generations, who are better versed in the classics, logic, and systems.

@AuronMacintyre There need to be ugly encounters against our side, then an even uglier replacement for them. This is existential.

Even as our political situation becomes clearly existential the wider GOP refuses to even pretend at being an opposition party They simply do not care

@armondboudreaux Few of us remain. Let us join forces.

This morning, I taught a lesson on writing annotated bibliographies. Then I came home and fixed a leaking pipe in our backyard that had killed our house water pressure. Now I’m on my way to teach Shakespeare. See? You really can just do things.

@PerfInjust I’ve said it before, this sentiment, captured in your book, is why so many pastors have an irrational bias against your work.

"A king hath greater outward glory, and may do much more service to Christ, in respect of extension, and is more excellent than the pastor, who yet, in regard of intension, is busied about nobler things, to wit, the soul, the gospel, and eternity, than the king." Rutherford

@AmericaFirsst Tales from the Crypt

🚨BREAKING: Joe Biden has secured a $10 million book deal for his presidential memoir. What should it be named?

@ManifestHistory There’s no basis for your optimism.

In 25 years, Tennessee will be a purple or blue state.

@Timcast Election win and Get out of jail in exchange for wars. Deal completed.

Ok, I think Trump is just done with everything. He seems to be trying to burn support at this point

@GigaBasedDad Stumbled upon this post. Can definitely relate. 26 yrs in corp life, never fitting in, always dreaming about going solo. I’m the sole provider of family of 6. One soon going to college. Any encouragement from business owners out there? Should I pull the plug on corporate life?

Can anyone else relate? LOL

@AuronMacintyre Our RC friends depict Jesus in images, and God haters desecrate holy sites. When will folks be equally outraged at them?

Always chimp