One of those online quiz things

Following the lead of Matt Reed, I took a "Theological worldview" quiz. Like him, I'm not overly shocked by what I found. I'm actually surprised I scored as high as I did in emergent / postmodern. I tend to find some aspects of that approach that I like, but I also find some that I dislike. It's probably mainly that the parts I agree with are what this guy quizzing considers "true emergent/postmodernism," whatever that is. But I know that I'm heavily influenced by Wesley and Bonhoeffer, which explains the first two.

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan, You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 89% Neo orthodox 75% Emergent/Postmodern 75% Roman Catholic 71% Classical Liberal 54% Modern Liberal 46% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Reformed Evangelical 32% Fundamentalist 11% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

soothing von Herrmann?

Apparently, the Atlanta Journal Constitution once thought so. This is an article about my great grandfather, Charles Frederick von Herrmann, Sr. He was the weatherman in Atlanta for a long time, or, as this article says, he was the "god of the weather for Atlanta and the vicinity." Who knew I am a shoot off of the divine.

I really want to take a nap. I used up all my energy being inspired by Will's latest blog entry, which Amanda insisted I watch before leaving the house.

back to pictures

Our friend willheath is fond of posting links to various videos that offer amusement, which I tried to emulate yesterday with the squirrel flipper video. It might be wise, however, to stick to what we at the von Herrmann house do best - posting random and bizarre pictures of our travels. So here it goes:

A few weeks ago, we took a trip down to Pensacola to help celebrate the upcoming nuptials of our friends Lonnie and Susannah. When we got to the Bay Beach Inn in Gulf Breeze, we were pleased to see that they anticipated Alabama fans in the room (or at least decided to do something fun with their towels):


We got a chance to see "The Council," a group of my classmates from seminary, which was a lot of fun.

We also got a chance for a little biblical humor as we drove past a local grocery store. Who knew that Nod was in South Alabama. Apparently, there are quite a few Cain's Grocery stores in South Alabama, all of which advertise their butcher. I saw a commercial for this store in which an old lady walked around a grocery store and kept asking "where's the butcher?" over and over. Finally, someone pointed her toward Cain's. They are, after all, the home of the butcher.

do you dislike squirrels?

If so, then go to this site.
Once you're there, click on the "Droll Yankee Flipper Family Video" on the bottom right.
You can enjoy 3:00 of squirrel flipping fun, or you can fastforward to 2:20 into the clip for a highlight reel.
My mom just got one of these. She sadly hasn't seen any squirrels getting flipped, but I think this might beat out the bug-zapper as far as entertainment in nature.

4th quarter. 4th quarter. 4th quarter

So, it's 2:17 a.m., and I've got 6 hours and 13 minutes until I have any prospect of sleeping. I'll get to go through a "sleep-deprived EEG" so that my central-time neurologist can look at my brain waves while I'm sleeping. Basically, I'm not allowed to sleep for 24 hours, nor can I have caffeine. They're more or less trying to force me to fall asleep during the test. Anyway, I'm in the midst of trying to stay awake, so I figured I'd update the blog in case anyone's curious.

So what's been going on with the von Herrmanns the last month? Work, vacation, work, work, work. That pretty much summarizes it. We went for a vacation three weeks ago down to Fort Morgan, which was a nice getaway. We basically stayed inside and bummed around for a majority of the time, but it was nice to get away from the office and work and everything and just be together.

The last two weeks, I've been holding down the fort while Bob, our senior minister, went to Greece with an ICE group that he's a facilitator for. It was a little crazy the first weekend after he left, since we had two people in the congregation die before he had left the country. I ended up doing two funerals in one day, which was quite the experience, particularly since I'd only met one of the people I was eulogizing. I think I pulled it off pretty well - I managed not to mess up their names, which was my primary goal.

Since that initial burst, it's actually been pretty calm, except for the trouble I've stirred up on my own. As a result of that, we'll have a couple of Sunday School classes changing rooms, but it'll be a good thing all around once we get through the transition.

Amanda's still having a blast playing with the Hispanic kids on the bus on Tuesday afternoons and tutoring a couple on Tuesday mornings. I'd like to join her at some point, but my schedule's usually crazy enough that I don't think I could be dependable.

Anyway, I think I'm going to rewatch some of the Matrix trilogy now. That should keep me awake. Already hit some 24 earlier. Just need stuff blowing up and I'll be good to go.