Probably won’t be updating for two weeks, check back around Easter!

Current Standings after the weekend:

1.  Ben Hoak (43-48 picks right, that puts him ranked 189 in all of Yahoo.  Not sure how many are in yahoo, but right now 1,200,000 are in the 35% or better range)

2.  Andy Lutz

T-3.  Kyle Morrison, Rachel Mahl, Mystery Team, Mark Tipton

T-7.  Joe Nuce, Joel Merck 

Standings after Saturday’s games:

1.  Ben Hoak

2.  Andy Lutz

T-3.  Joe Nuce, Mystery Team, Mark Tipton

T-6.  Joe Price, Shane Walden 

 And the Best news:  Butler is still Dancing!

Bracket Standings:

 1.  Ben Hoak

2.  Mystery Team

T-3.  Eric Price

3.  Beth Lutz

3.  Joe Price

3.  Shane Walden

And a bunch tied for 7th.

And if the cellar interests you, Tom Lutz has climbed out, but Bob Lutz is planning on camping out down there awhile.

We have formed a little bracket competition at Edgewood that is growing it is tradition. To keep up the interest, I will try to list the leaderboard at the end of rounds here on Blasted Gourds. If you think you should be in Reformed Round Ball’s Bracket, and are already signed up in a yahoo league, just email me and I will see if I can get you included.

Day One Leaderboard

T-1. Rachel Mahl (The leaders only missed 1 on Thursday)

1. Aaron Mahl

T-3. Ben Hoak (There are a bunch who missed 2)

3. Mark Tipton

3. Joe Nuce

3. Andy Lutz

3. Stuart Perry

3. Beth Lutz

And I have to give some love to Tom and Bob Lutz for pulling up the rear, tied for 23!

We will dance for the cream and crimson:

Errek Suhr is just a great story on the Indiana bench. He may be short, slow and white, but he can dance! Sorry ladies, He’s engaged.  I wished he played more, I love his energy and/or tenacity. The Hoosiers keep dancing for another day.

Good old fashion Indiana basketball was on display earlier today as the Butler Bulldogs started their run in the NCAA tournament.   If there was no shot clock, this team might try to hold the ball the entire second half.  Now I must return to cheering on the Hoosiers.

Final Four Picks:  Ohio State, Florida, UCLA, and UNC

Dr. Mohler has an interesting article today on how family time is now replacing church time.  Many churches have called an end to mid-week activities/Prayer meetings and Sunday night worship, often because of dwindling attendance due to families have had to steal away “family time” because of their busy schedules. 

 Let’s be honest here — these families, for the most part, are not spending these additional hours of the week in joint spiritual activities and disciplines. It is not as though “family time” was a time of biblical instruction and spiritual edification. No . . . increasingly it’s Little League and NASCAR.

At the same time, when Christian parents take their kids to Little League games rather than worship on the Lord’s Day, these parents teach their children that team sports are more important than the worship of God.

Every kid has a “thing” going on virtually all the time. That is the condition of life today, it seems. But when that “thing” keeps the child — or the whole family — away from church, we need to name that thing what it is . . . at best a snare, at worst an idol.

Dr. Mohler also calls into question much of the dividing up that occurs in churches, where family time and church time are seen as two entirely different things. 

Daniel Dyke is a fairly unkown Puritan. In fact, his greatest claim to fame may be that he falls directly in front of Jonathan Edwards alphabetically in Meet the Puritans. However, his only publication, Michael and the Dragon, is noted to be as helpful if not more so than Thomas Brook’s Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices in the Christians fight against sin and temptation.

Dyke grew up in Essex, England and later became a minister there, but John Aylmer, the bishop of London, suspended him from his pulpit in 1583. The story goes something like this:

Alymer had infuriated the Puritans by bowling on Sundays and promoting lax Sabbath observances. His grounds for dismissing Dyke were that Dyke refused to be ordained as a priest, resisted wearing the surplice, promoted conventicles, and pushed for further reformation in the church.

Dyke was defended by one of his parishioners as being peaceable and dutiful in his life and doctrine.  I was reminded as I read this of the ads on ESPN, Sunday is for Bowling.  I think Aylmer would have liked those ads.  I am convicted as I continue to read of many of the non-conformist of the cost they paid for preaching and living the gospel.  In a day and age where we seemingly care so little for what the church across the street is doing, these men were being imprisoned for living holy lives, preaching the gospel, and defending the misuses of the gospel.  Here it appears that Dyke lost his pulpit because he cared that another pastor was lax in his personal piety.  It is a reminder that the gospel is bigger than our own life, or even our church, it is a necessity for the world.  Everyone who claims Christ is a reflection of the gospel and either makes it shine or mares it.  We must guard it, and we must proclaim it, regardless of the personal costs, but in such a way that it may be said of us as was of Dyke, “he carried himself so peaceably and dutifully among them, both in his life and doctrine, that no man could justly find fault with him, except of malice.”

I recently switched to gmail and really like it, now I have added another feature that is a great time saver.

If you frequently check several blogs or sites that have feeds then try it, You will love it!

I believe I may be one of the few Reformed Baptist pastors who does not own a copy of The Work of John Flavel, but after reading more of him from Meet the Puritan I may have to break down and purchase them.  He was no doubt a gifted preacher.  One who sat regularly under his ministry said of him,

I could say, much though not enough of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable and spiritual matter; of his plain exposition of Scripture; his talking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience.  In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected. 

To top it off, he appears to have been the Indiana Jones of the Puritans.  (Maybe I can try to live up to some of this and be dubbed Indiana Flavel)  He was removed from his pulpit in 1662 for being a nonconformist, but would preach secretly to his flock, often in the woods.  Once, he dressed up like a woman to be able to ride to preach.  On another occasion he had to ride his horse off into the sea and swim away to avoid being arrested.  There is an occasion recorded where his preaching in the woods was broken up by soldiers, but they moved him to another woods to finish his sermon.  Wow!  I wonder how often that would happen today to those of us who are preachers.   

The key to all of this seems to have been his many hours of personal meditation and self-examination.

He attained to a well-grounded assurance, the ravishing comforts of which were many times shed abroad in his soul; this made him a powerful and successful preacher, as one who spoke from his own heart to those of others.  he preached what he felt, and what he had handled, what he had seen and tasted of the word of life and they felt it also.

We read those words today and may see in them what we want, but the beauty is Flavel did not preach about politics or soap boxes, he preached the excellency of Christ.