More “In Christ” Quotes

"There is only one place where we are right with God and that is in Christ Jesus"

"Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus."

-Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest, June 21)

Want to help?

This site is a labor of love for Christ as I am led by the Spirit. If you have an interest in this concept of evangelism tool-making and encouragement and have creative skills with images, graphical powerpoints, infographics, mobile apps and want to join me in building this site, feel free to contact me at fpnole@evangelinformatics.com .

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24 05, 2013

Oh, The Places You’ll Go(with God)!

Developing relevant information “tools” for any endeavor such as evangelism takes time. It usually involves gathering information from varied resources, or collecting information from a very large and detailed resource and formatting it in a way that will be understandable and useful for those who will use the tool. This first “tool” I will post goes back many years and it provides a way to challenge “graduates” of various kinds to not leave God out of their lives. In fact, they should bow before Him in humble gratitude in all situations because He did not even spare His own Son, but “gave him up for us all.” (Romans 8:32)

I would venture that many thousands of graduates each year receive the book  Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. I received a copy myself from my oldest sister when I graduated from Florida State University back in 1992. Interestingly, I had started preparing for this tool entry on the site recently and I happened to see a college-aged patient in the hospital. As I was talking with this patient about her illness, I looked towards the window and noticed a brand new copy of Oh, The Places You’ll Go! sitting on the air conditioner. 21 years have passed since I received my copy and yet, sure enough, the patient told me she received it at a graduation event that had taken place recently.

The problem here is that this beloved book goes entirely counter to a God-centered (Theistic) view of the world. It is entirely atheistic in its dialogue and ultimately appears to portray a secular humanistic view of a person’s life events. I know that it is only a storybook, but this is not the kind of information that true Christian parents, family, or friends should pass on as some legitimate form of “truth” about their life journey. The Bible is an inspired collection of 66 books encompassing history, wisdom, prophecy, poetry and other forms of prose. There is much to be gained from applying relevant verses to life’s journeys including both the ups and the downs.

The Oh, the Places You’ll Go (with God)! tool is a spreadsheet of bible verses with the relevant corresponding page numbers from the Dr. Seuss book. This allows the “graduate” to receive their “traditional” storybook gift while at the same time balancing the story’s philosophy with sound biblical truth, pointing the graduate to God during this important transition in their life. Click the button links below to be taken to the tool. The PDF can be color printed and placed inside the book, or even better, the verses can be manually written into the book (a labor of love with an example seen above) so that the reader  immediately sees the comparative biblical view.

Parents typically invest all kinds of effort into the safe and loving care of their children to get them to milestones like graduation. An important analogy, described by theologian J.I. Packer, regarding our own relationship with God, emerges. A young child will hear “baby talk” from a parent. That “baby talk” does not really represent who that parent is, but that child will grow in their trust and love of their parent if that “baby talk” conveys truth (e.g. “No, No, No. Hot!”, “Eat. Yummy.”). We need to realize that God communicates with us through His Word like “baby talk”. Much of God will remain mystery to us, but if what we do know  is truthful and life-giving, then “the truest expression of trust in a great God will always be worship, and it will always be proper worship to praise God for being far greater than we can know.” (Packer (1993), p.53)

Oh, the places we’ll go with God! Amen.

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9 03, 2013

What exactly is Evangelinformatics?

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,

  for it is the power of God unto salvation

  to everyone who believeth: to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

  Romans 1:16

 

It is with the Apostle Paul’s same sentiment that I begin this blog/website journey. After 15 years as a physician, this past year has revealed to me a particular interest in the area of informatics.

What is informatics? It can be defined as the knowledge, skills, and tools which enable information to be gathered, refined, researched, utilized, and presented in support of some greater purpose. For example, Clinical Informatics involves supporting the practice of medicine using information tools such as an electronic health record. Informatics need not involve computers, but informatics professionals invariably turn to computers because of their information processing benefits.

My vision is to apply informatics methods and tools to my deep and unashamed Christian faith in ways that are novel, appealing, relevant, and practical. Euangellion is the Greek word from which we get our words gospel AND evangelism. In my desire to create, gather, and organize tools and resources to support the belief and spread of the true biblical gospel by “ordinary” Christians, I came up with the term Evangelinformatics. A Google search provides no results for this word except the recent website name registration. I recognize this is not quite the best search engine optimization strategy. This will only make it more rewarding if people discover the site and find it helpful.

The process of creating content for the site will be of great value to my faith as well as to my working knowledge of evangelism, apologetics, and the gospel itself. But I pray God might use me to touch the lives of others for Christ.  I recently heard Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, say “When you feel the gospel, you will touch lives.” And Christ himself challenged the disciples in Matthew 4:19 where he says, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’”  Father, help me follow this command and fish with nothing but “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).