Christopher Chelpka

I’m trying to learn how to use GitLab. I know it’s designed for developers, but I think it may be useful for my church as a repository for important documents, a wiki for sharing various policies and guidelines, and maybe as a project management tool too.

What do you think? Do you think it’s a good idea?

Any advice, articles, or videos you’d suggest for a total noob? The intro support videos at GitLab were a little too advanced for me.

Tomorrow, we have three people joining our church. One is a new believer. Yay!

To join, each will affirm five questions, including this one related to the Trinity:

Do you believe in one living and true God, in whom eternally there are three distinct persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—who are the same in being and equal in power and glory, and that Jesus Christ is God the Son, come in the flesh?

Some people doubt the value of this doctrine and may even wonder if it should be required for membership. “Isn’t this better left to the theologians?”

The answer is no. As theologian Fred Sanders explains in 5 Myths about the Trinity,“the Trinity is too important to be left to theological experts.”

If you aren’t so sure, read @fredfredsanders article and see what you think.

Also, we’d love it if you would pray for these souls and our whole church.

About ten years ago, a lot of people started to abandon their own blogs and personal websites because it was so much easier to blog and microblog on other sites like Facebook and Twitter. But in the last year or so, two things have happened that are making many people want reclaim their own space on the web.

1. We’ve learned a lot about the downsides of social media silos. Here’s just the most recent problem.
2. Blogging is way easier than it once was, especially if you choose an almost frictionless option like I did by hosting my blog on Micro.blog. My friend @Nathanrhale just opened up about why he’s considering it too. And there are other good options as well.

If you’re curious and would like to learn more, start by reading Manton Reece’s final post in his helpful series, 12 Days of Microblogging.

Exercise Wins: Fit Seniors Can Have Hearts That Look 30 Years Younger 🖇

Every now and then I need a reminder that regular exercise is important. And now is one of those times.

Thankfully, this morning I heard Patti Neighmond’s report about a study on aging and exercise. It makes one of the best cases for lifelong exercise I’ve ever heard. And it put me back on track.

The study compared the health of three groups: old people who were lifelong exercisers, old people who were not lifelong exercisers, and young people who were exercising as much as the old exercisers.

The results were remarkable. The health and quality of life for the lifelong exercisers was significantly better than those of their non-exercising peers. One 82-year-old, David Costill, has been exercising since he was in high school. Now,

when Costill looks at his friends, he says he finds he can do a lot more physically than they can. “If I’m out with a group of my peers, guys who are near 80, and we’re going someplace, it seems to me they’re all walking at half speed.”

So in addition to the immediate benefits of exercise, we can also look forward to the future.

It might even help to think of exercise like money. With each push up, you invest in a fund with an extraordinarily good rate of return. To greatly improve your quality of life in the future, make regular investments today.