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For the past 40 days, the family and I have been on the road more often than we have not. My last day at The Chapel was May 31 (the family and I were so blessed by the send-off) and June 1 we hit the road. Today, July 10, we are finally settled into my sister’s house with most of our stuff in storage.

This whirlwind of a tour has brought us from Baton Rouge to Tomball (TX) to Bellville (still in TX, with an excellent meat market) to San Antonio (tourists!) back to Tomball back to Baton Rouge to Tyler (for Pine Cove) to Knoxville to Arlington (VA) to DC (you have to see the White House) to Cumming (in GA—Hey, Michael and Erica!) back to Baton Rouge to Spring (TX—storage unit) back to Baton Rouge and now finally back in Texas (with my sister). We tallied about 5,000 miles of driving (300 of them in a U-Haul) in 40 days. The memories created have been great, but I’m glad to be done driving.

Spring, TX will be our spot for the foreseeable future. I’ll write more in the coming days/weeks, but I’ll soon be starting as the pastor of preaching at Genesis Community Church. I’ll join staff in August and then assume preaching roles in the fall.

We’re looking forward to being here and to getting started, and we are grateful for the support of all who have kept up with us over the years.

We are playing a little catch-up on thee questions and answers. I brought the kids in for question 17 and they wanted to stay for a couple others. So we offer you three. It would’ve been four questions, but the fourth turned into a hot mess. This is a pretty accurate representation of how it ACTUALLY goes.

QUESTION 18

Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?
No. God is righteously angry with our sins and will punish them both in this life and the life to come.

New City Catechism Q. 18 from Hans Googer on Vimeo.

QUESTION 19
Is there any way to escape punishment and be brought back into God’s favor?
Yes. God reconciles us to himself by a Redeemer.

New City Catechism Q. 19 from Hans Googer on Vimeo.

QUESTION 20
Who is the Redeemer?
The only Redeemer is the Lord Jesus Christ.

New City Catechism Q. 20 from Hans Googer on Vimeo.

Another week, another song!

As a family, we now have songs for questions 16-30. Question 31 is the Apostle’s Creed, so it is going to take some work.

This one, again, is super easy.

What is idolatry?

Idolatry is trusting in created things rather than the Creator.

Ok, on to figuring out the Apostle’s Creed.

So the family and I have been slowly going through New City Catechism, a great tool in teaching biblical theology to the church. Catechisms are simply questions and answers that help to instruct people in the faith. They can, at times, feel a little wonky, but we have found them helpful for us.

What we like about New City Catechism is that (1) it is short (only 52 questions and answers) and (2) that every answer has a shorter children’s version to memorize. So, essentially, we like that it is short. We don’t even try to memorize the adult version. Just the kid one.

Now, if you download the app, you’ll also find that the children’s version has songs. Apparently, all the songs have been written, but they have not all been posted to the app. Only the first fifteen have been posted (as of this entry).

Well, we’ve taken matters into our own hands and started making our own versions of the songs. This is really gonna screw our kids up when Crossway releases the other versions of the songs, but we don’t care. I decided to share the in case it helps you, too. It likely won’t (unless you play guitar and like catechisms), but might as well try.

Here’s Q.16:

What is sin?

Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, not being or doing what he requires in his law.

New City Catechism Q.16 from Hans Googer on Vimeo.

This week, Dale and I entered back into the podcast game talking with one of my seminary friends, Pablo. Pablo is currently living in Santa Cruz, Bolivia awaiting paperwork to be able to work in the US. Why is he doing that? I’ll let him explain, but it has a lot to do with trying to discern God’s voice, dealing with pain, and having faith. A lot of faith.

We are raising our families in an incredibly different world—a hyper-connected one. I am an avid user of a lot of these technologies (he types, while listening to Spotify, charging his iPhone two feet away, and having just sent an email to a friend about how to get a podcast started).

In this episode, Dale and I tackle the topic of technology addiction, a lot of it built off of this video that made the rounds a few weeks back:

Enjoy the newest episode (which we shortened by about five minutes!):