Insight from ezine - by permission
Where Are God's Master Builders?
Hi, SheepTrax!
For her 6th birthday, my not quite a baby girl any more Amber Jade decided she wanted to go on a riverboat excursion. Her insatiable curiosity, balanced with my limited checkbook, resulted in a compromised one-hour cruise aboard the Tom Sawyer as we traveled up and down the St. Louis waterfront while she danced, squealed, and warned "the duckies" to get out of the way of the boat or they might get hurt.
Daddying is too cool.
Anyway, after deafening us with the blast of the whistle, the captain of the boat began sharing history about various structures and events in St. Louis' history including the great fire of 1849 that nearly wiped the city out, and about a bridge I have always been curious about: the world renown Eads Bridge.
With its superstructure arches built underneath, the Eads Bridge looks like it was built upside down, a fact acknowledged the captain. He launched into a short history of the bridge that piqued my curiosity and while researching this historical landmark; I learned something about God's need for master builders.
For more than a century, the Eads Bridge has connected Missouri and Illinois across the muddy waters of the Mississippi River. It was built by a self-educated engineering genius from Indiana named James Buchanan Eads.
After the Civil War, Eads had already earned quite a reputation by supervising the construction of eight ironclad steamers in just 65 days, a feat thought impossible. In his remarkable life, he invented the submerged sand pump to remove sand and silt from the river, still in use today, and figured out a way to open the mouth of the Mississippi so ships could travel to the ocean.
The Eads Bridge remains an engineering marvel. Commissioned shortly after the Civil War by desperate St. Louis businessmen who realized the only way to keep their city relevant to the development of the country was to find a way to have the railroad come through their city. But how?
Considering that the Mississippi is the second largest river o the planet, and that several previous bridgebuilding attempts had failed, they needed a visionary who could redefine what a bridge was, and think outside the box. They found their visionary dreamer in James Eads.
Engineers warned Eads that the undertaking was impossible because it had never been done before. All who had tried previously had failed. His reply remains a visionary classic: "Must we admit that, because a thing has never been done, it never can be, when our knowledge and judgment assures us it is entirely practical?"
Eads assessed the failures of the past and actually made several dives to the bottom the of the riverbed in a diving bell apparatus he quickly invented, concluding that for a bridge to be built, it would have to be sunk some 96 feet into the limestone bedrock of the city.
Using the European process of Pneumatic caissons, large watertight chambers for working under water, he designed and built the world's first super bridge which is still in service today for trains, cars, and pedestrians.
When it was completed, he and his team had created the world's first alloy steel bridge which was the first to use tubular cord members, and it was the first to depend entirely upon the use of the cantilever construction, a process with one beam being fixed in place while giving the other room to move.
Most bridges have their metal arch framework on top, but Eads' was built beneath, giving rise to the notion it has been built upside down. When it was completed, Eads hired several trains and one stomping parade elephant to cross back and forth across his bridge to assure the public that it was indeed really a bridge, and was in fact safe for travel.
James Buchanan Eads was a Master Builder. During recent renovations to the bridge, modern day engineers were in awe of the workmanship they uncovered stating that much of it was absolutely modern. Eads innovated revolutionary engineering concepts and metallurgy techniques, and is revered for being more than a century ahead of his time.
So where are the Master Builders of the kingdom of God? Those who know the church must go deeper into the bedrock than ever before, those who wisely spy out the land, and conclude the impossible is entirely doable provided we completely rethink our strategy, those who know we must remain relevant if we are to impact our world yet we must remain true to our calling, those who are not afraid to build what does not look like a traditional church but is in fact a century ahead of its time?
Where are those who dare to dream in God and then build according to the heavenly pattern? Where are God's Master Builders?
As the Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthans 3:10, "According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it."
Amen.
Reference:
The National Encyclopedia for the Home, School and Library, Vol. III., National Encyclopedia Company, Chicago, 1927.
Everybody's Cyclopedia, Vol. IV., Syndicate Publishing Company, New York, 1912.
Bryan Hupperts © 2004
SheepTrax Media
www.SheepTrax.com
http://www.sheeptrax.injesus.com
Where Are God's Master Builders?
Hi, SheepTrax!
For her 6th birthday, my not quite a baby girl any more Amber Jade decided she wanted to go on a riverboat excursion. Her insatiable curiosity, balanced with my limited checkbook, resulted in a compromised one-hour cruise aboard the Tom Sawyer as we traveled up and down the St. Louis waterfront while she danced, squealed, and warned "the duckies" to get out of the way of the boat or they might get hurt.
Daddying is too cool.
Anyway, after deafening us with the blast of the whistle, the captain of the boat began sharing history about various structures and events in St. Louis' history including the great fire of 1849 that nearly wiped the city out, and about a bridge I have always been curious about: the world renown Eads Bridge.
With its superstructure arches built underneath, the Eads Bridge looks like it was built upside down, a fact acknowledged the captain. He launched into a short history of the bridge that piqued my curiosity and while researching this historical landmark; I learned something about God's need for master builders.
For more than a century, the Eads Bridge has connected Missouri and Illinois across the muddy waters of the Mississippi River. It was built by a self-educated engineering genius from Indiana named James Buchanan Eads.
After the Civil War, Eads had already earned quite a reputation by supervising the construction of eight ironclad steamers in just 65 days, a feat thought impossible. In his remarkable life, he invented the submerged sand pump to remove sand and silt from the river, still in use today, and figured out a way to open the mouth of the Mississippi so ships could travel to the ocean.
The Eads Bridge remains an engineering marvel. Commissioned shortly after the Civil War by desperate St. Louis businessmen who realized the only way to keep their city relevant to the development of the country was to find a way to have the railroad come through their city. But how?
Considering that the Mississippi is the second largest river o the planet, and that several previous bridgebuilding attempts had failed, they needed a visionary who could redefine what a bridge was, and think outside the box. They found their visionary dreamer in James Eads.
Engineers warned Eads that the undertaking was impossible because it had never been done before. All who had tried previously had failed. His reply remains a visionary classic: "Must we admit that, because a thing has never been done, it never can be, when our knowledge and judgment assures us it is entirely practical?"
Eads assessed the failures of the past and actually made several dives to the bottom the of the riverbed in a diving bell apparatus he quickly invented, concluding that for a bridge to be built, it would have to be sunk some 96 feet into the limestone bedrock of the city.
Using the European process of Pneumatic caissons, large watertight chambers for working under water, he designed and built the world's first super bridge which is still in service today for trains, cars, and pedestrians.
When it was completed, he and his team had created the world's first alloy steel bridge which was the first to use tubular cord members, and it was the first to depend entirely upon the use of the cantilever construction, a process with one beam being fixed in place while giving the other room to move.
Most bridges have their metal arch framework on top, but Eads' was built beneath, giving rise to the notion it has been built upside down. When it was completed, Eads hired several trains and one stomping parade elephant to cross back and forth across his bridge to assure the public that it was indeed really a bridge, and was in fact safe for travel.
James Buchanan Eads was a Master Builder. During recent renovations to the bridge, modern day engineers were in awe of the workmanship they uncovered stating that much of it was absolutely modern. Eads innovated revolutionary engineering concepts and metallurgy techniques, and is revered for being more than a century ahead of his time.
So where are the Master Builders of the kingdom of God? Those who know the church must go deeper into the bedrock than ever before, those who wisely spy out the land, and conclude the impossible is entirely doable provided we completely rethink our strategy, those who know we must remain relevant if we are to impact our world yet we must remain true to our calling, those who are not afraid to build what does not look like a traditional church but is in fact a century ahead of its time?
Where are those who dare to dream in God and then build according to the heavenly pattern? Where are God's Master Builders?
As the Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthans 3:10, "According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it."
Amen.
Reference:
The National Encyclopedia for the Home, School and Library, Vol. III., National Encyclopedia Company, Chicago, 1927.
Everybody's Cyclopedia, Vol. IV., Syndicate Publishing Company, New York, 1912.
Bryan Hupperts © 2004
SheepTrax Media
www.SheepTrax.com
http://www.sheeptrax.injesus.com
