Month: June 2005

i’m scum! plain and simple. there is no other way to put it – i’m pure, unadulterated scum.

now you must be asking yourself “how is robert scum?” so i’ll tell you. i forgot my mother’s and my father’s birthday. my parents’ birthdays were this past week. the big thing is not the gift because my parents are at the age that they go out and buy whatever they want. no the gifts are not the thing that i feel really bad about. nope i feel bad because i didn’t call on their birthdays. that’s the terrible thing about all this.

actually it wasn’t really my fault. you see i desperately wanted to call my parents and say “happy birthday” on their perspective birthdays but i wasn’t able to. the reason for this is because i was threatened with bodily harm concerning calling them. my kids, adam and noah, told me that they would beat me senseless if i called my parents and wished them happy birthday. you wouldn’t really think that an 8 and 11 year old could be so threatening but you would be wrong. they’re like mafia don’s and they know how exert a little muscle in order to accomplish what they want. i really wanted to call my parents on their birthdays but i was simply to scared to go against the threats of my kids. so i guess my parents should blame the whole thing on their grandkids. let me make sure my parents understand this perfectly – it was the grandkids fault and not mine. 🙂

Our church invitation t-shirt
Originally uploaded by Insane Zamboni.

i absolutely love whoever came up with this t-shirt. it’s brilliant.

i can’t really think of a better more honest invitation to church. i like it so much i’ll probably rip it off … uhmmm … i mean borrow it, while giving full credit to the people who deserve it. 😉 anyhow, i’ll probably use it someday.

sometimes what i have in my mind doesn’t come across well when we actually do it. the above “worship station” is one such situation. wednesday night at “the view” i was talking off of james 4:8 about we believers focusing on one thing. soren kirkegaard says that “purity of heart is to will one thing” and i thought that would make for a great discussion. the message was okay – not great, not terrible. as a part of the message i wanted to set up a worship station in the back of the room to help people to consider what (or more importantly who) their “one thing” was. for me looking at myself in a mirror has always been a challenging thing. for some reason looking at myself for an extended time causes me to have to consider what GOD thinks of me and thus what i think of myself and how it relates to GOD’s thoughts. i was hoping to do a station that held the same effect for others. instead the whole thing came across as boring – at least to me. it just didn’t seem to make it from my mind to actual practice. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

SIDE NOTE – i think my mother is reading this blog now (which is fine and dandy but strange because i don’t really think that she would find any of this interesting). she usually reads my other blog. if you are reading this HI MOM!

i read aboutlifeway’s survey of top ten issues facing the church first on steve mccoy’s emerging sbc leaders and i was blown away. here’s the list (developed by visitors to lifeway’s website:

10. Abortion
9. Homosexuality
8. Relevance
7. Marriage
6. Apathy
5. Doctrine/Worldview
4. Evangelism
3. Leadership
2. Discipleship
1. Prayer

i can’t believe that social justice issues didn’t rate at all. how absurd is it that “leadership” makes the list and “taking care of the poor” doesn’t. what is wrong with us? how can we (southern baptists) ever hope to be considered “relevant” when we don’t fight for the needs of those who have been pushed to the margins of the world? i know we do allot of good in social justice issues (providing food, bringing clothing, etc.) but when do we actual fight for justice? maybe our “prayer” and “discipleship” would improve if we were focused on praying for the things that are important to our LORD and the marginalized are important to our LORD.