the joy of the blogosphere

i love when my youth have blogs and they don’t realize that i read them. anonymous reading of teens blogs gives me real, honest feedback concerning what we do. here’s what one of my teens posted today concerning the 24 hours of prayer we did today.

sooo… today i went up to the church to pray and man oh man! i was in there and it was just me and God. that was something i really needed. some one on one time with my Dad in a place that i love so very much. a place that i have seen Him move over and over again. i just got the reassurance that everything was going to be ok. that He is going to take care of us, of my family. it might take a little time, but He will make everything right again.

of course, sometimes the statements aren’t as positive. such as this one from the visiting preacher we had at church two sundays ago.

It was at this point I was getting enraged. i seriously almost lost it right in the middle of church. WHERE DID THIS GUY COME FROM? He was clever in using Louisiana terms to get people to buy it…even saying he lived in LA “way back when.” i seriously couldn’t believe such a false Christian could appear right in front of me and actually declare what he said to be true! I know what I believe…I know the truth, but I felt sad for the people who actually WENT and bought his book.

even the negative stuff helps though.

as a famous philosopher once said … “you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.” truer words have never been said.

24 hours of prayer

cross
our church is seeking GOD’s direction and doing it the only way we know how … an extended time of prayer. starting this morning at 12:01 a.m. i opened up the church sanctuary for prayer asking that church members would “man” it continually asking the FATHER for help in understanding HIS will. it’s been 4 hours thus far and during the roughest part of the 24 hour period the sanctuary has not been without at least one person in there praying. it’s been amazing. it seems that almost every other person that comes out of the sanctuary starts talking about how know they remember that GOD is in control. funny how spending time listening to GOD seems to calm us, HIS children, down.

alejandro?

Alejandro
for those of you who are interested in our friends down in diriamba, nicaragua you will be happy to discover that ada had her son at 8:08 a.m. as of now he does not have a name but claudia has resorted to referring to him as alejanndro because she refuses to call him “the baby.” he’s 7 pounds 4 ounces and very healthy.

morford on megachurches

here’s a real interesting piece of fiction concerning JESUS being found in a closet at a megachurch. when you read it look to the side and read the other posts concerning megachurches. some excellent thoughts.

true in advertising – i am an associate pastor at a church that runs 1,500 in worship each week and thus my church could be accused of some of the same things.

chris & leeann

monday one of the guys who i basically grew up with (one of my best friends throughout high school and college) placed the following comment on this blog:

Robert, I can’t figure out how to send you an email directly, so I thought I’d try this instead! Besides, the more people that see this, the better. My wife, LeeAnn, had a massive heart attack 9 days ago. She’s battling for her life right now. I truly believe that God is going to heal her, but that doesn’t stop me from praying and seeking the prayers of others. As I was walking the streets of Birmingham on my way to visit her at UAB hospital, the Lord gave me an interesting thought. Everyone who has visited us at the hospital is having to walk a lot of miles, because this hospital is just amazingly huge. And I thought, wow, everybody’s hearts are certainly healthier because of this. And then I realized that it is everyone’s spiritual hearts that are being even more radically affected as a result of LeeAnn’s sick heart. Because many people around here, including me, have become dramatically closer to God in the last 9 days. And it’s neat, despite the pain we’re all in, to see God work. Anyway, brother, we are in need of your prayers. Chris Moore

since then pam and i have been continuing to contact chris and have gotten our brothers and sisters at parkview to start praying for chris, leeann and their kids. some of you have been a part of praying for them and some of you are continuing to pray for them.

so i thought i would spread a little good news. last night they took the balloon pump out of her heart to see if it could function on its own. it has done wonderfully. it is actually functioning without the pump at the same level that it did with the pump. there are still several other hurdle to jump over so please keep praying but it’s nice to report one exciting thing.

crud war

the food#5
last night was “crud war” which is something i look forward to every year. “crud war” would be called a food fight if anything we used was actually edible. of course, what we use is by no means edible. instead of wasting new food i ask everyone to bring all the food that has been rotting in their refrigerators and pantries. people bring more mess than you would ever believe. this year we had one family bring crayfish that had been in their frig since april (that’s four months people) and another family brought three week old spaghetti.

two years ago i announced in church during worship that we needed food for “crud war” and i was presently surprised the next day when i received a “prayer request” form that had been turned in sunday. it said this:

with all the people starving in our state you still find time to waste food. now that’s religion!

pretty typical. thankfully i was able to get my pastor to make the following statement the next sunday.

the youth ministry held it’s annual “crud war” this past week. for those who don’t know it the “crud war” is done with rotting food that is donated, except for one bag of flour and one bag of rice. robert said if you were worried about any of this food being wasted when it could be eaten by people who are starving then you are welcome to come eat it. i don’t think you’ll find it very appealing.

i haven’t heard a complaint since then.