pro-life

i have a strong belief in the sanctity and dignity of human life – all human life. for me this dignity comes for humanity being made in the “image of GOD.” that image is too sacred to be treated with disregard. my opposition to abortion comes out of this belief. yet, i belief that a focus on the dignity of human life requires more than just trying to keep people from aborting fetuses. it means protecting all human life. thus we have to take care of those who are in need and protect the “image” by meeting those needs. it also means standing up against those who end human life just become it means there needs or desires. that why i have two areas that i want bring to your attention.

  • at 1 p.m. today the state of florida will allow the removal of terry schiavo’s feeding tube. once the feeding tube is removed schiavo, who is physically healthy though mentally in either a semi-comatose or fully comatose state, will slowly starve to death. all she presently needs to continue living, and thus have the possibility of some recovery, is to be fed. congress is trying to pass legislation to prevent this. you can help my emailing and you senator and representatives asking them to pass the legislation. you can contact the louisiana senator here and the representatives here.
  • the state of texas plans on executing stephen staley march 23rd. staley is by no means innocent. he killed another human being. yet even as a murder the “image of GOD” still resides in him and his life must be treated with dignity and protected just because of that image. i am opposed to capital punishment because of my belief in the sanctity of human life. sometimes that means protecting thus who aren’t innocent. you can write the governor of texas and urge for a stay of execution (and life without parole) by going here.

SIDE NOTE – 12:22 p.m. a state judge in florida has temporarily blocked the removal of terry schiavo’s feeding tube. it’s still up to the federal government to do something decisive.

the view – march 16, 2005

here are a few pictures of the minor prophet worship stations we had set up during the view:

habakkuk
the view habakkuk worship stationthe view habakkuk worship station

zephaniah
the view zephaniah worship stationthe view zephaniah worship station
the view zephaniah worship station

nahum
the view nahum worship stationthe view nahum worship station
the view nahum worship station

varitas #2

i went to another varitas lecture tonight. this one was by john kilner on bioethics and was quite good again. unfortunately it was also the last lecture so thus ends my 2005 varitas experience.

montana, my basset hound, my be the best stretcher in the world. a single stretch can last up to five minutes with her. she does such a good job at stretching that i usually feel better after just watching her stretch.

BTW, once again i loved the worship stations at the view last night. i am constantly amazed by what some of you guys and girls are able to do.
the view zephaniah worship stationthe view nahum worship station

do we really need land-mines?

i recently ran across this u.n. anti-land mine video. while, i don’t think the u.n. is the answer to the world’s problems (especially in light of recent revelations in regards to u.n. peace keepers in the congo) i do have to agree with them on this. getting rid of the use of land-mines would be a great thing. this video helps to make that point.

i got to go to one of the veritas lectures tonight. tonight’s lecture was on “is there scientific evidence for an intelligent creator of the universe?” by dr. walter bradley. i enjoyed the lecture quite a bit.

tech intern?

dnow 2005

i love taking care of the technical aspects of a worship service. i really enjoying trying to push the envelope of what we are presently doing. i tried doing a little of that during our discipleNOW. i stole an idea from the 2005 national youth workers’ convention and shot two images side by side on a super large screen. this enabled us to shot lyrics on one 9′ wide section of the screen and highway video vibe movies on the other 9′ section of the screen. we could then swap sides between video and lyrics at will. we also had the ability to shot half of an image from each projector and create an 18′ wide image all the way across the screen. i thought it was a cool backdrop.

of course, that’s the problem too. i love doing this stuff but i’m not the one who needs to be doing it. i have to start training and developing a tech team that can take these tasks over, set the up, and run them during an event. i have to find people who care about these things as much as i do. that’s the real issue. i have to find people who are convinced that the technical aspects of a worship service are incredibly important. i need people who are passionate about using technology to help people worship. it scares me to give up control of this but it has to be done because i need to be spending time with kids rather than making sure a cable is hooked up properly.

what JESUS never said

i recently found this at “cat’s cradle and i had to post it because it is amazing. i get so jealous of people who think like this. i love her outlook on grace. i’m not sure about you but i’ve been a couple of the people listed below and i have definitely worried about JESUS saying the things listed below (even though I know in my head that HE wouldn’t).

    What Jesus Didn’t Say….

    … to the woman at the well. “Well, first you have to make a full confession of everything you’ve done and then we’ll talk. ”

    … to the woman with the hemorrhage. “Don’t touch me. You’ll get me all dirty and contaminated.”

    … to the Canaanite woman. “I don’t care what you say, the gentiles are still dogs and dogs should be kept outside, not under the table.”

    … to the thief on the cross. “Since you were a thief, it’s okay. I’ll square it with Dad. Now if you’d been a homosexual it would be a totally different story.”

    … to the 5,000. “Ok, here’s lunch, but first I have a sermon to give here and then the boys will be passing out commitment cards for you to sign. No signature, no lunch.”

    … to Peter, floundering in the water. “Pete, Pete, Pete. Hasn’t anybody taught you how to swim?”

    … to Mary, meeting him on the road just after Lazarus’ death. ” Well, everybody dies sometime, and I had some very important business to attend to. I just couldn’t fit a visit into my schedule before now.”

    … to Martha, bustling about the kitchen and fussing about Mary’s sitting down on the job. “Mary, get your lazy butt up and go act like a normal woman. Shame on you for forgetting your place like that!”

    … to the rich young man. “Hey, salvation may be free but it ain’t cheap. But I would like some sort of commitment from you — 10% or so would work. You can see the guy who takes care of the purse, Judas.”

    … to the scribes and Pharisees who were trying to trap him. “I’m behind you, fellas. Those rules are there to be obeyed to the letter, and if you can make a little profit off them, so much the better.”

    … to the people on the mount, “Listen. I’m telling you to love your neighbor, but make sure he isn’t *one of them*, if you know what i mean.”

    … to the crowd, “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

    … to Mary, his mother, at a party, “Bug off, Ma. If these lazy jerks can’t plan adequately for this, why should I pull their irons out of the fire for them?”

    Of course, he didn’t say any of this. That, I believe, is why we have the gospels, the “good news” not “the good news — and the bad news.”

dnow summary – at least the first summary

these are the initial thoughts on the discipleNOW that we had this past weekend:

  • our host homes and leaders were great this year. i heard very positive experiences during the weekend. i do think that next year we will use the concept of an event blog at a much earlier date to encourage even more idea swapping. this year’s blog seemed to help some in communicating with the leaders and thus doing it even earlier should help even more.
  • andy neely (the youth minister at springhill baptist church in mobile, alabama) was great. he did a wonderful job of communicating.
  • ten shekel shirt was great. they did a superb job of leading us in worship and i throughly enjoyed hanging out with them. lamont (the lead singer) and austin (the drummer) are both very passionate about social justice issues – especially modern day slavery in southeast asia and eastern europe.
  • we got rid of the polaroid scavenger hunt that we had done in the past and instead went to a wild goose chase on l.s.u’s campus. it went very well. the kids were completely worn out and we may need to shorten it just a little next year.
  • i need to work on improving the student center sound system. we had to borrow some equipment from the ring and the stuff we borrowed was junk we should have had already. in the future i will add a 31 band graphic equalizer (i’m considering the behring FBQ3102 and the dbx 231) a compressor or two (i’m looking at the behringer mdx 2600 and the dbx 266xl), and a few other sound system nic nacs.

march madness

one of the greatest times of the calendar year arrives this wednesday – march madness. last year we setup a bracket system for anyone involved within the youth ministry to participate within. i figured i would do the same thing again. if you are interested email me and i’ll send an invite to you. you will have to register with cbs sportsline but they’re very good about not bothering you. you can view our “brackets’ at http://the-view.mayhem.sportsline.com/brackets.

of course, i’m not really sure that there is any need for anyone to fill out their brackets because last year i throughly dominated everyone else. here’s my bracket for this year:
my bracket

this is absurd

my ticket cost me this much
about 6 weeks ago i was given a ticket by a sheriff’s deputy for not having an inspection sticker on my truck. i deserved the ticket so i don’t really have a complaint about that (though the deputy was not one of the nicer law enforcement agents i have ever met – most of whom are usually very decent people). today i went to the east baton rouge parish court house to pay the fine. i was amazed to find that the fee was only $20. of course, that’s not what i actually paid, nope by the end of the day i had paid $127.25 only $20 of which was for not having an inspection sticker. the other $107.25 was other fees that were supposed to be some how connected to the cost of my ticket, such as $77 for court costs (which if i had actually gone to court would have made a little sense), or $10 for jury compensation (i’m not real sure how they fit a jury into the very small room that the clerk was in but since i was charged for it i’m sure there must have been a jury somewhere in the room), or $2 for the supreme court (i must be more important than i realize since the supreme court sits in on my traffic tickets). my actual fine for driving without an inspection sticker was a mere 1/5 of the additional costs placed on the ticket.

something is wrong with this.

stanley grenz

you’ve probably heard this by now from several different sources but i figured i would add my memory to the collective consciousness … stanley grenz has gone home. i loved his writing and was really impressed the one time i was able to meet him. i was in seminary when allot of grenz initial theology of community started coming out. he came to campus for a lecture series. after his message grenz came to the systematic class i was in at the time and spoke for awhile longer. after that i and tons of other people gathered around to hear still more. it was pathetic because we were all just trying to meet him. i was most impressed that he put up with it all. since that day i have continued reading his stuff and being challenged by it. he’ll be missed.