Category: personal

i just read an article about gentry tate speaking in tongues by using basketball player names – here it is.

the whole thing is a farce from the the holy observer but i think it is funny none the less.

the evangelical outpost listed predictions for 2005. here are a few of my favorites:

• tim lahaye will receive a vision from GOD warning him that he will be “left behind” if he writes any more novels about the apocalypse.
• in preparation for the 2006 elections the g.o.p. reveals that its strategic plan consists of nothing more than relying on the democrats to implode.
• when discovered alive and well and living in a beach house in nice, france, yasser arafat will confess that he faked his death because “living in palestine sucks.”

you can find the entire list here.

here are photos from the set-up of the view, december 29, 2004. this was our samson service. the back of the room was set up as a place to confess our failures to GOD (each corner of the room was a station that had cards and pens. the back center of the room was set up with two columns and a paper shredder. the columns were there to remind us of GOD using samson in the end inspite of his past failures. the paper shredder was a contemporary way of “erasing” the past. the sounds of the shredder were intermingled with our singing. each grind bore testimony to someone who had gotten rid of their guilt.

we’re not doing a new year’s eve youth service – this way i get to spend some time with my family and personally i hate lock-ins with a passion. because of this i am using the service at the view tomorrow night to get our kids and adults focused on the new year. we are going to do a “redo” service based on the story of samson.

i love samson. he is such a major screw up. he had everything going for him. he was incredibly strong, apparently nice looking, and most importantly called by GOD. yet samson got all egotistical and screwed it all up. he messed up bad and it appeared that GOD would drop him. nobody would have blamed GOD for dropping samson. i mean samson did everything wrong and selfish. samson wasted the amazing gifts that GOD has given him.

i can relate to that. “wasted” is the word that i often feel like describes my life. i’m not incrediblly strong, nor am i very good looking, and truthfully i’m often not so sure that i have been called by GOD. the little bit i have i usually waste on myself instead of using to accomplish something for the greater good. most times i don’t bring GOd glory. in fact, most times i’m too busy focusing on myself to really care if GOD gets any glory at all. i wouldn’t blame GOD if he dropped me.

yet, GOD did not leave samson. when samson asked GOD for HIS help GOD was there. if you read the text you’ll find that samson didn’t even ask in a good fashion. samson didn’t ask for GOD’s glory, or say he was a worm or anything like that. nope! samson just asked for GOD’s help, admitting that he needed GOD’s help, and GOD gave it.

the LORD gave samson a “redo”. right then and there between 2 colmuns GOD forgot about samson’s past and used him. if GOD would give a screw up like samson a “redo” then HE’ll give me “redos” also. i think allot of my teens need that message. i know i do.

so tomorrow night we’re going to set up a coupe of columns and a paper shredder. i’m going to give each kid a card and then tell them the story of samson. after i’m through i’m going to tell them that if they have failed GOD during the past year and that failure still haunts them then this is the time to get rid of their past. paper shredders destroy what we don’t want others to see or what we wish had never existed. during worship our teens will be invited to write down their failures, ask GOD to forgive them, and then put their failures into the paper shredder.

“poof.” they’re gone. it’s a redo.

i hate it when we CHRISTians give up things that are actually a part of our story. case in point – santa claus. there has recently been a debate santa on the youth specialties forum and on some pastor’s wives forum that my wife goes to every now and then (usually to get mad because we don’t agree with much that is said there). in both of these discussions i’ve been amazed by the number of people who are willing to simply give up on the legend of st. nicholas. some people are so upset by the commercial aspects of view on santa that they are willing to completely forget about the legend which shows nicholas as an amazing example of following CHRIST. nicholas is a part of our story. yes the world has ruined and corrupted parts of the legend but that is because we have let them. nicholas is a part of the line of followers of CHRIST and a part of “the family.” you’re suppose to fight for family. yet we are so willing to give him up and let someone else claim him (consumerism). i hate it when we give up our heritage.

the history channel’s website has a great article on the development of the modern santa claus myths. the history channel give credit where credit is do. they recognize that st. nicholas is ours (CHRISTIans’). i just wish we could recognize what the world already does.

last night the austins came by our house caroling. they are great people and pam and i are both glad that we have gotten the chance to get to know them better over the past year. they have become a huge asset for the youth ministry.

after the austins sang to us, pam, the boys, and i started a new yearly tradition – looking for the tacky CHRISTmas decorations. we drove around our own and several other neighborhoods looking for the best example of a complete lack of taste in CHRISTmas decorations. i have come up with a theory for making the tackiest decorations. i believe that a yard’s tackiness is determined by the number of divergent CHRISTmas themes found within a single yard. the best yards where the ones in which you could see plastic nativity scenes, wooden cut-outs of disney characters, and blow-up santas. having a lot of stuff in your yard is important but if it all looks like it belongs together then you miss out on allot of the tackiness. lots of colored lights are definitely a most. yet the most important thing is still combining odd themes together.

we found a quite a few houses with just the right combinations of odd mixes. my personal favorites were the houses where extreme religious themes and cartoon characters were combined. there’s just nothing quite like seeing goofy and mickey mouse worshipping at the foot of baby JESUS. it makes me laugh even now just thinking about it. we have one neighbor who has a vast combination of themes and lights. the aurora that the CHRISTmas lights produce from down the block reminds me of driving up on a football field. i have a great deal of respect for people who will put so much effort into these things.

here’s a picture of one of the homes we enjoyed. it wasn’t the best home (my camera’s battery had died by the time we had made it to the really good homes) but it was a decent one.

here’s the set-up for the back of the room for the view. this was our “welcome table”.

Last survivor of ‘Christmas truce’ tells of his sorrow – guardian article

i had heard about this story before, of an unauthorized cease fire that took place around CHRISTmas day 1914, but i never really believed it was true. apparently it is a true story and this article details some of the memories of the last survivor of that day. the stories say that the two opposing sides just stopped shooting and began celebrating the only thing they could celebrate in the middle of that war ravaged land. they exchanged gifts, the sang songs, they even supposedly played football (soccer) in “no man’s land.”

it’s a really cool story. yet the sad thing is that the unofficial truce eventually ended and the people who were moments before celebrating “GOD with us” began shooting each other and destroying the image of their MAKER later during the same day. if only we could follow the PRINCE of PEACE all the time in such away that everyday would be a CHRISTmas truce.

the picture to the side is from my youngest’ school second grade musical. the picture is from the song they sang named “yankee doodle santa”. it’s basically a combination of the song yankee doodle dandy and basic modern commercial santa claus mythology. santa at least started out as a spiritual icon. he was a hero of the faith until his basic history was stolen for commercialistic gain. so santa is not completely a spiritual icon anymore, yet “yankee doodle santa” is still basically a combination of a religious and national image.

this is just a children’s musical yet this one song does convey a tendency within american CHRISTianity that i hate and that is the deification of all things patriotic and american. just consider the painting that is within the rotunda of the capitol building in washington. it’s called the apotheosis of washington and apotheosis means “deification”. at the center of our government is a mural depicting our first president becoming “divine”. this actually sounds very similar to the imperial cult of rome or the deification of egyptian pharaohs. both of these practices happened to get people to worship the state. the nation in and of itself became the focus of the people’s religion. if the people worshipped the state then they would support it.

modern american CHRISTianity has a tendency to fall right into this. often we like to think that agreeing with the state is the sign of a good CHRISTian. this is called “state religion” or nationalism by some. i just call it wrong. so we smile when our kids sing songs like “yankee doodle santa.” we also turn our churches into huge patriotic parties during the fourth of july and our conservative churches barely ever cry ‘foul” over what our nation does.

the santa, or saint nick, who has been turned into an image of commercialism and now nationalism was originally a follower of CHRIST who because of his love for JESUS gave out gifts to people in need. the original nicholas was an example for us to follow. “yankee doodle santa” is just a joke to be laughed at because he has no real hope.

jordan cooper recently quoted the following from an ap story. here’s the quote:

in only four of the nation’s 3,066 counties can someone working full-time and earning federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported Monday.

a two-bedroom rental is even more of a burden – the typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour to pay rent and utilities, the national low Income housing coalition said in its annual “out of reach” report. that’s nearly three times the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

you can read the rest of the article here.

this is absolutely amazing to me. it kind of destroys the concept of a “livable wage”. how can a wage be considered livable when you can’t even afford a one bedroom apartment on that wage? i’m not trying to support the concept of “entitlement”, or trying to argue that the government should “ordain” that everyone get a certain amount of income. it just seems that a worker should be able to at least afford housing (without any luxuries) on the minimum wage.