Robert's Blog

the onion had an interesting article from the right reverend michael barrodale. rev. barrodale “honestly” declares “i am but a vessel through which GOD drones on indefinitely” and that none of what he says or does comes from his own needs or interests. of course, rev. barrodale is unlike most of the minsters i know, including myself, who have to constantly be on the watch for where their own needs and desires sneak into the ministry. i have to admit that i enjoy people wanting my opinion on things. i enjoy people considering what i say as important. if i’m not careful this enjoyment can begin to direct my actions within the ministry in which i am involved. i can start forcing my opinion and voice into conversations.

it happens in ministries all around us. if you are in the ministry you’ve probably seen ministers whose own interest, desires, and psychological needs have begun to direct their actions within their ministry. sometimes they speak longer and louder because they need to, rather than because GOD truly wants them to. if you’ve been to seminary you’ve probably seen people that if you had to guess you would probably guess were studying to be a minister merely because of their own needs and desires – they need to be someone important, to have some clout. the real problem for me here is that it’s just to easy for me to do this too and thus it’s not a problem that just “they” have.

i have to watch out for this all the time. i want to be someone who follows GOD’s desires rather than merely placing HIS name on my own agendas.

pam, my cute, intelligent wife, pointed me to the following video from some university prof’s studies on human observation. first time through watch the video to see how many times the white team passes the basketball to each other. the second time you watch the video just watch the video and see if you notice anything. this stat will probably mess up the experiment but i’ll try it anyway – 58% of the people who view the video don’t see anything odd the first time.

cool huh?

this thing has “ILLUSTRATION” written all over it. if you go to parkview, plan on going to parkview, or ever plan on having me speak at this church DON’T USE THIS VIDEO. if you do i will hunt you down and shoot you like a dog. you have been warned. 🙂

at the beginning of the super bowl noah, my youngest child, was a dyed in the wool seattle seahawks fan. a few minutes ago he announced he was actually merely an “undercover”seahawks fan. since it is the second half as i write this he says that he can now come out of his disguise and root for the pittsburgh steelers who he has actually been pulling for the whole time. surely the fact that the steelers are presently winning has nothing to do with his decision to acknowledge his alleginace for the steelers. surely i have raised him better than to be a “front runner.”

i love the rolling stones music (especially the original stuff) but it’s not very entertaining to me to watch a 62 year old man swagger around on stage like he is still young and rebellious. i wish they were just a studio band now or doing stuff like clapton does now.

for anyone interested dr. cornel west will be in baton rouge thursday, february 9th @ 6:00 p.m. speaking at the baton rouge community college. i don’t agree with much of what he sayd but it’s still interesting enough to me that i’m going to go.

now for the good church news – today i saw the light at the end of the tunnel. as i have posted before my church has gone through some rough times recently. it has not been fun. today we had dr. stan norman preach to possibly be our interim pastor. for those who do not understand the baptist manner of finding a pastor i’ll explain. baptist to not have a higher organization to assign or help find a pastor. every baptist church is completely autonomous. so when a baptist church needs to find a pastor it has to do it on its own. this usually takes awhile and therefore most baptist churches find an interim pastor to fill the pulpit until they can find their real pastor. the interim helps give a consistent voice to the pulpit. consistency is key. “preaching by committee” never seems to work – no matter how good your “committee” is. so getting an interim pastor is a big step to our church recovering it’s zest. dr. norman is a systematic theology prof at new oreleans baptist theological seminary. he knows his stuff. i thought he did a very good job today. his preaching style is definitely more modern in its nature and while i would prefer a more post-modern style you still aren’t going to hear me complain. it was the best sermon we’ve had from the pulpit in awhile. the church still has a long way to go but at least a faint light has begun to appear.

i found “splinter cell – pandora tomorrow” today for $14 and decided to buy it for me and the kids. thus far it involves a ton of sneaking around. i personally tend to go for a game with lots of gun play. i fear that i may be disappointed here. sneaking around is just not my thing. i hope not.