in the name of GOD’s will

why is it that followers of CHRIST are sometimes willing to do anything, including hurting people made in the image of GOD, when they are convinced that they are doing GOD’s will. our church, a really good church in-spite of what is presently going on, is presently going through a disagreement over some changes in our structure. while i definitely agree with the changes i don’t have a problem with people holding the other view point. i think any time you make a major change there is going to be a debate over it and perhaps there should be on ever major change.

so i don’t have a problem with there being a disagreement. i figure it is just part of the process. yet i have a serious problem with people being willing to do evil in the name of winning their side of the debate. presently we have people on one side spreading rumors about the leadership that is pushing for the change. the rumors are hurting not only the leadership (which would be evil enough on its own) but also their spouses and kids (which just makes it worse). how could someone spread meaningless rumors in the name of CHRIST?

if the cross of JESUS teaches us anything it teaches us that the end never justifies the means. even GOD wouldn’t break the rules and accomplish salvation by doing something against his word. i hate that believers would ever think trying to destroy other followers is a part of GOD’s will.

SIDE NOTE –sonlife radiois an example of this same thing because jimmy swaggart and family’s constantly tear into every ministry that is not their’s. they tear down everyone. from ric warren to billy graham. it doesn’t seem to matter. if you’re not with their ministry then you are preaching a false gospel.

blog power

okay i know that i’m a very small blogging fish in a very large internet pond but i am amazed by the power of some of the blogs in the world. one sign of this is that people of the year. who can blame them with the way dan rather was effected by blogs. for another example consider the fact that one of the chairmen of gm north america, bob lutz has his own blog. that’s pretty impressive when executives consider it important to maintain a blog.

tsunami videos #2

tw3.jpgpreviously i posted some links to tsunami videos that were amazing. unfortunately everyone else thought they were amazing also and crashed the site that was hosting them. so here’s a post with a few new videos of the tsunami that are up for now.

if i find more later i will post them again. there is some absolutely amazing footage out there.

bobble head theater

i frequent a site called emergingminister.com that has some good ideas that i get inspired from, modify, or sometimes blatantly steal. they have a series of “bobble head” videos that i think or hilarious. so for your viewing pleasure i have placed a few of them up on the site. here they are:

i hope you like them because they crack me up. i can’t believe this guy has so many bobble heads.

bobble head theater

i frequent a site called emergingminister.com that has some good ideas that i get inspired from, modify, or sometimes blatantly steal. they have a series of “bobble head” videos that i think are hilarious. so for your viewing pleasure i have placed a few of them up on the site. here they are:

i hope you like them because they crack me up. i can’t believe this guy has so many bobble heads.

procrastinating

i’m presently at cc’s coffeehouse working on the sermon i’m supposed to preach at the 9:30 a.m. worship service tomorrow and i’ve reached the point of needing a mental break so i’m decided to right in the blog for a second or two. as many of you know we have a new member of our family, montana. she’s a great dog and was already very well trained by the time we adopted her. even though she’s housebroken she’s had a few “accidents” getting familiar with our home and we’ve had to clean up a little bit of urine. one of those accidents happened this morning. it was really no big deal and was very easy to clean up because it was on a shirt that i was going to iron for church tomorrow. up until a few minutes ago i did not realize that the urine had seeped through the shirt on to what was below it.

i’ve been at cc’s since about 1:00 p.m. (it’s 4:00 now no matter what the blog clock says – it’s wrong and i can’t figure out how to change it). every so often someone would come and sit by me for a little while and then get up and move to another spot. this has happened four times. i had not really thought much of it. i personally don’t like sitting by strangers when there’s no chance to actually interact with them so i have just figured that they felt the same way and had moved because a better spot had opened up. at least that’s what i thought.

i have a lousy sense of smell. i’ve been told by a doctor that this is because i have a deviated septum. the allergist who told me this said it had probably happened during my years of football or rough housing as a kid. however it happened, i definitely messed up the inner workings of my nose sometime during my life. this has left me with a sense of smell that is sub-par. i can usually smell something for a second at most and then it’s gone. even during that second the wind has to blow in just right direction and the smell has to be pretty strong. i guess that’s why it took me so long to smell the dog pee that i had been carrying around with me.

my laptop messenger bag had been under the shirt that was peed on. when i saw the shirt i looked under it to make sure that it had only gotten on the shirt. nothing below the shirt seemed to be wet. the carpet was fine. i thought my bag had been fine because i couldn’t feel any wetness and i was unable to smell anything. well apparently dog urine takes awhile to reach it’s full potency because i began to smell the urine a few minutes ago (after my fourth coffeehouse neighbor had moved). so i lifted the laptop case up and verified that it was the recipient of montana’s marking.

on the good side montana’s urine has kept people from bothering me. since even i can now smell the urine now i think i’ll probably go home and wash the bag.

rodney mullen video

i’m not the biggest skateboarding fan in the world (though i have one child who is really into it and another who thinks he is). yet, when i saw this video of rodney mullen street boarding i was amazed. this amount of skill in anything is impressive to me. when you can do things that should be against the laws of physics and make it look very easy then you must have an extreme amount of skill. anyways, you need to see this video whether you like skateboarding or not.

here it is. – windows media version
here it is – mpeg version

reading list

you may have noticed changes happening to the blog (i.e new top design, blogroll on the right hannd side, flickr zietgeist, etc.). i’m finally beginning to understand a little bit of the coding of this css stuff. i still don’t get most of it but i do at least understand a little. i’m presently trying to figure out how to add an automated “reading list” to the blog. i’ve seen this on several other sites. unfortunately i can’t find which ones had the reading list and therefore i can’t ask them how to do it. so if you know how to put an automated reading list and feel like passing a little help my way i would appreciate it.

reading list help?

you may have noticed changes happening to the blog (i.e new top design, blogroll on the right hannd side, flickr zietgeist, etc.). i’m finally beginning to understand a little bit of the coding of this css stuff. i still don’t get most of it but i do at least understand a little. i’m presently trying to figure out how to add an automated “reading list” to the blog. i’ve seen this on several other sites. unfortunately i can’t find which ones had the reading list and therefore i can’t ask them how to do it. so if you know how to put an automated reading list and feel like passing a little help my way i would appreciate it.

not as good as advertised

for CHRISTmas this year pam and i were given a gift certificate to ruth’s chris steak house. we were very appreciative of the gift. tonight we finally went to the restaurant to enjoy the meal that the gift certificate would buy. i had never been to ruth’s chris before and therefore all i really new to expect was high prices and ala carte meals. after eating there i can’t really understand what the big deal is. my steak was merely “okay.” it was by no means the best steak i’ve ever had – not even close to it.

pam and i actually think the whole thing is actually an emperor’s new clothes kind of a thing. i’m convinced that people must think “wow, this food is really expensive so it must be good.” people are too busy thinking this that they don’t realize that they are merely eating a slightly better than average steak. there are several places in baton rouge that serve a much better steak.

i still greatly appreciated the gift certificate.