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Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
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1:32 pm - plumbing woes
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We're still unflushable here. We stayed three nights with my parents, and I thought they were going to work on it today so we packed up and came back home. Nope. We did discover it's on our property, most likely a broken pipe. So much for all the theories about what the kids flushed. The pipe is right at the place where the fences for three back yards meet (and actually the corner where four meet, one just is unfenced). Hopefully, the actual digging won't get into someone else's property. We have to figure out what to do for the next two nights as they won't dig until they have equipment on Thursday. We also are working out the money situation. Pray we get it figured out in the way God would have us get it together. I'm tired, frankly. Of course, this might also be because I played this gem game on my parents' computer until all hours of the morning. I wanted to play in the daylight hours, but my little Jillian was more interested in their steps than I was comfortable with and my children couldn't be focused on a baby for long. They were given hand made wooden swords by my father and spent some of their time working on a little two scene play, or they picked rasberries and mullberries, or they ran about the yard, or they watched movies from my parents' Disney collection. They actually had a fun time. I enjoyed talking with my parents. Figured out what I already knew, my dad's a tough nut to crack. He doesn't want to talk about religion as most of the death he's seen is from Jihad and religious war (he's been in Vietnam, and in several conflicts including Iraq/Kuwait and only retired maybe a year ago). He also says there's an Almighty God, and if we could just worship that one God and quit worrying about Mohammed, Jesus, or whoever, we'd be okay. He said, "who cares which one is the Son of God anyway?" I just tried to explain that we're yes, in agreement with Islam and Hebrew faiths that there is one God. We couldn't be more different though in that we have Jesus, the fact is we have justice and mercy and grace. I believe, from what I've learned, the Islamic faith has justice, but no mercy or grace. He acknowledged that much, that without grace there is a fighting side to people. I couldn't really get much deeper into the gospel than that with him. He just wasn't having it. It's the farthest my conversation has ever made it with my dad. Stubborn man, stubborn man. Still, we did talk about something real.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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12:00 am - Church
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I'm not kidding when I say I'm a true believer.
I'm not happy when I see the money changers working here. (CD's, Books, Tapes, you name it church sells it)
I'm not proud of the fact that I bought it for so long.
I'm not ashamed to say I don't buy it anymore.
I'm not going to let you transform my children.
I'm not lining up for any spiritual formation.
I'm not accepting this deep shift to contemplation.
I'm not trying to get deeper and deeper in prayer. (How deep can prayer be anyway? I talk to God people, I don't scuba dive).
I'm not connecting with others in authenticity. (Sure, we should fellowship and meet, but do you all need to know my guts every moment of the day?)
I'm not in this to experience God. (I don't think God is a roller coaster ride)
I'm not denying my Lord and Savior.
I'm not a wolf because I point out your flaws.
I'm not part of some global peace plan. (I'm speaking of man's peace plans here)
I'm not winning the world for church dominion.
I'm not ushering in the kingdom with my hands. (serve, yes, but I don't have this power)
I'm not seeking to be a little Christ. (I'm seeking to know Christ and make Him known to others, not to be Him. To be like Him, yes).
I'm not letting you tell me I'm no Christian.
I'm not buying your books anymore.
I'm not fellowshipping with you at some conference.
I'm not serving in the three ring circus anymore.
I'm not charting my spiritual gifts.
I'm not talking about myself, I'd like to discuss the Bible please, and what Jesus did, thank you.
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, July 12th, 2008
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2:53 pm - Jacob's Well
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Our church is affiliated, if not loosely, with this church. They are having Pagitt and his "roadshow" there this Sunday. Yipeee! (ack). Wonder how many of our people will be attending?
***Yipee is sarcasm if you cannot tell tone from this post****
http://jacobswellchurch.org/
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
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1:52 pm - flutterbye
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My little 2 year old recently called a fuzzy bug looking thing a "pattykiller" and it took a bit but we realized she was speaking of caterpillars. It's okay, her grandfather has been trying to get her to say butterflies are flutterbyes. She's not having it though, to her they are "butterfwies."
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, July 7th, 2008
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2:56 pm - A window into Youth Front
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| Sunday, July 6th, 2008
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9:11 pm - YouthFront
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12:23 am - Serious prayer requests
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My half sister's father died. He had some sort of heart rhythm problem, and they thought he had a heart attack. With testing, they found a tumor in his abdomen, and when taking it out also found large amounts of infection. He died within a week. My sister is not a Christian at all, and anything hospital/death oriented puts her in a state of fear, really. She tried to "talk" to my grandpa on an OUIJA board when he died years ago. She also is having issues with her cycles and is having a procedure done that needs to work for her or she's going to have her uterus removed. She's not wanted to have children, and this procedure will make it unsafe for her to do so, if not impossible. The fact that she cannot change her mind now in the future is hard, probably especially so after loosing her father (remember, our mother is in prison for life so she really has not got much family around at all). Pray I will be a help to her in some way. I really feel empathy for her.
My cousin who is 27 and has four children (a sweet little baby girl too), is being physically abused by her horrible husband. She recently sneaked out an apartment window to get away from him, and was living with my aunt and uncle and the kids. She then allowed HIM back in, and they were all staying with my aunt and uncle until HE messed with my uncle's business by erasing things from his computer and websites. Ugh. My uncle told HIM to get out with HIS family as my cousin wouldn't leave. In the past some of the children have had physical "accidents" like a high chair falling over (yeah, riiiigghhhhht) and causing the child's eyes to roll back in his head, and bruising. Social services had been involved in the past. In fact, my other cousins were wanting to take the children so that they could be raised in safe homes but this has not happened. My cousin has lost her job due to missing work (gee, who wants explain at a medical facility how you got all those bruises?). The children have also been left at the school for over an hour after class was out, and this might cause a social services intervention. Usually, I am not happy about social services getting involved, but in this case, it may save some lives. Please pray. My cousin is sticking by her horrible man.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Friday, July 4th, 2008
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10:26 am - Funding error?
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Every time we have a campaign in our church to go through another book, each person in the small groups buys a book. If we cannot afford a book, someone else will buy it for us. Most of these campaigns are for the teaching impaired, and therefore, there has to be a DVD purchased for each small group. I guess tithes pay for this? There are often slick ad campaigns before a series in which the entire church will follow the same theme. There might be postcards mailed out, which can be mailed for free but still cost money to purchase from the organization selling them. There might be posters in church ahead of time, again, there is a fee for such things. Besides our church wide campaigns and books, there are many small group study books on just about any topic. Some again are “DVD” driven. At different times during the year our church has speakers who promote their books or music CD’s. These speakers, I’m learning through my searches, are tied in with contemplative prayer or other topics of concern to me. They do not speak for free, they are paid with funds taken from our offering. And then there are the conferences, training sessions, and seminars. Nothing is free, and if you get a “scholarship” that money comes from the general fund. Oh, and the missions trips! That’s right, how could those be linked in any way to an agenda for emergent church? Well, in my reading and searching I found various links to a local emergent church and youth program/camp. This camp I’ll call YF has several missions destination sites they are in charge of. So, we often pay to send kids on missions trips through YF, and also send kids to the local YF camps around our area. This YF camp is run by a man who is on the board and I think, from what I have read, helps pastor the local emergent church. (This church has Brian McLaren speak, and is currently having Pagit and his roadshow come to their “church basement”). So, our church funds all these missions trips, our youth goes by droves to several locations all affiliated with YF, we also have kids going to YF camps. Our money goes to this emergent church through YF. Essentially, many books we buy, speakers we fund, trips that are taken, and even our children’s curriculums are supporting emerging trendy churches or seeker friendly large megachurches, or publishing houses that are “in the back pocket” of these emergent/seeker friendly church leaders (or is it the leaders are in the back pocket of the publishing companies, not sure). All this money, and we church members are paying it. If you don’t like the direction of YOUR pupose driven, willow creek small grouping, emergent contemplative praying, Harp and Bowling, transformational, missional, spritual formating church, you need to quit buying the books, paying for the conferences, and you need to pay your tithe to God elsewhere. Of course, you can always do what they are waiting for the challengers to do anyway and speak with your feet!
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
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7:13 pm - moment of silence
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We were at "camp" this weekend, where we serve the campers and our older kids get to go on the river in a canoe.
Our pastor had a "moment of silence" this Sunday before prayer time, but the length is not recorded on the sermon...just the statement that there will be a moment of silence. I do not know if his words were edited or not. We missed it, so I do not know what happened. Probaby not much, but the concept was introduced.
On another note, at summer "camp" one of the pastors presented a physical "bridge illustration" using two chairs far apart on the "stage." He presented the gospel clearly, in my opinion, to over 400 children. He first stated "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and then proceded to show them that if he jumps just off the one chair he cannot get to that other chair. He then said, "when we are born we are seperate from God and it's like we're on one mountain and God is on another..." He showed that the gulf is too wide for us to get from one to the other on our own. He then said, "how can we connect two mountain tops? We have to have a bridge." He then had them open a curtain behind him revealing the cross, and shared that without Jesus we will die alone...seperate forever from God, and because of our sin we are seperate from God. However, the free gift of Jesus is that he died on the cross for our sins, and that is a bridge for us. Scripture was used to back this up, that "the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." He explained clearly that we need to repent of our sin and "confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord." He encouraged the children who had never prayed to ask Jesus to forgive their sins and confess he is Lord to do this. He asked those who wanted to to go ahead and stand up. My 5 year old daughter was among maybe 30-40 kids who stood up. I have to make sure she understood what she was doing. He prayed a clear prayer with them, asking them to pray it for themselves, and that if they really believe in Jesus, because He died for their sins, they are forgiven and are saved from hell...and will go to heaven someday. I believe that message was pretty right on and biblical. Any thoughts? Did he miss something? I felt it was pretty good. He's one of the pastors that, when you speak to him, is pretty clearly right on with the gospel. I'm sure all our pastors are part of the "transformational" stuff, but some may be more into it than others. We shall see. I am sure that the pressure caused some kids to stand up when they may not have understood what was happening. I believe God's word does make an impact though, and since it was presented clearly, I am sure there are some (hopefully my daughter) who will follow Jesus for the rest of their lives into eternity.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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12:23 am - listened
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Finally listened to the message my pastor gave at some local conference, and I noticed a few things about his final prayer. First, there was a LONG silence before the prayer, about 20 seconds. There were long sections of silence in the prayer. He opened the prayer saying "God". He did not say Father, but then again, later in the prayer he did use the term "Father." He did acknowledge Jesus in the prayer saying "Father God, help us to follow Jesus", "as we seek to think well" and mentioned "that spiritual mystery that comes about as commitment gets lived out." He did not close with "in Jesus' name" at the end of the prayer. He just said "for your glory we pray and all God's people said..."
I am not saying the prayer is all together wrong, but I just noticed these things in the prayer. I'm still looking at this pastor's words and figuring it all out. He seems to be the one introducing all I've been worried about. He's also the most gentle, kind, and loving man anyone could know. He's a convincing, passionate, humble speaker. Yet, he preached Rick Warren's global P.E.A.C.E. plan step for step. I truly love this pastor, for those of you reading who think I'm overly critical of things in my church, know that my heart is really filled with love and concern for the pastors who are bringing this to the church. If I didn't feel for them because of the compassion I've seen, I wouldn't be struggling at all, we'd be gone from this church already.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
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7:41 pm - Obama works to mobilize Christian left...Emergent church part of this plan
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| Monday, June 30th, 2008
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11:36 pm - creepy..Iran
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12:50 am - our pastor
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| Monday, June 23rd, 2008
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4:08 pm - A site on contemplative prayer
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In fairness, I post this is a site that has descriptions on contemplative and lectio divina.
It's described by people that use it, not by anyone attacking it's use.
http://www.contemplativeprayer.net/
If you click on the words on the left you can hear audio. I still say this stuff is very New Age.
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(comment on this)
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12:51 pm - Article on church splits...from 2006
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11:04 am - Trying to kill ministry in Canada...
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| Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
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9:58 pm - Baby "Gwen" update
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Baby Gwen is actually going home, and this is not a bad thing as I had been told because she is sucessfully gaining some weight. She has protein in her urine and they need to find out why. Here is the update by email...
"The news from Grandma this morning was that Gwen is coming home today (Sunday)! She will have to go to the feeding clinic and doctor many, many times in the coming weeks. Hopefully, they will know more by the end of this coming week what the protein problem is they are seeing! The other kids will remain at Grandma's with the kids rotating visits to the house. The baby will have to be fed every 2.5 hours and they are supplementing with formula at the moment."
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 21st, 2008
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11:58 am - What I wish my pastors would find
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11:05 am - Warren's Gospel
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10:47 am - Update on Baby Gwendolyn
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I had been told going home would be a bad sign at this point, and baby Gwendolyn is still in the hospital, but it does look like if she gains enough weight she can go home to grow and live not just to die. Below is the mother's update:
"The doctor was in this morning and Gwendolyn has had some abnormal metabolic test results, so the geneticist has ordered further testing. The really good news is that she has gained weight! About 6 oz! If she gains weight again tonight then we will be allowed to take her home tomorrow and then bring her back regularly to be weighed and to meet with the doctors. Results from the tests will take a week or more, so it may be some time before we have any answers. Both Blake and I are praying that we will be able to take her home, we would like to return to some form of normalcy and to have our family under one roof again. Neither of us has been able to sleep well during this ordeal, so going home would be a tremendous blessing. I would like to thank everyone for all that has been done for us, and especially for your continued prayers. I will send more updates as I receive more information."
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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