The pacific has it's second tropical storm of the season. Barbara is off the Mexican coast and could become a hurricane. Read the full story here.
We've already had one in the atlantic, though it wasn't that strong. I guess just in time our tax free weekend on supplies starts here in Florida. Get all the details here.
The University of Florida football game against Tennessee on Saturday, Sept. 15, in Gainesville has been set for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff on CBS, the Southeastern Conference announced Wednesday as part of its early television schedule.
Florida’s league opener will be against the Volunteers for the ninth time in the past 10 years. UF leads the all-time series against UT in contests played in Gainesville, 8-5.
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.
He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. The audience figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.
The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.
You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. Everyone was on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone -
"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
Who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us.
Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.
Especially me!
The Element of Story by Joshua Longbrake
Borrowed from Relevant Magazine
Just read an excellent blog by Perry Noble, you can check it out here. In it it explains how as Christians we rail against alcohol, drugs, smoking, ...(enter random sin here) but are eating ourselves to death! It's time we put our stones (and Big Macs) down and take a look at ourselves.
I'll have a diet coke with that............... :)
I finally made it to Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy for dinner Monday. I was overwhelmed. I could have ordered anything! The dip sampler we got first was great; Queso Diablo, Chile con Queso and Avocado Cream! The house salsa with chips is included so I had a nice buffet going on. (Un)fortunately most were to spicy for Sheri. For the main course I thought a combo would be my best option.
Here's the description from the menu-
THE GRANDE: The ultimate combination! Three enchiladas, one beef, one cheese, and one sour cream chicken, tamale, cheese chile relleno, crispy beef taco and guacamole.
To give you an idea of the size of this the manager said the platter sans food weighs in at 8 lbs. After a reasonable wait our food arrived. The waiter sat the tray on a stand and handed Sheri her steak fajita tacos. Bad Move! My platter must not have been centered properly and promptly flipped off the tray. The plate shattered and all that Mexican goodness spray across the dining room. Salsa went across the floor, up and over a half wall and got an unfortunate diner in the back. Everyone jumped to attention and wash wiping her down with club soda while in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Hey, I'm the one that lost his dinner!"
Our waitress quickly got my replacement and it was awesome. Sheri and I topped it off with "Tres Leches Cake", a traditional sweet vanilla cake with three creams (just what I needed). I'd definately go back, not sure about Sheri, but I will!
Quick side note, while paying our bill Sheri and I were talking about the goosebumps up and down her arms. Our waitress misheard us and asked, "Did you just say that the service was the worst?" Not only was her hearing us wrong hilarious, I think it was awesome that she immediately confronted us! Good for her.
...was AWESOME! This was the first week for our new worship band. Joe, Alyssa, Lora, Matt................Thank You! You guys did great. The Spirit was with all of us and it showed. Our ultimate goal in leading worship is to become invisible to the audience. Their total focus should be on God and I think we accomplished this through song selection, execution and honestly losing ourselves in worship. With God's help you are making my job easy.
This guy, Charles Ross, is a classic. I'd love to see him live, he's also doing the Lord of the Rings Trilogy now.
"The Falcons better have Plan B ready at quarterback because this Michael Vick dog fighting story isn't going away. This nation has an unbelievable capacity for forgiveness -- but we don't extend a lot of grace toward folks who are cruel to animals."
The above quote was taken from a blog I subscribe to, "Hashmarks". It's sad but true. You'll find 200% more sympathy for a murderer than you will someone that kills a puppy! Rapists go free everyday but don't feed your rabbit for a couple of days and the lynch mob will be out to get you. Isn't there something wrong here?
Here's a prayer request from my daughter.....
Please pray for my teacher that GOD'S plan with her adopted girl will happen quickly. She is waiting for the date to fly to Vietnam to get her new little girl. Her and her daughter, whom she adopted from Cambodia, can't wait to meet their new family member. Pray that God is with them on their journey. Thank You
Sheri and I are watching Dead Men's Chest tonight in preparation for Worlds End tomorrow. Picked up the ducats at Fandango so we're all set.
Something on Leno last night opened my eyes to the reality of our infatuation with pirates. On the show there was an interview of Cuba Gooding Jr taped at the movies premiere. He said (I'm paraphrasing) " In two hundred years are we gonna be watching movies about the crips and bloods, laughing and cheering while they do drive-byes, robbing, raping? So why have Pirates become heroes?"
So true. My theory is it has something to do with Keira Knightley :)
What will these guys do next to catch the Gators? Didn't the Tide just get out of trouble recently? And for Saban to do anything near sketchy so soon after joining is ridiculous!
If you thought last year was good for UF wait till you see the full potential of Tebow!
We're done with Urban Renewal. It's time for Urban Destruction!!!!!!!!!!
Read the story on Tricky Nicky here.
Just came across this new program, being launched in conjunction with the movie Evan Almighty. It is called Ark Almighty and is an online resource to match needs of your congregation with skill sets represented by these same people. I think it sounds awesome. It could be expanded to the whole community. Set up a table at a local mall and collect needs of others and their skills they can share. Below is a link to our churches page. Now, there's nothing there yet but you'll get the idea. I think it's a great plan for churches that want to reach out to the community but have no idea how, or I'm sorry to say, want to do something with out getting their hands dirty. For them it's better than nothing at all, right?
I guess the reason I'm so taken with the missional/incarnational approach to ministry is that I'm one of the success stories, well, works in progress. I went 30 years without ever hearing the gospel. I was in several "cliques" that could have been reached; baseball, band, low-riders, fishermen.
By God's grace I met Sheri when I was 24. Yes, that meant it took 6 long years for her and Him to work their magic on me but neither gave up. In a way she was a pioneer in the incarnational missions field. Sheri hung out with the superbike crowd. Yes they street-raced, but were all together a great bunch of people. As you know cliques would "inter-mingle" at parties and such. It was at one of theses that we met. She wasn't doing it consciously but she met me in my milieu.
The rest is history...all though she has a long way to go.
Click the gif to follow the bears............
News of the future..........Dateline June 1st.........Place Alaska........Thousand of Deadheads have gathered claiming mass visions of "Dancing Bears"........Await prophetic message from Jerry Garcia............
p.s. I felt old the other night when (young) friends of ours had no idea what the Grateful Dead dancing bears were.
I'm dead, just waiting for my head to hit my desk. It all started Thursday night....
First get together for the new worship band. We met at Joe's studio and it was awesome! Joe switched from bass to acoustic/vocals, Alyssa and Lora joined Laura on the female vocalist side, a friend of Joe's, Dave, on bass and we had a very talented drummer join us. I'm really hoping to get him connected with us. Since I've replaced myself (hopefully) on drums I'm taking up bass. I need as many options as I can get for us. We got a lot accomplished and are looking forward to this weeks practice and our debut on Sunday. Thank you everyone that came!
Friday: Work
Friday Night: Pretty relaxing, Sheri and I rented "Deja Vu" and the kids got "Shark Boy and Lava Girl". "Deja Vu" was an excellent movie. I figured I would probably crash on the couch as usual but I couldn't stop watching. Turns out Sheri was the one doing the crashing and missed 95% of the movie. I'd definately recommend this, it has some "I see dead people" twists.
Saturday: Caught some of Shark Boy with the kids in the morning and then we were off! Movies with the kids and Papa, always an adventure. They were great and couldn't take their eyes off of "Shrek the Third". Another hit! This Shrek was more appropriate for the kids then the first two but still had enough adult humor to keep me laughing (although juvenile humor works just as well).
Saturday Night: Made it home as Sheri was returning from Erin's post-wedding shower. No rest for the wicked. Got changed and took her to Bonefish for dinner. Absolutely one of our favorites. Sheri had the usually Tuna and I had Gorgonzola Pork chops (I know, strange for a seafood resteraunt but they're grrrrrrrreat!). Now those of you that know me know I'm not a big "go to the movies" guy. I prefer renting and laying on the couch. So of course, we go to the movies! Twice in one day for me is enough to put me in a wheelchair. I have terrible circulation and my legs fall asleep withing seconds of the movie starting. The fact that we saw "Spiderman 3" didn't help. Way too long. Action scenes were great but alot of fluff could have been left on the editing room floor.
Sunday: At the theater (AGAIN) to set up the stage for Church. Every week we are coming up with new ideas to speed things up. Worship was bittersweet. The last time I'll be playing with Aaron. We started out together as newbie's and now he's running of to NYC with his fiance', Tamara. We wish them the best. Next, teardown. With movies starting early for summer we are really in a time crunch. The fact that moviegoers were filing in as we were working didn't help the stress levels. Hopefully some good will come of it and we will reach some of these people. Went back home and crashed, practiced some bass, watched "Deja Vu" again for Sheri and played some ball with the girls.
Sunday Night: Stayed up way too late on the bass because........
Monday: Took the day off from work to take Caitlyn to Cypress Gardens for her end of school trip. This place is awesome for kids. First it was the animals, then the waterski show, rides, lunch, get changed for the water park, get changed again, more rides then finally the park closed. Caitlyn wore me out. By the end I was sitting on the benches watching her ride the coasters.
Monday Night: Up too late again. Had to watch the season finale of "Heroes". I for one thought it was an awesome ending! Plus the fact that there was no real cliff hanger made it all the better. Can't wait til next season!
Tuesday: Finally back at work so I can sleep and catch up on my blogs....... :)
Yes, he really said that. You know, the part where you should go somewhere else if your vision doesn't jive with Journey's. We're pretty stubborn when it comes to our mission and it has nothing to do with a country club feel. Sunday's are definately for fellowship and corporate (group) worship but mainly for instruction to create a group of disciples to infiltrate the community. There are more sub-cultures than ever and each need to be reached in a way that they understand. We're not talking going undercover. Stick with the crowd you're comfortable with; golfers, car fanatics, musicians, stay-at-home moms, fisherman, etc, etc. If you're fake people will see you as another God Marketer with no interest in them except their wallets.
The next couple of weeks we'll be laying out our vision and giving examples of steps we can take to accomplish His goals. To learn more about this join a Crossroads class. Next, start thinking about what you can do, what groups can you reach and share your ideas.
It's a group effort.
Geico Cavemen get their own t.v. show. Enough said.
READ IT HERE!
Then check this site I found searching for GEICO ads...........
The Crib
(pssst...make sure you click on everything...)
Seriously, I just had a conversation with Sheri about the dumb way they introduce new stamps. I was thinking they could stop selling them at the old price but still accept any that have already been sold. I have to admit, their idea is better!
To read the story lick...um...click the stamp...
I knew that title would get your attention! So this really isn't about rolaids but just as relevant.
Here's my plan to take a load of our wallets and hopefully crunch the oil companies a little bit.
Change our work week from 5 - 8 hour days to 4 - 10 hour days! Yes, there might be an alterior motive hear, namely 3 day weekends, but hey, I'll make the sacrifice! Just thinking small scale the numbers are amazing. How many people commute from Lakeland, FL to Tampa, FL everyday? I'm sure the amount is staggering. I drive 90 miles round trip, now multiply that times everyone else. That's tons of gas in just one fairly small commuting group!
Let's try it out for the summer, call your congressman, put it in the suggestion box at work. I'm convinced this would make a huge difference! Give the companies that go along with it a tax break, they'll jump right aboard!
I just happened across this blog from "268BLOG - An Online Community of Passion Conferences" and it nailed me with how urgent our mission really is. The early church worked with an attitude of urgency because they felt that the end times and Jesus' return was at hand. Because of this passion they changed an entire world. No one but the Father knows exactly when the second coming will occur, but that shouldn't allow us to be lazy about spreading the Gospel of Salvation. The world, especially the west, has "backslidden" (I love that word ;). Millions of people are losing a battle of attrition to the enemy and the time for the "Calvary" is now. We, the victors in Christ, need to mobilize with as much fire as the church fathers. Time is literally of the essence.
Read the blog:
Ashley's Home
It seems that people from all points of the compass have some bashing they feel they need to get out. Come on, it's not a contest to see who's best. It's about giving EVERYONE the choice to accept Jesus into their life. Everyone with an opinion, run with it. Share it. Ask for help when needed. But remember, the people you tick off on the way up won't be there to catch you on the way down.
I'm well aware of the new buzz words for churches now; emerging, missional, incarnational etc, etc. It's true I've been reading some great things, especially "The Forgotten Ways" by Alan Hirsch, and I'm getting psyched by the groundswell I'm feeling and the potential for a worldwide movement to be started in the US. It's true their are more sub-cultures now than ever. It's worse than a high school cafeteria and all these groups need to be reached by brave disciples immersing themselves into their culture. The traditional "Constantinian" model will not work anymore for the population at large. We don't need to fix what we have, we need to (re)create how we do things.
Now let's rewind.... The existing institutions still have their place, at least for now. The apostolic church may not have had "Churches" but each setting was uniquely based on the local population. Synagogues, homes, businesses, mountaintops, etc. Megachurches have their spot in line as do the coffee shops, movie theaters, ymca's, county parks and wherever else new plants are meeting. There are people that may only go to a pretty building with good parking, and yes they may be the comfortable middle class, but who are we to say they're not living out the true missional life. I personally don't like the seeker-sensitive model either, but if that's what it takes to get someone in, have the kindling gathered and finally the Holy Spirit to ignite them so be it!
Better than E.Coli? - They're luck it wasn't the Country Fried Steak! What would I do without the county gravy? A man can not live on biscuits alone!
After the wasting a lot of energy stressing out Sunday morning (see previous post) the family decided it would be hit the couch and watch movies day.
First, Caitlyn's choice, was Night at the Museum. What an awesome movie. Anyone can feel safe watching this with their kids and the whole family will enjoy it. Something else you don't see often in movies is a divorced couple acting civil towards each other and actually still involved in a friendly relationship. In typical fashion, they still show the dad as less than successful, in this case a failed inventor and schemer, while the mother has moved on to a grand life with a bond trader. Above all, they both have the kids interests at heart.
After shipping off the kids to bed, Sheri and I settled down for "The Last King of Scotland". Thank you Adam! This was an awesome movie. I probably liked it a little more than Sheri. For one I was glad for the historical portion. Historical fiction is a great genre in movies and books to increase your knowledge. Now I know there will be some bias by whomever directed or authored the work, but the framework is usually pretty solid. Secondly, Sheri always has a problem with accents, especially British, Scottish, etc. I'm usually one part viewer, one part translator. Little hint, don't expect William Wallace.......
Overall we struck gold with our choices. You rarely bat a thousand when picking out movies.
Why do we doubt him?
Early show times at the theater where we meet hit us a little sooner than we expected. We were informed of this change on Thursday! Thank you "Spiderman 3". Before we even set up we had already planned an afternoon meeting to fix what went wrong. Talk about pessimism. Well, in the words of Fire Marshall Bill, "Let me tell you somethin'"! Even short handed set up flew by, thanks especially to Tim who got our truss pre-rigged with the lights and dimmer packs. This knocked some serious time off. It then started to become obvious that it had always been God's intention to bring something much better out of these (minor) difficulties. From logistics, signage, traffic flow and even small details like the location of our hospitality and welcome tables, we saw major improvements! Perhaps the biggest plus is that hundreds of people will be informed that there is a Church at the theater. This could plant the seed that God has been waiting to water. How awesome is that!
Frame your problems with scripture. He has a plan, it might not be obvious for 40 years, but that's trifling compared to eternity. Instead of whining and stressing out when we hit some obstacles we should shout, "Stand back! God's about to do something awesome!"
The Lakeland Highlands Babe Ruth Baseball T-Ball Braves continue their run to the title tonight!!!! Pray they'll have a great time and try their hardest. I'll keep everyone up to date!
Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.
I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.
The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people.
I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.
Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.
Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.
We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this blood for oil thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this 'Bush Lied People Died' crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you?
You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.
That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the bastards are all over the globe.
You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor'.
Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.
Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, well, dammit, you might just as well FedEx a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.
In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.
I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.
So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the
last pillars of America fall.
Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there're just enough of you SOB’s remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.
So that's it. God bless what's left of America. Some of you know what I mean.
The rest of you, ****-off.
O.K. So that's not a real speech but wouldn't it be awesome if it was. Someone just said that when the Republicans got control of congress they spent 8 years trying to get re-elected and now the Dem's have it and they're pushing their agenda's down everyone's throat. Why don't conservatives have any cajones? And don't get me started on Christian Nice Guy's! I believe Jesus would puke if he was here to witness His Church facing the tough issues with the same tired responses like "...we have to be a light unto the world..." and "...we have to pray harder, it's His timing not ours..." Yes, those things are absolutely true but isn't Jesus the guy that picked up the whip and knocked heads in the temple? And the returning Lord of Lord, King of Kings, on his white stallion, sword in hand, storming back to judge the quick and the dead?
Wake up America!!!!!!!!
Disney? : Reason 453 to toss my T.V. out the window!
No Duhhhh! : Today's "Thank you Mr. Obvious" winner.
...when it comes to "Lost"! It's probably a sign of age. Between falling asleep on the couch, losing interest last season, my nose being buried in a book, still trying to wrap my brain around "Heroes", starting out with "Drive" and keeping up with "Jericho" I have no idea what's going on with Locke and the crew.
Now that I've typed all of that I see the reason isn't age. The fact that spending time with God isn't one of the reasons listed above is my problem. He is a jealous God! He's not letting me put the Direct TV Idol above him. Why am I watching that crap at 10:00 at night when I should be sleeping (I get up at 5:00 for work). The 9:00 shows are no better. How many times have I complained about not having time to pray in solitude or dig deeper in scripture or maybe even that Life Journaling thing Adam was talking about?
I think He's giving me my answer. My rescue ship has come in....
...is awesome!
Google what?
Google reader! It not only lets you subcribe to your favorite blogs, there is an awesome share feature.
Share what?
Any individual blog listing from one of your subscriptions can be marked for sharing. You can then add a little widget to put the nice box you see on the bottom right on your own blog!!!
Brilliant!!!
Brilliant!!!
Google Reader
I'm reminded of something I told Adam (or maybe Bryan, or Aaron, or myself). How come, when we're at a concert we lift our hands in some wacko idolatry, dance and scream our heads off. Then, come Sunday we're like statues, while the band (especially the drummer) is working their butts off trying to get the Spirit flowing. I wouldn't move during worship for a long time. I might as well of put on a suit, had a hymnal shoved in my hands, and headed on down to the traditional service at the local First Baptist. I know now I was blocking true worship and being ashamed in front of God. What kind of praise was that?
This is some of the most amazing computer graphics I've ever seen. This guy nails every stroke in the song!
Why did Starbucks take over Florida? I want Barney's back!
At least I can still get Cool Cafe Blues at my local gas station.
(When I'm not drinking Green Mountain's Rain Forest Nut!)
Figured I'd show off my kit because I know there are a lot of people out there who like to pretend they are drummers.
-PDP CX Blue Onyx
-Zildjian 14" New Beats High Hats
-Zildjian 10" A Splash
-Zildjian 18" A Fast Crash
-Sabian 17" HHXtreme Crash
-Sabian 21" HH Raw Bell Dry Ride
A group of us from Journey went to the NNCC in Orlando last week. It was my first exposure to Alan Hirsch and it was awesome. Below are just a few things that stuck in my mind. (Actually, my memory is not that good, I took notes)
The GIFT of Persecution - Wipes out the theology and simpifies the message.
Christianity - Christ = Religion
The Jesus movement of the 60's and 70's was killed by being institutionalized. We must return to Christ to rediscover ourselves. In modern terms, we have to RECALIBRATE.
Christology (Teachings of Jesus) > Missiology (defining our mission) > Ecclesiology (the church institution)
It must go in that order! You can't start a church anywhere unless your mission is clearly defined for that area. In other words, "OUR MISSION HAS A CHURCH MINISTRY".
Church is the people, not the building. We've trapped Jesus in a stained glass prison!
Do you find you are stuck in the circle of middle class consumerism? Go back to Jesus and he'll kick it's materialistic butt!
You can't make anything change just by doing the same things better.
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Which is your Jesus?
Spooky Icon Jesus: overdivinized, not human, raised to lofty heights so a mediator (priest) is needed
Buddy Jesus: The one of Jesus is my Homeboy fame, under divinized
Middle Class Jesus: Fluffy, clear complected, blue eyed Jesus of Sunday School, aka "American Jesus"
The Jesus of the Gospel: Revolutionary, does not = religion, God in human form, no mediation necessary
I have to get his book, "The Forgotten Ways" from Pastor Adam! It'll take him too long to read, I can't wait.
It's my big 3-6, yes I can legally date someone half my age (boy I'm old). How am I celebrating? Why sitting at work of course.
Can't wait to get home to my family and have my birthday feast of sloppy joe's and mac n cheese! Molten chocolate cakes for dessert!
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