Where are you?

Take the hermeneutics quiz. It is designed to give you some insight into how you read and understand the bible and to place you on a continuum from a more conservative understanding to a more liberal. Please be honest. If you don't mind, please post your number result.

And if you want to be bold, you can try to guess my number. Closest gets lunch.

Fresh Blog Meat!

Hey everyone, here is some fresh blog meat. Heather finally started a blog. (You get to figure out which Heather, but if you surf around you will see how I randomly found it and HOW I figured out who's blog it was.)

So if you would do me a favor and surf on over there and just tell her "hi"... I would be most appreciative.

Click HERE for Heather.

(wow... that picture almost makes me want to join Sarah)

Just too cool

I was a Public Relations major in college and really into advertising. I honestly thought I was going to make ads for a living. I am still very intrigued by advertising, maybe now for a different reason (they create need for stuff we don't need). But I think ads often tap into the most creative minds in our world today. And I would love the team process!

BTW, I think the ads are the best part of the superbowl. Back in my youth ministry days I used to have anti-superbowl parties... we would mute the game and watch the ads. Dozens of kids would come to not watch the superbowl. Yea, it was weird.

Anyway, I just think this ad is really, really cool.

Welcome!

Come one, come all to the Central Baptist Church!

Copied from their promotional link: "Central Baptist Church of Amarillo, Texas - "Where there's always a place for you."

Except on their web site

Can we password protext OUR website so that no one can actually get to it? Nice idea.

Faithful Word Baptist Church

For those interested... this is the church website of the Faithful Word Baptist Church. As you can tell from the picture, pastor Stephen Anderson is NOT preaching to a wall, but to an actual congregation of people. Go figure.

You can also subscribe to the podcast, and videos are available on the site (I predict the Central postcast subscriptions will plummet due to all of you switching churches.)

Sorry, the picture wouldn't upload. You will have to search the site yourself to find it.

This should be my last post about Mr. Anderson. I'm sure there are more wonderful preachers I will post on in the future with just as interesting theology... but I'm done with this guy.

3 services... we are wimps

Living Hope Church... 15 services... 6 campuses.

6 at the main campus: Saturday 3, 5, 7 pm and Sunday 9, 11 and 1 (with a video venue at 6.)

wow

The 7 deadly sins... and exactly who is committing them.

Well, not really.

I found this article interesting. It is obviously bogus as it would be impossible to measure this per city... but the concept is interesting. I think I need to do a series on the 7 deadly sins, as they touch of things we often want to overlook as sin.

But first I need to lose 100 lbs.

MORE!

From the same pastor who taught us to piss against the wall...Election advice.



"We need to pay for everyone to go to college... We need to have free health care."

Not a bad idea.

"I work my fingers to the bone and stay up all night [writing those sermons?] so that people who are lazy and deadbeats can benefit from it."

Ah... yea.

Who do we think he is voting for: ah... maybe... Ron Paul?

Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom now. I feel like sitting.

On Vacation

This is the view from where I type these words. I'm at my parents house in Florida. We spent the evening yesterday setting up wireless internet for them so now they can "surf in Florida." And... well...so can Laura and I so there was a side benefit. (Although my email program is closed, and will remain so, until I return. Blogging is not work.)

By the way, the weather here was great yesterday; 82 and sunny. Today is a bit overcast and right now it's cold (well, it's just shy of 70, so "cold" is relative), but that is often the case in the morning. Today is suppose to be the worst day of the week... then it promises to pick up. Laura actually has a conference call today, so I will just lounge around the pool and read my latest novel. Here's hoping my friends in Athens enjoy their day at work. I hear you had snow. Sad. So sad.

(Now come on, half the fun of being on vacation in a warm climate is gloating to those of you still stuck in Ohio... so let me enjoy my fun here. :)

Okay, nothing profound to write... just wanted to say hi. I suspect I will post more as the week goes on (as I'm on vacation) but for now, I think it's back to Grisham.

Please say it isn't so

Warning: the following clip is not a joke. This is part of an actual message, given to an actual church, by an actual pastor (although that last point is debatable).

I have so many reactions to this, I can't begin to tell you.

I am soooo temped to use this at Central. Maybe sjw can work this into our new policy?



BTW, the number 5 equals death? "You know, Genesis 5:5, Acts 5:5."

Oh my.

Come Lord Jesus, Come...

By now you have probably all heard of the shootings at Northern Illinois University. I guess we should not be surprised at this, with Virginia Tech, the shooting in Colorado, etc. But for some reason, these hit me hard.

I watched the interviews of the students. There is one interview ("Thinking I was going to die") where this girl talked about laying on the floor and then getting up to run and being afraid she was going to get shot... and I just got just a glimpse of what that must have felt like.

I'm not a person who lives in fear a lot. I don't even think I'm all that afraid to die. But for the record, this world really sucks sometimes. And the older I get, the more the hope of a new earth seems more and more real.



From Revelation 21-22. You might want to read these words slowly...

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away..."

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true."

The problem with rules...

The problem with rules -- then they have sex on Feb 16?

Rick Warren and Stephen Colbert

I like Stephen Colbert. I like Rick Warren. I thought if you put them together, it would be amazing. It actually fell a little flat. You can watch it here

Now, I'm not a "talk about Jesus at every moment and make sure you mention the cross" kind of person, but in all honesty, I feel that Colbert was trying to give Warren an opening and Rick didn't take it. Now, Colbert may of thought of a good laugh line to what he thought Warren was going to say and was baiting him, but I'm not sure Rick was all that witty or took any risks. Anyway, comment if you would like. How should Christians handle this kind of thing (in case they ask me next week).

Corporations take over the Church

From the same guy who brought you "Cletus take the Wheel"...

Corporations take over praise and worship music.

take the... ah... wheel?

Carrie Underwood took the country music by storm with her hit "Jesus, Take the Wheel". In fact, I've heard it has been played on many Christian radio stations (although those same stations passed on her next hit single, where she talks about carving her name into her ex-boyfriends "pretty little souped up four wheel drive's" leather seats. -- Imagine that.)

Well, watch out Carrie... Cletus is in town...