Great Preaching

Heard some great preaching on "How to Pray for our Missionaries" tonight. Powerful stuff. Convicting stuff. In fact this should resonate with alot of people here. It is so easy for us as Americans to write a check for our missionaries that we don't pray.. I mean PRAY specifically for them. Agonize with them. Not... "God Bless the Missionaries... AMEN let's get on with business" There were six points to pray.

Pray for them:
1. While they are on deputation. (Raising support and going church to church)
2. To learn the language.
3. To overcome culture shock.
4. Against Satanic oppression
5. The education of their children
6. About medical problems.

These sound so simple when we read them, but I will post an mp3 of the sermon after I convert it. It was POWERFUL. and plain .... COMPLEX. and simple... It was SOLID. and ground breaking. WOW.

Computer Stuff

I have downloaded two blogging scripts and am somewhat torn between what to use.... My new site will be mostly php (torn between phpnuke and postnuke too so if you are using either of them give me some idea of which you like). Anyways, I am torn between using movable Type and a new PHP blog script I found called boast machine. bmachine you can see it work there. So if ANYONE has used either of these (I know a lot of people love MT) I would like to hear the good the bad and the ugly about all of them. MT seems cool but I am not a big perl fan, don't hate it just not the best at setting it up. The PHP seems simple to set up and seems like it has alot of controls. Well you know what the Bible says... a double minded man is unstable in all his ways... lol. SO help me become stable today. Give me some feedback.

Missions Conference

All right, we have our missions conference starting on Thursday. I am psyched (well as long as I get everything ready for it in time). We will have one of our veteran missionaries here. He works in Sieberia. We will also have a missionary candidate family. They are on deputation and are going to the Lakota Sioux Indian tribe. I am interested to hear about them. We don't have anyone reaching the Native American people that we support. And our keynote speaker is Rick Groover D.D. from the World School of Evangelism. I will be floating in and out of the blogosphere so keep an eye out for updates.

The Economy of a Soul

I always hear people say "if even one soul get's saved it's worth it". This is usually said after some great monetary or physical expenditure. My question is... what is ONE soul worth? Now before you get hot and bothered and tell me Christ would have come for ONE person (which I believe too), that's not what I am asking you to think about. Don't we have to be a good steward somewhere too? And will we be held accountable for our loose purse strings before God? Will God say, "should have skipped the cover band and just printed up my word in a foreign language" for our waste on our ever enlargening "Youth Events". I mean, I know that there are many churches out there that think nothing of dropping 20K on an event. (Not many IFB's ::chuckle::) But think about it, most of who comes to the "christian concerts" are christians. We could buy skateboards with the gospel message on them and give them away cheaper and reach more lost teens. So why is it that we are forced to do bigger, better events with fewer and fewer results? Where are our resources going? Talk about it...

This May Come As A Surprise

In college, I smoked marijuana, I wasn't living for God at that time, but I smoked it and I, unlike the previous administration, inhaled. It really made me feel good when I was high. I was mellow and the only thing that I was a threat to was a box of twinkies and some Dorritos. I have both been drunk from alcohol and high from weed. I know the results of both and the feeling of both and must say that I preferred the weed (although I only did it a few times) to the alcohol, the beer was easier to get than weed and I wasn't using an illegal substance plus it was socially much more acceptable.

I was thinking that the Bible doesn't really talk to us about the "evils" of Marijuana and that since I enjoyed my experience with the drug that I may purchase some and try it again. I am an ordained minister in an independent Baptist church. I don't know if this should stop me or not. I have a couple kids in my youth group who are on the fringe of the group and I know that they smoke marijuana and was figuring if they knew that I smoked it too that we could just get together and smoke a few blunts and talk about Jesus. Well probably take out a few bags of Cool Ranch too but I think I could reach them if they knew that I was just a puffer from way back. I mean I could even give them some tips so that they know the way to get good weed instead of that cheap domestic garbage. I could also help them avoid getting busted by the fuzz so that we could make sure they get into a good Christian college. Some of the college's that we deal with are pretty hypocritical and wouldn't want "pot-heads" there. Thank God they don't know about me! So I was just hoping to get some input and see if you think it would be pleasing of God, I don't care about pleasing man.

Jesus does Jello Shots

Doug Pagitt, rising patriarch in the POMO/EMERG movement has begun a "Theology Pub" in Minneapolis area. If this weren't such sad picture of what's wrong with Christianity today it would be almost laughable. The need to be well liked is greater than the call to holiness I guess. I know this will ruffle a few feathers and I can hear the cliche's and improperly used Bible verses now. "Jesus was accused of being a winebibber", "The Bible doesn't forbid drinking, just getting drunk", "We need to be culturally relevant" , and "We need to be all things to all people, Paul said so!!!"

I am sorry that just flies in the face of God. Shall we use drugs to reach drug dealers? Jesus' perfection was in complete contrast to the sin that he was surrounded by. He was the hope of those people to be saved out of that sin. Jesus walked on water too... but I haven't seen any "Theology Aqua-pubs" started.

What a shame that we seek to conform to the culture that we forget that we have to conform to GOD. It's part of what Paul tells us "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof]. (Romans 13:14)". It's like "Putting on" a pair of pants that belong to someone else. If they are too big we need to grow into them to make them fit the right way, if we are too big we need to trim off some of the flesh to fit into them.

We need the gospel of Billy Sunday in this day and age, It was a gospel of the Bible, it was a gospel that closed down the bars, liquor stores and gin joints. It didn't cozy up to them and offer them advertising on their website, it was a gospel that changed the world around them. The first century Christians were accused of turning the world upside down. Contrary to what the modern Christian pundits would have you believe it wasn't because of their revolutionary, "hip", conformism THEOLOGY (What an ugly word) it was their life changing message of hope. We get this idea that "JESUS TURNED THE RELIGOUS ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DAY ON IT'S HEAD AND HE WAS A REVOLUTIONARY... DUDE" and that we need to do that too. Jesus made the change already we don't need another. Any other is an establishment AGAINST the Bride of Christ, the church. The doctrines of the Bible are still relevant today. It's a NEW and DANGEROUS gospel that promotes joining hand in hand with the sinner embracing their sin to "TAWK ABOUT GAWD" and to be "RELEVANT" to them. The Gospel of the Bible is about a Christ who can changes lives, not leave them in their sin. What a sad Saviour we would have if when he saved someone he just left them as they were to continue to wallow in sin. Think about it. If you got saved to live the rest of ETERNITY the life you have now, with the pains and disfigurment, the crippling diseases and the handicaps... would you want to be saved and live forever that way? We have a NEW HOPE of COMPLETED SALVATION of a new body redeemed and no longer able to sin.

The Church of the Open Whiskey Bottle will do just fine in the world and will send more souls to hell with a false security of "I must be good enough" theology.

I bet the angels have to hold Billy Sunday back from coming down with a baseball bat and shutting down some of the Budweiser Baptist Churches.

Lord Save Us.

Thanks for the prayers!

I have been in a frenzied pace since my last blog. I wanted to thank everyone for their prayers. God has provided great things in the last couple of days. On Friday, I worked on a couple of sermons, was able to walk without much pain from my gout and prayed super hard for my dad to get the brakes done on the church van. We were supposed to leave at 3:00 pm and it was touch and go for a while with transportation but the van got back and had all new brake lines. We got it back and left at about 3:30. We then drove for 4 hours to Dayton for the Regional Teen Talent Contest at Moraine Heights Baptist Church. There were 14 teens who went and participated. We placed fairly well with a first, some second, and some third places individually. There were about 350 - 400 participating teens.

I am constantly amazed as I see teens stretch their faith and use their talents. All to God's glory.

I preached 2 messages and of course taught my normal Sunday School class and really needed to depend on God for the messages. It is a struggle sometimes to preach a message that you know God wants you to preach and to no interject your own thoughts into it. Praise God he was in it though. Tomorrow is my day off... maybe I will clean my office up... or maybe not.