4 months ago and 44 years ago

Four months ago today, April 28, 2007, I married My Life, Laurie Janine. I haven’t regretted it one moment since.

Forty-four years ago today, August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. Few speeches have had the impact MLK’s speech did. And yet we’re still fighting the “the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination…” and people who find themselves in exile in this land.

“Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

You can read the full text of the speech after the jump…
Continue reading 4 months ago and 44 years ago

5-Star service at church

Craig Groeschel, pastor at Lifechurch.tv recounts two different experiences on the church’s blog.
One, a visit to a 5-star resort, the second, to one of his church campuses (funny how our churches are now called campuses).
He said at the hotel he was greeted by everyone all the time, “even the housecleaning crew—who were learning to speak English—went out of their way to be extremely nice.”
Yet at one of his church campuses he wasn’t looked in the eye when the greeters welcomed him.
Frustrating I’m sure.
I have to ask myself, am I going out of my way to make sure everyone at my church feels welcome. It’s very easy to point a finger at other churches I’ve visited and say, “Well we sat for 15 minutes and no one said hi to us.” But what if the shoe was on the other foot? What if someone new walked into our church? Would they be able to point fingers at me and say, “That guy that’s all about community walked by me three times and even sat right in front of me and never said a word.”
Doh.
“It’s sad to me that a resort has better hospitality than most of our churches. Let’s work to change that!”

Local churches don’t appeal to many ministry minded students

From the Baptist Press and DMN:

Ministerial students want to serve God, but not necessarily in local church
By Ken Camp
Published August 24, 2007

DALLAS (ABP) — College students who feel called to work in ministry want to make a difference for God’s kingdom. But a significant number don’t believe the local church is the place to do it, according to guidance directors for ministerial students at some Baptist schools.
“I think that for both positive and negative reasons, a lot of young people don’t see themselves settling into local-church ministry positions,” said Omer Hancock, professor of church ministry and director of in-service guidance at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. “An increasing number of our students are gravitating to other areas — other expressions of ministry.”
To some degree, students are looking for other avenues of ministry because of controversy within the churches, Hancock said.
“The reality is that for the entire lifetime of these young people, they have grown up in a culture where there is a lot of church conflict and a lot of denominational conflict,” he said.

Read the full article

Why Al Qaeda Supports the Emergent Church

I’m sure many of my friends will get a laugh out of this one. KKLA Radio Host Frank Pastore has written a recent article that theorizes that Al Qaeda actually supports the Emergent Church.

He says the Emergent church is weak and is actually creating weak Christians who don’t want to fight.

I think he’s out in left field on this one but if he really wanted to strengthen his article, he would have called it, Why the Emmergent Church supports Al Qaeda.

The emergent church is an ally in the war against radical Islam–al Qaeda’s ally. Not in the sense they are supplying bullets and bombs to Osama, of course, but in the sense they are weakening our conviction to fight.

If those in the emergent “we’re-a-missional-not-an-institutional” church had their way, American church buildings would be just like European church buildings – empty. And the church, the people themselves, would be so intellectually, morally, emotionally, and spiritually lost, confused and uncertain, that they would be incapable of doing hardly anything more than inviting their Muslim oppressors in for a cappuccino and a good conversation about the sociology of knowledge, the absurdity of propositional truth, and the misplaced certitude of the Muslim metanarrative. All the while, no doubt, nodding in agreement that America probably deserved to die and mumbling something about carbon footprints.

I personally think Pastore is a little to hung up on his American patriotism and the idea that only conservative, evangelical Christian Americans can save the world from Al Qaeda.

Only the United States, and more specifically, only the conservative, evangelical Christians of America are who stand between radical Islam and their quest for global domination.

It’s too bad that other people aren’t concerned about the safety of their of country like conservative, evangelical American Christians (lets just call them CEACs). I guess that’s why Britain has sent so many soldiers to Iraq and why other countries have sent their own soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the world is to be saved from Muslim conquest, it will be America who does it. And if America is to be saved, only conservatism can do it. And if conservatism is to be saved, it will be those Bible-believing patriots who do it–those conservative, evangelical Christians who are the bedrock of the American way of life.

Why? Because only Christianity has the intellectual and spiritual horsepower to defeat radical Islam and prevent the world from returning to the darkness of the 7th century.

It would also appear that Pastore is of the belief that CEACs should be an exclusive club. Only for the elite and those who believe exactly as we do.

Bottom line, it’s feelings over thoughts, the heart over the head, experience over truth, deeds over creeds, narratives over propositions, the corporate over the individualistic, being inclusive rather than exclusive, with none of that offensive “in versus out” language, such as those who are “saved” and those who are “not saved,” or even the most divisive of all referents–“Christian” and “non-Christian.”

The emergent church and its allies on the religious left are to Christianity what termites are to wood. They devour it from the inside out, little bit by little bit, and you don’t notice it until it’s too late–unless you look for the droppings.

Maybe he missed the scripture that reminds us in Psalms 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”

That’s too bad. Good thing God’s a very inclusive God to make up for all the CECAs who aren’t.

Granted I’m sure that will open up a can of worms right there. I’m not saying anyone and everyone is a Christian – I’m saying that I believe that we as Christians should be inclusive of the poor, the downtrodden, the sick and the needy. We should love our neighbor and brothers. We should allow them to join us in our search for God – not shun them because they believe something different than us or come from another background, culture, country or faith.

What are your thoughts?

Read the full article here