Category: faith

White immigrants get a pass – brown ones do not

Ouch! Is Rev. Bob Edgar saying what I think he’s saying?

Let’s talk about immigration. But first, here’s a word from our sponsor, the God of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel and Leah.
“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)
That seems pretty clear. Don’t you think?
There are a half dozen similar verses in the Hebrew scriptures. But Americans who are so riled up over this immigration situation seem to ignore these words.

Hmm… “Love your neighbor as yourself?” Yeah that’s an easy one to overlook. It’s only the second greatest commandment.
Edgar continues:

These are the same folks who trot out the very same Bible to damn gay marriage and justify anti-gay legislation in several of our states. But when it comes to more biblical evidence about how we should treat those non-citizens living among us, they are curiously silent about the several verses that seem fairly direct in how God wants us to act toward these human beings…
Most of the attention has been placed on our southern border and on building a fence. Little attention has been paid to our northern border. Yet a foiled terrorist attack of someone trying to cross into our country happened in December 1999, on the Canadian border. An alert Customs officer arrested a man trying to cross into Washington state on his way to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Day 2000.

How is your church choosing to tackle this issue? Or are we just ignoring the problem?

Thanks to the DMN Religion Blog for the article.

Passion Groove

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From Sunday morning:

What is it that causes people to do things in their life? What causes people to chose a certain career over others? What causes a person to work in a hospital, in the ER, where you’re going to face people in tragic situations – many life threatening – and to deal with that day in and day out. What an amazing thing to cause someone to do that. What is it that causes a person to do that?
What is it that causes someone with a lucrative job and to trade all of that in and walk away and chose something else that pays less?
What is it that causes a person to have a nice home, nice surroundings and to pack all of that up, sell all of that away and move to another part of the world to live in a different culture and a different place?
What is it that causes a person to maybe have their full-time job but on every waking moment after they work and on the weekends they’re giving themselves away for another cause – volunteering of their time?
What is it that causes a person to even give of their money so much so that they scale down to the best of their abilities in their own lives so they can give even more away? What is it that causes people to do those kind of things?
If you were to ask them you would find this in common with everyone of them — there is something deep in their soul – there is a sense of calling to what they were involved in.
They would say, “This is what I do. Money is not the issue. Power is not the issue. Fame is not the issue. I feel a sense of calling to this in my life. And when I am doing this thing it is what I believe I was made for. It is the place that God called me to be.”

Listen to the full message online

Hidden Acreas hosts African refugees

Hidden Acres Retreat Center, outside Kaufman, Texas hosted two weeks of day camps for kids from the Sudan, Iraq and other areas the past couple weeks.
This is the first year the camp hosted the refugee kids who are now living in the Dallas area. Typically the camp only hosts two to four weeks of junior camps and/or High School camps.
The DMN has a good write up, photo gallery and video on the newest camp addition this summer.
My sister Kara had the opportunity to volunteer a couple days last week and she really loved what they were doing for the kids – I do too… I hope it’s able to grow in the years to come. They’re really getting to show the love of Christ to a lot of kids who probably haven’t seen love in a LONG time.
Check out the story, photos and video.

Crazy stats

Just how popular is Flickr?
I just did a quick browse of a couple pages and saw this stat:
There were 3,499 photos uploaded in the last minute. (as of 9:47 a.m. CST)
Why aren’t you sharing your photos with friends and family and the world on Flickr? Why isn’t your church or ministry sharing photos on Flickr?
It’s easy to set up a free account to share photos of your events – or set up a free group so your members can post their photos and then share them in a common photo pool. It’s free publicity and a great way to build community among your members. And on top of that – Flickr has AWESOME slide shows already built in to any group of photos that can easily be added to your website.
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From Mark Batterson

Mark Batterson shared some of his thoughts from speaking on “Chasing the Lion” this week…

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!