My inevitable inevitability

Yesterday, I upset my mom. It was one of those phone conversations, when I in my sarcastic wit caught my mother in one of those weepy moments. I apologized last night, and I tried earlier today, but she didn’t want to talk to me. It hurt. I deserved it. Later today, just after dinner, we talked, and I apologized again. I wanted her to understand I in no way meant her any ill-will. I think we are okay.

It’s a bummer to upset your mother. I call it my inevitable inevitability, not so much that I upset my mom, but it’s the reason we do stupid things, and still sin. I am not, nor in any way, am I discrediting the blood of Jesus, and the cleansing redeeming work of the cross. I am just confessing at times, I, a living sacrifice, still find a way off the altar. Thank God for grace!

On the more postive side of things, my wife celebrated her 25th birthday. We went out to see a movie. It was a first date of sorts since we’ve been to Duncan. We still took our little one, but she does so well at the theater. We went to see Bourne Supremacy. It’s a good second installment to the first film. We enjoyed it.

After the movie, we went to Blockbuster to pick up our copy of the Passion of the Christ. As my wife was making her way into the theater, she tripped, and banged her knee pretty hard. Definitelty not the way you want your birthday to go. It reminds of the Christmas, where I tripped and fell carrying out some chairs in my parent’s garage, and sprained my ankle badly. Oh the fun of such moments. Unexpected surprises that catch us off guard. She handled it well, better than I would of.

Today, I turned in an assignment at LCU for my Bible class. We had to write about the social word of the church in Corinth. The material thus far presented in the course is just fascinating. Speaking of course work, I have some reading to do for my counseling course.

Yesterday was a good day

It started Wednesday night last week after church. I got a phone call from a young man from our church asking questions about baptism, and his desire to set up a study time with me. I went to this yougn man’s house, and sat down and we studied the Word along with his mother, and his older brother. The young man wanting to get right with God decided to make his election and calling sure, by being baptized Sunday morning. His older brother, who I have been talking with for several months, was moved by his younger brother’s faith. We talked, and studied, and through tears he exclaimed he was ready to change his life too, and live for Christ. He was baptized after services on Sunday. The family was ecstatic. It was humbling to be a part of the process. To share the Gospel with young people, and then to see the “lilght bulb” go on as they eagerly desire to get right with God is just awesome. Yesterday was a good day.

And as if they day couldn’t get any better. It did.

Last nigt was our area schools prayer night. We go to each of our kid’s schools and have them gather around the flag pole and we pray for those students. It is a moving experience. Last night a group of 40 traveld about 100 miles to pray for students, and stuff as they school year gets underway. Thank you to my parents and the elders who made the evening special by being there with us.

Thanks Matt Elliot

I stand corrected, and for good reason. If any one read my blog earlier today, I had posted, and apprantly false report from the Kerry campaign. My apologies for my irresponsibility in posting something reported to be true.

Check it this site at http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/bibleverse.asp

Fab Five Win Gold!!!!!!

Congratulations to the U.S. Women’s Soccer team who triumphed over Brazil in the gold medal match!!!

Read about the Fab Five here at :

http://sports.yahoo.com/oly

She has the chicken pox…

Well it’s official, my darling little Rachel has the chicken pox. Not sure where we she got them. It’s better she gets them out of the way now. I got them when I was 12. It was the worst two weeks of my life!

Thank you for your prayers. They are appreciated and always needed.

Last night at church, we hosted Harley Davidson from the Western Hills church of Christ in Lawton, Oklahoma. He is an amazing speaker, and really works the crowd. His message on it takes grace to reach our deepest need, was fantastic. I know I was challenged by his words to confont my deepest need in my life. Thanks Harley.

A note on 2 Corinthians:
I will write more about this amazing letter later, I have been awstruck, if you will, with the style of writing that Paul incorporates in to his letter, and also the socio-rhetorical influence that permeates Paul’s writing. One thing that I will comment on for now, is that it appears, and praise God that it does, that out of the trials, and the painful experiences in Paul’s life, especially in Corinth, that he explores, and devolps his own theology of the cross. The more he suffered the closer to the cross he clings. Paul is leaving the Corinthians an example for them to follow. An example that we would do well to emulate.

Where did my week go?

Thursday has arrived. I can’t believe where the week has gone. Oh, I know, I have had my nose buried in Corinthian commentaries.

Jennifer’s youngest brother and his wife are coming into Duncan this weekend. We are looking forward to seeing them.

I talked my dad last night, he and mom purchased plane tickets for Jen, the baby and I, so we can fly home in Thanksgiving, and he mentioned that he and mom are itching to come out to see the grandbaby in October before we come home in November. Grandchildren definitely make life a little more exciting.

Pray for my little girl, she has an outbreak of little red bumps. We are taking her the doctor today. I covet your prayers for her. She is so precious to us. She is rather entertaining as well. She has learned to dance, and everytime she hears music, her little arms start pumping up and down. She has no rythym, which is another indication that she is her father’s daughter! She is also trying to stand up on her own. I think she is practicing for the Olympics, she has watched a lot of the gymnastics, and is pulling herself up, and then letting go. Her giggles are to much! Do we have the future women’s all-around gold medalist? I think so!

Check out Mike Cope’s blog today. He has a piece about his daughter Megan, who would have been 20 today. Mike and his family have endured a great loss, and have grown as a family and in thier faith. God bless you Mike.

Class has begun

I am offically engrossed my studies again for this semester. I apologize if the blogs are few and far between. I am currently taking a course on 2 Corinthians, and Christian Counseling. So far in the reading for 2 Corinthians, I am loving it. It appears that this semester will be a little on the heavy side as far as reading, and writing goes.

On the home front:
Jen and I have had a couple of late nights with our little one. She is on a irregular sleeping cycle. Guess what? Jen and I are on an irregular sleeping cycle as well.

The office team and I had a staff lunch today at the Golden Corral. I love staff lunches. We work pretty well as an office team, and staff lunches is about the only time Jen and I get to eat out.

We’re looking forward to going to Branson over Labor Day weekend, and then to LCU for my short course the middle of September. I know it’s still rather early, but I am also looking forward to Thanksgiving, Jen and I are heading back to Ohio for a week. I am stoked!

My father in law, didn’t get the youth minister position in the church in Collinsville, Ok. We were saddend, and glad at the same time. We know that God will lead Don and Brenda where He wants them.

That’s it for now, I have to get back to reading.

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Yesterday was one of those days when you meet the un-expected and are left with a choice how you will respond. In the face of mud-slinging and name calling, I am choosing love. So, there are those out there that have included me in the ranks of the false-teacher. I am in good company. You see, Jesus was also considered to be a false teacher by those that held tightly to the traditions of their fathers. For these religious leaders theirs was a religion of obligation and and external pomp. The words of Jesus on the sermon on the mount come as a refreshing wind to a spiprtually stifled people. His words to “be salt and light”, and the rest of the great section was what you would call a hermeneutical shift. The Pharisees were about the letter of the law, Jesus was pointing the people back to the heart of the Law-Giver. Needless to say, Jesus made enemies not because what He was doing was wrong, but because the people who benefited the most from their view of right were challenged to consider that they were wrong. Even in the face of his arrest and his mockery of a trial, he never once raised a fist in anger, he never once tried to verbally abuse his offenders, but, ” …like a lamb, he was led to the slaughter…” (Isa. 53:7). Jesus chose love even in the wake of great evil and name calling. I choose the same.

False Teacher

I was reading posts from the other day on a friends blog, and I was labeled a false teacher in one of the comments by an angry post-er. As a matter of fact, they had my name listed with the likes of Rubel Shelly, Wade Hodges, Zoe Worship, and Edward Fudge, and Max Lucado. I was a little shocked. This is the firs time that I have been declared to be a false teacher. I wonder why? Is it because I ask questions about the church that need to be asked? What exactly is the definition of false teacher? In the Biblical record, the term applies to those that denied either the divintity of Jesus or the humanity of Jesus, or those that perverted the Gospel by adding circumcision to the list of “do’s” in addition to faith in Christ. I believe in baptism for the remission of sins, I believe in Jesus Christ, that He is the only begotten Son of God, that he died, was buried and rose again on the third day, according the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and will one day come back. I believe in the church, the intentional body of Christ, and that each congregation is autonomous. I believe that acapella music is the pattern of New Testament churches, right on down until the 12th century or so when a piano was added the church. I love acapella music, and prefer acapella music, and teach that our young people that it is Biblical to worship God using just our voices.

I guess I am having a hard time understanding where the false teacher label comes from. Hmm, is it because I also believe that the name calling, and the mud-slinging that takes place in our circles is juvenile, and un-Christ like needs to stop. Jesus warns us to “judge not.” My answer to the brother who labeled me a false teacher, is to consider your humanity. No person, except Christ was perfect, so our understandings, and our wisdom are dulled by the stain of sin. We are all to some degree, false teachers.

Where are we going?

I met early last week with some area youth ministers to discuss our plans for this next year’s coordinated effort to host area wide teen events. I was a little leary about attending, due to the comments I have heard slung from others about certain churches or certain ministers in those churches. I went to the meeting expecting confrontation. There were a few tense moments, but it became increasingly clear that there are some real differences of opinion on certain issues. One of them, un-related to the health or even the topic we were meeting to discuss was whether or not it was okay to listen to instrumental Christian music in your car, and whether or not there was a Scripture mandate to this. I was thinking the whole time, “you have to be kidding me.” Another clearly hotly contested issue for us that day was in the area of clapping at youth events. Last year at this time I recieved a phone call from a gentlemen from another church who wanted to know if my ara wide youth event would sanction clapping in some songs. I though the phone call at first was a joke, again I thought to myself, “you have to be kidding me.” He wasn’t kidding, and because I couldn’t assure him there would be no clapping, which by the way, there wasn’t any, this man and his teens didn’t come to our area wide event.

I bring all of this up, because I am astonished how some things can hinder God’s grace. I know that God is more powerful than the sinful pride of man, but in the reality in our churches is that there are some things that we hold more dear than Jesus himself. We cling to the comfortable, in all in the hopes of playing it safe. A faith with out risks, stifles the the possiblity to grow. I am not advocating change for the sake of change, but faith requires risk. The music in your car, and even handclapping, and a whole host of other issues, I mean come on. Are these the issues we need to be splitting hairs over? If a kid from the outside, listens to Christian music in his car, instead of listening to Ludicrous, I say praise God. Paul cautioned believers to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). Where is the renewal if we are listening to music that is sending a message of hedonism, violence, and greed? I know that there are some issues we face in the church that will define us, or divide us as a movement. I do not think the restoration movement and the churches that rose out of this heritage, and particularly the churches of Christ as we know it in the 21st century in the form we see it manifested in our American pluralistic society is quite finished in the process begun by Christ to be the kingdom of God to a sin-soaked world. I believe the restoration movement to be ongoing. If we get so high minded that we understand the Word of God completly, we are actually little minded enough to think we own exclusive rights to “truth.” May we not be so blind to the reality of spritually stagnant churches, and spiritual zombies in our churches. Our faith in Christ Jesus should be risk taking enterprise full of twists, turns and surprises. I don’t want to be dull-minded Christian stuck in the rut of ritual and tradition when the God I read about in the Bible is a God of wonder and awe.