presentsense

Stuff Christians Like: #243. Going through "seasons."

Link: Stuff Christians Like: #243. Going through "seasons.".

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Now playing: George Harrison - Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (
via FoxyTunes   

Westley's first mallet piece

Hey everybody, I thought you might like to see a clip from my boy's first recital with the Springfield 6th Grade Band. Yeah buddy, that's his own hair!

David Lee Roth the Fifth Beatle?

I did this for a few friends, but it turned out a lot better than I expected, so I thought I would share it here. This is a comedy mashup, and it's not for sale.

The vocal-only track of David Lee Roth singing "Runnin' With the Devil" is available on the internet. Any good search engine will find it for you. It is hilarious on it's own, but of course, my imagination wouldn't let it rest there. Let's just say I am trying to paint the picture of DLR's first (and last) day as the fifth Beatle. My apologies to Van Halen and Beatle fans alike.

Download dlr_meets_the_beatles.mp3

O Hai, the lolcats bible

OK, if you are not familiar with the lolcatz internet meme, go away. You will not think this is funny.

Now that everyone has left except me and one other person, allow me to introduce you to the lolcat bible project. Let's face it, in all the talk about being incarnational, it seems that we have made some serious omissions in the area of contextual evangelism as it pertains to our feline friends..until now.

Read. Enjoy. Contribute. Save a cat from hell.

The Promise of Pentecost

I preached at Duncan Memorial UMC in Charlotte on Sunday. Here is my sermon, with some notes inserted in italics that did not get preached, but I feel the Lord is really trying to say to me, and maybe to us.

Texts:

Numbers 11:24-30 (New International Version)
Acts 2:1-22 (New International Version)
Jude (New International Version)

It’s that time of the Christian year again. Time to read Acts 2. In all of the Christian church, there are few subjects more divisive than that of the manifest gifts of the Holy Spirit. Some say that the gifts only happened once or twice during the “Bible days,” but that we can’t expect that they are for us here and now. Others say that one can’t even call oneself a Christian at all, unless he or she manifests the gifts of the spirit on a daily basis. I would imagine that if we went around the room today, everyone would have an opinion on the subject, but I get to be the preacher today, so I’ll tell you what I think the Lord would have us understand...

Tongues and prophecy are an evangelistic tool in this story.

• Tools are good. They help us do things that we could not do without them. The disciples were heard by a multitude of foreign people - people who had come to observe a Jewish holiday - Jews from all over the known world. And they heard the disciples speaking of the wonders of God in their own languages. This is miraculous. 3000 people came to know the truth about Jesus that day! And all because the Spirit of God spoke directly to them through the disciples.
• Tools are desirable. In the Numbers passage, Moses himself said he wished that all would prophesy, because to a people lost in the wilderness, the Word of God coming out of the mouths of the people is a direct breath of heaven.
• Tools are also specific. They have specific purposes, and they can be misused. A wise man once said that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Tongues and prophecy don't solve every problem we face, but they might just solve some of them, so all the better to have them in the toolbox.
• I didn't preach this yesterday, but I will if I ever get another opportunity...For all you cessationalists out there, if you can see tongues as tool for a specific problem, I ask you, has the problem of being able to communicate completely gone away? If not, why would God take the tool out of our toolbox?

When the Spirit comes upon us, there will always be some who will make fun of us.

In the book which we attribute to him, Jude warns that, “these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them. (Jude 1:10) I want to add a note here that I also did not preach. If you are at all struggling with issues of Charismatic/Pentecostalism that you don't understand, please read the book of Jude, being careful to also follow the footnotes to to the OT so that you fully understand the letter. My eyes were really opened this week after studying that book and venturing off to the stories of Cain, Balaam, and Korah. I have a renewed sense that I should not simply rebuke things I do not understand, or that I do not hear the Lord rebuking. Sure, there is excess out there, but it's not my job to judge it, and certainly not my place to eradicate it from God's church.-eli

When the Spirit comes upon us, and we prophesy, some will want to join us!

When I was in college, my brother and I had a band. We played at youth rallies and coffeehouses and the like mostly, but twice in the early 90s, we had the opportunity to travel to Russia, which at the time had just opened its doors for missionaries to come in. While in Russia, our band, and the good people with us, got to do some crazy things, like set our instruments up in the middle of the public square, under statues of Lenin and Stalin and start playing to draw in a crowd, after which, others with us would preach and tell the crowd about Jesus. One such day, while we were singing and praising the Lord, and older man, who had actually been drinking - he smelled of Vodka - came up and started to dance around with us. He was really enjoying himself! He came up to my dad and asked him, “What are you drinking? Can I have some?” Always ready with the word, my father, a minister himself for 20+ years at the time, quoted Peter to this man and told him about Jesus, pointing him to the Lord right there on the spot!

Summary

To sum up, I think that the Word the Lord wants us to hear today is that He didn’t set us on our Christian mission with no help. He has given, and will continue to give us the tools we need to reach the world for Him. We should all be in a continual state of prayer that when divine appointments come, and we are face to face with one of God’s lost lambs, that the power of the Holy Spirit will be able to speak through us, in order that souls might be saved. We ought not take the attitude of making fun of things we do not fully understand. We will never fully understand God. We should rest in the knowledge that when the time comes, we will only say what the Father is saying, and do what the Father is doing.

Watch out Charismatics...

OK, all my Charismatic friends, Emergent is coming after you now. Well, to be fair, it's Steve Knight, and he did not post this on Emergent Village, but he and other voices in the Emergent movement have posted and cross-posted this post on their personal blogs in the last few days. Have a read for yourself...

Knight on Freak-a-costalism.. (my word, not his ;-)

So, I know I have more Charismatic readers than Steve does, and I know that Steve reads this blog. How about it, Charismatics? You've been to these kinds of meetings. Don't deny it. I was there with some of you. Any comments for Steve and others who are asking questions about all this weird stuff? Leave a comment.

I will follow this post up with my thoughts soon (and it might not be what you think), but I want my readers to have a chance to comment.

Mario as prog rock...

Who's committed to whom?

From an associated press story today,

"Clinton ... disclosed that she had loaned her campaign an additional $6.4 million in recent weeks, evidence that her once front-runner campaign was in deep trouble.

She told reporters the loans were a sign of her commitment to her quest for the White House. She earlier loaned herself $5 million as she struggled to keep up with a better-financed Obama campaign."

Here's what the evidence says: Hillary is committed to the White House, and she'll try to buy it if she has to. Obama on the other hand, has more people who believe in him enough to give him their money and support his campaign.

Also, conservatives don't take out 10 million dollar loans to get a job that pays $250K a year. Something isn't right. She's either not as conservative as she's spun herself, not being honest about how much money the president actually makes, or not good at math. Either way (foolish, dishonest, or stupid), she's probably not good leadership material.

Oh and one more thing while I am ranting, does the world really need "his and hers" presidential libraries?

Looking at the numbers: Obama only won 9 of Indiana's 92 counties last night, and still came close to the upset. Looking even closer: Counties won - Lake (basically Gary, and a suburb of Chicago), St. Joseph (Notre Dame), Tippecanoe (Purdue), Monroe (Indiana University), Allen (IUPUFW), Marion (Indianapolis), Hamilton (where the rich people in Indy used to live), Boone (where the rich people in Indy actually live), and Elkhart (where the final stop of the EMC tour happens this weekend). Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

Hillary, your arm's off!

CCM music - couldn't have said it better...

Charlie Peacock has some things to say about the future of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) in this article.

My favorite quote: "Christian music as a genre has always been a music you move on from."

It's interesting to me that I ran across this post so soon after my recent rant about The Allies. It sounds like Charlie and I have been drinking from the same cup