Watch and Pray

I was sitting out in front of the school today watching my daughter in her class having PE. I watched her run and play with the other kids and talk with her little girlfriends. I watched her walk up the sidewalk from the grass field where they were playing and then I watched her walk past the car, smiling and waving. She is still young enough that she’s not afraid to say, “That’s my Daddy.”
I just sighed. I watched her walk past the car with the rest of her class on the way to her class to get her things together for the end of the day. I watched her until she was completely out of sight.

It’s a Dad thing. What can I say?

I watch my kids grow. I pray for them along the way. I hope for the best for them in all they do. God love ‘em they deserve it.

COD: Pastor and Bling in the same sentence? Oy…

I find it repulsive that anyone would even need to consider this. What has a church come to when the government must call church leaders to account instead of the other way around?

Answers to Home buying questions

Here’s a good post on looking for or building a house. If you’re in need of one, ask some questions. This guy knows what he’s talking about.

Tech Crime

I think they’ll have to invent some charges for this one.

Insert eyeroll here.

Taking Steps

I was reading a post over at everydaymiracle today. The writer was nearly attacked while running.

Christian girls, women and ladies: please allow me a moment to exhort you in this. Do not be afraid to take steps to prepare to defend yourselves. Seriously. I know and so do you that a patient witness under duress and pain and other unspeakable things can be used by God to reach an otherwise unreachable man. And truly many women have labored to that cause. But I’ll tell you what, God can use a well aimed pepper spray, taser, or other unpleasantly painful action you might choose to work upon the body of a would-be attacker.

And, quite frankly, should you decide to do unto him before he does unto you he earned it.
That’s about all I have to say about it. Look around locally there are bound to be some good self-defense classes or something around your area.

Pastor Bill and Pastor Ted

I posted a highly irreverent comment in the comment section at Brent’s blog depicting two pastors at an associational meeting, Pastor Bill and Pastor Ted.

“I had ten thousand baptisms last year. How about you Brother Ted?”
“Oh yeah Brother Bill? Well I had ELEVEN thousand…”
Dude…

In Oklahoma we’d call that a ‘pissing contest’–if you’re offended by that I’m sorry but this IS Oklahoma we’re talking about. Two men trying to out-do each other. Frankly its been the cause of a great deal of trouble in the world. “My sword is longer than yours, nyeh, nyeh…” and there go the gauntlets. One has an eight point buck-head hanging on the wall in his study, the other has to find a ten. One has an amp that goes to ten, the other has one that goes to ELEVEN. DUDE if you get that…whoa.

I spent some time working at a local Southern Baptist Association of Churches once. A few years as an assistant, that’s all, and I wasn’t very good at it to tell you the truth. But it was very enlightening to talk to ten or twenty frustrated pastors on Monday, a few less relatively placid pastors on Tuesday, and then a couple of fired up pastors on Wednesday and on Thursday it was back to frustrated. You can see the cycle…they get all worked up to preach and then there’s a let-down the day after. It’s not the man. Any one who desires to pastor a church ‘desires a good thing’ the Word tells us. Preaching is a good thing…its just all the stuff that goes along with it that eats away at these fine men of God. The church doesn’t deserve these gifts, but God gives them anyway. Footmen for Christ, tending his flock, his bride until that day…

The pressure on these men to perform is just crazy. I have seen men, who should spend most of their time with their nose stuck in their bible or their books, desperately looking for some program or formula that will revitalize their church. It’s not because they don’t know that the people need the Word of God, its just that they have been trained to go looking for some ‘church growth widget’ that they can drop in their ministry that will allow them to ‘grow.’ And that was like ten years ago. It can’t be any better now that churches have to be ‘Purpose Driven’ and have twenty thousand member congregations to be considered successful or relevant—awful word that it is.

So I think the problem is pride. That has to be why the congregation insists they grow and grow and grow numerically…and yet neglect the kindergarten state of their own walk with the Lord. It’s the root of many evils, and many men have fallen prey to it. Why not pastors too? Are they not men? Can they not stumble on the same blocks as the rest of us? Why should we make it easy for them to do so? Why should we clutter their desks with programs, and material, and projects, and a hundred other things when they are called to the ministry of the gospel? Think about that one for awhile and if you don’t hit your knees to pray for the man who leads your church you better ‘examine yourself’. It’s time for a spiritual checkup.

Christmas Shopping Pointers

I read this article in the Washington Post online and thought it was a great reminder for us to be good stewards this time of year. It’s very tempting to shop till we drop but this article gives some solid advice.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

OK. I’m a rusty old Star Wars geek. I never had enough spare cash to get the life size Darth Vader action figure but that doesn’t mean I didn’t THINK about getting it.

Anyway, I’m not using the force here so don’t get all theological on me, I’m just looking at some of the things I’ve seen popping up across the SBC like little black daisies. Resolutions for the ‘Regenerate Membership’ thing or resolutions ‘Against Calvinism’–it just doesn’t look good.

Then I read this and can’t help but have a little hope.

This doesn’t hurt either.

Dearly We’re Bought

“Dearly we’re bought, highly esteemed, redeemed with Jesus blood…”

The refrain from the hymn “Dearly we’re bought” from The Gadsby Project by Red Mountain Church. I just happen to be listening to it right now, right after, in fact, I looked at this post by Brent over at colossiansthreesixteen. Go over there and read his post which asks if the pictures are really the issue. I love reading things like this. They show us a view of the world through eyes salved with God’s Word which always accomplishes His purpose. Can I get an amen for that at least?

Anyway, this inflated church membership bone is really stuck in my craw lately so I’m going to write a few things that wiser men than me—a great long list, to be sure—should have already figured out. The first is, simply, that the church must be composed of the redeemed. People in church should be saved. If they’re coming to church regularly for any other reason there’s a problem. Why else would you come to church? To salve you conscience? To help you feel like a moral person? I’m not saying that we should toss people out into the street who don’t know Christ, but there should be some discretion. The lost have no business in the counsels of the saved who have been bought with the blood of Jesus.

COD: Akward (read: creepy) Irony

At first I read this laughing hysterically at what Dr. Mohler calls an ‘Awkward Irony’ and then my stomach clenched up. Especially when I read this part:

“Down the hall in the kitchen, older kids engaged in a Socratic conversation with class leader Bishop about the role persuasion plays in decision-making. He tried to get them to see that people who are coerced into renouncing their beliefs might not actually change their minds but could be acting out of self-preservation–an important lesson for young atheists who may feel pressure to say they believe in God.”

It’s not that I mind other people organizing themselves I’m just thinking of twenty years from now when these cute little kids have grown into their teeth. What do you do with a Christian who you know is just ‘acting out of self-preservation’? The implications are a little scary.

It’s not that I’m concerned, I am aware of God’s Sovereignty, I just worry a little about the world in which my kids are going to have to live.