I Confess - I Have Been Unfaithful

Proverbs 26:11 - As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

Anyone who would give up fellowship with God for the temporary fading moment of happiness brought about by sin is a fool. My walk with God has SHONE at times in my life. By the grace and God and the power of the Holy Spirirt Greed, Sexual Idolatry, and Pride have been completely eliminated from my radar screen for long periods of time. Yet, it is apparent to me that I am the one who behaves like the dog. I play the fool and surrender the felowship that peace with God brings as a trade-in for puke.

I become consumed with all the things again and again to my folly. They bring me worries, guilt, and seperation. Yet, half digested, these chucks of my past woo me back to them. I choose to live as the adulterous playmate rather than the radiant white bride awaiting the grooms arrival. I choose the bitter root of slavery rather than the sweet living water of the eternal vine.

A Prayer Of Confession and Repentance

Lord God,

I know you are a jealous God. I know your throne is sovereign and you are worthy of undivided devotion. I know my mind , body and soul were made to love you exclusively.

I know that I have been unfaithful to you. I have been lukewarm and sin ridden en mass. I know that you are the sole giver of peace, relationship, and life. I confess that I have sought these things in false pursuits. I repent of my profane infatuations and commit to depend on your Holy Spirit as my strength.

I know that you have clothed me in radiance, and seated me at your right hand. I have lived as a slave to an old man when you have raised me as a new man, a slave to righteousness. I have taken for granted your death, and your redemption. I repent of my godless passions and turn my sentiments to love and reverence for your alone.

You alone are God.

Acetone In Fuel Said to Increase Mileage

I read Linky & Dinky as a guilty indugence and today was quite impressed by this site that they were reccomending.
It seems that by adding between 2 and 3 TBS of Acetone to your gas tank (per 10 ga) you can increase your fuel effiency by as much as 30%-35%

Here is a second site with the same reccomendation. I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imaginatgion, but if this is true I feel very cheated by the Big Oil companies. I want to shop at the place that will premix my acetone for me if this is legit.

This is the ORIGINAL SITE that deals with this research. It is by the scientist who discovered the methodology.

FEMA wants to reimburse churches

If this were an award site the next sentence would go something like this, "The award for worst decision of the year goes to... the American churches for accepting government aide in the wake of Hurricane Katrina"

Read Article Here

I remember learning in college, and have stated on this blog before, that is was Plato who made the point that the center of any society will be the organization within that culture responsible for the care of the poorest and weakest. Traditonally American cultured was structured so that the church would supply that need. This meant that the church remained the center of American society for nearly the first 200 years of it's existence. However in the mid 1950s as the church became more affluent, more self centered, and less focused practicing "true religion" the government came in and filled the void left by the church in caring for the poorest and wekest of society and thus established itself rather than the church as the center of society. Once established as the center of society, the secularist within the government have been able to marginallize any influence the church holds within culture. Basically the church when it stopped caring for the poor ceased to have a public voice.

Fast forward 50 years to 2005 and the tragedy we have experienced in the Gulf States. The church came out strong and powerful. Aide was sent from thousands of churches targeted in ways that no government organization had the abilty to achieve. The church had a mission and many locally and nationally responded exactly as the church should. Servianthood and sacrifice, rather than doctrine and slef help, had become the messages of America's pulpits. The church the last few weeks has been glowing.

HOWEVER, now FEMA is saying, "thanks for helping out, let us reimburse you for your costs." The effective church will be marginalized and forced to once again take it's place on the sidelines as society's center pays for it's blunder. DO NOT TAKE THIS MONEY. This is Judas' 30 pieces of silver. This is blackmail, urging the church to "Go back to your back seat, resume your normal social schedules, and we'll all pretend this never happend."

I pray that we will be pushed forward with a "true religion" mission rather than urged back with a "Money lovers" payoff. We must not buy into this idea that we need reimbursed because we were doing the governments work. Instead we must go forward humbly and repentantly for letting the government do our work for FAR TO LONG!

Cardinal Drive - Let's Build Bridges

OH, I can not believe this!!! We are at a meeting at our church and one of our elders wife's asked, "What can we do to build bridges and relationships?" I find this SOOOOO unbelievable. Cardinal Drive church does not participate in any area activities. She is saying, "what can we do to make other area churches come to our events even though we do not participate in any area wide events?" West Chicago, Northwest, West Suburban, Lakeview, Naperville, North Park and Rockford all fellowship together just fine. I think Cardinal Drive could choose to be more connected by attending and fellowshipping with the other area events.

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Lost - People With To Much Free Time

Check out this site. This guy a CRAZY amount of time on his hands. I swear he could cure cancer witht the time he spent developing the content of this site. It is worth noting, if only for noting the depth of his crazy obsession.

I love Lost and am very intrested in the significance of the numbers. This person goes WAYYYYYYYYYY beyond that though. It is scary.

Oh well, it is pretty cool to read though if you are a Lost fan.

One other is this site which shows the Lat Long of the island using the numbers.

Projector Working Via Ethernet

I am delighted to announce that a small group of us stayed at the church last night working on getting the projector working. As you can see, it was a SUCESS!!!! That is my computer screen connected to a mounted projector and being sent via erhernet from the sound both in the back.

By Sunday we will have a computer and a RF remote that can be used anywhere in the auditorium.

Woo Hoo!!!!

4 8 15 16 23 42 - Lost Is Back

Random Thoughts from Season 2 Episode 1 - No meaning just random observations.

Make Your Own Kind OF Music is a Carpenters song from 1971

108 - 168 - 42 on the Walls?

A House on Fire - The Word Sick

http://www.oceanicflight815.com/

Ella Sings Undignifed

Matt Redman is possibly the best Worship writer out there today. He has an abilty to be both intimate with God and also fun and exciting in our praise to the Almighty king. Ella is much more fan of his "fun and exciting stuff." She is a particular fan of Undignified. Here is a little video of us in an undiginifed duet (with apologies to Mr. Redman - this is what the Word calls "Perfect Praise")

3GP Video Viewing Tutorial

All videos on this site are captured using my Palm Treo 650. They are in the 3GP format and must be treated with a little TLC to download and play on your computer. Follow these simple steps to download and watch the vieo on your computer.

Step 1: Download The File By Clicking on The Link In The Post.
Step 2: Double Click the file and Extract the Contents of The Zip Folder
Step 3: After Ensuring Apple Quicktime or the Quicktime Alternative is installed on your computer double click the extracted file.
Step 4: In the File Association Window choose "Select Program" and choose Quicktime.

At this point the file will play without a hitch. If you choose "Always use this program to open this file type" then you will not need to select program on future videos.

Why I Love Camp

As many of you who know me know, I am at camp everytime the gates of RCC open and teens descend. I LOVE camp. It is a place of the joy of fellowship and the worship of God.

I have 2 videos from our church camp retreat this weekend. The first video is Dawn Booth dancing in celebration in a late night card session. This is the type of fellowship one sees at camp. The second video is a song from our morning worship.

This is the great stuff that makes camp AWESOME!!!

Home Media - Galleon Issue

I had a problem with my Home Media Option on my Bedroom TiVo while switching from the Galleon IPod player to ABC's Lost. As you can see from the video, I am watching Lost but the Audio is still playing from Galleon. What a Bizzare occurence.

I had to go back into Home Media Application to actually STOP the playing of the music. It was VERY weird.

Cindy Sheehan - Philosopher and Maroon

Cindy Sheehan - It is a Christ-like principal to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. That's what is happening in Algiers and other places in Louisiana…but by the people of America, not the so-called "Christians" in charge. If George Bush truly listened to God and read the words of the Christ, Iraq and the devastation in New Orleans would have never happened.

Who are the "people of America?" - Did you ever think that these include Christians and Churches? Did you ever think that is the way civilized people SHOULD respond? The response of the people of America is not a blame against our government, it is a salute to our citzenry. It is a challenge to a LESS GOVERNMENT CENTRIC solution, since it is the people who are "freely" responding in the face of this tragedy.

How would the president "reading the words of Christ" prevented this devistation? - Does she imply that the Hurricane was a judgment against this administration? Is there a section in the Lord's teaching on Sub-Sea-Level Construction strategies? Is she saying another President (John Kerry?)could have prayed to "turn back the tide" of this Hurricane?

No, I think she is in fact convicted by her own irrelevance in the magnitude of this tragedy and is simply trying to philosophize for her fellow maroons who somehow think that she has something to say.

Blackberry Vs. Everybody Else

This Newsweek article asks the questions, "Can Blackberry survive against it's competion?" The question though valid is easily answered with only 2 letters... "No!!!" I have used a Blackberry from T-Mobile, 2 Blackberry devices from Nextel, and currently have a Palm Treo from Cingular. I easily can say that I would NEVER go back to Blackberry.

The addtional Palm Apps, the SD Card and the camera that all come in the Treo device make the Blackberry an antiquated and useless early attempt at the world of mobile email. We owe an honor to Blackberry for showing us the need, but we owe our business to Palm One for making it great!!!

Church Retreat At Fallhall Glenn

We went the the Family Retreat with Cardinal Drive at Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp this weekend. It was great retreat and Christi and I were honored to meet and spend time with Damen and Melody Parker, the guest speaker at the retreat. Damen is minister at New Life Church of Christ, an inner city church plant in Abilene, Texas. We share some of the same passions and goals about the missional church.

A Bad 2 Hours

4:30 PM - Christi and I are in our bedroom talking and getting ready to leave for small group and we hear a blood curdling scream from the living room. I go into the living room to find Anna crying by the rocker, she has a HUGE gash on her leg.

4:45 PM - As I am getting 2 sippies out of the truck we are driving I hear another scream behind me. As I climb out of the truck I see Anna face planted at the bottom of our porch lying in the gravel limestone. Her face was all bruised and scratched up. She looks like she was on the losing end of a bad bar fight.

6:10PM - By this time we have arrived at our friends house and we are having small group when we here a BAM followed by several small kthuds, culminating in another bout of screaming. At this point she has pulled a shelf full of nick nacks over onto herself. The shelf is lying on her head when we arrive a few seconds after the event.

So my poor little baby girl has a gash, a scratched up swollen face and big knot on her little forehead. Let me tell you, it was a bad 2 hours!!!

Lead Minister Opening

Last night on was on Wineskins Magazine site and I found an ad for the Lead Minister Opening at the Troy Church of Christ in Troy, MI.

The ad is awesome, and I feel more Churches need to embrace the energy and exuberance this church seems to have in their minister search.

AD TEXT: A Theologically open and Progressive church in Troy, MI, a Multi-Cultural Suburb of Detroit, which practices Social and Gender Inclusion, seeks a Lead Minister who is a Visionary and has a Pastoral Outlook. The person we prayerfully seek, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, should be a Gifted Speaker who inspires the church to reach today’s Post-Modern culture for Christ communicating the Eternal Truth of Scripture in Prophetic and Relevant ways to the Un-churched. If you feel called to this position, and wish to be considered, we require that you send your resume, with a recorded message and your salary requirements.

This says, we are not looking for a person who meets the corporate profile our commitee has decided to assemble. This says, we are open to the Holy Spirit's leading and we are prepared to do AWESOME things for the kingdom of God. Now myself, that is the kind of Church I want to preach for.

I am not applying for the position, since I am not looking for a job, but it is definitely a church I would want on my list if I was.

Alan Keyes - Christ Alone

Here is an intresting article by Alan Keyes about the follishness that exists in Christendom because of silly debates about doctrinal purirty and whose church is in and out. It is most definitely not anything I would have expected to have been written by a Roman Catholic, but the content as usual with Dr. Keyes is perfectly thought out and articulated clearly, logically, and convincingly.

I encourage you to read these ideas and take them back you your local Christian community.

National Tragedy Sermon

I preached at church this morning on the subject of the Christian and National Tragedy. This was of course in honor of the events of 9/11/01 and our promise to "Never Forget" the horror of that Terrible Tuesday. There was also a great deal of reference to Katrina. I felt it was an important, timely message in the light of the 2 events.

I Am Now A Relief Agency

Since last Thursday my duties have changed from IT admin to relief worker. I am not complaining, I am just merely stating. I have learned a lot about weight of food, water and fuels. I have learned a lot about business and their willingness to help serve.

I have also built a site Katrina Support to demonstrate all the work we are doing and encourage people to utilize our efforts. I would encourage anyone who would like to help us as we support the people of rural America, and serve small churches in the LA and MS countryside to please send a donation to the West Chicago Church that will be used to help us continue the efforts. Earmark it for Katrina relief and it will go directly to the work I am doing.

ABC News: More Restaurants Offer Gluten-Free Menus

I know I said my next post would be about our Saturday night program at camp but I went home for lunch and visted my wife and daughter instead of writing the post, so I will write it tonight.

Anyway. For my fellow Celiacs in the house, here an article from ABC news. All the links at the end should be in your favorites.

Classic Cryptography

This page has several cool classic ciphers. Ciphers make GREAT games for camp. In my next post you will see a game where we used a Jefferson Wheel for a game this weekend.

A Long Day For the People of Tylertown, MS

Tylertown, MS is a small town about 35 miles of the Gulf Coast. The 1800 people there have standing homes but no power, no water, and no sewer. The people are not even on the map for getting these services restored being they are so small and insignificant compared to the devastaion in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The people of this small town were schedule to run out of water of about midday today and food by leate evening.

Why you may ask do I know so much about Tylertown, MS. Well allow me to tell you the story.

I should begin by letting you know that I work for the most wonderful employer on the face of the earth. Yes, there are days I am as angry as anybody else at that no good boss of mine, but the reality of the matter, those days aside, is that he is a kind, giving Godly man who blesses everyone he comes in contact with.

This morning he comes into my office and says, "Joan and I have decided we need to get involved in the relief effort." So I get on the internet and begin my work. Healing Hands international is doing nothing. Manna International is doing nothing. Whites Ferry Road is doing something, but the info is very sketchy as to WHAT they are doing. I send an email and wait, but get no response from the Whites Ferry Road church.

While waiting the radio I am listening to says, if you can mobilize a truck, just brong water. Don't send cash, just bring water. So knowing we are a construction company I went to advise Justin, my boss, that we should fill a pickup with water and drive south.

As I come in he tells me that Darryl, one of our drivers, has family in Tylertown, MS. Their family has 20 people from throughout the area all under one roof with no food and little water. The generator is about out of fuel we are warned.

Over the next hour we are in contact with the Sherriff in Tylertown, the family and some others who can help distribute if we can get food and supplies to the people of this small town. I spent the rest of my day in one the most exhausting days I have ever had of work. I had to procure the supplies to fill 2 large trucks, A 26ft and a 14ft, to meet the needs of this town of 1000 people.

I purchased 140 cans of propane from Dicks Sporting Goods, they gave us 10% Off.
I purchased 50lbs of Dry Ice from the Schaumburg Dairy Queen, they threw in an extra 50 lbs.
I purchased $200 in Baby Food from Walmart. They did nothing kind at all, and were actually hard to work with, but whatever.
I purchased 720 Gallons of Bottled Water from Hinkley Springs at a great "Emergency Water" price.
I, along with Debbie from Costco in Bloomingdale, who had to be the most helpful person I worked with allday, assembled a many, many thousand dollar order of 10 pallets worth of toilitries, food, medicine, and baby items. Costco also gave an additional pallett of bottled water.

While I was procurring all the supplies, my boss picked up chainsaws, fuel tanks, and other needs for debris removal in town. We got a GREAT deal from the Penske dealer in Des Plaines on the 26ft truck.

Finally at about 9:00 tonight it had all come together and our 2 drivers were ready to hit the road.

I am so thankful to work for a man who would devote himself and 2 other employees entire day today. As well as devoting two employee drivers tommorow, to committ to meeting the basic needs of a small town. It has been a long hard day, but may God be honored through the sacrifice of this great man, and business I have the pleasure of working for.

White's Ferry Road Hurricane Relief

If you are looking for a way to help in this time of relief in the gulf states please check out the Whites Ferry Road Church relief site. I had the privilege of working with people from WFR back in 1993 when they came to St. Louis to support our flood relief. The people they sent to help our church set up a relief center were phenomnal and well organized. I have sent an email to their director asking EXACTLY what help they need. I will post any response I get.