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Showing posts from October, 2008

Warning: Political Content Ahead

My good friend Joel wrote this little piece and I thought it was worth passing along... Get ready for the liberal supermajority. Not only does it seem likely that Barak Obama will win the presidency, but the Senate Republicans will lose so many seats that they will be unable to filibuster and block seriously flawed bills. An op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal says that this occurred two other times in our nation’s history: 1933 and 1965. The article speculates that Democrats will vastly expand the government to achieve the welfare-state liberals now can only dream of. Once in place, such legislation will be nearly impossible to repeal just as happened in the past. Here’s a partial list of previously blocked legislation that you can expect the liberal supermajority to pass and the liberal president to sign into law: 1. Government run healthcare for all 2. Greater investigation and regulation of private industry 3. Empowering of labor unions through the elimination of secret ballot v

Orlando '08 (Sea World, Magic Kingdom, and Universal Studios / Islands of Adventure)

The family and I took THE trip that every family should take at least once in your life time (not because we love Disney but because it's just one of those things you should do before you die like running with the bulls in Spain). We made the 12 hour drive to Orlando for a few days of lines, humidity, and overpriced bad food. Don't get me wrong we had a great time and the trip was a blast but it did have it's low points. Instead of boring you with every detail, like where we ate and what we ate, I'll just hit the highs and lows. High: Driving through the night we made it down to Orlando in 9 1/2 hours. Low: Driving during the day coming back took an excruciating 12 hours to come home. High: No lines at Sea World or Disney. The longest we waits at SW was 5min and at the Magic Kingdom 30min. Low: Everyone was at Universal / IOA. We waited forever there. High: The kids got to "meet" Mickey, Minnie, Spiderman, Curious George, Woody Woodpecker, The Grinch, The Cat

New Stuff From Charlie Hall

I've been listening to the new Charlie Hall CD, "The Bright Sadness" pretty much non-stop. My three favorite songs from the CD have been put on youtube by the band. I thought I'd pass them along... "My Brightness" "Mystery" "Hookers and Robbers"

Lifeway Wants It Both Ways

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I was in our local Lifeway bookstore yesterday http://www.lifewaystores.com/ to pick up a few needed items for church. While there I decided to grab the newest Rob Bell book, "Jesus wants to save Christians". As I was browsing through the book I noticed a warning lable on the shelf underneath it. It basically stated, "Read with discernment. This book may contain thoughts, ideas and concepts that could be considered inconsistent with historical evangelical theology blah, blah, blah." I went home and searched the website that was listed on the bottom of the sign www.lifewaystores.com/readwithdiscernment and discovered that only four authors were being "discerned" against. Bell, Donald Miller, Brian McLaren, and the book "The Shack". Which oddly enough a fellow church member just gave me to read. It seems all four hold different beliefs then what Lifeway, a Southern Baptist Convention book store, agrees with. I have some real problems with the w

The Moral Dilemma of "R"

A couple of years ago Christian authors Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker merged talents and wrote the best selling book, "House", which is now being released in theaters. The hype around this film has come less from the fact that a main stream Hollywood studio is a making a major motion picture based on a best selling Christian novel and more from the movie's rating. The MPAA has given "House" a "R" rating and this has caused Dekker and many other Christians to question if the movie should be promoted to churches and Christians because of the moral dilemma it will cause. Dekker claims the movie has very little blood, no sex, and no profanity. He says the MPAA will not give him a reason as to why the movie was rated "R". Dekker also states that the movie's storyline sticks very closely with the book and he is pleased in the final product. I've heard other Christians say they will not see this movie now because of the rating. I think that&#

What Doesn't Kill Her Makes Her Stronger

When Maria was one she fell down our steps (13) at our house. When she was two she passed out at a Doodlebops concert because of a fever and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Now that she is three I've been waiting for her next traumatic physical accomplishment. he wait is over. Yesterday Jacob and Maria were busy chasing each other around the house. I warned a few time that they may want to slow down before someone gets hurt. (I sound like my mother) Finally the sounds of laughter were filled with cry's of pain. I was in the next room and just casually asked the kids what happened. Maria was crying but not in a kind of "emergency" kind of way. As she walked into the room with her hand over her mouth the first thing i noticed was the large amount of blood running down her arm. I rushed over and carried her into the bathroom. Once she saw the blood her tears and cry turned to curiosity as she casually asked me where was the blood coming from. After cleanin

Mexico City Mission Trip Part 5: Final Thoughts

I've had all week to try and put into words what exactly happened on our trip. I can give logistical descriptions of what we did, where went , and what we saw , but there is really no way to accurately describe what happened . This blog will be a bit of a ramble as I am still trying to collect my thoughts. To say this past week changed me would be an understatement. To be honest I hated Mexico City, but I fell in love with the people there. My heart broke for the hundreds of thousands of lost college students but I found excitement in the fact they all were so open to hearing what you had to say (after we showed them we cared about what they had to say). My heart broke for the people of Tepito, who have been so blinded by the evils of a false god, but joy in the fact that one small church believes that God can still make a difference in such a dark place. My heart broke for the millions of homeless children, many of who we found digging through dumpsters looking for food, but I was

Mexico City Mission Trip Part 5: Passion World Tour

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Friday and Saturday found us at the original reason why we came 2,000 miles to Mexico City in the first place, the Passion tour stop. Back in April a group from our church attended Passion: Atlanta and decided then we would do everything in our power to make it to Passion: Mexico City as volunteers. So we started the process in May of connecting with the good folks at Passion and that evolved into partnering with En Foque to create a full blown mission experience. Both days at Passion were very long. We'd get up by 6:30am to catch the metro to the arena and wouldn't get home until after midnight. On Friday we had no idea what our jobs would be, all we knew is that we'd be doing some kind of work with Passion. Once there we found several other volunteers, most were local / nationals along with missionaries from En Foque and other surrounding mission organizations. A volunteer coordinator grabbed six of us NC guys and took us back to the dressing rooms and green room. Our job

Mexico City Mission Trip Part 4: UNAM

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On Thursday we teamed up with some campus missionaries from Campus Crusade / Enfoque, some of which have committed to be in Mexico City from 1 to 4 years, to hang out at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México or UNAM for short. Mexico City has over 100 college campuses including the largest university in Latin America, UNAM, which has over 300,000 students. On top of being the largest it is also the most prestigious university in Latin America. Someone called it the "Harvard of Mexico". Even though it's one of the largest universities in the world, there is not a single Christian ministry/organization with a presence on the campus. The folks at Enfoque have made it their goal to not only begin ministries on UNAM but on ever college campus in the country of Mexico (presently over 400 colleges). Our goal was simple, meet students, get to know them, discover where they were at spiritually, and invite them to a future campus small group / bible study. Once we arrived we

Mexico City Mission Trip Part 3: Tepito

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Our Wednesday visit to the Mexico City community of Tepito was by far was one of the spiritually trying days of my life. I have never been to a place where I felt so much evil, darkness and spiritual warfare has I did in Tepito. Tepito is a small community in Mexico city (just 72 square blocks) that has a population of over 120,000 people. It's home to Mexico's most notorious drug cartel and the Mexican mafia. It's also boast the Mexican black market with over 50,000 vendors covering just about every street in tarp shops that sell stolen goods such as ipods, LCD TVs, Xbox 360's and Nintendo Wii's. You can also purchase bootleg DVD's, CD's, and any type of clothing you want. A typical DVD sells for $6 pesos (or .60 American) As soon as a movie is released in the theaters it's in the Mexican black market on DVD the same day. For every street that is jammed full of stolen merchandise you can find another street full of pornography and every type of sexual m

Mexico City Mission Trip Part 2: The Arrival

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We left MSBC at 6:30pm on Monday night to head down to Charlotte. Amy G. was nice enough to hook us up with some rooms at the Hyatt Place. Our flight was schedule to leave at 6:00am on Tuesday so unless we spent the night we'd be leaving Kernersville at 3am. We woke up at 3:30 and was on the road by 4:00am. We were anticipating customs taking some time to get through but it really wasn't much more difficult then any other flight. As we stood in line I noticed the guy behind Timmy and I looked very familiar. After several glances I was 90% sure the man was noe other than Morgan Spurlock, the guy who made the hit documentary "Super Size Me". After checking with Timmy, who was no help at all, I knew my only option to find out for sure who he was would be to do the old "yell out his name and see if he looks up" strategy. Once we made it through the security check point we waited a few seconds to let "Morgan" pass us. Once he was about 100 feet from us

Mexico City Mission Trip Update: Part One

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From left to right Top: Tim, Timmy, Kipp, Daniel R., Laura, Jeremy, and Daniel J. Bottom: Gary, Mike, Beth, Jessica, and Sydney Last week Beth, myself and a group of 10 others journeyed to Mexico City for a week long mission project that included the Passion World Tour stop, meeting with students at Unam (The largest University in the world, and serving in Tepito (the most dangerous neighborhood in Mexico City). This was my 16th mission trip and by far the most powerful and challenging. Words and pictures will never be able to describe the week we all experienced. It certainly can't be shared in just one blog post. So I will attempt to paint a small picture of our mission trip over the next several days in a number of blog post. I do want to thank everyone that supported our group with your prayers and financial gifts. We could have never made it through without the support of so many people.