I am excited to announce that one month from today…August 22, I will seek to ride my bicycle 100 miles, from Conway SC to Charleston SC. This is a fitness goal and a faith goal.
I am calling the ride Miles Away from Malaria, a ride for help! My goal is to raise $5,000.00 dollars for Malaria Relief in Burkina Faso. Burkina is one of the poorest countries in the world. The people there suffer tremendously from Malaria.
In case you did not know I traveled to Burkina in January of this year. Upon my return I was diagnosed with Malaria. For four days I lived through the most terrible suffering I have ever known. The good news is I lived…a million people a year do not.
As I recovered I knew I had to do something to help the people who suffer the way I did. As I recovered and was able to ride my bicycle again I decided to try and do a century ride in celebration of my upcoming 50th birthday. I also determined to make it more than just a ride. I wanted it to be a ride for help…a ride to help people get away from Malaria.
Would you consider a donation to Miles Away from Malaria…a ride for help. All donations will go toward purchasing and shipping supplies for testing, treatment and prevention of Malaria. If you will please make your generous donation payable to:
Sardis Baptist Church, for: Malaria
3602 Unionville Indian Trail Rd W.
Indian Trail, NC 28079
Please forward this email to your as many people as possible.
Thank you in advance for your prayers and support!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The biggest day in History!
Do you know what May 31st is?
Let’s see, the last day of May? Your anniversary? The 151st day of the year? It’s the fiftieth day past Easter? Bingo! Figured out where I am going yet?
Sunday May 31, 2009 is Pentecost Sunday. The biggest day in the celebration and practice of Christianity. Without it Christmas and Easter would not even exist. Seriously! Pentecost Sunday is the most important day of all the events of Christianity.
Were it not for the Day of Pentecost the story of Jesus would have disappeared like the story of Theudas. Who is Theudas…exactly.
It all builds upon the next…Christmas became significant because of Good Friday. Good Friday became significant because of Resurrection Sunday. Resurrection Sunday became significant because of Pentecost Sunday!
You want to know why we don’t celebrate it? Embarrassment! We are ashamed of it. Rather we are made ashamed by it! We are ashamed because we cannot speak in tongues. We are ashamed because we cannot heal, and cast out demons, and raise the dead.
We are ashamed because our lives are not marked by power and anointing and change! We are ashamed because the most Christian country in the world has legalized abortion. The most Christian country in the world cannot pray in public and will not pray in private. The most Christian country in the world is on the verge of embracing homosexuality as legitimate marriage. The most Christian country in the world is the most spiritually anemic country in the world.
Let’s face it, we can handle a baby in a manger, and a man on the cross, but enough wind and fire to change our lives and the world we live in is too much of a good thing!
After all how do you decorate a tree with tongues of fire? How do you make jewelry that looks like a roaring wind?
We refuse to celebrate it because the only way to celebrate Pentecost is by experiencing it and expressing it. Why would anyone want to celebrate their most glaring failure and shortcoming!
Christianity does not need more education, or elucidation, or indoctrination. We do not need more symbolism or relativism or modernism. We do not need more style or studies or shtick.
We need, as Jim Cymbala wrote about it is, ”fresh wind and fresh fire.” What every Christian and every church and every community in the country needs is “fresh power.”
Maybe we should stop worrying about whether or not we can put a manger in front of the court house or whether we should call it Easter holidays or Spring break. And start seeking God for the outpouring of His Spirit before the whole world goes to hell.
Happy Pentecost!
Let’s see, the last day of May? Your anniversary? The 151st day of the year? It’s the fiftieth day past Easter? Bingo! Figured out where I am going yet?
Sunday May 31, 2009 is Pentecost Sunday. The biggest day in the celebration and practice of Christianity. Without it Christmas and Easter would not even exist. Seriously! Pentecost Sunday is the most important day of all the events of Christianity.
Were it not for the Day of Pentecost the story of Jesus would have disappeared like the story of Theudas. Who is Theudas…exactly.
It all builds upon the next…Christmas became significant because of Good Friday. Good Friday became significant because of Resurrection Sunday. Resurrection Sunday became significant because of Pentecost Sunday!
You want to know why we don’t celebrate it? Embarrassment! We are ashamed of it. Rather we are made ashamed by it! We are ashamed because we cannot speak in tongues. We are ashamed because we cannot heal, and cast out demons, and raise the dead.
We are ashamed because our lives are not marked by power and anointing and change! We are ashamed because the most Christian country in the world has legalized abortion. The most Christian country in the world cannot pray in public and will not pray in private. The most Christian country in the world is on the verge of embracing homosexuality as legitimate marriage. The most Christian country in the world is the most spiritually anemic country in the world.
Let’s face it, we can handle a baby in a manger, and a man on the cross, but enough wind and fire to change our lives and the world we live in is too much of a good thing!
After all how do you decorate a tree with tongues of fire? How do you make jewelry that looks like a roaring wind?
We refuse to celebrate it because the only way to celebrate Pentecost is by experiencing it and expressing it. Why would anyone want to celebrate their most glaring failure and shortcoming!
Christianity does not need more education, or elucidation, or indoctrination. We do not need more symbolism or relativism or modernism. We do not need more style or studies or shtick.
We need, as Jim Cymbala wrote about it is, ”fresh wind and fresh fire.” What every Christian and every church and every community in the country needs is “fresh power.”
Maybe we should stop worrying about whether or not we can put a manger in front of the court house or whether we should call it Easter holidays or Spring break. And start seeking God for the outpouring of His Spirit before the whole world goes to hell.
Happy Pentecost!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Square Root Day
I am not a mathematician but I do love numbers… Today’s date is 03/03/09. 3 times 3 is 9. The square root of 9 is 3. So geeks and mathematicians are celebrating Square Root Day. I also like it when all of the numbers are the same…this year it will be September 9th, 09/09/09.
I like pi too. I love that no matter where you are or who you are or what language you speak, pi is always the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle; approximately equal to 3.1415926. It is a constant…even dare I say eternal.
Which brings me to our current financial crisis. The bottom line to all of it is that the numbers just did not add up. Through a series of confusing and convoluted calculations people were allowed to fulfill their greed at every level from the consumer to Wall Street financier. Madoff was not the only scam running on Wall Street!
Which brings me to another math equation…one plus one equals one. It’s called creation math. God revealed it when he created a man and a woman. He said the two shall become one flesh. In fact He took from the man and made the woman. Making it so the only way they could be whole or one again was to be with each other in marriage. A man and a man will not add up. A woman and a woman will not add up.
People who say that God created homosexuality and therefore approves of it are either liars or …nope there is nothing else…they are just liars! A lie is a lie no matter your means or end.
As far back at least as 1977 (Soap) the entertainment world has been trying to convince us that homosexuality is normal, acceptable, or right. Over the last couple of months two of my favorite T.V. shows have totally endorsed the idea. House a show about a jerk Dr. with a god complex reveals that a team member Dr. Hadley a.k.a. Thirteen is bisexual. Of course they showed very steamy bedroom scenes to arouse us. The show affirms that it should be seen as perfectly normal. Now she is living and having sex with one of the other male Doctors on the team which is equally morally reprehensible.
Then on Bones, another FOX show one of the regular characters reveals that she has a bisexual past that is revealed through conversation and of course a wet kiss, on camera. And of course the whole dialogue is about how no one should judge them or think that it is anything other than acceptable if not completely normal.
Well here is a news flash. It is not normal! It is wrong. It is sinful. It is promiscuity and sexual sin at nearly its pinnacle. (S&M is the pinnacle.) It is physiologically wrong, it is morally wrong, it is mathematically wrong.
One more…while watching a hilarious movie yesterday I was struck by a very odd occurrence. At one point in the movie they took God’s name in vain by connecting it to the word damn. They did not bleep it or hide it in anyway. However, a few minutes later they bleeped the word faggot when it was used to refer to the character who was being outed as a homosexual. Seriously, I don’t like the word faggot. It’s a slang word. Intelligent people do not need to use slang. But then do intelligent people need to take God’s name in vain?
I appreciate that they did not want to offend homosexuals by calling them faggots. But how and why was there no regard for God by taking His name in vain or for believers when it came to taking their God’s name in vain. It just does not add up.
It seems that it all comes back to a math problem. The world has forgotten that there is another eternal constant besides pi, its God! They have forgotten that the square root of every human problem is the individual and that they are in deep need of a new figure in their life, God! Who interestingly enough on this square root day, is revealed as the trinity…
Finally, when we are more worried about offending a sexual deviant than the Holy God, something does not add up. And unless something changes, America just might get what everybody keeps calling for when they drop the G.d. bomb!
I like pi too. I love that no matter where you are or who you are or what language you speak, pi is always the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle; approximately equal to 3.1415926. It is a constant…even dare I say eternal.
Which brings me to our current financial crisis. The bottom line to all of it is that the numbers just did not add up. Through a series of confusing and convoluted calculations people were allowed to fulfill their greed at every level from the consumer to Wall Street financier. Madoff was not the only scam running on Wall Street!
Which brings me to another math equation…one plus one equals one. It’s called creation math. God revealed it when he created a man and a woman. He said the two shall become one flesh. In fact He took from the man and made the woman. Making it so the only way they could be whole or one again was to be with each other in marriage. A man and a man will not add up. A woman and a woman will not add up.
People who say that God created homosexuality and therefore approves of it are either liars or …nope there is nothing else…they are just liars! A lie is a lie no matter your means or end.
As far back at least as 1977 (Soap) the entertainment world has been trying to convince us that homosexuality is normal, acceptable, or right. Over the last couple of months two of my favorite T.V. shows have totally endorsed the idea. House a show about a jerk Dr. with a god complex reveals that a team member Dr. Hadley a.k.a. Thirteen is bisexual. Of course they showed very steamy bedroom scenes to arouse us. The show affirms that it should be seen as perfectly normal. Now she is living and having sex with one of the other male Doctors on the team which is equally morally reprehensible.
Then on Bones, another FOX show one of the regular characters reveals that she has a bisexual past that is revealed through conversation and of course a wet kiss, on camera. And of course the whole dialogue is about how no one should judge them or think that it is anything other than acceptable if not completely normal.
Well here is a news flash. It is not normal! It is wrong. It is sinful. It is promiscuity and sexual sin at nearly its pinnacle. (S&M is the pinnacle.) It is physiologically wrong, it is morally wrong, it is mathematically wrong.
One more…while watching a hilarious movie yesterday I was struck by a very odd occurrence. At one point in the movie they took God’s name in vain by connecting it to the word damn. They did not bleep it or hide it in anyway. However, a few minutes later they bleeped the word faggot when it was used to refer to the character who was being outed as a homosexual. Seriously, I don’t like the word faggot. It’s a slang word. Intelligent people do not need to use slang. But then do intelligent people need to take God’s name in vain?
I appreciate that they did not want to offend homosexuals by calling them faggots. But how and why was there no regard for God by taking His name in vain or for believers when it came to taking their God’s name in vain. It just does not add up.
It seems that it all comes back to a math problem. The world has forgotten that there is another eternal constant besides pi, its God! They have forgotten that the square root of every human problem is the individual and that they are in deep need of a new figure in their life, God! Who interestingly enough on this square root day, is revealed as the trinity…
Finally, when we are more worried about offending a sexual deviant than the Holy God, something does not add up. And unless something changes, America just might get what everybody keeps calling for when they drop the G.d. bomb!
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