I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
I love the website called sitemeter. It allows you to add a bit of code to your website so that you can see in a general sense who has been there. I say general, because there are no names or addresses, just domain names and nearest towns. It is quite cool when you get an international “hit” on your page. What brought this on was a couple of hits that I received recently that piqued my curiousity. There were a couple of towns where I have had acquaintances from where some of these hits have originated. Of course, it could be anybody. One of the referring links was from a Google search for the name Jeff Lutz. If you have ever Googled my name there are literally just shy of 2,000,000 links for my name. So I always wonder is that from so and so who I knew 10 years ago or some such scenario or is it John or Jane Doe? Anyway, technology is cool.
One of my favorite things to do this time of year is to follow the Indy 500. With my schedule, however, I can’t quite listen in on everything. Well, now with people catching onto the podcasting revolution, I can listen to the qualifying runs when I’m not doing anything. Timeshifting from the time it originally occurred. I was thinking about the slavery to the world on my way into work earlier, and thought about how I can listen to stuff whenever I want with out being a slave to the “schedule” of when “they” say I have to listen or watch. To me, the paradigm of the media is about to shift. Instead of local TV and radio stations dictating when you will listen, they should produce programming and become a “disturbution node” for on demand programming, rather than the old system of me having to rework my schedule to see or listen to what I want.
A case in point, I wouldn’t mind listening to the local news from one of the TV or radio stations. Currently, I will listen to the NBC nightly news, NPR’s most emailed stories and Oregon Considered the following day so that I can catch the news summary. For something more up to date I have put the NPR hourly news summary in my Google News reader. Of course, I also listen to a few podcasts that are news analysis oriented as well. However, I can’t find anything of a local nature, yet.
Anyway, I have to say that I’m looking forward to when I can buy one of these.
Two weekends ago was kind of short as far as me getting to spend any time with my family. I not only had to work the weekend, but I had to cover a shift due to 3 people being out with some stomach virus. However, that Saturday, I got home, we played cards, and watched movies. One of the movies was Zathura, which is about two brothers and a sister who play a space adventure game that comes to life, much like Jumanjii.
Then Sunday as Betty Dipzinski was reading Genesis 37:1-11, I had a flashback to the movie. In Genesis, the Jacob/Israel’s kids blamed their problems on Joseph. In Zathura, the 10 year old blamed the 6 year old for all of his problems. If you know Joseph’s story, after a long time, he is reunited with his brothers and the wounds are healed. In Zathura, the 10 year old, finally comes to the realization that he loves his little brother and there is healing between them. A good movie to watch if you are looking for life lessons.
While at the Battlecry event in Detroit, last month, Ron Luce asked this question to everyone, “Are we asking the right question?” Before this moment, I had often thought that when people do recoginize their need for God and Christ, that they don’t often realize what that means. It’s more than accept him and be blessed. It means following Jesus and that means doing the Great Commandments (Matt 22:37) and the Great Commission(Matt 28:19), which means doing the messy things that this brings you into conflict with, like correcting sinful behavior in yourself, helping people when you may get persecuted, and standing up for what you believe in.
The question that often gets asked is, “Do you want to (receive/accept) Christ?” This is the wrong question, because it is passive. Asking someone if they want to follow Jesus is more active and requires an explanation into what that means. God wants us to be active with our faith, like it says in James 2:18b, I’ll show you my faith by my works.
So are you ready to follow? Do you know what Jesus wants you to do? What is your purpose here? Are you ready to radically follow a counter-cultural Messiah that has modelled for us helping the poor and oppressed, ticking off the religious folks by confronting them with their gods of tradition and culture like the pharisees (not that tradition is bad, but some refuse to change things just because we have always done it that way), and giving your life to do it?
Dad has a post on Rosie and her being laid to rest after ~13 years. She was a good dog. And as I liked to call her, “my temperorary” dog as she would stay with me when Mom and Dad would travel and couldn’t take her with them. I will miss her. I still remember the puppy years, when Mom and Dad were in Korea and I would play “puppy boxing” with her, or the time she began to drink somebody’s drink right out of the glass when our backs were turned. I remembered her prime, jumping hurdles and swimming in the pool. I remember endless games of criz in front of my house, how she would plow through snow chest deep and chasing the snow that I would throw from my deck. She was fun. She will be missed in Michigan…
Cross posted on Being Who God Created Me to Be blog
Grand Rapids is fighting adult entertainment: “Grand Rapids- To avoid a free speech challenge, on Tuesday morning City Commissioner Rick Tormala suggested amending a proposed adult business ordinance to permit nude dancing.”
As I read this article from WZZM in GRR, I thought about one of my notes that I wrote while at Battlecry (Acquire the Fire). If you aren’t familiar with Acquire the Fire or Teen Mania, I encourage you to click on their links. Anyway, they have been sponsoring events to wake up the current teenage generation to what they can do for Christ, because the statistics are showing that the number of Christians at current rates from this generation will translate to only 4% of the population when they become adults. This is the current percentage of “post-Christian” Europe.
However, what got me thinking about this is that they are asking the kids to demonstrate at city halls across the US on May 12 when the final Battlecry event, for the year, takes place in Philadelphia. I remember my thoughts as we watched the video from the demonstration in San Francisco when people hurled insults at the kids who were doing nothing, but praying and holding signs that said, “Show us Godly relationships.” This is meant more for the TV and movie industry, because they show mostly sex with no consequences and call it “love.”
Here is what is going on in my beloved Grand Rapids (I love northern Michigan too, but I grew up outside of the Furniture City). There is a proposed city ordinance that will keep nude dancing out of the downtown area. One of the commissioners is going to propose a compromised ordinance so that the city won’t get into a freedom speech court case. The rest of the city council is expected to approve the no nude dancing ordinance and rely on the money that a group has raised to defend the law.
Anyway, I began to ponder the question when are your “rights,” nothing more than selfish desires that impinge on others rights to not view or be tempted. We can all say turn it off or don’t go in, but when there is that temptation in full view of the public and kids, in a pretty much family friendly area of downtown GRR, is that not impinging on the freedom of speech to not view those things? Just wondering…
Update: Grand Rapids has passed the ordinance prohibiting nude dancing establishments in downtown. Now we need to defend it.
I was thinking about this earlier, but recently, this post from a blogger that I read got me moving to write this post.
I should start this off, by saying that I’m all for conversations about what is good and bad about the way we worship/serve/follow God. When it comes to spiritual growth, this is a good thing. So as I listen to various speakers and pastors, I want to hear if there are people who disagree with them, only to test what they say. I also read the Bible and, I listen to others and read writings, so that I have a good sampling of what they believe (i.e. I don’t want to be lead astray). So as of late, I have been looking at postings by people that disagree with what is known as the emergent church movement, to see if there is anything that I need to know to determine wrong doctrine or some such thing.
Next, I, more or less, follow a Wesleyan theology and doctrine, so I have recently acquired some books, that explain the differences between Roman Catholic, Reformed(Calvin), Luthern, Arminian and Wesleyan theology. As I have read and as I have experienced there are some differences, but to me, most of these are small compared to the main thing they all preach in common, and that is Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the savior, and Him crucified and resurrected.
So as I have looked at the emergent church movement, or the emerging worship movement within the UMC, I had become curious to what this meant. As I have researched, I found that they are trying to rethink how to get Christians to act and show what it means to be a Christian, instead of the view of say the big media where to them it is Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. This means getting a congregation to more fully use its gifts as to show God’s love to the community at large, as well as within the Body of Christ. Some have proposed doing away with having a sermon as the focal point of a worship service, while others do more experiential things for worship.
So I as I researched, I began to run into the anti-emergent church sites and found that in most cases that they also were anti-everybody else as well. Most of the criticisms, I found were nit-picking on somebody’s writings or metaphors for God. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with criticism per se, but many times the things that were said, to me meant nothing to what is in the Bible, like Jesus preaching about loving God and loving all people. I have worked in my local Emmaus community with Catholic, Reformed, Wesleyan, etc. and we have no problem interacting and helping each other and those outside the community in the name of Jesus. As one pastor said during the means of grace talk, we can’t let somebody’s means of grace be a stumbling block if they preach Christ, or serve in the name of Christ. Who cares if we are predestined to love God or we choose? I didn’t see that in the Great Commission, which says,”18And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:18-20 KJV, lest I get accused of using the wrong translation) :0
While listening to Rob Bell at the National Youth Workers convention in 2004 in Dallas, he said that everyone should test what he says against scripture, so that we remain on the right track. I guess that’s what I have been doing. However, some of those that comment in some of theses blogs come up with mean nasty judgemental things. How are people supposed to find out what is wrong with viewpoint if you just get angry and say, “that’s from the pit!” (yes, that was a comment on a blog about somebody’s metphor for God). To me the person posting the blog was trying to share something out of love and the commentor was posting out of hate.
So it is with that, that I say goodbye to negative blog sites and commentors. Unless you can be civil and constructive with your criticism I’m going to stop listening to you.
Because of my main type of work, I spend about 8 to 9 hours in front of a computer. So when I get home or have some time off, I have to get myself revved up to write anything on the blog as of late. I have a back log of things to write about too. I want to review my Lenten experience. I have 4 different things that I took notes on from Battlecry (Acquire the Fire). I also have the momentary things that go through my brain while driving to and from work.
Otherwise, Mary and I have the house now listed. Yes, we are going to move. We are looking to move to Boyne Falls/Boyne City area so that we can be closer to Kaleb and Karlie, not to mention that Brandon and Christina would be closer (they live in Conway) and Ben and Trisha are planning to move back once they have cleaned up their debts, which shouldn’t be too long.
Once the house is listed on the internet, I’ll link it here. That’s about it for now. I have to get ready for work.
Enemy soldiers gather – to strive for peace: “Shunned by their respective governments, former Israeli and Palestinian fighters have been meeting in secret. ”
This looks promising, if the governments will stay out of the way and let the former fighters and common people work for peace. It may be wishful thinking, but I will pray for this to succeed.
P86 is one of my favorite bands. I learned of them back in the day of when I would by compilation albums of artists that are Christian, but the style of the music is somewhat more, shall we say, obnoxious. 😉 Having grown up listening to the hair bands of the 80s and that moved me into the hard core and punk scene of the 90s and now the 2000’s, I just have not grown up musically. Not that I don’t listen to classical or baroque music or slower things, but fast and loud has always been my thing. So when the Bored Again Christain podcast played one of their songs from the latest album, I perused the Project 86 website and found this explanation for the title of their current tour, “Hammer and Blades.”
The title for the tour and the artwork is based upon the need for us to confront our past, our mistakes, our sin, with resolve…meaning to kill our old nature. The headless man…taken from the lyrics “Off With Your Head” (Sincerely, Ichabod…Track 1 from our latest album)…is to symbolize the need for a definite end to all that hinders us.
Music I like with thoughtful lyrics, that’s why I like the trend of Christian music.
