a face lift

i like change, sometimes. i do not like the change that is going on in people's lives after katrina paid a visit to the gulf coast.

i am in the process of changing my blog a bit. i am sitting here in fredericksburg, va, trying to keep myself from going crazy while my family is back in daphne, al, cleaning up from "katrina and the waves."

i hope none of you think less of me since i am here and they are there, but i am here on business.

all things are ok from what my lovely wife tells me. the power came on today after lunch time. the phone lines are up, i think. i say that because i have been calling her on the cell.

i am safe. please be thinking of all the people in ms, and la, that need our help and prayers. pray for jd, and cl, and dee as they venture back to see how things are after this catastrophic destruction katrina has left in her wake.

Father, thank You for my safety and the safety of my family, and the safety of the cooper's that housed my family in my absence. please keep your hand over us, and please allow the weather to be suitable for the relief efforts that being exerted to clean and take care of what needs to be done.

Holy Spirit please convey to our Father what is unable to be spoken right now. there is more to be said, but i can not find words to voice my concerns for my friends and their families.

in Your loving Son's name, amen.

things of late

how have y'all been? i've been busy doin' this and that.

i have let things that should not get to me get to me. i am just tired from letting things get to me. i have been doing the father thing, the husband thing (not very well either), the deacon thing, the a/v thing, the life group leader thing, and not enough of the christian thing. i have not shared with anybody who is not already a member of port city, or any other church, the story of my Savior, and His Father.

why do we let "things" do that? not that the things that we do, such as the things mentioned above, are bad, but we let them get in our way. they are priorities, however, they are not the priority.

will you pray for me to desire to share what i have, and not bury it? help me plant it, and not let it die in my possesion.

a favor

does anybody have a copy of this, blue like jazz, that i can borrow? i have heard so much about it. can you help a brother out?

this date in history

isn't it interesting how thomas said this way before bill came along, and bill got caught up in it? i'm not saying that bill wouldn't have done it if thomas hadn't written that to his friend, but isn't it odd?

American Minute with Bill Federer
August 19th

A graduate of Georgetown University, he was a Rhodes Scholar before becoming the Governor of Arkansas and then America's 42nd President. In 1998, he became the 2nd president ever to be impeached. His original name was William Jefferson Blythe IV, born this day, August 19, 1946. At age 15, he took his stepfather's name Clinton. Also on this day, August 19, 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote to friend Peter Carr: "He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual... This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart."

why i stay

the following is taken from a blog that i found recently by reading a comment on another blog. so i have taken it from that blog and am adding it to my blog. make since?

i cracked up when i started reading the second paragraph. i won't say anymore so not spoil it. i hope you enjoy it. please leave a comment so we can see if we like the same stuff.

I am a member of Churches of Christ. By an accident of birth I was raised in a family that worshipped in Churches of Christ and have attended faithfully since I was two weeks old. By choice I attended a university affiliated with Churches of Christ, where I learned a deep respect for God’s world, and a passion for his people was first stirred. By choice, again, I sought further education in theology at a seminary associated with Churches of Christ, something that, ironically, is not particularly valued in our fellowship.

I know “us.” I know what 728B means. I understand “guideguardanddirect.” I am familiar with the ebb and flow of our worship: songs, prayer, sermon, songs, communion, songs, prayer, potluck. I know why we have emblems instead of sacraments. I missed the premillenial debate, but I’ve lived through worship wars and women’s roles. I know about fellowship halls and Sunday school and church camps and other things. I know what a “shut-in” is. I know Acts 2:38.

But I also know we are part of a larger animal called “the church.” I know that there’s nothing inherently evil about instruments, liturgies, sacramental garb. I know that substitutionary atonement isn’t the only way to understand Jesus’ life and death. I know that there are elements in Christendom that I miss in our fellowship. I see a lot of flaws in our fellowship, and a lot of areas for improvement.

So, I am presented with two choices: stay, or go.

I wrote a while back about my desire to stay. To quote a friend, “I know where the land mines are.” Ultimately, if we can dig beneath the veneer of the “one true church” rhetoric, church membership is largely arbitrary, isn’t it? In my limited experience there is no perfect denomination. Every group of Christians bound together by a certain doctrine or creed or liturgy has its own problems. Churches of Christ are my family. If my mom suddenly developed cancer, I wouldn’t disown her and start looking for a new mom, one with which I would be more comfortable, or had fewer flaws.

Perhaps that is why I am so passionate about ministering, and why I’m not too concerned with whether that’s planting new churches or helping established ones. That’s why I’m excited about a possible project that’s in the works. That’s why I stir up trouble with posts about gays and women and academic institutions that won’t toe the line. That’s why I put so much stock in the “missional church” movement, because it forces us to look beyond the activities inside the hallowed walls of the church building, and out into our communities and our world. The missional instinct raises awareness about social justice, about racism and discrimination of all types. Missional people care more about gay people than about being right on the gay issue.

I want to do my small part for helping bring about missional transformation in the body of Christ, and specifically in my tribe, my family. That is why I stay.

this, to me, is cool

while fiddlin' around on the web, i found this cool site that allows you to take all the blogs that you read, and allows you to see what blogs have recently been updated or had something posted to them. i can't really describe it well enough to keep going so check out bloglines.com and give it a try. i have added a link to the site on right of my blog here under links if you want go there.

you will have to create an account, and set up "your feeds" by clicking on the "my feeds" tab. good luck! like i said, i think its pretty cool.

recognize these guys?

isn't it odd that pictures only have value if you know what you are looking at? i mean if you don't know who you are looking at, there is no reason to look. who do you see in these pictures? do you see a weird guy and his dad, do you see some weird guy and his texan brothers?

which one has the most importance to you? probably none of them!

do you see Jesus in any of them?

harris's mantras

today (in this God-soaked moment of life)...

1. i will be incompetent

2. i will be fully present to the person in front of me and to the Lord over me

3. i will be Christ to others

4. i will see Christ in others


in #1 i want to feel that i am not smart enough to do things on my own. i want to be in need of God, and His power, not my own. i don't ever want to get to the point where i am the best at anything, because i have seen what being the best at something can do to you.

for i can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength i need. phil 4:13.

as far as #2 goes ... well, have you ever been talking to someone and they give you that stare that let's you know that they may be physically there, but they are in some other time zone mentally? well i want and try to be present with whomever i am in conversation with. it really hurts to have someone zone out on you in conversation.

this how i see #3. how are we to be Christ? ...

Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was like sweet perfume to him. eph 5:2

i think that just about covers it.

and finally there is #4. our lives are so busy. we need our time. when we do that, this is what could be our story

"But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. Then the King will say to those on the right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.'

"Then these righteous ones will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' And the King will tell them, 'I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!' matt 25:31-40

don't forget that we are to love others as ourselves.

straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel

ever heard of such things? Jesus spoke of such things.

i am currently still reading a book, a church that flies, and last night i read a few paragraphs that struck me. here they are:

look at the front page of the tennessean for sunday, may 23, 1999. above the fold, the headline reads, "goodlettes officer, woman die in rampage." the accompanying article tells of the shooting deaths of a policeman and a 20-year-old woman, both killed by the woman's abusive and frequently-arrested husband. for the past month, the front page had been filled with news of school shootings in colorado and georgia, the war in kosovo and the plight of the refuges, chinese espionage, sexual assaults, drug busts, and political scandal.

but this particular sunday, the front page headline below the fold read, "church of Christ congregation's use of music creates echoes of discord." the article told of a local congregation that used an instrumental music recording in its easter sunday service, and the firestorm of controversy it sparked. a church-related, k-12 school nearby decreed that none of its faculty or staff could attend that church and keep their jobs. the preacher, caught between his ministry and the fact that his wife worked at the offended school, resigned his position rather than prompt her dismissal.

the comments of the reporter were telling. "what sounds trivial to outsiders is a potential cataclysm in the church of Christ fellowship..." he then went on to list some further flash points of controversy among us. "some churches are 'one-cuppers' who insist on serving communion form a common cup, not individual vials. some insist on wine; others go with grape juice. some refuse to hold sunday school classes or build gymnasiums on church property."

the comments of a knowledge "source" were even more telling. "that's a crisis facing church of Christ. the worry is if you let bar down, you lose your identity .... the question is: which of these practices is essential to belief? if you've spent you whole life building an identity on certain practices and all of a sudden those things are unimportant, where is your life?"

it would be one thing if this front page article were an anomaly, if it represented something counter to our reputation, if such controversies were uncommon and uncharacteristic. but the article is convicting, and cutting, precisely because it exposes us for what we are -- a movement that has lost it's focus on the central and become enamored with tiny things. the article, so public and glaring, does what it should do. it embarrasses us.

it is embarrassing that our "identity" should be tied to such issues. the cross, yes. the lifestyle of discipleship, certainly. the centrality of grace and the Spirit and the community of faith, by all means. but the use of an instrument? one cup or many? a gymnasium? what does it say about us that we have spent our collective life "building an identity" around such issues, that we could "lose" our identity by playing a piece of recorded music on a sunday morning?

and it is embarrassing that we should be defined to the world by such matters, that people would read in the sunday paper that things which are "trivial to outsiders" are cataclysmic to us. what does it say to those readers that our "orthodoxy" centers around such arcane minutiae and (as the article goes on to comment) that such "church of Christ orthodoxy" is enforced by "peer pressure and the threat of social blackballing"?

but it is beyond embarrassing. it is mortifying that, nestled among daily fare of killing and seduction and war and hatred and greed, is an article that has the people of God addressing none of those issues. we're too busy policing each other's worship styles to make news about the way we are changing the world for God. we make the front page for our fascination with the tiny rather than for our commitment to weightier matters like justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

perhaps this doesn't embarrass you. but i think it should. it is symptomatic of a peculiar blindness that afflicts those who have taken their eyes off of the central. it puts us, sadly, in common company with the pharisees of Jesus' day.

sorry for the length of this post, but it is something that hits home for me.

what are our gnats that we strain out? do we go after the "presentation" styles? ... the singing styles? what do you fight to strain out?

trinity and community

this maybe a review for those that have read my previous posts, but these verses just keep coming back to me. i also added some comments on community, so if you read about the trinity in one of my previous posts and don't want to read it again, however, i recommend it, repetition is all over the bible, you can scroll down some.

i used this in a hand out for the teens that i was teaching on a wednesday night once.

Gen 1:1-3
The Account of Creation
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface.
3Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

What is illustrated with these “3”, emphasis on “3”, verses?

In verse 1 we see God the Creator.
In verse 2 we see an illustration of God as the Holy Spirit. How is the Holy Spirit illustrated? Does this sound like a good description of the Holy Spirit to you? Did you know that in the greek the Holy Spirit is called "pneuma." We have taken that word and added it to things that are driven by air, or are associated to air. Like tools, and diseases.
In verse 3 we see what?

If you had to start the bible by using a book in the new testament, what book would you use, and why?

John 1:1-5
Christ, the Eternal Word
1In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God.
2He was in the beginning with God.
3He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make.
4Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone.
5The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

So in verse 3, of the Genesis text, we see Jesus mentioned. Have you ever thought of Gen 1:1-3 like this before? What do you think of them now?

Gen 2:18, 21-25
18And the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him."
---
21So the LORD God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of Adam's ribs and closed up the place from which he had taken it.
22Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib and brought her to Adam. 23"At last!" Adam exclaimed. "She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken out of a man."
24This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
25Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither of them felt any shame.

This is the first time we see God not pleased. He, Himself, is not alone, and He doesn't want adam to be alone. So he gives eve to adam.

So now adam has eve, and everything is cool. Why do you think that they felt no shame with their nakedness? See everything was cool when they were following the instructions they were given. They had nothing, litereally, to block them from each other. They shared with each other, and God freely. When did things change?

Gen 3:8-12
8Toward evening they heard the LORD God walking about in the garden, so they hid themselves among the trees.
9The LORD God called to Adam, "Where are you?"
10He replied, "I heard you, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked."
11"Who told you that you were naked?" the LORD God asked. "Have you eaten the fruit I commanded you not to eat?"
12"Yes," Adam admitted, "but it was the woman you gave me who brought me the fruit, and I ate it."

Blame enters the picture. Now things change because they are not following the instructions they were given. They now hide from each other, and do not share with each other.

This world we live in causes us to believe that no one will understand what we are going through, so we put our own fig leaves on and do not share. If we too only would follow God's instructions things would be a lot better for us.

Did you know that word used to describe how man and woman are one, is only used one other place, and used to describe one other thing? Can you guess what that is ... you guessed it!! It is when the Trinity is described. God wants us to share with each other, and especially our wife/husband.

So go do it. Easy to say and type, but hard to do. I hope you have good results.