Category: Christianity

Relating to Christianity

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School, History, and Creation

Over the past few days, I’ve been wondering about what I’ve actually learned in college thus far. I’ve almost got a full year out of the way … sadly, only two of the classes really taught me anything. What’s more, there have been studies that have pointed to those who throw away usless information (hence: music appreciation, among other information) are generally smarter. Maybe it’s just these core classes, I’m not sure. Math and Economics — those are two subjects that are real world and I know I’ll be using constantly throughout my life. Essays and the history of China are two things that (unless God really surprises me) I won’t care about two months from now, much less remember (note: I’ve learned a lot more from the History Channel than I have any history class since 10th grade). Sorry to say this, but essays don’t help people learn a subject. Tests don’t either (I may remember a date better, while another person may remember the color of the leaders robe better, for example). I’ve almost (almost) came to the conclusion that [freshman?] college makes people more ignorant.

On another point, I’ve found that I can understand why the statistics for people coming out of college whom are Christians are less than those who do not attend college. Anyone taking what the professors say at face value are ignorant. No one should do that. There’s a lot of debate about what this and that 5,000 years ago really meant. It’s not proven fact — it’s speculation. The History Channel generally tries to make this assumption. Text books, some do and some do not. Sometimes I seriously wonder if they’re trying to brainwash and make people believe everything they say to be history. Parts are great and interesting. Roman history is great — there’s tons of laws and text to actually back things up there. Pots and picture text in these other civilizations — that’s not really a lot to go by (no matter how educated you are).

There is so much history in the Bible it’s incredible. What I don’t get is why we didn’t go over the laws for the Israelites in my history class. What other civilization had so much history and laws (not to count that it’s been the most widespread history book — not including the other great lessons — of all time).

Moving on into Creation discussion …

There’s one question about the creation account that I’ve came up with (that would explain an “old” Earth), when God created the Earth, did he create it and then just let it sit for a while? Why I say that is because,

IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep.

Genisis 1:1-2 (Amplified Translation with emphisis added)

When was the beginning? Did day one start there, or did it start when God created light? Other planents are void and formless (Mars, Saturn, etc). I’m aware that this really doesn’t matter, but I think it’s interesting. Thinking a little deeper on this … if there was no light, then there would be nothing seperating night and day so therefore there would technically be no night or day and so when the light was created, would that begin the first actual day? God could have created entire galaxies (and even put the stars in place), accounting for the time it would take for light to reach the Earth (this was an interesting question posed by a friend). Light speed could have been sped up. The speed of light could be diffrent then and now, or there could be holes in space, among countless other possibilities. Light could have been created thousands of years after the Earth was created (I honestly don’t buy any “million year” theories).

The entire debate and discussion on this could be very interesting. I found an interesting quote today, “saying life came from evolution is like saying a library was made by someone spilling a bottle of ink” (Annale Fleisher, high school student). Also, if evolution took place, why aren’t other planents still “evolving”? There would be “evolving” on them too because organisms would “adapt” to their enviorments. So far, there’s not been anything found on the other planents. For the most part, scientists still seem to be looking for water and oxygen — even though it works on Earth, why would it have to work on other planents? Didn’t we evolve and adapte to use oxygen and water (evolution supporters thinking, that is)? And if there was a “big bang”, where did the bang come from? There would have to be some sort of origin. You can’t get something out of nothing (that’s why 4 times 0 equals zero).

I jumped to a few topics tonight, but purhaps I’ve got some people thinking. Creation happened. There’s evidence there. I personally believe the world was created in a 6 day period (+1 day of rest), just as God said it was (literal translation). There’s some thought provoking questions that can be arived from the first few sentences of Genisis though. Also, I don’t dislike my professors, I just dislike the work they give. Most of them have great personalities, and I like them all okay (some more than others, of course). Are essays really that important? I can freelance just fine … I think … why don’t they just ask me to do that?

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Goings On

I’ve not really posted much about what’s going on with me lately, so here I go I ‘spose.

School is actually kind of lame (and getting lamer by the day).  Essays, I’m okay with — as long as it’s not about literature.  That’s some of the lamest stuff I’ve ever heard of.  Just something I’ll have to try to manage to get through.  I’ve always been a B student in English, but this class may push me to a C.  Hopefully not, but I don’t know.  The two classes I enjoy are on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, which is Economics and “the computer class” (that’s boring as I know most of it, it’s in front of a computer though … so, not all bad, GMail with GTalk is great for that class).

E-Blah has been going pretty good the past month.  I’ve started working on version 9.75 (don’t ever ask me how I’ve numbered E-Blah, as I still don’t know).  There’s a lot of new things that I’ve implemented just over the past six months that from version 9.2 to 9.75 makes it feel almost like a brand new system.  I just enjoy seeing people get it and see that what they’ve wanted all this time is finally there.  The moderator team there has been pretty stable as well, those are some of the best support guys any company could ever have (anyone who’s got support from them can atest to it).

MinistryTalk.com lately all I’ve been working on with MinistryTalk.com is the Church Broadcast (or “sermon”) section.  I’ve added several new features with a few more planned in the next few days.  I’m actually hoping that we can expand and grow and offer a few more services for churches and other Christians “areas of interest” (whatever that’s supposed to mean).  Either way, hopefully Tim and I can get something going that pumps it up from being “just a sermon site”.  Ah, and I’m hoping to allow a few more churches to join in the next few days (with the approval of the server admin — Tim).

Church is going great.  More and more things are coming in and it’s just awesome.  The projector is now working, which is what I like to do.  I’ve been spending several hours lately trying to find some things to make things better software wise.  Overflow (band is coming from Wetumpka) is Saturday and prayer walk is Sunday at 10am.  The sad thing is, I’ll have to cut both events short as my sister is in the city wide pagent and on Sunday morning my other church is going to need me (my mom said).  I’ll probably get to stay at Overflow for an hour or two, and then I’ll probably get to go to the first 45 minutes of the prayer walk … at least I’m hoping.  Now I just need to figure out which one I’m more ready to go to (hmmm) …

There’s other things I could talk about, but none of it’s that important.  I’ve not been as focused on many other things here lately.  I guess something that does deserve mention, I’ve gotton back into playing Enemy Territory (the free multiplayer FPS World War II game).  Now it’s an “older” game, so I can max out all the settings with my computer and it has no slow downs.  There’s still hundreds of users playing the game too, that’s what makes it all the more great (and it’s free).  That and Age of Empires III are the only games I have installed (I believe).  Both are relatively clean games, so that’s a plus with me now (actually, I wouldn’t mind burning a few of my old games).

With the Bible on Radio podcasts, I’ve been going through the book of Numbers.  I’ve really enjoyed a lot of it (minus the parts I skip — the census numbers, for instance).  There’s a lot of good teaching in Numbers though.  A lot of good discussion topics too!

I’m going to start building people up and encouraging them more.  I think sometimes we can have friends that are really close, but yet we also pull them down sometimes by joking with them (when it may be something they can’t handle).  A good example is, for instance, joking with a friend about their weight.  The person could be skinny as a stick (and even if they aren’t), but saying they “really big” may not exactly be helping them.  I think it’s based on the person though, too.  Some people take things in stride, while some people wallow in them and believe everything and take it to heart.  Other times, I think that some of the words are friends say are taken the wrong way (especially if that person is going through depression or feeling worthless).  Point being, we should all be encouragers.

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Bible on Radio

When I was searching around the internet for an audio Bible spoken in the New Living Translation, I came across a great resource on iTunes Podcast’s.  The podcast is from BibleOnRadio.com with about three minute introduction commentary with about two chapters (or about two pages) from the Old Testement and then a seperate for the New Testement, Psalms, and Proverbs.  Currently I’ve only listened to the Old Testements which I like to follow along with in my Bible (the iPod’s coming in handy with that).  I can pause and read the notes in my Bible too, if I need to.  I’m a slow reader (and find that reading and listening bunched together helps me understand better).  For those wanting to add it to their iPod’s, the iTunes page is located here.  Anywho, it’s not too late to jump right into where it’s at right now.  Each one is planned to be about 20 to 30 minutes per day (Old and New Testement, along with Psalms and Proverbs).

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Make Disciples, not Converts

Church goers, Christians, members of a congregation — some don’t know the basic beliefs of being a Christian.  I’ve saw it, somewhat, first hand today in class.  A girl thought that the Trinity (God the Father, Jesus the Son, Holy Spirit) was a hierarchy (or thought that traditional, orthodox teaching, believed this).  I know this, many people in the church knows this … but do new Christians?  How are they supposed to know if no one shows them?  Maybe sometimes we focus too much on saving a person and less time on actually discipling them.  I don’t believe any one pastor or church or leadership system is responsible, but there should be some accountability.  There’s more to being a Christian than just knowing that Jesus is the son of God, was murdered and brought back to life three days later, and was born of a virgin.  There’s so much more to that.  Some of it’s theological, some of it isn’t.  It just all comes down to this: lead them to Christ — then disciple them so they can repeat the process.

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Reach Out

Eventful. Different. I enjoy randomness and change. I ate my first meal today at McDonalds (Spicy Premium Chicken Sandwich) — it was okay. Two o’clock I went to the church — I helped install the projector screen and I moved the microphone to the back where the computer is (so we can record the messages to the computer). I came home and my dad fixed something up that we never had before — it was good, filled me up. They left and gave Jenna some at work (or that’s what they said they were doing). While they were gone I got a call saying someone we know, his dad committed suicide. I guess I’ve never thought I’d know anyone in this time period who’d do that. I suppose I was wrong. It’s just so sad. One shot is really two shots. You’re not just killing your body, but you’re pushing yourself into eternity in an instant. I’ve just been hoping and praying the family gets over this easily and that as much evil the enemy meant to come of this, much more good will come out of it. To say the least, today has been a very different day (on many fronts, I suppose).

My church is having a get-together tomorrow night. Play games and socialize. I guess there’s not much to say until after the event though … I do like hanging out with the church family though, great fun!

My Glorious is one of my favorite worship songs. I bought the “Our Love is Loud” Passion CD from iTunes since they were two dollars off. Overall, that has been the best Passion CD ever released, in my opinion. Speaking of Passion, Passion 07 registrations starts next week (well, they’ll sell out within a few hours, I’d guess). It says the official site will be up next week. They will probably do a few awesome videos that make me want to go even more … maybe I’ll get to go this year.

Common sense. You know it’s going “out of style” when you do a search for it and you see ads on how to get “common sense” on eBay. For those that have no clue what common sense is, read this nice definition. It’s true that I don’t have common sense on everything (no one really does). I mean, if I worked on cars since I was a kid, sure I’d have “car common sense” and be able to diagnose problems better than someone who spent four years in college learning all about how to fix it. It’s the same way with everything, though. It’s bad, really bad, when someone who has eight years of book sense think they know all about something yet don’t know anything about how to actually diagnose a problem. Sure, there is always a ten-step manual that can be followed, but honestly, it could be something not even listed and someone with common sense would pick it up first — not the one with a ten-step program on how to diagnose the problem. I guess I’m just posting this to say that, in college, try to get lots of hands on experience with what you’re learning (real world, not lab experience). It’ll help in the long run. It’ll be bad the day jobs start requiring common sense and college education is just a “want” (not required). If I ever started a business I’d like to do a common sense test … college is good and dandy, but I’d want people with sense for the job.

Respect. Youth. It bothers me deeply when I see an adult (obviously greater than 25 to 30 years) does not respect youth and younger adults. Some just think they’re better or know it all. Others just want someone to beat down, so they find someone who doesn’t matter: youth. I don’t know everything. An adult who’s 98 doesn’t know everything. Would these people ever send Timothy out today? Or would he have to go to college before he could be any help to Paul? Paul obviously thought very highly of Timothy (or else he wouldn’t be referenced so often by Paul, nor help Paul in writing and sending the letters to the church’s). 1 Corinthians 16:10 says tells the church of Corinth to “treat him [Timothy] with respect”. Now, am I against adults? Of course not. I normally get out of situations where adults think they’re better than youth. Youth are told to respect those in authority (which is good), but those in authority need to also show respect.

Men in the church. The other day when coming home from school, I was listening to the radio and they were talking about why, there aren’t as many men in the church. They made the argument that one reason is that church is seen as a feminine thing and, for the most part, only tailors to the females. They brought out and excellent example of how there was once a church with a prayer room that was decorated with ribbons and such. The church wanted to reach more guys, so they asked them to come in and completely remodel the room. What they did was remodeled the room with items such as Celtic shields and the like. When I think of the remodel, it can have a deeper meaning and actually be exactly what a prayer room should be for — spiritual warfare. Finally, after the remodel, the guys were more “at home”, but the females loved it so much they couldn’t even stay away. There were many other examples too, but this was the one I liked a lot.

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Randomness

I’ve not written in my blog much this month — only two posts!  That’s not good.  I guess I can attribute it to (aka: blame it on) school and slight hole I’ve been in here lately.  I’ve had several papers due this month.  Spring Break is in two or three weeks … I’m kind of ready for a week of not worrying about school.  Over the past few days I’ve been trying to catch up on bugs and features for E-Blah, it’s gone alright.

I don’t have that long, so I don’t want to dwell too much about those things.  The Passion Worship CD’s have made it to the iTunes home page.  This is awesome news.  Currently the latest preview from Passion ’06 has made a solid #5 for total album sales.  I’ve been reading the 286 Blog, very interesting stuff.  Reading it makes me want to go to Passion ’07 (in Atlanta, GA!!).  I need some people to go with me though (hotel and all).

Jason Upton is an awesome worship leader! I’ve known of him for a while.  I’ve just never really listened to him since about a week ago.  All his CD’s are on their shoutcast radio station. I’ve been playing that (it’s added along with the other five radio stations on my playlist — ChristianRock.net, The Night Watch, One Jesus, ChristianHardRock.net, CMRadio).  While on the topic of music, I found that Family Force 5 released their CD on iTunes earlier than the main release date.  I bought it … it’s so diffrent.  Randomness is good!

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I Did it Because …

And then there’s some excuse. Sunday night was another one of the “special Sundays” where church was at my house. My mom brought up a good point that I had really had not thought about, and that is: trying to justify our sin. That may seem like it’s an okay thing to do … until we see in the scripture how large of sin it really is. I’m going to focus on King Saul for a minute; God gave Saul specific orders in First Samuel 15 that Saul was to “go and completely destory the entire Amalekite nation” (verse 3), which was a nation known for their guerrilla terrorists who lived off of raiding other nations. Saul went out and did part of what he was commanded to do. He left the better of the livestock alive, when God had said that everything had to be destroyed. When Samuel confronted Saul about this Saul stated that his “troops brought in the best of the sheep and cattle and plunder to sacrifice to the LORD” (verse 21). Then Samuel said one of my favorite quotes in all of Scripture:

“What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as bad as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you from being king.”

1 Samuel 15:22-23 NLT (emphasis added)

I don’t know if Saul was really planning on offering those as sacrifices, but what is evident is that he used an excuse for his sin. There was no fear of the Lord there — he was therefore rejected as King.

How many times do we travel on the highway over the speed limit and then we try to justify our sin with, “everyone else is doing it” or “people will get mad at me for going slow”. What if we really believed what Paul said in Romans 13? “Obey the government, for God is the one who put it there. All governments have been placed in power by God. So those who refuse to obey the laws of the land are refusing to obey God, and punishment will follow. For the authorities do not frighten people who are doing right, but they frighten those who do wrong.” (verse 1-3a NLT) I’m definatly not saying I go the speed limit at all times — however, I do always try to. And honestly, there is no justification for going over the limit. If you see a state trooper and you’re frightened (and thus slow down and tick the people going the speed limit off) then obviously you’re doing something wrong — you’re sinning. Of course, this isn’t fun to hear because we, as humans, don’t like going slower than the limit … it means it’ll take us 2 more minutes to get to work or school. Even if you’re speeding to get to church … there is no excuse.

I wanted to share that because I thought about it earlier today, and I wanted to expand upon it.

I went, for a third time to see The Chronicles of Narnia. I do believe it’s the first movie I’ve saw three times in the theater. Honestly, I want them to make as much money off the movie as they can — not for Disney’s sake, but as a statement of the type of movies people are really interested in seeing. Also, I found it interesting that at a 1:00pm showing it still had a pretty large crowd — after almost a full month after it’s release. I’ve still yet to read the books, although I am planning on doing so sometime soon.