Check your calendars, the Satanic Church already has "Tell the truth day" on their calendar.

Maybe we should ad "Tell the truth the unsatanic way day" lol

Actually if you can overlook the vampire stuff and the hypocrisy associated with their "free thinking" dogma's they say the same things about the church that we do.


posted by Andy at 10:01 AM | |

 
Men long for inspiration, not revelation.

Revelation is very near us. Wisdom cries out in the streets. We are aware of its presence. But the journey to
inspiration through revelation is a longer harder road.
Revelation is not as exciting or nicely packaged, people don't write books about it.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-­edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.


It brings about brokeness that is not pretty. Wounds that are drenched in shame.
Consequences better left ignored. Revelation, repentance and a hunger for righteousness (righteousness not reputation)
We would rather have inspiration, somthing new, somthing that represents a way around our depressing little lives.

If only the pastor who stuggled with pornagraphy could actually struggle with it. Instead he struggles with the secret of it.
He struggles with reputation not righteousness. His sin will eat him alive.

The corporate church is about reputation not righteousness. Its not about repentance and vulnerability.
This world is so jacked, why do we really care whether someone else thinks we have it all together.

The church must embrace our broken, wicked hearts and allow us to struggle.
Who is unfit for ministry the man who confesses his sins or the man who fiegns that he has no sin.
Today the church would rather have a liar than a struggling growing believer.

So the church asks the question what if we embrace what you are saying. What do we do then if peoples lives dont change?
What if people repent and take responsibility for sin, and long for their lives to change, but nothing happens?
If we and are lives do not change,...then maybe the whole thing is a lie.

How long since we have been in fellowship where we were safe to writhe in the stuggle where the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts were exposed.
Where the word of God split our joints marrow. That sounds really painful. Do we really think there is a time when we no longer struggle with the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts. Will we ever be so mature? I don't believe so. But thoughts and attitudes are so ugly when confessed. It is easier to apologize for being forgetful than it is to confess that you didnt want to remember.

Are we even on this journey? The church will not allow its leaders to be on such a journey. Leaders must appear sinless.
Or at least their struggles must be of lesser stature.

If the corporate church will not be about these things which I believe to be the Gospel. They should forfiet their title.

Andy Mullins


posted by Andy at 9:18 PM | |

 
You can tell school has started, as the guys from LT have gotten very quiet all of a sudden.
posted by Stephen at 11:17 PM | |

 
For those that don't know, the Tulsa Indie Allies Meetup was cancelled because only 3 people responded, and they needed at least 5.

But, y'know, we don't need no stinking "meetup" to meet. Hmmmm...
posted by Stephen at 10:03 AM | |

 
BTW, if you live in the Tulsa area or close to it, Wayne Jacobson will be talking at Bread of Life Ministries on September 5, 6, and 7. They are located at 21st and Garnett in the old Tulsa City Limits bar.

If you've never heard from or read anything by Wayne Jacobson, then get on it. He's got a lot to say that the church needs to hear. You can read his articles at www.lifestream.org. I highly recommend reading "Why I don't go to church anymore", "Why house church isn't the answer" and "We already have a shepherd!"

I won't be able to go hear Wayne speak, since I'll be out of town that weekend, but you should go. Jimmy will probably go.
posted by Stephen at 11:23 PM | |

 
Pastor Mohn said a really cool thing at Bread of Life Fellowship this morning. He read from 1 Corinthians 14:26 (which is sort of a theme verse for the Sunday morning get-together, I guess). It goes like this:

When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let ALL THINGS be done for edification. (Yeah, that's my emphasis)
If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and let one interpret; but if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God.
And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. (Here, from what I understand, "the others" are supposed to be the others who prophesy).
But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted; and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

Pastor Mohn leaving his post as pastor of Bread of Life, and he's preparing the congregation for how they should behave without him as the visible head of the organization. They've been having "open mic" format at their morning meetings for a few weeks. And the picture that I get from that passage, and that Tom wants the people at BOL to emulate, is one of concern for the other, humility, and the desire to know and speak the truth (what the passage calls "edification") during their meeting times. It's a situation where a person's desire to speak truth takes a back seat to the good of the whole.

He said, "None of us are going to get it exactly right. No one is going to communicate absolutely perfectly what they wanted to say." I'll take it a step further. Even if one of us COULD communicate perfectly, we can't know God's truth perfectly. So even if we said what we wanted to say to the last "T", we'd get it wrong. That's why it's so necessary for us to have Christ in the middle of our relationships. His wife said it well when she said, "We need Christ between us, the way cement holds together a brick wall. It's keeping the bricks from being in direct contact, but it's also the only thing holding them together." If we demand direct contact with each other, we cannot have what 1 Cor. 14 describes. Instead, it would be chaos, because our selfish desires to judge would push us away from each other. The minute someone says something that offends me, I leave (and, when you're dealing with the truth of Christ, someone's going to get offended, because Christ himself couldn't avoid that; rest assured, neither will you).

So someone says something that we think is wrong, or that offends us, and we do the most arrogant, selfish thing we could do. We leave. We'd rather sin that risk having a confrontation. So Pastor Mohn encouraged the people of BOL to have their conflicts out, but have them out with Christ standing in between. That's relationship. When you have a problem, you take it to the person and you fix it, or you get past it, but you don't bury it until your next coffee break and bring it up with someone else.

Something tells me that the profundity of this extends beyond getting a congregation to get along with each other. If the church at large had followed this advice, there would not be the denominational rifts there are today. The way we as humans like to see things, we have two choices: We either arrogantly start our own congregation because of differences, or we arrogantly tighten our grip of authority in order to "keep people in line." Neither is of Christ.

The love and truth of Christ will be expressed in a multitude of ways... ways that we can never comprehend ourselves. He's that big. Our response to that should be one of humility and desire to maintain relationship. If you have a problem with another's expression, go and talk to them, and BOTH parties are edified. Leave, and neither benefits. Seek to control, and you become something other than what Christ wants us to be: brothers and sisters with one father in Christ. Our desire to go around Christ and have direct contact with our brothers and sisters causes breakdowns in how we should relate to each other, and it's had a disasterous effect on the body of Christ.
posted by Stephen at 11:08 PM | |

 
I'm not unsympathetic. It's a pain in the butt when my electricity goes out. And I do hope that everything returns to normal soon. But I can't help but notice that when a geographic area that comprises less than a quarter of our country is forced to face reality the way about three quarters of the world does (at least as far as electricity goes) that it warrants an excess of 5 hours of live coverage on all three major news networks.
posted by Stephen at 9:18 PM | |

 
I came across the "Corrupt Christian Music" website the other day. A friend of mine sent it to me. I thought, "Hey, this should be interesting." I know for a fact that there are plenty of reasons to criticize the Christian music machine. Lord knows I've spouted off with a few of them. It's a horrible, three-legged monster - God, Art, and Commerce, and the final product, nine-times-out-of-ten is this sort of grotesque clone that the monster breeds. It isn't really art, because the vast majority of it is formulaic and uninspired. It leaves you wondering whether the original motive was God or mammon.

Unfortunately, these people didn't bother to criticize the industry for good reasons. Instead, they chose dumb ones.

Apparently, these are leftovers from the "Hell's Bells" generation that believes that Christianity should have nothing to do with Rock music (although the vast majority of "Christian" stuff out there can hardly be called rock). Coming soon! What type of music IS okay to listen to! We wait with baited breath.

Rich Mullins wasn't a real Christian because he investigated and considered joining the Catholic Church, and Catholics don't worship the same God that we worship. Seriously. That's what they said.

Other artists were criticized for being "crossover" artists, which necessarily means they are deluting their message in order to gain listeners.

I mean, really, aren't we past this? I thought that the only people who thought this stuff still had outhouses and were married to cousins and what-not. I certainly didn't think anyone who was sophisticated enough to make a website (complete with snappy flash intro) could still believe such tripe.

And we wonder why our kids grow up thinking that, if they want to be a singer, they can ONLY be a peddler of CCM. Why is it that we don't hold Christians with business degrees to the same standard? "NO! You can only operate a CHRISTIAN photocopying and printing chain!"
posted by Stephen at 9:49 AM | |

 
the minute we quite calling these activities that happen on sunday morning and such "church" we will begin to move in the right direction
posted by Jimmy at 10:17 PM | |

 
One last post today...I've been doing research for the book this week. Zedler and I talked a couple of week's ago, and it may be good to open or intersperse each chapter with personal stories and comments about the chapter focus. I've posted tentative chapter titles before (I'll have to find the correct archive link). If you'd be interested in helping with those stories or know someone who has a story that might fit, please drop us a line. (Shok....you're on my mind here!) I know the chapter titles and brief run-downs are vague right now, but we'll get more info to you as we go.
posted by Jimmy at 12:02 AM | |

 
On a less spiritual note, the dr. has determined that I either have a "fatty liver" or that I drink too much. Hmmmm.....which can it be? (he writes as his stomach settles down after a day of french toast for breakfast, chili for lunch, soda at every meal besides breakfast, some kind of mango chocolate drink and another coconut chocolate drink from a local coffee shop, a hamburger and hot wings for dinner, and two chocolate cookies at about midnight, and a week of drinking various adult beverages including one or two of Mark's kick tail tom collins each night--of course, I am on vacation)

Speaking of vacation...Michigan is beautiful. For an Okie boy, I've come to the conclusion that Michigan has two seasons: spring and winter. Nothing is supposed to be this green in late summer. And when I hear another Michigander say, "It's really warm today." or "It's sticky today." and the temperature is only in the 80s...well, I don't even know how to respond. It's been an exciting week. Good times and scary times. Our oldest daughter (4) was stung by the infamous Riddle Yellow-Jackets (please see the post from Aug 8 and Mark's post at waterbrain). She's quite the drama queen...so that was exciting. Then a day later our 1 year old daughter falls down the 12 stairs to the basement. One minute she's there and the next she's gone and laying at the bottom of the stairs....really scary (I hate it when I hear uncontrolled fear in my own voice). Especially for Hailey who was holding the door to the stairs open to let one of Mark's boys out of the basement....it was one of those bad timing things. But we've made it through so far and we've got a couple more days to go. The lakes are beautiful and now Abby and Hailey have both been on a boat, and Hailey and I rode the sea-doo tube together. So....I'll let you guys know how the rest goes later.

Hey, Zed...how's the breathing?
posted by Jimmy at 11:45 PM | |

 
I'm having one of those periods of time in my life where I feel like God is about to do something. I've been here before--it feels familiar--and it leaves me in great anticipation.
posted by Jimmy at 11:41 PM | |

 
WE'VE BEEN GANKED! Our site and many of our friends' blogspot sites have been targeted..... check this out:

liquidthinking.blogpsot.com (notice the transposition of the p and the s)
waterbrain.blogpsot.com
reimagineym.blogpsot.com
http://myvalentine.blogpsot.com/

LOL--should we sue? Maybe this is the windfall we've been waiting for...I mean, Aaron's Bible must be a multi-million dollar organization.
posted by Jimmy at 10:30 PM | |

 
I was there...I saw it with my own eyes...the death...the destruction...the carnage. The flames leaping into the sky. The deluge of water. The crushing of the earth. The death of the yellow-jackets!

Yea my family too felt your sting...but now you are gone!
posted by Jimmy at 8:46 PM | |

 
Hey, everybody:

There is a wonderful new thing going around called "flash mobs". Check out this link which explains what they are.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeper/cst-nws-roep05.html

Apparently there's going to be one in Tulsa. On August 10, at 2pm, people will gather outside the office of the Tulsa World with a newspaper, chant "news, news, news, news" for about a minute, then disperse. I encourage everyone in the Tulsa area to come.

They're harmless, random, fun, confusing, and exactly the way the internet should be used.

For more info on the Tulsa flash mob, go to www.flocksmart.com
posted by Stephen at 3:39 PM | |

 
Hello, everybody.

Things might seem like they've been kind of slow around here at LT. They have. Here's why. Jimmy's been out of town visiting Mark in Michigan, effectively killing two birds with one stone. I have been recovering from pneumonia. And, lemme tell ya, it's miserable to have pneumonia in the dead of summer in Oklahoma. So, don't get discouraged. Keep checking us out. We'll all be back to our normal, cheeky selves before you know it.

And during the down-time, I'll keep posting some of our re-written parables for your reading enjoyment.

But, not right now. I'm going to bed. Gotta get my sleep, y'know.

Stephen

posted by Stephen at 11:15 PM | |

 
The Barren Fig Tree

Now in the morning, when he returned to the city, he became hungry.

And seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he came to it, and found nothing on it except leaves only; and he said to it, "No longer shall there ever be ANY fruit from you." And at once the fig tree withered.

And seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither at once?"

And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it shall happen.

"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive. Do you understand?"

The disciples looked at each other, then looked back at Jesus. Then Peter said, "We do not, Lord."

"Hmmm...," sighed Jesus. "It sounded good to me. I guess there are things you're just not supposed to get. But I'm still hungry. Let's go eat."

So they went and prepared dinner.

posted by Stephen at 10:38 AM | |