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www.ghosttownrevival.wordpress.com
You should really check this sight out. It is a collabrative art project chronicalling the lives of the inhabitants of ghost town…
This town is beautiful, mysterious and strange, but sometimes redemptive.
Jonathan (http://jkotulski.wordpress.com/ ) is the musician and main song writer,
Ian (http://refugeearts.blogspot.com/) is the story teller,
and I (www.josephpetepickle.blogspot.com ) am the photographer. We have been working on this blog for a few weeks now. I hope you all like it!
As I was praying out in the field, my fingers grasped at some twigs and straw. I was transported to a place of wonder, for in my memory was a similar event. As a child I would build small huts and houses out of twigs. I would build them in between the fingers and toes of the roots of trees. This was something that I did by myself, and it brought wonder. Not wonder in my cleverness or my skill in building such things. But the wonder came in the totality of the activity and the mystery and greatness of what I saw and what could be done, but with the smallness of myself. The tree and the world were greater than me, but i got to partake in them. I was allowed to grasp and hold and this was truly wonderful. I on many occasions yielded to this beauty…
Children have a complete and natural tendency toward wonder. Part of it is that they have experienced so little, that when they do they are easily caught up in the rapture of wonder! Children also are much more humble. They are not afraid of getting dirty and being close to the ground. They can easily see that they are not kings or queens of the universe. They can easily see that they are small and dependent! This makes yielding easy! Children also have no systems for covering the truth. When a child lies it is so obvious. They do not know how to adequately explain away the beauty they see or rationalize the mystery that they feel. Thus it is, that children will yield to the wonder of a moment where adults blindly tread down everything in their path
So now I, as an adult seeking the face of God, I am surprised by childlike wonder. Wonder which I so often knew as a boy, but now seldom see. It pains me that I do know Wonder, and makes me question if I know God. For wonder concerns itself with indescribable beauty, not whys, hows, or right and wrong. It doesn’t get wrapped up in how you should express yourself, why something is the way it is, or with any other judgement. Wonder is a simple response to God’s hand in all things mysteriously beautiful! Wonder doesn’t even need to know that God’s hand was behind the beauty. Much of the time wonder never identifies God as the originator, but wonder doesn’t need to do this in order to be wonderful! When you see something beautiful, whatever it may be, your mind simply yields to the moment. You do not worship what you see, you simply yield yourself to what is far greater and far more beautiful than you are anything you have seen. And in this yielding to indescribable beauty you are yielding to God. For it is God who made this beautiful beyond your comprehension. Behind every flaming sunset and silent, cathedral-like pine forest, and rushing water of many oceans, is God. God is not these things but He gave them. A pagan might follow these thoughts of wonder and try to worship the thing rather than the maker, but this is only a suppression of truth, a suppression of wonder! A scientist might fill his lab with wonders and mysteries unexplained, yet if he doesn’t yield to their originator he is only pushing away the mysteries and suppressing the wonders and suppressing the knowledge of God! A church goer may wave hands and utter words in a mimicry of worship, but if they leave and never wonder and never yield, their hearts are cold and do not know the God that made all things wonderful and glorious.
Let us preach wonder. Let us display wonder in our services. Let us glory in the wonder of each other. Let us wonder in Christ. Let us be more characterized by wonder than law. Let us yield to Wonder. Let us yield to God…
So an evil thief decides to steal 75% of your church’s stuff…
What would you do?
This is what Kinetic Church (kineticchurch.com) of Charlotte, North Carolina did:
It is edgy and maybe even a little bit gritty. They are communicating with the thief and the community at large in a humorous way that it is not good to steal from a church.
But more than that, when you go to their website or stumble on the YouTube video you find that behind this billboard is a message that is divine.
This made me weep.
This made me happy to be a Christian. The church reached out and extended themselves to sinners. The church forgave like Jesus forgave. This is beautiful and so good that it is inspiring. This is the radical forgiveness that Jesus requires.
I want to be this forgiving…
BE WARNED: Excessive use of foul (yet KJV Biblically accurate) language!
This guy must be a pervert. Some of his other videos suggest this.
This is both funny and sad.
FUNNY:
Can you see this sermon done as a SNL skit? Maybe with Will Farrell as the Pissing Pastor? I think that I would laugh so hard I would pee my pants. (standing up of course)
Or could you imagine the object lesson you could give for this sermon…! It is a built in sermon illustration! AWESOME!
SAD:
This is immensely sad because this guy is preaching his own doctrine and not God’s Word. The immediate context of every person that “pisseth against the wall” is death and destruction on their heads. (1Sa 25:22, 1Sa 25:34, 1Ki 14:10, 1Ki 16:11, 1Ki 21:21, 2Ki 9:8) This guy is a very poor student of the Word. There is actually more of an argument against peeing on the wall than for it! Although clearly that is not even the point. The point is destruction against the men in those families or towns!
This is also sad because this shows the world that Christians are unloving and strange and more concerned about the way we pee over the condition of our hearts. This is evil masquerading as Christianity.
It must be stopped.
The only way that I know how to counter things like this is through love. I will show the love of Christ to the people in my context so that they will know that I Christians are not like that. I will spread love in my town so that all will know and see the love of Christ. No cliche. This is the power to change the world.
Go out and Love!
What does the average person think about Christ?Not much…because they can’t get past Christianity!
- They can’t get past the issues.
- They can’t get past the rules.
- and worst of all they can’t get past Christians!
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Some how Christianity has gotten to be about passing the plate or building a program or
fighting __________(name that issue). All of which has its place.
But None of which is Christ!
We have built houses on the sand and defended them while Christ stands in the rain. And the people who would come to Him can’t see Him or be warmed from the cold and relentless rage of this world.
Every little while, one of these houses falls and everyone is dismayed for it seems like the kingdom is crashing down. But fear not for the Kingdom of Christ will out last anything we build on our own.
How can Christians have an impact on our culture if we are constantly leaving it…?
Every new medium for communication and entertainment is viewed suspiciously by mainstream Christianity.
When Rock n’ Roll was new, it was an abomination.
When Movies were new they were evil.
When the Internet was new Christians said that it was the tool of the devil.
(I admit there is bad in some of these things, but they are not bad in and of themselves.) Look at Cain in the Bible: He brought God an offering of vegatables from the ground and God was not pleased by it. If mainstream Christians were around they would have outlawed vegatables, and said that it was evil and that they have no place in our lives, because of their wickedness…
God never said that vegatables were bad though!
And he never said Rock was bad: (that’s why this song was written!)
He never said that Movies were bad.
and He never said that the Internet was bad either.
That is why I write…
Get out into the world, and create and speak out in ways that will be understood…
Be warned this clip is offensive and blasphemous.
So is this site. www.suckitjesus.com
I replied to the site:
& what will we sell next? (this is me)
25 Sep 2007, 10:46Interesting… someone says ‘Jesus’ and next thing you know, we got bumperstickers, a website, and Google ads… (i might be mildly impressed with your “stop the censorship” campaign if you weren’t trying to make money off of it!)
True Chrisianity, as well as true anything asks for nothing in return. It is worth doing on it’s own, without payment. I question your “cause”, and any “cause” that claims truth, but sells trinkets on the way to the temple.
This site and it’s “message” is weak.
Would you die for this cause?
- probably not…
sendmemoney said:
25 Sep 2007, 12:47
what will we sell next?, get a life. You really need to be medicated.The catholic church sells everything.
I believe that “sendmemoney” is unfortunately correct! (about the church, not the medication!) The church does try to sell everything! It makes me completely sick. Jesus Christ is not “for sale”. He is not a trinket or a service you pay for, or an investment!
He is a Person.
He is love.
And He is free for all people who want Him.
Jesus is not for sale!
p.s. I am not the only person who said this: (Martin Luther, 95 Theses)
Ezekiel + The Dry Bones
August 5, 2009 in Biblical, Commentary | Leave a comment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOWguZP-yx4
Ezekiel and the Dry Bones is an unbelievable story from the Bible. God brings dead, dry bones back to life. Putting together bone to bone than bringing on the flesh and the skin, then breathing His very breath into these dead bones. One of the most paradoxical parts of this story is the lack closure! What happened to the skeletons? Did they go back to their respective families? Did they go back to battle? Did they live happily ever after? When you ask these questions you can either doubt God and the legitimacy of this story or you can realize that God’s miracle is not dead bones coming to life. That is a no-brainer for God. He did that already when He created us
The miracle is that God does for our spiritual beings what He did for these skeletons! We are dead in our sin. We are powerless in our actions. We try for good, but we are continually bad. We are depraved. We are as dead in our spirits as those dry bones. We follow every distraction clicking along to the next page or signing up for the next big thing. We think half-heartedly about our souls and our spiritual condition and expect God to dispense Grace like a vending machine. But God doesn’t want to just give us our whim and fancy; He wants to make us alive. He wants to breath the Holy Spirit into our very souls to revive our hearts and minds. He wants to take us who were dead and make us living to Him.
This is the miracle that isn’t just for Israel, but for all people that God is calling! And for those of us who are alive, this is an invitation to live that life out fully and to put aside the gods of distraction, and to worship God alone!