Thursday, November 23, 2006

Thanksgiving 2006


It is that time of year again! I love Thanksgiving, because it is the start of the holiday season and I get to put up my Christmas tree and officially listen to Christmas music, without people freaking out on me. I love this time of year! Our tree is up, but we still need to finish decorating it. Today is going to be nice with a high around 54°! Much better than last year when we had about 2 inches of snow on the ground.

Yesterday, I came home early from work and finished raking the leaves and mowed the grass one last time. We also cleaned out the shed and the garage. Was a tiring day, but it is good to be ready for the winter season.

I am looking forward to the Good Eats Roast Turkey by Alton Brown. And let me tell you that it is the most delicious turkey I have ever eaten. When you cut into the breast meat, which is usually dry, juices just ooze out of it. It is VERY good! So I recommend that you click on the link I provided for the recipe and give it a try. You won't regret it!

I hope that you and your family have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade and then watch the Detroit Lions kill the Miami Dolphins and Joey Harrington ! GO LIONS!!!!!!! And Happy Thanksgiving!


The Lions fight song, entitled "Gridiron Heroes" dates back to the late 1930's. When the team become a part of Detroit, owner G.A. Richards called for a fight song. Wayne State University director of bands Graham T. Overgard, who was also the Lions director of entertainment, penned the lyrics and music to "Gridiron Heroes—The Victory Song of the Detroit Lions".

Still one of the oldest team fight songs in the NFL, Gridiron Heroes is still played after every Lions score.


Gridiron Heroes - The Victory Song of the Detroit Lions

(Verse)

Hail the colors Blue and Silver let them wave.
Sing their song and cheer the Gridiron Heroes brave,
Fighting for fame, winning the game,
Dashing to victory as they go.

(Chorus)
Forward down the field,
A charging team that will not yield.
And when the Blue and Silver wave,
Stand and cheer the brave.
Rah, Rah, Rah.
Go hard, win the game.
With honor you will keep your fame.
Down the field and gain,
A Lion victory!

GO LIONS!

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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The Nativity Story

Kimmy and I on Monday got to see a special sneak preview of The Nativity Story. I thought it was actually very well done. We both were impressed with it and I do not feel that it was cheesy. Okay, there was one cheesy part. The whole manger scene looked just like many photos you would see, but it wasn't that bad. But there was some very funny lines and moments!

Then there is the whole historical inaccuracy of the 3 Magi being there at Jesus' birth. But overall I thought it was very good and gave you some very interesting perspectives.

Some of them being how Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes- The Queen of Naboo from Episode 3) was betrothed to a man she didn't know or love. And her whole reaction and wrestling with that. And how when Mary came back from her visit with Elizabeth (Shohreh Aghdashloo- Dina from 24) that she would have been fairly obviously pregnant and how though Joesph stood up for her, the community would still look down on them.

I also liked the fact that Mary was played by a very ordinary looking woman and that Joesph was as well. All of the actors I thought looked the part. In other words the cast were not white people, but middle eastern looking people. And the guy who played Herod, did a great job of playing his evilness.

I would recommend seeing it. We plan on getting it when it comes out on DVD.

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Saturday, November 18, 2006

THE GAME!!!!!! Version 103



With the sad news of yesterday, it is somewhat hard to get pumped up for this game. But it being one of the biggest versions of this game makes it a bit easier. There has never been a matchup of these two storied programs of this magnitude and may never again. I am hoping that those Michigan Men go out and play their guts out for the old coach, because "those who stay will be champions". We are going to miss you Bo, but hopefully you can see the game from your press box in the sky and that the team does you proud once again.

2 Hours and 5 Minutes to game time!

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Friday, November 17, 2006

R.I.P. Glenn E. "Bo" Schembechler :'(


Today, I recieved the news that Bo had passed away from several friends. Words can not even being to express how much this man will be missed. He was a great man and the world has suffered a big loss. His football accomplishments are stunning, but even more important is the number of lives that he touched and impacted. My prayers go out to his family as the grieve the loss of a husband and father. You will be missed Bo.

Now I hope and pray that your boys in blue can go out and beat those bucks for the old coach!

GO BLUE!!!!!

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Friday, November 10, 2006

Wishing To Be Within A Yard Of Hell

"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." -- C.T. Studd


The sad part about the Church is that they would rather sit in the circle singing Kumbaya, then reach out and show love. But the sick part is that they think that they are reaching out by staying inside their holy huddles, and sneering at lost people & condemning them.

I recently stumbled upon a blog of a guy named Donny Pauling, who is a FORMER pornographer. This guy had taken naked photos of women that went into magazines like Playboy. And a few days after having been offered a huge contract by them, he decided that he had had enough and gave his life over to Christ. You can read the whole story here.

And about a week after that he posted a very interesting blog entry that I have posted part of below.

Please don't think I'm being negative. To be honest, I was very happy all day and was a bit excited at the prospect of going to church after asking God back into my life. I tried to remain so throughout tonight's service. But, as I mentioned in my last blog entry, I made a promise to my father to remain true to myself and to sugar coat nothing while on this journey, so I'm going to tell you exactly what I think. Here goes...

Church tonight really annoyed me. It's like I never left. The same songs are being sung. The same things are being said in sermons. It's just one more person parroting what everyone before him has said in every church service since the beginning of time.

Why must we sing about how great God is, over and over? I know, I know. God wants to hear our praises. This doesn't make all that much sense to me but I'll accept your word for it. As one of God's children, I think of my relationship to him a bit like my relationship with my own son. I want my son to think I'm great and all, but he doesn't have to tell me over and over and over and over every day for the rest of his life. In fact, I'd think he was a bit weird if he did so...

Seriously, now. Churches wonder why so many "fall away". I'll let ya in on one big reason: most churches sing stupid songs that don't "get to" a person. Know what I mean? One song tonight literally repeated "God is so good" over and over. Wow! That moves me about as much as watching paint dry and almost as much as watching a snail crawling a wall. I mean, what exactly is the point of repeating that phrase for 20 minutes? I don't get it.

And why must the same rhetoric come out of every preacher's mouth in every service in every church around the world? Most of the people in church have been there since they were very young. We've all heard the stories. 45 times or so. Why tell it again? And why use the exact same verbage as every other preacher? Does God demand only certain words be used when proclaiming his truth?

When the church was singing tonight I was thinking to myself, "I need to start writing songs that people actually enjoy singing!" When the preacher was preaching I was thinking, "Ya know, there's a big need for interesting preachers in today's churches! If I ever get up in front of people I'm going to try telling them something that actually helps them in real life situations. Or at least come up with something that INTERESTS them!"


Isn't that sad? And yet that is primarily the state of the Church today. What is wrong with us? Instead we stay stuck in the same old ruts and are not willing to get out of them for the sake of reaching out to lost people.

I have heard Donny Pauling talk about the ministry of xxxchurch.com and how they are a big reason why he made the decision to follow Christ. xxxchurch.com does some pretty radical things and a lot of Christians are pretty inflamed about it. This ministry will actually go to porn conventions and rent a booth inside of them, in fact, they get asked back every year since the first year they did it. And Donny said in these interviews that if they had not been there on the floor, but instead stayed outside passing out tracts, that it would not have effected his life. He went onto to say that the mindset in the porn industry is that Christians hate them and think they are to bad for someone as "righteous" as them to hang out with. But the guys from xxxchurch.com were willing to set up that "rescue mission within a yard of hell".

I think it is about time for more churches and Christ followers to start setting up rescue missions within a yard of hell and get away from the sound of the chapel bell. There is a lost world out there that thinks we hate them and we do for the most part. Especially when we condemn them instead of having compassion for them. After all isn't that what Jesus did?

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Monday, November 06, 2006

Random Ramblings

There has been so much going on in my life lately and I have no idea how to put some of it into words. I have been thinking a lot about what it is that God wants me do in ministry and I am wondering if student ministry is where I am supposed to be anymore. But I still can't escape the love for student ministry that I have. Yet then I really feel that God wants me to do something else and I am cool with that. I really feel that there is much more I want to do ministry-wise and being a pastor to students would prevent me from those things, so it will be interesting to figure out what it is that God will end up doing.

Having said all that, I must say that this past weekend when I went with the Rockpointe Student Ministry for their annual weekend retreat called "Revolution" that it was so hard! It was so hard to sit there and watch the new youth pastor get introduced as the new youth pastor and to see everyone pray for him. I sat there thinking how much I had hoped and prayed that it would be me. As he shared about how God revealed to him and his wife that it was the place for them, I sat there and thought about how Kimmy and I thought those very same things. There were so many things that we thought were signs pointing to me becoming the youth pastor at Rockpointe.

It amazes me how people will emote about how God works things out so greatly and how things go so smoothly for you when you are following Him, but do they ever stop and think about the people that are and yet things don't fall in place for them. I think that when pastors promote that concept then they set people up to fail and fall. If I stopped and looked at how my life is going and relied upon that particular "theology" then I would just as soon walk away from my faith, because I obviously am not following God. Things are not going smoothly for us. I have been in a dead end job that I absolutely hate and I have a burning desire to be in ministry and countless numbers of other people have said the same thing, but yet here I sit 12 years later in the same place. Why? I have no idea, but my faith is not in things falling together smoothly and having ministry job after ministry job fall in my lap, it is in the fact that I know God loves me and sent His Son to die for me.

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