This post is peppered by two things.

1. I’ve listened to most of Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation” and have a strong sense of longing for that unity that was experienced in the 40s.
2. I’ve seen and heard enough of the neo-liberal agenda to stall, attack, and thwart the will of the American people. It’s clear that with the house, senate, and executive branches locked up that the majority of people want a republican view represented in Washington!

Here’s some things that have me worried…

Hillary Clinton’s attempt to move to the right. This week she, in John Kerry-like fashion, decided she was going to try to redefine her position on abortion. While she didn’t sound as stupid as John Kerry did in saying that “I believe life begins at conception, but I also believe women have a right to chose.” [That’s called infanticide, read some history books!] She’s gone around and explain how her position has changed… But I wonder what would happen if partial-birth abortion came back to the senate? Would she vote against it? It’s ever clear that she is just trying to get some “old statements” and sound bytes out there for future usage.

Short-term memory loss. In the days ahead many American soldiers could die. President Bush has warned the People for months that these murderous people would do anything to make the first Iraqi elections a mess… And he was right. He could come out like that nut Rush Limbaugh and say “I predicted that!” Yet, in an effort to conjure up sentiment against the war, everything in the media keeps saying “worse than ever.” Why don’t they support the soldiers and say “we knew it would be bad, and it is.”

Democratic bigotry. A few things come to mind along these fronts. The democratic leaning NAACP continues to lean to the left further in support of Planned Parenthood. Don’t they see that roughly 75% of the PP Centers in America are in African American neighborhoods? Then liberal senators are all lining up to take swipes at Condeleza Rice. Shouldn’t Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton be excited that this will be the highest ranking woman in American history instead of tearing her down? Isn’t it funny that “the gentlemen from Texas” has added loads of minorities and women to his cabinet when “the honorary black man” Bill Clinton did precious little? Janet Reno and Madeline Albright hardly qualify as examples to the contrary!

All of this just shows why “red states” have rejected the left. They are so out of touch with reality that retooling with the same old faces will fool no one. It is so sad to me that I was left with no choice but Bush in the previous election. (And I’m an evangelical pastor!) If the blue side wants to gain back segments of America they will have to do it without elitist left… Get rid of Boxer, Clinton, Kennedy, etc and retool yourselves with Obama and Lieberman who are moderates. Duh!

just saw this and it got me thinking about vacation! is it June yet? 

Each week I get to Tuesday and think I must have an extra day before youth group. But alas, the alarm clock goes off and Wednesday morning is here.

I have an outline for what we will be talking about tonight. We’re in Revelation 4 and this is the turning point between when the past history ends, we skip over the church age, and we slap right into the tribulation.

So tonight, in line with Matthew 24, we’ll be talking about this 7 year period beginning like birth pains. So I get to tell everyone about when Megan was born. (Sure, we have 2 kids but the 1st one was really exciting!) From there it’ll just go over the pre-trib view and run through the imagery of Revelation 4.

I should have the outline posted by 1 or 2 PM. Then I’ll be depending on Ryan’s site, pastor2youth.com for my the game. The girls took care of the music last night.

Some students are already dreading our traditional February look at sex & dating. But that doesn’t mean we won’t do it… It’ll just be better than they expected. I’ll post some of their blog posts later to show what I mean!

This afternoon I received a rather rude e-mail from a gentleman in Texas. Apparently he was dissatisfied that I didn’t bend over far enough to get him the CD he purchased quickly enough. Nevermind the fact that he purchased a CD that retails for $17.99 for $4.00 and paid for standard shipping. (He could have downloaded the tracks off of a iTunes for less.)

He wrote:

You barely shipped today? I bought it on the 21st That really sucks no wonder I do not have the CD yet. I will definitely let Amazon know you are required to ship within 48hrs.

Here’s the irony of this. I shipped it too fast and spent too much money. Amazon gives you a credit to ship your purchases and I routinely upgrade people to Priority Mail at a loss to me personally since they have pre-packaged envelopes at a set rate of $3.85. So… While he paid for 4-7 business days arrival time I upgraded him to 2-3 days plus I shipped it in less than a business day.

So I wasn’t feeling too sorry for him and wrote back:

I’m sorry if you aren’t satisfied with the turn around time. The purchase was made 2/21 after business hours ended and it was in the mail Monday morning before lunch. That’s less than 1 business day. (Still inside of 2 business days if you consider Saturday a work day,but the post office was closed anyway due to blizzard conditions.) Additionally, while you paid for standard shipping I upgraded you to Priority Mail at no additional cost to you but at a loss of $1.36. (35% of my profit)

By all means, if you aren’t satisfied with your purchase follow-up with Amazon.com.

I suppose this is why I use my gmail e-mail account for these transactions instead of my business e-mail. I would hate to think what such a person would do if he could actually track down where I work. Nonetheless, it’s another $6.49 closer to the Northern Ireland trip.

As a pastor of a small church in a growing town, I am fully aware that the church seems to be reaching fewer and fewer people as time goes on. Most “growth” is transfer growth… These are folks who get sick of one church and come to ours or visa versa. Real growth is when people who don’t believe are converted and brought into the fold… This is rare and getting rarer.

This post is influenced by 2 things that have happened to me in the last 12 hours.

First, I was talking to one of my students and encouraging her to continually live boldly in front of her friends. I would say “just live Jesus in front of them” and she would reply, “I do, I invite them to church but they won’t come.” That same miscommunication went on for a while. I don’t think she ever got the difference between telling her friends about Jesus or inviting people to come meet other Christians and living like Jesus in front of her friends. It’s an over-used cliche` amongst post-modern Christians, but does bear some truth to quote Augustine “Preach the Gospel wherever you go, and sometimes use words.” In her case, her non-Christian friends need to see the benefits to knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord before they are willing to hear about him.

Second, in reading Church without Walls the author makes the simple observation that we don’t know our neighbors. How true. We wonder why the church is so irrelevant in society and yet we withdraw ourselves from society. (Some would say we do this because we think we are better than others, others would say it is because we are afraid of “the world.” I think there is truth in both extremes but think we do this accidentally because we as churches are self-absorbed.)

These two truths are convicting to me. The reality is that I don’t know my neighbors… Or more to the point, I know them enough to avoid them. I know that they are unstable, they are dependent on alcohol and drugs, they are unskilled parents, they shack up, they party and wake up my kids, on and on and on. They exhibit such repulsive behavior that you would think that a loving and well intentioned Christian couple would look beyond the surface and see neighbors who desperately need Jesus. We see it, but we ignore it. We don’t want to get messy.

What a terrible failure I am! Dear God, help me to change. Help me to leave Jesus before my neighbors so I can be a part of a revival of hearts, souls, and mercy in Romeo.

I have to admit I have been quietly praying for more and more snow. (It seems to be working!)

Here’s why. There is a man in our church family who plows the lot. Each time he does it he makes about $60. I like this guy a lot and I know he is having a hard time providing for his family right now… So I figure, the more it snows the better for his family.

I hope it snows every day this week! I hope it snows until May. I know some consider it an inconvenience, but I want to see this man’s faithfulness rewarded. Call me selfish, but again I am calling for snow and a lot of it!

In my normal online routine of checking e-mail, the YS boards, the LF site, etc. So imagine how much I was thrown off by the YS forums being down today?

I wonder if all the trouble YS seems to be having will one day result in them ditching the forums all together? It’s got to be a hassle to offer these things, monitor these things, and troubleshoot these things? At the same time they probably say “Why not do it since these are the people we are trying to reach with our products?”

Each time that they go down I wonder if I should go back. It’s not like I don’t enjoy it, but I often wrestle with it being an unwise use of my time. Na… I like it a lot so I’ll be back. I do see my time there in massive fluctuations though. Right now I’m at a low point. Maybe 15 minutes a day? I spend at least that in browsing others blogs.

I had a very bad experience last night. One which I hope to never repeat.

All was well physically until about 10:30 PM. I was just finishing a video game and a little popcorn snack when I got hit a with a sudden case of the shivers.

This first happened to me about 3 weeks ago as I got a chill that I couldn’t shake off. It wasn’t a big deal and I just thought I had gotten cold in the basement working on the PC. But this time I hadn’t done anything weird at all. I just started shivering like mad.

I laid in bed with the duvet on for quite a while hoping to warm up. I could feel that my body was warm but I literally couldn’t stop shivering. Almost an hour later I finally fell asleep, only to wake up at 12:45 AM. I woke up shivering. I got up, went to the bathroom, instantly felt a little better, and laid back down. About 1:30 I woke up again on fire! I had the covers over my head and I was wearing my socks. So once I shedded them I was able to cool off enough to fall back asleep.

Today, I feel unrested but otherwise OK. I have some muscle soreness in my back and neck. But I think that is mostly from the shivers.

I will readily admit that it really scared me to have this happen. It’s unexplained torture. It’s randomness makes me wonder, “do I have mad cow or something?”

I can’t wait to play golf again. I think that all of this has to do with my lack of physical activity during the off-season. As I stare out the window at the piles of snow I am longing for, for the first time in months, the wonderment of creaming a golf ball. At least if I get the shivers then I can blame it on my bad golf game.

One thing I don’t plan on putting off for 2005 is doing my taxes. Over the last few years I’ve been in the habit of waiting for al ong time to gather everything together and ship off my federal and state forms. More specifically, I habitually turn my state forms in late.

Not this year. I am determined to do my taxes ASAP and (gulp) hopefully get a little return. It seems like each year I get a little back on my federal return and pay a little on my state taxes.

Funny sidenote. We left California in 2003. But I still got another form from CA. It seems they will never get it that we don’t live there anymore. Tax forms. License plate renewal notices. On and on. I even got a Christmas note from the retirement guy at the Horrorville church. I’m pretty sure that they never fulfilled that part of their obligation to me. But I’m not crying about it and I don’t want to trace down those $2000. Forget it!