Lived To Tell The Story...

Well, my weekend is over and now I have officially spoken for the first time. It was actually really fun. It was a stretch for me, but in teh end it all came together. I realized that God works in wierd ways (realized yet again) when I was driving home thinking about how I don't think any kids got anything out of what I gave them this weekend, but I think that this weekend was just a way for God to tell me that I can do it. I often wondered if I could, but was never given the chance. That's my friend Monkey for ya! Always looking out for the little man and giving me a chance. I think my biggest fear this weekend was that I didn't let him down and that people would see me as a serious talk giver guy. Sometimes during the talk time, I would see kids staring off into space and I'd think that it was normal, but there was also a leader who sat in the front and would frown the whole time-not very encouraging to say the least. Oh well, God pushed me through it and I lived to tell you about it. THat's all that really matters.

ron

listening to: I got an MP3 player this weekend. So cool. Decided against the iPod for financial reasons, but also because it is very discouraging that you can only use their stuff. Boo. Soory <---canadian for sorry--- to my friend Paul, because I know that he works with Macstuff.

I'm an Uncle!!! This is my nephew Kale Evan Pai. He was even born on my birthday! (October 14th...its not too late to send a present) 

Ron the Speaker?

This weekend I get the priviledge and opportunity to speak to high schoolers about worship. As much as I would love to discuss different aspects and styles of worship, I decided to tell these kids about some of the personalities of the triune God that we as christians worship. In my head I thought that it would be better instead of learning about "embodied prayer" or different postures of worship that it may benefit them better to learn about the different parts of the trinity and hopefully make them think about why we worship them.

please pray for this talk as it comes to fruition...I'm still not finished with it.

ron

listening to: Travis Tritt: Greatest Hits. I don't know why, but I like his voice. The thing that I love the most is his guitar playing.

Thoughts?

...modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has, by a kind of ignorance, been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has for the most part, stood silently by, while the predatory ecomony has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that "economic forces" automatically work for good, and has assumed with the industrialists and miltarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with everybody that "progress" is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times.

-Wendell Berry

Berry went on to say that Christians admired Caeser even during his depradations and defaults. But in this alliance, they fail to take action against the Murder of Gods Creation and his willingness to destroy the world. For in these days, Ceasar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is the contradictor of the fundamental miracle of life.

A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destoy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad?

Thoughts on Don Miller

CYnthia and I went to see Don Miller speak at the firs conference center last night. It was a very insightful talk telling us that everybody is mroe important than we think we are. I thought htat the most important thing that he said was that the top two people that people are most scared of are:

2) Serial Killers
1) Evangelical Christians

It's funny that people are scared of Christains more than somebody who would eat somebodies brains without even thinking twice about it. One of the reasons of this is that we begin to think that we are seeing how many people we can convert before we find out who the person is. We put Jesus into the thought of a product before he is an actual relationship. We try to sell the product to a person before we can actually have some kind of credibility to speak in their lives.

Another thing he talked about was when he was asked to defend Christianity, and he said that he couldn't defend something that wasn't what it was supposed to be in the first place. He couldn't defend something with a name that was given to it so that Rome could have a voting platform. He wouldn't defend something that has been westernized and is used to assimilate other people to western thinking. All that we can defend is that God love us, but he loves everybody as much as us. We cannot go on writing people off because they don't believe God died for them and the world's sins. These are the people that God told us to love more than ourselves. These are the people that we need ot talk to.

As much as we would not like to think it, the church has become a club that has become inpenetrable by people on the outside. Some churches call themselves "seeker sensitive", but what are tehy being sensitive too? This is the question that makes me think that I want to play in bars again. I think I talked about how I hate hanging out with christians before, but sometimes I really mean it. Sometimes we as xtians are the fakest people. One time I played at a College ministry "talent" show and I said, "it's funny when you play in front of christians, because they won't let you know if you suck or not, because they clap at anything you do". "Oh that was great", they say. it jsut makes me laugh. It will be hard to play in bars again, because they will tell you if you suck, but at least they are real.

ron

CD- Sgt Peppers and Commons "Be"