RABBONI...which is to say, Master

Matt Green, Editor for Ministry Magazine has an interesting article. Though many criticize it for the scandalous fund-raising techniques it takes to keep some programs on the air, this was not the main complaint against Christian TV voiced in the informal poll and accompanying comments. The No. 1 problem was a perceived “lack of creativity.” Blog commenters cited the fact that most Christian programming is a monologue (preaching and teaching), in stark contrast to the interactive entertainment that is increasingly popular on mainstream TV. Read the entire article here.

Scott Hodge (no relation by the way) shares what I think are valuable insites into the difference between Tasking vs Coaching. "A good coach always explains the "why" behind the "what."  If a person is only in tune with the "what", they will never catch the vision and purpose behind it and therefore will not be able to fully reproduce themselves and the type of culture that we value. Read more here

His name is not Noah, but he has been working on his Ark since 1976 up in Frostburg, MD. Take a look and read more here.

If you are into links this sites for you!

The Biblical concept of discipleship has for the most part become a foreign term that we don’t understand as it was lived out before us in the sacred text. We don’t use the term in our normal conversation. We refer to ourselves as “members of the church”.  As I was growing up we seemed to focus on three major things, attendance, right doctrine, and don’t do anything to embarrass the Body. That last one we cloaked in the Biblical phrase, “do all things decently and in order”. That pretty much was our concept of discipleship.

Becoming a disciple is no minor decision. The purpose of discipleship is not just to learn what Jesus knew, it is to become what Jesus is. It is not only about being right; it is about being real and authentic in the world. Having all the doctrinal answers to all of our questions is useless, if it does not change how we love God and our fellow man.

Discipleship is not only a process to change us into the likeness of the Master, it is intended to make us “disciple makers”. His mission then is our mission now. But sadly we seem to be looking for ways to carry out that mission from within our church buildings and not out in the world where we are to be salt and light. We are becoming more “seeker” service oriented. It is interested to note that the “seekers” in the Bible were disciples who like Jesus were “seeking” to save the lost.

For many years we had an aquarium in our home or in my office. One thing I learned about tropical fish is that the size to which a fish can grow is dependent upon how large the aquarium is. Larger water volume allows for larger growth. A fish that will only grow to a few inches in a small tank could in fact grow to be a number of feet long in the ocean. I see an analogy here. Christian that function as disciples in their little religious world of Church and home will never mature into disciple makers until they get into the deep water of the world. Disciples are made through the interaction between the saltiness of a Christian and the one that does not know Jesus. Limiting our discipleship to our buildings and our homes is the same thing as putting a fish in a small tank of water and limiting its growth potential. You really learn scripture when you share it with someone else.

I recently heard Rick Atchley say that, “A silent Christian is an Oxymoron.” Do you think Jesus could have kept silent about His Father? What would your mate think if ever time you left your house he/she put her wedding ring in their pocket? “No need to make a big thing out of being married, we know we are married, right”? Yeah, right!

Being a disciple of Jesus will cause you and me to go into the world as He went into the world. “…as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:21

From bright sun shine to torrential down pours was the story for the wedding I preformed on Saturday at Montgomery Bell State Park for Barb's Second Cousin. The picture above is where the ceremony was held. The Plaque will give you a little history. The Cabin mentioned is just beyond where the church building stands. Neither are original, but reproductions. The chapel seats about 110 and it was packed, hot and humid and only one source of out side air and that was the entrance door.

Montgomery Bell State Park is beautiful and close by. With the changing of the color at hand, we may just have to go back.

What amazes me about the spinach crisis in our country is that we eat as much as we do. I am told that hundreds of millions of bagged spinach are sold in this country each year. Apparently those Popeye Cartoons were a lot more powerful than we gave them credit.

I have never liked cooked spinach, but in my adult years grew to enjoy raw spinach in salads. In fact I joined millions of Americans in throwing out half a bag of spinach when I heard the warning. Yeah, half a bag. Had me concerned for a couple days.

The only foods that I hated as a child that I still don’t like and won’t eat today are squash and turnip greens. That may sound strange for an old Tennessee boy, but I just can’t get em across my tongue and down the hatch. A ban on the sale of those two would not bother me a bit.

So what foods would you like to see banned?

When you think of pioneers from within my tribe men like the Campbells, Barton Stone and others come to mind. There is a new breed of pioneer today. Joe Beam is one. His Family Dynamics Institute is making significant contributions toward strengthening marriage all across this country. His sometimes controversial style and subject matter may cause you to squirm a bit, but I for one think he is right on target. If you missed his interview with Lester Holt on the weekend edition of Today, you can listen to it here.

The Baptist Standard has an interesting article about, of all things, the unity efforts between Churches of Christ and our Conservative Christian Church brethren, and the fact that Baptist has some common roots with our early pioneers.

“”Some Baptists may remember hearing their Church of Christ neighbors called “Campbellites.” And most Baptists know Churches of Christ are strictly a cappella, preferring unaccompanied singing to pianos, organs or any other instrument. They may not know the group has Baptists in its family tree.

But Baptists, with their well-known history of discord, might be even more surprised to learn that the non-instrumental Churches of Christ and the pro-instrumental Christian Churches met peaceably this summer for the first time in 100 years.

Christian Church leaders invited members of a cappella Churches of Christ to join them in Louisville, Ky., for their annual meeting, the North American Christian Convention. With the theme “Together in Christ,” the 2006 NACC focused on unity between the two fellowships.”” Click here to read the rest of the article.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to join God in touching the lives of the lost in a large inner city? Check out Lindy Erin’s Blog, Matthew 6:34, and you will be blessed. Speaking of pioneers, she is one of a new breed that lives their missional dream. She is from the Rochester Church of Christ in Rochester, Michigan and is working in the Bronx, New York.

Fred Peatross had an excellent Blog entry yesterday entitled, “Upper Room Futility”. 

Good people. Good intentions. Meetings. Words. Promises. But while all this is going on the story stays a secret. We know we should do something, but we’re just not sure what. We know our community exist for something—but we’re not sure why." Click here for the rest of the article.

I will be performing a wedding Saturday, for Barb’s niece. The service will be held in an historic Presbyterian church building in a state park west of White Bluff Tennessee. Hope I can still get into my wedding suit!

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM COMMENTS ON FRED PEATROSS' BLOG

Received this via from a subscriber:


The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:

1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewa

Economics:

(none)

Medicine:

1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

*********************************************************************

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000, or about 0.02% of the world population.


They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:

1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:

1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charle s Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:

1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:

1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Jul ius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis

The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.

Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics.

Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.

If the Jewish put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

Here is a portion of Patrick Meads Blog for today: "The Certain Among The Strange"

There are times I think the entire world has disappeared down the rabbit hole into Alice in Wonderland territory.

The Pope reads a medieval poet's view that Islam breeds violence and evil. Muslims disagree with this so much they shoot a 60 year old nun who is helping the poor in a hospital (they cheer as she dies), they fire bomb several churches in Palestine (only two of which happen to be Catholic), jeer at worshippers at Catholic churches in London and Paris, holding up signs declaring the upcoming death of all Christians and Jews, and engage in violent marches and attacks worldwide. THAT'LL show the world the Pope was wrong to call Islam a violent faith! Click here to read the rest.
(Picture from API News)

Mike Cope was brief, but also to the point. "Several fundamentalist Muslims, angered by the Pope’s statements that some parts of Islam are violent, have responded in violent retaliation. Thankfully, many moderates of their faith are pointing out the tiny inconsistency in their objections."

We talk a lot about Grace, Mercy, change and freedom on this Blog. Those are negative terms, if you can image, to some folks. Many, but not all, of those who have a problem with these terms are themselves steeped in bondage to a legalistic form of justification by law to which they can not attain. As a result they have to “bite and devour” others in order to lift themselves up. They are often “Parrots” of others, not having looked at why they believe what they believe. And when someone has a differing opinion or conclusion, they can only respond like a scared animal backed into a corner. While professing to “defend the truth” they often manifest an attitude that is completely un-Christ like. Character assignation is often their aim.  From the shadows they send their fiery barbs in hopes of bringing their enemy down.

This is the way a denomination is begins, and is perpetuated.

My heart goes out to those in bondage, for I was there once too. So now, I don’t respond in anger, I pray. I hope that doesn’t sound pious, because I sure don’t mean it to be. I know how it feels to have what you have considered as sacred truth challenged. I know how it feels to be challenged to think for myself and come to my own conclusions. Knowing what I know now about the freedom that is in Christ, I would not go back to that bondage for all the tea in China, as my daddy used to say. Paul said, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1. Paul’s challenge to “stand firm” is for grace and freedom, and not a system of justification based on law. I love the way the NLT puts it, “So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.”

My tribe is not the first, and I am sure not the last, to think they have a corner on truth. But the fate of those who are so closed is all the same. They continue to grow smaller and smaller until they become apart of history as a distant memory. Jesus said He would build His church and not even the gates of Hell could destroy it. Seems to me we are in pretty good hands with Him.