Are You Sure You Have Something Up There?

You really HAVE to read this article! It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while that's actually real. The picture to the left is an MRI of a man's brain. At first glance, you would think that the dark part in the middle is his brain. In fact, the gray matter pushed to the edges of the skull is his brain. The dark area is actually water. The man almost has no brain!

There is just too much room for joking here. I'm sure you're thinking of somebody you know who might have this condition (it's called the Dandy Walker complex...I'm sure Dandy Walker is really proud of that). Anyway, read the article and check out the symptoms. Are you sure you have a brain?

Appreciating the Faithful Man

For the last three years, I pastored the Mission Peak Baptist Church in Fremont, CA. Just recently, my family moved to Sherwood, OR to serve at Timberline Baptist Church. For the time being, I am working a secular job. It is the first time in over four years that I have drawn income from anything other than a ministry position.

Here is something I have learned having been back in the "regular" work force for the last two weeks: We should praise the Lord for faithful men!

Let me start by saying that the ministry is work. Hard work. The preacher doesn't just work on Sunday and play golf the rest of the week. He usually puts in 50-60 hours a week and is basically on-call 24/7. Be sure to show your appreciation for a faithful pastor.

Having pastored for three years and now going back to working a secular job, I know how valuable faithful men are to the church. There are a lot of things demanding my time right now. Even though I'm tired, there are places I need to be on certain nights of the week. I'm an ordained minister, so serving passionately and regularly kind of comes with the territory. What amazes me is how faithfully some laymen in the church serve.

There have been men like this in every church I've been a member of. They go to work five days a week. They give their Saturday to spread the gospel by going door to door. They volunteer for a prison ministry service that takes place on Saturday night. They're always there for the mid-week Bible study on Wednesday or Thursday (whenever your church might have it). They even stay after the Bible study service to pray with other men (we have our men's prayer time at 9 PM).

The men that do these things weekly never went to Bible college. They have never been called to preach or been ordained to the gospel ministry. They're just faithful men. They're leading their families in a way that glorifies God. They're doing the same for the church. The truth is, no church can survive without faithful men. I don't care who the pastor is or how structured the programs are, the church won't go forward without faithful men.

I praise God for many faithful men I have known in my Christian life. They're not perfect. Their families aren't perfect. The churches they are members of aren't perfect. Nevertheless, God is using them. Praise God for faithful men.

Dr. R-ism

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Dr. Mark Rasmussen is the Vice President of West Coast Baptist College (my alma mater) in Lancaster, CA. He is known for his very funny one liners. He came to our church in Sherwood, OR last night with the singing tour group from the college and before he started preaching, he delivered one of the best "Dr. R-ism's" I've ever heard.

He said: "Lancaster looks a lot like Sherwood...if Sherwood was hit by an atomic bomb."

If you've never been to either place, you'll find a picture of Lancaster and Sherwood above. I was still chuckling ten minutes after he said it.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope everybody has a great 4th of July. Blow some things up. Spend time with friends and family. Eat some good barbecue. Most of all, don't forget to thank God for the privilege of living in the greatest country on earth.

Great Post on Prayer

Trey Morgan put a fantastic post about prayer on his blog. Click here if you want your prayer life to be challenged.

The Gospel Changes People

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." - 2 Corinthians 5:17

Anybody who has trusted Jesus Christ as their Saviour knows that He truly makes a change in your life. Last week, I saw an example of that like I've never seen before. My pastor was out of town on Sunday, so he asked me to preach the Sunday morning service. A lady in our church had led her boss to Christ on Wednesday and had invited her to church on Sunday. The sad part was that this newly saved lady was planning on moving to Phoenix the following weekend. This would be her only opportunity to attend our church!

Well, she came to the service and absolutely loved it! She told her co-worker (our church member) that she had changed her mind about moving to Phoenix and that she wanted to stay here in Sherwood, OR and become a member of our church! Keep in mind, she had only been saved for four days!

It was an awesome thing to see God work in the life of such a new believer and witness her desire for God's Word and fellowship with God's people. The Gospel will change people's lives!

Is It Worth Dying For?

If you know that you could be executed because you do something in particular, it will probably cause you to think twice about doing it. That sounds like common sense, right? Well, apparently a group of professors from the University of Colorado had to do a study to come to this conclusion. I found an article on Foxnews.com with this headline: Death Penalty Discourages Crime.

Well, imagine that!

There are actually some very interesting statistics in the article about how even 1 execution can save more than a dozen lives. Of course, the executed murderer won't strike again. But that execution also discourages other would be murders from committing that horrible crime. I'm not sure, but I think that is the whole purpose of any penal system...to discourage crime! The simple fact is that the harsher the punishment for a crime, the less likely people will commit that crime. I don't think these brilliant professors had to do a study to come up with that. All they needed was common sense.

I am a proponent of the death penalty. I believe that punishment absolutely fits certain crimes. If a person brutally murders one person, that murderer has simply forfieted their own right to life. They are no longer fit for society. There has been a lot of hoopla about the cruel and unusual punishment involved with the "faulty" lethal injection system used by many states today. My opinion is, if the murderer dies because of the injection, there's nothing faulty about it at all. I wish these people crying for the "humane treatment" of these criminals were around when the killer slaughtered their victim. I think a little discomfort before dying is pretty fair in comparison to what the murdered person suffered through.

Out of Town

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. I was out of town for the last week. I went to California for my grandmother's funeral. It was a sad time for obvious reasons, but it was also really fun to see A LOT of family I had either never seen or hadn't seen in a long time. The picture on the left is all of my dad's brothers and sisters (minus 1 who had already left and 3 who have passed away). Needless to say, I have a big family. My grandmother had over 30 grandchildren.

It may be some time until I post again. My family is moving to Oregon to start a new ministry position. Pray that the move and the transition goes well. Take care everybody and thanks for reading!

Thanks

I promised myself I would do my best not to get involved in character assassination on this blog. All I have to say is: Thank you David Stern for the worst ending to an NBA season I've seen in my 20+ years as an avid basketball fan. You and your man Stu have completely ruined the integrity of these playoffs. If this is the direction the NBA is heading, I am deeply saddened.

I don't say this as a Suns fan who feels cheated, I say it as a basketball fan who feels cheated. Once again, thanks.

Education?

Brokeback Mountain is truly one of the most wicked movies to ever hit the mainstream. The story of homosexual cowboys was an obvious attack on the family and morals in general by the liberal movie makers in Hollywood. If you look on the bottom of the picture, you'll see this tag line for the movie: "Love is a force of nature." A homosexual relationship is not love, it's sin. However, that tag might be very appropriate, considering sin is the nature of fallen man. Enough about the movie.

An article on Foxnews.com tells the story about the family of a 12 year old girl who is suing the Chicago Board of Educators because a substitute teacher showed this movie to her class. When I was 12, my teacher showed the Little Mermaid. How stupid can people involved in public education actually be? I guess it never occurred to this sub that a movie theater wouldn't let a 12 year old in to watch an R-rated movie. Apparently, this teacher didn't want these children to be deprived of the "entertainment," so she decided to bring it to them. Stories of wickedness and stupidity from the public school cease to amaze me. It's no wonder the average young person in America is as warped as they are. With this kind of indoctrination, what more could you expect?