Day one and Two of the trip to Biloxi

We started out the trip driving down to Nashville in order to stay the night at Our Savior Lutheran Church. It was about a 10 hour drive or so to get there.



We also had a chance to go into the city for some dinner and to see some of downtown Nashville after we rolled in at about 6:00 p.m. Oh yeah and the warmer climate was definitely a welcome change from the snow that we left in Michigan.


Here is my girlfriend Rachel and I outside of a great barbeque place in Nashville. Another cool thing was that we walked into an ice cream shop which had a live band. We ended up talking to the guy and he made up a song about us on the spot it was pretty cool.


On Sunday morning we got up and went to church at Our Savior. It was a good service. After that we were back on the road for the remaining 9 hours or so after stops in order to get us to where we were staying in Biloxi, MS.

I'm back

After a long trip all day Saturday and into Sunday morning I am back in Michigan. As promised I will have posts about the trip and what we did forthcoming.

Off to Biloxi

I will be leaving tomorrow morning to go to Biloxi, MS to do some hurricane relief work over spring break. We are staying at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd. We are driving from Michigan so it should be a good drive. I would ask that you please pray for our safe travels down there as well as getting work done when we are down there. Thanks.

I will be back in a week and this time I promise I will give some more information about my trip.

Curling anyone?

So today I went curling for the first time. Yes the crazy winter sport where rocks are thrown down a sheet of ice. It was much harder than it seems on tv and also a lot more fun. I honestly can not wait to go play it agian there.

I went curling at the Midland Curling Club.

You can also check on the USA curling association if you want.

To give up or not

Lent is a time of reflection upon ones own sin. The way I see it giving up something for lent stems from the idea that it helps one recognize what Jesus did for us through his sacrifice. Too often it seems that giving something up has either turned into a chore. People seem to do it because they think they have to and if not they are doing something wrong. These people will also complain about the fact that what they are giving up they really want. I think the whole point of this tradition is missed. Of course there is no real merit in giving up anything anyways it is meant as a way to help people prepare for Easter not as some contest for God.

Two examples I have seen in the past few days from either side.

One friend is giving something up but won't tell anyone. He seems to not feel it is important for anyone else to know what he is giving up. It is between him and God and he is using this to reflect not for glory.

Another person says they are giving up soda and fast food. Then goes on to mention that they will have nothing to eat now and what not in a very complaining matter.

First guy seems to be doing it for the right reason. It does not seem to be beneficial for the second person to give anything up. Will I be giving anything up probably not it is not really effective for me but I will be preparing nevertheless.

Christianity will change to survive... in the next 100 years

In the post before this I mentioned the where will Christianity be in 100 years discussion in my class today. The comment that struck the hardest chord with me was the idea that in order to survive Christianity will have to conform to the times.

This could not be farther from the truth. No matter how much people would like to change our message there is only one way that it can be done. God does not give us room to rewrite the Gospel and the Law so that it can relate to social issues. In fact the cause for all of this rewriting is the Law accomplishing what it is supposed to but people are not being given the Gospel to show them how much God really does care about them. So much in fact that he gave his only son to save us from a fate which we deserve.

Society loves to rewrite the rules for Christianity because they are living under the delusion that as long as the accepted rules are followed then it will merit the Grace of God rather. The Christian church is not one of following Law to be saved but rather a combination of rightly divided Law and Gospel. (A good intro to this idea by Ryan at Wretched of the Earth) The key is the Gospel for salvation we can do nothing on our own to merit God but rather God gives us everything as a free gift no strings attached.

Anyways does anyone have any thoughts about where Christianity will be in 100 years?

If being nice were good enough....

At lunch today something was mentioned that I could not pass up as a start off for a post. One of my friends was talking about his brother and the fact that he was born with diabetes, epilepsy, and ADD for example.

My roommate and other good friend happened to say to this "and he's such a nice kid too. Being nice doesn't count for anything anymore." Or something along those lines.

In a way what he was saying is right. Being nice doesn't really gain us anything when it comes from gifts from God. Things like salvation after all are not earned and the only thing that we have to do to receive them is to be alive to accept them. This seems to be the hardest thing for many people I see to understand. There is nothing that can be done to merit the grace of God period. The fact that his son Jesus Christ died on the cross for us is what saves us and allows us into heaven.

It brings also another point that came up in my Christianity class today. We were discussing where Christianity would be in 100 years. Someone mentioned that they thought Muslims and Christians would begin to grow closer together, and also she wondered how they can not be closer right now since they are basically the same. Except for the fact that the basis of the religion is totally different.

The comment can not everyone say that as long as you believe something then it is find came up. Of course to someone who has no affiliation either was as she did this statement seems to make sense. I do not see the divide getting closer based on the fact that there is only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ and his death for us on the cross. I guess in a way this kind of falls into the well at least they were a nice person category.

Any thoughts on whether we will somehow become closer with Muslims? Someone said we are already close with Jews it will only be a matter of time before we will be the same way with Muslims.

Computers to solve obese children....

What will they come up with next to make parents think that raising their kids should involve no real communication. This computer system at some schools in Houston makes sure that kids are buying the lunch their parents want them too. I'm sorry but watching what kids eat for lunch is not going to tackle obesity. Parents need to step up and teach their kids about exercise firstly and also healthy eating habits.

A computer is only as good as the person who is using it.


Hat tip : Drudge

Gnostic

I realize this is the first time I have posted in quite awhile. Hopefully, I can get some thoughts going again. Funny I always say that.

Anyways in my Christianity (public university) class we have been talking a little about Gnostic and how this sect may have been suppressed by the orthodox church at the beginning of Christianity. After looking at some of the stuff from the Gospel of Thomas it is no wonder they would be suppressed. Some of the information we have read mentions that it was an attempt by the church to gain power and the Gnostic gospels were a threat to the institution of the church. The suggestion is that there might be some useful things that were written and the church was scared so they crushed their existence.

Me I don't buy it. There are too many things that strike me as odd about the Gnostic gospels and I get quite the weird feeling when I read some things in them. The feeling is akin to the one I get when I have read things in the Book of Mormon. Here are some of the things I find disturbing about them.

1. They claim to be "secret" this really was not the goal of Jesus
2. In them a man can essentially become his own god and there is no dependence on Jesus or grace
3. For some reason they did not survive. If so many people knew they were true this would not even be a topic of discussion 2000 years later.

I really do not know a lot about these "secret gospels". There is nothing of value to be found in them so I would not want to spend too much time with them other than being able to refute them if asked. If anyone has any thoughts I would definitely welcome them.

Losing My Voice

Driving down to Mississippi by way of Michigan was quite the journey in a 15 passenger van with 13 people in it. It was fun though because it was a big group of people I am good friends with. I also happened to be one of the people to keep the drivers up the entire time down there. We actually had two vehicles one person followed down in his Mustang.

Upon arriving in Biloxi and due to being awake for about 28 hours without sleeping and what not I ended up losing my voice. It was hard at first because I enjoy talking to people. Of course here I would have a great opportunity to hear some good stories and be able to talk about some of the things that people went through. Of course for the first few days I was forced to do nothing but listen and observe what was going on around me.

I think my voice was gone for about 4 days and on the 2nd day I began to realize that there might be a purpose for my voice being gone. Since I wasn't able to talk it forced me to listen. I think God may have had that in mind when I lost my voice. Especially since this is the first time that it has ever happened in my life. It really made me realize the importance of listening. Sometimes I just talk to much and I guess God wanted me to listen a little more than talk to the people that I met at least at first.

Anyways this is probably the first of things that I came to realize when I was in Biloxi.

A preview of thoughts ahead....

I spent about a week over my Christmas break in Biloxi, MS doing hurricane Katrina relief work. I am glad to have been able to help. There are some amazing people down there. In the next week or two I will be talking about some of the things that happened down there, as well as what you can do to help out our brothers and sisters in the area.

This casino is one mile away from where it was originally located. A Holiday inn stopped it from going farther.

B I N G O!

Ok so it has been a long time since I have posted. I just haven't felt the need to post anything though different ideas have crossed my mind.

But anyways I just wanted to make a statement about the game of BINGO. I played on Sunday night with my girlfriend and her mom. It astounded me how many old ladies there were there. Maybe it is just me but I was having a hard time figuring out which of my 15 cards might have a BINGO. How come these old ladies could do it but they have such a hard time performing the task of driving? Maybe I notice this because I am 19 let me know if that's the case. But that's really all I have to say for now I think I will start writing more though.

An Essential Truth...

I have begun going through the adult confirmation class that is being offered at my church. I figure it will be a good way to review some of the points with Christianity and Lutheranism. After all studying the Word is a lot of who we are as Christians.


But anyways I have some cool stuff I picked up one thing was a picture of the Trinity. This is of course the belief that God is one but also The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all at the same time. What I was provided with were some explanations as to how one thing can be three parts at the same time.

Illustration #1

The Apple

Pretend you have three parts of the apple the core, meat, and skin. Now all parts are apple but all have distinct characteristics to them. If you ate them you would definitely understand that. Still all of the pieces are apple and without one piece you can not have an apple. In the same way God is three distinct pieces however each one makes up the whole which is God and you can not have God without one of the pieces.


Illustration #2

H2O (aka water)

No matter what form we see this in for example liquid, gas, ice it is still water. In this way it can take different forms but it is still water all the time. The same way God takes different forms but is still God all of the time. You can also look at it that there are two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen that make up a water molecule. These different pieces form water and you can not have water without them.



Those were a few of the cool illustrations that I picked up as ways to describe how it is possible for God to be three pieces at the same time but still always being one.

The battle for Christmas

Hey anyone who wants to help out with the cause especailly the Speaker of the House should go ahead and do it.

Thanks Drudge.

Is that what it is...

Lutheran Carnival XI

Check out the new Lutheran Carnival. Dan did a great job with it.

This is my life... and I miss the small stuff

As I sit down to write this post I am first wondering why I am not sleeping yet and second this idea has been running through my mind for a couple of days. Hopefully it makes some sense as it comes out.

I have come to the realization that this time that I am here at college really is part of life. Sometimes it is easy to forget that while being within the confines of the campus things really are going on around me. That even though I am "trapped" in the dorms I am part of the world. It seems that it is often that I trudge through my life right now not realizing that I am not only preparing for the future but that there is also a present right now.

It is to easy to live in the future. And frankly I think that when this happens I lose sight of what is going around me. In a sense I lose the purpose that God has planned for me right now. Now don't get me wrong I haven't been reading Rick Warren or anything but I think that sometimes I miss the small opportunities I have to share Jesus with people all the time because I find myself to focused on the future.

I guess what I am trying to say is the age old adage that sometimes we just need to "stop and smell the roses". Either that or we need to think about the small opportunities that we have around us everyday to share the Gospel that was so graciously granted to us so that we may spread it to everyone.

I'm not sure if this is really where I meant to go with this post but there it is. Also I haven't really tried to find a good Bible passage to put this next to yet. If anyone can give me a suggestion that would be nice. Plus I get extremely excited when people post comments and give me new things to think about.

It's time to go to sleep so I can be awake for those "moments" tomorrow. With the help of the Spirit I can put my faith in knowing that if I take advantage of the moments I will have the words ready to share.

Is there better things to argue about?

So now we have the "under God guy" Michael Newdow fighting to get In God We Trust off of United States currency. Apparently this statement is very offensive to him and should be of great important to a religously free country. Read about it here.

Common Struggles

Last night at our weekly bible study we did something called a faith walk. Basically the idea is you go around in a circle and share how your faith has developed across your whole life. The rest of the group listens and can also ask questions if they might want to know further about something that is mentioned. This was the first time that I have really ever done something like this. As it turned out we barely got through half the people there before we decided it would be better to continue on later.

What I guess I noticed was that many of the people that were talking had dealt with a lot of the same problems that I had. This is something that people always talk about the idea that everyone goes through a lot of the same stuff you just never really think about it. Anyways it was comforting to find out some of the people that have also experienced the same types of problems I have had in dealing with my faith instead of just assuming that everyone else has them too.

What really is ours?

My pastor gave a sermon this week which focused a lot on stewardship. Not the idea that we should be giving more money than we are but realizing that all that we have been given was given in a way that it might glorify God.

He told a story about a couple of guys Jim and George. George had a rake that one year he loaned to Jim so that he could rake his leaves. Jim raked his leaves but never remembered to give the rake back to George. Each year Jim would use the rake for his leaves in the fall, grass clippings in the summer, and various other times throughout the year. See since he used it every year he just kept forgetting it belonged to George. The problem was not that Jim ever broke the rake and was afraid to give it back. In fact he took very good care of it like it was his own rake. Over time he had completely forgotten George loaned it to him and he now thought it was his own. George did get the rake back though a few years later when Jim died. His family was going through the shed and came across a rake that had the name George on it. They then returned the rake to its rightful owner. See the fact that Jim used that rake for so long never meant that he owned it. Ownership is not transferred by use as my pastor stated.

Then where does this leave us. Well in the same way God loans us all the we have including the body that we inhabit on Earth. He gives us these things and expects us to take care of them, but no matter how long we use them they are never truly ours. They have always been God's. So do we really own anything? The answer would be no, we are only using our gifts from God for our purposes here on Earth. "Ownership is not transferred by use."

Which is more important?

So I started thinking this morning which of these holidays can be considered the most important. Christmas the day our savior was born or Easter the day that he rose again proving that he was the savior? Any thoughts would be appreciated.