Chocolate Jesus

(HT to BHT)

I find it funny (ironic) that it sometimes takes a person outside of the mainstream of Christianity to see what most people within the mainstream are blind too.

There's a lot of talk these days about the Emergent Church (as a denomination) and the emerging church (as a movement). It seems every generation wants to make church palatable to their peers. For me, in the 80's, it was letting guitars and drums in the church. Since that wasn't going to happen at my Baptist church, we snuck off to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa where Chuck Smith understood that the medium wasn't the message. And Chuck's message was Christ and the scriptures. Or we hit Harvest in Riverside where the worship team included a Brit who could burn the blues along with a sax player that wailed. Again, Greg's message was Christ and the scriptures. (This is not saying other churches were not doing this, I'm using both of those as examples.)

In the late 80's into the early 90's, we were "seeker sensitive". We were mega-churching like there was no tomorrow. We had to have a "purpose driven church" and the Saddleback model was the in thing. The church provided a "christian" place to hang. Coffee shop, workout gym, daycare, Friday night get-togethers, Saturday services, Sunday services, rock concerts, care groups, small groups, you name it, you could find it at your local mega-church. And the message was the medium was the message. The style of church was what was important more than the content of the teaching. And the teaching couldn't be overly disturbing because after-all, I've brought my unsaved friend here so the wonderful and witty Pastor can save his soul.

Now we are emerging. We are having an "experience" with Jesus within our "community". We are in the middle of a "conversation" where we can lecture God, question God, and derive our own comfortable answers because we have "freedom in Christ". Again, it becomes about imagery and content; candles and multi-media, gatherings and contemplation. Again, we bring our unsaved friends to this "cool" church and let the "Creative Visionary" (read Pastor) who won't call himself a Christian because of the baggage that word carries but instead he's a "Follower of Christ". "Cool" says the unsaved friend. "I feel wanted here. Nothing is uncomfortable. I've found a spirituality that, if I didn't know better, was just like what I find at my local Starbucks."

Tom Waits, ironically, satircally, calls it a "candy shop" for people who don't want to go to church on Sunday morning. They find their "chocolate Jesus" and He's just alright for them. Soft, creamy, chewy, mouth-watering, sweet, delicious, non-bitter; the perfect taste for the weary, searching soul.

I'm 42. I grew up in church; specifically a Baptist church. I've watched these new iterations of church come along. I used to laugh at my elders who were skeptical of these new ways of doing church. Now I think they knew something I didn't know in my youth. I think it's something that only comes with age and experience. And I think I have figured something out.

Church isn't necessarily for the unsaved. Church isn't the "saving station". It's not a place for you to bring your unsaved friends for the sole purpose of having the Pastor win their souls for Christ. I think church's primary goal is to provide an temporary place of rest for the saved. It's a place for the saved to learn and grow in the scriptures. A place to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" so that when you leave you are better equipped to be a Christian in the big, bad world around you. What style it takes is secondary. If candles do it for you, great. Light em up. If songs written before 1995 are forbidden, fine. But remember it's not the songs or the candles or the pictures on the walls or the coffee shop or the book store or the multi-media but the content of what's being preached that is important. If all you get is a good-time, rock-and-roll, happy-clappy 2 hour joy ride then you've missed the point. If you're not being fed the Word, good, bad and ugly, then you're wasting your time. Go to a night club. Go to open mic night at the local coffee house.

I see modern, emerging, seeker, purpose-driven churches like this:

You see a door. It opens into a great, big room with lots of cool, flashy stuff. Beyond it is another door and behind that door is another room, not quite as big but it's for those who have progressed to the point where they've decided this is a place I could belong. It is in this room that they find very few threatening things. Nothing ever gets very uncomfortable during the conversation and this is where most people seeking a deeper spiritual side to their lives will reside. But beyond this room is another door. It leads to a smaller room still. It's not as flashy, not as comfortable. As a matter of fact, it's quite gritty. It's real life. Non candy-coated. It's where Jesus resides. Only a few of us go into that room. Some of us bounce back and forth between the 2nd and 3rd rooms. But those who go into that room discover something that those who don't enter miss. A realization that a chocolate Jesus eventually melts when things get hot. The real Jesus doesn't.

Eric

What The Bible Says About...

"Marriage

Parenting

Men

Women

Food

Sex

Money"

(HT to BHT)

Eric

World Clock

(HT to Think Christian.net)

Someone shot me a link to the World Clock, a fascinating collection of significant national and world stats illustrated in an operable clock. Instead of just time, it also shows how many…

* births
* deaths
* diseases (from cancer to HIV)
* abortions
* cars produced
* prison population

Like I said, a fascinating collection. Who knows if any of it is true, but it seems to be based on common statistics data out there.

Reflections?

Interesting....

Eric

Weekend Wrap-Up

Friday - Had to work. Covered a shift for one of my pilots who was moving. No big deal...now he owes me!

Why is it that grown-ups can't play nice? What is it? Why do we think all those rules we were taught as kids now all of a sudden don't apply? Is it merely the fact that we are grown-ups? That's what I used to think. (I still use that excuse with my kids...usually tongue-in-cheek with a wink and a nod.) Especially if they are supposed to be professionals. I know not everyone is going to be best buds, but come to work, do the job you were hired to do, get along professionally with your co-workers and don't try to get anyone fired!

Enough on that subject...some of them read this blog!

Saturday - Yard work. I hate my trees. I hate leaves. I have 7 oak trees in my small backyard which, if left to their own devices, would shed not only leaves and acorns but branches as well. I swear, the next time I have extra money, down they come. I'm sure someone could use some very nice oak for their wood stove. But on the bright side, I did get to use my new weed-whacker. You never realize how bad your old stuff is until you get new stuff. My old TV...really bad. My old computer...really slow. My old weed-whacker...really bad and really slow. This new one cuts through everything like buttah!

Sunday - Sunday is church. We attend a Calvary Chapel here in Redding. Our Pastor is a pretty straight forward, pull no punches kind of guy. I like him. He's a good expository preacher. Tells it like it is. But something niggles about dogmatism. Having been rabidly dogmatic about things in the past I'm a bit skittish when opinions are set in stone. Facts you can set in stone all day....love stone, hard facts. But making the case for something when not all the facts are in...causes me pause. The jury is still out on some issues. Why no details? Email me and we can discuss details. Been burned on this blog for discussing details regarding religion and politics. I know, I said in my statement above that toes might get stepped on but not all the facts are in and I refuse to opine in public and in detail without them. See the aforementioned burn.

Monday - Labour Day. Or Labor Day. We decided to hit the road for Sacramento and see the State Fair...and the "Weird Al" Yankovic concert, "Straight Outta Lynnwood!" We almost didn't go. It was freakin' hot and I started getting vapor-lock. Had to crash for about an hour in the grass and shade. Wife said I didn't look too good. But I'm glad I went. The boy and I had a blast. The daughter even got into it. The wife tolerates (secretly enjoys!) Al. My son said it was "sooo cool!" The kids thanked us over and over for taking them to see the concert. The man is a genius. Understands parody and satire. Makes great songs and skewers popular culture at the same time. What more could one ask for? Plus I got a great t-shirt to wear under my flight suit at work declaring me "White and Nerdy"! The boy got one that said, "Weird Al is my Homeboy!" He wore it to school today!


One last thing before I go. Everyone by now has heard Miss Teen South Carolina's answer to the question why 1/5 of American's can't find the USA on a map. Rush Limbaugh was talking about this today and blamed liberal educators for focusing geography class on how one should feel when they see a picture of Iraq or South Africa. Blamed teachers for not teaching geography as it should. My answer to why 1/5 of American's can't identify their own country on a map is easy....













They're stupid.






Yup...stupid. Either that or they didn't pay attention in class, or their parents didn't check up on their homework, or the teachers were more interested in making the kids pass a test than learning the subject. But bottom line is this...they're stupid. And stupid is as stupid does. Or even better yet...


You can't fix stupid.


(Some toes were harmed in the posting of this blog. Those toes were deemed sturdy enough to handle a little stepping upon. Should you feel they weren't....get a life.)

Eric

I'm Much Safer Now...Thanks!

(HT to my cousin Jeff...for he sends this along to my Mother who sent it to me!)

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the email about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the
$15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup water in the microwave
anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Tar get since they are French and don't support our
American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan

I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown
African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it
bites my butt.

Thank you too for all the endless advice Andy Rooney has given us. I can live a better life now because he's told us how to fix everything

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 I dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

Oh, and don't forget this one either!

I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas
companies!

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 47,000 people in the next 47
minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:47 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 47 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...

Have a wonderful day....AND

A scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain and sexual activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late...

Eric

Words of Wisdom

Over at the BHT, Jim Nicholson posted this as he marked his 46th birthday...

For all my life, I believed that the message of the gospel was this: God loves us so much that he will let us go our own way, walk away from his will, and make a mess out of our lives, and when we hit the bottom and have no place else to turn, he will come to us and bring us back to himself. And all of that is true, all of that is in the gospel that Jesus proclaimed to us.

But now I realize that the gospel is something far more mysterious, something far more disturbing, something far more difficult to accept, because the message of the gospel is also this: God loves us so much that he will let us try to walk in his ways, let us do the right things and be the right people, and our lives will still end up a mess. And when we reach the place where we realize just how useless our efforts to be righteous and pure and good are, and how God has absolutely no use for them, he will come to us and bring us back to himself.

I am convinced that God is as weary of our efforts to be fine, upstanding, moral people as we (if we are honest with ourselves) are. And I’ve reached a place where I’m no longer willing to make those efforts any longer. I’m tired of trying to do what God has already done for me. I’m tired of moving toward Someone I can never reach, especially when he is already standing right next to me all the time.
Posted by: Jim Nicholson

Eric

2011

My son will graduate from High School in 2011. That seems weird for some reason. My
daughter will graduate in 2012. Still weird. But here's some things put together by Beloit College that makes us born in the 60's go "hmmmm...."

THE BELOIT COLLEGE MINDSET LIST FOR THE CLASS OF 2011

Most of the students entering college this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead.

1. What Berlin wall?
2. Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
3. Rush Limbaugh and the "Dittoheads" have always been lambasting liberals.
4. They never "rolled down" a car window.
5. Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
7. They have grown up with bottled water.
8. General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
9. Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.
11. Rap music has always been mainstream.
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
13. "Off the hook" has never had anything to do with a telephone.
14. Music has always been "unplugged."
15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
16. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
18. The NBA season has always gone on and on and on and on.
19. Classmates could include Michelle Wie, Jordin Sparks, and Bart Simpson.
20. Half of them may have been members of the Baby-sitters Club.
21. Eastern Airlines has never "earned their wings" in their lifetime.
22. No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of "liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."
23. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
24. Being "lame" has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled.
25. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN.
26. Katie Couric has always had screen cred.
27. Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
28. They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola "MagiCan."
29. They were too young to understand Judas Priest's subliminal messages.
30. When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility.
31. Multigrain chips have always provided healthful junk food.
32. They grew up in Wayne's World.
33. U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as "The Joker."
35. Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
36. American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
37. Commercial product placements have been the norm in films and on TV.
38. On Parents' Day on campus, their folks could be mixing it up with Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz with daughter Zöe, or Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford with son Cody.
39. Fox has always been a major network.
40. They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-head laugh.
41. The "Blue Man Group" has always been everywhere.
42. Women's studies majors have always been offered on campus.
43. Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
44. Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
46. Most phone calls have never been private.
47. High definition television has always been available.
48. Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
49. Virtual reality has always been available when the real thing failed.
50. Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.
51. China has always been more interested in making money than in reeducation.
52. Time has always worked with Warner.
53. Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
54. The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
55. MTV has never featured music videos.
56. The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
57. Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
58. They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
59. They're always texting 1 n other.
60. They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said "goodbye to rusty cars."
63. Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
64. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil.
65. Illinois has been trying to ban smoking since the year they were born.
66. The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
67. Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been debilitating and controversial.
68. Burma has always been Myanmar.
69. Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
70. Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

Copyright 2007 by Beloit College, 700 College St., Beloit, Wisconsin 53511

Eric

I Hate Cats

Not just because I'm allergic to them, I just don't like cats. Not a cat person.

But these are hilarious!

I am in ur chare

LOL Cats

Meme Cats


Cat. The other white meat!

Eric

Check Your Facts!

I was a reporter once. Not a journalist. Just a reporter and a news anchor for a newstalk radio station. I was told to be objective and check my facts...over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

Unfortunately, some people put politics and ideology ahead of good, honest reporting.

There is an answer.

Humiliate these people. Or as Rush Limbaugh used to say, "illustrate absurdity by being absurd."

The Dissident Frogman shows us how.

Eric

Us vs. Them

Long ago, when I was a young, hip youth worker, I ran a Campus Life club for some Jr. Highers here in Redding. As part of my ministry (I was on part-time staff...raising my own support), I was required to attend a leadership training meeting where we devised a basic curriculum for Jr. High groups within Campus Life. Something one of the guys from Sacramento said has stuck with me from way back in 1992. He worked with inner-city youths in the downtown Sacto area. He said that people in the world will continue to move apart...rich v. poor, haves vs have-nots, Republicans vs. Democrats, conservatives vs. liberals, Christians vs. everybody else.

I think he had a moment of prophetic clarity.

We expect a level of Us vs. Them mentality as the each big group (see the list in the previous paragraph) continue to fragment into smaller and smaller groups who's like-mindedness narrows considerably eventually coming to a point where the only group you have is a bunch of individuals.

In this post Jared Wilson finds this has reared its ugly head within the Body of Christ and it disgusts him. (HT to BHT)

I have to agree.

It's like the old Bill Cosby routine where he's talking about the movie "Hud". In his routine he's talking about two cowboys who, in the movie, are shooting the cows because of hoof and mouth disease and, according to Cosby, their conversation goes something like...

"Why are we shooting these cows?"
"Because they have hoof and mouth disease."
"What's hoof and mouth disease?"
"See that foam around their mouths?"
"Yeah"
"That's hoof and mouth disease."
"Oh"
"Looks like you got some on you too...BANG!"

Something like that...

Eric