Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Calendar Mistake (Gasp!)

Okay, I messed up. I have Drink Deep (our regular Sunday Night activity) scheduled for Sept. 3rd, a holiday weekend. My bad. There will be no Drink Deep that night. Sorry for all the confusion it has caused. I have fixed it on the website, but the newsletter will be wrong too (I had to get it done early since I'm going to Canada), so ignore it, sorry, tell everyone you can.

See you all next week!

T

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Castaway

That's the movie that was on TV tonight: Castaway. Now I didn't really watch it, I just turned it on here and there when I wasn't doing other things, but I happened to catch a few scenes that run together.

I know we've talked a lot about how much we have here in America, especially after going to Mexico and sponsoring our Compassion children, how we don't really need all that we have. There's a scene near the beginning of the movie, Chuck has just gotten on the island and manages to kill a crab. It's a tiny little crab, but it's meat. The problem is he can't build a fire. After a few tries, bleeding hands, all sorts of problems, he finally gets it and cooks his little crab.

Fast forward to the end of the movie. He's saved. Back in America, at a big party being paid for by FedEx. Everyone leaves and you seem him look down, picking up this huge leg of king crab, then picking up a bic lighter and flicking it a few times, realizing just how useful those things would have been.

Then, near the end, his former fiance gives him the keys to his car. On it, a Swiss Army Knife. You can totally see on his face how he took it for granted every day, but on the island, it could have saved him so much trouble and helped him do so much more.

So look at what you have. Be thankful for what you have. Then give what you have. There are so many people out there living on less than what you pay for a McDonald's Double Cheezeburger, for a Coke from the machine, or any one of the thousands of other things we buy on a whim, not because we need it, but because we feel like it, a tiny part of our day, that could feed, clothe and educate someone else.

Mommy always said it was good to share...

T

Desecrating The Temple

So this morning I'm reading from that old devotional book and it quotes a verse in Jeremiah 51 talking about desecrating sacred things. To give a little background, at the time, Babylon has sacked Israel and left it in ruins. The section is talking about how people would no longer treat God's temple as it should be, how Babylonians would just walk through it without care for Who's it was. They would enter the Holy of Holies, the room of the temple where God resided, thinking nothing of it. This really saddens me and hits me hard, for some reason it always has, to think that we take something Holy that belongs to God and desecrate it because of our ignorance, laziness or just the fact we don't care.

Then the writer goes on to say the church is like that today. Now, this is a book from England and his example was the church. Again, so you understand, the Church of England is the national church and is run by the government. That means the government can choose what goes on there and who teaches / preaches there (many nationalized churches in Europe are like this). So, that means you could go to a church where the pastor is not even a Christian, he's just someone who is a friend of a friend of someone in the political circle. Kind of sad yet true.

And then later on today it hits me. We do this all the time! Reason? Because we are now God's temple. I Corinthians 6:19-20 says, "Or don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." (NLT). Every time we take who we are for granted, when we act in a selfish way, when we do something to our soul that God does not intend for us to do, we are desecrating the temple all over again just as the Babylonians did 2700 years ago. So we need to realize who we are as a temple of the Holy Living God and start living the way we should.

Kinda deep and depressing, but now you know how my day has been :)

I Peter 2:5 - "And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What's more, you are God's holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ." (NLT)

T

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Back Into Schedule

So how's everyone doing getting back into their schedules? Even though mine hasn't really changed yet, I'm already having trouble.

I had a nice scare this morning. Lorie woke me up, I could hear the alarm going in the background, and she's going, "Troy, you're late! You have McPrayer!" Hearing the McP word makes me jump up and look around, the first thing I look at is the clock, where it says 7:16, which means that not only is McPrayer over, but people have no way to get to school and I'm now too late to get them there. I yell "crap" really loudly and am about to jump up and go, but then lie back down.

"Um, honey, it's Thursday."

So don't worry if you're not quite back in your schedule yet, none of us are :)

T

Monday, August 14, 2006

Back To School Bash

Sorry I didn't get this up last night, I was too busy picking chocolate out of my nose. I'll explain...

Last night was the Back To School Bash. Good times had by all. All being over 110 students. Now, I had made a deal with our lovely students, if they got 150 people there I would get a pie in the face. For those non-math majors out there, they are a little under 40 short from their goal.

So I said no. And the boo's started and I think someone was even crying in the back, but no. A deal's a deal. They didn't hold up their end of the bargain, I'm not holding up mine. That's how life works. Watch some Judge Judy. You'll learn.

But then someone gets the bright idea. Wait, would Troy get a pie in the face if we raise money for our new Compassion Child? So not fair because, of course, how do I say no to a starving person overseas? So I say if they raise $100 in the next five minutes, fine, they can pie me.

And this is what you get for $233.75


T

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Pre-occupied

Hey all, sorry it's been a while. I really haven't had much on my mind except for Sunday since it's the Back To School Bash, so make sure you come out Sunday @ 6:00.

On a lighter note, I'm watching one of the best bands of all time playing a show in New York City thanks to the magic of internet. The funny part, the guitarist, after playing this song for 20 years like 80 million albums ago, he messed up, and it had to be when the camera was on him close up. He has to have played this song at least 4 billion times in his life and he still messed up. Give me hope :)

T

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

A Thankful Point Of View

This will be short, but it was something I was reading today. Many years ago there was a man named Matthew Henry, a great theologian who wrote a commentary on the entire bible (you can read it at crosswalk.com).

The story goes that one day while traveling he was robbed. That night, he wrote in his diary that the robbery caused him to be thankful for four things. "Let me be thankful first, because I was never robbed before. Second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life. Third, though they took my all, it was not much. And fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed."

How's your outlook on being robbed?

T

Monday, August 07, 2006

God's Plans Never make Sense Until After...

A little bedtime story for you all. Friday, Taylor, our wonderful drummer tells me he cannot be at Youth Sunday night to play drums. I email him back and ask if he will still be there Sunday morning for church. No answer. Check Saturday night, no answer. Sunday morning, no Taylor.

Now at this point I love Taylor but I kinda want to hurt hum. Just a little. At the kneecaps. But he's not there to hurt anyway. We have a full band for the first time in forever with no drummer. So we shuffle. I move to drums. But then we need someone to lead. Wes gets to do that. Now another small problem. Wes doesn't know all the songs well enough to lead, so we have to do some shuffling of music as well. All sorts of problems. Right now, Taylor's kneecaps are probably itching wherever he is.

And then it happens. Our time of corporate worship, good. But then Wes sings his special music he was scheduled for, an old hymn from years gone by, and God just hits him. Hits him hard. He's crying while singing. He lifts his hands (this is the guy who three years ago in youth when I told the youth they could raise their hands in worship he looked at me and said, "What are we, Baptists?"). And then, the last during the last song God hits him even harder.

So Taylor, I'm glad you weren't there. I'm still going for your kneecaps, but God had a better plan, better than any of us had planned. I just think it's funny that we do our best to follow God's plan, and I honestly believe we were, we were doing what God wanted, He actually intended to mess us up just so we wouldn't be so set in our ways so something could happen.

Go God.

T

Friday, August 04, 2006

Jr. High Parents!!

A little alert for all those waiting to retrieve your offspring. The Jr. High Missions trip is expected to return at 6:30pm. That was the last update we were given.

T

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Crowning The Year With Goodness

No, this expression wasn't made up by me. It's from Psalm 65:11, talking about the harvest (I read a really, really old devotional book occasionally and this was the one for today, all in old English and King James).

But it makes a good point. We have a ton of things to be thankful for, at least in Fishers. After being to Mexico you would think many people now see how Fishers is almost the polar opposite. We have everything. And I mean everything, at least material. But the devotion talked about how harvest was a time of thanksgiving, the best time of the year since it is the time God pours out His abundance on us.

I mean, really, think about it. Harvest makes no sense. Take an ear of corn. Rip off all the kernels (let's say you get 150). Plant them. What do you get? 150 stalks, let's say 5 ears of corn each = 750 ears of corn from a single ear to begin with. What kind of freakishly stupid math is that?

God's math.

So be thankful for what you have and how God made it for you. As the devotional put it:
Let us render it by the inward emotions of gratitude. Let our hearts be warmed; let our spirits remember, meditate, and think upon this goodness of the Lord. Then let us praise Him with our lips, and laud and magnify His name from whose bounty all this goodness flows. Let us glorify God by yielding our gifts to His cause. A practical proof of our gratitude is a special thank-offering to the Lord of the harvest.

T