Isaias Gabriel

I was listening to the latest (#27) BoredAgainChristian podcast tonight and got a real treat when he played a cut called Amen from Isaias Gabriel. You can download this cut and others from his website.

Isaias was "Just Pete"'s translator when he was in the Domincian Republic on a short term missions trip but, as things just sometimes work out, also a musician with some songs to play.

If you like music that is a multi-cultural I think you'll enjoy this cut. One of the things I liked was the simplicity of the background music.

Thanks Isaias!

Religion and Politics

Warning.... If the discussion of politics and religion is a hot button with you... Don't read any further.

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I see that you are still here...

Through much of the reading I have been doing and a lot of what I have been observing lately a large question looms....

What does your political stance have to do with your religion?

A little background. Way back.

If you read the New Testament there are two standout verses which talk about your Christianity and Politics.

First is the incident in Matthew where Jesus is asked whether to pay taxes or not... His reply was to give the government what it is due.

The second is in Romans where Paul talks about citizenship both here on earth and spiritually.

In much of the evangalical circles, politics serves as a BIG issue. I was told by a friend to "Vote for Bush because he is 'Gods' choice" (paraphrase). It seems that, depending on the culture of the church you are in you are not holy enough if you are not a _________:

• African-American church - Democrat
• White church - Republican

I recently heard a "Christian" radio station program where their reason to be was to fight the ACLU.

Do you think we are taking Paul's warning to heart?

Romans 13:11-14 (The Message)

But make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!

Before jumping to conclusions, however, let me state my thoughts.

1. Every political stance will typically have it's positives and negatives... My job is to determine the best position for ME (not you) to take.
2. I am to be involved in the political process by voting, voicing my opinion etc.
3. I am not, however, to let politics control or define my relationship with God.
4. There are more important things than politics in this world.
5. God has things under control!
   

Lifechurch.tv

Tonight, I listened to the latest Lifechurch message called "The Sickness Within - Control". The speaker is Chris Spradling who lived in Steamboat for some time with his family.

He is entertaining but also quite down to earth.

One of my favorite stories of his is in his message "Meds - Know Pain, Know Gain" (The link is to an iTunes URL so I am not sure how it will act for you).

ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

It's interesting to see the changes in maturity in the last six months with Kyle. Not physical but mental and spiritual. I suspect that Karate has something to do with that but here goes a partial list.

• He was the one who wanted to become an apprentise in Karate because "I want to help other kids".
• His report card was all A's and B's this last quarter
• He was the one to volunteer to help with the 4 & 5 year olds at Vacation Bible School, in spite of his mom thinking he should help with a different age group.
• The other day, he helped a friends mother with bringing in groceries while his friend did not.
• He has been standing up for what is right instead of what is borderline while playing with the neighbors.
  

I know that sometimes the motivation is money (getting paid for chores instead of an allowance), some is to get those "coach stripes" for Karate but I see less and less of those motivations and more and more just "doing what is right".

How to keep up on your blogs...

I have quite a few blogs I read and, as I have mentioned before, quite a few podcasts that I listen to as well.

One of the challenges it keeping up with the things you are interested in. The web has a solution. It is called RSS which stands for "Really Simple Syndication". If you look at the bottom of the info bar (to the right at the time of this writing), you will see a small image that looks like . Clicking on that image gives you a pretty ugly looking page with my blog articles on them.

Using one of several programs known as feed aggregators, you can, however, subscribe and be notified when new items are posted. This also works for podcasts as well.

Some of the aggregators I have found and use are:

• Mozilla Thunderbird - Largely used for email, it will also subscribe to RSS feeds as well. This is not a recommendation because most people like what they are using for email but that is one possibility. Your current email program may have something like this.
  
• WinPodder - I just took that program for a short spin. The interface is pretty easy to use and, one big selling point, is free. It comes pre-subscribed to several podcasts, including one of my favorites... Coverville.
• Bloglines, Google Personal page, Live.com - All these are web based. Bloglines is probably one of the easiest to get set up. The others have varying degrees of ease.
• RSSPopper - If you are a user of Microsoft Outlook, have a look at the RSSPopper extension. It creates a folder where all your feeds go. This also works in Outlook Express.

While the aggregators mentioned above are freeware of some sort (open source or availble on the web), you may find they dont meet you needs. There is a list of new aggregators here. See if you find something that will work for you.

A thought for this next week...

Albert Einstein said...

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

He also said...

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Think about that as you go through your week.

Frappr!

I don't know why but I am somewhat tempted to start a Frappr! group.

What is Frappr!? If you read my post on Web 2.0, then explore Frappr!, you'd see that is is part of that generation of websites.

Frappr! takes Google Maps and combines it with a MySpace concept. Let me first make it clear that I am not a huge fan of MySpace. Like most things, if used properly, it is pretty nice. There are a lot of people out there that have decided to use it improperly.

I just have a lot of fun playing. I have also joined a few map groups like Linux Users, Coverville and PodQuiz. The default group I didn't join, however, is those that have birthdays on mine... That one is fun to look at. Right now, only 359 people admit to that.

Here is the downside to Frappr!... Sometimes you learn way to much about people.

Life on the BIG BUS!

Since we moved to Brighton, I have been taking the RTD to downtown. For some time, I drove several miles to a Park-N-Ride for a more frequent route. For the most part, I have been taking our regional bus. I figure the $1 increase in cost between the regional and express was well worth it in gasoline and wear and tear on the Toyota truck I drive.

These days, with the increased cost of fuel, more and more people are riding the bus regularly. Most of the routes take a rather circuitous trip but one, the Rx is much more direct. It is also much more full. In fact, we are predictably getting several people standing in at least one direction. Tonight, there were no seats for 4 of us.

I am proud to say, all those standing were men. We only had to stand for 20 minutes or so but at times, things got a little tense with sudden braking.

Why blog this? I was talking to one of the women in the seat next to where I was standing who thanked me for doing that. She mentioned something about being all for "women's lib" when it comes to pay but really liked chivalry when full seats on the bus was involved.

What is chivalry about? It is not that I am stronger, more fit or more durable (or any other capability based measure for that matter) than a women. When it comes to "gallantry toward women", it is about respect. I respect the women who ride that bus home with me. I respect them enough that when it comes to giving up some of my comfort, I am willing to stand until seats are available.

Now if only the RTD board would add another Rx route....

Guitar Players

A couple of guitarists that I enjoy are Dave Beegle and Phil Keaggy. As I was searching Google's video libraries, I ran across these. They are both long so be prepared.

Dave Beegle


Phil Keaggy

More Rock & Roll Favorites...

One of my favorite Rock & Roll instruments is the keyboard, embodied by the piano and Hammond B3. My favorites include Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson.

You can see Rick Wakeman perform in this 3 minute video.

Gwen and others...

The other day, in worship band practice Gwen Stefani's (photo left) name came up. Why? I don't know. One of the challenges with Rock & Roll music, however is finding a good and successful female vocalist that "can rock". Gwen is one of those.

My favorites include Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane), Aretha Franklin, Heather Nova, Linda Ronstadt, and Tori Amos. There are quite a few others. In fact, I was a fan of Suzie McNeil on last summer's Rock Star INXS.

Now, in the not quite as successful (and not really Rock & Roll profession), in my opinion, you can't beat Deborah Holland and Maddy Prior.

Old games, new locations

One of my favorite games in the past few years has been Lemmings. I found a version of it online, saving me having to install it. It is still fun to play, figuring out how to get those little guys from where they fall from the sky to home. I found it at funnyGames.nl.

Another game site for old games is 1980 Games which has games like Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and Pac Man as well as others from the 1980s.

Hit too hard....

Ok, rather than a pat on the back, I must have really nailed myself.

I noticed that a recent edit to the blog template left the blog a little unreadable, at least in Firefox...

Back to almost normal (sort of).

A pat on the back

To myself this time.... I filled my truck up. This is the first time in 40 days. How did I do that? It includes:

• The truck is small so gets reasonable gas mileage.
• Since the truck is small, I also don' t have a lot of family riding.
• Most of the miles I put on are to the bus stop and back.
• Few other trips than the commute to the bus stop.
• Several days off due to vacations and holidays.
  

Do I think I can do that often? No, this was not normal. On the other hand, the truck is 18 years old and still has only 95000 miles....

Goals & Dreams

As of the last few years, one of my dreams has been to take all my vinyl (records for those of you who do not remember) and change it into digital (computer & CD) to make it easier to listen to.

I was recently reading a review of a turntable that connects to a computer via USB. That may be the answer!

Distributed with this device is open source software called "Audacity" which is a slick little recording program that can be used for all sorts of audio editing. It is, in fact, multi-track recording software... Cool!

Take a pebble

No, not the Emerson Lake & Palmer song.

My friend Dave, wrote a post a while back about caring for his lawn... I was in the same position yesterday. Due to our heat, lack of rain (to be expected in a semi-arid climate) and poor coverage of our sprinklers in a couple of spots it was time for yard work.

Marj and I went out and tuned several of the sprinkler heads. Our main concern, however, was a sprinkler head that did not pop up at all.

This was never a problem where I grew up. We normally didn't have to worry about keeping the lawn green through irrigation but, this is Colorado so... I started digging and following the line. After digging through 2 feet of clay, we found the coupler between the 1" and 1/2" line... No leaks, cuts of evidence of problems until.....

I blew back through the line and felt something break free. Marj flipped on the water with promise and... nothing. Try it again and.... nothing. We disassemble the line and... a pebble.

This small pebble had been blocking the line inside the coupler. One trip to get parts (usually it takes me three and, had it not been for the creativity of the sales assistant on the floor, it would have been at least two) and I have a working sprinkler head... Now if the grass comes back. I'll replace it it we see nothing by next weekend.

We also have mulched rings around the trees now. We felt that this looks better, makes mowing easier and prevented damage from the weed wackers so.... pull up more sod. A tiring day....

Version 4.0

No, this is not an advertisement, in fact, I took the link off the picture. It is one I found for Nero, a cd writing software if you must know. It does illustrate the thought here.

One of the things about language, especially the English spoken in America is that it changes... For instance, I still have a problem understanding the stereotypical "getto" talk and it only gets worse as I age.

Today I ran across this verse in Ephesians and I thought I would tell you about my upgrades. Bible upgrades.

First off.... Why upgrade? Some time ago, I blogged about a group that things there is only one "Authentic Version" of the Bible. I have never believed this... In fact, if the meaning of the pages stays the same, the best version is the one your read and understand. Case in point. The first Bible I remember having as a kid was the King James.... It reads....

Eph 2:1
"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins"

The next version I remember getting in High School was the Living Bible. The controversy around The Living Bible is that it was a paraphrases (in essence, translated twice)... I can't, however, seem to find a version on line to show you.

In College, the first bunch of people I hung around with were suggesting the New American Standard Bible would be a better choice if I wanted something more modern... It reads.

Eph 2:1
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

The next group used the Revised Standard Version so I got one of those... Again, I can't find one on line but it reads...

Eph 2:1
And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins...

While most of my friends upgraded to the New International Version, I stuck with the Revised Standard for years and years.

My latest upgrade was to The Message. This is the Bible version that has got me reading again. It reads...

Eph 2:1
It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.

One of the things I realized about language many years ago is that it is used to paint pictures in your head... The way most of us think. Which one paints a better picture?

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The sad part is, like my old software, most of my old versions sit on the shelf collecting dust.

There are some advantages to having the old ones around, however. Our language is not very precise, Hebrew and Greek are more precise in some ways. Examples of this are the word translated "Love" in the new testament has 3 different meanings but that is a different subject.

Lately, I have been using software called E-Sword, Bible study software which has indexes into the definitions of the words used. The basis for this is, of course, The King James Version.

If you want a challenge, the first edition of the Living Bible paraphrased I Sam 20:30... "You son of a bitch".... I was shocked to see they talked like that back then. See where these different translations lead you.

Decoration/Memorial Day

The following post was written by my Aunt (see the article below) to her grandchildren. Since William Ray Frederick was my grandfather, I (with permission) changed it to first person for posting here.

My father, your grand father, William Ray Frederick, was drafted and taken into the Army in World War I. He served in France and his life was spared when the Armistice was signed and the war was officially over. He was in Co. K, 352nd Inf., 88th Division. His division stayed on in France after the war to do clean up work and fill trenches, etc.

When he had been back farming for a year or two, the American Legion was formed and he was a charter member of the Cyclops Post 109 in Lisbon. One of the things the Legion did was to hold military services for those who died after they were out of the service. But, they also went to cemeteries on Decoration Day and held memorial services for those buried in different cemeteries. Daddy play the bugle and was the official bugler to play taps for any kind of memorial service. One of those times was for Decoration Day which was on May 31 every year.

To commemorate Decoration Day, at our home, it started the day before. Daddy washed the car so that when we went to the services he and his family arrived in a clean car.

On Decoration Day we got up early, but did not go with Daddy to the first service. He, several men of the Legion who were on the firing squad, one who carried the American flag and several other Legionnaires, went to the Andre Cemetery. That cemetery was, and still is, in the country east of Lisbon. The men held a service, the firing squad did the salute by firing guns in unison at least 3 times and then Daddy played taps.

After he got back from that service we all got in the car and drove to the Lisbon Cemetery. Mama had cut flowers from our garden, usually they were iris and peonies, and we took them along to the cemetery. We all 4 helped and put flowers on the graves of our family members. The American Legion Auxiliary had already been to the cemetery and had put a red poppy on the graves of all of those who had served in the Civil War and World War I. Then we added our flowers, but we also put them on all the graves of our relatives buried there.

We had to hurry to get that done as we could hear the Lisbon High School Band coming from down town and marching to the cemetery. There was a program after they got there. One of the things was the president of the senior high school class spoke The Gettysburg Address, and then there was a special speaker, the firing squad and then Daddy played Taps. Usually they had another person who played bugle stand some distance away and play taps when Daddy finished. That was called the "echo" and was quite impressive.

We went home from there, but later in the day we again took flowers and drove down to the little village of Sutliff. It is south of Lisbon and on the Cedar River. This service was held on the bridge that crossed the river. It was held at sunset and honored those who died at sea. The Auxiliary had most of that service, but the Legion men helped. Since I was a charter member of the Junior Auxiliary I was also there. But I would have been there anyway as families were all there. All of the children that were there had little bouquets of flowers. One of the American Legion Auxiliary members recited a poem. I can still remember it.

"As sure as the rivers flow down to the sea
Our reverent love will follow and find thee
As sure as swift rivers flow down to the ocean
So swift and so sure is our heart's devotion."

Then we threw our flowers over the edge of the bridge and watched them float away on the current of the river. Then Daddy played Taps. When he finished the other bugler, who was down at the end of the bridge, played the echo. It was timed so well that when he finished the echo, the sun was also going down out of sight. It was so quiet and peaceful and very impressive.

It was especially meaningful to our family as my Mama's first cousin, Otis Beese, had been in the Navy. His ship went down in what is now called the Bermuda Triangle. There has never been a trace found of it. He was serving on the USS Cyclops. The American Legion Post in Lisbon was named for him and his picture hung in the meeting hall of the Post.

Now of course, poppies are put on the graves of those from World War II, Korean Conflict, and all other conflicts in which our country was and is involved. There was so much respect for the flag also. I will close with a verse from a poem that I heard Mama say so often.

"Hat's off! Along the street there comes
The sound of the bugle, the ruffle of drums.
A flash of color beneath the sky,
Hat's off! The flag is passing by!"

Additional comments. In the early years of Decoration Day services, the Legion men wore their service uniforms. I think that was stopped when they could no longer get in to them. Also, from my side of the house you have 12 ancestor grand fathers who were in the Revolutionary War; 3 great-great grandfathers in the Civil War, your great grand father in World War I, your grandfather in World War II, and your Uncle Leo in the Korean Conflict.

Sent with love from your Aunt, proud daughter of Cpl. William Ray Frederick.

Sitting in with the Porch

The call came on Thursday night over 1 week ago. They were in desperate need for a bass player. Not doing anything else that weekend, I was available!

I called and was, as it turned out, privileged to help! Solomon's Porch is a new (5 months old) church in Broomfield. They are building worship teams but, with new and limited resources, are borrowing from other churches. Northern Hills has been willing to help out in many ways I hear. I am just one of those ways.

They have been doing a series called "Loosing my Religion" but I think I caught the last one... Their sermons are available on line from their website (but not on iTunes) .

Breaking Growth Barriers....

The paper starts...

The average church size in the USA is 70, and
there are enough small churches that one would
think, upon reflection, that perhaps people have
chosen to cluster in small churches because of
specific benefits; these would include the following:

• Intimate and tightly-knit
• Like a small town: easy to know what others
• are doing and what they are learning
• Spiritually close

And continues on from there. ChurchMarketingSucks.com has a post about this .pdf available in their "Breaking Growth Barriers" posting.

Optional(g)

My friend Chang just started blogging... Check him out at Optional(g).

Ninja's and Superheros

With Kyle taking karate, he has a large fascination with Ninja, sort of a Japanese superhero but actually "agents of espionage and assassination in feudal Japan and in popular fiction".

Recently, I was talking to our worship leader Dave and some others and we mentioned how thrilling it could be to watch a "true to life" movie of King David in the Bible. One of my favorite stories (leading into the superhero theme) is not him killing Goliath but the story of three of his main guys.

2 Samuel 23:14-17 (The Message) reads:

One day during harvest, the Three parted from the Thirty and joined David at the Cave of Adullam. A squad of Philistines had set up camp in the Valley of Rephaim. While David was holed up in the Cave, the Philistines had their base camp in Bethlehem. David had a sudden craving and said, "Would I ever like a drink of water from the well at the gate of Bethlehem!" So the Three penetrated the Philistine lines, drew water from the well at the gate of Bethlehem, and brought it back to David. But David wouldn't drink it; he poured it out as an offering to God, saying, "There is no way, God, that I'll drink this! This isn't mere water, it's their life-blood--—they risked their very lives to bring it!" So David refused to drink it.

This is the sort of thing that the Three did.

This particular story reminds me of the fighting we saw in "Lord of the Rings" or chronicless of Narnia". Full abandon to make sure their leader was safe an comfortable.

What to wear today?

I am not, by any means, fashion conscious. I don't know why this popped into my head but I was wondering what I, as someone trying to follow Jesus, should be wearing. A trip to BibleGateway yielded this list (no particular order). I do not believe it is exhaustive.

• Righteousness (Job 29:14).
  
• God's Strength (Isaiah 52:1)
• Praise (Isaiah 61:3)
  
• Christ's life (Galatians 3:27)
• Incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:54)
• "The New Man" - us renewed (Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10)
• The Armor of God (Ephesians 6:11)
• Love (Colossians 3:14)

Interesting list.

More on Randall Balmer

As I read through "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory", I have seen a lot of truth in his observations.

In the latest section I read, he is talking about a "Bible Camp" that he observes and his experiences as a child. I found his observations interesting as he was talking.

"This differed, I suspect, from the message that brought my parents into the evangelical fold. They heard about their sinfulness, yes, but the complementary element of the law is God's grace, which saves us in spite of ourselves. Therein, as Luther realized, lies true freedom and liberation -- not in the observance of tiresome moralistic schemes, but the celebration of deliverance from sin in Christ. In time, first-generation evangelical converts learn the canon of evangelical taboos, but only after their experience of grace. For their children, however, the sequence often is reversed. As an evangelical parent, if you are concerned (understandably) about the spiritual welfare of your children, you will establish guidelines for them so they will grow up in the faith, or, more accurately, grow up with all the trappings of godliness. Their "conversions" then become adolescent (or pre-adolescent) rites of passage, often accompanied by fabricated emotions in order to convince their peers, their parents and most important, themselves of their sincerity." (page 106)

As often joked, I resemble that remarked, although I may be third or fourth generation. Reading this, then, there is no surprise that many of those that I grew up with are living lives where their childhood faith influences them very little.

My challenge, then, are to show the aspect of Grace, not rules, to my son!

Favorites not on the profile.

Blogger does a minimal job of trying to create networks, MySpace is much better but, as the media has pointed out, there are a lot of potential problems with that.

Favorites that they don't make room for on the profile are things like favorite Bible verse, chapter and book. I have been thinking about this lately and have come up with this list.

Verse: Isaiah 43:31
Chapter: Psalm 150
Book: Romans

A quick reminder....

Today, I was listening to the April 30 message from LiquidChurch. They started their message with this clip.

The reason I am posting it is because I was reminded of my friend Scott's post back in Novemeber titled "The Secret Agent Form of Christianese".


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Pushing out the sides of the box

Wednesday, my friend & worship leader Dan had lunch together (Thanks Dan). During lunch, one of the topics of conversation was "some of the outrageous things God has asked his people to do" and how our society would look at them.

In the evening, our other worship leader, Dave, talked about personal worship, the rules that the Apostle Paul (Saul) grew up under and how, with those rules & expectations, it is so easy to put God in a box. Then he asked us was are we living expectantly or with expectation, looking for God to show himself to us.

First, lets look at a couple of the what we may think of as "outrageous" moments in the Bible.

• In Gen 22:1-14, Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Isaac. Not a "Focus On The Family" moment by any means. In fact, if someone told us they were going to do this because "GOD TOLD ME TO", you'd call the police, have them arrested and their child put into foster care.
• In Isaiah 20:2-3, we see God telling Isaiah to walk around naked and barefoot for 3 years as a sign against Egypt and Cush (Northern Africa). Just to give you our view of that, I was downtown on the Mall shuttle a few years ago on the way to work and saw a guy stripping off his clothes and throwing them on the awning of the store he was in front of. My assumption was that it was not a command from God and "wasn't quite normal".

Does God ask us to do "outrageous" things these days? I think he does. I don't, however, think we listen well. I recently heard a podcast where the speaker was telling about meeting a guy who's mission was to become homeless to minister to the homeless in that city.

So, if you are asked (or prompted) by God to take a risk, how can you tell if it is from God or not. One of the best ways I know is to check it out against what God says in the Bible. Not to see if it has ever been done but to see if it is against what he says. Then, check it out with your family or church or a friend.

I decided I want to live on the edge of my seat... Take the box off my head. LIVE EXPECTANTLY!

To Blog...

One of my all time favorite movies is "The Princess Bride". The funny thing about the phrase "To Blog". It reminds me of the phrase when Wesley is at Miricle Max's.

The dialoge is as follows...

MIRACLE MAX(to Westley)

Hey! Hello in there. Hey! What's so important? What you got here that's worth living for?

And he presses lightly on Westley's chest.

WESTLEY

... tr ... oooo .... luv...

Everybody stares at Westley lying there on the bench.

INIGO

True love. You heard him. You could not ask for a more noble cause than that.

MIRACLE MAX

Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world. Except for a nice MLT, a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe. They're so perky, I love that. But that's not what he said. He distinctly said "to blave." And, as we all know, "to blave" means "to bluff." So you're probably playing cards, and he cheated --

A WOMAN'S VOICE

-- Liar -- LIAR-LI-A-A-AR --

Paper Basketball...

If you have some down time here is a little challenge....

http://www.widro.com/throwpaper.html

I DO feel appreciated!

This evening, the staff at church gave it's volunteers the night off.

Last year I missed this event but this year, Northern Hills volunteer appreciation banquet was wonderful. Northern Hills hosts a volunteer appreciation banquet every year. It cost us nothing but the gasoline to get there. This year, food was provided by KT's Barbeque, service by the staff at church and, after having each of the people in charge of the volunteers thank their crews, Dave, The Horn Guy showed up.

Dave was fun and entertaining! What a great evening! You can read more about the event here.

Randall Balmer

I first heard of Randall Balmer when I stumbled across a speech he gave at Calvin College over 2 years ago. You can find that speech, titled "After Billy Graham: The Future of American Protestantism", here but you need Real Audio to listen. I found he even answered the email I sent him after hearing the speech.

My next exposure to Randall was at Christmas last year, watching the "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory" documentary that my father had recorded from Iowa Public Television. I impressed enough that I wanted more.

I am now reading his book with the same title. So far, he has discussed Calvary Chapel and Dallas Theological Seminary.

My thoughts so far? One question! How much have we, as Christians done, to change the true gospel message that was personally delivered to us 2000 years ago?

House of Mercy

I wanted to use this forum to thank Mark for sending the CD to introduce me to his church.

Mark is not only my cousin but has also been a great friend for many years and, if he doesn't know it, a spiritual influence in my life. He was the one who was instrumental in introducing me to liturgical worship styles.

House of Mercy is in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their site states...

House of Mercy offers a discriminating blend of high church and low, of tradition and innovation, sincere worship and healthy skepticism.

Their worship style is folk music and is quite enjoyable. I was surprised to see Gordon Gano on their "Welcome Visitors" CD. (I'll make my readers look him up).

A couple of favorite websites...

One of my favorite web sites is "How Stuff Works".

I have used this to find out how clutches work, how VoIP works, how DSL works and many other things. Usually explained without a lot of undue technical talk with pictures.

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Another is LivePlasma. This site started out as MusicPlasma but expanded to include movies. Type in the name of a band or movie and it graphically shows the relationships between the one you requested and others.

For some time now, I have thought that the Church in America has let it's respsibilities slip. Yes, they are in the business of ministering to people but one of the commands told to us several times are to feed the widows and poor, the disenfranchised among us. Instead, many of us are much more comfortable letting government programs take care of that.

I was encouraged by an interview with Dino Rizzo on Blogging Church. Dino is the pastor of Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, LA. During the interview, he talks about the aftermath of the hurricane that hit New Orleans last year. He said that the first responders to the hurricane was not the government but the churches.

Getting all stacked up...

One of the reasons we have been so busy is that last weekend, Kyle participated in the World Cup Stacking competition. For those of you who don't know what that is, you can visit Speed Stacks. There were competitors there from Japan, 21 states in the United States, England, Germany and Austrailia. This was the first year for his school to participate but also Kyles first year. He didn't make the school team but was able to be on a compeition free agent team.

You can see one of Kyle's (on the left) Speed Stacking preliminaries below...

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If you want to see how fast this can be done, Emily Fox has the world record in many of the categories for her ages (Kyle got her signature on his competition shirt). Kyle's best time was 14.68 seconds. Her world record is 7.43. You can see it by watching the video below.

Blogging and Gluttony

I ran into my pastor (and friend) Rob at church. His comment? He was a lot more creative than this but "It has been a long time since you have posted!"

After making excuses about how crazy things have been since my family returned from vacation, I had the chance to really think about why! Gluttony.

On the "7 Deadly Sins" page, gluttony is defined. They say "Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires". Normally we think about this in terms of food but in my case, it has been in information.

With all the talk of knowledge being power, I HAVE BEEN AN INFORMATION GLUTTON. Not just good information, I have been trying to catch up on podcasts, tv shows, blogs forums. All my sources of information that I filter through during the week. I HAVE BEEN TO BUSY TAKING IN INFORMATION TO GIVE BACK! On this Blog or elsewhere!

So what is wrong with Gluttony? In my opinion, it is that we are not giving back and are hoarding resources!

What about gluttony around us? America is full of gluttony, in fact, we are a society of gluttons. We are materialistic, selfish, ungiving, overweight (at least the media tells me that but I DO resemble that remark).

We are also spiritual gluttons. Take statistics for what they are worth but my understanding is that in a typical church, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. If that is correct, that holds not only with service but with giving of offerings as well. I know that to maintain my relationship with Jesus, I have to listen to what he has to say which can be done by reading what he says in the Bible but I think even this can be taken too far. When we are so busy learning, reading, taking classes that you don't have the time to give back, you are a spiritual glutton. (Matt 20:26)

As I get back into a normal routine again, I will try not to be an information glutton and post here more often.

They're Back....

We made it back from sunny Florida and back into the daily grind (no not coffee).

It was my intention to post more often but.... While on vacation, sometimes the best intentions are not met.

I will try to post some pictures later this week.

Our high points?

• Relaxing at the resort
  
• Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure
  
• The Go-Karts 1-mile track
• Cirque do Soleil - La Nouba
• Cocoa Beach & Ron Jon Surf Shop
• Being home again!
  

Our low points?

• Leaving Florida (it was wonderful weather)
• Our 2 hour delayed flight from Chicago O' Hare to Denver.
  

By The Pool

The Covered Side of the Moon

Brian did it again.

As a child of the 60's and 70's. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon was a memorable album for me as well as many others. It was the definition of album rock.

Brian now gives us the Dark Side of the Moon in covers... All Styles, etc. Lots of fun!

Songs and styles include a bluegrass Money and an a capella version of Us & Them. 49 minutes great!

Look for #190 on a download near you!!!

(Broken) Windows of the Soul

Several years ago, I read a book by Dave Thomas, one of my (unknowing) professional mentors called "The Pragmatic Programmer". In there, he talks about Broken Windows.

One broken window, left unrepaired for any substantial length of time, instills in the inhabitants of the building a sense of abandonment---a sense that the powers that be don't care about the building. So another window gets broken. People start littering. Graffiti appears. Serious structural damage begins. In a relatively short space of time, the building becomes damaged beyond the owner's desire to fix it, and the sense of abandonment becomes reality.

You can find out more about the theory of broken windows on wikipedia....

Recently, I started thinking about what makes those around us look at us a hypocrite. It seems to me that the broken windows of our souls may have something to do with it.

If we leave those windows in disrepair, pretty soon, our actions and words do no line up.

One of the things about broken windows that I found interesting was that during the 1990's, New York Mayor Giuliani started working a "Zero Tolerance" policy toward the "broken windows" of the subway -- graffiti. During this time period, the crime rate dropped. From the wikipedia article above....

Thus, Giuliani's "zero tolerance" rollout was part of an interlocking set of wider reforms, crucial parts of which had been underway since 1984. Giuliani had the police even more strictly enforce the law against subway fare evasion, and stopped public drinkers, urinators, and the "squeegee men" who had been wiping windshields of stopped cars and demanding payment. Rates of both petty and serious crime fell suddenly and significantly, and continued to drop for the following ten years (see: the 2001 study of crime trends in New York by George Kelling and William Sousa, and the 2002 study by Hope Corman).

I realize is that windows are going to break, both physically and spiritually. It is how we deal with them that matters.

Granger Community Church - Marketing campaign causes a spike in church attendance...

A few weeks ago, the ChurchMarketingSucks website posted about a marketing campaign called "My Lame Sex Life".

You can read the ChurchMarketingSucks follow-up here.

You can also find out more from a couple of articles that Kem Meyer blogs about here.

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Thinking about being exclusive...

As I left the computer, I promised more thoughts about the "Authorized Version Only" movement.

I can't honestly tell you what God thinks about this situation. I, however, find it a devisive movement, especially when its proponents have started character assination of translators of other Bible versions.

My thoughts are as follows:

• During the years prior to the Reformation in the 1600's, many people, including John Tynsdale were martyred or persecuted for translating the Bible into the common language of the people. The King James version was such to the English Speaking people of the day. (I once had someone tell me that the King James Bible was the first one translated into English -- Tynsdales Bible beat it by many years).
• The common language today is not the King James english. Many of those words have lost their common meaning of that day and mean something totally different. One common example of this is the word Charity in I Corinthians 13. It is not that they typical person can not determine the meaning of passages but for someone who does not study the Bible and may not be, in fact, interested in the Bible, it is more of a distraction.
  
• Many cultures do not have a full Bible, maybe only a chapter or page to draw from. Sort of reminds me of "Farienheit 451". I would doubt that that version is a King James.
• After seeing "End of the Spear", I realized that not only is the Bible translated literally but also culturally in order to reach people. In other words, our concept of heaven does not translate well into every culture.

Ultimately, I believe this sort of movement will tend to chase people away from, not toward God.

Shaken and Stirred...

I went to bed Monday night emotionally shaken. I started investigating somthing called the "Authorized Version Only" movement.

It started as feedback to the question of "What Bible should I use?". Someone told about all versions but the King James being bad based upon a book by Gail Riplinger called New Age Bible Versions.

Beliving her premise to be wrong, I went on a hunt for some information, finding this on-line article by James White called "Why Respond to Gail Riplinger". We now have dueling credentials, Phd. vs. Phd.

So, what left me shaken? I read the James White article and, if his claims are true, admire his determination to stand against the "New Age Bible Versions" book. That is not, however, what effected my sleep for the last few nights.

I saw how God had protected me from this sort of thinking from early in my college days. You see, the campus organization that I was a part of was not associated but was aligned with much of Mrs. Riplingers thinking.

More to come about this tomorrow.

Today's prodigal sons.

Yesterday, my church, Northern Hills sponsored a session on Identity Theft given by the District Attorneys office. It was quite good.

One of the things that stuck out is that our senior citizens are the primary target of identity theft. Since this has hit my family twice, Marj and I went.

The one thing that I keep thinking about since then are not the means to prevent identity theft, an important thing to know but the statement that crystal meth is the primary driver for identity theft. He showed the booking photos of one ring. The leader had an MBA, one other person worked at the post office. The rest (10-15 people) were skimming mailboxes, dumpster diving, stealing wallets, etc.

When Marj was talking about this to a friend the picture of the "Prodigal Son" popped into my head. In The Message, Luke 15:16 says:

He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.

As Cary, the presenter with the Case partnership told me, these are desperate people. The thing that is hard to remember when you are a victim is that just like the story of the prodigal son, God still loves them.

Parental Outsourcing

As I was looking at yesterdays post, I realized how often we as parents outsource our duties.

It is much easier to outsource my job as a teacher to my son about moral and spiritual topics to the schools and churches.

Since, of course, I am not the only one who has done this, there are quite a few kids who have had their training broken, bent or ignored by those we outsource to. Then, when they fail, we get upset at the outsourcing, not direct the blame to the real cause, ourselves.

We need to take back our jobs as parents!

Outsourcing taken to the extreme...

This is not real (at least I don't believe it is real or I am in real trouble.

Outsourcing has been a real problem for many in America. As an alternative, google Rural Sourcing.

Putting your money where your heart is....

I ran across this news article...

"Minister Buys Lap Dances To Tell Strippers About God"

Read the article before jumping to conclusions.

I am a....

At the top of this blog is "the banner", describing what this blog is about. I think I misinterpreted what it was supposed to do but that leads to this entry...

This morning, I was listening to a message titled "aka God part 3" from LifeChurch in Okalahoma City.

Listening to the message sparked many different topics but this one stuck.

In there, the speaker asks, what is your banner?

Many, in fact maybe most of us, when asked to introduce ourselves, somewhat automatically "banner" ourselves. When asked in a work environment, it is automatically the business card version of our life.

"Hi my name is Joel, I am a software engineer".

Is that really who I am? A few years ago, in response to a book I read call Software Craftsmanship, I stopped calling my self a software engineer and when asked, told people that I write programs or "code". Many times, when asked at church to introduce myself, I respond "I sometimes run sound." or "I sometimes play bass".

I realized this morning that I have changed my banner. No longer is what I do defining who I am. In response to this thought, the banner on this blog will be changing.....

Links, Links and More Links...

After worship team practice, one of the guys asked for "All the links you sent them..." speaking of a couple of others on the team.

After sending the email, I thought, why not just post them here too.

Feeds I subscribe to (mostly blogs):

• anthonycoppedge.com church tech blog
• Blogging Church
• Church Marketing Sucks
  
• dan wakefield
  
• GodiPod.com
  
• rob KELLY
  
• SCOTT hamilton
  
• The Twinem Times
  
• wineskins for discipleship
  
• Kem Meyer on Less Clutter & Noise

Also recommended... evotional

Podcasts I listen to (yes, I am falling behind)...

• Coverville
• Lab Rats in Quick Time
• LifeChurch
• Liquid Church
• Mostly Trivial
• Not Lame Podcast
• Podquiz.com
• The Bored-Again Christian
• Theaterchurch.com

Last but not least... A guy at work sent me a video link to the iGuitar. Here are those.

• The iGuitar website
• The cnet news video
• The site sales video
  

More thoughts on Grace and Truth

It seems, as we look at all the unrest in the world in the name of someone's god, everyone has an opinion on truth.

As I was listening to a local Christian radio call in show on Friday. The host of the show had been talking about wine and the practice during those times of diluting the wine with water. Shortly after that, a woman called in and says....

"I just can't picture Jesus drinking a glass of wine...". It was then explained to her that the only one the Bible mentions that didn't drink wine in Jesus' time was John the Baptist who had taken a Nazerite vow. She just couldn't accept that.

I think that this is an excellent example of how our cultural "baggage" colors our beliefs and reading of the Bible. In some respects, we have adopted a belief saturated with relativism, not truth. God tells us that his truth is absolute.

So here is where grace comes back in. God gives us the truth of his word in the Bible but there are many people who won't accept that truth, on only accept parts of his truth. Then there are others who have taken that truth and twisted it around until just a little remains, the rest is a great lie. What should our response be to those people.

I suggest that we have a practice of "grace", from the post below, the best description I can come up with is "A temporary immunity or exemption; a reprieve.".

Why? Because as a follower of Jesus, I am told to. I John 4:7-8 (The Message) reads:

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love--so you can't know him if you don't love.

When asked what the most important command was, Jesus replied:

"The first in importance is, "Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second: "Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these." (Mark 12:29-31 - The Message)

So, what is the point here? I have rambled a bit but I think it is as follows:

1. Have the courage to pray for truth and accept the truth that God shows you
2. Challenge your cultural presuppositions against the truth of Gods word, The Bible.
3. Love those around you by giving them grace when you don't agree with them.

Tolerance and Loving You

We are approaching Valentines Day, they day of Love and Romance.

What does that have to do with tolerance you ask? Well, funny you should wonder...

A little over a year ago, Northern Hills did a series on grace, focusing on Gods grace toward us.

John 1:14 (The Message)
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

After seeing the aftermath in Europe when cartoons considered irreverant by Islam is published, I wonder where we as followers stand on tolerance.

The end of the passage above is translated "full of grace and truth" when talking about Jesus. What does that mean. First off, it means that God is merciful in sending Jesus to suffer for our wrong doings. Second, it means that God didn't ease up when it came to the standards of perfect actions and thoughts.

Sometimes, however, we as followers of Jesus, look more like the religious leaders of Jesus' time than like Jesus. As I have been reading through the Gospels (Matthew & Mark so far), I see Jesus acting intolerant toward those who accused him of not being as good as themselves. On the other side, I see quite a bit of tolerance of those that are searching for better ways. A couple of examples right off the top of my head....

• Jesus was said to be a drunkard because he would visit the houses of "sinners".
• Jesus' morality was questioned more than once, not only because of the group he hung around with but because he was willing to cross the line of the religious leaders laws.

The thing I notice about the definition of tolerance is an implied acceptance or respect of a differing view. The definition of the word grace in this context, however, mentions the following...

4. A favor rendered by one who need not do so; indulgence.
5. A temporary immunity or exemption; a reprieve.

From this definition, we can see that God, though Jesus, gave is grace (4). Though that gift, we as followers of Jesus, should grant grace (5 - temporary exemption), to those around us who are not followers of Jesus in order to show Gods grace (4) .

The challenge is that it is so much easier to just show the truth part of John 1:14. Unfortunately, that puts us on the same playing field as the religious leaders of Jesus' time.

Herding Cats...

Here is another funny commercial, this one from EDS.



If the video doesn't work, go here.

Superbowl Day Advertising

For those whos favorite teams didn't make the Superbowl, the best attaction is, of course, the advertisements.

This happens to be one of my all time favorites... I didn't see it here in the US except via the web. The rumor I heard was that it was not edited but did take over 600 attempts to make it work.



** I noticed that this didn't show up in my rss aggregator so visit Superbowl Day Advertising to see it. It uses Google video so..... If that still doesn't work, try this.

The Podcast Small Group

Coming from a church (Northern Hills) where small groups (we call them Life Groups) are quite an important aspect, I was intrigued when, while listening to a Theater Church (National Community Church) weekly sermon PodCast, they mentioned starting a small group for their "podcast congregation" at the ZoneGathering blog.

It looks like they have started a blog at blogspot (the same site that this one is hosted on), allowing those in their group to contribute.

It will be quite interesting to see how this works out.

It looks like at least one of the members is not new to small groups. She is one of the staff at National Community and has a blog on Dicipleship Groups.

From Kicked Back to Crazy

Last week, every evening was free. Things I had scheduled were canceled. After having busy weekends since the start of the year, it was a welcome change.

This weekend, we saw "The End of the Spear", an excellent movie.

This week, however, it is nearly the opposite, Monday and Friday evening are free. I also am filling in on bass at Church. The bass I bought last year is pictured at the right. We are leading a new song this week from Hillsong called "All For Love"... Quite powerful! I am really looking forward to it!

As I posted earlier... I am just helping out as I am needed.

Reading Facedown

I recently finished my first read of Matt Redman's book Facedown. It is an exceptional book on worship. I did, however, realize that I raced through it and I need to read this book more than once. The fact that this is stated in the "afterward" is also comforting.

I do want to try an experiment. I noticed an interesting synopsis on each chapter as I was reading. The first paragraph sums up the content quite well so I am wondering how it will read if I transcribe the first paragraph of each chapter into a common document.

Too much time on my hands?

Coming into the Kitchen

I am still catching up on some of the PodCasts that I regularly listen to. Today, I listened to Liquid Church's message from January 8 called "Renovating the Kitchen". In it, the pastor builds a case for small groups meeting within the church, telling the listeners his plan to start them.

I related well to this as I avoided doing any sort of small group activities quite often until attending Northern Hills. Now, not only am I enjoying our small group (Northern Hills calls them Life Groups from "doing life together").

If you are wondering what in the world I am refering to or are wondering if you should try something like this, check out this message from Liquid Church or this message from Northern Hills.

A poser!

I was on a conference call at work one day with the headset on. Hearing noise behind me, I turned around and Janet, one of the people at Qwest who specify what products will be like, was drawing on the board.

She kept telling me to turn back around. After she was finished, I found the drawing you see here on the white board outside my cube. You can tell I was on a conference call because of the headset and microphone.

The Message

Although the title is a little pretentious, I have enjoyed reading through "The Message" version of The Bible.

Check out Genesis 1:1-2 for instance...

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth--all you see, all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

I find this much more descriptive than the King James Version which reads

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The "shameful confession", however, is that I failed in my quest to read through The Bible this year. Actually it was closer than it sounds from my prior sentence. I made it all the way to December 26 which left out Revelation.

I'll see if I can't clean up what is left sometime this year.

Video Find...

I was messing around with Google's Video Search and found an interesting video of a drama with Switchfoot's "Dare You To Move" as the background music.

Click here to watch.

Sound Thoughts

I did my first weekend alone (well 2 out of 3 services anyway) in the sound booth at church. There were some twists, turns and bumps but I heard a lot of compliments from those in charge.

Some thoughts about the differences in "Worship Arts" between sound and playing.

• On the whole, running sound is more stressful. You are always on, even between services.
• While on, playing can be more stressful. We are to memorize our music.
• There is a larger time commitment while playing.
  
• You need to remember more while playing.
• Musicians make some of the best sound people. They should already have an "ear" for what is going on. The technical end can be a little stressful for some however.
  

Which would I rather do? Play! Why? Not because I particularly enjoy being up front but it is where I feel I can participate in both corporate and personal worship of God best. I am committed, however, to serve. That means, where ever I am needed.

Audio Bloging

I found out this week that I could post audio blogs through my telephone, thanks to a partner of Blogger called AudioBlogger. What will they think of next!

Did you go to church this weekend?

The GodIPod blog points to an interesting video story on podcasting sermons done by WUSA, the CBS affiliate in Washington DC.

Did you go to church this weekend? Too busy you say ... with work, family obligations, that all too painful Redskins game?

Don’t fear, as Derek McGinty shows us, now you can get wired for worship through "Godcasting."

You can see the read the story or video here...

There are also claims (and of course counter claims) that podcasting is increasing church attendence

Baby Got Book!

It is fun to laugh! National Community Church's pastor Mark Batterson's Evotional blog has a post called "Big Bibles" which has a video of "Baby Got Book" that made both Kyle and I laugh.

The artist is Southpaw (White Boy DJ?) (or Dan Smith) and you can watch his "Baby Got Book" video at his website.

A lyric sample?

I like big Bibles I can not lie,
You Christian brothers can’t deny,
When a girl walks in with a KJV*
And a bookmark in proverbs, You get stoked.

It got a name in place,
you know this girl has been saved
It looks like one of those large ones,
With plenty of space in the margins,
Oh baby, I want to read it with you,
Because your Bible has got pictures,
My minister tried to consult me,
But the book you’ve got makes me so Holy.

The Wittenburg Door has the whole text of the song here.

This is a picture of our recent graduate and his teacher, Kitty (funny huh?). Since mid November, Rocky (and the rest of the family) have been attending dog training classes at Petsmart. Many people do not like their methods or maybe it is the mass marketing. I will say, the results for us were dramatic. Rocky is a much different dog than when he walked in.

We thought he scored pretty high marks also!

The privileges and blessings of playing bass

Every weekend that I get called upon to play my bass for the worship services at Northern Hills is a privilege. This is actually true at many levels. From the fact that I love playing with the people that I create music with to my belief that man's purpose on this earth is to Worship God (see Question 1 of the Westminster Larger Catechism).

This weekend is also quite a blessing. Wednesday, at practice, I met a guest musician. Dave Villano is amazing. He started playing guitar as a kid but also plays an electric violin, electric baratone violin and Irish flute. I have enjoyed the styling that he adds to songs that I have played along with many times.

I put links to Dave's website where you can listen to his music (and buy if you like it) as well as his violins.

The Bored-Again Christian does it again.

Yes, "The Bored-Again Christian" is a little different name but "Just Pete" puts on a great podcast directed at people who are "bored with Christian Music". During the last 16 shows (or chapters as he calls them, he has put together some very interesting shows of artists you wouldn't typically hear of.

I was listing to chapter 16, the latest in his anthology. There are one artist that stuck out to me. Mostly because of the "worship" and "enjoyment factor" of his music.

The "The Name" was performed by Jonathan Miller. I was pleased to find out he lives less than an hour away from where I grew up. It is a song that I find I can listen to over and over again. I find that the previews of the rest of the album are the same. This one will be going into my collection!

What are we doing wrong?

I recently stumbled across statistics about the "sexual health" of teens & adolescents. I originally saw statistics similar to these in USA Today about 10 years ago. The situation does not seem to have changed much.

According to Baby-Parenting.com on Teen Pregnancy Statistics, the United States has the second highest at 83.6 per 1000 (behind Russia at 101.7) number of pregnancies in girls 15 to 19 year old. Of those 83.6, 29.2 ended in an abortion. Another site, Advocates for Youth, site statistics, quite similar in results.

Baby-Parenting.com's page state that " It has been found that teens who have a good relationship with their parents are less likely to experience a pregnancy."

Proverbs 22:6 (The Message) Says: Point your kids in the right direction-- when they're old they won't be lost.

Sounds to me that we as parents need to wake up and start parenting our kids. If not, our kids suffer.

Hittin' the Bricks

If you are looking for a new way to illustrate the Bible, check out The Brick Testament. Here is a link to their "Birth of Jesus".

Disclaimer... I will not vouch for the accuracy of this site.