What the heck!!!

Sorry but I couldn't pass this up when I saw it. It doesn't get any better than a Joel Osteen board game.
Word has it that Rick Warren and Bill Hybels are coming out with a Purpose Driven game of twister.
By the way, my birthday is coming up in April and I can't think of anything more fun than sitting around with my friends playing, 'Your best life now'. Garrenteed to make us all feel better about ourselves afterward.
Sorry for the sarcasm, I just can't help it.

Emerging Church

One of the things that's amazed me in my short 17 years as a Christian is how many goofy unbiblical trends that come sweeping through the church. In those 17 years I've seen the church growth movement, the name it claim it, the third wave/Toronto (so-called) Blessing, and now the latest man-centered movement...The Emerging Church. What's the Emerging church you ask? Well let me give you a brief synopsis and then check out the link at the bottom of this post for a satirical view of this movement.

About five years ago while on staff with my home church back in Pa., my pastor and I were encouraged by our conference leader to go see a guy by the name of Brian McLaren give a seminar on postmodernism. I went with an eagerness thinking he was going to enlighten us as to reach out more effectively with the gospel to this postmodern culture. What he ended up teaching was that we need to become more postmodern in our thinking and stop thinking there are such things as absolutes.

During the question and answer period, someone asked him what he thought of the authority of scripture. He paused for a moment, laughed condescendingly and said, "I'd rather not comment on that right now". I was completely gobsmacked as they say here in the UK but what astonished me was that many others in the room were laughing as well. I left the meeting that day feeling as though someone had kicked me in the stomach.

Now what do you think happens when you remove the authority of scripture from the church? You get a smorgasbord of spiritual beliefs and practices that are in some cases heretical and downright dangerous. McLaren has stated recently, ""Frankly, many of us don't know what we should think about homosexuality. We've heard all sides, but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say "it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us."... If we think that there may actually be a legitimate context for some homosexual relationships, we know that the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex.""Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements [about homosexuality]. In the meantime, we'll practice prayerful Christian dialogue, listening respectfully, disagreeing agreeably. When decisions need to be made, they'll be admittedly provisional. We'll keep our ears attuned to scholars in biblical studies, theology, ethics, psychology, genetics, sociology, and related fields. Then in five years, if we have clarity, we'll speak; if not, we'll set another five years for ongoing reflection. After all, many important issues in church history took centuries to figure out.Maybe this moratorium would help us resist the "winds of doctrine" blowing furiously from the left and right, so we can patiently wait for the wind of the Spirit to set our course."

How about just reading your bible, it can't get any clearer!

There are many more aspects to this movement that are freightening to say the least. I'll have more soon but I thought I'd post this as an intro. for those that are not familiar with the emerging church movement. Sooner or later you will become more aware of it as it is creeping into the church in some subtle and not so subtle ways.

For now, check out this link: http://thekingdomcome.com/the_emergent_elijah

Test all things!!!

Global Warming or Global Cooling

Back in June prior to the G8 Summit here in Scotland, our church held a forum called 'The Great G8 Debate'. The two debates were on the topics that would head the list of discussion with the G8 leaders: African debt relief and Global warming. The only problem is that the idea of a debate was nothing of the sort. They had six people on the global warming panel and they all agreed with eachother that global warming doom and gloom was immanent and it was all the fault of the US.

After everyone in the audience voiced their opinion which was in line with the panel, I felt compelled to give my opinion and it wasn't recieved too well. I went on to tell the moderator that they were unecessarily promoting fear and much of their theories were based purely on speculation. I shared with them a couple of false doom and gloom climate stories that never came to fruition while the moderators face turned a deep color red. One of the things I shared was a story that came out in Newsweek magazine in the 70's about climate change. I happened to find this article last week after those sincere but misguided evangelicals signed on to their global warming agreement.

Here's the article:

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth….
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

Sounds pretty convincing that we are headed toward catastrophic ends due to Global Warming but the title of this story was, 'The Cooling World'. Some of you may remember that the major climate change concern back then was the new ice age.

Here's the whole article: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:GLpEOpTbAakJ:www.globalclimate.org/Newsweek.htm+%22global+cooling%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

More later, Liam wants to do some Narnia surfing.