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| Our church has reached a pivotal moment. We have been homeless for 2 years now. All the while, we have been striving to occupy our new building, a building that we where renting. But the building needed to be first cleared out and then renovated. The clearing out went smooth enough but nothing else since has. Now, we are not led by sight. We prayed about the location and felt the Lord lead us in this direction. But two years later, our financial resources are used up and we are asking the Lord what to do. I feel (and the church agrees) that God is leading us to drop the building and remain homeless for a while more. Personally, I feel a great peace with this. I do not want to push our people into a finical straight jacket. I will not pester our people about the church finances. We have much more important things with which to concern ourselves. Furthermore, we are excited about the prospects of what we can do with our resources if they are freed up. To this point we have been using at least 90% of our resources on building related costs. Now we can use them for outreach support and development, missions, charitable works, etc. Yeah, we are excited. The last two years have taught us that we do not NEED and building. We would like a building some day. But for now we can do what we are called to do without one. In fact, we are pretty sure we can do even better without one.
So that is where we are. Homeless and happy. Looking forward to the things we can get into now that our eyes are off the building and onto our calling. | | |
| Hey two things.
1) Pray for Crossroads church. We need money to finish our building. We have a place and the paper work is good, now we need the money. The estimatations for the work are coming in much higher than expected.
2) The boys and I have been training in Jiu Jitsu for the past several months. It is fun. And I wanted to put out an open invitation to anyone who would like to try a class for free. I like to bring new people. And it's free! You get to grapple with people your first night. Oh, it's fun. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Gracie style.
Peace to you.
matthew kenenske | | |
| I would like to see an Advertising agency executive for Mc Donald’s or Coca-Cola or some other giant corporation make the “Media doesn’t make people do things” argument that the liberal media always likes to spout. Because if media doesn’t effect how we think and act, then why do corporations spend billions on advertising. Even to the point of product placement, wherein the product is not necessarily even mentioned just seen in a positive light, such as, in the hands of a celebrity in a cool movie or TV show.
I would like to see Christians give up trying to stop public schools from teaching kids about sex, (how-to, hetro-, homo-, etc.) and start militantly lobbying for Professional Wrestling (WWE, WWF) education in our schools. It is really becoming popular. More and more kids are doing it. Many are being injured for lack of good training. If we were to force all children at a young age to receive training in Professional Wrestling there would be far less accidents. Professional Wrestling is fun and natural. It is important that everyone knows it’s not weird to experiment with it. We should hand out equipment and show them how to use it (athletic supporters, steroids, fake blood?). We should integrate it into our curriculums, include different wrestlers in our storybooks, and discuss the acheivements of great Professional Wrestlers. Certainly no one would see this as promoting Professional Wrestling and no one would expect an increase in Wrestling activities. Would they? | | |
| this is from an old sermon. Rich is typing it up for me. In the future we will try to make them available in CD or written form. Maybe even digital. Let me know what you think.
I want to talk about why we ought to be fired up and how to stay fired up, on fire for Jesus. I mean, we sing songs about it, and, you know, if it doesn't make any sense to you, then you're out of luck. Because we sing songs about it and you're going, "Why are they talking about setting themselves on fire, that doesn't seem nice?" So, let me explain what I mean. To explain, I expect that the phrase, "Hey, I'm on fire for Jesus," strangely enough, makes sense if you think about someone who is on fire. And that helps clarify because, check it out, say for instance, a person who is on fire is decisive. That's one of the aspects, these are the kind of characteristics when you look at a guy and say, "Hey that guy is on fire for Jesus." One aspect of being on fire is that you're a decisive fellow. You know, you may not be decisive most of your life. It may take you weeks to figure out what movie to rent and things like that. I don't know; You know. You may be indecisive, but when you're on fire, you're decisive. You don't say, " Hmm, I wonder what I should do now that I'm on fire." You don't ask for opinions from other people about, "Hey, if you were me and say you were on fire, what would you do right about now?" You get right to it. You decide if there's water nearby you run as fast as you can, screaming, towards the water. Because you're on fire. You make snap decisions and you get things done. People who are on fire get things done. Okay. So, first of all that's one of the aspects, what it means to be on fire for Jesus. Okay.
Second. People on fire are focused. You know, they're not easily distracted. A guy who's on fire, if you ever saw someone running through the parking lot on fire, he's the kind of guy if he's running towards the water and he's on fire running through the parking lot, he doesn't stop to admire the cars. "Whoa hey, oh, check out that car. That's nice. Is that for sale?" He doesn't stop, he doesn't slow down for things. He's got a goal in mind and that's putting himself out. The man who's on fire does not get easily distracted from his goal. He is focused and set on getting towards some way of extinguishing himself. He's focused. That's another aspect of being on fire for Jesus. Somebody who's got some focus in him.
Another idea is, people who are on fire, you know, this is just from survey information that I've taken from people who have been on fire. People who are on fire are particularly bold. They're kinda not timid, rather, they're bold. They might be timid other times but when you're on fire, you're rather bold. I mean, you see a person who's on fire they're telling everybody quite loudly and enthusiastically, 'I"M ON FIRE. I"M ON FIRE, MAN ON FIRE, WATCH OUT I"M ON FIRE." And, they're not ashamed of being on fire apparently, they're out to tell everybody they're on fire. It's not the timid guy who's on fire who walks around like, "Shh, I don't want them to know I'm on fire. Please don't tell anyone." And he sneaks around looking for water. He's out and out letting people know he's on fire. That's one of the main things of being on fire is letting people know. They're very bold about it. They're not looking for the right person to tell. And this is the way people who are on fire for Jesus are. You're on fire, you don't go, "Hmm, I wonder who I should call. I wonder who would be good to let know I'm on fire. Hey could you help me, oh, I know, I see you're busy. Never mind. Hey could you help me find water, I'm on fire." They're out telling everybody. They don't care if you want to hear about them being on fire or not. They're telling everyone they're on fire. They're not looking for the open door. They're out to get the news out that they're on fire.
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| I hear the Evolutionist are down on "the Watch" illustration as a good parallel or argument. This is how I see it.
My Evolutionary friend and I are walking in the woods when we come across a perfect, running, watch. I say, "Wow. This is amazing. Here we are both with broken watches and we find a beautiful watch in the woods." My friend agreed. We couldn't find the makers name on the watch. It had no indications at all as to who had made it. Regardless, I declare, "Whoever made this watch was quite a watch maker. Such fine craftsmanship."
My friend replies, "I don't believe anyone made it. It could have come about by some other means."
"Such as?" I say.
"Well, all of the parts of the watch could be found in nature: metal, leather, glass, even the oil on the gears. So, maybe there was an explosion of fantastic proportions that could have brought all of these parts together in precisely the right order, assembling this fine watch."
"An explosion brought all these things together? Designed and crafted this watch? I don't see it." Says, I.
"Well, it makes perfect sense if we consider that there could be billions of explosions all over the woods but maybe they are invisible and unobservable. With that in mind it is not as incredible that one watch was created."
"That seems even more incredible." I am forced to say, to my smugly friend.
Then Jesus walks up and says, "Hi, I made the watch."
My friend didn't believe Him. But I did. He asked me for my broken watch and fixed it. He said he could fix my friends but my friend wouldn't let Him. | | |
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