Show Me The Mooneys!

Already In Him

2009-11-23T09:22:00.001-05:00

This poem - actually, a hymn written by Watchman Nee - was shared at our church gathering the other night. It spoke volumes to me, and I wanted to share it. (I removed the KJV style from it, except where it would have affected the rhyming.)

You have said You are the Vine, Lord,
And that I’m a branch in Thee,
But I do not know the reason
Why I should so barren be.

Bearing fruit is my deep longing,
More Your life to manifest,
To Your throne to bring more glory,
That Your will may be expressed.

But I fail to understand, Lord,
What it means - "abide in me,"
For the more I seek "abiding,"
More I feel I’m not in Thee.

How I feel I’m not abiding;
Though I pray and strongly will,
Yet from me You seem so distant
And my life is barren still.

Yet You are the Vine, You said it.
And I am a branch in Thee;
When I take You as my Savior,
Then this fact is wrought in me.

Now I’m in You and I need not
Seek into Yourself to come,
For I’m joined to You already,
With Your flesh and bones I’m one.

Not to "go in" is the secret,
But that I’m "already in!"
That I ne’er may leave I’d ask You,
Not how I may get within.

I am in, already in You!
What a place to which I’m brought!
There’s no need for prayer or struggling,
God Himself the work has wrought.

Since I’m in, why ask to enter;
O how ignorant I’ve been!
Now with praise and much rejoicing
For Your Word, I dwell therein.

Now in You I rest completely,
With myself I gladly part;
You are life and You are power,
All in all to me Thou art.

One of the things that is so striking about this song, to me, is how honest it is about struggling to feel like God is present. Which is something most Christians struggle with, if they're honest with themselves.

But the response is so full of truth, yet in all my life it lacked power - I am already in Christ, and He is already in me. I've heard this probably a million times, but I've never been able to rest in it. God's presence has always been a pursuit, whether something I was supposed to attain through Bible study and prayer, or by attending (or creating) a stirring worship experience, or by seeking His presence through intimate worship. All of those approaches miss the point. We are in Him. He is in us. There is no work for us to do to attain it. We can simply rest in Him. When we gather, we are giving expression to that reality. What a blessing!

Why We're Moving to Gainesville, FL

2009-06-12T23:18:00.001-04:00

If you haven't yet heard the news, it's big - we're moving to Gainesville, Florida in August. This comes as a surprise to just about everybody, and as a shock to some, but this is something we strongly feel God is calling us to do.

First, I'll get the easy stuff out of the way. I am not changing jobs. I've been working at home for the past few months again, and I will be working at home from Gainesville, as well. Hearing that, people then ask why we're moving to Gainesville. I usually give them the "short" answer - there is a church group starting there that we strongly feel called to be a part of. The frequent follow-up question is whether I'm going to be on staff at this church. Let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.

God has been pulling us away from institutional Christianity for a few years. If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you've seen the process somewhat. It started when we began to feel that there was "more" to church than what we were experiencing, and left the church we had been a part of for five years (and the denomination that I had been a part of my entire life).

Part of that process put us into a house church. If you're interested, you can read a good recap of my journey up to that point. While it was far more relational, and was a step along the journey God had in mind for us, He was also leading us to something far more organic than what we were experiencing there.

What do I mean by organic? There are many ways to describe that. One way to say it is this:

[It is a] church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grassroots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings (as opposed to pastor-to-pew services), nonhierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering. (see "What is an 'Organic' church?" at housechurchresource.org)

The other key to an organic church is that of apostolic leadership. This style of leadership functions by providing a glorious revelation of Christ as a foundation, assisting the church in growing into every-member functioning, and watching out for problems that will inevitably arise. Apostolic leadership instructs the church in how to live by divine life, how to experience the fellowship of the divine community, and prepares and equips others for apostolic work. These principles are not based on modern or ancient ideals of leadership, but on the foundation of how Christ trained the apostles and how they trained their successors to spread and express the Kingdom of God.

Many house churches lack a commitment to organic church life. Fewer still have any kind of apostolic leadership or even a desire for one.

One of the problems we have run into is that we feel very isolated when it comes to our view of the church. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining when I say this, but our efforts to share with others what God has revealed to us has largely fallen on deaf ears. I now realize that this is because we are sharing from a theoretical and intellectual perspective rather than from a perspective based on experience. Basically, we cannot create something that we have not yet experienced.

Which leaves us only one choice: to go somewhere to experience it.

The church group in Gainesville is being started by Frank Viola along with some of his other co-workers. Frank Viola is the author of many books on organic church life, including Reimagining Church and From Eternity to Here, among others, as well as a new book coming out later this year that takes the theology of his existing books and describes more practical examples.

We met Frank personally late last year, and as we were sharing our struggles and thoughts, he invited us to come and be a part of this group in Gainesville, FL. There are several people moving to Gainesville from around the country, some of whom we have already met, who have had experience with organic churches. Some of them have been involved with planting and equipping organic churches around the country.

We initially resisted, not even really taking it seriously. Moving to be a part of a "house church" sounds a little crazy. I also had my jaw surgery and that kept us from really thinking about it much.

But God didn't leave it alone, and He seemed to close pretty much all the other doors. Nobody we knew was really interested in the kind of thing that God had laid on our hearts. Even the group that would have represented the best fit here wasn't going to work, for a couple of reasons. And as our interactions with Frank and others increased, and we understood more of what God designed the church to be, we yearned more for an opportunity to experience it.

From a practical perspective, why move? We love this house. We like the area. Our kids were in a great private school. All of our close family is nearby. We have lots of friends in the area. We have a lot of history here. Things are comfortable, and for the most part, things are great.

But staying comfortable is not a reason to resist God's call.

We are moving to experience the very thing that God has revealed to us and laid on our hearts. It is not something we can initiate without having first experienced it.

Furthermore, we are not starting something new with our peers, trying to figure this out as we go. We are entering into this with mentors, who have done this before, many times, and who understand the glories and riches of a Christ expressed through divine life. We may be losing proximity to family and friends, but we will be gaining spiritual fathers and mothers, who understand our desire for a church free from religion, free from clergy, free from institutionalism, free from denominationalism, free from legalism, free from pentecostalism, free from evangelicalism, free from passivity, free from treating church like a business, and free from anything other than Christ and Him alone.

And as much as we wish we could experience that here, it has become increasingly clear that we will not have that opportunity.

Sometimes it takes great pain to follow God's call. It was difficult for Israel to leave Egypt. It was difficult for Israel to leave the wilderness and enter into Canaan. It was difficult for Israel to leave the comforts of Babylon and return to rebuild Jerusalem. But God had a destination in mind for them.

He has a destination in mind for all of us, as well, one that would not just turn us from stones into living stones, but to take these living stones and through divine life form a house within which he can dwell.

How long we will be in Gainesville, and where we will go from there, only God knows. We do know, however, that during our time there we will be trained and equipped, prepared for whatever God calls us to do and wherever He calls us to go.

Blog Circuit - Q and A with Frank Viola

2009-06-09T09:47:00.005-04:00

Frank Viola asked many of his readers to do a "blog circuit," where either we would post a review of his latest book, or we could do our own Q and A with him. Since I already posted my review, here are the questions I asked him:

1) If Eternity is the first book of yours that someone has read, which of your other three books (Untold Story, Pagan Christianity, Reimagining Church) would you recommend they read second?

It all depends. If they were someone who was open to the idea that church as we know isn’t "it," and they felt that there must be more, I would give them "Reimagining Church" probably. If they didn’t feel that way, I’d give them "The Untold Story of the New Testament Church."

Untold Story is a book I'm in the middle of now - I'll review it when I'm finished with it, but it is a retelling of the book of Acts, weaving in details from the other letters in the New Testament along with other historical information. It paints a very clear picture of the founding of the New Testament church, and particularly of Paul's ministry.

2) How long have the central ideas expressed in Eternity been a clear focus for you? Was it revealed to you through a process of searching, or as a simple moment of discovery?

Both. There was an initial crisis in April of 1992. I had the "general outline" in my mind and heart, you might say. But since then, it’s been an ever-expanding revelation within me, and many details of that outline have been filled in. That still goes on today. The Eternal Purpose cannot be exhausted.

I'm also going to highly recommend listening to Viola's talk at George Fox Seminary that he gave earlier this year. It's also available as a podcast on iTunes. I can't stress enough how much you should listen to this - if you're not really a book reader, listen to this talk. It does a better job of explaining all of this than I can summarize here.

OTHER BLOGS PARTICIPATING IN THE “FROM ETERNITY TO HERE” BLOG CIRCUIT

Today (June 9th), the following blogs are discussing Frank Viola’s new bestselling book “From Eternity to Here” (David C. Cook, 2009). The book just hit the May CBA Bestseller List. Some are posting Q & A with Frank; others are posting full reviews of the book. To read more reviews and order a copy at a 33% discount, go to Amazon.com:

For more resources, such as downloadable audios, the free Discussion Guide, the Facebook Group page, etc. go to the official website: http://www.FromEternitytoHere.org/

Enjoy the reviews and the Q and A:
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Out of Ur - http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2009/05/viola.html
Shapevine - http://www.Shapevine.com/ (June newsletter)
Brian Eberly - http://www.brianeberly.com/
DashHouse.com - http://www.DashHouse.com/
Greg Boyd - http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/
Vision Advance - http://vision2advance.blogspot.com/
David Flowers - http://ddflowers.wordpress.com
Kingdom Grace - http://kingdomgrace.wordpress.com
Captain's Blog - http://www.captainestes.blogspot.com/
Christine Sine - http://godspace.wordpress.com
Darin Hufford - The Free Believers Network - http://www.freebelievers.com/
Zoecarnate - http://zoecarnate.wordpress.com/
Church Planting Novice - http://www.churchplantingnovice.wordpress.com/
Staying Focused - http://kimmartinezstayingfocused.wordpress.com/
Take Your Vitamin Z - http://www.takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/
Jeff Goins - http://jeffgoins.myadventures.org/
Bunny Trails - http://bunny-trails.blogspot.com/
Matt Cleaver - http://mattcleaver.com/
Jason T. Berggren - http://blog.jasonberggren.com/
Simple Church - http://www.simplechurchjournal.com/
Emerging from Montana - http://wordofmouthministries.blogspot.com/
Parable Life - http://www.theparablelife.blogspot.com/
Oikos Australia - http://www.oikos.org.au/blog/
West Coast Witness - http://www.WestCoastWitness.com/
Keith Giles - http://www.Keith.Giles.com/
Consuming Worship - http://www.consumingworship.org/
Tasha Via - http://www.tashavia.blogspot.com/
Andrew Courtright - http://www.andrewcourtright.blogspot.com/
ShowMeTheMooneys! - http://www.showmethemooneys.com/
Leaving Salem, Blog of Ronnie McBrayer - http://leavingsalem.wordpress.com/
Jason Coker - http://pastoralia.missionaltribe.org/
From Knowledge to Wisdom - http://isthistheway.typepad.com/
Home Brewed Christianity - http://www.homebrewedchristianity.com/
Dispossessed - http://kblog.kevinjbowman.com/
Dandelion Seeds - http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Dandelionseeds
David Brodsky's Blog- "Flip the tape Deck" - http://flipthetapedeck.blogspot.com/
Chaordic Journey - http://jeffrhodes.wordpress.com/
Renee Martin - http://www.reneemartinmusic.com/profiles/blog/list
Bob Kuhn - http://organicchurchnola.wordpress.com/
Living with Freaks: http://www.livingwithfreaks.com/
Real Worship - http://therealworshipleader.com/
Fervent Worship - http://ferventworship.blogspot.com/
Julie Ferwerda Blog - http://www.JulieFerwerda.com/ / http://www.OneMillionArrows.com/
What's With Christina?! - http://w2christina.blogspot.com/
Irreligious Canuck - http://www.irreligiouscanuck.com/
This day on the journey - http://guychmieleski.blogspot.com/
Live and Move: Thoughts on Authentic Christianity - http://liveandmove.blogspot.com/
Spiritual Journey With God - http://www.elvineve.blogspot.com/
Dries Conje - http://www.echurch.co.za/ / http://www.thejesusfeed.com/ / http://www.bookdisciple.com/
Journey with Others - http://journeywithothers.blogspot.com/
On Now to the Third Level - http://www.080808onnowto.blogspot.com/
Christine Moers - http://www.welcometomybrain.net/
Breaking Point - http://marybethstockdale.wordpress.com/
Hand to the Plough - http://www.handtotheplough.com.au/
Jon Reid - http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/welcome-pilgrim.html
Weblight - http://www.blog.worldwidewebservices.se/
D. L. Webster - http://gzmproductions.com/dlwebster
Searching for the Whole-Hearted Life - http://wholeheartedlife.blogspot.com/

Book Review: Frank Viola's "From Eternity to Here"

2009-03-08T12:32:00.001-04:00

Any of you who have been following my blog for awhile know that I'm a big fan of Frank Viola's books. It started with Rethinking the Wineskin, and continued with Pagan Christianity and the update to Wineskin, Reimagining Church. This certainly continues with his new book, From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God.

(Note: While the links are to Amazon, Viola really wants everyone to order from Parable.com or purchase the book at Lifeway as the book is getting started. He explained why he's requesting that on his blog. Basically, Parable/Lifeway is promoting the book and selling it at a really good price, and the more they sell the more attention they'll give the books, and the more people will hear this message. You can buy the book from Parable right now for less than $10.)

While Viola's other books that I've read focus on church practice and tradition, this book is different because it focuses on purpose - God's purpose in all of creation, humanity, and the church. The book is split into three parts, focusing on three "stories" that are interwoven throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The first story is that of God seeking a bride for his Son.

The second story is that of God seeking a dwelling place.

The third story is that of God creating a new species to fully reveal Christ.

While these aspects of scripture aren't generally new to many Christians, the depth and intensity of them as God's central purpose is largely lost in modern Christianity. Churches focus primarily on other "things." These things include evangelism, charismatic gifts, theology, eschatology, etc. These things are not necessarily bad in and of themselves, but the pursuit of them as central obscures from us the reasons why God embarked on this whole creation thing to begin with, as well as why he chose to send his Son and establish the ekklesia on earth.

What Viola's book does is help us realign our perspectives back onto God's central purposes. And by doing so, helps us to regain a new focus on Christ as not just the center, but as the fullness.

One of the best chapters of the book is the afterword, "One Man's Journey Into Deep Ecclesiology." In it, Viola shares his personal history of going through spiritual "things," and finding that they do not satisfy. To Viola, "Deep Ecclesiology" leads ultimately to Christ, and to a revelation of Him that changes the entire way we view the ekklesia. The afterword wraps up the information of the book and presents it as a heartfelt pleading to discover Christ in a new way.

In some ways, this book would be the best book to read first of any of Viola's books, as it shares his heart and lays a foundation for why we should question historical church practices, and why we should restore New Testament practices - because of how they either interfere with or focus on God's eternal purposes for the ekklesia. I believe that those who read this book first would feel less threatened by Viola's other books as they would better understand the heart behind them.

Jaw Recovery

2009-03-07T11:16:00.001-05:00

Well, I can honestly say it's been a long eight weeks!

This Tuesday marks the eight-week point from my jaw surgery. As I mentioned in my last post, dealing with TMJ issues for years, and going through the treatment for that, it became evident very early on in the treatment process that where my jaw joint needed to be and where my teeth fit together were too far apart for dental or orthodontic treatment alone. So surgery it was.

The surgery itself went very well, and the surgeon was very pleased with how things went. My first day or so in the hospital was kind of a blur. The swelling was atrocious, and actually go worse for the first week after the surgery. My head looked like I was in some kind of special effects for a movie to make me look fat. It made it very hard to eat or drink (I couldn't close my lips for a couple of weeks), not to mention talk.

The other thing I hadn't realized was how much the surgery would affect my sinuses. I knew he'd be up there and that I'd be stuffy - but I had full sinus surgery a few years ago (constant sinus infections, polyps, deviated septum, the whole deal) and the aftermath was as bad as it was after my sinus surgery. I knew how to handle it, really, with irrigation, etc., but having to deal with that on top of everything else was little fun.

Then there was the numbness and pain. I never lost any feeling in my tongue or throat, but otherwise my teeth, gums, lips, and chin were pretty much completely numb initially. That masked some of the pain, I think, but even at first I had a dull pain between the roof of my mouth and my sinuses, and that pain would be the worst at night when I was laying down to sleep.

Energy was probably the biggest problem, because my diet was basically restricted to things I could get through a straw (not even sucking on it at first, but pushing it through a straw with a bag), and not chewing anything. My diet consisted of smoothies, milkshakes, cream of wheat, some pureed soups, etc. When I could use a spoon things got a little easier and I had a few more options, but for weeks it was difficult to get up and move around for any significant amount of time, simply because I wasn't getting a normal amount of nourishment.

For the first couple of weeks, I spent most of my time in the bedroom resting - watching a lot of TV, mostly. I caught up on a few TV shows, most notably Firefly (I had never seen it, and I was very impressed) and The Office (via Netflix streaming, and now I have another favorite show). I had hoped to get some reading done, but I found that I really didn't feel like reading much. I eventually progressed to the couch and played some XBox games (Force Unleashed, Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Fable II) and movies (Kevin and I have been going through Harry Potter). So my downtime basically turned into a gluttonous media-fest.

At tis point, my sinuses are totally healed (took about 3-4 weeks to get there). Swelling is still present, but it's not really uncomfortable. People who see me about once a week still comment that they can tell I'm getting less swollen. The numbness is still annoying, but it is receding and getting more "itchy" in different places. I have a lot more feeling inside my mouth than I had even a week ago. It's kind of like having novocaine, but instead of taking 3-4 hours to get feeling back, it takes 3-4 months.

Last week, at my six-week appointment, I got clearance to chew for the first time since the surgery. I'm restricted to things that don't offer much resistance, like pasta, soft chicken, ground meats, baked potatoes, well-cooked vegetables, etc. Some meals have been a challenge to figure out what to eat, but even still it's had an amazing effect on my energy level. I've been doing lots of different things at home, and we've even gone out to eat the last couple of days for the first time in nearly two months - Doc Chey's Noodle House (lo mein), IHOP (eggs and pancakes), Holy Smokes BBQ (chicken salad for me), and El Ranchero (chicken burrito and chile relleno).

With the improvement in my diet, my energy level has increased dramatically. Last weekend I spent all day Saturday doing laundry, and then Sunday and Monday Amy was sick (some kind of stomach bug, very flu-like) and I did everything for two days. Not that I wasn't tired after all of that, but I was able to do it. A week earlier that wouldn't have been possible on my mostly liquid diet.

This week, I'll get clearance to eat anything softer than a raw carrot, which means pretty much anything I really want to try. I still have some issues with function - numbness inside makes it hard to tell when food is stuck in my braces, my jaw is still a little tight with the swelling so it's hard to bite into big things, etc. But all of that is getting better by the day.

The difficult part is going to be trying to not gain my weight back. I lost about 10-12 pounds during this recovery, and I'd like to keep it off.

The orthodontist has also started tweaking my braces again, so I'm on my way to the final stretch of this whole mess. Sometime this year, I'll get my braces off, and this multi-year process will come to an end.

Lastly, I want to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped us out during all of this. We had a lot of meals brought by (and Amy got very good at turning many of them into a soup I could eat), people came by to help do some chores around the house, or just watch the kids so Amy could run some errands or even just get some extra sleep. All of your efforts were very much appreciated.

About My Upcoming Jaw Surgery

2009-01-03T10:41:00.002-05:00

I'm currently 10 days away from major surgery. Many of you know about this, but few of my friends even know all of the background behind what's going on - so here's the full rundown of what's going to happen, and why you won't be seeing me or hearing from me for awhile after January 13th.

I've had TMJ issues since I was 16 or 17. It basically started, rather suddenly, by me waking up one morning and not being able to open my jaw. That really freaked me out - it took a couple of hours of trying to work it open, when it suddenly popped open, quite painfully. Since then, I've regularly had tension and popping in my jaw, building to a point over time where I get headaches and migraines regularly.

I went through nightguard therapy when I was 19, which helped tremendously, but over time my teeth shifted and I was no longer able to wear it. My symptoms were tolerable until about five or six years ago, when the migraines returned with a vengeance, building to a point where I regularly had a migraine once a week.

So I began a new splint therapy with my dentist, this one not designed to just alleviate symptoms but to move my jaw into the correct position. He determined that my jaw was not operating within the joint correctly, and the splints are designed to push the jaw back up into joint over time. After your joint gets to a stable position, the symptoms go away (which they actually did) and your bite can be analyzed to figure out how to adjust your teeth to make them line up with your ideal bite. This can involve dental procedures (grinding, adding to the teeth), braces, and/or surgery.

In my case, the difference was (and is) severe. At some point I'll get some pictures from the dentist and/or orthodontist that make that clear - but basically, when I slide my bottom jaw into the stable position, it is pretty far behind my top jaw. In addition, my teeth don't come together now, either. When my back teeth touch together, my front teeth are still very far apart.

So it was pretty clear, early on, that orthognathic surgery would be required to reposition my jaw. This kind of surgery can involve the top or bottom jaw, or both at the same time. In my case, it will require both. The bottom jaw is where they move the teeth forward and back, but the top jaw is where they adjust the angle that the teeth come together. Braces are actually required first to line the teeth up and prepare everything for surgery. I started braces last January and they got that finished up moving teeth a couple of months ago, but I'll still be wearing braces for the surgery and for quite a while afterwards.

Basically, the surgery involves cutting the jaw bones, repositioning them according to the plans they've set up, and screwing the bones back together. After surgery, I'll be on an all-liquid diet, restricted from chewing anything at all for a couple of weeks. It will be a couple of months before I can chew somewhat normally again, and half a year before the doctor would be comfortable with me chewing anything particularly hard (and before any tweaks to the braces can be done). Swelling will also be an issue.

Those are the downsides, along with normal pain and swelling following surgery. The upside is that as a result of my surgery my teeth will be in a position consistent with where my jaw joint should be. Which means that as the swelling comes down, I should have permanent relief from the TMJ issues that I've been dealing with for over 15 years.

It'll probably be a year or more before all of this is over, mainly finishing up with the orthodontist. I'm not at all looking forward to the surgery - but I've been through enough surgeries that I know how the general process will go. But I'm particularly dreading having a difficult time eating a drinking for awhile afterward.

More than that, though, I'm very much looking forward to all of this being over. This has been a four year process now, leading this point, and it should be worth it in the end.

One of the good things about having new roommates is that there will be more people around to help, but I do ask you to keep Amy and the kids in mind and after my surgery. Ask Amy if there's anything you can do to help out. Make a meal, take the kids out for the day, come over and help clean up, etc.

My recovery will take a few weeks - I'm planning on about four weeks off of work (thanks, short-term disability!), and my time will largely be spent sleeping, reading, watching TV, or on the computer. I'd probably enjoy the downtime if I could eat normally and wasn't dealing with pain and swelling. Talking will probably be very difficult at first, so e-mail or chatting on the internet will probably be the best way to contact me.

Please keep us all in your prayers as we go through this - surgery is on the 13th.

Filling Up The House

2008-12-10T22:05:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I made reference to the fact that God just put something right in front of us that we had been seeking for some time.

To put it simply, we're making the move into intentional community, and we have invited our good friends Kevin and Faith Blackwell to come and live with us. They are excited about it, and will be moving in this Friday.

When we bought our current home, we were looking for a house that fit a lot of criteria. But two of the things we were looking for was a place that would be ideal for hosting a house church, and a place where we could pursue community in a more direct way. We had two options in that regard. The fourth bedroom in our house is off of the kitchen and has its own private bath. We also have a huge basement that is still mostly unfinished and has lots of windows - there is plenty of space that is ideal for an apartment.

We learned a couple of weeks ago that Kevin and Faith were going to be moving back up this way, and into a less than desirable situation. Amy and I were already making plans to move the kids' bedrooms around and free up the fourth bedroom. So we brought up the conversation, and Kevin and Faith were very excited about the opportunity. We laid out two options - we could work towards finishing out an apartment where they'd have their own space, or we could have them move into the main level and share the kitchen and living spaces with us.

Without really any question, all of us were in agreement that we wanted to share the space. Our house is really too big for just one family, anyway.

This is really exciting to us for several reasons. First of all, Kevin and Faith are very good friends of ours. I first met Kevin nearly eight years ago, at Faith Community Church, where he stepped up as our main drummer there. We played together there for five years or so, but more than that, we shared a lot in planning, dreaming, and working in ministry.

Kevin and Faith have always been great with our kids, and our kids have always loved Kevin and Faith, as well. For those keeping track, Odie spent some time with Kevin and Faith, too.

There are some practical reasons why sharing a house with others make sense. Sharing groceries, utilities, appliances, etc., makes the cost of living a little less for us all. Sharing the tasks of cooking, cleaning, etc., means less work for any one person overall.

More than that, though, are the spiritual and relational benefits of being more connected in day-to-day life. We have seen, through other members of my family who are doing similar things, the joys and struggles that accompany this kind of living. In marriage, your closeness reveals flaws in your character and is supposed to sharpen you and move your further towards righteousness. We all fully expect to experience each other's good and bad times, and we feel that we already have the strong friendship in place to help us weather the storms that will come.

We are blessed to know others living this way who can help us navigate the options of how to share groceries, how to handle rent, how to deal with noise, kids, etc. Each situation is different, though, so we have to rely on God to connect us and lead the way. We would appreciate your prayers as we begin this.

Of course, many people simply won't understand why we would choose to do this. Many assume that it is simply to help some friends out, as a temporary situation - Kevin lost his job at Circuit City, and is looking for a job, by the way. While we would have been willing to help out friends on a short-term basis, that's not an accurate summary of what this is about. We are setting this up, quite intentionally, to last beyond just the "helping a friend out" stage. I think for many people it is very difficult to understand why we would be willing to give up our "private" spaces and share it with another family. Simply put - I believe God is glorified when we seek to form deeper communities with each other, and deeper commitment to each other. We are also very excited to see how God will shape us through this phase of our lives.

House Church on Hold

2008-12-03T18:02:00.001-05:00

As I shared on this blog a couple of months ago, we recently tried to start hosting a house church in our home. At the time, a previous house church that we were a part of was dissolving because the leader of it was moving away. Amy and I decided that we should try to start hosting one ourselves, and pull from the people who had been a part of that house church as well as try to get others involved who we thought might be interested.

Our previous "house church" was pretty much just that - a church that met in a house. It's not like there was a "sermon," but in reality it didn't move beyond the concept of clergy any more than a traditional church would. Most people called the leader the pastor (though I specifically did not refer to him as such), and looked to him as that kind of a role. He led it more like a bible study/discussion time, so it was in reality more open than a typical church would be. It was a good step for Amy and I when we joined that group, but I felt, over time, more and more God's leaning to do things differently.

Then the leader of that group moved away, and we were faced with whether or not to try hosting a house church ourselves. But without someone filling the pastor/clergy role, we did not really know if it would stick with a group that had been, for the most part, been passive in gatherings. But we felt called to give it a try. My brother, who leads a fully organic meeting at his house, agreed to help us get started.

In the end, it really came down to not having people who were really interested in doing something different. I'm not upset about it, as I didn't want to have any regrets about not trying it. We also learned a lot through the process, and will be better prepared next time God calls us to do this - and we are confident that there will be a next time. The main thing we've learned is that in order to try hosting an organic meeting, you need to do it with a least a couple of people who totally "get it" and are committed to church gatherings led by the Spirit alone. While my brother was helping us, he and his wife were still hosting their own meeting and I didn't feel right relying on them for that role indefinitely.

So Amy and I will be doing some exploring and asking God what He would really like for us to be doing right now. We have some schedule concerns with the other house church groups that we've been networking with - it's not easy to do late evenings with young kids, especially when they get up really early for school and get very cranky early in the evening. (That's one of the reasons we really liked Sunday afternoons.)

There's also a "traditional" church that I've been somewhat connected with over the last couple of years (I've led worship there a few times and played guitar/bass a few times also), that we're considering checking out some of their smaller groups and see how open they are and how their small groups currently function.

So pray for us in this regard. We might not get totally settled until March or so -- I'm having a major jaw surgery in January and it'll be a few weeks before I'm really up for much, anyway. (I'll post more about that later.) I may have a difficult time compromising my ecclesiology, but I'm willing to do that if God is calling us somewhere and wants to use my restlessness to stir things up there.

The interesting thing is, literally a day after we made this decision God placed something into our laps that our hearts have longed for, something actually a little more extreme than organic house church (in many people's opinions, anyway). That deserves its own post, so stay tuned.

More on the Fairness Doctrine

2008-11-12T10:17:00.001-05:00

Neal Boortz has some good comments on the Fairness Doctrine today:

Note, please, that whenever despots try to seize control of a government, and with it a country, they first seize control of the means of communication. How can you observe this in country after country with despot after despot engaged in coup after coup and not understand that this is exactly what our own politicians do when they try to increase their control over broadcasting? How will the Democrat's looming attempt to reign in talk radio be any different than Hugo Chavez' attempts to shut down opposition newspapers in Venezuela?

Any political attempt to silence political speech of your political opposition or to intimidate them is clearly against the intent of the first amendment - ensuring that opposition to politicians has a full right to be heard, including using the latest technology. Boortz also makes the observation that if the nonsensical idea of "public airwaves" is the basis upon which free political speech on radio stations can be regulated, newspapers are delivered on "public highways" and can also be regulated. I'd add that magazines use the "public postal system" and that even web sites use "public cyberspace." While certainly the government can regulate what is broadcast on radio, TV, etc., the idea of the Fairness Doctrine as a political weapon to silence your opposition is blatantly unconstitutional.

And guess which wing of the Supreme Court would be more than willing to accept the idea of the government having the power to regulate political speech over the airwaves?

As James Gattuso from the Heritage Foundation explained:

Arguments that the Fairness Doctrine is needed because certain types of media are too conservative, too negative, too partisan, or too anything actually strengthen the case against the regulation. Any law that is targeted at media based on the content of what is being said raises greater constitutional concerns and is much less likely to pass constitutional muster--and for good reason. Regulating speech in order to alter its content is exactly the sort of meddling that the First Amendment is meant to prohibit. It is simply not the job of politicians to "correct" the mix of opinions being expressed in the marketplace of ideas, even if--and especially if--they disagree with those opinions.

Liberals, if your basic commitment to the rights of citizens doesn't convince you the Fairness Doctrine is a bad idea, take note: the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations used the Fairness Doctrine to intimidate their critics in the media. You do not want to go down this path. Perhaps you'd like Obama's administration to have this power, but are you really that confident of success in 2012/2016?

Government Indoctrination and Empty Promises

2008-11-05T17:20:00.001-05:00

Interesting quote from an African-American pastor:

The neo-Marxist left has achieved cultural hegemony. Through the news media, government education, and the entertainment media, Americans have been shaped and molded into the kind of people who view Ron Paul as a political hack, while applauding gay marriage (one of the first lines out of Obama’s mouth last night was an acknowledgement of homosexuals), wealth redistribution, and government intervention in the free market! How ironic. We sent our children to Caesar for their education, and yesterday they voted just like Romans (the majority of 18-30 year-olds flooded the polls for Obama whether they were professing “Christian” or not). These young people believe hatred and racism are America’s biggest problems, and that the election of Mr. Obama is the cure (along with Hate Crimes Legislation). They believe America is evil because we don’t have universal healthcare like the Europeans. They believe homosexuality is innate, the existence poverty is a sin, and abortion is an ethical (and completely personal) means of birth control. They believe in anthropogenic global warming, Darwinian evolution, Gramscian Marxism, and Freudian Psychology. In short, they believe what they’ve been taught during their 14,000 hours of government indoctrination.

Kids are being taught by government, in government schools, that government is the answer. And many people in this country fully expect government to deliver.

Don't buy it. If the left intends to fully deliver on their promise, they'll run America into the ground, just like the stagnating European countries that have been playing around with socialism for decades. Most likely, though, they'll just continue the path of corruption and do their best to entrench their own power. Maybe Republicans will learn their lesson and get it right - or maybe we'll have to look to another party to accurately reflect the ideal of limited government. (Libertarian? Constitution? Another?)

No human government has ever managed to do what Obama is promising, not without significant tyranny and oppression of the opposition. In that sense, Obama's promises are pretty much empty ones - Americans, most likely, do not have the political will to endure giving any politician that much power over them.

But I could be wrong about that.

Final Thoughts Before Election Day

2008-11-03T16:48:00.001-05:00

This election is not over for John McCain. The media likes to spin this as essentially over, but Republicans tend to do better than the polls indicate, and there are a lot of undecided voters in just about every poll. Many of these are undecided about both candidates, but overall, Obama represents the more radical departure and is not as likely to get those voters as McCain is. McCain would be, without question, a phenomenal commander-in-chief, and has been a model of bipartisanship for years. He is a moderate, and as undecided moderates make up their minds they will likely vote McCain. The only question is, will they actually go and vote, and will it be enough?

The other factor is Sarah Palin. The media isn't reporting very heavily, but she routinely attracts thousands to her rallies, while Biden attracts hundreds. I don't think the polling data is taking into account the attraction she has to women who do not regularly vote. If Obama is going to be turning out the African-American vote this year - a rather reliable voting block for Democrats, anyway - Palin will be turning out the "stay-at-home-mom" vote this year, a mixed voting block that can turn this election.

To be clear, many things have to go right for McCain for him to win tomorrow. But it is not impossible, and I'd venture to say that it is not even unlikely that he can win, especially with the polls trending towards him currently.

But with the way Obama's victory has been painted as a sure thing, be prepared for all hell to break loose if he loses. Riots, certainly. There are cities where riots happen when their sports team wins. But also the angry left will get a heck of a lot angrier, and they will (still) forget that the only Democrat to get elected President over the last 30 years campaigned as a conservative. The loss will be blamed on everything but the utter liberalness of their candidate.

An Obama win, however, could be even more devastating to the Democratic party. If Obama fulfills most of his promises - which will be likely given Democratic control of the house and senate - he will seriously erode the strength of the economy. The economy is weakening and on the brink for a full depression, and bad policies have a very likely tendency to just push it over the edge. They will still blame George W. Bush, of course, but after four years that will not resonate with voters.

Add any kind of serious foreign crisis - which Biden famously assured us will happen - and as Obama blunders it he will lose a lot of the luster he's built up for himself.

On top of that, I guarantee you that the Democrats will try to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine, in a move to silence conservative talk radio. Obama has said that he doesn't support doing this, but Pelosi and other congressional Democrats are big supporters of it, and will, at a minimum, try it. Doing so will ignite conservative opposition in a way the left has never seen, and will usher in huge changes in the election that follows (either 2010 or 2012).

In some ways, I'm interested to see how things would go with Obama as president. How nutty will the Democrats get, and how much will the media let them get away with? But in reality, I have to vote my conscience, and my conscience says this:

1) I will never vote for a candidate who supports partial-birth abortion, sucking babies brains out of their heads while they are halfway through the birth canal. Likewise I will not vote for a candidate who could not find it within themselves to take a stand and support the idea that healthcare must be provided to children born alive after a botched abortion. These issues speak volumes about the character of a person, even if they believe abortion should be legal.

2) I will vote for a candidate who has shown leadership in suggesting and supporting military strategies that result in more peace and stability, rather than the candidate who vowed to pull out troops, even if that meant chaos and instability in a country whose leaders we deposed after years of UN inaction. We do not need to prove Osama bin Laden right and act as a "paper tiger."

3) I will never vote for a candidate who believes that it is a proper role of government to "spread the wealth around."

4) I will not vote for a candidate who has a laundry list of radicals among his friends, mentors, and associates. Obama's frequent lies about his relationship to Jeremiah Wright, his refusal to release records during his college years, his shady dealings with convicted felon Tony Rezko, and his associations with radicals such as Ayers and Khalidi, all are sufficient reason to vote against him.

5) I will not vote for a candidate who thinks that unions should be formed without a private ballot - Obama's support for the (deceptively-named) Employee Free Choice Act is indefensible, and will encourage union organizer's intimidation of workers.

6) I will vote for the candidate who has promised to nominate judges whose desire is to uphold the rule of law, and interpret the Constitution and the laws of the land as they have been written, rather than the candidate who believes that the most important qualification for a Supreme Court justice is a "sense of fairness." If we continue to allow judges to rule as it seems fair to them, then none of our rights are safe.

As you can tell, most of my vote tomorrow will be against Barack Obama. I urge you to do the same.

Finally, there are many other races tomorrow that are worth watching out for, but there are two that I actually really, really hope for a Democratic defeat. First of all, if Al Franken is elected Senator that will represent, to me, the end of a sensible electorate. Second, John Murtha has still not been held accountable for his despicable verbal attacks on the Marines regarding the Haditha incident. Both of these races are close. If Obama wins and Franken and Murtha lose, I'll consider election day a draw.

To All Undecided Voters

2008-10-22T20:35:00.001-04:00

You absolutely must read this. Boortz expertly summarized the issues at stake in this election. After discussing some basic issues, he gets into the main concerns:

Wright, Ayers, Rezko, etc. - "If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn’t qualify for a security clearance."
Tax Policy - "Obama didn’t wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous 'fairness' in our economy."
Wealth Redistribution - "Just what percentage of voters out there do you think are going to vote for Obama simply because he is promising them someone else’s money?"
Increasing Small Business Taxes - "It is not the percentage of businesses who will have to pay the increased taxes; it’s the percentage of the total of small business employees who work for those businesses." While 95% of small businesses have a revenue of less than $250,000 a year, those are largely the ones with 1 and 2 employees - they're also struggling, and quite often failing (many lasting less than four years). The other 5% with higher incomes are the "larger," more stable small businesses, and have many more employees. A large percentage of small business employees will be hurt by Obama's tax plan. When faced with increasing taxes, small businesses owners will typically cut expenses. And their employees are usually their biggest expense.
Employee Free Choice Act - Obama wants to remove the secret ballot from union elections. "This is nothing less than Barack Obama and his Democrat pals legitimizing union intimidation in the workplace."
The Supreme Court - "A recent and rather shocking survey showed that around 80% of people who support Barack Obama believe that the Supreme Court should base its decisions not on the Constitution, but on what’s 'fair.'" Supreme Court justices are supposed to uphold the law, according to the Constitution, not create new rights and judge on a vague sense of fairness.

Attention Georgia Voters: Do Not Vote for Jim Martin

2008-10-17T09:56:00.001-04:00

Yet another reason why I do not like Democrats...

Many people I know are upset with Saxby Chambliss (R) for voting for the bailout bill, and are prepared to vote for Jim Martin (D) for Senate as a punishment. I understand the desire to do this. The bailout bill went from a 2-page bad proposal to a 450-page bill full of junk, that still wouldn't work.

There's an ad out in support of Jim Martin that is attacking Chambliss' support for the FairTax. Every two years we get candidates on the Democrat side who have the bright idea of running ads against the FairTax. The problem is, they always misrepresent it. Watch the ad here.

The ad claims that Chambliss wants to add a new 23% national sales tax. Which is inaccurate in the sense that it is incomplete. Any mention of the FairTax that only mentions the new sales tax is inherently misleading and deceptive when it does not also mention that it removes all other federal income, payroll, inheritance, capital gains and business taxes, while at the same time providing a rebate for all taxes paid up to the poverty level consumption.

Denise Majette tried this four years ago when running against Johnny Isakson. Her actions four years ago turned me from a casual FairTax supporter into a die-hard one. It also turned me into a Boortz reader/listener. Democrats repeated similar attacks in 2006 to very limited success.

The problem with these types of attacks is that when someone finds out the truth, they will no longer trust you. This is not the kind of thing where you're cherry picking issues out of complicated votes, or parsing statements to make them sound worse than they are. These kinds of attacks are plainly false, as anyone who understands anything about the FairTax can tell you.

Most of these attacks on the FairTax, including this one, are actually paid for by the national Democrat committees. This one was paid for by the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by Chuck Schumer. The Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee has been running similar ads - see the FairTax.org Hall of Shame.

Do me a favor. Send Democrats a message that these kinds of attacks will backfire, as they did four years ago. The FairTax needs Senators who will continue to support it. Vote for Saxby Chambliss, even if you have to swallow hard before you do it. The FairTax is that important.

And if you don't understand the FairTax, honestly, it's the simplest thing in the world to understand. Read about the basics of the plan (including answers to common criticisms), and if you're so inclined, read the full text of the FairTax bill. It replaces 7,500 pages of IRS tax rules with a simple 133 page document.

If you like, as a comparison, you can view the full current tax code here. Good luck with that. Apparently, Democrats like Jim Martin think that 7,500 pages of tax code is far more preferable to 133 pages of tax code.

Buck Rogers

2008-10-15T11:35:00.001-04:00

I was checking out some Heroes stuff on the NBC website yesterday, when I saw stuff about NBC's Way Back Wednesdays... and what do you know, they have full episodes of Buck Rogers available online!

Buck Rogers was my favorite TV show as a little kid. I remember, vividly, trying my best to be good and finish my supper quickly so I could watch it. And then being glued to the TV for a full hour. It was just like Star Wars, only on TV!

I even had the Buck Rogers hair until 6th grade. (The funny thing is, that's exactly how Jeremiah likes his hair right now.)

Watching it back, I totally see why I was so enthralled with it. It was cheesy, the special effects were bad, the set dressings rather crude (I think I saw a Texas Instruments calculator in one shot), but it was perfectly designed to appeal to little kids who were fascinated with Star Wars.

Also included are the A-Team, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Battlestar Galactica, Miami Vice, and others. See more at NBC's Way Back Wednesdays.

"Spread the Wealth Around" - Wealth Redistribution is Neither Neighborly Nor Christian

2008-10-14T11:55:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Obama spoke plainly about his agenda - "spread the wealth around." Watch it here.

Even just a few years ago, this kind of talk would have been front page news. And it would have been a major turn-off for the majority of voters. Today, though, our public is ready to accept socialism, even if they don't want to call it such.

Last night my dad sent out an e-mail titled "Wealth Redistribution is Neither Neighborly Nor Christian." It was a very simple and straightforward comparison of private charity to government redistribution. I'll let his e-mail speak for itself as a response to Obama's desire to "spread the wealth around."

It's time the prevarication of referring to a progressive tax structure (or other wealth redistribution scheme) as "neighborly" or "Christian" is addressed with some clarity and truth.

Let us assume two families, the Smith family and the Jones family, live in adjacent houses in Anywhere, USA, and are thus literally neighbors. Further, they are on good terms and have a long-standing friendly relationship. Their children play together, they get each other's mail during vacations, and they exhibit many other typical American neighborly behaviors. We would say, without question, these two families are neighbors.

Now, let's suppose that the Smith family falls on hard times. Mrs. Smith loses her job due to circumstances beyond her control, and Mr. Smith alone cannot support the family on his elementary school teacher's salary. Her car has mechanical problems, and they don't have the money to have it repaired. Fortuitously, the Jones family next door has a third (spare) vehicle.

Of their own free choice, Mr. and Mrs. Jones offer to loan (or give) their extra vehicle to their neighbors, so that Mrs. Smith can seek employment or "whatever you need," until "things get better." Note the government isn't involved in any way. This is an example of true neighborly acts (or acts of Christian kindness), initiated in the hearts of the givers, and which happen all over this nation on a daily basis.

In contrast, suppose the Jones family owns a small business that has proven very successful due to their hard work and endless hours. The government decides to further increase their income taxes "to help the less fortunate," in keeping with principles of "fairness," etc. The neighboring Smith family (or others in similar circumstances) may receive some of the money the government takes from the Jones family, by force of law (coercion). There is less money available to help the Smith family and others, after handling costs and paying salaries and expenses of the beaurocrats collecting and managing the money. And the government decides how to spend the money.

In this latter case, it's unavoidably true that the Jones family has less money available to help others or give to the charities of their choice. Maybe they even have to sell one of their vehicles to pay the extra taxes, so it's not available to help the Smith family. Secondly, there is no decision in the heart of the Jones family to help others – more likely they resent the government taking even more of their hard-earned income. Third, they may rationalize, "There's no need for us to help others out; let the government do it." Finally, there is no human connection between the actual neighbors or others who may benefit from the subsequent government spending. But the central actor is the nameless, faceless "government," except of course for the politicians who endlessly take credit for proposing the program, or supporting, co-sponsoring, or voting for it (often even when they didn't). An added benefit to them is that they get to buy votes with someone else's money (ours).

Who makes the decision makes all the difference. Only individuals can make neighborly or Christian decisions. There is nothing whatsoever that is neighborly or Christian about the government taking from some by force and giving to others. Make no mistake about it, and don't be misled. The only honest and objective term to describe this behavior by government is socialism.

Moreover, the politicians know it. But they will never say it. So one part of the big lie is that they have to find something else to call it. They also know that neighborly or even Christian principles are core values for most Americans. So another part of the big lie is to mask a heavy graduated income tax, not coincidentally one of the major planks of the Communist Manifesto, in neighborly or Christian terms. Perhaps you can recognize real "lipstick on a pig" when you see it.

The only thing I would add is the difference these two scenarios have in the Smith family.

As recipients of their neighbors' kindness, they are motivated to improve their situation, because they do not want to be a long-term burden on their friends. They are also touched by the kindness they have received, and are much more likely to help someone else in the future when they see someone else in need.

Compare that to receiving your rightful statutory assistance from the government. They would not feel as if they are imposing on anyone, because after all they are getting what is "rightfully" theirs, by law - they would even be able to sue the government for it if they did not receive it. Because they had never been truly touched by the kindness and generosity of others, they are that much less likely to respond with kindness and generosity in the future when they see someone in need - an extension of the "let the government do it" argument (which is exactly why liberals like Barack Obama and Joe Biden give very, very little to charity).

Socialist wealth redistribution may indeed, temporarily, assist someone economically. But it also results in a moral cancer, increasing our isolation from each other, bitterness, selfishness, and envy of others' success and accomplishments.

Remember Matthew 6. Those who blow trumpets to call attention to their righteous acts receive all the reward they will ever get here on earth. This would include those who favor socialist acts of wealth redistribution.

The VP Debate - Yes, Biden Gaffed Big Time

2008-10-03T09:03:00.005-04:00

You likely won't see this as news in the mainstream media, but rest assured that if Palin had made this kind of gaffe it would have been front page news.

When asked about the role of the vice presidency, Palin agreed that the vice presidency is a flexible position, and covers both the executive and legislative branches (since the VP is also the president of the senate).

Biden disagreed by criticizing Cheney as "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history." I'll let historians debate that point, but he backed that up by saying:

He has -- he has -- the idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the executive -- he works in the executive branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

First of all, Article I describes the legislative branch - as McCain's website says, "otherwise known as the branch in which Joe Biden has served for the last 36 years." The executive branch is described in Article II. Second, the ONLY duty ascribed to the vice president (other than counting the electoral college votes) is given in Article I as the president of the Senate, which indicates that he does indeed have a major role in the legislative branch. Some framers actually refused to sign the Constitution because they felt that the vice president's dual roles was a violation of the goal of separation of powers!

Rest assured, if Palin had screwed up like that, it would be covered far and wide, as proof-positive that she is unfit for the vice presidency. (More history on the power and role of the vice president can be found at senate.gov.)

The second gaffe, which is really more of an outright lie, was when Biden claimed that "This is simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say sit down with Ahmadinejad." Obama himself tried to lie about this at the first presidential debate, as I mentioned last week.

This is so easily provably false that it's ridiculous. Here's just one video:

John McCain's site has a full report on Obama's statements in this regard, including quoting from interviews and press conferences:

Harry Smith: "You said, 'I will talk to so and so and Hugo Chavez and etc., etc.'"

Obama: "Exactly, and without preconditions." (CBS' "The Early Show," 10/15/07)

Obama: "There has been no confusion. I have been absolutely clear on this. I will meet not just with our friends but with our enemies. I will meet without preconditions." (CNN's "The Situation Room," 2/4/08)

If you don't believe all of this, how about Obama's website, even today?

Diplomacy: Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.

Look, this should be no surprise to anyone who followed the primary process. Obama said repeatedly, unwaveringly, that he would meet with these leaders, personally, without preconditions. And Biden himself called this dangerous.

Biden: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected president? Absolutely positively no." (Remarks At The National Press Club, Washington, DC, 8/1/07)

Clinton: "I thought that was irresponsible and, frankly, naive to say that you would commit to meeting with, you know, Chavez and Castro and others within the first year." (ABC News,' "Good Morning America," 7/25/07)

I'd love for some Obama supporters to try to defend this. But there's simply no way that you can. Not only was his original position dangerous and naive, but now he's making outright lies about it to try to win the election.

If all of that isn't enough for you, McCain's site details a list of 14 lies Joe Biden made during the debate. Topics include tax votes, offshore drilling, troop funding, clean coal, alternative energy, health insurance, oil taxes, General McKiernan's comments, regulation, and more. On just about every topic covered in the debate, really, Biden resorted to distortions and lies.

More of the same!

Pro-Life Obama?

2008-10-01T17:35:00.004-04:00

The Matthew 25 Network has already revealed itself to be totally pro-Obama, "defending" him based on his statements alone and refusing to consider his record. In any case, they've gone and completely discredited themselves, by putting up this site:

http://www.prolifeproobama.com/

Huh? Obama is pro-life?

Well, I suppose if you think the answer to the question "when does life begin" is above your pay grade, then you can say you're pro-life, because you don't really know if there's life there or not.

In any case, they're not really trying to say that Obama favors restrictions on abortion, but the domain name and title of the site alone is extremely misleading, and a mischaracterization of Obama's entire record on abortion.

The idea of the site is actually to try to convince pro-life voters to vote for Obama. But by refusing to admit that he has voted against protections for babies born alive from botched abortions, that he wants to put justices on the Supreme Court who believe an abortion is a Constitutional right (I'll give $10,000 to the person who can find "abortion" in the Constitution), and who felt that the partial-birth abortion ban was "unconstitutional," we now have a group of well-respected Christians engaging in behavior that is downright misleading and deceptive.

(Actually, they were already characterizing Obama this way. Now they're just making their hypocrisy more explicit.)

All liberals want regarding abortion is to keep it from any kind of democratic debate. All the Matthew 25 Network wants to do is help the liberal media pull the wool over Christians' eyes as they work to elect the most liberal senator, one who has never, ever, not once in his entire political career, believed that any abortion restriction was appropriate. Even to the point of sucking a baby's brains out while they're halfway delivered. A brutality his wife called "a legitimate medical procedure."

Whatever you think, that is most certainly not a "culture of life."

And if you disagree with my assessment of Obama, I challenge you - show me one vote that contradicts me. You won't find it.

Think about that when you get ready to pull the lever for Obama in November.

Getting Started with House Church

2008-09-29T15:04:00.002-04:00

We had our first house church gathering here yesterday. We tried to do a couple of things a little differently, and overall it went well. My brother and his family are joining us for a while as we get started, which is great as he's had experience introducing open formats to different groups, which is something that will be new to just about everyone who will be a part of our group.

First of all, we shared a meal together, but rather than just dig in and eat, we tried to set up a new rule - nobody can serve themselves. If you need something, someone else has to get it for you. This didn't work out quite as smoothly as we had hoped, but in hindsight I think it went rather well for the first time. We didn't have too many people (8 adults, 11 children), but we're anticipating a few more next week so things might get hairier.

Overall, we're trying to think of ways to turn the meal into something more than just an opportunity to eat. Our idea was to figuratively add in a bit of the washing of feet into the mix. Everyone liked the idea of it, but we'll probably tweak the execution as we go along. Kids always make things like that interesting and more complicated.

After we ate and cleaned up a little, we moved into the den for worship. We spent 25 minutes or so with the kids, but it was a little disjointed. Britt brought some instruments for the kids to play, but it turned out the instruments were WAY too loud for kids to use. Give a kid a stick and a drum and all they want to do is bang it! So this week I'm on the hunt for some good kid-friendly percussion that isn't too loud.

We then sent the kids down to the basement. We have a great person to help with the kids down there - she's 13, lives in a nearby neighborhood, and is phenomenal with the little kids. Her dad works with youth camps and orphanages in Russia and Ukraine, and she's spent many summers working with youth camps in Russia. She's worked with kids for our larger house church gatherings that we've held here, and we're extremely blessed to have her helping us out.

While the kids were learning some Bible stories, playing games, and singing songs, we continued upstairs, thankful for the relative quiet. I informed everybody that there was no plan. I printed out a sheet with a list of songs on it, all of the songs I had ready to go in my worship lyric software (more on that in a future post), and let them know that if there was a song they wanted to sing, to say so. I led some songs, some folks read some scripture that was on their heart, and some others requested some songs. From what I remember, we sang "So Good to Me," "Today," "Your Love is Deep", and "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" (kid songs), followed by "Praise the King," "Glorious One," "Restore to Me," "How Great is Our God," "We Fall Down," and "Come Fall on Us."

As we wrapped up that phase, Britt talked about commitment to the cause of Christ. He noted that Jesus wasn't terribly interested in the disciples knowing everything perfectly - but that it was their commitment to him that had to come first. Likewise, when the church first began in Acts 2, you didn't see much in the way of "right doctrine" before people began joining the church. It began with an acceptance of the gospel followed by commitment to the church, and discipleship naturally followed.

I had wanted to start in with a reading of 1st Corinthians 12, but felt that chapter 11 was a better start. We ended up talking a lot about communion as a meal, and that led to a good discussion of rituals. I'll blog about that later, because I have too many thoughts on that to summarize quickly. I decided to save chapter 12 for later.

After that, we talked some about logistics and how we might handle things from week to week. With the exception of Britt and his wife Becca, everyone we had yesterday was from our previous house church. While it would have been awesome to have more folks show up, I think it was actually perfect for us to do this and talk some things through, because it was different from how we've had house church together in the past. What we're doing now is more open, and the goal is for others to be contributing more directly. That will come with time, but I think we set a good starting point of not having things too structured.

We've had some more people tell us that they'll be coming next week, and we're looking forward to it. It was a good bit of work preparing to host it here, but I imagine that will get easier as we go.

Something McCain Should Have Said

2008-09-26T23:50:00.006-04:00

Overall, the debate was pretty good. McCain was consistent as I expected, and Obama backtracked on many of his primary positions as I expected.

There was something I really wish McCain had hammered Obama on, though.

Obama kept bringing up that we need to focus on why the financial crisis happened, and kept blaming it on Bush (and McCain). McCain did mention that he had warned about this a few years ago, but he should have more explicitly blamed the problem directly at the feet of the Democrats.

The following video does a great job of explaining this entire mess with the mortgage crisis (note, embedded video updated):

He could have easily pointed out the political pressure that the Democrats placed on the mortgage industry, dating back to the 70's and increased in the 90's, to provide loans to people who would normally not qualify for them. He could have pointed out Obama's relationship with ACORN (where he was a "community organizer"), suing and threatening banks into writing more and more risky loans and driving up home prices in the meantime. And he could have called Obama out on Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines.

I have a theory as to why he didn't, though - McCain is currently in the middle of working out a bailout deal and didn't want to jeopardize it by placing the blame so publicly in the Democrat's lap, where it belongs. Still, if Obama wants to analyze the reason for the crisis, McCain should have obliged him.

Another point he could have made easily is that Obama wants to raise taxes on businesses by closing loopholes. It would have been the perfect opportunity to point out that businesses don't pay taxes, Senator, their consumers pay the taxes, embedded in the cost of the product or service. We need politicians who are willing to point out basic economic principles when other politicians try to pander to American ignorance.

There were many other areas where McCain did hammer Obama, and I'm glad he did. Obama was definitely backing away from his position on direct presidential diplomacy. In the primary debates, he stated that within the first year he'd personally sit down with Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Tonight he tried to paint that as starting with low level ambassadors and working his way up, which is exactly what everyone else has always supported. McCain adequately explained why this is dangerous, because direct talks legitimizes the kind of behavior Ahmadinejad has been displaying. Obama then tried to make it sound like Henry Kissinger was supportive of his approach, which is absolutely ludicrous. Look for that one to be played over and over again.

The other thing McCain harped on was Obama's stance on the surge. Obama did not, and could not, adequately explain his opposition to the surge, and would not admit that he was wrong about it.

McCain also pointed out Obama's initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia was weak and unequivocal. Obama denied it, but it's true. His initial statement was "I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict." McCain, on the other hand, called Russia out by saying "Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory." The differences are rather huge.

Obama, Ayers, and the CAC

2008-09-22T23:14:00.003-04:00

Stanley Kurtz (the guy Obama tried to silence on issues surrounding Ayers) has been pouring through the details of Obama's time at the Chicago Annenburg Challenge, where Obama served as chairman of an organization created by the 60's radical and unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers. Kurtz wrote a good column today detailing some of what the CAC was about, how it was tied to ACORN (where Obama did his "community organizing"), and how it went about it's radical agenda.

There is a reason why Obama isn't talking about his time there, and doesn't want anyone else to, either.

The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.

Read the full column for details.

Obama attacks McCain, shamefully incites Hispanic racial tensions

2008-09-19T08:26:00.005-04:00

Well, I guess when you've attended Trinity United Church of Christ, and listened to Jeremiah Wright for 20 years, you learn a thing or two.

Still, somehow, this amazes even me, given how we're supposed to be "elevating" the level of discourse in this election and not playing the "politics of the past."

Obama ran an ad, in Spanish, attacking McCain on immigration for things that they claimed Rush Limbaugh had said:

"They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with, the intolerance," the television ad's announcer says in Spanish as a picture of Rush Limbaugh appears onscreen with quotes of him saying, "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out."

First of all, Rush Limbaugh is no close policy friend of John McCain. Particularly on immigration issues, Rush has been a huge critic of McCain's proposals (along with most other conservatives). Just the whole idea of Rush and McCain being buddy-buddy is funny by itself.

But further, it turns out the the two quotes they took for the ad were COMPLETELY out of context. Well, if there's one guy Obama can't intimidate, it's Rush. He wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal today, titled Obama is Stoking Racial Antagonism (emphases mine):

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering.

Here's the relevant part of the Spanish-language television commercial Mr. Obama is running in Hispanic communities:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

Much of the media that is uninterested in Mr. Obama's connections to unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright have so far gone along with the attempt to tie me to Mr. McCain. But Mr. McCain and I have not agreed on how to address illegal immigration. While I am heartened by his willingness to start by securing the borders, it is no secret that we have fundamental differences on illegal immigration.

And more to the point, these sound bites are a deception, and Mr. Obama knows it. The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's the context:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

My point, which is obvious, was that the people who were criticizing Nafta were demeaning workers, particularly low-skilled workers. I was criticizing the mind-set of the protectionists who opposed the treaty. There was no racial connotation to it and no one thought there was at the time. I was demeaning the arguments of the opponents.

As for the second sound bite, I was mocking the Mexican government's double standard -- i.e., urging open borders in this country while imposing draconian immigration requirements within its own borders. Thus, I took the restrictions Mexico imposes on immigrants and appropriated them as my own suggestions for a new immigration law.

Here's the context for that sound bite: "And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."

At the time, I made abundantly clear that this was a parody on the Mexican government's hypocrisy and nobody took it otherwise.

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

We've made much racial progress in this country. Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency.

I don't listen to Rush much at all anymore - I'm rarely in the car when he's on the radio. But I listened to him enough in the past to understand his use of humor, satire, and sarcasm, and that is exactly what the quotes were lifted out of the middle of. Rush is absolutely right that the Obama campaign had to know exactly what they were doing when they lifted two quotes out of context, and put them out in a Spanish language ad in an attempt to stoke racial tension.

Obama doesn't represent any new kind of politics. And when you consider the kind of associations and mentors he has had, this kind of thing shouldn't be all that surprising.

McCain Sings Streisand

2008-09-17T11:57:00.002-04:00

I saw this a few years ago, actually, but I had forgotten about it! It's making the rounds lately due to Steisand's support for Obama, of course, but it's funny no matter what your persuasion is.

Gotta love a candidate with a sense of humor!

Obama and Abortion

2008-09-15T18:47:00.001-04:00

Obama has been trying to soften his stance on abortion by trying to talk about reducing the number of them. But he can't hide from his record.

Since Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 million babies have been murdered in the womb. Abortion is awful in general, but partial-birth abortion represents humanity at it's worst. In this "procedure," a baby is brought a out of the birth canal, except for the head, and then the "doctor" sucks that baby's brains out while their arms and legs are wiggling, so that they are dead before they are "born."

The idea of partial-birth abortion reminds me of capital punishment by having someone drawn and quartered, which was the most likely influence of the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" found in the bill of rights. It is reminiscent of the kind of techniques used by Vlad the Impaler in the 15th century, who enjoyed coming up with more and more brutal ways of slow, torturous ways of killing people.

Bill Clinton vetoed a federal partial-birth abortion ban, twice. Bush signed one into law in 2003. It was upheld by the conservative wing of the Supreme Court in 2007, very narrowly. Guess which type of justices Obama would nominate, and which type of justices a Democrat senate would confirm - those who would uphold such a ban, or those who would strike it down as "unconstitutional," even though no "right to abortion" exists anywhere in the constitution?

Beyond just his support for relativist judges, Obama's record of support for abortion is on the extreme liberal side of politics. Obama voted against an Illinois partial-birth abortion ban in 1997. He voted to preserve state-funded abortions in 2000. He voted against parental notification when taking teenagers across state lines in 2006. He has received a 100% rating from NARAL, indicating that his voting record is completely consistent with someone who supports unrestricted, government-funded access to abortion, INCLUDING for teenagers.

Michelle Obama once described partial-birth abortion as a "legitimate medical procedure." Their support for and defense of abortion has few equals in the history of presidential candidates.

To make matters worse, Obama voted against the Born Alive Infant Act in Illinois, which would have required doctors to provide medical care to babies who survived an abortion. Today he tries to spin this and make it sound respectable, but the reality is he voted to kill the bill in committee and spoke against it on the senate floor. His claims today that he supported the federal version of the bill are provably false.

I understand why someone wouldn't vote on abortion alone. But we're not talking about voting for someone who supports abortion in a *moderate* sense. We're talking about someone who has, 100% of the time, voted against any abortion restrictions, who has indicated his support for Supreme Court justices who take a dynamic, relativist view of the Constitution (which is required to support the continued existence of the Roe v. Wade decision), and, in particular, who has defended the most brutal, violent practice ever devised by mankind against a child.

If you can, in good conscience, vote for someone who supports a mother's right to bring a baby out of the birth canal, except for the head, and then suck that baby's brains out while their arms and legs are wiggling, so that they are dead before they are "born", or worse, to deny that child medical care if they happen to survive an abortion, then so be it. Personally, if a candidate can't even find these two things so heinous, so brutal, and so depraved as to say that they should be illegal in any and all circumstances, then that candidate will never, EVER get my vote. And they (including Obama) shouldn't get yours, either.

Obama and Sex-Ed for Five Year Olds

2008-09-15T09:25:00.003-04:00

I covered this last year, and I'm glad it's getting press again.

Despite Obama's claims that it's all lies cooked up by McCain, it's all true. One of the few "accomplishments" Obama has while a Illinois state senator was voting to Teach Sex Ed to Kindergartners. Topics covered from K5 to 3rd Grade include:

Puberty
Intercourse
Sexual Orientation
Masturbation
Abortion
STDs

These are all "Level 1" topics to be taught from ages 5 through 8. Go here to see more. Or download the full PDF. Disturbing.

Ignore the Hype - The Poor Are Not Getting Poorer

2008-09-15T08:50:00.003-04:00

I wholeheartedly reject the notion that tax cuts shouldn't be made across the board. Liberals have turned "trickle-down economics" into something you're not allowed to say, even though it works. Even on an anecdotal level, this is obviously true. As an example, if your taxes were cut enough or if you got enough of a raise, you might have enough money to pay someone else to cut your grass so you could spend your weekends with your kids rather than with your yard. That kind of thing fuels job creation.

But this is a hard thing to prove in an anecdotal fashion. But there is some data to back this up. This column is one I've been hoping to see.

Since 1983, living standards for the lowest fifth has increased 25%.

The column also lists several reasons why income gains are commonly underreported. One reason is that more poor people are filing tax forms today than 25 years ago, due to increases in the Earned Income Tax Credit program. In 1983, 19% of filers had no tax to pay. In 2005, that number was 33% - and it is expected to be 40% in 2008. When you offer people free money, they'll fill out a tax form. The side effect is that the IRS has more data on low income households - not because there are more of them, but because they end up getting paid to fill out a tax form.

The other issue is one of mobility. People move in income ranges over time - and usually people move up. Only one-third of filters who paid zero tax in 1987 were still in the zero tax income bracket in 1996.

When you hear liberal politicians talk about the "poor getting poorer," question how they measure this. Because there are many measurements that show the poor are doing much better now than they were 25 years ago.