Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me. Patrick the Church Planter of Éire,
It will be said of me
“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” former first lady Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”
I was thinking about my friends at The River Church today and it got me thinking about Living Water. It is funny how my brain works, so here is a view of the random thought popping around my noggin tonight.
He will lead them to springs of living water, or as the Old Testament refers to,Mikvah or a ritual immersion pool, which got me thinking about The living Water
Jeremiah 2:13
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jeremiah 17:13
O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water.
Zechariah 14:8
On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter.
John 7:38
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Revelation 7:17
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Jesus so clearly takes a concept from the Old Testament and makes it come alive in the New, The old Testament has the Mikvah, a pool of standing water being contrasted to the New Covenant into a flowing spring of Life, not a stagnant pool but a life producing body.
My hope is this Christmas you will allow the Living Water flow from you, let the life renewing aration bubble up from your soul and turn from a stagnant pool to a river of hope.
Uncle Tone
The post in the link below was originally Written on May 16, 2006 by Darren Rowse ::
3 Factors to Consider Before Starting a Blog, Maintaining Blogging Momentum
This is the link that took me to the article, it really got me thinking, as I read well written articles, I often find myself adapting the message to see how it would apply to my journey, in planting a church.
I am not sure if the changing some key words is a cool thing to do , but
I hope with my pointing to the original work it will be ok, if not, let me know.
I have changed the words in the original post to bold font to make my point, and
stopped half way through, just to give you the idea. I really suggust you take a look at the original work and really think through what he is saying but look at it through your planting vision.
Hats off two Darren Rowse for a convertible well thought out post
Uncle Tone
______________________________________________________
As I’ve pondered how to write about maintaining momentum (this is part 2 of a series) on a blog many of the suggestions that I have have boiled down to one thing – thinking ahead.
While I know many bloggers like to blog spontaneously and to go with the flow, I’ve found that planning a Church (both before you start it and in an ongoing way) can save a lot of heart ache later on.
Following are three of the issues you might like to consider ahead of time and before you start a Church that will help you later when it comes to maintaining momentum on your Church Plant:
1. Topic breadth
Will the topic you’re considering starting a Church (about be) will it lend itself to being an ongoing project?
As I mentioned in my series introduction, there are two extremes when it comes to topic breadth that often lead to the death of a Church. The first is choosing a target group that is so broad that it becomes overwhelming and the second is choosing one that is so narrow that after just a few services the planter runs out of things to say.
One simple way to test whether a Church Plant is wide enough is to search for news on it using tools like Google News or Topix.net. Look particularly for the frequency of news on the group. This will give you an indication of whether there are stories breaking on the group that you can bounce off on your blog.
Another test is to simply brainstorm what posts you could write on the topic . Simply put down on paper as long a list of post titles as you can as quickly as possible. If after 10 minutes you only have a handful of potential post ideas you might want to either widen your topic or find another one.
2. Energy Levels
Does the Church Planting excite you? Are you motivated enough to pray,work,be lead about it for the long term?
Sometimes , easier said than done when you are right in the middle of crisis. It is a nice picture of togetherness seeing the family members praying. I am sure the families are riding the emotional roller-coaster of a lifetime.
Just a reminder, keep the families and the climbers in your prayers
Uncle Tone
Here is the video of the CBS in your face boondoggle
I know culturally we have gotten sensitized to this stuff and it might not seem so bad but think about it, where have we come as a society. Why is it we tolerate this. I think it is incremental passivity. We do not want to be prudes, we do not want to seem Holier than thou, we want to just blend in. Well we need to draw a line in the sand.
This is the same question I asked the school board when they were discussing Nirvana, what if this was about a sacred song from the Native American hymnal, or how about a lovely tune in the Holy book of the Muslim faith, lets say it was a tune from the sacred books of the ______ fill in the blank. Society at large would blow a gasket, we need to be culturally sensitive , unless it is a Holy song that those wacky Christians hold close to their hearts.
All I ask for is consistancey in your argument, if it is fair for the goose, let the gander have the same respect.
Lay off the Christan faith
Tone
CBS Turns ‘Joy to the World’ Into a Song About Fornication
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 /Christian Newswire/ — “CBS Television has crossed the line in a big way,” said Douglas R. Scott, Jr., president of Life Decisions International (LDI). “In an affront to all of Christendom, the network allowed actor Charlie Sheen to change the lyrics of ‘Joy to the World’ into a song that could be called ‘Joy to Fornication.'”
This one is to vile to post the lyrics on this blog, if you want to see the spew that passes for entertainment you will need to check out the link above.
I do not know if we as Christians will ever work up the nerve to take a real stand against this kind of junk but I for one vow to start today. I am not sure of how that will manifest itself, but I think a letter to the advertisers is a start . As for me , I vow to seek out the advertisers and let my voice be known, I will NOT buy or use any of the products being hawked by these companies and I will absolutely not watch any CBS programming until this is addressed.
I am not sure why this is tolerated by not only Christians but any group that has any kind of family values. My guess is, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics and even agnostics can come to some common ground that this kind of attack needs to be addressed.
I hope we can rise up.I would start here
lesliemoonves@cbs.com.
Mr. Leslie Moonves, President & CEO,
CBS Corporation, 51 W. 52nd St.,
New York, NY 10019; phone: 212-975-4321.
Uncle Tone
OK, I am a product of the sixties 🙂 and as I was getting ready to post this it dawned
on me Spy V Spy. It is funny how my mind works, the synapses fire in all directions.
Anyway, the Spy V Spy correlation is far fetched but I can not back out now. I am going
to visit a local church plant tomorrow, I am going to spend the morning in worship but
I am also going with a note book in hand, not to critique but to learn, is that a dichotomy
or an odd way to say, I am looking forward to see how someone other than my
home church does church. I can not wait.
More tomorrow
Tone
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Kind of crazy, We put two older children through the public school system, our third son only made it to 8th grade before we pulled the plug on the JUNK they call public school. He had to do an assignment on Nirvana, the task he was assigned was to make a game board on how to reach Nirvana, are you kidding me!!
In the 12 years the older two spent in school I never had to go beyond a teacher if we had a concern, but with this Nirvana, lets just call it junk, I know this is a family blog :)anyway, I went to the school board and made what I thought was a well thought out argument to stop the madness as they say. We were given a forum but only one of the board members listened or even made eye contact except one crusty old bugger who just glared at me for the 40 minutes I spoke.
Well sure enough two weeks later I received the well thought response, a stinking form letter letting me know how much they appreciated me joining in the dialoge, yah, right.
We made the decision to go the home school route and it has been the best thing ever!! If you have any chance to home school, go for it.
In closing, one of the things I asked the school board was, if they change the game board the kids were required to make and design one that showed the way of Salvation through Christ, would the accept it……
Not a chance in heck. Don’t you love fair play?
Anyway, here are some of the points in the link above. Should you want to re-paganize the Holiday season, give me a break, I don’t make this stuff up, our kids face this junk every day
Uncle Tone
Fox even provides a list of suggestions on how 21st century citizens can take part in the ancient rituals, to “re-paganize” Christmastime:
Wow, O bibles, I am not sure I could put together an effective message without a Bible to reference. This looks like a worthwhile project, give it a look
Tone
TonyOhh's Journey 