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Our Daily Thread 3-16-13

Good Morning!

♣ Happy St. Patrick’s Day! ♣

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Quote of the Day

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with  arms.”

James  Madison

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Anyone have a QoD?

57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-16-13”

  1. Them’s really fast fingers. When Phil started finger picking, he put the pick on his knee. Chuck put his in his mouth. I always wondered if that was smart.
    When I started to leave a comment, I was instructed to sign on to youtube. Then I knew I was in the wrong place.
    🙂

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  2. I wish I could think of something to start a hot argument here.
    We were fined a dollar at Lions yesterday if we weren’t wearing something green.
    Fortunately, my shirt had patches of green on it.
    I don’t know if I will wear some green tomorrow. Shull’s are Krout throughout. But my mother was a Steadman/Hix. I don’t know if that’s Irish or not.

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  3. Just wanted to stop in fro one last look and say see you all in about 2 weeks. I’ll miss you all and I’ll be praying for you all. That’s y’all for Kim 😉

    Flying in a couple hours.

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  6. We had a great artistis reception last night. For the first time in my life I was a bartender. They had their choice Red or White or Beer? I couldn’t have handled anything more complicated than that. It was hard enough for me to tell the difference between Bud Lite and Miller Lite. The food was the best we have had. All the artists were happy. They all reported that they had a GREAT Friday and were a little amazed at how well they had done. Today is usually their biggest sales day.
    I treated myself to some pottery. It is a “French” butter keeper. You pack the butter in the bell shaped attachment to the lid, fill the crock part with salted water and it creates a vacuum to keep your butter at a spreadable temp on your counter without it spoiling. Of course! I wanted the red one and red pottery has to have 24K gold in it to make it the retain the color or some such so it cost me more than if I had bought the blue or green one. I am seriously thinking of going back and buying the salt and pepper cellar that matches it.
    Work was crazy busy yesterday. I think I told you call sent me a message asking me if we got in a bind could I show property. I told him of course! I also told him it held true the old real estate superstition that in order to get busy you had to schedule a day off or a vacation! Just to help the team out I was going to St. Lucia next week. He laughed and said if we get this right we may ALL go to St. Lucia.

    I think today I will spend some time with the Baby Girl and see if I can’t get her happier. Mr. P and I have an appointment next Thursday to talk to the therapist about her and the three of us. His suggestion. I was impressed.
    BG’s appointment with the endocrinologist went well yesterday. All of her numbers were good. She will go back in 3 months and if they are still good we will start going every 6 months.

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  8. Klasko, we will miss you.

    Kim, Bud Lite or Miller Lite?!? I thought you said you had beer??

    The QoD is for Chas, it has started a big argument on a blod for church leaders 😉

    AJ, we have had enough March without the Madness, time to get it going!

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  9. Our church is equipping the saints to do good works. Which means we have teaching and training by action, to go out and serve the people, pointing them toward God. What is this “outward or inward focused” thing?

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  11. AJ- I see you’ve been listening to some Phil Keaggy. Great stuff.

    Chas- Did you notice he is missing his right index finger? Some picking without one important finger, eh? That’s why many consider him the greatest rock guitarist, in league with Jimi Hendrix. Personally, I think he is far and away better than Hendrix, especially since he gives glkory to God for his talents.

    QoD: We are a very small church,but we reach out financially to ministries around the world, usually to those we know personally to be reaching the lost. Every week the pastor asks if we know of any needs. Since we meet in his house and he does not take a salary, our tithes are not needed locally.

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  12. Here are some lines from the other blog–admittedly yanked out of context–that give some definition to outward vs. inward.

    What are we willing to do to reach people outside the church and outside the faith?
    For some churches I’ve worked with, the answer is just about anything short of sin. For others, it’s just about nothing if it means losing people who already attend the church.
    The challenge to the outward church will be how to we help people take steps in their spiritual journey after they accept Christ.The fact is, though, most outward-focused churches are very sensitive to this challenge. These leaders are uncomfortable with people getting stuck spiritually, and they recognize that people with vibrant relationships with Jesus want to continue to reach people outside the faith. . .
    On the other hand, I’ve never seen an inward-focused church have an intentional path for reaching people outside the faith.In those instances, the inward-focused churches hope (and sometimes pray) people outside the faith will somehow join what the church is already doing for existing church members. When it comes to reaching people outside the faith, I’ve never seen that strategy work. . .

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  13. I’d like to think our church is focused on both as we are actively connected to two homeless missions in our area and we are involved in missions overseas (including providing opportunities for young people to participate in short-term endeavors).

    Our pastor (who’s degree is in apologetics) believes in an active community outreach and is very focused on equipping us to share the gospel, we are frequently exhorted to bring visitors to church.

    But … I’ve seen churches become so seeker sensitive that they lose their own mission of feeding the saints and of “being” “the church.”

    It can slip into becoming all about programs and entertainment and even gimmicks designed to get folks to attend events.

    Every so often you’ll hear of an extreme example of that — the preacher who’s handing out dollar bills at church, etc. I still remember when we had a new young minister at a former church I attended and instead of giving a sermon one Sunday he showed a “Christian” video that basically lampooned churches that were considered too stuffy. Let’s just say it didn’t go over well.

    After that, the video screen was hauled away and never again dragged out for a Sunday worship service (at least for as long as I stayed there). 😉

    I’d say generally that the marks of the true church are the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, sound doctrine, the right administration of the sacraments, and, when necessary, the right administration of church discipline.

    Evangelism (both personal and corporate) then flows from that — but I have a problem when churches design their services around visitors rather than the body of Christ, which I think has been the tendency in U.S. churches for the past several decades. And I’d say it hasn’t made the faith in America stronger. It’s made the influence of Christianity (and the church in general) noticeably weaker, in fact.

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  14. Good morning (barely!). Becca had a successful sleepover last night. The girls got along well and went to bed without too much difficulty. They had a ball at The Little Gym last night and were in the hot tub this morning by 8:30! Her mom came to pick her up around 10:00. They were already making plans for their next sleepover! Thanks to all who have prayed for Becca to make a special friend. God is so good!

    In just a little while I have to take older daughter to get a present for one of her best friends whose birthday party is tonight. Other than that, it’s a pretty lazy Saturday. I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m glad there’s not a lot on the agenda.

    QoD: We attend a large church that is outward focused. We support many missionaries. They reach out to the community through various programs and special activities, such as a fourth of July celebration for the whole community.
    Our church has as a requirement for membership that a person be involved in either a small group or a serve team.

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  16. Our church is one of the largest contributors to the SBC Cooperative Program in NC. In addition, we have sent missionaries to Clarkston, Ga. and Haiti on a regular basis, and sent short term missionaries to the Middle East. Locally, we have a jail ministry, we operate the Crosswalk for young people, a Wee School for preschool, an Open Arms Center for unwed mothers to be (I didn’t know we had those in Hendersonville, but we do.), He have ESL classes and rehab sessions for addiction. We have a free lunch for homeless and others every Thursday.
    For other information you can go to fbchnc.org.
    I would say “outward focused”.

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  18. Good Morning….we’re going to get rain today and snow tonight…and sunshine tomorrow….:-)
    I believe our church is inward and outward focused….we are intentional on relationships and we focus on missions as well…is that what you mean?
    Prayers for sweet moments for you klasko..and for safe travels..we will miss you around here
    Kim, let us know how you like that butter keeper…my daughter wants one and I wasn’t clear on just how that was going to work…keeping salt water in there to “keep” the butter??
    My grandkids are coming over after the St Patty’s Parade….oh, and they are bringing their parents…can’t wait to see them!
    My ancestry is linked to the French Huguenots who fled to Ireland…and I’m German, Dutch…and when my Dad’s father was drunk, he always insisted we were related to Chief Sitting Bull 😦

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  19. I’d also say (as our pastor has) that much (if not most) of the church’s effective ministry takes place one-on-one and is never even known about. It doesn’t appear in the bulletin, it isn’t heralded as an event or scheduled for a particular time and place.

    It’s the equipped saints ministering quietly to one another and to those unbelievers all around them without broadcasting it or orchestrating it or making it into some kind of a formal program.

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  20. I’m curious about the butter keeper too. I keep some butter out on the counter so it’s usable, but I’m never sure how long it stays fresh — in general I think butter seems to have pretty good staying power on its own?

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  21. QoD, Both. We focus inward with Bible study, support groups and church functions and outward by sending missions teams and donation all over the world plus supporting local charities, schools and fellow churches

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  22. I’m mostly Scottish with some English and Irish (+ smaller part German). But my Irish ties are to the rebels in the north, those pesky Protestants. 🙂 My grandfather had a bunch of the Orangemen literature that had been handed down to him, but it went to my 2nd cousins.

    On St. Patrick’s Day, my mom would dress me in green but then she’d always pin a little bit of orange cloth somewhere on my dress. 🙂

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  23. I can’t seem to find exactly what I’m looking for, but I recall a few years ago hearing a radio show that included interviews with professing Christians who had a rather weak grasp on the gospel message.

    The danger in the American church isn’t that we don’t reach out enough — but that we’ve become somewhat biblically illiterate within our own ranks (which doesn’t reflect very well on the job the churches are doing in this country).

    Click to access whi2010survey.pdf

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  24. In my church, I think whatever the member is involved with would give the impression of being inward or outward focused. I work with children’s Sunday School within the church so what I see is more inward focused to members. We use to do VBS for the community, but it seems recently it has been more focused on the children who are members or have family members in the church. Mission trips do reach out with Backyard Bible clubs. We support missionaries and have some mission trips each year, and I am involved with WMU which has monthly programs about SBC missions around the world. We do have some programs that appeal to the homeschool community so that could be considered an outward or inward reach since children in the public school/private school community are not available to participate. Because I am busy with the children’s ministry, I am unfamiliar with what all the outreaches are that others are involved in. We seem to have a steady stream of visitors, probably because of our location, but many do not get involved with Sunday School/Lifegroups. We do support some church plants that reach people in the city that might not be reached otherwise.

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  25. Salt keeps water from going bad and growing bacteria. ( we often take the baptism water and put it in a bottle with salt to give to the parents. ) That is what keeps the butter from spoiling but the water and the pottery crock keeps it cool

    I think our church is a good combo. Whatever our members are involved in we try to support. The Deacon’s wife works with Ecumenical Ministries so we support them. One of our vestry members is the director of a drug treatment facility so we support them. Two young couples in our church are in the mission field spreading the gospel through teaching 3rd world countries how to collect and save clean drinking water, so we support them. When we broke off from the Episcopal church and placed ourselves under the diocese of South Africa there was a missionary school already there so we support them. The priest’s daughter is helping with a mission church in New Orleans so we support them. A priest from our diocese is now living in France ( all those beautiful cathedral not being used because the country is mostly Muslim now) so we support him and his family.

    Our priest thinks the death knoll of a church is a trust fund that supports the church. As much as we having coming in he wants going out to do God’s work.

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  26. Adios’ QoD: Our little group is definitely outward focused (we wouldn’t be here otherwise), but the Sunday gatherings are for our benefit and encouragement. The worship we give and the fellowship and teaching we receive on that morning strengthen us for the challenges in the coming week. A church must seek to reproduce, but not at the cost of feeding its own flock.

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  27. My family name is of south Scotland/north England origin (probably from the Norse settlements there), but it became northern Irish via the Plantation of Ulster (the English government sought to introduce British Protestants into Catholic Ireland, laying the foundation of future religious conflicts) in the early 1600’s. Our branch didn’t stay in Ireland long, coming to Canada in the mid-1700’s. But my ancestors were in Ireland at the same time as Ireland’s greatest bard, the blind harper Turlough O’Carolan – though in a different part of the country. I played some of his music for the Gambians this week. So in honour of St. Patrick’s Day – here is a medley of his music (I hope the link works, as I can’t view the video on my internet connection):

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  28. 🙂
    There’s a restaurant on Main St. called Hannah Flanagan’s. Their radio ad says,
    “Hannah Flanagan, where everyone’s Irish”.
    I found a green necktie to wear today.
    Nobody I know would care.
    But if Becky were here, she would.

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  29. I have always been told we were Irish, but I have found out since that we are Scotch-Irish. This is not something you would brag about in and Irish pub. When we visited Ireland the only people I told my family name to were some folks in the only Baptist church in that section. They were cool about it.

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  30. KBells, most of us here in the south are of Scotch/Irish descent. We either got here because our ancestors were supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie or running from debtors prison. I knew all the family lore but then one weekend I got sucked into Ancestry dot com and things didn’t make sense so I gave up. I might now like what I find….. 😉

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  31. Random, according to your link, having had the ministroke, you are a potential bearer of depression. Feel free to keep posting on here, antagonizing as you will, and we will continue to try to point you to God.

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  32. Yes, how’s it going Random? You around?

    I remember interviewing an older Irish woman (this was probably 15-20 years ago now) and she basically said the Scotch-Irish were the scum of the earth.

    “Oh,” she said in her heavy Irish brogue, her gray head shaking back and forth, finger wagging, “the Scotch-Irish, they are the worst.”

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  33. Beautiful music and photos, roscuro, and very fitting for today. 🙂

    On another topic, I have to say it’s rather jarring to see Pope Francis pop up amid all the zaniness and politics on Twitter. He’s thanking everyone for their support, asking for their prayers.

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  34. Hmmm, I am Scotch Irish in ancestry. I am Idahoan and American in country. I am an adopted child of God in real life, a citizen of another place.

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  35. I haven’t been on here for a couple of days, so I just read about Stephen’s tia and went back to see where he posted on it. If you’re reading this Stephen, we are praying for you.

    I agree with Donna on the marks of the church, although I don’t agree one hundred percent with how my own church fulfills its mission.

    I’m usually annoyed by the kind of shallow Christianese you hear from the deejays on KLOVE, and yesterday’s comment from one of them really summed it up for me what’s wrong with them. One of the women deejays said something like, “I don’t know if you (the listener) are Catholic or not, but I was listening to the new pope and he said something I think we can all agree with. He said,” she said, (something to the effect) “that he doesn’t care much about all that theology stuff–he just wants to get out there and help the community.”

    Excuse me? We can all agree that we don’t care much about theology? I certainly don’t agree with that. I like some of the music they play, but I could definitely never financially support them with that attitude!

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  36. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Here’s a Limerick for y’all:

    “A Canner exceedingly canny,
    One morning remarked to his granny:
    ‘A Canner can can,
    Anything that he can,
    But a Canner can’t can a can, can he?'”

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  38. Today my twin nephews are celebrating their golden birthdays — 17 on the 17th. My sis and BIL adopted them from the Ukraine when they were 5 1/2. They have a kind of gypsy background, and nobody knows which of the boys was born first.

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  39. The pastor finished his series on “The Walk: Your Faith in Motion” today. The sermon was “Leaving Godly Footprints”. Interesting insight: He started by showing slides of footprints. We were to identify them. Duck, cat, deer, bear, wolf. Etc. Seems we can identify what has passed by the footprints they left. He used Ephesians 4:1-6 to discuss the footprints Christians leave. Good message, something you remember.

    It reminded me of something I thought of a few years ago. When you get older, you begin to cogitate on things past. And you wonder about the footprints (or effect, I hadn’t thought of the concept of footprints then.) you leave along the way. I have no certain way of determining the effect. But it occurred to me that after we had been somewhere for a while, people seemed genuinely sorry to see us go. That meant something.

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  40. I have lamented here about the music we sing in church. It is “praise music” and sometimes I just want to hear music I know from my childhood. This morning the Psalm said something about bringing sheaves so I wanted to hear this. Quite the production of this song isn’t it? Not quite like I heard as a child but here goes:

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  41. Thank you for praying for me, Ree.

    In Yiddish (I know about four words, though I knew a few more when I was young), a belly button is known as a “pipick.” A pipick can be an “innee” or an “outee.” Of course, as I got older I learned that boys are outees and girls are innees. It never occurred to me that any of this was a sign of God, though I suppose sometimes boy and girls say “Oh, God” during times of affectionate innee and outee activity. I’ve always wondered if they are REALLY thinking about God at such times. Perhaps thinking, “Maybe we are making a baby! God will be so happy!” After all, if you are not making lots of babies, God will be lonely. I am going off the tracks here, am I not?

    My Linux computer was not working. (No mouse.) This morning for no reason, the mouse started working. I didn’t pray. Was it a miracle?

    My Windows computer is getting lots of error messages. I get lots of spam. Chinese Spam. Arab Spam. Christian spam. Did one of you hack my computer? Would that be a Christian thing to do? Does the devil hack computers? Is there really a devil? If the devil was in the presence of God before he fell, why did he rebel? Isn’t God omnipotent and omniscient? Couldn’t such a being do a better job of inventing semi-intelligent creatures? Obviously, you are more intelligent than I am, so you should be able to answer this question As you can tell, despite my stroke (mini-stroke) I am perfectly fine. I am back to being my old you know what hole that got banned from world mag blog.

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  42. They told this event from the pulpit this morning. A volunteer at the Crosswalk saw a boy hit a girl with a basketball. He told the boy that he was excluded from the gym for a period. The boy started crying; he told the guy that he hated his life and family. The guy talked with the boy for about ten minutes and the boy said there was no father at home and his mother and sisters didn’t know he existed. This was told as an example of volunteers having opportunity to minister through the programs.
    It’s an evil world out there. We don’t think of it so much in Hendersonville, but its here.
    I thought of Mumsee and her Nest.
    Some kids don’t have a chance in life.

    About outreach: This is the season of taking the Annie Armstrong offering for North American missions. There are over 45,000 SBC churches. Our church is in the top 200 in giving. Pretty good for a church our size.

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  43. For those who know me they will think it is hysterical that I am posting this. I once told someone in Winston-Salem, NC that I was trying to SELL something to that NASCAR was a redneck sport and I wouldn’t go….but this is funny. There is some language that has been bleeped out.

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  44. Ree (about the radio announcer you heard saying theology, in essence, was not all that important). Yikes. And that’s exactly what’s got us into this mess (a weakened church witness).

    We continued our sermon series in Romans today. (4:13-15, “Heir of the world”).

    It touched also on the mandate given to Adam in Genesis to take dominion over all the earth and Psalm 2 (which will make Solarpancake happy) about how the judges, kings and presidents are called to be wise and to serve the Lord.

    So who wore green today? I did but it was sort of by accident. Still … I forgot my little orange patch, though. 😉

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  46. Last night, our church had one of our periodic special services, which starts out in similar fashion to a Sunday morning service, but the sermon is much shorter, & is followed by “hands on” prayer, so to speak.

    Seeing Lee & me up front, having just prayed for a couple people, Pastor Kris asked us to come over to him, for him to pray for us. After praying for our family, he said that he sensed God telling him that He is indeed working in our family, but that it is going to take “something hard” for my girls to come back to God.

    I’ve sort of sensed this myself. I’m praying “Whatever it takes, Lord.” But it is a bit scary to await that “something hard”.

    It was wonderful to see teens crowding in to lay hands on & help pray for people.

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  49. I’m so glad I signed on. I’ve been confused all day, thinking tomorrow was March 17 and wondering why everyone was making such a fuss! I’d better go find green clothing quickly!

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  50. Chas: interesting about the footprints. When we got home from church just now, I saw mouse prints in the snow and we got out to see where they went. They ended suddenly and there was a big mark in the snow with wing prints on either side. Poor mousie 🙂 Lucky bird!

    1 Corinthians 15 this morning on the resurrection of Christ. Stumbled over verse 29 & 30: Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who were baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?

    What do you all think those verses mean?

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  51. Kim – We keep our butter out year round, & it is fine. Unless you specifically buy “unsalted butter”, your butter has some salt in it.

    In the winter, we don’t keep the kitchen particularly warm, so the butter is still hard, & won’t spread. 😦 So a sign of spring in our house is when the butter starts softening. 🙂

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  52. Kare, according to my notes in the ESV Study Bible:

    “Some interpreters through the centuries have thought this referred to vicarious baptism on behalf of deceased people, probably those who had believed in Christ but had not been baptized before they died (cf. Luke 23:43). But the interpretation is uncertain, and whatever the practice is, Paul reports it without necessarily approving it, and is clearly not commanding it. … the Bible gives no support to the idea that anyone can be saved apart from personal faith in Christ.

    “Other interpreters argue that by ‘the dead’ Paul means the bodies of living Christians which are subject to death and decay; they are baptized ‘on behalf of their dying bodies,’ showing hope that their bodies will rise again.”

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  53. So I think I’m heading back to church tonight for our 6 p.m. class that meets through the month of March. I’ve missed the previous classes (but have listened to some of them on the computer later).

    Do I still have to wear green now that it’s almost nighttime?

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