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Yesterday Ryan, our new High School Pastor, spoke on anger. It got me thinking about anger, the stuff I get angry about, the things I don’t get angry about, the way my anger often fizzles into nothing because of apathy or comfort. Then I started to get angry that we as the church allow some things to anger us and not other things. Ryan mentioned at the end of his talk about how the church is often viewed by those outside the church. It was something along these lines: ” We are known as gay haters and hypocrites”. In that this is not true for all people in the church, and not all churches, and not all followers of Christ, it is true for many in the church.
That all got me thinking about the way we deal specifically with homosexuality and the gay community. We have allowed the loud voices in some circles to get the attention and dictate to the world what “we” (Christians) believe. Here is my issue: We have spent so much time, energy, and resources ( including a ton of cash) on fighting an issue such as gay marriage, and all the while there are people in this world that don’t have food and clean water. We are choosing to spend all of these things on fighting something that most likely won’t accomplish what we want.
Here is what I am hoping. Can we be a people who are known for love? Love of all people. It is so easy to say: love the sinner not the sin, but that is often an empty saying that gives us a reason to continue our non-loving ways.
I hope that our anger is directed at things that God gets angry about. For me this is hard, but I pray that God will continue to break my heart for the things that breaks his heart.
What are your thoughts? What should a follower of Christ get angry about?
This past week I was up in beautiful Prescott, AZ with our 5th and 6th graders for summer camp. Anytime I get out of town for a week with students I am always guaranteed a few things, most good, some not so good, but overall a great time. So Here are a few things that are worth mention
1. Camp Band – I always enjoy a good band. This year the band was amazing! They played to their audience to a T! I underestimated the ability of 5th and 6th graders to worship God. The band makes a huge difference at camp, and this year we got lucky.
2. The imagination of kids! – So the camp was also for 3rd & 4th graders. We had a few activities together as a big group of kids. I am quick to forget the crazy imagination of kids. On one of the mornings I was walking by a group of kids that were playing some game that had to do with saving the world. Here are some quotes that I heard come from these warriors: ” Hurry up, the enemy is trying to take the fort in to thier possession.”, ” Retreat, Retreat, the bad guys are coming, everyone back to the base!!”, ” my gun is broken, someone help me before they capture me”. I am jealous, I want to be in that place again.
3. Silent Football – If you haven’t played this game, then you haven’t lived! We laughed so hard. (pee your pants hard). Some highlights are these phrases: painted butt-hole (pardon the use of the word – it was referring to a baboon), flamboyant bracelet necklace, cube-in-chest, sweet like bear meat, and velma, thelma, and luis. The game was amazing. Spencer had to drink some water out of a didgeridoo (an Australian type of instrument), but the catch is that the didgeridoo had been used by well over 100 people prior to spencer drinking out of it. (when you use it you basically spit in it, so he had to swallow a lot of spit in his water)
4. Dodgeball – we played for 3 hours straight on Wednesday, and my whole right side is still sore. My boys were amazing in this game, they were studs.
5. Snipe Hunting – Unfortunately we did not catch any, but we sure tried. We were out in the woods yelling for those stubborn snipes to come out, but not luck. I had the privilege of taking out 3 adults too, which is always fun making them hunt some snipes. My boys were asking for peanut butter for 3 days, convinced that it would be what we needed to finally catch one of those furry rascals.
6. Water Day - Always a good time.
7. Little Sally Walker – it’s a game that young girls play, but I was recruited to join in. So I did, then… my boys did too, then… the whole camp was obsessed. Funny watching boys play little Sally Walker.
Camp was good. The camp itself was a wreck. They were so understaffed that we were helping serve meals and cleaning our own bathrooms. Their were some other down spots, but despite all of that… God still worked in the lives of students and leaders alike. It was a great week.
I saw this article through Eugene Cho’s blog.
Guns in church? Really? There was one quote from the article that really scared me.
“I want to be part of what makes criminals wonder if the next person they choose to assault may be the one that ends their life,”
As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of what Jesus would say to this quote. Oh, how far we have come.
So what do you think? Should we have guns in church?
What about playing patriotic music in church? Is that what Jesus was talking about when he referenced serving 2 masters?
