Jesus and a New Ride!

I came across this article, and was absolutely amazed! Just to summarize (you should read the article) a church offered a 2003 Yellow Hummer as a giveaway at the conclusion of their revival. The Hummer was intended to be an incentive to get people to come to the church to hear the Gospel. The Pastor of the church was unapologetic to the criticism that this was too worldly a prize for a church to be giving out. The Pastor said if the give away was sponsored by MTV than it wouldn't be a news story, so why can't a church try to have the same kind of incentive for people to come to church?

My response would be that a big yellow hummer is the antithesis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! You don't read about Jesus rolling into Jerusalem in a pimped out Chariot with 24" dubs! He actually came in on a Donkey and went out on a cross! Anyway, what you drive isn't the point. The point is I personally don't like the Gospel of Jesus being closely associated with the biggest symbol of excess we have in our society.

What do you think? Is this kind of thing good for churches to do? Is there anything wrong with providing incentives like this to get people to come to church?
posted by: J-Wild at: 3:33 PM -  7 comments

What are Friends For?
Allison and I finally got to watch Tuesday nights American Idol last night (Wed. night). All I can say is WOW some people need a reality check, or at least friends who will tell them the truth! The show is great and in the grand scheme of things it isn't too cruel. This show is totally addicting to Allison, and me and I think it is fascinating to watch the star making process and how much if the process isn't always based on talent. This season should prove to be very interesting...and hey there is even a youth Pastor from Abilene, Texas who made it to the Hollywood round!

It is obvious that these early shows are going to show "William Hung" type of talent, but what we saw last night was absolutely unbelievable. I seriously think there is some mental illness going on with some of these people, especially with the girl pictured above. Setting aside all of that, how can these peoples family, friends, and even acquaintances actually encourage them to go on a show like this! Seriously, if you were one of these bad singers wouldn't you want your friends to save you the embarrassment of actually singing in public let alone on American Idol!?

Can you just hear the conversations these "friends" are having today? Do you think the friends will come clean and say "Yeah Simon is right...your horrible!" Or will they take the easy way out and say "You don't need them. Keep following your dream, you're awesome." What about these peoples families, many of whom are waiting outside the audition room with baited breath. Are they really surprised when their kids don't make it? Allison and I love Levi with everything we have, but if he wants to sing in public or on stage and he is as bad as some of these people were, then we are going to be honest with him. Allison said that she would say, "baby...you can sing to momma all you want, just sing to momma sweetie."

So, how honest of a friend are you and how honest are your friends with you? If you have a "bat in the cave", stink breath, or a bad outfit would you want your friends to tell you about it? What about more serious things like your relationships, attitude, or behaviors (like partying, lying, school work, or gossiping)? Do you think your ability to be honest with yourself correlates with your willingness to be honest with other people?

What are your thoughts? posted by: J-Wild at: 2:20 PM -  0 comments

Prayer

I have this book on my shelf called "The Communion of Saints: Prayers of the Famous" by Horton Davies. It' Tom's book and I have been reading some of the prayers and they are so powerful. It's amazing how much hope, doubt, fear, longing, and desire is wrapped up in prayer. There is one prayer that has stuck out to me today and it's this one


I love this prayer because don't we all find ourselves doing this at some point? How silly is it especially if we believe that our worth comes from Christ who died for us. The problem is that it's just to easy to run someone down when they aren't there to defend themselves. Yet the gratification from doing it is just so hollow.

I have my own prayer I am going to try to focus on this week.


Do you have any prayers that you would like to offer? posted by: J-Wild at: 5:00 PM -  1 comments

The Lock-In

Wasn't that an awesome Lock-In?! To be honest I had a lot of fun and you guys (The Heir Force) restored my faith in the fun factor of lock-in's. A lot of it has to do with Chrissie, Joanna, Thomas, Christian, and the other volunteers that helped out. Special shout out to Kenny Eicher for being the other "adult" there. He stayed until about 3 a.m. even though his wife and five month old daughter were waiting to go home.

This doesn't mean that we are going to have a lock-in once a month or anything, but it does mean that we might have one during the summer. Anyway thanks for being a lot of fun and have great attitudes.

On another note. Did anybody see Ashlee Simpson's dreadful performance last night at the Orange Bowl (you can download part of the performance here (it's 7mb)? It was amazing....amazingly bad (spoken like Napolean Dynamite). I can't believe that these pop-princesses keep getting record deals. What's up with that? Why is it that people who can't sing, dance, or write music keep getting record deals? What popular artists do you think are completely overratted and why?

PS: We are having PHAT 108 this week at our house starting at 5:45pm until 7:00pm!

posted by: J-Wild at: 8:58 PM -  1 comments