You Can Only Have Harmony If You're Singing the Same Song

This article from the Birmingham (U.K.) Post on harmony between Muslims and Christians
is full of interesting tidbits. Of course, it's also full of babble, and babble can be interesting.

Harmony is a nice concept. The concept of harmony says that we all have different abilities and backgrounds and things we bring to every relationship, and we have to learn how to get along even when we're not alike. A successful choir will blend the different textures of the voices into a harmonious whole.

In other words, we can have unity without having uniformity.

But if you are singing two completely different songs, it's hard to harmonize. To quote the author of the article:

There do remain some major theological sticking points, in particular the idea of the Trinity, Jesus' Divinity and his Resurrection and Ascension.

Sticking points. You think? And who do you suppose is being asked to overlook these sticking points - Muslims or Christians?

Sorry. My song doesn't change.

Losing to the Dogs

First cats, now dogs. Gators lose. Painful.

CDP #49 Finally Ready

Finally got episode 49 of the Church Drama Podcast up and going. As always, the video version is shorter than the audio version. In the audio version I mention a thought-provoking post from the blog of Jeff and Melodie Leake. He's one of the guys that's involved in the FutureAG blog.

California Wildfires

Santiago Wildfire, originally uploaded by Kevin Labianco.

Pretty incredible picture from Flickr of the wildfires in California.

Betzer's New Book

Attended our sectional minister's breakfast Tuesday morning at First A/G in Fort Myers. Dan Betzer gave the devotional. He said a lot of good things. Says he's going to write a how-to book for pastors. It'll be 3 pages long.

Page 1 - "Love your people."
Page 2 - "Feed your people."
Page 3 - "Don't do anything stupid."

Good schtick. I guess I've just blown future sales for him.

Scrooge Publicity

Here is the back of the new Scrooge flyers. Only 7 weeks from tonight. Yikes.

Lazy Day

After a work-filled weekend last week, decided to avoid it this week. Almost succeeded.

I knew the beginning of today - my official day off - would be work-related. The City of Fort Myers was getting rid of some computer stuff, so I went and snagged several computers for the church. The big prize was a mint Dell PowerEdge 2500, loaded with six drives and redundant power supplies, and...okay, I'll save all the non-geeks from the details. It was cool.

The next few hours were spent at my Friday chore - grocery shopping at WalMart. Our store is undergoing renovations, so the expedition was a bit long today.

After lunch Sam and I went and strolled through the new Sports Authority and our new SuperTarget, with an additional stop at BJ's and - one more time - WalMart.

Trudi made 5-star chicken enchiladas for supper, along with southwest eggrolls with cilantro cream sauce. Then some ice cream for dessert.

Good day.

Spirit-Natural

While preparing my BibleQuizPodcast the other day, I was thinking about Paul's admonition to the Galatians to "live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." It seems that Paul is setting before us the choice of living naturally versus living -

Okay, this is where I got stuck, because my first inclination is to say natural as opposed to supernatural. That's fine, but I think it gives the wrong picture. Telling myself that I need to live supernaturally makes me think of walking on water, raising the dead, wearing a cape and flying faster than a speeding bullet.

Yes, I think that the supernatural manifestations of God's Spirit - such as healing the sick - should be evident among us on a regular basis. Certainly on a more regular basis than they are.

But I don't think that's what Paul was really driving at. The real point seems to be the natural versus the Spirit-natural. It's not the big, fantastic manifestations that are necessarily important. It is the regular, everyday manifestations of God's Spirit that should take over our lives.

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. That's the real evidence of Spirit-natural living.

Saying - I can't help it; that's just the way I am - is evidence of living naturally. We are called to live above the natural, but that doesn't always mean there will be supernatural evidence - but there should be Spirit-natural evidence.

Bottom line: May I not depend on me, but may I live Spirit-naturally.

Way to go, Idaho!

That - among many - is one of my favorite lines from the movie Toy Story. We finally purchased the DVD and gathered to watch it as a family a few days ago. It would rank high on my all-time favorite list. We're gradually trying to get all the DVD's of our favorite movies that we have the VHS copies of.

From the Booth

I'm privileged to work with some great people. Some of the best are the guys that are part of our MediaTech Team. Rich, Doug, Curtis, Ken, Richie, along with Jon, Cliff, and Dana are dedicated and really care about the quality of each service. It's not always perfect, but we are always trying.

This pic was taken last night during worship. That's Curt working the computer for video projection. We have the best seats in the house. (And some good coffee.)

CDP Team Wishes

I just posted this over on the Church Drama Podcast website, but I wanted to make sure everyone that knows them saw this. Some happy, happy wishes to a couple of core members of the CDP team...

Happy 33rd Wedding Anniversary to MJ and her husband, Larry.

And Happy Sporty-Heaven Birthday to Steve Carlsen today!

Affectionate or Obstinate?

The first league match for Bible Quiz was yesterday. That's a different story. But the drive to Orlando and back gives me time to catch up on some of the podcasts I listen to.

One of those I'm trying to catch up with is Mark Carr's at MyTrueLife. I was listening to the first in his series on the book of Ruth, when I heard this verse.

"And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her." - Ruth 1:14

Read the chapter and there's no question that both Orpah and Ruth loved their mother-in-law. Much like we love God.

But are we obstinate or just affectionate? Do we only make a show of our love - even if the show is real, genuine and deeply felt - or do we cling to God for dear life?

Orpah was deeply affectionate, deeply moved by the thought of separating from Naomi. Ruth was obstinate, refusing to separate from Naomi.

Is there a point that we accept separation from the presence of God - painful as it might be - because we think we must in order to survive? Or do we simply refuse, no matter what it might cost?

The ending is instructional. Orpah does what she feels like she has to do for herself. She is not mentioned again.

Ruth's determination leads to the mention of her name in the genealogy of Christ.

Selah.

Can't Hold That Tiger, Again

Yeah. Last year's Gators could finish a game. This year's group hasn't figured out how to do that yet.

No more Tigers on the schedule. :)

The Electronic Generation

Getting to spend a couple of days with Mom and Dad. Dad and I will be at a Teen Challenge "event" tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

Took this picture while they were looking at stuff online. Got this post up within 15 minutes (made the previous post about BQ first.)

Technology allows us to do all sorts of useless stuff - quickly.

New BQ Season

Can you believe they're playing hockey again already?

Well, the NHL doesn't have anything on Bible Quiz. Having just officially ended the 2006-2007 BQ Season with National Finals in July (the Stanley Cup Finals ended June 6), the new season gets underway this Saturday.

I'll be headed to Orlando for the the first league match for Pen. Florida. All the details are on the district TBQ website.

Seeing is Believing

...when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him - and in seeing him, become like him. - 1 John 3:2

Here is the teaser video we played on Sunday to announce the Scrooge Starter meeting.

Can't Hold That Tiger

Auburn 20, Gators 17. Sad. Hope it's not the Year of the Tiger, because Florida plays the LSU version this week. :(

Got it going

One of the things that kept me busy last week was getting ready for our Scrooge Starter last night. Unbelievably enough, it's our 18th go-around with the Gospel According to Scrooge. I've been working today to get the Scrooge blog functional again. (Some server problems that I won't go into.) It's up and running.

Crazy Week

Ever have one of those weeks when you feel like you're doing a million things, but not getting very much done? That was last week for me.

Most Christian blogs would have some deep spiritual insight at this point. Sorry - I'm fresh out. But I'll be back with some newsy posts today and tomorrow.

Stay tuned.