New CRMC blogs

There are two new blogs dedicated to the ministries at California Road MIssionary Church (CRMC). I am hosting one and our youth pastor, Matt Maloney, is hosting one just for the youth ministry. I am excited about the possibilities of these blogs for communicating with current, potential, and future attenders. Here are the Links.

CRMC Youth Blog

CRMC Campfire

Game of the Week -- Neon

Another game I found over at Fetchfido... Neon. A new twist on Asteriods. Just good old fashioned space destruction.


NEON

Piper's dad goes home -- a lesson for us all

I had to post this link to the blog/ journal entry made by John Piper after the passing of his father. It reminds me of when my grandpa passed away several years ago. There is no sadness for the loss of life for these great saints as they go home; rather just the sorrow of the tempoary separation and the effect of not having their leadership, friendship, and godly example before us. It reminds me:

1. this is not our true home, there is so much more beyond our few years here
2. I want to live a life that may someday have even a small chance of being remembered this way
3. I need to honor my own parents and the lives of my elders as they live out their examples before me. And pass the importance of this on to my children.

Here are a couple of quotes from the post that truly hit home.

That’s it. I rose and waited. Will he breathe again? Nothing. Fifteen or twenty seconds, and then a gasp. I was told to expect these false endings. But it was not false. The gasp was the first of two. But no more breaths. I waited, watching. No facial expressions. His face had frozen in place hours before. One more jerk. That was all. Perhaps an eyebrow twitch a moment later. Nothing more.
I stroked his forehead and sang,
My gracious Master and My GodAssist me to proclaimTo spread through all the earth abroadThe honors of thy name

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you for sixty-one years of faithfulness to me. I am simply looking into his face now. Thank you. You were a good father. You never put me down. Discipline, yes. Spankings, yes. But you never scorned me. You never treated me with contempt. You never spoke of my future with hopelessness in your voice. You believed God’s hand was on me. You approved of my ministry. You prayed for me. Everyday. That may be the biggest change in these new days: Daddy is no longer praying for me

It was 12:55 as I walked out of room 4326. Just before the elevators on the fourth floor in the lounge, a young man in his twenties was sitting alone listening to his iPod with headphones. I paused. Then I walked toward him. He stopped his music. Hello, my father just died. One of the greatest tributes I could pay to him is to ask you, Are you ready to meet God? “Yes, Sir.” That would make my father very happy. You know Jesus is the only way? “Yes, Sir.” Good. Thank you for letting me talk to you.

Day off Blog

This wasn't scheduled to be a day off but I worked the vening shift on Tuesday due to some training. It comes as a blessing because my scheduled day off (Sat.) will be wall to wall on the go leading to a busy Sunday. I tried to take advantage...

• let kids sleep in, took them to school
• a little web surfing/ couple blog posts
• went to the library
• did a little reading
• took a nap -- that may have been the best part of the day
• went to wrestling camp
• took Caleb to get a haircut -- had a fiscussion with his stylist about psychics.
• a little family time/ TV (Idol, Criminal Minds)

FPU Week 4

Monday night was week 4 of FPU. Just wanted to post some highlights/ wins from the session.

• the lesson was "Buying Big, Big Bargains". I love this lesson because it is both fun and practical. Let's face it, we're gonna buy some stuff. Why not at least get a deal!!
• we celebrated a birthday
• some great discussion on what happens when the budget doesn't work like we planned or an unexpected large repair, etc. comes up. Especially when we are starting out.
• one family has found a great deal on getting a $2000+ car for $1000 off. Now thats a deal!! and they will be paying cash.

It is never too early or too late to start taking charge of your finances. Why naot get started today?

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 4

• In other words, in the ministry of the gospel through
  Paul the eyes of the spiritually blind are opened, light dawns in the
  heart, the power of Satan’s darkness is broken, faith is awakened,
  forgiveness of sins is received, and sanctification begins.
• God uses weak, afflicted clay pots to carry “the surpassing power”
  of “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
• More than any part of the Bible that I know of, the connections
  between 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 6 shed light on the ultimate
  meaning of good in the term good news.
• The gospel would not be good news if it did not reveal the glory of Christ for us to see and
  savor. It is the glory of Christ that finally satisfies our soul. We are
  made for Christ, and Christ died so that every obstacle would be
  removed that keeps us from seeing and savoring the most satisfying
  treasure in the universe—namely, Christ, who is the image of God.
• Satan is not mainly interested in causing us misery. He is mainly interested in making
  Christ look bad. He hates Christ. And he hates the glory of Christ.
  He will do all he can to keep people from seeing Christ as glorious.
  The gospel is God’s instrument for liberating people from exulting
  in self to exulting in Christ. Therefore Satan hates the gospel.
• Thus 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that Satan blinds people to keep them
  from seeing “the light of the gospel.” He has more than one way to
  do this. One way, of course, is to prevent the preaching of the gospel.
• But in 2 Corinthians 4:4 the way Satan keeps people from seeing
  “the light of the gospel” is not by preventing preaching, but by preventing
  spiritual perception. The words of the gospel are heard. The
  facts are comprehended. But there is no “light.”
• If you are blind, someone may persuade you that the sun is bright.
  But that persuasion is not what Paul is talking about. When your
  eyes are opened—that is, when God says, “Let there be light”—the
  persuasion is of a different kind.
• But the point here is this: the glory of God in Christ, revealed through the gospel, is a
  real, objective light that must be spiritually seen in order for there
  to be salvation. If it is not seen—spiritually tasted as glorious and
  precious—Satan still has his way, and there is no salvation.
• The glorious person who once walked the earth is now unseen.
  All his decisive acts are in the invisible past. We do not have any
  videos or recordings of Jesus Christ on earth. What we have linking
  us with Christ and with his cross and resurrection is the word of
  God, and its center, the gospel.
• Therefore, when the gospel is preached in its fullness, and by
  God’s mighty grace Satan’s blinding power is overcome, and God
  says to the human soul, “Let there be light!” what the soul sees and
  savors in the gospel is “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
  That is the aim of gospel preaching.
• So we must hold fast to two truths, not just one, even if they
  seem to be in tension. First, we must hold fast to the truth that the
  spiritual light Paul speaks about in verse 4 actually streams from the
  events of the gospel of Christ. The other truth is that God creates
  this light in the heart. It is not caused by human preaching. It is
  caused immediately by God.
• The real, bodily face of Jesus matters. It signifies
  that he was a real human being and that he was a person
  revealed in real, historical, physical life.
• His glory is the glory ofGod because Jesus Christ is God. The glory of the only Son—not the creature-sons, like us, but the divine Son—is the glory of the Father
  because they are of the same essence, the same divine Being.
• There is a glory of the Father and a glory of the Son, but
  they are so united that if you see the one, you see the other. They
  do not have the same roles in the work of redemption, but the
  glory manifest in each of their roles shines from them both. No one
  knows the glory of the Son and is a stranger to the glory of the
  Father. And no one knows the glory of the Father and is a stranger
  to the glory of the Son.
• Confessing Christ, the Son of God, results in God the Father’s coming to us and
  manifesting himself to us.
• There is no possibility of knowing God or having a saving relationship
  with God without knowing and trusting the Son.
• The gospel is the light of the glory of Christ who is the image of
  God. It is the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. This is
  what makes the gospel good news. If the glory of God in Christ were
  not given to us in the gospel for our everlasting seeing and savoring,
  the gospel would not be good news.
• Calvin says it with the kind of amazement it
  deserves: “They do not see the midday sun.”12 That is how plain
  the glory of God is in the gospel.

Zambrano makes bold predictions

Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano made a couple of bold predictions on Monday. He says that not only will he win the Cy Young but that the Cubs will win the World Series. I'll give him credit; if youre gonna swing you might as well go for the long ball. He even uses the dreaded guarantee word. An article can be read here.

Holy Water in a bottle

In some ways this is just funny. In others it is sad. The fact that bottled water is being blessed and marketed as holy. Make up your own mind. You can see the slideshow here.

Poor dog

The best caption for this photo is "You want me to do what?!?"

Sometimes you have to ask tough questions

Craig Groeschel posted this last week on his blog. The jist being the three questions:

1. If you weren’t on staff at your church, would you worship there?
2. If you didn’t know ANYTHING about Jesus, what would you know about him after a normal weekend at your church?
3. If you had a loved one who didn’t know Christ, and they had one week left to live, would you take them to your church or another?

I have challenegd myself with these questions and I think that we all would be wise to do so. Are you happy with the answers that you give? Make you feel uncomfortable? My main thought is that if we are unhappy with any of these we should not just sit on our hand and complain about it. It is time for action. We need to have an active role in our local body becoming the kind of church it should. My 2 cents...