Desire Armed

If there is anything I miss about blogging on a regular basis, it's being able to quickly reference the very weird things I come across on the Internet or in real life.

Take for example this gem, I have been friended on facebook by Andrew Strom-Revival Preacher. Now anyone with a facebook account whose name is hyphenated with Revival Preacher must be legit, and it has me tempted to hyphenate my own name as Smith-Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth just to one up him.

He runs a site called www.johnthebaptisttv.com, and his post from July 20th already has 125 comments. This, of course, depresses me.

The post is titled, "CAN PATRIOTISM be IDOLATRY?" I didn't bother to read it, rather, I wanted to know what some of his 125 comments read like to get a picture of the types of people who follow him.

Here's a gem:

I would have to agree it can be, however.

What we have now is an evil Global empire being setup. I believe it is the duty of Christians to stand against that with every fiber in there being. We are not standing up for the materialism to continue in America, but for the rights and freedoms given by God to each person. Once America falls, the NWO will be able to continue having a major victory. The people of America have been systematically destroyed through Food, Culture, Television, Fluoride and Education.

The American people must stand now for the principles of Freedom that God has given freely lest the NWO rise and more destruction of humanity through HAARP, Global Wars, Financial Tyranny and so much more Satan has lined up will reign.

It is not our “duty” to sit down and wait for Jesus I do not believe, we wait and watch, and when we see Evil we fight against it until he arrives.

Perhaps I will hyphenate Revival Preach into my name and see if I can't resurrect this site.

I was having a conversation several weeks back with a friend in the seminary who is from Uganda. He has a passion for helping break the dependency that the churches and communities in his home country have on American Christians' money.

He told me that many of the Ugandan pastors and leaders feel pressure--indirect and direct--from their American supports to the extent that they have to model their ministers in such a way to keep supports and attract new ones.

This has become even more problematic in the past few years because American Christians now follow trends of charity (fashionable giving) based on the most recent issue. (Is human trafficking still in vogue?)

Which brings me to Haiti. Not to say that boots on the ground in Haiti isn't a good thing. They most certainly need our help and our financial resources. But already I am hearing that schools in Uganda that are dependent on donations from Americans to help fund the educational scholarships low on money that they are not sure how they will be able to operate. This, I am told, correlates to resources being diverted to Haiti.

A snippet from New Wine's an upcoming conference we'll be hosting has really got me thinking about how best to respond to Haiti, Uganda, and our very own neighborhoods.

People often think of caring for the poor in terms of giving them fish to eat, or better, teaching them to fish. Neither approach moves us beyond charity which keeps the poor dependent on us and is demeaning to their humanity. Community development involves partnering with the poor to own the pond. How do we sustain such community development?

The real question I ask about Haiti is whether our relief effort will allow them to sustain themselves, or if our relief effort will make them dependent on us. Money is required for both. However, the first one seeks for the resources that are put into Haiti to be reproduced by Haiti for Haiti. The second one would manifest itself as Haiti only having resources as long as we are sending it to them.

That will not last. There will be another cause right around the corner that will require our attention. We will have to respond by sending aid, workers, and money. Haiti will be on her own, but will she own the pond?

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor . . . A friend of mine characterized leaders simply like this: 'Leaders don't inflict pain; they bear pain.'
— Max De Pree

What more can I say?

Have I ever said anything?

Do you even check this site?

Dr. Metzger recently published a post called, "One in Christ or Coffee," on Out of Ur to follow up his article, "Walls do Talk," from the magazine Leadership

Anyway, I really like the, "One in Christ or Coffee."

It's very difficult for many contemporary Christians to recognize how much we have been shaped by the consumer culture in which we live—it is in the air we breathe and the water (or coffee) we drink.

Consider that in many churches the coffee bar has displaced the Lord's Table as the place where real community happens. Due in part to the neutralizing of sacred space that has been popular since the 1980s, churches began removing or deemphasizing the Lord's Table and introducing coffee bars. Without doubt the desire has been to build community by offering people a culturally familiar setting to engage one another. But we must ask: What formative message does a coffee bar convey?

Just got the following email from a friend I do ministry with.

Please pray for little Kephas....

last night around 1:00 Am Dr. called us and said Kephas need a surgery because they found a hold in his tummy but later during the surgery the Dr. found his colon has a hole about 1 cm. So they were able to fix after 3 hrs surgery. But they still not found the reason which cause the colon bust. So they said he is still have a long way to go which means he may need another surgery in few weeks time.

we got home around 5:30, around 8:00 AM the hospital called again said Kephas need another surgery. Because Kephas is so small that they had very hard time to find his vein to do the injection. 1 and half hour later Dr. came out from the surgery and said every thing went smooth that they were able to get the vein through Kephas' upper leg.

My heart is broken for Kephas and seeing his tiny body suffer so much....really don't understand the whole thing and overwhelming by the sadness just hope everything will end well and very soon...please keep us in your prayers and we really need that right now

God is our Rock!

Ethan is the father I do ministry with. Ann his wife, Andrew his 3ish year-old son, and Kephas, his new born son. Any extra prayers for this lovely family would be nice.

Caught this sticker on the back of a car in the parking lot of a church. Really...I mean...really?

Apparently, Stephen Crane didn't much care for college. He spent most of his short time at Syracuse University playing baseball (he was a decent shortstop). Two years after he dropped out when his name was beginning to be know as a writer, he reflected on his time in school in the following letter.

As far as myself and my own meagre success are concerned, I began the battle of life with no talent, no equipment, but with ardent admiration and desire. I did little work at school, but confined my abilities, such as they were, to the diamond. Not that I disliked books, but the cut-and-dried curriculum of the college did not appeal to me. Humanity was a much more interesting study. When I ought to have been at recitations I was studying faces on the streets, and when I ought to have been studying my next day's lessons I was watching the trains roll in and out of the Central station. So, you see, I had, first of all, to recover from college. I had to build up, so to speak. And my chiefest desire was to write plainly and unmistakably, so that all men (and some women) might read and understand. That to my mind is good writing. There is a great deal of labor connected with literature. I think that is the hardest thing about it. There is nothing to respect in art save one's own opinion of it.