CELEBRATE ME

"Hello? Paula White Ministries? Um, yes, my name is Chris from Jacksonville. Well, I'm calling on behalf of my wife about your upcoming Satisfied Woman Retreat entitled "Celebrate You" in Orlando. Yes, does she need to bring her Bible...umm, no? O.k. thanks."

The Cult of Personality

Ugh, these stories make me sick. They should be a massive warning call to all sheep. You should know your shepherds! What a disgrace to the name of Christ!

At First Baptist West Palm Beach:
Pastor's fall from grace, resignation tied to résumé lies

Read Wade Burleson's commentary regarding the Cult Personality Within the SBC.

Absolutely amazing.

This is just one more reason in a long list to have a true plurality of elders in the local church.

(HT: Boars Head Tavern)

UPDATE:

BTW, I grew up Southern Baptist and I keep up with what's going on. That's how I came across this story.

Anyway, I figured Tom Ascol (Founders) would weigh in on this. His insightful and gracious thoughts are here. OK, so well said, I'm gonna quote the whole thing:

This story (and this one, and this one) from South Florida of a popular pastor's demise is tragic. It is also a sober reminder and warning that no one is beyond temptation. It is tragic that he did not have some faithful men in his life who could have kept him accountable and perhaps pursuing an honorable course. The reported stories contain enough sadness to make anyone who loves Christ's church weep. They also raise (and leave unanswered) so many other questions that an honest journalist could stay busy pursuing them for the next 6 months.Pray for Brother Flockhart. Pray for the church...and pray for his enablers.

I Wish This Had Been Written 15 Years Ago

iMonk:

I can admit it now. There’s a bunch of church folks to whom I owe a belated message:

Go home. Stay home. You’re at church too much. Take some payback and take care of yourself. Take a sabbath from church.

Repeating that: Take a sabbath from church. Yes, a sabbath. God wants you to enjoy him, life, other people, maybe another church. He wants you to get your sour, guilt-ridden, manipulated, beaten down face out of that circus and save yourself.

MUST READ the whole thing here.

Bo

Today is my dad's birthday.

Being a father now makes me even more thankful for my own. Even though Caleb is only 6 weeks old, I think I'm just beginning to understand the amount of selfless sacrifice it takes to be a good steward of children, i.e. a parent.

Dad, thanks for always being there for me.

And now, thanks for being there for Caleb.

But, don't spoil him too bad, o.k.?

QOTD

From Ellen at The Boars Head Tavern in response to a discussion about the validity of other religions:

These quotes and truths about other religions reminds me of the young woman who was in my history class.

A Muslim, she told me, “We worship the same God.”

I asked her, “Did your god die on the cross to pay for your sins?”

She answered, “no” and I told her, “we don’t worship the same God.”

Conservative evangelical pastor steers clear of politics, and pays

iMonk in his recent entry The Tactics of Failure: Why The Culture War Makes Sense To Spiritually Empty Evangelicals, points to an article about a pastor of a mega-church in St. Paul that recently lost over 1000 members "in response to his stand against typical conservative culture was issues." Here's a good quote from Pastor Greg Boyd:

"America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he said. "America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

"I am sorry to tell you," he continued, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."

You can read the entire article here.

UPDATE: This should go without saying, but the fact that I posted the above quote is not a whole-sale endorsement of all of Greg Boyd's books and teaching. I just like what he said in the article. Boyd has published works about a theology called Open Theism which I wholly reject. As with any teacher/preacher, "chew the meat, spit out the bones."

Praying for Irresistible Grace

From John Piper's recent sermon on Desiring God Radio, "That Which Is Born of the Spirit Is Spirit":

I cannot pray for the lost without [the doctrine of irresistible grace]. I have tried time and again to imagine what I would ask God to do for a hardened, resistant neighbor if I did not believe in irresistible grace. Every prayer I come up with sounds like a joke. "God, provide my neighbor with some allurements to faith, but don't make those allurements irresistible." "God, work--work in my neighbor's heart, but don't work so much that he feels an overwhelming urge to believe."

No! I will not pray like that!

On the authority of God's Word, here's what I'm going to say to my neighbor: "God, give him a new heart! Reach in there and take that heart of stone and yank it out! Put a new one back in so that he loves to believe. Ravish him with your glory Put irresistible inducements in front of him. Save him! Don't let him go to hell."

(HT: Paleoevangelical)

Chris = A dud?

Well, I guess it's a good thing that Tropical Storm Chris is now a depression.

But, honestly, it didn't help my ego when the weather guy last night on the news was talking about how none of the 5 "Chris" storms in history have been very strong. Of those, only one hurricane, and it was a hurricane for less than a day.

In the grand scheme of things I guess I shouldn't want it to become a Category 5 monster and then head toward my relatives back in the hometown or my grandmother's house.

Yet, he's still heading to the Gulf...

C'mon, you'd be kind of excited too if it was your name!

Chris going to the Bahamas

http://firstcoastnews.com/news/topstories/news-article.aspx?storyid=62163

They're saying the system may kind of fade out in a few days.

Of course I don't want a major storm to wreak havoc, but I kind of don't want "Chris" to be a dud either.