Mercy is a spiritual gift that I do not have. Well…let me put it this way…I just don’t have mercy for stupid Christians. I really don’t. It’s amazing to me how some Christians act and I seem to have a knack for meeting some of the really crazy ones.
Last night before our youth service, as the band was rehearsing, a lady came bursting into the room flailing her arms in the air. At first I thought there must be some major problem going on, because the lady seemed to almost be in tears. We stopped playing and then I realized that I’ve seen this lady before. Long story short, for about the third time since I’ve been here, a Christian lady from the community behind our church came in and lit into me for having "loud music." I’ve been patient with her before, but last night…wow…I couldn’t take it anymore. Here’s some snippets:
Crazy lady: "People have pictures falling off the wall because of how loud the music is down here."
Me: "I think some of your community has the gift of exaggeration. My office right here has pictures on the wall that don’t seem to fall of with the loud music."
Crazy lady: "There are a couple of people in our community that need to be reached for Christ, and things like this keep them from church."
Me: "We will have 100 youth in here that need to hear about Christ. I tell you what…you reach those two and I’ll reach the 100 in here."
Crazy lady: "I go to ___ ___ Baptist Church and our youth pastor doesn’t have to use loud music to reach kids"
Me: "Well…he can continue reaching those kids. We’re gonna reach those that he is not reaching."
Crazy lady: "If you would only take it down one decibel, it would make a huge difference."
Me: "It would take a lot more than one decibel to make a difference."
Luckily, another pastor who is well gifted with mercy, came in and escorted her out. It was nuts.
Here’s the deal…whenever you are reaching people, there will always be opposition. Usually, it’s from people like this lady who really have no clue what it’s all about. Don’t waste your time with them. There are more important things in this world than dealing with idiots that claim to be Christians, yet bash you every chance they get.
On a funny note…she did bear a striking resemblance to this lady:
Well…it’s been a while. I just thought I’d put some pics up for everyone’s viewing pleasure. Here’s Isaiah at 3 1/2 months old (taken today). Tell us what ya think! We’re pretty sure he’s around 17 pounds now. Crazy!!
Ok…I know I haven’t blogged in awhile, but this week I will be back at it. I have a lot of different things on my mind so i will definitely be here. Anyways, to tide ya over, here are a few newer pics of Isaiah. He is 10 weeks old today and weighs about 14 1/2 pounds!
I have to say, the Christmas series at Granger Community Church has got my attention. It is awesome to see churches that will do whatever it takes to get the message across.
So I discovered this incredible feature on the M&M website today. You can create your own M&M caricatures. It’s a lot of fun and you can check it out for yourself here. What did I do there? Well…with the help of photoshop afterwards, here’s my creation:
Pretty good representation eh?
Well…it has gotten a little colder down here lately. We had to put Isaiah in a little hoodie to go for a walk today. Check him out.
He also got to watch his first Tennessee basketball game last night. Of course he was dressed for the occasion.
Well…I’ve been sick since Tuesday so I haven’t felt like doing many updates on here this week. The goal is to do 4-5 posts a week, so this week I’ve fallen behind. The good news is, I’m feeling some better today!
What do tattoos, the Bible, and Tupac all have in common? They were all part of questions that we discussed at our first ever Q & A night Wednesday. Even though I could hardly talk from being sick, it went really well. Check out a small sample of the questions that our 6th-12th graders had:
* How can I know when I’ve found true love?
* If God knows (and plans) the future, how can we have free will?
* How do we know that the Bible we have is right?
* Was Noah’s family the only people to survive the apocalypse? (Hmmmm….)
* Who shot Tupac?
All in all, we looked at a lot of questions…and obviously some dumb ones too. Honestly…I can’t say that I could answer all of them. And you know what? That’s ok! It’s a great moment when you realize that you don’t have all the answers.
I thought about something afterwards that I think a lot of people have wrongly been taught…that you can’t question God. Let’s clear this up. It’s OK to question God! I think that God enjoys it when we come to Him with our questions. I mean…C’mon….if awe all admitted it, we all have questions for Him at one time or another. How can I be sure that we can question Him? Christ questioned God! Check it out here What’s funny is that Christ already knew the answer…He knew the reason behind what was happening and knew what the outcome would be. Yet He still offered up His question.
The fact is, God knows that we have questions and He knows exactly who we are. Which do you think honors God more: a person that comes to Him with everything laid on the table? OR someone that acts like they’ve got it all figured out and doesn’t acknowledge any questions?
So bring all your questions to God. He may not give an answer, but he does know the answers. He even knows who shot Tupac.
