Moses on Drugs? Was He 'High on the Mountain'?

One researcher seems to think so. Israeli researcher Benny Shanon claims that Moses was on psychedelic drugs when God spoke to him concerning the 10 Commandments. Supposedly these mind altering substances were common among early Israelites during biblical times. This theory would explain the "burning bush" incident and furthers the point that Moses evidently was a junkie. Shanon himself admits to having piddled around with such substances, so evidently the question shouldn't be "What was Moses Smoking?" but rather, "What in the heck is Shanon smoking?"


Read the article here.

Super-Bad

I know, I know, you aren't supposed to brag, but by golly my new Bible is bad-to-da-bone. As my brother would say, "it's Metal." This is the new ESV Thinline Tru-Tone series of Bibles available from Crossway. But you can save yourself $10 if you buy it from Amazon for the great price of $19.79. They offer about ten different cover designs that all rock.

Check them out here.






PS- I know our good buddy Steven Staton will buy one because he certainly is Metal and loves rockin' an awesome Bible.

Poor Boy's Cookbook

Because I don't already have enough things to do--I decided to take on the task of creating a new blog. Unlike this blog, the new blog will will have nothing to do with ministry and everything to do with food. Sound strange? Why would he do that, you might ask? Well now that I've bought a house and have a culinary genius living with me, one could not help but create great food.

So please welcome to the blogosphere the Poor Boy's Cookbook. Just as a taste of what the new blog will offer, here is a quote from the first post:

"This blog will serve as a culinary platform to share with mankind the genius that is found within the minds of one Lazy Man and one School Teacher. They are two bachelors in their 20's sharing a home together and have no money. The School Teacher makes dimes and nickels working for the school system but loses all of his hard earned money to "the man" and to the mortgage company since they own his newly purchased home. The Lazy Man is a professional college student with no job, but a strong passion for cooking and the creative mind to fuel that passion."

I hope you'll check the blog out from time to time(you'll find a link in the side menu of this blog) as we will be posting up a variety of recipes that we create as well as various other cooking/food related posts. All of the recipes on the blog will be original recipes from our kitchen and most of them will come from our culinary experiments. Each post will contain a recipe card that can be enlarged and printed for your use. These recipes are taste tested and Wesson approved, and as you know if it's approved by a Wesson then it will taste pretty darn good. Not to mention, if its made by two bachelors then you know its gonna be cheap and quick to prepare. So please share and enjoy!

Poor Boy's Cookbook

Extreme Makeover: A Year Following every law the Bible

Here is an interesting article about a guy who spent one year trying to follow every rule in the Bible.

How Much do Pastor's Get Paid?

Interested? Christianity Today International just finished a report on Pastor's salaries. Evidently Baptist youth ministers make the highest youth worker salaries among all denominations....not what I would have thought. Anyways here's the report. Check it out.

For All You Bookworms

This chair's for you! Pretty cool idea...you can roll your chair to the perfect spot in the house, sit down, and pick out your favorite book from a 80 book collection, all without ever leaving your chair. Now all you have to do is fork out the 2,000 green-ones it will cost you to get it. But at least you would have a super-cool modern chair to display all the books you've bought but never get around to reading...

Jesus Found in a Tree

Evidently some members of a Memphis church claim to have seen Jesus in a trunk of a tree. Don't believe me? Check out the article for yourself.

A Transgender Pastor, Obesity, and the Shrink

What a title huh? But they are actually shout-outs to some very good blogs out in the blog world today...all of which are very heavy topics and worthwhile reads.


A Transgender Pastor
Things seem to be getting crazier and crazier these days. A Maryland United Methodist Church pastor has just been reinstated after having a sex change operation. Pastor Ann Gordon is now the new...Pastor Drew Phoenix. I'm sorry but this seems a little ridiculous and even sad to me. Anyways, here are a few blogs and articles about this story. Definitely read Al Mohler's blog.

A Transgender Pastor in the Pulpit? - Al Mohler's blog
Transgender Minister Gets Church's Blessing - Maryland newspaper
Transgender minister is reappointed - Baltimore news article
Identity Crisis: A Transgender Minister Reappointed to Lead Church - Christian Report article

Obesity
Perry Noble had a great post today that I'm sure will tick off a lot of fat pastors if the read it, but it is a very insightful post about the problem of obesity and treats it as a sin on the same level as alcohol abuse or smoking. Heres a great quote:

"They [pastors] would never have a beer with a church member–but they don’t mind hitting the buffet. They will YELL at a church member about smoking while all the while pounding cheeseburger after cheeseburger. It’s hypocrisy in its worse form."

Read the post: I Was Fat, Now I'm Not-Part 1


The Shrink
Steven Furtick wrote a great blog today on why he's visits a professional counselor on a regular basis. He recommends that every pastor should consider seeing a counselor regularly. I know I'm a little crazy so it makes me want to take a visit to the Shrink myself...not to mention Tony Soprano visits one all the time and he's a Mob Boss.

Why I See a Counselor - Steven Furtick

Common Sayings Not Found in Scripture

I ran across some common sayings on BlueLetterBible that are not found in scripture. See if you recognize any of these. Click each saying to read more info on its history.

Sayings
Moderation in all things.
Once saved, always saved.
Better to cast your seed....
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
To thine ownself be true.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
God helps those who help themselves.
Money is the root of all evil.
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
This too shall pass.
God works in mysterious ways.
The eye is the window to the soul.

Miscellaneous
The Three Wisemen
The Sinner's Prayer
Wedding Vows
The Seven Deadly Sins



See the Blue Letter Bible original post.

Back to Back

Just on a personal sidenote:

My coaching endeavors for the year finally paid off as we defeated Kings Mountain yesterday in the Tri-County Conference Championship. We finished up 10-4 on the season with our second Conference Championship in two years. The game was quite the thriller with us working from behind the entire game, tying the game up in the bottom of the seventh, and scoring the game winning run only to have the runner called out for taking his helmet off before reaching home plate. Needless to say, I was quite angry with the umpires, but we pressed on and finally won in the bottom of the 9th when KM walked in the winning run with bases loaded.


You can view the Shelby Star article on the game here.

The Winter Adventure

Well we are almost at our 1 year anniversary of this blog and last night marked a big day for us Foundation Guys....we finally got our PA system (that's Professional Audio for ya'll non-geeks). Man we have been talking about and dreaming about having our own gear for a long time, so we can go anywhere we'd like and have a worship service...and sound dang good doing it too.

So what makes this story even greater is the Winter Adventure me and Walk had to go on to get this dern thing. Well, originally our sound guy Hal from Harrison Productions, was gonna drive up from Clemson to deliver the system and do a sound check with us, but his father had to undergo some surgery and he couldn't come all the way up for the service Sunday...so we were going to meet him in Spartanburg to get the system.

Well then it snows yesterday, and of course you don't want to haul around an expensive PA in the back of your truck in the snow so Hal decided to just bring it later. Well then it was going to be sometime next week, and man waiting that long would drive me crazy...I mean heck we've been wantin this thing for a year now...So me and Walk decided to hop in the car and drive all the way down to Anderson, SC...home of Perry Noble...and pick this thing up in the snow. Oh and we had to get there and back in 2 1/2 hours...which was not going to happen. Anyways, we go haulin down 85 in the slush running 70mph the whole way and finally meet up with Hal in the back of a Wendy's parking lot. We get out of our vehicles, swap big cargo containers, briefcases, and metal boxes and end with a handshake, get in our cars and pull off. Man I wish we had on some suits....the drive-thru ladies would have thought we were the Redneck Mafia with some "hot" goods.

After our exchange we grabbed a bite to eat and went sliding in the slush all the way back home and finally got to set our baby up in the Renfro Center. It was way better than Christmas...and it wasn't even a present, in fact we'll be paying on this thing for a while, haha....but oh boy, did it sound sooo good. So anyways, I'm very excited about the service this Sunday because we'll get to put this sweet rig to good use and I'll get to talk out of some fancy little ear microphone that's so small I'm afraid it's going to get lost in my ear.

See yall Sunday.

Reflections: 1st Worship Service of the New Year

Well I've been thinking a bunch about how slack I've been when it comes to contributing some worthwhile reading to this thing we call the Foundation blog and decided I would write some reflections on yesterday's Worship Gathering...the first of '07.

1. It's been way too long from our last service until this one...good gracious I didn't realize how much I missed having a worship service to go to that I actually enjoyed. I know, I know...that sounds bad but really, why should a worship service be boring? Who said you shouldn't enjoy praising God. In fact, it's probably a sin when a service is boring, because God is not boring, and if our half-hearted efforts to create a routine, run-of-the-mill service cause something that ends up boring...then my friend, we have misrepresented the God we claim to worship.

2. New People. I'm always thrilled to see new folks coming to The Foundation events and its a great feeling every time to see people come back for a second time. I really hope we are doing a good job at providing authentic community. We are working really hard at that and I hope we'll see some improvement in that area due to our new leadership structure.

3.We have the best band ever. So OK, maybe that's a slight overstatement but, I think the music this service was the best it's ever been (must be the sound guy, haha), but again maybe that's because it's been 2 months since the last service. Props to the new girl in town, Amy, who sang with the team for the first time. I'm so ready for the new PA. Great song selection this time Aaron.

4. Webb had a great message on what Church really is. He had it tough this time, since topical preaching isn't his cup of tea, he's more of an exegetical man, but he did a terrific job communicating what God's family really is. I'm really excited about the next message on what our role is within the Church. That'll be happening on Feb. 4th, 2pm-Aldersgate Gym.

5. We had a first time ever happening at a Foundation Service, we actually asked for money, haha. We just bought a new PA to help us in our efforts of getting over to the CCC campus to do ministry and we took up an offering after the service in some buckets at the back. Mad props to some generous broke college kids who gave almost 600 bucks towards the new PA. Thanks to all the "older" folks who pitched in as well, we love yall too!



That's all for this week....feel free to leave some comments or reflections on how you thought the service went...

Monday Muchies Relational Theology

Well, its been a while…its been a long while. Sorry. But at last, me and my somewhat thought provoking ideas are back. I miss the good times, people telling me I’m stupid (they might be right), and others (who I’m fairly sure don’t have the authority to make such decisions) telling me I’m going to hell. Seems to me a good place to start my new topics of thought begin with my own theology.

I feel like I always have to include a disclaimer on these things, nevertheless, here it goes again. These are simply my thoughts, I’m not smart enough to be qualified for even half of these thoughts I have. If it helps, good; if not, forget it. This is not gospel, just what I think about certain things. Smarter people are encouraged to correct, demoralize, and even pity me. Please respond though as intellectual activity is encouraged by conversation.

Relational Theology. In Genesis, the bible tells us that God created man in his image. That leaves us with a somewhat interesting question; what is God’s image. The Christian faith establishes that God is in fact a Trinity…three in one. Does this mean man is created with 3 parts in one? I think I’ll get a little more into that next week, for now lets think about the 3 people of God. The Trinity is really confusing, the idea of combining three people into one kinda makes my head hurt. The bible tells us that the parts are different enough to where Jesus doesn’t know everything God knows, like when the Day of Judgment is (Matt 24:36).

If this is the case there must be some kind of relationship between the 3 entities. (Did I mention I got a degree in sociology) To help to picture this, imagine if you can The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit at three points of a triangle. This is important for an illustration later. The distance between the points would represent how close they are in a relationship. For The Trinity, I can only imagine that the distance would be so small that it would be approaching zero. (I’ll try to lay off of my calc terms)

The reason I bring this up, is because perhaps part of the image God created us in is in our relationships. Perhaps our relationships follow a similar pattern. Imagine if you will a relationship you have with a friend. To picture it, it should be you with a line connecting to your friend. However, both you and your friend have a relationship with God. You might say, but Aaron, my friend is an Atheist. Even if that is so, a relationship exists, its just not a good one. But for illustrative purposes, lets say you and your friend are about at the same relationship with God. With our triangle, if you get closer to your friend, the line or the distance between you and God decreases. Also, if you get closer to God, either your friend must as well, or the distance between you and said friend increases.

This could be important in that if you have a friend that does not have a very good relationship with God, take the atheist from earlier. In order for you to get closer to that friend, either the distance between you and God will increase, or the distance between God and the atheist will decrease. If you have several friends like that you are getting closer to, who do you think is easier to move? Conversely, if the atheist has several friends who are closer to God, who do you think is easier to move?

I believe that relationships are an essential part of life and humanity. God wants us to have good relationships, but sometimes it changes things to think that God is a part of every relationship, that every relationship is triune.

I really hope this makes sense, I wish I had the know how to draw pictures and put them up with it, but I’m not that smart...Chance and Justin told me how to do the one at the top. Anyway, let me know what you think...

Amazing Weekend!!

Praise God for everything that happened this weekend! Wow was it a crazy busy few days. Many of us took off Friday from work to get a lot of work done. We bought a set of lights, built a stage, and got the gym set up for the service on Saturday night. The band got together around 5:00 Friday evening and practiced until about 12:30 AM before calling it quits... man was the music awesome Saturday night. Steven got in from Ohio around 9:30 Friday night and it was awesome preparing for what God was gonna do on Saturday night.

We started early on Saturday morning, meeting at the Snack Shop for breakfast, followed by a great game of golf over at Pine Grove. I know Steven mentioned it in the service on Saturday but I'll say it again... me and Steve beat J Walk and Casey in Captain's Choice... an event that has never happened before. Casey ended up throwing a 3Wood into the pond, haha...it was great. Anyways we got back over at Aldersgate around 4 o'clock and began getting the final preparations done for the service.

As it got close to 7PM many of us were getting nervous because of the great responsibility that comes along with a Gospel Presentation. We were expecting many new people attending for the first time as well as many to respond to the invitation...and it all happened. We had our largest crowd of any service to date, with around half of the people in attendance being first time visitors. Josh Childers, all the way home from Guam, shared a powerful testimony and the band led us in a time of worship unlike any other service. As Steven came up to speak, I knew it was going to be an amazing service. His message was all about the cross and the forgiveness that comes through what happened on that cross. It was a message all about Jesus and what he did for each one of us. It was a powerful message that hit home with so many of us. At the close of the message, the band played "Carry My Cross" by Third Day and as the song was played, different video clips from "The Passion of Christ" was displayed on the screen. As the song ended, Steven came back up for a time of invitation. God was at work in a powerful way! We saw an overwhelming response to God as there were over 40 people who came up and "laid their rock down" at the foot of the cross. We also know that there were people who made first time decisions to accept Christ as Lord or their life during the first invitation. How awesome!!!

It is unreal to think about what God has done so far in The Foundation ministry... and to think that God's using a bunch of inexperienced, undependable college kids makes it an even bigger "God thing." God is being glorified and I can't wait to see what He's gonna do next!!

More Alaska and Book Reviews

(click any to enlarge)

The two middle pictures are from an aerial flight we did up aroud Denali and are shots out of the airplane looking down at the glaciers. This glacier in the 3rd picture is a ridiculous 2 miles wide and 3000 feet deep in places. Crazy huh. Thats like God big, only He could make something so awesome I have to say. If you ever get the chance, go to Alaska. Hey I have an idea, we could all just go on a mission trip there!

Book Reviews:

While I was in Alaska I read two books which I both recommend.

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell. This is Rob's first book. He is pastor of Mars Hill Church in Michigan which is one of the fastest growing churches in history. I had the privilege to hear him speak at a conference and man he was great. In this book he speaks a lot on the Jewish culture and how it shaped the gospels. He gives his interpretation of what the life of a Christ follower should look like and presents some real challenging, fresh, and new ideas on living like Jesus.

Revolution by George Barna. George is the head guy for the Barna Research Group which does all kind of polls on Christianity and our culture. You've probably heard the Barna polls quoted on CNN or FoxNews anytime Christians and statistics are mentioned. In this book he analyzes what Christianity is looking like in America and how it is changing. He calls this new change a Revolution which could be unlike any other movement in the last couple centuries. He wrote a book similar to this one in 1996 and predicted the way things would be 10 year later, which would be now, and he was 90% correct. In this book he predicts what the American churches are going to look like in about 20 years. Wanna be a Revolutionary? Check it out.

Denali Wilderness

(click to enlarge)












Well being the high-tech redneck that I am, I have managed to find a way to blog from the Alaskan Wilderness of all places. The photo above is a shot I took on top of a mountain looking towards Denali or Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. We did a bus tour of Denali Park and on my way back I got the wild hair to hop off the bus and go climb a mountain by myself. Being an Eagle Scout I knew that it was stupid to go alone because I would pretty much be dead if I made a mistake because no one was around, but I thought, "heck I'll only be here once," so I went on in spite of being alone and spotting a Grizzly Bear less than a mile away. So I took off up the mountain which I thought wasn't going to be too hard to climb, and shortly after my ascent I realized I was very wrong. I would walk 20 steps and lay down because of how steep the hill was. At several points I climbed on my hands and knees. Once I made it to the peak of this mountain the view of Denali was incredible. And as a I sat on top, all I could think about was the majesty and glory of our God who created the mountain sitting before me. There is something about being on top of a mountain that brings you closer to God and into His presence (Moses is a biblical example), or atleast I sure feel that way. I also had this thought; we often feel like we are going through life alone, that our prayers are hitting the ceiling, that God has abandoned us and is no where to be found. When those thoughts cross our mind all we need do is take a moment and look around at nature to see God's hand. Evidence of God is all around us, we just need to open our eyes and clear our minds from the daily mundane. One need not think of the future when it comes to heaven, heaven is on earth right now. God's kingdom can be found in the here and now. As a Christian, NOW is the day of salvation and eternal life. A little piece of heaven can be found when we are in the presence of God whether it be on top of a mountain in Alaska or sitting in our office chair. That's why Jesus would have us to pray for God's kingdom to "come here on earth as it is in heaven." We don't have to wait until we are dead to experience heaven, we can see it here on earth if we just take our blinders off and see the hand of God among us!




More Pictures from Alaska to come!!

The Ultimate MegaChurch?

How far is too far when it comes to MegaChurches? Should a church really have to meet in a NBA size sports stadium? I'm not sure, but something has to be working for Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church. Check out this blog on Lakewood's new 16,000 seat sanctuary.

This seems a little ridiculous and I am somewhat skeptical but I really do hope this is a huge sized God-thing and not a money-thing to fatten someone's wallet. What do ya'll think?

Just Drama?

"At a rehearsal of his play about Jesus' death, Jim Walker, the co-pastor of Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, sidled up to the actor playing Satan and urged him to be bolder. The pastor tried to inspire the shy student playing Judas. "He's Satan!" Mr. Walker cried, arms wide. "You hate this guy!"

"No one preaches at Hot Metal Bridge. Plays are its liturgy. Mr. Walker, a soon-to-be ordained United Methodist minister, leads the church with his friend Jeff Eddings, a Presbyterian seminarian. "Instead of coming to our church and listening to a sermon, you can be part of the sermon," Mr. Walker says."

The Wall Street Journal recently did an article on this church where there are no sermons; just plays and drama. Interesting concept granted but I have a hard time buying into this kind of church as your weekly place of worship. This may be a great place to go to occasionaly and learn some biblical truth in a "new way," but long-term discipleship seems tough if this is the only means of liturgy. But who is to say I'm right, so read the whole article here and tell us what you think.

Hell?

For those of you who are wondering what in the heck this is a picture of; this is a shot looking inside of a 2300 degree wood-fired pottery kiln. I was over at Tom's this weekend helping him fire his pots in the kiln and decided to take some pictures of the event because of how awesome the process of kiln firing is. While I was there though, I couldn't help but think about the power of God and the fact that he created fire, and how powerful and mysterious it is. I think we can learn a lot about God by examing fire and its qualities, maybe I'm just a pyro, but I'll save that for another blog.


Now I'm not sure if you believe in a literal hell or not, but it sure is mentioned a lot in the Bible and I think we have to believe in the literal existence of hell in order to have a geniune faith. If not what's the point in trying to "escape the flames" as so many people say? If hell doesn't exist why do we have to worry about how we live in this life?


I don't like to think about hell, nor do I ever want to condemn anyone to that aweful place. However, I couldn't help but think of hell when I saw all of these flames as we threw the pine slabs into the kiln. And I realized that if anyone was able to look inside this kiln and feel the extreme heat that comes away from the flame and they knew hell was a place like that but worse, they would definitely never want to go to that place. So I figured I would post up these awesome pictures and see what they made ya'll think about. Do they remind you of Hell? Or am I just a crazy pyro who happens to be a Christian, haha?

If you are still interested about the pottery firing process, just let me know; I have some more pictures from the day.

(PS: One of my pots is in the picture. It's the large bowl in the far upperhand right corner. )

Random Thought Tuesday-The Ebay Atheist

Well I was doing my daily scope of blogs for the day and came across this article.

With all the crazy stories of people selling anything on Ebay it seems like the madness has to quit somewhere. I don't think it's going to happen. In this case, we have an atheist who has sold himself on Ebay to the highest bidder promising that he will attend 1 hour of church for every ten dollars of the final bid. Now this sounds ridiculous but it is quite interesting. The results from the winning bid of 504 dollars were quite fascinating. As the atheist began traveling to Churches around America he soon became very amused by the Christian media and the local Church. And how can I blame him? We have people like Joel Olsteen on the same TV channel as Pat Roberston, and the local hell-fire and brimstone preacher down the street, and they all three are proclaiming the "Good News" or Jesus suppossedly. There is such a huge contradiction in our "Message" that it is no wonder atheists and non-believers are turned off or simply amused by our foolishness. So before we think negatively and make judgement of the "Ebay Atheist" and his attempt to make a few bucks, lets be sure to think of our own "Christian" televangelists who try to sell us "holy water" and prayer rags for "easy payments of $19.95" and promise us freedom from sin.

So if your still interested in reading this guy's comments about the "Christian Church" from an oustide point of view, you can read an entire article from this link. Or you can check out the Ebay Atheist's blog on "Why I'm addicted to Christian Media" here.