Halloween, good or bad or does it matter?!?!
November 17, 2008, 2:51 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
Halloween good or bad or does it matter is the question that I was forced to deal with this year. First of all let me say that I do not celebrate Halloween, when I married Rhonda we made a decision that it was not a holiday that honored God and therefore and solely based on this we never allowed our children to participate in Halloween rituals, you know like trick or treating.
Now when I was little I did celebrate Halloween and for the record I went out into neighborhoods and collected tons of candy but never, not once did I worship the devil.
So back to the future, I do believe that by keeping such holidays we indoctrinate our children with a mixed message that is not in line with the word of God. Now hold on, I know someone out there is saying this guy is a crazy Bible reading freak, well that is only partly true, I do read the Bible and while I am crazy for Jesus, I am not a teetotaler.
So this all brings us to this year when one of my employees, who by the way is a Christian, is so excited about taking their little one trick or treating. I open my big mouth and say, why would you want to do that because it’s a pagan holiday. At this point several people stop and look at me like I just said television was the devil. This was very foreign to this person and they could not believe that in the 2000’s someone would think that way. I was told that I should be sorry for having that opinion and making her feel like she is doing something wrong. Well guess what, I told her I wasn’t sorry, very nicely I told her this but the bottom line is wrong is wrong.
You are either doing things that are intended to honor God or you are not, there isn’t any in between. The problem is we the dumb masses, just do whatever the world tells us is the right thing to do, even if it is against God. Even if it could negatively effect our children.
So I am attacked and thought of as a crazy evangelical, but that is what I know is right. Is it wrong to stand up for what is right, should we as Christians continue to just stand by while the world goes to Hell in a hand basket.
I would be interested in hearing others thoughts about this subject, is Halloween good or bad and does it really matter???
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Which comes first values or culture?
October 1, 2008, 1:03 pm
Filed under: Motivational
Filed under: Motivational
This is one of those which came first the chicken or the egg questions. The question is which do you build first your values or your culture? First things first, let me define each word for you.
Values-Involves ones principles or standards or judgments about what is valuable or important in life.
Let me put it a different way, if I came into your house how would I know what you value most? What things would I look at and say that is important to you?
Culture-The set of learned beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviour that are characteristic of a particular social group or organisation.
Again let me give you another example, when people think about your organization, team or church do they think about a certain set of attitudes, do they say they have a winning culture. Do they say they have a sales culture, or a culture of hospitality. I guess the question is can they even tell that there is some kind of culture in place.
So do you build values first or do you build a culture and values come along for the ride? I say you can’t have one with out the other, if you have good values, values to appreciate customers/visitors (for churches) you will begin to develop a culture of hospitality. Where you spend your time to prepare and plan, will determine what kind of culture you will display.
I love a quote I read this week from the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, Mike Smith.
“I think if you want to change the culture, you have to first change people’s behavior,” Smith said. “And when you change their behaviors, then you change their habits. All human beings are creatures of habit, and we’re trying to create and instill what we call winning habits here in our locker room and here in the building.”
What behaviors need to be changed in your organization, I challenge you to do a check up from the neck up and make sure that you personally have the right attitude, then you can look at the rest of your team and begin to asses what behaviors need improvement.
Let me end with this thought, if someone walked into your store/church would they be able to tell what your culture is? If they can’t then you have some work to do.
It may get worse?!?
September 29, 2008, 6:50 am
Filed under: Sports
Filed under: Sports
It may get worse and I am not talking about the economy, I am talking about UGA’s season. We were exposed in a bad way on Saturday night and you say well we just played a bad game, not so. We played the best we could but we were man handled in both the offensive and defensive lines. Our second half come back of sorts may actually make some people think that we just played poorly in the 1st half but sorry let me wake you up, we have a long ways to go and any thought of winning the national title are long gone.
First things first, we must beat a very good Vanderbilt team, for the record I think we will but with Florida, LSU and Auburn still on the horizon, we could easily lose 2 out of 3 of those games. Ok I know some of you are starting to hate but let me just say that I have thought from the beginning that we were a year away. (that is if Stafford and Knowshon come back)
So with all that said being ranked 11th seems right, if we correct some of our short comings, which translated means our lines grow up, we might slip back into the SEC title race and that would not be a bad thing.
Go Dawgs!!!
Book review
48“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
September 24, 2008, 2:13 pm
Filed under: Book Review
Filed under: Book Review
It’s been a while since I have reviewed any books that I have read but I want to share one particular book that I am currently reading, So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore. For starters and this will mean a lot to COTN members, I was given the book by Helen Gunter, she asked me to read it. She called me on a Saturday morning so excited about this book, she told me that it was one of the books recommended in the back of the The Shack. Which by the way is an awesome book and one that I read in about 5 days after purchasing. I also just heard from my good friend Rick Womack, that there is some controversy about the doctrine within The Shack but I must say it really had an interesting twist on the trinity and one that aligned with my spirit.
So back to, So you don’t want to go to church anymore, another fiction that makes you look at things from another angle. It takes you out of your comfort zone of church as usual, (which by the way is a good thing) and makes you think about why do we have the programs we have at church. What really is the church/building for and who is the church.
Here are some of the titles of the chapters in the book,
This is Christian education?
Loving Father or Fairy Godmother?
A Box by any other name
And my favorite, When you dig a hole for yourself, you have to throw the dirt on someone
Now if that isn’t the truth!!! At any rate this is another great read that will surely strecth your thoughts about God, Jesus and hopefully challenge you to take God out of the box and realize that God lives in us, not the church building?!?!?
We keep building houses to keep God in but Stephen said…
48“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
49” ‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
50Has not my hand made all these things?’
So go out and buy the book and let me know what you think.
Idol hands are the devils workshop!?!?
September 22, 2008, 11:52 am
Filed under: Sports
Filed under: Sports
Mark Richt was asked what sites his players would get to see while in Arizona and here is what he said..
“In some ways you wish you’d spend more time kind of site-seeing and doing some things that might be memorable to them,” Mark Richt said. “But they’re going to see the airport, the hotel, the stadium, and the airport and whatever they can see out the window of the bus on the way. I probably should do a better job of letting them go to some type of tourist attraction. But we’re not going to do that.”
Now you got to love how he manages their time, if you don’t have idol time there is very little chance that you can find trouble. That is the same philosophy that Pastor Mark Preston uses when he leads missions trips to Mexico with about 20 teenagers. You get up at the crack of dawn eat breakfast fast and then drive 1 to 2 hours to the area you will be working, you work about 10 to 12 hours or until the sun sets and then drive the 1 to 2 hours back to the hotel to eat. By that time you are way to tired to do anything else, thus you go straight to bed.
At any rate you gotta love Mark Richt, he is gem when it comes to college football coaches.
Post Game Break Down
September 21, 2008, 2:53 pm
Filed under: Sports
Filed under: Sports
Ok Georgia won again and that is a good thing, they could have scored more points. They dominated the game, offensively and defensively but that doesn’t seem to matter in the polls, they want style points.
The good news is we are 4 and 0 and we have not played our best game yet. Way too many penalties and we must execute in short yardage situations but again we are 4 and 0 and we have not played any where near our best game yet.
Ok here is my prediction for next week against Alabama, Georgia wins, 28 to 17, now that will move us up in the polls. Hope I am right!!!
You got to know when to hold’em and know when to fold’em
September 18, 2008, 2:21 pm
Filed under: Money
Filed under: Money
Well that’s the question I am asking and for that matter all of my co workers and friends are asking what are we going to do with our 401K’s? I have no idea, I keep hearing over and over that we have not hit the bottom yet and that this is not a buyers market. For about the last 3 months I have actually raised how much I was paying into my 401K, because I believed that I was buying stocks at a bargain price but with the price continuing to drop you have to wonder what you should do going forward.
People say well the stock market can’t collaspe but that is not true it has already happened before, so it can surely happen again. I am fortunate that the company I work for has a pension as well but to retire and not work until I am 70 I will be very dependent on my 401K. I know that a lot of people out there work for companies that only have 401k’s and their retirement is dependent on the success of the stock market. So what do you do???
I know, I know God is in control of things, I know that but God would want us to be good stewards of our money. I am not worried but I do want to be informed and make good decisions with my family’s future. No matter what you must admit these are very complex and trying times, thank God he is the Lord of my life!!!
Fellowship/relationship?
September 17, 2008, 12:37 pm
Filed under: Church
Filed under: Church
I was moved this morning while reading in John chapter 6, Jesus had just explained to his disciples that he was the bread of life and that they must consume his flesh and blood to have eternal life but they began to argue, they did not understand that their eternal Passover lamb was there before them and all they had to do was believe.
But a really sad part to me was when most of his disciples left because they said it was to hard of a teaching and that is when Jesus turned to the only people that were left and said..
“You do not want to leave too, do you?”
Those words pierced my heart with sadness, it was as if Jesus was fighting sadness or failure or loneliness. He wanted so badly to reach His people with the love that He had for them and they could not understand and at that moment he says you don’t want to leave too…..do you?
But Peter the rock said no where would we go, you are the eternal one. In my heart I sensed that Jesus didn’t want to be alone, he long to fellowship with His children. That is all God has ever wanted was to fellowship with his children, from the beginning when he created Adam, to his cry to Pharaoh to let his people go so that they could worship Him, all he has wanted was for us to fellowship and have relationship with him.
Why is that so hard, why do we allow things to get between us and God. Why do we put up idols that consume or time and money and distract us from the one thing God longs for, fellowship and relationship.
“Churchisms”
September 16, 2008, 1:33 pm
Filed under: Church
Filed under: Church
Well I bet you didn’t know the word churchism existed, well it does, the definition is words used in church by church going people that most lost people in the world have no clue what it even means!?!?! On Sunday a young man probably in his late teens or early twenties tapped Rhonda on the shoulder, while church was going on and asked, “What does evangelism mean?”. Now if you have been going to church much at all you probably know the answer but this young man didn’t have a clue. Rhonda told him it meant when you go out into your community and share about Jesus, great answer I thought.
That got me started to thinking (look out, I might hurt myself!?!?), how many words do we say on an average Sunday that are only words that the churched would understand, now don’t become to sanctified on me, you know what I am talking about. Words like sanctified or evangelism are words only used in church. The average person, sitting at work or at home doesn’t look over at his co worker and state, you need to become sanctified or I think I will walk down the street and evangelize some neighboring businesses. (maybe burglarize but never evangelize)
No these are churchisms and I tell you what they do, they make outsiders feel like outsiders. They make people feel like they don’t belong, like they have just flown to another country and they don’t speak the language.
Is that a good thing, WELL NO, we should be trying to make people feel welcome, so that they can encounter God, (and then of course learn all the churchism words just like us, right!?!?!).
So I say let’s get radical, let’s keep things simple and speak the language of the lost. You say Todd you have lost your mind, you can’t do that. Well I say, that’s what Jesus did, when he was around fisherman he said, hey you guys follow me and I will make you fisher of men. He didn’t say hey follow me and we will go and evangelize the world and everyone will be sanctified, (well maybe in the King James version he did but you get my point?!?!?).
He spoke to people with words they could understand and relate to. The only people we are hurting are the lost and unchurched, the very ones who need Jesus the most, remember what Jesus said in Mark 2:17
17Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit.”
That is what we need to be doing inviting the sin-sick people of the world with a message that they can understand. Can I get an AMEN!
Don’t hate?
August 17, 2008, 10:04 am
Filed under: Motivational
Filed under: Motivational
