Tuesday, 03 November 2009

• The New Church: Online Community and Worship

  Online churches are nothing new, but interactive online churches...now that's something!
  The World Wide Web has become the hottest place to build a church. A growing number of congregations are creating Internet offshoots that go far beyond streaming weekly services.
  
  These sites are fully interactive with:

  • A dedicated internet Pastor 
  • Online internet chat lobby 
  • One on one Bible study using IM
  • One on one prayer using IM
  • Communion (Using own bread and water or wine from home.)

  There are even special things included in some online services: More Here...

  • 9:22 PM
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• Condemned to Hell? Maybe Not...

  People have many different beliefs about Hell. Some disregard its existence, some believe God would never send people there, and others believe that anyone who doesn't repent and follow Jesus is on their way there already. What's interesting to me is that the people who believe in Hell, and believe that people are actually going there, love to point out who's going to Hell, while sitting back and doing nothing about it.

  There are certain people that most Christians have already affirmed in their minds are going to Hell or are in Hell as we speak, but I beg to differ. I would venture to say that, although I am positive that Hell exists and that people really do go there if they reject God, there is no one who knows who is or has gone to Hell, with the exception of a few people who are mentioned in the Bible as definitely in Hell. If we were honest, I don't want to be misunderstood with this statement, but no one actually knows how salvation works. Yes we know what the Bible tells us, that a person must believe in God, repent of their sins, and ask Him to save them and that everyone can know whether they are saved or not on a personal level, but in all honesty, when it comes to the small details and matters of the heart, regarding who is saved and who isn't, only God and the individual knows and it is only up to God anyway. More Here...

  • 7:33 PM
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• Nick Cave introducing The Gospel of Mark

  By Dave at The Mockingbird Blog
  
  Almost ten years ago, Canongate Books published a series of single books from the Bible with prefaces from some unlikely people. Bono did the Psalms, Doris Lessing took Ecclesiastes, and Australian post-punk/goth singer-songwriter Nick Cave introduced Mark. I hadn't gotten around to reading Cave's piece until recently. For those with only a passing familiarity with Cave, a musician known primarily for the dark and violent content of his lyrics, the choice seemed odd. But anyone who had been listening knew that Cave's music had long been soaked in Biblical language and ideas (his recent, critically acclaimed record Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! was a concept album about - you guessed it - Lazarus, the best line of which comes in "Hold On To Yourself" where Cave asks, "Does Jesus only love a man who loses?). While definitely unrelenting in its intensity and not for the remotely faint of heart, I recommend his music, esp from The Boatman's Call record onward, where his obsession with Christ and all things theological comes more clearly into focus. A few excerpts from the aforementioned introduction: More Here...

  • 4:08 PM
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• The Meaning of Love

  Couldn't save you from the start,
  Love you so it hurts my soul.
  
  -- "Forgiven" by Within Temptation
  

  
  
  
  I was thinking today.  Big surprise, I know.  This song was playing on my Zune.  It's one of those songs that's so tragic, so beautiful, and so haunting that I can't help but cry when I hear it.  I was fighting back tears while thinking about the lyrics.  In a very round-about day dream, I came to a conclusion.
  
  Love, in its purest form, is our way of protecting others.
  
  Why do we love people?  No one knows, really.  Sometimes, it's 'given' that you have to love someone--your child, your sister, your father.  You don't know why you love who you do; they have character flaws and, if you were anyone else, you would hate that person.  But you're you, and you don't.  It's almost genetically encoded into your brain that you love someone.  But what does that love mean? More Here...

  • 1:37 PM
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• Even Paul Had Internal Struggles

  I am not a super Christian. I get upset easily. I take things personally and often over react. All of us have areas in our lives that we are not happy with--a negative side, the part of us we try to minimize. For me, one of these areas is taking things personally and over reacting. I used to be quite famous for blowing up and saying things in the moment of anger that I greatly regret later.  However, I'm doing much better than I did six months ago, or a year ago.
  
  There are times I wonder when I'm going to see "true" victory in these areas. Paul talks about this in the book of Romans:
  
  What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. (Romans 7:14-16, The Message)
  
  We constantly fight a spiritual war with our own physical worldly body. Paul goes into great detail in Romans 7:17-24 (The Message):  More Here...

  • 10:51 AM
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