Today is your day (and other lies)

“This is your day!  Today!  God has all his blessings in store for you and he’s ready to pour them out today!”
(sounds good so far, huh?)
“Just send your seed gift of $39.95…”
I still don’t understand – I doubt I ever will – how people can be that gullible.  Unfortunately desperation often overrides commonsense and these [...]

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Oh My Dear Lord (again!)

This is scary.  Sad.  Hilarious.  Weird.  I don’t know.
WARNING: Put down the drink before watching this video.  Your keyboard will thank you.

I love the leaps of logic here:  “So just like Moses, as a sign of honour, as a sign that you are removing the things that separate you from the [...]

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Toxic Churches

OK, I beat around the bush in my last post about a church’s vision statement.  This time, since they’ve plastered themselves across Youtube with a big banner at the bottom of the video with their web address, I might as well name them.  They seem proud enough of what they do to jump to their [...]

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Oh. My. Dear. Lord.

While looking for some information on something today, I came across this.  I won’t link to the church’s website, because I know people will instantly stone me for touching the “anointed” - but here is the text.
A warning – this is a Vision Statement to end all Vision Statements.  Yes, it should be capitalised.  With contents like [...]

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Hymns Part 6 – Jesus is my boyfriend

<<  Back to Part 5
As promised, here is the last instalment.  This one’s not so much about hymns as about those awful, insipid songs that promote Jesus as the doting boyfriend, the product of a schoolgirl crush.  You know the ones – you could just as easily subsitute the word Jesus (if it’s even mentioned) for the name of your significant [...]

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Hymns Part 5 – Showers of Blessing

<< Back to Part 4                                                      Forward to Part 6 >>
One would think that somewhere in the Bible, God had described himself as a nice, hot shower ready to rain on the faithful.  Yes, there is one instance where God said he would send showers of blessing to Israel.  This was in the middle of a warning [...]

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Hymns Part 4 – The Grand Old Book and the Old Dear Faith

<< Back to Part 3                                                      Forward to Part 5 >>
Now, please don’t take this the wrong way.  I read the Bible, I love the Bible.  I think it contains the keys to discovering God through Christ.  I love the faith that I have, that has brought me this far.  I love that it’s the very same faith in Christ [...]

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Hymns Part 3 – The Self-rightous Elect

<< Back to Part 2                                                      Forward to Part 4 >>
I find it amazing how some hymn-writers held a false sense of holiness above all else.  Far from the grace described in Romans, these rather self-righteous words proclaim impossible levels of behaviour, exclude on the basis of actions, or lift the singer to a level where they feel that they’re above [...]

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Hymns Part 2 – This Weary World

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This world that God created, far from being a wondrous place, seems to have become a weary and tiring one.  Lots and lots of hymns pick up the refrain that thankfully we don’t have much longer in this dark and dreary place.
That bothers me a little, because although it is absolutely [...]

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Hymns Part 1 – Onward Christian What?

Forward to Part 2 >>
I was looking at some words of old hymns today, and I decided to do a series of posts about them.  I know many people who revere these old hymns as almost canonical.  Don’t get me wrong, many of them are wonderful and profound, ageless songs written by people who followed [...]

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Stuff

Sorry I’ve been rather quiet this week. My life has been a little crazy, for several reasons.
1. I have decided to start my own business, doing design of websites, logos, etc. More details to come, but I sent in a form to the relevant authority yesterday to register a business name. Sooooooo excited!
2. I spent several days [...]

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An Unequal Blessing

A couple of people around the place have been commenting on God’s blessing lately – specifically Grace and Cynthia talking about the “Lakeland Revival“.
It got me to thinking, as posts from Grace and Cynthia often do.
How does the blessing of God work?  Why does it fall so unequally on those who need it most and so [...]

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Church?

A post over at The Boar’s Head Tavern (found via iMonk) got me thinking yet again about institutional church.  Oh, that and a post by Jeff McQuilkin.
It is all starting to seem a little unnecessary to me, this ‘My Church, Your Church’ denominational stuff, even to the point of questioning the need for the Institutional Church [...]

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Going to the next level

I’ve decided. I’m going to the next level in God. I’m going to be empowered by an incredible, enthusiastic, visionary leader and take this city for Christ. I’m going to be a vibrant, passionate, charismatic believer who takes excellence seriously. I’m joining a vibrant, contemporary, growing church with a powerful message that impacts the world [...]

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Church – does it need fixing?

This is an answer to Dan’s comment on my post Learning From The Jesus Movement. I was going to reply in a comment, but it got too long and involved. Proof positive that I’m full of hot air. Well, it’s my blog after all. I can blather hot air if I like  .
First I’ll [...]

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A WHAT????

I can soooo imagine Jesus doing this – celebrating Easter with Krispy Kreme, Starbucks and a very large elephant. As the old saying goes, “There’s nothing like a holy pachyderm to get the message across”.
What, there is no old saying like that? Well there damn well should be, that’s all I can say.
———-If [...]

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Churchianity. Again.

I came across a very interesting survey today. They surveyed “unchurched” US adults – those who hadn’t attended a place of worship in the previous six months – to find out what their take on church was. The findings are not surprising, but to see them in black and white is just plain [...]

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Body Image

I’ve been thinking about body image today. No, not that kind, although like almost every other woman on the planet I always think I could do with losing a few kilos/pounds/large chunks of fat.
No, the title of this post is one of those unbelievably witty double entendre things. Oh yes, I’m clever like [...]

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Homophobic?

No, the intrepid self-styled youtube preacher Lucaslabrador is not homophobic. He’s ‘homo-loathic’. As in, loathes homosexuals, or ‘gross anus yearners’, as he puts it.
The love of God just oozes out of the man.
The Youtube video was taken down and the only one I can find now is hosted at Veoh. Embedding’s not [...]

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Does anybody else see something odd here?

I was reading an article entitled “The Art of Church Life”. It was written by a pastor of a multi-congregational church. I won’t say which church or which pastor because that is irrelevant. However, I’ll let you know it is an Australian church. Just so my Australian readers can’t complain about [...]

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