What would happen if there was no music at your church? How many people would quit coming, 50%, 70% everybody?
In the church the second highest paid position(behind only the pastor and sometimes his wife) is the music director.
If you did not inherit or receive the talent to sing or play does that mean you are incapable of worship with out help?
If worship has to be entertaining to the worshipper, then who is being worshipped?
The latest news from “Team Schuller” is that daddy has taken the business from junior and given it to his sister.
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-crystal-cathedral,0,6901124.story
As far as I know the Schuller’s have never claimed to be bible teachers. They use the bible when it’s convenient or when it will accessorize their topic. This is not a bible based church, but a family business using the tax code to their advantage. The message is daddy’s message, not God’s message. It’s hard to sell positive thinking from the grave, I don’t think the kids can keep this thing going.
Here’s a opinion piece about the silent revolution taking place in American, from of all places Pravda. This author lays some of the blame on the church and education system, which I can find little to disagree with. Our celebrity driven culture and celebrity driven churches are definitely aided by our dumbed down education system. Everyone who has spent any time on a college campus in the last thirty years or so knows that the easiest way to a college degree is through the department of education. What will we do, now that American Idol is over until next winter!
In Luke 11 one of Jesus disciples ask of Him “Lord teach us to pray”. This request would seem somewhat odd coming from someone, who more than likely had spent a life time surrounded by religious customs. What follows is probably the best known prayer and most repeated in the christian world. The Lord’s example of how to pray is important for not only what it says, but also for what it doesn’t.
Psalm 100:4 “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and bless His name”.
The Lord’s prayer begins and ends with praise(Matt 6:13) which is essential to communicate your request. It is important to realize that Jesus did not instruct this disciple or those at the sermon on the mountain, that prayer has to be done with a bowed head or closed eyes, or kneel-ed, or facing the east or any other custom many are bound by. Prayer doesn’t need to be a corporate activity or public one (Matt.6:5,6) and for those who think our country is doomed because of the prohibition of prayer in schools I have a question. How can the government stop me or anyone else from praying the way Jesus instructed?
The bible doesn’t rank sin, it merely list sin.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God. 1Cor 6:9,10
Sexual sin is no different than covetous or extortion, yet it gets much more attention. Even those who “openly preach covetous” are successful until they get caught in a sexual sin. The church allows this.
Homosexual sin is especially evil to some, even more so than adultery. According to Ezekiel (16:49) the iniquity of Sodom was “fullness of food and abundance of idleness”, which leads to all kinds of debauchery. The homosexuals I have met have mostly been very well heeled. Homosexuality doesn’t seem to be much of a problem in Darfur.
Jesus will forgive all these sins, even homosexuality, however the church rates the sins listed in 1Cor. 6 in the following matter, with 1 being the coolest part of hell and 10 being the hottest.
1.covetous (1-4 are not considered sin in some churches)
2. revilers 2.2.revilers
3. idolaters
4. extortioners
5. drunkards (some baptist have this one much lower)
6. thieves
7. adulterers
8. fornicators (8-10 are bordering on unforgiveable to crusaders)
9. homosexuals
10. sodomites
For those of you who are especially aroused by or disturbed by sexual sins, remember the lineage of Jesus was thru Bethseba. David had many wives but God decided his successor would be Solomon. Think about it?
The prophet business is pretty scary to anyone who has read Deut. 13. I ran across a good article on one of the expose Doyle Davidson sites,
http://thouartthechrist.blogspot.com/2009/04/once-false-prophet-you-cannot-be.html
This is discernment 101, and applies to not only those who market their annointedness, but also to those of you who say things like, “God told me” to move, quit my job, buy this house, go to this church, start a weblog(ouch!)……etc.. Anytime someone tells you “God told me” and does not reference scripture, your discernment antenna should go up!
But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in mire.” 2Peter 2:22
Jim Bakker has started over again, how be it on a smaller scale. His Heritiage USA at it’s peak was 4 square miles of property. He now is promoting Morningside, which is about 600 acres on the Missouri side of the border of Arkansas (stinking up the area I live in). Heritage was a theme park, Morningside sounds like an end-time sanctuary. On his show and website he promotes survival items like processed foods and flashlights (he missed the Y2K marketing opportunity due to legal problems). You can buy a condo for anywhere between 80,000 and 350,000 dollars and the community has it’s own backup generators for power when the coming doom arrives.
He has replaced Tammy Faye with Lori (eerily similar with less makeup) and has abandoned the “prosperity” message and replaced it with the “end is near”(Bakker is now 70 years old). Since he owes 6.1 million in back taxes, everything is in either his wife Lori’s name, or one of his partners. Most of his supporters think he was wrongly prosecuted for fraud in the late 80’s, so this is not a real bright bunch of folks.
If Bakker’s sales figures can be believed(why would anyone doubt him?), his end-time hiding place will fill up quickly and it will be the end of time for his followers finances. Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks.
The second commandment states “You shall not make for yourself a carved image–any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;” (Exodus 20:4)
God in His infinite wisdom(1Cor.3:19) knew that the flesh can only create after itself, and in doing such, changes the nature of God into an image that is satisfying to the flesh. Our churches are full of images on their walls and in their literature. I ask about this once and was told that by creating an image of the biblical heroes in our Sunday school literature we will cause interest in our children.
An example of this kind of error can be found in the images used to depict Samson in church art. Most of us with gray hair, when we think of Samson, visualize Victure Mature from the 1949 classic “Samson and Delilah”. Those of you who are younger, probably conjure up an image of a man built like Arnold Schwarzenegger from your Sunday School readers. The bible is silent about Samson’s looks and size because it was God who supplied his power not his biceps.
Think about it. If Samson looked like Arnold in the Terminator, why would the Philistines bribe Delilah to ask him where his power came from???? However if Samson was just your average joe or even scrawny then their question would make sense. The flesh thinks power comes from muscles, this is why God made Gideon send all but three hundred warriors home(Judges 7:2), and commanded us not to create worship related images.
The current stimulus plan being debated in Washington and promoted by the new administration has the same logical flaws that follows the “hundred fold return” con-artists. Right thinking people for years have ask the question of the WOF pimps, “if your hundred fold return works why don’t you send me a million dollars, then the hundred million you get back will meet your needs?” Huh?
In the same vein of thinking, if 800 billion new printed dollars will stimulate our economy, why stop there? Why not print 800 trillion and we can all retire wealthy? Huh? This spend your way to prosperity message makes me wonder if Obama isn’t a WOF’er at heart.
In the Bible when a man has sex with a woman she becomes one of three things.
1. His wife (example Gen. 24:67)
2. His concubine (example Judges 19:1)
3. A harlot (example Gen. 38:15)
In all three cases the man is responsible to provide for her. Marriage in the bible is consummated by sex, and has nothing to do with a certificate from the government or a ceremony performed by a licensed pastor or priest. When a man sleeps with a woman, without a predetermined arrangement(payment), and simply sends her away afterwards, he has abandoned his wife or cheated a prostitute.
Read the story of Amnon and Tamar ( 2 Samuel 13). In verse 16 Tamar said, ”This evil of sending me away is worse than the other that you did to me.”
For years in our culture and the church, I have heard men and women proudly claim that they have never married, however I have personally known several of them who have had live-ins and affairs. Some how we have come to think that because a woman does not charge for sex she is morally superior to someone who does, or that a man who gets his sex for free is better than the one who hires a prostitute.
How many times have you heard someone describe a man and woman living together as, “living in sin”, when in fact their relationship may be more righteous than that of the person who is accusing? I personally knew a couple that were ask to leave a fellowship that I was a part of, because they had not acquired a government certificate of marriage.
There is a lot of noise in religious circles about protecting the institution of government marriages, God forgive us!
boydmiller