It’s two weeks til pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.

Since you’re curious, I’m currently reading:

Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. Bob shares his wealth
of experience as a musician and worship leader in theoretical,
theological and practical ways.

The Federalist Papers by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison.
The defining arguments for our constitution and the central government
that it created.

Dutchman’s Flat by Louie L’Amour – A collection of short stories with
additional historical notes by the author.

I wonder how many ads we would have on TV if we had an agency like that in the States.

Well, today is like stew. I don’t have the time to write anything of significance about any of the following stories, so I’m just lumping them all together on this one post. Mmm. Tasty.

Not Born That Way – Actress Cynthia Nixon said in an interview that while some people may have been born homosexual, she was not. She made a conscious decision to be homosexual. Understandably the homosexual community is not pleased.

Just don’t call him “Son” – According to a group called Biblical Missiology has started a petition to convince SIL, Wycliffe, and Frontiers missions to use the literal familial terms in the Bible. They say that the aforementioned organizations are publishing Bibles and evangelistic materials that use terms like “guardian” instead of “Father” and “Messiah” instead of “Son.” I’m still trying to sort all of this out and understand exactly what is going on. I’m not sure how to take the explanation from Wycliffe/SIL and since I do not read Turkish or Arabic or any of the languages relevant to the story, I have no idea if these accusations are true or not. If someone has time to dig into this, let me know.

Jesus can stay – for now – The U.S. Forest Service reversed their previous decision and will allow a statue of Jesus, erected as a World War II memorial, to remain on its mountaintop perch in Montana. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is out to make sure that decision (and the statue) does not stand.

How Would Jesus Vote? – According to a recent study, liberal and conservative Christians both believe that Jesus wouldn’t agree with them. “Liberals are conceding that they’re deviating from Jesus on their views on moral issues and conservatives are conceding that they are deviating from Jesus on fellowship issues."

And finally. This is supposed to be funny, but I can’t get past the fact that the chord shown is not a Gsus.

I’m not sure how it came up, but Mike brought up creativity in the church. He mentioned a sermon he’d heard from the pastor of Mosaic (I think he was talking about Erwin McManus although I’m not positive about that). It might have been the sermon that this was taken from:

The point was that at one time the world looked to the church for the arts. Music, painting, sculpture, poetry – the church was at the forefront of each of them. [I’m not sure I entirely agree, but we’ll set that aside because the larger point is more important]. Today, however, the church lags behind the world in those areas (and in other modern forms of art) and instead of leading, mostly copies (and poorly) what we see around us. We have ceded the role of “creators” to others and have become content to follow along.

Some questions:

1. Is it true that the church has ceded its role? Is it, in fact, the role (maybe better said “a characteristic”) of the body of Christ to be creators?

2. Why? (to both questions)

3. Assuming you answered in the affirmative to question 1, what can be done about it?

4. Who do you think is a Christian creating good art? Is there anyone you see leading the pack instead of following?

5. What do you think of McManus’ statement about being tired of being relevant?

Anyway, it reminded me of this doghouse diaries cartoon:

Most of the pictures were taken last year when Todd White and I went down to see what we could shoot. Oddly, I didn’t shoot much film. I’m thinking (based on the fact that I remember shooting pictures with my little point and shoot digital – and I have the pictures to prove it) that my battery may have run out mid shoot. Let that be a lesson. You never know how long it might be before you get a new battery…

Then I posted a comment. (I know!)

Now I’m sitting here with my blood pressure up because of an inane argument on Facebook with people that I don’t even know. Time to quit again.