Beautiful Lord

Remember the band Leeland I mentioned in a previous post? I've been listening to #6 a lot lately. Here are the lyrics or is it here is the lyrics or maybe here be the lyrics? I know, here are the words to the song:

Beautiful Lord Lyrics
Leeland

When the storm is raging all around me
You are the peace that calms
My troubled sea
And when the cares of this world
Darken my day
You are the light that shines
And shows me the way

Oh, the beauty of Your majesty
On the cross You showed Your love for me!

Beautiful Lord
Awesome and mighty
I’m captured by this love I see
Beautiful Lord
Tender and holy
Your mercy brings me to my knees
It’s Your mercy that has made me free
Beautiful Lord

When my sin is all that I can see
Your grace remains the shelter that I seek
And when my weakness is all I can give
Your gentle Spirit gives me strength again
And oh, the beauty of Your majesty
On the cross You showed Your love for me

And I am lifted by Your love to sing!
It’s Your mercy that has made me free!

You’re beautiful, my Lord
You’re beautiful, my Lord

Donny and Marie

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

What American City Are You?

How about that! I'm a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll! What are you?

U-2 and the Red Herring

There's a chill in the air and Dairy Princesses are being carved in butter. That can only mean one thing...the Fall semester of Fallacy Academy will soon be back in session.

A quick review of our previous lessons:

1) The Red Herring--Introducing something irrelevant into an argument.

2) Ad Hominem--Attacking the opponent's character or motives (slandering the opponent) instead of addressing the substance of the argument.

3) Tu Quoque--An irrelevant accusation of hypocrisy.

Now it's your turn to vote on the next fallacy. Will it be:

1) Straw Man
2)Loaded Question
3)Either-Or
4)Circular Reasoning
5)Faulty Appeal to Authority

Please choose the next fallacy and remember to vote early and often.

Submit to God, Resist the Devil

Here's some good advice:

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7

We Wait for You

Isaiah 26:7,8

The path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth. Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.

Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. That is worth repeating.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

I may be a loser, but I'm a fairly smart loser! What are you?

Slight Loser

I just took the Loser Test. I am a "Slight Loser." What are you?

I Lied

I haven't been to Vermont, but just noticed that it is red on my map. So, I've deceived you. But, I'm too lazy to go make another map so you will just have to remember that I have never been to Vermont.

I have, however, eaten Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and they are from Vermont, so I have a close personal connection to the state.

I don't, however, have a close personal connection to either Ben or Jerry whose politics I totally disagree with.

My favorite Ben and Jerry's ice cream is New York Super Fudge Chunk.

What's yours?

Let Us Fix Our Eyes on Jesus

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Or, as it says in the NIV, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus."

Strike That!

Oops, if you clicked on the first link entitled "this" on my last post you went somewhere strange...glad it wasn't somewhere naughty! I don't know what went wrong, but I think I fixed it!

For the record...

...this pretty much sums up what I believe is the Biblical approach to leadership.

And, this (part 1) and (part 2) is what I believe is the Biblical approach to Hebrews 13:17.

The end of part 2 sums it up best:

What then does "Obey your leaders and submit to them" mean? The word for "obey" (peith) is a very broad word and means "be persuaded by" (Hebrews 6:9), "trust" (Hebrews 2:13), "rely on" (Luke 11:22), and comes to mean "obey" because that is what you do when you trust somebody. So you might say it is a "soft" word for obey. It encourages a good relationship of trust, but still calls for the people to be swayed by leaders.

The word for "submit" (hupeik) occurs only here in the New Testament. It's the more narrow word, and means "make room for by retiring from a seat," or "yield to" or "submit to."

So with all this background, what I would try to distill as the meaning would be something like this: Hebrews 13:17 means that a church should have a bent toward trusting its leaders; you should have a disposition to be supportive in your attitudes and actions toward their goals and directions; you should want to imitate their faith; and you should have a happy inclination to comply with their instructions.

Now you can hear that these are all soft expressions: "a bent toward trusting," "a disposition to support," "a wanting to imitate," "an inclination to comply." What those phrases are meant to do is capture both sides of the Biblical truth, namely, 1) that elders are fallible and should not lord it over the flock, and 2) the flock should follow good leadership.

Where these two truths are working, it is a beautiful thing.

Roman Vs. Reformed

I've been thinking lately about authority. Duh?

So, I've googled the phrase "Sola scriptura" (scripture alone)

Imagine that, me googling.

This is from catholic.net:

"The Protestant teaching that the Bible is the sole spiritual authority--sola scriptura --is nowhere to be found in the Bible. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that Scripture is "useful" (which is an understatement), but neither he nor anyone else in the early Church taught sola scriptura. And, in fact, nobody believed it until the Reformation. Newman called the idea that God would let fifteen hundred years pass before revealing that the bible was the sole teaching authority for Christians an "intolerable paradox."

Newman also wrote: "It is antecedently unreasonable to suppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself...." And, indeed, once they had set aside the teaching authority of the Church, the Reformers began to argue about key Scriptural passages. Luther and Zwingli, for example, disagreed vehemently about what Christ meant by the words, "This is my Body."

The reformed side as explained in sola-scriptura

As Protestants we maintain that the Scripture alone is our authority. Our Roman opponents maintain that the Scripture by itself is insufficient as the authority of the people of God, and that tradition and the teaching authority of the church must be added to the Scripture.

We must listen to the Scriptures so that we will act as God’s Word teaches us to act. Consider the story of Paul in Berea, Acts 17:10-12. Paul preached there in the synagogue and many Jews responded to his preaching with eagerness. We are told that after they listened to Paul each day they examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true. How did Paul react? Did he say that the Scriptures were not clear, and that only he as an apostle or the rabbis or the Sanhedrin could tell them what the Scriptures really meant? Or did he say that they should not expect to find the truth in the Scriptures because they were incomplete and needed to be supplemented by tradition? Or did he say that they were insulting his apostolic authority, and that they should simply submit to him as the infallible interpreter of the Bible? Or did Paul say that they should defer to Peter as the only one who could interpret the Bible? No! He did not say any of these things. The practice of the Bereans is praised in the Bible. They are called noble because they evaluated everything on the basis of the written Word of God.

If we would be faithful children of God, if we would be noble, we must proceed as the Bereans did. We must follow the example of Moses and Paul and our Lord Jesus. Do not rest your confidence on the wisdom of men who claim infallibility. Stand rather with the Apostle Paul who wrote in 1 Corinthians 4:6, "Do not go beyond what is written."

Any thoughts?

Benign Slogans on Silly Things

It Takes a Tough Man to Make a Tender Pudding Pops.

3 in 1 Protection for your Homeschool.

Don't Get Mad, Get Blogs.

Missed it by a mile!

create your own visited states map
I checked the Interstate map and realized that the Interstate from Nashville to Atlanta that we have taken many times on our way to Florida just misses Alabama by a little over a mile! A short detour would have given all Dugans another red state. Bummer.

However, upon further review, the Interstate to Louisiana does cut through Arkansas so I have corrected my map. Guess I was trying to forget Arkansas because of Bill Clinton!

Oh well.

Where Have You Been?

create your own visited states map

Okay, so I'm playing on the computer tonight reading blogs of people I don't know and someone had this on their blog. Kind of fun to see where you have been. Looks like I need to head to New England soon.

Enjoy!

Poppin' Fresh Slogans

Ding Dong Leadership Calling

Mama's Got the Magic of Commitment

Where Do You Want Unity to go Today?

Jake Bird has discovered this web site and boy it is a lot of fun.

No kidding, I popped in my three favorite words "leadership", "commitment", and "unity" and these were the slogans that came up the first try! How funny.

Mama's got the magic of commitment!

From Piper

In an article at desiringgod.org

Piper writes:

"I don’t mean you can’t criticize President Bush without calling him on the phone first. And I don’t mean you can’t discuss my sermon, both negatively and positively, without coming to me. Public figures put themselves on the line and understand that eve ryone will have an opinion about what they say. That’s okay. What I mean is when you know a brother or a sister is in the grip of some sinful attitude or behavior, take the log out of your eye, and then go to them and try to help them with humble biblical counsel.

Perhaps tell them a parable. That’s what Jesus did in Luke 18:9-14. And it’s what Nathan did for David, after his sin with Bathsheba and toward Uriah (2 Samuel 12:1-4). But you don’t have to be that creative. Caring about the person you confront matters more than creativity.

My longing for our church is that we be free from gossip. Let’s be forthright and honest and courageous and humble. Jesus was amazingly blunt at times. Love sometimes sounds like that. He could have easily been accused of callousness or lovelessness. But we know he was the most loving person who ever lived. So let’s follow him in this matter. He died for us so that all the logs and specks in our eyes may be forgiven. That should give us both courage and care in dealing with others. Especially when we realize that the faults of our brothers and sisters have also been forgiven by Jesus."

I think making a distinction between debating public policy or comments people make and confronting sin is important. Ideas put out in public (that even means Hip-hop Co-op) may be challenged without it being gossip.

Also, who is "Eve Ryone"?

From Galatians 2

1 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in--who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery-- 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)--those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.

What do you suppose are false BROTHERS?

And, isn't the phrase "those who seemed to be influential" interesting?

I'm glad that God shows no partiality.

The curtain was torn. The Holy Sprirt speaks to all who call upon the name of the Lord. We no longer need a priest to gain access to God. We no longer need a priest to interpret Scripture. We are a priesthood of believers.

Thanks be to God.

Any Ideas?

What do you think this means?

Matthew 20: 25 - 28

25 But Jesus called them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

My Favorite Twin

My new favorite Twin is Josh Rabe, Number 11.

We have been following him for a few years as he came up through the ranks in the MN Twins Farm teams and were happy when he was finally "rekanized" last month and is an official Twin! Yea, for Josh!

The reason we have been following him is because he is from a small town in Illinois, just northeast of Quincy and only a few miles from Coatsburg, IL where my dad was born and raised.

My cousin Dianne lives just down the road from his family, so, for fun, I decided to go to the Twins Pro Shop in Minnetonka last Saturday because my sister told me Josh was there signing autographs and I was late in mailing my cousin Dianne her birthday card.

There was only one kid ahead of Terry and me in line and when he was done getting his mitt signed, I placed a birthday card on the table and the "guy" with Josh who was doing the logging (I had no idea each autograph was logged and authenticated) was amused when he saw the birthday card.

I said, "Would you please sign this for my cousin Dianne who lives in Lima."

And, Josh said, "Actually, I know her. She lives five minutes down the road!" Then, he turned to the guy and said, "You don't have to authenticate this, I know her!"

I have no idea why he would have made that comment, but was very impressed that my cousin got special attention.

Josh wrote on her card, "Dianne (and even spelled her name correctly with two "n's"), Met some of your family. Josh Rabe

So, when Josh is the next Babe Ruth, my cousin Dianne will have a birthday card from his rookie year!

Go Josh!

Leeland

This is Leeland.

They are a new band from Texas.

Their CD comes out on August 14th, but we got it free at the ICRS convention in Denver last month. It has a couple of really nice songs. I like number 4 and number 6 and number 11.

Number 4 is the title song "Sounds of Melodies" and if you get a chance to see the music video, it was done by Michael W's son Ryan! Yea!

I have seen the video because I have discovered Direct TV channel number 15. It's the gospel music channel. So, far I have seen lots of music videos (mostly Carrie Underwood and Alan Jacksosn!), a documentary with Larry Gatlin and his brothers in the recording studio (I love the Gatlins...they sing real "perdy"), a half hour worship set by Michael W, and two Third Day concerts! It's way better than the Morman channel!

Water, Water, Water...

The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1797-1799. Thank you Wikipedia.

My dad used to quote it. Back in the day they used to have you memorize old poems, but then they weren't as old then as they are now.

Anyhoo, we will forgive Mr. Coleridge for not knowing how to spell rhyme and thank him for the line "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink," because it reminds me of my day, my entire day, yesterday. For a better post about that, go to www.xanga.com/kentuckyducky

And, the "water, water, water" story? That's for a different post. Someday.

It's Another Tequila Sunrise...

Newsflash: This just in...if you drink too much tequila, you might do and say things you live to regret later.

This has been a public service message from Hip-hop Co-op.

On a positive note, I don't think Mel could have handled this in a better way. A sincere apology, no excuses, checked himself into rehab. Good for Mel, I wish him well...hey, that rhymes.