Wednesday, August 31, 2005 

I don't care who you are, dat's jist funny. link

 

Screwtape revisited...this is so funny that it is scary. Check out Plan 9.

Thursday, August 25, 2005 

Just finished the noon slot. Cindy and I did the first half of the hour with the kids and the second half by ourselves. It went well with the kids for about 15 minutes, then they got bored....the second half seemed to fly by.

I saw Jordon Cooper's request for prayer this morning. I put him on our board for prayer during the weekend. I started to pray for him and I really got affected. You know, I have never met the man, and I don't think that I have ever posted a comment on his blog, but I really got affected when I started to pray for him. I have been reading his stuff for at least 3 years now and he is one of my favorite blog's. You know, I doubt he knows who I am, and I really doubt he has ever read my blog, but when I prayed for him today, I felt like it was one of my best friends...I started to cry on his behalf. Amazing how God does stuff like that. I grabbed a rock for him on the way out...to remember to pray for him through out the day.

 

Hey, if you get a chance, pray for Jordon Cooper.

 

It's Thursday morning and I just left the prayer room. We are starting 84 continuous hours of prayer today. We opened it up at 7:00 with the morning office and will close it at 7:00 pm on Sunday. I want to try and blog through out the weekend on what happens and how it goes, as well as comment on my own experiences in the room (I may actually blog from within the room one day.)
It was a good start...the five of us who normally handle the morning office were there. It started slow, but then it seemed like we started going somewhere. For me, it was a realization of everything that we had been working on finally coming together. Cathy mentioned that she felt "lighter" once we were done. It was somewhat funny though...the five of us have been active in morning prayer since last November, yet today it seemed clumsy at first...go figure....we must be starting to take new land. Cindy is in there now, I go back at noon. More later...

Friday, August 19, 2005 

We're doing Streams 101 class this weekend at the church. Dave is in the church teaching and I am sitting here with Matthew and Caleigh at the youth's candy/water/coke table blogging away. (Ain't wireless grand! I'd show you a picture, but T can't figure out how to e-mail pic's from her phone). The two of them are playing the bible version of who wants to be a millionaire. (There taking it somewhat seriously, I'm giving them a hard time. It's good to be the pastor!)

It's been a long tiring week, but it has been an interesting one. God really showed up for Cindy and me. Sunday I mentioned that we needed to get rent. Well, it did not come from the offering, but it showed up later in the week. So much so that we were able to catch up on some of the bills that the church has been running late on (We gonna have some heat this winter!). It has been a hard season, but things are really starting to look up. I think we are going to go into the fall all caught up on the business end of the church. I knew God could do something like that, but I never fully knew how. For the first time in months I'm feeling really good about stuff....I think it is going to be a good fall.

The college kids came back yesterday (nothing like being in Wall-Mart with 25,000 students and their parents). We have a group going out tonight after midnight to give the students pizza once they stumble out of the bars (at about 1am). I'm too tired to do that tonight, but I am excited to see that we have a group going out and doing something out of the box.

I love the fact that they are willing to go into the streets and meet the kids where they are, in the middle of their mess. I can see Jesus doing that. Going out to where the lost are and eating with them. That's just too cool. I think there will be some fruit from our trips out into the street...although it probably won't be the kind of fruit that most would be comfortable with. Perhaps that's the problem that Jesus had. The fruit that he was getting was not the fruit that the religious establishment wanted. You see, we like people who are like us. But most of the people who are like us are already saved...like us. It feels comfortable when people like us come to church. We don't have to explain things, we don't have to change things. But when those who are not like us show up, things get messy. We have to explain what we are doing, we have to be patient with them, we have to help them get through all their junk....who really wants to do that?

me.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 

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Scott McKnight has an interesting story about a meeting with FF Bruce on his blog.  

“The reason I bring this up is that I asked Professor Bruce, because I had an audience with him, about women and ministry. My question was a big one: "Professor Bruce, what do you think of women in the ministry and how texts like 1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2 apply to the issues at hand." Here was his response, and I shall never forget it and I sum it up here. "First, I think 1 Cor 14 is textually corrupt. Second, I think Paul would roll over in his grave if he thought we were turning his letters into a new Torah. And third, as for what I think about women in ministry, I'm for whatever causes the freedom of the Spirit." What struck me most were answers 2 and 3.”

I have read and appreciated FF Bruce’s writings before, but I always thought of him being a tad bit more conservative in his thought.  A comment like the one above makes you think.  I like the way Scott runs with this, tying in the importance of freedom in the Spirit to the argument of women in ministry.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005 

I'm turning into such a geek....I just started running Firefox and you know what....I kinda like it. I then went and got Thunderbird....very interesting....I then spent time trying to figure out RSS...I got the Atom feed working, not sure on the RSS yet. I an turning into such a geek! (I feel the need for a pocket protector or something).

Monday, August 15, 2005 

Ignore my previous post....Just when you think everything is ok, you lose all your comments (UGH!!!!!). I just spent the past hour trying to fix this thing. I HATE HTML!!!!!! Good by squakbox, hello blogger comments (I hope that's a good move)

 

Never actually realized that anyone other then me read this thing...Heidi, if your still reading, I responded.

 

The church's web hosting service has decided to go out a business. What fun that has become. I just discovered that it can take over a week to transfer your site to an other hosting service (something about releasing domain names or something like that). Well we are moving, but I think our e-mail just died. I asked the guy at the new host (godaddy.com) what will happen to those e-mails (like I didn't already have a feeling). We are about to see if the old Roman Catholic teaching of limbo is true, because that is where all my e-mail are about to go for the next week (oh happy day!)

Yesterday was interesting. I showed a video to the church on 24/7 prayer. I was positive that I was going to hear about it (since the word "laid" is used) but so far all has been quiet (go figure, I usually get yelled at for lesser things :) ). Beyond that, I'm just waiting for the 101 to happen. Streams invades in three days!!! I'm not sure how ready we are!!!!

Saturday, August 13, 2005 

It's Saturday....it's 9pm. I'm waiting for Cindy to finish her stuff, then were done. I finally got my sermon done today...I'm not too happy with it. It feels like something is missing...Although I'm not sure what it is. Whenever I feel this way the night before the sermon usually goes well the next day. Here's praying that happens again.

I find myself really stressed out lately. We need a good offering tomorrow...I need to pay some bills (like my rent!) I feel like we are at a turning point and good things are about to happen, I'm just stressed out until then. Summer's are usually hard...people on vacation and stuff, so it is hard to tell what the health of the church is. In May we were over 100 people (near 120). Now I'm not so sure. I've looked at the fellowship list and I don't think most of them have left, they just don't come every week. Looking at 35 people can really be depressing. I'm praying that they all come back from vacation soon!

Friday, August 12, 2005 

Once again, I start a post with "Well, it's been a while since I last posted...I need to do this more often..."

This summer has been incredibly hard. With everything going on with my dad's illness, my mom being my mom, and the church being broke, I feel like I need a vacation bad! Unfortunately, I'm not sure when or if that will happen.

The next few weeks don't slow down too much. We have the Streams folks coming in here to do the 101. It should be fun, but I'm tired! The week after that, Cornfest starts! (College kids are back!) We're doing a pancake breakfast and 24 hour prayer during the entire thing.

I really have a good feeling about the 24 hr prayer. The past couple of weeks have felt like the enemy was pressing against us, both the church and my family. I think we are about to break through on something...I have a really good sense about the fall, that most of the stuff that has been holding us down is going to go away and that God is really going to show up.

Now I'm not saying that because I need to think positively, I'm saying that because little things are starting to happen. We have had a string of bad things happen to people (fires, job losses, deaths, etc), but it seems like in most of the case, once they got through it, they were in a better place, both spiritually and physically (and financially for most). I think we are beginning to feel some of the birthing pains of what is going to break loose in the fall. And I think the prayer thing in an important part of it all.

Oh well....I will try (I promise) to write more later...

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