One Not Forsaken
 
 
 
 
 
    The Empty Ramblings of an Emptied Man

Ok, ok, you may have already seen this, but for everyone who has never watched this great video, here ya go:

I use Microsoft Vista. This commercial completely captures the experience you would have with it. I laugh everytime I watch it.
Enjoy.

One year later...
(Well, almost a year from the last entry I made in my blog...)

I sit inside my office and I look back on my earlier entries and I like being able to look back at things I have written. It makes me feel... oh, connected to myself? I know that makes very little sense and yet how rarely I take time to be me. I spend time being a husband (not nearly enough I know my wife would think), being a father (a little better with my time), and a minister (where most of my time goes). I rarely spend time with myself.

So, I will, once again, take on the task of penning to paper (wait, is there a digital equivalent to that phrase? fingering to keys, perhaps?) my thoughts and stories. Will you be here to read them? Irrelevant. I am.

I am in a preaching class (which I dogged on a while back) and a part of our class work is to read and reply to entries from other students in the class on the online Discussion Board. We are each assigned a topic to respond to by the teacher. We then post our response and other students read the writings and they respond to us. It has been a great tool and I have enjoyed this part of the class greatly.

Lately we have been discussing the fact that men do not see church as being relevant to them. They see themselves not needing anything in the church. Church seems weak. Church seems needy. Church seems a 'crutch.' God created men with a desire for strength, respect, significance and honor. The problem is that the world has twisted what these things mean to manhood. The world says: strength from force, respect from intimidation, significance through acquisitions.

Jesus defines these same words differently:

True strength from fellowship.
True respect from emptiness.
True authority from humility.
True significance from sacrificing one's self.
True honor from being honorable.

I am convinced that if the church would focus on and teach these aspects of manhood, it could not contain the flood of men who would pour in its doors.

Direct them to this site!
http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~sivann/pub/swf/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf