Jay Bakker, the son of PTL founders Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, is still stirring up controversy. This time back in his home state of North Carolina. Yesterday, he participated in the Pride festival and parade at Duke University and was the honored guest at a reception last night in Raleigh. Bakker established Revolution Church in 1994 in Arizona in an attempt to reach people that have basically been snubbed by “the church.” Much like he was at the height of his parents collapse. The question is, was participating in the Pride march helpful or harmful to Christianity?
What’s up with the book “The Shack” flying of bookshelves and ranked high on iTunes for downloads? A friend of mine, James-Micheal Smith, first blogged about it a couple of months ago. “Great read.” Then another friend cornered me and told me I needed to read it. The next day I’m at Borders. Brand new display in the front of the store showcasing the William P. Young book. Alright, I guess I should get it. Then a woman in line told me how her husband loved and made her read it. Okay! I get the point. I’ll read it.
Not a big reader, I was glad to see it was very short. I should be able to knock it off in a month or two. Well, actually I was able to in a week. It’s a very interesting concept of using a fictional story to bring about some theological truths. But, because of that, I need to give it two reviews.
It amazing what can happen when you actually SEE the world. Former “Amazing Race” contestant, Blake Mycoskie, discovered this as he was traveling through Argentina. After witnessing the countless amounts of children without shoes in all of the villages plagued with poverty, he came up with the simple idea that is TOMSHOES. For every pair of shoes bought, a pair will be given to one of these children. Check out the video below to get a better idea.
Sometimes it seems that nothing would make a difference to communities like this. What Mycoskie has proven is that even the most simple of ideas can make a WORLD of difference. You just have to get off your butt and act on them. Thank you Blake for answering that age-old excuse, I mean question “What can I do about it?”
Please visit TomShoes.com to get their full story of just how much they’re making a difference.
Well, we’ve been talking about doing it for about a year and have just never got around to it. That is, until today. No vacations, no yard work, no birthday parties, no lazy, Saturday sleep-ins. No Excuses. Just good old family fun. Spending a Saturday with a bunch of addicts.
That’s right, it’s confession time. But, first, a little background.
I was introduced to Third Day, here in Charlotte, at a festival at Carowinds. Not at all a big Christian music follower, I was blown away by there powerful performance and immediately bought their newest CD the next day. “Offerings.” Yeah, this happened a few years ago. Over the next few weeks I kept jamming to “Consuming fire” over and over again. Christian music isn’t supposed to be this good. I also listened a lot to their version of “Angus Dei” – a great church song – and “Thief” – about as unique a song as they come. Then I was unexpectedly broadsided.
I remember taking my senior trip to Hilton Head Island, about 20 years ago (man I’m getting old.) Mike, Skip, Rich and I were walking around HarbourTown and came upon a crowd gathered ’round the old oak tree. There was a guy playing guitar, singing songs and entertaining kids. Here we were, almost in college, too cool for everyone there and definitely above any kind of “wholesome” entertainment. Yet, we sat there for the next hour or so laughing our butts off. Fastforward to this week. 20 years later. Family vacation. My wife, our two kids, my mom and Me. All sitting under the oak tree. Listening to…. you guessed it.
Having 5-yr and 7-yr old girls, it’s safe to assume that I am paranoid about what makes it into their heads. Monitoring TV has become a full time job, it seems. And home-schooling isn’t the answer, it helps, but it definitely isn’t the answer. Peyton (7) learned about Gabrielle from “High-School Musical” taking nude photos of herself from church and learned the word “ass” from brownies. Greeeeeat. Well, at least we still have a pretty accurate movie rating system. Thank goodness for the G-rated movie. Wait, where’d they go? It donned on me one night at Blockbuster, it’s like they’ve vanished. Thumbing through the family section of videos, they were all PG. From “Open Season” to “Barnyard” to the “Shrek” movies. Huh? Family? PG? Since when? Continue reading »
I’ve never been a huge Christian Music fan. For the most part I just never really thought it had the same quality as the secular music I enjoyed. It just always sounded second rate to me. The Christian music I had listened to seemed to follow the same formula, great inspirational (almost nauseating) lyrics and if they could pull a halfway decent sound out of their, you know, then even better. Then I was introduced to Third Day.
I’m not a big fan of televangelists. From Pat Robertson praying for Hurricanes to miss his hometown, (so it will hit someone else’.) To Rod Parsley telling me to send him $2008, not for any specific need, but because God wants to bless me. To the morons that will probably appear in Bill Maher’s new movie “Religulous” parading around, spouting less than intellectual truth(?) No wonder so many think we’re just a bunch of hayseed rednecks. And then there’s the man from Madras.
