12-11-05 The Purple Finger of Freedom
from Glenn Layne's blog, http://www.durabledata.blogspot.com/

12-09-05 from our good friend Tom Marker at http://www.tommarker.blogspot.com/

12-02-05

It's a Christmas tree! not a holiday tree. See http://www.hisbarkingdog.blogspot.com/ for the article.

What do you mean you won't fund our compassionate liberal agenda?

11-02-05

Read this Book!!!

12-27-05

What is your New Year's Celebration About?

The secular world knows what their celebration is about. It is a fresh start, a new beginning, resolutions for self-improvement and of course a party at midnight.

Christians are people of the new beginning, so this celebration should seem attractive. Unless of course the new beginning is not about the Lord we love. A new beginning at the same indulgent self cenetered life we lived last  year is not what it is about. Our new beginning comes from Jesus and should be about Jesus.

This New Years day we are called to celebrate by rededicating ourselves to the one who makes us new. The real party should be at your church altar.

Have a Happy New Year!

Beaconchurches

COLUMN from http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=6714
Herod Launched the First War on Christmas, and He Lost
Michael Helms
12-20-05

Driving recently through a small town, I noticed the Christmas decorations on city streets. The banners hanging from the poles read "Holiday Greetings."

These banners didn't appear to be new. They likely have been displayed the town's main street from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day for many years. I wouldn't have given them a thought, except that so much is being made of the debate over whether it's appropriate to say "Merry Christmas" in public or to use more generic and inclusive greetings in order not to offend.

The media have fanned this issue into a blaze. Many evangelical pastors have rallied their Christian supporters around this issue. During a season that's supposed to be full of Christmas cheer, many Christians are hopping mad and afraid that people are trying to stomp out Christmas.

Even President Bush has been brought into the fray. Although cards from the White House have been going out with a "Holiday Greeting" message and not "Merry Christmas" for more than a decade, this year--because of the attention--the president caught heat from Christian conservatives claiming he had bowed to liberals and is afraid to stand up for his Christian beliefs.

But is there another side to this issue? Let's say, for example, Joe Lieberman runs for the presidency in 2008 and wins. What kind of card would you expect President Lieberman to send out? Would Christians be offended if he were to send a card that read "Happy Hanukkah?"

How would it be received? Would Christians across the land protest an American president trying to use his office to impose a non-Christian religious holiday upon the public?

Now consider whether people of other faiths might feel the same way on receiving a card from their president with a Christian message? Remember, it isn't like the president is really sending out a personal greeting. It's being sent with the presidential seal and is paid for with taxpayer's money.

Herein lies the problem. Such a card at least gives the appearance that government is supporting one religion over another, and the First Amendment clearly prohibits that.

As long as Christians are in the majority, we tend not to see these issues from the perspective of those in the minority. But we need only review our history to be reminded that this country was founded by people seeking religious liberty, who were once in the minority.

Even those people who came to American shores seeking religious liberty did not always want it for others. It took Baptists like Roger Williams and Obadiah Holmes to stand up for religious freedom: the freedom to disagree with the religion of the majority and even the freedom to choose not to believe in God at all.

America is the most ethnically and religiously diverse nation on the planet. While Christmas Day will always be Christmas Day for Christians--and the real significance of this day for us is found in the manger of Bethlehem --we should seek to understand and respect those whose religious faith differs from our own.

This isn't to suggest that we ought to remove every vestige of the sacred nature of the season for the benefit of those who do not worship as we do. Quite the contrary, as individual Christians, we should take every opportunity to emphasize the true meaning of this season. We need to extend the message of Christmas among nonbelievers and to those who need to be shown the love of Jesus and come to understand the spirit of Christmas through our actions and our greetings.

However, where the public must be embraced and the masses welcomed, we should not get too bent out of shape if the official policy of a company or the government is to use the phrase "Happy Holidays." Besides, a non-believer is just as likely to say "Merry Christmas" as a Christian, without even thinking about it being a religious phrase.

Since when has saying "Merry Christmas" to people changed their lives anyway? Lives are changed by loving people as Jesus commanded. Lives are changed by carrying Christmas to people via the Christ Child.

When King Herod found out about the birth of this King, he sought to have the child killed. Yes, the war on Christmas has been going on for quite a long time. The very first Christmas was marred by those who tried to stomp it out.

A dragnet of death was designed to get rid of this boy king and kill Christmas. All those efforts failed.

Is our faith so shallow that we are afraid that Christmas is in danger because department store workers are told to wish people "Holiday Greetings" instead of a "Merry Christmas?"

Since when did we give this sacred season to the retailers anyway?

Christians shouldn't worry about the efforts of others to kill Christmas if we allow Christ to live within us and through us; if we seek to spread the love of Christ to others; if we do our job and witness about our Lord while respecting the beliefs of others.

As long as we worship the baby born in the manger, who eventually leads us to the man who bled on the cross for the remission of our sins; as long as we stoop down and peer into the empty tomb and believe that the chains of death could not hold Jesus; as long as we embrace the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and do as that Christmas song entreats us to do--"Go tell it on the mountain!"--Christmas will always be alive, and the world will always know it.

Merry Christmas!

Michael Helms is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Moultrie, Ga. His column appears in The Moultrie Observer.

What Happened AFTER the Feast
By Chuck Colson

Nov 26, 2005

Thanksgiving is just about my favorite holiday—a wonderful combination of family, faith, and American-style religious freedom. I love the story of those hardy Pilgrims, and I love eating turkey and pumpkin pie and gathering with family.

Many of us tend to think of the first Thanksgiving feast as the official end to all the Pilgrims’ difficulties. Wrong: Their survival would remain in jeopardy for years to come. And yet, no matter how difficult things became, they never failed to offer thanks to God.

As every school child knows, the Pilgrims arrived in the New World in the winter of 1620. As the freezing weeks passed, nearly half their number died. It was a terrible time, but by spring, things began to improve. Friendly Indians helped the Pilgrims plant their crops. By October 1621, the fields yielded a harvest large enough to sustain the colony in the coming winter. The grateful Pilgrims invited their Indian friends to a three-day feast of thanksgiving to God.

That’s where the story typically ends—for us. But for the Pilgrims, the hardships went on. The next month, a ship arrived with thirty-five new colonists. But to the Pilgrims’ dismay, they brought no provisions. The entire colony was forced to go on half rations that winter. At one point, with food running out, everyone was forced onto a daily ration of just five kernels of corn.

As my friend Barbara Rainey writes in her new book, Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, by spring, the colony was weakened by hunger and sickness. While the bay and creeks were full of fish, the Pilgrims’ nets had rotted. Were it not for shellfish, which could be dug by hand, they would have perished. Despite the great difficulties, they thanked God for His provision.

More ships arrived that year, usually bringing newcomers with no supplies. Pilgrim father William Bradford wrote in his journal that, given the poor harvest, it “appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also.”

By April 1623, the conditions were desperate. The Pilgrims planted double the corn of the previous year, only to see a drought several weeks long threaten the precious crop. In response, the Pilgrims held a day of fasting and prayer, asking God for rain. Pilgrim father Edward Winslow wrote that by evening, “The weather was overcast, [and] the clouds gathered on all sides.” It was the beginning of two weeks of rainfall. The crop was saved, and that fall, the harvest was abundant. Another Thanksgiving feast was arranged, and again the Indians took part. As Winslow wrote, “Another solemn day was set apart . . . wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness to our God who dwelt so graciously with us.”

They prayed this, remember, at the end of two terrible years filled with famine, hard work, and the loss of many loved ones.

As we gather with our families to celebrate our blessings, we ought to remember what happened to the Pilgrims after the feasting was over. Their steadfast trust in God is a reminder that we, too, need to trust in God, even in the most difficult circumstances—and thank Him.

11-23-05

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

 In this land of unimaginable plenty there is more than enough to give thanks for. The question we raise to you in the midst of your shopping for tomorrow's feast is, To Whom are you thankful?

The illusion of American prosperity will soon enough vanish, but the One to whom all thanks belong will never cease to be an extravagant provider. Practice thanking Him now!

Rick Warren
Bob Buford
Ken Blanchard
Bill Hybels
Peter Senge

11-11-05

From our good friend Tom Marker's blog

http://www.tommarker.blogspot.com/

Honoring Their Service

World War I officially ended on June 28, 1919, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The actual fighting between the Allies and Germany, however, had ended seven months earlier with the armistice, which went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. Armistice Day, as November 11 became known, officially became a holiday in the United States in 1926, and a national holiday 12 years later. On June 1, 1954, the name was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans.

And that is what I want to do today, honor those who served their country in uniform. I honor my three brothers, especially Steve who was wounded in Viet Nam. My other two brothers served but not in wartime. Mike was in the Marines (as was Steve) and Terry served in the Army.

And I honor my father, Dallas who served in the Navy in the mid to late 50’s, following Korea but before Viet Nam.

Thank you.

(Tom Marker)

11-09-05

A special offer for Kansas churches and community coalitions!!

Through a special partnership with the Kansas Department of Health & Environment, we are able to offer the Search Your Heart program at no charge to churches/community centers in Kansas. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has provided the financial resources to make this possible. Search Your Heart is our faith-based program which provides a comprehensive toolkit on improving cardiovascular education in our communities. While designed for the faith setting it can easily be implemented through community centers.

The Search Your Heart Kits are available, free, to any churches and community centers who have a passion towards health promotion and cardiovascular well-being for its members. The church/community center needs to have at least one person who is willing to coordinate the program – they don’t have to be medically trained, just passionate!

Search Your Heart is fun, easy, and free. This means that the program allows fellowship amongst group members and the implementation tools are easy to understand. Please contact Dione Keeling to receive your FREE Search Your Heart kit. I will be coordinating the training sessions and state-wide roll out.

Thank You J

Dione Keeling

Community Heart & Stroke Director - Kansas

American Heart Association

Heartland Affiliate

5375 SW 7th St

Topeka, KS  66606

Direct Line:  785.228.3443

Toll Free: 1.800.326.3383

Fax:  785.272.2425

Dione.Keeling@heart.org