So the government is encouraging lying???

There's a secular board that I go to that I've been on for years.  Much of the time it's just parenting stuff, woman stuff - that sort of thing but sometimes it gets into other topics.  There are numerous women there who are gay and proud of it and we've had a couple of run-ins as is to be expected.  I try to post with kindness and God's Word but I'm basically a "hateful homophobe".  That's OK if I feel that I've been conducting myself in the right way.

So yesterday, someone posted a link to a site where someone is advocating for gay couples to fill out the census with everything else correct but to put "husband/wife" regarding their partner rather than "unmarried partner" even though they are not legally married.  Apparently the federal government is advocating for the same thing.  They tell those filling out the census to fill it out as they "self identify" themselves, not what the legal standing really is.  So if a gay couple feel that they are married even though they are not, it's quite OK for them to put themselves down as "husband/wife" for the relation of person #2 to person #1.  There were a number of posts basically cheering this on and thinking it was wonderful.   Then I posted.

I posted that I thought it was wrong to lie on the census and that everyone should fill out the form truthfully instead of lying.  Well, you would have thought I just took their firstborn and sacrificed them.  I'm a 'hateful homophobe who needs to keep her opinions to myself.  No one wants to hear about my Christianity and that all gay people are going to hell.'  HUH??  All I said was that I didn't think filling out a form with something that was not true was right.  I was told 'it's too bad because the government says it's how they should fill it out - as they feel like filling it out.'  Again, I said that if you are not married, you should not be filling in the block that says "husband/wife" but should fill it out truthfully.  Now I'm' "holier than thou" and they are sick of hearing my attacks on homosexuals.'  HUH???  Let a white person who was raised by a black couple want to put down "African American" because that's who they more identify with and that would be OK?  I'm sorry but if it's not the truth, it's wrong.  I just don't get it.  I just really don't get it.

Satan is laughing.  He's the father of lies and absolutely loves that people think it's actually honorable to lie.  What a sad state we're in today.

A must read blog post for today

The Contageous Comfort and Mercy of God

Make sure you have your tissues.

There is no small job in the kingdom

Today was a farewell luncheon for a great man of our church.  He was always the first you would meet when you walked in the door and often times, he could be found praying with someone who walked into the church with a need.  If you ever needed anything to be done, he was the one to go to and he always did it with a cheerful smile and a happy heart.  Even if it was something as gross as cleaning up vomit from a child, he never complained.  My son would love to come to church on Fridays so he could help him get the sanctuary ready for Sunday's service and he acted like a grandpa to my boy.  I loved to sit and chat with him and knew that he would hold things in confidence if I needed them to be.  This man held the church together so much that one day, a young child walked out of the church telling his mom, "I met the man who owns the church today!"  Well, Tony was that man.  

Tony was our church's custodian/sexton.  He was the man who would do the cleaning as well as any set-up that needed to be done for events, which in a church our size, was at least weekly.  He always remembered what was needed for whatever was going on - so much so that he'd come to me before VBS where I ran the refreshment department and he'd tell me what he had planned to have available for me which was just exactly what I needed.  His heart was such like I've never seen - NEVER complaining about what needed to be done and he did it with joy.  Our senior pastor today said that he could absolutely say without reserve that Tony was as important as any of the pastors in our church and he did as much ministry as any of them.  Tony was involved in the recovery ministry but he also mentored a ton of the young teens who would work part-time for the church doing some of the cleaning and so many of them have grown up to serve the Lord in other ways.

Today was Tony's farewell luncheon as he and his wife plan to move down south.  Much of our staff was there (over 40 people) and there was not a dry eye in the place as we all roasted Tony and Sue and told them of the impact they had on each of us.  While Tony was "just" the custodian, he impacted each of us and so many others in a much bigger way than just cleaning a toilet.  I seriously want to be like Tony when I grow up and pray that I can have a heart to serve others that's even just a fraction of his.  

One neat thing is that our senior pastor gives each new member a verse and writes it on their membership papers.  He prays over each person and God gives him a verse for them.  Today he told Tony he prayed for a verse for him and told him what it was - and he said "I have a feeling that verse is what I gave you when you joined the church, isn't it?"  He keeps no records of that but he knew.  God had shown him the verse again for him.  That verse (passage) is Philippians 1:3-6 "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy,  because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

Amen.  God bless Tony and Sue and may God continue to bless them as they begin their new lives in Tennessee.  We'll miss you!

Menu Plan Monday

Hubby and I just sat down and planned out the week.  I'm so thrilled because this will be a low cost week which we SO can use.   Our plan for this week is:

Monday:  spaghetti with meat sauce, salad and Texas toast
Tuesday:  roasted sticky chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans
Wednesday:  crockpot Swedish meatballs, noodles, broccoli
Thursday:  chicken enchiladas, salad
Friday:  hubby and I eat out, kids have leftovers
Saturday:  meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas, gravy
Sunday:  pulled pork and roasted veggies (it's our church's annual potluck dinner)

On Friday night, DH and I will go to the yacht club where we keep our sailboat.  We have to spend a minimum of $75 each month in the restaurant and so we try to get two nice date nights a month out of that. We have hubby's parents to thank for allowing us to stay in the club after hubby went into the ministry and it's their Christmas gift each year to pay for the dues.  They're wonderful.  :)

Our new church plant has a name!

Our new church plant's name will be Island Christian Church.  It's going to be a second campus of our own church, Northport Baptist Church but it would be silly to have Northport church in another town (although Northport Baptist is actually in East Northport which is weird enough).  Here's the logo - doesn't it look fantastic?

Al Mohler, Jr. on Glen Beck and churches pushing social justice instead of the Gospel.

A great article on this topic.  It seems to be making it all over Facebook and I've stepped on quite a bit of toes discussing it.  I say the church is all about the Gospel.  Others (mostly athiests, universalists or liberal Christians) say that the church is about social justice.  What do you think?

Glenn Beck, Social Justice and the Limits of Public Discourse

Can you say "storm"?

**Update at bottom**
I'm not sure how much of the country heard about it but OH MY WORD!!  Did we have a doozy of a storm this weekend!  The winds hit 70 mph (near hurricane strength) and we had over 4" of rain in just two days.  We were fortunate to have only lost our power for a few minutes but there are many who will take up to 5 days to get it back.  This storm killed 5 people and there are still hundreds of thousands without power.  Just near us, there is a land form called a "neck" which is actually kind of like an island with a long, narrow piece of land going out to it.   The narrow piece of land is called Asharoken and the neck is Eaton's Neck.  Here's a pic of it (hope this works):


View Larger Map


Well, Asharoken was pretty badly damaged over the storm and friends of mine either couldn't get home from church or couldn't get TO church depending on when they tried to leave. The storm undermined the road which is just one lane in either direction so the police have it closed off and are only letting one car go through at a time. Since it's a 30mph, 3 mile long road, that's a long wait if it gets busy! Unfortunately this is a case of man trying to go where God is changing the land and so they keep trying to keep the water away from the road and homes but I don't know that they are ever going to win that game.


So please pray for all of those in the Northeast who have been affected by this storm. So many huge old trees fell and those who died did so from trees falling on them. One man was coming home from synagogue and died on his front lawn. Too sad.


If you want to see some local pics, you can click here


**Update: I got a call from the school district this morning then a call from a friend shortly after - Asharoken is now closed. 40% of the 500 foot sea wall was damaged and now there are phone poles down. This happened in the Nor'easter of '92 and it took days for them to get the road open. I wonder how long it will take this time! So now all of our friends who live on Eaton's Neck cannot get out of their neighborhood. No school, no stores, no anything. Fortunately they are a wonderful community and I know the fire department and the Coast Guard (the only non-resident things out there) will step in to help where needed. In '92, the Coast Guard evacuated anyone with health issues and the fire department hosted dinners each night for the residents. But back then, that was because they had no power and this time they do, thank heavens.

Steve Camp - "Where does it say foolish on me?" The Prosperity Gospel

From Steve Camp's blog:

I was on a famous Christian TV show several years ago before their demise. During a 'commercial' break, the host of the program told me if I would give $100 to his ministry the Lord would give me back $1,000... I asked him politely, "Sir, where does it say foolish written on me?" He was a bit shocked and asked me, "don't you believe that the Lord will bless you by giving your money to our ministry?" I told him, "No I don't." And that furthermore he didn't even believe such a thing. He was again a bit surprised by my response and said, "Yes I do." I answered, "No, you don't." He said, "YES, I do." I said, "NO... you don't." With a puzzled look on his face he frustratingly said, "Why do you keep telling me that I don't believe this?" I said, "Simple. If you really believe this, then why don't you give your $100 to God, He'll give you a $1,000 back, and you'll quite asking me for mine?" He looked at me with that dumbfounded kind of quasi pseudo-theological televangelist deer in the headlights don't bother me with doctrine look, and replied, "I never thought of that before." I quietly muttered, "I think that's the problem."


read more 

The deaf, learning sign language and learning the culture

Our church is amazing in so many ways but one of the ways is our ministry to the deaf.  We do not just have services "interpreted for the deaf" although our 9 am service IS interpreted for the deaf.  We also have a deaf Sunday school, a deaf church, deaf fellowship and we also have run the Northeast Deaf Fellowship for numerous years now.  The NDF is a week long summer program for the deaf with speakers, camp activities and such.  We have deaf on our staff and have deaf small groups.  It's so cool to be able to work with people of all sorts of abilities!

The deaf culture is a very interesting one and one that I had never understood.  Did you know that the deaf do not see themselves as disabled and many if not most would not WANT to hear if they could?  The deaf have their own way of doing things and oftentimes can kind of clash with regular American culture.  But they are lovely, caring people who still need Jesus Christ and that is our purpose for our ministry.  To introduce the deaf of Long Island to their Savior and show them their need of Him.  I thank God for those in our ministry who work so hard with sometimes very little in return yet they continue day after day.  Cindy, Antonio, Roz, Shelly and Kerri are just some of the people who work with the deaf at our church.

Well, Cindy and Roz, who are hearing and Antonio, who is deaf are teaching a sign language class on Saturday mornings.  I love this class and it's so fun to start learning not only how to do a few signs but how to use American Sign Language which is a full language all it's own and to also learn about the deaf culture.  ASL is just like French, Spanish or German with it's own rules, syntax in sentences and such.  Instead of asking "How many books have you read?", you would ask "books you read how many?"  So it's actually quite difficult to interpret because you're trying to figure out the right way to put the sentence together.  But today I was able to tell Antonio that Robby was sick and he wouldn't be coming today and have him understand me!  :D

As I've written before, we will be planting a new church in September about 40 minutes from here and it's turning out that most involved in our deaf ministry actually come from that area!  I was talking with the head of the deaf ministry and it's becoming a possibility that the deaf church might go with the church plant within the next few years!  Maybe that's why God has placed it on my heart to learn ASL - so I can show the deaf how important they are to the new church as well as our home church.  It really shows the deaf how important they are and how much we care about the deaf when we learn their language.  They are so patient with newbies but are touched when we step into their lives and now it's seeming like God is planning something new with them.  I just praise God for all that He's done and all He's going to do in the future.  We serve a most wonderful, amazing, glorious God!

The difference between the unconverted and the converted

William Arnot:

The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.

—Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth: Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs (orig., London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1884), p. 311.

** got from Justin Taylor's blog