4 Things and 1 Prediction in Week 9 of 2013

1. Jay and I were sitting in the church this morning thinking about Go Texan Day.  You know we’re going to have to add some chairs to our new arrangement for Sunday.  We expect a lot of friends and guest to be in attendance and so we are going to make sure we have enough seats.  You might have to “scrunch up” a bit (that’s a technical term meaning to leave no empty seats between you and your neighbor).  We’ll even leave some room at the back just in case our ushers need to bring in a few extra seats.

2. Watched the Academy Awards last night after church.  It was weird because it look like the Life of Pi was going to sweep the major awards and then the last three went to three different movies.  Daniel Day Lewis definitely deserved best actor for Lincoln, though there were several deserving nominees.  I liked Jennifer Lawrence in Silver LInings Playbook but it looked like she was more surprised than anybody to win best actress.  Definitely liked Argo and I’m happy it won, but Lincoln was also amazing.  I was disappointed that Steven Spielberg didn’t win best director.

3. The area continues to grow around us, with new schools opening almost every year.  I think we need to focus our attention as a church on reaching these new families moving in and especially the children.  As a church, we need to do as many things as possible to get as many children as possible on our campus as often as possible.  This may be in festivals, camps, sports leagues, mother’s day out programs or any other myriad of ways, but we need to focus on getting the children here.  If the children come, the parents will follow.  We’ll be proposing several different things over the next few weeks as we look to the best ways to reach our area.

4. Church workday is coming up in a few weeks.  March 16th is the designated Saturday to clean up, fix up and get ready for Easter Sunday.  Please set aside the morning or afternoon to come help.  Like a home, every church has a list of honey do’s that need to be addressed.  We’ve got a list and there is something that everyone can do to help.

5. I predict the Rockets and Mavs will make the NBA playoffs, narrowly eliminating the Lakers.  I predict this in spite of the Mavs loss to the Lakers on Sunday.  The Lakers are too shaky as a franchise and too likely to fall apart from within.

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5 Things in Week 8 of 2013

1. NBA All Star weekend has come to a close in Houston.  Didn’t create much of a stir up here in Spring.  I didn’t hear much about it from anyone as hardly anyone I know even watched on TV.  I saw some of the game last night after church.  It was a lot like most full court pick up games.  No defense, a lot of alley-oops and fast breaks.  Let’s get back to the real games and then bring on March Madness!

2. Where’s the fastest growing area in Montgomery County over the next several years?  That’s right, the Rayford Road corridor.  According to an article in the Community Impact Newspaper the Rayford Road corridor will add another 7,000 homes in the coming years.  The article even says that CISD plans to build another high school in the Oak Ridge feeder zone within about 6 years.  We’ve got to get busy as a church.

3. Finished Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Kennedy” a couple of weeks ago.  What a great book!  It’s a thrilling page turner, even though I knew how it would end.  Lots of things I didn’t know in the book and it’s very intense as he gives great detail into the events of November 22, 1963.  I highly recommend it to anyone.  It has some great history of the Kennedy presidency also, including the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis.

4. Had a great time at the AWANA Gran Prix last night.  The kids were great fun and the cars were fantastic.  Loved some of the designs.  You can see some of the winners in the library window here at the church.  Thanks to Bradley and all the AWANA leaders for putting on such a great event and thanks to John and those who helped him for the hot dogs.

5. As you may know, Julie had her birthday this past week, along with Valentine’s Day.  So here is what she got.  It’s a BIG CHAIR to replace her other big chair that was getting a little long in the tooth.

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The cool thing is that it’s round and it spins!  I’m having lots of fun spinning her around :).

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Equality does not Equal Sameness

Preaching from the book of Ruth this month and yesterday’s message on chapter 2 put me right in the middle of much of what we have talked about in Men’s Fraternity.  There is a real need today for Authentic/Real/Godly Men.  We live in a culture that is becoming increasingly feminized and one that wants to pretend there is no difference between men and women.  The battle for equality has become a movement toward sameness.  That is, men and women are the same, interchangeable parts.  This movement denies the creation narrative and denies what we know intrinsically about life.  We are not the same.  We are created to be different.  We have different bodies, different personalities and different roles as defined by God.

The worst part of the movement to sameness is that it robs men of what makes them men and it robs women of what makes them women.  The effort to make us all the same has not aided society, it has robbed us of the very differences that make us each so special.

Sameness is why some think it a good idea to put women on the front lines in war.  This idea robs men of the privilege of being the protector of women.  Protection is a God given role to men.  And for the life of me I can’t understand what is so demeaning about wanting to protect a woman from the horrors of war.  It is not devaluing a woman to deny her this burden.  Rather, by protection her I am showing that I value her greatly.  Isn’t that what I do to the things I value, I protect them?

Sameness is at the core of the heterosexual support for the gay “marriage” movement.  It follows naturally that I have to believe that if we are all the same then it does not matter if a man and a woman, two men or two women marry.  The tragic result of this has been the devaluing of what God has to say about manhood and womanhood.  The Genesis narrative now holds no sway because it is looked at as antiquated, out of date.

The same view of Genesis is held by many Christians who hold to the sameness view when the talk about marriage between a a man and a woman.  They say we are all equal (which means to them “the same”) and so a marriage is a partnership between two people under the direction of God.  These believers put forth the concept of eternal compromise between husband and wife as the highest value, equality as the measure of success in a marriage, and partnership as the main description of marriage.  It doesn’t take a genius to see how these terms have now become popular among those who advocate gay “marriage” and those who see no sense in marriage, preferring to live together without marriage often using the term “partner.”

Biblical marriage is described as a man and a woman entering into a covenant with one another desiring to be obedient to the Lord while maintaining fidelity to the roles given to the husband and wife by God.  The main goal of this marriage is oneness, where the husband takes leadership by loving and serving his wife as Christ did the church and the wife willingly submits to her husband “as to the Lord” (Eph 5:22).  Recognizing our differences isn’t demeaning to one or the other, it is honoring to see that God has given us certain gifts that are required to enjoy the full beauty of life.

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Hello February!

The Super Bowl is over and so comes the official end of football season.  Of course, national signing day for the colleges is Wednesday, so it’s really just the transition to off-season football.  Now that it’s February, perhaps we should focus on some of the other events in life. 

How about Valentine’s Day?  That’s only 10 days away.  Nah, I’d rather not, it’s too mushy and made up for me.

College Basketball?  March Madness is only a month away.  I’ll pass until my Longhorns figure out how to shoot straight and stop turning the ball over.  Waiting for Myck Kabongo to return I think will prove to be too little, too late.

NBA?  The Mavericks are stumbling around trying to recover from the first two months without Dirk in the lineup and with so many new faces on the court.  They’ve still got time and the All Star Game is coming to Houston, so maybe it will gain some attention.  The Rockets are struggling, though not as bad as the Mavs.  Of course, if I was a Spurs fan I’d be happy knowing they’ll be there right up until they lose to the Thunder.  But I’m not a Spurs fan, so I’ll root for Kevin Durant.

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo?  Now there’s a possibility.  We’ve even got some tickets to see Luke Bryan.  Believe it or not but this will be our first time to a Rodeo concert.  We’ve been to see the exhibits, visit the petting zoo when the girls were young, see all the animals and even watch some cutting before, but never to the rodeo.  It’s about time I guess.

Of course, along with the Rodeo comes our Go Texan Day at Spring Creek on March 3.  Now that is going to be a great time with high attendance in Bible Study and Bar-B-Q following the service.  So I think that’s gonna be the winning ticket.  We’re ready to focus our attention on growing our church, worshiping our Lord, eating some BBQ and then watching the real rodeo.  I can’t wait for the Rodeo!

Wait, all this happens in March.  What am I gonna do in February?

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