Hollywood: America’s Idol

Like any other person in the world, I always look at the magazine covers on the racks at the grocery store. This got me to wondering why our society is so obsessed with celebrity. Do we really care how Brittney screwed up this time or what is going on with the latest celebrity couple? We have to know whats going on to make our lives seem less horrible and instead of dealing with our problems we deal with Hollywood’s’. If you didn’t know, the way that American society views Hollywood is extreme idolatry, Rather than studying Gods’ word we would prefer to rush out and find out if Lindsey Lohan is still sober. I recently posted a clip from Mark Driscoll about idolatry and its worth another listen.

What do you put first, Christ of the newest ‘it’ girl? Lets tell Hollywood to shape up and we need to focus on our lives and walk with Jesus.

God bless,
Anthony

Blogs you should read in 2008….. besides mine

These are a few blogs and podcasts that I read/ listen to often and you should look at them as well because they have some good content. These blogs are in no particular order:

The Fire of New Desire- Great blog by my friend Joey. He writes on some of the same stuff I do but he writes a whole lot more eloquently (and less sarcastically).

Abandon Image- Blog by a lady named Tia. She is fairly emergent and I disagree with some of what she has to say but has some interesting opinions and is one of the more polite people when it comes to discussing controversial topics.

Purity: Fully Clothed- Thoughts on purity by two teen-age girls. Real talk about sex and abstinence from girls living in this crazy sex-obsessed generation. Some really great poems and analogies on purity.

Desiring God Blog- The official blog of Pastor John Piper’s Desiring God Ministries. Deep insight from Piper and others on Christianity from a fairly conservative point of view. Also, you can find a link to John Pipers sermons which are entertaining and very informative.

Mars Hill Church Podcasts- Sermons by Pastor Mark Driscoll. Most people think he is emergent but his theology is actually very conservative. He does sermon series by going straight through the books of the Bible. Probably one of the funniest Pastors I have ever heard yet he explores the scriptures well. Starting soon, He will be doing a nine sermon series on questions submitted to their website.

I listen to and read a whole bunch of stuff so if you would like some more leave a comment and I will give you some more.

God Bless.
Anthony

The pastors are in high school

This new years eve, My church was involved in the second citywide new years service. Last year, we hosted it but this year another church took charge. Before I get to my point, you need some background on my church: We are a church of about 300 or so people and are currently in the process of building a 600 seat sanctuary. We are non-denominational, independent but are of the charismatic, pentecostal type. All this makes us one of the largest Spirit filled church in Reno. My Pastor and youth pastor meet with this group of pastors every week and have been working on this new years service for quite some time. There is prayer every month at a different church from the group each month. Our church usually brings about 100 people to those prayers but the other pastors can barely get their wives to attend. (I tell you all this for context only not to brag)

Every one (as far as leadership, worship team etc…) was fine with not being in charge of the service, especially me because it was a ton of work last year. The way they set up the service was there were four worship teams (including mine) and it was broken into a series of worship service type stuff broken up by performances (songs, drama and such).

This is where my title comes into play: My churches worship team (of which I am a member) was the first on stage and opened the night. About a week prior to the service, the worship leaders all met and were instructed that they had a certain amount of time for their songs. The service was moving as we played, people worshiping and praising God but as we reached middle of our first of two slow/’worship’ songs, the Pastor that was MCing the event was on the stairs of the stage looking almost frantic and checking his watch frequently. We finished in the time we were given and just kinda figured that this was going to be how the night would go but when the other worship teams got up to preform, they went substantially over time. This didn’t bother me in the sense that it was unfair or anything (when the Spirit moves, He moves). What did bother me however, is that the other churches had this sense of “look Spirit Filled Church, we don’t need you”.

These other churches are all relatively small (one particular church is the pastor and his wife) and the entire night seemed to be a showcase of how the little churches could gang up and be more important than the bigger church. Why do these pastors see the need to show us up. The entire time these pastors where talking unity but they didn’t give that feeling. I guess you had to be there to fully understand the feeling I had. Over all it was a good service but there was this overtone of a showcase of how much my church was not needed.

As Christians, we should be above this and should have true unity. It seems as if pastors are worried about people from their church going seeing another church at some type of unity service and going to that church instead. If a person decides to go to another church then they were probably not supposed to be at your church. Stop trying to show up the other pastors, get out of the high school drama and start praising Christ.

God bless,
Anthony

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