Mental Musings

Many Christians have held to teachings by uneducated pastors or bible study teachers who are just ignorant of God's Word. Think of the many fallacies that have been taught throughout the ages and retaught by others who placed more trust in the teachers than in the actual Word of God. EXAMPLES (some of which are controversial even in my own religious denomination): Drinking - many pastors in evangelical churches have taught that drinking is a sin for the past 80-90 years. Why only 90 years? Because prior to Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933), most evangelical churches had no issue with alcohol. The reason was not that they believed it to be a sin, but that they believed as Christians we were to obey the laws of our land. However, some pastors began to preach that drinking was a sin and even found a way to clear Jesus from a perceived sin by teaching that the wine Jesus drank was "new wine" and would have been no stronger than grape juice (which became t...

Tonight I was watching "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" for about the seventh or eighth time. The Ring Trilogy was one of my favorite sets of books as a young teen and I was thrilled when I heard they were making movies based on these books. One of my favorite quotes from the first movie happens when Gandalf the Gray is talking to Frodo Baggins as they sit in the dwarf mines trying to determine which way they should go. Frodo comments how he wishes that the ring had never come to him and that none of the problems had ever happened to him. Gandalf replies, "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." Have you decided what to do with the time that is given to you? Many people spend their entire lives just searching for the purpose to their life. While everyone has a purpose for life that is unique to them, we all have a common purpose: to have f...

December 2, 2011, is the date for our first performance of The Christmas Post . Most who attend will have no clue about the countless hours of rehearsals required to get to that point. Some of these rehearsals would have made for some pretty funny outtakes if there had been a camera around. But only a few know about the work that went into this before we even started to rehearse the lines and music. I guess it all started around October of 2010. We were in the midst of preparing for the One Bethlehem Night Christmas musical that we performed last year. That musical was to be a one time event as a break from the 25 years of performing a Living Christmas Tree. We were struggling to find the support necessary to continue the Tree ministry, specifically in the areas of decorations, light programming and the choirs. Our plans were to take a one year break from the Living Christmas Tree ministry while we worked on replacing old lighting so that we could continue the ministry the nex...

I really miss not being able to go to church today. Sundays, while extremely exhausting with three services and evening rehearsals, are one of the things I look forward to each week. Joining together with hundreds of fellow believers as we lift up and proclaim the name of Jesus Christ. Since I have been sidelined for today, and possibly the next few days, I decided to search through the blogosphere, twitterverse and social networking sites to see what people do on Sundays. Most of my ministry friends have been pretty silent so far today. Probably because this is their busiest day of the week. Most of my Christian friends are also silent, but some are tossing in a few scripture verses or short status updates about going to church. But most of the rest of the world is in their Sunday morning mode: asleep or talking about sports. We focus so much time and energy on things that are for self gratification: eating, sleeping, sports, leisure activities, etc. It seems that we work our ...

I found this in my draft folder. Not sure why I never published it, but it seems like now is a good time. About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. "During those 200 years,...

I was reminded recently how deficient I am in the spiritual gift of encouragement. It is something that I have to work on daily because it is not something that comes to me naturally. My mind is typically focused on perfectionism, something that comes standard for most musicians, so I am often guilty of being too picky about the little things. I wonder if a lack of encouragement is something that is common among creative people? After all, they are the ones who seem to need encouragement more than any other group. I am sure we have all known more than a few prima donnas in our church music ministries. So, as I have heard that AA teaches, accepting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery. I guess this means I am a recovering non-encourager. So what can be done to help me along my road of recovery? How can I endeavor to become more naturally encouraging? My first plan is to remind myself that, although I do not need to get those pats on the back in order to continue do...