Mental Musings

Thanksgiving, a national day set aside to give thanks to God for His blessings on our country, came about because of the true historical accounts of the Pilgrim's celebrative meal shared after their survival as recorded by Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation. I love history, unfortunately most of what they teach in schools today is false or in the least politically motivated. When I was in elementary school 40 years ago, we were taught that Thanksgiving was a celebration of how the Pilgrims working together were able to survive the harsh winter and successfully plant crops with the help of the Indians (now named Native Americans by the politically correct crowd). In fact, it was stressed that were it not for the collectivism of the Pilgrims and the knowledge of farming that the Indians shared with them, the Pilgrims would have perished. This might have been a nice, feel-good story, and it may have fit in well with the liberal theology that has been f...

As those who follow me on Twitter or Facebook may know, I recently spent five days in New York City as part of the American Festival Choir's trip to perform in Carnegie Hall . The trip was organized by Phil Barfoot's Celebration Concert Tours (CCT). I would highly recommend them for any concert tours as they did an incredible job organizing every aspect and they desired to make a positive and lasting Christian impact on New York. The concert included performances by Christian recording artist David Phelps and syndicated radio host and singer Marcia Ware . With 360 singers in the American Festival Choir we were the largest choral group to ever sing in Carnegie Hall. The choir consisted of 145 sopranos, 115 altos, 60 tenors and 40 basses, from thirteen churches from ten states including California, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Maryland, Oklahoma, and New York. The concert was a fund raiser to provide support for after school care program held at a Brooklyn chur...

Just a quick post to share a concern. It seems that the more the politically correct people of the world preach tolerance and acceptance, the more they become hateful and disrespectful toward opposing views. It amazes me that the very people who say that we must accept others for who they are will not accept conservatives for who they are. Jan Morgan , a conservative news commentator, recently posted this on her facebook wall in response to a barrage of nasty comments and threats: I will not tolerate people on my wall disrespecting me by calling me names and I will not allow people to come on my walls and state something as fact when I know the information is erroneous.  This wall is NOT A debate forum. It is my wall. IT IS TO BE RESPECTED AS IF YOU WERE A GUEST IN MY HOME.. and I retain the right to determine who will be my guests. I think it is some good advice. Learn to treat others with respect even on facebook. Treat their wall as if it is their home and you are a gu...

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 ...