A bunch of stuff from the last two weeks (misfortune, lies, Oprah, Willow Creek, and American Idol)

a)

Within the same week, I lost my phone and my computer conked out. This is very sad. I realized how much I use my computer. It is semi-refreshing to not have one. It is, however, not so refreshing for my roommates, who have been kind enough to lend me their’s from time to time.

b)

Just a note, if you comment on this page and spread slanderous lies, you will be censored. Do not be misinformed as to the nature of the internet and blogging. Blogs are edited. All information is selective. I have the right to chose what gets on this page. That’s right.

c)

Look at this. The thing I’m struck by is how crazy she is. A couple things I thought about:

1. What is her authority? She admits – herself. That’s crazy!

2. She talks about how she doesn’t like God’s jealousy and so she makes up her own god, and then she says how we’ve created God! AHH!

3. She’s so blasphemous! Please pray for her.

d)

Read this. What’s encouraging about this is how Bill Hybels (who is 56, and has led the Church for over 35 years) is still willing to change and to learn, anything to win souls and to bring Christians to full maturity.

Lots of people have opinions on this online. What they should know is that i) Bill Hybels really believes in Salvation:

"Sometimes people ask me why the elders of our church place so much emphasis on reaching the nonchurched. Why do we pour so much time, energy, and money into programs, ideas, and additional staff directed toward outreach? The answer is that when you truly believe in hell you develop a "whatever it takes" mentality. You realize that the stakes are sky-high. You're not just playing church; eternal life and death hang in the balance" - Honest to God 123

Hybels also really desires his members to become fully-matured Christians (actually, the book i just quoted is about the topic). However, I would say that I'm happy that Hybels has learned that involvement in programs does not produce mature Christians, but that the Power of the Word does.

e) Did you hear about how they sang Shout to the Lord on American Idol? Here's my thoughts:

Their rendition of the song sounds really close to the original, if not better. Is there a problem that the most popular Praise and Worship band in the world sounds like (or worse than) a network karaoke show?

It makes sense to me that the world would want our music - they write music for themselves, we write it to the Glory of God, I shouldn't be surprising that ours would be pretty good (unfortunately, it is usually surprising). However, you'd hope that music written to The Living and Almighty God wouldn't fit right in on the tv show that produced such crap as "A Moment like This".

note:they did actually sing the song again with the right lyrics.

note2: i realize this may be old and very well-known information back home :P