What about people who do not know Jesus?

A wonderfully thoughtful example of answering the question regarding those who do not know Jesus.

I remember my wife saying that she asked her father this similar question along time ago. His response was similar. It is not ours to judge who is and isn't in. Ours is to pray for those who do not know Jesus that they will either know him or know his ways, and thus they will learn the truth, the way and the light!!!

Obama 08 Education Message

I found the following speech while poking around Obama's website. It was given in March 2005!!!

It was truly amazing to me his grasp of the need to fix the education system. Not just by throwing money at it, or privatizing it, but by making real change and funding No Child Left Behind.

Some highlights:

The ideal of public education has always been at the heart of this bargain. From the moment the earliest Americans stepped out from the shadows of tyranny and built the first free schools in the towns of New England and across the Southern plains, it was the driving force behind Thomas Jefferson's declaration that "...talent and virtue, needed in a free society, should be educated regardless of wealth, birth or other accidental condition."I

In this country, it is education that allows our children to hope for something else.

But we don't make much progress for our kids when we constrain ourselves like this. It appeared for a brief moment that the President, working with leaders like Senator Kennedy understood this, and many of us were initially encouraged by the passage of No Child Left Behind. It may not be popular to say in Democratic circles, but there were good elements to this bill - its emphasis on the achievement gap, raising standards, and accountability. Unfortunately, because of failures in implementation, particularly its failure to provide adequate funding and a failure to design better assessment tests that provide a clearer path for schools to raise achievement, the bill's promise is not yet fulfilled.

The shortcomings of NCLB shouldn't end the conversation, however. They should be the start of a conversation about how we can do better. Yes, it's a moral outrage that this Administration hasn't come through with the funding for what it claims has been its number one domestic priority. But to wage war against the entire law for that reason is not an education policy, and Democrats need to realize that.

If we truly believe in our public schools, then we have a moral responsibility to do better - to break the either-or mentality around school reform, and embrace a both-and mentality. Good schools will require both the structural reform and the resources necessary to prepare our kids for the future.

Now, the American people understand that government alone can't meet this challenge. They understand that we need to transform our educational culture, from one of complacency to one that constantly strives for excellence. And they understand that government cannot replace parents as the primary motivator for the hard work and commitment that excellence requires.

From the moment our children step into a classroom, new evidence shows that the single most important factor in determining their achievement today is not the color of their skin or where they come from; it's not who their parents are or how much money they have.

It's who their teacher is. It's the person who will brave some of the most difficult schools, the most challenging children, and accept the most meager compensation simply to give someone else the chance to succeed.

Of course, teachers don't just need more pay, they need more support. One thing I kept hearing when I visited Dodge Elementary School in Chicago is how much an encouraging principal or the advice of an experienced teacher can make a difference. That's why teachers would be paired with mentor teachers who've been there before. After a few years of experience, they'd then have the chance to become mentor teachers themselves.

And to help them deal with those few disruptive students who tend to slow down the rest of the class - a problem I hear about from teachers all the time - we'd expand innovative programs being used in states like Illinois that teach students about positive behavior.

Finally, we would also require Innovation Districts to work with their unions to uncover bureaucratic obstacles that leave poor kids without good teachers, including hiring, funding and transfer policies. Districts would work with unions to tackle these problems so that we can provide every child with an effective teacher.

During my visit to Dodge Elementary, I was able to speak with a few of the teachers about some of the challenges they're facing in educating their students. And one teacher mentioned to me that in one of the biggest obstacles in her view is what she referred to as the "These Kids" syndrome.

She said that when it comes to educating students today, people always seem to find a million excuses for why "these kids" can't learn. That you'll hear how "these kids are nothing but trouble," or "these kids come from tough backgrounds," or "these kids don't want to learn." And the more people talk about them as "these kids," the easier it is for "these kids" to become somebody else's problem.

But of course, the children in this country - the children in Dodge Elementary, and South Central L.A., and rural Arkansas, and suburban Maryland - they are not "these kids." They are our kids. They want a chance to achieve - and each of us has a responsibility to give them that chance.

In the end, children succeed because somewhere along the way, a parent or teacher instills in them the belief that they can. That they're able to. That they're worth it.

Bill Clinton's Sermon

I found this speech or sermon while reading a blog. I thought it fits today just as well as it did when it was first given.

Some highlights

• Now, I disagree with them. I disagree first of all because I remember how I felt [when I heard] the promise of the scriptures in Isaiah, where God says to Isaiah "Fear not for I will redeem thee. Call me by thy name. Thou art mine." I didn't read that I had to join one party or another to get that promise.

• I'll never forget the conversation in 1993 with the then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a man I like very much and whose sermons I still watch on TV when I get a chance. He's a great pastor but he belongs to the `values voter' crowd. He looked at me and said, "I just want an answer, not a political answer. A straight yes and no answer. Do you believe the Bible is literally true or not." I said, "Pastor, I think it is completely true. But I don't think you or I or anyone else on earth is smart enough to understand it."

• I supported the president and Senator Kennedy in the Leave No Child Behind Act because I believe that poor children in inner city schools should have to meet certain standards. And I think it is a form of racism and arrogance and elitism to say that kids can't learn because they came here from another country or because the color skin is black or brown or yellow. I think that's ridiculous. But we were promised that if they held them to higher standards that their school would get their money. We left over 2 million of those kids behind - but I got my tax cut. That bothers me.

• Nobody's got all the answers to all these challenges facing America today. All we can do is take our values into the public arena and remember the basic things that our religious heritage teaches us. It is wrong to exalt the rich over the poor. Why are we all running to the head table? It is wrong to exploit the environment when you can save it and actually improve the economy. It is wrong to continue to let people continue to aggregate enormous sums of money by raising health care premiums and leave one in six Americans without health insurance. And it's wrong to believe that we can solve all the problems with the world with a security military-only when we plainly can't whup everyone who might ever disagree with us so we've got to make some friends along the way, too.

A dialogue on the church and homosexuality.

I had never read this post from 1999, but I am glad I came across it today.

How beautiful the sentiments of Peggy Campol0. If only enough people would read and understand, "Only after I met Jesus did I find the courage to speak out for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters."

Rick Reilly Makes Me Think

The following post makes me sad as well as proud of the five people Rick Reilly briefly profiles

I wonder how many more Americans are being lost in Iraq that we will never know their stories.

I would read this for yourself and see what you think. No easy answers was my reaction.

Ohio State center could lift the Sixers

Check out this article on Greg Oden.

Examples:

Once, after the Lawrence North team finished a pregame recital of the Lord's Prayer, J.R. Shelt, a former assistant coach, noticed tears in Oden's eyes. Asked if everything was OK, Oden explained that he was thinking about having watched the movie The Passion of the Christ.

As players, coaches, cheerleaders and fans jumped with excitement, Oden walked over to a woman near the court.

"How's Esther?" he asked her.

Two years earlier, Esther had been born prematurely, weighing 1 pound, 4 ounces, to the relative of Lawrence North assistant coach Jim Etherington.

"He had met Rachel, my sister-in-law, once or twice," Etherington said. "He knew she was family. He remembered her name at a time when a lot of people wanted a piece of him. He has a personal touch. He has a sweet, genuine attentiveness to him."

When Oden made his recruiting visit to OSU, he kept holding the doors open to let coaches and others pass through first.

Friends chuckle about how often he thanks them for mundane matters, and he says "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," as if he's in the military. Oden began a recent news conference by apologizing for being late, which nearly caused reporters accustomed to waiting to drop their pens.

He sounds like a role model we can be proud of. Team him with Andre Iguodala, we may have talent and a role models for the kids of Philadelphia

Obama Takes First Step Toward Presidential Run

Please check out the video of Barack Obama's announcement that he is forming committee to run for president. This will be a watershed moment in the United States.

I remember feeling a similar way when I watched an obscure governor from Arkansas give his speech saying he was running for president.

Hopefully Barack will follow the same path.

The Love of Jesus

Even though I continue to hear sermons that insist that we must have mission to bring new followers to Christ, I think the sentiments found in this Purpose Driven Life devotional more than explain and justify my approach.

"In the process of loving our neighbors, we will inevitably introduce them to Jesus. (There’s no way you can love someone and not tell them about the most important thing in your life.) What happens then is God’s business, but we will be a witness to what we know of God to those who are compelled to ask. In the meantime, our mission is to keep on loving our neighbors, regardless."

"Love is truly our highest calling. It relates to all people saved or unsaved, regardless of religion, race, or gender. Love as God loves and you will not go wrong. When love is the goal, everything else gets done in the process."

The mistake that a lot of people make is describe as, "When it becomes our mission to save people, people can easily become targets, projects, assignments, or serve a host of other utilitarian purposes. The problem with this is that people become a means to an end. The end is to save everyone, to preach to everyone, to warn everyone, or in some way fulfill an obligation."

Christmas Shame

A wonderful post by the author of the Message Bible. Perhaps the Prophet Jeremiah had a point.

Thus says the Lord:

"Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens

because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are false.

A tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an axe by the hands

of a craftsman. Men deck it with silver and gold;

they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move" (Jer. 10:2- 4)

Humanitarian aid: winning the terror war

Another hopeful sign that we have a better way. A third way.

Amid the uncertainty about the best strategy in Iraq and how to answer the growing threat of terrorism and extremism in the world, there is one American policy of the past two years that has proven successful time and again: humanitarian missions by the US military. This policy is pro-military, pro-American, pro-humanitarian, and antiterrorist. Most important, it is actually curbing anti-American feelings in Muslim countries.

Courtesy of Rob Bell this is the way of Jesus: SERMON Any of the Peacemaker ones

A witness to what faith can be

A great article in USA Today about a group of Christians in Portland Oregon who care for the homeless.

Car- and vanloads of Christian volunteers swoop in with sleeping bags and coats to protect their dispossessed friends against the raw, wet weather that has moved in. They dispense hot meals and set up stations for shaves and haircuts. While a few pull out guitars and strike up their Jesus-themed songs, a small number of the volunteers commit one of the more audacious acts of compassion and humility I have ever witnessed: They wash the homeless people's feet.

The best statement I have read in a long time:

But it's hard to indict all religion when you see the way faith manifests under the Burnside Bridge. The features of hard-edged Christianity that many find repellant — condemnation, exclusivity, belligerence — are absent at Night Strike. Bridgetown Ministries and its dozens of volunteers aren't vetting the moral worthiness of the homeless people whose hair they cut, bodies they clothe and feet they wash. They know some might be drunk and some on drugs. Are they homeless because they're lazy? Do they deserve this care? The questions are utterly irrelevant from the perspective of the ministry's radical compassion. As Snider puts it, "We're just out there to love on people."

Brian McLaren: The Politics of Joy

Another great post by Brian McLaren.

I was particularly impressed with this statement, "The way "earth receives her king" (and the blessings he brings) is not by bombs and guns and wiretaps and coups; not by aggressive blog postings or passionate media pronouncements by pundits. Rather, the king (and the kingdom) come first to the quiet hearts of humble people who "prepare him room," and the joy flows to the world through them."

I just started reading Barack Obama's book , and I see some of the same sentiments in his thought process. I will let you know more when I finish reading it.

Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance

I ask true Christians to compare the following two responses/situations and determine for yourself who is acting the most Christ-like.

1. Clyde Zuber, 49, and Martin Fowler, 55, remember sitting on the curb outside Lakeview Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Tex., almost 20 years ago, Sunday after Sunday, reading the Bible together, after the pastor told them they were not welcome inside. The men met at a Dallas church and have been together 23 years. In Durham, N.C., they attend an Episcopal church and hold a Bible study for gay evangelicals every Friday night at their home.

   “Our faith is the basis of our lives,” said Mr. Fowler, a soft-spoken professor of philosophy. “It means that Jesus is the Lord of our household, that we resolve differences peacefully and through love.”

2. “If by gay evangelical is meant someone who claims both to abide by the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions, then the concept gay evangelical is a contradiction,” Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said in an e-mail message.

   “Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice,” Dr. Gagnon said. “I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture.”

Please read the entire discussion. The future of many Christians hangs in the balance.

2nd Colorado pastor quits over gay sex allegations

If you read this article, you will notice a statement that saddens me to no end.

Paul Barnes told church members: "I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. ... I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away."

This is the main problem with the thought process on this subject. You can't wish it away or pray it away. To me this is further proof that people are born a certain way, and any attempt to "change" them will result in this type of tragedy.

This situation hurts so many people, it is a shame that the 5 year old boy wasn't taught that Jesus loves you just the way you are.

Super Charger-Record-setting Tomlinson impresses on and off field

If you read this article, you will surely know why LT's coached said the following during his press conference, "I don't want to embarrass him but for all the skills he has as a player, they pale in comparison to the person."

I just wish that this kind of person got more credit for being a human being first and foremost.

Race Against Time - World AIDS Day Speech | U.S. Senator Barack Obama

Race Against Time - World AIDS Day Speech | U.S. Senator Barack Obama: "Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say 'This is your fault. You have sinned.'

I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.

My faith also tells me that - as Pastor Rick has said - it is not a sin to be sick. My Bible tells me that when God sent his only Son to Earth, it was to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and redeem those who strayed from righteousness.

Living His example is the hardest kind of faith - but it is surely the most rewarding. It is a way of life that can not only light our way as people of faith, but guide us to a new and better politics as Americans.

For in the end, we must realize that the AIDS orphan in Africa presents us with the same challenge as the gang member in South Central, or the Katrina victim in New Orleans, or the uninsured"

The above quote taken from the Senators speech should remind all Christian's of their obligation to honor the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and to Love your neighbor as yourself.

AMEN.

P.S. Article on the speech:

Why Evangelical Kay Warren Is Fighting AIDS - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com

Why Evangelical Kay Warren Is Fighting AIDS - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com

This interview is must read for any Christian who has questions about where we should stand as Christians on the topic of AIDS.

This question and particularly the answer given hit me as one of the most important,

How hard is it for evangelicals to get past the characterization by some of AIDS as God’s scourge against the sin of homosexuality?
That’s definitely something we’re trying to get past. It’s flawed thinking, for starters. To follow that line of reason means that then, I suppose, the cold I have is God’s judgment against me for going out in the rain without my boots on. Thinking that way is not helpful. We live in a broken, sinful world. We all make mistakes, but at the same time God cares passionately about everyone he has made. You never find Jesus asking people how they got sick, not once does he ask that. When sick people came to him, he simply said, “How can I help you?” And that’s where we’re trying to go. That needs to be the first question out of our mouths.

Hoops of Hope

Hoops of Hope

I read and prayed, "May Your Kingdom come, and Your Will be done on earth"

Another example of the "Thy Kingdom Come"

Kentucky treasurer pushes for Sudan divestment - November 20, 2006 - Pensions & Investments

Kentucky treasurer pushes for Sudan divestment - November 20, 2006 - Pensions & Investments

This article is probably restricted, but the important message is that the Treasurer of Kentucky's Retirement system has fired the first of what I hope to be many shots at the Sudanese government.

This is hopefully history repeating itself. The pressure put on by US financial institutions in South Africa ultimately contributed to the no violent changes final instituted and an end to Apartheid.

Finding God in Unexpected Places

Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/19/2006 | They're learning life's rules

The title is from a book by Philip Yancey. The story is part of what I hope to begin keeping track of. Pockets of life where God can be found among the people seeking Justice for all.