Some people tend to eat up whatever their church teaches them and tend to regurgitate it later on, without asking why. This bleeds over to political affiliations also, i.e. if their fundamentalist pastor is conservative politically, then they will be conservative also. I hate it when churches turn their sermons into a political movement, especially when in many circumstances there is no moral or Biblical reason for voting one way or another.
Many times I find myself asking “why?” whenever a church leader tells me how I should view the world. I can remember being told in Sunday school class about backmasking…how supposedly recording artists would put subtle backwards messages in their songs. Specifically I remember Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” having a coded message on it saying “start to smoke marijuana.” All of this backmasking consipiracy is just spawned from the “us vs. them” paranoia mentality. Why would a band make it a point to record backwards messages to put on their album? Why would someone bother to play a record backwards and try to interpret whatever the gibberish supposedly meant? The whole thing stinks like a bad urban legend.

Doug Perry’s message at the teen devotional tonight was on the topic of actually trying to convert others to Christ. It’s time to start asking myself am I really doing enough for the cause of Christ. It’s more than youth retreats, summer camps, teaching Bible class. It’s life. I don’t do half of what I should be doing. I can do good works all day long….contribute photos to the church bulletin….tape sermons….display songs on the screen at church. But is that a direct case for trying to convert others? Nope. It is time to get out of my comfort zone and start putting my knowledge to work. I guess that’s where grace comes in. I could never preach enough sermons to convert enough people to Christ. Grace covers that. But I still need to try my best. I am trying to encourage others to continue to follow Christ. On the other side of things, I am not good with meeting new people…studying with them…etc….
I have thought about going to El Salvador on a mission trip. I really don’t know if I will be employeed in April (when the trip is scheduled). I guess it is something I need to pray about. That’s something I don’t do enough of: Praying. I am the selfish type person that only prays when I need something. I need to develop a better prayer life.
Anyways back to El Salvador. I really need to think about it. I need to be going for the right reasons. Not for a vacation, for it will be hard work. Not to be able to brag others about going to another country. But because people need help there, both physically and spiritually. Am I up for it? I don’t know. Something to think about….
There. I’m not sure why I wrote all that down. Maybe it’s good therapy for myself.

David Shannon shouldn’t have to preach tomorrow due to his uncle passing away. He already has to do the funeral at 2PM in Centerville. That along with the AM and PM services will make for a long day tomorrow. There should be someone in the congregation available…whether it is Phil, John Kennedy, Mitch Poskevich…. to preach at last minute notice like this.
David is a workaholic. He does so much. I am afraid that he might burn himself out and get tired of church work. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
I redesigned this site. Took me much of the night last night and a little bit this morning. I think it turned out ok. Basically I took out the blue and left all dark green. Let me know what you think of the new colors. If you see anything that needs to be changed, let me know.
Wal-Mart takes on New England

It was cold. I sorta wished I had brought a blanket. Our path was paved roads in and around the Corinth community…..Route 52 and Dobbins Pike. I was sorta suprised that we took relatively busy roads around the community. A pickup truck followed us so that cars wouldn’t crash into us going in a high speed. Afterwards: Hot chocolate. Nothing tastes as good as hot chocolate on a cold night. I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t feel like blinding people with the camera flash. Trying not to rock the boat too much.
My predictions for the upcoming election:
Governor: Bredesen
Senate: Alexander
Lottery: Yes
State House: Lynn
State Senate: Beavers
I haven’t been paying attention to the latest polls, so this is mere speculation. I’ll predict a high voter turnout based on early voting numbers. All of this since the whole Florida fiasco. Everyone knows their vote counts.

I find myself interested in other people’s religious upbringing. Looking over everyone else’s Friday Five entries (at http://www.smattering.org/archives/00000773.php ), there seems to be a common theme among many people’s religious preferences. They grew up with some religious upbringing, but they don’t practice it anymore. Sad. Many object to fundamentalist and Catholic holier-than-thou dogma of their religious roots, which is why they have turned away.
I hope I don’t come across as being holier-than-thou. I hold myself to high standards of the Bible. It is hard not to hold others to similar high standards. I realize that many people have not had the same opportunities and religious nurturing that I have had. Why can’t we all believe? Why can’t we all love God and attend church? Why can’t we believe all of the Bible instead of picking and choosing which verses we agree with and which we do not?
What happened to Telalink.net? The domain is for sale. This used to be a relatively big local ISP in the Nashville area. Now I can’t even get to any webpages hosted by them.
I saw on NewsChannel 5 that the Hermitage Kmart will be closing within a year. Sad. I worked there 2 summers in ’95 and ’96 as a sporting goods/automotive associate. Nevermind I knew nothing about sporting goods or car engines. Where am I going to drop off my film to get developed. Wal-mart’s film developing takes an extra day and is a few more miles down the road. I guess I’ll look into Walgreens.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and a Target will move into Kmart’s space. Right now there’s a Target store in Donelson, which is conveniently located for people in Donelson. However I will gladly drive past the Wal-mart to shop at Target. Wide alises, less crowd. I didn’t realize how much I hate Wal-mart.

Phil is wanting to get various youth group pictures enlarged to put up in their classroom around church. Digital picture enlargements can be fairly expensive compared to Wal-Mart’s prices. For example, a 16 x 20″ enlargement costs $16.99 at ofoto.com compared to a 11 x 14″ at $3.96 at Wal-Mart. So I guess I’ll go for all Wal-Mart for now.
My reservations against it are as follows. The enlargements won’t necessarily be put into frames. We’ve displayed pictures on the bulletin boards at church before. Kids tend to scratch out and put a permanent marker to people’s faces they don’t like. I’d hate to spend 4 bucks on each enlargement only to have them ruined by someone drawing on them. Why couldn’t we get some really cheap (but decent looking) frames to go with them? Display them properly. Not like some cheap boyband poster on a teenaged girls’ bedroom wall. But then again it’s the church’s money, not mine, so why should I worry?
One particular kid from church keeps IMing me. First he wanted me to walk him step by step through how to install a favorite peer-to-peer file sharing program. Next he wanted to find music to listen to online. Finally he wanted me to burn a CD of certain songs. All of this was just too much. Borderline annoying. I know that peer-to-peer programs are made to install fairly easily (which is why everyone seems to have one installed on their computer). I am not a subsidiary of CDNow or Amazon. I don’t burn CDs made to order for people. Since it is so easy to do yourself, the novelty of burning CDs for friends has worn itself out.
Lunch with James and Josh yesterday at CiCi’s Pizza. All you can eat lunch buffet for $5. Pretty decent price for what you get. The only problem is that the pizza quality is just not as good as Pizza Hut or Papa Johns. Sausage pizza is also hard to find there. Usually they will tease you with some pizza which will appear to be sausage, but when you taste it, you find it is hamburger pizza. Why would anyone put hamburger on pizza? It’s meat that looks like sausage without the spice.
I guess it might be that time of year where I post my obligatory Halloween entry. It was always a fun holiday. There was always the awkward time in my life where I was too old to go trick or treating; felt staying home handing out candy was too lame; and didn’t feel like intentionally messing up someone’s yard by TPing it. (I still have never rolled anyone’s yard; I guess I missed out) Now I’m content to stay at home and hand out candy. My parents were always stingy with the candy…only gave out 1 candy bar each. On the other hand I throw in lots of candy in to the kids bags.
It’s too bad certain conservative Christian groups have attempted to put a negative spin on Halloween by calling it an evil holiday. Halloween is what you make it. If you’re a satanist and want to sacrifice animals to the devil on Halloween, then it is an evil holiday for you. But if you are Mr. and Mrs. American, who like to dress up your kids in scary costumes and take them trick or treating, then it is a fun holiday. I hate it that I could be considered “evil” in some people’s eyes by seeing no problem with kids dressing up in scary costumes.

Big day today. Left at 8AM for Portland for the Sunday morning worship service. The afternoon was Bible Bowl time. Ended it with a PM worship service at MJ and a preteen devotional afterwards. Sundays can be busy days for some people.
Like I said before, Mark Sexton, the youth minister for Corinth church of Christ, is a good guy. I stayed after the Bible Bowl and talked to him for about an hour. He is very sincere and has a common sense approach toward Christianity in general. I’m grateful for his comradery and friendliness shown toward me, even in the short time he has known me.
Small rural churches have their problems, just like any other large church. The only thing is that sometimes due to their size, their problems can be magnified at times. So when a family leaves, it is very noticeable. I found out a particular family I knew had left a rural church for some reason or another. I wasn’t sure of the reason, but I hate that they felt they had to leave. I can only wish them the best and hope they find a church to their liking. I hope we can still keep in touch, but it will be more difficult since they are no longer affiliated with the church I’m familiar with.
Ending the day with a preteen devotional with almost 30 kids present was a boost for me. Realistically I know some of them came for the food. But many came to worship God. Singing was great. The kids were attentive during the devotional. It was a good day.

Those Judgement Houses. I haven’t heard of anyone doing one this year. I did a quick search on the net and found only one church in Nashville which was doing one of these attractions this year ( www.harpethheights.org )
The few memories I have from them are from the early 90s. One production was very good. It had an actual wrecked car and ambulance in the death scene. The funeral scene featured a coffin. I remember someone in our party tended to think the funeral scene was a bit funny and giggled at an awkward moment. I cringed when that happened.
The other Judgement House at another church wasn’t so good. The condemned prisoners in hell were little kids. There’s something slightly strange about hearing little kids scream out in agony in the darkness of a church basement made up to look like hell. Their heaven was an empty white portable classroom. I don’t know which was worse, their heaven or their hell.
Anyways like I said, they’re playing on people’s emotions. Yeah, it may work on some people, but it is really worthwhile to try to scare someone into making what should be a lifelong committment. I know that this is the only way to reach some people.
For some odd reason, there is a Mr. Peanut costume at church. Planters brand. Big plastic peanut body with a top hat and cane. Phil said it was one of the kid’s costumes. While I was at church today, our minister put on the costume while yelling “This lottery referendum is driving me nuts!” I guess you had to be there to experience the full effect.

My day:

• 6:50AM – Leave home
• 8:13AM – Pick up 700 No Lottery signs at Granny White Church of Christ
• 9:32AM – Deliver 50 signs to an address outside of Lebanon, TN
• 10:31AM – Deliver 100 signs to Willow Ave Church of Christ, Cookeville, TN
• 10:54AM – Deliver 50 signs to an individual at the Putnam County Justice Building in Cookeville, TN.
• 11:38AM – Met individual in Wal-Mart parking lot in Sparta, TN, to deliver 500 signs.
• Back to MJ by 12:50PM

I don’t know why I kept up with this. I took digital pictures of each of the places I delivered signs to. So, the timestamp on the picture shows when I was there.
Some thoughts: Cookeville has every restaurant known to man within a 2 mile stretch on exit 287. And I mean EVERYTHING.
2 of the individuals I met weren’t affliliated with the church of Christ, yet they seemed friendlier than the other “church of Christ” people. I don’t know why that is….
When I was up at the Justice Building in Cookeville, I noticed 2 Spanish-looking men talking to a lady behind a window. She was chewing them out because they didn’t understand something. She mentioned something about learning to speak English. I felt it was rude of her, but typical of someone living in a semi-rural part of the south who hadn’t been forced to travel to a different country to experience different cultures. We treat individuals who don’t necessarily speak English fluently with less respect. It would have helped if there was some type of translator standing by (this was a building of courts; there were probably some available). Anyways I’m not sure what these people wanted, so it’s really none of my business. I just wish this particular lady hadn’t been rude to them.
I don’t know if I should feel bad for not believing in this anti-lottery movement more. Like I said before, I’m not loosing sleep over it. I have yet to see book, chapter, verse which tells me that lotteries are sinful. Yes, it probably brings about bad things in society. But then again, lots of other things can do this too. And we aren’t exactly vigorously campaigning against those things. Should I feel bad for putting effort behind something that I’m not 100% behind?