Strange Events

Okay, here I am at a Men's conference and I noticed a few things that strike me as odd.

Ok, it is a big church, but that is to be expected. They have a good music group with a nice rocking beat. However, did I need to be blinded by whirling colored spots in some kind of light show that was crappier than the ones I used to see in bars a couple of decades ago? What was this need to produce "smoke" to drift over the pulpit area around the band, again a crappier effect than the one I saw in bars a couple of decades ago? Not a problem that they were bad, but this is a church! The praise and worship was great, except the cheap rock concert effects were distracting and annoying to me. Of course, the advances in video technology had produced a much sharper image of the breakout solos of the various instruments with the preening of the soloists. I'd have gotten by that until the music minister decides to announce that Jesus is in this place (Well, DUH!), then he (music minister) says that "Because I brought Him!", waits a few beats and then segues into the "where two or three are gathered..." (like I said, Well, DUH!).

Of course, then there was the special message from the pastor and his wife, pitching some weird kind of life insurance....

Now, the message we got was good. In fact, the biggest problem was that even though it ran over, the pastor could spend our two sessions tomorrow with him simply unpacking that one message. I was enjoying that message, but that life insurance pitch...

Maybe I just don't understand "big city" churches and the stresses of a pastor who deals with thousands of people in his pews, but a life insurance pitch? That was just too much. You know, when a Sunday school class gets too big, it should be split or break out another teacher or two and IMO, most megachurches and the wannabe lower echelon probably should have a rock thrown in them. I doubt the efficiency of anything they do over several small churches (except at maybe selling life insurance that not only keeps "tithing" for you after you are dead, but also sends a little check to the grandkids too) since it is much easier in a bigger church to go to sleep and "let George do it".

The problem I'd have: Does the pastor know about this issue with the music ministry playing failed rock concert guys? Does the pastor simply trust his music minister to keep things straight or what?

Gee, you wonder why some SBC members worry about whether or not the GCRTF will do anything worth the time and effort, don't you? After all, some of the leadership now were young Turks and players fifteen years ago when with either the blissful ignorance of (or active abetting of) the then CR leadership of the SBC accepted the tales of proven liars and their false witnessing over the contrary testimony of respected members. Of course, disappearing reports, thousands of documents going missing and changes in policy exceeding the mandate of the messengers by bureaucratic means have nothing to do with it. No, not at all.

In the meantime, there is much bruhaha about discernment and education of the Church. True, it is needed and I was calling for it before these bigwigs stepped in. Of course, there is my "little problem" which prevents me from being an official front line teacher. The sad thing is that my pastor is a busy man, earnestly working and striving, doing a great job of teaching the Word when he can. I'm still enjoying learning from him. Yet, my "little problem" which might be "offensive" or "questionable" to "some" in the church and could be a "stumbling block" to "some" remains totally 100% based on false witness, open lies, twisted Scripture, forgeries and shoddy scholarship. So, we could remove this "little problem" by actually doing some education in doctrines and discernment, but.....there is only one readily available teacher who is familiar and motivated with the subject matter and he.....has a "little problem".

This seems to be coming to a head, or I'm just needing to vent a little, because truthfully, the time and effort to actually educate people to that level of discernment would be wasteful even if I turned out to be the teacher from heaven, especially since there are some who would still believe what they heard from their brother's sister's mother's cousin was true. So they would just keep "viewing with alarm". That it makes my pastor look like something I don't believe he is (one of the "stealth" antimasons, who never says Freemasonry is wrong, but simply denies any Mason any responsible position) evidently just cannot be helped.

It is a small thing, but it would be a stand for truth instead of false witness, but in end results, this way is most expedient. There would be a price to be paid, because I know one person who has bought the lies hook, line and sinker. I feel it was my error not to directly confront and correct that brother on the spot, but I had work to do in the fellowship hall to finish setting up for a fund raiser and it was more expedient to let it go with my comment that it was bogus and an assurance that I would "watch out" for that pagan stuff that "trusted preachers" had said was in Freemasonry. So, I cannot very well go around talking about the mote in someone else's eye with the beam sticking out of mine.

What to do?

I just noticed on a forum I used to frequent, that this got posted a few days ago.

Message Board Mission Statement

There are the simple goals that the board wishes to achieve:

• Providing a forum for Christians to gather under one fellowship.
• Strengthening believers in evangelism, discipleship, and edification for personal growth.
• Promoting awareness within the Christian community of current world events; predicted in scripture; of Bible prophecy
• Providing news & websites voicing politics from a Christian perspective.
• Providing websites & discussions exposing deceptive cults, apostasy, heresy, false doctrine, and false teachings.

Nice, right? There is also an extensive post on "Dishonesty" by one of the "super" mods which goes into all the "bad" things people with emphasis on the poor, long suffering mods. Well, having been a "poor, long suffering mod" myself on another (and larger) group of forums, I can understand that part. I always considered it part of the job I had volunteered to do for the community. The last "bump" of this post had an interesting comment:

...we have enough work to do with trolls, but it really hurts my heart when fellow brothers and sisters in Christ sign up in order to cause division on the forum or make the board look unChristian or mean spirited. Very un-Christ like, I think your spirits need to be checked and look at the big picture, not just your personal vendettas. What you do in secret, shows your real character...sadly there are many trees showing rotten fruit, and for what? Think on that.

The problem comes when my "title" is "Shunned One", because despite my being open, I was allowed to be stalked, harassed and vilified by another user with the full and complete cooperation of certain members of the mod team. My "sin" that led me being shunned? I spoke against the use of lies in any "defense" of the Gospel, I showed several "good Christian" posters that they were holding heretical positions and (most important) I showed that several of the members of the mod team were also holding heretical positions. In fact, these mod team members with their statements, covering for violations of forum rules and altering of threads (justified by my "sin" of being a Freemason who happens to do Christian apologetics and able to prove their foolishness) are causing the divisions.

Oh, and I cannot be accused of joining to cause divisions, I was a member before some of these mods (long before) and the "problem" started when I simply corrected some factual errors in an accusation.

Dealing with the VA

What is it with government employees in general and the VA in particular? Here I sit stressing in the middle of the night, because after years of work, gathering documentation, trudging up the line of appeals, seeing quacks who write junk and lies that have to be rebutted and finally getting it before a VA judge who makes a ruling raising my rating to the maximum amount allowable by law, the VA decides to send me a letter saying that they want to reduce my rating back to where it was.

The crux of this rant, since I'm not really that stressed yet. Why is it that I can get a letter from the VA that will at a minimum eat up two days of my life, potentially can stress my entire family out seriously and (knowing my wife) is already working on her nerves since she still isn't quite sure on this "be still" stuff and there is no penalty or recourse on the VA (or other government) employee?

However if I shake my finger in their face (let alone give them the arse kicking that their lack of ability to reason their way out of a paper bag truly deserves) then I am issuing a terroristic threat and can be banned from VA facilities?

Oh, because they are "doing their job" and need to be "free from fear"? "Doing my job" is the defense of all incompetents that are doing something wrong. Of course, if they simply did their jobs in accordance with regulations and with PROPER and FULL review of case records (in my case, this actually means some summaries of the issues in my records, so they don't have to dig that far back), then they could live "free from fear".

Amazing, isn't it?! If government employees would actually do their jobs then they could be free from fear! Of course, if they use the excuse to mess with peoples' lives, thereby triggering problems, then I guess they should be afraid. If I were them, I'd be afraid of low stress guys, especially when they make them useless for any valid function in their family.