waterlessplaces

The Ideal Church Service: Introduction

2007-05-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Some of you left interesting feedback on my No Fun or Know Fun post a couple of weeks ago. In case you didn't read it--scandalous!--that post cautioned against the temptation to oppose clown church with mortician church, if you get my drift. Sometimes we work so hard at building a worship experience that's not about bread and circuses, we wind up administering a spiritual sedative.

I appreciated

I Like This Guy

2007-05-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

From The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (p. 29):
Professor Henning has already demolished two such [improbable scholarly] structures in his Zoroaster, Politician or Witch-Doctor? and my own effort to make sense of Sassanian theology has met with much well-deserved criticism. I hope that I have taken due account of this criticism in the present volume.I find this attitude refreshing. I don't

A Scriptural Basis for the Ministry of Deacons: Part Six

2007-05-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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Evaluation of the Deacon’s Role in the Church The observation that διάκονους are primarily concerned with the ministry of the Word,[1] though perhaps applied more negatively than necessarily, is a valid observation. Based on Acts 6, some commentators seem to relegate the

Eat Your Hearts Out

2007-05-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

Did you know a pound of ahi tuna steak currently costs $19.00 around here? I know this because my wife was introduced to a Rachael Ray recipe on television that calls for it, so she's been pricing it all over town.

We weren't willing to pay that much, but we heard about a little grocery store in Northridge that offers Vietnamese ahi tuna for $10.99/lb. Normally, we wouldn't pay that much for

Seven Intensely Interesting Facts about Me

2007-05-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Tagged by Gummby, and who dares refuse him? The tagged are supposed to list seven things about themselves, and then tag seven others to do the same. So, here are seven fascinating personal items. When you consider these are the most interesting things about me, you'll have a good idea of just how wild a life I lead.
I can recite the alphabet backward, fluently.
My cure for depression is The

A Scriptural Basis for the Ministry of Deacons: Part Five

2007-05-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Download the Full Document

Examination of Acts 6:1-7
(Part 2 of 2) Third, the majority of references to διάκονος in the epistles refer either to the apostles or to those who assisted them in ministering the Word.[1] Therefore, the diaconate should be understood as primarily concerned with the

Self-Contradictions of the Bible: A Review

2007-05-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

William Henry Burr. Self-Contradictions of the Bible. New York: A. J. Davis & Company, 1860. Reprint, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987. 96 pp. $21.00 (cloth).

For an entertaining evening out, toss this little book into a crowded restaurant. The diners will immediately pick sides, upend tables into barricades, and proceed to cannonade each other with champagne corks and veal flambé.

Mom My Ride

2007-05-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

"Duct tape is the perfect way to say, 'Sorry, fellas. This lady's got a man.'"

H/t: Gummby

Cauldron: A Review

2006-12-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

Larry Bond. Cauldron. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1993. 569 pp. Out of Print (cloth).

Larry Bond first collaborated with Tom Clancy to ignite World War III in Red Storm Rising. The first two novels published solely under Bond's name plunged us into the Second Korean War and into war with a hellish South Africa under extreme apartheid. In his third novel, Bond pits former allies against each

Beyond Reason: A Review

2006-08-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

A.K. Dewdney. Beyond Reason: 8 Great Problems That Reveal the Limits of Science. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004. 224 pp. $27.95 (cloth).
Some of the integers z will appear inside their corresponding subsets f(z) and some won't. If we take the set of all integers z that are not members of f(z) and place them in a special set W, we can ask a very serious question about W: To