johniam

Homosexuality is mentioned in God's word, but if you (2 James) want, just show her the spiritual deliverance, how to get born again, what righteousness is, no condemnation, Romans 8, lots of good stuff. Being a lesbian doesn't stop people from getting born again. Let God minister to that part of her heart. A generation ago there were probably a lot of gays who had no support system and were easily pulled into the world's condemnation of gays. An example that comes to mind is the 1977 movie "Waiting for Mr. Goodbar" / the last scene has Diane Keaton getting brutally murdered by an enraged homo, but the homo and his buddy were drunk in the scene before that and they were cursing themselves and their homosexuality. Today there is a gay and lesbian association in every city of any size in the US. Most gays are probably proud of it. My point with all this is...if your friend has any inkling that the God of the bible condemns homosexuality, which He does, you won't see her for dust after that, so like I said, show her what you can from the word to build her up, but let God work in her heart about the gay stuff.

This brings about a good ethical question. Remember one of Walter Cummins' keys to how the word interprets itself was to compare what a scripture meant to 1st century believers with what it means to believers today. In the first century there was no mass production or TV or advertizing or any of that, which are necessary to reach millions of consumers today. Billy Graham and Orel Roberts sure take advantage of it. Anybody here take a college class that wasn't paid for by somebody???

I thought that guy's name was Alex Ford, not Arthur.

Use reverse psychology. Actually encourage them to be together to the point of nausea. Even include the other girls' moms in it. Then they may see how your "obsessive" behavior is theirs as well. Whether that works or not, this situation seems like it is going to have to run its course. It's probably a better problem to have than drugs.

Yep, mebbe all dat voodoo down there finally caught up with it.?!

Every so often I feel curious as to what it would be like to go to a TWI fellowship again. I know someone who has gone a few times in the last 5 yrs; says it's not that bad. I think they betrayed everybody by "cracking down on debt, homos, unproductive evil,etc. and THOSE people (many of us) will never trust them again. Right now I go to a fellowship affiliated with CG and it's OK: lot of people I've known for 20 yrs, good sense of community, and the ABS stays in STL. I don't attribute this to CG, though (never met him). Even in churches the leadership changes or shifts every few yrs or so and what met your needs then might not now. That old wayism "committed beyond your lifetime" is an accident waiting to happen.

Same old same old double standard: if VP is praised, then it's "NO NO NO, it wasn't VP, it was GOD!!!" But if VP is condemned, somehow it wasn't the devil, it was VP.

Interestingly, I just did a search on Ernest Ball. He lived from 1878 to 1927. He's in the songwriter's hall of fame. He is credited with "Irish eyes are smiling". His discography does not list a song called "All the world will be jealous of me" but it does list a song called "Love me and the world is mine" which could have easily been what the original title was changed into. And if this guy did steal my grandfather's song, then he could have done the same with any and all the rest of the songs credited to him. But so what? I'm not being faceteous. So what? Ernest Ball is dead; my grandfather is dead. What would be accomplished by anyone trying to discredit Ernest Ball almost 80 yrs after his death. Kinda makes you wonder what other famous works might have been stolen.

My maternal grandfather was a musician. He used to be a piano player in movie theatres before talkies existed. You know...keystone cops music, sad music, all that stuff. That's how he met my grandma; she came to the theatre a lot and sat in the front row. He noticed her. My mom told me he wrote a song called 'All the world will be jealous of me' and he tried to sell it, but it was stolen by a man named Ernest Ball. I've bought guitar picks with the name Ernest Ball on them. Hmm. The 1940s version of the movie "Phantom of the Opera" (Claude Rains as the POTO) has a scene where the phantom before he was the phantom was a composer who tried to submit music for publication, but the man he submitted it to crossed out the phantom's name and wrote his own on it. It is common knowledge that blues rock groups like the Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc. have played songs written by Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, etc. Sometimes they credit the writer by name; sometimes they credit "traditional" as the writer. Sometimes they credit themselves. Either way, more people have heard the Stones and Led Zep than Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. They made more $ too. This makes the plagiarism issue more complex. VP got his product out to more people than BG Leonard or Stiles. Do you people really believe that someday God is going to pat you on the back and say, "Well done thou good and faithful servant or son or whatever!" just because you can list and categorize and color code VPs sins like you have?

Right now I'm wondering what VP DIDN'T copy from those men. Probably some weird stuff.

I went to the fellowship they had when they first got the place in Tipp City (Jun '98). Looked like it had a lot of promise for future events. Anybody know how many people they get each year?

Lcm sang "Light my fire"????? No, that's BLASPHEMY!!!!! I saw him sing "Up against the wall redneck mother" and I can picture him singing "Dang me", but no way "Light my fire"!

That's interesting: Tom Burke uses a diminished chord in his song "Would you like to be born again".

I was in a meeting once where it was near Thanksgiving and we (twig cordos) had to read these scriptures about thanks and thankfulness (nessnessness). The mood was real serious for some reason and one of the scriptures was in Nehemiah and it referred to "those that gave thanks" and the last phrase in the scripture was something about the "dung gate". After it was read everybody wanted to laugh, but the leader was real serious and nobody laughed. Maybe you had to be there, but in recollection, it was funny.

Matt 21:22. I still think PFAL is basically OK. JC not God, Dead = not alive, SIT, no condemnation, incorruptible seed, it's all good, but we were taught that during the dark ages some monk monkeyed with the text...well, in TWI some monkeying was done to the simplicity of God as a loving Father. We were taught stuff like if you don't confess sins accrued after salvation then you were out of fellowship and God wouldn't bless you. So it became a 'walk of works' just to keep up with these stray sins. Not buying it anymore. When Clinton was pres and Chelsea was living at home, she could help herself to whatever she wanted in the refridgerator. The secret service guy guarding her couldn't. The Russian ambassador to the US couldn't. Al Gore couldn't. Well, IF God is our Father, then we got a few privileges. Let's say I, being human, have a blind spot in my understanding and it NEVER GOES AWAY for my whole life. Does God stop loving me? Can I not bless anybody? Can I not get prayers answered until I get "reinstated"? I just don't think it works like that. So I agree with whoever said God is God and people are people.

He would've been one of those people in the 1800s who were saying that trains were evil because railroad smoke would destroy crops.

Why, if PM had taken Tom Benner's Orientalisms class then he'd have known that in India today they wipe with their hands and then wash them AND they think WE'RE gross for using paper, so it's OK to use your hands in a pinch.

Steve: I meant that if BG could get everybody focussed on ANYTHING it could transfer to the presentation. True, it's a reach, but TWI leaders didn't seem to do that stuff haphazardly; there was always a reason. I once heard that they had people do "devotion with motion" because they figured if people didn't move physically then they wouldn't receive spiritually either and they watched people to see who was "motivated".

Somebody once told me that lighters were dangerous; they have been known to blow up on people so use matches instead.

Maybe he was just using that tactic to get everybody focussed on the same thing as a "lead in" to whatever was to be presented. I saw Styx in concert and Tommy Shaw asked who had and who hadn't ever seen Styx before. Seemed like just personal curiosity, but maybe not.

The Cards may make a move. We got 4 guys on the DL since the break (Molina, Rolen, Sanders, and Walker) so talk is they may get an outfielder. Lot of names tossed out there (Austin Kearns, even Griffey, Willy Mo Pena, Matt Lawton, others) but no deal yet. I kind of hope Houston makes a race of it so the Cards won't lose their edge like they did last year.

Our WOW family was f***ed up. But 3 of us made it through the year. Around July 4 we needed gas money to drive 100 miles to the limb meeting. I had just done a house gutting job for this ill tempered contractor whose wife is a Christian. This guy was something else. We approached his house daintily. Before anyone rang the doorbell he kicked the screen door open and didn't say a word; just looked at us. I told him our situation and asked if he had the money at this time. He said no, so I, believing God would supply it another way, said OK and turned to walk away. My WOW brother, who had nothing to do with this transaction, said, "We'll take you to court!!!!!" He said to kiss his a**. We left. The drive back to our house is 10 minutes and we didn't stop anywhere and didn't hurry. We get to our house and this guy's big wheel pick up truck is in front of our house with the motor running and he comes over to the car, says he gave the check to the guy in the house, and if we didn't get a decent meal with it he feels sorry for us, then left in a cloud of smoke. HUH????? The guy in the house was a new grad who thought this guy was paying for the class, so the grad asked him why didn't he make the check out to the church. The contractor went ballistic because everybody in town thought us WOWs starved a lot (we didn't). I don't even know how the contractor knew where we lived. But we had plenty of gas money. Prayer answered heavy metal style.

Preach it, bruthuh!

Ivory tower? I don't even own a piano. You're right. If I had to live or spend a lot of time around minorities where they live I'd have to adjust my attitude, but I know for a fact that black people HATE it when white people act like they care when they really don't. They also RESPECT white people who stand up to them. They call it "keeping it real"! There's a lot of peer pressure on blacks to not get too buddy buddy with white people. It really is a frustrating situation, but if I see people being prejudiced against me for WHATEVER reason, then why shouldn't I express my displeasure?