Do Not See Golden Compass!

I am writing this post out of my normal routine of blog because I have been made aware of something that I need to bring to the attention of all who read.

First I have a confession to make. I was making some changes to my layout (got bored of the old one... hope you like it) and in checking to see how my changes were coming out I accidently became the 1000th viewer. So congratulations to the 1000th viewer... ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now onto my main goal today. Those of you who usually read my blog know that I have a few themes, I like to have fun, I like to give you Biblical truths, I like to poke fun at Mr. Bartlett. But today I have to use my platform to speak out against something that is damaging to the gospel of Jesus and all of the truths that this very country was founded on.

There is a movie coming out on December 7th called The Golden Compass and it should not be viewed by any person with any moral fiber. I usually wouldn't speak out against anything like this, but usually movie makers aren't trying to trick people like they are in this one. For instance, if a movie is coming out with a lot of violence and/or sex and it is not good for children it is pretty obvious by the previews. The reason I am speaking out against this movie is because they make it seem like a fun, adventerous ride for the whole family. But the moral implications of this movie have been hidden from everyone

It looks on the preview like a movie that anyone who likes Chronicles of Narnia would enjoy, but it was made in direct opposition to Chronicles of Narnia. Listen to what the author of the book Philip Pullman says about C.S. Lewis' masterpiece "I hate the Narnia books, and I hate them with a deep and bitter passion," he told one interviewer, "with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling-away."

Not only does he hate C.S. Lewis, but he is not that fond of Christians in general. He told the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph about his religious viewpoints, "Atheism suggests a degree of certainty that I'm not quite willing to accede. I suppose technically, you'd have to put me down as an agnostic. But if there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against. As you look back over the history of the Christian church, it's a record of terrible infamy and cruelty and persecution and tyranny. How they have the bloody nerve to go on Thought for the Day and tell us all to be good when, given the slightest chance, they'd be hanging the rest of us and flogging the homosexuals and persecuting the witches."

The Golden Compass begins with a precocious 12-year-old girl named Lyra (similar to Lucy) clambering into a wardrobe to avoid detection ... a choice that unwittingly launches her into a universe-altering adventure. (Sound familiar?) Lurking in the wardrobe, she hears her uncle, an iconoclastic explorer named Lord Asriel, describe a mysterious substance called Dust to a group of scholars.

Several events then occur almost simultaneously: Lyra is given a truth-telling device called an alethiometer (the golden compass) and told to keep it secret; she begins to hear rumors of children disappearing without a trace; and she's whisked into the care of a glamorous but ruthless agent of the church named Mrs. Coulter. Lyra soon discovers that the church is also desperate to learn about Dust—a substance they believe is somehow connected to original sin—and that Mrs. Coulter is spearheading chilling experiments on children in her pursuit of "truth." Specifically, she's separating children from their dæmons (pronounced demon), animal spirits that physically embody each person's soul and accompany them throughout life.

Listen to a quote from one of the witches in the movie "There are churches there, believe me, that cut their children too, as the people of Bolvangar did—not in the same way, but just as horribly. They cut their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls; they cut them with knives so that they shan't feel. That is what the church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling." Without exception, Pullman characterizes churches and anyone connected to them as agents of wickedness, oppression, torture, murder and malevolence.

It's a fair question for those curious about this story to ask what it is teaching. At the most basic level, His Dark Materials (The trilogy of which Golden Compass is the first book) is an attempted refutation of the Christian faith: "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all," says an influential character named Mary Malone, who then goes on to relate her own "testimony" of why she abandoned her calling as a nun.

As to what his books are about, the author himself said, "My books are about killing God." But despite a great deal of publicity on this subject, the series never addresses the issue of God's existence with any real certainty. There is a character who masquerades as God, known as the Authority. But we discover he was simply the first being to evolve—and there's definitely a heavy emphasis on evolution in this story—out of Dust into conscious existence.

As to whether or not a real Creator is responsible for everything, however, another character says simply, "There may have been a creator, or there may not: We don't know." Ultimately, then, the story remains agnostic about God's existence. And with regard to death and the afterlife, Pullman first imagines a dark underworld where all the dead go, regardless of their actions or beliefs. The dead are then released by Lyra, and their molecules are dispersed throughout the world.

To end this post Beliefnet's Rod Dreher writes that he intends to protect his children from Pullman's poisonous influence. "One expects that religious parents will keep their children away from the [Golden Compass] film. 'But why?' the question arises from liberals. 'What are you afraid of?' My children losing God, especially before they have a firm hold on Him, that's what. At some point they will question the existence of God. I did. It's normal to do so. I want more than anything else I want for my children, even their own happiness in this life, for them to believe in God, who is their salvation. If you believe in God, and that the loss of God is the worst thing that can happen to a person, then you would sooner give your child a rattlesnake to play with than expose him or her at an early age to the work of a man who openly says he wishes to destroy God in the minds of his audience."

Let's remember that and openly tell anyone who will listen not to see The Golden Compass.

Post written from article by Adam R. Holz on http://www.pluggedinonline.com/

Nothing is impossible with God!

Alright my friends well this is a great day in blogville. It is almost Thanksgiving, and everyone is in a good mood and there is a lot of leisure time coming for me and my wife. I hope you all are not getting bogged down with the stress of the holidays, but thanking God for each day that you have breath.

It is almost time for another milestone. It took us from August 3rd to September 28th to get to 500 and now it is time for our 1000th PAGE VIEW! So if you are the 1000th visitor to our site we want to know. Make sure you email me at jblewett@northridgehc.com if you the tracker at the top of the screen right now says 1000.

Also our contest winner from last week was none other than Debbie Schumacher. She figured out that the mistake on our website was that my picture was Matt Damon's and my colleagues was Ben Affleck. That is a mistake because obviously we are better looking than them. So congratulations to Debbie and in honor of her, our poll question is who is your favorite Debbie and make sure that you all vote for the incomparable Debbie Schumacher.

On to some more fun stuff. Last Friday night was our 6th to 10th Grade dance at NorthRidge Christian Academy. It was a sock hop and all of the students dressed up in their 50's outfits. The star of the show though was none other than our fearless leader and good friend of James' Blog Mr. Michael Bartlett.

He showed an enormous amount of dedication to his school and to his students when he dressed up as a nerd. He walked around in a hilarious impersonation of someone like Mr. McFly in the first Back to the Future. I could not let that go without sharing it with all of my faithful readers. So here it is...

This is priceless! After that he changed into an old man looking for his son. (His son was the nerd who was his previous personality) but then to top off the night The Bartman topped himself, and came out to an enormous ovation as... The King! He sang a couple of songs and looked incredible, here is the proof...

It was definitely one of the best events I have been to in a long, long time. A lot of people put a lot of hard work in and it paid off in an incredible way. And great job Elvis!

Onto the serious part of my post. We have recently watched Facing the Giants in youth group and if you haven't seen it then you must. But one of the main messages in the movie was that there is nothing impossible with God... NOTHING!

This past week I got the chance to go to Dundee Ridge Middle School (This is a public school) and I spoke at the Great American Teach In (Career Day) and I got to talk to 5 classes that totaled 300 7th graders and we had an amazing time. They learned about life as a youth pastor. They learned about why I am a youth pastor as God transformed the life of me and my family when I was at my lowest point. And they all left class knowing that God has a plan for their life, a purpose for their life and a promise on their life that He will never leave them or forsake them.

Public school!!! Public School!!! I ask you what is impossible with God... nothing!

I am so very grateful for the time that I got to spend at the school and I am eager to see what else God plans on doing through the teenagers of Haines City. Follow Him, dream big, and remember that nothing is impossible with God.

I am going to end with a video that I played to the kids as an ice breaker, and have since put it on youtube and godtube to advertise my website. Hope you enjoy it.

AAA

Well everyone it has been a long time since I have posted on my blog. I am very sorry for that, but I know that you are all in utter anticipation of this post.

I am currently sitting in 10th grade Bible class at NorthRidge Christian Academy and all the students are taking a quiz. It is mainly on the Beatitudes and it is so quiet that every stroke of my keyboard sounds incredibly loud. One kid keeps looking at me whenever I look up and it makes me think he is cheating... I hope he's not, but I will let you know at the end of this post if I caught him or not.

I have started another contest for all of my faithful bloggers. On our website, http://www.northridgehc.com/ I have made an obvious blunder. There is something that is obviously inaccurate on the site. You do not have to be an attender of NorthRidge to figure it out. Whoever is first to email me with the "mistake" I made will be enshrined into the James' Blog Hall of Fame in my next post... good luck and God speed.

I will let you know that the kid was not cheating. Judging by the answers on his quiz though, he probably should have :) Well I have looked at some of my old postings and they are really lacking if they do not have a picture on them, so here is a pic...

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I am writing about, I just think it's really funny.

So onto the serious portion. (By the way I got constructive criticism from one of my coworkers that my posts are too long so I am attempting to make it shorter.

I attended the annual Youth for Christ banquet last night (with Sharon and Seaton Hodges) and I learned a few things that I want to share with you. The Polk County branch of Youth for Christ is really big on reaching the less privileged.

They brought up a few students that were either from a detention center, a halfway house or just a neighborhood meeting for underprivileged. These students gave testimonies as to what God is doing in their lives. It is very amazing to hear stories of transformation and I am looking forward to partnering with Youth for Christ to see what amazing things God will do.

To keep this shorter than usual I must skip to my main point. One of the speakers got up to give a report of the past year. He gave us friendly reminder that when you see a sticker on someone's car that says AAA to remember to pray for them. To pray specifically for the Abused, the Abandoned and the Arrested. These are the people that Youth for Christ tries to reach and these are people that Jesus would have reached if He were here right now too.

So remember when you see the AAA stickers on the back of the car to pray for the Abused, the Abandoned, and the Arrested.

Truth

Hello my friends out there in blogville. I know that most of you are going through withdrawals because I have not posted in two weeks. I think that now everyone will understand how much really appreciate this blog. The old saying is that absence makes the heart grow fonder so now I am sure that you all are extra fond of this blog.

Actually I just wasn't inspired with anything last week to bring to you and I know that my blog readers expect nothing less than excellence and so I took a week off to prepare again for excellence.

I have a couple of updates for you. First of all, most of you will remember that about 4 0r 5 weeks ago I submitted a post that had my fellow staff member and my good friend (and my wife's boss :)) Mr. Bartlett's picture and I put it on there just to poke some fun at my pal. In case you don't remember here is what the picture looked like:

For some reason Bartlett didn't take to well to this picture, and he must not have liked it posted on the World Wide Web for all of my faithful fans out there to read. So Bartlett did something that deserves my respect... he sent me another picture. Here it is:

I made it a little bit smaller, because well I need to guard my friend against getting an ego. In other words I made his head smaller to keep him from getting big headed. :) But I will be honest with you... I like the first pic better. It makes me giggle. So that is this weeks survey question... which Bartlett do you like better: Big Headed or Small Headed.

Which brings me to my next point. I got some of you to fall for the oldest trick in the Christian joke book. Last week's survey asked how many of each kind of animal did Moses take on the ark. 4 people said 2, 1 person said 4, and 3 people said zero... and the answer is ZERO! Because Moses didn't take any animals on the ark, it was Noah so congratulations you three and for the other five... better luck next time... and for the other 199 people that viewed my blog since the survey was posted... answer the stinking questions!

Okay, one more order of business, and I know it is what you have all been waiting for... my Derrick Brooks picture. Without any further ado here it is:

Can you tell how incredibly nervous I was? I cannot believe that I was that close to the greatest football player in Buccaneer history! It was quite a night! In the picture with me is (from left to right, top to bottom) Doc Murphy, foot doctor and chaplain for the Haines City High football team; his wife, chaplain for the cheerleaders; my wife, the most beautiful woman God ever created; me; Coach Sam Wyche; and Mr. Derrick Brooks.

Now onto the meat of this post. I have been teaching the students at NRC the past few weeks something that I think I want to share with all of you, my faithful blog readers. I have been teaching a series called Lessons From the Master. The premise of the message is to sum up all of Jesus' teachings into four easy to remember lessons. I have been coming from the angle of if Jesus were physically standing in front of you and could only tell you four things what would they be? Of course, this is only speculation, but after much prayer and preparation I was ready to teach this series and would feel ready to give an account for my teachings.

So the first week was pretty simple it was to Love God. And we talked about loving God as your Abba Father. In other words to love Him as your daddy who can protect you from life's hurts. The second week we learned to Love Others and we looked a little more deeply at what love really is. We talked about the three different Greek words for love; Eros- physical love, Phileo- brotherly love and Agape- unconditional love. And when the Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself it means to love EVERYONE UNCONDITIONALLY! Wow! That is tough.

But last night's message was the most difficult for me because it is So Hard. Last night's message was to Love Truth. We looked very closely at the world's truth and at God's truth. The world believes that right and wrong is based on how you feel and the circumstances you are in and God's truth is absolute.

Let me give you an example that will rock your world. Imagine a woman is living on the streets with her daughter and neither one of them has eaten in three days. The mother decides to steal an apple to feed her daughter... is it still wrong to steal?

The answer is yes and will always be yes. Just because the truth is difficult doesn't make it any less true. Stealing is wrong always. That woman's circumstances are difficult and the world would say that in that situation it is perfectly okay to steal, but the Bible says that it is wrong to steal. Period.

I was trying to get these students to understand that all of their outside influences are telling them that truth can change and to do whatever is good for you, but the Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and that is never changing.

My goal in posting this, the same as teaching it last night, is not to condemn anyone. I told you up front that this was very hard. My goal is to get you to think about where you get your concept of truth. Do you get it from the outside world or do you get it from the Word of God?

Christ Follower

Hello everybody, hope you have had a good week.

It has been a bit of a disappointing week in blogville. We have had good numbers, and for some reason we had excellent weekend numbers last weekend, but we also have had some disappointments. First of all, I have not yet heard from Jimmy Blewett's people, but I am holding out hope that someone in New Jersey will read my blog and the word of mouth will spread, and I can meet my long lost race car driver relative. Second disappointment in blogville this week is that our 500th reader did not email me. I imagine it took place on Saturday and I am guessing it was as a result of someone catching on through http://www.youthpastor.com/ or some other site that links me over and so the person probably has no idea who I am, but I still want to know if you were the 500th reader PLEEEEEASE let me know, I want to congratulate you.

Now moving from disappointment to utter bliss, outside of blogville in a place I like to call The Real World I had one of the greatest nights of my life this week. On Monday I was invited to sit at the VIP table at the annual fall banquet for FCA. This was initially a huge thrill for me! Not only have I never been a VIP before and not only did I know that FCA has a reputation of serving great steaks at their banquets, but I was excited because the key note speaker was Sam Wyche.

This is a picture of him back in the day coaching the Bucs and talking to our quarterback Craig Erickson. I am so glad we don't have those uniforms anymore and I am so glad we have a better QB. In school they used to say of the Bucs: Be Understanding Craig Stinks B.U.C.S.

Anyhow, I was excited to meet him, I knew that he used to go to the church that I got saved at, FBC Tampa and I also knew that he drafted Derrick Brooks so I was very excited.

Well, Monday afternoon rolled around and I realized that I didn't know what time it started and how to get to where it was at, so I opened back up the email that I originally got from my good friend Carlos. I didn't originally realize that the email had an attachment, and when I opened it up I saw the flyer for the banquet, and yes Sam Wyche was to be there... BUT SO WAS DERRICK BROOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you that don't understand what this means to me, Derrick Brooks has been my favorite player since he was drafted in 95. I could not have met anyone in the NFL that would have got me more excited than him. Not only is he a great player (10 pro bowls, 2006 pro bowl mvp, 2002 Defensive player of the Year) but he is also a great Christian man. And when I got saved in 96 the whole Christian thing was knew to me, so reading articles and listening to interviews from Derrick and Tony Dungy and Danny Wuerfful did a great deal in showing me that being a Christian doesn't mean you have to be stuffed into a "No Fun Box" and that you can do what you love and be a Christian influence.

So we got to the banquet and we immediately went into the VIP room and I was standing 5 feet away from Derrick and was awestruck. Coach Wyche was next to him and was getting no attention so he walked up to us and started talking to Heather and me. Ordinarily that would have been the highlight of my night but DB was standing next to me.

Charlie Warren (great man!) announced that we were to get with our table and take pictures with the coach and 55. So we did! They were sitting down and we stood behind them and I could have talked to Derrick Brooks right then, and... I froze! I couldn't get a word out. Luckily I have the best wife in the world and she leaned over and started talking to him on my behalf. She told him that she had to memorize all of his vital stats before we got married (which was true) and I chimed in with "It was part of the wedding vows." Then we took the picture and I managed to get out, "It was great meeting you."

I was so excited, but it wasn't over. Something great happened. Half of our table showed up late. So we had to take the picture again. This time I wasn't going to freeze up, I got a sharpie and asked him to sign my jersey... and he did. I have never been so excited in my life (except for on my wedding day), and the steak was great and Derrick gave a great speech and the coach was awesome as well. I hope to have that picture of us with the greatest player ever to post on my blog next week.

So that was my exciting night and I want to transition into something else. If you haven't noticed I have a added a few features on the page. There is a section at the bottom that will give you news on Christianity, Bucs, and Youth so you can utilize that and there are also a couple of videos attached to my page.

I urge you to watch these videos this week after you get done reading my blog because they post great points. The main point they are trying to convey is that there is no special way that a Christian is supposed to look. In other words, just because you have on your church suit with your offering envelope sticking out it doesn't make you any more or less of a Christian than the guy in ratty jeans and a t-shirt.

This is something that I learned from the likes of Derrick Brooks. When I got saved I had this thought of what a Christian should look like and he definitely didn't fit that mold. Coach Dungy says that he is a Christian that happens to coach football but he is a Christian first and foremost.

That word unfortunately has taken a huge hit in recent years and it almost has a negative connotation to it now. I love the phrase Christ follower because it really simplifies things. Jesus never wore suits. Jesus never stayed away from lost people because they weren't like him. Jesus never was unaccepting of anyone. Jesus was a man of love and compassion. I would love to think that one day when I have breathed my final breathe that it would be said of me very simply, "He was a Christ follower." It doesn't matter that I am a Pastor, that doesn't make me any more or less of Christian. All that matters is that I, like so many others in this world, am doing my best to live like Jesus lived, not like people have told me to live.

To live is Christ, to die is gain!

Legacy

Well my blog fans, I apologize for being late on my post. I altered my week and took Thursday off and came to work on Friday. It seems to be okay though, because our Thursday numbers were down drastically yesterday. For some reason this week Tuesday was, by far, our biggest day.

We are coming close to a milestone. If you look at the top of the screen right now, you can see our page views tracker. As I am writing this the tracker is at 459. I want to know who 500 is. If you are reading this right now and the tracker says 500 please email me at jblewett@northidgehc.com so that we can let everyone know who the lucky person is.

I have something that I want to share with you this week that I found very interesting. I was googling my name to see how some of my Internet ventures were coming up. Do you know what I found? I found my long lost relative! I don't know how this man is related to me, but I am convinced that he is. Take a look at this picture of Jimmy Blewett and see if you can find some resemblance.

I have never met anyone in the world that has the same last name as I do that is not related to me. I have done searches on my last name and I found it to be a fairly common name in Europe and such places, but not here in the US. Do you want to know what is really cool? He is a race car driver!

He was born in 1980 which only puts him 2 years older than me and he lives in New Jersey. My dad's side of the family is from Syracuse, NY. Here's another thing about him... he's really good! The reason I found out about him, is that he just won another race this weekend, and now he is leading his particular racing organization. I do not know a lot about racing, but here are some things that I found in his biography.

-- 2-time Wall Modified champion (2001-02)-- 2-time Garden State Classic winner (2002-03)-- SST B Modified Chemung 100 lap winner-- Wall R.O.C. Tour Sunoco 150 winner-- 2 Riverhead Modified wins -- 2-time Turkey Derby winner

I don't know what that means but it sounds impressive. Here is a picture of the car he drives.

But if that fact that I have a man sharing my name who is a successful New Jersey race car driver is not enough... he has a brother. His brother is also a race car driver and owns a used car parts shop called John Blewett, Inc. Now it would be really eerie if this guys name was Mike or Mikey or Hunter or whatever alias my brother is using these days, but his name was John. And, in the spirit of giving out very personal information over the World Wide Web my mom lost a boy and his name was John. He was born around the same year as this John. So, here's the picture of John Blewett III and if you have ever met my brother Mikey you would see a few similarities there too.

So anyhow there is my interesting discovery for the week, and I will keep you up to date with anything that may transpire from this situation. Here is what I am hoping will happen... the power of this now very famous blog will spread all the way to New Jersey and the Blewetts will find out about this Youth Pastor in Florida who shares the same name and a few facial similarities with their race car driver Jimmy. I will let you know when I receive the phone call.

Onto some more spiritual things. This past weekend Heather and I attended a marriage conference called Weekend to Remember http://www.familylife.com/conferences/marriage.asp and it was held in West Palm Beach. (So for those of you that thought I skipped church to go to the Bucs game... you were wrong.) At this conference we learned a lot of interesting things. We learned the proper way to communicate, we learned about the way God views marriage as opposed to how the world views marriage, and we learned about how differences in expectations will lead to conflict.

The part that I wanted to share with you though was told to me at the part of the conference where the men and women split up. The men were learning about what it means to be a Godly father. The talk was very interesting and I am sure it was a lot of stuff that I will remember when I do become a father. I wanted to relay to you how this speaker ended his time with us men, because it relates a lot with the 30 days post that I talked about last week.

The speaker told the story of being woken up in the middle of night at his home in Atlanta with the news that his nephew was dead. His nephew was 23 years old and was apparently shot while trying to rob a convenience store. This was shocking news to the speaker because he felt like this man was not the type of guy who would do something like that.

As information started to unravel, the speaker had found out that his nephew had just found out that he was going to be a father. In a moment of foolishness decided that he needed some way to get Christmas money for his new baby and the baby's mother. Even though this man had never been in trouble before and would never do something so extreme by his nature alone, he will now be forever linked to a convenience store robbery and he will never be remembered as anything more than a thug.

The sad part is that one day his baby will be old enough to ask questions. And inevitably the question will be raised to his mother, "Mom, why don't I have a daddy?" Can you imagine the anguish that that mother will feel at that moment, and can you imagine the feelings of abandonment and confusion that that kid will have to grow up with. The speaker acknowledged the fact that when his nephew died, he left behind a terrible legacy. A legacy that will haunt his kid forever. All for a few dollars.

The question was then posed: If you left this Earth right now, what would be your legacy? Parents, would your legacy be as a loving parent? Christians, will your legacy be as a faithful Christian? What will you do today to ensure that you leave a lasting legacy? What will do today to make sure that everyone around knows that you love and care for them?

What's your legacy?

30 days

Well my friends, it is that time again... blog time!

I don't know if you have noticed the top of the screen of this blog. If you have you will see how many page loads we have had in the past month. We are up to 317 and last week we had 186 page views. So in only one week our readers have nearly doubled. That is awesome!

On my stat tracker I noticed that by far more people read this blog on Thursdays than any other day. So Thursday is my official blog day. This works well for me, because I don't work on Fridays and so Thursdays are my last work day you all know what that's like... it is so hard to stay focused on what needs to be done.


We have a couple of things going on in the online world of NorthRidge. First of all, there is the obvious greatest blog on Earth known as James' blog (and even my wife has read it now :) ) But there are a couple of other things. Jackie Noland and some others have felt compelled to start a prayer chain. So you can email northridgeprayer@yahoo.com to submit any prayer requests you may have or to be a part of the email prayer chain and receive all of the requests that are submitted. We are also looking to post some great stories of answered prayers on our website so submit some of those stories to us as well. And I have posted some new pictures of the fire damage on our website, so check those out at http://www.northridgehc.com/.


Now that those details are out of the way, I wanted to let you know that I have been working out. My wife joined Gold's Gym a couple of weeks ago and there was a 7 day guest pass along with it. So I went last Thursday and took a spinning class (that's bicycling) and I was sore for 5 days. But I am really trying to expand my horizons and develop a new circle of influence. As a Pastor I feel a lot of times like I can get stuck in a church bubble. So I speak all the time on sharing your faith with the lost, but the truth is that I don't know many lost people. So I am excited to become a part of this tribe. I have already seen dividends. Here I am with my shirt off.

So I guess you can see that it has been paying off.

Anyhow, onto the seriousness. I give careful thought now to what I am to post on this blog. I did it at first as a way to get people to use our website and now I see it is a way to minister to people. I do not take that lightly.

So in preparing for this week's post I was drawing blanks, until today. I started watching http://www.lifechurch.tv/. If you have not been there you must watch it. This man had a huge vision for ministry in the modern age and he has multiple church sites across the country and simulcasts to all of those churches as well as to an online community that is apparently very large.

I was watching his last sermon series he completed entitled 30 days. The basic premise of this sermon series (and I suggest you watch it yourself) is, what if you knew you had only 30 days to live what would you do. He mentions that way he came across this idea is because he was having a hard time prioritizing his life. The Pastor was being asked to speak in quite a few churches and seminars and he didn't know when he should say yes and when he should stay home with his family. He talked to his mentor who told him that when accepting a speaking engagement ask yourself if you only had 30 days to live would you still go and speak there. This became a great way to gauge his priorities.

This Pastor went to great lengths to get his point across during this series, including interviewing people who had been given only a short time to live by their doctors. The stories were extraordinary. Do you realize how much your perspective changes when you have been given an ending point to your life. It changes in an immense ways.

In listening to this weeks message (which was after the 30 days series) the Pastor gave some follow up information. He informed his congregation that one of the people interviewed had gone on to be with the Lord, and that people from his small group were there with him the whole way through. But there was another story that really caught my attention.

The Pastor said that during the 30 days series there was a woman who decided that she needed to quit her high paying job to become a stay at home mother and have time to spend with her family. Because she decided that if she only had 30 days to live that she would definitely spend them with her family. Only 2 weeks after making this life altering decision, her 18 month old baby drowned in a swimming pool. It is a shame that she only had her epiphany a couple of weeks before her babies death, but it is a blessing that she had those 2 weeks.

My question to you, my faithful blog readers, is quite simple... if you only had 30 days to live what would you do? Then do it! Then do it! The book of James says that life is like a vapor, it is here and then it goes away. Don't get to the end of the road and be full of regret. Life life to the fullest.

I will end with a little poem that I memorized for some reason when I was in high school

Exhaust the little moments for soon they die,

And be it gash or gold they will never come again in this identical disguise.

Follow Up: Added Monday September 24, 2007

I received a comment from Andrew Statezny who is a campus Pastor for Life Church in Hendersonville, TN (I told you the blog was gaining popularity) and he informed me that there is a website called www.30daystolive.com that they made especially for that sermon series. On it are the videos of the people they interviewed, follow up with how they are doing, videos of the sermons in their entirety, and a section where you can answer what you would do if you had only 30 days to live. So check it out, and look for the next posting this Thursday... Go Bucs!