Random story of the day

one time I got a box of cracker jacks and I got no toy surprise inside and I wrote the company a letter and they sent me a hand full of toys and coupons for free cracker jacks, funny thing was i was like 26

my familys eyes click on picture

The eyes belong to
Maria
Mike
Mike p
Kandi
Karen
Jax
Mom
Christian
Anthony
Miriam
Sam
Melissa
Robert
Teal
Caleb
Lissa
Loretta

The emerging church movement

I listened to a 6 part podcast from “theology unplugged” about the emerging church movement. I’v heard this term and did not really know anything about it. I thought I get some info. directly below is a definition from wicapedia and under that is notes I took from the podcast. Some pro’s and some con’s and my personal thoughts. I don't have perfect understanding of this movement, but based on the podcast a few website I've seen i think the podcast captured it pretty well.

The emerging church movement is a controversial[1] 21st-century Protestant Christian movement whose participants seek to engage postmodern people, especially the unchurched and post-churched. To accomplish this, "emerging Christians" or "emergents" seek to deconstruct and reconstruct Christian beliefs, standards, and methods to fit in the postmodern mold. Proponents of this movement call it a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature. The predominantly young participants in this movement prefer narrative presentations drawn from their own experiences and biblical narratives over propositional, Bible exposition. Emergent methodology includes frequent use of new technologies such as multimedia and the Internet. Their acceptance of diversity and reliance on open dialogue rather than the dogmatic proclamation found in historic Christianity leads emergents to diverse beliefs and morality.
critics of the movement are often conservative evangelical theologians and pastors who disagree with the movement's embrace of postmodernism, believing such a worldview leads emergents to unorthodox theology, relativism, antinomianism, universalism, and syncretism. These critics frequently associate emergent theology with the liberal theology that has historically been at odds with Christian fundamentalism and Evangelicalism.
Emergent Christians often see themselves as bridging the divide between conservative evangelical Christianity and liberal mainline Christianity.

Notes from the podcast “ theology unpluged”
Emerging church positives (obviously not an exhaustive list)

Missions orientated
More listing then talking
Recognize our own finitude- WE don’t have everything figure out
Criticism of individualism (no such thing as lone ranger Christian)
See the culture as amoral – not putting a bunch of taboo’s on stuff
Emphasis on the arts/worship

Emerging church negatives

The radicals are defying the group – dose not have a single defining marker

Lacks authority –(no creed, simplistic) IMO the four square church has way to much emphasis on” leadership” the emergent distances from this maybe to a fault????

To close with the culture- relativism. (hello sin is definable!!!!!!)

Don’t want to talk about difficult issues – church needs to talk about the whole of the gospel not avoiding the hard stuff. (What is mercy with out justice? This is WHY I go to a verse by verse teaching church)

Is Christ the only way?? God IS EXCLUSIVE emergent tent toward moving away from exclusivity

Since we don’t identify with any tradition, they are none. Christ is the head we are the body you cannot divorce yourself from the rest of the body. A lot of the congregation take out the name “church” replace it with “fellowship” exec

I can understand why people might be drawn to this. In fact my church has some of pros and I love it. (The Calvary chapel movement) I am not in a denomination by choice. At least I think, what do I really know? Answer: The GOSPEL!

Tomato diaries

Tomato diaries

LOG

This is an account of our experience growing our own tomatoes for the first time. The purpose of the log is for us to track what has been successful for reference if we do this again next year. It is time stamped so we can track things like how long it takes from buds to fruits and how long for the fruit hit full size and then how long to ripen. I've already gathered that the season in our town is way too short for tomatoes. These plants will be moved indoors at night while we are still experiencing frosts here and will probably be moved into the garage under a grow light this fall. We'll see.

12:00 PM 5/1/2007
this is a late entry and therefore the date is approximated. Around this time I purchased:
.....3 28" long rectangular planters
.....1 large bag of fertilized potting soil
.....10 tomatoes plants of various strains
..........2 Cherry Tomatoes -- Small Fruits -- days to Mature
..........5 Early Girls -- Medium Fruits -- days to Mature
..........2 Big Boy -- Huge Fruits -- 78 days to Mature
..........1 Pink Beefsteak -- Huge Fruits -- 90-115 days to Mature
.....(days to mature = days to first fruit)
It cost me $88. I expect to profit in more than tomatoes here. This is partly because we love tomatoes and vine ripens cannot be beat, but also a project for my own muse.
I planted these plants way too close together in the space available. but we'll see how they do. They are in these planters so that I can bring them in and out to avoid frost and keep them inside at what would otherwise be the end of their season. With a grow-light, I hope they will continue to produce.

12:00 PM 5/16/2007
another late entry and again the date is approximated. In the last weeks these plants have shot up like rockets. I have witnessed as much as two inches of growth from putting them outside in the morning till coming home after work. Other days only an inch, but they are really growing like mad. So I have staked all 3 plants in one planter, and added an arching cage up and over the other two planters. With twine tied around the trunks of the plants and to the top of the arch I have added additional support to the other plants. I've taken care to have the twine not strangle the trunks, but instead to kind of cradle them by positioning the twine below a branch. To picture this, if you were to start pulling upwards on the twine it would cause the branch to start to fold up against the trunk before it would ever start to strangulate the trunk.

12:00 PM 5/29/2007
Again a late entry and then I'm caught up. After starting this log, entries after this one will be made at the time recorded. This entry is to note that we now see some blossom buds coming one all of the Early Girls plants. These plants make up exactly half of the collective patch. Five of these in all. We are exited as each of these buds will become blossoms, and each blossom will become tomatoes, and each tomatoes will be relished!

8:48 AM 6/2/2007
and this is the first entry in this log that is made at the time recorded. I've been watering these plants heavily every other day until now. It's getting warmer and the plants are getting larger so I will now start to water them moderately every day. The last two nights have been the first two nights I’ve felt they would be safe from frost if left out over night.
Something interesting to note; There is only one plant that I cannot see any buds or blossoms on yet. This is interesting because I understood the "days to mature" to mean "days till first fruit". If this is correct then why do we have buds and blossoms on the Big Boys and Pink Beefsteaks already when they have so long before maturity?