Imperial Valley Christian Center

Shotgun Blast & Breakfast

Here's a slide show of the men's, Shotgun Blast & Breakfast. It was great fun. Dan Heckathorne did a wonderful job as usual. Somehow I missed getting a shot of Sergio or Alex, sorry about that. Turn on your speakers, that's the Central Jazz Band playing in the background. (Might work best if you just download the file to your desktop. You do that on Windows by holding down the control button while you click on the link, I think.)
Windows Media File About 7.5 Mbs
Quicktime about 13 Mbs.

(Windows users who would like to download the free Quicktime application which apparently also includes iTunes here's the link.)

If You Had A Do Over

Interesting quote from Tony Campolo

He (Campolo) formed his talk around a sociological study (Campolo is a sociologist by training) conducted with people over the age of 95. The survey asked them, if you could do life over again what would you do differently? Most responses fell into three categories:
1. Reflect more
2. Risk more
3. Do more that would live on after I’m gone

Okay, I have to admit that I'm a little suspect about this survey. I mean how many people over 95 are there to survey? But I like the answers anyway, especially number 2. Risk more.  Most of us highly value security, safety and peace of mind. We're kind of like the guy who buried his talent for fear of losing it. As a result we live scared our whole lives never daring to step out to accomplish great things. We'll pour out our entire life looking for ever elsusive security. We'll piddle away the gift that God has given us because we're afraid to take a risk. We'll stay at a job we hate for decades because we fear the consequences of being without the job more than we hate the job. Which always brings to my mind the following scripture:

DO SOMETHING!

Here's a nice quote from Teddy Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Here's the rest of the speech it's taken from.

Deputies To The Great King

We've been given authority to establish the kingdom of God on the earth. Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God on the earth. The kingdom of God is not a political kingdom but is God's will being done on the earth, it's God's power unto salvation, healing, deliverance, preservation and safety. Jesus has made us his deputies to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. We are to reign in life through one Jesus Christ. We are seated at the right hand of God far above all principality and power, together with Christ Jesus. This is the Sunday, February 19th service.
Audio:    MP3 about 40 minutes

Duke Ellington Here We Come

The Central Jazz Band is competing in a nationwide competition, Essentially Ellington, sponsored by  Jazz At Lincoln Center, the jazz program run by Wynton Marsalis in New York. The top fifteen bands chosen nationwide get to go to New York to compete in the finals. The top three bands get to perform in a concert with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Here's a short clip of the band playing Duke Ellington's, Pyramid. Jeremiah's solo on Bari Sax starts at about 1min. 15 Secs. Let's believe God they're going to New York.

(Click on the image to see a slightly larger version.)

Anti-Smoking Nazis

Okay this story is a little crude but it is about C.S. Lewis and besides that it is way too funny to pass up. I'm lifting it in its entirety from this post at The Corner.

Mr. Derbyshire---Your post in the NR corner [yesterday] reminded me of a anecdote from A.N. Wilson's biography of C.S. Lewis. The passage below concerns Lewis' father Albert. I have transcribed from the book, so there may be a typo or two. 'He was a master of the anecdote, a fund of improbable stories, many of which epitomized the tragicomedy of what it meant to be Irish. One of the more bizarre "wheezes" (as he habitually termed these stories and observations) concerned an occasion

The Doh Of Prosperity

            We talk a lot about it being God's will that we prosper, which is, or should be, abundantly clear from any, even a cursory, reading of the Bible. Here's a scripture

3 John 1:2  Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

        Well you'd have to have a degree in theology to misunderstand that.

        But how does God prosper us? What does God do to get prosperity to us? We pray for material things but how do the material things come? Well, money isn't going to just fall on us out of the sky. The things we need are here on the earth, so for God to get them to us He has to work here on the earth. That basically means He has to work through people. (Now occasionally God may work through animals, ravens brought food to Elijah after all, but that's not the normal way God works. And even in the cases involving animals people still had a part to play.) So God works through people. There are two categories of people He works through, us and others.

God's Will Being Done On Earth

This is a nice review covering where we've been so far  on the subject of, What Is The Purpose of Christianity, and setting forth a little more clearly what I mean when I say that the Kingdom of God is God's will being done on the earth.
Audio: MP3
Video:
    Quicktime:    Broadband    56k    Podcast
    WMF:    Broadband    56k

Cristo vino a establecer el Reino de Dios

Es lo que predicaba Cristo. Cristo entreno sus discipulos a predicar el Reino de Dios. Cristo dio instrucciones a sus discípulos que predicaran El Reino de Dios a todo el mundo. La ultima cosa de que hablo con sus discípulos era el Reino de Dios. Los discípulos predicaron el Reino de Dios. Pablo predicaba el Reino de Dios.
Audio: MP3
Video:
    Quicktime: Broadband    56k    Podcast
    WMF:    Broadband    56k

Dick Cheney Is Chuck Norris

Okay I thought this was pretty funny. (For the uninitiated the Chuck Norris reference is to a long joke making it's way through the teenageosphere about the toughness of Chuck Norris, e.g. Guns Don't Kill People, Chuck Norris Kills People.) Thanks to Lucianne, Jonah Goldberg's mom.