I got laid off

Well, I didn’t think this was going to happen, but I’m not surprised it did.

Yesterday on my afternoon break, my supervisor came into the lunchroom to tell me that they’re just not busy enough to be keep all the Manpower temps. On my shift (days), they only had two of us, and the other guy had been there before me, so he had more seniority and I was the one who had to be let go. I told her I wasn’t too upset because I was about to go to Holland in the end of June or so, and asked one more time if it were possible to keep me around that long. Her hands were tied.

Anyway, with moving this week, I can breathe easy and relax and not try to do it all this weekend, since the lease is good until Thursday. The only reason I was trying to move this weekend is because I work during the week, but not anymore. Plus, I can change the newsletter I wrote and include that I got laid off and need more temp work, before printing it up and making copies and mailing them and putting them in mailboxes at church. Better to have an updated one, right? So the only difference this makes to my plans, is that I’ll have about $800-$1000 less saved up (from working), and depending on the funds and the work situation, might not be able to afford to go to Charlotte before I go to Amsterdam. But hey, this job had been a blessing when I had no money or work–I only expected to be there a week and a half, but got 4 months of work out of the place–so I know God can change circumstances and provide me more temp work before I go and funds from monthly support (since I need both and can’t save it all up on my own!).

So things immediately ahead of me include driving to Whitby (close to Toronto) some day in the next three weeks to get my passport rushed, since I doubt I’ll get it back in the mail in time for when I want to leave. As well as get my stuff moved into the storage unit my parents are paying for, and get my latest newsletter ready and mailed. I practically need to re-write a good chunk of it now. And ultimately, the support raising. It seems like it’s all so much easier to get working on now that I’m not employed. Hmmm, it coulda been a blessing in disguise, but I did like working there.

Anyway, keep posted. I’ve got a few drafts I’d written and will be posting soon, especially since one of them is a work-related analogy, I thought I’d let you all know I don’t work there anymore.

Jesus is our "first-off"

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:45-49

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Romans 8:29

At the place I currently work, new molds are set up on a regular basis in any of the dozen or so machines throughout the plant. When the material is being fed through the injection process and into the mold itself to see how the parts will run, we will always have a bunch of scrap parts in the first several cycles. These scrap parts could have too much material, resulting in wings and extra “flash” on the edges. Or they could have holes in the part where the liquid plastic didn’t quite fill out the mold, resulting in it being short on material. Or maybe markings that shouldn’t be there from some of the dry pellets that didn’t quite melt and created a ‘cold slug’ in the part that is visible, making it no good.

Once the job is finally running according to plan, the supervisor on that shift–as well as maybe some of the quality inspectors–depending on the shift and who is around–one of them will approve of the part, which is referred to as a “first-off“. Once the mold is running smoothly and has produced a perfect or satisfactory part, the supervisor will take it, and put a sticker with their signature and date on it, signifying they are giving it their personal approval. It will then be put it in a plastic bag and left at the work station of the machine it was produced from, so that as that job runs, if a questionable part comes out of the machine, it can be compared with the first-off to determine if it is acceptable or not. If a job runs for several days or weeks, the employee can have the sample part to see what is acceptable.

When I find a marking or a little bit of excess plastic forming on an edge or in a hole, then I’ll look to see if the first-off has the same blemishes on it. If it does, then I know the parts I’m getting from the mold are acceptable. If the first-off has less, then that means there’s too much blemish or too many defects with my parts, and what I’m getting are scraps, and the machine may need to be adjusted.

Oh how this has amazing parallels to our relationship to Jesus Christ, who in many ways is our “first-off”.

I tell unbelievers and those with a real aversion to Christianity and the church in general all the time–go according to Jesus Christ Himself to get an idea of what true Christianity is supposed to be, not the hypocrisy, or blotches in our history that bring shame to the body of Christ worldwide. There are plenty of scraps all over the body of Christ, and the point is not to let them be a distraction to us and those honestly and sincerely seeking Him.. If we want to know if someone is like Jesus, they will be like Jesus. Pure and simple. Compare the person’s life to that of Jesus’–who said things like We must be perfect as our heavenly Father is (Matt 5:48). As Tommy Tenney says, “Godly people are godly people or else they’re not godly.”

As for hypocrisy, in a perfect world–or heck, according to the Bible–we have a blueprint for what the life of a believer is supposed to be like. In short, Christians are supposed to be like Jesus Christ.

Sounds simple enough right? Really, there is no excuse for some behavior of believers.

Please forgive my using another separate work-related example, but I remember when I worked at Subway over 5 years ago, and was filling the slot created by a guy who quit. This employee quit so he could go to college out of town, and had left on significantly bad terms. He used to be the drummer for a well known Christian band in town at the time, that almost got a record deal but had basically parted ways to pursue other goals. Well anyway, on busy bar nights–Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays– a second employee would be scheduled to come in from midnight until 3 am when the store closed, to help with the busy crowd that would be created by the bars downtown all closing at 2am and people seeking something to eat afterwards. This particular ‘brother’ was known for coming in for those shifts after going out clubbing, and being drunk on the job. So drunk that he passed out one at work. When he quit, he burned his bridges so badly, that the employer who hired me was making special effort to make sure I wouldn’t do the same things he did on his last shift, when I quit–such as leaving the store without doing any of the chores required (violating numerous health codes, I would assume). I had to live down the bad taste someone else had left in their mouths.

It was pretty pathetic, since I knew this brother was a professing believer. One of the employees who worked with him was telling me this stuff and I immediately said “he’s a hypocrite then” (I used to be blunt back then, which is a far cry from how I am now, I know). This co-worker I was speaking with thought I was being judgmental of the guy I replaced, and had a mistaken belief that all Christianity was about was mental beliefs and church attendence but not practical difference in lifestyle, which I more than happily explained to him using whatever I could off the top of my head in that moment from the Bible, to say things such as “you will know a tree by its fruit” (Matt 12:33), or the world will know we are Jesus’ disciples by our love (John 13:35).

Friends, do our lives match the life of our first-off, Jesus? Are we known for being gossips? Are we backbiters and divided? One time recently, someone I met in a birthday party or a similar type of setting began telling me this guy in her class in college–who I knew of personally–she didn’t have any clue he was a Christian because of how much he cusses, and she thought believers don’t do that (so did I!). Do the people around us find themselves shocked if someone told them we are a believer in Christ? If so, what kind of lousy example of Jesus is that?

I speak to myself as I always am when issuing challenges like this in my blog entries, but friends, I am tired of pathetic testimony after pathetic testimony I hear of friends of mine and acquaintances. I don’t want it to be said of me–or if it’s said, I don’t want it to be true of me–that I’m a hypocrite or that I have no business bearing the name of Christ.

Don’t get me wrong. There will be people in our lives who are unreasonable and nothing we do will ever satisfy them. And also don’t think I’m saying that being immature in the faith is the same thing as being a hypocrite. Peter denied Jesus, yes, but picked himself back up. Judas didn’t. There’s a difference between tripping and falling while walking on your way to the cross, as opposed to not going that direction at all.

Anyway, let’s be all we are supposed to be, and they will know we are like our first-off, and approved of by our Father in heaven.

Is Bill Maher a chicken?

Warning, this clip will make some of you fume, and the others of you laugh your head off.

Apparently Ray Comfort of Living Waters Ministries has been offering to do a debate in any form with Maher, which Maher can pick the location, the format–Comfort even says here in this site that he’d willingly come on to Bill Haher’s show and be made fun of. But no response so far. Below is a clip of the Ali G show, with Kent Hovind as one of the panelists. Ali G had no problem having each view of the creation/evolution debate on his comedy show (cuz I wouldn’t call it serious discussion, that’s for sure).

Then, if you so feel inclined, cut and paste the “Is Bill Maher a Chicken?” challenge and send it all over the Internet. Let’s see what can become of this.

Healing Testimony

So, my parents are back from Europe. I went straight to the airport in Toronto after work on Friday, no time to do anything else since my shift was over at 4pm, and their plane landed at 5:55pm. Merit is located right off of one of the exits and on-ramps of Highway 115 which more or less goes straight to Toronto anyway, so it was simple. To my surprise, considering it is a long weekend here in Canada and a Friday afternoon rush hour, the traffic was not bad at all. But Peterborough is cottage country and a tourist destination, so people come here, they don’t leave on long weekends. And the other lane going the opposite direction I was going was packed with slow moving traffic, so I was fortunate for my timing.

My parents’ plane was super late compared to all the times I’ve arrived at Pearson. They enjoyed their trip in England and the Netherlands, but my mother told me she had a lot of difficulty walking and is still taking some meds for her ankle. She tells me that she would walk for about an hour a day, and my dad would push her in a wheel chair a lot of the time after that. Otherwise, they did things in Amsterdam during the four days they were there last week, that involved sitting down or not needing to walk, such as a boat ride through the canals of the city, and taking a horse and buggy to their hotel which was in the centrum.

So I knew for weeks that Peterborough Christian Fellowship had set aside this Sunday morning for a special healing service, and asked my mom if she wanted to come and get prayer for her ankle that was bothering her. She agreed to come. It seems to be easy to get her to come to healing services at churchs she’s never been to before.

They ordered the structure of the service differently, beginning with a few songs of praise and worship, then Bill Clark shared a brief message on the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 who went and touched Jesus’ garment. Then after that, those that wanted to could go up front and get prayer for healing, and I understand like 3 people were there who got saved! Then we had a significant time of worship after that.

Anyway, I went with my mom up to the front, and she got prayed for, and when we sat down she told me with a smile from one ear to the other that the pain in her foot was finally gone. It still looked physically swollen, but she says there’s no pain and she didn’t need my help to walk back to the van when we left.

So praise God. He is good.

Another cool pic. 

What happened to Brownsville’s fire?

Note:

I post this because many of you who frequent my blog dont’ know much about the Brownsville revival, which birthed the school I went to in the USA. J. Lee Grady says absolutely nothing that I didn’t already think or fear to be true. I deem it necessary to post this week’s “Fire in my bones” e-mail column from him, as I sometimes do.

EDIT: Also, before or after reading this post, it might be interesting to readers to read this latest blog entry “Turned, Burned or Learned” from the American Missionary MySpace site, on learning from Church splits, since the major split the author is referring to, is the split from BRSM that produced FIRE School (where I would go to Bible School in its second semester of existence).

Steve

What Happened to Brownsville’s Fire? By J. Lee Grady
The Florida church that hosted the Brownsville revival has dwindled to a few hundred people. Did it have to end this way?

I’ll never forget my first trip to Brownsville Assembly of God. It was 1995, the year an unusual spiritual eruption occurred at the nondescript Pentecostal church in Pensacola, Fla.

The rumor was that God had visited the quiet Southern town. I came not only as a reporter but also as a hungry seeker.

In the early days of the revival, the faithful came by bus, car and airplane from all over the world. Eager worshipers waited for hours in the sweltering humidity to get a seat for 7 p.m. services that often lasted past midnight. When evangelist Steve Hill finished his nightly sermons—in which he demanded repentance from spiritual compromise—the majority of people in the auditorium would run to the front of the church and bury their faces in the floor.

Wailing was commonly heard during those meetings. Some people shook under the weight of conviction. It did not matter if you were a drug addict needing conversion or a pastor living in secret sin—everyone found forgiveness and an unusual sense of refreshing in that holy place.

My life was changed there. I wept in the carpet and repented for my journalistic cynicism. One night, in the midst of all the pandemonium near the stage, I ran over to where Hill was praying. He grabbed my head and screamed, “Fire! Fire! More, Lord!” I was one of the thousands who fell backward on that floor. I was not pretending. I felt as if God had placed a heavy blanket of His presence on top of me.

I don’t question whether the Holy Spirit was in that place. But today, more than 10 years after the Pensacola Outpouring occurred, I am asking other questions.

I am wondering why the church that hosted hundreds of thousands of visitors has shrunk to a few hundred members and now owes millions of dollars for a building they can’t fill. I am struggling to understand why so many people who once were part of the Brownsville church now feel hurt and betrayed. I am wondering if the leaders of this movement mishandled the anointing of God’s presence like Uzzah did when the ark of God almost toppled on the ground (see 2 Sam. 6:6-8).

History shows us that revival is always risky. The devil opposes it, and carnal flesh gets in the way of it. The Holy Spirit is easily quenched by pride, greed, selfish religious agendas and broken relationships.

I can’t be the judge of what brought Brownsville’s demise. But we must face the facts and learn some lessons, or we will repeat the scenario next time.

It is no secret that relationships among various leaders at the Brownsville church were strained to the breaking point. Michael Brown, once the leader of the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry (BRSM), was fired in 2000 and then started his own training center that he eventually moved to North Carolina.

BRSM in its heyday had an enrollment of 1,200 students. That number shrank to 120 this year. This week the church announced that the ministry school will relocate to Louisiana, where it will be directed by revivalist Tommy Tenney.

“One of the lasting legacies of the Brownsville revival is the school,” Tenney told me in an interview this week, noting that graduates are doing missionary work in 122 countries. One alumnus, in fact, was instrumental in discovering an unevangelized people group in Indonesia.

That is thrilling news. But my heart is still grieved that the church where this marvelous outpouring occurred is now a burned-out shell.

The pastor of the church during the revival, John Kilpatrick, resigned in 2003 and told parishioners he planned to remain at the church in an apostolic role. Kilpatrick installed Randy Feldschau as the new pastor, then this year Kilpatrick shocked the congregation by starting a new church in Daphne, Ala., 50 miles west of Pensacola.

Feldschau resigned a few months ago and moved to Texas, and Brownsville’s attendance has dipped below 400. One former staff member told me that a large group of Brownsville members now attend a local Southern Baptist church in the city, while many others don’t go anywhere.

“People have been leaving for three or four years,” the pastor told me. “Some are not in church at all, including some who were on staff. I don’t know anyone who has not been hurt.”

At one point during the heyday of the movement, Korean pastor David Yonggi Cho announced from Brownsville’s pulpit that the revival “would last until Jesus comes.” Certainly the fruit of this revival will remain that long. But for those in Pensacola who were swept up in the ecstasy of those early years, and then endured splits, resignations, debts and disappointments, the word “revival” now has a hollow ring to it.

Still, my heart cries: “Lord, do it again.” Next time He does, I pray we will carry the ark the way God intended—and keep our hands off of it.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma and an award-winning journalist. He will be a speaker at the International Congress on Spiritual Warfare and Strategic Intercession, sponsored by C. Peter Wagner’s Global Harvest Ministries, July 6-8. For more info go to www.globalharvest.org.

Finally official

Hey there, and greetings, folksters.

I am now officially a missionary with a Canadian organization called Calvary International. Its not the one whose door I was trying to get my foot in for some months, but I think God was totally behind this.

A few weeks ago I talked to Steve Best, one of the ‘pastors’ at Peterborough Christian Fellowship (they don’t use that title, so I don’t know what they’re called) was speaking with me about my plans with going to Holland and what I did while I was there last year. He suggested speaking to the guest speaker the next Sunday, Harold Collins, who is a missionary with an organization that I should look into and that might help me out.

Well, Harold spoke, it was awsome, I was rocked and challenged, and took a number and got in line at the end of the service. When I finally got a moment of his time, he was just as excited about me going to Holland as I was. He basically told me on the spot that he’d take me on board, and gave me his business card with his email addy on it, for me to write him and give him some biographic info for him since, you know, we just met.

Well, later that week I finally got around to writing him a relatively detailed email covering my bases, and he tried calling me earlier this week. After an email from him, he finally got through on my mobile phone–I must have been in the shower or napping or something whenever he called before, because I carry my phone on my person at all times, but still missed his calls. We talked and I’m now just awaiting a package in the mail. It was great, and from talking I’m pretty confident this is a good decision. He answered all my “hard questions” with exactly what I wanted to know, now I’ll just be familiarizing myself with their organization and policies, which sound like they won’t be hard to line myself up with. FI’s international associate package has a lot more complicated and had more things for me to worry about (I don’t say that in a bad way, just they have a lot more they require of me in comparison).

So what does this mean?

It means that those of you in Canada who want to give me support, finally have an avenue to do so. Even if you don’t want to, go ahead and consider partnering with me. Some people shy away from–and even frown upon asking for money, but I don’t one bit since the Canadian dollar is crap compared to the Euro, and knowing fully well how expensive it is to live in Holland, I know what lies ahead of me and that I can’t do it on my own no matter how hard I work at Merit, so that knowledge and drive compels me.

So seriously, even if you don’t have much to give, pray about if the Lord would have you shoot me a 5 dollar bill every month. (Or more, of course, but don’t think small is too little)

People mistakenly think because they don’t have much to give, that they shouldn’t bother at all, but EVERYBODY thinks like that, so like NOTHING gets given to things, causes, and people like me. (I was watching World Vision today on my break at work, and was really floored about how much I could do just by giving very little a month to overseas aid like that). A lot of little bits, ads up. Seriously, –I give as little as five and ten dollar increments to missionaries every month, just to be sowing into them, even if all I can do is buy a new wheel for a skateboard for a kid at a skate church in Pensylvania, or a few cheap Bibles in a closed country that will go to good use. God waters the seeds we sow, if we sow them.

And it’s easy to click on the Paypal link on the right. I swear it’s not there like some of these other people who put “make a donation” links on their blogs for “site maintenance”. Site maintenance for a blog. Ha! Gimme a break.

Anyway, click here if you’d like to know the addresses in Canada and the USA for how and where to write checks. I also set up a new side bar which links to these instructions, as I’ve said enough here and lost a bunch of you reading who are turned off of Christian minsitries asking for money.

Anyway, despite the fact I do need finances, please, as you read this, especially if you frequent it regularly–or even if you are a stanger–or strange person–please PRAY for me. Like, a lot. I have some challenges related to ministering in Europe, and have faced some spiritual resistance, as have the Heiks, and the Pots and just all around the devil doesn’t want a dark country like this to see revival, and loathes anyone who would dare strive for it.

Thank you again to those who do and are praying for me and checking this blog regularly-I know a lot of you Dutch do, since the majority of my visitors on my Stat Counter are from the Netherlands, yet so few of you even leave a comment!

Anyway, be blessed, and tot ziens.

Oh Elihu, who art thou?

So I was reading the book of Job today (at the time of originally writing this entry). I’ve read it numerous times. But as always, each time I read something no matter how many times I’ve already read it, I notice something new.

Who the heck is Elihu, and where did he come from?

Don’t worry, this won’t be heavily theological, but feel free to leave me any ideas or suggestions as to what you think of this.

In the story of Job–which everyone in the Western world seems to know about, even if they are unfamiliar with the Bible–he has all his possessions taken away, as well as his children and health. By the end of chapter 2 of the title book, he is paid a visit by his three friends
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.

They each give Job long discourses about why they believe he’s suffering like he is, to which Job responds and tells them what useless friends they are, and so on. Then all of a sudden, this new person enters the picture in chapter 32 after all this dialogue. Nowhere is Elihu mentioned anywhere in the book, until this moment.

Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God.
He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong.
Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he.
(Job 32:2-4)

What the heck?

Then, as the narrative goes on, the Lord Himself speaks and addresses Job’s questions, and then turns to Job’s friends:

After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7).

Eliphaz and his two friends. Does the Lord’s anger not burn against Elihu?

So, I have observations of the text, and probbly more questions.

Who is Elihu? What on earth is this guy’s relationship to Job and these other three guys that he just shows up in the narrative this far into it, with no mention, say, at the beginning when it says Job’s other friends came to comfort him? It says he waited to speak, implying he was there already for some time. Why no mention?

Is he left out from the Lord’s anger because the Lord’s not angry at young people’s lack of wisdom compared to older people who should have more? Does age/maturity have anything to do with it?

Were Elihu’s words less offensive to God than the other three men?

I know, most of you read my blog expecting me to teach you something but this time you tell me. I’m curious what people think.