Faith....or not?

After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that church leaders and churches that continually harp on giving of money to the church organisation, and attempt to force people to come into the bondage of the Law again in their giving are, at heart, completely unable to rely on God meeting their needs and the needs of the church through the freewill, generous, unforced giving of the people of God. In short, they lack faith in God to meet their need.

Is that hypocritical or not? Is this what many leaders are? Unable to trust God? How then do they presume to speak for God to their people, when they themselves are guilty of such fear and lack of faith? Perhaps they know in their hearts that much of the 'infrastructure' established in God's Name is really a product of man's imagination and pride? How can they then trust God to provide for what they know that they, and not He, have established? How can they teach God's people to rightly divide His Word and live holy lives when they have such unstable foundations that they cannot even trust God for their needs, but must resort to manipulation and Scripture-twisting to ensure a flow of money because that, according to them, is the hallmark of success, the badge of approval?

Decide for yourself.

Enquiry to Saddleback and Rick Warren....(have they taken leave of their senses?)

Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:48:56 +0800 From: Ron Oommen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0
To: info@saddleback.net
Subject: Truly puzzled

Dear Rev Warren and the church at Saddlesback

I happened to visit the Saddleback website today and was surprised to find that Saddleback is promoting the "Daniel Plan" for health. No, I wasn't surprised by that. What astounded me was the panel that you have assembled to do this - three well-known and prominent health professionals in Americaand the world at large who are, as far as I am aware, not only not believers in Jesus Christ but active proponents of non-Christian and pagan philosophies as a basis for their health initiatives.

Since there is no indication that these men have now become followers of Christ, do you really expect that they will put their pagan worldviews aside for the Daniel Plan? Or is it more reasonable to expect that they will give the people of Saddleback exactly what they give to the rest of America and the world - Reiki, eastern meditation and the like?

I'm not sure whether one should be shocked or saddened that either : 1) You and the members of Saddleback do not appear to be able to see why this is so strange and unnatural, or 2) You already know this, but you simply don't care, for reasons of your own.

I am a believer from a Third World African country. I cannot begin to understand how you Americans think that engaging in eastern occultic (yes, that is what Reiki and tantric meditation are) practices - ostensibly for health reasons - can at all be reconciled to those who are the temple of the Holy Spirit of the Living God.

Far be it from me to judge your intentions or motives. However, the fruit that you are showing is very, very bad. I shudder to think of how many immature and young believers will be caused to stumble because of this and engage in things that will harm their souls and spirits.

May God have mercy on you.

In all humility I am,

Sincerely yours,
R. Oommen

"I'm Not Ashamed of the Scandal." (Paul Washer)

Listen and understand.....Message by Paul Washer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuabITeO4l8&feature=player_embedded#!

Preaching rooted on the Word.....such as we rarely hear anymore. Get your Bible out, listen to this man, search the Scriptures, and let the Holy Spirit convict and minister to you.

So, we've now made the switch. After nearly a year of disquiet in our spirits and earnestly seeking God to know what to do, we have left the church we were attending for over 2 years and started visiting another one, on the recommendation of some dear friends in Christ. We've been going the last 3 weeks and what a breath of fresh air it's been!
But I really wanted to say something about church this morning. This morning, while singing together, we saw that the music team included an old ammachi who stood and sang holding herself up with a crutch, we had a group of appachens and ammachis who stood and sang a wonderful hymn, we were deeply moved to see so many appachens and ammachis worship God from the heart - the Word warns us about giving honour to the elderly - this was truly biblical when so many churches today are unbiblically skewed towards 'youth' - possibly a result of the results-driven, business-inspired church growth model. Those who live in Asia or Africa, and read this may rightly have a puzzled expression on your faces, and wonder why this is such a big deal. Well, in the West it is. Western society treats the elderly with contempt and appears to tolerate them as necessary evils but otherwise treat their old fathers and mothers as non-entities whose time has passed and who should remain quiet while they wait to die. As weird as it seems, this attitude appears to prevail in the church as well. So, it was truly refreshing to see a church where there are so many elderly people, along with lots of young families.

We saw a body of believers that exalted Christ, gave primacy to God's Word and its teaching and to rightly dividing the Word and we liked it. We rejoiced to see it.

Since I appear to be decidedly human (the last time I checked), I have come to the conclusion that I "speak" or "type" or "write" or otherwise communicate in some decidedly human fashion. I do not "tweet", "bark", "mew" or "low". Twitter is the for the birds. Besides, if I had the time to be yapping on about myself in pithy one-liners, it would make much more sense to put them all in a diary, collect them, and publish them as a new version of limericks or something. Anything.

Day 1. Week of housekeeping and babysitting my 2 boys.

6.30am. Woke up. Both boys sleeping. Other half getting ready for her first day back at work after 5 months' maternity leave. Enjoyed a steaming hot cup of coffee.
6.34am. Joyce leaves for work. 
7am. Benji wakes up and makes a beeline for his new pair of binoculars. Out in the garden staring at insects and birds.
7.33am Jonny wakes, after a fairly restless night. Pooped once around 3am, had a feed at 5am. Am praying and hoping that the loose stools are over.
7.45am. Made bowl of coco pops for Benji's breakfast. Ugh. 
8am. Made a 150ml bottle. Jonny finishes about 140ml before he refuses to drink any more. Burps a couple times and starts showing signs of wanting to go back to sleep. What the - ?
8.22am. Rather explosive, squelchy sound emanates from Jonny's nether regions. Yikes.
8.35am. Jonny all cleaned up and really sleepy. Gave him a dose of infant Panadol.
8.43am. Jonny goes to sleep.
8.50am. Got the wash out of the machine. Took Jonny's clothes off the mini-clothes line, and put the fresh batch on.
10am. Jonny wakes up loud. Burp waiting to come out. Seems to want to stay awake. Put him on his play mat. Benji asks, and receives, permission to play KoolSchool.
10.20am. Jonny produces another dirty nappy and promptly decides he wants to go back to sleep.
10.40am. Jonny all cleaned up again and back in his cot, asleep.
11.30am. Jonny awake and, with great difficulty, downs 60ml of a 200ml feed. Took him out to the garden in his pram while I hung the clothes out on the line. Benji pushed him around. Had to warn him that he was not Schumacher.
12.15pm. Jonny poops again. Called Joyce. We discuss taking him to the doctor.
12.30pm. Jonny cleaned up and drinks another 60ml, after much cajoling. Wants to sleep again.
12.45pm. Jonny asleep again. I fry up 3 skinless sausages apiece to embellish the rice, sambar, and beans lunch Benji and I enjoy.
1.20pm. Jonny awake and passes yet another watery stool. Call Joyce again. We decide I should take him to the doctor. Call the regular GP practice at Belridge and explain the situation. Sorry, they're full and can only fit him in tomorrow morning. A 4-month-old baby with diarrhoea is always at high risk of dehydration, and they can only fit him at 9.20 tomorrow morning. Ask them to book him in.
1.30pm. Call Joyce and she suggests the Joondalup Drive practice. Why not? Closer, plus they were very nice to me last year.
1.35pm. Call the Joondalup Drive practice and explain his symptoms. They are indignant to hear that his regular GP practice would not treat this as a serious matter and tell me that we can see a doctor if I can get him in by 2pm. Oh boy.
1.40pm. Trying to give Jonny a final feed of the remaining 100ml, but he's having none of it. Order Benji to pull on his sandals and get in the car. Stick a couple of diapers in the baby bag and confirm I have a pack of wipes. Also stick the bottle with the 100ml in as well. Maybe, if we're waiting long I can try and feed him. Am worried that he's drunk so little today, he's sleepy and a bit subdued. Concerned that he may be getting dehydrated.
1.47pm. Rushing round like a madman looking for the freaking mobile phone. Can't find it. Grab the cordless and dial. Get someone else. Hang up. Dial the right number. Phone starts to ring on the bed in front of me. Can't see it. Finally find it under Jonny's wrap. Oh yes, I need the wrap as well.
1.53pm. We're headed for the practice. Jonny seems to be fine. Benji's entertaining him in the back.
1.57pm. *&%#^$ red light at Hodges Drive.
2.03pm. Pull into the parking lot at the medical centre. No time to get the pram. Grab the boys and run.
2.05pm. Fill in a form with Jonny's details. The receptionist tells me, yes I have time to go get the pram. Whew. Jonny acts like he has nothing wrong with him, smiling at all the ladies.
2.25pm. Seen doctor. All good. I suspect she may have reached that diagnosis about 30 seconds into our visit, after he smiles and gurgles at her and then, when she starts examining him, gives her a couple of head-high (his head) kicks and grabs her finger and attempts to chew on it. He acts like a perfectly well, healthy 4-month-old. Thankfully, nothing serious. Seems to be viral, so will need to work itself out. Keep him full of fluids, and try and feed him smaller amounts more regularly. Hello, 2-hourly feeds. Give him water if he fusses with the milk.
2.40pm. Jonny decides to have a good lusty cry until he falls asleep about 5 mins from home. Wakes up as I take him out of the car seat, but I'm able to give him the remaining 100ml.
3pm. Jonny seems to be awake and happy, so I successfully attempt 2-and-a-half tablespoons of pureed broccoli. He wolfs down about 2 tablespoons. Try to give Benji the rest. He shies and runs like a mustang. I eat the rest. Not too bad, though Jonny seems to like it. Better him than me.
3.30pm. He goes down for another nap, after one more dirty nappy.
4.30pm. Joyce is back. Whew.