I’m Adopted

November 13, 2003 @ 9:39 am by Pressed

I really love the words to this song. I often forget that I am adopted into the family of God, given the right to become a child of God. It wasn’t my own doing…

Hallelujah, God has spoken
and I know this changes everything
Hallelujah, ‘Praise Him only’
Sing the saints adopted by the king

Glory be to my Father who reigns
for I met him and I cannot be the same
when in bondage to Jesus I came
He took my place and he changed my name
- Mercy Me

Permalink  |  Comments (3)  |  Filed under: Christianity & Theology

A step in the right direction

November 12, 2003 @ 8:03 am by Pressed

Well, I’ve gall darn gone and done it. I drove by the car lot yesterday, just taking a small peek at the trucks, and by the next morning I had a brand new 2004 GMC Sonoma Crew Cab.

I have been wanting a truck ever since I bought my new Grand Am GT last year, and then after it was stolen, violated, and wrecked, it has never been the same. Then my keyless entry broke the other day and that just pushed me over the edge! So, yesterday morning I traded it off for this truck.

The full size truck was simply too expensive for me. Besides, for my lifestyle, I do not really need a full size, gas hog. The sonoma comes with a Vortec 4300 V6 Engine with 190 horsepower and 250 lb-ft torque. That V6 has superb power and impressive towing capabilities, plus the crew cab will seat 5 people.

It does just about everything I want it to do, unlike my car… The Grand Am had a little more zip to it due to the Ram Air, which is a feature that I really do not need because it has the tendancy to make me drive fast. This truck will slow me down.

It is a mid-size truck with enough power to do some of the things I have been wanting to do, like pull a boat, trailer, and maybe even a smaller camper someday. I can shove my fishing poles and tackle boxes and guns and everything else in there, which was a tight squeeze in the little ole car. Best of all, it has the Instra-Trac shift-on-the-fly 4WD. You can activate the 4WD by pushing the button, at any speed! This is a feature that I find myself in need of every single winter. Even my front wheel drive Grand Am was stuck in my driveway last year because the snow was too high and it couldn’t push it. Every single year I have found myself stuck somewhere in some kind of slick, snowy, icy, mess and my friends with four-wheel drive suburbans had to come pick me up. No more!

The inside is nice and has a lot of room (unless you are unlucky and have to ride in the back seats). The back does have a lot more room that an extended cab truck, but it ceratinly doesn’t have as much leg room as the front. It could be a tight squeeze if you are an exceptionally large person.

I didn’t get leather seats this time around… (to the excitment of my friends) because they would have just added to the price. It does come with a handy console across the roof that has a place for sunglasses and a tempurature/compass readout.

The four full doors provide easy access to the Crew Cab, which is a lot easier than trying to squeeze into the back through some little hole. Mine also came with a combination CD/cassette player.

I was able to trade my brand new car off for this truck that is two years newer and several thousand dollars more expensive and yet keep the same car payment every month and have very little sales tax to pay. It was a killer deal that I just couldn’t pass up! I not only got their $3,500 rebate I also recieved a $750 cash allowance card in the mail, plus $1,500 from my GM card. By the time it was all said and done I had over $6,000 in rebates and incentives alone. With the trade in on my car I lost $4,000, but with the $6,000 in rebates and incentives I recoved that $4,000 loss and had $2,000 left over to place down on the truck. So basically I got a brand new, more expensive vehicle by increasing my monthly payment by a measly $6.00 a month. It was an awesome deal, one I had been waiting for since July when my car was stolen and wrecked.

Permalink  |  Comments (4)  |  Filed under: File 13 (General Topics)

The Missouri Baptist Convention in a ‘nutshell’

November 8, 2003 @ 11:25 am by Pressed

Monday, November 3, 2003 8:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

The Missouri Baptist Pastor’s Conference began Monday morning. My pastor, Scott Perry, was the president of the conference this year. He chose the theme: Preaching To A Culture In Crisis.

The Music for the pastor’s conference was lead by Lee Sisney with special music from Lee, Doulos, Grant Jessen, and Evan Aldridge.

The Speakers and Their Messages:
Rev. David Toliver: “Theme Interpretation”
Dr. Phil Roberts: “The Bible Speaks to Homosexuality”
Dr. Roy Fish: “A Critical Call to Evangelism”
Rev. Kenny Qualls: “The Family In Crisis”
Rev. David Baker: “The Crisis of Life”
Rev. Jim Elliff: “A Call to Repentance”
Dr. R. Albert Mohler: “The Truth in Crisis”

Monday, November 3, 2003 6:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.

There were a few things we voted on during the Monday night session, but the best thing was probably the president’s address by Monte Shinkle. I’ve always liked to hear Monte preach and speak, ever since he did a revival at our church. This was basically just the opening of the convention.

Tuesday, November 4, 2003 8:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

On Tuesday morning Dr. Roy Fish did our morning Bible Study and then we heard several reports from the convention committees, nominating committee, Executive Board staff, and so on. The most important and most informational report was the Legal Task Force Report.

The Five Rouge Agencies:
Let me give you a quick run down on what the Legal Task Force is, for those of you who don’t know what is going on in the MBC right now. Over the last several years there has been a battle raging within the MBC between the liberal/moderate factions and the conservatives. About two years ago that battle hit it’s peak and the conservatives gained control of the convention by electing a conservative president around 5 years in a row, which allowed us to have the majority. The ‘liberal’ faction saw this coming and began making plans of their own. Five of our agencies, Missouri Baptist University, Windermere, the Baptist Home, the Word & Way, and the Baptist Foundation all had trustee’s that were elected by the MBC. Only problem is that the majority of the trustee’s were liberal/moderate and they knew that with the takeover of the MBC by the conservatives that their life as trustees of those agencies was coming to an end. Each of the five agencies, starting with the Baptist Home, decided to break away from the accountability of the convention by making themselves a ’self-perpetuating board.’ This means that the convention no longer votes who the trustee’s are to these boards, instead they choose themselves, thus creating five Missouri Baptist agencies accountable only to itself, the liberals. This of course undermined all that we had been fighting for. The only problem is that these five agencies did this illegally. They violated their charters and became self-perpetuating outside of the permission of the MBC. One agency even lied to the judge and said the MBC approved this decision. Not only did they become self-perpetuating, they also turned around and pointed to scripture and said, “it is wrong to sue your Christian brothers.” The convention voted to create what is now called the “Legal Task Force.” The task force gave their report on Tuesday morning on how the law suite is going and what the other side is doing. They have uncovered some pretty shady deals, including some illegal dealings with some past leaders in our convention. It is an excellent video and is being copied and shipped to every southern Baptist church in the state of Missouri. There will be many SBC pastors who will choose not to show this video or even view it, but I believe it is wrong to withhold information from your people that is coming from the very convention they belong to. Make sure you tell your pastor you want to see this video!

We did vote to get a loan in order to pay for the legal fees and other things that we need to pay for in order to continue this law suite against these agencies. The important thing is that we decided not to use any cooperative program money that goes to ministry for the lawsuit… even though I am not sure I would be opposed to that happening. Especially since these agencies are huge ministries within themselves that we are losing. I think they are worth spending a little money on.

Miscellaneous Business (Oh, the insanity):
The other major thing that happened in the Tues. morning session was the Introduction of Miscellaneous Business. This is the time when messengers, elected by individual churches, of the MBC can come to a microphone and introduce new business that can be voted on by the convention. Every year there are several issues brought up and lines of people at the microphones that are both for and against the issues, stating their case.

“IMMEDIATLY DROP THE LAWSUIT”
One of the guys wanted the convention to immediately drop the lawsuit against the five agencies and just let them go. It is wrong to sue your brother, it is wrong to spend this money that could go to other things, and it is wrong to be taking these actions against the agencies. We should just forgive and forget. First of all, these are agencies, corporations, not our brothers. There is a difference, because these agencies operate under the laws of the government and when they break those laws then it is the court system that should deal with them… Secondly we tried Christian arbitration and they absolutely refused! Thirdly it is worth every penny to fight for what is right, and not let a bunch of lying, cheating trustees steal everything we have. (ok, so now i’m mad).

“REMOVE ALL FUNDING FROM WILLIAM JEWELL COLLEGE”
Another guy asked that we remove the funds for William Jewel College for the rest of the year. We had already voted to not fund them for next year, but there are still a couple months that we were going to give them around $150,000 to finish out the year. This school has always been on the leading edge of liberalism, but the pushed the limits this year by allowing the use of their facilities by a homosexual group and some other morally questionable decisions that they had made. This caused the convention to finally pull its funds from William Jewell, something they should have done a long time ago in my opinion. This guy wanted us to not only cut them off next year but immediately remove the funds we had designated for them this year. The convention voted in favor of this and removed the funds for the remainder of the year as well.

While discussing this, let me tell you of a guy who really ruffled my feathers! A William Jewell trustee got up to speak against this issue. Ignoring the moral issues he simply pleaded that the convention had already voted and promised these funds to the college and it would be wrong to go back on that now. After we vote for something we should stick to it. Now, at the beginning of the convention we voted to allow only a certain amount of time for those speaking for or against the business. When this guys time ran out he continued to talk louder, when the president tried to stop him, he continued to talk, they shut the microphone off and he continued to beg and plead for more time… clearly wanting to ‘bend’ the rules and go back on the time we had voted in for that! DOUBLE STANDARED, GRRRRRR….. Even as angry as I was, I kind of felt sorry for him too cause he didn’t get to say what he wanted to… even though it was his own fault for not watching his time.

Another guy, completely ignoring the moral depravity of the William Jewell leadership, said that it is unfair to the poor students who are attending that college. We are hurting them and not the school. Oh sure, lets keep throwing money and a liberal, morally corrupt institution, so it continues to teach and train our students to also be morally corrupt and liberal. Who is hurting them worse?

Tuesday, November 4, 2003 2:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

In the afternoon we enjoyed another bible study by Dr. Roy Fish and then later we also heard another message from Dr. Al Mohler. I really enjoy hearing Dr. Mohler speak so I stuck around for that one.

Tuesday, November 4, 2003 6:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

During this session of the convention they did a NAMB Commissioning Service. I didn’t attend this. I took a break from the convention at this point and went up to my room to vegetate.

Wednesday, November 5, 2003 8:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

This was the last session of the convention. All morning we heard reports from the Christian Life Commission, Historical Commission, Children’s Home, The Pathway, and others. We also voted on the miscellaneous business that was presented the day before.

We voted to wait one year to make a decision on the dual alignment issue. The idea of selling the Baptist Building in Jefferson City was also brought to the floor. This is being reviewed by the executive committee and will probably be something we get involved in soon, I hope. We also voted to partnership with the Mission Board on starting new ministries and churches in Iraq.

You would not believe the number of lawyers that filled that place. Both our lawyers, looking to help our cause, and the agencies lawyers, looking to find something wrong with what he did to use against us in the case, were there. It was an interesting convention this year. I do have a big problem with a lot of people who only come for the big issues. They could care less about the convention stuff, unless there is a fight or a big issue on the floor and then they want to jump in and be a part of it. Then they complain constantly when things are voted a certain way, even though they were not there to make a difference. If you don’t go, and you don’t send any messengers, then you don’t have a right to complain. Shut up.

Pressed but not aggravated… (well maybe a little)

(…the person who used the words shut up in this post as been sacked. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that you are not offended by the vulgarities that have been placed upon this site. Thank you for visiting and hav ea nice day…)

Permalink  |  Comments (5)  |  Filed under: MBC & SBC

The Missouri Baptist Convention

November 3, 2003 @ 8:15 am by Pressed

I am leaving this morning to attend the Pastor’s Conference and the Missouri Baptist Convention. My pastor is the president of the Pastor’s Conference this year so I know the music and speakers will be excellent. Not sure how the convention is going to go… it could go both ways I am sure, good or bad. I guess we will find out. I will post again Wednesday when I get back from the convention.

169th Annual Session, November 3-5, 2003
Millennium Hotel - St. Louis, Missouri

Officers
Monte Shinkle, President
David Case, Second Vice President
Kevin Smith, Recording Secretary
Music Coordinator: Tony Ward

Theme – Empowering Kingdom Growth
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. . .”
Matthew 6:33a

Permalink  |  Comments (1)  |  Filed under: MBC & SBC

The Matrix Wannabe’s

November 1, 2003 @ 2:40 pm by Pressed

For halloween me, Mr. Huitt, and Hannah dressed up as Matrix characters. I am agent Smith, Mr. Huitt is Neo, and Hannah is Trinity. We decided to take a bunch of pictures of ourselves in different Matrix poses. Some turned out pretty cool! This is me on the right… I was mistaken for a secret agent, men in black, seceret service, and several other characters of which I can fill any of those positions, but ultimatly I am supposed to be agent smith.

Here are some other pictures we took:

We finished off the evening by watching the Matrix Reloaded… It was a good time!

Pressed

Permalink  |  Comments (5)  |  Filed under: File 13 (General Topics)