A Ruthless King

December 27, 2003 @ 12:17 pm by Pressed

In 40 B.C. the Roman Senate appointed Herod as king of Judea and in 37 B.C. Herod gained control of his province. Herod was a ruthless man who was called ‘Herod The Great.’ He murdered his wife and her two brothers suspecting them of treason. He also murdered his three sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, his uncle and many others. To him nothing could stand in the way of his rule or prevent him from satisfying his own evil desires. “He was a heathen in practice, and a monster in character” (Unger’s Bible Dictionary). Herod was married at least nine times (some say 10) in order to appease his evil lust and strengthen his political ties. Herod was not a Jew, but in fact he was a Idumaean, a descendant of Esau! Could the struggle between Herod and the baby who would be the king of the Jews possibly be a picture of the old struggle between Esau and Jacob that began even before the boys were born?

One day (possibly a year or more after Jesus was born) a group of magi came to Jerusalem looking for a baby. They saw the star in the east and followed it. Knowing that the messiah had been born they were searching for the baby so that they could worship the king of the Jews. After hearing this King Herod was disturbed and called together a group of chief priests and teachers to ask where the Christ was to be born. The priests, in their knowledge of the scriptures, told Herod that according to the word He would be born in Bethlehem. The priests and teachers knew the facts about the messiah and the place where He would be born, and yet they did not bother going to Bethlehem themselves. The gentiles went to the savior, but the Jews did not. Before they left, Herod met with the Magi in secret and asked them to report back to him immediately after they found the child, so that he could come worship Him as well.

The Magi went on their way and when they found the baby they bowed down and worshiped him and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. They returned to their country by another route, so that they would not have to report to Herod, after being warned in a dream to stay away from him. Joseph and Mary were also warned in a dream to take their baby and flee to Egypt, and they set out immediately.

When Herod realized he had been tricked by the Magi he became furious and the blood of the innocent was spilled because of his great anger. He gave orders to kill every boy in Bethlehem and in its vicinity who were two years old and under. Hundreds of children were slaughtered, and yet the one who Herod had set out to destroy was safe in Egypt. Though Herod was a man who allowed nothing to stand in the way of his plans, he could not thwart the plans of God. Regardless of the ‘power’ Herod thought he had, he could not stop the coming of the King of the Jews. When Herod died God sent Joseph, Mary, and their son Jesus back to the land of Israel where they lived in a town called Nazareth. This is where the very Son of God spent the days of His childhood.

Too often we become like Herod, in that we think we can control the way things are. We get this desire to be the ‘king’ of our life and we’ll do anything to keep that desire satisfied. The quest for authority and power is great in the lives of men, and yet the fact is we have never really been in control. We cannot spoil the plans of God, nor do we have the authority to make God do what we want! Even in the church we can become power hungry thieves more concerned with our own well being and comfort than the purpose of the church being fulfilled. Count the number of times the church gets together to eat and fellowship compared to the number of times the people get together to evangelize, do mission work, or simply pray together. Hundreds of people will come to stuff their face, and 4 or 5 will come to pray! Are we like Herod, in the business of making ourselves comfortable, fulfilling our own wills and desires, and when God’s plan comes along do we attempt to squash it in order to do our own thing? Are we like the Priests, knowing the scriptures, knowing what we should be doing for the kingdom of God, knowing where the savior is, and yet not going to Him or doing what is required of us? Are we like the Magi who see the signs of the divine Son of God and immediately go in search of Him no matter where He is?

Pressed

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The Weekly Review

December 25, 2003 @ 12:18 am by Pressed

Alrighty then! It’s about time I sat down and actually posted since I have returned from my epic adventure in the woods…four days ago. This will be a quick readers digest version of my week.

Friday, December 19, 2003
At 5:30 in the morning I woke up, got dressed, and went outside to sit on a freezing cold deer stand. Unfortunatly it was very cold, the wind was blowing, and the ground was covered in 5 inches of ice from the river that had flooded and then froze. I was extremely cold all day and I hunted until dark, never seeing a deer. My other two friends had killed two deer in the evening so after dark we spent our time driving into Moberly, MO to check them in and then coming back to hang them up. I was so tired I went to bed about 9:00.

Saturday, December 20, 2003
At 5:30 in the morning I woke up, got dressed, and went outside to sit on the ground in weather that was at least twenty degrees colder than the day before. The wind was not blowing, so that made life easier. At 8:30 I saw, and shot my very first deer! Spent the rest of the day cutting up deer meat and helping winterize the farm house we were at.

Sunday, December 21, 2003
Woke up at 6:00 to go to church and do the normal Sunday morning stuff. Then in the afternoon we had our youth Christmas party and backwards progressive dinner. We went to four different houses, eating 4 different courses of a meal, backwards. After the first house I was already full… But it was fun! We played a couple games, (one with two teams dressing one of their team members up like a Christmas tree and plugging them in) and had our traditional white elephant gift exchange. That gig lasted until about 9:00 p.m. and then I ventured over to Le Renard’s grandmothers house to cut up some more deer meat until wee hours in the morning.

Monday, December 22, 2003
Woke up at 8:00 to go to work, where I set up sound equipment and slides for our Christmas Cantata and did a variety of other things. I stayed at the office until about 5:00 when Michael called to tell me he had been in an accident. Me and Mr. Wright rushed over to see his smashed up car, and make sure he made the right decisions in a time of stress… We then all had technical rehersal for the Cantata until 8:00 or so.

Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Another fun day of work, until about 2:00 when me and Mr. Wright went to St. Louis so I could do some last minute Christmas shopping. We then got back to the church around 6:30 pm for Cantata practice until 9:30. I then went home and watched a movie.

Wednesday, December 24, 2003
I spent all morning wrapping presents. I did go into work around 12:00, but quickly left to spend time with my dad through the afternoon. I then came back to the church around 4:30 to be ready for the Christmas Cantata which started at 5:00. We had another service at 7:00 and then when it was over I went over to a church members house where I ate some delicious prime rib, potatos, salad, homade ice cream, and drank gallons of tea! I then came home to clean my room for tomorrow and to post on my blog.

Here we are now, Christmas Eve. I cannot believe it! Time is just sailing by so fast, I barely see it go by. I remember what Christmas felt like when I was younger, and the joy it bought to my heart, but now that I am older it seems like I cannot find that feeling anymore… i’m too busy! My hope is that I can slow down, enjoy christmas, and honor Christ as I celebrate his birth. Hope everyone has a great Christmas season!

Pressed

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Dashing through the woods…

December 18, 2003 @ 5:35 pm by Pressed

I am leaving tonight to go on a short deer hunting trip. They are having an extended doe season in north Missouri, so I am going up there to hunt Friday and Saturday. Needless to say I will be taking a short break from the blogging world.

________________

On another note…how is Christmas shopping coming along? Me, I am extremely late this year. I did some shopping on Monday, but I still have some things to pick up and not much time to do it… eek. I went to the mall on a Monday afternoon only to see the parking lot so full that they had to have a security guard directing traffic. It seems like people in St. Louis do not actually go to work, they just frequent the mall. I did however set in a message chair at Brookstone for a good 30 min and then got an ice cream cone from Marble Slab, yummy. Well, anyway… let me know how your shopping extravaganzas have gone!

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Merry Christmas to Temple

December 9, 2003 @ 8:27 pm by Pressed

A while back I was asked to put together a budget for some new video equipment for our church. Four years ago we upgraded our system in the auditorium, adding a projector and a screen. We have slowly went from doing some pretty ancient slideshows with powerpoint and ugly backgrounds to doing video editing pretty regularly with a G3 Mac and a home video camera. We now would like to get into a little better video editing and we want to help everyone to see better in the auditorium, so we are purchasing a new camera, computer, and some new projectors and screens in order to have one on each side of the room.

The new video camera that we are getting is a Canon GL-2 Mini DV camcorder. It has a lot more freatures than a normal home video camcorder, and yet it doesn’t cost as much as a proffessional camera that we cannot afford.

The other problem that we have had is the computer. We bought a Mac, G3 laptop which improved our video capability, but it had its limits. It is slow and has a small hard drive so we ran out of space and had several problems with it. That computer is moving to the youth room and the new computer will be for the sanctuary.

This is our new Powermac G5 with Dual 2 GHz processors, Dual 250 MB Serial ATA 7200 rpm Hard Drives, 1 GB DDR 400 SDRAM (Upgradable to 8 Gigs), an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Video Card, with a Superdrive, and Final Cut Express pre-installed.

We will be ordering the screens and projectors pretty soon so that we can put them up after Christmas. I am pretty excited about it. Have any of you used Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express??? I would like to know how easy Final Cut Pro is to use and if that is something we should go to. If you’ve used it before, let me know!

Pressed

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10 Reasons Why Youth Workers Fail

@ 10:37 am by Pressed

I recieved some mail from the Youthworker Journal trying to get me to subscribe to their magazine. I actually recieve the magazine from a friend and I am getting ready to try it out for a year myself. I have liked a lot of the articles that have in there about modern facts and trends. They even did an entire magazine dedicated to postmodernism, which I have read…with a critiical eye of course. But, inside my packet of junk mail I did find this little list of 10 reasons why youth workers fail that I thought was interesting:

REASON #10:
Pressure to measure success by the number of kids who attend the youth programs rather than the quality of the ministry.

REASON #9:
The youth budget is often the first to be slashed in a financial crunch.

REASON #8:
Lack of support from the senior pastor.

REASON #7:
Lack of support from parents.

REASON #6:
Church leadership looks to youth workers to “parent” the teens.

REASON #5:
Parents see youth programs as glorified free babysitting

REASON #4:
Lack of clarity among church leadership over job description, expectations, and accountability.

REASON #3:
Lack of clear vision for the church, and youth ministry’s place in that vision.

REASON #2:
Youth workers burn themselves out trying to please…who?…the pastor, the youth committee, the parents…

REASON #1:
Lack of professional training and tools.

There are a few of these reasons that I have had to deal with myself. Some of them I don’t, but I know others who deal with a lot of them. It is a common fact that youth ministers don’t last that long and these are some good reasons why.

Pressed

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