Once Upon a Marriage
It's easy to think of people in the Bible as being great examples of faith. But many of their lives were actually quite messed up; especially their marriage. Join us this Sunday as we start our new series, “Once Upon a Marriage”.
Also this Sunday right after morning service is our holiday picnic. Lake Benson Park – 12-2pm large shelter by the main playground. Paper products are provided…bring some food, meet some people, play some games…
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Yeah, that’s the ticket.
All this talk about lies the last 3 weeks made me think of one of my favorite SNL characters. Jon Lovitz used to do a character called Tommy Flanagan of Pathological Liars Anonymous.
For all you Tommy Flanagan fans out there, here is one of his transcripts. It works best if you do Lovitz's voice and inflection in your head while reading.
Saturday Night Live Transcripts |
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Season 11: Episode 2 |
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Announcer: And now, a message from Pathological Liars Anonymous. Print This Post
Garner Community Yard Sale
TNC is participating in the Garner Community Yard Sale, Saturday, May 22 at Lake Benson Park.
There are 2 reasons we are doing this:
- It's a great way to be involved in a community activity and have a presence as a church.
- We are using the sale of our donated items to, in turn, purchase bottled water that will be used in future outreach events - for example, the 4th of July fireworks celebration.
So, what can you do? Two things: We are asking you to donate your stuff - either by bringing it to Lake Benson Park on Saturday morning between 6:30-8 am OR dropping small items off at the offices by noon on Friday. (108 Donmoor Ct.) Secondly, join in - we need people who will help out by setting up (6:30-8), selling and mingling, and others to tear down (starting at 11 am). If you are interested in helping out in some way and interacting with the community, please contact us with your interest.
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Eyes Flashing, Robot Presides at Japanese Wedding
After reading this FoxNews article, I really can't think of anything to write.
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Rome is Dead
Sunday should be a cool morning. Not because of the weather but because Rome is Dead will be leading the worship. Rome is Dead is a local rock/alternative band formed by guys we knew from previous youth groups. I am looking forward to it. I hope you show your enthusiasm as well by getting in the theater early.
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Prayers Answered: Seniors Can Pray Before Meals at Georgia Center
Their prayers have been answered. The Georgia senior center that barred elderly citizens from saying a communal prayer before meals has changed its policy after inquiries from FoxNews.com and other news organizations.
Residents at the Ed Young Senior Citizens Center in Port Wentworth, Ga., were told last week that instead of participating in a prayer, they should observe a moment of silence before their federally-funded meal.
Officials from Senior Citizens Inc., which operates the center, had said the meals they provide to visitors are mostly covered with federal money -- so saying a communal prayer before chowing down violated the First Amendment separation of church and state.
"We can't scoff at their rules," Tim Rutherford, Senior Citizens Inc.'s vice president, told the Associated Press. "It's part of the operational guidelines."
Rutherford, who did not respond to messages seeking comment on Monday, had said his company provides meals like baked chicken, steak tips and salads for roughly $6 a plate. Seniors who eat the meals pay 55 cents apiece, he said, with federal money footing the rest of the bill.
He said the moment of silence was introduced at the center to protect that funding. He insisted anyone at the center could worship whomever and however they please, but the decision to have a moment of silence was more than Port Wentworth Mayor Glenn "Pig" Jones could stomach.
"This country means a lot to me, but the part that I don't respect is it telling me I cannot pray over my meal," Jones said. "I can't accept and look them 65- and 70-year-olds in the eyes and tell them they cannot pray and bless their meals."
Jones had hoped to meet on Tuesday with the city's attorney and officials from senior center to settle the controversy. But late Monday, officials from the senior center announced a policy reversal.
“Senior Citizens, Inc. has always prided itself on the services it has been able to provide the seniors of the low country," it said in a statement. "Part of that service is an adherence to Federal and State regulations that have made funding possible so more seniors can be served.
"Over our years of service, we have been instructed, as recently as two weeks ago, by the state regulatory agency that verbal prayer was not allowed at any senior center. We are so pleased to say that we have been contacted a few minutes ago by the new Director of Aging clarifying the regulation and reversing the position of new verbal prayer.
"As an organization, we feel that spirituality is an important and necessary part of a full life and we are thankful that this interpretation of the regulation makes prayer possible in all of its forms.”
Casey Arnett, director of the senior center, said the seniors who visit the center are no strangers to standing up for what they believe. "They're not going to let people tell them their rights about religion," she said. "They feel like they need to stand for theirs."
Eric Johnson, a former state senator now running for governor, visited the center Monday and said a blessing outside just before lunch to roughly 50 elderly citizens.
"I told them they're not fighting this alone," Johnson, a Republican, told FoxNews.com. "To heck with the federal government -- we can't stop people from free practice of their faith."
FoxNews.com's Joshua Rhett Miller and Jana Winter and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Millennials Increasingly Find Their Religion Online
By Lauren Green - FOXNews.com
Young people are defining their own spiritual paths, says Rebecca Phillips, vice president of social networking for Beliefnet.com.
Like countless people of her generation, Alexis Iacono goes online for just about everything: Facebook, fashion ... and faith.
"I go to the Internet and when I'm stuck and I'm not sure, and the research is right there, the answers are right there," the Long Island, N.Y., resident says.
She's not alone.
Young people are defining their own spiritual paths, says Rebecca Phillips, vice president of social networking for Beliefnet.com. "Young people are not necessarily doing the same thing religion-wise that their parents did, and they're developing their own unique brands of spirituality," she says.
It seems to affirm a Lifeway Christian Resources study showing that 72 percent of Millennials, the generation between 18 and 30 years old, say they are more spiritual than religious. Fewer of them attend worship services, pray or read sacred scriptures.
And technology is helping fuel that generational faith gap.
"In some ways it's breaking down connections with local churches," says David Kinnaman, president of the research organization The Barna Group. "Their access to peers is increasing, so that influences the way they make moral and ethical decisions."
"They're exposed to a variety of faith perspectives," he says, meaning they can tailor-make their own religion.
But not all agree with Lifeway's research.
Beliefnet.com found that nearly half the teens it polled felt they were more religious than their parents' generation.
"Online, what people are doing is seeking out truth," Phillips says, "and it might not be in the traditional way of a pastor speaking from a pulpit."
It also might be a matter of semantics.
"I think their generation is really turned off by the term religion," LifeChurch.TV's Pastor Bobby Gruenewald says, "They see it as a set of rules or something that represents the past."
Looking to the future is the challenge. Many religious organizations are realizing that to shepherd the millennial flock, you must meet them where they live ... online.
LifeChurch.TV boasts 80,000 congregants through the Web. They log on to hear sermons and chat with other worshippers.
There are countless faith-based phone apps, worship Web pages, online scripture readings, even prayer websites. And tweeting is encouraged.
"It doesn't necessarily mean the old is going away," says Gruenewald. "It just means that this is a way to reach people that maybe otherwise wouldn't be able to be reached."
But others warn that finding religion online has its drawbacks.
Jesse Rice, author of "The Church of Facebook," says "Millennials value authenticity so much, but the irony is they're settling for an inauthentic way to receive it."
"Spirituality becomes a more compartmentalized thing," says Rice, because the user is in the driver's seat. It won't necessarily change who they are.
But the Internet also levels the playing field between young people and the authority of the church, giving them a sense of control that previous generations never had.
"It does allow people to question, to check out a variety of sources when they have questions about what this religion believes ... or what this history is and so forth," says Dr. Brenda Brasher, author of "Give Me That Online Religion." "I would imagine that the best religious leaders see this as a sort of provocative challenge of how do they carry the word of truth that they feel and that enlivens them ... and that they think guides all of existence. How do they carry that word into this kind of generation?"
Young people are not only creating their own religious identities, they may also be changing the future of worship itself.
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To Tell the Truth
Join us this Sunday as we begin a new 3 week series titled 'To Tell the Truth'.
- Telling the Truth to Myself
- Telling the Truth to Each Other
- Telling the Truth to God
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Franklin Graham: Christians Will Lose the Power to Pray Outside Church Walls ‘Maybe in My Lifetime’
Via CNSNews
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor
“We’re living in a time where we cannot compromise, we cannot back up, we cannot retreat,” Graham said Wednesday during a live Webcast from the Washington, D.C. offices of the Family Research Council.
“The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be preached to the ends of the Earth – that’s what He’s called us to do,” he said.
Graham, the honorary chairman of this year’s National Day of Prayer, made his comments in a sermon to an audience of leaders making final preparations for Thursday’s National Day of Prayer.
He alluded to Eastern Europe under communism, where Christians and others were allowed to pray only within their homes or inside the officially sanctioned churches that were allowed by the state.
“I think its coming to this country where we (will) have the freedom to preach inside a church wall, but we will lose the freedom to do it outside. That day will probably come – maybe in my lifetime,” Graham said.
Ironically, it was Graham’s famous father, the Rev. Billy Graham, who, in the 1980s became the first Western preacher allowed by the Soviet government to preach at a Russian church -- helping to open the door to greater religious freedom after 70 years of repression.
“(In the United States) we see everyday our rights being eroded. Just a little at a time, but its happening. Everyday. So let’s preach while we can. Let’s stand up and holler ‘Jesus Christ! King of Kings, Lord of Lords!’to the top of our voice,” the younger Graham said.
“The secularists are going to get ticked off, the news media’s going to hate it. I don’t know, maybe the people in the White House are going to be mad. But you know what, I don’t care. Because God has called us to take the Gospel -- His Gospel, the power of God and His Salvation -- unto the ends of the Earth.”
Graham was joined by James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., who is leading efforts to stop and force a referendum on recent action by the Washington, D.C., city council creating homosexual marriage in the nation's capital.
Dobson, who praised Graham as a "model" for the restrained way he responded to a recent ruling by a federal judge in Madison, Wis., outlawing the statute creating the National Day of Prayer, said the right to publicly proclaim the Christian Gospel was one of the chief freedoms enshrined in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers.
“I am convinced that there are people in high places, people with a great deal of authority and influence, who want to eliminate every vestige of religion -- especially Christian religion, or evangelical religion – from the public square. They want to expunge it. They want to get rid of it. They want to take away our right to worship and to have a prayer service in a government building. That’s not unconstitutional!” Dobson said.
Dobson said 33 of 44 U.S. presidents have called for a National Day of Prayer.
“This has been our history. We dare not lose it now,” Dobson exclaimed. “And we will, if we don’t have the guts to stand up with that kind of intensity.”
Dobson, whose wife Shirley serves as chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, recounted a case in Santa Rosa County, Fla. -- near Pensacola -- involving a high school principal and athletic director at an off-campus event who prayed at an off-campus meeting.
“Prior to the meeting, one of them said to the other, ‘Why don’t you say a word of prayer from wisdom and what we’re about to do?’ And he said a 16-second prayer. It was a prayer for their food! Sixteen seconds! It was reported and a judge in Northern Florida hauled them into court, harangued them for eight hours in one day, and threatened to put them in prison for six months,” Dobson said.
Dobson said the judge did not back off until members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus took up the cause.
Last September, after a day-long court hearing, U.S. District Judge M. Case Rodgers in Pensacola ruled that Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and Athletic Director Robert Freeman had not violated a 2008 court order banning school employees from praying publicly "at any time or at any place" in the Florida school district.
Lay had asked Freeman to pray at the dedication of a field house held during school hours, but conducted on the property of a nearby church.
The men had faced up to six months in jail and $5,000 in fines each for violating the order, which the same judge had issued as a result of a 2008 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two anonymous students at the high school.
The judge held that the violation of the order had been "spontaneous" -- and not voluntary.
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