torand.org

The title of this article should have been Former Democratic Presidents Carter and Clinton call for ‘A New Baptist Covenant’. Here is a prime example of a political party using religion to further their agenda. The key is in the last paragraph.. “Democrats have made winning over “faith voters” a major election strategy.” Religion should not be a “major election strategy”. I guess the Democrats really don’t understand what it is to be a person of faith.

It is sad really, because one party practices religion and the other uses religion to their own purposes. You also see a hypocrisy here, if these were former Republican Presidents, it would be on the front page of the Washington Post and the ACLU would be filing some kind of law suit.

This is the last posting for 2006. On New Year’s Eve, we went to church for worship service that morning and in the evening we went to a friend’s house to welcome the new year. We spend the evening playing sequence and Cranium–the old folks vs the young kids. The old folks did pretty good. We won some and lost some. But overall, the old folks are the Champions. When it got closer to midnight, we turned the TV on and watch the ball drop in New York City. We toasted the New Year with Sparkling Cider. It will be great to see what this new year has in store for us.

It was a really busy week at work. We have been preparing for our Toys for Tots Kickoff Luncheon and now it’s finally here.

This week, we had a situation that happened where people in my office were misquoted. Those quotes were passed along to the press and, of course, the situation became very controversial.

I just wanted to say how disappointed I was with the so-called Christians (or at least those that claim they are Christians but are truly not) on how they handled this situation. They are the ones that give Christians a bad rep, and you know exactly the ones I’m talking about. My view of a true Christian is one who is soft-spoken, is not easy to anger, keeps their emotions in check, does not swear, is forgiving, and shows a Christ-like, loving attitude to those around them. What I found out this week is that there are a lot of fake Christians out there; at least the ones that called the office this week. I cannot tell you the anger, the swearing, and the unforgiveness attitude that came across over the phone and through emails.

The Bible teaches us the fruit of the spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s hard for someone to believe that you are a Christian when your attitude does not reflect it.  The world is out there watching to catch you in your weak moment. Are you going to be caught off-guard or are you going to allow the love of Christ to shine in you. It was truly embarrasing to be associated with those people who act out of control and, at the same time, claim to be Christians.

This year the Senior graduation falls on our Anniversary. Needless to say, we will celebrate at another time since this will be a busy weekend. We were at the school until about 4:30pm helping with the decorations. When I left, the gym looked so pretty and ready for the reception. The theme this year was “Reaching for the Stars.” The guest speaker had a ribbon which had Emmanuel Christian School Flames engraved on it. He had the Seniors come up to the front and he rolled out the ribbon from one end to the other with each Senior holding it. Then he had the Pastor come cut the ribbon in pieces for each Senior. The ribbon, in one piece, represented the whole class as they were today. When it was cut, it represented the class as individuals going out their seprate directions. He had all the parents stand behind their child and they prayed over the family. I’m sure that both parents and seniors will remembers this forever. Also, it is a tradition at Emmanuel Christian School for the Senior class to pass the flame to the Junior class. The passing of the flame ceremony was beautiful and touching. The Seniors, with their lit candle, will light the Junior’s candles and extinguish their candle which symbolizes the end of their Senior year and the start of a new year for the rising Junior. Amber, my daughter’s best friend since the 3rd grade, will be passing her the flame. I can’t believe that we now have a Senior in the house. Actually, we now have 3 Seniors in the house. I will provide a link for pictures soon.

This weekend Emmanuel Baptist Church celebrated their 50th Anniversary. The events for the weekend included a Friday evening reception, a Banquet was held on Saturday, and Sunday services. It was a beautiful memorable weekend for all and we are glad that we were able to be a witness of this memorable event. On Sunday, the church was packed with current and prior members, staff, and prior pastors. The history of the church is just simply Amazing.

It’s been almost five months that we have been attending Emmanuel Baptist Church. When we started attending, there was a gentlemen sitting in one of the pew and my girls said to me that it looked like someone from our previous church. I told her, “No way. He moved to Indiana.” So I dismissed it and thought that if I ever ran into him, I would ask him if he had a brother. Every time we see him in church, he is not close enough to talk to him. My girls, every time they see him, say “Mom, there’s Mr. Ron,” and we would laugh about it. Well on one of the days of our revival, this gentlemen approached us and said, “Do you remember me?” and I hesitantly said, “Mr. Ron?” We both began laughing. He told us he’d been attending since April but had never seen us until this week. Turns out he is temporarily in the area. What a small world!

It is the first day of school for me–Orientation Day. I met all the staff and teachers for this upcoming school year. I wasn’t sure exactly where I would be placed. I just made myself available to wherever the Lord leads. Today, I found out that I’ll be working with Kindergarten in the morning and possibly teaching Art in the afternoon. In addition, I am also going to attempt to Direct the Before and After School Care program with the Lord’s help. It was a great day and you can feel the excitement. The Pastor and Chancellor of the school lead in prayer and devotional. I know that the Lord will bless the school because in my prior experience when Christ is at the center of the school, he will certainly pour His blessings on it. One thing that was shared with us today was that ECS stands for “Excellence in education from a Biblical world view, Caring (showing the love of Christ to our students), and Spiritual integrity (we won’t be ashamed). You can’t ask for a better place to work! I am certainly proud to be a part of the Emmanuel family.

As I discussed yesterday, we were discussing the distance to Lynchburg. Today, I went to mapquest to figure out the distance between home and Lynchburg and here it is: Total Est. Time: 3 hours, 18 minutes Total Est. Distance: 161.49 miles. Of course this is at 55 miles per hour and the speed limit was changed to 60 in most areas. You be the judge.

This week was VBS week at Emmanuel Baptist (June 27 thru July 1). I’m new to the church, but they have received our family so graciously. I’ve always been an active participant in VBS and I just couldn’t sit this one down. After being in church a few weeks, I was asked if I could help with Preschool snacks. We had a great time. I had around 70 preschoolers. We prepared some yummy snacks. Overall, VBS was a very successful week for all. The place looked great and some accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior, praise God!

Well, we said our goodbyes to our Youth at Dale City Baptist Church on Wednesday after 10 years of service. It was a sad night for us. The Lord had been working on our hearts about making this move two years ago and we just felt that it was our time. Sunday, we went forward with a letter of transfer to Emmanuel Baptist Church. We were so impressed with the worship, the preaching, the youth group, outreach, evangelism, and the whole organization of the church, and most of all the church family. We will be attending a New Member’s Class and then we will be presented in front of the church at a Business Meeting for voting. This is an exciting time in our lives and we just can’t wait to see where the Lord will have us serve at Emmanuel. Emmanuel is a wonderful place to worship. For information on Emmanuel you can visit www.ebcnva.org.

Well we talked to our pastor last night, and we told him that we were leaving, he was not surprised.

We were very active in Dale City Baptist Church’s youth and children ministry. That is the part of the church we are going to miss. There are some great youth in that church, youth that love the Lord and are willing to serve Him. We are going to miss them, my only regret is that I wished the rest of the church could see what we see in them.

But we also look forward to our new ministry opportunities. Erika and Amanda went to the youth group at the church we will join Sunday. They really enjoyed the atmosphere there. They are excited about the possibilities of this new ministry.

We have been struggling to make a decision regarding whether to leave Dale City Baptist Church or not. Well, what happened this past Sunday helped make up our mind.

We have been without a youth pastor since he left last December. At that time, we were assured that the church was behind the youth of the church and the ministry. Since my wife and I are heading up the youth ministry, this was reassuring. Our youth group has been in decline since the youth pastor left, but we have worked hard at keeping the youth groups on Sunday and Wednesday relevent to the youth of the church.

Sunday, one of the elders told us that they felt the youth should be in the main service rather than have a service that is geared toward them. We have also talked to some in the church that felt that these youth need to “learn to listen”. I am unsure what that means, other than some in the church think they are dealing with 10 year old children rather than young adults that are making decisions that will effect their lives for decades to come.

Unfortunatly this has already had a impact on our daughter. She has told us that she does not want to go to church. We know that this has had a similar impact on other youth in the church, they probably will not come back. It concerns my wife and me that the “Year of Change” that the church is trying to begin, starts with the elimination of ministries. The alienation of those people that are at most risk to leaving the church.

We have an appointment with the pastor of another church in our area to talk to him about joining thier ministry. I think at this point, we know that we are leaving our current church… it is time.

It is time we find a church that has a ministry focus, time we find a church that wants to outreach, time we find a church that is more concerned about reaching people for Christ rather than whether people are in bible study or not.

I was talking to a ministry friend of mine this past week, about my concerns with the church I attend. The direction, and in some cases lack of direction, the church is going in. He has known that we have not been happy at this church for some time.

He posed a question to me that I had not thought of… he tends to do that …

What is the most spiritual thing that I can do? Of course I gave him the usual answers… praying… studying the Gods word… His answer was to choose…

Choose to follow, choose to pray… choose to make decisions that will effect our lives… The point is that we can’t just sit there and expect God to “open heaven with a host of angels” to answer our questions… We have to engage in the process and choose to follow what we think God is directing us to do…

In some way, that is at the heart of the problems that we have with our current church. Our church is not choosing to follow what God is directing us to do…

Over the past few of weeks I have been cornered by different people. Most of them offering their opinions on what they think of me. Most of those opinions negative.

Yes I have “issues”, but the one thing that really bugs me is that none of these people have an educated idea of what is going on in my life. They don’t know what struggles I am going through, what goals I am trying to attain, or stopped long enough to see if there is anything that I need.

I am getting tired of it. If you knew me, you would know that I am a very quiet person, and I enjoy my privacy. The only person in my life that really knows that is my wife. She is going through some of the same struggles that I am. We feel as though we are clinging to a life raft in the middle of the ocean.

These people are sincere in trying to correct what they see as bad behaviour. They want me to come back to what I used to be, but thier actions do nothing but push me further away. What is interesting is that I have been retreating from them for a long time now, but they fail to see that.