Things that should never be...

Ash Wednesday service at your church?  Great idea!

Drive thru Ash Wednesday service at your church?  Not such a good idea!

...though I'm not altogether opposed to having public Ash Wednesday services

Seven Deadly Sins Supplement: Gluttony

Our Lenten sermon series this year features the Seven Deadly Sins.  I chose this series as an opportunity to "sit down" and have an honest conversation about our emotional, spiritual, and physical health.

In addition to the sermons I will also be posting supplemental material here on my blog.  This will be the place where I'll share related and helpful material that I wasn't able to get to on Sunday mornings due to time restraints.

I started the series this past Sunday with "Gluttony".  If you missed the sermon click here.  For this week's supplemental I've got two bits for ya!

Part 4: Homosexuality and the Failure of the Church

Last Sunday I preached on issue of gay marriage.  The first part of the sermon could be considered offensive to gay marriage advocates, and the last part of the sermon could be quite upsetting to the opponents of gay marriage.

Either way I succinctly put together the biblical response to issue of gay marriage, a response that should challenge people both sides.

Sermon:  "What Does Gay Marriage Say About Us?"

Part 3: Washington State Gay Marriage Law vs. Religious Freedoms

 The Gay Marriage Bill in the state of Washington as it is written will have direct legal implications on New Life Fellowship (and every conservative church in the state) which may threaten our financial solvency



As it stands now, the legal right for gay couples to marry should be approved by the Washington State house of representatives sometime this week.  It's likely that opponents to gay marriage will file a voter referendum stopping the measure until the people of Washington vote for or against it this coming November.  Within this bill (soon to be law) are a number of measures seeking to protect religious freedoms of those whose religious beliefs do not agree with gay marriage.  However, this law falls far short in protecting the rights of religious people.

Part 2: Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty

 In an ideal free society some could argue,

"Let the gay people who want to get married, get married.  As for the religious people who are against it, let them be against it. It's not like the gay people are asking to get married in the conservative churches!"

This line of thinking would seem to support the American ideal of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  If you're in favor of gay marriage, fine.  If you're against it, fine.  We can all go to our separate corners and play nicely.  But as we all know, this isn't how it is in our country.

Part 1: Marriage, Love, Homosexuality, and Society

There was a lively (to put it lightly) discussion on the merits for and against gay marriage on a recent Facebook post.  Some people thought hard about their answers while others sounded like fools, including people whom I technically agree with.  But through the discussion one individual ask a very good question.

"You say this is about the foundation of society. How is it going to effect society?"

Jesus = Religion

So there's a video circling the web right now called "Jesus > Religion".  There's a lot of good in that video but there's a TON of hypocrisy, one major false dichotomy, and an even more irony given in the video.  Here below is the original video:



The hypocrisy of the video