round-up 4 Nov. 23
• People Evacuated from Ship in Antarctic Waters: Imagine being a passenger. But unlike the movie, evacuation was calm, the pumps kept the ship above water in time for the rescue ship to come, and - ! - a rescue ship was nearby.
• A Universe of Black Film: This festival goes for 17 days and starts today. Unfortunately for me, it’s in New York. I’m stuck in the mild-weather of Southern California.
• Megachurches Add Local Economy to Their Mission: Those mentioned include ChangePoint in Anchorage, LifeBridge in Colorado, Evangelical Christian Credit Union, a couple of churches in Charlotte, Windsor Village in Houston, T.D. Jakes and them, and a couple of AG churches. My guess is that reporters went fishing for scandals in the wake of the investigation of prosperity Gospel pastors, but instead found innovative churches that are investing in the community around them.
• Collapse of Rail, Subway Strike is a First Success for Sarkozy: The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is comparing Sarkozy to Margaret Thatcher.
• New York City Homicides Still Dropping, to Under 500: This is amazing, especially in light of the hundreds of murders that have taken place in Philadelphia (roughly 1/10 the size of New York) in the same period of time.
• From World Wide Web to Giant Global Graph: The guy who invented the term “world wide web” is now talking “social graphs.” There’s oracle-of-delphi level web geekery in this post, numbs the mind after a while, but remember that this is how those Silicon Valley gajillionaires keep gas in the Infiniti.
• “We are just a few years away from the end of the shrink-wrapped software business. By 2010, people will not be buying software…”: What is it with these Stanford grads? Always trying to upend the world as we know it.
• The Backlash against Tithing: This is a discussion I’ve heard regularly in church circles. It’s good to see it on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Bonus Round-up: Thanksgiving on Navarro Avenue
Well, we had a great time yesterday. Kafi’s siblings and cousins and their friends and their friends friends showed up. We had a lot of people. 20-25, including kids. And we had even more food. And even more desserts than food. It was just fun times. My brother and I cooked huevos con chorizo on the grill at about 1030am. We washed it down with Miller Genuine Draft. At 11am these teens came over. They said their mom sent them to ask if we had any more turkeys. Think about that - at 11am on Thanksgiving Day, they come over asking for turkeys, not extra food or extra drink or plates or anything. Whole turkeys. That means they didn’t have anything to feed anyone. I know the family. Way too many mouths and not even the infrastructure to begin cooking for anyone. It take a few hours, but we connected the teens with a ministry effort to feed families and the teens went home (if it can be called that) with plenty for everyone. I’m grateful that the food ministry folks understood the unique situation (which I haven’t spelled out completely here) and allowed the food to leave the site. What else? All my whiffle balls are gone, because I turned my back on the little kids playing batting practice and they had smashed pure homers over the wall. I visited friends up the street and up the hill, and saw a chunk of that Transformers movie in the process. The house is mostly cleaned up, too. After all the good times, I thought the house would be a disaster, but only the room where the children play is unrecognizable. Here are a few pictures:
Here are Micah and Kafi at Sam’s celebration, Nov. 17. I don’t know if I blogged about this, but we had a special celebration service at my church, Pasadena Church, to commemorate the end of Sam’s chemo.
Here’s Sam’s cousin Shelby.
I dig this pic. It’s me reading my blog entry from the day Sam was first diagnosed. That’s how we opened the service.
That’s my niece Giovanna (red hair, front), my brother Andrew, and my nephew Andres.
Here is Sam’s celebration cake: “You are stronger than a power ranger!”
All the kids gathered around Sam and his cake.
Back home, it’s Micah and her daddy.
Grandma with the grandkids.
Micah with Kafi’s sister, Aziza. People say these two look alike.
Rudy and Kafi (who is carrying baby X - we still haven’t settled on a name). And that was yesterday’s Thanksgiving spread.
posted Nov 23, 2007, 10:39am by Rodolpho Carrasco
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I read the Backlog on Tithing article. While I agree that nothing is mandated in scripture (there is only one law), it seems ridiculous that people would attack and water down scripture of on giving. Scripture is very clear on giving beyond your means. To say that “It’s my money to do as I please” jut sounds like the rest of the mess out in the world, “it’s my life, my body, my (fill in the blank)”. While prosperity Gospel is perverted and twisted theology, we are told to give and to give sacrificially. While I don’t spend much time in these thinking circles (got children to raise, home to clean, etc), I venture every now and then to see what’s going on. I am disappointed how many basic tenets (giving) can be easily explained and rationalized away. But the good news is that God is sovereign over all things, and if people don’t think it’s all His, they will be the ones surprised. At some point, all knees will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (over our money, too.)