Happy 70th Birthday Fr. Dick Clay

What a festive birthday party we had on Saturday for my beloved friend Fr. Dick Clay, who turned 70. This was truly a celebration of God who gives us all our days. (from L to R) Fr. Walter Giles, me, Fr. Chip Henderson, and Fr. Dick Clay. We have breakfast together about once a month or so. I love these guys. Breakfast & friendship with these guys is one of the things I enjoy most in life.

A New Look

Celebrating two years of blogging I decided to pimp my site. It's the same nonsense just a new look. Thanks for visiting.

One Foot Forward

If you haven't heard this band you are seriously missing out. Some of the band members are from the Utica, NY area. One of the pastors there gave me a CD last week and this band is incredible

2006 Miss New York State Contestants

Click to see the 2006 Miss New York State Contestants. My beloved wife was Miss North Syracuse 1988 and voted Miss Congeniality by her peers. She still looks like that good.

purevolume™ | RetroRocket

RetroRocket is playing at Turning Point Park in Carthage on July 9.

Blog Maverick - www.blogmaverick.com _

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks has a blog. It's very interesting to read what a multimillionaire (billionaire?) blogs about. WARNING: it's not a clean language site. While it's a great story that the Heat comes back from 2 games to zip to win, Shaq & Riley win another title with new teams, D-Wade becomes a superstar ... the NBA gets a black-eye again with poor officiating throughout the playoffs. Remember a couple of months ago when my Steelers won the SuperBowl and the big story was the poor officiating. Even in the games that led up to the SuperBowl the Steelers won in spite of some poor officiating. It seems that 'poor officiating' is becoming a theme in professional sports. I wonder if the whole way games are officiated is going to have to be revamped. Athletes are bigger and faster than ever and it appears that officials just can't keep up. ——————————————————— Two nights in a row of championship celebrations. There is nothing classier in all of professional sports than the losing team in the Stanley Cup waiting for the winners to celebrate a little and then all shake hands at center ice. It was such a contrast last night when the Mav's just walked off the court. The MLB, NBA & NFL should take note of the NHL.

TABASCO® Pepperfest

McIlhenny's TABASCO® Sauce is one of my favorite things. I also like to send ecards from their site.

Doubling Bob Roberts Style

Doubling Bob Roberts Style: "The need for new churches Good news: 1,300 churches successfully start each year. Bad news: 3,700 churches close each year. Bottom line: there is a net loss of 2400 each year in America even as the population continues to grow."

The John Michael Band

My favorite band is still the John Michael Band aka the ¡alive@5! band. They are playing a lot this summer out in Sacketts Harbor at the Barracks. They play on a floating dock with a canopy and tables. The wait staff will serve you out there. It's a very comfortable scene watching the sun set on the lake and listening to great music. Here are my recent band pictures: The John Michael Band @ The Barrack's. Mike put up a band web site: johnmichaelband. I took some video and hope to have that posted soon. Here are a couple clips: God of Wonders Light The Fire Again Spirit In The Sky Spirit in The Sky guitar solo

Jesus Creed » Do you believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity? The End

I went to Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY from 1986 to 1989 as a Religion & Philosophy major. My mentor, Dr. Paul Livermore, has a Ph.D. from Princeton and treated all his students as if we were in seminary. Many seminaries used the texts we used in our undergrad: Jaroslav Pelikan, Williston Walker, Fitzmeyer, Brown & Murphy, FF Bruce, Metzger, etc. I remember one day he said about the scholarship of Bruce Metzger, "He was so good he could hear grass grow." It used to be that we would read scholarly journals, commentaries, bible dictionaries, theological wordbooks, etc., spending extensive amounts of time in the reference section of the library. There were databases and bibliographies that pointed me to the "standard" data and of course one used journals for "more recent streams of thought". I've seen the transition happening over the years to computer aided reference materials. You may have not held it in your hand, but you knew where the scholarly data was. What happens when scholars become bloggers? McKnight's exploration of the perpetual virginity of Mary is outstanding, and of equal interest and value are the interactive comments by "lesser known" scholars and lay people. I don't think I even know the MLA format for citing a blog. There's no page #. What do you reference — a URL and say "scroll down three screens"? Let alone citing a blog, how would one cite a comment on a blog from some idiot named The Ultra Rev, who is unidentifiable as a person and whose scholarly compentency would be in dispute? When we used to do research you knew which databases would point you in the right direction. No longer. It could be that the best scholarship on an issue is from the comment of an anonymous or unknown person and blog. This all just points to a shift in our post-modern world. We used to know which databases or bibliographies told us who the credentialed orrecognizedd experts were and which books they published their expert knowledge in. No longer. So how do we do research now? The answer to this is the answer to all of life's problems: Google.

John Halvorsen

I met John Halvorsen on a recent trip to Minnesota. Great guy. Click on the link to see the story of how he prayerwalked America. Very cool.

nakedreligion » Blog Archive » “A Road Less Traveled By”

Mark Driscoll has recently blogged about the perils of pastoral ministry. I highly recommend his article: Death By Ministry. I've experienced my fair share of death by ministry. Some of me was resurrected and some of me lies in ruins waiting for God to redeem me. I am extremely thankful and hopeful because of the recent actions of Zion Covenant Church in Jamestown, NY. What could have resulted in just another church-pastor train wreck with a listing in the Covenant Companion that said "Bradley J. Bergfalk, from Zion Covenant Church, Jamestown, NY." seems to have been averted. Whenever I see those 'Pastoral Changes' listed in the Companion I always cringe at the ones that just say "... from ..." with listing a "... to ...". They always seem to indicate some moral failure or hostile church crisis and you know there is some significant pain there. They were fired or forced to resign. Finding a new pastoral call in the Covenant is taking about 2 years or more right now, which makes it all the more scarier for those resigning without a new place to minister. BJB and Zion are trying something different. Check out their story at nakedreligion » Blog Archive » “A Road Less Traveled By”.

Bibles Unbound

When I was in college I participated in a bible ministry that would send us the bibles, packing materials and address labels for a minimal amount and we would then package them up and mail them to people in the former Soviet Union. I never knew where they got the addresses or who received them. They could have been confiscated for all I know. Hopefully there will be a day in heaven where I meet some of the people that got a Bible and found Christ because of that project. That would be very cool. I'm a big proponent of giving away Bibles. I believe every church should have a stack to give away for FREE and have them available every day. Here is another ministry that gives Bibles away. It's like $30 a month and you'll get everything you need to mail 5 New Testaments. Check it out: Bibles Unbound

The Covenant Annual Meeting

The Evangelical Covenant Church continues to grow: Covenant News - 8 Churches Removed from Member Roster Covenant News - 25 Churches Welcomed into Membership That's a net of 17 churches, which really isn't that big of a number. But it does represent the consistent growth of a small denomination that could have easily become another dying, ingrown denomination with immigrant origins. Instead, through God's mercy, He has granted us great leaders with a Kingdom vision. Thanks be to God. The annual meeting is being held in Grand Rapids, MI this year, which is the closest I think I have ever lived to where an annual meeting was happening. I'm wishing I was there with my partners in crime ... er, uh ... ministry, Xorey, Brad, Stacey, Nate, et al. Tonight I'll hook up my S-video cable from my computer to my TV and watch the evening worship live. I've just talked to the guys and told them to do something stupid on camera tonight. Keep an eye out for them. What a contrast it is to read about the Covenant Church's meeting and the Episcopal Church's meeting in Columbus, OH. They're coming apart at the seems. I'm praying for my friend Bishop Gladstone "Skip" Adams — would not want to be in his shoes right now.

Traveling

Spent last week in northern Minnesota ... flew into Bemidji on Monday, stayed for a Tuesday meeting, a Wednesday meeting in Virginia, MN, Thursday in Grand Rapids, MN and Friday in Hibbing and Duluth. Flew home out of Duluth. A good visit. If you're going up that way, check out Grand Rapids, MN. It's a logging town with a comfortable feel there. Of course it's spring time now. Ask me if I feel the same when I visit next winter. I watched the movie North Country tonight. A couple guys up there have been encouraging me to see it. It's about the mining industry in northern MN and the harassment that many women experienced working there. Good movie. They have the accents down perfect. It took 14 years for the women to receive their settlement ... 1984 to 1998. I experienced some feelings of dissonance as I watched unthinkable discriminatory, abusive behavior that happened to women in my lifetime. The movie almost seemed like it should have been history of decades ago but sadly it was not barely more than a single decade ago.

VirtueOnline - STACY SAULS AND THE STRIPPER

This one really ought to be from Lark News, but it's not. Apparently a true story as purported by David Virtue at virtueonline.org. Imagine receiving a message from God via the vehicle of a woman's inner thigh & garter. Just chalk it up to God's ways are not your ways, I guess. VirtueOnline - News - Exclusives - STACY SAULS AND THE STRIPPER: "When Lexington Bishop Stacy F. Sauls was in the process of discerning his call to the ordained ministry he took a year's leave of absence from his legal practice in Atlanta and spent the time at General Theological Seminary in New York City testing his vocation. One evening, in the course of his discernment process, the wannabe aspirant for ministry, in company with several other students, decided to go to a strip club in the West Village of Manhattan. Sauls was still, apparently, unsure of his call. A scantily clad woman waltzed down the horseshoe shaped runway and approached the wannabe priest, undressing herself as she strutted her stuff. By the time she reached Sauls she was devoid of most of her clothing. She squatted in front of the future bishop of the Episcopal Church. 'Most of us would be focusing on 'that' part of a woman, but Stacy felt his eyes being drawn to her right leg where a sequined garter belt hung, and on it were written the words 'Go For It'', said a priest. Sauls took that as a divine message from God that he should be ordained. As Sauls later told the story to several small groups of clergy, he was so impressed he uttered out loud, 'Isn't it amazing how God leads us.' At that moment Sauls had an epiphany and the future course of his life was decided. "