REPOSTED: My Easy Trip from Youth Minister to Felon

On June 12, 2014, Christianity Today posted an article by a youth pastor who had sex with one of his students.  Due to an overwhelming amount of backlash, they had a "change of heart" and removed the entire article.  What they left behind was a link to the edited article at the Internet Archive.  However, that link is less than useful because it will only let you read the first 2-3 paragraphs.  In any event, I believe that deleting that article was a GRAVE ERROR!

The article, which was written by an ANONYMOUS former youth pastor, is about the effects on him, his family, his local church, their families and the ANONYMOUS young girl he had a relationship with.  Due to the overwhelming quantity of ANONYMITY involved in this article, I believe that it can and SHOULD BE used as a WARNING to others who would involve themselves in youth ministry!

Christianity Today says that part of the reason they regretted posting the article, was because "The post adopted a tone that was not appropriate given its failure to document complete repentance and restoration."  That's nonsense.  The author is currently serving a prison sentence and is unable to effectively communicate PERSONALLY with ALL of those that he harmed.  I sincerely believe that this writing is an EXCELLENT FIRST STEP towards that goal AND I have made it available here IN ITS ENTIRETY, for you to decide for yourself.

Was Jesus a Liberal and a Socialist?

In a brief interaction with a liberal Christian the other day, I came upon this statement:

Claim: Jesus was a LIBERAL and a SOCIALIST!

I hear this claim every now and again, and every time I hear it, it gets me upset...  If you do any amount of research on this topic, you'll find elaborate, fanciful and overly creative articles written by people who go WAY TOO FAR, just to answer a simple question...

Here is the very simple reply and answer that I offered to this claim:

I'm not sure where you are in your walk with God, but to claim that Jesus was a liberal and a socialist, is like claiming that Karl Marx was a great philanthropist and humanitarian. 

Jesus feeding the 5,000+ men, women and children was not an act of socialism, it was a MIRACLE, performed to show EVERYONE that He was indeed God. 

Jesus saying "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.", wasn't an act of liberalism, it was a lesson to those of us who would pronounce judgement, without seeing that our own SIN is *just as* vile and contemptible before a Holy God. 

Each group (political, denominational or otherwise) tries to hijack Jesus for their own use and purposes, instead of just allowing what He did and what He said to speak for itself (in context of course). From time to time I've been accused of the same thing, but I always take the time to show people where they can find the answer (or correction) to their incorrect or perhaps *false* understandings. 

Please take your time while reading Scripture and ensure that you have a Pastor in your life to help you to better understand the verses that prove challenging and NEVER allow your own personal bias to influence your walk with God. If you take the time, the Holy Spirit will be more than happy to tell you the things that you NEED to know... :)

Now you have an example of what to say if/when you're faced with this false claim... 

My Platform for Presidency of the United States

Have you ever stopped to think of what YOU would do IF you were elected President of the United States?  Well I hadn't until today...  I believe that there are many things that the citizens of the United States NEED and Obamacare, IRS Attacks, Forcing religious entities to pay for employee abortions and supporting Socialism are not among them!

So these are some of the things I would do IF I was President....
Would you vote for me?  ;)

All comments are welcome, but please avoid vulgar language.

Are you a Christian or a Disciple?

WARNING: God's Word has been known to be offensive to those living outside of God's perfect Will.  Read to your own edification!

QUESTION FOR CHRISTIANS

Do you call yourself a Christian?

Why?

Does Jesus tell you anywhere in Scripture to "Go out and become a Christian"?

Did you know that the word "Christian" can be found only 3 times in the whole Bible...?

And 2 of those times, it's used in a discussion surrounding suffering or death!

Yet many of you will use that "title" alone in order to describe yourself.  Something that you either deem as a badge of honor, inferring your rebelliousness to the world at large or simply just to show people how "good" or "righteous" you are...

But I'm here to tell you today, that Jesus Himself was more concerned about DISCIPLESHIP than He ever was about you attending church, joining a religion or making up or following your own ways and practices, thanks to what the United States calls "Religious Freedom".

Pastoral Self Importance - STOP IT!

As a Discipleship Minister, I'm often placed in a position where I need to reach out to local churches, in order to help create a smooth transition from my care as a Shepherd, over to a long-term Shepherd.  At any given time, I have between 5 and 25 people from around the world who seek out my guidance on discipleship.  Once I get people to a certain point, I encourage them to find a local church to get additional fellowship.

To date, I've had ZERO PERCENT SUCCESS at accomplishing what should be a ridiculously simple task...

WHY?
Good question!

Agendas, Propaganda and Lies... Oh my!

NOTICE: As I referenced in my last post on the subject, this is my second (and hopefully final) post regarding this particular issue.  

Next, I'm putting this at the beginning of this post, because those of  you with ADD might not make it all the way through.  There is no hate of any kind contained within this post.  Twist and turn all of my words if you'd like, but you're not going to get away with saying that my words or my intent are hateful.

Gay Pride - Oxy-Moron or Perfect Description?

I've been teaching many of the individuals that I've been discipling, that MANY WORDS have had their meanings changed over the years.  Some simple, non-biblical words that have been changed would include: COOL means NICE, BAD means GOOD, FAT now means PRETTY (even though they use a PH to spell it), DOPE means SMART (as in looking smart), TIGHT means COOL, FINE means HOT, etc. (oy, what a mess we've allowed our language to become!)