searching the sunsets

This Week's List of 7

Well, here's this week's list of questions that needs to equal 7 pages for an A. 
I also need to write a 10 page philosophy paper, and do some really wierd thing for Research Meth. :)

Foundational Questions:  Group N 

1. Define the following terms:

        a. Abuse

        b. Affliction

        c. Suffering

        d. Trials

2. How did affliction and suffering begin in creation?

3. Does God ever cause suffering for the believer? Be specific.

4. Why does God allow believers to suffer?

5. What role does suffering play in the Christian life?

6. How is the Christian to respond to suffering?

7. Can there be benefits to suffering?  Explain.

8. How does the ‘disciplining of God’ fit into this pattern?

9. When is suffering our fault?

10. Is it possible to always remove suffering from the believer's life? Explain.

11. When stopping the suffering is not possible, what is the believer's recourse?

12. How can we be helpful to someone who is going through suffering?

4 Stages of Community

A friend gave me a photocopied chapter from a book. Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the book. Here is what the author has to say about community. What do you think?

4 Stages of Community:

1.    Pseudocommunity: Not really community at all. Everyone pretends to get along and bites down any disagreement. Looks like a real community but it is nothing more than people acting pleasant.
2.    Chaos: Always centers around well-intentioned but misguided attempts to heal.  The group has some people who emerge as “healers” and “converters.” People by and large resist change so the healers and converters amp up their attempts
3.    Emptiness: There are only two ways out of chaos: 1. Organization, which is never real community and emptiness . Emptiness is the bridge between chaos and community
4.    Community: True cohesion in the group.  Created by the group

The author suggests some questions to ask group members who say they want to be in community:

1.    What are you doing that is holding the group back from creating true community?
2.    What price are you willing to pay for the group to achieve true community?
3.    Are you willing to empty yourself of all of your expectations and serve the entire group to create true community?

What do you think?

RIP Robert the Rooster

Born-Unknown
Died-11/28/2008
May he be remembered this way always...

An Interesting Cartoon

I ran across this cartoon on a blog somewhere and thought it was interesting...

Let it snow let it snow

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Lots of fun

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Great Quote #85

Happy Marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry

~Robert C. Dodds

Erica Martino: Mom By Day, Super Secret Body Guard by Night

After reading this by a funny funny fellow who struggles with his temper, read this by my super cute wife. The only thing I want to know is are we getting paid for this?

What Role Does Satan Play in The Universe

Be nice, be Kind and have fun.

Q. What role does Satan play in the Universe?

Healthy People are...

This post is completely cut and pasted from Steve Carter  What do you think?

someone i respect shared yesterday real quickly about their definition of a healthy person...

1) healthy people believe they are profoundly significant.

2) healthy people are self aware and authentic.

3) healthy people have the capacity for empathy and love.

which one best represents you? which one is hardest to achieve?

for many, i would imagine that believing you are profoundly significant is very uncomfortable. but we are profoundly significant. we each resemble a unique piece of God that the world desperately needs to see and experience. one of the things i've been trying to live by lately is, "act as if it all counted on you; but know full well you can't do it all."  i met Immanuel in Rwanda a few years back, he worked with world relief as a volunteer coordinator. he shepherded a number of key volunteers who went out into the squatter camps to meet with, serve, help, pray and bury those who were affected with aids. i asked him how he would encourage his volunteers and he said, "everything they do matters. it matters. so i tell them to do what they can, with what they have and trust that God will take care of the rest."

i think we often put more on God than he would like. this seems to go against how he wired and formed us as his image bearers. i love that verse in 2nd Peter 3:11, "you ought to live holy lives and you look forward to the day of the Lord and speed it's coming." speed it up? for so long, i didn't know i had a say in this. i thought i was waiting. just waiting. healthy people want to speed this up; not slow it down. i often will ask myself if this choice (gossip, certain purchase, escaping the pain, or sarcasm to name a few) would be one that will speed things up or slow things down? doing this helps me act as if it all counted on me, to own what i can do with what God has uniquely entrusted to me...

someone i respect shared yesterday real quickly about their definition of a healthy person...

1) healthy people believe they are profoundly significant.

2) healthy people are self aware and authentic.

3) healthy people have the capacity for empathy and love.

which one best represents you? which one is hardest to achieve?

for many, i would imagine that believing you are profoundly significant is very uncomfortable. but we are profoundly significant. we each resemble a unique piece of God that the world desperately needs to see and experience. one of the things i've been trying to live by lately is, "act as if it all counted on you; but know full well you can't do it all."  i met Immanuel in Rwanda a few years back, he worked with world relief as a volunteer coordinator. he shepherded a number of key volunteers who went out into the squatter camps to meet with, serve, help, pray and bury those who were affected with aids. i asked him how he would encourage his volunteers and he said, "everything they do matters. it matters. so i tell them to do what they can, with what they have and trust that God will take care of the rest."

i think we often put more on God than he would like. this seems to go against how he wired and formed us as his image bearers. i love that verse in 2nd Peter 3:11, "you ought to live holy lives and you look forward to the day of the Lord and speed it's coming." speed it up? for so long, i didn't know i had a say in this. i thought i was waiting. just waiting. healthy people want to speed this up; not slow it down. i often will ask myself if this choice (gossip, certain purchase, escaping the pain, or sarcasm to name a few) would be one that will speed things up or slow things down? doing this helps me act as if it all counted on me, to own what i can do with what God has uniquely entrusted to me...