Study of American's View of Sin

A recently released study of Americans over the topic of sin has some rather interesting findings. You can view the info here.

One of the biggest things that stood out to me was this paragraph:

"One of the biggest differences in whether people believe in the concept of sin is actually not even religious, but political. Among political conservatives, 94% believe there is such a thing as sin. This is also true among 89% of moderates. But only 77% of political liberals believe in the concept of sin."

If you check out the report, scroll down to the bottom and you can see the info listed in chart form if you don't want to read through everything else.

What do you think? Is this study surprising to you or does it coincide with what you already felt to be true about our country?

What does this study say about the role that the church is playing in our society?

Florida Church-30 Day Sex Challenge

I bet this church is going to see an increase in membership!



What do you think about the challenge?

This Makes Me Sick

I am a little hesitant to even bring up this article because the actions taken by this "church" are ridiculous and incredibly sad. The group from Westboro Baptist have such a distortioned view of the Gospel and of God.

You can read about their thoughts concerning Heath Ledger's death here.

Apparently, they have missed the reality that God is love and passionately loves His creation. I'm also a bit tired of hearing about all of their protests. Sad stuff...

Great Service

This morning, the fam woke up a little late. We were planning on making it to the early service at Antioch in Waco at 9:30 but we all woke up around 9:15. So, we got dressed and made sure the girls had breakfast and headed up to Waco. We decided to go to UBC instead of waiting until 11:00 for the second service at Antioch.

It's pretty cool how God works everything out because this service at UBC was really good for me to hear. The preacher talked about suffering, or how we respond when we feel like an injustice has been done to us or someone we care about. It was just a refreshing sermon as we looked at Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and when Judas came to betray Him.

It was incredible the way he unpacked the story and helped me picture how Jesus responded to such unjust and miserable circumstances. He pointed out that Jesus actually lived the way He taught...pretty convicting for me. :)

i'm having a little bit of a hard time fully expressing all that Gideon spoke on but it was incredible and i'm thankful that we slept in so we could go to church at UBC. :)

Update on daughter #1: She has roseola (sp?). She had a high fever for three days followed by a rash all over. She's finally feeling better!!! Hopefully nobody else will get it because the next two weeks are going to be incredibly busy.

We're packing to move, trying to buy another house in Waco, preparing for a dnow this upcoming weekend, and figuring out when and how we are going to move all this stuff out of our house to the new one. :) Fun times for our fam!

It is good to get our move on though because things have felt so chaotic with trying to set up in two locations all the time.

One more thing that Gideon said that has made me think. He said that we love hearing about how Jesus has forgiven us and loves us so much but the power of that forgiveness and love is that we must give it away to those in our world.

The David Crowder Band was there this Sunday and it was really great to worship with them. They sang a song called "Remedy" (which is the name of the album they are working on now). It is incredible!!!

Week 1

Today felt like a vacation. i think it's because the only time i've been able to choose with my family where we will go to church and actually go together has been when we were on vacation. It was REALLY nice!

We got up this morning, had breakfast, and i read a few books with the girls while Dani got ready. Then i got dressed and Dani got the girls dressed and we headed for Waco. We had a great little drive and ended up at University Baptist Church. We showed up at 9:30 (b/c Logan told us that is when Sunday School started) but there was nothing going on until 10:30. That was fine with us because we could drive around and look at some houses for sale and grab a little snack for the girls.

It was so fun getting to be together as a family and going through all the emotions and thoughts of visiting a new place and not really knowing what all was going on. It was also fun because we got to sit with Scott, Logan, and Kendra.

The music was great. The lyrics to the songs we were singing were so powerful. The only problem is that i think my ears rang for the rest of the day. :)

This one song was incredible. It talked about how Jesus rescues us and gives us life so we can live "for the glory of it all, oh the glory of it all." How cool!!!

i gotta say, today was a good day (thank you Ice Cube, early 90's for that). :)

grace&peace,
matt