Starbucks failed

Starbucks failed while it still continues to be successful. I wanted to share an excerpt from Creature of the Word that hits today's society right on the money. We need to make sure this does not happen in our churches.

“Since the day Adam searched for a suitable helper, people have always longed for community. So it would seem our era is a great one in which to live, seeing as how connectivity is so much easier now than it’s ever been. Facebook currently claims more than 900 million active users who visit their social networking site at least once a month. Thanks to Twitter, we can constantly bombard each other with even the most boring details of our everyday lives. You can take a picture of the sampler you ordered at Applebee’s, and then tweet it to all your friends so they can be jealous of your potato skins. Technology has enabled humanity to be more connected, more informed, and more social than at any other time in history.
But connectivity does not equate to community. Being able to make quick connections with people doesn’t automatically require any depth to the relationship.
All you have to do is take a look inside your local Starbucks to see something strange going on in the midst of all these “connections.” Starbucks was founded to be a gathering place for relationships. Sure, they serve a million combinations of coffee and pastries “but it was also intended as a place where people could get their coffee not “to go” but to stay. And stay together. Starbucks was built to capitalize on the intrinsic human desire to relate.
But as you look into your local Starbucks, notice that many people are in there—together in one place—but they’re also alone. They’re sitting at tables with their headphones on, working on their computers or fiddling with their phones. Not that” “it’s the fault of Starbucks. This “all alone, all together” phenomenon is merely symptomatic of what’s at play in human relationships throughout our culture.
So although we are more connected than we’ve ever been, we also feel more alone and unknown than at any other time in human history. We relate without relationships, all together but all alone. Thus, without the gospel forming community, we are doomed to connectivity and aloneness in the midst of crowds. Only the gospel forms deep community.”

Excerpt From: Matt Chandler, Eric Geiger & Josh Patterson. “Creature of the Word.” B&H Publishing Group, 2012. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/creature-of-the-word/id560382548?mt=11

Lessons from evil people

Believe it or not we could learn a lot from evil people. Look at how zealously they serve there god, Satan and look at in comparison how apathetic we serve the true God. Consider the words from Living Zealously by Joel Beeke and James A. La Belle

We should be motivated by people who are violent ways of sin, lest they serve Satan better than we serve God. People of this world are industrious, vigorous, and resolute in the ways of sin, while we are negligent, cold, and inconstant in the service of righteousness. They disregard all reproofs and counsel, they grieve friends and relatives who stand in their way they readily venture into great dangers, they waste their wealth, macerate their bodies, and in the end die martyrs to lust and sin. They are zealous in following the way to hell, while many of us are sluggish on the path to heaven. They break bone and body for hell, while we are afraid to break flesh and skin for glory.

You have to give evil people credit they love what they do and they do it well. What about the Christian?

Resturant Review: 61 Chop House

 

61 Chop House

The decor is nice but somehow the tables and booths don’t match the rest of the theme, if that make any sense at all. But what the heck it’s about the food and the service. We’ll start with the service unfortunately the service we received was well below average. The initial contact was good but it was a slow steady decline after that. Our waitress managed to hit on both of my service pet peeves, my water sat empty forever and I had to wait an eternity for our check when we were done. Speaking of the check we found out later that she ran the tip through our debit card as a separate transaction.  Hopefully she just had an off night and the other servers are better. Because overall the food was pretty good, I did have one head scratcher however. The place is owned and run by a “certified executive chef” and they serve frozen French fries that I do not understand. The menu made it very clear that the Barn Burger (pictured here)

  is what the 61 Chop house is known for so that is what I ordered. It was billed as one of the top ten burgers in Iowa for 2011. It was very good, the secret barn sauce and the onion straws were a nice touch, was it the top ten in the state? Possibly. The other diner’s at our table had a tenderloin and the prime rib which were both reported as very good. By the looks of the place and the website it looks like the 61 Chop House is very active in the community which is nice to see. Looks like in January they are revamping their menu, I’ll go back and try it again. Perhaps we will have a different waitress or by then she will have improved. I tried really hard to not let our service experience effect the food and overall score suffer. Service really does set the tone for a great dining experience.

 Price range: (everyday, a night out, a special occasion only) everyday

Overall rankings all based 1 to 5

Atmosphere:  3

Service:         2

Food:            4

Value:           3

Overall          3.5

 

213 South Wapello Road Mediapolis, IA 52637
(319) 394-9222

Are you ready?

Do you recognize any of these symptoms in people today?

Love only themselves and their money
Boastful and proud
Disobedient
Ungrateful
Consider nothing sacred.
 Unloving and unforgiving
Slandering others
No self-control
Cruel and hate what is good
 Betrayal of friends
Reckless
Puffed up with pride
Love pleasure rather than God
 Act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly

If you’re honest your answer is yes and you shouldn’t be surprised. Is this list one I just came up with in my dealings with people yesterday? No, but it could have been. This list came straight out of 2 Timothy 3 with the heading of Dangers of the Last Days. I’m not running around saying the end of the world is near, but it could be. To be true to scripture no one knows when that day will come. However the signs are there, there are indications, signs or whatever you want to call it, that the end of the world is approaching. And I can’t wait. How about you? Are you ready for the end of the world? You don’t get ready by stocking up on food, water, and guns. You get ready for the end of the world by trusting in Jesus.

Not made to wait

I was very convicted at church yesterday as it worked out the Sunday school lesson and the sermon were both pointing fingers right at me. Sunday school had to do with being a lukewarm Christian and the sermon was about sharing your faith. I was reminded of what I have done more times than I’d care to admit. I go into a situation all prepared to share my faith, talk about Jesus, to tell someone how much He means to me, then I walk away saying the opportunity never came up and I’m good with that. I should not be good with that attitude. Because Satan would be greatly pleased with that attitude and Jesus would not. Sitting around waiting for the right moment is not what we are commanded to do. In the great commission Jesus said GO not wait. There are those who would not agree but the Christian was made to play offense not defense. The opportunity never came up is one of the worst things a Christian can say because it actually shows that they hate people, by not letting them know that trusting in Jesus is how they avoid Hell. It also show how little they think of Jesus by not wanting to be identified with Him. We were not made to wait.

Time to Vote

I was asked a question today that I thought was worth blogging about. The question had to do with voting in the upcoming election and what should a person do. My answer is really very simple and I can answer it without even saying who I’m voting for. When it comes to voting everyone should vote, it’s your responsibility as a citizen of the greatest country in the history of the world. I get accused of voting a strait party ticket every time I vote, like there is something wrong with that. In my opinion in most, but not every case a person should vote a strait party ticket and it has absolutely nothing to do with party loyalty. I believe a person should actually look into what the candidates have done and not what they say they will do, then line that up with what you believe. That is who you should vote for and if you are consistent in what you believe most likely it will be a strait party ticket. I really get frustrated with those who just vote for who they “like, “when a person does that they have no core convictions. If you have no core convictions even if they are different than mine I would just a soon you not vote at all. The other question I was asked as a Christian what do I do if neither candidate is a Christian? Would you vote at all? My answer is yes, due do the fact that even if a candidate professes to be a Christian does not mean that they are. I still line them up and vote whose views are the closest to mine. Because whether a Republican or a Democrat a Christian or a non Christian wins an election they all have to answer to the same person I do, The King.

When on your knees is not enough

The following is a section from the book Glorious Ruin by Tullian Tchividjian. The book is about how suffering can actually set you free. This section on Job was eye opening and worth the entire price of the book.

Imagine for a moment that God had given Job the explanation he desired. Let’s say God had come to Job and said; this is what you are going to experience; this is how it will happen to you; but just hold on tight. It won’t last forever, and in the end you will be sanctified; I will be glorified, and the Devil will be defeated. Just know that for thousands of years, My people will be talking about you, Job, so a little bit of pain is worth generations of pleasure. What would Job have ultimately been putting his faith and trust in? What would have been helping him endure? Certainly not God alone. If Job would have been given that explanation, he could have said to himself, Well, if that’s the good that’s going to happen to me, if I’m going to get a double portion of everything I list, then I’ll endure, not for God’s sake, but for mine.

This is the key to God’s silence. God wanted Job to trust Him, come what might. He knew that it was the only way Job would survive his hours of darkness. Explanations, as we said earlier, are a substitute for trust, a red herring at best. God is interested in something much more powerful than any information could ever produce. He is interested in faith. It should come as no surprise then, that when God finally broke His silence; it was not to explain Himself. Quite the opposite in fact.

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:

² “Who is this that questions my wisdom
with such ignorant words?
³ Brace yourself like a man,
because I have some questions for you,
and you must answer them.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
⁵ Who determined its dimensions
and stretched out the surveying line?

(Job 38:1-5)

If you detect a whiff of divine sarcasm, you’re not mistaken. God asked Job a series of questions that, at first glance, almost seem mean. But they were designed to show Job just how small and powerless he really was. God was not doing this for His own benefit. Job may have been on his knees, but his forehead wasn’t to the ground yet. The Lord mercifully put to death Job’s final idol – the idol of explanation. God liberated Job from himself. It was glorious ruin.
Only when we come to the end of ourselves do we come to the beginning of God. This is a common theme in the Bible---- desperation precedes deliverance. Grief precedes glory. The cross precedes the crown. Powerlessness is the beginning of freedom. This is not to say that every cloud had a silver lining, or some such nonsense. That would be minimization.