That is what a group of investors down the road in Oklahoma City will pay to buy out the lease of the Seattle SuperSonics. The city of Seattle keeps the colors and name and they get a big chunk of change. Oklahoma City gets a team that is already costing them $121 million for renovations to the Ford Center and the construction of a practice facility for the no longer Sonics team.

Maybe they will call the team the Black Hole because of the money it is sucking in. What in the world was Oklahoma City thinking? Sure the Hornets did well for two years but that was two years. I remember back in college they had a CBA team. I went to opening night and it was packed. Seven years later they were gone.

What does Oklahoma City hope to prove with an NBA team? That they can waste money on things that don’t matter?

What do you think? I was reading about the carbon offset business and all I could think of is what a scam. So we are going to score people for doing the right thing, give them a credit and let them sell it to people who don’t want to do the right thing.

So I got to thinking. Why not a human offset business? Why couldn’t we score kindness or helpfulness to other humans, the helping hands we give, give it a cash value and sell those to people who don’t want to be help others?

Billion dollar market? Could we get a kyoto Protocol for that?

What a bunch of snake oil.

The answer to our problem is still the same. Creation does groan at our abuses, thank goodness creation is smart enough to know better. What a joke.

Anyone read much on this? What impact do you think it will have on the world? Any? Good idea or bad?

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Romans 8:19-21

Has anyone seen this movie? Not exactly a big name one but my wife rented it for the family and I thought it had a lot to say. Let me know if you have seen it or if you would watch it because I would love to discuss it with someone.

Thanks.

Lay it Down from Tyler Braun on Vimeo.

Tyler dropped by my blog on a Leeland post back in the day and I have started reading his blog. I highly recommend it, he has some great insights and thoughtful links.

Take a look at him over at Man of Depravity. He is a worship leader and this is my first time to see and hear him. I thought it was great and wanted to share. Jump to the link and listen to Lay It Down.

I am convinced I have a mile wide swath of arrogance running through my veins. How about you? Isa. 2:10-22

10 Go into the rocks,
hide in the ground
from dread of the LORD
and the splendor of his majesty!
11 The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled
and the pride of men brought low;
the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.
12 The LORD Almighty has a day in store
for all the proud and lofty,
for all that is exalted
(and they will be humbled),
13 for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty,
and all the oaks of Bashan,
14 for all the towering mountains
and all the high hills,
15 for every lofty tower
and every fortified wall,
16 for every trading ship [b]
and every stately vessel.
17 The arrogance of man will be brought low
and the pride of men humbled;
the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,
18 and the idols will totally disappear.
19 Men will flee to caves in the rocks
and to holes in the ground
from dread of the LORD
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
20 In that day men will throw away
to the rodents and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
which they made to worship.
21 They will flee to caverns in the rocks
and to the overhanging crags
from dread of the LORD
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
22 Stop trusting in man,
who has but a breath in his nostrils.
Of what account is he?

Too much trying to figure it all out. Too much telling others how much I know and what I have done and can do.

Arrogance. My theology is smothered with arrogance. My teaching and my treatment of others. You read my blog, any observations that might humble me?

I’m taking a blog break, let me know your thoughts.

Thanks.

So the Chinese have moved into Africa with a don’t ask don’t tell policy when it comes to what happens to the money. If the government wants to invest it in a home in Morocco so be it. If they want to pad their Swiss bank accounts, who cares. The Chinese don’t, they just want the natural resources that Africa has. The people who are abused don’t matter.

The article in Fast Company tells us that many businesses and construction projects are owned or worked by people from China. China is full so what better place to send them. So many of the jobs created by the money given from China actually go to transplanted Chinese.

But this is what really hit me. Why do you think the Chinese need all of those natural resources? Do you think it is for their people? No, most of the resources they take from Africa end up exported to other nations. So all of that furniture that we buy from China. The wood can come from Africa. How do they get it, do you really want to know?

So we are sending money to Africa to help the poor who often times are poor because of what the U.S. did to them in the past and what is being done by China today all because of demand in the United States.

Irony I suppose. You might want to call it trickle down benevolence. We create the demand which leads China to plunder Africa which is vulnerable because of past Western abuse.

Now think about all of the giving done at church and ask what percentage of that makes it to people in Africa and then do the math.

I created a shirt that says what I think we need to hear. Consume Less. It has the verse Matthew 6:19-21 also. Certainly feed those in need in Africa but do you know what else we could do that would help, that is right, consume less. Try not to purchase items from China. Spread the word.

The reality is that the more the middle class grows in expectations in America the less likely anyone will find the same in Africa. If we are truly called to seek justice how just is it that we live the way we do while others starve? When our standard of living is fed by Africa’s natural resources.

Will it take an adjustment in our living standard, yes, but how much help am I really giving when the conditions are caused by my consumption?

Something to think about the next time you look to government to fix the problem. Ours is still involved in China. In fact the article discussed what we are trying to do to keep from losing out on Africa’s natural resources. It seems that ours is only interested in making sure we keep getting a piece of the African pie.

The church is a body. It isn’t one because we make it one or agree it is one, it is a body. We don’t get to say it isn’t because it is broken and divided and struggling to have a clear focus on Jesus Christ. It doesn’t work that way.

I was thinking about this after reading the USAToday article and dealing with personal decisions. You see I think at times people think about individual sin as something that is forgivable and therefore not an issue. What we don’t seem to think about is how that impacts the body.

When you start to see statistics that believer divorce rates are higher then the world you see what I mean. They are measured as a body, not as individuals or can it be forgiven. The world views it as the body. I understand that this rate is heavily impacted by the fact that most people live together but even that fails to recognize the issue.

I think a big problem with the body is we see ourselves as individuals, as if we get to decide if we are a part of the body or not. When we view sin we only think about how it impacts us, we don’t think about the body.

I think Paul understood this when he wrote to Corinth as recorded in 1 Corinthians 5. Get the sexual sin out of the body, the kingdom. When he tells them, “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16) I think he understood.

No, I think far to often we think as individuals robbing the body of power all because we are consumed with personal salvation and if we will be forgiven. The body has no impact because we don’t appreciate that we are part of a body.

Can anything be done to correct this? Is preaching about it enough or is it so engrained that it won’t come out? Do we have any choice? Is it better to just start something totally new? Thoughts.

Most evangelicals, whose denominations teach that Jesus is the sole route to salvation, instead say people who have “led good lives” go to heaven.

Has anyone read this article? What do you think? Is it because it isn’t being taught or is it that people don’t believe it? What do you think? Both?

Is an addiction to what we feel a part of this? Anyone?

Just a short step back into my Church of Christ days.

It would seem that Acts 15 and the events surrounding this would forever challenge anyone’s ideas about patternism or any worship rules and church structure rules of what one must do to keep saved.

The Jerusalem council goes against many tenants of the patternistic Church of Christ. Send a letter to all of the churches? Gather as a group to establish acceptable practices for all churches? No autonomy there.
Explain that they should avoid food offered to idols, sexual immorality, eating strangled meat and from consuming blood? That list looks nothing like the one I grew up with. These pagan worshippers would have certainly needed to know how important instruments were.

I still don’t see how any can argue such a position in light of what transpired in Jerusalem. I guess James and the rest were mistaken. I guess they needed to wait for the entire New Testament to be compiled so they could cobble together a list of rules, dos and don’ts. I suppose if they had a completed NT they would have known better than to focus on meat, blood and sexual immorality.

I will never understand this one. Anyway, after the weekend I will be back to my regularly scheduled program. I just had a conversation that left me scratching my head. I will probably never get it.

From the album Urban Hymns. Thoughts? Suggestions?