Before I get to the parable of “The Farmer and the Seed”, I thought I'd take a few paragraphs to explain why I had decided to do a sermon series on the parables of Jesus in the first place.

Although I have promised not to be "preachy" in this blog (and I intend to keep that promise), I think you'll understand that part of my job description as a pastor is to be "preachy." I don't mean that in the sense of laying a guilt trip on people, but simply helping point people toward Jesus. To be effective in doing this requires an understanding of the culture of the people you are trying to reach. Although there is a definite Christian sub-culture in the United States, this is not the group I am trying to reach, but rather those outside of this Christian sub-culture.

This group, for the most part, has little respect for the Bible, the Church, or Christianity as a religion. Simply saying "It's in the bible so you should believe it" has little,...

jbbnbsmith

Forget the Blue Angels - You Ain't Seen Flying Like This!

Picture from Whatbird.com

I walk home for lunch almost each day and keep an eye out for the neighborhood birds – the usual scene can be seen: European Starlings, Mourning Doves, Mockingbirds, Crows, Scrub Jays, Robins, and Black Pheobes.

Lately, I've spotted a familiar forked tail, bright orange and blue coloring, and of course, the amazing swoops and dives of this vivacious flycatcher. Spring is back and so are the Barn Swallows.

Plentiful throughout America, anyone with a nearby open field should have a chance to see these amazing flyers.

To be more precise, it's the males who've returned first to select a nest site. The females arrive later and will begin selecting males for the breeding season. They watch the males dance in flight and sing their songs. The girls are looking for long forked...

Hex_Enduction_Hour

Memories. All kinds of things can trigger memories, I read or heard somewhere that your sense of smell can trigger specific memories, I don't know if its true or not just thought it was interesting. One thing that triggers some very vivid memories is this song. I'm going take a trip down memory lane courtesy of Linkin Park...

It reminds me of the first time I heard the song, it was at our friendly not-so-local game store (we had to drive 45-50 minutes to get there) right when their CD was out or about to come out, near the end of 2000, I was a senior in High School. I was playing in a the weekly magic tournament. Magic was my life back then, I had been playing for 3-4 years by then, and it was all I did, school half a day, then work 8 hours, then magic. All my money was spent on Magic any money that wasn't spent on Magic went to gas so I could drive to play Magic. All my spare time was spent playing Magic. Even in school I was thinking about Magic,...

netherspirit

Well were just days away from the infamous date of April 20th.

Over the past few years I have met, and are no loger associated with, people of diverse background who have certain "vices" I do not agree with.

On several occassion they had refered to be "420 friendly". At the time I didn't know bout the reference. So I did a little research into April 20th and found some intresting facts.
Persons, Places, and Events asscociated with April 20th...

...

PochoMan

It has come to my mind several times that it would be freaking amazing if Heroscape was a video game. Me, being a video game enthusiast, would probably be at the store at 12:00 midnight to get it. This would be amazing because:

You could train against computers
You could test armies
You could make and save boards
You could play via internet connection with other 'scapers
You could download updates when new characters came out

However, there would be some things that would be a problem:

People have to leave mid-game
Viewing the board might be difficult
People might stop buying heroscape figures (not likely) and just use downloads
What system(s)?
Line of sight (How would the computer know)
And obviously, dice rolling won't feel random (at least to me)

But still, I salivate at the thought. It might happen one day...

...some day...

Garet Jaxx