Entertainment, Music, Relationships, Christianity in everyday life (as opposed to religion).
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"You take the blue pill and the story ends...believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill...and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
– Morpheus
“Ultimately, the most controversial and rebellious thing I've ever done was become a Christian.”
-- Alice Cooper
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We have been following a Jesus of Christian traditions and our own warped understanding, not the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels. In order to correct this distorted view of Jesus, I suggest we need nothing short of a revised and refreshed faith, a third-millennium faith that is less concerned about our being right and more concerned about our being righteous and relational.
--Theron Messer
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“Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff’s office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar”
"There is no way, if you take the whole counsel of God's Word, that you can equate riches or material things as a sign of God's blessing... I have asked God to forgive me and I ask all who have sat under my ministry to forgive me for preaching a gospel emphasizing earthly prosperity."
-Jim Baker (Post Prison)
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Music
Re-Union, Alice Cooper, Pat Boone, Creed, Keith Green, Cher, The Archies, Stryper (the Archies on acid), Styx, Dennis DeYoung (You are Styx, man!), Michael Omartian, Alabama, Aerosmith, Rich Mullins, Al Green, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Grass Roots, Temptations, Elton John, Terry Taylor, Matchbox 20, Vivaldi, Blondie, Third Day, Janny, Five For Fighting, Queen, Amy Grant, Barry Manilow, Michael W Smith, Three Dog Night, Petra, Doris Day, The Monkees, Lion King Broadway Soundtrack, Tamplin, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Chicago, Peter Cetera (You are Chicago, man!), Uriah Heep, Barry McGuire, Quiet Riot, They Might Be Giants, Jars Of Clay, Randy Travis, Bride, Andy Kim, Bon Jovi, The Newsboys, REO Speedwagon, Rez,
Liberation Suite, Diane Warren, Rod Stewart, DeGarmo & Key, Robert Palmer, Paul Clark, David Bowie, Journey, Steve Perry (You are Journey, man!), DC Talk, Janis Joplin, and on and on...
I also LOVE live theater; especially musical theater. Some of my favorites are:
Les Miserables
Wicked
Lion King
Movies
What's Up Doc?, The Birds, Star Wars (The Original), Die Hard, Titanic, Grease, Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Television
Journeyman, 24, Mad About You, Cop Rock (Yes, that's right. I said Cop Rock!), The Simpsons, Fox News, The 4400, The Closer, Less Than Perfect, , Burn Notice, Monk, Green Acres, Prison Break, Damages, Friday Night Lights
Books
The Bible The Shack Les Miserables What's So Amazing About Grace?
Velvet Elvis
Rethinking The Wineskin
So, You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore Unplugging From Religion... ...Connecting With God Blue Like Jazz North American Diet One Day At A Time
Heroes
Kathy Foreman,
Michael Omartian,
Diane Warren,
Billy Graham
About me:
Hi. I'm Dave.
I am on a journey. The older I get, and the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know. I am increasingly wary of those who propose to have all the answers. The experiences I’ve had, the truth I have discovered, and the questions I still have, I share with others through counseling, writing, singing, and just plain friendship.
I been involved in “church” much of my life. I’ve been an elder, a co-pastor, a worship leader, etc. etc. In December of 2007, my wife and I finally came out of organized religion. I still function in many of the areas I used to, but I now do so in a more free-flowing, organic fashion, outside the walls of what we have called “the church.” Getting religion out of me is a process God is still engaged in. This is a journey of much discovery. It’s exciting, frustrating, fun, and scary. I read of many on the same journey, but I know very few on this journey locally. (If you live in or around Fort Wayne, Indiana, please feel free to contact me.)
Read my blogs, listen to my play list, check out some of the links. Hopefully, you’ll find something of interest here. Either way, be blessed in your journey.
Who I'd like to meet: Guys looking for friendship on this amazing, sometimes confusing, journey called life. Wouldn't mind getting together for coffee, a movie, or hanging out on occasion. Having some more prayer-partners wouldn't hurt. Of course, my wife and I are always interested in meeting new couples, as well.
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Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
--Lenny Bruce
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It’s not so much that the Christian faith HAS a lot of paradoxes. It’s that it IS a lot of paradoxes. And we cannot resolve a paradox. We have to let it be what it is. Being a Christian then is more about celebrating mystery than conquering it.
--Rob Bell in “Velvet Elvis”
..We know there's something more. We sense it, we feel it, and we want it. But how do we find it---a spirituality that stands up to the questions of an honest, searching mind?
"This book is for those who need a fresh take on Jesus and what it means for us to live the kind of life he teaches us to live," writes Rob Bell. "This pursuit of Jesus is leading us backward as much as forward ... I am learning that what seems brand new is often just the discovery of something that has been there all along---it just got lost somewhere and it needs to be picked up, dusted off, and reclaimed." Velvet Elvis offers original and refreshingly personal perspectives on what Christianity is really about.
----“This may be one of the most important and relevant books I’ve ever read.” David Foreman
..Can you love a God who doesn't make sense? Like Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, Miller's memoir-like collection of essays wrestles with the paradoxes of the Christian faith, describing his journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely gracious Savior. A mind-changing perspective for those who believe that organized religion doesn't meet their spiritual needs.
DAVE: "The chapters on 'Confession' and 'Love (How to really love other people)' are truly eye-opening, and potentially life-changing."
Check out Re-Union
on iSound.
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"The hijacking of the concept of morality began, of course, when we reduced Scripture to formula and a love story to theology, and finally morality to rules. It is a very different thing to break a rule than it is to cheat on a Lover.”
--Donald Miller, "In Search of God Knows What"
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But today I am free!...I have no fear of money or financial security anymore…the imaginations of the future are gone and I have learned to live in the truth of the present, where Jesus dwells with me...My life is full of joy!...Tomorrow is a myth and a drunk driver or a little wayward cell in my body could obliterate any expectation I could have. I only have grace for today and in embracing a life being loved…I am FREE!
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Here's an interesting interview with ALICE COOPER, in which he touches on his Christian faith. CLICK HERE
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Matt. 7:13
“Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it."
Grace is the narrow, uncrowded road often not taken that leads to eternal life.
The broad road is a religious eight-lane freeway, bumper to bumper with people attempting to earn a good relationship with God on their terms. It's paved with good intentions, but it's the highway to hell.
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We humans are notorious for taking something Scripture describes as a reality, giving a term to it and thinking we’ve replicated the reality. Paul talked about the church that gathered in various homes, but he never called it ‘house church’. Houses were just where they ended up in their life together. Jesus was the focus, not the location.
Jake Colsen
..Since the church first began, Christians have had trouble accepting God's grace. We've substituted holiness, discipleship, order, regulation, and a long list of things to avoid in place of God's free gift. These efforts to measure up eventually drain the joy and life out of our relationship with God.
Bad News Religion is a convicting, liberating exploration of how we, in the name of religion, have shifted the focus from the work of God to our ability to become worthy of salvation, a road leading to bondage and defeat. The key to success in the Christian life isn't what we do, but who we know. Stop robbing yourself from experiencing the richness of God's grace and embrace God and the liberating fullness of His grace.
Seasons Of Dave
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"You should realize that the Bible neither describes nor promotes the local church as we know it today. The local church many have come to cherish—the services, offices, programs, buildings, ceremonies—is neither biblical or unbiblical. It is abiblical—that is, such an organization is not addressed in the Bible.”
George Barna in Revolution
First, Check out STEVE TAYLOR and DONALD MILLER.
"The chapters on 'Confession' and 'Love (How to really love other people)' are truly eye-opening, and potentially life-changing."
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"Using the term ‘spiritual life’ is just a way of talking about our life as seen from God’s perspective. Very often, when people think about spiritual life, they will compartmentalize it. God is not interested in some "thing" called your spiritual life, He’s just interested in your life. Jesus said, ‘I have come that you might have life.’ One of the reasons for current interest in various forms of spirituality, is that people desire to be fully alive.
Jesus spent a great deal of His time, not so much teaching people what they didn’t know, but trying to teach them that what they thought they knew was wrong. He did this especially with religious types who had distorted ideas about spiritual life. Author Dallas Willard said, ‘Distorted ideas of spirituality, spirituality wrongly understood, is one of the primary sources of human misery and rebellion against God.’" -- John Ortberg PhD
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