Danny's Men's Studies

On ABC last week, they interviewed Steve Baldwin twice: once on Nightline and another on 20/20. And also found a recent (Oct'06) Salon article "Dude, where's my cross." And seems like his approach seems much better than most uptight Christians: taking the Gospels to the skateboard parks and similar Xtreme sports.

20/20 also introduced jc girls girls girls, which ministers to female strippers (and, to lesser extent, to men absorbed by such "actors") by loving the strippers rather than laying guilt trips on them (the cofounder, Heather Veitch, was a stripper herself). They actually go into strip clubs and adult themed (Pornographic) conventions, much as Jesus would do! How many pastors do you know attend Porn conventions to openly spread the Gospel?

The only draw back I see is that I still like the idea of one on one discipleship rather than merely packing rooms and eventually the pews....

Update: here's a great quote from 700 club interview with Heather:

There was an air of perfection she felt like she couldn't reach. Heather says the bar in the church is set high and no one really told her that all that she needed to know was that she needed to call on Jesus daily.

And that's the barrier that Jesus broke through: He interacted with "sinners" rather than "church folks" and called the sinners to discipleship rather than membership (what the church folks focus on). The more I read the New Testament, the more I see that "Christians" today (I don't exclude myself, by the way) are not the kind of people Jesus would bother to spend time with and even have some nasty barbs to be thrown at. Just as He spent more time attacking, condemning and correcting the Pharisees and the Sadducees, I have a feeling that He would be doing the same to the Christians of today....

Copyright 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

My friend and I took our second sons through 4 days of lessons on journey to manhood (J2M) this week and they sure had a blast: we went camping for 3 days and 2 nights, 1 afternoon at the beach (actually at a tide pool) and cruising on Thanksgiving morning through the northern parts of L.A.: from Beverly Hills both the retail stores (stopped to gawk at Ferrari's and Lamborghini's in showrooms on Wilshire Blvd. and even followed a Ferrari for about quarter of a mile) and residential areas to Hollywood area to Chinatown and to downtown L.A. both Little Tokyo as well as the homeless area. Our next meeting will be in spring break time.

Update: Oh yeah, we did have Thanksgiving Dinner with my family (my parents, sibling, my wife and my other son) although I was too sick to eat anything....

Copyright 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Nightline's program last night (Nov 13) had a segment on "U2-charist" where churches are starting to using U2 music as part of the worship service. I like how it ended with the reporter saying:

If U2 will fill his pews and the donation baskets? well that's a blessing.

And then the anchor of Nightline (Terry Moran) ends with:

Upon this rock I suppose this church is built.

And how appropriate! Church has gone mainstream where packing a room and collecting money seems so primary to today's church mission. Never mind that many churches purport to "preach good news to the unsaved." I've been in too many churches where building program is very central to the "growth" of the church (including the one we are attending today).

What a contrast to what Jesus wanted for His Church:

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:21-24

Just as God was best represented in the tent based tabernacle [rather than the Jerusalem Temple fixated in one location], so too Jesus wants us to worship God free from physical place with the focus on the spiritual and the truth. It's so ironic that Jesus didn't even have a home ("Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."" Matthew 8:20) yet all churches end up building monuments to themselves. I'll never call them monuments for God since God doesn't need (let alone want) buildings but a heart change one person at a time.

Copyright 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

"Ban religion, says Elton John" has a great quote:

Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate. The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion?

And personally I must say I am more and more in agreement. I obviously don't agree about what Elton thinks about homosexuality (sodomites as some people like to say), but I think religion as it is today can be banned and let it die away.

Jesus Christ calls for disciples and discipleship, not church members and business-like church organization. And He dogged all the "religious" people of His day: much as, I would imagine, He would do so today. And what people of His day considered holy turned people's idea of holiness upside down: much as He would turn upside down the so called religious people (even "Christians") of today, I'm pretty sure....

Copyright, 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

At VD's blog, there is some hot debate on Anti-Theism and Christianity [this is one link: there have been many posts over the past few days].

Anyway, I noticed this parable today:

"He [Rich man] answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

Luke 17:27-31. NIV

People who won't listen to the Bible, even if someone rises from the dead, they won't be convinced. How true!

Copyright 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.