A Short Theology of Elders

So the church were I'm going is looking to get them some of them there elders. Anywho, Oklahoma-isms aside, they seem to have the notion that most people do about elders, that you find people, train them, then you ellect them to a term of office. 

I will spare you the long monlogue, so, short and sweet. You do not create elders, you do not train elders, instead you find and reconize the people that are already doing elder things and give them the title.  If you do not have these people, your church is in serious trouble. These people are a product of the christian way of living. Paul could find elders from  churches that didn't have the new testament in any shape or form and most of the people were new christians.  I mean think about it, what can you teach a person who is supposed to be more spiritualy mature than everyone esle? Hmmm???

On the Jesus thing

Today in Seekers Chapel, a refreshing smaller thursday chapel more interested in God than anouncements,  we were talking about hell. This occured to me, God has already saved mankind. Jesus came, lived, and died for everybody's sin. There is no acceptance or denial of the fact that salvation has come. Its more like the sheep and goats or the talents. Its what we do with what we've been givin'. To put it more buzzwordy, its how we live out Gods shalom here on earth. This occured to me mostly because hell was talked about not to scare people, but to promise people justice. Hell was were justice would be served on the persecuters and Heaven were the persicuted would get there reward.  I will NOT say that these places do not exist, but they are not the focus. God is really a God of the here and now rather than the latter , someday. We ( chrisitians) are caleld to participate in our salvation and to be the tools God uses to redeem all creation. This frankly makes much more sense to me than the all powerful God of the universe died for all creation whipping out for all time, all sins ever committed , but this only works if you accdept it, what happened to the allpowerful part? Hmmm????? This also destroys any Calvinist types in my very small audiance arguments for predestination, mankind was predetermined to be saved, and is saved. The free will part is that Man still must chose to use that salvation wisely or perhaps better put to allow God to bring about shalom thruogh them.  Oh, and this is also founded on the notion that no ones going to get to heaven through a really good work ethic, we say being good isn't good enough, yet I've found very few people who actualy believe that. 

For those Astronomy Fans

Ones that used to drag certain children out of their nice arm beds at 2 am. One of my skeptic podcasts recomended this teloscope.  https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/

Carb Cycling- A diet that makes sense

So I've been listening to The Fitcast ( http://thefitcast.com/) for a while, and the people on the show keep talking about Carb Cycling. This can be used for either weight loss or body building. The notion is that you cycle your carbs, depending on the diet, you have high carb, low carb, no carb days.  Again it seems like it would make sense, My parants always had  very good results when they went on the Atkins Diet, dropping weight like crazy.  However, I never quite grasped the notion that its bad to eat fruits and veggies. Frankly, most diets work, just because your watching what you eat. I immagine , and its recomended by the guys ( men of GIRTH, both have goal weights over 200 pounds) over at Fat2Fit ( http://www.fat2fitradio.com/ ) that if you just wrote down everything you ate, you'd quite possible lose weight because you were paying attention, i.e notticing the fifteen reeces pieces cups you snatched randomly through out the day and probably you'd cut back.  Carb cycling makes sense because Carbs are the prefered energy source for your body. You cut back on these and your going to lose weight, problem is, you also need carbs like fruits and veggies not only to enjoy , but to have a normal ( or regular) life. So if you have your normal carb days when you exercize so you have energy, then do low to no carb days on your rest days there should be some weight loss. Anywho, here's some good info and links- 

Excert from- http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/metabolism-myths.aspx

Going into power-saving mode

 

The first goes like this: your body, when deprived of food for a period of time, will go into “starvation mode.”   This is when the body burns fewer calories in order to conserve energy, just in case the food shortage continues. During a famine, you’d need to live on your stored fat. Down-regulating your metabolism is a way to make those fat stores go a bit further.

 

It’s similar to the way your laptop adjusts its energy usage when it’s running on batteries, by making the screen a little dimmer, for example. When food is plentiful again, your metabolism goes back to normal, just the way your screen gets brighter when you plug your laptop back in.

 

If there were actually a famine, you’d be glad that your body is designed this way. But, if you’re trying to lose weight, the last thing you want is increased fuel efficiency. You wantto be burning through stored fat like an Escalade burns through a tank of gas. So, the trick is to reassure your body that there is no shortage of food by eating every few hours. Your body will oblige you by continuing to burn calories with reckless metabolic abandon. Or so the story goes.

 

It makes sense, doesn’t it? And, it’s sort of true. Your body does respond to a prolonged fast by slowing your metabolism to conserve energy. Here’s the thing, though: your body doesn’t go into starvation mode if you go four hours without food. In fact, it takes about three days of fasting or serious caloric restriction for your body to respond with any sort of metabolic adjustment.

 

http://www.squidoo.com/CarbRotationDietReview

 

I like this (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_8_20/ai_98539290/ ) program, but its geared more toward someone working out very hard. So, adjustment should take place. Use this ( http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/carbohydrate.asp ) to figure out how many you should eat on days of moderate exercize ( walking, biking, kayaking for instance). 

Derek Web says

He's an acoustic christian artist even my parents could stand. Anywho, he's got this song called a King & a Kingdom. I'd be lieing if I said I don't listen to a significant amount of political podcast, and enjoying egaging in political debate, but I like this song, a lot. 
Lyrics to A King & A Kingdom :
(v(vs. 1) 
who's your brother, who's your sister 
you just walked passed him 
i think you missed her 
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives 
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants 

(chorus) 
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man 
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood 
it's to a king & a kingdom 

(vs. 2) 
there are two great lies that i’ve heard: 
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die” 
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican 
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him 

(chorus) 

(bridge) 
but nothing unifies like a common enemy 
and we’ve got one, sure as hell 
but he may be living in your house 
he may be raising up your kids 
he may be sleeping with your wife 
oh no, he may not look like you thinks. 1)

o

Thought from my bible class

If we are not suffering, we are not counted worthy.