Webcam frenzy!

Jesus is our homey, too...

Hey there, party people! It's just me, checking in with my regular semi-monthly blog post. Just wanted to give you a quick story. As some of you may remember, I have been the substitute preacher at a local church for the last 2 weeks, and the next 2 weeks also.

Well, the lady who plays piano at this small church, as well as the woman who leads music, will both be out this week. So the Mighty Mrs. J is leading worship, and she roped me into I volunteered to play guitar to accompany her.

I'm not very good, so we have to sing one of about 12 songs I can kinda play. We were singing through one of them, "I See the Lord."

The Former Toddler Houdini must have been listening, because she came through the house singing the chorus. Except when she sang it, it came out as, "Homey, Homey, Homey is the Lord." Which is the way I plan to sing it on Sunday.

Remember, he can be your Homey, too...

Here she is, looking adoringly at her big brother:

3 video notes...

Here are the 3 kids, giving you their video greetings:






Abby's is a little loud, so be warned:

A personal update on, well, me...

I've been a bit scarce around here. Business is going really well, and it's hard to make time for blogging. In order to blog regularly right now, I'd need to take time away from less important activities, like spending time with my wife and kids. (Maybe I need to change my priorities.)

I would like to ask for those of you who are praying folks to drop a line or two to God for me and the family. You may remember that a few weeks ago, I preached at a small local church. it was the first time I had preached anywhere in a while.

Well, it went pretty smoothly. No one threw anything, or heckled me. Now, they've asked me to come back and preach for the next four Sundays, and teach their Wednesday night Bible study.

I don't really feel nervous about the whole thing, at least not yet. But I do want to be a blessing to them while I'm there. So I'm asking for prayer in a couple of areas. First, pray that I would be able to preach and teach God's love, without the baggage that sometimes comes in a traditional church setting. Second, pray for my family. It will be a little hard to be away from the people we usually fellowship with on Sunday. (We're seeing them at different times, but it isn't the same.)

Anyway, that's my update. You may now resume your normal activities...

The consequences of China's war on girls...

This article from Associated Press talks about something that is going to become a big problem for China in the coming years. Because of their strict one-child per family policy, they now have a lot more boys than girls. (The policy has been in effect since the 1970s.) Their 2005 census indicates that "males under age 20 exceeded their female counterparts by a whopping 32 million."

The reason for this is that many families, faced with only having one child, have chosen to abort female babies so they could have male babies. Apparently abortion is widely available, even in the last trimester of a woman's pregnancy.

Chinese officials are afraid that they will face increased crime rates as these boys grow up, and are unable to find mates.

The real tragedy is that because of the population control policies of the Chinese government, girls have become a burden for many Chinese families. In addition to the baby girls who have been aborted, many are abandoned, or even killed, after birth.

Of course, the Chinese government has no moral qualms about having babies killed. But because they see that trouble is on the horizon, they are loosening some of the restrictions on families having more than one child. Hopefully, it will mean that some of these precious girls will survive.

That would be a good thing. But the root of the problem is that the Chinese government doesn't see the Chinese people as valuable in themselves. Their value comes from their usefulness to the state. I can only hope that the US never gets to that place...

Does US Christianity need to be less balanced?

I just ran across this post from John Frye over at Jesus, the Radical Pastor.  In it, he makes a strong call for the church in the US to be less "balanced," less comfortable, and less bland. 

I don't have time for much comment right now.  But this post got me thinking, and I wanted to pass along the link...