Christ

The Hell House

By Ross Engel –

All Hallows Eve is only a few days away. Costumed trick-or-treaters and late night revilers will soon be upon us! Be prepared! I have many fond memories of my childhood, dressing up to go trick-or-treating on Halloween and getting lots of free candy! I grew up in the 80s and back then my parents had a standing rule that we couldn’t eat any candy until we got home and they inspected it all. They meticulously checked our candy-filled plastic pumpkins for things that might be dangerous. Over the years, some really sick people have tried to hurt children by poisoning candy and there have even been instances of razors or nails imbedded in Halloween loot. We had great neighbors growing up though, and never had anything like that in our Halloween haul.

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You Better Stop Smoking or Else!

By Scott Keith –

Let me set the stage. After five days of being as sick as I have ever been in my life, my wife finally drags me to the urgent care. Now, keep in mind that I am really sick at this point. I a have 102° fever (often pushing 103°), I’m coughing my brains out, I have a horrendous headache, and generally look like death on a cracker. The first doctor I saw diagnosed me with an ear infection, upper respiratory infection, and said I might have pneumonia. So he gives me some antibiotics and we go home. But before I leave, I’m sent to a nurse to discuss a smoking cessation program. That’s right, at one point in my sickened stupor, I must have admitted that I smoke a pipe once or twice a week. That was enough to get the wheels of the medical-political machine moving. It no longer mattered that I was very ill with something that had absolutely nothing to do with smoking a pipe. All that mattered was that I was one of those evil ones:  a smoker.

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Face Eating Zombies!

By Ross Engel –

My wife just introduced me to a new drug. It’s called: Flakka. Apparently Flakka turns you into a Zombie. And like Zombies, the people who take it have no idea what they’re doing. They stumble, moan, and are oblivious to the world around them. While on the drug, users have tried to run through glass doors. They’re impervious to pain. Jump off buildings. Run around naked. There is even a story about a young Florida man who police found eating someone’s face after he had murdered them.

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You Are Not in Control

By Jaime Nava –

Life is changing for me. I am moving states to begin a new position in St. Louis. I just had a second daughter born over a couple weeks ago. We’re selling the house and getting ready to move. It’s exciting but also sad. You see, I had to decide whether or not to stay at the congregation I served or to serve in St. Louis. I do not envy anyone with a call. It is hard.

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Why the American Church Is Declining

By Bob Hiller –

What if your church had it all figured out? What if you had a perfectly dynamic pastor who preached challenging and inspirational sermons? What if those sermons were entirely orthodox and beautifully balanced Law and Gospel? What if your Bible studies were more engaging and thrilling? What if everyone in your small group ministry bought in perfectly to the model and you had record involvement? What if your music was liturgically sound and emotionally satisfying? What if you had tithing across the board? What if you had the perfect outreach plan and a superb assimilation program? What if your youth group perfectly equipped students for the world ahead with good theology and apologetics? What if the vast majority of churches across the country did this? What if…?

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Stop Looking Down!

By Joel A. Hess –

Western society is obsessed with living here for as long as possible. The manifestations of this focus at first seem grand and hopeful. We spend tons of money to cure diseases. We spend billions putting people on Mars. We can talk to our parents in Michigan while living in Prague. We can watch the Olympics in Rio from our living room in Ann Arbor. We have done so many cool things that many truly put all their hope in our endeavors, whether explicitly or subconsciously. “The sky is the limit,” exclaim the progressive achievements of man! Yet what a limit it is!

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Jesus Got Pwned

By Jaime Nava –

God made husband and wife. The devil tempted the wife. She went outside her programming. Her work (and her husband not doing crap to stop her and also going out of his programming) caused a virus to enter into the program of creation. Now there’s lag. Now there are crashes. Now there are blue screens of death upon humanity. The Scripter could have wiped the drive and started over. He didn’t.

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“Love your Spouse” Challenged

By Cindy Koch –

It’s sometimes funny to me the debates I entertain in my own mind. And this week I debate with myself over the infamous #loveyourspouse challenge that is plastered all over Facebook and other such imaginary places. Seven days of pictures, seven days of lovely sayings, seven days of carefully selected moments, seven days to incur the jealousy and disgust of the not-as-happy virtual world. I put the question to myself – could I, should I, #lovemyspouse?

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The Eternal Subordination of the Son

By Scott Keith –

There is a theological disagreement stewing in the evangelical world with which I think the Jagged Mafia should be made aware. The controversy is over something called the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS). This week on the Thinking Fellows podcast, we talked with Elyse and Joel Fitzpatrick about the controversy, and the show has stirred up some lively conversation. What I’d like to do today is simply introduce our readers to what is going on, define some terms, and provide a very slight commentary.

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God Mode

By Jaime Nava –

Growing up playing games on a PC, you learn certain tricks. Some games have console commands you usually access by hitting the “~” key (called a tilde, if you didn’t know). If you’re savvy enough, you can use these console commands in single-player games to give yourself all kinds of goodies. You can add millions of gold to your stash. You can give yourself that item you needed to get past the hurdle in the game. One thing I recall doing in my younger days is playing in god mode. What does this mean? It means that you never get hurt and never run out of resources. You are invincible. You become godlike.

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The Lord is My Shepherd

By Paul Koch –

We just finished up an incredible week of Vacation Bible School. For the past week Grace Lutheran Church was transformed into a barnyard of sorts as our children and children from our community gathered together to learn and rejoice in the gifts of our Lord. Together we had a lot of fun: sang a lot of songs, did crafts, played games and learned about the incredible working of our Lord who never ceases to gather his children together and bless them over and over again. The key verse from Scripture that stood as the center point for all the other stories we studied through the week was Psalm 23. Psalm 23, arguably the most famous of all the Psalms or at least the most famous opening line of any of the Psalms, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

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Losing our Identity

By Cindy Koch –

Any self-reflective person questions herself at some point in life. Am I making the right decision? Have I walked the good path? Who am I, and what am I doing here? Surely, some people don’t care to examine the motivation that drives them. Some people don’t give the time to consider the outcome of their choices. But I suspect you are someone who ponders your identity.

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