Immersion Baptism

I am a member of a church that practices “Immersion Baptism” of believers. It is not a tidy event with a few drops of water on an infant who does not know what is going on. When we baptize it is a soggy messy affair. The person being baptized must be able to confess with understanding, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and my Lord and Savior.” The person must really want to be immersed into Christ.

It is a reminder that being a Christian means that we totally belong to Christ. In going under the water we die to our old life and are buried with Christ and being raised up out of the water we are resurrected to a new life in Christ. Baptism is our first obedience to Jesus and it is here that we receive our gifts of the Holy Spirit to do the ministry God calls us to carry out.

Soaking wet we know that from this point on we belong to Jesus and that we can go to God in prayer and claim our baptism and forgiveness of our sins.

Is the Dash Really A Straight Line?

Older tombstones will often tell you something about the person buried there but modern stones usually have a date of birth then a dash and date of death. You may see 1901 – 1998 under the name and that is all there is for that life.

The dash there fore contains all those years and events and leaves you to wonder what it was all about. Now is that dash on close inspection really just a straight line? If we magnify it by researching the life of the deceased what will we find?

I think that we will find a long series of interlocking circles of people, relationships, and events. People come into our lives and we share things and events and then we go our separate ways and they become one of our circles. Later we cross paths again and a circle interlocks. One example is found in our online social networks’ like “Facebook.”  Since joining facebook I have been contacted by hundreds of old friends and family and the circles come back around and interlock. Going to my high school reunion did the same thing.

So you see I think that that life dash on the tombstone is really a series of interlocking circles. 

Polygamy

The word polygamy means many wives. There are some countries in the world today that allow a man to have more than one legal wife. Most of these countries but not all of the countries are Islamic and their laws allow for four wives who must all be treated equally.

The Christian Bible states that a Bishop must have one, and only one, wife but leaves an option for a man to have more than one wife if he is not a bishop. The bible tells us of many men both in the old and new testaments that had more than one wife. King Solomon had hundreds of them.   

The culture of the first century and before permitted polygamy. Western European countries after the fall of Rome passed laws allowing only one wife at a time. Before Utah became a state it allowed polygamy because the Mormon Church permitted it. In order to achieve statehood the Mormon Church abandoned the practice. There are groups of Mormons today who still who hold to those old ways. There is even a TV show called “Sister Wives” that touts the “lifestyle” as though it is a good thing.

Should marriage laws be tied to religious beliefs? Should US laws allow for religions to set and practice their own standards for the number of wives? What do you think about this?

A Very Spiritual Retreat

A Very Spiritual Retreat

I spent this past week-end on a very spiritual retreat singing with the Kentucky Regional Men’s Chorus. I joined a hundred other Christian men at Lake Cumberland State Resort Park in one of the most spiritual events a man could enjoy. It is an awesome and powerful feeling to sing the songs of our faith with so many men.

From Friday night through Saturday night we sang, prayed, worshiped and experienced Communion. Then on Sunday morning we provided a sermon in music for First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Somerset, Kentucky. What a blessing that was!

I have been participating in this chorus for eight years of its nineteen years of existence. Each year we are in a different part of the state often in one of the state parks but sometimes in hotels in the larger cities. This is an annual retreat that once a man experiences he won’t want to miss. For the most part the men are from Kentucky but we have men who come from may other states and Canada. Some are men who have moved away but come back for this and some are like my brother who at my invitation drives up from Louisiana to sing with me.

I am already looking forward to next February in Henderson.

Check out the web site at http://www.kyregionalmenschorus.org/