Session Notes

Miscarriage:

“Emotional effects of miscarriage vary among women and often take longer to heal than their physical counterparts. It’s common to experience extreme sadness, anger, guilt and anxiety about future pregnancies. There is no ”typical“ timeframe for emotional recovery; every woman experiences the grieving process in her own way and travels the road to healing at her own pace. While it’s important to allow time and personal ”space“ for grieving, if the grief becomes too overwhelming — leading to a more serious episode of depression and despondency —”

This is a good article outlining the feelings of miscarriage. The guilt must be vented/given to God in order to receive His perspective that will fully reveal healing.

Sexual addiction – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“According Patrick Carnes (Out of the Shadows) – the cycle begins with the ”Core Beliefs“ that sex addicts hold:

”I am basically a bad, unworthy person.“
”No one would love me as I am.“
”My needs are never going to be met if I have to depend on others.“
”Sex is my most important need.“

These beliefs drive the addiction on its progressive and destructive course:

Pain agent

First a pain agent is triggered / emotional discomfort (e.g. shame, anger, unresolved conflict) Sex addict is not able to take care of the pain agent in a healthy way.

Disassociation.

Prior to acting out sexually, the sex addict goes through a period of mental preoccupation or obsession. Sex addict begins to disassociate (moves away from his feelings). A separation begins to take place between his mind and his emotional self.

Altered state of consciousness / a trance state / bubble of euphoric fantasized experience”

barna.org

The research found that there are two types of people being attracted to house churches. The older participants, largely drawn from the Boomer population, are devout Christians who are seeking a deeper and more intense experience with God and other believers. The other substantial segment is young adults who are interested in faith and spirituality but have little interest in the traditional forms of church. Their quest is largely one of escaping outdated structures and institutions.

The survey also indicated that there is likely to be more change in the house church environment in the years to come. The ideas of worshiping in homes rather than church buildings, and being led by group members rather than religious professionals, are new to most Americans. The survey suggested that many people are just beginning to think about, and get comfortable with, the idea of homes being the dominant place for shared faith experiences.

Interestingly enough, Rick Warren (Pretty much the epicenter of the problem) has even noticed — though his solutions are, as yet, pretty much the same drivel:

The truth is many people are very open to learning about God and spiritual issues, they just don’t feel welcome at church or feel that it has anything to offer them. That is our problem.

Barna isn’t telling most of us anything new really — he’s just got numbers to back him. Anyone who hasn’t figured out that the members of the evangelical church are rather rapidly draining out the door has been living under a rock.

There’s both an ironic difference and similarity between the two of them though: Barna has figured out that the traditional bricks and mortar church is already facing a tidal wave and it isn’t going to end. Warren still thinks that if he just hypes up the same-old-same-old a little, people will be back. Neither of them, however, has seemed to figure out what is causing it.

Truth is, it isn’t that the young people are really trying to escape institutions — they are basically agnostic towards the existence and validity of those structures. It isn’t that the adults are seeking something deeper — they are fleeing a place where depth is impossible because it is fundamentally opposed to the core message of the Gospel. Somewhere along the line, the unthinkable happened. These people sat down and reread for the very first time those little known books called Romans, Galatians and some other weird names — much, I suspect, to the horror of their church leaders.

They discovered the unmentionable: That the ethical rantings of the evangelical church have been delivered by pastors who had actually been taught the Gospel — but preferred to use legalism to control their flock. They discovered that those people Paul calls, “The Judizers,” or “Those who are of the circumcision,” were at the helm. They discovered that a Church that should have been leading people to maturity preferred to keep them in infancy — because it made a lot of money to build big buildings. They discovered it — and they wanted more. The sad part of this is that all of those churches could keep their members and gain thousands more — if they would just put aside their power, fear and control issues and listen (for a change) to what we have known for hundreds of years.

Father Hughes, in his work God of Surprises, comments on von Hugel’s critical analysis in his two volume work called The Mystical Element in Religion, saying:

Von Hugel takes the three main stages in human development – infancy, adolescence and adulthood – describing the predominant needs and activities which characterize each stage. He shows that religion must take account of and nurture the predominant needs and activities of each stage, and so concludes that religion must include three essential elements, an institutional element corresponding to the needs and activities of infancy, a critical element corresponding to adolescence, and a mystical element corresponding to adulthood. As he analyzes each stage of growth, he is careful to show that the needs and activities of infancy do not disappear in adolescence, nor do the needs and activities of adolescence disappear in adulthood, but they should cease to be predominant if we are to grow into the following stage.

The Institutional: People need structure to get a life of broken chaos under control.

The Critical: People need to be allowed to think for themselves and to do the necessary questioning of the idea that the rules are even relevant in a Gospel of Grace and Freedom.

The Mystical: People are walked into a deep and intimate relationship with Jesus and the entirety of their faith comes down to listening to the voice of God and following.

The key reality that none of these people get is that ethics based religion barely is even useful for those in the Institutional stage of their faith. It is clearly an insult to God Himself at any other stage and considerably offensive to a person in such. People are finally tired of being spoon fed the past Words of God — and a very edited set at that — and are longing to hear the current Word of God deep in their own hearts.

What’s happening? The church is finally waking up and seeking the face of God instead of religion — which, rather ironically, is what Jesus came to suggest in the first place. The operators of those multi-million dollar religious structures are going to have to do with Jesus what the Jews also had to do with Him 2000yrs ago if they want to keep the same control focused, ethics driven and Institutional religion based structures going.

But hey, probably no one will even notice — it’s not like that’s a change or anything… Galatians 3:1-9 (Well, except for the nearly 50% of Evangelical believers whom researchers suggest are already out the door…)

blessitt.com

To open today’s round up of Titans of the Faith, we have a genius who thinks that enough money to feed who knows how many hungry people would better serve the cause of Christ if it were spent launching space junk. (It’s getting way too easy to find this nonsense…)

News Flash, launch date set for Spring 2007! Glory

The cross will be over You personally! The Cross will be over every Nation on earth! Over Afghanistan! Saudi Arabia! Jerusalem! America! The cross in Space Satellite will be in a Polar orbit from pole to pole. As the earth turns it will pass over every inch of the earth like peeling an apple. The cross will circle the earth every one and a half hours. After launch we can tell you on our site when it will be over you and your nation. We have carried the cross in Every nation. Now we will, God willing have it flying above Every nation! We wave the cross in the face of Satan and proclaim that Jesus is Lord over All the Earth. All glory to God.

As if this psychotic attempt at space graffiti isn’t enough, we move onto another fellow brother in Christ who believes God has called the church to a new ministry of eating her own young — I mean sending government agencies to harass fellow churches:

ratoutachurch.org

Our immediate purpose is to fight back against vicious left-wing attempts to silence conservative, Bible believing pastors. Every election year, liberal groups have a field day intimidating and harassing conservative pastors into silence.

Er, could this be the Republican National Convention pot calling the Democratic National Convention kettle black??? Um, never mind… Of course, if you have a problem with this, they have, in the spirit of Matt 18, offered a convenient means to discuss it with them:

DON’T AGREE WITH US?

If you don’t like who we are or what we do please place a note in a sealed container and toss it into the Boston Harbor the next time you are there. At some time in the future we are sure it will drift up the Potomac River toward our office.

All things considered though, who really would want to hang around for this anyway…

ChristianExodus.org

Finally, we have the rats-leaving-a-sinking-ship genius of ChristianExodus.org who have decided that the best way they can be salt and light in a broken world is to simply run away.

ChristianExodus.org is moving thousands of Christians to South Carolina to reestablish constitutionally limited government founded upon Christian principles. It is evident that the U.S. Constitution has been abandoned under our current federal system, and the efforts of Christian activism to restore our Godly republic have proven futile over the past three decades. The time has come for Christian Constitutionalists to protect our liberties in a State like South Carolina by interposing the State’s sovereign authority retained under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Something tells me that the world they are fleeing is going to follow them there — because it is them…

After careful consideration, I’ve decided that it’s time to get ordained and start my own church: (From here on, refer to me as Reverend…) ;-}

themonastery.org

You are about to become an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. For information regarding the legal aspects of this in your state or province, view the FAQ page on the site.

Before proceeding with your information, please make sure you have complied with the following instructions:

* Please only ordain others with their permission. (This includes public figures as well as cartoon and other fictional characters.”)
* Please only put your true and legal name. Nicknames will invalidate your ordination.
* Please use only factual information in this serious religious rite.
* Please double check your name and email address.
* Please capitalize where appropriate, as this is how our records will show from here on out.

Your privacy is carefully guarded. We maintain this information only for our own uses and for legal reasons.

Finally, the peace and tranquility of having a place to worship the God who actually is there instead of the one we’ve made up — supported by a denomination who’s statement of faith is at least both internally consistent and reasonably palatable.

The Universal Life Church has only two tenets (beliefs/doctrine):

To promote freedom of religion and
To do that which is right.

Sadly, I really wish I were totally kidding…

Friedrich Nietzsche commented that:

God made man in His own image, and man returned the favor.

In case you had any doubt, it wasn’t exactly a compliment to God…

Rick Warren’s latest thoughts/musings/curiosities seem to finally be focusing on why half of evangelical Christians won’t darken the door of a church any more — while still retaining their faith. Considering his own thinly veiled attempt at the insertion of ethics based legalism into the church and the total insanity that seems to define the church in general, it’s highly curious to me that he still seems legitimately puzzled by the phenomenon…

I just have one simple question though: Exactly what are these charlatans going to have to do? How low will they have to sink before millions of real Christians world wide rise up in rage and drown them in hundreds of thousands of emails, phone calls, faxes, blog postings and personal appearances — all demanding that they shut down and do it now?

As long as we stand by silently, we condone them — and are painted with the same brush.

Creating Intimacy and Friendship in Marriage:

“Keeping this idea in mind reinforces the essential role we play within our sacred partnership. The blessing of friendship and tenderness in marriage honors this unchanging truth: A wife’s loving companionship was designed by God to meet her husband’s number one relationship need.Evaluate your level of intimacy with your husband, then consider whether you might have been neglecting your husband’s needs for affection, comfort, and camaraderie. Ask your husband what he would like to experience with you in this area.”

This is a good article the stresses the need for undivided attention spouses need in marriage.

JunkScience.com

The guesses of significantly larger warming are dependent on “feedback” (supplementary) mechanisms programmed into climate models. The existence of these “feedback” mechanisms is uncertain and the cumulative sign of which is unknown (they may add to warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide or, equally likely, might suppress it).

The total warming since measurements have been attempted is thought to be about 0.6 degrees Centigrade. At least half of the estimated temperature increment occurred before 1950, prior to significant change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Assuming the unlikely case that all the natural drivers of planetary temperature change ceased to operate at the time of measured atmospheric change then a 30% increment in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused about one-third of one degree temperature increment since and thus provides empirical support for less than one degree increment due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

There is no linear relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide change and global mean temperature or global mean temperature trend — global mean temperature has both risen and fallen during the period atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising.

Ok, I just finally sat down and watched it. Strangely, I also feel sick — though not for the standard reasons. It’s a sick feeling that comes from realizing we are dealing with the death of rational thought and the ability to understand information by the scientists of North America (in favor of pure hype and federal science grant chasing.) Al Gore can divorce his own voice and receive it back as thunder a thousand times by referring to, “Scientists,” but the facts simply do not always march in unison with his shrill rhetoric.

I wish I could have just ignored it (like I also do with everything Michael Moore presents…) However, after dealing with a number of clients (And their raw anxiety) who have watched Al Gore’s pathetic little piece of propaganda, I figured it was time to watch it. It’s now clear it’s also time to post some real science from real scientists who can actually do math and who manage to comprehend some basic concepts of statistical analysis (Like: correlation does not prove causation for example…).

BTW: No one is questioning that global warming is happening. What is in question is the degree of such (Remember, most readings from any more then 45yrs ago came from fishermen with buckets/thermometers), whether we have much of anything to do with it and whether it’s effects will actually be any sort of disaster. Geological reality states that for Greenland to do what Gore is predicting we would have to experience a seismic event capable of destroying at least one entire mountain range — so disastrous we’d mostly be dead anyway. (Also, remember, Greenland used to host vineyards in the time of the Vikings and the rest of the world somehow managed to keep on functioning.) Somehow global cooling managed to happen without our help — perhaps we have had as much of an impact on the opposite effect…

The Acton Institute also has a brilliant philosophical commentary on the subject.

Update: Someone also sent me thisand this. They are a much more comprehensive (And less mathematical) debunking of Gore’s static.

The Health Benefits of Prayer:

“”People who are anxious, worried and depressed do poorly when they’re sick,“ Stevens said. ”Those with hope and peace in the midst of a [health] struggle seem to do much better. People with religious commitments have that hope and peace.“ Prayer brings a definite physiological benefit, noted Dr. Bob Orr, director of clinical ethics at Fletcher Allen Health Care, the teaching hospital for the University of Vermont. ”I certainly encourage people who are believers to pray,“ Orr said. ”My observation is the person who prays is less stressed. He becomes less anxious, and his blood pressure and pulse improve.“ Stevens pointed to one study which showed the risk of diastolic hypertension was 40 percent lower”

Our cares should be cast on the Lord not left in our bodies.

American Lung Association

41. Be flexible. Some things are not worth perfection.


43. Change pace on weekends. If your week was slow, be active. If you felt nothing was accomplished during the week, do a weekend project.

Worth the read.

Semi-Intelligent or Semi-Stupid Debt:

“A home equity loan, curiously known in the industry as HEL, is typically a second mortgage that positions itself in such a way to allow the homeowner access to the equity (that margin between what is owed and what the property is worth). Equity is the borrower’s asset—and a precious asset at that. A HEL opens a large line of credit for you, pledging your equity as the collateral. You can borrow against it whenever you want. Technically it is a secured debt because of the collateral feature. And the borrower’s safety valve remains because the home can be sold to satisfy both of the debts. But it can be very risky—and that is when it can cross over into stupid territory. There are five ways the stupid factor can sneak into an otherwise intelligent mortgage situation: 1. If you borrow against your equity to clean up your credit card debt and then run up your credit cards all over again, that leaves you with twice the debt—the equity line and the credit cards. Not smart.”

This article makes good suggestions about eliminating and preventing debt. However the judgement should have been given to the Lord. The bottom line is a second job is needed to eliminate dr.

Effective Co-Parenting, Part Two:

“Schedule a monthly (perhaps more often) ”business“ meeting to discuss co-parenting matters. You can address schedules, academic reports, behavioral training and spiritual development. Do not discuss your personal life (or your ex’s); that part of your relationship is no longer appropriate. If the conversation turns away from the children, simply redirect the topic or politely end the meeting. If you cannot talk with your ex face to face due to conflict, use e-mail or speak to the answering machine. Do what you can to make your meetings productive for the children.”

This article offers good suggestions on not capitalizing on the hurt of others/your children to berate the other parent. It is important not to disappoint by being unreliable.