Pastor Christine Liddell

I met this great woman when I was just a youngster and she has always blessed me.

Pastor Christine Liddell
http://youtu.be/XxS3Er8fbUc

I may not be first, but I will be next: Bishop Millicent Hunter

Bishop Millicent Hunter

http://youtu.be/dWDOMYloXM0

They

Bishop McKenzie addresses those in churches called "They"


They
http://youtu.be/GebHcErt_T8

It's a Shame: Bishop Vashti McKenzie

This is one of my favorite Bishops.  I hope you enjoy


Bishop Vashti McKenzie
http://youtu.be/jrVy_jrtuuM

Hello Stranger

There is a woman in my church who works during the week at night.  Most of the time, I only see her on Sundays.  When she comes into the church, she greets you like it has been months since she has seen you.  By the time she gets through kissing you and hugging on your neck, you are smiling from ear to ear.  I think that I would like to meet Jesus that way.  Even though the wait is long, I will be so glad to see him when he returns.  I won't ask where he has been or why he took so long.  I just want to kiss his presence, fall on his neck and leave him smiling from ear to ear.



Hello Stranger
http://youtu.be/zQ8fyv9L4Gg

I HATE to wait.

I hate to wait.  I hate waiting like I hate hell.  I really can't recall anyone I know who likes to wait.  We all hate waiting.  I have learned though, that some things are worth waiting for.  I would rather buy something more costly with better wear than to run to the Dollar store and buy something that is shredded after the first wash.  I have to ask myself," What is worse?  Do I want to wait for something better or get something now, let is snap in two weeks, and yet be waiting for something better?"  This is what I equate in the Kingdom.  I would rather wait for Jesus to return.  I don't want to run to another god and then watch that god bow down to Jesus.  I'll just whistle and shuffle my feet until Jesus comes.

I'm good...........

Sitting in the Park Billy Stewart
http://youtu.be/5rSvVt82Mo4

Let the Dead Bury the Dead: Theologically off

Another issue Jesus could have addressed is this ancient belief that the rotting flesh of their loved ones atoned for sin.  When people went back in for the second burial, they believed that all the decayed flesh made them clean.  That is not too far from how we believe today.  We don't believe we are saved by dead loved ones, but we sure will point to our saved grandmother, who was an evangelist, or our saved uncle, who was a pastor.  Being a relative of a saved person don't make you saved.  If someone asks about your salvation and all you can point to is your cousin's husband, on your mother's side, once removed, who was a church deacon, you are reachin.........

Let the Dead Bury the dead: Old Business

Another reason for this saying is again answered by culture.  The Jews, in the time of Christ, buried their loved ones and went into mourning for seven days.  After that, they mourned for another year.  After the year was up, the grave was opened and the bones were buried again.  When the disciple said, I have to bury my father, he may have referred to this second burial.  Now, why do we always put off the will of God for old business.  We go digging in our lives for a moot point and chase it all our lives.  We go around the mulberry bush over old stuff that should not even be a issue.  You can't make progress digging up bones.

Let the Dead Bury the Dead: Liar Liar

I have always wondered what Jesus meant when he said, "Let the dead bury the dead".  My close inspection led me to come up with three conclusions that I hope will bless you.  Jewish people in the time of Christ were mandated to bury their dead within twenty four hours.  I find it strange that Jesus is in a conversation with his disciple who has mentioned nothing of a dead father before Jesus says, "Follow me".  The fact is this.  If dear old dad was dead, the disciple would be at home in mourning or digging a whole in a cave.  Jesus could have very well just called him a liar.  In the kingdom, we come up with nifty excuses for not doing what we are supposed to do.  Sometimes, the family reunion falls on a Sunday.  Sometimes, the family reunion is placed on a Sunday.  Sometimes, you can get off work on Sunday and sometimes, you schedule yourself to work on Sunday.  If you are trying to find nifty excuses to avoid the will of God.  Shame on you.  Be Blessed.

A different kind of heathen

 To be half saved, half the time, my mother just wasn't your ordinary run of the mill heathen.  I find that boundaries exist even when you feel you want to cross them.  I am a firm believer that everybody should have something that they won't do just for the sake of the discipline.  My mother did not wear shorts or halter tops.  She went to church every Sunday.  My mother lied about being married because she was ashamed of not being married.  My mother never wore short skirts or anything that made her look like a woman of the night.  She would fall over dead again if she saw my lips painted bright red.  My mother always respected pastors and the elderly.  She never disagreed in their presence.  Whatever she said was not in their hearing.  My mother called any woman older than her, Ma'am and she never took car rides from men.  My mother struggled in God, yet she still had some dignity about what she would and would not do.  I think we can learn something from that.......

Postcards

Postcards are picturesque snapshots that make you long to travel.  There is a lot that gets left out, but if you saw it, you wouldn't come.  My trip to New Orleans was just that.  I remembered the pictures of people dancing in the street and singing.  The postcards made it seem like New Orleans was the place to be.  When I got there, it was so hot, your clothes stuck.  The French quarter smelled like vomit.  It must have been gay pride day because all of the straight guys got the memo to stay home.  People were past drunk.  I could not take the cemetery tour because the local thugs hid out there to rob people and our hotel was under construction.  Most of the occupants were transients who actually lived there.

Don't judge a book by it's cover.

Hot Mess

I remember when the saints of God looked a hot mess.  Holiness was akin to homeliness.  We always looked like we were in pain even in the midst of service.  I saw us rocking with fans like we were still on the veranda in Dixie.  I have learned the importance of looking like who you are.  We must look like we have something to say.  Consider you wardrobe in the morning.  Everything you put on should announce who you are before you open your mouth.  Some people see you and say "Christmas Tree".  Some people may see you and say, "Housemaid",  and some people may see you and say, "Tramp".  Look at yourself and see if your look says, "Saved", or  "Smart" or "Sophisticated".  You never know when a king is right around the corner ready to hand you up to half his kingdom and you are looking a "Hot Mess"

You never ate the grapes

Once up a time, a man had a taste for grapes.  He went to his vineyard and the grapes were ripe on the vine.  He thought he better wait until he had time to eat them, so he left.  The next day, he went to his vineyard and the grapes were gone.  His wife had made jelly.

The next year he grew grapes.  They were ripe on the vine.  He was going to pick them, but he had a wedding to attend.  When he went out the next day, they were gone.  His wife had dried them to raisins.

The next year, he went to enjoy the grapes for they were ripe on the vine.  He heard the phone ringing and got distracted.  When he went back the next day, his wife had made wine.

On the fourth year of farming, he took a long journey and came back just in time to harvest the garden.  He had made up his mind to have grapes this year.  He went to the garden and in amazement, saw that his wife had torn down the vineyard and planted corn.  When he inquired as to why she did this, she said,

"You never ate the grapes"

Abuse time

Abuse
I work with abused children.  Abuse is something that I find I can recognize quickly.  It begins with relationship.  A relationship is built on mutual trust and respect.  There are some things I am not going to do because I am in a relationship with you.  As a timekeeper, abusive relationships can be built and difficult to destroy.  I know many a person who ruined the relationship that they had with me because I was always waiting for them to come.  I was waiting for them to get done.  I was waiting for them to value me enough to respect my time.  Abuse is when you cross the boundary and expect the person you are abusing to have no negative feelings about it.  Here is my thought on abusive relationships regarding time. 
“You will not be my priority when I am simply your option”.

The covenant in time

Time
Time is a big thing for me.  I have learned that when you can obey time, you will gain the respect of those you release the plan to.  Time is the like a covenant.  It is more about being careful about the words that come out of your mouth.  You have to understand that when you set something in time,  you are bound to perform it at that time barring a crisis.  Because we are not infinite, there is a start time and an end time.  Those are your boundaries.  I am always mistrustful of people who violate boundaries.   Rapist violate boundaries.  Thieves violate boundaries.  Murderers violate boundaries.  In order to have peace, sometimes, you have to create the boundaries that people don’t set.  When someone tells me something open ended, I create the boundaries.  If you don’t have a time to begin, I will tell you when I am going to arrive.  If you don’t tell me when the event ends, I will dismiss myself at a time that works for my plans.  If you lose time , you never get it back.  My Pastor, W. A. Bennett says that even God has boundaries that he set for himself.  There are some things he won't do and some things he will always do.  He is not bound by time, but still by boundaries.

Deep ain't it........

Place

Place
You can try to implement a plan at the wrong place and feel like a failure.  I have learned to multitask my plans.  Some things I only do at my job.  Some I only do with my family and some things I only do with my sorority.  Again, there are some things I only do with my mentor.  You can release something in a place that has no regard for it and find that your feelings are hurt.  In retrospect, I have worked the same plan at a different place and the plan worked.  Watch where you plan.  Even farmers know that you don’t plant corn in Texas where wheat grows best.  You don’t plant rice in Minnesota.  Consider the place, for even Jesus could do no works in Nazareth.

Dates

Date
I remember when I went to a church where they planned a cruise for the Marriage Ministry.  Someone thought that it was a great idea to be there for Valentine’s day.  Well, they went on the cruise and found that calm seas in the Northern Hemisphere meant rocky seas in the Southern Hemisphere.  They reported crew members walking around in life jackets and vomit buckets all over the place.  Dates are tentative, but necessary.  A date is not a random point on a calendar, it is the place you strive to be.  It is the end point of your vision.  You have to aim for something, if not, your just shooting in the dark.

Audience

Audience
            Planning begins with the intended audience.  Nothing will be accomplished where the audience is ignored.  I remember a wedding where the guest where completely disregarded.  The bride believed that the wedding was about her and she acted like it.  She sent out her invitations at a time when people have already planned their events.  She did not have the guest register for the food, and that meant that she had a lot of food left over.  One wedding I went to had ordered dresses with splits in the back and the bride did not consider the size of her bridesmaids.  The splits revealed more than she wanted to be seen.  One person invited his “ex” to the wedding and created an awkward situation.  Don’t let your plans be ruined because you tried to sell it to the wrong people.

My thoughts on planning

I have often stated that I have a time button.  I function on schedules.  If one does not exist, I tend to create one.  Here is what planning is,

Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them. An important, albeit often ignored aspect of planning, is the relationship it holds with forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like, whereas planning predicts what the future should look like.^[1]
Planning is not vain repetition that you say to simply make yourself look good.  It’s not thinking out loud.  It is the setting of events in time so that the implementation of those events are smooth with minimal sacrifice.  Sacrifice should not be an everyday thing.  I have learned that folks will get tired of you quite quickly and whatever idea you have will fall undone.  There are five elements to planning that should be considered.

Church without change

William Booth said, "Consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell."

Just some words to ponder.  What will become of us when church don't require change.

Ferrel

Ferrel gardens with no boundaries spells trouble.  I grew up in a small town with two lots per home.  One lot was for the house and the other lot was for the garden.  That was a lot of grass to cut.  Sometimes, we thought to cheat a bit and leave some of the grass near the alley uncut.  We came back a few days later to find field rats, rabbits, Ferrel dogs, wild cats, ravens, spiders, grasshoppers, chiggers, deer ticks, poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak etc.etc.

Keep the grass of your life cut, trimmed and fertilized.

An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of a cure.

Faint but Pursue it

For those who are tired..........



Pastor Iona Locke
http://youtu.be/Vy7wbHSxRQo

Don't Loose your sexy

The Laodicean Church in the Revelation of John (Revelation 3:14–22)
In John's vision, recorded in the book of Revelation, Christ instructs John to write a message to seven named churches in Asia Minor. The message to Laodicea is one of judgement with a call to repentance. The oracle contains a number of striking metaphors.

[edit] "I wish that you were cold or hot" (3:15–16)

"I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth" (WEB).

It is thought that the Laodiceans were being criticized for their neutrality or lack of zeal (hence "lukewarm"). Based on this understanding, the pejorative term Laodicean is used in the English language to refer to those neutral or indifferent in matters of faith.[1]
However, some scholars have suggested that this metaphor has been drawn from the water supply of the city, which was lukewarm, in contrast to the hot springs at nearby Hierapolis and the pure water of Colossae (Barclay). The archaeology shows Laodicea had an aqueduct that probably carried water from hot mineral springs some five miles south, which would have become tepid before entering the city (see main Laodicea article). Strabo states that the water was hard, though drinkable.^{[citation needed]} The imagery of the Laodicean aqueduct suggests not that "hot" is good and "cold" is bad, but that both hot and cold water are useful, whereas lukewarm water is useless.

You are probably wondering about how I am linking this to the title.  The Laodicean church was out of it's league with God.  They had lost their appeal to him.  I liken them to many women who loose their sex appeal after life has shown it's teeth.  I know that getting older for me has changed me.  It is not that I am not good looking, it is that I don't care.  We can never get to that point.  We must keep ourselves appealing.  The Laodicean church was neither hot or cold.  They weren't hot mamas and they weren't ice princesses.  They were plain Jane who went insane.  They weren't appealing to God anymore.  My first lady gave the ladies a tidbit of advice.  She said, "Keep your sexy".  Always make sure that you are appealing.  Men should want to inquire about you and your husband should run home at night.  Tastefully done can be accomplished a thousand ways.  Men should not loose their charisma.  They should be appealing to their wives.  At the same time, we should be appealing to God.  He should not find us useless and not worth his time.  We should not be saved enough to make a horrible sinner and devil enough to make a horrible saint.  That is not appealing to God.  To be honest, that is not appealing to me.  Who wants someone who don't really know if they love you?  They don't know if they want to marry you?  They don't know if they even like you?  It makes me say, "Push or get of the pot".  You can loose your hair.  You can loose your figure.  You can battle with the enemy and look like it.  You can persevere through the worst of times.  If you loose everything you have, don't lose your sexy.  Always remain appealing, even to God.

Find One Hundred Ways
http://youtu.be/BBY4o26fCt8

First Love, Forgotten

I remember when he held my hand at church
I remember when he ran to shut my door
I remember when he never came home late
I remember what he does not do any more

I remember flowers on his faintest whim
I remember chocolate candy in a box
I remember when he washed the evening dishes
I remember when he folded up his socks

I remember when he came home as in pain
I remember when he cursed the sky above
I remember him asking why I still hold on
I said

I remember when I was your only love

Keep your first love

Hey Diddle Diddle

I often say that adults should keep childlike faith.  I am not talking about the faith where you knew a monster was under your bed or the faith that Santa Claus really came down a chimney.  I am talking about the faith to believe in the impossible.  Children don't need a shred of evidence to believe that the Easter bunny brought them a basket.  They don't know where it came from and they don't care.  They rip open the package and stuff their mouths with chocolate and goodies.  It is happiness at it's highest.  I don't care how God bless me.  I don't care what it look like.  I don't care where he sends me to bless me and I don't care what anyone thinks about his blessing me.  I am going to rip off the package and be in heaven.  Keep your childlike faith.



Hey Diddle Diddle
http://youtu.be/uQmqt58TkCc