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Author Archives: Jeff Mikels
Cooperation Makes for a Good Day
Front Page Leadership Stuff I FindFound at this other blog.
Quoting the original article:
This unexpected, spontaneous, and scripted dance (aka Flash dance) was performed by over twenty thousand people. How did they do it?
- Planners recruited 800 people using Facebook and Twitter
- Choreographers taught a simple dance to these 800 “dancers”
- Dancers were planted amongst the crowd, who then the dance to the people around them
- Music started playing, people started dancing.
One person doing the dance is funny. 100 people in the front of the stage doing the dance is entertaining. Everybody doing the dance in unison is amazing.
“Our God” (a song)
Front Page My Spiritual LifeFor a couple weeks now, I have been dissatisfied with the modern worship songs we’ve been singing in our church. The music is great, the beats are fun, the lyrics are powerful, but honestly, they aren’t very deep.
In particular, the majority of modern rock-style worship music puts God in the second person. Everything is about how great “You” are or about our relationship as humans to “You.” The problem with that kind of music is that it only works for people who have a relationship with God close enough to call him “You.” There are many people for whom God is only “God” or “He” and there are many times in our lives when we need to remember that God is “God” and not just another “You.”
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Organizational Insights from Numbers 2
Front Page Leadership My Spiritual LifeThis morning, I was reading the first few chapters of Numbers. I have to be honest with you, and I am somewhat ashamed to admit, I wasn’t expecting much. Aside from a few interesting (and confusing) stories, the book of Numbers is filled with, you guessed it, numbers!
The first few chapters are all about counting the people of Israel. This tribe has 60,000 people. That tribe has 40,000 people. With twelve tribes to go through, the lists of numbers and names of people can get tedious. Continue reading
The Power of the Cross
Front Page Stuff I FindOh to see the dawn of the darkest day.
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men, torn and beaten then
Nailed to a cross of wood.
This the pow’r of the cross.
Christ became sin for us.
Took the blame, bore the wrath,
We stand forgiven at the cross.
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“for the Bible tells me so” — documentary on homosexuality
Front Page Tough QuestionsUPDATE: This film has been posted to YouTube if you want to watch it. link
Tonight, our life group skipped our normal routine to watch a documentary purportedly on the relationship between homosexuality and religion called For the Bible Tells Me So However, the documentary was actually on the relationship between homosexuality and the conservative/fundamentalist “Christian right.”
Basically, the title calls to mind the song Jesus Loves Me (which should communicate that God loves us) in contrast to the words of those who would claim homosexuality is an “abomination” simply because “the Bible tells me so.”
Since I have already written a few articles on the topic, I won’t take the time to rehash my position. However, I need to make a couple comments.
4 Communication Tips for Couples
Front Page Spiritual HealthThis past week, I gained an insight into some communication skills that should be standard fare for all couples. For many years, I have been teaching some very basic principles on communication, but this past week I learned a little more and thought it was time to put it together into the following guidelines.
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I was (not) in a motorcycle accident
Front Page Funny PersonalOn Monday, August 24, 2009, our local newspaper printed the following:
Accident Closes McCarty For 3 Hours
A Lafayette man was taken to the hospital and McCarty Lane was closed for nearly three hours Sunday night after a motorcycle accident.
According to Officer Nicholas Amor of the Lafayette Police Department, Jeffrey Mikels, 28, of Lafayette crashed his motorcycle while leaving the parking lot of Danzers Show Club, 3481 McCarty Lane, at 7:20 p.m.
“All we know at the moment is that he pulled out of the parking lot and didn’t hit any other vehicles,” said Amor. “When we arrived he was bleeding from the head.”
Mikels was taken to Clarian Arnett Hospital after the accident. Officers at the scene said his injuries do not appear to be life threatening.
After the accident, McCarty Lane between Creasy Lane and U.S. 52 was closed.
Amor said alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, but police will not know for sure until a medical examination is completed.
I have been having people contact me for the past couple of days asking me if I’m ok, but so far no one has called me asking why I was driving out of the Danzers Show Club! Anyway, I’m going on record saying, “That was a different Jeffrey Mikels!” Actually, there are three Jeffrey Mikels in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, and one of them has the same middle initial as I.
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Trials prove how strong you are
Front Page Spiritual HealthIn 1 Corinthians 10:13, we read:
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful;
he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,
he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.— 1 Corinthians 10:13
In this passage, we are given three promises:
- You are not unique or alone in your temptation. Every temptation or trial (in the Bible, the two words are interchangeable) that you face has been faced by someone else.
- God will only allow you to face a temptation if he knows you can handle it.
- God will always provide you a “way out.”
- The “Way Out” is not an “escape” but a light at the end of a tunnel so “you can stand up under” the temptation.
Are you going through a struggle, a trial, or are you facing temptation. Know this. Whatever you are facing is only in your life because from God’s point of view, you are strong enough for it. If the trial is 100 pounds heavy, God must know that you are capable to lift at least 101 pounds. If the trial is 2 tons, that’s God’s way of telling you that you can handle 2.1 tons!
How big is your trial? That’s God telling you how strong you really are.
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
— Philippians 4:13
God knows that you and I are able to endure far more than we are generally willing to put up with.
How big is your trial? How strong are you? How strong is your God?
Marriage on the Rocks? Read this!
Front Page Stuff I FindAn article recently posted on psychologytoday.com is not approaching marriage from a Christian perspective, but it is an excellent assessment of what has happened to the relationship between men and women in the past 40 years or so.
Here’s the gist: Men today grew up in a world where it was largely okay for a husband to work 50 hours a week, come home, sit in his chair, and watch TV until bedtime. However, though women have not lost the desire for men to be strong breadwinners, they have lost the patience for a man who would watch sports all night from his special chair. Instead, they are looking for a soulmate too. Continue reading
More on Homosexual Recovery
Front Page Stuff I Find Tough QuestionsThis week, CNN posted an article describing a recent report that attempts to help homosexuals “recover” do more harm than good.
Since I wrote an article on this very topic (see Is There Recovery for the Homosexual?.), I thought it would be good to have a link to this new article here and to add a few comments of my own.
It just seems that the secular world is trying to ignore the truth that SOME people who self-identify as homosexual are able to ADJUST desires or at least find fulfillment outside the homosexual lifestyle.
What if we lived in a society with a VERY vocal and VERY strong lobby promoting the use of smoking? What if in the context of that society, a report was done testing the effectiveness of anti-smoking programs? What kind of news articles would we be reading? “Programs to change smokers to non-smokers don’t work, report says”
It’s the combination of a VERY vocal lobby, a VERY supportive society and the inherent attractiveness of sexual sin that wage war against any “change” programs.
It’s exactly the same as when you read about how “Abstinence Programs Fail Among American Teens.” If the society fully supports something that’s pleasurable, all programs opposing that position will fail more often than not.
Quick Study on the Rapture
Front Page My Beliefs Tough Questions VIPThis week at my Life Group, we looked at the clearest teaching in the Bible regarding the rapture, and I’ve become even more convicted about one particular position. This post is intended to guide you through the same study we considered this week and to give an inside track on what I’m currently thinking about the matter.
What is the Rapture?
Before I talk about anything else, I should probably define what I mean by the rapture and why I want to talk about it now.
The Rapture refers to the event described in the Bible of Christ returning to earth and his followers being “caught up” to meet him in the air.
The major biblical controversy is twofold:
- Do the biblical statements on the rapture event indicate a literal and physical departure from the surface of the earth?
- When does the rapture event happen in relation to the rest of prophesied end-time events? Continue reading
You Can’t be Both Pre-Trib and Calvinist
Front Page My Beliefs Tough QuestionsIf you are a Calvinist:
- you believe that God has “elected” or “chosen” those who would be saved from before the foundation of the world.
- you believe that those whom God has chosen have been predestined to respond to the gospel when God woos them.
- you believe that salvation comes entirely without regard to human works or merit.
- you believe that “elect” and “true followers of Jesus” are two ways of describing only one group. Continue reading
Statement on Human Sexuality
Front Page Tough QuestionsApparently, with the legal pressure provided by pro-homosexual lobbies, there is a threat that churches will be liable to lawsuits for anti-homosexual practices unless our position on the issue is clearly stated in religious terms.
The recommendation is that we amend our statement of faith to describe our core convictions in this matter. Therefore, I’m putting here what I’m preparing to present to our church leadership on the matter. Your comments will be helpful.
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God cares even if we don’t realize it
Front Page Spiritual Health
This morning, I was reading in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, and I was in the chapters giving the regulations for what kind of animals are okay to eat, what to do about dead animals, and what to do with skin rashes.
It’s interesting to me to think that the people of old had no idea what germs and viruses were. They had no idea what parasites were, yet the commands God gave them were exactly what Continue reading