politics test

OK, some of my friends from Baton Rouge were taking this test and I was surprised by their results so I had to go take it too. It seems that alot of the people I knew back there were Democrats which really surprises me. Anyway, here are my results.

You are a Social Conservative (16% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (80% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Republican Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

time flies

Wow! It's amazing how quickly time can pass by. I blinked and realized that 10 days had passed since I last posted anything to this blog. The last couple of weeks at school seemed to get much more intense. The pace really picked up in Greek and I had even more reading to do so I just haven't had much time to spend posting.

Looking back over my posts since we moved I realized that I haven't posted anything about our new church. We joined Highview Baptist Church here in Louisville. This church is doing some amazing things here in the city. It is a well established church that has been on the south side of town for a number of years. About five years ago they decided to start a second campus on the east side of the city. They started it with 80 people. In February of this year when they moved into a brand new facility on their East Campus that original 80 had grown to about 650. Bro. Kevin (the pastor) told me this evening that we had over 1380 in attendance this past Sunday. He also just announced that we are making plans to possibly start a third, fourth and fifth campus at different areas around the metro area. And we are also partnering with other churches to help plant a church in Manhattan. The Lord is truly working at Highview to spread the kingdom.

Also, for those of you that aren't in Baton Rouge, and don't know about this, the pastor at my former church resigned not long after we left. As you may remember, there was a power struggle going on in the church between two different factions, one that didn't like the path of change that the pastor was following and one that supported him no matter what. There were things done wrong on both sides and there is a huge need for church discipline to be applied to some of the ring leaders. Anyway, Bill realized that the church was becoming too polarized around him and he resigned and started a new church plant in Ascension Parish. Things seem to be going very well. People are coming and really getting involved. He tells them from the outset that if they want to come and just sit in a service and then go home and not get involved they are in the wrong place. That's what he was trying to get people to realize at Parkview. God bless you Bill! I pray that God would use you and everyone else at Graceworks in a mighty way to reach people in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area with His love.

One final note. If you've visited here in the past you may have noticed that the Google search box is gone and the Google ads have been replaced. I simply wasn't happy with the control that Google gave me over the advertisers so I'm trying out a different company. Bidvertiser lets me view every ad before it is placed on the site and accept or decline it. With Google I just had to check the site and if there was something I didn't want (which turned out to be most of it) I could block those ads, but it would take a while for them to drop out of the rotation.

Well that's it for tonight. Hopefully it won't be quite as long before I get another post up here.

Officials clash on people returning to New Orleans - Yahoo! News

It seems that Ray Nagin, who so publicly whined and complained about what he saw as a lack of response on the part of the federal government after Hurricane Katrina, is now ignoring the advice of the federal officials he so desperately wanted. Mayor Nagin is encouraging residents to return to the areas of the city that were not severely damaged by the disaster. However, the head of the federal recovery effort, Vice Admiral Thad Allen, says, that after consulting with the EPA and CDC, the timeline given by the mayor is at best ambitious. This is especially true in light of the fact that there is another hurricane readying itself to enter the Gulf of Mexico. (See story here) Ray Nagin wants it both ways. He wants the federal government's help to get him out of a crisis, but now that the immediate danger of the hurricane is gone and the flood waters are receding he wants to do things his own way.

Some great observations about the blame game

Many in the Main Stream Media (MSM) are villifying President Bush in their reports on Hurricane Katrina and coming just short of actually claiming that he caused the storm itself and sent it to wipe out the city of New Orleans. A friend of mine sent me this great article that points out some very basic truths that the MSM and liberals in general need to realize.

it's been awhile

OK, so I've let my posting frequency slip quite a bit (not that it really matters since there's no one reading this blog besides me anyway). Things have been hectic this past week or so. LOTS of reading, a quiz in Greek (every Friday), my first paper due, trying to get together with my accountability partner so my Spiritual Disciplines class, plus the kids have been getting sick, and I'm still looking for a job. Actually, hopefully the job situation will be taken care of soon. I'll post more about that when I get more details.

There are so many things I want to say about the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath but if I put everything down, I'd be typing all night long. To begin with, I'm sick and tired of hearing the liberal media say that the federal government and the military did not show up on the Gulf Coast until 4 or 5 days after the hurricane hit. FEMA is a federal agency and they were there from day one. The Coast Guard is a branch of our military and they were there from day one. That's it. End of story. You CANNOT continue to say that the military and the government were not there. They were. Move on.

Then there's this whole racial thing. Why is it that anytime something happens in this country that warrants extensive media coverage Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, or someone has to stick their nose into it and claim racial discrimination? We've actually had some idiotic people trying to claim that the government broke the levees in New Orleans on purpose to oppress the poor blacks that live there. Come on! How can any sane person truly believe that our government would intentionally endanger the lives of so many, and intentionally destroy one of our major cities? Yes, it is true that the majority of the people affected by the flooding were poor and black. But let's look at the demographics of New Orleans. According to the 2000 Census nearly 70% of the population of the city of New Orleans is black and almost 30 percent of the population was below the poverty level (one of the highest of any major city). With statistics like that, yes, the majority of the people affected are going to be poor and black. Complaining about it is like complaining about a tornado hitting somewhere in Mexico primarily affecting Hispanics. Duh! That's who lives there, so that's who is going to be affected. Let's stop pulling out the race card whenever anything happens. We can't change the way the statistics read now. We can however change things and make them better in the future.

OK, I guess I'm done ranting for now. There's much more I'd like to say about the left-wing media but I need to get to bed.

Surreal

That's the only way I can describe what is happening on the Gulf Coast. Seeing places that I know and love in New Orleans and Biloxi either under water or totally gone is nothing short of surreal. Even after growing up in south Louisiana and living through hurricanes and the aftermath that goes with them, I cannot even imagine what it is like to be living through this. Honestly many of the pictures I've seen remind me of Sarajevo, Bosnia. There was an area in Sarajevo that had been nicknamed "City of the Dead" because the houses there were so mangled from the house to house fighting. It nearly brought me to tears when we were driving through there and I saw children playing soccer in front of an apartment building that was riddled with holes from bullets and mortar shells. But that pales in comparison to what I have seen going on in New Orleans and the Mississippi coast. It looks like a war zone.

We've spoken with friends in Baton Rouge who said that the population of the city has doubled with all the refugees. There are reports there of violence at gas stations. One of our friends told his wife that he didn't want her going to the gas station because people were waiting for women to swipe their credit cards, then attacking them and stealing the gas.

This is all evidence of the fact that this world is stained by the taint of sin. No matter how much secular humanists try to tell us that people are naturally good at heart, times like this show that our natural state is one of selfishness and sin. We need to pray not only for the physical and temporal safety of those on the Gulf Coast, but for their spiritual and eternal safety that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.