Southies (the folks who attend South Lansing Christian Church) have been involved in our first ever peanut butter challenge. The goal: to collect a truckload of peanut butter for the children of Northwest Haiti Christian Mission. The reward: hungry kids get some badly needed nutrients and one or more SLCC staff people get a peanut butter pie in their face(s).Here's the deal. The youth and children are squaring off against the adults. If the kids collect the most peanut butter, yours truly gets the pie. If the adults collect the most, the rest of the staff all get the pie.
This competition has really got some Southies fired up. I've heard talk of conspiratorial whisperings in hallways after elders' meetings. I've seen people eyeballing the growing piles of PB on Sunday mornings and talking about switching jars from one pile to the other. (Good luck with that, by the way, we labeled them to prevent such trickery.) I've even heard someone is planning to bring in a palate - that's right - a palate of peanut butter just before the March 9 deadline. Not to worry.
Preacher Frank has a trick or two up his sleeve, too.
Here's the count so far, in case you're wondering:
13 comments:
Hello...blog walking. Nice blog.
Wanna say Bye
While other preachers are encouraging members to have sex every day for 30 days, YOU are having a peanut butter drive. Nice. Frank, Frank, Frank. You'll never get on Fox News with a Peanut Butter drive.
Yes, but if he could somehow incorporate the two . . .
I think we are approaching this peanut butter drive the wrong way.
If most people live to be around the age of 80, then a youth minister typically ministers to people during the first 4th of their life. More specifically the second 8th.
We put this to the Bible, where Noah was 500 and many people in Genesis lived to be 800-900 years old. That would mean the youth minister is active in these people's lives during the first 100 -200 years. Most (if not all) people alive today fall within this bracket.
Plus we're measuring something without factoring in the scale of eternity. We are going to live forever with Christ after this life. In the scope of eternity we are all still very much youth. Instead of saying a 50 year old has lived 1/2 of their life, we need to say they have lived 1/x of their life. x > 50.
My bottom line is that unless Elijah is donating peanut butter it should be going to the youth side of the pulpit. The defense rests its case (pun intended).
Frankie,
Tell the Southies how you conspired to cheat out a victory over Garrett.
To James Pahl:
Your deductions are quite persuasive.
However, I nearly failed algebra and " x " doesn't hold much meaning for me and according to many wealth and investment resources, over 50% of the millionaires in this country never went to college and some never graduated high school. I think their grasp of numbers is based on PRINCIPLES rather than equations and that is why they are wealthy and comprise the 10% of the total population that holds the wealth, (Robert Kiyosaki-"Rich Dad/Poor Dad"; "the Cash Flow Quadrant")while 90% of the population are in the poor and middle class .
THUS SAID, herein lies your mistake (again we are dealing with PRINCIPLES not equations):
You stated:
"If most people live to be around the age of 80, then a youth minister typically ministers to people during the first 4th of their life. More specifically the second 8th." (This would be from ages 10-20, which is absolutely correct.)
Your next statement however, contradicts not only what you just said, but also Biblical truth and principle:
"We put this to the Bible, where Noah was 500 and many people in Genesis lived to be 800-900 years old."
If we do indeed put this to the Bible, we see that you are basing your claim to Peanut Butter dominance on, certainly, pre-flood data, and then immediate post-flood data. When in reality, post flood lifetimes of human beings did extend for a short period, but began to wane substantially because of the decree by the Lord Himself even before the flood. The decree was given in the days of Noah even before he built the ark:
In Genesis 6:3 (NIV)
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
Now this is factual and principled, because of the sin of man, your claim to the activity of a youth minister in people's lives(as a precursor to people donating Peanut Butter to the youth side), that claim of 100-200 years has to now come into the guidelines of this post flood data as being 120 years divided by 1/8=15 or divided by 1/4=30; thus, drastically reducing your equation by a factor of 85-170 years!
But, we are not yet to the final stage of the principle of God and His dealing with man. Because of sin entering the world and part of the consequence of sin being diseases, pestilence and struggle, by the time of Moses, whose prayer is recorded in Psalms 90, and specifically verse 10, we find man's years are even more reduced:
Psalm 90:10
New International Version (NIV)
10 The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Moses does make reference here to our eternal existence ("we fly away"), but he was speaking of our mortality. In regards to that eternal existence, you proceeded to extend the existence of Peanut Butter into realm that you're alluding it's having a time frame, which we cannot do, as eternity has no time frame, as so eloquently stated in scripture:
2 Peter 3:8
(New International Version)
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
(I would also interject here other scientific guidelines for time and space, ie: Dr. Russell Humphreys, Phd, "StarLight and Time", and Einstein's paradox of E=mc2 regarding light speed travel and it's affects, but these I will forego to get to the conclusion of this Peanut Butter matter)
Also, we cannot extend Peanut Butter into the realm of eternity because Peanut Butter is a man-made product and we are assured that all that we presently know as being of this non-heavenly and non-eternal existence will be destroyed:
2 Peter 3:10
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
This scripture proves the destruction of elements and Earthly things including Peanut Butter.
We are assured of Peanut Butter's demise as the melting point for more stabilized elements, such as iron ore, is 1535°C, and the boiling point is 2750°C. Peanut Butter's triglyceride blend with specific solid fat content have a melting point of about 35°C and even its micro-particulated high melting lipid has a melting point of only about 700C.
Therefore, we can see that the scriptures dictate that at the destruction of the present Earth and heavens, Peanut Butter will cease to exist.
(I'm sure the food of the New heavens and Earth will far surpass Peanut Butter, even as much as I like it.)
Therefore, in summary:
1) The grasp of numbers based on Principles rather than academic equations, is more meaningful to the common man's life;
2) Your personal shortsightedness in not researching further Biblical history and Godly principles, caused an error in your conclusion of what designates one to give to the youth side of the pulpit;
3) Using the fact of eternity to substantiate your conclusion of youth has no relative meaning as eternity is not a realm of time;
4) Heavenly existence in eternity and peanut butter will not co-exist.
Therefore:
your conclusion-
"My bottom line is that unless Elijah is donating peanut butter it should be going to the youth side of the pulpit."
-cannot stand as true because of Biblical Principles , Biblical History, Biblical Data, and Scientific Proof.
You have no defense.
'A' remains adult, 'Y' remains youth.
That is still the "equation".
A wise person once said: "Methods are many, Principles are few, methods always change, but principles never do."
The Frankie post has to come from my favorite Aunt, Alice. She's sore because Garrett got smoked by the Butler church. And while I may have used some unusual . . . tactics . . . to say I cheated is an overstatement.
Rod, I am bleeding from my eyes and ears.
Frank,
Yeah, ain't it great!
You know Rod, most people would have just typed "Nice try James."
Nice trick!
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080228/COLUMNISTS09/802280367/1016/news
Nice trick!
LSJ Story
Wow! We made the State Journal! Great job, Frank!
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