Contest to win a $50 gift card!

Make a video of my song “Shema Yisrael” (deadline extended to 4/19/11!) and you could win a $50 gift card.

Download the song for FREE here and get crackin’!

PLAYERtrack.com Fantasy Baseball Interactive Rankings are now FREE

Last year, I mulled over making the rankings FREE this year. I decided against last year, but as a means to increase traffic, I changed my mind to start this year. I have noticed an increase in traffic, but not an increase in revenue.

It is still early, but I think it will depend upon word of mouth and – particularly – continuing to do a podcast on a regular basis.

If you are into fantasy baseball, I believe that this is one of the best sites available to the public for on-the-fly rankings DURING a draft. Check it out and let me know what you think!

www.PLAYERtrack.com.

If this was your Pastor, what would you think?

There is a religious leader on YouTube who is suing a number of other YouTubers for “defamation”, “tortious interference with contract rights,” and “tortious interference with business expectancies” (draw your own conclusions, here) because of this leader’s proclamation that God has commanded her to.

Without getting into a debate as to whether the court system is the best location to find God or whether God needs any of us to enter the legal system in order to protect His Holy name, here’s some back story.

This lady claims that God instructed her to start “His ministry” to warn the flock about, among other things, properly identifying the Holy Spirit as female and about a false rapture where UFO’s take souls in a blue beam.

To her credit, she promotes strict adherence to the ten commandments.

But, members of her flock include a twenty-something who believes that Christians can hate others, so long as their hatred is “perfect” (thou shalt not murder?) and a twenty-something who has publicly called out his father as a “Judas” that features a graphic of Judas hanging from a tree (thou shalt honor thy father and mother?).

There are a number of individuals who have been involved with this particular religious leader who claim that she has broken up their families or attempted this.

Needless to say, you may not be surprised that many on YouTube have claimed that this woman is not only a false prophet, but a leader of a cult.

I ask you to give her the benefit of the doubt.

And, then, I ask you to read this statement written today by this leader about another YouTuber who professes Jesus, but who vehemently disagrees with this leader’s religious organization and philosophy:

“I REALLY WONDER IF THERE IS A LOW ENOUGH LEVEL OF HELL YOU CAN DESCEND AND I PRAY YOU QUICKLY GO THERE”

If my Pastor came out and said something like this (whether public – as this was – or privately), I would run. How about you?

What’s Going on in my life

Interesting things, praise God!

(1) I’ve started a podcast called worship wednesday at worshipwednesday.com, where I interview an independent worship artist every Wednesday. I’ve already done 5 podcasts, interviewing artists from as far away as South Korea.

(2) I’m still working on my next worship CD, and I am very excited about it. It will have 12 songs… one is a rehash of a song from the first CD (Overflow) that, as producer Lance Fooks says is “slamming.” Target for release: December 1.

(3) I’ve taken over responsibility as worship leader at LIFEhouse Church in Northridge, CA.

Keep up to date on the goings on here… as soon as the CD project is done, I probably will have more time to blog and return to the Cover to Cover project.

Haven’t forgotten about the Cover to Cover!

This is a great time to play catch up, though… we are reading through Genesis 30. Video will be up shortly with my thoughts on Gen 17-20.

In the mean time, just added Jennifer Wagner to my blog roll. Check her blog out!

Reason #1,024,256 why Facebook is a useful tool: Avoiding the doghouse

Thanks for being patient with the Cover to Cover bible reading… I should have a video up on the last reading tomorrow, and the next assignment will be up to Genesis 30, so get cracking!

Peace and love!

Cover to Cover Project #3: Thoughts on Genesis 5-16

Assignment: Genesis 17-20
Goal: by next Saturday, July 25, 2010

Short reading for the coming week so that we can all get caught up, and I am going to try and get an email list together for an additional method of announcements (I’ll use the email addresses you used when you posted “I’m in” here). If you want to be removed from that email list, let me know.

My notes:

1) Lamech purpose — father of Noah — continuation of the line of humanity through Noah? that is his importanceof not being harmed (TOOK THIS OUT – it is inaccurate – apparently, the Lamechs are both different)

2) who were the sons of God and nephilim? great link here (gen 6:1-3)

http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/nephilim.html

short conclusion is that they are not angelic beings, but men

3) Noah is a “righteous man, blameless among the people of the time” – yet, we know he was embibed in alcohol to the point of extreme drunkenness

-what do you think about that?

4) God was intent on destroying all living creatures… floods were mericiful in the sense that it was a quick wipeout… but what about the living creatures of the deep? They live in water… he only solution would have been to drought the earth..but this would be slow and painful.

did God kill the fish?

5) Kosher rules – no shellfish… no meat from the hoofed animals that chew the cud (no pig) — yet, Gen 9:3 says “everything that lives and moves will be food for you”

but no blood – gravy?

what gives?

6) The curse of Ham — I find this amazingly interesting because Ham was the father of Canaan, and Noah curses Canaan for all time, yet this is the land that God promises Abraham where his descendants will multiply… this place of Noah’s curses is a huge blessing to Abraham and his decendants (us) — interesting dichotomy — Noah’s curse means nothing.

“To your offspring, I will give this land” the Lord to Abram

7) Genesis 10 is a nice family history and I wrote about this in a blog entry about how boring these kind of parts are to me… except how they go to the veracity of the truthfulness of the history

- why make up these names? to make it appear more truthful? or did these people exist?

8 ) God the author of confusion? Tower of Babel

great link here: http://www.carm.org/apologetics/evidence-and-answers/if-god-not-author-confusion-what-about-tower-babel

Gen 9:1 is Gods commandment to Noah to be fruitful and particularly to “fill the earth” – the tower had the people grouping in one place and not adhering the command… so God made it so that there was compliance

9) Gen 12: when Abram lies and says Sarai is his sister, there is no mention as to how the Pharoah found out that the serious diseases inflicted upon him were because of Abram’s lie… and why didn’t the Pharoah order Abram killed?

10) Greed starts to separate Abram and Lot but Abram is the high road guy… recommends that they separate, and Lot gets the “premium” lot, if you will… that turns out to not be so premium later… Abram chooses Cannan.

11) Abram believes the Lord when He says that he shall have children, and this is credited to him as righteousness… apparently short lived, because he and his wife then decide to take matters into their own hands… and things get complicated.

Behind the music: Zechariah’s Song

A short time ago, I posted a blog entry on this new song that I called “Rising Son.”

It had a catchy “bridge” that went, lyrically:

He forgives our sin…
The tender mercy, tender mercy of God.

I really like this simple, musical interlude. Lance Fooks liked the refrain, also… except…

“That’s not a bridge,” he said. “That’s a chorus.”

“Oh, really?” I answered. I knew he was right… but how to configure the song to switch it all around? We spent the majority of the first night doing just that, and the beginning of the next day in the studio changing the ending, so that the song closes with this chorus.

The result? A very powerful worship song that gives a simple message: the Rising Son will come from heaven, to shine on those in darkness, and in the shadow of our deaths, he’ll guide our feet towards peace. A Savior for all has come and will come again.

I can’t wait for you to hear it.

By the way, the song is no longer called “Rising Son.” It is called “Tender Mercy,” and I suspect this will also be the title of the album.

Back in the studio today And Cover to Cover Update

I’m excited to be going back into the music studio today to continue recording some new worship songs with Lance Fooks.

I have finished the latest Cover to Cover assignment, but I wanted to put out the feelers and see how everybody else is doing. Are we ready to continue on?

If anyone needs more time, I can schedule a small reading for this coming week (maybe to Genesis 20). If you are ready, let me know, below. I will try and make an email list to make this easier, but in the mean time, let me know if you are ready to move on here.

Later today/tonight, I will make a video of my thoughts on the latest reading (I picked up some different insights this time around), and I’ll post up the next assignment.

God bless, and thanks again for joining me! Have a wonderful weekend!

Popular Culture Assists Our Evangelism

My wife and I have a few “guilty pleasures” on television. One of them is the CBS reality TV show, Big Brother. So, this morning, in response to a thought about the show that I posted on my Facebook page, a young brother-in-Christ commented:

How can you guys stand watching TV anymore? The last reality TV show I watched about made me wanna blow my brains out! It seems like everything on air has debased itself to the level of MTV. You can’t even watch the History channel anymore without being lied to constantly. ugh

I understand his thinking, which is why I refer to Big Brother as a “guilty pleasure.”

But, his thought got me to thinking… a common refrain from my non-believing friends is that they are “not sinners,” and do not believe in the concept of “Original Sin” or man’s basic tendencies towards depravity.

This show, like other reality shows such as Survivor, helps us to point out how wrong our non-believing friends are. It is absolutely man’s basic, common characteristic of having selfish and depraved motives.

In fact, on Big Brother this season (where there is a $500,000 prize to the last person standing), there’s an Orthodox Jewish doctor whose first order of business on the show was to lie about his profession. He did so because he thought other contestants would believe that he doesn’t need the money and would, therefore, promptly vote him out.

Blogs are popular culture, too.

And, my blog entry on my recent experience at Descanso Gardens resulted in some pretty heated words about my integrity.

So it seems that this blog works in the same manner. Like the Orthodox Jew, I am a believer in the law. But, just because I am a believer, does not mean I will meet all expectations of personal integrity and obedience to that law. Selfish motive still exists in me because it is a part of my fabric.

It is exactly because of this that we all need Jesus. So, if you don’t know Jesus, I hope that you will open the door to the possibility. And, soon.

Philippians 1:4-6

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.