Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Daily Hearld]

To make confession less intimidating, Protestant churches have urged believers to shred their sins in paper shredders or write them on rocks and cast them into a “desert” symbolized by a giant sand pile in the sanctuary. Three Capuchin friars now hear confessions six days a week at a mall in Colorado Springs., Colo.

Worshipers are answering the call. When priests from five Chicago parishes joined forces last year to welcome penitents from 9 a.m. on a Friday to 9 a.m. the next morning, about 2,500 people showed up.

Several factors are feeding the resurgence. Aggressive marketing by churches has helped reinvent confession as a form of self-improvement rather than a punitive rite. Technology is also creating new avenues for redemption. Some Protestants now air their sins on videos that are shared on YouTube and iTunes or are played to entire congregations. And the appetite for introspection has been buoyed by the broad acceptance of psychotherapy and the emphasis on self-analysis typified by daytime talk television.

“Every day on Jerry Springer we see people confessing their sins in public, and certainly the confessional is a lot healthier than Jerry Springer,” says Orlando Bishop Thomas Wenski, who last March sent out 190,000 pamphlets calling on Catholics to confess.

Read about it here.

[From me]

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

I’ve done this 3 times during a worship service.  It is a really cool sound to hear your sins being shredded away.   Have you done any creative and symbolic ways of allowing people to confess and realize that God forgives?  I would love to hear it.

What do you think?

My parents work for Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry.  They teach a Basic Training Bible Study Class every Sunday Morning at Ft. Jackson in Columbia, SC.  They personally have led hundreds of soldiers to Christ every year.  They lead Bible Studies during the week for officers and their wives.  They also teach marriage and parenting seminars at military bases all over the world.

One of the needs that the military has is the shortage of Bibles.  The Military Ministry offers Rapid Deployment Kits to soldiers for free but they need more. Campus Crusade for Christ’s Military Ministry continues to receive requests for 15,000-20,000 RDKs each month. It takes just $3.25 to get an RDK into the hands of a service member.

Read about it here.

My parents ministry is here:

[Christian Post]

A third of Americans say they believe in ghosts, a pre-Halloween poll found. The same proportion, 34 percent, say they believe in unidentified flying objects, according to the poll by the Associated Press and Ipsos, and 23 percent say they have actually seen a ghost or believe they have been in one’s presence.

Those most likely to have experienced that are single people, Catholics and those who never attend religious services. Three in 10 have awakened sensing a strange presence in the room.

Nearly half (48 percent) believe in extrasensory perception, a drop from the 66 percent who said they accept ESP in a similar question asked by Newsweek in 1996. Those with a higher education were found to be more likely to accept ESP â?? 51 percent of college graduates compared to 37 percent with a high school diploma or less.

Nineteen percent believe that spells or witchcraft exists. Urban dwellers, minorities and lower-earning people are more likely to believe in spells and witchcraft.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I don’t believe in ghosts but I do believe that the occult is real.  I had an experience with my roommate Rob in college that we both are convinced was occult.  We both had the same “dream” on the same night in separate bedrooms.  We both felt like we were being tied up and we were watching ourselves from above.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.  He is a pastor of a church in North Alabama and I’m in the ministry.

My father has ministered to dozens if not hundreds of people involved in the occult.  He has removed demons from people through the power of the Holy Spirit on many occasions. Satan is real and one of the ways he stays under the radar is by making people seem like kooks that believe he is real.

What do you think?

[Spiegel online]

Dozens of lobsters destined to be boiled alive made a successful getaway from an Asian supermarket in the German city of Stuttgart in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said.

The clawed crustaceans, some of them up to 15 centimeters long, managed to crawl out of their crates, which had been poorly secured with wire mesh, then scurried across the floor of the supermarket and squeezed through the metal shutters covering the front of the store. The front door had been left open by mistake.

“The breakout was successful,” Katrin Brandeis, spokeswoman for the Stuttgart police, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Passers by alerted the police at 1:45 a.m. reporting a large number of the animals heading down the street.”

The escape may have saved their lives. “These animals weren’t ever going to be pets,” Brandeis said. “Now they’ve been taken to an animal home. The supermarket hasn’t got in touch with us.”

Read about it here.

[From me]

Where are the B-52’s when you need them? “Everybody had matching towels…” Lets go adopt a lobster.

This must be my lucky day. Check out this awesome e-mail I received!

END OF YEAR UK LOTTERY WINNER
From: British National Lottery Online Promo
To:
Date: Sat Oct 27 14:14:06 2007
British Online Co-ordinators
Ref: UK/776090X2/23
Batch: 013/06/8394369

FINAL NOTIFICATION

We happily announce to you the Draw (06/1096) of the UK NATIONAL LOTTERY, online UK National Lottery program held on
Draw 1214 25th of October 10.Your e-mail address attached to Ticket Number:8603775966738 with Serial number
5368/02drew the Winning Numbers:06,10,11,19,22,46(bonusno.40)

You have therefore been approved for a lump sum payout of £1,500,000(One Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling
payout in Us dollars ;2,776,646.55 in cash credited to file XYL/26510460037/06.

To file for your claim please contact our fiduciary agent Sir David Rex.
with details below:

Does this mean I’m rich?