Month: February 2008

“What Being a Man is ALL About…”

Rob Woodrum9 Comments

“You don’t like an old fashioned Bible, that tells you what bein’ a man’s all about?”

That’s a quote from the embedded video below. (WARNING: this video contains words that some will find crude and offensive, even if it’s found in the Bible)  It’s been making the rounds of various church related blogs I read (props to Real Live Preacher), so I figured I might as well feature it too.

Just so you know…I have to make the assumption that this guy is my brother in Christ, even though I wildly disagree with his exegesis on the passage in question (1 Kings 14:10)…and am offended beyond words by the title of another video he’s posted, “Why Billy Graham is going to hell”. (Click here to see my view on people who feel it necessary to preach “against” another minister, presented in comic strip form)

Either way…he’s my brother…so I’m not trying to pick on him…I’m just sort of fascinated by him.  In all honesty, it would be really nice to think that “this is what’s wrong with America”…because solving our problems would be SO simplified.  No more war, no more poverty, no more hatred…all you have to do is stand up to **….well, you should watch the video, and share your thoughts.

Refueling with the 916th!

Rob Woodrum7 Comments

Hey everybody!  I was gone over the weekend because a guy from our fellowship, SMSgt Brian Bischoff, who is part of our nation’s Air Force Reserves, took me to Seymour Johnson Air Force base in North Carolina where they hosted a “clergy day”.  Clergy is me, I guess.  What they did was, load a bunch of pastors into a KC-135 Stratotanker, and took us up on a mid-air refueling mission.

It was amazingly cool.  Not so sure how cool it was for the Reservists who basically had to put up with what amounted to a tube of relgious pomposity hurtling through space….but for ME it was fun.

I got a chance to meet a guy named Erik Estep, who is a pastor with Village Church in South Carolina, which happens to be a Southern Baptist plant.  We hit it off pretty well…at least from my side of things.  He probably hasn’t quit grimacing about the Calvary Chapel jerk he had to put up with on the flight.

Anyway…here’s a video of my flight!

Ashes to Ashes…

Rob Woodrum4 Comments

ash.jpgI grew up in a decidedly non-liturgical home.  We were evangelicals, and my father was ordained in the Methodist church, which is why I’m a bit confused as to why we were so far removed from liturgies…but, such is the case for me.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent for most Western Christian churches who observe liturgical calendars.

I have never observed Lent in my whole life.  I honestly didn’t even know for sure what it was until a few years ago.  Lent, in case YOU don’t know either, is a period of forty days prior to Easter, where the Christian, in imitation of Christ’s forty day wilderness temptation, observes a time of penitence, fasting, charity and prayer.

People practice the denial of self in a great variety of ways during lent.  Some abstain from certain types of food…I have one friend who gave up deserts for forty days (and consequently lost a lot of weight).  It was very meaningful for him.  I had another friend who quit watching TV for forty days.

Having grown up completely outside the reaches of liturgical observances, recently I’ve become quite fascinated with them.  A year ago, I began the practice of praying the “daily office”, from the Celtic Daily Prayers book.  It has had a profound effect on me.

Today, I’m confronted with Ash Wednesday…and I’m wondering about Lent.  Maybe I’ll take a foray into this liturgy as well.  Maybe God has something hiding in there for me…something I hadn’t noticed or known of during my upbringing and early Christian years.  If I don’t observe this year…I’m very inclined to plan for next year.  I think the joy of liturgies is that since they have no historical influence on me, I can see them as tools rather than standards, and can observe them without fear of messing up.

What would I abstain from for forty days?  Are YOU observing Lent?  What would you, or are you, abstaining from?