Friday, March 31, 2006

Fantasy Baseball Sign Up

Howdy everyone. I have started a Fantasy Baseball League. I had emailed some people about getting in on it, but as of 1pm Friday, there are only two of us in it. I was going to run the draft today, but I don't want to yet with only two people signed up. I'm going to post the League info on here and I'm not going to run the draft until Sunday. The first game of the season is Sunday night at 8pm eastern time. I need at least two other teams to be able to have the league. Here is the info for the league. Please sign up now!

The League is run by yahoo and is free, you have to have a free yahoo ID to participate. Here is the link to sign up for the League and the info you will need.

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

League Name - Lipsey4Ever

League ID number - 266676

League password - nobts

Sign up soon, draft is going to be run on Sunday

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

IMB Baptist Controversy - Part 1

Okay, as promised weeks ago, I'm going to address the controversy. But not until Friday. If you don't know what the issue is, here goes. Basically the deal is that some members of the IMB board of trustess believe and have voted taht the only baptist that will be recognized by the IMB as valid is one that has been performed in and Southern Baptist Church by an ordained Southern Baptist Minister who was also baptized in a Southern Baptist Church by an ordained Southern Baptist Minister who was ... so on and so forth back theoretically the the church at Acts of something!?! not sure how far back these guys want to take it. There has been some disagreement over this issue and I might have already given away my views of it, but if not I want to post the following passage from the New Testament, encourage you to read it and examine it in light of the new policies adopted by the IMB. Give me your opinion and you can anxiously await my position on Friday.

Acts 8:25-40

An Ethiopian Receives Christ

25 And so, when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.

26 But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, "Arise and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a desert road.) 27 And he arose and went; and behold, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship. 28 And he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join this chariot." 30 And when Philip had run up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" 31 And he said, "Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this:
"HE WAS LED AS A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER;
AND AS A LAMB BEFORE ITS SHEARER IS SILENT,
SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH.
33 "IN HUMILIATION HIS JUDGMENT WAS TAKEN AWAY;
WHO SHALL RELATE HIS GENERATION?
FOR HIS LIFE IS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH."
34 And the eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else?" 35 And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. 36 And as they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch * said, "Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?" 37 [And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."] 38 And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch; and he baptized him. 39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch saw him no more, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus; and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities, until he came to Caesarea.

Acts 8:25-40 (NASB77)

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Here is the first of two reports from the trip Rebekah and I took to British Columbia (BC). We went to Westbank and The Potter's House Community Church .
On the way and on the way back we stopped off for several hours in several strategic cities along the route, both of which have very little evangelical churches. The city that we stopped off in on the way was Revelstoke, BC. Revelstoke is a city of about 7500 people and is located directly on the Trans Canada Highway just west of the Rocky Mountains. It is a popular stopping point for tourists and travelers heading into and out of the mountains. The city is much more alive during the summer than it is during this time of year (early March) but we wanted to see what was going on. We looked around the town, but just driving and found some churches, one each of most of the typical ones that you would see in many small Canadian communities, Alliance, United, Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal and a few smaller ones. After driving around and looking at the town, we went parked and walked around the town. For those of you who know me, one place I love to go while scouting a town is a coffee house. We found one downtown, where the average age was at least 65. This was not indicative of the entire town, but this one coffee house was definately for the older people in the town. We didn't stay long and continued our walking and praying through the town. The town seemed to be fairly active in terms of people being out and about on the streets, we were there about 3pm, but everyone seemed to be focused on the task at hand whether that was work, going home after school, or just being out and about. After we finished walking, we did some more driving and found a section of town that had an abundance of ball fields, mainly soccer and baseball. There had to be 10 or 12 fields in one location, which seemed like a lot for a town of 7500. The level of involvement of the town in these sports could definately be good information for someone looking to plant a church in the community. Another interesting thing that we found was the almost new Revelstoke Aquatic Centre. This was a super facility that had a full size Olympic pool, sauna, hot tubs, water slide, leisure pool, lazy river, and a water rock climbing wall that comes up directly out of one of the pools. It would be a great place to meet people. Despite the great looking around that we did, we didn't have a significant conversation with anyone. Little did we know how that would change when we left Revelstoke and arrived in Westbank.
We had scouted Revelstoke on Thursday, and on Saturday morning we were at the home of Rob and Cindy Clements, the family that we stayed with in Westbank, and the girl that rents their downstairs suite came upstairs to borrow the phone, which according to Cindy is unusual. This girl, who's name is Jessica, also stayed and sat down to have breakfast with all of us. We were all just having conversation, and Cindy just happened to mention what Rebekah and I were doing in Westbank. It eventually got around to the fact that we had stopped off in Revelstoke on our way. Jessica said, oh yeah, Revelstoke, that's my hometown, my entire family still lives there!! Open door, time to walk through it. We talked about Revelstoke and the city and other things, and eventually Jessica said that her family had grown up in the United Church, but nobody really went anymore. Needless to say, Jessica and her family are a great, possible contact in Revelstoke. I know that I will be in contact with Jessica in the future. The neatest thing about this is we didn't feel like things had gone that well in Revelstoke, but it was when we got to Westbank it became clear what we needed to learn about Revelstoke. Overall, our scouting of Revelstoke went very well. Check the blog again soon to hear the report from Golden, BC.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Happy Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras was this week and I promised a picture. I am going to put my original post that I wrote on Mardi Gras and also attach the picture here. Remember if you are still trying to read my Xanga Blog, I"m not updating a lot, I have moved to updating much more frequently on my new Blog which is located at

http://jraffini.blogspot.com/

Original Mardi Gras Post from Tuesday

Happy Mardi Gras

Today is a great and sad day for the city of New Orleans. Mardi Gras goes on, despite the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina in August. The party is going on, as it must. A New Olreans without Mardi Gras is not New Orleans. As I sit in Calgary, Alberta, I'm watching it snow while watching the webcams of all the Mardi Gras parades and wearing a few beads to liven up the day. Enjoy your Mardi Gras wherever you are, and see you next year for an even greater Carnival Season. I'm going to add a picture later of some beads in the snow, kind of a Mardi Gras Canada, if you will.