Friday, June 30, 2006

Homosexuality.....

Lev. 18:22, 20:13

22 " 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

13 " 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Romans 1:18-32

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

==============

Ok yall keep the discussion up and going...have fun! here are a few more questions if you want to fire some discussion questions out.

Here is a few to start the discussion again:

• Should the church support civil rights for homosexuals?
• Can homosexual persons be members of the Church?
(can envious or jealous persons be members of the church…..are we sinless?)
• Is Christianity appropriate for persons with a homosexual orientation who are actively involved in homosexual activity?
• Should the church bless homosexual unions?
• Does this mean that homosexual Christians should be celibate and how is this different from heterosexual celibacy? (Basically, what does God think about sex outside of marriage?)
• Can homosexual Christians be changed of their orientation?
• Should homosexuals be ordained?

Saturday, June 17, 2006

See y'all real soon...

Hey everyone,
It was great seeing y'all last night at Kim and Steve's. Big props to them for good food and a great time.

Sylvia and I wanted to say a big "thank you" to everyone for all the thoughts, prayer and support as we get ready to head off to Guatemala. We'll be heading up to Chicago early Thursday, where we are having a weekend retreat with the rest of the team. Our flight to Guatemala takes off very late Sunday; we'll be back on July12th/13th.

We are heading to two places:
Chinebal, where we'll be working with rural villagers and pastors (http://www.multimap.com/wi/47152.htm).
The other location is El Estor (http://www.inforpressca.com/elestor/, which is the biggest city in the region (The website I liked to is in Spanish).

We would really appreciate your prayers for safe travel, for the 42 high school and college students to have an intimate experience with God, and most of all, that God would shine his light upon people who need him so badly.

We'll miss you so much! See you in one month.