Betty Crocker And Jesus: The Secret Is In The Mix

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The story goes that back in the 50’s, Betty Crocker began to sell cake mixes in the now famous red box. They developed a mix that only required someone to add water and bake. Apparently, it bombed. No one bought this easy-to-use mix. So the company did some market research, and found out that people didn’t buy the cake mix because it seemed too easy. Surely something that just takes water, consumers reasoned, would be dry and tasteless. Also, researchers discovered that people wanted to feel like they had to play their part to make the cake “homemade.” So, armed with this knowledge, Betty Crocker changed the formula to require that an egg and oil be added in addition to the water. And, you guessed it — it was a huge success! As Paul Harvey would say…The rest is history. No, wait…Paul Harvey would say, That was the rest of the story. Right? Hmmmmm??? Anyway…

My take is that many people think that way about our relationship with the Lord—that our relationship with God works like that second cake mix. God does most of the work, but we have to do our part and then we can know that we’re right with Him. The process of salvation is just too dang simple for some people. “Just Add Jesus” makes us uncomfortable. We need to add two freshly cracked good deeds and a ¼ cup of our own sanctification, and then the mix will come out OK. Otherwise, we’re afraid it just won’t work.

But the truth is that the secret is in the simplicity. No works. No deeds. No religion. No rituals. Just add Jesus. Over a billion satisfied customers later, the process still works. Just ask the Philippian jailer. He asked Paul, “What must I do to be saved?” There you go. “What must I DO to be saved?”
Paul gave him the simple secret of a successful mix; “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Acts 16:31 (NKJV) emphasis mine.

Try A Little Kindness

I love Aesop’s Fables. When I was a kid, it was my favorite thing to hear during story time. I read this week where scientist have proven one of the fables as true. Huh. Well, I’ve known that for many years. The old boy knew his stuff. And one thing he knew about was Kindness.
Aesop told a fable about the wind and the sun having an argument. Which was stronger, as I recall. The sun made a bet that the one who could make a man take of his coat was the strongest. The wind went first. The sun hid behind a cloud. The wind blew and blew, but the harder and more fierce the wind blew, the tighter the man held on to his coat. Finally, exhausted, (pun intended) the wind gave up. The sun’s turn was next. He came out from behind the clouds and shone on the man. The man quickly took off his coat. Moral of the story? Warmth, friendliness, and a gentle touch are always stronger than force and furry.

So it is with our daily walk. Do you see how these fruits are building. Love leads to joy, which brings peace, allowing for patience and endurance that will manifest itself as kindness. Listen, you’ve got to "try a little kindness." The stuff is addictive!
Remember Glenn Campbell? Back in the 70’s he crooned...

You’ve got to try a little kindness
Yes, try a little kindness,
Just shine your light for everyone to see
And if you try a little kindness,
You’ll overlook the blindness
Of narrow-minded people, on the narrow-minded streets
Not bad advise at all!

Prom 2014

2014 North Central High School Prom

Luke & Hailey

 The Three Amigos

Candidates For State Education Superintendent

There will be a run-off election for the GOP candidate for State Education Superintendent. Be an informed voter!

The South Carolina Education Association

Election Guide

2014 Candidates for Superintendent of Education

Candidate       

Background and Position

Sally Atwater (R)

           

The widow of GOP strategist Lee Atwater, Sally Atwater has been a special needs teacher in Colleton County for the past two years. A fiscal conservative and supporter of Governor Nikki Haley, Atwater worked for the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration and later was appointed to advisory boards at the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Atwater executive director of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. She also worked on Capitol Hill for a year in 2010 as a staffer for the House Education and Workforce Committee. Atwater holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in special education from Winthrop University and taught special education in public schools for nine years at the beginning of her career.

Fundraising:

Raised $86,041; On Hand $58,503

Website:

www.atwaterforeducation.com

Platform:

·         Opposes Common Core State Standards

·         Supports revising state school funding formula to help poor and rural school districts

·         Supports review of safety policies in schools

Molly Spearman (R)

           

The Executive Director of the SC Association of School Administrators (SCASA) for the past nine years, Spearmanis a formerteacher and assistant principal.She served four terms in the SC House of Representatives, during which time shepresented herself as a champion for children’s issues. She also was deputy education superintendent under Democrat Inez Tennenbaum’s superintendency (1998-2007). She was a Democrat until 1995, when she switched parties. She graduated from Lander University and holds a Master’s of Education Supervision from George Washington University and an Education Specialist degree from the University of South Carolina.

Fundraising:

Raised $90,521; On Hand $67,465

Website:

www.mollyspearman.com

Platform:

·         Supports Gov. Haley’s education funding reform plan

·         Supports workplace preparedness and technology education programs for graduates

·         Has helped SCASA develop its own teacher evaluation plan as an alternative to the Zais plan; SCASA’s plan also incorporates student growth measures, as required by our state’s NCLB waiver

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SoccerBall: Why "European Rules Football" Will Never Make It In 'Merica

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So I watched my first ever World Cup Soccer Game (...err...Futbul Match.?.) last night as the USA trounced Ghana 2-1. (How exactly you "trounce" another team 2-1 is beyond me.)

OK...so it wasn't so bad that I tried to gouge my eyes out with a spoon; but after reflection I think that it is safe to say that this game (I'm sorry...this is NOT a sport) will probably never catch on in good ole 'Merica.

First of all, the rules are confusing. How can my team be off-side, if their player is behind mine? Why does time count up instead of down, why do the ref's get to arbitrarily assign extra time, etc, etc, ad nauseam. If explaining a rule requires an entire website, it's too confusing.

And speaking of Extra Time; the second item, in a single word: Math. In soccer the clock doesn’t stop moving. It also counts up instead of down. This makes it very anticlimactic. Viewers have to do math, particularly subtraction, in order to know how much time is left. This requires borrowing numbers and doing it in your head. Not cool. There is also a lot of wasted time. (see #3) So, in order to make up for this wasted time the referees arbitrarily decide how much “extra time” will be added after the 90 minutes of play is up. Games never end with a furious attack on the net. They usually end the way the majority of the game was played: some guy kicking the ball around in the middle of the field.

Third, and perhaps the most egregious of all, is all of the whining. Soccer is very much like hockey: uhhh...except much more boring and feminine. Soccer is seen in the eyes of most Americans as a women's sport. i.e. "Soccer Mom".

So what I'm saying is: Suck it up and act like a man!

Lastly, it is simply boring. All of the American sports have some element of action to keep you interested. In soccer, a guy stands alone in one portion of a huge field until some other loner comes over and harasses him a bit. He then kicks the ball to another guy standing alone and he kicks it by himself for a while. Soccer is like flying a plane. 85 minutes of excruciating boredom interrupted by 5 minutes of sheer terror.

Paint Drying > Soccer.

 So, I will probably watch the next World Cup game, until America loses anyway, out of dumb patriotism and a maniacal fascination with sports and all things Red, White, and Blue. But I wouldn't count on MLS selling out stadiums anytime soon. Hey, every four years I become a fan of track and field and then forget about it until the next time an American suits up for gold. That doesn't mean that the decathlon will be America's next top rated sport. Expect soccer to continue to be an every-four-year-fascination for Americans.


 'Merica! Heck, yeah!.

The Fruit Of The Spirit Is...Grapefruit?!

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So the fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace and Longsuffering. Stevie asked me the other day what is longsuffering? Longsuffering is kind of like grapefruit. Grapefruit is a hard fruit to eat. For me anyway. I love it. And it is supposed to be healthy. (Isn’t there a grapefruit diet?) But it’s hard. Cut it in half and eat it with a spoon and stingy juice will squirt in your eye. Peel it and eat it like an orange and you have quite a mess with the peelings and the skins. But I love it and so I put up with the mess. Likewise Longsuffering is a hard fruit of the Spirit. So what is longsuffering? It is, of course, patience and endurance. Listen to James explain this concept...


For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:3-4 (NLT)

The word for complete here means mature. God's goal for us is that we be mature Believers; and complete patience makes for a mature Christian. So why do we need longsuffering? Well, troubles and troublemakers are in our lives to develop patience, perseverance, and persistence. It is by patience we see God's work in us, and it is by perseverance we learn God's will for us.


Do you know why longsuffering is so hard? Because it involves waiting. I am convinced one of the most difficult things to do in life is wait. We wait at red-lights, we wait in line at Wal Mart, we wait for football season to get here, and when it is here we wait for Saturday! But we HATE to WAIT!!! We are a culture that exists on instant satisfaction. Microwave popcorn, fast food, instant Lotto tickets, and (as Luke has discovered) TV dinners. For our culture waiting is a difficult, if not an impossible thing to achieve.


The other day I watched Amazing Grace, the movie about William Wilberforce. If you haven’t seen the movie you should. He spent 50 years in politics with one thing in mind, one goal, abolish slavery in England. On his deathbed, he learned that parliament passed the law. He never gave up. He knew some things are worth fighting for. Some things require endurance and patience, and...oh, my...Longsuffering. Do we have that type of patience, that ability to see a tough issue through to the end.


James goes on to say, “be patient until the coming of the Lord.” (vs 7) The only reason the world is still here is not because God is powerless, nor is it because God is passive; it is because God is patient. He is longsuffering. Jesus is coming back. Make no doubt about it, that is His promise. The question is, what are we doing while we wait? Be patient with others and spread the good news of Jesus Christ and His Amazing Grace!




FYI

read more about William Wilberforce here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

The Rise and Fall of Existential Baptists

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The fall of every denomination begins with such thoughts as these from David Gushee given in a plenary address at the recent CBF sponsored conference on Sexuality& Covenant.

"Some of our most thoughtful leaders are functioning more with a repertoire of resources beginning with Scripture but extending to tradition, reason and experience. I think that there is an awareness in our part of the Baptist world at this time that tradition, reason, and experience are always operative when people are reading Scripture. You might call it a loss of naiveté."

And in this lies the problem of declining membership and increasing apostasy in mainline denominations. The “starting” with Scripture; not as a source of authority, but as simply a genesis for the theological underpinning of our doctrine and practices. And to add insult to ecclesiastical injury, Gushee then brings Scripture under the vicarious authority of tradition, reason, and experience.

In other words, in the frame of reference of the Conference on Sexuality and Covenant, despite the fact that the Bible clearly states that sex is to be confined to marriage partners, that marriage is to be between one man and one woman for one lifetime, and that homosexuality is sin, we can ignore these facts. Because tradition, reason, and experience trump that old fashion, unreasonable, and bland old doctrine, anyway. 

Tradition has changed to the place where the culture has welcomed the homosexual lifestyle as alternative, if not normative, but most certainly not sinful. I mean, really, why would any rational thinking individual try to stop true love or confine a couple to marriage for life? Maybe he will find a woman he loves more than his first wife. So?  We can clearly see that this teen age couple loves each other, why make them get married in order to have sex? The experience of young love should not be denied.

It doesn’t take long to see how little value the Bible has in the denominations that take a view of the Scriptures as relative. When the church views doctrine from such an existential worldview, ontologically speaking, the battle is already lost. With no clear, decisive, and authoritative source for our beliefs, the progression of thought will lead to where all existentialism leads…atheism.   If not an outright denial of God’s existence, it certainly plows headlong into practical atheism. A religion whose god is a weak-kneed, spaghetti-spined, limp-wristed, feeble, vacillating deity that cannot decide on what he or she wants. Hmmmm.

The only loss of  naiveté then, is the naiveté of believing that we can have a "God" that has no authority, no consistency, nor relevance in a word of ever changing ethics.