The UmBlog

blogger offers a beta version with labels and stuff, but in order to upgrade i'll need to sacrifice all my links and sidebar junk and add them back.... yuck.... but i want to add labels to my posts... so at some point, this will be ugly for awhile. i'm not yet ready for that....

at GetReligion: September 5, 2006 : "Looks like it’s a thoroughly Protestant understanding. I’m surprised that Groeschel is surprised by the sins and anguish that are being revealed. I’m sure that a pastor or priest who regularly hears confession would not be so shocked at what is afflicting the flock. In fact, I would think that confession-hearing pastors get an insight into the life of the congregation that non-confession-hearing pastors are oblivious to. I’m also interested to read that Groeschel believes healing comes from confessing to other people. Oprah would certainly agree. An open, anonymous confession site has interesting implications. On the one hand, assuming that there is any truth to these claims, the pastor can better preach to the flock. On the other hand, given that these confessions are coming in from at least nine separate congregations as well as, well, the rest of the world, then how useful is it to hear the confession in terms of more focused preaching? In h...

"And as I promised, here is my funny Arminian story. I was on a Christian forum where a thread (a topic) appeared on Calvinism vs. Arminianism. I've never seen a Christian forum where this thread isn't eventually brought up. After much heated debate, a woman posted the following, 'I think you people are being very mean to the Armenians. I'm sure they are very nice people.' I happen to live in the city with the largest enclave of Armenians outside of the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. My city in California has 210,000 and 40% are of Armenian descent, mostly coming here in the last 25 years. We have the two types - those from Armenia and those from the Middle East who are descended from those who survived the genocide of 1906. So, I patiently explained to the woman on the forum that Armenians (with an 'e') were people from Armenia, a former Republic of the Soviet Union but now a free country on its own. Arminians (with an 'i') are followers of Jacob...

My wife describes how our kids make money at Smart Mom Blog: Loose Change : "You see, my children work for pennies. If they do not work, they do not get paid. We have a chore system that includes short term and long-term goals. Each child has a chart listing his or her jobs. When a job is completed, the child gets to stamp off the appropriate box on the cart. “Yes! I get to stamp a cute picture on my chart.” If all the jobs are done for the day, I put a sticker on the chart. “Yes! I get a STICKER!” Mind you, these stickers are about an eighth of an inch long and I have about a thousand of them. Bought them on a roll four years ago. On sale of course. I don’t think we will ever run out!"

Diesel Secret Energy sells a secret to mix Diesel, Kerosene, secret ingredient, and 85% veggie oil....you can even heat with it....

Armenian massacres: Information From Answers.com : "While there is no clear consensus as to how many Armenians lost their lives during what is called the Armenian genocide and what followed, there seems to be a consensus among Western scholars, with the exception of few dissident and Turkish national historians, as to the period between 1914 to 1923, over a million Armenians might have perished. The recent tendency seems to be, either presenting 1.2 million as a figure or even 1.5 million, while more moderately, 'over a million' is presented, as the Turkish historian Fikret Adanir estimates, but this estimate excludes what followed 1917 - 1918."

Stella Matutina : "The Vatican Speaks Out Against New Way Of Making Stem Cells 'Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, the Vatican's top official on bioethical questions, said in an interview with Vatican Radio on Saturday that the method of making stem cells devised by scientists at Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in Alameda, Calif., remains an in-vitro form of reproduction, which the church opposes.....'"