Kidz Crazy Car & Truck Show?

Save the date Thursday September 27 @ 3:30-6:30pm for the Kidz Crazy Car & Truck Show!!! After Toledo Junior Academy and James Meade Learning Center dismisses for the day, parents can spend some quality time playing with their kids. There will be bouncy things and contests and games scattered on the playground and parking lot. There will be live music and fresh squeezed lemonade to wash down the hot dogs and popcorn in the food court. All food proceeds go toward our gymnasium building fund so please come hungry and plan to eat supper here!!! And before you go, be sure to check out the cool cars and crawl all over the huge trucks. Kids don't forget to enter your favorite Matchbox car for your Kids Car Show prize. This promises to be a blast!!! You do not need to be a student at TJA or JMLC to participate.

Can We Follow Jesus Without Embarassing God?

In the old George Burns movie, Oh God!, a young man keeps getting messages from God that he's supposed to relate to the rest of us. In one scene, he goes to hear an evangelistic preacher who in many ways is a caricature of the worst in all of us. This young man interrupts the preacher's sermon to tell him that God has a special message just for him. The preacher stops the service. He announces to the crowd, "This young man has come with a message from God!" The young man, looking straight at the preacher says, "God wants you to shut up because you're embarrassing Him!"

Tony Campolo says this need not be in his book Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God. We can have a devotional life without becoming a monk. We can protect ourselves from technology without becoming Amish. We can discern the will of God without hearing voices from heaven. We can get ready to die without pretending it's no problem. We can care for people without being exploited. We can raise kids without going on guilt trips. We can be attractive but not obscene. We can hold our families together in a world that's falling apart. And it goes on and on.

One of the most thought provoking chapters was the one about how we can be rich and still be Christian. In it, he says the story about the death of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-10 is meant to teach us that lying to God is the problem, not being rich (cf. Acts 5:4). Whether you agree or not, this would be a very good book to discuss at work with friends, on WED night during a Community Book Club, or small groups at church. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. (Now I need to watch Oh God! too since I was 4 years old when it premiered lol!!!)

God on Trial?

Facing extermination at Auschwitz, a group of prisoners solemnly weighs the case against God. Who is to blame for the greatest of all crimes? Amid the sound of prisoners outside being marched to the gas chamber, the trial unfolds, addressing the age-old question: How can there be evil in a universe ruled by an all-powerful benevolent God? One young father who had his three little boys taken from him surprisingly speaks in favor of God: “I know He is here, even though I don’t understand Him...Maybe God is suffering with us.”

Most of the others disagree with the young father. Spoiler alert: they say God is not good and broke His covenant and is guilty. Though I disagree with some of the conclusions they reach at the end, I think this film brilliantly sets the stage for a discussion of the Great Controversy. And how Jesus' death on the cross proves that God really is good. Even though the cross and the Holocaust simultaneously proves some things aren't. It's worth discussing. Get your copy here. BIG thanks and WTG to my friend Allan for sharing it with me. Click here for more info.

Is It Sabbath Yet?

This guy in Hollywood (Producer DeVon Franklin, Vice President of Production for Columbia Pictures) is looking forward to it. Maybe Oprah or Will Smith will too? I just downloaded his new book in iBooks (also available in hardback on Amazon called Produced by Faith). In it, he talks about maintaining your faith while advancing your career. Enjoy!!!