The modern world is very toxic to followers of Christ. Their are so many distractions to take us away from God. Their are so many diffrent things that can really get us. We are so distracted in general with tv, school, hw, the treasures of this world, and more. Perhaps I should say burn what you worship and worship what you burn! Idolitry is still an issue for all of us who follow Christ, it really is they just may be a little diffrent. A lot of people these days collect a whole bunch of teachings according to their own taste. We should ignore these as we have the Real God who loves us enough, a farther (which some would now would want us to say creator) who sends his only Son into the world to save it and die for our sins.  The trinity is not the Creater, the redeemer , an santifier. No it is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! The modern world believes in porality the idea people can basically do whatever they want and you have to accept that. People now say you can lose weight through mother earth, get through depression with Mother Earth. I dont understand how itelligent people can get trapped in that,  but we just needto pray. Astrology is big now and Im not sure why, their is all this creation up their designed by God. Their are five million people get the same message something good is going to happen. Yeah I can thank God for giving me another day. Now granted and admittingly most of us dont put up or set up statues of multiple god's on our alters anymore or as the prophet Jermiah tells us as dumb scarecrows in our cucumber fields (Jermiah is a cool prophet)! The way home, the way to God is through truth and light, and it isnt found in lesser things. However we always end up finding a way to worship lesser things church cannons, athletes, singers, parlimentry procedure, and more. Everywhere we go we can see the latest political issue or position becoming an Idol! Issues around imigration, debt ceiling, fiscal cliff, democrat vs republican, and more. They are all capable of being important, but are not the way to God. They are lesser things, were do we put our ultimate trust? We should put it into God, the source of all life, the loving God that saves us from our self, and our saviour who died for his love for us, the son of God, Jesus Christ. God Bless.

The Exodus of al lof God's chosen people is a liberation, commemorating the
unprecedented and dramatic redemption from slavery of the Israelite nation.
The Torah or our Old Testament depicts this liberation as one of the world’s
greatest moments in all of history: we see this people, six hundred thousand
strong, bearing all their possessions in bundles on their backs, standing on the
banks of the Red Sea. However before them the raging waters; behind, fierce
Egyptian army lead by the Pharaoh. For may this historic moment is known, even
to those who never had read the Holy Scriptures, the word of our Lord. We all
know this story. We’re used to regarding it as a tale of historical and
political liberation, which it certainly is, but for the first time I understood
this on a deeper level as well, to the point where yesterday I was brought to my
knees in humbleness and awe of our Lord God. This is also a story of a spiritual
liberation, about growth in God for Moses. This comes as a guy who was high up
in Egyptian society that ignores his Jewish roots, abandons the God of his
  fathers to worship the Egyptian lifeless gods and goddess's, and murders an
Egyptian who was working the Hebrews too hard. Then one of the sheep (I’m
skipping around a little assuming that you guys know some of these details, if a
bit fuzzy please go back to Exodus the second book in the bible to fill in the
blanks) leads him down into what I can only think of as a cave like structure.
What Happens next is truly amazing!!!


NLT Exodus 3: 2-22


2 There the angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in
amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is
amazing,”Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see
it.”4 When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him
from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. 5 “Do
not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are
standing on holy ground. 6 I am the God of your father[c]—the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he covered his
face because he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord told him, “I have
certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of
distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their
suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians
and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a
land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites,
Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live. 9 Look! The cry of the
people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse
them. 10 Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel
out of Egypt.”






11 But Moses protested to God,
“Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out
of Egypt?”12 God answered, “I will be with you. And this is your sign that I
am the one who has sent you: When you have brought the people out of
Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.”13 But Moses protested,
“If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors
has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I
tell them?”


14 God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.[d] Say this to
the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses,
“Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh,[e] the God of your ancestors—the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to
you.


This is my eternal name, my
name to remember for all generations.16 “Now go and call together all the
elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors—the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me. He told me, “I have been
watching closely, and I see how the Egyptians are treating you. 17 I have
promised to rescue you from your oppression in Egypt. I will lead you to a
land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites,
Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.”’ 18 “The elders of
Israel will accept your message. Then you and the elders must go to the king
of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So
please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer
sacrifices to the Lord, our God.’ 19 “But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand forces him.[f] 20 So I will raise my hand and strike the Egyptians,
performing all kinds of miracles among them. Then at last he will let you go.
21 And I will cause the Egyptians to look favorably on you. They will give
you gifts when you go so you will not leave empty-handed. 22 Every Israelite
woman will ask for articles of silver and gold and fine clothing from her
Egyptian neighbors and from the foreign women in their houses. You will dress
your sons and daughters with these, stripping the Egyptians of their wealth.”



Truly this is amazing, God liberating his people.
Many people do not understand the Old Testament, but it is a story (a true and
historical story mind you) that God liberate those who love him and picks up the
low in society, gives justice, loves the humble, and raises the lowest in
society. Even when the Son of God came to us in his riches and permanently too
place in our humanity, sunk really low, relied on people early in his life, was
a carpenter, corrected what went wrong which was no fault of his own, suffered
crucifixion, rose again, permanently bears the marks of your sins, and loves  us
unconditionally anyways. This is truly amazing. God is the GREATEST!!! However
here in America we still have slaves, usually young human trafficking slaves,
and across the world there are more slaves than ever which means we are not
doing our part as God's people, as disciples of Jesus. If we look at Exodus from
the narrator (Moses) and what he is trying to convey through the Holy Spirit is
that the People (God's Children) being liberated by God from the hands of the
ruthless Egyptian pharaoh and his people. As followers of Christ we tend to
identify with Moses the narrator but perhaps we should take a closer look For
those in the west we should realize wait a minute, we are not the Israel but we
are the Egyptians but in fact living in the so called first world and we are
very much so more like the Egyptians which is not a good thing. I think the west
has always struggled with these issues throughout history! We need to remember
God loves all and deposes the proud and the unjust. God Bless.

The Bible is the word made text, as Jesus is the word made flesh! One must be careful to distinguish between the prescriptive and the descriptive aspects of the bible! Just because the bible describes some horendous incident doesnt mean the bible approves it. You may ask why is the bible so open ended and filled with parables? Why doesnt it just say their it is. The bible is the divinely inspired word of God, and I know it to be 100% true but their is a reason the inspired Word was written as it is! The way a lot of the Old and New Testement is written in parables and stories because that precisely does raise the fact that we are questioning people! If you have ever preached or done something similar if you just stand and give a straight foward literal account with no story behind it then you get straight up law, which people dont listen to, they reject on sight, and throw it away. When you tell stories and put into personal stories people's imagination are captured, people's emotions are captured, you touch the deepest part of their heart, suddenly they can relate. That is one of the many reasons the bible is so amazing! It leads people to a relationship to God to this day and forever more. What does it mean for the divine collection of documents mean to be true of songs, stories, and poems to be true. When we read the Word (which we should do often) we must pray, use the Holy Spirit, and use our God given mind and reasoning.

We as followers of Christ know that relationships are what are most important: Relationship with God, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, all God's people, and the rest of Creation. God calls us to heal and restore relationships of all sorts, God calls us to continually grow and become better stewards in our relationships with others and God. All relationships are meant to be grounded in the kind of love God has for us. At the baptism of Jesus a voice comes from Heaven (that of God the Father's) that says you are my beloved and in you I am well pleased! This happens before Jesus has begun his public ministry, before those around him recognized who he is and what he is about. If we go back to the creation we realize that this rings a bell as God in each stage of creation calls it good, Human beings are blessed and given domain over all the earth and called very good. Adam and Eve are created in God's image and begin to experiment with their free will. Jesus hears God the Father calling him beloved, blessed, very good. God's love does not depend on what we do or do not do, for God loves all and wishes none to perish. We can not really love God in any true sense unless we know that God loved us first and we certainly cant love our neighbor if we don't know we are loved. We need our renewed and changed hearts to be given and used for God in this world, we must here God tell us we are his beloved and in you I am well pleased, as Christ has died for us so we may have that restored relationship with God the Father. Remember each morning the depths of this love and think of some ways each morning to share this love with those around you, as God's love changes the world. Happiness is both physical and mental, this is important to remember. It is so important to remember God became human, partook in humanity for our sake with skin as frail as ours, God in his riches becoming poor for our sake, stooping very low, investing in us, relying of human help for his needs at first. Sometimes we take the goods of this world way to seriously we are decieved, tricked into thinking that these goods are of great importance. We make idols of such goods and put them on mantels. Happiness for followers of Christ is about right relationship with God, with self, and other (all God's children and the rest of Creation), Right relationship with God is putting him first in all things, this is an understanding that nothing can replace God. Right relationship with all God's people is understanding that they are made in the image of God as well, that it all reflects the divine, and lasty that each part of creation reflects the whole and we are all connected by God. God Bless!!!!

This is a series for Christians who are not of the Anglican denomination or anyone who is curious Christian, soon to be Christian, and for those just curious. Here we go, lets dive in! Most likely you are aware of the sacrements of the Baptism and the Eucharist or Lord's supper, a 16th century Anglican theologian whose named Richard Hooker said a Sacrement is "An outwar and visiable sign sign of an spirtual and inward and spirtual Grace". We hold that their is a form and matter for the way the sacrements are and should be carried out. In the Anglican denomination we hold that their are seven legitimate sacrements divided into two categories, while the Orthodox and Roman Catholics have these seven sacrements they do not distuigish in categoires. The two categories are the sacrements of the Gospel and the sacrements but not to be confused with sacrements of the Gospel. The sacrement of Baptism is carried out by most Christians and in the anglican denomination (and most) it is how one starts a new life with Jesus as their savouir and one becomes clensed of the sin of Adam and regenerated into new life. We do practice infant baptism which is sometimes a source of contention among certian brothers and sisters in diff. denominations. The eucharist, communion, or supper of the Lord is the central act of woship for Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Lutherans. The eucharist is a moral to Christ's sacrafice on the cross and during this time we recieve Christ's body and blood sacrementally. Their are none defined doctorines for Anglicans besides the prayers said with it for eucharist and views vary from Roman Catholic Transubstantion to Evangelical symbolism and everything in between, though most accept some form of real presence outside of the def. of Transubstantion! Our denomination teaches baptism and Eucharist are not always but generally necessary for Salvation. However the additional sacraments that do result in a recieving of Grace do not have affect on one's personal salvation. The next sacrement is confession and absolution- this is one where people who repent of their sins can confess to a priest ( I have never done this outside of the church but, it depends on your theological views even if you are an Anglican), the priest will give one an assurance of pardon and absolution-This can be done in church (have done) or in private with a priest (havent done). The sacrement of ordination-this can be done only by bishops within the church and not by priests or deacons- Sacrement is given by the holy spirit that gives wisdom guidence and knowledge necessary for those entering ministry-the bishop will ordain the new minister by prayer and laying on of hands (we are an apostolic sucession denomination). The sacrement of Confirmation is when a mature and undying commitment to Christ is expressed and is strengthened through prayer and the laying on of hands by a bishop. The sacrement of matrimoney or marriage is a life time commitment between a man and a women, A minister will preside and conduct the service and serve as a witness for the church but does not confirm the sacrement as the bride and groom are the ones to do so! The final sacrement is the annoiting of the sick is when a priest lays hands and or annoints the sick or dying with oil, in this sacrement is given for the healing of the mind, body, and spirit. The eucharist might also be given at this time. In no way do Anglicans hold these sacrements are the only way we can recieve Grace from God our Father who art in heaven, for all things are possible through Christ. God Bless!

A general Introduction to Anglicanism!