swordandspirit noozletter - march april 2004

mar/apr 2004 You are reading part of swordandspirit's ongoing attempt to take over the world via the mind-numbing internet. Feel free to print this out and pass it around to those poor souls who haven't hooked up yet. For every soul you sign up to the noozletter you receive one free prayer. Kidding. We'll pray for you for free. Try us.

You can get to all of these by clicking here or just follow some of the links below.
	reality check You know, it doesn't take much to put our lives into proper perspective, to help us see how fleeting our lives are and how precious every day that our Lord blesses us with is, while we are here "visiting this planet." So I start this noozletter with a life-changing event that has recently happened in my own life and for which my family most definitely needs your prayers. My 14-year-old daughter, Arielle, was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She will be in surgery on the first of April to remove her thyroid. (If you could mark your calendars, it would be very much appreciated). The doctor says it is a very successful way to deal with it and the prognosis is excellent, but she is still my little girl, and "odds" of what may or may not happen are only slightly comforting. What does comfort me is the way the Lord prepared me for it. (Arielle is great about it so far. She is a wonderful young woman of faith and is dealing with it with nothing but God-focused hope and optimism. Hers puts my own faith to shame.) I had spent the last couple months preparing for a lecture on evil and suffering for a class at Azusa Pacific called *God is Great, God is Good, so Why do Bad Things Still Happen?* It was inspiring studying a lot of cases where people went through horrific torture or imprisonment or disasters, yet came out of it seeing the loving hand of an Almighty God bringing it all to greater good. It is inspiring especially now. We also see the hand of a loving God preparing us via Bible studies my wife and I "just happened" to have been reading concerning tragedies in families; we see his providence in a tumor that started off as a "growth" only filled with fluid which brought it to our attention, then shrank but didn't disappear, as if Someone was announcing its arrival while something could still be done about it; and so on... What happens next with Arielle - whether outright healing or healing through surgery or the dreaded "further complications" - is beyond us. But we realize that and we know that our God is a great God who wants what's best for Arielle, even if it may seem at the moment to be tragic. But your prayers are deeply* longed for, nevertheless.* On to lighter subjects...
	new passionate presentation If Jesus was a mere man then the His Passion was just one in a long line of torturous deaths of innocent people. But if Jesus was God that changes everything. Thanks to an invitation from a local Methodist church you are the beneficiaries of a new presentation on called The Deity of the Christ, a brief introduction to the nature of Jesus of Nazareth. You can get it free from here. And then you can use it to see why Christians believe Jesus was God and that He rose from the dead, and why His Passion was so very important. And then you can share it at your Bible study or youth group.
	beyond the passion Stand to Reason has a great handout called The Christ of the Passion: What the Movie Couldn't Show that you can download and print and give to others who want to know more concerning this Jesus of Nazareth.
	the passion reloaded Charlie LeHardy of AnotherThink has provided us with another satire nooz item based on Hollywood and its take on The Passion. Go here, but remember IT IS SATIRE!!!
	mars attacks! NASA sends a couple of landers to Mars and finds water and, surprise! talk of life on Mars starts up all over again. It's as if water + rock = life. We have a little trouble with that arithmetic, actually a spaceship load of trouble. Here is a paper written by astronomer Hugh Ross explaining what water on Mars really means.
	narnia attacks! With all the success of Tolkien's great book turned into a movie (what was its name? something about some ring or something?) it seems the powers that be in Hollywood are finally making a movie on the Chronicles of Narnia. The director of Shrek will direct. It will be using computer imaging for Aslan and the other animal personalities, imaging provided by WETA, the same group that did all the Lord of the Rings CGI. And the role of Lucy will be played by Brittany Spears. OK, kidding on the Spears thing. But it will be filmed in - surprise! - New Zealand. So don't be surprised if you see a lot of little people with hairy feet walking behind the four Pevensies along the shores at Cair Paravel.
	young earth throws more dirt Answers in Genesis, not exactly the most subtle group to proclaim groups like ours (progressive creationists) as the bane of western society or the true cause of WWI or the force behind the fall of Christian civilization or, worst of all, the reason there are no more colored M&M's, are at it again. Their campaign this year is called Operation Refuting Compromise, also known as ORC (echoes of Middle-Earth.) If you have any questions about progressive creationism please please please ask us. We will tell you what we believe and why we believe it. In the meantime you can go to this link to see what our response to all the mud slinging from our ORC friends is going to be. Thanks for being people who insist on hearing both sides before condemning one to hellfire!
	speak of the devil Biola University in Southern California is hosting a conference on the Intelligent Design and the Future of Science. (Click here for the link.) It stars all the heavy hitters of the ID movement. And yours truly gets a chance to be a potted plant... err... I mean a panelist on the subject of teaching intelligent design in class. If you can go to the conference - go! If you can pray for me - pray!
	other presentations Since last month, the presentations on evil and suffering, Considering the Heavens, and Genesis One have been revised and updated. Want it? It's yours. Go get it here.
	spirit west coast 2004 We are going to SWC again this year, only this time to the one in Del Mar, California, at the end of May, a little closer to home and family, but (curses!) no hyperventilatingly exciting drive up the I-5!!! We want to give away a load of our apologetics stuff and sell our (un)orthodox Christian shirts as a fundraiser. But - ahem - we need money. We blew practically all of our bank account just to pay for the stinking booth! I know it appears from the outside that we are a highly-staffed mega-ministry rolling in the bucks stolen from elderly victims. But that's just an appearance to make us seem like a legitimate Christian ministry. So, in all humility, we are asking for financial help from you. We are a 501(3)c non-profit organization so get out those checkbooks and wallets and Krugerands and send them on in! Maybe we can send you back a paper towel that we prayed over, which will then clean out every spot on that tea-stained carpet of yours. Go here if you can. But again, your prayers will do us more good than money.
Thanks for your kind words of support and encouragement. We don't expect to please everyone with what we say and how we do it. So prayer and encouragement are always welcome. Thanks very much from the three of us!

and Jaso
& Jimmy as "the Mole"

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this is my call I belong to You
this is my call to sing the melodies of You
this is my call I can do nothing else
I can do nothing else
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