The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[JenB]

Have fun!

We used to be AoG but we didn't like it... Presbyterian is more us!

[SuziQ]

I haven't been to a Charismatic service since we moved away from that area of NJ over 20 yrs. ago. At that time we were doing a lot of St. Louis Jesuits music, which is based in Scripture. "On Eagle's Wings" is one of their songs.

My b-i-l has Life Teen in his Parish, and I would suspect that Charismatic services today would be similar to that. They use a lot of the music that you can hear on the "Praise and Worship" CDs nowadays; "Shout to the Lord" is one of my favorites. A lot depends on the quality of the musicians. My b-i-l has a young professional musician leading the group which makes it very nice. He's very careful not to let the music become a performance, but keep it directed toward God. The teenagers just love it, and so do their parents!

[SuziQ]

Mmmm. Coffee's ready!! Have a good time at Church tonight. I know Matthew will do well!

[Wneighbor]

Okay, we're related. Myranda and I are Assembly of God back in Waco. My family isn't. They thing we've wigged out. But, that isn't the only reason they think that. It's kind of interesting how things worked out here in WF. I visited every AG church in the phone book that I could find... couldn't find them all... and they were more like the Baptist churches back home. Sedate. So we ended up in a Four Square church. I hadn't ever heard of Four Square but it's the one that Jack Hayford is in leadership with.

So, here we are, Myranda has a call to be a youth pastor, I have worked in active outreach ministry for 11 years now. I worked about halfway though the AG college level courses for licensing, Myranda is on her way through AG Master's Commision and desires to be ordained. While AG has a great history of female evangelists and pastors through the first half of the 20th century, NOW if a woman wants to be ordained we have to say we don't intend to be married. HELLO!

So, I get here, end up attending this friendly church of a denomination that I didn't know existed (maybe its a cult you know) and I find out that they don't have a hang-up with ministering women. This is the denomination that was founded by Aimee Semple MacPherson when she got booted out of the Assemblies of God.

So, I kind of thought God might be in this too. Myranda is still going through AG Master's Commission but she will be able to be ordained through Four Square.

[Wneighbor]

Wonder where Hair is?

Still cleaning her aquarium? Maybe she has a salt-water one that she has to drive to the Sound to get water for.

[Sam Cree]

Man, you can tell it's Sunday around here.

[Overtaxed]

Coffee sounds good....

[Wneighbor]

Gone outside to look at that strange bright, round thing that's suddenly appeared in the sky, and wondering what cosmological significance it implies.

Well, at first thought, it could comfort you in that no vampires will be out to attack during the day today. But, then, I think they've insured the blood-letting of your tax dollars enough now that even when the orb is out, you're getting your blood sucked.

[JenB]

I didn't know the AoG ordained women, and we used to be AoG. My dad's parents still are. The PCA does not ordain women in any role but we can teach Sunday School for the kids, and of course we do most of the "housekeeping" type work. And women can lead the choir, or what-not; just not be in a position of authority.

I'm ok with that. I think that men and women have different roles, and mostly it's a good thing to respect them. But different people disagree and I know women make good teachers.

[Wneighbor]

AG has tightened up on their rules about ordaining women. But, the denomination used to have many women in leadership until the 1940's. My best friend's grandmother was an evangelist with AG until she died in the late '70's.

[Wneighbor]

Race channel came back.

Of course, I watched a blank screen till it did.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

All these vampires and no Buffy to be found.

Indeed, the vampires are out again here in our area: Yesterday, our state senate (Republican held) agreed with the state house (democrat held) to adopt a brand new 5 cent gas tax hike (Washington already has the highest gas tax in the nation).

We've got a horrendous economy up here (to which I can personally attest, being out of work and scraping at the bottom of the empty barrell of jobs up here). The state revenues have been bleeding away in a torrent for over two years because the economy here is in deep recession and our unemployment rate has bounced between the highest and second highest in the nation.

And what is our brilliant (republican and democrat) politicians answer to the blight that infected our state?

ANOTHER TAX INCREASE! That'll do the trick for sure.

Cripes, I need to pack up my dogs, sell my house and move somewhere where at least a touch of sanity still remains.

[Sam Cree]

"It's all the same God."

Yeah, I think so too.

Paypal! Ha!

[JenB]

All I really remember about the AoG is how large our churches were, and the speaking in tongues, which scared me when I was six.

[Wneighbor]

Scott, there are other states. But, you'll have to put up with our accents.

My first husband and his wife live in your state. (This is not a terrible ex story. We actually all like one another.) But, the wife and her family are those kind of liberals that all us FReepers cringe to know exist. Very nice bunch of people but we don't go to politics. I can't afford to, I want my kid to have as healthy a blended family as possible, for that reason I am tactful. My son-in-law was a bit surprised to discover this when they came down for the wedding. He hadn't met that part of his new family yet. He doesn't particularly care for some of the opinions from that part of his in-laws. It's funny to hear him talk about them. But, my experience with your state had completely been flamingly liberal until I met you and Hair in the Hobbit Hole.

[Corin Stormhands]

We're in an AoG church too. It's not our background, but we love the local congregation. They have a healthy view on women in leadership as well. If you look back at the early church, there were lots of women in leadership positions.

We went there after our old church (Reformed Presbyterian which was also not our tradition) basically moved the Mrs. out of her leadership role with a worship team. That and hearing the Pastor say from the pulpit that "there are no people in hell whom Jesus loved."

Wife has been going through some leadership classes. I was doing a grad program, but it got discontinued. I'm working now (or should be) on an online certificate program from Asbury Seminary.

Gotta run. Luke just got up from his nap and he wants to play. Later.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

Hair and I are very much the exceptions up here. It is so wildly, flamingly liberal up here as a rule that my career has always suffered greatly -- you don't get anywhere up here unless you are a socialist. There's a good reason why Boeing is leaving here, and it has nothing to do with crowded roads.

In the town where Hair and I live in, if Jacques Chirac were on the ballot against George W., Chirac would win two to one. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden would have better than even odds at beating Bush in an election here.

In our town, George W. Bush is widely considered the most evil man in the history of the world, and is easily the most hated man in this area.

This place is true Stalinism come to life. There is an intense darkness here that doesn't really have anything to do with the constant cloud cover. (You can probably tell that I truly hate this place...but unfortunately, I've been stuck here all my life, I have actually just packed up and left before. But the only place I've ever been able to get a job quickly enough to avoid financial ruin has been up here, I've never been able to wrest anything in any other location, which is weird).

I have family in Dallas/Richardson (sister-in-law, brother-in-law, neice and her husband and baby). And I've actually spent quite a bit of time trying to find work in that area and Austin -- to no sucess as yet.

[Wneighbor]

:-)We're in an AoG church too. It's not our background, but we love the local congregation.

I was saved in a Baptist church so it's not my background either. But, I call it my home now because if we were still in Bush country I'd still be going to our AG church in Waco. It really hurt not to find a church like that up here. But, that is where we've kept our membership. Pastor says we're the missionaries to WF.

The church there was so totally supportive of everything related to calls of God on women in our church. It was a very large church so there were 4 pastors on staff. We saw a lot of growth in the church during our time there (6 years). We first visited the church when Myranda was late in elementary school because I wanted her in a "going", discipling youth group. After 1 talk with the youth pastor I knew we'd found the place. At that time I was already a biker minister with an international org. and I was heavily involved in prison ministry. At some churches the pastors would be kind of freaked to have a single woman in those things. Like I'm a freak that the devil put in the church or something. The pastor in Waco was always just thrilled anytime ANYONE came into our church with an ability and a calling. That church was the most enabling church for carrying out Godly plans of any I've ever encounted. I have gone to the pastor with plans that I felt God laid on me and fully expected him to hem and haw and point out the problems and his response would be, okay, what do you need the church to do to help get this going?

The church is established as a satellite teaching center for the demomination and the individual church can and will license and/or ordain Myranda and I when we reach that stage in our studies. But the national Assemblies won't recognize it. My pastor has said that he does not feel that way but he does honor the authority of the leadership and I honor that. I think I just feel better about getting a license from a place where the whole leadership is in favor.

And some people think the license is vanity or something but it opens doors in prisons and jails that being in lay positions doesn't - so it might help.

[Wneighbor]

And I've actually spent quite a bit of time trying to find work in that area and Austin -- to no sucess as yet.

Mind if I ask what you do? In my position at the college I get calls for some kinds of graduates with certain computer skills, not all of which my students study.

[JenB]

Well, there's one good argument for getting a license, then! I assume prisons look for more than one of those "be ordained online" licenses? Do you know anything about people who get those? Ever meet any?