Anyone up for a chat thread?

[Paidiske]

All of which is fair, Bob. But yesterday I had someone earnestly explaining to me how the referendum was a strategy on the part of the world economic forum, to erode our rights and take control in our country, and bring in the one world government, and... yeah, I just don't see how you get from the actual facts of the situation to that sort of claim!

 

[Bob Crowley]

Yeah, all that is fair, but the whole day yesterday there was a bloke dressed in a Bugs Bunny suit, chewing a carrot, and he was wearing a billboard with UNESCO written all over it and standing right across the road!!

I tell you what's the world coming to?!!

So I told him to take his carrot and billboard and "Hopalong Cassidy!"

And he said "That's old hat! Time to change!"

 

[Bob Crowley]

Despite my tongue in cheek reply above, I personally believe there are those who would readily be part of one world order. I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories, but I don't have much doubt about that.

I remember talking to my old Presbyterian pastor on this issue. This was a long time ago and it was when Bank Card was new (if you remember those days). He was cynical about most of the associated rumours and said "Whenever I try to try to track them down they just fade out to nothing."

On another occasion he commented on all the "Last Days" scenarios floating around remarked "They mostly come from the US." He went into a bit of history, including the unsettling affects of the US Civil War, and added "I find they're a bit weird. The Europeans don't think like that and they've had a much longer experience of Christianity".

On the other hand he once remarked "The Illuminati were supposed to have been destroyed. But I think they're alive and well ... I think they'll get to this blessed Pope!" ("blessed" being about as close as he came to swearing). He didn't nominate the pope in question but it was a reference to some unknown future pope. Presumably they'll be a powerful group with a proposal for world peace, aka "when the world says 'peace at last'...".

He very rarely preached on "eschatology" but I remember those private comments.

For my own part I think the mark of the beast will be a silicon chip embedded in the hand or the forehead, "without which no man can buy or sell". We're moving more and more towards a cashless society, which was hastened to some extent by Covid (I'm just as guilty in this regard as anybody else), and the technology is already here. Given a dire terrorist attack on western society for example, governments would become very interested in what people are buying and their movements.

I've got a booklet here put out by "The Committee (or Commission) for the Future" which was set up by the Hawke government in the 1980's. The booklet is titled "Towards a Cashless Society" and that particular topic was chaired by Philip Adams who is atheist.

There's a line which states that way back in the 1970's sometime "a think tank of American lawyers decided the best way for a government to monitor its citizens would be the development of a cashless society" (or words to that effect).

It also gave an example using John Q Citizen esquire and how monitoring his purchases could be used to keep tabs on what he was most likely to be doing.

So while I'm not much into conspiracy theories, I do have an underlying suspicion of some modern developments in the light of Scripture and my old pastor's prophetic ability.

And he was accurate.

 

[Shane R]

The parish I'm serving loves me. I'm booked at a Lutheran church through Christmas. They've been patient with my learning curve on their service book. It's in town but several of the members live outside of town on farms. Last week they gave me a sack of tomatoes. This week they gave me a box of farm eggs. (They do pay me in dollars as well.) They have also asked if it's okay to bring a cake on my younger daughter's birthday, which is on a Sunday in October.

 

[seeking.IAM]

Last week they gave me a sack of tomatoes. This week they gave me a box of farm eggs. (They do pay me in dollars as well.)

Serving country churches is great. My dad was assigned to a small country church as a (Methodist) seminarian. We benefited from produce and even a side of beef once. I strongly recommend you request any chickens to be delivered dead and with their heads already removed.

 

[Paidiske]

Lol at the chickens. Shane, I'm glad your parish are so lovely. It makes such a big difference.

(My parish community are beautiful souls but I do miss living in the city).

 

[Plenipotent]

So what do you like in a pew? Or do you prefer a chair? Or do you even care?

I really enjoyed that the questions rhymed. And when I clicked to this final page to catch up on what everyone's discussing right now...

All of which is fair

Let's just say, it's been a very good day.

 

[Shane R]

It was one of those days. I had thoroughly prepared during the week and thought I had some pretty good material. And only 3 or 4 people got it and the other 56 were saying: what was that crap?

 

[Deegie]

It was one of those days. I had thoroughly prepared during the week and thought I had some pretty good material. And only 3 or 4 people got it and the other 56 were saying: what was that crap?

I'm sorry. That's rough. I've become convinced that I'm a terrible judge of my own sermons' quality. The ones I think are pretty good seem to have no one paying attention. And the ones I'm nervous about usually get lots of comments. It's weird.

 

[Shane R]

I'm sorry. That's rough. I've become convinced that I'm a terrible judge of my own sermons' quality. The ones I think are pretty good seem to have no one paying attention. And the ones I'm nervous about usually get lots of comments. It's weird.

I'm currently doing 2 services: 8:30 and 10:15. My early service is much larger. I had time to tweak it a bit and it still didn't really hit. Late service had about 14 people yesterday.

 

[Deegie]

I'm currently doing 2 services: 8:30 and 10:15. My early service is much larger. I had time to tweak it a bit and it still didn't really hit. Late service had about 14 people yesterday.

How interesting. Around me, places with two services find the later service to be far better attended. Mine was about six times as many people yesterday at the 10am compared to the 8am. And I used the time in between to tweak a little too!

 

[Shane R]

It's kind of a touristy area. The early crowd wants to get it done and go on with the day. It's a said service and if I go over 40 minutes they start to get impatient.

 

[Paidiske]

I've combined the two services at the main centre here, but when I got here the early one was at least twice the size of the later one. That is really unusual, but it had to do with the pre-Covid history of who worshipped in which centre in the parish. The power of habit is one of the strongest forces we reckon with in ministry!

(And yes, I can never predict which sermons are going to land well. Which I guess is one way of keeping me humble).

 

[seeking.IAM]

It's kind of a touristy area. The early crowd wants to get it done and go on with the day. It's a said service and if I go over 40 minutes they start to get impatient.

I switched from attending my preferred 10:00 Rite II to begrudgingly attending 8:00 Rite I. No doubt everyone has their own motivations. Mine has nothing to do with getting on with my day, but has to do with avoiding the 10:00 a.m. crowd sitting elbow to elbow while breathing and hacking when COVID is about. I'm grateful for a small service with plenty of elbow room.

This week it was fun to come home from 8:00 a.m. and watch the streamed 10:00 a.m. service because I wanted to hear the sermon again. I was amazed to hear it word-for-word and gesture-for-gesture as I heard it earlier with no apparent variation. That must be a testament to a lot of unseen fine tuning and rehearsal that we pew warmers probably take for granted all too often.

 

[Paidiske]

My sermons don't come out exactly the same way each time (I generally preach each one at least twice). Each congregation is different, and my delivery is going to adapt to how I can see them responding. And I simply don't have time for the amount of work that would go into staging the delivery that precisely!

 

[Shane R]

My 10:15 is on the radio, although no one in the parish listens because they don't seem to know exactly what frequency it's on. It's the longest running Christian radio broadcast in Southeast Ohio, whatever station it's on.

 

[Shane R]

I am somewhat surprised by the number of Continuing Anglican clergy who have espoused dispensationalism since the Israel kerfuffle started.

 

[Paidiske]

It's not something I've heard a lot of here. But we've also been more focussed on domestic issues in the last couple of weeks, as well.

 

[The Liturgist]

I am somewhat surprised by the number of Continuing Anglican clergy who have espoused dispensationalism since the Israel kerfuffle started.

That is surprising. Surely a majority of the Continuing Anglican clergy, especially the Anglo Catholics, are amillenial?

Also apparently the hospital that was blown up, although Israel denies having done it, was run by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem as a charitable project in Gaza. That, and the apparent destruction of the Greek Orthodox Church, are extremely disturbing.

Obviously I was horrified by the terror attacks against Israel, but Israel must protect the Christians of the region, and I would argue has a moral obligation to do so, since its international support is largely from Christians and likewise its foundation was enabled to a large extent by Christians who desired to aid the Jews after the Holocaust in WWII, and different churches have helped in different ways. For example, the Knesset Building is built on land leased from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Also, Christian pilgrims represent a huge source of tourist revenue for Israel, and none of the major Christian denominations has ever called for violence against Jews or Israeli nationals, which one cannot say about Islam unfortunately.

So we really have to pray for peace; Israel obviously has the right to eliminate Hamas but should do so in a manner that won’t cause harm to the civillian population in the Gaza Strip, and I recall similiar heavy handed tactics about 15 years ago in Gaza, and also in Lebanon, and I also recall when some suspected terrorists sought refuge in the Church of the Nativity, which I wish they had not done, because this resulted in damage both to that church and the adjacent Syriac Orthodox St. Mary’s Church, since these sacred buildings were effectively caught in the crossfire.

 

[The Liturgist]

My 10:15 is on the radio, although no one in the parish listens because they don't seem to know exactly what frequency it's on. It's the longest running Christian radio broadcast in Southeast Ohio, whatever station it's on.

Do you livestream it on YouTube or another such service? If not, I would respectfully suggest doing so, because this would allow myself and many others to listen, and would raise the profile of your broadcast and might increase AM listening as well.