Monday, March 27, 2006

Good Questions.... and an answer to my critic

Good QuestionsAside from the attack that Phil Perkins who teaches at Yellowstone Baptist College here in Billings Mt. Phil raised some good questions. (Yet he is not listed on the personal page, though I did find him here) Sorry, I have no email to contact Phil personally to thank him for showing you I am a fraud! LOL!

What makes ones credentials legit and other’s not?

To me it is about first following God’s calling in one’s life. I have written many times as to how I ended up with UCMI and have never hid anything about it. I do not “use” these credentials to any real personal gain. I do use them at times when I find someone with lesser faith who needs that “authority” to give them comfort. By this I mean as an example, when my friend’s child died, I was able to minister to the family because I had this card that said I was a Reverend. Now anyone who knows me will know I never use Reverend. My real name is Carlos Shelton. I use iggy as a way of being neutral to those who read. I mean an iggy sounds harmless. It started out for my own protections as the internet is an ugly place at times, yet it stuck as I began to do the blog, and hosting my discussion group.

I am still in good standing with UCMI who when I applied over 2 years ago, had me answer many questions about my faith and beliefs, all of which are pretty much what I have on my word of mouth ministries website. UCMI has a college, and is a way for me to stay accountable in preaching Jesus and teaching from the bible. I may not agree with many who also have gone to UCMI for ordination, yet I see that they are fulfilling their calling as best they can. This is not like many of the “send money, ordains anyone” websites. I thoroughly researched and questioned and corresponded with them before I join and was ordained. Today I may not hold to some of what they believe, and I may not renew next year. I have been in denominations that ordain within their congregation. These are legal and it seems I have done more than many of these have themselves. I recommend checking out UCMI if one wants to. Even write to them and ask questions… even about me. BTW I have not had enough money to “buy” the parchments. LOL! I also have not gained anything monetary from anyone and have paid for this ministry out of my own pocket with the exception a good friend who has sent a very humble donation at times. Also, Word of Mouth Ministries is registered with the state of Montana as a legal entity. I have not yet found a reason to become none profit 501(c) as I have not received donations that would warrant the cost.

The second question is this, when the bible plainly states: “Who are you to judge another man’s servant?” So how can one rationalize attacking someone’s ministry without having any real knowledge… or even if one does have real knowledge? This comes to me under the guise of religion. To me the greatest evil to befall man is religion. It calls for the separation of God and man, whom God has now redeemed. It runs contrary to the Spirit and ministry of reconciliation that all believers are called to.

I know personally I may have not handled Phil right. Yet, as I looked into where he is coming from, a very legalistic Baptist background…. Most probably KJV only, I will have to say, we will never agree on much. In that I hope to live a peace as best I can. I will say if I had something to hide I could have deleted Phil’s comments, but since I don’t I will leave them as a reminder of who I once was and rejoice in the Life of Christ I now live, unshackled form religion that is not of a true believer. I contend and am content with the Scriptures teaching of True Religion and that is taking care of orphans and unwed mothers. The rest can burn in its false assumption of humility and self delusional self-righteousness. To me I can really care less about the Phil’s as I am sure those who I have ministered to will speak the truth of my character and ministry for they know me, Phil has not even taken the time to talk to me personally before he attacked me.

On Brian McLaren: I agree with him on many levels, and disagree with him on many others. In him I found the freedom to question and in that I have grown more in Christ. If one reads Brian’s books you may be surprised on how traditional he really is. In fact I may not be comfortable in his church for just that reason…. Tooo traditional.

The Emergent Movement: I am very open that first off I am reluctant to call this a movement as I see it then loses the substance we “emergents” hope to accomplish. In this “movement” I have found many who have outgrown the traditional man made institutional church. They have found a richer and deeper faith that connects them to Christ’s Body and gives a real meaning to being brothers in the Lord.

I will add this, I hope to someday develop the grace and humility to answer my critics as well as Brian McLaren, I see in this I have much to learn from him.

Blessings,
iggy

Monday, March 20, 2006

The Law is abolished...Right?

The Law is abolished…. Right?

There seems to be two scriptures that contradict each other on the “abolishing” of the Law.

Jesus says in Matthew 5: 17. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Paul seems to say the opposite in Ephesians 2:10. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
11. Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)-- 12. remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15. by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16. and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
17. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20. built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
21. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22.And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.


So how can both be true?

Jesus spoke to the Jews concerning the Law in a way that buried them… “Be perfect as you Father in Heaven is Perfect.” Of course the disciples asked as we should, “Who can be saved?” Jesus replied, “With God all things are possible.”

Jesus’ statement is about the expectation of the Messiah to come and establish His power here on earth…. Which He did, but not the way they expected. He came to fulfill the Law. In His work on the Cross and through His resurrection He did this… In Hebrews we are told, He “5: 8. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9. and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10. and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.


What Jesus did was remove the earthly sacrificial system and replaced it with the Kingdom of God.

This was unexpected for the Jewish leaders of the day.

In this Jesus did abolish the Law as Paul states in Ephesians. We either can walk in faith in the Law…(Torah, and the prophets) or walk in Faith in Christ Jesus. And that is the issue…. Do we walk in our own righteousness or His?

Now the issue of homosexuality to me is about one’s identity. Is one a gay or lesbian or transgender, or a child of G-d? If one has the identity of a child of God, then one should seek out how and what a child of God is about and to properly respond to our Father through our Lord Jesus. We need to understand grace is for all and that is how we are saved… not of our own doing. We need to think though that God is saving us FROM sin and death into HIS LIFE, which is ETERNAL. How can sin continue to dwell in Christ’s very own life imputed to us? The mistake is thinking that my life is still mine as a believer… so one cannot be gay or lesbian as a Christian, as that would lead to a double-minded half-life in Christ. I am not saying one might not struggle with this as a sin that is in ones life as a Child of Christ, but rather that the focus is not to be on our sin, but on the Life of Jesus as He lives it through us.

My motto is this: He who gave His life for me, gave His life to me, to live His life through me.

The bottom line is Jesus transcends the sexual issue… even to say in the Gospels that there is not going to be the marriage of man and woman in heaven, but rather, the marriage of the Bridegroom (Jesus) and the Bride (His Church).

Blessings,
iggy

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

OK I will be the first to try this.

OK I will be the first to try this….at least of those of you that are my daily reads.

Enter with me if you will the dark side… the Nohari Window.

Enter you negative critism….. It’s ok I can take it… I think……


http://kevan.org/nohari?name=iggy


blessing,
iggy

Saturday, March 11, 2006

CHRISTFOLLOWERS EVERYWHERE ARE LEAVING THE CHURCH - WHERE IS JESUS TAKING THEM?

CHRIST-FOLLOWERS EVERYWHERE ARE LEAVING THE CHURCH – WHERE IS JESUS TAKING THEM?


Catchy title huh? I have not read the book yet, but I have been e-mailing Paul Vieira a bit and have found that I agree with what he is trying to say. In talking to him I think he wrote the book I was going to….

Check out his website here. He has some interesting things on his page… check out the mp3’s and sign up for the pre sale of his book.

If you haven’t noticed we are adding some shows and teaching to iggyROCKS!
Jason Clark of Sutton Vineyard of the UK said I could broadcast some of their pod casts….

We have added another show called Life As One… Dave and Kathy Foreman have gone through a lot… and almost did not make it… somehow; by the grace of God… they are surviving… something called Marriage.

Sonia V. is also doing a show on iggyROCKS! called the “Indie Rock Show” there are two segments to this show… 1. Sunday morning Indie worship… and 2. The Indie Rock Show on Friday at noon.

Blessings,
iggy

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

In Memory of Kyler James McNulty

Here is the sermon from the memorial service. Thanks you for all your prayers.
Blessings,
iggy


Welcome.
We are here to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Kyler James McNulty.

Let’s open in prayer.

Jesus, We come before you and ask for your Grace and Mercy and Strength in this time of need. I ask that your Spirit minister to all and that Your Presence be felt. I pray for the words to say and strength to say them. We thank you for you great love and compassion and though at times like this we have many questions, I pray we can take comfort in knowing Your ways are higher than ours and You are familiar with suffering, for you gave your life willingly on a cross to bear our sins. In this suffering you have overturned the worlds power and have set Your Kingdom here now on earth. Only You are our comfort.
In Jesus Name we pray.
Amen

This is the hardest thing that I believe any parent would have to go through. Personally this is probably one of the hardest services to prepare for.

I was asked by PJ and Dawn to lead the service, which I take as a great honor. Saying that, I feel so unprepared. I want to give answers and find myself at a loss.
I want to give comfort but find my self finding I don’t know how. So I will not be giving “answers” and believe that it would be a grave mistake to even believe anyone has any.

PJ and Dawn shared with me a few details; I know they will be sharing with you some things also.

Dawn stated she felt sick… so went to the doctors and they told her she was… pregnant.
She did not believe them.

Kyler James McNulty was born at 5:07pm, July 24th 2005, weighing in at 8 lbs and 21 inches in length. This is just three days after my own daughter was born.

I hear the family was a major presence at the birth… I will say from those I have met before Kyler's passing and now that this is a wonderful family. I can see that you all love each other very much. It is great to know PJ and Dawn have such a great support team.

PJ shared how they were anxious for the next step… the ultrasound; Dawn was very excited to find out the sex of the baby… PJ also shared about being a bit overwhelmed when they brought Kyler home…. That the first few weeks where hard, and having a child myself who was not a hardy eater, I can understand the frustration and anxiety a new parent goes through.

PJ also share how in the last month that He and Kyler really began to bond. That Kyler seemed to anticipate the presence of PJ as he even walked by him.

I would like to invite PJ and Dawn now to come up and share a bit.

Music:
Is there anyone else who would like to share anything?

Again, I wish I could give answers at times like this… I wish I could pull the curtain away and see what God is doing. Instead I only hope to help us all maybe gain some understanding about suffering.

Jesus gave many promises. Many blessings come with these promises. Though often many people only focus on the positive promises, there is one that on the surface seems like it is not a promise at all.

In John 16, Jesus has just revealed He is Messiah, the Savior. He begins to speak very plainly about His death and returning to the Father Who sent Him. He ends this with verse:


33. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."


Jesus never promises to take away our troubles, he promises to help us overcome them by His strength.

In the book Job, we find a man that is described as righteous and upright. Of course this is Job. Job had no idea what was to happen. It is said he gave daily sacrifices for his children. He was prosperous and had many cattle and seemed to have a grand home. He also had 7 children.

Satan came before God and set out a challenge to test Job. To see if Job had lost all his wealth, his livelihood, and his seven children that he would turn from God. Satan then wreaked devastation over Job’s life, taking all he had, except, as most commenter’s on the Bible point out, God left him one thing… a nagging wife.

Now, I think we need to realize something that these commenter’s missed. And that is Job’s wife was grieving also. It is said at one point Job is complaining and can’t figure out why God is doing this to him… You see things even go worse. Job himself was covered with boil and the only comfort he had was to sit in ashes and to scrape his scabs with pieces of a clay pot. In this Job’s wife tells Job to “curse God and die!”

I think often people are too hard on Job’s wife. Again, as I said, she was mourning also for she too lost 7 children and all she had. We all mourn in different ways, for I believe there is no wrong way. How can there be? How can one express the pain and emptiness and sickening feelings? But know this, these times, where words fail and the heart is broken beyond what feels ever to be repaired, The scripture tells us in Romans 8:26 the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. In other words, the Holy Spirit can understand what we cannot even express. In this Jesus knows our sorrow.

Job’s friends were not any better, as they decided that Job must have really angered God somehow, and Job better figure out what he did and set it right. This went on for a time as Job kept going over everything and was convinced that he had never upset God. Then a priest named Elihu comes on the scene.

Elihu is angry with Job’s friends and even a bit at Job as he is beginning to be swayed to the idea that maybe God is not as compassionate as he believed.

Then God appears on the scene. There are some great passages where God asks, “Where were you when I hang the stars in the heavens?” God sets it straight that He is in charge and we might not ever get answers. For why would God need to account to a man for what He does? Job realizes that God is so far above us and apologizes to God for questioning.

You see, though in this story, whether one believes it as a historical event or not, in the fact we have this story God is giving us an accounting. Even though He does not have to. He is reaching out and revealing in this story the many different theatres in life, many, which we may never know, are even happening. In this book God pulls back the curtain and shares with us about suffering, and faith in the midst of it. God, in His kindness shares with us in this story the backdrop of the why…. To shame the devil and prove that man can love God even in the midst of the hardest times of life.

In the end Job is given back double of all he lost. He has an even grander home, double the cattle and other livestock… and given 7 more children.

Some look and ask, why only 7 more, shouldn’t God have given Job 14 to set it all right.

Here is the one comfort I will share. As a person of faith, Job believed in the resurrection of the dead. He believed that one day he would see his beloved children again. For though he lost them here on earth, Job would see and hold his 7 children he lost again… in the presence of his loving God.

As people of faith that is the Hope we cling to. That in the resurrection of Jesus we can share in the resurrection of the dead and stand before our Great God and have the blessing of embracing our loved ones who have gone before us.

Let us pray:
O God, Your beloved Son took little children into his arms and bless them: Give us grace, to entrust Kyler into Your never-failing care and love, and bring us all to Your heavenly kingdom; through the same Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.