Stuff Apostolics Like

So some of you may not watch movies much. I don't. But within the motion pictures that I have had the opportunity to observe in the past, one actor will arise within these motion pictures from time to time. His name is Morgan Freeman (pictured above). And basically he is always playing the really really really good guy. Like the moment you see him on the screen your heart will be attached to him whenever you see him on the screen. He is so good in fact that I find myself thinking "I hope it's not Morgan whose the traditional black guy who dies in this movie." Basically Morgan's role in every movie he play in: -First he will have an awesome narrator's voice accompanying the story ( I think I saw a facebook group that was defined as "I wish Morgan Freeman's voice would narrate my life.) -He's an old, wise black sage who never complains and always comes across very humbly, and seems to always speak less than he really knows, but yet when he doe...

This one isn't profound, I thought we'd take a break from the heavy stuff, hopefully you get a laugh out of it. Now, I’ll be straight up with this one. Anytime you put a microphone in someone’s hand, the things that they say are more than likely going to be inflected by their personal opinions, desires, etc. With that said, soapboxing with a microphone isn’t particularly unique to Apostolics, but I’d like to think that we do it with our own style and flair. I cherish that moment when, during intercessory prayer, the current leader with the microphone makes a statement/series of statements that elicit looks of incredulity and/or mild humorous reactions from those around me. I think it’s possible to divide the types of prayer soapboxing into a few very common categories, which are by no means exhaustive: Political: Self-explanatory. Ranges anywhere from disparaging particular political candidates/parties to ranting against the evils of socialism to diagramming the for...

(Caption: Yes, that's Chris Brown with a baby...and yes I think it's funny). Babies in church are almost as popular as a testimony of a formerly trinitarian pastor coming to believe in a oneness position.  While I personally can't stand babies in their lack of self-reliance and inability to be self-aware, and thus have argued so  in my post about baby dedications , I will choose to remove whatever bias I have against these strange creatures in order to analyze their purpose amidst our church bodies.  The Good of the Babies In short, the babies allow former mothers of babies, potential mothers, and expectant mothers to practice their maternal instincts. It is for this reason that babies get passed back and forth among the hungry arms of church females like it was 2003, and the babies were the atkins diet. Baby Holding Hunger (BHH) amongst apostolic females is quite a funny site for the outsider looking in. Because BHH sees this trend:  -Woman walks over to mother...

The Holy Ghost is fantastic. It's one of the things that gets me excited about being Apostolic. The power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost as a comforter. Speaking in tongues. Witnessing someone receive the infilling of the Holy Ghost for the first time. Fire. Catharsis. A guide. An intercessor. God dwelling within me. However . . . The power to overcome sin ≠ less inclined to commit sin The Holy Ghost is definitely a big dose of supernatural help, but it doesn't change our human natures. I've been told many times "You have the Holy Ghost!" in an incredulous tone by someone trying to exhort me or admonish me in the Lord, especially by those old faithfuls whose young days were lived out in revelry. Example: "When I was your age, I lived like a heathen. Sure did. I didn't know the Lord. I was involved in all kinds of crazy things and it's only by the grace of God that I'm here today. But you . . . raised up in this precious faith. ...

First, sorry for the lack of posts this week. Last week of finals. But I swear it's done for a while (at least until I go to St. Louis next month).  Ah, the joys of prayer in church. It is the one time when we gather together as a body of believers to get some extra gathered spiritual power within ourselves to get things done. While taken out of context, we know the classic line "when two or three are gathered in my name...." And during church, the prayers can be many addressing different topics from missionaries, to more common prayer requests. However, these prayers are usually led by ministers of the church be it elders or pastors. And elders and pastors' ability to wax eloquent within the prayers and expound on them to great lengths can occasionally cause a slight mental crisis. In short: What in the world do we do when the prayers are still going on via minister on platform, but we have accomplished what we deem sufficient to to make our petitions pr...

One of my bff's made a comment and it went something like this... "You know what I get frustrated about? How it takes me a long time in prayer to be able to speak in tongues but yet some people can just speak it tongues in the first 30 seconds of prayer..." And not within one minute later did we have the idea for this post... You see for the vast majority of us....Prayer can be a very tenacious effort..... Like a video game... Of course the ultimate goal of a video game is to defeat the game, the process itself is where the enjoyment is to be had, and much effort and failures along the way as well... So for most of us we start prayer like the first level of a video game.... Level 1 For beginners, the first level is all about learning the controls....the A button jumps and the B button shoots fireballs... In prayer, like the need to understand the controls in a video game, it's the easy but necessary stuff one must learn in order to play the g...

Alright, I won't be able to post today because of a final due tonight. (maybe tomorrow?) But in the meantime, I wanted to ring up something i just found about....Holy Magic Hair (not again!) One of the endearing points of HMH advocates is that the idea that there is power in uncut hair can be verified in the wicca religion where the witches believe there is power in uncut hair. Such proof can be seen in the message that is pro-HMH  that I posted under the HMH post.... Another HMH advocate posted in her blog: Did you know that witches won't cut their hair because they try to tap into the power promised to us in 1Cor 11? Do you know why Indians used to scalp their enemies? Do you know why Nuns and Buddhist monks shave their hair? What does tar and feathering mean? Do you know who it was that first starting the hair cutting trend? What date was that? What about the hippie movement? What significance is there when hair is found at the scene of a crime? Daniel ...

Ah yes, the beautiful joy of the thought of Christendom. A human kingdom that is governed under the laws of Christianity.  For surely, once Christianity rules the government, then we will have heaven on earth. At least in the country we live in. And no greater is this prospect of a Christian kingdom available than that which is present in the United States. Beautiful democracy will get us to the sweet by and by. And the United States will and should be leading us to such a prospect of a "Christian nation." So as those socialist, communist, pagan worshiping atheists try and take over our country, we must stand strong and remember and remind everyone else that we are a "Christian nation." And that the founding fathers, (e.g. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams,  James Madison, John Jay, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine) founded this nation with the aims for the United States to be a Christian Nation. So we shout to the God of ...

Preface: I hope this needn't be said, but in the following post I am in no way attacking the move of the Holy Ghost. I am in love with our emphasis on the revelation of Spirit in our denomination and the promotion of the experience of having a direct personal encounter with God. I pray we never shy away from it no matter how uncomfortable it may make some of us. That said, what is commented on in this post is the cultural occurrence that is seen in many of churches on how people tend to act out what they feel inside when they "get it." In many a service, there comes a moment or two, or ten in which a few or perhaps many within the congregation parade themselves up to the altar either at the call of the Holy Ghost or at the expectation for something to happen once at the altar. It is in these moments that many occurances are to be expected, much of which is dependent on the style of music being played. If the song is fast expect jumping, running, and dancing. If the mus...

Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. Holy Magic Hair unleashed A Tale of Two Cities up in here. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Bringing out the Charles Dickens and the French Revolution in folks. For real. Take me back, dear Lord I feel led to take SAL back. Get old school and Andrae Crouch on y'all. Back to those good old days when our controversies were simpler, more removed from indicators of the destination of our eternal souls, and could be avoided with simple semantic sleights (lovers of alliteration, I did that for you). Remember "monitors," y'all? Remember when getting all Hamlet ("to have or not to have") with regards to television was a big deal? ::sentimental sniff:: Television vs. Monitors I remember it well. I remember those days when it was of utmost Pentecostal correctness to make a distinction between "television" and "monitor." "Television" = hellivision, the one...

Preface: As with many posts, the claims made in this post are far from being definitive to the whole apostolic movement. In fact I has been very surprised and pleased with the openness of many apostolic officials and higher ups to denounce the doctrine of "magic hair" as a heresy in recent months. It must also be noted that whatever controversy may be derived from this post, the thoughts are not really my own. Many men more articulate and intelligent than I have already tried to openly combat this theory and have done so in a far more effective fashion than I could. For the most comprehensive understanding of Holy magic hair, please visit  http://holymagichair.com/wordpress/ . Also note that this is not a criticism anyway in uncut hair, nor is it advocating hair cutting. I'm critiquing a doctrine that has developed around long hair. Okay, when I originally started SAL, I had a post about HMH (holy magic hair) in mind. However, after a beloved teacher of mine spoke o...