Stuff Apostolics Like

A Pastor's welcoming message to the guests first service. Hello, welcome to the Apostolic church service. God will be here. It's good that you are here. Join us, as we worship God. This first visit will be nothing like you have seen before. It will be awesome. Why? Because we are Apostolic, that's why. Don't know what Apostolic means? Just read Acts 2 and you'll know where we come from. Sure the sun won't be darkened, nor will the moon be drowned in blood like Peter describes in the Last Days. Heck, we don't even have the tongues of fire that's described. But we do have the Truth. and God. And our Apostolic Identity. This is important. Also don't include the last few verses of Acts 2 that describe the Apostolic experience as having Communion daily or having all possessions in common. That's just not realistic to our capitalistic society. But trust us, we're as Apostolic as you can get without being a communist. Also read Acts 2:38... it's...

Maybe, I have wrote about this topic before. I have no clue. I don't remember yesterday. Thus it's impossible for me to remember the content of this blog. The point is, I realized on the day before yesterday that one of the worst kind of horrorshows for our movement is when someone confesses that filthy illusion that they consider themselves "in the middle" of the Left or Right "spectrum" within our movement, or more specifically.... When someone claims a point or a stance that actually means something, a Man in the Middle chimes in that "We  Must maintain a balance and keep the other "end" of the argument in mind."   And then that convictionless person rambles on about not straying to far to the left, or too far to the right, but Keeping our eyes towards heaven.... And God's will, happens to be the middle? Did I miss something? No I didn't. So before I continue, this kid below is reminding you and me, that if there is a...

First first: If we want God to live with us, we must teach him to abide by our routine of life: Maybe it was a month ago. Maybe more. I don't really remember to remember time or dates these days. The point is, I was on the phone with a friend who requested his name remain anonymous for this post. Beneath the surface. This mysterious friend, made an observation amongst many others he has made to me over the years, that within Apostolic Pentecostal churches, "the point of worship service is no longer to make you feel the Holy Ghost." But rather, the proper goal for most worship services these days is "to make you feel like you feel  the Holy Ghost." The quote may seem like simple words games, but I would argue the extra "like you feel" is a very important distinction. The point would be that within worship services, pursuit of God and encountering God are no longer the thing pursued. Of course, everyone would say that encountering God is the whole...

Dear Saints and Sinners, My silence has no cause.  You are still near to my heart.... And today, I offer you a project that was constructed in the name of SAL. It's SAL's first original movie (which is not original one bit). Fondly, JR

This post will be brief...And no it is not the post I promised in my previous post about "the Fortunate Son," but that's because I know some of my limits, and one of those is not to write about your target when you are angry.... One of the staples about an Apostolic defense of Holiness is the classic line about how a certain Apostolic woman was out and about, and some random stranger walked up to them and asked either A) if the woman was Apostolic or B) Pointing out that there was something different to said Apostolic Woman.... Now, the first previous response on my part is that what really stinks about such a testimony is that I, as a male, am excluded from such a delightful experience....Nor have I ever met an Apostolic Man who has testified of some onlooker noticing the "holiness" within the male... Apparently God is a feminist who only lets woman enjoy the fruits of holiness and separation.... But there is something that isn't talked about amongst the pe...

It's the Creedence Clearwater Revival week here on Sal which means music from one of my favorite 60's bands... Something at the turn of the millenium went terribly wrong. I'm not precisely sure what it is, but I can guess: Liberals Apostolic preachers started reading books. And while we were taught all our lives about the immense reward for reading, I want to go back ten years or so ago and tell those liberal preachers "whatever you do, don't read a book." And I mean it. Because, it's not that reading is in itself bad... But rather, Apostolics have an amazing ability to walk into any bookstore and somehow bypass all literature that could indeed change themselves or change the world, they manage to come out with the weirdest, overpriced Christian inspirational book there is because the author was the pastor of a megachurch, and the design of the book is eye-catching and the title of the book is offensive. Shocking. Disturbing. And almost always, the book p...

Appealing to grace when all you do is pray and go to church is almost as bad as a Nazi defending the Holocaust by pointing out how much the German economy had blossomed in the first decade of it's reign of power, and how low the unemployment rates were during that same period. Okay, I jumped ahead of myself. The thing I LOL at more than gnostic Pentecostals these days is when people rail on Acts 2:38 plan of salvation as works-based and thus heretical . (cue awkward music): These people who argue that being Apostolic Pentecostal is the same as not understanding the love of God (because, they say God's love isn't earned).... These people who argue that salvation is found in faith and faith alone. These people who have hijacked the very definition of love and manipulated it to simply meaning tolerance of others who we were told to not like by our parents in the past. These people who happily point you to Romans 3-4 and Paul's exposition of faith via Abraham and the book...