KennyBlinn.com

Had an interesting conversation this morning.  We spoke about the sliver in your brothers eye and the plank in your own.  We spoke about the mature and the immature Christian.  Then somehow we got onto the topic of pastoral/Christian church attire.

That makes me think…. hum?  What does a pastor look like, or for that matter, what does a Christian look like?  Does he/she even have a look?  Traditionally in the United States, quite possibly still the majority belief, a pastor looks like a businessman.  A businessman wears a suit and tie.  He wears nice shinny shoes and maybe a tie pin.  I am a church planter who does not like to wear suits, ties, and tie pins.  Does that make me less of a church planter/pastor or Christian?

One might say, ‘if you truly desire the things of God and desire to fully respect God’s Word as you teach it to others, you will dress appropriately– like a businessman.  Well, what about missionaries (church planters) among various people groups around the world, such as pastors in Africa or Arab nations?  Are they any less a pastor, or any less respectful of God’s Word if they do not dress businesslike?

Here in the US, I have heard that only 25% of the men in the US even have a suit parked in their closet, let alone take it out for a spin.  Are pastors/believers less respectful, less Christian if they do not look “the part”?  Should pastors/believers be forced to conform to a church culture that demands business attire in worship?  I say church culture, because the unchurched culture does not wear business attire most, if not all the time.

Regardless of what your beliefs on the subject – suit, or no suit, there is nothing wrong with wearing a suit.  They are sharp and they do promote a serious, businesslike, no messing around aura.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I have a suit, but I doubt it fits anymore and I can’t afford to buy another.  (That is not a plea for a  free suit.)

What does this appropriate attire debate tell people?  What does it tell people who can’t afford a suit – like me?  Does it say, ‘aaaah how cute you want to be a church planter/pastor, come back when you can afford a suit,’ or ‘new Christian the first thing you need to do is buy appropriate clothing (a suit)’?  Is true Christianity symbolized by the “clean cut” man wearing a suit?  Are non-suit wearers not welcome?  Are they any less a minister, or any less a sincere believer in Jesus Christ, as perfect all sufficient sacrifice for salvation, if you do not wear a suit?

So what is the answer?  Suit or no suit?  I think it is up to you.  If you want to wear a suit to church, go for it.  If you do not want to wear one, go for it.  But please, wear something.  The one thing to remember though is salvation is not contingent upon what we wear, which makes me very glad, because if it were we would all be wearing robes.  I don’t look good in robes.  The big and tall store just stocks fluffy robes. Yuck!!!  Harley Davidson does not make a robe…i think.

Thank you Jesus that it is not anything I can do to gain or earn your favor for salvation, but what you have done for me (despite me).  Thank you LORD that it is all you and not me.

God Bless, kennyb

I get so sick of Christmas even before it arrives. I see stores slapping a cross or Jesus on something and selling it to believers. You can find pens, pen holders, coffee cups, letter openers, and clocks “sanctified” by a cross or Jesus because the believers will buy anything with Jesus on it. Christian commercialism drives me nuts and I let it ruin my Christmas season for many years.

I heard this same thing expressed from a gentleman the other day and it made me think. Why do I let this seasonal commercialism ruin my praise for a glorious God who invaded creation? Why should I think people would act otherwise when they are unaware of the “Reason for the Season” (thanks Stryper––great song).

So what is it that I will do? I will live for Christ and celebrate His miraculous virgin birth. I will not let the world dictate my praise for my Savior. I will do my best to unveil the mystery of the season.

What is this mystery? The mystery is… That baby that was born to a virgin, grew up and was a man who did everything God desired of Him. He was called and actually was the Son of the Living God. He came with the purpose of bringing reconciliation to man with God. He died a miserable death so that man would not have to die a second death, due to sin. He brought love to the unlovely, forgiveness to the unforgiving, faith to the faithless, and salvation to sinners.

The most incredible thing about this whole story is that He did this without requiring payment from us. God paid for it with His Son. His Son paid for it with His life.

Jesus, this Son, didn’t stay in the grave, but is alive and reigning in Heaven. Today is the day of salvation, given freely from a Great God and Savior.

God bless,
kennyb

What an awesome movie. I love God and football. The story of Michael Oherr is incredible. From lost, without a place to live, to safe in the home of a loving family.

What a great picture of what God has done for us. We are all born lost and warring against God. Without the ability to desire God at all and deserving punishment, God sent His Son into His own creation to pay the price for our rebellion.

When you realized that there is nothing you can do to earn God’s rescue and rely on Him only for that rescue, you are adopted into His family. He takes you, cleans you up, gives you free reign of His home in heaven and an inheritance. I know…what a gift right?

Well it is free for all who ask for His rescue.
-Understand you are a sinner (we have battled against God)
-Understand you deserve punishment.
-Ask for forgiveness
-Welcome to the family.

God Bless,

kennyb

I love meeting with my buds for Friday morning breakfast and Bible study at Denny’s Tooele. We have some great discussions. Sometimes we begin with our week and sometimes we get right into what is new with Apple, Inc. For we are rabid Mac maniacs. Well, David is not rabid, but I am fairly sure that I am.

Today was no disappointment. In addition to my bud David, he brought his daughter, which was great. Also, Don and his son Mike were able to make it. It was a great turn out.

Our text (between forks of biscuits and gravy) was 1 Jn 2.23 – “No one who denies the Son can have the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.”  It was said, referring to this verse, ‘If you are wrong about Jesus, you are wrong enough to lose your soul forever.’

Many people have an understanding of Jesus, but few have an understanding of the Biblical Jesus.  People understand Jesus as a “good man,”  some as a prophet, while some have many off the wall views.  Many “religious” people get there theology from a religious buffet.  They take a little of this and a little of that, mixing Christianity, eastern philosophy and many other belief systems.  The same is true of people taking from the theological buffet of Jesus.  They say, ‘I will take a slice “Jesus is good”, a scoop of “Jesus is love”, and a heap of “Jesus the cosmic slot machine”; while passing on “Jesus the only Son”, “Jesus the only way”, “Jesus the only truth”, and “Jesus the only life”.

We build our own plate of Jesus.  The problem is that we build a false Jesus, a false christ and we begin to follow that false Jesus.  Jesus, the only Son of the almighty God, has given us the Bible, which reveal to us the true Jesus.  He is love and justice.  He is the Savior and also the Judge.  He is God the Son, holy and righteous in every respect.  The point is that we make Jesus to be a soft teddy bear Jesus, but forget the righteous God, Lord and Master.

Are you getting your Jesus from the world’s buffet or the love letter (Bible) He sent you.  Because where you get your belief of Jesus is of great importance.  For…’If you are wrong about Jesus, you are wrong enough to lose your soul forever.’

God Bless.

My wife and I had dinner with some great friends one evening and they told us about a great little documentary called “Nanook of the North” filmed in 1920-1.

We ordered and received the DVD from Netflix and watched in wonder.  ”Nanook of the North” is about Nanook and his family in  the Canadian Artic struggling to survive following the food wherever it may surface from beneath the ice.

We saw him kill fish with his teeth, stab a seal through the ice with a harpoon.  This movie is definitely not PETA safe.

I began to wonder, what would happen if believers lived as Nanook did?  Not stabbing the unchurched with harpoons through an Artic ice sheet, but living and relying on God for each day’s sustenance physical or spiritual.

What if each day we woke searching/hunting for our spiritual food in Scripture that sustained us the remainder of the day?  What if we took our family along with us in our hunt in God’s word, as Nanook did?  What if we did whatever it took to feed our family with God’s Word?

I often fail to do whatever it takes to spiritually feed my family.  But what if I was like Nanook, beginning each day understanding it is up to me the spiritual leader to feed my family not only physically, but spiritually.

Oh, God give me the since of urgency that Nanook had in feeding his family.

God Bless, kennyb

Last Sunday I had the privilege of baptizing Nika, one of our youth at Stansbury Park Baptist Church.  It was especially fun because we baptized in the lake for the first time ever.

It is wonderful seeing a young woman in our church put her faith in Christ.  We talked before the dunking about baptism.  We talked about her being under the water was a symbol for Christ having died and having been buried for our sins.  Because I did not leave her under, but brought her up out, we spoke that this is a symbol of Christ’s resurrection and His promise to raise us up to His home in heaven.

The church body celebrated this great time afterward with a bar-b-que, which was awesome.  You can’t beat burgers and beer of the root (rootbeer).

Baptism is not salvation, salvation comes through no one but Jesus Christ.  It is through His works, not ours, that we are saved by grace through faith.  Baptism is our way of showing people we believe in the death, burial and resurrection of our Savior.

God Bless,

kennyb

Gabe Taviano is a podcaster (God’sMac), a blogger, and a web designer from Columbus, Ohio.

He, with his wife and children, are traveling the country visiting 52 zoos in 52 weeks.  It is an incredible adventure trusting God as they travel.

Alma and I were blessed to be able to have them over for the night before they went on to Salt Lake City to visit Zoo number 44.  We didn’t have much time to talk, but being able to help a brother not to have to spend bucks on a hotel was a blessing.  Previously we had only corresponded by instant message and twitter.  It was fun responding to my daughter’s question, why are we hosting a family from Ohio we didn’t know?’.  That is the point of this post.

Besides Kevin Harvick (the best NASCAR racer), and Apple (the best computer), we have the Lord Jesus Christ (the only Savior) in common.  Both of us, as well as our families, have given our lives to Jesus Christ and rely on Him soley for our salvation.  Because of our faith in our heavenly Father, we are brothers in Christ.

God desires His children to act like family.  As brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to want the best for each other and desire to help one another.

It was a pleasure to help a brother and his family with something so simple as a place to lay their heads and a cinnamon roll in the morning.

Believers, treat each other as family, even if they are family you might not YET know.

God Bless,

kennyb

For lunch I like to watch Hulu.com. Hulu is a website that is a clearinghouse of sorts for television programing that may be watched streaming online.

Today for lunch, while eating my scrumptious microwaved burritos, I watched the pilot episode of The Pretender, a show about a genius who is able to assume any role in any environment. Jarod, the main character, assumes roles for the purpose of righting wrongs.

As I sit after the burritos have been consumed and the show as been viewed, I wonder how many people in worship services are pretending in their faith.

It does not matter whether their pretending is on purpose (such as being forcibly taken to church by a parent), or accident (one not fully understanding his lack of faith) the outcome is the same. Non-faith equals a life that is without forgiveness, without salvation, without hope.

Jesus says,“But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”  (John 4.23 HCSB)  True worshiper, worshipers who rely on Jesus for forgiveness, salvation and eternal hope who worship truthfully and not pretending.

Church leaders, challenge your people and lead people to test the truthfulness of their faith.

God Bless,

kennyb

Ok…I started with Drupal and liked it tremendously. When I got frustrated with the audio module, I turned to Joomla. Joomla, also, is a great CCS framework. But as I sat looking at a website that I really was not pleased with I began to understand that what I really wanted was a blogging site. Blogging text, audio and maybe video and that brought me to looking into Wordpress.
I downloaded the free Wordpress package and installed it on my mac with MAMP. After missing with it for a while I decided to try it out in the real world.
I really like Wordpress. I am no a big site master or anything so this was just what I needed, something relatively easy to maintain and post on.
If you are a newbie to websites, and want to tinker without spending a bunch of $$$, check Wordpress out.

God Bless

Messing around with my Google account adding calendars and stuff. This is a great FREE offering from Google that will allow families to stay connected in a crazy techie world.

Through our accounts, my wife and I are able to share our calendars in real time. She makes a change and my calendar changes. It is great! You can access your calendar on any computer, preferably a Mac, as well as your mobile device.
Church planting in Utah makes for crazy schedules and difficulties syncing our lives and our whereabouts. Google calendar makes that much easier.

Use it…the price is right and it is easy.

God Bless,