Local time where you're at. ("Where you're at"?)

Down here at the Southern Command, we’re also going through a step of change. Nothing personal with the command staff or base personnel, but rather at our chosen house of worship. For the past 13 months our church has been without a Senior Pastor. The reasons are not necessary at this time, the only thing that is relevant is that there has not been a man in that position for some time. A few weeks ago, the search committee announced that they had found someone who fit and next Sunday our new Senior Pastor will preach his first sermon to our congregation.

So in his last message as Interim, our Executive Pastor reminded us that in order to move forward we as a church need to leave the past in the past (yes, learn from the past but leave it in the past) and in order to move forward there are several walls that are self-placed that are a barrier from moving forward. Those walls need to come down so we as a church can indeed move forward with a fresh start and change our focus on that which our new pastor brings forward to us. I won’t repeat his whole sermon, but the key points are what needs to be mentioned here, because they are pertinent for us all at this time. And they are something we all can certainly work on to break down.

The walls that need to come down are:

• Unfaithfulness
• Anger
• Apathy
• Failure
• Sin
• Pride

The scripture passage he used to help illustrate these walls is Joshua chapter six. This is the story of Joshua and how God instructed him to deal with the city of Jericho. If you know the story you can certainly see the parallels. Like Darth, it certainly may be time to take a good hard look at the walls in front of us that need to be broken down to allow us to return to moving forward.

ThatIsAll™

Denizens, I may be somewhat on the quiet side for a few days.

I have a friend on Facebook – the other&#160 aspect thereof which the Vicar referenced the other day – whom, after the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship, was ripping former owner Donald Carter for committing the allegedly cardinal sin of standing up there on the podium (at Mark Cuban’s invitation) and accepting the trophy from NBA commish David Stern.

(Apparently, my friend had it in for Mr. Carter all these years for the alleged reason he sold the Mavs to H. Ross Pee-rot, Junior.)

Now, my friend posted these thoughts on FB, in full view of God ‘n Ever’body&#153.&#160 I thought it a very classless thing to do (still do), and gave serious consideration to publicly challenging him on it, unfriending him and telling his ass off before the whole world – both on FB, and here.

As you probably know by now, I wound up doing none of those things.&#160 For once, I held my notoriously acidic tongue.&#160 About the only thing I did was withhold birthday wishes from him last week.

I just found out, a few minutes ago, that my friend died two hours ago of a heart attack.&#160 And it has hit me with all the force of a ten-ton wrecking ball at full speed.

Right now, I don’t have words.&#160 I am, for one of the few times in my life, utterly speechless.&#160 And in the silence, I’m thinking hard about a few things.

Including this blog.

It’s time for some re-evaluations around here.&#160 Vicar, General – you guys have the conn.

UPDATE:&#160 Obviously, I’d not read the General’s own pullback announcement (the gravity of this post will prevent me from making the obvious smartassed remark about it).

General, just do what you can.&#160 Vicar – a sermon outline or two would come in handy at the moment.