Learning To Smoke A Pipe part II

June 27, 2010 2 Comments

I’ve been smoking a pipe for near a year now. I have acquired five pipes now. My father in law made me a pipe stand for Christmas and it is really cool.  But most importantly I have found the perfect tobacco for my liking. It took me a while going through many different types of tobaccos but I finally found what I was looking for.

So the reason for this posting is simple. One of the post with the most traffic on this blog is my first one, Learning How To Smoke A Pipe. But on that blog I don’t really say how to smoke a pipe. It was more of a blog about me going to learn to do it. This one I am going to give my one year experience on how to do just that, pack a pipe, light it, and enjoy a relaxing moment.

First grab your pipe and your backy. Next depending on the depth of your bowl, grab a pinch of backy and drop it in your bowl. Now I heard from one guy this is how you pack. The first should be packed like a child was pushing it in, very lightly. Second like the mom was pushing it in, slightly more pressure. The third pinch should be packed in tightly like your dad was pushing it in. That way it get’s breathing room in the bottom.

Note- If it’s a new pipe, don’t pack it full the first few burns. You want to get a good carbon base on your pipe so it doesn’t burn your pipe. So just put in a pinch of backy the first few burns to get that light film on the bowl.

Now take your lighter and light the top of the backy to get a good burn. Let it go out, then light it again. This time after you got the top burned you can draw in some air to get the fire down in there and light the bowl.

If you start to wonder why it keeps going out, you want to draw in and blow out through the bowl to keep air moving through the bowl so the fire will stay lit. It’ll take a little while to get the hang of it but you’ll get it. Careful you don’t smoke it so fast that the bowl gets so hot you can’t hold it. That will happen.

Tips I’ve learned.

#1 Don’t smoke your bowl fast. It’ll heat up the bowl so you can’t hold it plus depending on the backy you will get tongue bite. Smoking ain’t fun if you get tongue bite.

#2 Don’t smoke a pipe in the car with the windows down or outdoors on a windy day. That backy will come right out and burn your arms. It hurts.

#3 DO NOT smoke around a pregnant wife. C’mon. A little respect around the baby please.

#4 If you need to keep re-lighting, try dumping our the already burned ash. You may not be getting fire to the backy in the bottom of the bowl.

#5 It’s not a bad idea to clean your bowl after every use. Some don’t but I like to.

#6

*I left 6 open for your advice to me. I’m definitely not a know it all when it comes to this subject.

pipesmagazine.com- These guys helped me the most. Believe me I had some really stupid questions.

pipesmokingguide.com- step by step guide for those who need it

notsoboringlife.com-216 comments at the time of publishing this blog. You might find your question answered there.

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Do You Know Him

June 22, 2010 2 Comments

If I were a betting man, I would be willing to bet that everyone knows every celebrity pictured above. None are pictured for any certain reason. They were just the first ones that came to my mind.

But what does it mean to know someone? For these, we know their names, their movies, their accomplishments, even maybe one or two things personal about them thanks to the tabloids. But do you really know them? I bet you’d even go as far as to say “I love that guy!” REALLY?

I got a question. How much do you know this guy? How much do you love Him?

You can get to know him by reading HIS words. You can get closer to him than you can any other king. He’s accessible. He’s loving and compassionate. He cares. Did you know that? He wants to be part of your life. He wants to be IN your life. Would you let Him? He knows your name. He knows every hair on your head. He knows more about you that you know about yourself. He doesn’t just know about you, He knows you. Would you get to know Him today?

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It’s Not About Me part I

June 17, 2010 Leave a comment

Let me start off by saying this is another subject that’s dear to my heart. That’s why I named it part 1. I’m not really sure though if there will be a part 2. Stay tuned!

I made a post here asking the question that if you subscribed to the idea that it’s not about you to tell me why you feel that way. I got a whopping response. Absolutely NO responses. Sadly, I have many friends that subscribe to the thought, yet I still received NO responses. NONE!!!!!

I did have over fifty views in the first week but NO responses. NONE!!!!!

I digress

I took a look at a top 25 list of all time hymns. Most traditionalist believe that is the foundation to make their defense against alot of things when it comes to musical worship. The debate I want to focus on in this post is  the debate that some say we should be using songs in worship that speak about God, his glory, His majesty, His awesomeness, His greatness, His power, His splendor, and all of who He is.

We should not be singing what some have come to call me-centric songs or songs that use “I” in them. It’s not about me, it’s about Him.

I disagree. I will say I should have probably built my foundational argument first but I started here instead.

Allow me to list a few hymns that debunk this attitude.

Abide With Me

Breathe on Me, Breathe of God

Be Thou My Vision

Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing

I Need Thee Every Hour

I Love To Tell The Story

My Jesus, I Love Thee

Stand up Stand Up For Jesus

And my personal favorite, the “anthem of hymnals”

Amazing Grace

The point I’m trying to make is that all these hymns we’ve been singing for years are me-centric as well. Songs that speak of what God has done for me, what He’ll do for you, songs that encourage from one christian to another, songs about what we’ll do in response to what God has done for us.

Bottom line, It’s not about me, BUT it involves me. And since it involves me, I will sing about how God in all His glory, all His majesty, all His awesomeness, all His greatness, all His power, all His splendor, and all of who He is affecting me and how I will respond to all He is.

My definition of worship is this – It’s my response to who He is and what He’s done, doing, and will do!

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Separation of Church and State part IV

June 15, 2010 3 Comments

I continue on my quest to speak out against separation of Church and State. Read more by clicking on the links below.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

On a recent blog on James Madison I was set-up to comment on in which I received a blast from the author, I ran across another comment made.

sekanblogger says:

True religion cares nothing about being in government.
Give unto Ceasar what is Ceaser’s; A clever reply that indicates Jesus had little care for what wordly powers can or may do. He certainly wanted no part in governing. Why would we govern in his name?
He would not approve.

I think there is a misunderstanding of purpose here by the commentator. Jesus came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. That means he had a purpose, a goal. Anything else was detrimental. He had his eyes set on fulfilling His purpose and had he looked to doing other things then he would have deviated from His purpose rendering it a lost cause. Thank God he was more focused that I ever thought about being. He never moved away from why He came.

Meaning… When asked about many things from the pharisees he answered quickly and moved right along. That was not why He was here. It wasn’t to set government straight, it wasn’t to set religious legalism straight per se. It was to bring the Kingdom of God, to be a perfect sacrifice so we can be reinstated back to God (if we confess that we are sinful and believe in Christ and what He done).

As a worship leader, I have been asked by those that don’t believe in music in the church why Jesus didn’t say anything about music. Because music and many other things that Jesus was “silent” on was already discussed, handled, and taken care of in the Old Testament. Why focus on that again?

Jesus had a purpose. God the Father has desires. The Holy Trinity is Three in One. Three separate beings to make up one.  I’m saying God wants to be in our government even if Jesus didn’t say anything to the support, it was already made clear in 1 Samuel.

This is not an exhaustive study, this is a straight to the point blog.

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Separation of Church and State part III

June 14, 2010 2 Comments

Set-up comments are better than no comments I will say that. Recently I received a comment on my blog about separation of church and state. You can read about the blogs part one and part two. On the comment from this blogger he said I would be interested to see what he wrote a bout a similar post. I think he set me up to give my opinion only to bash my thoughts. That’s called a set-up comment.

I commenced to reading it with an open mind (yea I do that) and I learned a little about James Madison another founding father of this great nation. I disagreed with him also about the fact that religion needs to be separated from any government decision. This was my comment to his blog post.

I do appreciate you informing me of your blog post.
I’m not sure where you stand with religion and that’s ok.
I would actually have to say after reading about
James Madison that I disagree with even another founding father on one thing.
True religion cannot be suppressed.
If you are a religious man, true to God and obedient to His word,
there is NO way that you can separate
biblical influence from decision-making.
Therefore rendering it almost difficult if not impossible
to separate the church from the state as it is embodied in a person.

It IS however possible to separate the corporation
of church from the corporation of government.
In other words, You can keep prayer from being prayed before
a meeting but you cannot keep one from praying
in his heart before a meeting starts. You can toss the
ten commandments out the door but you cannot keep
a judge from rendering judgment based on biblical principles.

I could go into more biblical accounts on how God wanted
to be king but the people wanted a human king in Israel
but I’ll save the bible study. I believe through the sayings
of Jesus and the Old Testament writings about God,
that God wants to be involved with the government
of an established country. We just won’t let Him.

I thought I made my point fairly clear. In 1st Samuel chapter 9 you can see that God gave the people a king for crying in chapter 8 that they wanted a king like the surrounding nations. They didn’t like the idea that god wanted to be king over the nation of Israel and Samuel was His mouthpiece.  So… God gave them a king, a not so good king but a king none-the-less.

I believe that God wants to be involved in politics. Actually, I believe God just wants to run the nation through His people. But some say that is absurd. I think, to say that you can run a country without the advice of the almighty creator, the Alpha and Omega,is absurd. To say You can make decisions that’s best for a nation of peoples and that you can make laws and run a prosperous nation better that an all-knowing God is insanity.

That’s what we as a nation say to God when we tell him that we no longer want prayer in our chambers of Congress, that we no longer want to display works on our walls that was the framework for our laws. I can only drop my head in shame to know that my constituents are banning God and saying we can do better than you. Really? I gotta see this.

Stay tuned for the next episode-Has the desire of God to be in our politics changed since Jesus came?

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Xtreme Sunday Setlist 6.06.10

June 6, 2010 Leave a comment

Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus,
Fortress 144-Brian Doerksen,
Mighty Warrior-Rick Pino,
You Are Good-Jeff Deyo,
Ancient of Days-Jamie Harwell

We started off with a video tribute to the soldiers that died on D-Day since today is the 66th anniversary of the storming of Normandy.

We jumped into the song Stand Up Stand Up For Jesus which is a rocking version of the hymnal.

Fortress 144 is a song by Brian Doerksen I heard on his live album and just fell in love. It comes from Psalm 144.

Mighty Warrior is the first time we did this at Xtreme. This song has just spoken so much to me in the past week. It’s a great song that during the week you can imagine the Lord singing over you no matter what you’re going through (Zeph. 3:17). It’s a constant reminder you are a mighty warrior. So rise and be that. Mount up on the wings of eagles. You can do all things through Christ who gives strength. You… are a mighty warrior. Be one!

You Are Good is a song I’ve been singing in my personal worship time and decided to finally do it a church. It’s a great song of worship that can just go on forever when you get lost in the song.

Ancient of Days, I’ve also been doing for a while and this is the second time we sang it at Xtreme. Jake the bass player really gets the church revved up when he does the clapping during the bridge. It’s a fun song.

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Clarksville Worship Leaders Network

June 3, 2010 Leave a comment

We need each other. As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another right? Proverbs 27:17

The other day I got invited to a worship night at a local church. As a worship leader I wanted to go for two reasons. One, to see how another church does worship and two, to refresh myself from leading worship so much myself. So I went and after I left let me tell you I was ready to lead again. I was ready to worship more. The week following this worship night has had me on a level of intimacy with Christ I had been longing for so much.

It’s easy to get worn out and lose focus when your constantly pouring out and not receiving. Some refer to this as burnout. There are not many answers to burn out that I have been able to find. Most answers given to me when asked what they do for burnout is prayer. Really? That’s it. There is no other answer. I think there is. It’s called rest and receive.

Allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to use you to minister to others. This is very important. I have made it a requirement to try to attend this monthly night of worship so that  I can at least be fed some for emptying myself so much.

I created the Clarksville Worship Leaders Network to do this very thing for local worship leaders. We need to gather for a moment and glean from one another so we can take back to our local gathering and continue in the knowledge that we’re either doing it right or there are better things we can be doing. The network gives us a chance to learn from others and whats working in their local gathering of believers.

We need to gather. It sharpens us. It encourages us. It teaches us. It sparks excitement in us. We need to gather. We were made for relationships. God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone, so He created Eve. The ten commandments, the fruit of the spirit, all have in mind three groups of people, God, me and you. We need to gather. There is good in gathering.

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