tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-142435662024-03-13T23:18:22.823-07:00Randy Dean MinistriesA pastor for 50 years, a bishop since 2014 but most importantly, a human being since 1953. Life is too short to be ignorant, arrogant, dispassionate, or joyless. So, I blog to do my part for the cure as well as keeping me informed, humble, passionate and joyful. Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-55595860303488290922021-01-29T14:23:00.001-08:002021-01-29T15:56:32.744-08:00If I Had One Prophecy ~<p><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px;">If I had one prophecy ~</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px;">I might prophesy that abortion will remain legal for another 47 years AND I would add to my prophecy that only Love is greater than laws, only Love is significant enough to offer solutions, and only Love would create bipartisan ideas to offer women the answers they so richly deserve when faced with the complexities that will always transcend partisan rancor. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px;">I'd prophesy Love.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">Love would create Pro-life and Pro Choice wisdom for the greater good of a society at the brink of self destruction. I’d prophesy what Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said of old, ‘thou shalt not kill’, but I say if you are angry and call people fools, you should be brought before the ‘supreme court’”. It seems to me Jesus is pressing us to realize we have much greater heart issues to win! And, as such, by Love we could insure that babies will no longer be born into a world of this murderous hatred we’ve created. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d prophesy Love.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I could possibly prophesy that the church of the USA HAS come just together to vote for the best solutions our nation faces today. I’d add to my prophecy that voting as a single block of partisan robots has only succeeded to further divide us thus preventing any honest political ideals from becoming solutions. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Through the eyes of Love I might prophesy that multiplied millions of Americans of faith in Christ came together and voted across all party lines; for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who must now learn to work together as family or perish together as fools. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And through those same eyes of Love I’d prophesy that Catholic Christians, Orthodox Christians, and Christians of multiple notions awakened to elect all different kinds of human beings with a wide diversity of beliefs and lifestyles to represent EVERYONE in the USA and not just a select few…in order that we’d all have to learn to live beyond hate. And while I'm on the subject of faith, I'd prophesy Love for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and beyond...</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d prophesy Love.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d be so bold (if I did prophesy in such a manner) as to suggest that the one billion Catholic Christians on earth could be proud to say they have the unique and extraordinary opportunity of having one their own as the President of the USA (only the second time in American history). I’d prophesy that their liturgy would unify with him at weekly mass and the possibility of one billion people praying together would have planetary implications.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d prophesy Love. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My bold prophecy (if I were to prophesy so boldly) would extend to proclaim a new day for Protestants whose exhaustion with the vain repetition of demanding monolithic singular political solutions has finally pressed us to accept the art of healthy compromise. I’d prophesy a day of Love for and among politicians to remember that their best work is done in the art of compromise (the real work of political science) in order that all will have some answers rather than half getting everything while leaving the other half to boil in bitterness. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d prophesy Love. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My prophecy would rest on the Shoulders of Jesus’ prayer, “Father, that they all may be one as we are one…that the world might believe that You sent Me” (John 17:21). And my prophecy would reach for an end to “us versus them”; an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth world promising only a blind and toothless existence. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My proposed prophecy would stand in the middle of the dreamy notions of Prophets like Isaiah and Micah who imagined the day when all weapons of war would be converted into agricultural marvels to feed everyone on earth equally…why? Because of Love, that’s why.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d prophesy Love.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yes…I’d prophesy Love and never (never have, never will) a politician.</p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Only Love deserves that kind of endorsement. </p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Only Love will do the heavy lifting of the challenges before us. </p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Only Love will demand more of us than all our previous ideas and debates.</p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Only Love will point us upward and away from the mess we’ve created. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Love alone is credible.” ~Hans Urs von Balthasar~ </p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">"Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away..." ~St. Paul~</p><div><br /></div>Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-23698980926910816062021-01-04T14:24:00.004-08:002021-01-04T14:24:50.732-08:00Herod Will Never Be "Great Again"<p><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px;">An intriguing parallel to the current political machinations of the USA is found in the familiar Christmastide story of the Magi in Matthew 2:1-15.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">The legendary crew of the Wisemen (and the necessary entourage likely surrounding them) arrives in Jerusalem in their eager pursuit of seeing the baby born as “King of the Jews”. All they have to go on is a mysterious star in the night sky and that mystic ideal in and of itself describes their sweet naivety.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So in that naive mindset, they accept an invitation to King Herod for further directions and information about that King of the Jews, who we know is Jesus. Herod was so troubled by the rumors of why these far east visitors had arrived in Jerusalem that he tapped into the wisdom of local religious scholars for where a new King of the Jews would be born. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Bethlehem, Land of Judah…” they announced, and thus Herod passed along this borrowed spiritual revelation, no doubt hoping to sound like a fellow pilgrim…especially when he feigned, “…when you have found him, report to me, that I too may come and worship him.” </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We all know the rest of the story; the Magi find the Baby, they worship Him, and they are warned by God in a dream (once again underscoring their delightful naivety) to flee the fraud, King Herod ~ “The Great”. Herod (the Great!) is so embarrassingly insecure about these goings on, that he orders baby boys under the age of 2 from Bethlehem killed in order to cling to his power. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fast forward to America 2021; our own version of Herod (The Great) is currently clinging to power by any and all means. Feigning spiritual connection, our modern Herod has rubbed some shoulders of religious groups enough to be able to parrot a few Bible verses…and not coincidently, we are seeing generation affected by this fiasco who are being alienated by the deadly marriage of politics and religious faith. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A certain picture of failing authority is the scratching and clawing to maintain it at the mere mention of something better on the horizon. On the other side of this magnificent tale, a sure sign of royal greatness is in the vision of a relaxed baby protected by transcendent majesties…without a care in the world. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A dream similar to that which came to the Magi warning them “not to return to Herod” is coming soon to spiritual theaters of the mind all across our nation. Eager, mystical, and even naive spiritual pilgrims will become the stuff of legendary stories because they saw through the fakery of an emotionally weak King and listened rather to dreams of a better way… </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Herod and all his line of Herod successors have fallen. Herod will never be “Great Again”. When Jesus was offered all the geopolitical power He could ever dream of, He waved off the Satan with the simplicity of a naive commitment to worship God alone (Luke 4:6,7) </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s time for the rise of another troop of simple, star-gazing worshippers wise enough to flee the trappings of scheming politicians. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-40271586121590948612020-10-26T20:21:00.003-07:002020-10-27T08:03:41.697-07:00My Heart is Broken<p> <span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px;">My Heart is Broken</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Jesus announced His ministry with the act of reading Isaiah 61, which includes, “…He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted…”. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">From the first breath, His first sermon, the first moment of controversy ~ Jesus is about healing the brokenhearted. Hearts broken by betrayal, ignorance, fear, sinfulness, and yes, even broken by misplaced religious conviction. And perhaps especially, by religious conviction.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We’ve all lived through more heart break than most of us would like to rehearse. We all have our stories. We all know the crushing sense of, “what the living hell just happened?” Some of us have diaries filled with our tear filled curses and secret weeping about, “WHAT THE…?!”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Betrayal sneaks up on us and hides in our sweet ideals of us always trusting, always relying, always believing. A broken heart begins with “knowing” but it ends with, “WHAT THE …?!”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So here’s my deal: after 48 years of ministry, staying the course, holding my values to a singular calling, shaking hands with a few political kings, and being courted by the same…my heart is broken. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I felt it coming when I was asked to pray at a political rally in 2004 IF I gave my church mailing address list to that Party, but I refused to sell my prayer. I knew then, but I didn’t want to accept it. I wanted to believe, I longed to trust, and I was determined to win any opponents. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">By the way, I attended the aforementioned political rally and heard my replacement pray, in the presence of hundreds of people, and in the ears of a future “king”; but I knew the cost of what that prayer was for me. A cost beyond my heart.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So began my final lap around a race to remain true to my heart. My heart belongs to One, and I discovered the heart-breaking reality that my heart is not for sale. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So in 2016, when nearly all of my spiritual family began to rally around Donald Trump as the prophesied Isaiah 45 Cyrus, I was nervous. I held my thoughts tight…I measured my words…I tried to protect my heart.</p>
<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I thought that this moment would pass. I hoped that my spiritual family would arrive at something more measured, more insightful, and more fully aware of how our hearts could be captured by an image of our ideals wrapped around hidden illegitimate purposes. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All hearts reach for dreams…yet, that’s where illegitimate sales people arrive with a sales pitch. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For a moment, I need to reinforce my beginnings. My mom was healed at the hands and healing of a man who ended up in a tragic failure of his own fraud. I’m forever grateful for that miracle but I am also forever aware of that man’s frailty. It reminds me to stay true to my heart.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I came to a revelation of my current Kingdom convictions from a man whose back-stage realities were tragically reprehensible. While I remain grateful for the Kingdom this man revealed to me, I am also painfully aware of his betrayal. It again reminds me to stay true to my heart.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Now, an entire movement, committed to the Kingdom I deeply treasure, this movement now boldly and openly endorses President Trump as the *only* Christian choice, the *only* valid vote, and the *only* opportunity to save the USA. I have thought, I have hoped, I have believed…however…now, again… My heart is broken. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I KNOW that Jesus will again heal my broken-heart as He has before. Every time my heart is healed, I become a better human. And I KNOW Jesus will remain the only power worthy of my heart and create a new heart for a better day. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am concerned that an entire generation watching this crisis will doubt the veracity and credibility of a church whose endorsement of President Trump sounds more like a confession of faith than a simple choice on a ballot. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am concerned that the gospel too often sounds like, “Receive Jesus, be baptized, and accept His choice of the Republican Party, and you shall be saved.” </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">An entire generation has headed for the exits at that sound…and their hearts, and mine, are broken. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My hope is that ultimately, this might just be the Good News in this broken hearted moment. Jesus patiently waits to bind up the brokenhearted who long for MUCH BETTER DAYS.</p>Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-74867847745208825192020-10-05T10:22:00.000-07:002020-10-05T10:22:48.860-07:00Racism: A Life Without Love To it or Through it<p> <span style="font-size: medium;">Racism ~ </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's a life without love TO it or through it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">An aberration of a human being but not a human present.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A tree without branches.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A mountain lost in a larger valley.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A car with 3 wheels roaring down a highway at high speed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A flower with no peddles.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A wedding without a bride.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A house with no doors.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A street with no intersections.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A train straining to reach full speed with no tracks beneath its enormous weight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">An orchestra on stage sans the musicians.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A song without a melody and missing a cadence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We can live without love just as we could live without sleep...and we slowly become ghosts of exhaustion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Why do we even bother to look at the extremists who shout? Because we can not help but stare...rubber necking at the view as our instincts shouts, "Beware! Be aware!" Or worse yet, "Could this be me?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We watch and wonder, "Why?" and, "When will this crash?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And we suddenly know that any life without LOVE always fades into fear...fear of the other. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We watch and wonder, "Is there any lack of significant LOVE in full blown within my own experience?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Racism dies, line by line, the instant authentic Love begins its unfailing ferment within our soul. </span></p>Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-80832601521395599492020-07-06T12:57:00.004-07:002020-07-07T14:42:26.408-07:00Born in the USA...Born Again in the Kingdom of God (Part One)<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">I’m blessed to have had many profound life defining epiphanies. Indulge me a few moments please, while I share the highlights of a few of these definitions.<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Like many of you reading this, I was “born again” into the Kingdom of God. I did not have a single moment altar call experience, but I found the reality of Jesus Christ as a high school kid searching for a way out of a world of internal misery locked up in me. I grew up in a home with significant addiction issues and the “new birth” pains in me led me to a Love in Christ for which I am forever grateful. Trust me…this is a very long story made very short for this blog. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I went to a denominational Bible College who taught me an appreciation for listening to the Holy Spirit…an internal, beautiful, supernatural GPS, if you will. That denomination began the process of ordaining me when (drum roll please) I followed the Holy Spirit to work for a beautiful expression of the Kingdom of God outside the aforementioned denomination. My relationship with them was terminated due to my failure to keep the Kingdom of God as the sole property of their organization. Broke my heart…</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But what began as a flood of tears for the loss of that relationship, has evolved into one of the best decisions of my life… and a pattern setting epiphany for my future. The Kingdom of God won my affections, yet again.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You might say, I was born again…again.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Which brings me to another new birth epiphany. After a 38 day fast my wife and I discovered a spiritual family, 1200 miles away, who taught us the phenomenal beauty of the Kingdom of God! And, with yet another long story made short, we happily jettisoned doctrinal/theological confines that had been restricting our full embrace of the Kingdom. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And you might say, I was born again…again…and again. See a pattern developing here? For the sake of time and space, I’ll need to condense the next few epiphanies…</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">One day while preparing a sermon on my passion for Pro-life, my internal GPS (Holy Spirit…remember?) whispered, “While you may wax passionate about this, remember there will be women in your audience who have had the heart crushing experience of an abortion. See them with the eyes of Jesus.” </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">New birth was the result of months of training myself to walk in that revelation. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Years later, a local Republican party leader called me and invited me to pray at a George W. Bush reelection rally. Initially, I was all a flutter…but then another request was made; “Could you provide your church’s email/mailing list so we can contact them?” I simply refused to cross that ethical line… and my invitation to be seated on the platform with a President was withdrawn. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Born again…and so, my political persuasions bowed to a Higher Power.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Fast forward to the night President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by our brave military. When I fist pumped the air, my Holy GPS alerted me; “Recalibration required.” And my life turned abruptly toward a more profound and lovely revelation of the Kingdom of God. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You see, part of the life in the Kingdom of God is a journey toward, “…they will turn their swords into plowshares…learning war no more…those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” I could’ve remained in the safety of my spiritual womb…or be born again to the Kingdom of God.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">More currently, I found myself completely surrounded by an association of people of faith whose mantra was something like this: “Christianity is the same as and equals conservative Republican politics. God has chosen a new President and this is prophetically affirmed.” (See January 11, 2020 blog ~ "This Was Bad Behavior...")</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">My GPS went off like a tornado siren. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In this context I have witnessed an avalanche of correlations and equalizations to our nation as it relates to the Kingdom of God. Most are subtle, some are not. I’ve learned an awareness of the subtle hybrids and the blending of America and the Kingdom of God…such as churches where they fly the flag of the USA with the Christian flag symbolically lower as an expression of submission. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">An easy way to apply this is to try this exercise: If the King of any third world nation said, “Our country is the closest thing to the Kingdom of God on earth. We believe we are God’s gift to the world. God has told me I am His chosen and my nation is a chosen people. I’m fairly certain we would laugh him to scorn. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And yet, similar statements have been made about the USA. “A City set upon a hill” and “the last best hope on earth” to name a few… but these are truths that only apply to the Kingdom of God! </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">On a smaller scale, here’s condensation of another example; “the Democrates/Left are an evil force seeking to destroy our nation! Christians must speak up.” Read that again. Just typing it makes my spiritual GPS spin… </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Christians are present in the Democratic Party too. Christians have left-leaning ideas as well. Christians are not the sole possession of any ideology. And the only nation Christians are called to speak up for is…the Kingdom of God. Right leaning and left leaning Christ followers might rally AS ONE declaring, “Jesus Christ is Lord. We have no king but Him.”</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I love the USA, but I love the Kingdom of God more. I love our fledgling form of government, but I love the Government that rests upon the shoulders of Jesus more (Isaiah 9). The USA has phenomenal freedoms, potential, and blessings seldom seen on the earth. I know I won the birth lottery when I was born in the USA…</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But now, I must chose to be born again into the Kingdom of God. This is a Kingdom of Love seeking full expression “on earth as it is in heaven.” I have discovered that what our King said is profoundly true, “No one can serve 2 masters” (Matthew 6:24). Another way of saying that is, “You can only serve one Higher Power at a time.” (Dr. John MacDougal; Being Sober and Becoming Happy).</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">My loyalty to Kingdom values will always supersede my love for country. “For God and country” will never be my motto…</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> “For God and Kingdom Come” is where I have planted the flag of my heart. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-76927667240778969922020-03-22T16:46:00.004-07:002020-03-25T17:38:53.992-07:00SANCTUARY: A Place of Refuge for Spiritual Refugees<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sunday Night Sanctuary</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">March 22, 2020</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve been painfully aware of the dwindling population among USA churches for the past 2 decades. Prior to that, I lived in a church fantasy world of believing the notion that if we would just, “win the lost at any cost” our pews would always be packed. Well Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To be perfectly blunt right off the bat…the whole approach I just referenced is a value statement related to our decline. “They” versus “us” rather than the collective family of humankind in search of the Sacred, the Divine, the Beauty of God. Winning the lost often looked like counting how many people we could BS into saying the “sinner’s prayer” and receiving Jesus. I’m through with the bait and switch…as well as the other definition of BS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A professional counselor friend of mine shared a parable fitting for this challenge: “If I’m strolling along a city sidewalk and suddenly I’m confronted with a scene of person after person leaping from a 3rd floor window, falling to certain injury or even death, I do not shame them angrily for being stupid enough to jump…NO! I quickly seek to determine what could be so bad on the 3rd floor of that building that makes jumping seem preferential over staying up there! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The church of the west continues to witness a steady “run for your lives” stampede from our once solid sanctuaries. Even a casual internet search bears out my point. Estimates range from 25% to 50% of the next 2 generations have exited organized Christianity. As a pastor of over 45 years, I admit the reality of my own participation in failing to seriously carry out and gather a collective healthy assessment of what could be so bad about who we are that would make a 3rd floor leap seem better than staying… </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As of January 2019 my wife and I left the church we pastored for 30 years and began a journey of discovery. We went out in search of “spiritual refugees”, or the “one sheep”, as described by Jesus. Our promise to any we would find was to “listen and love” as best as we could. No BS and no attempt to shame anyone back to the 3rd floor. Did we find dysfunctional excuses or blame without appropriate self evaluation? Of course! But I’d propose we are ALL guilty of that, now and then. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">However, the great majority of those we have found represent a very real demand for an authentic renewal in the western Church. In ways great and small, multitudes are isolated within the church walls or simply walking away. They aren’t rebels flicking the bird at a steeple…they’re treasures with stories too compelling to ignore any longer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We were always supposed to be a “city of refuge” and a sanctuary for the pursuit of a beautiful spirituality. Many of them (myself included) believed the church would be a beautiful sanctuary for restoration but found too many sad compromises from that purpose to tolerate any longer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What compromises? Here’s a partial list of what my wife and I have discovered:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Commitments to purity, culture wars, righteousness, and a determination to change everyone else to make them look like us. For instance, the “LGBTQ agenda” became our war cry against human beings made in the image of God rather than a construct for the potential of healthy, adult conversations. Think about it; the woman at the well (John 5) represented everything a good Jewish boy should shun! But Jesus took the risk of a healthy adult conversation that demonstrated his genuine interest in her life’s journey. I’ve learned to listen to ONE person sitting in front of me rather than fighting a group and their agenda. The more I fight a group, the less I’ll be trusted with one person coming to me with a trust for love. More to unpack about this at another time…</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Political marriage for the purpose of national influence. I do not care which side of the spectrum we’ve married, it was not a marriage made in heaven. “No one can serve 2 masters” according to Jesus, yet we’ve been determined to prove Him wrong. The Kingdom of God introduced by King Jesus can certainly participate and influence systems around us with salt and light…but we can only serve one higher power at a time. To hear some preach, you’d think the call to follow Jesus is stone cold equal to becoming a card carrying Republican. No! Two masters is one too many. More to unpack about this at a later time…</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Pure and simple ~ a failure to grow in an honest pursuit of LOVE. Loving our neighbor, our enemy, ourselves and God. Love; the final reality. Love alone is credible. Love; the ONE value Jesus proclaimed as THE value of His people. MUCH more to unpack about this at another time… </span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In order to unpack the above (and more) we are offering Sunday Night Sanctuary. Stop by beginning Sunday March 22, 2020 at my Facebook page from 6pm to 7pm CST.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The definition of sanctuary is simply this; a sacred refuge and a space to become a whole spiritual human being. My wife and I want to do our best to provide that kind of space. A sacred place for becoming, belonging, and loving toward a dynamic of living beautifully and powerfully. During this time very Sunday night we’ll offer prayers, confessions, messages, and Communion toward that end. A brief Sanctuary to build upon for a lifetime of sanctuary Love. </span></div>
Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-6382513492288623532020-03-21T14:10:00.001-07:002020-03-21T14:24:02.107-07:00Sunday Night Sanctuary<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As of January 2019 my wife and I left the church we pastored for 30 years and began a journey of discovery. We went out in search of “spiritual refugees”, or the “one sheep”, as described by Jesus. Our promise to any we would find was to “listen and love” as best as we could. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At first we went out to meet one on one, then it progressed to a group, and then to other personal contacts as schedules and life allowed. We’ll still attempt all of the above but as life allows today, in the day of COVID-19, the idea struck us like the promise of Spring ~ meet online, via Facebook Live (to start off) and provide a Sanctuary; a spiritual refuge for these refugees. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The definition of sanctuary is simply this; a sacred refuge and a space to become a whole spiritual human being. My wife and I want to do our best to provide that kind of space. A sacred place for becoming, belonging, soul food and loving toward a dynamic of living beautifully and powerfully. During this hour every Sunday night we’ll offer prayers, confessions, messages, and Communion toward that end. A brief Sanctuary to build upon for a lifetime of sanctuary Love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, stop by beginning Sunday March 22, 2020 at my Facebook page from 6pm to 7pm CST. </span></div>
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Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-55769304984260496182020-03-02T19:13:00.003-08:002020-03-02T19:13:23.615-08:00Make choices out of clear headed, freedom based thinking ...<div dir="ltr" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
I just read another post/Tweet loaded with a command from “God” to vote for President Trump; unequivocally, unquestionably, and without a slight consideration for any other thought or choice. This post, along with dozens of others like it I’ve seen, makes it clear that any other choice is only a choice for evil. It places shame on anyone whose thoughts may be tempted to consider the dark side beyond “God’s choice” in President Trump. </div>
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Read this carefully... I completely disagree with this process of shame based, broken rationale. Everyone, please...make your choices out of clear headed, freedom based thinking.<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>When any church demands conformity for political ideals, run away from those demands and *think* for yourself. Vote President Trump, Joe, Mike, Bernie, etc...because you alone believe in your choice. You...alone...believe...in your choice. </div>
Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-91476492895794473392020-01-11T18:37:00.000-08:002020-01-11T18:37:33.939-08:00"This Was Bad Behavior. We Are Sorry. Please Forgive Us."At age 66 I've lived through more public church scandals than I care to list. All embarrassing, some catastrophic, and some requiring serious legal action. But none of them are akin to what I'm witnessing now. Today's scandal is far and away more baffling than any I've ever witnessed before.<br />
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This is NOT a political statement. This IS the voice of a pastor/elder/bishop with 45 years of experience struggling to speak truth for whoever has an ear to hear. This IS also one of the greatest heartaches I have experienced in my role of "preacher."<br />
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The doubled down, overtly "prophesied", spiritualized endorsement of President Trump by some high profile church leaders and their followers is a sadness that will haunt the Body of Christ for decades to come. Those of us who did not join this chorus will spend an inordinate amount of our future making sure that our listeners knew exactly how we felt about this but ALL of us will be picking up the pieces for a very long time.<br />
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When prophets declare our 45th President to be the Isaiah 45 Cyrus, we have sadly diminished our potential witness. When ecclesiastical leaders hold church rallies for the faithful to cheer and chant with near worship like praise for President Trump, we have placed a bushel over our lamp. When prophetic words are wrapped around the realities of this national political duress in an attempt to make it look like something other than it really is...AND, when TV preachers look at the camera and declare, "If you don't support our President, I doubt your salvation", the Good News becomes the evening news excusing thousands MORE of a generation who are already walking away, to break into a full sprint.<br />
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I am a lifelong pentecostal/charismatic believer. I LOVE the Holy Spirit and all the gifts and fruit available to me by the Spirit's power. Early in my training I was taught a simple principle of the prophetic; "No mates or dates." By definition and extension that meant, "NEVER use the Spirit for control, whether subtle or otherwise, for any kind of gain over a flock or person." NEVER. But what is happening now is well beyond "mates or dates"...some are in a full scale attempt at political endorsement via the Holy Spirit's gifts.<br />
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I repeat ~ this is NOT a political statement. Endorse anyone for any office you'd like, in your own name but NEVER in the Name of Jesus Christ. NEVER.<br />
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We have one way out of this embarrassment, one statement to attempt at making this right, and one opportunity to heal this terrible behavior. Even those of us who have not participated in this can participate in a solution. I'm not a Catholic priest but I am a member of the Universal/Catholic Church and as such, I have often offered apologies (for whatever it is worth) for the broken and evil behavior of clergy abuse. In that spirit, I invite all my sisters and brothers in Christ to the following effort...<br />
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As soon as possible and with as many of us as who are brave enough to do so, I believe we must say with authentic humility, "This was bad behavior. We are sorry. Please forgive us."Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-63161546525218797692020-01-05T10:29:00.001-08:002020-01-05T10:29:20.467-08:0021st Century Magi<div style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
To all who feel like a homeless spiritual troupe wandering/wondering with a simplicity of love for God BUT uncomfortable with and wary of brittle fundamentalism waving swords of Bible proof texts, BE OF GOOD CHEER. The Magi/Kings/Wisemen of the Christmas story are our forerunners. </div>
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They had no Bible or established religious support for their journey...just a curious star in the night sky. They are the ultimate party crashers. No formal invitation except <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">their deep contrarian spiritual instincts. They stepped onto a stage of profound harsh "Religion Inc." so bound up with Bible proof texts that the ultimate promise of the Bible, sleeping in a manger, was completely missed by professional blindness... in spite of the astrological radiance in the inky black skies. </span></div>
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<b>The Magi of the 21st century are still searching for the real Jesus</b>. Modern Wise People are suspicious of political power brokers trying to trick them and those who posture for positional influence. They're looking for something unassuming, without the sound and fury of political noise. They are more at home finding a teenaged mama holding her baby who is being sought out by grave-yard shift workers who smell of livestock. </div>
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21st Century Magi have traveled from strange places, long emotional distances, and refuse to be denied. They don't look or dress like "us" so they surely don't appear to fit in. But to ignore them is to ignore a future as bright as EVERY STAR in the sky!</div>
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Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-3663770492128564692019-08-08T08:57:00.001-07:002019-08-08T08:57:47.684-07:00The Potential of Ragged, Reckless Love<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Very early in my journey of faith (circa 1970’s) I was confronted by the fundamentalist doctrinal establishment of the denomination God was using to draw me to Himself when I heard (loud and clear I might add) that divorce was a clear “Biblical” infraction. So clear an infraction that it would forbid anyone from serving in any leadership level in a local assembly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, I’ve observed that today’s “clear Biblical teaching” can easily become tomorrow’s sad commentary on our lack of love. There are so many examples I could cite …like racially mixed marriages (clear Bible teaching), men with long hair (clear Bible teaching), worldly entertainment (clear Bible teaching)... just to name a few.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">What if today’s limited understanding of a wide range of cultural challenges will one day be compared to the ignorance about racial integration in the USA from the 1950’s and ’60’s? We had Bible verses! What if we’re so afraid of the extremes, the aberrations, and the fear mongering that we can’t see ONE person sitting in front of us asking for love? Asking for acceptance? Asking for a simple margin of patience from us while they sort out the madness (ours, theirs, and the wide world)?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Love refuses to lump anyone into a monolithic category. Love floods our vision with insight, sight into, and simply SEEING that one person beyond any and all character assumptions and assassinations. Love respects ALL humans even when a Bible verse seems to disrespect that very same human being. Love never fails. </span></div>
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Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-62934754339175814072019-04-30T15:06:00.001-07:002019-04-30T15:08:35.930-07:00When I Talk About Love I'm Not Trying to be Relevant or Clever...<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I'm known for preaching, writing, and posting about love. Some have called me "Bishop Love" or "The Dean of Love"... I guess I could be called much worse, so I'll happily accept the labels. But I want to be specific as to why I'm so committed to this topic...please allow me 10 minutes of your time ~</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The best place to start would be with this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Please take some pains to read this carefully;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: "superclarendon"; font-size: 15.199999809265137px;">“I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say:”We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The complexity AND simplicity of Love is found in the sheer impossibility of it. That's inherent to King's quote here because this statement requires us to remember that he actually survived his own home being terroristically attacked. We must recall that black churches were routinely fire-bombed and Sunday School children were killed...in my life time...in the USA. King's creed and response? LOVE. More than simply being "relevant" or "clever"... he put his one life on the line for LOVE. I'm convinced that 21st Century Christianity is at a similar intersection today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The political bitterness of our time is a potential set-up for a raw discovery of the practice of Divine Love. Dealing with every hot-topic of our day from a Christian perspective must find a way to default to this "One Command" of Jesus Christ. I am convinced that we will either spend our energies on other methods or we will spend and be spent in a healthy and joyous practice of Love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">M. Scott Peck, author of the classic book, "Road Less Traveled" said, "</span>Real love is a permanently enlarging experience." Some of us get stuck in small definitions of love and fail to see a wide world dying for a mature and vital love... </div>
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When I was 5 I loved my original dog, “Tiny”....but when I was 12, she got sick and had to be euthanized. I accused my parents of not “loving her” like I did because they made that decision. Well, I was right. They grew, but I was still a 5 year old kid in a 12 year old body loving a dog without an adult mind.</div>
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Mature Love is the most difficult, mind challenging choice we can make in a world of complexities and vast choices. But it is the choice Jesus said we'd have to make if we were to be known as His true disciples. The path I've found through this narrow way (sound familiar?) is the path of LOVING ONE PERSON SITTING IN FRONT OF ME. If that sounds cliched, let me challenge you...</div>
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If I get publicly loud about political ideals and indignant about groups of people seeking to corrupt my world I might ultimately find ONE person, sitting in front of me, from one of those groups...seeking and perhaps even desperate for...Love. I can not afford to fight broad political groups when I am committed to LOVE ONE PERSON...sitting in front of me. </div>
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Looking in the eyes of that ONE person, my broad generalized political statements will pale. That ONE person, whose singular "finger-printed" life story, will not fit my pat simplistic answers edited to fit on a political party platform. Like Dr. King, my passions had better be shaped by my real life, first hand experiences, or I risk making Jesus my poster boy for a current news cycle rant. </div>
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I'm not suggesting we should be dispassionate about worthy causes...I'm simply shouting that we should remember that "ONE PERSON" who is disparate for love but might be afraid of us due to our loud political protests. </div>
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Yes...that's a tough gig. Love is ALWAYS the hardest choice to make in the midst of our simplistic news cycle driven culture. </div>
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"LOVE = ONE COMMANDMENT" ~Jesus~</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” ~Erich Fromm</span></div>
Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-5556007281266801292019-03-30T17:03:00.001-07:002019-03-31T17:18:40.242-07:00To the Spiritual Refugees Part 2Since early November of 2018 I have been seeking out the lives of those whom I have come to lovingly call "spiritual refugees"; the young, middle aged, and seniors who have been alienated from the brick and mortar of 21st century church for a wide variety of reasons, too lengthy to list for the purposes of this blog. Maybe you're still in a church but not quite feeling "at home", or you've fled the standard evangelical format, or...or...or...<br />
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Originally I thought it would be easy for me to set up "one on one" meetings in the Twin Cities to LISTEN AND LOVE. Unfortunately, I underestimated the logistics of that goal due to my own new life schedule and the very busy lives of those with whom I am seeking to communicate.<br />
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So....If I've contacted you or you've contacted me about meeting with me on this basis, I am trying a new strategy in the hope of getting this off the ground. Saturday April 6, 2019 my wife and I would like to invite you to our home (2694 200th Ave Emerald, WI) at 6pm. I am not giving up on the possibility of meeting everyone "one on one", but at this juncture I simply need to adjust, review, and start fresh.<br />
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I continue to be blown away by the responses I've had...both the number and the spirit of all of you. I promise (as I have all along) that I will LISTEN and LOVE. No judgements, no pressure, no need to explain in depth why you've walked away from most churches...my wife Ginger and I simply want to offer our 45 years of pastoral ministry as a listening post. In fact, for lack of a better name for this meeting, I've decided to call it, TO LISTEN AND TO LOVE.<br />
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If you have more questions about this goal, I have outlined it on my website randydeanministries.com and on other blogs here at randydeanministries.blogspot.com. You can also call me at 715-265-7141 or email me at randydeanministries@gmail.comRandy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-26045286614925854632019-03-27T14:01:00.000-07:002019-03-27T14:01:03.485-07:00Replacing Awful with AWEThe brand spanking new baby church of the New Testament discovered and practiced AWE. The book of Acts chapter 2 verse 43 says, "...and everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles...". I've often tried to imagine what this might have looked like but, almost as often, I fall back into seeing it in the context of the 21st century church...through buildings, worship services, and the like. I'm certainly not opposed to our buildings and services creating "awe", but I just don't think this passage is referring to those things.<br />
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Almost every awe-struck act Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels was simply in the dust and dirt of the paths He walked. It seems to me that the apostles immediately sought to replicate this ordinary pattern in order to introduce the extraordinary.<br />
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When Jesus said, "The poor have the gospel preached to them.." it was in the surroundings of the harsh realities of, well...the poor! (Matthew 11:5). In the frustrating middle of disabilities, disease, death, and poverty Jesus introduced the AWE of His Kingdom. This is what the apostles pursued and I am convinced we too must be in full pursuit of the rainbow of AWE in the middle of our brown paper bag bland world.<br />
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We're living in a time of awful events and awful behavior by an awful lot of people! There's no time like the present to introduce AWE as a light in the dark tunnel of awful. Let's practice AWE, let's plan AWE, let's prepare AWE, and let's get busy with AWE.<br />
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Jennifer Stellar, PhD, an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto says, "People feeling awe focus more of their attention outward and value others more in social interactions." She defines awe as the emotion we feel in response to something vast that defies our existing frame of reference. She has also studied how AWE can affect our immune system in positive ways. Simply stated, I think it has to do with firing up our child-like wonder as we learn to expect and practice AWE instead of being awful.<br />
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Here's how we can practice AWE:<br />
*Do kind things. Let me slow it down a bit....Do...Kind...Things! Seeing someone react to kindness, directly or indirectly is awe-inspiring. Be fully engaged in DOING KIND THINGS DAILY.<br />
*Look away from our phones and into the eyes of everyone we see. Smile randomly at random strangers. SEE people with the aim of pure love and say "hi" to everyone...spooky, I know.<br />
*When we are asked to pray for someone, do it right on the spot. Not with showy loud expression, but with authentic connection to that person.<br />
*Expect spiritual activity in and around every bland activity and thing you are doing. Imagine how different life today would be if Moses had not seen a "burning bush" in the middle of his day job shepherding sheep. (BTW, he called it a "marvelous sight" Exodus 3:3)<br />
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Not long ago, I had a dream about someone in a completely random way. The next morning I contacted that person to tell him how beautiful it was to see him in my dreams. Their response was, "That's awesome!" It was simple and free! And the result built AWE into both of us.<br />
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Get up and go do some AWE right now!<br />
<br />Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-28787964624187452282019-03-05T13:42:00.000-08:002019-03-05T13:43:04.869-08:00Love Alone is Credible<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For as long as I can remember, when I scan the night sky I am at a complete and wonderful loss to comprehend what I’m seeing. I’ve read the science and attempted to grasp the genius of astrophysicists. And while I respect it all, it almost always fails to pull me upward, outward, forward, and into a substantive transcendence matching what I’m looking at in that night sky. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Hubble telescope images we are now able to casually enjoy show us furious explosions of blinding light and excruciating colors without defined shape or even the slightest explanation for their existence. And yet the Bible simply says, “the heavens declare the glory of God.” (Psalm 19:1).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When I’m completely honest I have to admit that my faith is smaller than I’m comfortable with and inadequate to carry the love I know I carry for the God of this glory. Love is where it all lands… “love alone is credible” (Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar) and love alone sorts it out, finalizes my questions, and keeps me founded. There are no competitors for my heart. Love alone for God alone! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From his book, “Love and War”, John Eldridge says, “Every thing that has ever stirred your heart~that is God romancing you.” Since we love Him because He first loved us (I John) I personally must conclude that God’s irresistible, passionate love seeks to ignite the same quality IN me FOR Him. While faith will always be standard spiritual equipment, love out distances the requirement for faith and, in fact, is the only fuel worthy of mention FOR my faith (I Corinthians 13:2-3). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s the only container I have, the only grasp, and the only true desire that keeps me secure. I love this God. His starry skies hold my imagination and the rapturous, mind crushing expanse is more than I can resist. This glory leaves me with one solid purpose for my living ~I will love this God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This God landed on earth and my love tells me, His name is Jesus Christ. That’s greater than faith and far far larger than rational thought. There are no faith formulas or dogmatic demands capable of holding my attention…Love has won my full attention. Jesus Himself made it clear that love was the ultimate evidence for our faith (John 13:34-35)! In fact, Jesus prayed that the love of Heaven (and if you will, the supernatural adhesive between the trinity) would penetrate and permeate we humans on earth (John 17:22-26).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So I have chosen not to be overwhelmed by the lifestyle choices others or my culture’s slide into confusion because I know this God’s glory is capable to love us all into recovery and sanity. How? I can no more explain “how” than I can explain how our Sun, a dwarf star, 93 million miles away from earth can hold 7 billion lives in complete and perfect balance while we spin through the universe at thousands of miles per hour with exact precision. My choice in response to all fallenness is to make my life more available for Love which, in turn, makes me a delivery port for Resurrection life for my world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The siren song of doctrinal purity demands my time and affections with constant noisy rhythms seeking my ego driven one dimensional quotes to end all quotes. But those night skies, those glories, those implausible expanses, and that crazy lover of all humans, Jesus just keeps my eyes straining for more than Hubble will ever disclose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">7th Century bishop, St. Isaac the Syrian said, “In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to a wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of governance of creation be finally comprised.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This God has kissed my soul so that I am flat out ruined on lessor, feeble attractions for my attention. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I will always and forever love this God. And this God will love us all here on earth until His Kingdom comes and His will is done, on earth as it is in heaven.</span></div>
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Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-54735332750572817732019-02-17T17:39:00.001-08:002019-02-17T17:39:37.451-08:00In Search of the "One"<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the past 30 years my wife and I have had the pleasure and honor to pastor the flock of Living Word Chapel in the township of Forest. We concluded this loving assignment as of December 31, 2018 and we began a new adventure the very next day. At the age of 65 and 62, we believed it was time to re-FIRE and not retire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We are blessed with good health, a deep and abiding love for God, and a rich desire to serve and love people outside the “brick and mortar” of the church building. With our daughter and son-in-law taking our place as senior leaders of our church, my wife Ginger and I are embarking on what we’ve passionately called, “a mission to America.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Researchers tell us that the fastest growing demographic of religious participants are the folks coming to be known as “none of the above.” They are an amalgamation of some running away from organized religion, some (right or wrong) who’ve lost confidence in clergy, and some who are outright weary of anything resembling the previous two categories. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m convinced that there remains a latent and vital spirituality in the hearts of these dear sheep…who seem to me to resemble the “one” lamb who has drifted away from the 99. I’m deeply committed to the discovery of a way to search and find these sheep without giving them any more reasons to run or hide. When I read the gospels, I see Jesus walking dusty paths in search of these folks who’ve I’ve come to call, “spiritual refugees.” Our new life is taking us on similar dusty paths in search of the “one.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One of the beautiful (and somewhat unexpected) side effects of this new adventure has been the renewal of our “first love” passion (Revelation 2:4). Life outside the security of our previous normal routines has pressed us to pray with a renewed faith and a love with a reckless joy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">American Christianity has not failed…it is simply awaiting our reach for its most basic tenants; laying down our lives for others, faith to move mountains, RISK, and most of all, sacrificial love. The life of Jesus Christ beckons us forward and upward. While we will always need the beauty of our sanctuaries, I am also convinced that we must walk out FROM our places of worship and lovingly learn to see the majority of America’s population who have either fled our churches or they have simply never entered the doors. And when we truly see them, we must also genuinely learn to LISTEN and LOVE them…right where they are, without attempting to strong-arm them back into our churches. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps our authentic love is all they’ve ever wanted…and maybe, just maybe, love will change US more than it will ever change “them.”</span></div>
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Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-26502590712017588442019-01-15T16:10:00.000-08:002019-01-16T13:15:08.142-08:00Sloppy Wet Kisses: The Jesus Love-In<br />
Luke 7:37-50 tells the story of a day in the life of Jesus that demands our full attention. It's about a woman with a terrible reputation expressing wild affection for Him, up to and including, sloppy wet kisses.<br />
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As with all Biblical narratives, there are ancient cultural norms throughout this gospel treasure. I would invite every reader of this blog to Google search the hosting expectations of that time and place. But for the purpose of my moments here, I need to express what I see as the deep human energies happening and the intense emotions painted by Dr. Luke's word picture. It is nothing short of jaw dropping by <i><b>any</b></i> cultural norms but especially....21st Century Church standards and sensibilities.<br />
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The Passion Translation says bluntly, "...there was an immoral woman of the streets, known to be a prostitute...", and the story unfolds from there. She crashes the dinner party of a respected leader of the Jewish tradition in order to give an incredible gift of love to Jesus. We have no proof of any previous significant conversations she may have had with Jesus. We do not explicitly know to what extent Jesus may have personally spoken to her previous to this dinner party.<br />
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Whatever else the case may be, this much we know; she is overcome with love and emotion at the mere possibility of Jesus' forgiveness toward her ragged and raw reality. Old Testament law and human traditional additions to it coldly required the death penalty for her lifestyle. The rigid fundamentalist of that era would have been repulsed by any religious tolerance for her behavior. She was spiritually dead to the conservative members of the organized faith surrounding her life and in the home she had just invaded.<br />
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This is nothing short of a sign and wonder of the magnificent transcendent energy radiating from the personage of Jesus. She knows somewhere in the caverns of her emotional bankruptcy that HE will love her so completely and so perfectly that she will live the rest of her life with a freedom she's never known. For her, this is <b><i>not</i></b> about her sinful life. For her, this about discovering what her potential life was always supposed to be. This Love was so completely perfect, so soul satisfying, so emotionally charged, so psychologically healing, that she instinctively knows, LIFE has arrived within her desparate reach. <br />
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This is the baseline of how we 21st Century people of faith in Christ are to be loved and, to LOVE our entire world. If it seems impossible, then we are on notice that we are potentially bankrupt of the most genuine nature that should be defined as "Christian". The sin and diversity of the 21st Century is no surprise to our Eternal Father. Whatever we deem as aberrant, deviant, disgusting, and vulgar is not outside of the Love of God. If we are determined to redefine His Love as constrictive or restrictive to any human brokenness, it is simply and sadly the definition of our own lack of a deep encounter with the God of all transformitve Love (I John 4:7-21).<br />
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The words of Jesus to Simon (the host of this party) underscore what I've just stated. Wildly generous forgiveness, internally and externally, determines our genuine encounter with this existential, monumental LOVE. Knowing this, experiencing this, and giving this Love freely to <b><i>all</i></b> is our challenge and privilege. It is also the full measure of what it means to be truth-fully Christian.<br />
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Tune in to my Podcast on this subject ~<br />
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http://nobsbishop.com/NoBSBishopSloppyWetKisses.mp3<br />
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<br />Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-3324951300729397282019-01-11T15:41:00.000-08:002019-01-11T15:41:03.826-08:00First Two "No BS Bishop" PodcastsThe following links will take you to my first two podcasts....help me spread the word! In the near future I will put the podcast on an app for widespread distribution.<br />
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http://nobsbishop.com/MaidenVoyageofNoBSBishop.mp3<br />
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http://nobsbishop.com/NoBSBishop2.mp3Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-79955423180372535342019-01-02T14:05:00.000-08:002019-01-02T14:05:05.911-08:00"No BS Bishop" Podcast January 3, 2019Beginning January 3, 2019 I am beginning my podcast ~ No BS Bishop. I have dreamed of this platform for speaking my heart for a very long time.<br />
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At the age 65 with 45 years of pastoral ministry under my belt, I believe I have some things to say... beyond the sterile, outside the simplistic, seizing the sublime, and reaching for the supernatural. Why? Because all of the above is what Jesus Christ demonstrated in His courageous "no BS" life and ministry. <br />
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The complexities of the 21st Century are no surprise to God. I'm convinced that God has always been far and away more than enough to answer all of humanity's diversity. As Time and Eternity have always been transcendent to our wristwatch/calendar driven idolatry, so God sees it all and invites us to "come up here" (Revelation 4:1) in order for us to see it all along with Him....today, and not in some other dreamy time after we die.<br />
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Tune in. I promise to dodge the BS of standardized Religion Inc., the politicized partisanship of the Evangelical Sons of Thunder, and the pitiful/sad unnecesary avoidance of mysterious supernatural expectations.<br />
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No BS. All Bishop. Join me for the fun.<br />
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Help support this effort at ~<br />
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paypal.me/randydeanministriesRandy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-10274016446509772962018-11-27T19:57:00.001-08:002018-11-27T19:57:19.150-08:00To the Spiritual Refugees...<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Let's come together...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">To all my extended spiritual family (especially youth ministry alumni...of any age) in the Twin Cities region ~ if the brick and mortar of the church has become more of a cage and less of a sanctuary and you consider yourself one of the following:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">*spiritual refugee </span><br style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">*ex-angelical </span><br style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">*spiritually alive but ecclesiastically numb</span><br style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">*conflicted by the marriage of church and political parties </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />*troubled by the partisan and tribal divisions of our culture </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />I’m setting up a schedule of times and places to sit with you, to listen and to love. No agenda. I’m NOT starting a church. I simply want to give you what I’ve always tried to give you in the past; a father’s heart and a pastor’s ear. </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />Starting January 1, 2019 I’ll come to you—coffee shop, bar, small group settings, etc. Message me. One on one, or groups of any size. </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />I’m very serious about this.</span>Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-23680346174568866072018-11-24T08:53:00.006-08:002018-11-24T08:55:05.301-08:00Here's How You Can Support Randy Dean MinistriesPreviously I tried to post my PayPal button and it failed to connect...here's another try!<br />
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<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
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<br />Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-22428061255125328832018-11-20T13:54:00.003-08:002018-11-24T08:56:23.486-08:00Check out my new website (I created it myself...I'm pretty proud of me!)<br />
https://www.randydeanministries.com/<br />
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I'm also a non-profit 501(c)3 organization with a PayPal connection<br />
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<input name="cmd" type="hidden" value="_s-xclick" /><br />
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<input alt="Donate with PayPal button" border="0" name="submit" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" type="image" /><br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /><br />
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We launch January 1st into our full time outreach to the spiritual refugees of the USA.Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-7650178031386341472018-10-23T12:34:00.001-07:002018-11-24T08:57:47.889-08:00An Important Update on Randy Dean Ministries<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">An Important Update on Randy Dean Ministries</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The partisan and tribal divide of our time has given rise to a large group of people from within the Church of the USA. I have come to call them “spiritual refugees” because, while some have stayed in their churches they feel more and more separated by the harsh divides fostered even in the Name of Jesus. In addition, many are leaving church but not their spirituality. Not long ago one of these fine young adults identified for me the apt notion that this crowd of good yet weary hearts are “refugees from evangelicalism.” Others are identifying them as “exangelicals”; whoever they are, I want to love them as pastor, father, and a Bishop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve delightfully spent most of my 44 years in ministry speaking at youth camps and youth conferences. I have forged hundreds of friendships over the years with these lives. Additionally, God has always given me an empathy for folks thrown out of established religion and the forbidden of the same. I believe my whole life has been a set-up for this time so I am launching a mission to my own nation, the USA. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These spiritual refugees are not rebels but they most certainly are revolutionary. Western Christianity is ripe for their voice and their passion. I simply long to speak into these valuable lives with a spiritual father’s heart to run out and meet them right where they are, just as the Prodigal Father ran out to meet his younger son. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe the political bitterness of our time is a set-up for a raw discovery of the practice of Divine Love. Dealing with the hot topics of our day from a Christian perspective MUST default to this “one commandment” of Christ. We simply must walk away from all other methods (political, doctrinal, debate, and throwing Bible verses at each other) so that our best energies can be spent in a healthy and joyous practice of LOVE. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus prayed for His people, the Body of Christ, in John 17:20,21 ~ “…that they all may be ONE even as You Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.” The partisan/tribal divide I mentioned at the top of this blog is a cry for healing for the wounded Body of Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To that end my wife and I are transitioning out from our current pastorate of 30 years and into a specific ministry to these refugees. I am developing a podcast, a blog, and finishing a book on this topic (as well as other related topics). My previous book, RADIANCE brushed into some of these important values but I am ready to spend this season of my life diving into the deep end of this vital need in America, and beyond. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We are looking for the support of people who have an understanding of everything just stated. We are looking for large or small sponsors for this leap of faith. I am convinced there are thousands of hearts who understand this cause. If you or someone you know can help us financially to give launch to this Mission to the USA, we would greatly appreciate your support. Not only will this support help underwrite the podcast, blog, and book, it will also give us the freedom to minister in small groups or places who might not otherwise be able to afford an honorarium or travel expenses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As always, we will continue to be available for ministry to churches, youth conferences, retreats, and meetings of all shapes, sizes, and themes. Also, we have ordained sons and daughters into ministry and we will continue to offer them and others seeking ordination a Bishop’s heart and connection. God has loaded our hearts with over 44 years of love, life, and light. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Randy Dean Ministries is a 501(c)3 non profit ministry located at our home, 2694 200th Ave Emerald, WI 54013. My email is <a href="mailto:randydeanministries@gmail.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">randydeanministries@gmail.com</span></a> and our home phone is 715-265-7141. Donations can be sent by mail to our home address (above) or by PayPal ~ </span><br />
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<br />Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-38784653145114443212017-05-19T15:31:00.000-07:002017-05-19T15:31:43.549-07:00Wholly Spirit<div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
I woke up this morning with a rolling thought process that cycled repeatedly and wonderfully. Without my full permission (though I must admit I’ve pondered the edges of these musings for many days) my mind was carrying on a conversation about the vitality and animation of a beautiful human spirit. A spirituality without dilution or distraction. </div>
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First, I want to say that such a condition is entirely possible although rarely sustained. We all attend concerts, worship settings, conferences, camps, and retreats and come away with a euphoric “mountain top” delight we are determined to retain yet internally acknowledging it will likely wane with time. We certainly don’t want it to fade, and we often make bold declarations such as, “I am not losing this experience this time!”. But alas, more often that not, it grows into a distant joyous memory.</div>
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But I still believe in, “the vitality and animation of a beautiful human spirit. A spirituality without dilution or distraction.” My early morning sleepy musings gave me a mural of ideas from pictures of my own life along with what I observe routinely in others. Here’s a sampling of that mural;</div>
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*I took my spiritual energy to debates about political issues<br />and I could see my<br />spirit being spent without any real value internally or<br />externally. It seemed,<br />however, that I was convinced of a non-existent value<br />because I placed such a<br />false high spiritual value on these debates.<br />*I took my spiritual energy to places of personal anxiety<br />almost as if to solve my<br />anxious challenges but knowing when I got there that<br />nothing would change.<br />*I watched as people around me were equally convincing <br />themselves of a spiritual value in practices when no such<br />value existed. We were all hoping for and working for that<br />value but no spirit enhancing value was to be found.</div>
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With those moments in mind as a back-drop, the scenes shifted to more positive pictures. The summary of these positives had to do with many of the matters I just listed, but in contrast there was shift of focus;</div>
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*My mind decided to direct love toward all the opposition.<br />*My meditation barricaded me from leaping into quarrels.<br />*My joy pushed back against angry gossip, strife, and<br />mob rule.<br />*My love reached for heavenly wisdom.<br />*My hope decided to issue a warrant on the atmosphere.<br />*My unbroken stream of prayer gave me bridges over chasms. </div>
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In the first list of challenges I could literally feel my spirit drained. In the second list the Holy Spirit was engaged in giving me a more wholly spirit. In the first, I felt motivated by an indignant sense of right and wrong. In the second I was drawn along by an instinctive leading to guard my heart for the right moment to be enlisted for the right cause in the right spirit.</div>
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I’ll say it again, I believe in “the vitality and animation of a beautiful human spirit. A spirituality without dilution or distraction.” I have had the pleasure of connections to people of this marvelous quality. Just breathing air in the same room with them is a distinct pleasure. Imagine if and when a growing company of us are of this “wholly spirit” passion. </div>
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Many years ago I found this quote by Gil Bailie; “Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go and do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I’m convinced that every struggle of our nation and humanity is solved when a significant number of us refuse the bait of leaping into the baseline, common, and even vulgar debates of our times and instead we continue to fill our spirit with the Holy Spirit. Then, and only then will we pursue my second inventory;</div>
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*My mind decided to direct love toward all the opposition.<br />*My meditation barricaded me from leaping into quarrels.<br />*My joy pushed back against angry gossip, strife, and mob<br />rule.<br />*My love reached for heavenly wisdom.<br />*My hope decided to issue a warrant on the atmosphere.<br />*My unbroken stream of prayer gave me bridges over chasms. </div>
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This is most certainly who Jesus Christ was and is. This is most certainly what I will live and I will lead those who follow me to this lush meadow with quiet pools to drink from (Psalm 23 The Message). </div>
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Come Holy Spirit, for the purpose of making us all, wholly spirit.</div>
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Amen.</div>
Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14243566.post-60646456117377921392016-12-15T13:10:00.002-08:002017-01-05T14:28:44.066-08:00Part 2 of Crackers and Juice, or the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of all the many outrageous words of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels, no words match the sheer mind blowing capacity of John's quote (6:56); "...eat My flesh...drink My blood..."; imagine how those six words landed in the ears of many present who also knew all too well the words of Leviticus 17:14, "...you are not to eat the blood of any flesh...whoever eats it shall be cut off." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Leviticus passage is what many Bible thumpers of our day would call, "chapter and verse" underscoring the sole authority of the Bible in a believer's life. Well... Jesus veritably trampled on that particular "chapter and verse" replete with reviewing His statement several times and then defending it to His core leadership team after the crowd present for His, "say what?!" teaching ran for the exits! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course we know, with the luxury of 2000 years of sorting this out, that Jesus isn't introducing cannibalism. But who among these original hearers was even remotely prepared for such audacity? NO ONE! And yet, when Jesus asked His closest disciples, "Are you headed for the parking lot too?", their answer was, "We've come too far to run now...besides, when you speak, we come alive...and even THIS sparked something in our spirits."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jesus Christ fulfilled Leviticus' commands, became the "flesh and blood" that we now know is the Bread of Heaven. To break the Leviticus' command was to risk being "cut off"; but now, on this side of the Cross, we are now bonded to the very essence of The Body of Christ. Touching the leper in the Old meant becoming a leper...now under the NEW, touching...indeed EATING the Body of Christ means becoming The Body of Christ. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, it was vital for Jesus to crash into that train of thought with His audacious Words. It was significant for them and us to be introduced to a mystery meal on the New Testament value of the reverse efficacy of Old Testament thinking. The Old said, "BEWARE!" but now the New says, "BECOME!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are what we eat! Come to the Table...."This is The Body of Christ"... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Join me again in a day or 2, for Part 3 of "Crackers and Juice, or the Body and Blood of Christ" ...</span>
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Randy Dean Ministrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02531342521043376470noreply@blogger.com0