Mother Church of Georgia threatened

Christ Church in Savannah, the "Mother Church of Georgia," was established shortly after the colony of Georgia was founded. One of its early pastors was John Wesley, later the founder of Methodism. But the future of this historic church is in grave danger. Because the conservative congregation has designated its offerings to only be used in the Georgia diocese, the bishop says they have six months to pay to the national denomination or risk losing their property, valued at $3 million.

Christ Church is opposed to the liberalism of the national denomination, especially the ordination of a homosexual bishop.

How sad that the Episcopal Church, which prides itself so much on "tolerance," is so intolerant of dissenting churches like Christ Church.

Merry Christmas from the Rogers Family!

The Rogers family together for Christmas (minus our married daughter Melissa who is with her husband Steven and family in Virginia).
Standing: son Wade, daughter Lauren (on couch arm), me, Dad, nephew Adam, brother Todd, nephew Alan.
Seated: wife Mary, Mom, sister Nancy, Mabel (Nancy's teacup poodle), sister-in-law Kathy.
Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Christmas lights in rural Georgia

Just off the sparsely populated Sisters Ferry Road in rural Effingham County, Georgia, is a community that locals call "Tiger Ridge." In the neighborhood of mobile homes, the residents adorn everything, even the butane tank, with tens of thousands of Christmas lights. In these pictures you can see Santa and Mrs. Claus fishing in a boat, a Nativity scenes (there's a rooster on top that you can see if you look closely).

If you go, take Hwy 21 to Springfield, and after the intersection with Hwy 119, go about another mile to another traffic light, then turn right, and after you go under the narrow bridge, turn back sharply to the left on Old Dixie Highway. Go a few miles, then turn right on Sisters Ferry Road. Go about four miles until you see a sign pointing to the left down a dirt road, saying "Lights." A short distance back on the dirt road you will see the lights. Be prepared to sign the "guest book," as the residents will come to your car and ask you to sign a spiral notebook. There is no charge, although the residents do sell home cooked items like molasses.

Movie review: "The Nativity Story"

I finally saw The Nativity Story this weekend with my wife and son. So how was it? Here's my grade:

Biblical accuracy: A-

The movie is faithful to the basic story, using the exact words of scripture when the angel appears to Mary, Joseph's dream, Elizabeth's words to Mary, etc. The wise men are accurately depicted as astrologers and religious scholars, not kings. King Herod is correctly shown as the brutal and insanely jealous tyrant that he was. However, the movie shows the wise men arriving at the manger on the night Jesus was born, even though Matthew's gospel indicates that they arrived up to two years later (Matthew 2:7, 16), and by then they were living in a house, not a stable (Matthew 2:11).

Scenery and costumes: A+

The move is a visual feast. You truly feel as if you are in first-century Palestine. The costumes and scenery are as realistic as any biblical movie I have seen, including The Passion of the Christ.

Acting and drama: B

This was my biggest disappointment. It lacked the power and intensity of The Passion of the Christ. While the acting is not bad, it is not great, either. There are some good one-liners, such as when Joseph and Mary are headed out of Nazareth for their journey to Bethlehem, and as they see the judgmental looks of the townspeople who think Mary has an illegitimate baby, Joseph says with a smirk, "They'll miss us." The wise men almost steal the show with their humor, such as when a third wise man decides to join them at the last minute, saying, "You forgot the map." However, at several places the acting seemed to lack enthusiasm. Mary and Joseph do not seem to get very excited about seeing an angel, and the shepherds come to the manger and just stare. My family said they were trying to show them in awe, and I suppose that's true, but the shepherds don't even seem very excited when the angel announces the birth of Christ. Despite these disappointments, there are some very nice touches to the story. There are several foreshadows of Jesus' future ministry, such as when Mary washes Joseph's tired feet on their journey to Bethlehem, and when Joseph sees the sellers in the temple and said it should not be that way, for the temple should be a house of prayer. The movie does an excellent job of showing the emotional pain of Mary and Joseph and Mary's family in dealing with the mystery of the virgin birth, and this will probably open the eyes of many Christians who had not thought about how hard that was for them at the time. And while I was critical of the movie director's decision to show the wise men arriving at the same night as Jesus' birth because of its biblical inaccuracy, I must admit that one of the best theatrical elements of the movie was how they go back and forth between the wise men traveling and Joseph and Mary traveling, with everybody arriving at the same time.

Musical score: A

The music was beautiful and moving, and helped to draw an emotional response at the right times. I especially like the subtle use of tunes to Christmas carols at several points.

Overall, I highly recommend the movie to truly appreciate the real meaning of Christmas. I certainly plan to buy it when it comes out on DVD. My son said, "Now I have a picture of it in my mind." Given the accuracy of the costumes and scenery, and faithful reverence of the movie, it's a picture I'm glad he has in his mind.

The Nativity Story is rated PG due to some violence (King Herod's men killing innocent children of Bethlehem, although no blood or gore is shown).

Our church featured in The Christian Index

The Christian Index did a great story in their latest issue about our church being recognized as the Acts 1:8 Missions Church of the Year for 2006. Read the article here.

The book my wife made me hide

I don't read romance novels. My wife does, but I don't. I like to read all kinds of books, but I don't read romance novels. In fact, I pride myself on the variety of books that I read. To illustrate, I'm currently reading William Demski's The Design Revolution about intelligent design, and I've recently read a huge biography of Benjamin Franklin, and some novels by Randy Singer and an inspirational book by Max Lucado. And of course, I read the Bible every day. I just started reading Blue Like Jazz, a kind of quirky spiritual book by Don Miller. So I think I can show that I read a variety of books. But until I came across Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, I did not read romance novels.

So why did I read this one, especially when it is 467 pages long? Well, I was preaching through the Bible this year, and my mom said that Redeeming Love was the retelling of the story of Hosea in the Old Testament. So I started to read it, and found it engrossing. I recommended it to some ladies, and they came back to me with tears in their eyes saying they had bought it, read it, and it changed their lives. Meanwhile I was still making my way through the book myself. It was so captivating, that I couldn't put it down, but whenever I wanted to take it somewhere to read (like when I was waiting at the doctor's office), my wife would ask me not to take it out in public. The book cover is so feminine (see the picture here that I stole from amazon.com) that I guess she was afraid people would think I had turned into a sissy or something carrying the thing around. So I wanted to read it, but had to wait until I had time to read it around the house.

Anyway, I finished it. Wow! Imagine a PG-13 rated Western romance novel that makes you feel the constantly forgiving love of God right in the pit of your gut, and you have a slight idea of what it was like to read the book. Women will cry their eyes out. Guys will say, "Man, I wish I was like Michael Hosea." And everybody who reads it will say, "What an awesome God we have!"

For those skeptics who say I'm over the top to say "everybody who reads it," I would refer you to amazon.com, where over 300 people reviewed the book and the average rating was 5 stars out of 5 stars. Check it out, guys. It might make you fall in love with your wife all over again, and make you want to be a man of God.