A Definition

I want to define how I will be using the phrase “The Burned Over district” for future articles.  The original definition is from the book “The Burned-Over District by Whitney Cross.”  He defined it as the area of western New York during the period of 1800 to 1850.  It was first coined by Charles Grandison Finney to describe the tendency for radical religious fervor in this area.  It has been used since then to refer to the geographical region of Western New York in reference to negative spiritual matters.  This later definition is the one I will be using.

Burned History

I thought that I would begin my writing on the burned-over district with my own personal history of how I got interested in the topic. It all started when I was doing research into the amount of Satanism and witchcraft in the public schools in our area. I was doing youth ministry at the time and took my findings to my pastor to see what he thought. It seemed that we had a little higher instance of witchcraft in our schools than what was reported in other areas of the United States. He said to me that he wasn’t surprised by what I found. He said that a lot of Spiritual junk had come from this part of the United States, and that maybe their was some kind of stronghold in this area. He listed a few things at that time, like the Spiritualist movement, militant feminism, the Mormons, the new age movement, and the seven nations of the genesee. This is not a complete list of what we talked about at the time but it gives you an idea of what caught my attention. I remember wondering what was so special about this area that we had so much negative spiritual junk in our small area of western NY. At this point I just filed it all away for future reference.

It was a couple of years later that I was talking to a young man who was a practicing warlock that this all came back to me. During our conversation he made a statement that caught my attention. He said that in new age circles western NY is listed as one of the top five spots in the world to come if you wanted to channel spiritual energy. In fact he said that most people who want to go on a spiritual “vision quest” go to the pyramids, Stonehenge, and western NY. I remember thinking WOW, my pastor recognized that their was something spiritually weird about this area and now I find out that the new age community recognizes something is spiritually weird about this area. Again at that time of my life I was not in any possition to do much more than wonder and file it away as very odd.

The next piece of the puzzle came when i started as a pastor, We had a speaker come to our church that specialized in the subject of revivals. During his sermons he mentioned that western NY is one of the hardest places to minister in the United States. He pointed out that most major ministries wont come to this area. And that when they do come they get their smallest attendance. As an example he mentioned a mens ministry that gets around 50,000 men anywhere else in the US but only had 3000 show up when they came to buffalo. He also used a term that I had never heard before. “The Burned Over District”. This caught my attention, and began my research. I have begun to compile that research and want to ask the question, “how does this effect ministry in this area” I will be writing more soon please feel free to comment and ask questions, I will try to answer them in future articles.

The Burned Over District

I am starting a new topic today. “The burned over district”.  This is an area that I have done a lot of research on and have decided it is time to begin writing what I have found.  I have read a lot of books on this topic written from a lot of different perspectives.  From sociologists, and historians, and even from new age spiritualists.  My hope is to write on this topic from a Christian perspective.  Under this topic I will be making personal observations, reviewing books on the topic and inviting dialog.  I hope that as I develop this topic the information will be useful to other pastors and Christian leaders in the area.

More Potatoes

I received a little response on my trash can potatoes.  A couple of folks said that I need to make sure that the soil in my cans is lite.  The problem is that the dirt that I have is just that, DIRT.  The kind that I dig out of the ground.  It doesn’t come in “dirt” and “dirt-lite”.  So to solve the problem I wadded up news paper and stuffed it in the cans to make room for the potatoes to grow, then i covered it with dirt.  .  I don’t know if this will work for sure, but as this is all a big experiment anyway i am giving it a try.  I have attached a couple of pictures to let you see how it is working so far.

Chickens

Yes we have chickens. Six to be exact. Karen wanted chickens so i relented and we bought six baby chicks that we raised in the garage in an old portable dog kennel. Later I built a portable outdoor pen that I could put the chickens inn and move them around the yard. that way they can supplement their food with bugs and grass. The portable pen is made out of PVC pipe and chicken wire. I purposely did not glue the pvc so I can make changes in the future if needed. After a couple of weeks in the first pen i moved the dog kennel from inside and attached it to the out side. So the pictures are of chickatopia version 1.0 (kennel inside) and Chickatopia version 2.0 (Kennel outside.) version 2.5 is on the way. I need to get the feed inside to protect it from the rain. And of course by fall i will have to make version 3.0 i will need to make a more permanent structure by the time the snow flies. I must say that so far raising a few chickens has not been very difficult or time consuming. of course i cant say weather it is worth the work or not as the chickens are still about 2 months from producing eggs.

Trashcan Potatoes

I am experimenting with growing potatoes in a trash can. I have done a lot of reading on the net about this topic and am ready to go. I had a clean trash can so i drilled some 3/8 inch holes in the bottom, about 6 inches of dirt and planted my potatoes. I also tried planting some in old cat litter buckets. The idea is that every time that the potato plants get about 6 inches high you bury them again. as I have read on this topic the one thing that know one seems to document is how many inches of potatoes that you get. that’s why this is an experiment. I will attach a couple of pictures to this article in the near future. and give updates as i have them.

More Global Warming

I got a comment from a friend about the global warming article, and I thought it was worth sharing. Hear are three more reasons from Linda that we in western NY love global warming.

1. Husbands will like Global Warming in WNY because then their wives won’t have to shop for different seasonal outfits!
2. We will no longer be known as the biggest snowfall capital of the world, just because of one blizzard in 1977!
3. We can put up Christmas lights and decorations in good weather – not having to beat the bad weather in November to get it done!

We Love Global Warming

After church this morning a handful of us somehow digressed into a discussion on the latest global warming propaganda.  After much frustration over people who can’t seem to look at evidence and make a logical decision based on that evidence, we fell into what we do best, open mockery.  We decided that if fighting global warming with logic won’t work, then we will use sarcasm, (we are from Western NY). As we stood around lamenting all of the folks who couldn’t make it to church this fine March day because we just got 2 feet of snow in 24 hours, someone asked the question “What’s so bad about global warming, if I burn enough tires then eventually we will have the climate of Florida right here in Western New York.” At that moment a new unofficial unlicensed and generally unruly organization was born.  Yes folks, it’s true we began the group: “Western New Yorkers in favor of global warming” Forever more known as WNYIFOGW pronounced wuneefogwa. 

After agreeing on a name we launched into the task of creating a slogan, we have come up with two ideas for this.  ”Support global warming, burn a tire.” or “Burn a tire for positive climate change.” We hope to have some t-shirts with our slogan printed soon,  and maybe some “we heart global warming” shirts. Of course any proceeds would go to support overseas missions. But our most fun was the part that you can help with.  Our top ten list.  We are working on a top ten reasons that we support global warming list.  We have come up with a few to begin with but we are also taking suggestions.  I would like to keep two lists.  The top ten reasons and an exhaustive list.  So please feel free to leave comments of other reasons, and we will review them and add them as we can.  So without any further delays here is our list as it exists right now.

“Top 10 reasons we support global warming.”

1.  I never have to shovel again.

2.  I can ride my motorcycle all year round.

3.  I can grow coffee in my back yard.

4.  Car insurance will go down because of fewer winter accidents.

5.  Our older folks won’t have to fly to Florida for the winter.

6.  No more road salt corroding my car.

7.  Fresh oranges, grape fruit, and mangoes.

8.  Cut down on the need for heating oil, decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.

9.  No more costly snow tires.

10. I can deer hunt in a t-shirt.

Well there it is, these are not in order yet, but feel free to vote on an order as you make more suggestions. And here are some of the other suggestions that didn’t make the top ten.

The race track would be open all year.

No more toxic road spray.

Alcohol will be for drinking again, not fuel.

Well have a nice day, I hope you enjoyed the list, post any suggestions.

Blizzard

Because of the big blizzard that is supposed to be coming tomorrow I will try to put a larger more detailed outline on this site tonight.  It might be a little later than normal, but I am going to try to type out large portions of it. Enjoy the blizzard.

Outline

I will not be having an outline available for the sermon this week. The Scripture we will be looking at 1 Cor. 11 and talking about communion meaning and traditions. I would like to say that a had a great reason but the fact is that I spent some extra time in the woods chasing deer. I am happy to report that I got a small 4 point buck. Things should be back to normal next week. Be safe.

Community

This week I had the opportunity to see what community is really supposed to look like. A family in our church had a fire in their home this past week. The volunteer firemen that responded to the call did a great job and prevented what could have been a truly devastating fire. The fire did not destroy the home but there was some damage that needed immediate attention. About eight feet of the back wall of the house was burned completely through. Besides the obvious problem of letting in the weather, the firemen said that it would not support any snow accumulation on the roof. There was also a large hole in the roof and the electric had to be shut off to the part of the house that burned so that the rest of the home’s power could be brought online. This is where the demonstration of community comes in.

As a church family we immediately jumped into action and in a matter of a couple of hours, we had seven men of the church at the residence working together to fix these problems. First we took care of the power problem so that the rest of the house could be heated. Then one of the men donated building materials to do temporary repairs. Another one of the men, that is a contractor, provided a free quote so that the family had something for the insurance company. After that, the rest temporarily rebuilt the back wall of the house and repaired the hole in the roof. By the time we were finished, we had the repair work completed so that the family didn’t have to worry about further damage, and could continue to live in the house. In fact, they should be ok even if they can’t get it permanently fixed until spring. At the same time, other parts of the church family brought over meals and provided for other needs. I love my church family and am thankful that they understand what it means to live in community. Merry Christmas.

History Repeated: A Quote

“This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!” by Adolf Hitler 1935

Quote

“All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.” by Daniel Boone

9 Marks of a Healthy Church

“Nine marks of a Healthy Church” by Mark Dever.

I just read this book and I thought that it was worth a review. In general I liked the book and I think that it is worth a read. Especially the Introduction and the first chapter. The main premise of the book is that there should be a measuring stick to determine whether a church is healthy or not no mater what the size. The emphasis is not on church growth but on church health. I think that this is a great concept. But as with any book authored by human hands, this book has both strengths and weaknesses. Of course this is only my own opinion but as I am the one recommending the book, I think that I have a responsibility to point out those strengths and weaknesses in this review.

Strengths.

1. The overall concept is awesome and one that I think that more Churches should adopt. Lets look at the spiritual health of our Churches and stop worrying about marketing schemes that are only mildly disguised as Biblical.

2. The 1st chapter focuses on the ministry of the Word and is laid out so well with such a powerful message that I think that every Christian in every Church should read it.

3. Chapter 2 points out the need for sound doctrine. This has been a soap box of mine for years.

4. The chapters on Church membership and Church Discipline compliment each other nicely. Dever makes a great case for each and how the two are interdependent.

5. Everything is well documented and the book is filled with Scripture references to back up his points.

Weaknesses.

1. I mentioned the chapter on doctrine as a strength but it is also a weakness. While the understanding that sound doctrine is important, Dever seems a little narrow in his approach to systematic theology, while the concept is good, the chapter leaves a lot to be desired.

2. I also think that some of the chapters could have been consolidated. Making the book into 7 marks rather than 9.

3. The biggest weakness of the book in my opinion is that he missed what I would have made my 3rd most important marks right after expositional preaching and Biblical theology. And that is Prayer. Matt 21:13 says that God’s house shall be called a house of prayer. I don’t think that you can take the very thing that the church is supposed to be known for according to God’s word and not make it a mark of a healthy Church.

Even with the weaknesses, I would still recommend the book overall and I think that every Christian everywhere should at least read the intro and chapter 1.

God is Faithful

We were fortunate enough to have a missionary couple from Romania visit our Church recently. Rich and Sue Forsen are stationed in Romania with Greater Europe Missions. They visited out Church and during the service we took up a love offering for them. They didn’t ask for the offering but we wanted to care for them while they were here. When they got back home, Rich had to go to the doctor and incurred some unexpected medical expenses. Rich called to let us know that the offering that we took exactly covered the medical expenses. God is faithful.