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There's been some debate here regarding the need for "men's" groups -- and I think it's a valid need. The issue I have with some of the groups, especially those like the "AVoiceForMen" website, is that there is SO much rhetoric (dare I say, "whining"?) against women. But that's not what this thread is about. A long-time friend who is also a Baptist pastor recently shared the concept of one of his favorite men's study groups, "The Knight's Code." The group is strictly for men and has a very God-centered, Christian focus. It's not a group for the commiserating on a war against the perceived threat of "feminism"; rather, the group uses the four tenets of "The Knight's Code" to address secular issues facing Christian men. Here's the explanation of the Knight's Code from the website http://theknightscode.com/ : While I'm not a man, and I've only read excerpts from "The Knight's Code" book, it certainly seems like a great alternative for men, compared to waging war on the feminist movement.

When we dwell in the new earth, do you think we will build cities or dwell in gardens as did Adam and Eve...? Would we even build houses for that matter? I know there will be the New Jerusalem city. I am not dogmatic about any position just interested to see what others think - any scripture would be great :)

Notice in Hebrews 1:1-2 how God spoke in various ways in times past but it wasn't through a Son. Hebrews 1:1-2 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. Jesus Himself bears witness to the fact that He has become a witness with His Father. John 8:17-18 It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.” Prior to Jesus, the Father had no other witness. Hebrews 6:13-14 For instance, there was God’s promise to Abraham: God took an oath in his own name, since there was no one greater to swear by, that he would bless Abraham again and again, and give him a son and make him the father of a great nation of people. Many people say that it was Jesus who created us but Jesus Himself tells us that it wasn't He who created us. Mark 10:5-6 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ Matthew 19:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female.'

Galatians 4:22-26 “For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar-- for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children-- but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” I’m just going to repeat a few words here for emphasis. The Sinai covenant “gives birth to bondage.” The Jerusalem of Paul’s day was “in bondage” - because they were still laboring under the Sinai covenant, and had not accepted the New Covenant - with the Spirit.

I have been thinking of how the recent beheadings of the Egyptian Christians by those terrorists reminded me of the souls under the altar in Revelation. Like the threat of the mark of the beast to those in slavery (bond or free), I thought those phenomena were stuck in our world's history. Apparently not.

....to a friend who has been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and has been told there is no effective treatment, but is now thinking of going to a third world country hoping for a cure or at least some improvement with a drug that has shown no evidence of being effective? They can hardly afford the trip. In fact, the church is being asked to help with the medical expenses already incurred.

When something is so great and complex it instills a sense of reverence in the finite. 1 Timothy 3:16 The mystery that gives us our reverence for God is acknowledged to be great: He appeared in his human nature, was approved by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was announced throughout the nations, was believed in the world, and was taken to heaven in glory. When trying to nail down the Eternal you will find endless debate, frustration and discouragement maybe because it's not meant to be nailed down. Isaiah 66:1 The Lord says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house, then, could you build for me, what kind of place for me to live in? I have studied the nature of God for years and have gotten no closer to nailing something down then when I first began. When you study and talk with Trinitarians you find they are right and wrong. When you study and talk with Oneness people you find that they are right and wrong. Why is this? I'll tell you why, because we are all right yet we are all wrong. When you study both Old and New Testament you will find Trinitarians are right and you will find Oneness people are right. The when you study even more you will find Trinitarians are wrong and Oneness people are right. Then when you study even more you will find both Trinitarians and Oneness are wrong yet they are right. Why is this? Because the fullness of the Godhead is manifested in Jesus. Listen to this prophetic verse. Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. When you focus on one aspect of the Godhead in Jesus you will be right in what you find. You will find that Jesus is the Father. You will find that Jesus is the Spirit. You will find that Jesus is the Son. You will find that they are all one in the same yet they are different and individual. All we can say is yes to all the fullness of the Godhead in Christ. Now go and love God and love others and let the mystery of God instill a sense of reverence in our hearts.

A Movement Towards Compassion When Jesus looked upon the lost people in first-century Palestine, “He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). And then He proclaimed something remarkable: these lost souls were a “plentiful harvest” that only lacked harvesters. Therefore, it is tragic when Christians look at Muslims, not with compassion, but with a default to fear, anger, and rejection. If Christians were to be highly intentional about approaching Islam in a way that is inviting and attractive, without compromise, staying as consistently biblical as possible, here are some of the characteristics that we should expect to see: Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/How-Thousands-of-Muslims-Are-Falling-in-Love-with-Jesus.aspx#SDRqVq7HgmQf9f3R.99

Story of Redemption, pg 129, ph 2- Self-denial is considered by some to be real suffering. Depraved appetites are indulged. And a restraint upon unhealthy appetites would lead many professed Christians to now start back, as though actual starvation would be the consequence of a plain diet. And, like the children of Israel, they would prefer slavery, diseased bodies, and even death, rather than to be deprived of the flesh pots. Bread and water is all that is promised to the remnant in the time of trouble. Exodus 15:26

Just exactly how do you make a "mistake" like this NBC's Brian Williams apologizes for false Iraq story NEW YORK (AP) - NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams apologized Wednesday for incorrectly claiming as recently as last week that he rode on a helicopter that came under enemy fire when he was reporting in Iraq in 2003. Instead, Williams said, he was in another helicopter trailing a Chinook that actually was hit. He apologized on "Nightly News" for getting it wrong. The embarrassing admission came after a story in the Stars & Stripes newspaper pointing out the discrepancy. Williams had made the claim on the air last Friday during a story about Tim Terpak, an Army officer who he had befriended when Terpak was assigned to protect the NBC crew. Williams reported on "Nightly News" that he had gone with Terpak to a New York Rangers hockey game. They were introduced to the audience by the public address announcer, who also repeated the claim that Williams' helicopter had been hit. "This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not," Williams said on the air Wednesday. "I hope they know they have my greatest respect and also now my apology." Stars & Stripes quoted Lance Reynolds, the flight engineer on the crew that rode with Williams, as saying that "it felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn't deserve to participate in." The newspaper said Williams' helicopter traveled about an hour behind the aircraft that actually took fire. In a Facebook response to service members who had pointed out the mistake, Williams said that "I spent much of the weekend thinking I'd gone crazy." NBC noted that a "Dateline NBC" story in 2003 correctly reported that Williams learned after his helicopter had landed that "the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky." Williams said he also wrote about the incident correctly in 2008. "Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience ... and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area - and the fog of memory over the years - made me conflate the two," Williams wrote. "Nobody's trying to steal anyone's valor," he wrote. Williams' helicopter and others, including the one that was hit, were grounded for three days as they waited for a sandstorm to subside. Williams has anchored NBC's "Nightly News" since 2004, and his program consistently draws a bigger audience than his competitors, David Muir on ABC's "World News Tonight" and Scott Pelley on the "CBS Evening News."

Isaiah 48:16 "And now the Sovereign LORD has sent me, endowed with his Spirit" (NIV). "And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his spirit" (NRS). "and now Adonai ELOHIM has sent me and his Spirit" (CJB). "And now the Lord GOD has sent Me, and His Spirit" (NAU). In the above versions, the Father SENDS the Son, and His spirit. I like the NIV - "endowed with His Spirit". The Father does the sending. ONLY the KJV and NKJV arrange the words to say "the Lord God and His Spirit have sent Me." This is the ONLY version which could be used to support the concept of a Trinity of three divine persons. John 6:57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me" (NKJ). John 5:37 "And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form." (NKJ) John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day." (NKJ) NOTE: Jesus DID NOT SAY "the Spirit who sent me". John 8:16 "And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me." (NKJ) John 8:18 "I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me." (NKJ) TWO WITNESSES: The Father AND The Son John 12:49 "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak." (NKJ) John 17:21 "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me." (NKJ) NOTE: This verse also tells us just WHO the Spirit was that indwelt Christ. "You, Father, are in Me." And then there is John 14:10 "the Father who dwells in Me does the works". His miracles were NOT done by the power of angels. Acts 2:22 "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst" (NAU). John 17:25 "O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me." (NKJ) John 20:21 "So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." (NKJ) 1 John 4:14 "And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world." (NKJ) NOT ONE of these verses says that the Father AND the Spirit have sent the Son. Respectfully, Rachel Cory Prophecy Viewpoint

Here is how the Complete Jewish Bible translates Micah 5:2. "But you, Beit-Lechem near Efrat, so small among the clans of Y'hudah, out of you will come forth to me the future ruler of Isra'el, whose origins are far in the past, back in ancient times." Here is the NIV. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Here's the NRS. "But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days." The "goings forth" from the KJV is translated "origins". The "everlasting" is translated "ancient days". God the Father had NO ORIGIN - NO BEGINNING. The Son did originate - from the Father. The Hebrew word translated "everlasting" in the KJV, is elsewhere translated "ancient times" when the verse is speaking of other things, like "the hills" or the "stars" which we know did begin at creation, or have been in existence for a very long time. Micah 5:2 is NOT saying that the Son of God has ALWAYS existed. We know from other passages that He "came forth from the Father" (John 16:28). THEN He created everything else. THEN He was "sent" into this world.

Just curious. A man that disagrees or dislikes the more militant aspects of the feminist movement is less of a man than say you or those that agree with that statement?

February 18, 2015 The Word for this Administration: Islamisant By Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison We Americans have been puzzling over our President’s curious inability to see twenty-one ISIS terrorists cutting off the heads of twenty-one Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya and call the horrible deed what it is -- an Islamist atrocity. Not, you will note, Islamic. By using the adjective Islamist, we are distinguishing this brutal and savage action from those billions who claim to be adherents of the Islamic religion. President Obama’s administration studiously avoided calling the victims Christians. They were described merely as “Egyptian citizens,” as if he were a jaded clerk stamping their passports. The Pope has weighed in, forthrightly saying it was obvious the poor Copts were murdered because they follow Jesus. The prime minister of Canada -- the stalwart Stephen Harper -- did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. He said this: “I am outraged and saddened by the beheadings of Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christians in Libya by groups linked to ISIL. Coming soon after the savage burning of Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the threat posed by ISIL could not be clearer. This information comes to us even as this White House is meeting with Muslims who represent organizations previously identified as front groups or spinoffs of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood began in Egypt in 1928 under direction of community organizer Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood spans many Arab lands, including Egypt, Libya, Gaza, and Yemen. The Muslim Brotherhood emerged at the same time as the German Nazi party, but was not motivated by the same pagan ideology. Nonetheless, the Muslim Brotherhood admired the Nazis’ ability to penetrate civil society in Germany and, of course, they loved the Nazis’ murderous anti-Semitism (Judenhass). German scholar Matthias Küntzel has written that the first person to envision burning towers collapsing in Manhattan was not Osama bin Laden, but Adolf Hitler. Hitler actually had plans for an attack by submarine-launched V-2s targeted at the city he regarded as a center of Jewish influence in the world. This administration has gotten the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda wrong from start. They had to climb down from a lengthy explanation of the MB’s philosophy and actions by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper in 201l in which the hapless official described the MB as “largely secular.” It is largely secular in the same sense that the Nazi Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were largely secular. They penetrated all aspects of society, but were always motivated by a powerful and ruthless ideology. The French have a word to describe those who are not actually Communists, but who affect a sympathy toward and an affinity for ideas and cultural symbols of Communist revolutionaries. We’ve all seen the college kids wearing Che Guevara tee shirts. There were thousands of these kids and some aged radicals, too, in the 2012 “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Scholar Joseph Salemi explains the French adjective marxisant in this 2008 essay for the Penn Review. Fellow travelers is the clumsy English phrase, but marxisant (marks-zee-ZONT) describes the tendency, the attitude. We see the point. Not actually Marxists, but certainly not hostile to Marxism. In the same vein, we now have a U.S. administration that can fairly be labeled Islamisant. (iss-LAM-iz-zont.) It is not Islamist, certainly, or even Islamic. But this administration goes out of its way to avoid linking anything in the world of terrorism to Islamists. The president is usually quick to describe violent extremist attacks by “random folks.” We are surprised that he did not call the murder of the twenty-one Egyptian Copts “workplace violence.” After all, weren’t they kidnapped from their place of employment? The Obama administration infamously called the murders at Fort Hood in 2009 workplace violence. They were carried out by a jihadist who for years had been spewing violent Islamist threats, and who had been protected by Pentagon bureaucrats who were more interested in a false notion of diversity than in security of our troops. Islamisant is a fair characterization of President Obama’s attitude from Day One. He boasted to The New York Times in 2006 that he could still recite the Shahada -- the Muslim call to prayer. He learned it as a boy in Indonesia. That call to prayer says: “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Messenger.” In no land where that Shadada is heard is there freedom for minority religions, be they Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist. Still, Barack Obama described the Shahada as “one of the most beautiful sounds on earth.” We doubt Coptic Christians in Egypt—daily threatened with violence --would agree. Islamisant describes President Obama’s bizarre speech to Al Azhar University in 2009. He said the United States has been intimately associated with Islam since our Founding. How so? Well, as Michael Oren points out in his book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776-Present this country was indeed concerned about that region. But that was because Muslim pirates were seizing U.S. merchant ships and holding our sailors for ransom. These sailors were sold into slavery, tortured, and sometimes horribly murdered. One scene related by Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., describes an American sailor impaled on a stake! If that was the intimate association of the U.S. and Islam prior to the Constitution, only an Islamisant reading of our history could whitewash the truth. Similarly, President Obama boasted of a Muslim Member of Congress taking his oath of office on a copy of “the Jefferson Koran.” Thomas Jefferson did indeed own an English-language version of the Muslim holy book. But that was because he was our ambassador in France and simply could not believe what an Arab ambassador in Paris told him: namely, that the Koran justified enslaving those who did not submit to the religion of Islam. It was only after confirming the envoy’s words himself that Thomas Jefferson began a twenty-year commitment to the use of force against the Barbary Pirates of North Africa. Their lairs were not far from where those ISIS murderers spilled the Christians’ blood into the Mediterranean Sea this week. President Obama went before the national Prayer Breakfast earlier this month to deliver an Islamisant speech. He scolded those Christians -- whom NBC’s Chuck Todd tells us he does not like -- for the sins of their forebears five hundred and a thousand years ago. He did this at the very time when Christians are being slaughtered all across the Bloody Crescent. He resisted for four years even labeling Boko Haram of Nigeria a terrorist organization. He never mentioned the hundreds of Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced into sex slavery. Perhaps he thought Michelle Obama’s hand-lettered sign: “Bring Back our Girls” had covered the issue sufficiently. Only an Islamisant administration could carry on policy as this one has. And with such blinders on, we can expect nothing to come from any summits they hold on “violent extremism” that will impede the advances of ISIS or other Islamist threats. Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison are senior fellows at the Family Research Council, in Washington, D.C. We Americans have been puzzling over our President’s curious inability to see twenty-one ISIS terrorists cutting off the heads of twenty-one Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya and call the horrible deed what it is -- an Islamist atrocity. Not, you will note, Islamic. By using the adjective Islamist, we are distinguishing this brutal and savage action from those billions who claim to be adherents of the Islamic religion. President Obama’s administration studiously avoided calling the victims Christians. They were described merely as “Egyptian citizens,” as if he were a jaded clerk stamping their passports. The Pope has weighed in, forthrightly saying it was obvious the poor Copts were murdered because they follow Jesus. The prime minister of Canada -- the stalwart Stephen Harper -- did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. He said this: “I am outraged and saddened by the beheadings of Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christians in Libya by groups linked to ISIL. Coming soon after the savage burning of Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the threat posed by ISIL could not be clearer. This information comes to us even as this White House is meeting with Muslims who represent organizations previously identified as front groups or spinoffs of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood began in Egypt in 1928 under direction of community organizer Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood spans many Arab lands, including Egypt, Libya, Gaza, and Yemen. The Muslim Brotherhood emerged at the same time as the German Nazi party, but was not motivated by the same pagan ideology. Nonetheless, the Muslim Brotherhood admired the Nazis’ ability to penetrate civil society in Germany and, of course, they loved the Nazis’ murderous anti-Semitism (Judenhass). German scholar Matthias Küntzel has written that the first person to envision burning towers collapsing in Manhattan was not Osama bin Laden, but Adolf Hitler. Hitler actually had plans for an attack by submarine-launched V-2s targeted at the city he regarded as a center of Jewish influence in the world. This administration has gotten the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda wrong from start. They had to climb down from a lengthy explanation of the MB’s philosophy and actions by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper in 201l in which the hapless official described the MB as “largely secular.” It is largely secular in the same sense that the Nazi Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were largely secular. They penetrated all aspects of society, but were always motivated by a powerful and ruthless ideology. The French have a word to describe those who are not actually Communists, but who affect a sympathy toward and an affinity for ideas and cultural symbols of Communist revolutionaries. We’ve all seen the college kids wearing Che Guevara tee shirts. There were thousands of these kids and some aged radicals, too, in the 2012 “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Scholar Joseph Salemi explains the French adjective marxisant in this 2008 essay for the Penn Review. Fellow travelers is the clumsy English phrase, but marxisant (marks-zee-ZONT) describes the tendency, the attitude. We see the point. Not actually Marxists, but certainly not hostile to Marxism. In the same vein, we now have a U.S. administration that can fairly be labeled Islamisant. (iss-LAM-iz-zont.) It is not Islamist, certainly, or even Islamic. But this administration goes out of its way to avoid linking anything in the world of terrorism to Islamists. The president is usually quick to describe violent extremist attacks by “random folks.” We are surprised that he did not call the murder of the twenty-one Egyptian Copts “workplace violence.” After all, weren’t they kidnapped from their place of employment? The Obama administration infamously called the murders at Fort Hood in 2009 workplace violence. They were carried out by a jihadist who for years had been spewing violent Islamist threats, and who had been protected by Pentagon bureaucrats who were more interested in a false notion of diversity than in security of our troops. Islamisant is a fair characterization of President Obama’s attitude from Day One. He boasted to The New York Times in 2006 that he could still recite the Shahada -- the Muslim call to prayer. He learned it as a boy in Indonesia. That call to prayer says: “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Messenger.” In no land where that Shadada is heard is there freedom for minority religions, be they Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist. Still, Barack Obama described the Shahada as “one of the most beautiful sounds on earth.” We doubt Coptic Christians in Egypt—daily threatened with violence --would agree. Islamisant describes President Obama’s bizarre speech to Al Azhar University in 2009. He said the United States has been intimately associated with Islam since our Founding. How so? Well, as Michael Oren points out in his book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776-Present this country was indeed concerned about that region. But that was because Muslim pirates were seizing U.S. merchant ships and holding our sailors for ransom. These sailors were sold into slavery, tortured, and sometimes horribly murdered. One scene related by Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., describes an American sailor impaled on a stake! If that was the intimate association of the U.S. and Islam prior to the Constitution, only an Islamisant reading of our history could whitewash the truth. Similarly, President Obama boasted of a Muslim Member of Congress taking his oath of office on a copy of “the Jefferson Koran.” Thomas Jefferson did indeed own an English-language version of the Muslim holy book. But that was because he was our ambassador in France and simply could not believe what an Arab ambassador in Paris told him: namely, that the Koran justified enslaving those who did not submit to the religion of Islam. It was only after confirming the envoy’s words himself that Thomas Jefferson began a twenty-year commitment to the use of force against the Barbary Pirates of North Africa. Their lairs were not far from where those ISIS murderers spilled the Christians’ blood into the Mediterranean Sea this week. President Obama went before the national Prayer Breakfast earlier this month to deliver an Islamisant speech. He scolded those Christians -- whom NBC’s Chuck Todd tells us he does not like -- for the sins of their forebears five hundred and a thousand years ago. He did this at the very time when Christians are being slaughtered all across the Bloody Crescent. He resisted for four years even labeling Boko Haram of Nigeria a terrorist organization. He never mentioned the hundreds of Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced into sex slavery. Perhaps he thought Michelle Obama’s hand-lettered sign: “Bring Back our Girls” had covered the issue sufficiently. Only an Islamisant administration could carry on policy as this one has. And with such blinders on, we can expect nothing to come from any summits they hold on “violent extremism” that will impede the advances of ISIS or other Islamist threats. Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison are senior fellows at the Family Research Council, in Washington, D.C. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/the_word_for_this_administration_emislamisantem.html#ixzz3S6rC0KdD Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

Somehow they are holding to some hope that this alternative treatment to mainstream medicine which has shown no efficacy from what I have seen in peer-reviewed literature so far. Hope is a previous thing. I would hate to snuff out that hope if I told them the truth about the treatment they are thinking about.

A lot of discussion has taken place in this forum that has been related to whether or not SDAs should be involved in having services on Sunday, especially in the morning. I would like to place this issue in another perspective: Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries (ACM) is a Department in the General Conference and is now leading toward the formation of a Department in the North American Division. As such it supervises SDA Clergy who are serving as chaplains, some of which are in SDA institutions, but many are in governmental and private, non-SDA positions. In the United States, all chaplains who work for the Federal government can only be hired with the permission of the endorsing denomination, which for us is ACM. In addition, once hired, they can remain employed by the Federal government only as long as the endorsing denomination (ACM) agrees. ACM, as required, only endorses SDA Clergy who are fully qualified by the denomination to act as SDA clergy. Presently, ACM, in the NAD, has female as well as male chaplains serving in Federal and other positions. IOW, we have female military chaplains. On the world-wide level, ACM currently endorses more than 500 SDA Clergy for service as chaplains. In the 50 years of service that I have given to the United States and to the SDA Church, during the 40 years or so that I have been a SDA Chaplain, my credentials have either come from the General Conference of from the North American Division. How does this relate to the question of Sunday services? To put it in a brief statement: On any Sunday, probably several hundred SDA Chaplains are conducting a worship service, most of which will be in the morning. They are doing this with the full knowledge and permission of the General Conference/NAD. During the majority of the time that I was a U. S. Army Chaplain I conducted Sunday morning services either on a rotating basis with a couple of other chaplains, or on an every Sunday morning. On Saturday mornings, when I had soldiers who were without their own transportation, I picked them up, took them to a SDA Church and brought them back to my home to spend a quiet Sabbath afternoon. Did I preach distinctive SDA doctrines? In every assignment, where I had a responsibility to preach, I spoke on the 3-angels messages of Revelation 14. Once, in Seoul, Korea, my assignment was to a Protestant congregation. That is all that I did. As congregational members said to me after a sermon I preached on the 7th day of the week being the Biblical Sabbath, You really challenged us today. Don't tell me that one can not preach distinctive SDA doctrines in a Protestant congregation on Sunday morning. I have done it. No, I could not in a congregational sermon tell the people that Protestants were going to go to hell because they worshiped on Sunday. But, that is not the core of our message. One can preach the truth of the Sabbath without telling other groups that they are going to hell. Folks, the SDA Denomination does not object to its pastors conducting services on Sunday. The Biblical position is a positive one for a 7th day Sabbath. There is nothing new in SDA Clergy conducting a Sunday service. That in itself is not in violation of the Biblical position. When I once preached, on Sunday morning, to a Methodist congregation, I preached on the primacy of the Word, the Bible and Christ's call to submit ourselves to whatever the Bible said and wherever it and the Holy Spirit led. I have been asked to come to other congregations, of other denominations and speak to their members about the beliefs and practices of Seventh-day Adventists. You can come here to CA and debate whether or not SDA Clergy should conduct services on Sunday. But, be aware that this is already being done and with the approval of ACM in the General Conference.

CFK1, It's funny - I have just the opposite concern about Project One. I worry that they are just another clandestine SDA strategy to fill pews at SDA churches. I truly hope that they are part of the emergent church. The time has come for all Christians - including SDA's - to unite on those points that we have in common or experience further fragmentation and ultimate destruction. There are currently more than 50,000 Christian denominations on the planet. That can't possibly be what jesus had in mind.

From an architectural standpoint, removing the need for shelter and protection (elements and danger) really opens the possibilities for design. I would be delighted to have a house with the sky as my roof. It would seem just something to create a screen for privacy or sound buffer and a place to put basic furnishings to accommodate fellowship, meals and a place to rest and relax. Many people have that covered on their deck or patio or garden area. In the woods a bed of moss. Hang out in the broad limbs of a nice tree or rocks down by the babbling brook.