Middle America's Worldview

Overview

Money can put us in bondage. God wants to free us from this bondage and help us put money in its proper place by considering it his rather than ours. This six-session course will challenge the way you see money.

Session One

Money Belongs to God
Only by recognizing where money comes from can we be free of its power.
Psalm 24:1; Mark 4:14�21; 10:17�31; 1 Corinthians 4:7

God wants to help us get rid of the word mine when it comes to money. We need to think of our money not as ours, but rather as what it truly is: his.

Session Two

Money Traps Us into Wanting More
Instead of satisfying, money makes us hungrier.
Mark 10:17�22; Colossians 1:9�13; Hebrews 13:5

The strange thing about accumulating money is that it makes us want more. Only God can reorient this natural tendency.

Session Three

Money Lulls Us into Thinking We Have Power
Money isn�t just money; it is power, but its power can go either way.
Proverbs 30:8; Luke 16:1�15; 1 Timothy 6:17�19; Ecclesiastes 5:10�15

Money has the power to hurt and corrupt, or the power to heal and help. It also has the power to consume.

Session Four

Money Fails to Buy Happiness
True pleasure comes from contentment rather than from wanting more.
Matthew 6:25�34; Philippians 4:10�13; 1 Timothy 6:6�10

Even if we don�t admit it to ourselves, we think that money can bring us happiness. We want to make more money so we can buy more stuff and go more places. But money rarely brings us long-lasting pleasure.

Session Five

Money Convinces Us It Will Bring Us Prestige
Real prestige can only come from God.
Luke 12:16�21; 21:1�4; James 2:1�5

For many of us, how much we make, how much we have saved, or the kinds of things we own are indicators of what we�re worth. However, God infuses us with real prestige when we invest our money compassionately.

Session Six

Money Is to Be Used for God
Open your mind to the possibilities of using your money for God�s glory.
Isaiah 55:1�9; Acts 4:32�35; 1 Timothy 6:10�12

Money brings all sorts of impossibilities to our minds. But when we look in our wallets, God wants us to see possibilities: for making a difference, for contentment, and for freedom that we�ve never known before.

I came across this vid on YouTube describing things and people being chip. It's worth your 9 minutes to watch.

No, this isn't the mark of the beast. However, it definitely is a means to desensitize people in accepting it later on.

I came into town with no issues.

Saturday I spent it with the family. I had taken today off with Pepsi. I needed the rest and time with the kids and wife.

I took the kids to Spiro Mounds today. It was the only time I really could. They are closed any other time, I am off work.

I had planned on taking the video camera and doing a walkthrough with it. But I didn't. I was raining anyway, so we only hit the inside. Although, I haven't been there for years, I knew it was pretty small. It didn't take long to walk around.

I enjoyed the day with them, but it went way too fast.

Well, this is my official last day up here. I depart around 7 a.m. est tomorrow morning. I am sure I will be up by 2:30 or 3 a.m. in the morning ready to get out of here. I already have my stuff pretty much packed. They call for snow today, so we will see how that goes. With any luck, no delays.

I have to provide a overview on a application today. Funny, I am not the senior analyst, and I am the only one presenting something while everyone is in town. I was told yesterday, I had sit one on one with the senior analyst to teach him this application. One of the big boys at Corporate would like to see how a senior analyst does on it (rolling eyes). People put too much stock in titles. Don't get me wrong. The guy is nice, but why do I have to hand hold the others to train them. I am finding many people are much to re-active as opposed to pro-active. I have been trying to sit with this group for 4 months already.

I ended up in bed around 11 last night. I did manage to work on some home videos last night. I also happened to watch the Scifi channel (Kel gasps in surprise). There was a really good movie about Vlad Dracul. I liked it anyway. I noticed this review gave it a C.

We will order in lunch today for the team. I ate the last of my salad last night. So I shall leave work today and hit TGIF's on my way to the hotel. I did pretty good while I was up here in my eating habits. It was also remarked to me yesterday, I looked like I lost weight. That made me feel good.

While I was up here, I only hit the mall once (probably will again tonight). I basically hit work and the hotel. Doesn't get any simplier than that.

I can tell why some people get wrapped up in their work. I see it up here, everytime I come. There are those individuals that have their work as their identity. Everything revolves around it. Their success or failure at the work force drives their value of themselves. When they put those same "unrealistic" goals upon others that do not share that same view, it gets complicated in working with them. Personally, my world is currently in Oklahoma. Being away from them (even for a short time) is a reminder of it. That, and re-watching the home videos is a stark reminder of how fast time truly does fly.

It's early Wednesday morning. Amazingly 2 days have already passed. One of my peers took me ( I actually drove having the rental ) over to Whole Foods Tuesday for lunch.
It's similar to Trader Joe's, but seems a little more expensive. The place was larger and had a big salad bar, sandwiches, wraps, ect. I had a Creole wrap that was good. I was able to find the dried stuff Kel likes. So I snagged them.

Yesterday, I had a talk with the boss lady. During our updates, I pointedly asked "So you mentioned wanting me to come up here more often. How often are we talking about?" You see, I normally come up here once a quarter per year. She replied, "Oh, you know a couple more times." I finally was able to try to pin point it down. Seems she would be glad to see me up here once every other month (6 times a year) if I could. IE not traveling elsewhere, ect. Not sure how that will effect my part-time job, having to leave every other month. But that wasn't suppose to be forever (Although, I was hoping for another year at least). I guess one thing, it will acquire us many more points on the credit card to get those restaurant gift cards. : )

Last night, I went by the mall. I was still good on the eating. I purchased a Cobb Salad at TGIF's and picked up the new Avatar dvd for the kids. I will probably watch it with them Friday night. I actually enjoy the storyline in it.

I crashed at 9 p.m est last night, not seeing the State of the Union. I picked up some melatonin at Whole Foods and made good use of them.

In case your wondering, yeah, I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning without an alarm. That's actually 4 a.m. my normal time zone.

1st day down, 3 to go.

I was still up and moving along this morning. It's 9:31 p.m. currently.

I was able to go to Trader Joes after I left work today. Below is my haul.

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Basically, a couple of salads, 3 soups, some chocolate covered goodies, dried fruit and some "spicy Soy & Flaxseed Tortilla Chips (not shown).

I worked on my new video for youtube. I also am currently watching the Atlantis special on the history channel.

During all this, I am also importing home dvd's onto the laptop to add some titles, ect and burn them back onto DVD's.

Now I am growing tired. The lack of sleep is catching up with me.

Sigh, last night was a bummer for the realm of sleep. I didn't get the bed till one a.m. eastern. Then around 3:30 a.m. some alarm went off in the hotel. I literally pulled the clock radio out of wall, thinking some knucklehead has preset it before me. I finally found a button on the wall to push to stop the siren. Then weird dreams kept me fitfully awake.

I am up and already showered. Perhaps today will go fast so I can get some sleep tonight.

Looking online this weekend, I see there is a Trader Joes' merely 5 miles away from Corporate. I will definitely be checking this out, perhaps this evening.

I made it to King of Prussia, PA with no issues. Fortunately, the roads were not bad up here. My departure time was 4:30 p.m. central time. I finally touched down (going through Memphis) 9:58 p.m. eastern. I then had to grab a car at National and drove up to King of Prussia from Philly.

So now it's 12:11 a.m. eastern and I am about to hit the bed.

I was actually scheduled off this last Friday. So, my week went quick (quicker than normal). We ran up to Tulsa to see the From Abraham to Jesus exhibit. I really enjoyed it. We even made it out of there without purchasing any items at the bizarre. You couldn't take any pics nor vids though. : (

At the end of the walkt hrough, they had a actual piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was really cool. It was worth the money to go.

This morning I am warming up the van to go to Pepsi for the day. The so-call weathermen changed their minds 5 times last night and now decide it will only rain this weekend. Yeah, we really have gone far from sticking our wet fingers in the air.

Tomorrow, I will be flying out to Corporate. I am glad to not see the ice storm, everyone had feared. I need to get my things together for tomorrow's trip. At least I will be able to attend Church in the morning.

It's Tuesday, but my hump day. I am actually off Friday! Woo hoo.

Yesterday was a bust for me. I didn't get anything I wanted accomplished and it just flew by. Perhaps today will mesh better.

I have to fly out to PA next Sunday. I booked a evening flight. I return the following Friday. This way, I will have this Friday off with the family, most of Sunday (before I fly out) and return the following Friday, spending a bit more with them. I plan to work on my website, ect. when I am up there alone.

I also started another project with the home videos. I had to buy a S cable to hook up our mini-camcorder to our DVD/VHS recorder yesterday. So last night, I played with it and was able to push the tape onto a DVD. I went further in acquiring a software that converts VOB (dvd) files to AVI (plays on the computer). Since I have been playing with the free Window movie maker 2 software, it will allow me to now add titles, ect to those home videos. I plan to get all of them converted over, titled, ect. and then provide copies to the rest of the family this Christmas. I been wanting to do this for some time, but just didn't have the means nor time to do it before.

I will be taking those home DVD's with me to work on next weeks evenings.

I was starting a new blog from a homeschool dad perspective. Mostly to acquire contacts, ect.

While I was working on adding new links, I came across a cool find. Christian.net has free movies on their site. I guess everyone is getting in on a youtube type of portal. This free movie can be viewed online. It discusses Creation/Evolution. I haven't watched all of it, as I just found it. However, I am impressed from what I have seen so far.

Last night the little guy and I went to cub scouts. He had a blast. It's only for an hour, but he really enjoys it.

Yesterday, I spent all my free time replacing the kids closet doors. We had those bi-fold type.

Now they have sliding doors. Much easier to handle. I grew tired of the bi-fold doors popping out of those gliders on top.

I actually managed to do it, ( Not the handyman ) even though I had to shave 1/2 inch off each door due to the carpet. Not a bad job, if I say so myself. : )

I just need to put some handles on them.

Last night I grabbed some new closet doors for the kids rooms. We had those fold out doors on hinges. The top rail would keep expanding and the doors would pop out of them. I would then have to re-screw them back in. So, I called around to see what was out there and grabbed some sliding doors instead. I think the kids are excited because they are new. I need to get them on today.

We also went grocery shopping, yes again. This time we primarily bought organic. I was again surprised how much more was out there.

Among some items, were organic ketchup, mustard, sugar, rice, pasta, mac and cheese, and coffee ( yeah coffee! ).

I also had our monthly School Board meeting. It went better than expected, yet somewhat disappointing. That's all I am going to say on it.

Just another busy week as usual for this home. Last night all those activities. Tonight I have a cubscout meeting with our son, while Kel has basketball practice with our daughter (our son will miss the basketball practice). Tomorrow night is church with Teamkids. Thursday morning we have the appraisal coming over. Thursday night I think we are actually free for the evening. Kel takes the kids to skating Friday and Basketball games Saturday. On top of this, regular work, part time work on the weekend and I am on-call this week. Oh well. Such is life.

I thought this was well written. Source

Dems Will Disappoint The Left
By Doug Patton
January 8, 2007

Fans of the 1980s sitcom, "Family Ties," will recall the characters of Steven and Elise Keaton, liberal former sixties activists raising their three children, including son Alex, whose "rebellion" against his parents' liberalism manifested itself in staunch Reagan conservatism.

In one particularly poignant episode, Elise and Steven, who have settled into an idealistic but decidedly middle-class lifestyle, reconnect with a radical former comrade from their college days. Their old friend has not changed a bit, and when he proposes starting an "underground" newspaper like the one on which they worked together in college, Steven, desiring to relive their glory days, readily agrees. However, when he submits to his friend an article about the Democrats' chances of recapturing the White House in 1984, he is scorned for having "sold out" to the establishment. The friend protests that Steven no longer is calling for the destruction of the entire political system.

"You sound like a member of the PTA," the friend observes, to which Steven Keaton sheepishly replies: "I am a member of the PTA."

I thought of that episode when I saw antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan disrupting the press conference of U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill, chairman of the House Democratic caucus and one of the chief architects of the Democrat takeover of Congress. Emanuel was outlining his party's plans for lobbying reform, but Sheehan and her followers had only one thing on their minds as they chanted, "De-escalate, investigate, troops home now!" Unfortunately for the Democrats, a whole lot of those people comprise the activists of their party.

Cindy Sheehan and her activist followers are likely to be terribly disappointed by the leadership of the 110th Congress. There will be individual members, particularly in the House, who will try to fulfill the heart's desire of the deeply liberal base of the Democratic Party, but the leadership knows better than to try to do everything at once. And that won't be enough for the Cindy Sheehans of the world.

In fact, they may find themselves even more frustrated with the new crop of Dems than many conservatives were with the last twelve years of Republican rule. Cindy and her friends are about to be kicked to the curb by the Democrats in much the same way that many GOP leaders abandoned those of us who expected great things from them, beginning back in 1994. Just as passionate pro-lifers, believers in traditional marriage and advocates of enforcing America's immigration laws became disenchanted with many Republican leaders, the base of the Democratic Party is about to become very frustrated with those they have just voted into power.

Perhaps this is inevitable, and we will always be frustrated with the people we elect to represent us, since political survival in Washington, DC, is by compromise with those who don't share ones views, and political survival usually trumps statesmanship.

Congressional Democrats, like the Republicans before them, will no doubt be more interested in holding power than in blazing new trails, and the conventional wisdom in Washington is that holding power means compromise.

As for me, I would prefer that political parties be defined not by the compromise that taints the deliberations of their practitioners, but rather by the ideology that sets them apart from each other.

Give me the ideas of committed citizens who gather voluntarily at county, state and national conventions every four years to hammer out platforms that stand for something.

Give me the passion of the hotheaded liberal and the firebrand conservative, doing battle in the political arena, following the dictates of their respective consciences, over the milquetoast and pabulum of today's compromisers and betrayers of those who sent them to office.

Then Cindy Sheehan and I would both have representation.

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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.

I had a pretty good day as a Pepsi worker today. We were busy enough to be steady, but not crazy busy. Another guy commented this as well. So evidently, most had a steady but not crazy day.

My diet continues to do well for day 5.

During my day at Walmart, I couldn't help but check out to see if they had any more organic foods out there. To my surprise I am seeing more and more of them. There is suppose to be a big Organic Food store up in Fayetteville. Kel and I will be checking it out as soon as possible. She is needing a Target fix anyway. (smile)

I surprised Kel with a basket of bathing stuff today. I told the kids she was off limits and kept them in the living room with me. We watched the third "Liberty Kids" dvd together. I wish there were more of them. I seen where another dad commented on a forum, he wished one would be made for the Civil War. I agree.

I am drinking my tea (nearly 9 p.m.) and about to watch at least one episode of Highlander before heading into bed.

I am glad it's Friday. It wasn't too bad today. I enjoyed some time with the kids and their home school. I didn't see the wife all day today. She left around 6 a.m and returned for 10 minutes around 4:30 p.m

The kids are also at their Nana and Papa's tonight. I have the house to myself for awhile. I am enjoying watching one of my Christmas gifts, The Highlander series.

The kids and I watched a cool show today. I will have to acquire more of them. It's called "The Liberty Kids" and it's about the time of the Colonies. We watched the Boston Tea party and Give me Liberty. I had to pull out one of my books showing the kids pictures of the Tea party and the Boston Massacre. It makes it easier to discuss some history when they actually find a interest in it. I think these shows are great for it. Kel had scored them for a buck a piece. Yes, on dvd. Needless to say, we will be looking for more of them.

I am doing good on my diet. You can read about it here. I am past day 4. I still haven't killed anyone. Quite the contrary. The kids even said, I was less grumpy. LOL

I just couldn't get into work today. Don't get me wrong, I worked. I just didn't feel like it today.

The kids and I went to Team Kids at Church tonight and had a blast. The theme was "your body is your temple" and you should eat healthy. Gee, more encouragement. ( smile )

I hope to get some stuff done tomorrow. I will pick up the check for Pepsi. I am hoping it will be a good one, considering it's 30 hours plus a holiday. I guess we will see.

I also will need to travel to Corporate the week of the 22nd, this month. At least it will not conflict with next Monday's board meeting and next Tuesday's cub scout meeting. Always something.

Back to the drawing board. It will be tough to get back into the swing of things now the Holidays are officially over. We have basketball practice tonight and Thursday night, sigh. Church is Wednesday night. Kel and the kids will be out of the house Friday night. Yeah, it was nice to have everyone together for awhile.

I worked 30 hours over the weekend for Pepsi. The check should be good this week, but I am sure stiff this morning.